Posts Tagged ‘fighting game’
Castlevania: Judgment Game Review–An Enormous Disappointment
When I first saw a copy of Castlevania: Judgment on the shelves, I had a brief interlude of wistful memories of my boyhood, playing eight-bit Simon Belmont, taking on legions of ghouls and other assorted monsters in a flurry of whip-cracking, heart-finding action and adventure. I even began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the Wii would manage to do something commonly regarded as impossible and give me a taste of my childhood back.
Imagine my shock when all they managed to deliver was a cheesy fighting game.
The plot is downright baffling in its over-complexity, and requires that you have a basic understanding of pretty much the entire series in order to fully grasp it. I’ll do my best to sum up here: Galamoth, a recurring character from earlier Castlevania installments as well as something called “Kid Dracula”, is out to destroy his rival Dracula (oh, that makes sense, kind of) by sending something called the Time Reaper ten thousand years into the past to take care of Dracula while he was still just Kid Dracula. Anyway, this doesn’t sit well with a time traveler from earlier games named Aeon, who uses his time travel capacities to gather up a whole legion of possible “heroes” to defeat the Time Reaper and keep the timeline as it is. Thus, you’ll pick one of Aeon’s possibilities and start beating the hell out of everybody you come across to prove that you are sufficiently The Ham What Am enough to go and take out the Time Reaper.
Basically, this is Soul Calibur with a completely different set of licensed characters, and for the Wii. I’ll tell you straight out, this is not the best kind of game for the Wii to actually put out. Why? Because my arm hurt like crazy after just one fight. You walk in as Simon Belmont himself, and you KNOW what weapon Simon Belmont has.
Yeah, a WHIP; thus, you know exactly what you’re doing in order to fight your opponents—you’re pulling your arm back and snapping it forward almost relentlessly. And your opponents aren’t shy about blocking, either—it might take you a few dozen hits in order to actually win a fight. Oh, sure, you can use different controllers to take down some of the strain on your arm and shoulder, but then all you’re left with is just another fighter game with some different licensed characters and not a whole lot in the way of good storytelling. Sure, there are some unlockables to be had here, and that’s always a plus, but considering the river of crap you have to Shawshank your way through in order to GET to that Zihuataneho of unlockable glee, you may well not be that interested. And if you’re not sufficiently interested to play for the unlockables then there’s really not that much point to the entire game.
I give them due kudos for taking chances, and don’t want to discourage anyone from doing likewise. Sadly, this time around, it just didn’t work. So the verdict on Castlevania: Judgment is to stay at least one hundred feet away from it at all times unless you’re an absolute Castlevania addict who can’t get enough of these characters and is prepared to slog through a nightmare of a game to enjoy them fully.
Soul Calibur IV Game Review–Long Or Short Term, Still A Value
Fighting games seem to be thinning out of late, buried under a slew of first person shooters and sports games, but one particular gem has managed to emerge from the fray to continue a following that goes back decades, back to a simpler time when there were arcades in malls and most people got their head-to-head action from a room full of bleeping machines. Today we’re talking Soul Calibur IV, part of the long running series.
Featuring all your favorite fighters, and a panoply of new ones (including for reasons that still escape me Garen Malek, Darth Vader and Yoda depending on what version of the game you buy and whether or not you go in for the downloadable content), you’ll plunge headlong through the stories of all the various fighters, which is why you’re not getting a plot synopsis of the game this time around. It would just, plain and simply, take too long. Each character has his or her own individual story, and occasionally, it even overlaps with other characters’ stories to make this strange sort of massive latticework of plot over the whole game. I’m actually very impressed that this ridiculous brawler game is getting THIS kind of plot.
And your involvement with that plot won’t even feel all that minimalist. You’ll be fighting all the other characters, sometimes one on one, other times two on two, and sometimes even four against one as you advance through the stages to find out what your character’s particular connection to the legendary cursed sword is this time around.
I’m actually very surprised by this—normally fighter games, for me, have been pointless button mashers where you try to memorize lists of moves for use against opponents of varying and in some cases downright ridiculous skill levels, but this time I got access to a whole array of moves that required little more than a controller direction and a button press, plus a whole bunch more if I wanted them. I could use Yoda’s force powers to fling myself headlong around the screen, or if I wanted to, I could just use his surprising agility to make short hops and bash my opponent into oblivion with my light saber. There was a LOT of variety here, and frankly, I was glad for the opportunity to just sit down with the game and let the smack down go on. I even got little nuggets of plot regularly as I beat an opponent or series thereof, just enough in just close enough increments to make me want to keep moving. I got through Yoda, Voldo and Ivy’s plotlines in maybe a half-hour’s play time, but man, I wanted to catch everybody else’s plots too.
This game might be a bit big for just one rental—and if you’re a party game sort you may want to buy a copy just to keep it on hand—but even just a short time with it won’t leave you disappointed or missing a whole lot of the plot. This is a game with lots of surprises that looks beautiful and plays even better. I don’t recommend fighting games very often—maybe because I don’t get many of them TO recommend in the first place—but I can’t see a way you won’t have fun with Soul Calibur IV.
Soul Calibur Going Portable
With any franchise it’s only a matter of time before some spin-off is made that deviates wildly from what made the series popular. Mortal Kombat has had several adventure focused titles, Resident Evil is soon to see a second rail shooter and Soul Calibur made an effort recently with Soul Calibur Legends. As is so often the case, the game was a bit of a disappointment, so they’re taking it back to basics for their next game.
Namco Bandai has revealed that for the first time you’ll be able to take the epic battles of Soul Calibur with you wherever you go on your PSP. Fully titled Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny the handheld game will feature many of the existing characters as well as some brand new ones, including one named Dampierre. Namco says that although all of the existing gameplay elements from the console version are being brought to the small screen they’re attempting to create a mode that’ll help to teach new players the ins and outs of the series’ fighting system.
The classic Arcade, Story and Survival modes are all included and thus far multiplayer is confirmed for Ad-Hoc wireless, but not for internet wireless. The game is due out this summer.