XENOBLADE CHRONICLES ANNOUNCED FOR RELEASE IN THE U.S.
INITIALIZING APPROPRIATE RESPONSE.........
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Friday, December 2, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Target: Solatorobo: Red the Hunter
Solatorobo: Red the Hunter
Nintendo DS
By: CyberConnect2
Genre: RPG, Adventure
From the same minds who bought you great RPGs like the .hack// game series comes their most unique title yet - Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. Before we begin, lets get out some facts - this game is actually the "spiritual" successor to an old PS1 game CyberConnect2 released called Tail Concerto. While these two games may share very similar traits, Solatorobo manages to retain an identity of its own.
STORY:
The story of this game revolves around an area called the Shepherd Republic - a group of floating islands above the sea of Plasma. On these islands, there lives two different races - The Caninu (Dog people) and the Felineko (Cat people). As you may have noticed, this game's world revolves around anthropomorphic animal characters, just as its predecessor Tail Concerto did. Humans are non-existent in this world (no worries, it'll all be adequately explained in the game's story).
Anyways, back to the story at hand: You'll start out your journey playing as Red - an ambitious and brave 17 year Caninu teen who makes his living as a Hunter (basically a mercenary-for-hire sort of job). He drifts around the floating islands looking for jobs along with his sister Chocolat (who is a Felineko) on their airship to make a living for themselves. They eventually receive a job requesting Red to recover and important stolen document that has been stored on the huge airship Hindenburg (...no relation). As Red infiltrates the airship with his trusty piloted robot DAHAK, he soon finds that there are no documents to be found - but instead he finds and acquires a mysterious medallion.
Suddenly, a strange creature called the Lares bursts forth from the very clouds and attacks the Hindenburg, sending it into flames (STILL NO RELATION). As Red makes his escape, he runs into a young fainted child and rescues her; though he may find that their chance encounter with this child may be more trouble than its worth...
Overall, not a bad story - simple sure, but it fits with the tone the game sets. While the game's animation style and anthropomorphic animal characters may remind you of any Disney flick - do not be fooled, the twists and turns the story takes are actually pretty dark. This game actually separates itself from its predecessor in that CyberConnect2 took a chance and went with a light hearted story with very dark undertones - a risky move considering they wanted to keep the E rating, but in my opinion, they succeeded.
Main Characters :
Red Savarin :
Always energetic and optimistic, Red always carries on with a smile on his face. Despite the constant nagging and insisting from his sister Chocolat to be more careful, he always prefers to make things a bit more "exciting". Although not very refined, he is very honest and kind. With no memory of his own past, he grew up in an orphanage, where he met Chocolat - where the two became almost inseparable, eventually to the point where they became adoptive siblings. After growing old enough, he and his sister left to make their living as Hunters and, thanks to Chocolat's fascination and love for all things mechanical, managed to scrounge together for themselves and airship, and even a robot for Red to pilot on his missions. Aside from using the DAHAK as his main combat weapon, he also uses a stun bayonet for emergencies. But as with every bright side, Red unknowingly has a dark past of his own...
Chocolat Gelato :
'As Red's 13 year old adoptive sister, Chocolat has a very tiring job of keeping their air ship and Red's ZAHAK in order - as well as the pilot himself. Despite her age, she is very brilliant in fields of mechanics and engineering, justifying her role as the airship pilot of the duo. Though Chocolat is a kind and sweet girl, she has an authoritative side she often uses around Red to keep his mind on the goal - making them more money.
Elh Melizee :
A child with a mysterious past and even more questionable goals. Elh often has a cold disposition towards others, which often ticks Red off to no end. Elh actually plays a huge role in the scheme of things, which earns her the attention of corrupt individuals who wishes to use her powers. Red might think he knows her, but delving into her past may come off as quite of a shock...especially Elh's gender!
GRAPHICS:
Now, true to most of CyberConnect2's games, this title uses beautifully colored cel-shaded graphics. The area designs of this game are a mixture of both 3D models and 2D environments - a combination that actually meshes well together. With fluidly animated 2D backgrounds to accompany you as you travel the world in your DAHAK, its hard not to stop once in a while to see just whats going on around you - it literally feels like you're moving through a living, breathing art piece. With no problems of graphical pop-ups, the beautiful colors and vivid animations keep their charm throughout the game. The cel-shaded 3D models are impressive as well, keeping the feel of 3D, while being animated like actual moving 2D art.
GAMEPLAY:
When talking about the gameplay, it can be a bit of a mixed bag. The game basically centers around a quest system. As you progress through the story, you'll get campaign quests that'll advance you to the next chapter once you've done it - and with each interval, different set of side quests become available. Now, there's no worries of missing a side-quest or having to scramble to find out where to get them, because the game will tell you when new side quests appear, and where you can take them. For the side quests themselves, they're not too challenging, and by that I mean that it almost borders on too easy - like there's this one mission, where all you need to do is get to this warehouse, and defeat all the cockroaches there (easiest enemies in the game by the way).
Aside from that, you'll also find very little variation on the type of quests you take. A racing quest here, a few fetch quests there, and even a couple of arena missions from time to time. Now variation may be low, but its quickly solved by two factors - amusement and fun. When doing these quests, you'll meet new sets of characters and NPCs that, even by themselves, have enough personality to keep you hooked on doing the quest. You'll even get a cameo appearance from the heroes of Tail Concerto from time to time if you choose to do the side-quests.
Now we get to the combat system: as you may have guessed, with the inclusion of robots and airships, its a mech battle styled system. Not to say that this game rips off any other existing Gundam or Zone of the Enders game, in fact the style of combat in this game is radically different considering the mech-battle style. Instead of wielding laser swords or guns or even giant cannons or burning fingers - you'll be duking it out the old fashioned way...by picking your enemy up and tossing your enemies like they're yesterday's trash! Hell, you can even do an Air Suplex move on your unsuspecting enemies - never expected moves like that from a robot, did you? Now, the enemies and mobs themselves are simple to beat once you get into the rhythm of the game, but then there are the bosses. The Bosses themselves can be considered the most challenging part of this game - constantly testing how fast you can adapt to their ever-evolving battle techniques. Basically the goal here - is to find an opening that would allow you to do your awesome suplex and completely own the enemy, or in some cases - throw a projectile back at them. Trust me, sounds simple enough, but the game throws certain..."complications" down your road to keep it interesting.
Now, there is the choice of using the stylus to guide the DAHAK and Red's movements - but I highly suggest against it. The game was basically made to be played by using the buttons and D-pad, so as you can guess, having to use a stylus would certainly be a problem.
As a fun little tidbit - the main language of the Shepherd Republic people is French! So don't be surprised or confused when NPCs start saying French greetings or phrases to you ( I know I was at first...). Probably the only instance where you'll see dogs and cats speaking french in a video game, folks.
REPLAYABILITY:
After you've finished the campaign of this game (which should take you about a week or two to finish, there'll be a second epilogue campaign waiting for you. The second campaign also contains its own sets of side-quests and challenging bosses, as well as even more Power Crystals to find. Now, the bad thing would be that after you've done both campaigns, you're pretty much done. There's an extra boss rush challenge mission to try out after you're done, but nothing much other than that (unless you need to backtrack to find any P. Crystals you've missed).
However, if you happen to have a stable Wi-Fi connection with your DS, you may, from time to time, download the Downloadable Content Quests that will be released from time to time - furthering the story for the game for quite a bit.
From the same composer (Chikayo Fukuda) who did the music for the .hack// series, its no surprise that the songs would sound very similar to the .hack// games. However, thats not exactly a bad thing - the music for the .hack games were always very atmospheric and added to the tension and drama of the story, which is no different for how it is in Solatorobo. With a dark and endearing story - Solatorobo deserves music like this.
FINAL VERDICT:
8/10 "This Job Was Pretty Fun"
Now, even with the faults this game has - it still deserves to be commended for it's pros. What this gave me, was an unexpectedly dark story that had me hooked with its music and atmosphere (along with the relationships of the characters), a fun and unique style of combat, and challenging bosses. While the anime-styled graphics and anthromorphic characters might turn some people away, I highly suggest giving this game a try. Once you get past all of its faults, you'll find that there's a lot to love about this game's story and characters.
In fact, I almost wish this game was an animated movie instead, because of its great visuals and concept arts - its just that good.
And for those of you who are interested, but worried about the monotonous side-quests...well, its an RPG, playing enough of those eventually grants you some kind of weird immunity against it (fact).
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Target: Xenoblade Chronicles
Xenoblade Chronicles
Wii
By: Monolith Software
Genre: RPG, Adventure
Lets get this point out first : This is the single most greatest JRPG game I have played in years.
I mean, my god, from the moment you press that "Play Game" button on the Wii and click "New Game" - You're in for about 100+ hours of pure RPG goodness.
But enough of that obsessive ranting, lets go over this Case File, shall we? :
STORY:
Now, the game will probably come off as any typical RPG plot would to you in the beginning - A war erupts between two different factions and there just happens to be that one convenient legendary sword that gives the underdog faction [in this case: the Homs (humans) ] just the appropriate advantage over the other faction. But you probably want the whole story - WELL YOU'RE NOT GETTING IT (100+ hours worth of story would be too much to sum up anyways), but here, have a short summary instead:
"In the World of Xenoblade, there stands two towering giants - The Bionis (a white colored robot-like giant wielding a blade of light) and The Mechonis (a black colored robot-like giant wielding a sword of metal). These two giants have battled each other for years, even centuries - until the battle suddenly came to an abrupt end when the giants dealt a final blow to each other (The Mechonis striking the Bionis in the stomach, and the Bionis slashing the Mechonis on the shoulder). The two hulking giants died where they stood, and many many years after, life has appeared and developed on the Bionis and Mechonis: The human Homs, High Entia, and Nopon people living on the Bionis, and the robotic Mechon people on the Mechonis.
Now, as you may have saw coming - the Homs and Mechon have themselves a little war - one where the Homs (as mentioned earlier) are losing - until they discover an ancient legendary sword called The Monado. This blade is the only effective weapon that can harm and even destroy Mechon robots with ease - and (as weapons of great power usually do) only one chosen individual may be able to wield this weapon; problem is, the great weapon's powers may come at a greater price than one might think..."
AND THATS ALL YOU GET FOLKS! Trust me, it'll be much sweeter when you experience the story for yourself and with your own hands on the controller (instead of listening to my over dramatized summary).
What you get here, is a great story full of twists and turns enough to keep you hooked onto the story for the rest of the 100+ hours you'll be playing this game.
MAIN CHARACTERS:
Now, since this jewel of a game has a special place in my heart, let us introduce each main character of your party a bit, shall we?
Shulk :
Orphaned at a very young age, Shulk was found alone and asleep alongside the Monado in the deep Valak Mountains by the Colony 9 Excavation team. Ever since then, hes been cared for by the people of Colony 9, soon becoming a regular "go-to" guy in the town. Studying the ways of technology from his mentor, Dickson, Shulk grew up as a very shy and bookish lad, who often reclused himself with books rather than friends...until he met Reyn, his best friend, and Fiora - his love. After reaching his current age of 18, he's been hard at work at studying the uses and workings of the legendary Monado while his mentor Dickson is away. He also had learned the art of the sword from Dunban for self-defense, though he may find it more useful than ever...
Reyn :
Born and raised in Colony 9, Reyn was (and still is) a very hard-headed lad who often acts upon impulse rather than thinking through. After growing to the appropriate age of 18, he joined the Colony Defense Force, where his brawn could be put to use. Even being as somewhat of a brute, Reyn is immensely kind towards his best friends Shulk and Fiora, and would do anything to protect them. In battle, he uses a Shield Lance, a standard weapon for Colony Defense Soldiers with a high emphasis on defense.
Fiora :
The third of the young 18 year olds of Colony 9. She is the sister of legendary Homs war hero Dunban. Kind, sweet, and caring - Fiora always manages to be the voice of reason between the constant bickering of Reyn and Shulk. She also deeply loves Shulk (no matter how passive and nerdy Shulk can get when doing his Mondo research). In battle, she wields twin daggers, a skill she learned herself when hunting for food for the Colony; her speedy attacks are almost blinding. Ever since her brother's tragic accident in the Sword Valley War, she has been tending to him ever since, worrying about the day when Dunban will have to take up the Monado once more.
Dunban :
Known as the legendary Homs hero of Colony 9, Dunban played a great part in helping the Homs win the battle of Sword Valley. As a young adult, he was known as the only one who could wield the Monado, and use it effectively - that coupled with his masterful swordplay made him an almost perfect soldier in the Colony Defense Force. But, in his youthful arrogance, the Monado had almost overwhelmed him in Sword Valley. When the final push was ahead, Dunban used all of his strength to control the Monado one last time - and led the Homs to victory that day. However, that victory costed him the use of his right arm...a crippling blow to a famous hero and swordsman. Over the years, Dunban grew to the age of 30, now a wise and sage adult who has learned greatly form his past mistakes. Ever since the day he lost the use of his right arm, he could no longer use the Monado without straining his own health. However, that does not stop his spirit as a warrior, over the years he practiced the use of the sword on his left arm. Now, in battle, he wields a sword in his left arm, effectively dealing massive damage to the enemy with his graceful swordplay. The day soon approaches when he must wield the Monado once more...but is he truly it's chosen?...
Sharla :
Sharla is a medic in the Colony 6 Defense Force. With her mastery of ether bullets and the rifle, she effectively provides aid and healing to soldiers on the field from a far range. Ever since the disappearance of her boyfriend Gadolt, an expert marksmen in the Defense Force, during the Mechon assault on Colony 6 - she has sworn to protect everyone in the Colony until the day Gadolt will return...
Melia :
The royal princess and soon-to-be queen of the High Entia people. Melia has always lived a sheltered, yet very just life. She cares deeply for the fate and future of her own people. Being a half Homs, half High Entia being, there has been many talks among her people about her legitimacy to the throne - the kind of talk that earns her quite an amount of enemies. Even so, she only wishes to do what she can for her subjects and people. In battle, she uses the innate ability of High Entias to use Ether energy without the use of catalysts or bullets against her foes, crippling them with the elemental forces. Due to her cultured life, she's never been close to any Homs...until...
Riki :
The legendary Heropon of the Nopon people! Always happy, cheerful, brave, and with a heart of gold - Riki always manages to be the shining star of the team. With an almost child-like innocence to him, he shares the trait with many many other of the small Nopon people. He volunteered to be the designated Heropon warrior of Frontier Village to pay off his massive debts to the Chief. In battle, he utilizes a hammer, and also a plethora of Heropon arts and magics that make him a unique addition to the mix. Don't let his looks and speech fool you though, hes older than he seems...
Now, before I begin, I fully understand that a game doesn't need to have the prettiest graphics to be a great game - but know this: It certainly helps.
Being that this is a game on the Wii, don't expect anything impressive equal to the caliber of Bayonetta or even God of War 3. Still, the graphics on this game are impressive considering that its running on the Wii and the length of the game. I'll admit now, whilst playing this game - I often forget that I'm playing a Wii game at all, why? Because the graphics are that good.
And yes, there will be occasional graphical pop-ups and sometimes the game will lag for a few second or two because of all the awesomeness happening on-screen (but its not exactly game breaking and won't take you out of the experience). What matters most is that this game also puts the good graphics to good use - while traveling in the world, you'll often want to stop sometimes to take in the sights - a far off pure waterfall with a beautiful rainbow overhead...sounds fruity I know, but hey don't blame me when you yourself do it.
GAMEPLAY:
Oho, NOW we get to the goodies of this game - the freaking gameplay, folks. Any good RPG fan would know that what makes a good RPG is half story, and half gameplay - well, this game has succeeded in both. If you need a simplified relate-able way to describe the gameplay style then...I suppose you can say its a mix of Final Fantasy 12 and MMORPG.
But simplifying it like that would be defeating the points - this game revolutionizes old RPG concepts, while retaining its own unique style.
For Xenoblade Chronicles, you have the choice of using two controller types - The Wiimote and Nunchuk, or the Classic Wii Controller. Now, being that this is a hardcore RPG game (and a good one at that) you're gonna want to use the Classic Wii Controller, it'll certainly help LOTS with camera control; however, so far there have been no complaints on the side of the Wiimote users, so either one would work, with certain advantages.
This game is certainly not a turn-based game - the whole world is free-roam, allowing you to travel anywhere you'd like, and with the scope and size of each area, you'll really feel immersed into this world Monolith Software has created. You'll be doing alot of walking and traveling in this game, however, do not fear, there is a fast-travel function to return to landmarks you've visited before in each area (making backtracking an ease). You certainly won't be bored in this journey either, the lands of Bionis and Mechonis are filled with all sorts of unique creatures and baddies that'll give you a run for your money. In battle, everything is free and real-time, you will auto-attack enemies while a long bar of your abilities and skills lies at the bottom of your screen just waiting for you to use one of your many deadly skills on the enemy.
You'll often have to coordinate the attacks between your party of three, so it won't be a simple of matter of mashing skills or running around the enemy in a circle (there are abilities that are more effective when used behind or at the side of an enemy) - so positioning matters as well as strategy. Each party member has their own specialties and unique abilities that clearly define their roles in the group, allowing you to strategize and create your most preferred team to use. The best part? Your heroes aren't simply silent 3D models who just stand there and repeat attack animations - they'll actually talk in battle, encouraging each other and raising morale - not to mention the dialogue changes depending on which party members you have, making it feel more like an actual team of friends and comrades; rather than just a group of strangers who barely know or care about each other.
Did I mention that this game also actually has a real-time clock and weather system? And that certain areas will look different depending on if its Night or Day? or that the weather and time will carry over into cutscenes? AS WELL AS THE ARMOR YOUR PARTY MEMBERS ARE WEARING!?
...'nuff said.
Considering the grand length and progress you shall make in this game, it certainly helps that you are allowed to save anywhere you want (as long as its not during a battle). And trust me, as big as the world is in this game, you won't want to have to run back and find a nearby save point every time you want to save your progress.
Now, no game is perfect, so of course there are some nitpicks - like the fact that for certain side quests (and trust me, there are ALOT of side quests to take) you'll have to report back to the NPC you first got it from, which can be annoying with how huge the areas are - and certain NPCs only appear during a certain time of the day, so it can be staggering to have to struggle to remember where a certain NPC is just to turn in a quest (since the game doesn't tell you were each NPC is, but rather only what time they appear). Another problem would be that sometimes the camera can get weird on you, moving to a certain direction because you just glanced over a wall (not a problem that happens often, but still can get annoying at times).
REPLAYABILITY:
Even after finishing the game, you'll be treated with a New Game+ feature, where you can carry your levels and equipment over to a new save file - not to mention that you get a few "extras" for starting a New Game+ play through. Couple that with the fact that there are secret bosses and areas available on your second play-through, as well as different story choices to make during quests that drastically changes your relationships with NPCs - and you got yourself a game that will last you more than just a few weeks.
MUSIC:
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........Yoko Shimomura, ACE+, Yasunori Mitsuda, Manami Kiyota.......
.........'Nuff said.
FINAL VERDICT:
10/10 "A Perfect 'Hit' Job"
Well the score shouldn't surprise you considering all that I've talked about on this game, and the best thing is? I DIDN'T TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING, there's more! Gem-crafting, side-quests, Colony 6 Reconstruction, Immigration for Colony 6, AND MORE.
This game is a fine gem that should be a huge breath of fresh air for any RPG fans, and as for gamers interested in other genres - give this game a shot, hell, you might even get into RPGs because of it.
The best thing this target has taught me is that there is still hope for the RPG genre, and I thank it for that. Well? What are you waiting for!? Go get this game now!....
.......Oh....right...its still only released for Japan and Europe.......................................................................................
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