We've all played plenty of bad games in our time, obviously in varying degress of shittiness. If you were lucky, they just weren't your cup of tea, but if you weren't....
My point is, there is no shortage of bad games out there. But the game I am about to review has to be one of the worst games in history.
Get ready for... Maken Shao: Demon Sword.
When I picked up this game, I had never heard of it. I simply saw it in Gamestation, it looked cool, and it was pretty cheap. So I thought, why the hell not?
The story was what intruiged me the most, it sounded interesting.
There's a sword that's alive, it's possessed or something like that, and if you take control of it you are in danger of being possessed by that sword but you are also forced to carry it or die. The sword also gives you the power to "mind jack" any of the NPCs around you, even an enemy that you yourself have just killed. Sounds pretty awesome, right?
Well, this game is a prime example of a good idea ruined by shockingly awful presentation. In every area that a game can use to make itself good and interesting, this game falls down a flaming set of stairs and into a spike trap. The first warning light that went off, was at the sight of the opening cutscene.
The graphics were horrendous. Everything was polygonal, the characters moved stiffly and their dialogue was out of sync with their lip movements. Ugh. On top of that, the voice acting for the cutscene is some of the worst I have ever heard. It is not only terribly acted, but simply sounds like the creators went around knocking on many doors to find someone to do the voices, until they finally happened upon the half deaf 70 year old postman and got him to do it. Seriously, it's sounds as if the dialogue is being read by someone with no emotion whatsoever.
But I kept on going with it, thinking over and over again that gameplay and story can really save a game with bad graphics if done right. Even the terrible dialogue could be excused if it was really that awesome. Little did I know that the real shit was just around the corner. So after the torturous cutscene finally ended, you are finally given control of the woman who takes up the sword in order to save the lives of the people around her. Fair enough, I think I too would take up an all powerful sword, even one with such penalties, if it was to defend myself and the people around me.
So, here is when I finally clocked on to how awful this game truly was. The combat was indescribibly bad. It was stodgy, the controls were so fucking delayed you would be bashing on Sqaure for 2 seconds before the character finally stopped scratching their arse and did something and over all, the combat was dull. Yes that's right, the combat was dull in a game about an evil all powerful sword.
The game sets you up with a few basic combos to start, which is fair enough, so with that in mind I kept going forward despite the fact that the awful controls were slowly chipping away at my patience and will to live, thinking that maybe once the game progressed you would be granted with some more fluid combos that just might make this game tolerable. But no, it is always bashing away at square, and occasionally X, watching your character swing their sword laboriously from side to side as if the air has suddenly been replaced with invisible concrete. All in all, this game is beyond terrible. It sucks in every possible way that a game could suck, it does not have one saving grace to stop it from being sent to the deepest pit of Video Game hell, where Pyramid Head judges these atrocities of gaming in whatever way he sees fit.
Do not play this game under any circumstances, even if you are for some reason given it for free. It is a waste of time and energy and whoever made it should be punished severely.
My point is, there is no shortage of bad games out there. But the game I am about to review has to be one of the worst games in history.
Get ready for... Maken Shao: Demon Sword.
When I picked up this game, I had never heard of it. I simply saw it in Gamestation, it looked cool, and it was pretty cheap. So I thought, why the hell not?
The story was what intruiged me the most, it sounded interesting.
There's a sword that's alive, it's possessed or something like that, and if you take control of it you are in danger of being possessed by that sword but you are also forced to carry it or die. The sword also gives you the power to "mind jack" any of the NPCs around you, even an enemy that you yourself have just killed. Sounds pretty awesome, right?
Well, this game is a prime example of a good idea ruined by shockingly awful presentation. In every area that a game can use to make itself good and interesting, this game falls down a flaming set of stairs and into a spike trap. The first warning light that went off, was at the sight of the opening cutscene.
The graphics were horrendous. Everything was polygonal, the characters moved stiffly and their dialogue was out of sync with their lip movements. Ugh. On top of that, the voice acting for the cutscene is some of the worst I have ever heard. It is not only terribly acted, but simply sounds like the creators went around knocking on many doors to find someone to do the voices, until they finally happened upon the half deaf 70 year old postman and got him to do it. Seriously, it's sounds as if the dialogue is being read by someone with no emotion whatsoever.
But I kept on going with it, thinking over and over again that gameplay and story can really save a game with bad graphics if done right. Even the terrible dialogue could be excused if it was really that awesome. Little did I know that the real shit was just around the corner. So after the torturous cutscene finally ended, you are finally given control of the woman who takes up the sword in order to save the lives of the people around her. Fair enough, I think I too would take up an all powerful sword, even one with such penalties, if it was to defend myself and the people around me.
So, here is when I finally clocked on to how awful this game truly was. The combat was indescribibly bad. It was stodgy, the controls were so fucking delayed you would be bashing on Sqaure for 2 seconds before the character finally stopped scratching their arse and did something and over all, the combat was dull. Yes that's right, the combat was dull in a game about an evil all powerful sword.
The game sets you up with a few basic combos to start, which is fair enough, so with that in mind I kept going forward despite the fact that the awful controls were slowly chipping away at my patience and will to live, thinking that maybe once the game progressed you would be granted with some more fluid combos that just might make this game tolerable. But no, it is always bashing away at square, and occasionally X, watching your character swing their sword laboriously from side to side as if the air has suddenly been replaced with invisible concrete. All in all, this game is beyond terrible. It sucks in every possible way that a game could suck, it does not have one saving grace to stop it from being sent to the deepest pit of Video Game hell, where Pyramid Head judges these atrocities of gaming in whatever way he sees fit.
Do not play this game under any circumstances, even if you are for some reason given it for free. It is a waste of time and energy and whoever made it should be punished severely.
