Hello and welcome to my first review, of a game that has somehow escaped the public thrashing I am about to give it for some time now. I hope you are sitting comfortably because there is a lot to ***** about here.
Originally for the PS1 and Sega Saturn, someone thought it was worthy of a remake for the PS2 and Wii, and I was unwittingly subjected to the PS2 version, so let's start off with the controls. This is what I suppose you would call an action RPG dungeon crawler, and the controls are fiddly at best.
We start as we mean to go on with an anime style opening that's so over the top Gothic it makes we want to puke, then we are dropped into a hub area. It's a small town in a post- apocalyptic landscape with a red sky, dark buildings, and a small cast of NPCs who all had to share one character trait- creepy. Wait, scratch that, two- unhelpful as well.
Seriously, a dark tone is all well and good, but then there's a goddamn cure concert in the devil's rectum! A weird archangel fellow gives you a gun and tells you to go to the bottom of the "Neuro Tower" and "purify" something or other, I don't know, it's been awhile since I played this. So I enter the tower, and many of my complaints arise.
First, the aforementioned control issues. It's a third person action game, and yes, you guessed it, we have camera problems. The neuro tower is very cramped, and rotating the camera is irritating at times, so get ready to be attacked by off screen enemies. Targeting these enemies is an issue even when we can see them. I tried my gun first, and it was like aiming with my eyes crossed in a spinning dryer. You can't hold a button to aim, you just have to point your character in the direction of an enemy and hope he is polite enough to stand still. But this is irrelevant, because you can only carry five rounds for the thing and you will be encountering enemies every ten feet!
Second, the combat. The .12 gauge useless automatic is just a plot device, so you'll be relying on melee weapons for the combat. You collect swords with various amounts of reach, combo length and elemental affinity. So it has a little variety at the core, but it gets worse. You have one attack button (or wiimote flail), and no dodge move, so fighting consists of running up to your least favorite enemy and smacking them around until they die. You are assaulted by very repetitive clumps of enemies all the time, so it gets old. Fast.
Next, the level design. When I said this was a dungeon crawler, I should have specified. You crawl ONE dungeon over and over until you throw this game in the dumpster where it belongs! I did as the game commanded, crawled to the bottom of the neuro tower and purified a god or something, then I was dumped back into Emoville, USA. None of the NPCs had anything interesting to say, so I headed back towards the tower and the angel dude gave me the EXACT SAME OBJECTIVE. I was positive my save had been corrupted somehow because the second 40 minuted was a carbon copy of the first. I started again, but no. The designers were just lazy dicks. So you just have the neuro tower to fart around in, but at least that place is fun, right? WRONG.
This offense is to grievous for one paragraph, so let me describe is hellhole as best I can. I've played games with levels that are too linear, or unintuitive. But I have never seen a dev team with the BALLS to have RANDOMLY GENERATED LEVELS. This corridor- fest is an endless load of padding, save for a few important floors the designers felt like putting some work into. Around three quarters of the floors are just a succession of enemies and trap floors between you and the portal to the next floor. The story is so minimalistic it doesn't warrant much mention. They throw a cutscene at you now and again out of the blue to provide exposition, but I learned nothing. I have no idea who I am, who anyone is, or what exactly triggered the apocalypse, so you can safely ignore them for the first few hours.
The rest of the game is the tragic mishandling of the RPG elements we all know and love. Your blank slate protagonist levels up as you kill the strange beings from the repetitive dimension, but it goes slowly and you can't learn any new skills, just increase your attack and defense. Item collection is a staple because the designers have a deep seated fear of originality. You will be constantly finding new weapons and armor, provided by hot topic of course, to fit yourself with. They provide the occasional stat boost and immunity, which works all right, but then there are the items. First, you are CONSTANTLY dying. Your vitality drains as you walk, attack, and pick your nose, so you will need to pick up and use the healing items dropped by the enemies all the time. The motivation to survive could add a dimension of suspense, but the levels are so repetitive and dull, it just gets annoying. Oh, and you occasionally find a "mystery box" that either gives you a random item... or explodes in your face. Dick move, guys.
But the final blow lies in the progression. When you load, you will see your name, how much of your life you have wasted on this piece of garbage, and a number. It starts at -1, and I noticed it rising as I played. Then I realized how you progress the story. You can either walk aaaaaall the way to the bottom of the tower to progress the story... or you can (drumroll, please) get killed! You can trigger new cutscenes in the tower just by getting killed and coming back! I've heard of games that are too easy, but they actually WANT you to DIE! And regardless of whether you scaled the tower or just stood around for ten minutes and died, you loose all of your items, equipment and experience. Around my fourth journey to square fucking one, I abandoned this game, as should everyone else.
Well that's about it. The game was developed by a bunch of Japanese guys no one's ever heard of in 1999, spawned a sequel that fortunately never came to America, and Atlus, the far superior company that published this for some reason decided to remake it in in 2008. Please share your opinions of my first review.
Originally for the PS1 and Sega Saturn, someone thought it was worthy of a remake for the PS2 and Wii, and I was unwittingly subjected to the PS2 version, so let's start off with the controls. This is what I suppose you would call an action RPG dungeon crawler, and the controls are fiddly at best.
We start as we mean to go on with an anime style opening that's so over the top Gothic it makes we want to puke, then we are dropped into a hub area. It's a small town in a post- apocalyptic landscape with a red sky, dark buildings, and a small cast of NPCs who all had to share one character trait- creepy. Wait, scratch that, two- unhelpful as well.
Seriously, a dark tone is all well and good, but then there's a goddamn cure concert in the devil's rectum! A weird archangel fellow gives you a gun and tells you to go to the bottom of the "Neuro Tower" and "purify" something or other, I don't know, it's been awhile since I played this. So I enter the tower, and many of my complaints arise.
First, the aforementioned control issues. It's a third person action game, and yes, you guessed it, we have camera problems. The neuro tower is very cramped, and rotating the camera is irritating at times, so get ready to be attacked by off screen enemies. Targeting these enemies is an issue even when we can see them. I tried my gun first, and it was like aiming with my eyes crossed in a spinning dryer. You can't hold a button to aim, you just have to point your character in the direction of an enemy and hope he is polite enough to stand still. But this is irrelevant, because you can only carry five rounds for the thing and you will be encountering enemies every ten feet!
Second, the combat. The .12 gauge useless automatic is just a plot device, so you'll be relying on melee weapons for the combat. You collect swords with various amounts of reach, combo length and elemental affinity. So it has a little variety at the core, but it gets worse. You have one attack button (or wiimote flail), and no dodge move, so fighting consists of running up to your least favorite enemy and smacking them around until they die. You are assaulted by very repetitive clumps of enemies all the time, so it gets old. Fast.
Next, the level design. When I said this was a dungeon crawler, I should have specified. You crawl ONE dungeon over and over until you throw this game in the dumpster where it belongs! I did as the game commanded, crawled to the bottom of the neuro tower and purified a god or something, then I was dumped back into Emoville, USA. None of the NPCs had anything interesting to say, so I headed back towards the tower and the angel dude gave me the EXACT SAME OBJECTIVE. I was positive my save had been corrupted somehow because the second 40 minuted was a carbon copy of the first. I started again, but no. The designers were just lazy dicks. So you just have the neuro tower to fart around in, but at least that place is fun, right? WRONG.
This offense is to grievous for one paragraph, so let me describe is hellhole as best I can. I've played games with levels that are too linear, or unintuitive. But I have never seen a dev team with the BALLS to have RANDOMLY GENERATED LEVELS. This corridor- fest is an endless load of padding, save for a few important floors the designers felt like putting some work into. Around three quarters of the floors are just a succession of enemies and trap floors between you and the portal to the next floor. The story is so minimalistic it doesn't warrant much mention. They throw a cutscene at you now and again out of the blue to provide exposition, but I learned nothing. I have no idea who I am, who anyone is, or what exactly triggered the apocalypse, so you can safely ignore them for the first few hours.
The rest of the game is the tragic mishandling of the RPG elements we all know and love. Your blank slate protagonist levels up as you kill the strange beings from the repetitive dimension, but it goes slowly and you can't learn any new skills, just increase your attack and defense. Item collection is a staple because the designers have a deep seated fear of originality. You will be constantly finding new weapons and armor, provided by hot topic of course, to fit yourself with. They provide the occasional stat boost and immunity, which works all right, but then there are the items. First, you are CONSTANTLY dying. Your vitality drains as you walk, attack, and pick your nose, so you will need to pick up and use the healing items dropped by the enemies all the time. The motivation to survive could add a dimension of suspense, but the levels are so repetitive and dull, it just gets annoying. Oh, and you occasionally find a "mystery box" that either gives you a random item... or explodes in your face. Dick move, guys.
But the final blow lies in the progression. When you load, you will see your name, how much of your life you have wasted on this piece of garbage, and a number. It starts at -1, and I noticed it rising as I played. Then I realized how you progress the story. You can either walk aaaaaall the way to the bottom of the tower to progress the story... or you can (drumroll, please) get killed! You can trigger new cutscenes in the tower just by getting killed and coming back! I've heard of games that are too easy, but they actually WANT you to DIE! And regardless of whether you scaled the tower or just stood around for ten minutes and died, you loose all of your items, equipment and experience. Around my fourth journey to square fucking one, I abandoned this game, as should everyone else.
Well that's about it. The game was developed by a bunch of Japanese guys no one's ever heard of in 1999, spawned a sequel that fortunately never came to America, and Atlus, the far superior company that published this for some reason decided to remake it in in 2008. Please share your opinions of my first review.
