These will most likely be quick reviews and summaries instead of full ones, but we’ll see.

Anime (DVD):

• High School of the Dead
• Dance in the Vampire Bund
• Rideback
• Angel Beats (maybe)

Games:

• F.3.A.R.
• Operation Flashpoint: Red River
• Alice: Madness Returns

More updates soon.

The first time I saw Bangai-O was for the DS, in the shape of Bangai-O Spirts by Treasure.  The game followed these two kids named Masoto and Ruri and some random scientist that I can’t remember the name of.  There was no plot, just breaking the 4th wall, missile spam, baseball bats, beam swords, tons of fruit, and plenty of slowdown.  They would repeatedly lampshade the fact that the DS could barely handle the game.  But it was fun, even though half the time I had no idea what the hell was going on during each level.  The basic goal of each level was to kill everything or kill the enemy spawners (with a good mix of puzzle solving mixed in) as fast as you could while getting the highest score possible.  I still haven’t beaten the DS version, there’s just so many levels as well as a level editor where you could share levels by sending sound waves to another DS’s microphone…it was weird, but it worked well enough.

I did some research and the basic plot behind the Bangai-O series is that these two kids named Riki and Mami pilot the giant mecha Bangai-O and battle against the Cosmo Gang.  What’s the Cosmo Gang doing that’s so evil?  Smuggling fruit…Yeah.  Smuggling fruit.

So, now Treasure has released a new version of Bangai-O, called Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury for the Xbox Live Arcade.

There’s no unintentional slowdown, graphically it looks pretty, and you can spam so many missiles that they just cover the screen.  I’ve been playing the demo and its pretty much as advertised.  There seems to be some kind of storyline…I think…The trial version doesn’t let you play that far, but the levels are fun and the action is fast paced.  I wasn’t able to see if there were any of the awesome puzzle levels, but there’s supposedly over 100 levels, so I’ll find out eventually.  There is online cooperative as well, I’m going to keep messing around with it, but I’m hoping there’s some kind of split screen, however, with all the action going on, I’m not sure if its possible.

I’m probably going to buy this game soon, so if anyone else gets it, send me a message and we can go fruit collecting.

Gods Eater Burst for the PSP is Namco’s answer to the Monster Hunter series.  After playing over 40 hours with this game, I have to say that its addicting and awesome.

The Monster Hunter games are “hardcore”.  You’re expected to sink lots of time into the game, learning the combo system, killing monsters, collecting items and materials to make cool looking weapons, armor and clothing, and then go do it all again.  You’re also expected to have friends who have the game and want to party up to go kill massive, angry, creatures that could level buildings.  The entire game is about the hunt, there’s no plot (or not much of one), there’s just you, the quest givers, and crap-tons of monsters that are just waiting to smash you flat into the ground.  I don’t have a problem with this.  The idea of hunting awesome looking monsters and then using bits of them to make awesome looking weapons and wearing a pair of dinosaur skulls for pants.  Fuck yes.

You may be wondering why I’m talking about Monster Hunter when this post is supposed to be about God Eater Burst, I’ll get to that.

The problem I have with Monster Hunter…At least being a Wii-less, PSP owning, Monster Hunter player, is that the Monster Hunter games almost unapologetically require you to party up and play with other people to complete the later missions.  Yes, if I took the time, I could grind enough and play smart enough to beat some of these giant-ass monsters by myself.  But I’m not that patient, and where’s the fun in that?  I think that fights against these giant monsters need to be these adrenaline pumping, epic battles for life or death.  Yes, I’m hamming it up.  Since the only version of Monster Hunter in the United States that has online play is for the Wii.  Unless I’m willing to fork over $200 just to play one game on a console I probably won’t touch after that, I don’t think its worth it.

Luckily, D3 Publisher released Namco Bandai’s God Eater Burst as Gods Eater Burst.  Yeah, I don’t get the name change either.

God(s) Eater Burst is a fast paced, monster hunting game, with an involved (if not predictable) storyline.  You can do most of the basic stuff that you can do in Monster Hunter.  You can make a custom avatar to represent yourself in the game, replay missions, farm materials and items to make better weapons and even craft new clothing.  Off-hand you could consider Gods Eater Burst to be “Monster Hunter-Lite”.  There’s less weapons, no armor (only clothing, which only affects your look), and less monster types to fight.  There’s less mission variety, and they take less time, you’re given a 30 minute time limit to complete each mission, but I’ve completed some in as little as 2 minutes, while in Monster Hunter I was usually given 1 hour to complete a mission and depending on the mission, I could use that entire time.

I found Gods Eater Burst easier to get into, and I’m having more fun with it.  Monster Hunter felt sluggish at times while God Eater Burst is quick and faster paced (aiming your gun can be a little bit odd, but I blame that on the PSP’s lack of a second analog stick).

Unfortunately, Gods Eater Burst doesn’t have online play, you’re stuck with adhoc.  Luckily, they remedy this (somewhat) by letting you take up to 3 AI teammates on each mission.  They each have their own personality that’s listed so you know what kind of behavior you’re going to get out of each one, they will help you attack monster weak points and use proper weaponry, they’ll dodge attacks and block (they don’t go all Leroy Jenkins on everything), and they will even revive you when you collapse.

As I mentioned above, the mission variety is lacking a bit.  They’re all pretty much kill X creature or avoid X creature while killing X creature, but I found that the temptation to get new equipment and see what happens next in the storyline helps alleviate that somewhat.  The storyline is fairly standard anime fare.  Its not bad, and it keeps the game moving, but its fairly predictable and the opening video may give some of it away.

Overall, I think Gods Eater Burst is a great alternative to Monster Hunter.  If you just can’t get into Monster Hunter but you like the idea of fighting giant, powerful monsters, then give Gods Eater Burst a try.  However, if you’re already a fan of Monster Hunter, I’d rent it or try a demo first.  Gods Eater Burst lacks the massive number of monsters to fight and goes a different direction with the combat, but still manages to be fun and engaging.  And to pull a random game out of my ass, if you’re a fan of the recent Phantasy Star games, give Gods Eater Burst a whirl.  No online play, but the type of customization, mission based storyline, and fast paced combat is similar in style.

Now, I’ve been wailing on the plot of the game but I haven’t gotten around to the gameplay yet.

As I said before, this isn’t a Parasite Eve game, however, it is a decent 3rd person action title.

Controls:

The controls are fairly straight-forward and I found them fairly easy to get used to.  Since The 3rd Birthday is a PSP game, you only have one analog stick, which means you have to rely on the auto-targeting (which you do have a bit of control over, although it can be a bit finicky sometimes) and while you can’t manually aim your weapons while moving around, there is a limited use manual aim mode for certain weapons.  The button presses don’t feel sluggish and you can have Aya Brea running around, flipping, and body warping about the screen once you get used to the lack of a second analog stick.  However, that does bring us to a slight problem with the camera…

The default camera faces in one direction and is controlled with the d-pad.  This is normally okay for larger areas, but when you’re trying to fire at something behind you that the camera can’t see, it makes Aya automatically turn around and face the direction the camera is looking.  This becomes a pain when you’re fighting some of the boss monsters that run around and warp because having to let go of the analog stick to move the camera around and then fire takes precious time and can get you killed.  You’d think this wouldn’t be a problem with the auto-targeting feature, but some weapons don’t use the targeting (grenades, sniper rifles, etc.), so going into aim mode, only to be looking straight at a wall is frustrating.  I did find something helpful as I was browsing the Options menu: a camera angle called “Behind”.  This not only gives you a nice view of Aya’s buttocks (It centers the camera on her ass, its kinda funny), it zooms the camera closer to the action, stays behind Aya whenever she’s moves around (except when auto-targeting, that would just make you sick with the way Aya rapidly switches between targets when they die), and (I love this) whenever you go into aim mode, it automatically faces the direction she’s looking.  You do have to correct a bit when going into aim mode since you can’t control exactly where she aims, it’s a much better option than the default camera.

Level Design

The 3rd Birthday has fairly linear level design with some areas that off-shoot from the main path for exploration and rewards or (and very, very rarely) death traps.  The levels are mostly flat with boss rooms having the most elevation.  The first 3/4ths of the game is mostly linear maps that you occasionally cross back over intermixed with mini-bosses (which I think are the highlight of the game, until they start killing you repeatedly…) and then end of level bosses.  This can get a bit tedious, but they start throwing in rail-shooter sections with some tank and helicopter driving and shooting sections mixed in for good measure.  You can replay any of the levels at any time up to your chosen difficulty level.  This feature mostly seems to be used for farming money and energy points for upgrades and getting better ranks and times for each level.

Gameplay Mechanics

The 3rd Birthday is a run-and-gun shooter with some cover-based mechanics thrown in as well as body switching.  As long as there’s someone nearby, Aya can quickly switch to their body and move them around and position them before switching to someone else.  This allows you to position soldiers behind cover and have them guard areas or even help you shoot a target, although these mechanics aren’t really used much except during boss fights.  I think they could have expanded on this mechanic more and designed the levels so it had more use besides running away when you had low health or getting a new weapon.  As you complete levels, you gain BP, which allows you to buy upgrades for your guns and unlock things like in-game cheats.  There’s also a huge DNA upgrading system that lets you give yourself new abilities that affect you during combat which involves mixing and lining up different types of orbs on a 3×3 grid.  Its rather complex, so this simple explanation will have to suffice.  The other mechanic they added in is rather minor, but along with your health bar, your clothing takes damage and shreds off until Aya is barely wearing anything but her panties and bra.  You could leave her this way, but your clothing acts as armor and the better condition it is in, the less damage you take directly to your health.  It’s a silly mechanic, but it is what it is.

Overall:

Replay Value: Moderate – you want that shower scene really bad don’t you?

Liked:

• Fast gameplay is fun and easy to get into
• The upgrade systems are in-depth and fun to mess around with
• The body-warping mechanics are fun

Disliked:

• Linear levels can get tedious
• Storyline is utterly confusing
• Not a Parasite Eve game at all
• Default camera stinks – Use the “Behind” camera

Buy/Don’t Buy:

Don’t get the game if you’re expecting a Parasite Eve title.  However, its a decent 3rd person shooter and it might interest you even with all the fan service pandering and creepy characters.  I had fun with it, even if it wasn’t the Parasite Eve title I was hoping it would be.

Verdict:

Try to find it used if you aren’t sure.  It already was a budget title at $29.99 new.

So I meant to write a couple posts as I played The Third Birthday, but I ended up just playing the game all the way through instead.

First off, this isn’t a Parasite Eve game.  It involves Aya Brea and some of the major characters from Parasite Eve II, but it definitely doesn’t feel like part of the original Square series.

The first thing you’ll notice is that Aya Brea doesn’t act like the previous Aya Brea iterations.  She pretty much just takes any kind of verbal abuse and turns the other cheek.  There may be some of the original characters in name, but they’ve changed quiet a bit.  Some of it is plot related, but its still a bit of a shock when characters you think you know start acting entirely oddball.

Speaking of the plot…

Without giving away too much, the plot is this strange time traveling mess that keeps bringing up new questions and tries (somewhat successfully) to link them all together in the end.  Even if the ending doesn’t have any screws left to lose by the time you get there.

Click here if you want to continue without being spoiled.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

—————————————————————————————

You are Aya Brea, someone found you outside a church with amnesia and now you work for some government organization called the CTI with some band of merry men (and women) who are going to use you (you’re the only one who can do this, of course.  Its a game mechanic…) dive into the past to save the present…future…whatnot.  So you go about killing all the Twisted (evil…creature…things…).  Monsters spawning themselves into the past and the present.  Apparently, they’re out of resources, so they go into the past to harvest humans or some-such.  You finally make it to the Big-Bad Evil Final boss and defeat him to find out about your past…You aren’t Aya Brea.  You are Eve Brea, her jailbait sister.  Aya Brea died in the church you were found in front of.  Apparently some government agencies wanted her dead so when they shot her, you sent your mind into her body in an attempt to save her, which shatters her mind all over the universes, and creates the evil monster things.  Yes, its all your fault.  So, what happens?  Aya Brea amazingly, somehow, comes back, shoots the Big-Bad dead, and then switches bodies with you and makes you shoot yourself/her/whatever/pull the trigger already.  So you shoot yourself and everything rights itself, Aya Brea dies, and life goes on with Eve Brea as an adult now.  Yeah, I don’t get it entirely either.

Anyway, both The 3rd Birthday and Legends of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (Tits) are coming out later today.  These are my last set of preorders for a while, so hopefully I can catch up on my backlog of games before something else catches my eye.

The 3rd Birthday is the third Parasite Eve game coming out, although it isn’t under the Parasite Eve name it does involve the main character from the previous two games.

Trails in the Sky is a turn-based RPG by Falcom (translated by XSEED), the developers of Ys, a metal rocking action-RPG.  According to the XSEED blog it took about 3 years to finish translating all the text and it looks to have a rather involved storyline.

I’ll post more on these two games as I play them.

Art by Midori Foo edited to fit my desktop.

Here’s the original:

Art by Masakichi

Art by Dan Kim

So I just started Mana Khemia for PSP today. Apparently the PSP version is a port of the PS2 version and according to everyone else…It sucks.

I had no idea.

So running off the assumption that I bought a generic RPG, I happily popped it into my PSP and started it up.

Honestly, I haven’t gotten very far, but I’ve made it through the beginning twice now.  The first time I accidentally quit out to the PSP menu screen and the second time I couldn’t figure out how to save.  You go to the first save spot and it basically tells you, “This is a save spot.  To use a save spot, save at the save spot, some save spots don’t heal you.  Check the tutorial entry for more information.”  Me, thinking that I’m smart enough to use a save spot, ignored the tutorial entirely.

Apparently, I’m dumber than a save spot, I haven’t figured out how to use it, and I had to quit the game again because work was calling my name.

Beyond that, the first time I played the game, most of the text was voiced, the second time, about half of the dialogue was never voiced again.  I was fiddling with sound settings so maybe I messed with something.

Oh well, I’ll screw around with the game later, even with all the complaints critics have been leveling at it, it seems like an interesting game.

Ys I & II Chronicles comes out on PSP on the 22nd.

http://www.worldofys.com/ysc/

I figured I’d post some music from Youtube from the games.

Rock the guitar solos.