Prince of Persia: Warrior Within

The Short


Pros
- Takes the core gameplay elements of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and improves all of it
- Platforming is harder, funner, and has more moves
- Combat, while not perfect, is streamlined and certainly improved
- Environments are less "this is where you obviously go" and instead require problem solving
- Going between an old, ruined temple and the past, fixed temple is a neat concept
- Dahaka chases are crazy intense, resulting in some of the best moments of the series
- Wild plot twist at about the 3/4 mark completely changes up gameplay in a crazy way

Cons
- Nearly every fantastic story element from the first game has been completely ruined by the "dark" tone
- New Prince is an angsty, raging jerk who has lost all his wit and charm
- In addition to adding blood and gore to make it "dark," there's bonus tasteless cleavage and iron thongs. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?
- The female enemies make weird, sexual/painful moans as you hit them and it's just...ugh
- Story is an incoherent mess about "fixing the timeline" or some such nonsense
- Still has some camera problems that the first game did, bosses are lame and unfun

The Prince is back, but not for the better. 

The Long

I love Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and stand by my statement that it was one of the best games released last console generation. The fast-paced, free-form platforming integrated with excellent puzzles is ingenious, and coupled with the charming story and brilliant script it really makes for one great trip. I played it for the first time my freshman year of college, and everybody in my dorm loved it to death. We were all crazy pumped when we heard the second one, Warrior Within, was coming out soon, and it looked like it was going to be bloodier, darker, and basically improve all the minor problems we had with the first game. It's worth noting that Prince of Persia: Warrior Within was the first game I ever bought full price, and on release day (and for the Gamecube, no less). I brought it back to my dorm, popped it in, and began round two of the Prince's crazy aerobics exercises. 

It...wasn't everything I expected. 

The difficulty in this game has been ramped up. 

Something must have happened between 2003 and 2004 at Ubisoft. I have no idea what it was. They couldn't have played God of War, because that game didn't come out until 2005. Maybe they thought having a cute, funny story didn't work with their game of running around sawblades and leaping from high areas to a crushing demise. Regardless, somebody decided that having a happy-go-lucky, somewhat sexist, actually three-dimensional witty character was a "bad thing," and that they needed to change him up to appeal to the "kids these days."

So they took the Prince we knew and loved and made him a generic, angsty, rage-filled idiot with a gravelly voice who curses frequently and is generally a cold-hearted bastard. And his hair color changed, inexplicably. Because he probably dyed it black after picking up some new threads at Hot Topic. 

Who are you, and what have you done with that guy I liked from the last game?

I'm going to try and not dwell on this, but it's hard not to because the Prince of Persia series (the Sands of Time offshoot, anyway) is still struggling to overcome this radical makeover they thought was a good idea for this second game. Replacing our sassy, funny sidekick we now have an oversexualized woman who I have no idea how her dress stays on. Biggest bonus is during the first 3D CGI scene you get a "nice" scene of a new girl villain, who apparently somehow got a one-piece metal suit that has an included thong and shows vast amounts of her chest. Seriously, who the hell saw the first game and thought this was a good idea? 

I find this ironic, seeing as one of the Prince's character arcs in the first game was overcoming the fact he was a misogynistic prick

The story itself is also all sorts of nonsense. When you used the Dagger of Time to mess up the Sands of Time, apparently that made some time-flux or something, and some nasty Time-Beastie called the Dahaka wants the Prince eaten or killed or something to fix this. So he sails to the Isle of Time to talk to the Empress of Time in the Palace of Time to...geez, you can't just take every normal word and add "of Time" at the end to make it fix. Come on, people. It was bad enough in the first game, this is just overkill.

Anyway, there's a twist at the 2/3 mark and a twist near the end, and luckily you kill the annoying metal-thong woman about 15 minutes in and the red hooker/empress woman is just gone most of the game so you don't have anybody to talk to. Unlike the first game, where the Prince was narrating throughout (often with hilarious results), this game is mostly done in silence. Which I guess fits the somber mood, but again it feels like something was taken away that shouldn't have been.

Point being that having the new baditude Prince shouting "YOU BITCH!" as one of his first lines of dialogue after going on a swashbuckling, roguish adventure with him in the last game was startling. Ubisoft is still trying to recover from this misstep in tone, with the two games following this one being heavily emphasized that "Yes, we messed up, the Prince is sane in this one. Sorry." Somebody probably got fired for this game, now that I think about it, and maybe I'm ok with that. Who knows. 

Back to the traps

Character sabotaging aside, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is actually a pretty big step up from its predecessor in nearly every gameplay element. First off, the game just feels better. The Prince is a bit faster (though he still takes a second to stop after a run, a realistic handicap you'll have to quickly master), his wall runs are quicker, and he just controls smoother. Second, the platforming segments of this game might actually be the best in the series (with the exception of the next-gen prequel, The Forgotten Sands). In the first game, it was almost blatantly obvious where you were supposed to go, with platforms and handholds easy to spot. They mixed it up in Warrior Within where the environments are more like actual background rather than a means to a puzzle (unless they are a means to a larger puzzle), so it can be tricker to even know where to go. They addition of being able to slow down time from nearly the offset can make certain segments a lot easier, but since it costs a rewind to pull it off you have to make an important decision: can I do it in two runs or less, or should I try slowing it down first?

It's just a better platformer overall, with harder puzzles and crazier setpieces. That element certainly was improved, and I haven't even talked about the Dahaka chases yet.

Death from above!

Stupid plot reasons aside, the Dahaka is cool. Basically he shows up every once in a while to scare the crap out of you, and you have to run as fast as you can to get away from him or he'll insta-kill you. He can't be beaten so you can't fight, you just gotta blitz across some crazy-hard platforming until you get to a safe spot. These tend to pop up right when you least expect it, and are quite intense. It was a good design choice, as a lot of people (like myself) spend big chunks of time figuring out where to go in these game before even attempting it, and this way it forced you to just go by instincts.

The game also has a cool feature where you switch back and forth in time between the "old" Island of Time and the "new" Island of Time, with the aesthetics being the opposite of what you thought. "Old" Island was before it was busted up, so everything is green and stuff is fixed and generally nicer. "New" is the modern setting where it's a big crappy ruin, stuff is a lot darker, and machines that were running before are now busted. While it's sort of them recycling content, the changes are so dramatic I never really minded. You don't really get to freely shift or anything to solve puzzles (the game decides when the swap happens) which is too bad, but it's a good aesthetic change that fits with the series' theme on time manipulation..."of time."

Oh yeah, it's more violent now. BADITUDE. 

Combat has seen a decent improvement, though it's a bit more button-mashy now than it was before. You don't have to knock enemies over and then suck 'em up with the Dagger of Time anymore, instead you can just cut their various body parts off and call it good. You have one sword at all times and then on your off hand you pick up weapons from the environment or enemies, all of which will eventually break. You have daggers, maces, axes, and swords, though most use the same combos. Once you figure out one or two good combos (the duel-blade "spin around in a circle so everything falls in half" is essentially a win-all) you can just spam them through most of the game, until the rare instance that it doesn't work and then just general mashing is ok. 

He can be a bit more aerobic in fights, too. You can spin around poles to cut heads, jump up walls and them leap back and dive down on people, and even attack on the walls now. This is actually my favorite improvement: being able to use his crazy platforming abilities in combat. It isn't done very well, but it's a step forward. 

Suffer not a beastie OF TIME to live

This game also has bosses for some retarded reason, all of which involve slashing at its ankles until you can jump on it, avoid him grabbing you, and punching at its head until you can get a stab in. They are boring and all are exactly the same. There's also boss fights against people (two boss fights against people) that are almost exactly the same as well: awful. In both instances you are put in rooms where you can't use your acrobatics (no walls), and instead have to just roll around and attack. Gee, great idea there. Take everything that made your game unique during the normal fights and get rid of it for what should have been some awesome boss encounters. Way to be. 

The game looks pretty good. Mostly. 

Graphically, this game looks loads better than Sands of Time, though you can tell it's on an aged engine. Environments are a bit muddy but still look really good. Character models are less blocky and polygonal but still exhibit the same "this person is a bunch of pieces put together" problem of earlyish PS2 games. The animations are all fantastic, however, with the Prince looking awesome as he runs, flips, and flies around. 

The music is horrible. The middle-eastern sounds of the first game are replaced by heavy metal licks to prove how "hardcore" the game is, and when you are running from the Dahaka the chorus of Godsmack's "Alive" blasts in the background (thankfully without lyrics). The voice are also terrible, with the Prince having a completely different voice actor and the voices of the enemies being annoying. The blatantly-sexual moans of pain from the female enemies, accompanied by such classic lines as "There's so much...pleasure in pain" makes you wish they would all just shut up like the enemies in the first game. That being said, you do spend most of this game in quiet (until you get to a cutscene or combat), so it isn't that awful I guess, but compared to Sands of Time this game sounds ugly. 

"I AM THE PRINCE OF PERSIA RAAAAWR"

Despite all my complaints about the radical shift in tone, I can't deny that Prince of Persia: Warrior Within is actually a very solid game underneath the awful new coat of paint. It's still a blast to play, the combat being fun if not particularly deep, the platforming being completely incredible, and the new setpieces both great to look at and fun to traverse. It's still an extremely solid game, mostly because it was based off the formula of it's much better predecessor, and I have to recommend it on those merits alone.

However, if you were really sold on the Prince's character in Sands of Time, this game might be a bit painful to experience. In all truth, you could wiki the story if it really mattered and jump straight to The Two Thrones without losing all that much, since it ties up most Warrior Within plot threads in the first fifteen minutes of The Two Thrones anyway (almost as if they wanted everybody to forget this game's story ever happened. Huh...).

This is part of a Prince of Persia HD Collection on PS3, which I really should own because I love these games so damn much, but it was also on every last-gen system (so if you have a backwards-compatible Wii, PS3, or Xbox 360 you should be set) and on PC, and it actually looks best on PC so that might be the way to do it. I still wholly recommend this series despite this game's...setbacks, but it certainly wasn't the sequel I expected back in 2004. 

Four out of five stars. 

Though I wish I could lobotomize the story from my brain. 

New Super Mario Bros Wii

The Short


Pros
- A "new" Mario game made in 2D throwback of Mario's earlier outings
- Eight worlds and a ninth bonus world provide a decent amount of content
- New suits including the Penguin suit and Ice Flower mix some stuff up
- Looks bright and colorful and is faithful to the original Mario formula
- Included "Super Guide" means if you suck the game will just beat a level for you
- Handful of minigames like the DS version are fun, silly, and great for four players

Cons
- Has four player co-op, which (if you are playing the game seriously) is a massive mess
- The level of griefing (hurting your allies) in multiplayer is absurd and impossible to avoid
- Bizarre difficulty curve is inconsistent
- Why do video games like this still have lives? Seriously?
- Does little beyond what was introduced in New Super Mario Bros on the DS, especially for a full priced title
- While I welcome 2D Mario back, its weird mix of past and present seems like both a lesson in originality and a refusal to move the series forward
- Why are there two Toads? Why can't you play as Peach? Why aren't the characters unique like in Mario 2?

It's Mario, and he's Super, but is there really any "New" here?

The Long

I've made no secret in saying I believe Super Meat Boy and Rayman Origins to be the best 2D platformers this generation. Super Meat Boy for its incredibly difficult but immensely satisfying single player, and Rayman Origins for being an excellent multiplayer game that manages to do so without being frustrating or annoying. But what about that other 2D platformer franchise? You know, the biggest one in the industry, the one that could very well be considered responsible for this whole thing? What's Mario doing these days?

Well, New Super Mario Bros Wii, winner of an absurdly long title award, is Nintendo's sort of "spinoff" iteration of the classic Mario franchise. While he's blasting himself through space in 3D in the Mario Galaxy games, NSMBW is a return to form, going back to the series' 2D roots in an attempt to bring back players who were fans originally. Kind of like the exact thing they did on the DS a few years earlier, except now on the Wii. Oh, and you can play with four players now, so it's a party game! How awesome is that!

Well...it hits a few and it misses a few. Let's go over it in brief. 

Don't be fooled by its kiddy appearance: this game can get tricky. 

First off, there really isn't much to say with regards to the core gameplay. It's a Mario game, through and through. You start on the left and go right until you reach the end, where you'll jump up on a flagpole, get some meaningless points (or an equally meaningless 1-Up), and then continue to the next level. There's a world map like in Mario 3 or Super Mario World, and mid level castles/bosses like Mario 3 as well. With the same Koopa Kids as Mario 3. I guess they were saving the Tanooki suit from Mario 3 for Super Mario 3D Land on the 3DS, but the rest of this game really plays a lot like Mario 3. You get items that you can use before levels for a boost (which is completely unnecessary), the game has a similar feel as Mario 3, and it...it's a 2D Mario game, ok? I really shouldn't have to be going into much more detail than that; you've all played these things.

So what's different? A few small changes. There are some new suits that force you to use the Wiimote (shaking it, mostly) to do annoying things. For example, the propeller hat launches you in the air like the Tannoki tail, only without the balancing aspect the tail had of forcing you to have a straight distance to take off; just shake the Wiimote and away you go! You can soar over a lot of the early levels this way if you want, though the smartly put an arbitrary stone ceiling in the way of some others so you can't cheat to the finish. You also have ice flowers, which turn enemies into solid blocks that can be used as platforms or picked up (again, having to do the annoying "Wiimote Shake") and thrown like shells. There's a few other suits that aren't particularly worth mentioning as well. The point is: there's a little bit different, but the whole thing will feel very familiar to anybody who has played a Mario game. Which is everybody in existence. 

You tilt the Wiimote to position the ledge the way you want.

Let me take a moment to talk about the controls. It's the standard fare at first: you can hold the Wiimote like an NES controller, with one button as jump and the other as Fireball/Sprint. What's obnoxious is the forced Wiimote integration (which is forced; no Gamecube controller support for NSMBW). Shake the Wiimote to fly, shake the Wiimote to pick up an ice block, twist the Wiimote to move a platform...I don't know about you, but I tend to play my platformers stone-faced and holding the controller still (unless I die a lot, then it gets thrown against the wall). Being forced to shake it in order to use a power is really annoying. This is probably due to the fact the Wiimote only has two real buttons; on the SNES Super Mario World it also had a spin-esque jump, but they just mapped it to a face button. The Wii controller integration really feels tacked on, and actually adds an unintentional annoyance/difficulty spike when you are trying to be precise while flailing the Wiimote about.

As a single-player experience, NSMBW works, and works well. While the difficulty curve is kind of all over the place, other than castles you probably won't get stuck anywhere for long, and finding all the big tokens/coins has that right balance of difficulty and intuitive reasoning that makes them fun to collect and not a huge deal if you have to go back and get them. Aside from some dorky Wiimote usage, this is a decent Mario game, not the best but certainly a welcome sight considering his last console 2D outing was all the way back on the SNES. 

Then your stupid friends want to play. 

It's the multiplayer of NSMBW where things get completely out of hand. Remember my rant at the end of my Rayman Origins review, about how I thought Rayman Origins took what it saw in NSMBW's multiplayer and fixed it for the better? Yeah, my point still stands; even playing two-player NSMBW is a overtly stressful and encumbering experience. It's just a harder game when playing with more players.

The first issue is the fact that no two players can take up the same physical space. Meaning if there's a small ledge to jump to, you'd better hope and pray you can shove your companions off least you be the one to succumb to the lava/spikes/death beneath. This also makes just traversing levels a pain; you'll ram each other, shove people off ledges completely on accident, push people into enemies, and more. It's a pain. 

The second is the lives. You all start with five, but I challenge you to get four people together and make it through a single level of NSMBW with everybody having the same or more lives at the end as when they started. I do not think this is possible. In Rayman Origins, this is fixed by just not having lives. If you die you float around as a bubble (like NSMBW) until punched or jumped on, and then you are revived and back in the action. While this certainly made the game "easier," because this portion was painless it meant they could add impossibly hard levels to counterbalance it, making the game a fun challenge. It wasn't stressful because reviving was so easy and there was no penalty other than looking like a moron in front of your friends. 

It let them do levels like this. Geez. 

Because of the lives, your friends can die completely during a level, or if they start a level with just one life they might as well just not play it, since they'll probably lose it and be out the rest of the level, where they can't play. This is never a problem in games like Rayman Origins since you can just keep going. And yeah, you have unlimited continues, but that still requires going back to the main map screen between levels before they can go again. It's a needless frustration when people just want to run around like idiots and shove each other off cliffs without penalty.

The combination of these two problems leads to the game actually being much harder in multiplayer, because the awful players will constantly screw up the good ones. It isn't even as fun for just messing around like idiots as a group, since the lives thing (and the fact it kicks you back to the world map when everybody dies, rather than just hit a checkpoint) means your fun will be limited.

But if you have three people who you want to hate after a few hours, this game works great!

The minigames luckily fare better, focusing more on the insane madness that is four-player Mario rather than trying to force you through what was clearly designed as a single-player experience. With simpler goals and quicker checkpoints, the minigame and miniscenarios are just the right size for four players, and some actually encourage griefing to beat your friends, which is always fun. Certainly the better multiplayer way to go. 

The game looks a lot like the DS version

Like most Wii games made by Nintendo, NSMBW overcomes it's lack of HD by having a great color pallet and art style. The one drawback it is does steal a lot from the previously released New Super Mario Bros on the DS, and while it's flashy it isn't particularly gorgeous like, say, Super Mario Galaxy. Still, it gets the job done, if being a bit par for the course. The music is in the same boat: exactly what you'd expect, nothing particularly catchy or new, but it works as background sounds. It's a solid package, if a wholly unoriginal one. 

Single player: The way this game is meant to be played

I think this game was a product of incorrect marketing. They slated it as a fun multiplayer Mario game, and while the "multiplayer" part is right, the "fun" is only there if you are really reaching for it. Sure, it works with kids if you don't actually want to beat a level ever and just want to send them off into madness, but even then Rayman Origins is a better "toy" in that regard than NSMBW. This game does work very well on its single-player roots, though you won't find anything particularly new here that you haven't already seen in Mario 3 or Mario World or even New Super Mario Bros. As it stands, if you were really hurting for a new 2D Mario game, it isn't a hard sell. If you were looking for a slightly more refined or modern approach on this genre, however, I'd say pick up Rayman Origins instead. Double that if you are buying for the multiplayer aspect: Rayman Origins blows this one out of the water. 

Still, a solid Wii title and a decent Mario game. And those multiplayer minigames are pretty much quality. Here's hoping they learn from their mistakes and the New NEW Super Mario Bros Wii takes a few plays from the competition and makes their multiplayer aspect funner. But this is Nintendo, so I'm not banking on it. 

Three out of five stars. 

Slidin' to the finish line. 

Goldeneye 007

The Short


Pros
- Proved for the first time that FPS games can work on a console controller
- Loads of characters and maps
- Relatively robust and surprisingly open-ended single player
- Four-player multiplayer had a variety of weapons and game types
- Has duel wielding before any of the Halo games thought that was unique

Cons
- Looks really, really bad today
- Controls also have aged very poorly
- Game is completely outclassed by modern shooters
- UI for life/ammo is bulky
- Lots of glitchy bugs in single player
- Some characters, such as Jaws and Oddjob, are imbalanced in the multiplayer mode

Master Chief, eat your heart out. Also, most screenshots will be emulator uprezed

The Long

Goldeneye 007 was a revelation. After years of Quake and Doom dominating the FPS scene on computers, consoles were still trying to catch up. When the N64 and Playstation finally made the "official" jump to 3D, it isn't surprising they wanted to cash in on that profitable FPS market. They'd ported games like Wolfenstein to the SNES with rather poor results, but the N64 had something different. Rather than just having a d-pad, it introduced an analog stick with full 360 movement. Rare, already famous for their Donkey Kong Country games, decided to try and do the impossible: make an FPS that worked on a bulky controller.

Thus, we got Goldeneye 007. And the rest is history.

And they said it couldn't be done, mwhahaha!

I have plenty of great memories sneaking over to my friend's house to play some 2-4 player Goldeneye. It was a revelation, offering four players on a single box (unlike computers, where you'd have to LAN it, everybody with separate towers). It was the ultimate party game, and the friend in my neighborhood who had it was pretty much king of the street. Using a combination of the trigger, analog stick, and the side d-pad, you could now both move and shoot with relative fluidity (made possible through a very generous auto-aim). It was a novel concept, and one that eventually lead to Perfect Dark and the advent of duel analog stick FPS control.

So, it's been 15 years since Goldeneye came out. Is it still as good as my memories remind me? Well...no. In fact, after playing modern FPS games, Goldeneye is borderline unplayable. 

Ah, here's how the game actually looks on an N64!

The controls have aged horribly. Yes, they were revolutionary at the time and yes, they paved the way for what is now a massive FPS scene on consoles (arguably bigger than on computers now, except maybe Team Fortress 2), but Goldeneye straight up sucks now. It isn't fun to play, it's clunky and ugly, and I actually get hand cramps trying to play it. And the multiplayer? It's still pretty good in concept, but trying to get three friends willing to tolerate the awful controller and control scheme for the same fun they could be having on Halo or Call of Duty and you have a hard sell.

The auto-aim is also frustrating, as it is extremely generous to the point of insane. Perfect Dark ended up doing it a little better, but in Goldeneye it's just...either too smart or not smart enough. It's hard to say, to be honest, but seeing your gun flap around by itself is weird to those accustomed to the precise aiming of the previously mentioned modern FPS games. 

It doesn't help that everybody looks like deformed monstrosities. 

The single player is still decent, with a surprising amount of non-linear ways to tackle missions. It essentially gives you an area (base, etc.) and an objective, and it's up to you to figure out the best way to go about that.  While there are really only a few set "best" ways, the freedom is appreciated, even if it still boils down to "walk into this building and shoot some guys."

Multiplayer is unbalanced if you play with Oddjob (who is short and thus harder to hit. BANNED) and Jaws (who is taller and you only pick if you hate yourself), but aside from that works well. The various modes are now famous ("You Only Die Twice" and "The Man with the Golden Gun" being our two favorites from days gone by). Some of these modes have later been integrated into other FPS games ("Swat" in Halo is sort of like "The Man with the Golden Gun") though I'd love to see them make a more serious comeback in the original form. 

Blur. James Blur. 

The game didn't look that fantastic when it came out (I still think most N64 games looked worse artistically than most SNES games, if only because blocky polygons << good pixel art), and now it's straight up hideous. Enemies are especially malformed, with weird heads and arms and janky animations throughout. Textures are uniform and really muddy and disgusting, which I guess makes sense since this is the N64 but seriously...it looks awful. The sound design is classic but also just decent, with guns being tinny and unrealistic and the music fitting the Bond theme but generally proving blasse throughout. 

The game is a decent length, if you can tolerate it for that long. 

Die-hard fans will probably still glean a bit of enjoyment from Goldeneye 007, but they are the only ones that need apply. The newer gamers who want to see what the fuss was all about will be turned off the second they are handed the N64 controller, and even people with fond memories might only give it a few minutes before going back to duel analog sticks. Goldeneye 007 is a game that certainly was important, but the key word is "was." It was a gateway to a better control system, and as such is outdated and a horrendous mess now. If you loved this game do yourself a favor: keep the memories, don't play it again now. It'll only shatter those rose-tinted goggles, which I'm guessing you want to keep intact. 

As it stands in 2012, Goldeneye 007 just can't cut it. Fans clamoring for an XBLA re-release must have not played it recently, as the Perfect Dark one was hardly playable, and that's a far better game. Just...leave it where it is. We won't ever have the same Goldeneye 007 experience in its entirety again, but you are in luck: there's a boatload of good console FPS games out now to fill that gap. Invite some friends over and blast them in four player Call of Duty or Halo. Trust me, it'll be better that way.

Two out of five stars. 

Licensed to kill anybody who gives his game a bad review. 

Secret of Mana

The Short


Pros
- Excellent colorful 16-bit graphics
- Fantastic music
- "Ring" menu system works well (once you figure it out)
- Lots of weapons to choose from
- Play with up to two other friends in full co-op
- Action RPG that's fast paced and intense
- Long

Cons
- Story, or particularly the translation, is horrendous
- Hit detection on enemies seems to follow it's own secret set of rules you don't get to know
- AI companions are unbelievably stupid and die frequently, even when overleveled
- When the Ring menu system doesn't work, it makes you wish for normal menues
- Magics can only be used from the menu. The SNES has like six buttons, guys.

Constipation: It can happen to you

The Long

Secret of Mana, or Seiken Densetsu 2 for those in Japan, is an action RPG made by Square back in its SNES glory days. In it, you play the role of a boy who looks a lot like Chrono from Chrono Trigger (though based on release dates, Chrono looks like him) who take the legendary Mana Sword from the stone and is therefore destined to be king of Engla...wait a minute. Let me start over.

Secret of Mana is an action RPG by Square on the SNES, and has since been rereleased on both the Wiishop and iPhone/iPad (of all platforms). There is a lot of fan fondness for this game, probably because it looks pretty and was one of Square's first games to have a heavy amount of real-time action in conjunction with its normal leveling. There was even a "companion" game made in the states for us dumb Americans called Secret of Evermore, starring a blonde haired dude and his dog. Wait, I'm getting off track again.

The point is that Secret of Mana has a LOT of nostalgia associated with it, which is why it's going to be hard for me to say this: Secret of Mana is pretty much broken. Like, in a bad way. Lots of problems here, people. Now I'll elaborate since everybody reading this review has left in a rage.

Level your Sprite! 47/47 HPs? What?

The first problems are evidenced the minute you read the first several lines of text. Secret of Mana is horribly translated. While I get it's supposed to have a goofy, whimsical tone about it, you have to penetrate the really awkward dialogue in order to even get the jokes. There's also tons of weird modern dialogue and expressions (or 90s dialogue) mixed in for good confusing measure, and everything just comes off as really disjointed. I'm pretty sure the story is the Mana Tree is in trouble or something, so they give you the Mana Sword and send you to find Mana Weapons, which are apparently a secret or something based on the title? This usually involves you doing random things unrelated to the main problem, or getting kicked out of your village despite clearly being the chosen one, and...you know what? It's a stupid story, it isn't told well, but it really doesn't matter that much. The story isn't the main focus (or at least I keep telling myself that), so just turn your brain off when people start talking and you'll probably be ok. 

Hunting that obnoxious, replicating slime.

Combat in Secret of Mana happens in real time, in a style similar to The Legend of Zelda with a twist. Every time you strike out with whatever weapon you have equipped (and there are a lot of options), your "power percent" drops to zero and quickly recharges. You are free to attack again at any time, but if you do before it hits 100% you'll take a rather large damage penalty. This is done to prevent button mashing to the end of the game, which sounds fantastic in concept.

The problem is the hit detection with enemies is awful, to the point where I'm actually thinking it's just straight broken. If an ally hits an enemy (and the numbers pop up) and a second later you hit the enemy with your saved attack, it seems completely random if the damage will register (popping up after the first numbers go away, because for some reason this game didn't have power to process two attacks or display two numbers over the same enemy at once). If this sounds like a little thing, think again. Imagine fighting a group of enemies, waiting patiently for your meter to fill, only to strike at that moment right after your ally hits him for an uncharged 5 damage. Your entire attack gets wasted, the meter drops, and you have to wait again. It is extremely frustrating.

Enemies don't seem to have this problem, catching you in infinite loops (especially bosses) and just bashing you to death (or standing on top of you so when you try to get up automatically you take damage forever and ever) without having any chance of retaliation. They sort of try to fix this by giving you an "evade" option that makes it so you roll out of the way automatically based on a stat, but this also will interrupt your attacks if you are trying to land a hit. 

When something this fundamental is broken, it's hard to look back on this game positively. 

Nostalgia-fans will argue that this is part of the game, or makes it more fun, or it's just something you have to get used to. Ok, sure, but riddle me this: why does it work just fine in all the sequels, prequels, and even spinoff Secret of Evermore? If this totally broken hit detection was part of the game, why didn't it teach me this? Say something like "when an enemy is flinching, down, pausing, casting a spell, being hit by somebody else, blocking somebody else, dodging somebody else, eating a burrito, or watching the evening news, than your charged up power attack will do literally nothing at all?" It's because it isn't, and because this game is broken.

It is possible to get around it, it's just really frustrating. Since you don't know if you are hitting stuff, often on tricky bosses you aren't certain if you are doing damage. There's a wall boss that will instant-kill you if he pushes you to the bottom of the room. Ok, sure. But with on instruction you have no idea what to hit, with its eyes (weak points, obviously) squinting closed and open and you aren't entirely certain when you are supposed to hit them and when they die. Then you try and mash the heck out of him and you die instantly, back to the save point at the start of the dungeon. Keep in mind we were probably 4-5 levels higher than the game expected at this point and still lost. And I consider myself pretty good at action RPGs. It's very obnoxious, to say the least. 

At least the game is easy on the eyes. 

So what else is in this game? It has a unique "ring" menu system that lets you equip yourself and other characters, and you can switch to playing as your two sidekicks with a single button push, which is good. The Ring system works decently throughout, until you hit a situation where comparing armors or knowing who wears what can be a bit of a drag, and you wish you just had a normal menu system back. Also, the only way to get to magic is through the menu, which is tedious, but since attacking with your weapon is the primary concern here I guess it's somewhat forgivable.

The game supports up to three players in co-op (you'll need one of those SNES splitters if you want two of your friends in on the action), which is both cool and highly recommended, because your ally AI is dumb as a box of bricks. You can customize their settings between being aggressive and passive, and whether they'll close the distance or not, but this has problems. First, they have a tendency to follow me close to enemies and then the AI will kick in for a "far" ally, and by that point it's too late; they've been hit. It's like they don't know we are in a fight yet. And second, they love to just straight up ignore whatever setting I put them on and do whatever they like. I set somebody to the most passive, far away stance and even gave them a ranged weapon, and they still ran up to the boss and proceeded to get stuck in an infinite loop straight to death in the first couple of seconds. 

This is exacerbated by the fact that your can only hold a limited number of healing items, meaning keeping them alive is expensive and also annoying. So yeah, don't play with the AI if at all possible. Find some friends and burn through it with them. Then you all can hate the bad hit detection, but at least you are doing it together, which is sort of entertaining. I guess. 

What? His allies are dead? On a boss? What a massive surprise!

There are some positives here. The game looks really good, with a soft pallet and a lot of colors that sort of bleed together. It's a bit too soft in places (need some black outlines in the environment and enemies, people, not this weird muted gray), but it fits a theme and overall looks very nice. Characters animate decently, as do enemies, and everything just looks really good.

The music is also catchy and provides a soft, subtle background noise, hitting the right highs and lows. It is a bit too mellow at times, but that might just be personal preference. It's still very excellent, and anybody who digged Squaresoft midi tunes back in the SNES days will feel right at home with this soundtrack. 

I hate you, wall boss. 

As it stands, however, this game has not aged gracefully. It's still a decent run with friends, though in this world of co-op RPG games you have lots of other options if you decide to give this one a pass. It sets up a good framework, but the frustrating combat coupled with the moron AI really makes this game a test of patience. If you haven't played it and are a Squaresoft fan I highly suggest giving it a run anyway, since every other Squaresoft fan will outcast you if you haven't played it. But if you are looking for a strong co-op RPG, I suggest looking elsewhere. And if you are looking for a single player action RPG that isn't bad, Secret of Evermore is basically the same game as this one only more interesting and with better combat. So pick that up instead.

Sorry, Secret of Mana, but hindsight really is 20/20. Two out of five stars.

At least Gnome took it well. Cue the hatemail!

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

The Short


Pros
- Finally a sequel to Starcraft after over a decade
- Adds enough new with the old to create something that is both familiar and fresh
- Graphics are beautiful and have enough settings options to run even on crap machines
- Voice acting and sound effects are, as always, superb
- Single player has lots of RPG like options and even some adventure game style elements
- Fleshed out Battle.net is so feature-rich it's insane, and the online is all free
- Multiplayer remains strong, balanced, and is constantly being updated
- Provides options for every skillset of players, and matches you accordingly
- Easily one of the best competitive RTS games ever made

Cons
- Single player only encompasses the Terrans and is essentially a 1/3 of the story, and you only play as them except for a few missions where you play as Protoss
- Story of the single player is weak, cliche, and pretty much ruins Jim Raynor's character from the first Starcraft
- You have to be connected to the internet on your Battle.net account to play any facet of this game, including the single player
- Mac version is total crap and is poorly optimized
- Lots of the units and tactics have been carried over from the first game
- Has a heavier emphasis on microing units than the first Starcraft, making it a more difficult game for RTS noobs to get into at first
- While the single-player ranking matchup system works in theory, it does seem to sometimes screw up and put you in unfair matches
- Won't run at max settings on my computer. That's just not fair.

Welcome back to Starcraft. It will never look this good on my computer. 

The Long

Starcraft is a game that really needs no introduction. Essentially responsible for the birth of e-Sports (or competitive gaming, if you hate the term "e-Sports"), Starcraft brought games into the mainstream for a lot of people and particularly the media (though not necessarily in the United States). It was also just a straight up fantastic RTS, probably the best balanced game ever made, and has been revered with deity-like fascination by PC gamers since...well, since it came out.

So when Blizzard finally announced a sequel, people pretty much freaked the crap out. After Warcraft III changed the rules a bit, having them go back to a traditional, army based RTS was certainly welcome, and a sequel to Starcraft? Yes, please.

It got some flack because, like Brandon Sanderson and the end of The Wheel of Time, the game was split from one game into three. Starcraft II was broken up into faction-specific games, the first focusing on the Terrans (aka humans) and called Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. The idea of buying a game three times pissed a lot of people off, but we've been assured that the other two will be essentially expansion packs and priced accordingly (again, we'll see if this is actually the case), and that there was "too much story for one game."

So Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is here. Was it worth the wait? Does it do enough to merit a purchase? What the crap is going on with the story after that total downer ending of Starcraft: Brood Wars? All this and more will be sort of answered in this review!

The single player experience has been fleshed out immensely

Let's tackle the single-player experience first. Yes, it is very annoying that you only get to play as the Terrans (and the Protoss in a sort of flashback), which also means everybody on multiplayer starts as Terrans because the game doesn't properly train you on how to play the other races through its single-player (which was what Starcraft did very well). It's too bad, but they fleshed out the single-player so much it makes it easy to overlook this glaring flaw.

The game has integrated an interesting upgrade system now, in the form of unit upgrades, base upgrades, and the ability to hire mercenaries. The game is no longer just a string of missions chained together; now you are put in a sort of "hub world" in between scenarios, allowing you to have (limited) control on what missions you do next and how you (sort of) alter the plot. 

Every mission earns you both new units, buildings, and cash to spend on upgrading them. You can customize your army so the units you use most have the best upgrades, and the crap you don't like can be ignored. You can also wander around your crappy space-bar (or spaceship) and chat with people, learn about the world, or even play on the arcade. It's not the best thing ever, but it's a cool diversion to be certain. I wish they did more with it, but whatever...it's better than just cycling from mission to mission.

They just sort of...stand there, static. Not a whole lot of interaction, but it works. 

The missions themselves are all excellent. One minute you'll be protecting a colony from a zombie outbreak, the next you'll be having to float your bases from minerals to minerals as lava rises and falls. You'll race against the Zerg to be the first to blow up a Protoss base, infiltrate a science facility, and much more. Very rarely do they fall back to the standard "build a base, kill everything" scenarios that were common in the first game, which they are assuming you get plenty of in the multiplayer. 

There's also branching storylines, but the game lets you go back and replay them for the other story elements if you want to see what happens if you go the other way. This sort of renders the decisions meaningless, as you can see how both end up and this duel-choice option means none of your decisions will carry over into the main story. Each of these "sidestories" really feels separated and distant from the main game, which makes all the story parts feel completely disjointed and tacked on. It's hard to have emotional resonance when I (spoilers) both SAVED the doctor, earning her undying gratitude, and also made it so she turned into a freaky Zerg-person hybrid which I then killed. 

And here is where I rip apart the story. 

So it's already been documented that I think Starcraft II's single player story ruined Jim Raynor's character, but I'll put the brief version here. The game took Jim from the original game, who was sort of a side character next to your "commander" who was the star of the show, and made him a walking cliche. He does everything you'd expect a generic character in his position to do: laments over Kerrigan's demise, throws drunken fits when people tell him to get his life in order, gives corny inspirational speeches and always does the right thing, even if it's stupid. Jim in the first game was a reckless lawman who also did the right thing even if it was stupid, but you weren't playing as him. You sort of raised him up as this badass space vigilante, a man with a troubled past who survived through it all without blinking an eye (kind of like Batman). In Starcraft II he's broken and beaten, which yeah...it would have made sense if this game took place right after Brood War, but it didn't. This is years later; he has plenty of time to get over it. The Zerg buggered off for years and aren't a problem, he's back to being a marshall, and pretty much his life is in order. If he had demons to overcome (which, based on the original character, he would have just shrugged off anyway) it should have already happened. He shouldn't be lamenting now, he should be eager to kick ass and be himself again. 

Also the "twist" in this story (minus the awesome final one; I'm talking about a non-Kerrigan related twist) is completely predictable and honestly lame that the game clearly thinks you were going to be surprised about it. Here's a hint: don't have a voice-over in your opening sequence explaining your twist if the voice actor is immediately recognizable as the main villain. I'm just saying. 

So as it stands, I didn't like the story in Starcraft II, though the twist at the end did make me want to see what happened next. So I guess it wins because I'll buy the next game just to see what happens, but all the talk of "prophecies" and the bloated dialogue and long stares and melodrama reeks more like Star Wars prequels rather than the original trilogy. I'm going to assume Blizzard has better writers than this and they were all writing WoW: Cataclysm or something instead and now they'll be back on board, but we'll see when the next Starcraft II game comes out. 

Back to the real reason you bought the game. 

But that isn't the main reason most people bought the game. Like the Call of Duty games, most people were excited for the Starcraft II multiplayer, which the original game's is still going strong to this day. What core differences have been changed here?

I'm not going to go into specifics, since that will take too long, but I'll cover it with a blanket statement: it has enough new things to feel fresh, but keeps the core elements that make it familiar. Anyone playing Starcraft will be able to jump in and start Zerg rushing, walling with supply depots, or whatever without much problem. It's the little differences, however, that go a long way.

Major changes include the increased amount of technologies available. Almost every unit has both its standard abilities and a power, even the lowliest zergling or zealot. This means that if you are a big micromanager, your time has come. Since they took off the unit selection cap from Starcraft (which was my biggest micromanagement timesink in that game), they changed it so that your microing actually involves unit abilities rather than just being able to play the game like you want. This is a double edged sword. It's good because it adds massive amounts of depth for the players who want it, while noob players can (mostly) still survive without having to dig to deep into the ability microing. It's bad because the jump from not using abilities to using abilities skillfully is a massive one. And since most people online are really good at Starcraft II, it kind of requires you to pick up on this quickly and efficiently. 

Ultralisks are friggen huge. 

Despite that, the game is very noob friendly by design. First it has tiered "challenges" that teach you many common strategies that new Starcraft players will need to know in order to play effectively. Second, it has a fantastic ranking system that makes sure you are paired up with people of a similar skillset. This matchmaking system certainly works better than say, Halo or Call of Duty, but it still isn't perfect. I've been paired up against people way above my rank for 1v1 for no apparent reason, only to be crushed completely and efficiently. It's method of determining is also sort of borked, based on lots of factors (including clicks per minute, game length, build order, etc. at least that's what they say), but I just zerg rushed through my qualifying matches on 1v1 (which I click a lot because I'm ADD) and it put me in a Diamond league. Let me get one thing straight: I'm not a Diamond league player. But now that I'm stuck in it, I either have to wait for the season refresh or enjoy being crushed for all my 1v1 games. It's a bit annoying when the system doesn't work in your favor, and here's hoping it gets refined further either in patches or the next game. 

Carriers are still pretty awesome. 

Everything in the new Battle.net is pretty much great. It has achievements (like World of Warcraft) which give added incentive to try out crazy tactics. The matchmaking is quick and party management is very easy when playing with friends. There are tons of unlocks available, tied both to single-player and multiplayer, so you wont' feel really left if you can't win the required mutliplayer matches for new character portrats. It is kind of a huge pain that you have to have an active internet connection even to play the single-player, which shows how awesome DRM is (answer: it isn't), but I suppose it's a small price to pay for a more secure gaming experience. Blizzard also does good in providing new maps and stuff via patches and not charging for it, which shows their dedication to their fans. 

Protoss Void Rays are the bane of noobs. 

So a big question after release was this: is it really worth it? The game is so similar to Starcraft (at least on the surface), is it really that big of a jump? Well, if you are arguing that it wasn't worth it, then I welcome you to go back to playing Starcraft, as there's still an active community there, but I think Starcraft II's multiplayer blows Starcraft away. Yes, it's familiar. Yes, they took the framework from the first game and essentially copied a lot of it over. But they added so much both in streamlining control, new unit abilities, new unites in general, and the ability for more and more advanced tactics that the game really feels like a Starcraft player's dream. It's very, very clear from the design choices that the Blizzard employees played a load of multiplayer Starcraft themselves and took everything (even weird strats that weren't intended, like using Supply Depots as walls) and implemented it (like the fact that Supply Depots can be lowered now, a clear response to that tactic). This really is a project made for the fans, and it really works well. Now if only the single-player's story had been the same way. 

Though I am sad that the Zerg were switched from a sort of "build and forget" race to a "requires heavy microing to even be useful" race. I suck at them now, and I was pretty good in Starcraft. 

As it stands, Starcraft II does almost everything perfectly. Almost. It still certainly has problems, most of which I hope will be ironed out in the expansion, and there is so much here it can be overwhelming, but as it stands it is easily the best RTS on the market today. If you had any affinity for the first game, any at all, you should buy this game. Unless your affinity was for the single-player, in which case I advise to look before you leap. But if you just loved the core gameplay of Starcraft and are content fighting bots rather than people, there is still a good game here. Added that the custom map teams are again doing some wild and crazy stuff, and this game is absolutely a good investment. 

Just make sure your computer can run it. Since mine will be on just "High" graphics and a 1440x900 resolution forever. I will now shed a single tear after looking at these screenshots. 

Four out of five stars. 

Maybe your story won't suck next time, Jim.