Game Review – Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams for PS2

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Reviewed by Julie Gray
Review originally published April 27, 2006

16th Century Japan must have been a very interesting time to be alive. Hideyoshi Toyotomi certainly must have thought so. With the clans at each other’s throats for so long, bloodshed and the art of killing must have been two things that went hand in hand. Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams captures the violence and history of this time in a game that would probably make Hideyoshi proud.

The game begins in Sakai, Kyoto. Two mysterious characters dressed in Samurai armour wielding swords are duelling. A harsh exchange of words and swords clashing between two men would not have been an uncommon occurrence in feudal Japan. The backdrop is dark and foreboding. The once beautiful and bustling city of Kyoto lies in ruin and it seems the battle between good and evil has found its way to Kyoto’s streets.

The cut-scenes in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams are astounding. Graphically, the backgrounds, lighting and animation are extremely well done and do more than just sell the story. It makes you want to be part of it – what every game should aim to achieve. The facial expressions are crisp, detailed and expressive. Hair that looks so real, you almost think it is. The calibre of the animation really is quite amazing, almost reminiscent of the same type of animation used in Final Fantasy – Advent Children.

Onimusha roughly translated means warrior demon. Enter Soki – the main character in the story (Soki means “Oni of the Ash”). So, putting bits of the story together, we come to understand that Soki is a Samurai and one of the Onimusha (referred to throughout the game as the Blue Demon, just to confuse you even more). Further on, Soki gets to upgrade his armour (funnily enough, it’s blue and really quite cool-looking), but we’ll get to that later.

One of the better parts of Dawn of Dreams is the use of historical references -locations, people and pictures as cut scenes. The impressive depth of these aspects is like there is a ‘real’ story to be told behind the game and it’s not just another walk-through of pretty animations and backgrounds with a bit of fighting tossed in.

The story slowly unfolds and more is revealled as you progress but for now, you just wanna kill. Well, there are plenty of mean-looking skeletal henchmen (Genma) to run through right from the get-go. That’s bound to put a smile on any Samurai’s face. It does, however, become pretty clear after the first two stages that there is more to Soki than a cool-looking sword and nice armour. Sooner than expected, you (Soki) find yourself on a rooftop with an even more ferocious demon the size of Godzilla trying to turn you into sushi. That’s when things get interesting and it’s only stage two…

The combat sequences in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams are easily played out. The great thing about the combat is that it’s so easy to do. The buttons are pretty simplistic – attack and block are standard.
But there’s this little matter of collecting souls that we need to explain. The gameplay is structured well for beginners with handy tips appearing onscreen. During combat, you’re bound to see the option to ‘Collect Souls’ pop up on screen. Whenever Soki kills something (undead at least), he releases the souls of his victims. He can then harvest the souls to use later on as special magic called ‘Oni Magic’. This is represented by the blue bar just under Soki’s health bar in the top left hand corner of the screen.

Oni magic is pretty difficult to obtain so you don’t want to go wasting it. But when you use it, it’s like a power up that gives Soki a special attack using lightning. This type of attack also gives Soki an opportunity to score combination attack points. Points are important but not crucial. You can also collect gold pieces when you kill mobs which you should try and do as often as you can. That way, you will have more money to spend when you upgrade.

Like most games that give your character the ability to power up and upgrade weapons and skills, Onimusha’s system for upgrading is based on levelling-up. To do this it means you must eventually fight with opponents that also gain in skill, ability and difficulty level. There are some combat sequences that easily last longer than half an hour, especially with some of the tougher boss mobs. Upgrading suddenly becomes a crucial part of the game if you intend on progressing. When you upgrade, you can enhance weapons or skills which will cost money to do (hence the tip about collecting gold).

The dialogue used in the game between your character and others can sometimes come off as a little cheesy. That is really the only word to accurately describe it. This is also emphasised during encounters with other characters that join Soki on his mission. Soki gets to share his adventure and peril with some rather interesting characters. We won’t give away too much more, but the game can definitely become a lot more exciting with more than two characters kicking Genma butt. Each character also has its own unique set of skills, abilities and weapons.

With eye-opening cut scenes and animation, appealing backdrops, sound and storyline, there isn’t much we can find at fault in Dawn of Dreams. This Onimusha definitely takes the series of games to the next level in both content and playability with an enormous amount of gameplay time to be had. Now, that’s a recipe for success any way you look at it. Two thumbs up for Capcom.

You can view the original published article here.

Game Review – DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 for PS2

DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2

Reviewed by Julie Gray
Review originally published January 27, 2007

An influx of manga/anime based fighting games has comfortably seen the video games market expand by fusing together several entertainment genres. The growth of anime and manga in the last few years has been quite phenomenal with sales in the US market alone reaching tens of millions of US dollars. It’s no wonder that some of the more popular anime franchises such as Bleach, Naruto and Dragon Ball Z have been successfully adapted into video games.

If you’re a fan of anime (Japanese animated movies) it will be easy for you to see the appeal in video games based on anime. The Japanese are some of the best in the world at creating and developing interesting and compelling storylines and characters which are easily adapted into games or even movies. So how does Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 measure up on the PS2?

First thing’s first: the voiceovers. I started playing this game without altering the voiceovers and found that the English was so annoying; I just couldn’t tolerate playing the game any longer without changing the voices to Japanese. Whilst the English dubbed voices may have no direct impact on how the game is played, you’ll enjoy the experience a whole lot more with native Japanese voiceovers and subtitles.

Dragon Ball Z is a very long running and overly popular franchise in Japan. The anime and manga have been around in Japan for many years and the games date back to the early 80’s. You will definitely notice this influence in every facet of the game; from the synth-based background music to the animation style itself. The DBZ games really are just extensions of the anime and manga and this is the best way to describe the aesthetics of the game. The animation is very 80’s with very broad lines and exaggerated expressions and dialogue. All of this helps to give the game an authentic appeal, even if it does look dated.

The story line of the game will be very familiar to fans of the franchise. One of the game options is called the Dragon Encyclopaedia where you can scroll through different aspects of the game including in-depth character bios which explain all about each character in the DBZ universe.

When loading up the game, you will notice the 80’s style theme in the presentation and cut-scenes as well. The game modes and options are clearly set out and easily accessed at the beginning of the game which makes it easy to navigate. You can quickly skip some of the rather annoying dialogue to jump to the part of the game you want.

I decided to check out both the tournament and duelling options in the game. Once you have decided on your game mode, you can then set the difficulty level which is a choice between 1, 2, or 3; 3 being the toughest. The different modes in the game are Dragon Tournament (versus mode where you can win money and buy items), training mode (to learn the basics of the game), Dragon Adventure mode (fighting various opponents from the DBZ universe in various maps on Earth and in space) and Ultimate Battle Z where you can fight in ranked matches. There is also a duelling mode where you can utilise two player mode and fight against a friend or the A.I.

The duelling mode for two players is actually kind of frustrating more than it is fun. The combat is the same throughout the game so no surprises there but the split screen format proved to be just a little too frustrating to have any major fun with it.

Played in third-person perspective, the controls in the game are relatively simple to use. Once you learn how to move in the game, it’s really just a matter of time before you will get the hand of the basic combat techniques. Punching and blocking are expected but you can also use special attacks (called Ki Blasts) which will send a bolt of energy at your opponent, rendering him immobile whilst your power recharges. You can also fly in the game (which is fun at first) and you can certainly dodge (like strafing) from left to right to avoid Ki blasts from your opponent. Aerial combat is definitely much more fun than plain old fighting on the ground. And the traditional fighting game cinematic is used to great effect in DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 during the combat scenes.

The different fighting combinations are really what give the game a competitive edge if you’re the type of person that enjoys tournament matches or versus modes. There are many different types of combo’s that you can master for each character which are variations of punch/kick combinations. It’s pretty standard stuff for a 3-D fighting game.

DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is the third game in this particular series of games which means you would certainly expect hefty re-developments or at least some major changes in the look and feel of the game. Unfortunately, an extensive character pool doesn’t make a great game and the repetitive game play could only be fun for serious fans. In the long run, DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 fails to really deliver anything refreshingly new. Throwing your opponents through buildings and fighting them in mid-air is fun for half an hour but that’s about it.

Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is one of the less spectacular fighting games around but would definitely be interesting for die-hard DBZ fans looking to buy extra commodities in the franchise. It’s a generic fighting game based on a franchise that is really only going to entertain fans and anyone else should probably look elsewhere.

You can view the original published article here.

Game Review: ‘God Hand’ for PS2

This is my first (commissioned) review for TGC (The Game Console magazine). This issue is not officially released until Friday in stores in New Zealand but since this is the first issue for me as editor of the magazine, I thought this was a special occasion and wanted to celebrate the achievement by posting it here. Sorry about the quality of the scans. I have also included the cover page and the editorial for the February 2007 issue.

            

‘God Hand’ Review – PS2

Reviewed by Julie Gray
Review originally published February Issue of Game Console magazine, 2007

Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Scheduled release date: February 23rd, 2007.
Players: Single Player
Genre: Fighting
Official Website: http://www.capcom.com/godhand/

Devil May Cry meets Gun. And first impressions of a game usually last. Punching, kicking and maiming your way through the dusty town of a western-style arena may have its appeal to die hard fight game fans, but we weren’t entirely convinced the game would have the staying power to keep us occupied for long. That was until we started playing around with the awesome combo’s you can pull off.

Most fighting games on the market today seem to be cloned copies of other fighting games. What can make or break a fighting game is the different characters you can play or the different types of fighting combinations you can do. Some games have even developed intriguing and interesting story lines to keep punters interested in finishing the game. That’s all well and good but most of the gaming public like fight games for the fast and furious kicks, punches and super special techniques that makes you feel like your character is all-powerful. God Hand doesn’t disappoint, and you’ll be crying out for more of the same after only minutes into the game.

Without any sort of substantial storyline to go on (and quite frankly, it’s better to avoid the story altogether and just get to the fighting), you (as the character Gene) begin the game just as quickly as you do everything else in God Hand; rushing at your opponent with calculated speed and accuracy. Well, at least that’s how it’s supposed to work although there were some minor hiccups with the camera angles and the movement controls when the thumb sticks hand minds of their own. Movement in the game is paramount to avoiding death (as you will undoubtedly find out) and dying kind of ends the adrenalin rush so it’s highly recommended to avoid it. The left hand thumb stick controls your camera angles as well as movement and the right thumb stick enables Gene to dodge attacks by sliding across the sand, almost like a strafe but not quite. It’s rather nifty once you get the hang of it but frustrating if you don’t.

The combinations and combat sequences in the game are ultimately what make this game so much fun. With a myriad of different combinations at your fingertips, you can do just about anything to your opponents, if you’re quick enough to cycle through the list of moves. Some of the techniques are actually pretty funny to watch. Techniques like ‘Ball Buster’ where you actually kick your opponent in the nether region! It’s actually very entertaining with a hint of whacky. The atmosphere of the game, right down to the slightly cheesy yet catchy western style music all seems to capture the same funny and whacky Japanese TV game show hysteria that is popping up everywhere. And when you see your character (Gene) dancing on the screen after picking up a card of a girl in a pink bikini, swaying back and forth to the cheesy music, you’ll understand. It’s great.

Funny antics aside, the combinations in this game are nothing to scoff at. At first glance, the game looks like just another fighting game but after a few fights and wins you begin to see the scope of the game for what it is. A fighting game where your character is required to pick up different ‘cards’ to progress further so he can create the perfect fighting combination. Now, that’s seriously cool. With a purpose to create the ultimate fighting combination (that you can create), Gene finally becomes more than just another cute animation on screen that can fight and dance funny. He becomes a character with a mission.

The environment is pretty bland and graphical content is so-so – nothing to write home about. There is nothing too exciting about an abandoned western town with lots of doors and thugs and demons hiding behind each one. It’s clear to see that the emphasis is placed solely on the combat sequences and the fighting and button-mashing mayhem. And God Hand is definitely a game where you wouldn’t feel ashamed of giving into the odd moment or two of button mashing (as we did every now and then and found some of our better techniques were created by random button mashing sessions).

God Hand proved to be a little more than we expected, which is always a good thing. With this game, Capcom seem to be moving away from the glitz and glamour of the girlies in little bikini’s and resurrecting the real aspect of what a fighting game is all about; well developed combat sequences with gritty and adrenalin fused action. Oh, and the odd touch of Japanese-style humour with the whacky dancing Gene is refreshingly well received.