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Story: B

The story pretty much remains unchanged from the original game, adding in more dramatic in-engine cutscenes and voice acting. Klonoa and his floaty-ball friend Huepow observe an object strike a nearby mountain, and discover it contains the evil Ghadius who wants to turn their world into a land of nightmares. Klonoa is forced to work his way through his world to fight the creatures that Ghadius has unleashed and ultimately face Ghadius himself while assisting his friends in the other lands.  It’s not very deep, and definitely aimed at a younger audiance, but it still has a very sad ending and the extra dramatics they are able to add help to make it work in the game.

Gameplay: A

Klonoa is a 2.5D platformer - you can only move left and right and jump up and down, but the entire world is rendered in loving 3D, and the “path” that you follow can twist around on itself to give the impression of the third-dimension of movement.  In each of the 12 levels, Klonoa needs to use the power of the Wind Ring to get past the enemies that Ghadius has created. This is basically done by shooting a wind bullet into them and inflating them, allowing them to be used as projectiles to hit other foes or objects, or to be used as a means to “jump” off it and get more air time on jumps, allowing Klonoa to reach higher locations.  Most of these moves are simple, but as the game progresses, the challenge becomes in their combination (such as jumping, inflating a foe and immediately using that foe to gain more height) and timing, such as the need to flip a set of switches within a few seconds of each other.  The game is highly forgiving in this factor, as nearly every place where there is a puzzle of this nature, foes will be regenerated, and they only wander within a fixed area instead of outright attacking you.  Along the way are jewels that can be collected to earn an extra life, eggs that must be attacked to be opened to give health, jewels, or a special collectable object for that level. Every other level as well as the game’s finale ends in a boss fight that uses similar mechanics as the main levels to defeat the boss.

That, pretty much, describes the game. It is very simple, but it stands on solid gameplay that earlier sequels have incorporated well.  The Wii remake attempts to make no change to the formula, and executes it quite well, giving you the option to use either the Classic controller, the Wii-remote in the horizontal orientation like an old NES controller, or even with a Remote and Nunchuk use, which gives you an addition attack - a cyclone that temporarily halts enemies - that isn’t necessary to get through the game but nice to have available.  The only features that the Wii remake adds are timed runs as well as flipped levels that just reverse the direction of how the levels progress.  They could have added a lot more but I think the fact that they kept this simple is a good sign - it keeps the game at a level that children can play it without problems but still a decent challenge for all gamers.

Value/Replayability: B-

Of course, with keeping it simple comes the fact that this is a 5 hr game, at most, for a single runthrough, and the added challenges may double that but you’re still looking at a short game. Wisely, this is a budget-priced title, so the blow of the cost is a bit relieved, but I’m wondering if it might have been better if they considered packaging the content from Klonoa 2 (with the same graphical bumpup) to give just a bit more meat on the title.

Graphics: A+

What makes this remake is the graphics; everything is now rendered in 3D (the original game used character sprites on 3D backgrounds), and given a very nice spit and polish.  It looks gorgeous given the Wii’s abilities, and shines quite well at 480p and widescreen.  This game is up there with the visual appear of Super Mario Galaxy in terms of how lush and detailed everything looks without detracting you from the goal at hand.

Audio: A

All of the old music for the game has been kept and improved for the title, which just works out well.  They’ve also added voice work to the various cutscenes, and while most are fine, there’s a few annoying voices (it is a game aimed at the younger set…) but not enough to ruin the experience.

Overall: A

Your choice of getting this game is going to be likely dictated by your previous experience with the original.  If you’ve played that game, you aren’t getting anything new in gameplay, but this update feels like the definitive version that should have been if the graphics were there back then. If anything, it is a good piece of nostalgia to have in your hands.  If you haven’t played the game before, you can probably blow through this in a single rental session but it may convince you to actually buy the game later.

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Resistance: Retribution

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Story: B+

The game takes place after the first Resistance title and leads into elements introduced in its sequel.  Here, however, you play as Grayson, a former British marine that is forced to kill his brother at gunpoint after he was infected by the Chimera virus, and in revenge, abandoned his trooped and personally destroyed a large number of Chimera conversion centers across Europe.  After his capture by the British, he is sentence to a firing squad, but is saved by the European human resistance, called the Maquis, in particular by a woman named Bouchard who is working with her father to try to discover a serum to stop the Chimera.  With Grayson’s knowledge, the Maquis plan an attack to retake the European mainland by injecting this serum into the hive mind in the Paris Chimera tower, but they need Grayson to help them complete the virus by infiltrating a conversion center.  Of course, no plan goes off without a hitch, and Grayson finds the Maquis plan to be far from simple.

In terms of advancing the overall Resistance story, the game’s not that great - partially since we know how things turn out already - it’s like watching Revenge of the Sith but well aware of the original Star Wars trilogy as you know how it all comes out in the end.  But that doesn’t mean its all throwaway, as Grayson and Bouchard, along with a couple other characters, make this a decent character-driven story above your usual FPS/TPS.  It’s not deep by far, and seems more in line with the story instead of just providing a means to link the levels together.

Gameplay: A-

You may be thinking immediately: “A shooter on the PSP? Pass.”  And that’s what I thought initially. However, the developers realized that the PSP isn’t by default made for this and took some very ingenuous steps to keep the game interesting and playable on the unit.  Primarily, this is done by keeping the right face buttons (X, circle, etc.) clear of anything besides helping with movement or looking around, depending on which control scheme you prefer, thus making it act like a second analog stick.  Fire controls are put on the shoulder buttons, and everything else : reloading, zooming, weapon switching, and special actions, are done via the d-pad controls.  This actually works surprisingly well in conjunction with the other help the game gives you.  Yes, it’s not easy to necessarily move and manually reload, for one, but by far it’s better than other weird schemes that do weird things with the camera on some buttons.

The second piece that helps is the auto-aiming system (which can be turned off if you want); the game will generally focus your aiming point for most weapons in non-zoomed mode on the enemy closest to the center of the view and sticks with it until it’s dead, you manually swap to a different enemy, or you look elsewhere.  This makes moving and strafing rather easy to do.  You can lose some enemies if they go too high or low on your view even though they still may be partially visible.  Now, there are a few enemies where targeting becomes important (they die faster if you heat their weak spots) but fortunately you can zoom in to get a sights view that allows you to aim more precisely.

Finally, this is all put together by auto-cover and reloading systems that basically allow you to keep your thumbs on the critical move and look buttons and not have to fumble with anything else.  Get behind cover with enemies in sight and you’ll automatically duck, and when you go to fire, you’ll pop up and then back down.  Same with corners of walls.  This doesn’t make the game a piece of cake - you can’t stay behind the same piece of cover forever when enemies start advancing or they pull out the Augers that can go through cover - but it gives you a very good fighting chance against the game on the PSP.

It’s not perfect, of course - you can sometimes get blindsided and take a while to locate your foe. Weapons like grenades or the rocket launcher have to be aimed right, and if you default to the automatic aim, you may get caught in its blast range.  But for the most part, this is a very playable shooter on the PSP.

Now, in terms of the game itself, it does use some of the futuristic weapons from the other two games; you have an energy rifle as well as the aforementioned Auger which can shoot through walls.  Ammo for the guns is actually pretty generous, and turns the game less as an offensive challenge and more playing it safe behind cover and playing more defensive.  Health is handled in an old-school manner with no regeneration but instead plenty of health packs around.  And there’s two sections that get you behind a Chimera battle tank which are satisfyingly easy relative to the normal combat and a good break from the normal action.

There are some general problems, however, with the setup.  First, there’s a handful of escort / protection missions, and normally, the person you’re protecting is smart enough to move about, but one case had a person that would stay in the same spot and not even move out of a poison cloud when it was unleashed.  The game does have a few instances of teleporting-in enemies that come at you from behind in a few cases which is always annoying. But probably its worst fault is that is has a couple of sections where you a faced with an endless stream of enemies until you move up towards a point.  This isn’t necessarily as bad as Call of Duty, as they are predictable as they come at you, but you are limited by ammo in these.  What makes these areas difficult is that you get used to completely clearing out foes before moving on, so when you come to these, if you’re not expecting them, you’ll be sitting behind cover for a long time and waiting forever.  Getting through one was particularly tough as it involved several different types of enemies and required different strategies all along.  I don’t mind the Call of Duty approach but it should be done consistently through the game instead of being used selectively as it was here.

Challenge-wise, it’s not a hard game; there’s plenty of checkpoints in most areas (and possibly a few too many in the early game, seemingly to come after each block of alien encounters), and the action is mostly set along linear paths, so you won’t be blindsided or the like. No enemy is really difficult, having pretty standard AI and rarely working together to get you. But I think this is a fair balance in the game, instead of trying to make the game more difficult in addition to having to work over any issues the PSP controls give.

Value/Replayability: B+

The game clocked in for me about 8 hrs, which is a reasonable length, but is nicely consumable in small segments for the PSP.  Like the other Resistance games, there are additional secrets to find: intel scattered about levels, and skill points from the Ratchet & Clank series for completing certain tasks in given manners, which can then be spent to unlock special skins.  Like many PSP games with PS2/PS3 equivalents, you can hook the PSP up to Resistance 2 to unlock a mode where Greyson is infected with the Chimera virus and thus plays more like the first game, with regenerable health and the like.  There is a ad-hoc multiplayer mode for up to 8 players based on the other multiplayer Resistance gameplay modes.  There are a lot of extras here, but from the standpoint of the core game, the single player experience has only a little to go back and get excited about.

Graphics: B+

While certainly nowhere as close to good-looking as the PS3 versions of the games, Retribution certainly looks fine on the PSP and moves at a nice clip.  It still falls into those “brown-grey” games simply due to the source material, so the color palette is a bit drab.  It could have used a bit more spicy in terms of texture variety but not to the point of ruining the experience.

Audio: B+

Most of the game’s sounds and background music are about right, nothing too great, though one helpful aspect is that most of the Chimera you face emit a unique sound when they appear that allows you to prepare for their attack.  The voice work is a better than I’d have expected, as a number of usual video game voice actors have been employed here including Robin Atkin Downes as the voice for Grayson, giving that character some nice touches.

Overall: B+

You may be immediately hesitant of Resistance: Retribution when you think of it as a shooter on the PSP, but this game actually does make it work by moving as much that can be automated or less frequent actions off of the user, and instead trying to mimic a two analog stick approach.  It is a good extension of the Resistance series, capturing its flavor quite well, but not treading too far from its path in terms of gameplay, so it may come to be a bit too “been there, done that” after a while.  It’s still a good effort and worthy of more than a passing glance and gives hope that there’s more that the PSP can do for action-oriented games.

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Turning Point: Fall of Liberty

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Story: C-

The game supposes an alternate timeline where Winston Churchill had died years before the start of World War II, such that England quickly fell to the Nazi forces and became part of their expanding empire, while America takes an isolationist approach. The game starts when the Reich attack the US East Coast, quickly seizing power.  You play as Dan Carson, a construction worker that barely escapes the destruction of the attack in New York City, and are quickly recruited into the American resistance trying to fight against the Nazis.  This involves escaping from the held cities, killing the traitorious US president that had secretly allowed for the attack, and eventually trying to stop the Nazis from using the world’s first atom bomb on New York City.

Unfortunately, that’s really all you get with the game - there’s not a lot of side exploration of the impact of the changes in the timeline (this game can be directly compared to Resistance: Fall of Man where there is a detailed history of how things came to be and what changed).  You get no significant character background, such that you gain no attachment to the character, such that his fate at the end of the game leaves nothing emotional behind.  Alternate timeline games have significant promise, but Turning Point failed to deliver on much of them.

Gameplay: D

The game plays as most common WWII-themed shooters like Call of Duty.  You basically can have two weapons and a handful of grenades. You can swap weapons with those left behind by defeated foes.  The weapons are all based on standard guns at the time, but there’s a lack of variety as compared with Call of Duty games (for example, there’s only a couple service pistols, a couple of machine guns and rifles, etc.) Ammo pretty much has to be collected by defeating foes and acquiring their weapons, and it is a tad short in the game (for example, only picking up a machine gun with 15 bullets in it seems a bit on the ridiculous side).  Thus, you may need to resort to melee attacks.  These always are instant wins for you, allowing you to either use the foe as a human shield or you can instantly kill them. If you are near special locations, these special kills will become “environmental kills”, such as by tossing the enemy into a furnace or dropping a jacked-up truck onto them. These are interesting, but certainly aren’t special to the game.

The game does provide a few points where you need to be a bit more acrobatic than in typical FPS games, most often by shimmying along a rope or cable between two platforms. But otherwise, you can run, kneel, climb ladders, and everything else you’d expect in such games. While kneeling helps with hiding behind cover, you can’t easily use it as tactical cover ala Gears of War, so it’s just a matter of staying out of sight.  Health works like in most of these games - take enough and the screen will show you aching, but you just have to get out of cover to recover.

And that’s it.

Seriously, I’ve described 95% of the core gameplay there.  There is absolutely nothing special about this game, and that’s already a strike against it.  The game’s challenge is mostly by throwing enough foes at you to overpower you, as the AI itself is stupid (I lost count how many foes ran into the blast range of a grenade or stood still as I shot them).  Add to the fact that the game has more than its fair share of enemies that are placed behind you in areas that you know you’ve cleared out, and there’s very quick reason to start to hate this game.  The levels are strictly linear, and even in large areas where you’d think that they’d give you options for firefights, either the enemies group together to make a single grenade your best friend, or there’s more than enough cover to take them out one-by-one.

Add in a handful of game-freezing bugs, and this quickly becomes a game you want to get past and never look back on. One area I had three freezes happen in the same exact area so I’m pretty confident I can strike any problems with my 360 to it.

I do have to wonder what the developers were thinking behind this game.  Again, the commonalities to Call of Duty and Resistance are there, and makes me think they were trying to succeed on the success of Resistance, but there’s more to that game than just an alternate timeline.  The only two things that I believe could have saved this game from being just another WWII clone would have been better story and better level design, but neither aspect really developed.  An effort from this game I could have seen from modders or the like with no access to their selected game engine internals, but I expect more from a game purporting to be a AAA title.

There is a multiplayer mode but is strickly limited to deathmatch and team deathmatch, and has no major features to make it worthwhile (much less any server population)

Value/Replayability: D

The game is short - maybe about 8 hours at most on normal difficulty, and provides little incentive to go back to try it on harder levels; there’s no secrets or the like to be found so really it’s just about trying to complete various achievements.  I am definitely glad I did not get this new, but even used it’s hard to justify the cost.

Graphics: C-

The game does try to set up areas that resemble real-life buildings in real life, such as the Empire State Building, the White House, and London Tower, so there’s some decent architecture here. However, the game suffers the same problem as Mass Effect did; as it uses the Unreal 3 Engine, it can take a while for some textures to spool up from the disk, and there were plenty of times that I found myself staring at highly-blurred walls.  When the game got busy (numerous explosions) the engine clearly started to slow down (and no, not from the game’s effect of actually temporarily slowing time when an explosion goes off close to you, just bad framerate drops).

Audio: C

Not much to say here - unimpressive soundtrack that was just there, called-in voice acting, and the like.  Nothing terrible but nothing to be amazed at.

Overall: D+

Turning Point: Fall of Liberty is the type of game that should be used an example of how not to make a video game.  On paper the concept seems fine, but the game takes no liberties to step away from established gameplay metrics to make itself unique.  Add in poor AI, poor programming, and generally mediocrer presentation, and you’re left with a game that you can safely avoid unless you want to learn from others’ mistakes.  I would not even suggest buying it used but simply renting it, as it just really doesn’t end up being fun to play at the end of the day.

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Rhythm Heaven

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Gameplay: A

Rhythm Heaven is the distant cousin of the Warioware games, in that it presents a number of minigames (60 in total but with basically 24 “unique” games).  These aren’t fired rapidly at you as Warioware would do, but instead provides a short games – from 30 seconds to a few minutes – that involve tapping or “flicking” to a song’s rhythm.  The game is presented vertically like a book, akin to Brain Age, with the ability to flip it around if you are left-handed.

The games are arranged in ten tiers of five games each, which you have to play through in order to unlock them all.  Each tier has four basic games and then a “remix” that combines the elements of those four games.  The last four tiers are harder versions of the previous games, with remixes that include elements from other games not in that tier, which can lead to some unexpected results.

All these games can be described as either “call and answer” type games, where you need to mimic a specific rhythm given to you in the phrase before, or games where you have to wait for specific cues and respond in the right way. The actions are simplistic; tapping or tapping and holding, “flicking” like a air hockey puck, and in some cases just sliding back and forth.  There’s no hotspot – anywhere on the touchpad works, and thus you can focus most of your attention on the other screen where most of the time you can use the visual cues provided by the game’s animation to time your moves.  Surprisingly, however, this can be a hindrance sometimes – I found at least a few games that ignoring the screen and playing with my eyes closed was much easier to complete than the visual distraction of the animation. Most of the games is preceded by a tutorial that is skippible at any time to review what the cues and actions are for each game.

After completing the song (which doesn’t have any variation, so you can work through these by memorization), you’re graded on how well you performed.  If you fail, you have to try again – and annoyingly, you have to wait for the game to go back to the game selection screen, then reselect the game, and then click through the tutorial, which is annoying on some of the tougher games.  However, to the game’s benefit, if you screw up a game three times in a row, you can stop in the game’s “cafe” and have that game considered “cleared” so that you can progress – meaning that you basically can unlock everything with about a couple hours worth of effort.  Alternatively, you can simply pass, or you can get a near-perfect or better rating, which earns you a medal.  Medals are used in the game to unlock more rhythm-based minigames.  Furthermore, these games will sometimes be highlighted on the main screen, allowing you the chance to run though it with a perfect result in order to unlock the game’s music or other features that you can watch later.

The game itself is a bit on the tough side, particularly anything involving flicking as if you’re too “weak” with the flick, it won’t register right. It’s also got a very narrow “hit” window for some games, though with practice, you can anticipate these better.  However, there were still games that game me a tough time.  One require you to volley a ping-pong ball back and forth with flicks, and I just had a hard time with the timing even when I didn’t focus on the graphics.  However, most of the rest of them are really well done, embodying the basics of music and rhythm – playing on the eights, triplets, and off-beats.  The remixes are definitely the highlight as it still makes all these games feel consistent yet with enough chaotic nature to make them difficult.  Completing all the games isn’t hard, but mastering this game is a challenge.

Value/Replayability: B+

Opening up everything in the game will take a few hours, but getting everything mastered will take a while. However, like with most other rhythm games, there’s not that much replayability – the song actions remain the same, and are presented in the same order.  Of course, it helps that many of the songs are catchy and worthwhile to play again.

Graphics: A

Like Warioware, the game uses a number of graphic styles for the games – from simple black-and-white penciling, sprite-based games, and simple 3D graphics.  Most work quite well, and particularly for the remixes, the differences in style help to quickly identify what game and actions you need to match.  It’s nothing particularly amazing but works well for the game.

Audio: A

For a rhythm game, the audio is very important, and it does not fail in Rhythm Heaven. All the songs used are nice and upbeat with a lot of variations in beats and speed to provide a wide range of challenges.  It’s not necessary quirkly like Katamari Damacy, but perfectly fine for a game like this.

Overall: A-

Rhythm Heaven is a great game if you like rhythm games in general, quirky Japanese games, or just games that are fun.  It’s not quite like any previous DS game such as Elite Beat Agents, and if you’re into these games for the music, this may not catch you as much as others.  But, it does provide a nice challenge, is well presented as an overall package, and shows promise for more games in the same vein without wearing out the formula too much.

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Story: A-

The game takes place in the years before the events of FF7, and focus on the history of Zack, the other SOLDIER that was present at the pivotal mission with Sephiroth and Cloud, and in fact shows the events of that mission in more detail.  But before that, it presents who Zack his and how he became ranked in SOLDIER, how his friendship with Sephiroth, Cloud, and other SOLDIER and Turks came about, and how he fell in love with Aerith.  Much of the plot is a mirror of the events that ultimately occur in Cloud and Sephiroth’s fate, in that another scientist has started to look into human cloning.  Some of these events filter into the other FF7 media, including Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus and despite being a prequel to all these, doesn’t seem to retcon the history already established.

Needless to say, the story won’t be as easy to follow if you’ve not played through FF7, but at the same time, they do try to make the story self-standing and only passing familarity with the existing characters is just necessary for a good appreciation of the game.  There is a bit of fan service by dropping hints to other characters and events in FF7, such as a few of the side missions involving Yuffie, and the name-dropping of Cid.

As for the actual story, it’s a tad confusing at first, as there’s a bit too much overlap between the parts of the game that teach the game mechanics and that introduce all the characters.  However, about 1/3rd of the way through the game, the story does get going pretty well, and, presuming you’ve worked through FF7, you’ll start to see how the pieces fall into place.  The ending is pretty well done even it is clear how it will end as they help to invest time in the critical characters to make you feel them moreso than in an average RPG (it may help that you only control one character throughout the game, and thus you’re more vested in that one character than 6 or so).

Gameplay: B+

Unlike FF7, Crisis Core is more an action-based game, and designed differently from most of the other Final Fantasy titles.  The main mission in the game spans several chapters, with each chapter a part of a mission for Zack through various aspects of the world. There’s no overworld, but instead you’ll be taken to each area of importance which you can then walk around to interact with the people and environment, in a manner similar to Final Fantasy XII, including down to the little dotted lines to know when you’ll cross into a new area.  Once you’ve completed what you need to do in that area of the world, you move onto the next, and this process repeats for the rest of the game.

However, the main story missions are supplemented by side missions you can take at any save point. One selected, you are whisked off to the mission area, one of about eight special areas that are repeated used in the missions but have means of creating artificial barriers as to keep you confined to one part of the map.  On these missions, your goal is usually to defeat one or more fixed enemies that wait at the end of the course.  Successful completion gives you a reward and more missions to complete, but failing doesn’t end the game, just returns you back to the save point you were at.  The only time you can die and be forced to load from a saved game is if you fall during the main story missions.

Most encounters are random and invisible, though you’ll come to recognize that the game only activates these in areas where there is enough space; there’s otherwise no distinction between standard movement and combat display.  In combat, you can attack, dodge, block, use items, or use spells and abilities inferred by equipped materia.  The combat is active, allowing you move out of the way of a projected attack, or get around to an opponent’s backside to inflect critical hits, and otherwise works pretty well once you get the hang of the game’s timing and approach. The game works well on the PSP as the game always locks you onto an enemy and uses a decent means of trying to keep Zack in the picture when the battle moves around.  The controls are fine here – the d-pad keys work just as well as the analog nub for movement, while the attack and block are on the face buttons; the various skills and abilities are selected by tapping the shoulder buttons to move between the options.  It initially takes a bit of work, but its a system that you can easily slip into.

You gain materia from missions and stores that you can access via menus at any time, but you can only equip six materia.  Most of the materia from FF7 are here, including the usual magic spells, special attacks, passive abilities such as Libra to scan enemies, and stat and skill bonuses.  The game gives you the ability to fuse materia together, most of the time to improve the power of one of the materia, but other times to create entirely new materia; this latter, however, is fewer and far between than I would have liked, as I only found 3 or 4 successful combinations (which you’re told of before you commit to fusion) that gave entirely new ones.  Later in the game you also get the ability to add in other materials to the fusion to further boost the stats that benefit Zack.

The game’s primary trick is the “Digital Mind Wave”, two sets of 3-wheeled slot machines that run automatically in battle as long as you have Soldier Points that are gained from killing enemies.  As long as you take missions, you will not run out of Soldier Points (it costs 10 to spin, I ended up with more than 400,000 SP by the end of the game), so you’ll always get the benefits of what results.  The nature of the reward depends on the semi-random nature of the set of wheels with pictures of characters that Zack befriends in the game.  Should two of the pictures line up, the game pauses for a moment to show you the third wheel’s result and the second set of wheels, the numbers 1-7, as they come to a stop. If all three pictures match, then Zack will automatically do a Limit Break attack that is based on the matched character (e.g. matching Aerith will massively heal you, matching Cloud will fire off a Meteor attack).  In this case as well, if you get a pair of numbers on the other set of wheels, the materia in that associated slot will level up, increasing its power or benefit.  Matching all 7’s will level of Zack – however, this is less a random chance and more based on an “invisible” experience meter (that is, it is impossible level Zack up by biding one’s time in a long protracted battle where you just dodge and let the DMW spin).  Even if the pictures don’t line up, you will still get a bonus in battle by matching up the numbers, such as limited invincibility or no-cost spell use for a few moments.  As noted the wheels are “semi-random”, as the matching will be influenced by your current Limit state, which is built up as you take damage and after certain story events; the higher the Limit meter, the more likely pictures will match up.  There’s also certain points in the main story that further weight th wheel down in favor of specific characters and will also affect the chances of getting a match.  Also, once you collect certain objects in the world, the wheels will sometimes change into pictures of possible Summons (your Ifrit, Bahamut, etc.) or in another case, the more comical Summons like Cait Sith, Chocobo, or Moogle.  The former summons are of course super powerful attacks (with fortunately a cutscene you can skip once you’ve seen it once), while the latter usual impact a nice attack or health benefit for Zack.

The DMW mechanics is certainly unusual and has both advantages and disadvantages.  One clear advantage is that when the game pauses to show you the results of the wheel stops when a match is possible, you get a brief respite from button mashing in the game.  The randomness of the wheel also forces you to play smart, working for points of opportunity for back attacks or striking as a group instead of expecting to be able to fell the group in one blow.  The largest drawback of the DMW is the fact that you cannot predict how it works, and thus, if you’re looking to level up your materia, you simply need to “grind” as to give enough time for the DMW to end up on matches.  Fortunately, and what is a saving grace for the game, is that “grinding” is made easy through the side missions.  Instead of walking around the same area between save points luring monsters into battle, the missions at least add some variety with the different areas they send you to and guarantees of reward items at the end of the day.  Yes, you will have to grind, but you may not realize that you are doing it as you go along.

Even though this is a benefit of dealing with the DMW, this leads to the major drawback of the game – if you do do a lot of missions, either purposely grinding, or if you’re like me and you just have to do them, you will quickly grow super powerful and will make the main part of the game a cinch to finish. At the end of the game, I was regularly landing attacks that did 3000-4000 HP of damage, with the damage meter being maxed out at 9999; very few foes in the main storyline, including the end bosses, posed any significant challenge as a result between straight up attacks and the use of Curaga every other attack cycle; this was basically after completing about 40% of the 300 missions available, so I dare wonder what a character that’s done all 300 missions would be like.  Part of this was my own playing of the games; at the start I didn’t see missions being all that value and just pumped through the first 1/3rd of the game’s main story until I got to a boss I couldn’t defeat easily (one attack was more than what I had in HP), so I spent time powering through all the missions that I could do, and repeated that pattern once every chapter or so (side note: missions are ranked from Very Easy to Very Hard depending on your stats, so as you gain power, missions that were once Very Hard will be listed as being easier.  Thus, I would do all the mission up to Normal and maybe a Hard or two, and find that after running through a number, I’d have new Normal-difficult missions to take that were originally Hard or Very Hard.  Thus, the missions provide a cycle that’s hard to break until you’ve basically done all you can per what you’ve opened by the main story, leaving the most difficult missions for later).  Then when I got to a boss about 2/3rd through the game that I couldn’t beat, and that I had exhausted most of the available missions, I went to materia fusion and basically maxed out what I could with attack, HP and defensive bonuses.  From then on, I had nearly no problems with anything on the main story (side missions were still difficult as those creatures do sometimes scale with your skill level).  I don’t know if this was necessary bad or good that the game ended up being that easy to complete; Final Fantasy games are notorious for very difficult endgames but this was pretty simple.  I’m sure that if you’re more intent on driving through the main game and do just the bare amount of side missions, the challenge will be there, but its hard not to see how, with those side missions calling out to you, that you wouldn’t want to make Zack as powerful as possible.  I think the imbalance basically comes as a combination that the side missions not only boost your stats but also reward you handsomely (there’s some really powerful materia and items as rewards from that), and that if they had reduced the quality of the mission rewards, then there would have been more a challenge in the endgame.

That said, there is one aspect of the side missions that work to this game’s advantage, and that is the fact that they are generally short – 5 to 10 minutes – and drop you back to the save point when you are done.  This is perfectly ideal for use on the PSP which you may only play in short bursts.

Value/Replayability: A-

With me having done about 40% of the 300 missions, I completed the game in about 15 hours; I would suspect that with all the missions, we’d be looking at close to 25 hrs for a 100% completed game. Your mileage may vary depending on how far you take the missions, but this is a pretty decent length for a game. That said, the main story itself, cutscenes and all, is probably only about 5-6 hrs long.  Completing the game unlocks a harder difficulty , though otherwise doesn’t alter the main story.

Graphics: A

The game looks perfectly fine on the PSP – the 3D is well done, smooth, and everything is pretty clear to see on the small screen.  There’s a handful of pre-rendered cutscenes as well, in the same style as Advent Children.  Nothing really wrong in this area.

Audio: A-

Most of the major story points in the game are voiced, reusing past actors where appropriate for their roles.  Musical themes are also reused when possible, but for the most part the game uses mostly new music.  It’s not as great as other themes, but still a good soundtrack for this.

Overall: A-

Crisis Core for the most part works as a good action-based RPG on the PSP.  The combat system is simple and easy to learn, it includes some of the best features of FF7, and encourages strategic thinking associated with a random element.  It also has a gameplay feature via the side missions that’s well suited to playing in short bursts on the portable unit.  The presentation is also spot on for a Square Enix game.  However, if there is a fault, it is that the combination of game elements seems to direct the player into easily creating an over-powered character through the side missions, resulting in the main story side being less of a challenge than most Final Fantasy games.  This is not necessary game-breaking, but an odd design decision that makes you wonder if the designers thought everything through. Regardless, the game does try to create something that stands alone from FF7 if you’ve not played it, but the game is best enjoyed with full knowledge of the earlier title.

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Story: B+

MadWorld put you in charge of Jack, a hardened ex-marine that has a retractable chainsaw built onto one arm, seeking entry into the newly opened DeathWatch television game show where contestants attempt to be the last man standing for a large cash prize.  Three days prior, the DeathWatch was a large metropolis called Varrigan City, but thanks to the release of a virus with promise of a vaccine to those that would kill others, and someone with a lot of resources, the city was quickly transformed into the deadly game show, and Jack is searching for a VIP that was trapped in the city when this all started.  But the only way through is to act like a contestant, get sponsored and work his way through the ranked matched to get deeper into the city.  However, Jack’s initial mission is only just a starting point, as Jack as well as the DeathWatch game are more than what they seem as the game progresses.

The story is not very deep but it does help to hold the interest to the game, and has a good twist and turns to make you want to keep playing.  The story is mostly told as cutscenes using a combination of in-game engine and kinetic comic-book style displays before and after certain levels (any attempt at story between levels would get in the way of killing).  Jack, as pretty much the only character with real development, is pretty complex and well characterized.

Gameplay: A

MadWorld is divided into a number of levels spanning 5 areas of the city; each area has 3 levels in it including one specific boss fight, all the other levels feature a time limit for you to score enough points by killing the drones on the level in order to open the boss fight and kill him or her, thus moving Jack up the DeathWatch ladder to eventually face the top-ranked player  Most of these are played out on small arenas on foot, but a few feature combat from the back of a motorcycle while driving along highways.  In these levels, reaching other point thresholds will unlock several features, including health items, weapons, new environmental ways of killing foes, mini-bosses, and a special BloodBath challenge.

To score points, you control Jack to kill foes.  Simple kills, basically beating a foe up or slicing them in half with a chainsaw earn some points but you really score the points when you use the environment effectively as well as make your foe suffer multiple points of pain before finishing them off. For example, you can thrust a tire around an enemy, stab their head with a street sign, stuff a garbage can on them, set them on fire, throw another enemy into them, and the like, including multiples of these, before throwing the enemy against a “rose bush” of conveniently placed spikes.  Basically, each injury you do to the foe acts as a multiplier increase to the score, which help you get to the required points for each level. At times, if you wear down a foe, you’ll have an opportunity to use a Finisher on them, which requires typically one little Wiimote/Nunchuck action to complete.  There will also be need to use such actions to pull off the pain-inflicting moves, but these are shown on the screen when they become available.  The controls themselves to pull all this off are pretty straight-forward, and if anything, the only complaint is that the move to grab at a target seems very persnickety about how far or close you are to them, but otherwise they become second nature quickly.  The levels themselves are generally small (roughly the size of a city block) with lots of environmental killing devices awaiting their use as well as secret areas with more unique methods for dealing with foes.

Throughout most levels is the BloodBath challenge, which still will earn you points towards your level score, but also gives you bonus points for pulling off special killing tactics.  After being introduced humorously by the Black Baron (who ends up victim to the death-dealing machinations by his assistant) you have a limited amount of time to kill foes by a specific method.  This may be getting the foes to stand in front of a set of speeding trains to be run over, or to be targets for your spike bat to be struck against a giant dartboard.  These present a fun diversion from the rest of the level (as taking damage is usually very difficult to do during these.

When you open a boss fight, you’re taken to a special part of the level.  While regular attacks with bosses will wear down their health, the main way that most bosses are defeated is to get them into a Finishing Move melee, requiring you to get close and pull off a specific motion with the controllers.  When you get into the Finishing Move (clearing indicated with anime-style battle panels quickly flashing on screen) you basically need to watch for a handful of quick time events to respond to the bosses moves, and either dazing the boss to wail on him or scoring big damage.  Each boss is finalized with a final Finishing move as well.  While quick time events can be a boon to a game, they are used well here; there’s enough timing to execute them, and because the game doesn’t use the motion sensing via the infrared sensors but instead the internal motion sensing, the moves only require small flicks appropriately for the event.  The one aspect of the game that is a bit annoying is that if you should die completely facing the boss (wearing away all the health from all the lives you bring into the boss) you have to restart the entire level over instead of starting the boss fight again.  For most of the bosses, at least at normal difficulty, this isn’t a problem but there was one boss on one level that felt really difficult to score points (e.g. it would take me 15 minutes or so to get the number needed to bring up the boss fight) that was also a more difficult boss (namely as he wasn’t the type you just wail on) that I had to redo the overall level 4 or so times before I was able to defeat the boss.

Once you beat a level, you can go back to try to improve your score, and there’s also a harder difficulty level for the game if you need that challenge.  A split-screen multiplayer mode is also available, where you all fight in the same arena trying to amass the most points.

The game is pretty damn fun.  Obviously, you need to recognize that the killing going on here is over-the-top comically and while this game does show brutal deaths, it helps that the overall presentation is so bizarre and comic-bookish that no one is going to mistake this as a “murder simulator”.  When you have that in mind, you can have a lot of fun, experimenting the most effective and efficient ways of dealing with the enemies of the game.  There’s enough variety in the way the levels provide you with means of killing that helps to avoid monotonous gameplay, save for the time you’re getting to the last few levels.  The controls are very well-polished – this isn’t a game where they just tacked motion-sensing on the end – and are very easy to pick up.  Even if you’re not great at normal fighting games, button-mashing will serve you well here.

Value/Replayability: B+

The full game is not really long, maybe 8 to 10 hours if not shorter if you’re a pro at the Street Fighter type variety.  But in terms of overall length, that feels about right – Jack doesn’t power up (nor does he have the need to do so), so there’s no new moves that he learns and while the enemies get more difficult, the same tactics work for most in the game.  The replay is there in the ability to go back to any level to try to better your time/score and to try it at the harder difficulty level.  I think if the game was any longer it would have become rather bland, so this was a decent choice here.

Graphics: A

It’s impossible to talk MadWorld without spending time on the graphics.  There’s clear influences of Frank Miller’s Sin City, as the entire game is pretty much rendered in three colors: black and white for characters and environments, yellow for onomatopoeia words that appear as in comic books, and copious and copious amounts of red for blood.  The black and white visuals are very difficult to describe just by relying on 2d screenshots, but they do work well for the game, thanks to the designers’ choices.  There’s enough (but not too much) detail that make it easy to help distinguish edges of features in front of other features, and while you might blink a few times when you start playing it to figure it out, it’s really really well done.  It also helps to “disguise” the fact that this game is running on the Wii, as the presentation looks just as good as any 720/1080p game for the 360 or PS3.  While the gameplay itself helps to lend to the idea that this is supposed to be a fun game that happens to use violence as a scoring mechanics, this is also aided by the choice to represent physical harm to foes as near-river-like amounts of bright red blood (in the same fashion as No More Heroes).  There’s no guts (well, one Finishing move has a heart, ripped out ala Temple of Doom style), and you don’t see these gapping wounds in the bodies.  It may look like it’s a very bloody game, but really it is all decoration and very satisfying.  (Be aware, this is still not a game for youngsters, this is only part of the reason).

Audio: A-

While the main voice work for the game during cut-scenes is decent (some more than others, such as the Black Baron), where the game shines in audio is the hip-hop soundtrack (shades of Persona 3) that plays throughout the levels, and the work by the two announcers that are always there.  These two are voiced (in the North American and UK version) by Greg Proops and John DiMaggio.  Proops was on Who’s Line Is It Anyway? but more recently was the podrace sportscaster from Phantom Menace.  DiMaggio is (coincidentally?) the voice of Marcus Fenix from Gears of War but also Bender from Futurama, and in this game, he’s pretty much one can of Olde Fortran away from being in full Bender mode.  These two have a fantastic set of rude, crash lines they work from that accompany the killing spree you do on each level, and clearly they had a lot of fun with their lines and working together on (I’ve read they ad libbed a few of them as well, making this a nice touch).  The only complaint that I have about the lines is that they needed about twice as many, the repetition on the lines did get a little tiresome on some levels and later in the game. (Do make sure to stay for the credit sequence)  The rest of the sound effects in the game are good, and pretty much every way you can imagine that raw meat can be used to create sound effects has been utilized.

Overall: A-

MadWorld has some pitfalls and is not necessary a genre-changing game, but it is a very satisfying and fun game to play and feels that I’m playing exactly what the producers at Platinum Games wants to have as a game.  It’s a bit on the short side that makes it more a renter, though I’m one to always encourage supporting the little guys, and given Platinum Games’ history, I do suggest to buy it if you can.  While the gameplay may get a bit stale at the end, the rest of the presentation of the game is spot on and I find it quite amusing just to play it for a few minutes.

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Guitar Hero: Metallica

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Gameplay: A-

There’s not much to say about the basic Guitar Hero gameplay here once you’re actually in the songs, save that they’ve wisely copied one feature that I love from Rock Band, that being that your progress towards the number of stars you are earning is tracked as you play, which can also be used to some extent as a "progress through song" meter, which can be very helpful on these longer Metallica tunes. Otherwise, all the features (including sliding notes that use the touchpad on the World Tour guitar, armored notes for the drummer, and like) are present.

In terms of game modes, the Career mode drops the World Tour approach of gigs, and just outright gives you a list of songs to work through. However, you need to earn a minimum number of stars to open up certain sections of that list (basically representing another venue).  Fortunately, and probably very wisely, this barrier is low and you can earn the stars at any difficulty you want to play on.  Thus, to unlock the whole set of 49 songs, you pretty much only need to play about 12 or 15 songs total, making it very easy to get to the songs you really want to play if you’re not a fan of certain Metallica eras or their choice of guest acts.  For a set list this size, this works very well - a Rock Band tour mode would been too repetitive (again, Metallica songs are not short, so it would take time to work through things) and the gig approach from World Tour would lock up too much of the stuff.  And of course, the fact that you can play through without being tied to difficulty is great if you bite off more than you can chew by starting on Expert and getting your ass whooped by the time you get to the middle tiers.  The single player progress is still tied to the initial instrument you select (effectively you have four different careers to work through), but this is reasonable here since there are various differences in the difficulty of the songs depending on instruments - notably with some Metallica songs being simple but fast guitar/bass chord progressions and hard as heck on drums, while others have killer guitar solos over easy drumlines.  Band mode still requires you to have at least two people present to play, but otherwise works similar to the single player career.  There’s also the usual bunch of competitive multiplayer modes, including Boss Battles retools to feature Metallica-themed distractions, if these types of modes are your thing.

What’s probably the most pleasant thing to see in this game is that from a difficulty standpoint, this game feels right about perfect, or at least, right on par with Rock Band’s implied difficulty.  I’ve played many songs on drums on Expert/Hard and some guitar and bass on Expert, and pretty much is about right where I’d expect metal songs to be for my skill based on Rock Band.   That is, if you’re more casual then hardcore, both Medium and Hard difficulties will present enough of a challenge to not be boring and give a good run through the songs, while Expert will be (appropriately) a very difficult ride but great for the purists. And of course, to meet the with the actual aggressiveness of Lars’ drumming, there’s a special Expert+ mode that pretty much requires you to use two bass drum pedals to even have a shot. (However, you either needed to have preordered the game or have purchased the second kick separately).  This is a far cry from Guitar Hero III’s "wall o’ notes" and the scaled-back lack of difficulty in Aerosmith, finally achieving a good balance between being fun and challenging. I have to give Neversoft kudos for getting to this point as quickly as they did given that Harmonix has had much more background in getting there.  The only factor that comes into dragging these songs down is their length - sure, Metallica songs do run long, and there’s no reason for the game to cut them short, but some songs I did find that the same fast easy rhythm can get very tiring near the end at the Hard level, and maybe would have liked a bit more breathing room at this level.

Playing through the songs will give you cash that you can use to customize your avatar using the same character creation system as in World Tour.  You also unlock special features such as playable versions of Metallica members as you gain enough cumulative cash to cross certain boundaries.  When you complete all the Metallica songs and many of the special guests songs, you’ll unlock the ability to watch these via "Metallifacts" akin to Pop-up Videos, giving you some insight into the background of the song. Add in lots of videos of Metallica performances and their behind-the-scenes look at the motion capture and development sessions, and this is really a more complete tribute to the band compared to the few extras on Aerosmith.  There’s probably more that people would have liked to add, as this certainly isn’t the end-all biography of the group, but it pretty dang complete for a console game.

Value/Replayability: B+

If the only thing that really hurts this game (beyond the soundtrack if you are not a Metallica fan) is that it is still a full price game.  Now, sure, nearly 50 songs is a pretty full disk, but when one considers that World Tour has 80 songs and costs the same, one has to question how much value there is on the extras in this package, and for myself, not the world’s biggest Metallica fan but certainly appreciative of their music, it’s just a bit too much.  Add to the fact that save for the previous release of Death Magnetic content, there will be no additional (at the present time) DLC for this game, and you’re really looking at a very limited package. (GHTunes is still here, and cross-compat with World Tour, but my experience with comes out of there is very hit or miss).  It will still provide a good amount of gameplay and certainly not a bad use of your money, but it is a bit pricey compared to what else is out there.  At the same time, could this have been a DLC add-on to World Tour?  Maybe… but the spit and polish on the presentation really makes this game stand out alone.

Graphics: A

Neversoft really went all out to make this game look and feel like a Metallica game.  Thanks to extensive motion capture, all of the Metallica members look sweet and completely at home on the more realistic venues created for this game.  The motions and camera effects during the various songs is about as good as live concert videos, including the appropriate use of film filters to give some songs a handicam-shot type feel.  Even when doing the non-Metallica songs, the avatars look much better, and are less cartoony that the Guitar Hero III versions, if not even better than World Tour.  If anything, the only mark on the game’s presentation is that with the intensely accurate graphics there is a slight impact on the frame rate, barely impacting the display rate which I noticed but certainly not ruining the experience.

Audio: A

Presuming you are already a fan of the band Metallica, you’ll love the soundtrack, which weighs a bit heavier on their pre-Black album material (which common knowledge tends to consider as the better part of their career) but does include some more recent material too. The tracks are all master and sound excellent from the game. If there’s a hitch, it’s that the guest acts don’t quite have the same "volumn" of sound that the Metallica tracks were obviously painstakingly mixed to perfection for the game; there’s nothing wrong to ruin the experience but switching from the Metallica songs to the guests and back, its clear there’s a bit of difference here.

Overall: A-

Your actual value on this game is going to depend on your fondness for the band Metallica. If you dislike them, you’re not going to find anything new here. If you’re a rapid fan, this game is definitely a must-have.  But for those in between (I mildly like their stuff, and certainly not turned off by it) you’ll find this to be the best post-Harmonix Guitar Hero game to date - it’s sufficiently difficult but not impossible through most of the game, the presentation is top notch, and overall a well done game. It would have been nice to have the option to have these songs as DLC, or means of integrating these with World Tour or vice-versa, as the price of this game is bit high for just under 50 songs, but it still is a pretty fun game.

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Overall: A+

If you haven’t played Peggle from the PC side, the game is basically a Pachinko-like game where you shoot balls from a launcher at the top of the screen to a number of colored pegs in a field, though here, if you hit a peg, the peg will disappear after the shot is completed (or in some cases if it is potentially holding up a ball from falling) Twenty of these pegs are randomly selected to be orange, and the goal is to clear all the orange pegs starting with 10 balls.  Of course, there’s ways of getting more balls: getting a good score on a single shot or by landing the ball in a catcher that moves back and forth regularly will do this.  As you clear the orange pegs, your score multiplier increases, so while it may become more difficult to make a shot, going for more difficult shots can really pay off.  A pin is selected to be purple after every shot, and is a point boost to your score, while two green pins randomly selected at the start of the level will activate that level’s current “magic power”. There are ten “Peggle Masters” each with a different magic power; some help with your shots, some with clearing the board, and other effects.  Some of these only last for that shot while others will last for the next few shots as well.  When you complete the last orange pin, you then have a simple chance of luck bonus round where you can score more points depending on where the ball lands at the bottom of the screen.  If you fail to clear the board with the allocation of 10 balls and any extras, you have to repeat the board until you do so.

The single player side is pretty straight forward for what you’d expect on XBox Live - high score tracking, the possibility of more levels (what is currently here is the base Peggle package, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Peggle Nights levels come along) via DLC, and the like.  An important factor to some may be the lack of precise mouse control but I will say I believe the controller scheme is well done, having just the right amount of touch and responsiveness to the controls to allow you to accurately line up shots as good as you could with a mouse.  The game is sufficiently addictive and Pop Cap made a nice simple interface to get you right to the game as soon as possible, making it a no-brainer to have as a purchased game. The bonus to this already great game is the “Peggle Party” multiplayer mode, which supplements the obvious online version of Peggle Duels.  It’s competitive, but not interference-type competitiveness.  You each get 10 balls and the same board layout (including positions of orange pins), and you all make your own shots. If you complete your shot before any other, you can sneak a peak at another’s board to see where they’re at. After each shot, the current scores are all tallied up. Obviously, the goal is to have the highest end score; however, there’s a lot of potential strategy here that doesn’t necessarily come about in single player mode.  For example, a skilled player may take his time and wait to make the big score on one of their later balls when their score multiplier is high, easily surpassing those players that may have tripped it earlier on.  There’s just enough strategy here to make the multiplayer fun and exciting, almost like the old party Crash mode of the Burnout games.  Multiplayer is nicely grouped into ranked and player matches, thus allowing you to be as friendly or competitive as you want.

It may not have the deepest gameplay around, but there’s no doubt that Peggle should be a must-have for any Xbox Live user.  It’s a reasonable good and addictive game with good additions and a nice Xbox implementation to make it worth your while.  The only put-off here may be if you just don’t like Peggle (but that’s a rarity) - if you haven’t had a chance to try it, PopCap has a web version on their site, which is sufficiently close enough to the real thing to give you the feeling of the game. But if you loved Peggle on the PC, there’s no question that this will be a hit too.

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LocoRoco 2

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Story: A-

In LocoRoco 2, the Moja Corps have returned, now armed with their own song to counter that of the LocoRoco and their planet, causing other beings that live on the planet to tire out.  They’ve also been able to convert some of the helpful Mui Mui to their side, who set about to create their own vehicles to spread the Moja’s bleakness across the planet. It’s up again to the LocoRoco to reawaken their music with their song.  Compared to the first game, there’s a more concrete plot, still told without words in cutscenes in the same style as the rest of the game, and conveys a nice funny story.  It’s not deep by far (younger kids still need to get it) but enough to be a better driver for the game.

Gameplay: A

The core aspects of the first game are still here, and as a good sequel, only attempts to add a few tricks to the goodie bag to keep the game fresh.  You don’t directly control the LocoRoco but instead use the PSP shoulder buttons to “tilt” the planet left and right to make the LocoRoco roll in that direction.  You can also make them jump by holding and releasing the shoulder buttons at the same time, necessary for clearing gaps, jumping to higher platforms, break walls, and fending off attacks from the Moja Corps.  As the LocoRoco goes about the level and eats a berry, it will grow by one; after this, you can tap a face button that will cause the LocoRoco to split into numerous individual LocoRoco which may be need to get by narrow spaces, and then regroup them into the large LocoRoco by holding down the face button.  New to their bag of tricks is for the LocoRoco to “swim” underwater, primarily using the shoulder buttons to control their motion of flow, and their ability to grip onto hanging objects from which they can then swing back and forth at times (rapidly pressing the shoulder buttons) to pull on that object as needed.  The controls are still very simple and can be picked up easily.

The game presents a linear course of about 20 levels to complete, but the story allows these levels to take place in a more haphazard order.  For example, instead of grouping the handful of ice-based levels into a group, you’ll play these levels interspersed with the others, thus making sure that no single environment gets old really fast in the game. The goal in each level is to try to make it to the end with as many LocoRoco (up to 20), collecting as many “Pickories” (effectively currency) along the way, in the fastest time possible.  However, there are many secret areas to explore to find the waiting Mui Mui, LocoRoco House pieces, berries, and more; as with the first game, you’ll get an idea where these are based on “hints” in the level design, typically an odd depression in the side of a wall that if you try to jump through, the hidden area will be revealed.  A significant addition to the game is the collection of musical notes through the levels.  Waking some of the LocoRoco planet creatures by touching them will reward you with a small number of notes, while encountering certain areas or beings with a minimum number of LocoRoco will initiate a simple beat-matching game to the LocoRoco song, and earn you a larger number of notes.  Once a certain number of notes are reached, you “level up” the level, making it easier to collect objects on that level through the rest of playing it and on return trips.  Also, with the Moja Corps’ song, there are areas that need to be wiped clean of the Moja influence (a matter of jumping the LocoRoco through the black clouds), which also reward notes as well as lead to overall larger bonuses.  Because of the number of secret areas and several ways of perfecting the levels, there’s a lot of replay value in the core game alone, more so than from the first game.

But in addition to that are a few new minigames.  There is still a “Chuupa” launcher game to try to get the farthest distance on a course using special bird launchers, similar to the first game.  Two more mini-games are based on events in the game, one where you use the Mui Muis to defend their house from evil Mui Muis, and then a second game that’s more like a shoot-em-up where you have to defeat the evil Mui Mui force with your own Mui Mui plane while carrying a LocoRoco on the backside to eat up the spoils of war.  You get one free shot at each, but after that you need to spend Pickories to play these, using good scores for getting House pieces.  The house this time is more for the Mui Muis, and you get to dig out new rooms and add furniture with all the pieces that you’ve collected, some which add the ability to look at movies or listen to music in the game, while others are simply toys.  Nothing significant, but adds enough to make you want to work towards full completion of the game.

Otherwise, the game is about as difficult as it was in the first game – if you’re just trying to clear it, it’s pretty fun and easy, but trying to aim for full completion is a bit more work and may require a few trips through each level to locate all the hidden areas.  Fortunately, the rest of the game’s presentation makes this a welcoming feature as opposed to a chore.

Value/Replayability: B+

The game has about 20-odd levels, like the first, each that will take you 5-10 minutes to complete without trying for full completion.  Like the first game, this leaves you with a rather short game to complete, so looking at the extra features helps to fill out the game.  Maybe not that much for the older gamer, but certainly enough there for younger gamers to keep there interest for a good while.

Graphics: A+

The game’s graphic approach hasn’t changed at all from the first game; everything uses bright, solid colors, allowing it easy to see all that needs to be seen while still allowing for great expression in the levels.  The LocoRoco retain their jelly-like behavior, and still morph and bounce around like little children, with great facial expressions.  There’s still the bit of a blurring effect but I’ve come to judge that more a factor of the LCD screen than the game itself.

Audio: A

The game also retains the light, bouncing songs using the fictional language that the first game had, with just the right amount of reuse of the old melodies and some nice fresh songs.  As with the first game, the number of voices in the songs are dependant on your LocoRocos – if you have just a single large one, you’ll get only a single voice singing, but with many LocoRoco in their individual state, you get all their voices – this is also true when you hit certain areas to wake the residents during the rhythm-game part.  It can get a bit too bubbly if you play all the way through once but certainly not painful on the ears.

Overall: A

LocoRoco 2 certainly doesn’t fail being a worthy sequel to the great first game, and does exactly what a sequel should do: provide the same gameplay with a few new tricks, nothing to make it feel like a strange new experience but still staying fresh.  It’s also a great cross-age game that can appeal to several ages of gamers, and definitely a nice game for the youngsters in this day and age.  It’s also enjoyable without playing the first, though you’d get a better appreciation for the overall experience if you’ve played the first.  Definitely a must-have game if you have a PSP.

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Story: B

The story is simple - a far off world is populated by creatures known as LocoRocos that take care of the living planet and generally are a happy bunch. But when weird aliens called the Moja Corps arrive to take over the planet, the LocoRocos take charge to find their friends and reawaken the other beings on the planet.

Gameplay: A

The LocoRocos are roundish blobs that have no limbs, and thus the only way they can get around is by rolling and bouncing around the landscape. Though unlike with Katamari Damacy, you actually tilt the landscape using the shoulder buttons to get them to roll, which may also affect other parts of the landscape (hanging vines and water levels for example). Bouncing is done by releasing both shoulder buttons at the same time. Through these, you can get the LocoRocos over hills and safely over dangerous foes.

The LocoRocos also have a special ability. First, by eating special berries through the levels, you can make the LocoRoco grow (the size based on the number of berries eaten). If you’ve achieved a size of two or more, you can quickly hit the circle button to cause the LocoRoco to split into many smaller versions of itself, which may be necessary to work through small passages and avoid other aspects of the levels. This split may also be
forced on you, if the large LocoRoco is pushed against a sharp object on the level. However, you can regroup the LocoRoco back into a single being by holding down the circle button. Generally, you want to keep the LocoRoco as one being - if you lose one of the smaller beings off screen and can’t regroup fast enough, a Moja Corps will grab it away from you. Controls are a cinch to get used to and work quite well for the PSP.

The goal of each of the 40 worlds in the game is to safely get the LocoRoco from the start to the end, awakening as many creatures as possible by singing them awake. Most of the creatures require a minimum number of LocoRocos in order to wake them up, so it pays to get as many berries as possible and to avoid losing any LocoRocos to the Mojas. Throughout the worlds are also many pickories that you can collect and use for the mini-games outside of the main game. Little beings called MuiMuis also are hidden through the levels, and if you can rescue them, you’ll get a piece for your LocoRoco house (also played outside the game).

The levels are very well done, feeling very organic at times but with many dynamic parts as well. There’s lots of various obstacles to get around, platforms to bounce from, and the like, and the variety of the design of the levels is pretty good. At times, they feel like some classic Sonic the Hedgehog runs with sections where you basically don’t have much control but fun to watch the speed and action on the screen as you zip by (the sound effects help a lot here too). The game also provides a bit of odd variety that at times, a creature will change the shape of the LocoRoco into a square, or a long rectangle, among other shapes, which don’t quite roll as well, and make for some interesting play on physics. The difficulty isn’t too hard in getting though - each level’s about 5-10 minutes long and while a few late levels have a bit of a challenge to avoiding damage, it’s still easy to make it to the end. The key of the game is that there’s all the hidden areas that you want to try to find and access in order to get all the berries, LocoRoco house parts, pickories, and MuiMui’s scattered about each level in order to fully complete the game. At about 40 levels, the general gameplay remains pretty fresh, and the length is definitely the right length. If you zip through the levels, it’s about 5 hours long at most, but getting to 100% completion could easily take up to 20hrs as you figure out all the secrets the levels hold.

Graphics: A

The graphics in the game are done simply as flat, brightly-colored shapes with a lot of fluidity, which allows the game to move at a great speed. The LocoRoco is very amorphous, and gets flattened out, stretched, and deformed throughout the game, which is well rendered by the game. Several parts of the landscape are also deformed by the weight of the LocoRocos as they pass over it as well. The stylings of the characters are consistent throughout the game, looking like children’s book characters, but all quite pleasing to the eyes. One of the best parts about the game is how well animated the LocoRocos (when split apart) are when they’re idle - the best I can describe them is thinking about a class of pre-school kids that are left alone, but think they are being watched - it’s bottled chaos. They’ll trying to jump on each other, line up for a short period and count out, then go back to trying to jump up and make towers and pyramids. It’s a joy just to watch them in this state.

Audio: A

Where the game shines is the music. There’s about 20 different songs used for the game, spanning a similar range of styles as Katamari Damacy’s music. However, a big aspect of these songs is that the vocals (all in Japanese) are based on what stage your LocoRoco is at. If it’s just one large unit, you’ll hear a single voice, but when you split them up, the voice track suddenly becomes a whole chorus, the number of additional voices depending on how large the LocoRoco was. Additionally, there’s 6 different LocoRoco types that you can select for a level, each with a different voice, and most of the music is the same irregardless of the voice, thus making the music even more varied. If you sit and watch the individual LocoRocos, you can even see some singing the main parts, others on the backup vocals. Add to the mix that many parts of the world make musical noise when the LocoRocos pass over them, and the game is a treat to one’s ears.

(repost addendum, I know now that the language used was intentionally fictional)

Value / Replayability: B+

Outside of the main game, there are 3 mini games - a crane game (which is unlocked from the start), a golf-like game, and a level editor, the last two unlocked by nearing full completion of the game. The crane and golf game use the pickories that you’ve collected as playing fees but can be used to unlock more parts. The level editor allows you to create levels that can be transferred to other players using numerous parts found in the game. Unfortunately, to unlock these last two items can take a bit more work (you need to work on collecting all the hidden items in the game), and it’s a shame the level editor isn’t unlocked from the start or at least through the main game completion. One can also build a LocoRoco house from the parts collected in the game, and watch the perpetually moving LocoRocos as they move about it. As with the custom levels, you can also share your house with others. In addition, you can also send demo levels to a friend to let them try out the game.

One thing that I will add that the game has some of the best loading times for a PSP game. Levels load up within a few seconds, and there’s only a bit of pause when going between the menu screens.

The only other negative about the game I have is that while it’s a great deviation from gameplay we’ve seen and a unique game, it just don’t have the catchiness that Katamari Damacy had. It may be that Katamari Damacy felt more open, with a lot more objects that you could collect and various ways you could do things, while within LocoRoco, you’re bound by the path within the game. Even chasing after hidden objects always returns you back to the main parts, and thus you’ll always be taking the same routes through the levels each time. It’s still great gameplay can be learned quickly, but for some reason, I just don’t get the same vibes Katamari had after playing that game once through. It may also be that the freely available demo for the game showcased a level (not included in the main game) which included all the major gameplay, which is a good thing for a demo to be, but the game itself really doesn’t add much more that wasn’t already found in the demo. In other words, I went through the game looking for new things, and really didn’t find too much more. Katamari Damacy lacked this problem because each new challenge introduced a new range of things to pick up and kept the game fresh throughout. This is not to say the game is bad, but it’s hard to universally recommend this to everyone as I could with Katamari.

Overall: A-

LocoRoco is a great PSP title and plays well, with a lot of stuff to do before exhausting it. A lot of details were put into the game, particularly on the audio and visuals despite the simple looking appearance. However, it’s hard to point a finger at why I can’t give this game as much praise as Katamari Damacy - I don’t know if it’s due to the anticipation I had for it, or the lack of openness Katamari Damacy had. Still, it’s definitely a strong title with quirky gameplay that differs from much else out there, and while maybe not a must-buy for PSP owners, will still likely find it’s way into their libraries at some point.

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