Tag Archives: PS2

Orphen Scion of Sorcery Review

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It’s time for a game that was on the back burner for a very long time. I got this game years ago, but better late than never right? Since I saw the TV shows not too long ago, it seemed like a good opportunity to finally play the game. It has some unique concepts when it comes to the gamplay, but unfortunately the puzzles, boss designs, and the plot hold this game back a little. It’s still a fun little adventure, but it certainly could have been a lot better. Having to play the game 3 times over to see the true ending was a bad sign from the start.

Orphen is a sorcerer and currently travels along with his apprentice and a heroine who is seeking adventure. Two trolls tell them that a boat is heading to their next destination, but unfortunately, Orphen never learned that you should not trust trolls. The boat is actually heading to a haunted island. The mystery thickens when the ship is attacked by monsters and Orphen is forced to land on the island. From here, you have the option of helping out one person out of the three individuals. You can help out the tough warrior who is searching for his daughter. You could help out the girl who is trying to find the grave of her fiancee to properly mourn him. Or, you can help a kid find his mother who is lost on the island. You can only help one person per playthrough though and then you have to start the game again to help the next person. There will be some slight changes as Orphen partially remembers that he has gone back in time, but quickly forgets after the first cutscene since the game doesn’t know which story you’d pick first and a lot of the dialogue would change if Orphen remembered. No matter who you help, you’ll eventually try to find the Crystal Egg which lets you pass through time. You’ll need to do so in order to locate the missing people and keep the giant monster at bay. Once you’ve helped everyone out, you can finally fight against the true boss of the island.

Unfortunately, the plot goes off the rails by the time you finish it. For starters, the three stories can’t seem to agree on anything. In the kid’s story, the old lady is actually a hero who is trying to keep the beast from waking up and destroying everyone. However, in the lady’s story, the old woman is the one kidnapping kids and aging them into teenagers to further her own ambitions. Likewise, in the warrior’s story, she is also the main villain. The ending sheds some light on this, but makes the rest of the story more convoluted as well. See, this island was actually one big illusion. It may be more accurate to call it a theater stage though. The robot would animate the bodies and have Orphen live through fake quests based on old stories from ancient times. That’s why the characters kept switching roles and personalities. It’s because the actors were playing different characters at that point. Luckily, one of the souls was still wandering around and inhabited the robot’s A.I. assistant and summoned Orphen to destroy him once and for all.

This leads to some painfully long cutscenes with the robot talking very slowly and panicking while the assistant also dies because their lives are linked. Orphen takes this in stride though and the gang is back to their normal cheerful dispositions after leaving the place. They did save the bodies from being used in an endless puppet show so that’s something to feel good about. It was a fairly unnecessary twist though and the whole final act was just really boring and random. Seriously, the plot is definitely not this game’s strong point and it just won’t keep your attention after a while. Seeing the heroes bicker all the time can be endearing I suppose…

Graphically, the game is all right. The character models are good for their time and the boss designs are fun. The levels are also quite big and there are a nice variety of them even if a few like the tower and the boat are overused. My TV has a very tough time playing any PS2 game without the lighting going down to its minimum levels. This made seeing the game a little trickier than it should be, but it has happened so many times that I’m pretty sure its an issue on my level rather than with the game. Nonetheless, I was always happy to see a rare daytime level as most of the stages took place at night. Day-Time levels are better 99% of the time as a good night level is quite rare. Still, they are possible of course, you just have to make sure that it is still light out like in the good ole Shadow The Hedgehog game.

There are actual anime cutscenes in the game which was really impressive for its time. I still get excited to see that nowadays since it is as rare now as it was 10 years ago. There may not have been a lot of them, but it was better than nothing. As for the soundtrack, it is very limited so I wouldn’t expect much from the title here. The minion theme is boring, but the boss track was fairly good. Those are really the only two big themes in the game although a few more will pop up here and there. It’s certainly sub-par though and I expect better from a game like this one.

All right, lets talk about the actual gameplay. There are two different styles to be found. When you’re not locked in combat, it is your standard 3D platformer. You walk through the levels and try to get to the end of them. Sometimes you will have to find items, step on switches, break objects, or solve puzzles. You have an energy sword, energy blasts, and you can jump in this mode. The energy blast is never used once, but it is fun to look at I suppose. The sword is useful once in a while for breaking towers. This part of the game is fun for the most part, but the puzzles are extremely annoying when they pop up.

One puzzle has you reconstruct a music piece using 6 tunes, but only 4 of them are in the pass code. It sounds easier than it is as the combinations that sound right don’t work. You assistant will let you know which 4 notes should be used in the combination, but I spent over 2 hours trying out every possible version and none of them worked. Why is that? Well, to see if it really worked, you actually have to hit the retry note which will apparently play your combination against the lock. What this means is that I actually did get the right answer a few times, but it didn’t count in each instance because I didn’t hit the white note. Now that was just terrible and very annoying. There were other such puzzles that got old very quickly. Even chasing the bunny was a pretty sad minigame as you apparently had to walk slowly to catch him, but the game never even hints at it until someone mentions this fact.

Ah well, at least the combat section is mostly fun. You can equip up to 4 spells to use and one of them is a barrier. You must time your attacks well so that you can block and retaliate while not getting hit. This gets tricky when a lot of villains show up so at that point I recommend just blasting away at them all. The bosses can be a bit long at times, but most of them are fun as well. The only cheap boss is the final one which is very poorly designed. He’ll block anything you throw at him when he feels like it and will occasionally send in minions to attack you. There are so many minions and they attack so quickly that you are sure to get hit by them. I just kept on trying and trying until I somehow landed enough blows to win. A lot of luck was involved and the boss would just randomly not block at times while he would on other occasions. One helpful tip is to remember that you can retry the battle if you are about to lose. That way you won’t have to go back to your last save point. Trust me, it will save you a lot of time considering that the cutscenes can’t be skipped and that they are quite long at times.

There is absolutely no replay value unfortunately. Once you have beaten all of the stories and obtained the true ending, there really isn’t anything more to do here. The main campaign is fairly long though since it is over 10 hours. That will last you long enough to justify the purchase and the game probably would have really dragged on had it gone any further. I can’t say that I was too pleased about having to play the game 3 times over even if it did a better job of making all the stories unique than most titles. I guess the fact that the game could keep on switching everyone’s roles without worrying about plot holes probably helped quite a bit.

Overall, Orphen certainly could have been a better game. The combat gameplay was very unique and it was fun to play around with. The game probably could have done more with it since most of the bosses and minions were a little too similar. For being a puzzle game, there luckily weren’t a lot of puzzles, but some of them were still extremely annoying so that is definitely a good thing. Fans of the Orphen TV show should definitely check it out. Just seeing the gang again should be nostalgic even if the voices are way different here. Orphen’s meanness is also exaggerated quite a bit here, but it was fun to listen to his lines so I was pretty cool with that. To the average video game fan, I recommend it, but cautiously. You can certainly do better and find a game that will grab your attention more, but this still isn’t a bad game. You’ll just slowly find that you lose more and more interest in the title as you get closer to the end.

Overall 6/10

King of Fighters Maximum Impact Review

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King of Fighters has always lagged way behind Tekken and Street Fighter for me. None of the characters are particularly interesting and it has always felt like a Street Fighter game, but with all of the iconic characters replaced with randoms. I’m sure that later games have helped to give all of them some personality and backstory, but this game definitely doesn’t help their case. I still have a lot of catching up to do with this series though so hopefully the price goes down on some of the originals soon. I went on my big fighting game kick for Christmas, but there will probably be a different theme this year so it could be a while. Well, let’s dive into this title.

First off, one disappointing thing here is the fact that the Arcade Mode is even more bare bones than usual. Characters don’t even get an opening or an ending anymore. That’s essentially the definition of lazy if you ask me. You are only incentivized to play through the game once since every character has the same opening and ending. There is as slight plot at least, but it is still lazy to now give each character something unique. They are all invited to a tournament that is being held by some gangsters. Once you defeat everyone who stands in your way, you defeat the main villain in front of a large crowd and he says that you’ll both meet again…in hell! It’s a pretty hardcore line even if we completely wrecked this guy.

In a way it is good that the characters don’t get a real story though. That’s because your game option settings don’t apply to Arcade Mode so you have to do a best of 3 the entire time. The final level is also very difficult to the point where button mashing simply won’t be effective anymore. You’ll have to end up actually learning the game a bit and even then it should take several tries to finally beat the final boss unless you’re already a pro. I’d rather not imagine myself doing it with every character and I only ended up completing the game with the first two.

The gameplay is your average 2D fighter like with Street Fighter and the other similar games. It does seem like it is very hard to get up in this game though because attacks seem to have very high priority. In the final level of Arcade Mode, forget about even trying to rise. Your opponent will simply slam you back into the turf every single time and his combos can take out half of your life bar or more with a single combo. Something seems off with this and I could see the competitive scene dying instantly for this game. It reminds me of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for Gamecube. Of course, that game was a blast and had excellent graphics and a solid soundtrack to back it up. It clobbers this game, but that’s another story.

This is still a solid fighting game. It’s why fighters are so much fun. Even if the characters are not all that likable and there is no real story mode to speak of, the vs mode is what really counts here. A good multiplayer mode means instant replay value and this is the kind of game that is perfect for playing at any random time. You can just turn on the PS2 and prepare yourself for some fun games. Of course, it has less replay value if you’re on your own of course. Still, I guess you could have fun fighting the computers for a while.

I’ll give the game some more props for the fact that it actually has a big opening. Back in the day a lot of games skipped this step or barely did anything with it so that was pretty neat. It unfortunately could not get past the trap of including a little fanservice though so that was pretty regrettable. The dialogue and writing is still as clunky as ever, but at this point King of Fighters is known for that so maybe it was partially intentional at the time. Beyond that, the graphics are pretty good. I’d say that they’re certainly above average for this time period and actually look better than the Street Fighter Alpha games. Granted, that may not be saying a whole lot since those games were quite a bit older.

The soundtrack is very solid as well. There is a solid opera esque theme for one of the stages and there are quite a few tunes. The game did a good job of adding in a lot of variety and this really puts Capcom Fighting Evolution to shame surprisingly. This is definitely one of the highlights for King of Fighters so hopefully the future installments will follow suit in this regard. Just give me some more hype music and we’re good.

Overall, Maximum Impact is a worthy spinoff to the main series. I still think that the games could do a better job of making the character likable and motivated. There’s no real reason to pick someone over another character aside from the all important tiers because none of them have any real personality yet. They all seem like tough guys and gals. Everyone seems to share that trait, but they don’t really have anything else to show for it. Terry’s my favorite character, but that’s really because of the name so I’m not totally sure if that counts. There’s not a whole lot to do here besides multiplayer mode, but that should be enough to tide you over. After all, if you’re buying the game, I assume that multiplayer is the reason for your purchase. Hopefully the series will have more of a real arcade mode in the main titles.

Overall 7/10

Capcom Fighting Evolution Review

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Capcom Fighting Evolution is definitely an obscure Capcom crossover. I may have seen the cover once or twice back in the day, but only briefly and I instantly forgot about it. Some of the roster decisions for this game were very odd, but I’m still surprised that it is not more popular. It’s a fun enough game although there is nothing really unique about this title. It just fills the bill as a fighting game and doesn’t try to do anything more with itself.

There is no story mode of course although every character does have an ending which is great. That’s something I used to take for granted in a fighting game, but with some titles not bothering with it anymore, it is fun to see. There are no openings for the characters, but I’ll settle for the endings. This game uses a tag team system so the beauty of this is that you unlock both endings for every time you do Arcade Mode. It allows you to see all of the endings a lot quicker than you would have otherwise.

Normally this is the part where I’d say that there is pretty much no replay value, but Arcade Mode is typically the only thing you expect from a fighting game. That’s still not a great excuse, but multiplayer mode is where you’ll find the replay value at. Find someone to play this with and you’ll have a blast picking from the various characters. The series that are represented here are Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter II, Street Fighter III, Red Earth, and Darkstalkers. I have to say that it is a little iffy to have Street Fighter represented three times. Especially when there is one big Capcom franchise left out here. Need I mention which one? The Mega Man franchise!

Capcom has a very bad track record of leaving this franchise out to dry whenever they come out with a big crossover. Mega Man’s absence in Marvel vs Capcom 3 speaks volumes and the fact that Mega Man Volnutt/Trigger made it into Tatsunoko vs Capcom over the other Megamen is also odd. It’s a shame because a Mega Man rep being in the game would have guaranteed 3 more since each franchise got a full block of fighters. Yes, this is definitely a pretty big missed opportunity if you ask me. Another odd character exclusion is Morrigan from Darkstalkers. She’s the face of the franchise and yet she was skipped over. It’s very strange to say the least. I can’t say that I’m a fan of hers at all, but she still beats Felicia, who somehow got to be playable in this one. Also, what about Ken from Street Fighter? Surely he deserved a spot here given his iconic status.

There is also an original character for this game. The mysterious Ingrid, whose abilities are quite lethal. She seems to be a cosmic being who may be above all of these street level fighters, but we’ll need some more appearances to prove that she’s not just all talk. This character does have a lot of potential though and her powers are a lot of fun. We can always use more magical fighters even if they can be a little hard to control at times.

This is a retro fighting game that uses sprites so it is hard to really say how the graphics are. The character models are essentially ripped straight from the respective titles. The models all look pretty good, but they aren’t exactly new either. You won’t really be looking at the sprites much while you’re fighting either since you’ll need your full concentration. Regardless, the graphics definitely aren’t bad. I’d say that they’re totally standard and are up to snuff for this fighting game.

As for the soundtrack, it is good. It’s always fun to hear the Street Fighter themes although the Darktalker/Red Earth ones were very forgettable. In a way, it’s probably good that Street Fighter counted as three different series since it meant that we got more themes from those series although, once again…Mega Man themes would have been beyond hype. Those are the themes that we deserved. Still, the music works for the fighting.

I totally skipped over the actual gameplay angle, but I assume that everyone knows how this plays when I mention the words “Street Fighter” This is a 2D fighting game that is very bread and butter. You can kick, punch, and mix those attacks for various combos and super attacks. Yeah, that’s really all there is too it. This game uses the 2 vs 2 system, which is a blast since I always liked that way to play. My personal favorite is when you don’t die until both of your fighters are gone like Marvel vs Capcom, but any kind of tag team play is still pretty neat. I’m waiting for Super Smash Bros to implement something like that. Now that would be really awesome! Seriously, Super Smash needs to get on that!

Overall, Capcom Fighting Evolution is a fun fighting game. If I was a more dedicated Street Fighter fan then I may be upset at the wasted potential that is here. The character roster is very small and there wasn’t a whole lot of effort put behind the gameplay. The American cover is also pretty sketchy, but that’s more of a nitpick than anything else. It’s really just your standard Street Fighter game with a few broken guest stars. The big dinosaur feels so out of place, but I suppose that’s part of the appeal. It’s like having Sentinel in Marvel vs Capcom 3. It’s hilarious just how big he is. If you like Capcom then I definitely recommend getting it. It may not be fancy, but this is still a crossover. You’re bound to have some fun with it.

Overall 7/10

Speed Racer Review

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I finally managed to complete the Speed Racer video game! It’s actually quite fun although it’s the kind of game where you can definitely get worn out with the tournaments. Also be warned that it can definitely induce seizures. It’s rather unique for a cash in and it’s easily one of the best PS2 racing games. I got it for a decent price so I can definitely say that it was worth it and it is one of the final games from my Christmas batch that I had yet to complete. Let’s look at what makes this game cool.

First of all, there is no real story mode, but we do get a tournament mode. That’s a fair trade off if you ask me although I certainly would have preferred a plot. You basically have to play around 30-40 tournaments and each tournament has 2-5 races in them. Unfortunately, a bunch of the tournaments are in the 4-5 range so they can be quite long. That’s my main problem with the game. No matter how fun the gameplay is, staying glued to the TV for 30-40 minutes on one tournament can be quite taxing. Beating the game is definitely a long battle and it will leave you feeling very tired by the end.

The standard rules for the race are set to 2 laps and 12 racers. The 2 laps part may sound pretty great at first, but they still take around 3-4 minutes per track so it still manages to be as long as the average Mario Kart stage..or even longer than those stages. 3 laps would have definitely been too much and even with 2, I think that some of the stages should have been a whole lot shorter. Like I said, the tournament mode basically burned me out so I definitely can’t think about playing this game again for a long time. At least solo, local multiplayer would still make for a lot of fun races.

One of the new gimmicks in this game is that getting to 1st place is only a secondary goal during the race. It’s highly recommended since it helps you get points in a tournament, but staying in the middle of the pack has its perks. You get points by ramming into the other racers and a whole bunch of them when you destroy a car. Every 1000 points gets you 1 real point so if you get 13000, it’s even better than coming in first. The best of both worlds is hitting a lot of cars and still managing to come in 1st, but that’s extremely difficult in the latter stages. I would sometimes come in 11th, but I smashed so many cars that I still got the most points. If you ask me, that’s definitely the best way to go about it. You can juke from side to side to hit the cars or do a spin move if they are right ahead of or behind you. The combat system is a lot of fun to play around with. You also gain energy as you move, which you can use to heal yourself or boost. As for the boosts, you can wait until you have 3 of them and use the ultimate boost.

Be warned that the ultimate boost is great, but it is tough on the eyes. You go so fast that you don’t even need to steer as it just takes you through the course, but the game can’t really keep up. You colors start to turn purple and orange and the screen gets very blurry. You’ll even lose sight of the racers as things start to get loopy and I have a feeling that the developers were just having a little fun there. It’s still something that you’ll definitely want to be aware of if your eyes are weak against flashing lights. They definitely make me feel tired, but my glasses protect me from that kind of thing.

Naturally, this doesn’t speak very well for the graphics. They’re actually pretty decent when they work, but I’ll have to give this area a failing grade. The boosts should not make the screen as chaotic as they do and the game gets way too blurry for me to say that it is acceptable. If not for the graphics part of the game you probably wouldn’t be able to even tell that it is a cash in for the film.

Although, one tip off is the stage selection. Initially it looks like there are a lot of tracks. After all, you are playing on over 100 of them during the tournament mode. The trick is that a lot of the stages are simply recycled over and over again. Some of them are technically different, but just about the whole track will be the same aside from a slight twist. The background and road for most of the stages are identical so there was definitely not a whole lot of effort put into them. It can certainly make the game more repetitive than it would have been with unique tracks. The final two levels are basically the same with the difference being that the final level has opera style music.

Speed Racer’s soundtrack is definitely very good. It’s a little limited to be sure, but it fits the intensity of the races. It’s all very fast and the climatic sounding theme in the final stage is really fun as well. Racing games definitely need a good soundtrack since nobody wants to race with a boring theme playing in the background. Luckily, Speed Racer delivers on this front.

Typically, glitches aren’t a problem in a video game since they are rare occurrences that you may miss when you’re playing the game. That being said, it’s much easier to run through them when you have to play a game for as long as I played this one. It’s not uncommon to just fall through a stage or get launched off the rails. There are many times where you are not supposed to fall off the stage, but you are using your triple boost so you just go flying out of the level. Once I just fell through half of the stage and instantly fell into a big hole over in last place. The glitches still don’t occur too often, but they are certainly noticeable this time.

It’s definitely commendable that the game has so many playable characters. There may even be 50 as I lost count, but you tend to unlock 2-3 per tournament. There are many guys that you’ll never have even heard of here. I stuck with Speed Racer through all of the levels, but maybe you’ll find a character who catches your eye and forces you to change from the famous mach 5. You definitely won’t want to discount the possibility.

For replay value, there really isn’t a whole lot to be found here. Once you beat the game, you do unlock mirror mode so you can play a bunch of tournaments in reverse. You’ll probably find that you’re way too tired to do such a thing after the main mode, but it does add to the game’s length I suppose. After that, you’ll want to hope that you have someone to play the game with since there will be nothing left to do. The multiplayer option is the main reason why I ended up giving this game a 7 over the 6 after all.

Overall, Speed Racer is a pretty fun game. The actual gameplay is really a blast and it really says something about how good it is when you consider how many levels I had to play in this game. The stages are just a little too long, but the tournaments actually do auto save so you can turn the game off in the middle of one if you need too. Knowing this, that actually helps the game a whole lot, but I didn’t find out until the end. It only minimizes the problem though as the stages really should be shorter. The graphics look very sci fi esque, but they’re still too crazy and blurry. The music is good and the character roster is very impressive. If you are by yourself, I recommend the game, but it’ll be a shorter experience. If you have someone to play it with, then this game is definitely one of the ultimate racing titles and you’ll really want to play it. Just watch out for those glitches!

Overall 7/10

TimeSplitters Stats and Records

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Stats and Records time!

Play Time 1h 14m
Total Games 51
Total Kills 721
Total Record 9-42
Most kills without dying 39
Most kills within 3 seconds 6
Longest killing spree 25
Favorite Level Chemical Plant
Favorite Weapon Shotgun
Total Bullets Fired 6051
Accuracy 27%
Headshots 11%
Heads shot off 70
Heads punched off 0
Glass panes broken 11
Distance Travelled 14.95 miles
Average speed 12.1 mph
Awards 0
Success Rate 17% (STORY)
TimeSplitters dispatched 44 (STORY)

Stage Stats

1935 Tomb 3m 27.7s
1970 Chinese 4m 37.4s
2005 Cyberden 2m 17.3s
1950 Village 47.1s
1985 Chemical Plant 1m 34.4s
2020 Planet-X 1m 12s
1965 Mansion 1m 26s
2000 Docks 3m 50.4s
2035 Spaceways 1m 36.2s

TimeSplitters Review

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It’s time for a new series to join the ranks of the blog! Starting a game series always fills you with a lot of emotions because you are about to be thrown into a whole new world! Who knows what dangers lurk around the corners and which games will end up becoming instant classics. TimeSplitters is an FPS with a sci-fi theme so let’s see how this plays out.

What does FPS mean? Basically, this game is a first person shooter similar to Call of Duty. It’s not your average shooter though because it has an arcade feel to it. So, the gameplay is very quick and you’re always on the go. Tactics aren’t really going to save you from getting blown apart so my best advice is to just run at the villains. Simply fire before they can fire back as you dash towards the goal. There are 9 levels in Story Mode and each one can be beaten between 30 seconds to 4 minutes. According to the play time, I took a little over an hour to beat it.

“So what happened DReager1…did you hold back?” Well, that’s the logical assumption to make since the game should have only taken me around 36 minutes to beat considering my epicness. The big twist is that I’m not very good at FPS games. Don’t get the wrong idea! I could still take just about anyone out in this kind of game, but I simply can’t deal with the sniper gun. That’s the level that I tried around 40 times before finally completing it. Over 40 times!! Even if the levels are short, that’s certainly going to keep the clock running and I eventually just muscled my way through. It was tough, but no level can hold me at bay for long. There is technically a plot, but it’s only in the booklet or on the cover. The actual game doesn’t really have one so I won’t really address it here.

Once you are done with the story mode levels, you unlock Challenge Mode. I believe that there are around 18 challenges so that should buy you some more time and we can’t forget about Arcade Mode! The game also goes up to 4 players, which is pretty good since multiplayer is a must in any FPS. People don’t spends thousands of hours playing Call of Duty and Halo for the story mode…they play it for the huge online battles! Likewise, you’re bound to have a lot of fun in multiplayer playing this game since competing is always fun.

The soundtrack is decently good for this game from what you can hear. Amidst all of the shooting, you’ll likely only remember the main menu theme. It’s pretty good, but I would have liked to see some other themes as well. Of course, when you beat a level in under a minute…you may not be giving it enough time to really get going.

The graphics are pretty decent for this game. The character models don’t look too blurry or anything like that and you can clearly see where to go next. Considering that lighting is typically a problem on my TV, it was impressive to be able to see everything. The level designs are a lot of fun and my favorite level is easily the mansion. Surprisingly, the future levels tended to be the least imaginative. Maybe I just didn’t like playing as the robot, but it wasn’t quite as exhilarating as being in that huge mansion.

First Person Shooters have been one of my least favorite genres. I used to really not like them and part of the reason is that you really can’t focus on the scenery in those. You’re always looking at the screen through the barrel of your gun and it can be tricky. I’ve grown more accustomed to them over the years though, but my skills are still a little behind since I rarely play them. I enjoy the game’s fast pace since it helps it feel a little more like your typical third person game. If you are just entering the FPS world, this may not be a bad place to start!

Overall, This is a pretty fun game. You’ll definitely enjoy it if you like the FPS genre and there are a ton of characters to use. It may not matter so much to some fans since you can’t really see the character during the game, but a lot of them have some pretty intriguing titles. “PeakABoo Jones” comes to mind. The only reason why you would want to think before you purchase this game is the duration. 1 hour for story mode isn’t a whole lot of time and considering that Challenge Mode is double (2 hours) the time and Arcade Mode is likely another hour, you’re not looking at a very long game. Still, the going price for it is very low and you must count the multiplayer replay value as well. Simply put, you’ll enjoy this game more if you have someone to play it with. I would still recommend it if you are by yourself too of course, but then you’ll want to make sure that you don’t mind short games. (I usually get thrilled to see a short game since I have so many on the back burner.) I can safely say that the sequel is naturally on my list now since it can only improve and it’s on the greatest console of all time….the GAMECUBE! It’s supposed to seriously give you the chills so I look forward to that. As far as creepiness goes, the zombies/TimeSplitters in this game were pretty intense. I hope that there is more of a plot in the sequel since it should help to make the story mode a little more interesting. We do need to raise the stakes right? Maybe you’ll keep this review in mind for the next rainy day so that you can have this game at the ready. It’ll be like watching a quick scary movie to pass the time by.

Overall 7/10

Bujingai The Forsaken City Stats and Records

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My stats in the game.

Overall Beginner
Gameplay Rank C
Play Time 3h 50m
Orbs Collected 3956
Continues 8
Completion Count 1

Stage Stats

Stage 1 Intermediate
Consecutive Hits 62
Action Points 418
Damage from Enemies 204
Completion Time 9m 41s
Orbs 87

Stage 2 Intermediate
Consecutive Hits 61
Action Points 582
Damage from Enemies 1453
Completion Time 24m 32s
Orbs 457

Stage 3 Intermediate
Consecutive Hits 66
Action Points 838
Damage from Enemies 1640
Completion Time 10m 23s
Orbs 230

Stage 4 Beginner
Consecutive Hits 50
Action Points 1097
Damage from Enemies 1996
Completion Time 12m 54s
Orbs 173

Stage 5 Beginner
Consecutive Hits 52
Action Points 3135
Damage from Enemies 9333
Completion Time 42m 53s
Orbs 584

Stage 6 Intermediate
Consecutive Hits 166
Action Points 608
Damage from Enemies 1247
Completion Time 10m 31s
Orbs 22

Stage 7 Beginner
Consecutive Hits 73
Action Points 3429
Damage from Enemies 7692
Completion Time 45m 38s
Orbs 1103

Stage 8 Intermediate
Consecutive Hits 19
Action Points 473
Damage from Enemies 202
Completion Time 1m 52s
Orbs 0

Bujingai The Forsaken City Review

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Bujingai_cover
The PS2 has had several hidden gems over the past few years including Eve of Extinction and Oni. This was my next blind purchase as the description on Amazon was pretty intense and it looked like a must buy. I believe that the game is a little short, which can hurt the experience, but the levels that we do get are pretty great thanks to the solid gameplay. This is definitely another all star by the PS2!

The plot is nice and simple. Lau was having fun surfing through the cosmos when he finally decided to go back to Earth. His old pal has turned to the dark side so Lau has to put him down once and for all. Luckily, his sensei is around to help as well as a sorceress by the name of Yohfa. Together, these heroes can surely defeat this one villain right? Well, the mastermind has hundreds of demons by his side so it’s a whole planet of inhabitants against Lau….time to fight!

“You have to fight!” is basically what the game is about. The levels are fairly linear and there will usually be a few locked doors barring you from continuing. To unlock the doors, you must defeat a few enemies or grab some kind of key. The platforming part of the game is decent as you can air jump, which is fun to look at. (But not practical since it’s slower than walking) Of course, the main chunk if the fighting part!

Picture Dynasty Warriors and you’ll have a grasp on the main part of the gameplay. You have two ways to attack and from those two buttons you can chain many combos. I typically went for the classic 20+ combo since it breaks through most shields, but there was one exception so watch out for that boss! Aside from your attacks, you also have magical abilities which range from fireballs to light arrows to amplifying your physical strength. I typically went for the fireballs and the physical power up, but all of the abilities are fairly useful. Once you have your magic ready, you’re ready to face off against anyone!

When you clash with a boss, your magic crystals come into play. Essentially, both of you begin to duke it out with your blades and you can continue to duel like this until one of you runs out of crystals or you can jump to the side and strike at the boss from behind. The latter method seems to be full proof against humanoids, but the first method is great as well and you just need to watch out for the times where it doesn’t work. It’s safe to say that most of the bosses are humanoid, but there are a few creatures as well. Those are a lot tougher to fight because their moves aren’t quite as predictable or easily dodged. The varied enemies help keep the bosses fun. They would have been enjoyable either way, but each of them use a different style so it gives the game a better all around feeling.

Lau is the main character of this story and it’s hard to get a read on his character. As with Link and many of the other legendary heroes, he’s not much of a talker. He is a hero and he tends to do the right thing, but he just doesn’t have a whole lot of personality. He’s also pretty cheerful at the end considering that he had to take down his ole friend..permanently. He’ll never be the next Mario or Sonic, but Lau has potential and a sequel or anime adaption could flesh out his character. After all, a character who dances his way from deep space to Earth can’t be all that bad right?

Rei is the main villain and his goals are pretty ambitious. A dark event turned him against humanity and he now leads an army of demons. His skills are definitely real since we actually get to see him slice a moon in half with a single shot. If nothing else, that’s a very serious feat. He makes for a decent villain, but his backstory takes away any threatening aura that he may have had. The dancing makes it a little hard to take him seriously as well. His red blades make for good weapons during the boss fights. Rei’s only a decent villain, but it could be worse.

Yohfa is Lau’s main partner and she helps him out on the journey by opening portrals for him. Her cutscenes are typically odd since her mouth never moves while she’s talking. It must be fun to have telepathy. She’s not a bad character, but she never really added anything to the story. She’s really just there to help out the main character.

The same could be said for Lau’s old master. He’s not really a character when you think about it as he’s just the sensei. He likely got a name, but I quickly forgot it. One cool scene that he did get was when the master speedblitzed Lau. He quickly assured our hero that he had surpassed the master, but the scene really made you question that statement.

The soundtrack is pretty fun and it fits in well with the rest of the game. The boss themes can range from really fast paced to more dramatic in tone and both of them work pretty well. The game definitely did really well in that category and I find that the beat em up type of games typically don’t tend to have great soundtracks so that was good for this title.

Graphically, the game is all right. I can’t say that there is anything spectacular about it, but they can look good at times. The big cutscenes try to have a more live action esque feeling to them while the regular ones are standard. What can be a little…interesting about the regular ones is that the characters like to dance and slash away at thin air. The final cutscene before the final boss is actually pretty fun because the characters keep on jumping and skipping instead of actually fighting. It’s an interesting effect, but I have to wonder if it was intentional or not. It’s just a little odd. Back to the big cutscenes, it worked most of the time. The scene were pretty impressive given the style and one could possibly say that it looked a little like Final Fantasy. The actual gameplay graphics may not have been excellent, but overall it can hold its own.

The overall setting of the game also helped to make the game enjoyable. The levels can have diverse designs as you fight near Lava, in Snow Mountains, and more. The main place is The Forsaken City and it’s a pretty fun place to fight in. I love fighting in city areas and I don’t believe that will ever change. It’s a whole lot of fun to fight an enemy and then jump onto a few buildings before challenging the next one.

In terms of replay value, the game is fairly low. There are 8 levels and I ended up beating the game in around 4 hours. You could beat it in a much shorter time if you don’t get lost in the maze level or spend too much time wandering around in circles. There are 40 medals to obtain throughout the game and a lot of magic spells as well. I assume that they carry on throughout your next playthrough, but there is also a stage select, which should allow you to find them all. There aren’t any multiplayer modes though and this was before the PS3 Trophy days. If you enjoy the game, it’s going to need to be for the Story Mode. It’s a brief, but epic experience!

I would say that I have one main negative with the game. It’s too bad that it’s short of course and the characters could have been more interesting, but I’m talking about the levels. Sometimes, it can be very hard to know where to go and the map is too small to really help you. The Snow level was very long since you had to keep reentering rooms until you figured out the puzzle. This was my least favorite one and it took me about an hour. So, that one level took up a quarter of my whole play time. I believe that they could have smoothed it out a little more. The 7th level had a tricky jump segment that was maybe a little overdone, but it is a good way to challenge gamers so I’ll leave that one as an ambiguous element. You could make the argument that it was a negative or a decent positive.

Overall, Bujingai is a pretty fun game. It has all of the fun beat em up traits that you would expect while adding a bit of the anime element to it. The characters were very powerful and the gameplay is very fast. The fighting system was pretty deep and the magic aided the regular combat to make it all flow together. The game is short so be aware that it will only entertain you for a few hours before you’ll have completed it. That being said, it is definitely worth it for this low price and you can experience one of the PS2’s hidden treasures. Any action fan should definitely enjoy it!

Overall 8/10