Rock Band 2

The Short


Pros
- Refines the Rock Band UI down to a perfect shine
- Tons of new, awesome songs
- Character creator is much improved and a character can play multiple instruments
- Menu selection for songs becomes fantastic
- Charting is better for all instruments, especially bass
- Introduced the Rock Band Network, where people can create and submit their own songs to sell
- All songs (like Rock Band) exportable to be played in different versions
- Compatible with all old DLC and exported Rock Band songs
- There is no "solo" career; it's all unlocked either as a band or by yourself
- Challenges are a nice new addition, though not particularly enthralling

Cons
- Doesn't dramatically mix up the formula
- Doesn't add any new instruments or significant changes
- Songs are still locked until you play through career mode
- Load times are better than Rock Band, but are still pretty bad if you don't install to the HDD

Rock Band 2 was more about polishing rather than innovating

The Long

Continuing forward on our Rock Band saga, skip ahead a few months after we got Rock Band. Rock Band 2 was actually already out by the time we got Rock Band (I'd picked that one up instead of the 2nd one because it was super cheap) but I hadn't completely sold my wife on the idea that we needed another music game when the one we had was good enough (plus we could buy DLC, so what did we need this new disc for?). Unfortunately for her, I visited a friend who owned the game and proceeded to rock out to Rock Band 2 for several hours, and after seeing all the improvements I was totally sold. I managed to snag a copy for $30 (which was apparently cheap enough for her to approve), exported the Rock Band songs (which, again, no Enter Sandman :( ) and never looked back. 

While Rock Band started our musical addiction, it was Rock Band 2 that finalized it, getting both myself and my wife totally invested in the whole "Rock Band" thing. It also was a key selling factor in upgrading our TV to a slightly bigger one (by slightly bigger I mean 10 inches bigger), and spawned the whole "Rock Band Party" thing that our friends would know and love (or loathe). 

The interface looks significantly cleaner, especially in HD

The general gist of the game is the exact same as from Rock Band. Get a singer, guitarist, bassist, and drummer together, plug in all your plastic instruments and rock out. The only real significant change I noted was the singing: the pitch detection in this game is way better than in Rock Band, where it was sort of all over the place. This made singing more accurate, which also started us on our "Sing every song on Expert, even if we don't know it" kick that we are still on (like I said, we are good at singing). But aside from that, you still strum notes when they hit the bottom of the screen to get combos, and you still have those four instruments (not really mixed up until Beatles and Rock Band 3). 

Something that was a subtle improvement that you really won't notice until you compare the two games side by side is how much cleaner the game looks. The "film grain" on the background scenes was significantly decreased, meaning you could both see your characters better and the "highways" of notes were less foggy. Notes were shinier and more vibrant, bass-pedal notes on the drums were brighter and easier to see, and the highway hit the perfect balance between transparent (so you can still sort of see the on-stage action) and being dark enough to provide contrast for the notes. Again, very subtle things, but being a lot easier on the eyes is actually a lot more significant than you might think.

The song selection screen set the new standard

The biggest improvement was the way you selected songs in quickplay. Gone was the stupid flag that gave you no difficulty indicator (unless you sorted it by difficulty). Now we had many sorting options: artists, albums, etc. If you had a bunch of songs from a particular artist, the game would auto-sort them into sub-categories under the artist by album (for example, under my "AFI" tab it would split between "DecemberUnderground" and "Crash Love"), which was really convenient. But the best feature, by far, was the fact that if you were on a song it would give individual instrument difficulty. I cannot stress enough how important this was, especially when you were playing with friends of varying skill levels. Ranging from zero dots to five devil heads, you could finally pick the perfect song to play for you and your friends. It also had a "band" difficulty level, which I never thought was that useful (I don't care about the band, I care about what instrument I'm playing) but hey, we'll take it. 

An added bonus was the album art in the corner, as well as the album name and release date (which you could sort into musical decades, also good when playing with my parents who don't know any music after 1990). It just looked really clean, and made it so when you ended up buying truckloads of DLC (which we did), you could easily sort through all of it to find the songs you wanted.

The characters looked good and had tons of new costumes to make them look like total rocking idiots

The songs themselves were fantastic, probably one of my favorite setlists to date. It provided a good blend of old songs with new songs, though it did get a little "metal" heavy for the hardest tracks (I'm not complaining; I love metal, but I could see why some would be turned off). the game had a distinct lack of any country at all (much to my wife's dismay), but luckily this was heavily rectified in further DLC releases. 

Career mode was back, and while it wasn't a massive improvement it at least was different than all the previous music games that had come out. You got to go city to city, picking from specific songs (and random or pre-determined setlists) as you unlocked stars. Get enough and you got to play a particularly difficult gig that would unlock a van, a plane, etc. that would unlock more venues. It was pretty much just "play songs to unlock more songs" with a new skin. It was nice to have a bit more choice where I played (and seeing it on a globe was spiffy), but the system was beginning to show it's age. The fact that you had to unlock the songs through this mode for quickplay was also a major downer, since I pretty much jumped into the game wanted to play on Quickplay, and I had to beat the career mode first before I got all my songs.

Plus you get like a billion fans, which means...uh...nothing. 

There was also a new batch of "Challenges," which were basically just difficulty-tiered setlists played out of context of the main story. A cool feature of it was it would take your DLC that you just bought and make new challenges out of it (for example, have three or more Offspring songs and you'd get an "Offspring" challenge, etc.). These were also instrument specific, which added some unique stuff for you to do, and provided both fans and money if you were REALLY needing it. It was nice to have the new content, but I didn't really see the point (besides getting the $$) when quickplay existed. 

They also added "Battle of the Bands," weekly leaderboards competitions

Character design was better, though you still earned money to buy stuff which could turn getting that particular guitar you wanted into a money-earning grind. Luckily, though, you only had to buy the stuff you wanted, so if you managed your cash you'd be fine. Items were limited to each character you made, though, which was kind of a huge pain if you wanted to have a full band totally equipped. They were also locked to your gamertag (and everybody had to have a gamertag signed in to play, at least on the Xbox 360 version), meaning my friends who just came to hang out had to make a bunch of local, bogus gamertags to play and keep their characters. Not terrible, but certainly a minor annoyance that could have been ironed out.

The menus for the clothing stores have never been particularly easy to use

As a whole, though Rock Band 2 really brought the band together, if you forgive the cheesy choice of words. With Rock Band my wife and I were content to playing on our own. With Rock Band 2, however, we started inviting people over to play with us. As newlyweds are usually hermits, I think it weirded our friends out (too bad, suckers! We need a bass player!) and the massive amounts of DLC Harmonix kept pumping out meant we could get songs that we wanted to sing rather than be stuck with whatever arbitrary songs were released on disc (which, while they were pretty good overall, some were certainly...bad. Cool For Cats...you suck). 

The addition of Rock Band Network, a service that allowed artists to chart their own songs and sell them in the store, was just icing on the cake. Now bands themselves could put their own music up, in addition to Harmonix still releasing it's own weekly DLC. The number of songs in the game completely skyrocketed, and we've found some pretty awesome bands via this service. 

More songs for ya

We probably burned more hours on this game than any other game on our Xbox360 (except maybe Rock Band 3). It started the whole "Rock Band Party" thing, which has continued to this day. As an improvement on the original formula, Rock Band 2 blew us away, both in style and general improvements. It's still considered by many to be the best Rock Band game, though I personally stand by Rock Band 3.

For now, like the original game there isn't any real reason to own the game, but you can export the majority of the songs for $10 to be played in Rock Band 3. Be warned: for Rock Band all you needed was the disc to export, for Rock Band 2 you'll need both a disc and an unused serial code from the back of the manual (meaning if you buy used it's a crapshoot if it'll work or not), so buying new is the safest bet. 

It still holds up well, though, and earns a well-deserved five out of five. It reigned supreme as my favorite music game ever until Rock Band 3 came out, and that's a pretty impressive feat. 

Week in Review for 1/29/2012 - Rock Band / Kinect Week

Greetings blog readers, and welcome to the week in review for 1/22/2012. This week saw a boatload of reviews, 12 in fact, pushing the grand total thus far to 33 games. I reviewed a bunch of old PC games this week, particularly Sierra-On-Line games, but I'm not finished with those just yet! I have a bunch more in the pipeline, considering those were what I mostly grew up with, so prepare yourselves for more reviews of old PC games you played and then forgot existed.

I thought I'd also take a brief moment to explain how I review games, and specifically why I only give whole-star ratings. When I sit down to write a review, I have such a massively stupid amount of choices (from all the games I've played) I usually only write ones that I immediately can think of something to say about. I write them all in one sitting, with no planning in advance whatsoever, and I only go back and edit if I made specific errors or mistakes. Basically you are getting me saying what I can think of off the cuff, in one quick breath, and without me redacting anything I've said. I want these to be as completely honest as possible, and keep in mind they are just my opinion (though I do balance the score a little based on game quality, even if I didn't enjoy it, but that's for another post) so if you love a game I hate, I'm totally cool with that (or vice versa).

I give full star ratings rather than half ratings (Giant Bomb, where I am also posting these reviews, allows half-star ratings) because I feel limiting myself makes me both think more about how many stars I give a game, and gets rid of an easy out. In truth, the star rating is there as an afterthought; what I really want you to do is read the words of the review, figure out if you like what I'm saying, and make a judgement from that. There are a lot of games that I think are decent (Legend of Dragoon from this week comes to mind) but I really can't justify giving a high star rating. Hopefully I explain this well in my review (though I am considering putting the star rating just under the last part of "The Short" in reviews, for the especially lazy).

Well, that's it from me. I'm really enjoying this as both a writing exercise and a trip down memory lane, and I really hope you are enjoying reading them. My intentions are that, once we start getting more games on here, you might discover some games you haven't played yet that you'd like to try, or games you forgot about that you can dig back up again. The possibilities are endless! 


It is also worth noting most next-gen games were played on Xbox 360 unless otherwise noted. I'm not a fanboy or anything, it's just the system I bought first, so I tend to preference games on it (I like the controller better, too, and all my friends are on there).


Anyway, here is this week's reviews in blurb. And, as always, requests are welcome (and I promised a Super Mario Bros 2 for NES review this last week; sorry, I totally spaced it. I will do my best to get it out this week, though)

Earthworm Jim - 4 / 5
Halo 3: ODST - 3 / 5
Roller Coaster Tycoon - 5 / 5
Dead to Rights: Retribution - 2 / 5
Lords of the Realm 2 - 5 / 5
Torin's Passage - 4 / 5
King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride - 3 / 5
Persona 3: FES - 4 / 5
The Legend of Dragoon - 2 / 5
Persona 4 - 5/ 5
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - 3 / 5
Rock Band - 4 / 5

Oh yes, I've also started my "Rock Band Review Fiasco," which will be combination reviews of every Rock Band game as well as personal side-notes by me regarding how much I've enjoyed playing this game with friends and family. The first game is up; I intended to do more tonight but I finished a novel instead, so expect the saga to continue tomorrow with Rock Band 2, The Beatles: Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, Green Day: Rock Band, and Rock Band 3.

Have a great week!

Rock Band

The Short


Pros
- Full band experience: Sing, drum, play guitar or bass
- Both solo and band career mode
- Make a customizable rocker and unlock stuff for them
- Excellent soundtrack of mostly original recordings
- Added unison bonuses, where if you play segments of the song perfectly with a band you get bonus Overdrive
- Solos with guitars, fills with drums
- Can sing with a mic or a headset
- Has a distinct sense of style throughout, from the menues to just general UI
- Great animations on the rockers
- Massive amounts of DLC; Harmonix has released at least a song a week since Rock Band's release

Cons
- Songs start locked and have to be unlocked in career mode
- Can't change a character's name or what instrument he/she plays on a whim
- Can't play career mode with just a guitar or bassist; have to have either a singer or drummer
- Instruments could be expensive and have a tendency to break (and were all wired at first)
- Menu UI for song selection is dated and tedious
- Dumbed down the guitar/bass difficulty; playing bass can be really boring
- That being said, Green Grass and High Tides is freaking impossible on Expert guitar.
- Massive jump in difficulty for drums from Hard to Expert
- Can be hard to see bass notes on drums when your overdrive is on

A screen that boosted a genre into superstar status

The Long


Let it be known: I love the crap out of the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games. Despite me disliking the direction the later Guitar Hero games have taken (with disc releases rather than DLC that lets me pick exactly what songs I want), I'll always have a special place in my heart for these types of music games, and they have a weird, insatiable draw that ensnares me. I've always had music as a key part of my life (everybody in my family plays an instrument; I'm the only person who doesn't play more than one), so when Guitar Hero (or rather, it was Guitar Hero II that hooked me) came around on the PS2, I literally could not stop playing. Guitar Hero III holds the record of me anticipating it more than any other game released (except maybe Rock Band 3 or Skyrim). Point being: even after the market has technically dried up for these types of games, I still play them all the time. The are fun with friends, my wife loves them too, and the wide selection of music (especially in the Rock Band games) means there's something for everybody.

So take a stroll down memory lane with me as I review every single Rock Band game on consoles, in the order I played them, and talk a bit about each. It might actually be a bit redundant, to review these original games when clearly their sequels are better, but when I said I'd review every game I ever played, I meant it. So here we go.

Seriously, I own 602 songs. And will be buying three more this Tuesday. This might be a problem. 

I bought the first Rock Band after we got our Xbox 360 and we were gifted a corded Guitar Hero II guitar our brother-in-law had found at the Goodwill for $5. Little did he know what he started. I was originally going to buy Guitar Hero III, but I'd already played that game to death on the PS2 and the only other music game (remember when the market wasn't completely saturated?) was Rock Band. Despite me thinking square notes were lame, I decided to pick it up just to play through on guitar.

It was the beginning of the end, for both my time and my money.

After beating it on both guitar and bass (and teaching my wife how to play), I decided I really wanted to play the drums. After finding a corded set for $20 on Craigslist I discovered how freaking fun the drums were. We then found out you could plug an Xbox360 headset into the controller, put my shyness aside, and found out that singing is actually pretty dang fun (I would have never done this in public or around friends at this point; I was embarrassed enough doing it in front of my wife). Before long we'd bought a USB mic, invited friends over, and blasted through a bunch of Coheed and Cambria as a full band. Good times.

Four player madness

So, what about the game? How has Rock Band held up? Well, it was pretty much revolutionary. Four players rocking: one each on guitar, bass, drums, and singing. You all could pick different difficulties if your drummer sucked and your guitarist was boss hog, for example, and you all worked together for a joint score. That's something that (for me) has set this game apart from the Guitar Hero games (even after they got other instruments): It was always about the band. You worked together to get overdrive. When you activate it, your 2x multiplier went to the whole band, not just you. If your friend failed out you could save them, or activate overdrive early to try and keep them alive. It wasn't just you rocking alone with your plastic guitar anymore; it was a group event, something you all had to work together on for it to work.

And it worked. It worked great. Rock Band was a total blast, even on its original iteration. 

In game UI was vastly improved: multipliers and overdrive at the bottom made it easy to see (unlike Guitar Hero, where you had to look off the side of the screen). The only thing I don't like is where your "life" bar is on the left; it's hard to look at during strenuous segments. 

The story about Rock Band's birth from Guitar Hero is stuff of legend now, but we'll go over the very basics while avoiding any of the crazy speculation. Essentially, Red Octane approached Harmonix wanting them to make a game to work around their new guitar controllers they designed. Harmonix used essentially a variation on their previous games, Frequency and Amplitude, to make the "scrolling highway" of notes that everybody recognizes now. To everybody's surprise, Guitar Hero was a runaway hit, earning a quick (and much improved) sequel, Guitar Hero II.

At this time Activision realized that the money boat was about to set sail, and since Red Octane owned the Guitar Hero brand rather than Harmonix, they bought Red Octane and left Harmonix behind, opting to use Neversoft (who made the Tony Hawk games of all things) to make Guitar Hero III instead. It paid off: Guitar Hero III is one of the highest grossing games of all time, but didn't really innovate at all. Harmonix instead joined up with MTV Games (of which Rock Band is their only real notable release) and made Rock Band. Obviously Activision realized it's mistake (after releasing the horrible Guitar Hero: Aerosmith) and tried to jump on the "full band" bandwagon, saturating the market while still playing catchup to Rock Band until the Guitar Hero brand was finally retired. Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has said since then that not acquiring Harmonix was a mistake, which makes me slap my head and say "DUH!" Their company is called Harmonix. Of course they are going to know more about music than the Tony Hawk guys (no offense meant to the developers; they made some incredible games. It was more of a square peg, round hole in my opinion).

Those last two paragraphs had nothing to do with the review. I apologize. 

Anywho, back to Rock Band. I can't say enough good about it: four player awesomeness, a fantastic setlist (that helped my wife discover she actually liked some metal; Enter Sandman was one of our most played songs), and essentially a total revolution for the genre, just like Guitar Hero had been a few years before. It added a character creator, which was awesome, because then you could see yourself rocking up there on stage with your buddies. There are, however, some issues with this game that hasn't helped it age very gracefully.

First off, the career mode. It's bare bones (play songs in venues, go to a new venue and play some more songs) which was standard for the genre at the time, but the real offender is the fact you have to unlock songs. Again, genre standard, but really annoying. During this moment in time, the draw for these types of games was sort of idealizing yourself as a rock star, so who wouldn't want to play career mode? Rock Band marked the shift from wanting to fantasize as a rock star to just partying with friends, meaning quickplay was getting more time than career mode. Meaning unlocking songs was a massive pain.

Everybody can play on their own level

Other annoyances included the fact that every character was locked to a particular instrument forever, meaning you had to make four characters (each with their own unlocks for clothes, etc) if you liked hopping around instruments. The UI for song selection was serviceable (again, it fit the norm at the time) but was a massive pain once you started getting more songs (which plenty were added as DLC; there's something like 3,000 songs available now?). You couldn't play career mode with just two guitars; you had to have either drums or a singer, which seemed like a big fat ploy to buy their stupid plastic crap. Oh yeah, and speaking of plastic crap...

We also have a wired drumset, have bought three drum pedals (we bust those up), have another wired white guitar, have bought three more guitars besides these, and had a USB mic. Oh, and we owned Rock Bands 1, 2, Green Day, and Lego at some point. This game can get costly. 

This garbage is expensive, which is especially annoying considering how frequently they break. I've honestly had much better luck with the Rock Band branded stuff than the Guitar Hero stuff, and the Rock Band guitars are bigger and feel more "realistic" (as realistic as a plastic guitar can feel), but it's all preference. Point being: expect to dump at least $20 per guitar, $20 per drums, and $5 for a mic, which is about $75 just for the stuff. Add on the extra crap from the later games (two more mics for harmonies, keyboard, and cymbals for the drums) and stuff's getting pretty pricy. So you'd better be dedicated.

Song selection UI has much improved since this. If you didn't play Guitar Hero, that is - ZING! 

Before I go to the score, a little (additional) moment of self-indulgence: Rock Band was not just a fun game, but it actually helped out my budding marriage. We got the Xbox 360 two months after we got married, and at that time I was a pretty hardcore gamer but my wife was on the fence. We wanted to do more stuff together in each other's interests (as new married couples are known to do), so Eternal Sonata was a given. However, once it was over, we sort of ran out of co-op games to play.

Then we got Rock Band, and everything changed. As stated above, I come from a very musical background, and so does my wife. We had played piano/flute duets before, but not actually owning a piano puts a damper on doing this in free time. Rock Band, however, proved an excellent channel for playing together, and allowed us both to spend time doing something we enjoyed, while we both played a video game. Maybe this sound stupid (especially to anybody over 40), but I really think it helped strengthen our marriage, and had the added side effect if introducing my wife to both more video games and heavy metal (whether or not this was a good thing remains to be seen :P).

We still play quite a bit to this day, though we usually just sing harmonies in Rock Band 3 (review of that later). And we are godly good at it, so there's that, too.

And it introduced the Rock Band store, which has since sucked all my money away

Rock Band was an incredible game. It took the Guitar Hero formula and fused it with karaoke and that weird Japanese drumming game that never got big over here, and it did so marvelously. That being said, this original game hasn't particularly aged well, but you can export 90% of the songs (but not Enter Sandman :( ) to be used in any future iteration of Rock Band for just $5, so it is certainly worth picking up a copy on the cheap, exporting the songs, and giving it away or just shelving it and playing a later version.

If I were to give it a star rating, it would be four out of five. While I love the game, there is no denying the second game fixed lots of issues (including ones I didn't know this game had), but as a jumping-off point you certainly could do a lot worse. If you love modern music, partying with your friends, or just pretending to be a rock star, Rock Band has your number. 

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

The Short


Pros
- Absolutely gorgeous graphics
- The music, while not the usual Castlevania fare, is still fantastic
- Finally a 3D Castlevania game that isn't utter garbage
- Patrick Stewart narrates and voices a character in the game
- Some of the bosses, the Butcher and Grave Digger especially, are fantastic
- Did I mention this game looks good? It looks really good
- Enemies are difficult even from the beginning and require skill and tactics to defeat
- When you are fully equipped with all the moves, combat is exceptionally complex and fun
- Controls are ganked from God of War, which isn't a bad thing


Cons
- Game is a six hour game stretched out over twenty hours
- The story, like the gameplay, feels artificially lengthened
- Patrick Stewart's narrations during load times are well voiced, but the script might be the most melodramatic thing I've ever seen
- The combat takes far too long to get good
- Bosses aped from Shadow of the Colossus are such obvious ripoffs the creators should be ashamed
- Has almost nothing in common with previous Castlevania games
- The Dark/Light magic, while a cool idea in theory, is executed so poorly it seems like an afterthought
- The fixed camera angles make combat and most jumps a massive pain
- Almost all the platforming/jumping/swinging feels clunky and poorly implemented
- Puzzles are so easy and stupid you wonder why they even bothered
- While enemies are fun to combat, there isn't much variety overall
- Quick time finishers are bland and use an odd method of indicating when to hit

Time to steak some vampires

The Long

"The Long" indeed. Let's get this over with right off the bat: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is way the hell too long. While I'm all for great value in games I buy, Castlevania is very much a six hour game that has had the unfortunate displeasure of being put on a rack and stretched out to last 20-30 hours. Over dozens of subchapters and stages, Castlevania: LoS simply drags on, making the last 1/3 of the game monotonous, tedious, and just not fun. There is too much of a good (or in Castlevania: LoS's case, "decent") thing, and this game is a prime example of that. The bad pacing kills this game for me. 

Ok, now that I've got that off my chest, let's get to it.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow didn't start it's life as a Castlevania game (just like how Silent Hill 4: The Room didn't start out as a Silent Hill game. This must just be something Konami does). It was originally just a gothic action game, with Hideo Kojima, famed creator of the Metal Gear Solid series, somehow involved (I still don't know what that involvement was. Maybe it's the long, melodramatic story). Early screens made this game look like everything I ever wanted in a 3D Castlevania game: essentially God of War but set in a gothic, vampire-hunting world. It was action packed, it was violent, it had a whip...it was Castlevania, right? That pretty much is Castlevania, eh?

Um. Sure. But Castlevania: LoS is not a Castlevania game. It's like...a "Western" Castlevania game. Only mediocre.

But holy crap, if this isn't one of the most beautiful games I've ever played

So a good thing first: this game is freaking gorgeous. I'm sure some of you just breeze through the screenshots heading for the final score so...whatever, but at least then you'll see how incredible this game looks. I have literally no idea how they made this game look so incredible on this generation of hardware, and on my Xbox360 no less. Everything is meticulously detailed, from the characters to the enemies to the absolutely stunning vistas the game presents you with, and it is all paired with some great sound effects and voice acting. So, if you bought a new HDTV and really want something to show off to your friends, you can't go wrong with Castlevania: LoS. 

I'm going to just post more screenshots because it looks so fine. 

So beyond it's extremely pretty exterior, what's going on in Castlevania: LoS? What makes it tick? Well, it's essentially a God of War clone, first and foremost, complete with a lack of camera control in leu of using the right stick for a dodge-roll, light/heavy attack combos, grabs, and quick-time event finishers. Which isn't a bad thing; God of War was a pretty dang good game, and I'm fine with other studios stealing its technique if they do it well. Which Castlevania: LoS does...but not at first.

The game starts out really weak, with limited combos and a combat system that is little more than button mashing and praying you don't get hit. Probably the biggest problem with the game is enemy stagger: there isn't any. You can bash enemies all over the place and they'll just shrug it off and keep coming for you. Gabriel Belmont (aka you), on the other hand, will lose his combo if he so much as gets tapped by an enemy, and with a relatively small health bar this can get obnoxious really fast.

The game has a lot of really awesome, scary setpieces, it's just too bad they are all padded by hours of boring, repetitive levels

This problem is slowly fixed over the course of the game, where you learn more advanced moves that help you tackle even the hardest of enemies. Which made me wonder: why didn't they give you more combos at the beginning, and then just have less for you to buy? You'd still get to buy stuff, but the game would be more fun. The reason, of course, is then there wouldn't be enough stuff to unlock over the 20-30 hour game time. Which means you probably should have just cut the game down to 6-10 hours, started me better equipped, and made a more streamlined experience rather than a long, tedious, obnoxious one for the first 1/3 of the game!


*ahem*

This only annoys me because I see the potential for the fantastic here. The combat near the end strikes the perfect balance of difficulty and skill, and you feel like you finally have the tools necessary to meet these foes on equal ground. But through most of the game before it it just doesn't fell that way (unless you grind for XP). You always feel just a step underpowered, which makes even regular enemies (which never flinch, remember) seem like a massive, obnoxious chore. It isn't fun, and it isn't refined. It's just frustrating.

I'm digging that dude's beard

This same frustration continues on with the story that, like the combat, as all the trappings for greatness but somehow falls completely flat. Gabriel Belmont is a sad man: his wife is dead, and the only way he can bring her back to life is to kill the Lords of Shadow, a bunch of jerks that are...well, jerks. The plot actually sort of reminded me of Nier, where your main character slowly becomes more and more bloodthirsty. As a player you don't really notice (you are just always killing dudes), but when side characters point it out you realize exactly how far you've fallen. In Nier it's subtle, dark, and almost missable (in other words: perfectly executed). In Castlevania: Expository Dialogue R' Us, everybody makes sure to point it out frequently, both in game and during the narrations during the load screens.

And don't get me started on those...just...don't. They are voiced by Patrick Stewart, who is totally and unquestionably awesome, but the stuff they make him read is just...monotonous. It's melodramatic, expository, and bland. Seriously, I wonder if Patrick Stewart - who is a quality thespian, to be certain - would have to leave the soundbooth after a session to just go outside and laugh (or cry) at the sheer absurdity of the stuff he was reading. It's like the game really wants this to be an emotional, gripping tale, so it makes sure to constantly remind you how emotional and gripping it is during every single load screen. It's bloated, poorly crafted, and doesn't really pick up until the very end which - hey! - is just like the combat. Fancy that.

But this game looks so freaking good urrrrrggghhh

There's a bunch of other intricacies to the game that are worth mentioning. You get both light and dark magic to equip on your whip, which either heals you or deals more damage, respectively. It's a nice boost in battle, but it seems tacked on to both the narrative and the combat, so I felt kind of like a cheater when I completely crushed bosses using straight dark magic. Several of these bosses are really good (the Butcher boss was so excellent I actually reloaded the chapter immediately after beating him so I could replay it again), while others are chores to get through. I just wish they came more frequently; again, cutting down most of the filler (of which there is plenty of me lurching slowly through bogs, killing weak useless enemies, or doing awful platforming) would have fixed that a lot.

The platforming is horrible, all of it. The fixed camera angles, which are barely passable during certain fights, make gauging distances and whip-swings almost impossible. I can't even begin to describe how many times I died due to a mis-placed jump or button press, all of which I do believe was the game's fault. It would be fine, except (as I'm going to keep saying forever during this review) there is way too much of it, and it drags on to unbelievable lengths. Look at God of War. Most of it's climbing and swinging was automated, and it only happened very infrequently and during epic set-pieces. Castlevania: LoS just does it as filler for everything, making it both frustrating and overbearing.

Then you have these things.

Randomly interspersed in the game are massive titan bosses, which are literally the same as Colossus bosses from Shadow of the Colossus. You climb a big beastie, doing some basic platforming while holding a "grip" button. You climb to a weak point (while still trying to keep grip as it shakes you off) and stab it before moving on to the next one. Literally, Shadow of the Colossus. These are fun, I suppose, even if they aren't particularly unique. To be completely blunt they feel tacked on to a game that didn't need anything extra tacked on. But hey, at least they look incredible.

Smash stupid werewolf Jacob in the face. 

The music is also great, falling away from traditional Castlevania riffs of guitar and kickin' bass lines for more orchestral and vocal pieces. Castlevania is pretty famous for its music so this change might turn some purists off, but I thought it all sounded really good and actually got a copy of the soundtrack I liked it so much. So there you go.

This song is particularly excellent. 

Overall, even if you think of Castlevania: LoS as not a Castlevania game, it still has so many problems it is hard to simply turn a blind eye. The combat takes too long to get fun, the story is an overdramatized mess, and it seems to steal the best parts of other games without figuring out why these were the best parts.  The platforming is horrible, the fixed camera angle sucks, and the whole thing drags on and on. I really wanted to like Castlevania: LoS, and for a good while (between the 1/3 and 2/3 mark) I really did. It's just too stretched out for its own good; had they tightened up the experience and kept all the things that made it excellent (the advanced combat, the good bosses, the graphics, the music) this would have easily been a game comparable or even better than God of War, and certainly a worthy start to a new series. As it stands, the game is just too bloated for me to recommend, unless you have a great deal of patience. 

You can get the game for $15 new, which is actually a pretty fair price to be completely honest (it's certainly a price that would make it easier to look past its flaws). Were I to give it a star rating, it would be a toss up between two or three. But since I did have about six-eight hours of pleasure during the 30 hour experience, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt with a three out of five. Again, this game has so much potential, and everything to make an excellent experience is there, it just wears out its welcome so quickly I couldn't help but get frustrated with it.

Also, the game doesn't even have friggin' Dracula in it. So how the crap did they get away with calling it a Castlevania game? Urgh. 

But, if nothing else, this game can rest knowing I still think it's pretty on the outside. Really pretty. 

Persona 4

The Short

Pros
- Takes every complaint I had about Persona 3: FES and fixes it
- Tons of really fantastic voice acting throughout
- Has probably the most distinct, uniform art style of any game I've played
- Speaking of style, this game has it in buckets: music, graphics, character, etc.
- Same unique, deep turn-based combat as Persona 3: FES
- Tons more dungeons, and each has a unique and entertaining theme
- Every side character is extremely interesting and entertaining
- Music is much improved: still very Japanese, but far less irritating
- More personas, more fusion options, better explanations on what your fusions will make
- You can control your entire party, or choose to let them act independently
- Interesting detective story while you try to find the cause of supernatural murders in your town
- Actually gets a bit psychological with regards to accepting your "shadow," or "repressed" side in the main story
- Tons of little side stories that happen during the main one
- Includes a disc with the complete soundtrack
- Seriously, this game has some of the best characters in any video game, ever.

Cons
- The main RPG is still very grindy and basic
- Still only one battle song throughout. At least it's actually catchy and decent this time.
- Some of the general weirdness might turn the uninitiated off
- Kanji's story arc could come off to some as being homophobic
- The lack of "shooting your head to summon your persona" takes some of the edge out; attacking cards to do it is kind of lame
- Getting the "true" ending involves doing a lot of random, stupid things
- At it's core, nothing is really fundamentally different from Persona 3: FES

Here's a hint: it probably involves summoning giant demons from your mind. 

The Long

It's already been established that I loved Persona 3. I think the game is a fresh hybrid of genres that worked beautifully and did it all with class and style. Minus a few niggles I had with it (which I mentioned in my previous review), I thought Persona 3 was close to being the best JRPG I'd ever played on the PS2, and was certainly up there with the best JRPGs ever.

Then I played Persona 4.

Persona 4 isn't just one of my favorite JRPGs ever, I really think it's one of the best games ever. While one could argue it doesn't stray too far from the path forged by Persona 3, Persona 4 takes everything its predecessor created and polishes it a perfect shine. Which, you'd be surprised to know, actually makes a world of a difference. 

This game just drips its fantastic, "TV World" style. 

The first major improvement is the story. Persona 3 was just interesting enough to keep the game moving, but as a whole the story felt uninspired and somewhat generic. How many "High Schoolers with powers save the world from utter oblivion" stories can we really handle? Persona 4 fixes this by zooming the camera in and decreasing the scope of the conflict. Instead of the world being endangered it's just the people in your town, specifically your friends. Narrowing down the scope in a game that is really about inter-personal relationships (with the Social Links system) makes it way more meaningful, and fits the gameplay mechanics much better.

You are a new student who just transferred to Inaba, a rural town in Japan. You live with your single-parent uncle and his daughter, the latter essentially being in charge of the house as your uncle is a detective and spends most of his time working. His job really gets cut out for him when, shortly after your arrival, a string of grisly murders begins to take place in Inaba. After some bizarre turn of events you find out that these murders are actually taking place inside a different world, one that is accessed by going into televisions. You and your classmates decide to take it upon yourselves to find the murderer, save his intended victims, and basically be kick-butt heroes. Oh, and you all have personas. That's to be expected. 

Let's play, "Guess the gender of this character based on the picture." If you guessed "girl," you are smarter than every character in this game. 

The story also has an interesting side-bit to it, where the reason people are endangered when they are essentially kidnapped into the TVs is that they encounter their "shadow-self." This is essentially one's repressed fears, doubts, and emotions that makes itself manifest, the dark side of you that you don't want to acknowledge. The dungeons in the game are based on these shadows (who also serve as the area bosses), meaning every dungeon is unique and different. Seeing characters' darker sides lets you learn more about them, especially if they are characters you already knew a lot about before. It's a clever mechanic that not only makes the story and gameplay more in tune with the characters, but also ties in well with all the Social Linking you'll be doing. 

Yes, social links are back, as is fusing personas, level grinding, and raising stats. There are more stats in this game to raise than in Persona 3 (five vs three), but they tend to go up faster and net dividends quicker. No characters are "locked out" from social linking from the get-go, though you will have to raise some stats in order to learn the deep, dark secrets of the more introverted characters. 

Just look at all those social links that need to be raised! 

I made mention that I thought the characters' stories in Persona 3 were the best parts of the game, and Persona 4 comes along and blows them all out of the water. While I still think there are certainly links in Persona 3 that are better than some in Persona 4, as a whole the side-stories in Persona 4 are completely outstanding, with no weak ones in the entire bunch. This is especially due to the fact that the story itself is more centered around your character and his family/classmates, meaning when you social link with, say, your uncle or his daughter you are getting some really heartbreaking moments (wonder where the mom is? You'll find out). This stuff is really good, and as an added bonus if you max out a Social Link with a party member, their persona will evolve into a better one which is awesome. Also, the girls don't get jealous anymore, so you can have as many girlfriends as you want now. Score. 

The one problem that I wish they'd fixed that wasn't is the same one I had in Persona 3: the individual stories don't really interact or affect each other, or the main plot. There were some parts where I felt I was fixing relationships (especially between my uncle and his daughter), but that was only on the uncle's tree. When I then moved up the daughter's tree, in her story arch they were having a fight. It didn't really make much sense chronologically (it makes sense if you regard each character's story as completely separate affairs), which seems like a wasted opportunity. Fix this in Persona 5, Atlas. 

All out attacks are back, and still look hilarious. 

There is substantially more voice acting to go around, as well. Almost all the main story and social-link events are fully voice acted (while in Persona 3 it was usually just the main story stuff), and the voice actors are all phenomenal. The translation is near-flawless, with a few corny bits but as a whole the dialogue is modern, fresh, and believable. As usual, Atlas' localization is head-and-shoulders above anybody else's, and it really serves as a means to pulling both the story and the characters together.

The gameplay is, for better or worse, exactly the same as Persona 3. I'm not going to bother going over all the details of fusing personas, social links, etc. in this review; if you want to know how it all works go hit up my Persona 3: FES review. Just know that with more dungeons, more personas, the ability to control your whole team manually (finally!), streamlined UI and a better menu system, Persona 4 is the best iteration of the Persona battle system yet. It fixed problems I didn't even know was there, all the while adding layers upon layers of new content. If it ain't broke don't fix it, but Atlas went the extra mile and perfected it instead. Really good stuff.

You can even go fishing, because it isn't a Japanese game if there isn't freaking fishing in it. 

The graphics follow a similar, anime-equie style as Persona 3, but as a whole they are cleaner, better textured, and better animated. They recycle quite a bit of the persona's assets, but they still look good so who cares? The UI, which was sort of a blue-white style in Persona 3, is now more yellow-black with orange. It looks sharper and more interesting, reflecting the fact that this game is significantly more lighthearted that Persona 3 was. No more head shooting (you just use cards now), no more super-emo main character, and most of your friends are more happy-go-lucky types rather than the downers that inhabited Persona 3. It makes for a funner, sweeter game, and the lighter graphical style reflects this. For a game released after the next-gen consoles had hit the market, Persona 4 still manages to look better than most modern games, proving that style doesn't age. I just really wish they'd put in progressive scan and widescreen support, though. That seemed like a pretty big oversight. 

The music has also seen a big improvement. It still fits the whole "Japanese high school" vibe the game has, but it's tracks are softer and less "in your face" than Persona 3. If you absolutely hated Japanese music, there was no way at all you would have made it through Persona 3. If you still hate it, you might actually survive Persona 4. The tunes are mellow, very catchy, and sort of fit more into "background music" when they need to, which is something Persona 3 was lacking. Also, the new battle song is way better, so much so I actually really enjoy listening to it. It's also happier, again reflecting what I said above. 

Much improved, Persona 4

If I have any real complaints, it's the fact that it still has a foundation centered around the worst mechanic in gaming: level grinding. Yes, you don't have to do nearly as much if you are a skilled player, and yes all the improvements make level grinding more tolerable, but it still doesn't change the fact that a good portion of the gameplay is running around random dungeons killing random enemies, leveling up your guys, and then doing it over and over again. It's a dated mechanic, one that was invented in the days of the NES in an attempt to get more time (aka "value") out of games that were really very simple. It's outdated now, Japan. I'm really, really tired of level grinding. And while I appreciate all the sugar-coating you slather on this medicine to help it go down easier, it doesn't change the fact that I don't want it. Luckily, if there's any company that knows how to innovate it's Atlas, so I'm crossing my fingers that Persona 5 will be a massive improvement. 

Travelling around town is also vastly improved...look, this game is awesome, ok? That's all there is to it. 

Persona 4 is one of the finest JRPGs ever made, and might be the best JRPG on the Playstation 2 (which is a lofty claim, I know). It's fun, addicting, stylish, clever, well-written, and smart. But most important of all (I can't believe I'm about to say this...) it really has heart. The story (and stories) in this game are fantastically realized, well-crafted, and genuinely thought-provoking. Every element in this game works, and when you put it all together you have something that is really, really phenomenal. I cannot recommend it enough.

Thanks to Atlas tax (and the fact they publish a limited number of almost all their games), this game goes for about $40 now, which includes the bonus soundtrack. I'm going to warn you: this price will only go up. A PSP re-release is coming soon, but if you want the PS2 version you you probably jump on that soon. I managed to get a copy off eBay that included the strategy guide about nine months ago for $35, meaning the price of this game is really heading up fast. So get this game. Hurry up. 

Edit: I lied this game is $26 on amazon RIGHT NOW. Off you go, then.

A very deserving five out of five. I'd go so far as to say that if you are a fan of JRPGs, and you own a PS2, you should drop what you are currently playing, buy this game, and play it instead. Seriously, it is that good. 

Or, if you have 100 hours to burn but not playing video games, Giant Bomb was kind enough to play through the entire thing, front to back, all on camera with commentary. You'll have to cycle back through their menus to get to it (they played Deadly Premonition and Chrono Trigger this way as well), but the commentators are hilarious and the game is fantastic, so if its easier to watch a movie rather than play a game, you can experience it that way as well. 

Oh balls. This guy must have read my Persona 3 review. 

The Legend of Dragoon

The Short


Pros
- Fun, complex combat system
- Ability to change between normal heroes and their "Dragoon" form
- Multiple battle songs that change throughout the game
- Lots of party members with unique combos and abilities
- Music is actually pretty good
- Really good looking CG cutscenes
- Decent in-game graphics for the PS1 era

Cons
- Story is absurd and idiotic
- While the game does have some voice acting, it is all terrible
- Load times, especially for battles, are atrocious
- Extremely linear
- Your best healer character is also the worst character
- Tries its hardest to be Final Fantasy, still falls flat
- Despite being made by Sony, has yet to see a re-release on the PS3's "PS1 Classics" downloadable service

Remind you of something? Also, this is emulator up-rezzed

The Long

The Legend of Dragoon was Sony's answer to Final Fantasy. There was no denying the force that Squaresoft had brought to the table with Final Fantasy VII, spawning not one but two generations of Sony consoles that heavily focused on the JRPG genre. Turn based, strategic RPGs had finally exploded in the West, and Sony wanted a piece of this spiky-haired pie. So it made The Legend of Dragoon, a four-disc, world-spanning adventure that more than slightly resembled its inspiration. 

The Legend of Dragoon follows the story of Dart (what is it with JRPGs and giving main characters stupid names?). When his "childhood friend" (who is a girl. Obviously) is kidnapped and his village ransacked (seriously, I'm not making this up) by evil soldiers, Dart runs after her. He finds out that he is the chosen one (if you were playing a "JRPG cliches" drinking game, you'd be hammered before beating the first disc) who can summon the power of the Dragoons, and essentially turn into big, bulky armored winged dudes that can use magic and kick butt. Of course, there's an evil empire that needs crushing, allies to be enlisted, and a massive adventure to undertake, so off you go, Dart!

Anime fairy girls with giant hammers to recruit. You know, the usual. 

The story is, for lack of a better word, stupid. Sure there are a few plot twists involving one of your characters being a traitor, and the final boss not really being the final boss, but I kid you not when I say all the key points are ripped, almost exactly, from Final Fantasy IV (spoilers incoming). Character in your party who may or not be on your side (Kane)? Check. Final boss who may or may not be under the control of somebody far worse (Goblez)? Check. Final boss is of some sort of relation to the main hero, meaning the power of family ties can eventually redeem his broken soul? Check. A bunch of people die only to be immediately replaced by new characters with the exact same stats and weapons? Check. Nobody dies permanently? Yep. This game read every single JRPG and anime cliche and stuck it in a blender with some Mario RPG and Final Fantasy and this is what came out. So if you play your JRPGs for the usual fare of "quality" melodrama mixed with brooding characters, predictable twists, and just generally poor writing...this game is for you.

The characters themselves also aren't much to write home about. As stated above, you do have two of them die or otherwise leave the party, only to be instantly replaced with somebody with the exact same stats. There's a character that is actually exactly the same as Edgar from Final Fantasy VI (complete with spear, sassy womanizing attitude, and the fact he's some king) which meant I had to keep him in my party the whole game because Edgar is awesome. But the point stays: The Legend of Dragoon's writing completely fails to impress. Oh, there is some voice acting (mostly in battle or CG cutscenes), and it's all awful and grating too. Props to Sony for trying (it took Square until the PS2 to put voices in), but it just all sounds bad. 

Yeah, but could Edgar turn into some giant, metal-winged dragon dude? I THINK NOT! Legend of Dragoon: 1.  Final Fantasy VI: 0. 

Despite the story being total garbage, the rest of the game is actually pretty decent, especially for fans of the genre. You have your traditional turn-based, three party RPG battles with plenty of enemies and loads of bosses. The game would have probably quickly become your regular grindfest had it not integrated a fun and unique battle system: timed attacks. Basically if you've played Super Mario RPG on the SNES, you'll know how this works. Press the attack button at the right time during a swing, and your character will execute a "follow up" hit. The Legend of Dragoon takes this and cranks it up to a billion. Each character starts with a usual "one button press" hit, which you can time with a handy square...thing (it works, ok?) during the attack. After you've executed a set number of hits perfectly (read: not messing up the square button pressing thing), you unlock more complex ones. Some of the ending ones are seriously 9-11 button presses, one right after the other, which results in some crazy moves and massive attack bonuses. Considering most RPGs are just the "mash X, watch stuff die" variety, adding this timing goes a long way in keeping the game fresh, and constantly giving you new combos means you are still being challenged even at the end of the game.

The downside to this is your main healer (a girl, obviously; what did you expect?) uses a bow, so she is the only character that doesn't get combos. Why? That means she's stupidly underpowered, but you can't justify taking her out of the party because you need her healing. I don't know why you'd gimp one character to completely, but...whatever. 

Pair the neat combat system the fact they all can turn into weird looking Dragoon dudes. After registering a certain number of hits (which gives you "Spirit Energy," another reason to use the harder combos) you unlock the ability to turn into a Dragoon. As a Dragoon you are stronger, can use some really wild magic (which costs your now-decreasing Spirit Energy), do more timing-based button attacks, or just generally...look cool. The magic is awesome but the cutscenes for each are really long (though not as bad as Final Fantasy VIII's summons, they do come close) so hopefully you like watching flashy PS1 effects. After your Spirit Energy runs out you are back to being boring, normal person again, and the cycle repeats. 

You have never seen a regular attack be this INTENSE

You then level, buy new weapons and items, get new party members, yada yada yada. It's standard fare from there on out, with the exception being the game is extremely linear. Think Final Fantasy X or XIII, with the game shuttling you from one dungeon to the next. The overworld is also very straightforward, with free-roaming nonexistant as you are moved from town to town. As an added bonus, if you want to go back to earlier parts their data is on earlier discs, meaning you get to disc swap up the butt if you ever want to backtrack. So don't backtrack. FORGE AHEAD, DRAGOON!

The music is surprisingly good throughout. Though it isn't Final Fantasy quality, it is generally catchy and well realized. It also uses a lot of CD quality (hur hur) instruments that make it sound better than the midi renditions of most of the PS1 era Final Fantasy games, so points to Legend of Dragoon for that.

What it really does on the music side that makes me happy is that each disc has its own "generic battle" song. Which, if you've read my other reviews, is a huge sigh of relief for me. My biggest beef with JRPGs (and what almost killed Persona 3: FES) is the fact that they use the same damn battle song throughout an entire 60 hour game. Come one! Just write a few more; how hard could it be? Legend of Dragoon mixes up the battle (and boss) songs across discs, which is awesome. So points to you again, Legend of Dragoon. You were ahead of your time.

You also had a pretty good boss song

While the CG cutscenes are really good looking, the in-game graphics are nothing to write home about. It's your usual super blurry, disproportioned polygonal anime characters with spiky hair you've seen a hundred times before. Unlike this era's RPGs, however (Legend of Dragoon came out around the middle/end of the PS1's life), things seem a bit more...blocky than they should. I know graphics mean next to nothing now since the PS1 is so old, but when compared to other games of its time Legend of Dragoon looked dated even when it was brand new.

Prepare to be Dragoon'd!

If the graphics are showing their age, it's the load times that are horrendous. I don't really mind waiting between areas or scenes, but when the battles take something like fifteen to thirty seconds to load, you know something's up. And they don't even try to mask it like Final Fantasy IX does by panning all around the battlefield or whatever. No, you have to watch the screen melt from top to bottom, slowly, and then you get the pan and are in the battle. It takes for freaking ever, and since this game is actually pretty hard (read: you'll need to grind out a few levels), you end up spending a good chunk of your game watching the screen melt. 

Just watch the beginning. See how long that takes? Urgh.

Legend of Dragoon was a game that I bought for $15 from Wal-Mart way back in the day, and then proceeded to beat the entire thing in three days straight by doing nothing else. It's an engaging experience, especially if you are a fan of this era of JRPGs, but as a whole it hasn't aged particularly gracefully. Lots of people hold a good deal of reverence for Legend of Dragoon, which is fine, but I honestly think when compared to both JRPGs before and after its release, Legend of Dragoon is found to be lacking in many areas. 

The game apparently is worth more now than what I paid for it: copies go for around $20-25 on eBay. I cannot recommend the game at this price, unless you have nostalgia for it. If the game does ever show up on PSN (which is weird that it hasn't, since Sony made it), I'd guess it would be priced around $5, which is fair but, again, this game hasn't aged particularly well. If you are dying for a PS1 era RPG and can get it for $10, it's probably worth it. If not, I'd say leave this one behind.

Though if they did make a sequel, I'd probably play it. Just saying, Sony.

For a star review, I'd give it two out of five stars. I'd probably have rated it four out of five back when I played it the first time, but I'm not reviewing how I thought of games then, I'm reviewing what I think of them now. And again: this game isn't awful (which is why it gets two instead of one or zero stars), it just hasn't really withstood the tests of time. 

At least we will always have Dart's spiky hair. And pre-rendered backdrops.