Halo24013
2016
ABZÛ is Relaxing game created by the same developers who created journey on PS3 along with Flow and Flow-er.
To keep things simple the story is a simple story about how beautiful the ocean is, and how people usually take it for granted and the creatures living within it. Since the main menace Are these mechanical pyramids that induce electricity and Shock fishes to death, is the main antagonist of this game period now there are no boss fights in this game keep in mind, this game is purely for exploration and while it does have linear segments, the game is a relaxing wonderful time.
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I'm not 100% sure if the protagonist's name is ABZÛ, but for the sake of it I'll just call them "THE DIVER",
In this game you played the diver who goes around restoring dilapidated, destroyed and lifeless part of the ocean and restores them with wildlife of different varieties.
You come to face-to-face with the cause of all of this death and quietness in the form of the Giantic robotic Pyramid and its Shocking Pyramid Mines.
Throughout the game, the Diver encounters a great white shark that's a bit feisty but it's just acting like a regular shark would, it's a peaceful creature with no evil intent. At 1 point the Diver saves the shark who is collapsed underneath one of these destroyed mines, in a way it thanks Jim.
Around during Chapter 5 is when you enter the mechanical base and come face to face with the Giant Pyramid. We learn the plan is the sap then energy from the Diver in order to stop him from being able to restore the wildlife and vegetation. The Great White shark attempts to attack its robotic eye, angering the machine and Shocking you both to near death.
The diver awakens and sees the shark dying... it gives it a final hug before it leaves the mortal realm.
The game has the diver explorer and underwater city similar to that of Atlantis with matte paintings of what look like people of the same race of the divers, and it appears they were all worshiping and carrying for the sea creatures around them. This plain of alterlife also has creatures no longer existing in terms of fish not found except for billions of years ago.
The Diver leaves the peaceful land and appears in the spirit realm (this is the realm you go to when restoring the ecosystem in the previous chapters). Here the diver releases the spirit of the Great White for its peaceful after life, and the Shark takes them back to the plane of existence to restore the ocean and destroy the Pyramid ones and for all.
They end up doing so and the game ends with the base being turned into a beautiful vegetative sight for more sea wildlife... and the game ends.
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The controls of the game are both simple to understand but also confusing where you boost with a specific input by pressing, and using (in my case a controller) the left stick to maneuver left and right, but the up and down feel like submarine or space controls where if you move the left stick down the character will do a full flip disorienting you, most of the time you'll be fighting the movement and camera controls. The amount of times you have to press the boost button is annoying as well.
The game features a signal that essentally is the "press this button to do everything a Yellow triangle is indicating you to do" button.
Lastly (and this is an optional thing, except for the final chapter and 2 achievements), the game features the ability to ride fish bigger or of the same size as the Diver.
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Puzzles in the game are quiet simple and don't really count as puzzles, as again you just have to open doors by either filling In altars with water, or press a button a chain puller in order to open doors, so nothing too painful to do.
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The game has 3 collectibles scattered throughout each chapter, except chapter 5, and 1 even in the credits:
-Secret Pools - Coral Pools that once interacted with bring out new wild life to the area that happens to fit said new wild life's real life habitat.
- Shells - Ammonite shells (a prehistoric Cuddle fish of sorts) that you can collect throughout all the chapters except Chapter 5, when collected they are transfered to the "spirit realm" where you can see them in the structure in a beautiful ghostly glow.
- Meditation Statues: statues you can interact with that allows you to relax and enjoy the simulation of fish within the game based on real actual fishes! You might even learn the name of some you didn't know before.
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Overall ABZÛ is a beautiful artistic video game that is confusing in terms of what it's actual story might be, but context clues can help you understand the underlying message of... protect the beautiful ocean and its wildlife, don't let our machines and our egos destroy these innocent creatures.
And I agree, this game is a beautiful piece to play, but probably once or twice or if you want to just relax and watching simulated fish.
I highly recommend ABZÛ.
Played on my Steam Deck
To keep things simple the story is a simple story about how beautiful the ocean is, and how people usually take it for granted and the creatures living within it. Since the main menace Are these mechanical pyramids that induce electricity and Shock fishes to death, is the main antagonist of this game period now there are no boss fights in this game keep in mind, this game is purely for exploration and while it does have linear segments, the game is a relaxing wonderful time.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I'm not 100% sure if the protagonist's name is ABZÛ, but for the sake of it I'll just call them "THE DIVER",
In this game you played the diver who goes around restoring dilapidated, destroyed and lifeless part of the ocean and restores them with wildlife of different varieties.
You come to face-to-face with the cause of all of this death and quietness in the form of the Giantic robotic Pyramid and its Shocking Pyramid Mines.
Throughout the game, the Diver encounters a great white shark that's a bit feisty but it's just acting like a regular shark would, it's a peaceful creature with no evil intent. At 1 point the Diver saves the shark who is collapsed underneath one of these destroyed mines, in a way it thanks Jim.
Around during Chapter 5 is when you enter the mechanical base and come face to face with the Giant Pyramid. We learn the plan is the sap then energy from the Diver in order to stop him from being able to restore the wildlife and vegetation. The Great White shark attempts to attack its robotic eye, angering the machine and Shocking you both to near death.
The diver awakens and sees the shark dying... it gives it a final hug before it leaves the mortal realm.
The game has the diver explorer and underwater city similar to that of Atlantis with matte paintings of what look like people of the same race of the divers, and it appears they were all worshiping and carrying for the sea creatures around them. This plain of alterlife also has creatures no longer existing in terms of fish not found except for billions of years ago.
The Diver leaves the peaceful land and appears in the spirit realm (this is the realm you go to when restoring the ecosystem in the previous chapters). Here the diver releases the spirit of the Great White for its peaceful after life, and the Shark takes them back to the plane of existence to restore the ocean and destroy the Pyramid ones and for all.
They end up doing so and the game ends with the base being turned into a beautiful vegetative sight for more sea wildlife... and the game ends.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The controls of the game are both simple to understand but also confusing where you boost with a specific input by pressing, and using (in my case a controller) the left stick to maneuver left and right, but the up and down feel like submarine or space controls where if you move the left stick down the character will do a full flip disorienting you, most of the time you'll be fighting the movement and camera controls. The amount of times you have to press the boost button is annoying as well.
The game features a signal that essentally is the "press this button to do everything a Yellow triangle is indicating you to do" button.
Lastly (and this is an optional thing, except for the final chapter and 2 achievements), the game features the ability to ride fish bigger or of the same size as the Diver.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Puzzles in the game are quiet simple and don't really count as puzzles, as again you just have to open doors by either filling In altars with water, or press a button a chain puller in order to open doors, so nothing too painful to do.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game has 3 collectibles scattered throughout each chapter, except chapter 5, and 1 even in the credits:
-Secret Pools - Coral Pools that once interacted with bring out new wild life to the area that happens to fit said new wild life's real life habitat.
- Shells - Ammonite shells (a prehistoric Cuddle fish of sorts) that you can collect throughout all the chapters except Chapter 5, when collected they are transfered to the "spirit realm" where you can see them in the structure in a beautiful ghostly glow.
- Meditation Statues: statues you can interact with that allows you to relax and enjoy the simulation of fish within the game based on real actual fishes! You might even learn the name of some you didn't know before.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall ABZÛ is a beautiful artistic video game that is confusing in terms of what it's actual story might be, but context clues can help you understand the underlying message of... protect the beautiful ocean and its wildlife, don't let our machines and our egos destroy these innocent creatures.
And I agree, this game is a beautiful piece to play, but probably once or twice or if you want to just relax and watching simulated fish.
I highly recommend ABZÛ.
Played on my Steam Deck
Metroid Prime Remastered is a glorified Remaster that is essentially a graphically improved version of Metroid Prime (GameCube).
This game is absolutely fantastic and worth getting, while it is a shame that Metroid Prime 2 Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: CORRUPTION haven't been remastered... yet.
This is an excellent start in getting all the games fully ported, and if this game is anything to go by, 2 and 3 should be in good hands under Retro Studios.
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The game has you play as Samus Aran who originally explores an abandoned aircraft later needing to escape said ship. When you start the game you have Samus with a lot of abilities unlocked, such as her morph ball, her charge shot, and morph energy bombs. She encounters a newly revived Ridley, now called Meta-Ridley being fused with metallic armor and wings. Meta-Ridley awakens and escapes. After finishing this mission, Samus loses all her abilities and immediately she returns to her ship only for it to crash down on the Planet Tallon IV caused by Ridley.
Tallon IV is a Chozo-planet and your mission is essentially 2 things:
1. Regain all of Samus lost abilities and upgrades, along with new abilities and upgrades
2. Return all 12 Chozo Artifacts hidden throughout Tallon V 6 different areas.
3. Destroy METROID PRIME.
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The game features several puzzles and obstacles that will make the progress of the game take time. The game itself is very action backed, and essentially opened world with an aspect of Linear gameplay.
What I mean is while you can go anywhere (so long as you have said certain Morph ball or Cannon ability) progress in terms of futhering within the story is linear as you follow a beat path and you usually know you're progressing as mini cutscenes tend to play showing a new enemy, or obstacle or boss.
The boss fights here are all fantastic, they're very action packed and fun. And some take strategy. Honestly another great aspects of the boss fights is how long they take to fight. I think they're the perfect length in terms of "Not too short that they're pathetically easy", "Not to hard to where it seems unfair" , and "Not too long to where the fight gets boring," Metroid Prime strikes that perfect line of just right in terms of boss fights.
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The game has locations to go through, with an extra 7th one at the end:
0 - Frigate Orpheon - Abandoned Spacestation during the beginning of the game, before Samus loses her abilities and crashes down on Tallon IV
1 - Tallon Overworld - Jungle Area, features an abandoned Chozo Temple where you fight the second to last final boss. It also features a giant crashed underwater space station.
2 - Chozo Ruins - Desert Area in a giant Chozo City Ruins with beautiful structures
3 -Magmoor Cavern- Cavern/Cave full of Lava and magma, enemies here have adapted to the enviroment.
4 - Phendrana Drifts - Icey area full of frozen Chozo Ruins and technology.
5. Phazon Mines - Rusty, Smoggy Purple hued are ran by the Space Pirates and is full of secret underground technology and experiments. Here is where Samus reencounters the Metroids once again.
6. Impact Crater - Organic Cave swarming with Metroids, here is where Samus encounters and defeats the Metroid Prime.
Each locations (apart from Frigate Orpheon and the Impact Crater) have their puzzles and linear way of progression where certain abilities will be needed via obtaining them in other areas, in order to progress in another certain area.
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In the game you can obtain 3 different canon types, each with their own unique charge ability (obtained separately of course):
1. Power beam (Standard Power shot) - When Charged and fired with Missle - SUPER MISSLE
2. Wave Beam - Electricity Shot - When Charged and fired with Missle - Wavebuster (shoots an electric beam similar to the proton packs from Ghost busters)
3. Ice Beam - Ice Blast that can freeze enemies - When Charged and fired with Missle - Ice Spreader (causes a massive icicle to freeze enemy in place and cause massive damage incase they're a boss)
4. Flame Beam - Flame Blast that can cause after effects to enemies cause them to burn- When Charged and fired with Missle - Flamethrower (So long as you are holding the Right Bumber, you can use it as a flame thrower)
What makes usage well of the cannon variations is that there are certain enemies that take said specific shot in order to defeat them, which gives them a reason for existing, rather than just using 1 Cannon type all the time. This is indicated for specific enemies, like the Space Pirates where some of them have specific colors on their armor to indicate what their weakness is.
Same with the final boss of Metroid Prime... Metroid Prime...during phase one indicates this via shifting it's armor color, letting you know what cannon type to use.
These being:
Yellow - Regular/Power Beam
Pinkish-Violet-Purple - Wave Beam
Bright White with Blue Hue - Ice Beam
Red - Fire Beam
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The game has many enemies to encounters both in terms of overworld standard enemies which mostly comprise of hostile wild-life, but also the hostile Space pirates on Tallon IV.
The game has a total of 6 bosses (and a couple of minibosses, but I'll just focus on the bosses)
1. Parasite Queen - Boss of Frigate Orpheon - Easiest boss in the game since it's the first, and mainly the object is to shoot between its open area of force field, I barely remember if the thing attacks.
2. Flaahgra - Boss of Chozo Ruins - Giant Plant creature that is powered by Solar Panels, shoot said Solar Panels to direct their light away from Flaahgra, and it'll weaken it. Then use the morph ball and bombs to destroy Flaahgra's basis and damage it. Do that 3 more times (total 4) and you kill Flaahgra)
3.Thardus - Boss of Phendrana Drifts - Giant rock creature that takes forever to kill, objective here is to destroy it's body parts, which is not obviously indicated until you randomly decide to shoot whichever body part within it's body. You know it's correct if it glows red meaning it's being damaged. This boss is the worst since it over stays it's welcome.
4. Omega Pirate - Boss of Phazon Mines - Giant Space Pirate with Giant Shoulder Cannons that requires you to take out it's 4 body armor spots in order to expose it's heart in order to attack and defeat it.
5. Meta Ridley - Boss of Tallon Overworld (Chozo Temple) - Rival of Samus, Meta-Ridley has 2 phases. 1 Where he fights in the air and you have to shoot him down by locking on to his chest. Phase 2 is where his wings are damaged, and you have to fight him up close and personal. Here you have specific intervals that allows you to shoot at Meta-Ridley's mouth, this doesn't damage Meta-Ridley but if enough damage is made, it cause him to stagger and exposes his chest, do that about 5 times and Meta-Ridley is done and dusted.
6. Metroid Prime - Boss of the Impact Crater - The final boss of the game who has 2 phases. First phase has you attacking and hurting it via switching between your 4 canon types. It's final phase has you fighting it by switching between visors and stepping on it Phazon Go, causing Samus to go hyper mode and obtain the hyper beam in order to defeat Metroid Prime once and for all... or did she.
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The game has extra collectibles in terms of filling out a logbook by having use the Scanning Visor... with nearly everything, to random enemies, to bosses, to even random computers in a room.
Another thing it offers is extra energy tanks to give Samus a lot of extra health. As well as missiles ammo expansion which increases the amount of missiles Samus can carry and use along side regular cannon beats in order to perform Charged Combo Shots.
The game sometimes makes it very clear and obvious where some of them are located, but other times, it's out of sight, requiring to look nearly at every corner, using all the visors to see if something is hidden.
In terms of game progression, the game has an option that you can switch on or off depending your preference, and what it does is depending on if the game sees you're struggling to know where you have to go next. You'll get a pop up message to check your map which will later indicate where you have to go. If you find this too easy and want to explore, or have played Metroid Prime already and know where everything is, feel free to turn this off in the Options menu
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The story here is very easy to understand, but not so much that crazy, this is more Gameplay over story, and while it does have some lore and some story is it, the game mostly focuses on the gameplay, which isn't a bad thing.
Essentially Samus is sent to Frigate Orpheon because of a distress signal only to find the place completely wrecked, and encounters the newly revived Meta-Ridley. She ends up having to escape the space station before it crashes down on Tallon IV, only for something to take away all her abilities.
Samus attempts to escape from Tallon IV but is forced into the planet via encounter with Meta-Ridley. Here Samus must collect her old armor piece, as well as obtain new upgrades and new armor by exploring the different environments. She is also under the mission to destroy METROID PRIME. After she collects everything, including all Chozo Artifacts scattered throughout the World, she has a final encounter with Meta-Ridley which ends with the Metallic revived Dragon's death. However Samus isn't done and wants to confront the thing that took away her abilities to begin with, and this is where she encounters METROID PRIME.
After "defeating" Metroid Prime while having her Phazon Upgrade suit absorbed by Prime, Samus escapes the planet and looks on at the destroyed temple.
At the end Samus removes her helmet and looks in sadness and uneasiness and closes her eye, and returns inside her ship and flies off.
The game ends with... of course Metroid Prime being alive and actually absorbing the Phazon suit, giving birth to DARK SAMUS.
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Overall, Prime Remastered is an amazingly updated version of Metroid Prime with new beautiful graphics and now is the definitive way to play the game.
I had an absolute blast playing it and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get into Metroid.
Now I'm giving it 4.5/5 stars only because, as great as it is to have a really great remaster with great graphics of Metroid Prime... would've preferred that Nintendo and Retro Studios releases the trilogy in this state, rather than splitting them up, which is what it seems like they're doing.
Maybe it's because they want to build hype for 4 and give the developers more time by releasing them separately, or maybe its greed. I'm excited for when 2 Echoes Remaster comes out maybe this year Q3 or Q4 2023 (as of writing), and 3 CORRUPTION (2024) but we'll see.
But thats the only reason why I'm giving Metroid Prime Remastered a 4.5 out of 5. But it's an absolutely fantastic game I highly recommend!
This game is absolutely fantastic and worth getting, while it is a shame that Metroid Prime 2 Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: CORRUPTION haven't been remastered... yet.
This is an excellent start in getting all the games fully ported, and if this game is anything to go by, 2 and 3 should be in good hands under Retro Studios.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game has you play as Samus Aran who originally explores an abandoned aircraft later needing to escape said ship. When you start the game you have Samus with a lot of abilities unlocked, such as her morph ball, her charge shot, and morph energy bombs. She encounters a newly revived Ridley, now called Meta-Ridley being fused with metallic armor and wings. Meta-Ridley awakens and escapes. After finishing this mission, Samus loses all her abilities and immediately she returns to her ship only for it to crash down on the Planet Tallon IV caused by Ridley.
Tallon IV is a Chozo-planet and your mission is essentially 2 things:
1. Regain all of Samus lost abilities and upgrades, along with new abilities and upgrades
2. Return all 12 Chozo Artifacts hidden throughout Tallon V 6 different areas.
3. Destroy METROID PRIME.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game features several puzzles and obstacles that will make the progress of the game take time. The game itself is very action backed, and essentially opened world with an aspect of Linear gameplay.
What I mean is while you can go anywhere (so long as you have said certain Morph ball or Cannon ability) progress in terms of futhering within the story is linear as you follow a beat path and you usually know you're progressing as mini cutscenes tend to play showing a new enemy, or obstacle or boss.
The boss fights here are all fantastic, they're very action packed and fun. And some take strategy. Honestly another great aspects of the boss fights is how long they take to fight. I think they're the perfect length in terms of "Not too short that they're pathetically easy", "Not to hard to where it seems unfair" , and "Not too long to where the fight gets boring," Metroid Prime strikes that perfect line of just right in terms of boss fights.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game has locations to go through, with an extra 7th one at the end:
0 - Frigate Orpheon - Abandoned Spacestation during the beginning of the game, before Samus loses her abilities and crashes down on Tallon IV
1 - Tallon Overworld - Jungle Area, features an abandoned Chozo Temple where you fight the second to last final boss. It also features a giant crashed underwater space station.
2 - Chozo Ruins - Desert Area in a giant Chozo City Ruins with beautiful structures
3 -Magmoor Cavern- Cavern/Cave full of Lava and magma, enemies here have adapted to the enviroment.
4 - Phendrana Drifts - Icey area full of frozen Chozo Ruins and technology.
5. Phazon Mines - Rusty, Smoggy Purple hued are ran by the Space Pirates and is full of secret underground technology and experiments. Here is where Samus reencounters the Metroids once again.
6. Impact Crater - Organic Cave swarming with Metroids, here is where Samus encounters and defeats the Metroid Prime.
Each locations (apart from Frigate Orpheon and the Impact Crater) have their puzzles and linear way of progression where certain abilities will be needed via obtaining them in other areas, in order to progress in another certain area.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
In the game you can obtain 3 different canon types, each with their own unique charge ability (obtained separately of course):
1. Power beam (Standard Power shot) - When Charged and fired with Missle - SUPER MISSLE
2. Wave Beam - Electricity Shot - When Charged and fired with Missle - Wavebuster (shoots an electric beam similar to the proton packs from Ghost busters)
3. Ice Beam - Ice Blast that can freeze enemies - When Charged and fired with Missle - Ice Spreader (causes a massive icicle to freeze enemy in place and cause massive damage incase they're a boss)
4. Flame Beam - Flame Blast that can cause after effects to enemies cause them to burn- When Charged and fired with Missle - Flamethrower (So long as you are holding the Right Bumber, you can use it as a flame thrower)
What makes usage well of the cannon variations is that there are certain enemies that take said specific shot in order to defeat them, which gives them a reason for existing, rather than just using 1 Cannon type all the time. This is indicated for specific enemies, like the Space Pirates where some of them have specific colors on their armor to indicate what their weakness is.
Same with the final boss of Metroid Prime... Metroid Prime...during phase one indicates this via shifting it's armor color, letting you know what cannon type to use.
These being:
Yellow - Regular/Power Beam
Pinkish-Violet-Purple - Wave Beam
Bright White with Blue Hue - Ice Beam
Red - Fire Beam
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game has many enemies to encounters both in terms of overworld standard enemies which mostly comprise of hostile wild-life, but also the hostile Space pirates on Tallon IV.
The game has a total of 6 bosses (and a couple of minibosses, but I'll just focus on the bosses)
1. Parasite Queen - Boss of Frigate Orpheon - Easiest boss in the game since it's the first, and mainly the object is to shoot between its open area of force field, I barely remember if the thing attacks.
2. Flaahgra - Boss of Chozo Ruins - Giant Plant creature that is powered by Solar Panels, shoot said Solar Panels to direct their light away from Flaahgra, and it'll weaken it. Then use the morph ball and bombs to destroy Flaahgra's basis and damage it. Do that 3 more times (total 4) and you kill Flaahgra)
3.Thardus - Boss of Phendrana Drifts - Giant rock creature that takes forever to kill, objective here is to destroy it's body parts, which is not obviously indicated until you randomly decide to shoot whichever body part within it's body. You know it's correct if it glows red meaning it's being damaged. This boss is the worst since it over stays it's welcome.
4. Omega Pirate - Boss of Phazon Mines - Giant Space Pirate with Giant Shoulder Cannons that requires you to take out it's 4 body armor spots in order to expose it's heart in order to attack and defeat it.
5. Meta Ridley - Boss of Tallon Overworld (Chozo Temple) - Rival of Samus, Meta-Ridley has 2 phases. 1 Where he fights in the air and you have to shoot him down by locking on to his chest. Phase 2 is where his wings are damaged, and you have to fight him up close and personal. Here you have specific intervals that allows you to shoot at Meta-Ridley's mouth, this doesn't damage Meta-Ridley but if enough damage is made, it cause him to stagger and exposes his chest, do that about 5 times and Meta-Ridley is done and dusted.
6. Metroid Prime - Boss of the Impact Crater - The final boss of the game who has 2 phases. First phase has you attacking and hurting it via switching between your 4 canon types. It's final phase has you fighting it by switching between visors and stepping on it Phazon Go, causing Samus to go hyper mode and obtain the hyper beam in order to defeat Metroid Prime once and for all... or did she.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game has extra collectibles in terms of filling out a logbook by having use the Scanning Visor... with nearly everything, to random enemies, to bosses, to even random computers in a room.
Another thing it offers is extra energy tanks to give Samus a lot of extra health. As well as missiles ammo expansion which increases the amount of missiles Samus can carry and use along side regular cannon beats in order to perform Charged Combo Shots.
The game sometimes makes it very clear and obvious where some of them are located, but other times, it's out of sight, requiring to look nearly at every corner, using all the visors to see if something is hidden.
In terms of game progression, the game has an option that you can switch on or off depending your preference, and what it does is depending on if the game sees you're struggling to know where you have to go next. You'll get a pop up message to check your map which will later indicate where you have to go. If you find this too easy and want to explore, or have played Metroid Prime already and know where everything is, feel free to turn this off in the Options menu
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The story here is very easy to understand, but not so much that crazy, this is more Gameplay over story, and while it does have some lore and some story is it, the game mostly focuses on the gameplay, which isn't a bad thing.
Essentially Samus is sent to Frigate Orpheon because of a distress signal only to find the place completely wrecked, and encounters the newly revived Meta-Ridley. She ends up having to escape the space station before it crashes down on Tallon IV, only for something to take away all her abilities.
Samus attempts to escape from Tallon IV but is forced into the planet via encounter with Meta-Ridley. Here Samus must collect her old armor piece, as well as obtain new upgrades and new armor by exploring the different environments. She is also under the mission to destroy METROID PRIME. After she collects everything, including all Chozo Artifacts scattered throughout the World, she has a final encounter with Meta-Ridley which ends with the Metallic revived Dragon's death. However Samus isn't done and wants to confront the thing that took away her abilities to begin with, and this is where she encounters METROID PRIME.
After "defeating" Metroid Prime while having her Phazon Upgrade suit absorbed by Prime, Samus escapes the planet and looks on at the destroyed temple.
At the end Samus removes her helmet and looks in sadness and uneasiness and closes her eye, and returns inside her ship and flies off.
The game ends with... of course Metroid Prime being alive and actually absorbing the Phazon suit, giving birth to DARK SAMUS.
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Overall, Prime Remastered is an amazingly updated version of Metroid Prime with new beautiful graphics and now is the definitive way to play the game.
I had an absolute blast playing it and would highly recommend it to anyone looking to get into Metroid.
Now I'm giving it 4.5/5 stars only because, as great as it is to have a really great remaster with great graphics of Metroid Prime... would've preferred that Nintendo and Retro Studios releases the trilogy in this state, rather than splitting them up, which is what it seems like they're doing.
Maybe it's because they want to build hype for 4 and give the developers more time by releasing them separately, or maybe its greed. I'm excited for when 2 Echoes Remaster comes out maybe this year Q3 or Q4 2023 (as of writing), and 3 CORRUPTION (2024) but we'll see.
But thats the only reason why I'm giving Metroid Prime Remastered a 4.5 out of 5. But it's an absolutely fantastic game I highly recommend!
2022
Dusk Diver 2 is the sequel to Dusk Diver, a game that takes inspiration from other games like PERSONA or SMT in terms of concepts of other worlds and abilities.
Both game play as beat em ups, however DUSK DIVER 2 introduces more variety when it comes to having a more WARRIORS-ESK inspired combat.
In this game, you are now able to switch between Yumo, Leo, Bahet, and La Vieda similar to PERSONA 5 Strikers where each character has their own unique set of abilities.
The game's story is fine, it's nothing amazing, though I do like the unique twist they add towards the end of the game with Nemea and Typhon. The game's story is essentially expanded upon from the first game with explaining the existance of Youshanding and it's connection to Ximending.
The entire story revolves around Yumo and co, along with Nemea figuring out why Youshanding still is leaking into Ximending, and they later discover it's because of this new corporation called Hesperia.
Hesperia features 2 new characters called Vandak and Raven who are unique in terms of their designs.
Throughout the game Yumo and friends fight against a mysterious doppleganger of Yumo named D.D. who has a strange motive that I will just say never gets resolved because I 100% the story got changed midway through development in my opinion.
The game has a nice twist I won't spoil involving Nemea's brother Typhon who is introduced around Chapter 3 of the game.
The ending of the game is a nice satisfying end, that in my opinion warrants a 3rd entry, not focusing on Yumo, but instead D.D. since her development is given little attention, even if she is on the boxart of the game.
The gameplay is fun in terms of combat but becomes repetitive. Now there are no longer any small chaos beasts or floating chaos beasts as they instead are just huge and powerful, and attack in specifically layed combat zones that force you into combat. While Persona 5 Strikers did something similar, it still had unique moments within traversal that made Strikers fun to play.
While the new locations look very unique in design, it mostly plays upon the same structure of the original game, where you get from point A to B without really doing anything unique, apart from some puzzles that have you guess what path is correct in a specific area.
The game has a weird thing with the characters in the game where your party system and the story itself have a bit of LUDONARRATIVE DISONANCE in terms of how gameplay plays out compared to aspects of the story and side quests.
For example, the game has Bette have side stories that involve collecting her bags she accidently left there, side quest story wise, it about mostly Bahet with him being inspired by his guitar teacher Michael, these sidequests mosty rely on Yumo and co going to Youshanding and finding the bags.
The way the game plays out, makes it seem Bette was helping you out when in fact she's not a playable character in the regular game.
What I mean is the characters of:
- Bette
- Vandak
- Raven
Do not become playable until new gameplay plus, which tbh didn't make sense to me, especially during Chapters 11 and 12, since everything makes more sense for Bette and Raven to be playable in the regular game. As for Vandak, he's a villian story wise, and while I haven't played DUSK DIVER 2's new game plus fully, It's just odd he was made playable even with his cool clone moves.
In my opinion, it would've made more sense to make the BOSS playable, or Nemea since she tends to tag along in the story and is the central focus of the story along with Typhon.
The game overall was enjoyable for me and repetitive, I think the team making the game are on the verge of cracking something great if they get the opportunity to make a 3rd Game. Gameplay wise they should keep the Persona 5 Strikers/Warriors style combat, while making combat more freeing and not repetitive by forcing combat areas, and instead making the entire open area of Youshanding have free roaming enemies for combat.
I think more enemy varieties should have been included instead of removed, because while there are new Chaos Beasts in this game, they're ground base. It would have been better if the team implemented Chaos Beasts that required you to switch to a specific partner (Bahet, La Vieda, Leo, Raven, Bette, D.D.) to break down the enemies shield since said character would be stronger/ a weakness to said Chaos Beasts, that way it warranted switching between team members.
I think the new tracks in the game sound good, however if they ever do a DUSK DIVER 3 they need to start mixing and making more memorable music.
Story wise, I think the games story is fine, and went in a unique direction with the narritive during the twist, the big problem with the game is D.D. in terms of her involvement.
D.D. suffers from what Scorpion Suffered from MK9-11, where they put the character on the cover, but they don't really do anything too important in the story, apart from getting involved with the main team in either a enemy/rival or new friend/teammate way.
D.D. comes from UNIVERSE 247, and that's all we really know, she looks similar to Yumo however she's more a of a Kuudere archetype and is mysterious in her lack of explanation.
She does have an interesting story to tell, however this game doesn't tell that, and instead leaves it to our imagination as to what her world is like, if she is an Alternate Universe version of Yumo, who her companions are, etc.
I enjoyed my time with Dusk Diver 2, but I can 100% understand if someone gets bored of playing, or feels like the games a bit too long or lacking. I enjoyed the 11 days I put into the game, and enjoyed the characters.
I really hope they do improve on various things if they do make a DUSK DIVER 3, and if they do, they need to make sure it focuses on D.D. and Universe 247, since there's story to tell there, since Yumo's story at this point has no where to go because the characters got the penulimate happy ending in terms of Yumo, La Vieda, Leo, Bahet, Yusho, Nemea, Bette, Meg, Boss, Raven, etc. Now I could be wrong and maybe the next game is focused on Yumo again, expect now a new enemy has appeared, but we'll see. However I think because of the set up of D.D. I really think D.D. should be the next game's protag and have it focus on her world and her life and her friends to see the differences and to finish up that loose end.
So overall I enjoyed Dusk Diver 2, I would recommend it.
Both game play as beat em ups, however DUSK DIVER 2 introduces more variety when it comes to having a more WARRIORS-ESK inspired combat.
In this game, you are now able to switch between Yumo, Leo, Bahet, and La Vieda similar to PERSONA 5 Strikers where each character has their own unique set of abilities.
The game's story is fine, it's nothing amazing, though I do like the unique twist they add towards the end of the game with Nemea and Typhon. The game's story is essentially expanded upon from the first game with explaining the existance of Youshanding and it's connection to Ximending.
The entire story revolves around Yumo and co, along with Nemea figuring out why Youshanding still is leaking into Ximending, and they later discover it's because of this new corporation called Hesperia.
Hesperia features 2 new characters called Vandak and Raven who are unique in terms of their designs.
Throughout the game Yumo and friends fight against a mysterious doppleganger of Yumo named D.D. who has a strange motive that I will just say never gets resolved because I 100% the story got changed midway through development in my opinion.
The game has a nice twist I won't spoil involving Nemea's brother Typhon who is introduced around Chapter 3 of the game.
The ending of the game is a nice satisfying end, that in my opinion warrants a 3rd entry, not focusing on Yumo, but instead D.D. since her development is given little attention, even if she is on the boxart of the game.
The gameplay is fun in terms of combat but becomes repetitive. Now there are no longer any small chaos beasts or floating chaos beasts as they instead are just huge and powerful, and attack in specifically layed combat zones that force you into combat. While Persona 5 Strikers did something similar, it still had unique moments within traversal that made Strikers fun to play.
While the new locations look very unique in design, it mostly plays upon the same structure of the original game, where you get from point A to B without really doing anything unique, apart from some puzzles that have you guess what path is correct in a specific area.
The game has a weird thing with the characters in the game where your party system and the story itself have a bit of LUDONARRATIVE DISONANCE in terms of how gameplay plays out compared to aspects of the story and side quests.
For example, the game has Bette have side stories that involve collecting her bags she accidently left there, side quest story wise, it about mostly Bahet with him being inspired by his guitar teacher Michael, these sidequests mosty rely on Yumo and co going to Youshanding and finding the bags.
The way the game plays out, makes it seem Bette was helping you out when in fact she's not a playable character in the regular game.
What I mean is the characters of:
- Bette
- Vandak
- Raven
Do not become playable until new gameplay plus, which tbh didn't make sense to me, especially during Chapters 11 and 12, since everything makes more sense for Bette and Raven to be playable in the regular game. As for Vandak, he's a villian story wise, and while I haven't played DUSK DIVER 2's new game plus fully, It's just odd he was made playable even with his cool clone moves.
In my opinion, it would've made more sense to make the BOSS playable, or Nemea since she tends to tag along in the story and is the central focus of the story along with Typhon.
The game overall was enjoyable for me and repetitive, I think the team making the game are on the verge of cracking something great if they get the opportunity to make a 3rd Game. Gameplay wise they should keep the Persona 5 Strikers/Warriors style combat, while making combat more freeing and not repetitive by forcing combat areas, and instead making the entire open area of Youshanding have free roaming enemies for combat.
I think more enemy varieties should have been included instead of removed, because while there are new Chaos Beasts in this game, they're ground base. It would have been better if the team implemented Chaos Beasts that required you to switch to a specific partner (Bahet, La Vieda, Leo, Raven, Bette, D.D.) to break down the enemies shield since said character would be stronger/ a weakness to said Chaos Beasts, that way it warranted switching between team members.
I think the new tracks in the game sound good, however if they ever do a DUSK DIVER 3 they need to start mixing and making more memorable music.
Story wise, I think the games story is fine, and went in a unique direction with the narritive during the twist, the big problem with the game is D.D. in terms of her involvement.
D.D. suffers from what Scorpion Suffered from MK9-11, where they put the character on the cover, but they don't really do anything too important in the story, apart from getting involved with the main team in either a enemy/rival or new friend/teammate way.
D.D. comes from UNIVERSE 247, and that's all we really know, she looks similar to Yumo however she's more a of a Kuudere archetype and is mysterious in her lack of explanation.
She does have an interesting story to tell, however this game doesn't tell that, and instead leaves it to our imagination as to what her world is like, if she is an Alternate Universe version of Yumo, who her companions are, etc.
I enjoyed my time with Dusk Diver 2, but I can 100% understand if someone gets bored of playing, or feels like the games a bit too long or lacking. I enjoyed the 11 days I put into the game, and enjoyed the characters.
I really hope they do improve on various things if they do make a DUSK DIVER 3, and if they do, they need to make sure it focuses on D.D. and Universe 247, since there's story to tell there, since Yumo's story at this point has no where to go because the characters got the penulimate happy ending in terms of Yumo, La Vieda, Leo, Bahet, Yusho, Nemea, Bette, Meg, Boss, Raven, etc. Now I could be wrong and maybe the next game is focused on Yumo again, expect now a new enemy has appeared, but we'll see. However I think because of the set up of D.D. I really think D.D. should be the next game's protag and have it focus on her world and her life and her friends to see the differences and to finish up that loose end.
So overall I enjoyed Dusk Diver 2, I would recommend it.
Crisis Core Reunion is what I like to call a "REMAKESTER" (Remake + Remaster) in the sense that this game was made from the ground up but changed barely anything from the original apart from the frame rate, and the DMW system being active and used manually by the player instead of automatic like in the original.
The game still has the amazing story the original did, now with a fresh new coat of paint and is absolutely the best version to play.
The game now features more voice acting in ingame sections like when Zack, Cloud, and Sephiroth arrive in Nibeleim and Tifa appears. In this version Tifa is now fully voice acted, adding more weight to the emotional scenes. Having voice acting in minor/background characters too is such attention to detail.
Another thing is how beautiful the game looks within the new engine. Keep in mind I played the original PSP version first then moved on to this remakester, and seeing the difference is amazing in terms of character models, and environments.
A big con this game has is the animated Cutscenes, since they are directly lifted from the original PSP game, and were never upscaled so their quality is really poor.
I played this on PS5 keep in mind, so maybe on the Switch they look better in handheld mode. Why they didn't decide to reanimated those scenes in a new more advanced graphic cutscene like in FF7 Remake I have no idea.
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Here's something that will probably divide people but hear me out...
In my opinion, I think it's great that they decided to keep the original ending so that people could feel the emotional weight of what Zack left behind... however they should have added a new ending that connected to Remake/Rebirth since Zack is going to appear in Rebirth.
The ending should have been achievable by maybe surviving for 10 minutes straight against Shinra forces on hard or something, something that can be difficult and achievable.
And there they can have the connection point between Reunion and Rebirth.
I am not saying "get rid of the old ending" keep the old ending, but also include a new ending that ties into Rebirth is you survive for a while against the Shinra forces.
The game still features the amazing characters of Zack, Cissnei, Tseng, Aerith, Cloud, Sephiroth, Angeal, with its amazing emotional story.
I gave full indepth review for the original, so mostly here I'm giving my thoughts on this as a remaster/remake. I would highly recommend everyone play this remakester 100% it's a beautiful story I highly recommend.
The game still has the amazing story the original did, now with a fresh new coat of paint and is absolutely the best version to play.
The game now features more voice acting in ingame sections like when Zack, Cloud, and Sephiroth arrive in Nibeleim and Tifa appears. In this version Tifa is now fully voice acted, adding more weight to the emotional scenes. Having voice acting in minor/background characters too is such attention to detail.
Another thing is how beautiful the game looks within the new engine. Keep in mind I played the original PSP version first then moved on to this remakester, and seeing the difference is amazing in terms of character models, and environments.
A big con this game has is the animated Cutscenes, since they are directly lifted from the original PSP game, and were never upscaled so their quality is really poor.
I played this on PS5 keep in mind, so maybe on the Switch they look better in handheld mode. Why they didn't decide to reanimated those scenes in a new more advanced graphic cutscene like in FF7 Remake I have no idea.
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Here's something that will probably divide people but hear me out...
In my opinion, I think it's great that they decided to keep the original ending so that people could feel the emotional weight of what Zack left behind... however they should have added a new ending that connected to Remake/Rebirth since Zack is going to appear in Rebirth.
The ending should have been achievable by maybe surviving for 10 minutes straight against Shinra forces on hard or something, something that can be difficult and achievable.
And there they can have the connection point between Reunion and Rebirth.
I am not saying "get rid of the old ending" keep the old ending, but also include a new ending that ties into Rebirth is you survive for a while against the Shinra forces.
The game still features the amazing characters of Zack, Cissnei, Tseng, Aerith, Cloud, Sephiroth, Angeal, with its amazing emotional story.
I gave full indepth review for the original, so mostly here I'm giving my thoughts on this as a remaster/remake. I would highly recommend everyone play this remakester 100% it's a beautiful story I highly recommend.
Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is the prequel to Final Fantasy VII that adds backstory and context to characters like Cloud, Aerith, Tifa, and most of all Sephiroth and more lore to them.
In this game we play as Soldier 2nd Class Zack Fair, who is an underling of Soldier 1st Class, Angeal.
In this game we learn about the Buster Sword and the reasons for it's existant (being a symbol of hopes and dreams). In this game we discover more of the evil thing Shinra has caused and how it's their fault for what's to come in the Original FFVII.
In this game we get to meet a different Cloud... a more expressive one, one who looks up to Zack upon meeting. We also meet Aerith, who clearly has romantic feelings for Zack that he reciprocates. We also have a new/old Turk who is given depth with Cissnei, being a pure hearted Turk who is close friends and wants to protect Zack.
In this game we discover more about Genesis (an ex-soldier runaway) who wants to finish his poem LOVELESS and receive the "GIFT OF THE GODDESS". We discover how Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth are all victims of Shinra, along with discovering Sephiroth's true origin, and formation of becoming a true villain.
Zack is a kind hearted soul who connects with all those he meets, but sadly his fate is sealed, as the whims of time have for told... for you see since FFVII existed way before this game was ever conceived, there is only 1 fate for Zack. As he takes hold of the Buster Sword from his mentor, he too will soon be victim to Shinra, and may pass on his legacy... hopes... and dreams to the heroes of the original.
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[Thoughts on Story]
The story is told as a hopeful tragedy where we see an individual with so much motivation reach the pinnacle of what it truly means to be Heroic and have honor... only to later be betrayed by those he cherished in his heart. And later being a victim of those who modified and created him.
I think Zack story's in Crisis Core is absolutely amazing in terms of having him start as just a teenager, and later age into a young adult who sadly will never be more than that.
The connections he makes with Aerith in terms of him inspiring her to fill Midgard with a bunch of flowers is beautiful, along with him essentially falling in love with her and her as well. Also him giving her her iconic pink bow on her hair was a beautiful touch.
His connection with the Turks in terms of Tseng is great as while Tseng himself is not that expressive, Zack and Tseng became great adversaries... enough to actually be called friends, so much so even at the end, he saved gifts for Zack that were from Aerith... which sadly will never be given.
A new character introduced with Cissnei is a great addition with her being very different from the other Turks... being more kinded hearted and cheery. Her and Zack share various special moments, and before the end she even promises to protect Zack's family. Not only that but she saves him several times, though sadly she is unable to stop what's coming.
Zack having a underling/younger brother mentality with his mentor Angeal who acted as mentor/older brother was sweet and all the more disheartening after what happens throughout the game, with Zack experiencing tragedy, all because of a connection to Genesis who thinks that him and Angeal are nothing but monsters. Later Zack needing to grow up and become a man, and a new hero outside of anyone's shadow... being a light of hope for other SOLDIERS.
A big tragedy is when Zack looks to Sephiroth as the last connection to Angeal, seeing Sephiroth as a true hero and new mentor he still shares a friendly bond with. However after Sephiroth discovers the truth of what he is, and realizes his purpose... regardless of the connections he made with Genesis... Angeal... and Zack... he throws it all away and becomes the evil monster we see in FFVII/FFVII REMAKE.
All of this tragedy all for Zack and Cloud later to be both pitted against the monster himself... only for both to be knocked out and experimented on for 4 years... all without knowing and Cloud being completely comatose.
Zack drags and carries his friend across the world to return to Midgard... being hunted.
Only for 1 final stand against an army of Shinra Soldiers... and yet regardless of how much Honor, Power, and Motivation Zack has... his life... is take... and all his hopes and dreams are passed down to Cloud.
I think the story in general answers a lot of questions but has big issues in terms of Tatsuya Nomura not knowing how to answer questions... and then leaving it alone. What I mean is that Crisis Core was made to answer questions that were mysterious in terms of the Buster Sword, Cloud himself and his personality, who Aerith is, and Sephiroth's transformation, all finely handled. The problem is that the game also made more questions and didn't tie up loose ends so much so it's almost like they expected to make FFVII REMAKE (Part 1 of ???) to answer those questions.
The biggest answers never fully answered are:
1. Who took Genesis and why? (This is answered in FFVII REMAKE - INTERGRADE but considering this came out in 2008, and we didn't receive FFVII Remake till 2020 this is still a big question. Hopefully Rebirth Answers that question)
2. What happened to Cissnei?
3. Why didn't Avalanche (specifically Barret) show up at all?
4. What was Genesis plan exactly? (He's too cryptic and never really says wtf he's trying to do)
5. Why did the experiments wipe Clouds mind temporarily?
6. What happened in between the 4 years Zack and Cloud were experimented on?
7. HOW THE HELL DID ZACK LOSE TO SHINRA SOLDIERS?
(The 7th one will always be a pet peeve as this causes Ludo narrative dissonance where throughout the game we Zack using these amazing abilities and combat... except now he's somehow gunned down by a bunch of dudes with guns... like what, would've made more sense if Sephiroth killed Zack, giving Cloud more of a reason as to why he hates Sephiroth and shares a connection with him).
So yeah, it's a great tragedy with a lot of loose ends, which hopefully FFVII REBIRTH will answer.
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[Gameplay]
The gameplay plays very different to regular FFVII feeling more like a hack and slash with Mako abilities to use. It's very refreshing in terms of actually battling, however like any regular turn base rpg, it does get repetitive. Since the way the gameplay works is it follows the FFVII/TURNBASE RPG style where enemies are random encounters, which can be very annoying especially when the random announcer says.
"ACTIVIATING COMBAT MODE!" -> wins battle -> "CONFLICT RESOLVED" rinse and repeat and continue forward.
Since the game is PSP SQUARE ENIX didn't really attempt to feature minigames like in Original FFVII but instead what they did was they watered down a particular mode to specifically be a mode where you are in random areas:
- Shinra Facility
- Tropical Island
- Cavern Cave with Cliffs (you can't fall out there are invisible barriers
- Cave System (Green hue cave)
- Abandoned Cave Mine
- Desert Wasteland
- Farm GrassLands
And while objectives usually say "find this, find that, eliminate this enemy" it's ALWAYS find the only ingame modeled enemy in the map somewhere and defeat it and move on to the next missions.
The only unique missions are Hojo's experiement missions as they have you face Summons that you later unlock after defeating, or even previous bosses, and even overpowered bosses.
You are able to unlock more unique missions via talking to people around SECTOR 8 of MIDGARD, the Slums, or even after a the beach scene.
Particularly you also get to meet a character from original FFVII who takes a backseat to becoming a crybaby comedy relief in a particular set of missions.
It's pretty obvious who it is since she appears early on in the story, but here she's expanded on in these missions.
HINT - NINJA
Anyway yeah, clearly this mode was to pad out the game, but seriously it gets way too repetitive and unfun especially since the game usually unlocks new missions as you complete other ones, however the game doesn't tell you that there are hidden requirements in order to unlock others, so you can accidently go through the entire game, and miss out because you didn't know, and the fact the missions themselves are very repetitive can actually cause "MISSIONS" to be annoying and tedious to get through.
The worst being "DEFEAT 1,000 SHINRA SOLDIERS" not because it's hard, because it takes FOREVER!
So story wise, the gameplay is fun, mission wise, it becomes torturous.
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[Characters]
Zack, Aerith, Sephiroth, Angeal, Tseng, Cissnei, and Cloud are all given the proper depth they need and are really great characters. The new characters in Zack, Angeal, and Cissnei are all amazing how they evolve throughout this story. The old characters in Cloud, Aerith, Tseng, and Sephiroth have so much more context, lore, and depth to them that it makes you understand them more.
The only character who legit has major issues is Genesis, I see what they were going for. He tries to be sort of this revolutionary/inspiring preacher of the "GODDESS" and her gifts while constantly referencing the story of "LOVELESS," and while characters like Angeal and Sephiroth describe Genesis in a positive manner... that's barely seen up until the very end, before Zack's final stand.
Some might say the scene with Genesis, Angeal, and Sephiroth fighting shows what they mean... honestly it comes across more like Genesis is an overconfident idiot who thinks he'll win any battle... only for Sephiroth to show him he's leagues above him.
I think there should've been more emotion and impact to his character emotionally that would've made him more complex than coming across as egotistical.
Hojo and Hollander are complete garbage evil PoS beings and I'm so happy they are. I appreciate when vile scum are vile scum and don't have depth or context to them being so. It makes you want to kill them and see everything they work on crash and burn.
An amazing thing this prequel did was establish an amazing protagonist in Zack, so much so, he's become a superior protag to Cloud and I personally like him much more than Cloud.
Zack is an absolutely amazing character to see evolve throughout this game, even if his life is a tragedy.
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[Thoughts Overall]
Crisis Core is a great addition to FFVII, being an amazing tragic sequel that answers a lot of questions from the original FFVII, but also has the issue of asking more questions, while answering none of these new questions.
The gameplay itself is fun, but becomes a bit repetitive. The music is top notch amazing and iconic. Mission mode is a mode that starts off fun but slowly becomes a tedious, repetitive dreadful mode that has no uniqueness to it.
Characters and the story are top tier and are all amazing with both old characters being expanded upon, and new characters being established and given proper depth (apart from Genesis). Zack is an amazing protagonist that actually ends up becoming more likable and iconic than Cloud imo.
And yes... that means 100% I ship Zack with Aerith instead of Cloud with Aerith.
Imo for FFVII REBIRTH (and beyond) if they keep Aerith and Zack alive, have them officially get together and let Tifa and Cloud get together... please Tatsuya Nomura.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with Crisis Core, but I need to eliminate a star because of the horrible mode that is "MISSION MODE" and the amount of new questions it decided to ask, while attempting to answer old Original FFVII questions.
Hopefully FFVII Rebirth decides to establish and answer those questions left from Crisis Core/Crisis Core Reunion. And also keeps Zack and Cissnei alive to help Cloud and crew lead their new universe to a better end. But we'll see.
That's my review of Crisis Core, hope yall enjoyed.
In this game we play as Soldier 2nd Class Zack Fair, who is an underling of Soldier 1st Class, Angeal.
In this game we learn about the Buster Sword and the reasons for it's existant (being a symbol of hopes and dreams). In this game we discover more of the evil thing Shinra has caused and how it's their fault for what's to come in the Original FFVII.
In this game we get to meet a different Cloud... a more expressive one, one who looks up to Zack upon meeting. We also meet Aerith, who clearly has romantic feelings for Zack that he reciprocates. We also have a new/old Turk who is given depth with Cissnei, being a pure hearted Turk who is close friends and wants to protect Zack.
In this game we discover more about Genesis (an ex-soldier runaway) who wants to finish his poem LOVELESS and receive the "GIFT OF THE GODDESS". We discover how Angeal, Genesis, and Sephiroth are all victims of Shinra, along with discovering Sephiroth's true origin, and formation of becoming a true villain.
Zack is a kind hearted soul who connects with all those he meets, but sadly his fate is sealed, as the whims of time have for told... for you see since FFVII existed way before this game was ever conceived, there is only 1 fate for Zack. As he takes hold of the Buster Sword from his mentor, he too will soon be victim to Shinra, and may pass on his legacy... hopes... and dreams to the heroes of the original.
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[Thoughts on Story]
The story is told as a hopeful tragedy where we see an individual with so much motivation reach the pinnacle of what it truly means to be Heroic and have honor... only to later be betrayed by those he cherished in his heart. And later being a victim of those who modified and created him.
I think Zack story's in Crisis Core is absolutely amazing in terms of having him start as just a teenager, and later age into a young adult who sadly will never be more than that.
The connections he makes with Aerith in terms of him inspiring her to fill Midgard with a bunch of flowers is beautiful, along with him essentially falling in love with her and her as well. Also him giving her her iconic pink bow on her hair was a beautiful touch.
His connection with the Turks in terms of Tseng is great as while Tseng himself is not that expressive, Zack and Tseng became great adversaries... enough to actually be called friends, so much so even at the end, he saved gifts for Zack that were from Aerith... which sadly will never be given.
A new character introduced with Cissnei is a great addition with her being very different from the other Turks... being more kinded hearted and cheery. Her and Zack share various special moments, and before the end she even promises to protect Zack's family. Not only that but she saves him several times, though sadly she is unable to stop what's coming.
Zack having a underling/younger brother mentality with his mentor Angeal who acted as mentor/older brother was sweet and all the more disheartening after what happens throughout the game, with Zack experiencing tragedy, all because of a connection to Genesis who thinks that him and Angeal are nothing but monsters. Later Zack needing to grow up and become a man, and a new hero outside of anyone's shadow... being a light of hope for other SOLDIERS.
A big tragedy is when Zack looks to Sephiroth as the last connection to Angeal, seeing Sephiroth as a true hero and new mentor he still shares a friendly bond with. However after Sephiroth discovers the truth of what he is, and realizes his purpose... regardless of the connections he made with Genesis... Angeal... and Zack... he throws it all away and becomes the evil monster we see in FFVII/FFVII REMAKE.
All of this tragedy all for Zack and Cloud later to be both pitted against the monster himself... only for both to be knocked out and experimented on for 4 years... all without knowing and Cloud being completely comatose.
Zack drags and carries his friend across the world to return to Midgard... being hunted.
Only for 1 final stand against an army of Shinra Soldiers... and yet regardless of how much Honor, Power, and Motivation Zack has... his life... is take... and all his hopes and dreams are passed down to Cloud.
I think the story in general answers a lot of questions but has big issues in terms of Tatsuya Nomura not knowing how to answer questions... and then leaving it alone. What I mean is that Crisis Core was made to answer questions that were mysterious in terms of the Buster Sword, Cloud himself and his personality, who Aerith is, and Sephiroth's transformation, all finely handled. The problem is that the game also made more questions and didn't tie up loose ends so much so it's almost like they expected to make FFVII REMAKE (Part 1 of ???) to answer those questions.
The biggest answers never fully answered are:
1. Who took Genesis and why? (This is answered in FFVII REMAKE - INTERGRADE but considering this came out in 2008, and we didn't receive FFVII Remake till 2020 this is still a big question. Hopefully Rebirth Answers that question)
2. What happened to Cissnei?
3. Why didn't Avalanche (specifically Barret) show up at all?
4. What was Genesis plan exactly? (He's too cryptic and never really says wtf he's trying to do)
5. Why did the experiments wipe Clouds mind temporarily?
6. What happened in between the 4 years Zack and Cloud were experimented on?
7. HOW THE HELL DID ZACK LOSE TO SHINRA SOLDIERS?
(The 7th one will always be a pet peeve as this causes Ludo narrative dissonance where throughout the game we Zack using these amazing abilities and combat... except now he's somehow gunned down by a bunch of dudes with guns... like what, would've made more sense if Sephiroth killed Zack, giving Cloud more of a reason as to why he hates Sephiroth and shares a connection with him).
So yeah, it's a great tragedy with a lot of loose ends, which hopefully FFVII REBIRTH will answer.
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[Gameplay]
The gameplay plays very different to regular FFVII feeling more like a hack and slash with Mako abilities to use. It's very refreshing in terms of actually battling, however like any regular turn base rpg, it does get repetitive. Since the way the gameplay works is it follows the FFVII/TURNBASE RPG style where enemies are random encounters, which can be very annoying especially when the random announcer says.
"ACTIVIATING COMBAT MODE!" -> wins battle -> "CONFLICT RESOLVED" rinse and repeat and continue forward.
Since the game is PSP SQUARE ENIX didn't really attempt to feature minigames like in Original FFVII but instead what they did was they watered down a particular mode to specifically be a mode where you are in random areas:
- Shinra Facility
- Tropical Island
- Cavern Cave with Cliffs (you can't fall out there are invisible barriers
- Cave System (Green hue cave)
- Abandoned Cave Mine
- Desert Wasteland
- Farm GrassLands
And while objectives usually say "find this, find that, eliminate this enemy" it's ALWAYS find the only ingame modeled enemy in the map somewhere and defeat it and move on to the next missions.
The only unique missions are Hojo's experiement missions as they have you face Summons that you later unlock after defeating, or even previous bosses, and even overpowered bosses.
You are able to unlock more unique missions via talking to people around SECTOR 8 of MIDGARD, the Slums, or even after a the beach scene.
Particularly you also get to meet a character from original FFVII who takes a backseat to becoming a crybaby comedy relief in a particular set of missions.
It's pretty obvious who it is since she appears early on in the story, but here she's expanded on in these missions.
HINT - NINJA
Anyway yeah, clearly this mode was to pad out the game, but seriously it gets way too repetitive and unfun especially since the game usually unlocks new missions as you complete other ones, however the game doesn't tell you that there are hidden requirements in order to unlock others, so you can accidently go through the entire game, and miss out because you didn't know, and the fact the missions themselves are very repetitive can actually cause "MISSIONS" to be annoying and tedious to get through.
The worst being "DEFEAT 1,000 SHINRA SOLDIERS" not because it's hard, because it takes FOREVER!
So story wise, the gameplay is fun, mission wise, it becomes torturous.
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[Characters]
Zack, Aerith, Sephiroth, Angeal, Tseng, Cissnei, and Cloud are all given the proper depth they need and are really great characters. The new characters in Zack, Angeal, and Cissnei are all amazing how they evolve throughout this story. The old characters in Cloud, Aerith, Tseng, and Sephiroth have so much more context, lore, and depth to them that it makes you understand them more.
The only character who legit has major issues is Genesis, I see what they were going for. He tries to be sort of this revolutionary/inspiring preacher of the "GODDESS" and her gifts while constantly referencing the story of "LOVELESS," and while characters like Angeal and Sephiroth describe Genesis in a positive manner... that's barely seen up until the very end, before Zack's final stand.
Some might say the scene with Genesis, Angeal, and Sephiroth fighting shows what they mean... honestly it comes across more like Genesis is an overconfident idiot who thinks he'll win any battle... only for Sephiroth to show him he's leagues above him.
I think there should've been more emotion and impact to his character emotionally that would've made him more complex than coming across as egotistical.
Hojo and Hollander are complete garbage evil PoS beings and I'm so happy they are. I appreciate when vile scum are vile scum and don't have depth or context to them being so. It makes you want to kill them and see everything they work on crash and burn.
An amazing thing this prequel did was establish an amazing protagonist in Zack, so much so, he's become a superior protag to Cloud and I personally like him much more than Cloud.
Zack is an absolutely amazing character to see evolve throughout this game, even if his life is a tragedy.
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[Thoughts Overall]
Crisis Core is a great addition to FFVII, being an amazing tragic sequel that answers a lot of questions from the original FFVII, but also has the issue of asking more questions, while answering none of these new questions.
The gameplay itself is fun, but becomes a bit repetitive. The music is top notch amazing and iconic. Mission mode is a mode that starts off fun but slowly becomes a tedious, repetitive dreadful mode that has no uniqueness to it.
Characters and the story are top tier and are all amazing with both old characters being expanded upon, and new characters being established and given proper depth (apart from Genesis). Zack is an amazing protagonist that actually ends up becoming more likable and iconic than Cloud imo.
And yes... that means 100% I ship Zack with Aerith instead of Cloud with Aerith.
Imo for FFVII REBIRTH (and beyond) if they keep Aerith and Zack alive, have them officially get together and let Tifa and Cloud get together... please Tatsuya Nomura.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with Crisis Core, but I need to eliminate a star because of the horrible mode that is "MISSION MODE" and the amount of new questions it decided to ask, while attempting to answer old Original FFVII questions.
Hopefully FFVII Rebirth decides to establish and answer those questions left from Crisis Core/Crisis Core Reunion. And also keeps Zack and Cissnei alive to help Cloud and crew lead their new universe to a better end. But we'll see.
That's my review of Crisis Core, hope yall enjoyed.
This review contains spoilers
Persona 2 Innocent Sin is amazing Persona game that really is a travesty that it's never been rereleased for modern gamers.
This game features one of the wackiest, depressing, and serious stories in the whole franchise, YES MORE THAN PERSONA 3!
The characters in this game are absolutely amazing in their own respective ways, and the story is actually intertwined with their existences being the cause of everything that happens in the game unlike Persona 1 where the central focus is on Maki, or 3 where the Protagonist happens to have the mark of death.
The characters you play as are as follows:
Tatsuya Suou - Persona 2 Innocent Sin's Protagonist, very mature for his age being 17, treats all of his friends like family and is famous for his motorcycle noises. Has the timestop ability when he unlocks his ultimate Persona: Apollo. Suffers the most out of any other Persona protag. Arcana: Sun
Lisa "Ginko" Silverman - mixed race Japanese girl, is apart of an trio idol pop group. She is in love and infatuated with Tatsuya. Feels guilty for her past with Eikichi, Jun, and Tatsuya for what happens with Maya.
Arcana: Lovers
Eikichi "Michel" Mishina - Japanese Rockstar Teenager. Has a rivalry and bromance with Tatsuya. He gets into a lot of arguments with Ginko/Lisa. He's afraid of his fathers wrath and disapproval of him being a rockstar. He has a girlfriend named Miyabi Hanakouji who starts off fat and later gets skinny, but Eikichi tells her he'd love her no matter what.
Like Lisa, Eikichi feels guilty after what happened in the past with Tatsuya, Maya, Jun, Lisa, and himself
Masao Inaba/Mark (Persona 1) and Eikichi are the reasons for why characters like: Junpei, Yosuke, and Ryuji are so beloved in terms of bros in the Persona franchise.
Arcana: Death
Maya Amano: Reporter who has a connection to the other members of the Masked Circle. She's essentially the "big sister" of the group who always remains confident and positive. She motivates everyone to be the best they can be and stand up for what's right. She tells everyone the truth about their pasts, and what really happened during the Ayala Shrine fire with her and Tatsuya and everyone else.
Yukino Mayuzumi: Returning member from Persona 1, she is now older sporting a new appearance with her having longer bluish green curly hair, a grey jacket, yellow pants, and beanie. She is Maya Amano's reporting partner who has the most experience with using Personas after the "SEBEC" incident. She acts very tomboy and feminine and loves this photographer reporter Shunsuke Fujii. She suffers from loss towards the end of the game and she relieves her Persona to Jun Kurosa.
Arcana: Empress
Jun Kursoa: Member of the masked circle is controlled by the true villain of the game. Starts off as the masked villain "THE JOKER" and hates Tatsuya for what happened to Maya in the past. When the truth is revealed to him he apologies and cries and feels sorry for what happens. To make it up to Tatsuya, Maya, and co he requests to join them on their journey to destroy the Masked Circle, and defeat Nyarlathotep to stop the end of the world. He's implied/confirmed to be Gay since he interacts with Tatsuya in a particular way in a very, romantic way. He also refuses to interact with female demons/personas.
Arcana: Fortune
The story has the members investigating the separate rumors that happens throughout the city of Sumaru. You meet previous characters from Persona 1 like: Kei Nanjo, Eriko Kirishima, Maki Sonomura, Reiji Kido, and Hidehiko "Brown" Uesugi in cameo appearances.
The characters find out the Mask Circle and the revived Nazi's plan to unleash Nyarlathotep and destroy the world except Sumaru City which is underneath Xaliba (Holy Alien Space ship).
The characters go through so much pain and torment and finally after Yukino gives her persona ability to Jun, the original 5 members of the Masked Circle head to Xilaba/The End to finish the fight.
The members later require to fight against the Furher/Hitler, and the other members of the Nazi Batallion in order to obtain the 5 skulls. After defeating the Fire Skulls boss, Tatsuya has the decision to choose who he loves in a romantic way (players choice) after Lisa asks:
1. Reciprocate Lisa's feelings (Canon in terms of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, and realistically the only choice that can work in context to the rest of the series.)
2. Jun Kurosa (technically also canon considering the Persona 2 Innocent Punishments timeline, however in the Eternal Punishment timeline, Jun has no clue who Tatsuya is nor shares a connection apart from blind memories from THE OTHER SIDE)
3. Maya Amano (technically canon considering the end of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, however considering what happens to "Other Side Tatsuya" it's merely a kiss)
4. Eikichi Mishina - Joke Choice (Eikichi ain't into that and is shocked, and Lisa calls you out on your funny choice.)
[Sadly no Yukino choice : ( ]
After all the members fight their fears in Xaliba, they face against the Furher and defeat him/kill him. The members are then transported to the end where they fight the true villian Nyarlathotep.
He explains that he is essentially the other side of the coin of Philemon, where instead of being a god of creation, love, hope, and purity, Nyarlathotep is about destruction, chaos, hatred, taintedness, and evilness. He challenges the 5 members of the Masked Circle and once he's defeated he uses 1 last trick up his sleeve. He uses a member of the of the Batallion Maya Okamura to pierce Maya Amano with the Spear of Destiny (the spear used to kill Jesus Christ where it's stated that blood spewed out regardless if you tried to heal it) and Maya tells everyone to forget her, and she'll always be in Tatsuya, Lisa, Jun, and Eikichi's heart.
Nyarlathotep laughs and says "the process is complete" and proceeds to destroy the world apart from the floating city of Sumaru City.
The Masked Circle are shocked, and sadden that they failed. However Philemon tells them there is a way to right the wrongs of what happened on THIS SIDE. He tells them he can create a new universe where the characters have the opportunity to stop all that happens, however in exchange the members of the Masked Circle... apart from Tatsuya would have to have their memories wiped and will never be able to learn what happens in this timeline. They all agree as Tatsuya takes the sin into his souls and sees Eikichi, Jun, and Maya disappear into their new universe with their minds erase. Lisa being the last to see Tatsuya of "The Other Side" planting a kiss on him and telling him she'll never forget him or the love she has for him. She then disappears as then Philemon tells Tatsuya he must take the sin and burden and help contribute to fixing the new world.
Tatsuya can then decide to thank or punch Philemon. If you choose to Punch him, it reveals Philemon's face is just a reflection of the human soul. As Philemon represent humans purity, while Nyarlathotep represents humans evilness.
The game ends in the new universe where Maya, Jun, Lisa, Eikichi, and a new version of Tatsuya meet as a connection point. The game ends with a depressingly beautiful song.
The story will later be resolved in Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, but the torment Tatsuya goes through will always remain. Such an amazing story.
The game has greatly improved in terms of the gameplay featuring more 3d traversal with the camera now following Tatsuya in birds eye view as opposed to how in Persona 1 you were in 1st person bumping into walls. The random encounters have been lowered to more reasonable encounters as opposed to Persona 1 (PSP) random encounter being constant every 10 to 20 steps.
The battles however do take a bit longer however they're still fun for the most part. The style of collecting Personas is similar to that of the first game however has been improved upon in the process taking quicker and easier to obtain. The game also has an easier way of obtaining the Ultimate Personas in a specifc way in Mount. Iwato by collecting the masks of Tatsuya, Lisa, and Eikichi while Jun and Maya automatically obtain theres.
The game was an amazing experience and it along with 2 Eternal Punishment are amazing games that it's a true crime they have never been remastered. It's the only Persona game to have a morbid depressing ending where the characters... fail. Like everything they did ended up being for nothing because it was fate and the world against them even though they tried their hardest. Tatsuya is the most tragic protagonist since now he must take the sins of his world, and attempt to fix the alternate timeline in the new world. However regardless if he does or doesn't fix the other sides fate, his world is already destroyed, apart from Sumaru City, he literally can't go anywhere else as the only remnants of remaining life are on Sumaru City in the floating Holy Space ship of Xaliba. However Tatsuya knows the sacrifice he must make, in order for the new timeline to be able to continue to exist happily, away from the awful fate that befell his world.
The only reason why Persona 3 (Original/FES/Portable), Persona 3 Dancing, Persona 4 (Original/Golden), Persona 4 Arena, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona 4 Dancing All Night, Persona 5 (Original/Royal), and Persona 5 Strikers happen is because of Tatsuyas sacrifice and influence in Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment.
Persona 2 Innocent Sin is a tragic story that ends in a hopeful and heroic way.
I hope in the future Atlus does remakes of Persona 1, Persona 2 Innocent Sin, and 2 Eternal Punishment to give newer Persona fans the opportunity to see the amazingness of these 3 games. If not remakes than a collection remaster. These games are amazing.
I absolutely recommend playing Persona 2 Innocent Sin.
This game features one of the wackiest, depressing, and serious stories in the whole franchise, YES MORE THAN PERSONA 3!
The characters in this game are absolutely amazing in their own respective ways, and the story is actually intertwined with their existences being the cause of everything that happens in the game unlike Persona 1 where the central focus is on Maki, or 3 where the Protagonist happens to have the mark of death.
The characters you play as are as follows:
Tatsuya Suou - Persona 2 Innocent Sin's Protagonist, very mature for his age being 17, treats all of his friends like family and is famous for his motorcycle noises. Has the timestop ability when he unlocks his ultimate Persona: Apollo. Suffers the most out of any other Persona protag. Arcana: Sun
Lisa "Ginko" Silverman - mixed race Japanese girl, is apart of an trio idol pop group. She is in love and infatuated with Tatsuya. Feels guilty for her past with Eikichi, Jun, and Tatsuya for what happens with Maya.
Arcana: Lovers
Eikichi "Michel" Mishina - Japanese Rockstar Teenager. Has a rivalry and bromance with Tatsuya. He gets into a lot of arguments with Ginko/Lisa. He's afraid of his fathers wrath and disapproval of him being a rockstar. He has a girlfriend named Miyabi Hanakouji who starts off fat and later gets skinny, but Eikichi tells her he'd love her no matter what.
Like Lisa, Eikichi feels guilty after what happened in the past with Tatsuya, Maya, Jun, Lisa, and himself
Masao Inaba/Mark (Persona 1) and Eikichi are the reasons for why characters like: Junpei, Yosuke, and Ryuji are so beloved in terms of bros in the Persona franchise.
Arcana: Death
Maya Amano: Reporter who has a connection to the other members of the Masked Circle. She's essentially the "big sister" of the group who always remains confident and positive. She motivates everyone to be the best they can be and stand up for what's right. She tells everyone the truth about their pasts, and what really happened during the Ayala Shrine fire with her and Tatsuya and everyone else.
Yukino Mayuzumi: Returning member from Persona 1, she is now older sporting a new appearance with her having longer bluish green curly hair, a grey jacket, yellow pants, and beanie. She is Maya Amano's reporting partner who has the most experience with using Personas after the "SEBEC" incident. She acts very tomboy and feminine and loves this photographer reporter Shunsuke Fujii. She suffers from loss towards the end of the game and she relieves her Persona to Jun Kurosa.
Arcana: Empress
Jun Kursoa: Member of the masked circle is controlled by the true villain of the game. Starts off as the masked villain "THE JOKER" and hates Tatsuya for what happened to Maya in the past. When the truth is revealed to him he apologies and cries and feels sorry for what happens. To make it up to Tatsuya, Maya, and co he requests to join them on their journey to destroy the Masked Circle, and defeat Nyarlathotep to stop the end of the world. He's implied/confirmed to be Gay since he interacts with Tatsuya in a particular way in a very, romantic way. He also refuses to interact with female demons/personas.
Arcana: Fortune
The story has the members investigating the separate rumors that happens throughout the city of Sumaru. You meet previous characters from Persona 1 like: Kei Nanjo, Eriko Kirishima, Maki Sonomura, Reiji Kido, and Hidehiko "Brown" Uesugi in cameo appearances.
The characters find out the Mask Circle and the revived Nazi's plan to unleash Nyarlathotep and destroy the world except Sumaru City which is underneath Xaliba (Holy Alien Space ship).
The characters go through so much pain and torment and finally after Yukino gives her persona ability to Jun, the original 5 members of the Masked Circle head to Xilaba/The End to finish the fight.
The members later require to fight against the Furher/Hitler, and the other members of the Nazi Batallion in order to obtain the 5 skulls. After defeating the Fire Skulls boss, Tatsuya has the decision to choose who he loves in a romantic way (players choice) after Lisa asks:
1. Reciprocate Lisa's feelings (Canon in terms of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, and realistically the only choice that can work in context to the rest of the series.)
2. Jun Kurosa (technically also canon considering the Persona 2 Innocent Punishments timeline, however in the Eternal Punishment timeline, Jun has no clue who Tatsuya is nor shares a connection apart from blind memories from THE OTHER SIDE)
3. Maya Amano (technically canon considering the end of Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, however considering what happens to "Other Side Tatsuya" it's merely a kiss)
4. Eikichi Mishina - Joke Choice (Eikichi ain't into that and is shocked, and Lisa calls you out on your funny choice.)
[Sadly no Yukino choice : ( ]
After all the members fight their fears in Xaliba, they face against the Furher and defeat him/kill him. The members are then transported to the end where they fight the true villian Nyarlathotep.
He explains that he is essentially the other side of the coin of Philemon, where instead of being a god of creation, love, hope, and purity, Nyarlathotep is about destruction, chaos, hatred, taintedness, and evilness. He challenges the 5 members of the Masked Circle and once he's defeated he uses 1 last trick up his sleeve. He uses a member of the of the Batallion Maya Okamura to pierce Maya Amano with the Spear of Destiny (the spear used to kill Jesus Christ where it's stated that blood spewed out regardless if you tried to heal it) and Maya tells everyone to forget her, and she'll always be in Tatsuya, Lisa, Jun, and Eikichi's heart.
Nyarlathotep laughs and says "the process is complete" and proceeds to destroy the world apart from the floating city of Sumaru City.
The Masked Circle are shocked, and sadden that they failed. However Philemon tells them there is a way to right the wrongs of what happened on THIS SIDE. He tells them he can create a new universe where the characters have the opportunity to stop all that happens, however in exchange the members of the Masked Circle... apart from Tatsuya would have to have their memories wiped and will never be able to learn what happens in this timeline. They all agree as Tatsuya takes the sin into his souls and sees Eikichi, Jun, and Maya disappear into their new universe with their minds erase. Lisa being the last to see Tatsuya of "The Other Side" planting a kiss on him and telling him she'll never forget him or the love she has for him. She then disappears as then Philemon tells Tatsuya he must take the sin and burden and help contribute to fixing the new world.
Tatsuya can then decide to thank or punch Philemon. If you choose to Punch him, it reveals Philemon's face is just a reflection of the human soul. As Philemon represent humans purity, while Nyarlathotep represents humans evilness.
The game ends in the new universe where Maya, Jun, Lisa, Eikichi, and a new version of Tatsuya meet as a connection point. The game ends with a depressingly beautiful song.
The story will later be resolved in Persona 2 Eternal Punishment, but the torment Tatsuya goes through will always remain. Such an amazing story.
The game has greatly improved in terms of the gameplay featuring more 3d traversal with the camera now following Tatsuya in birds eye view as opposed to how in Persona 1 you were in 1st person bumping into walls. The random encounters have been lowered to more reasonable encounters as opposed to Persona 1 (PSP) random encounter being constant every 10 to 20 steps.
The battles however do take a bit longer however they're still fun for the most part. The style of collecting Personas is similar to that of the first game however has been improved upon in the process taking quicker and easier to obtain. The game also has an easier way of obtaining the Ultimate Personas in a specifc way in Mount. Iwato by collecting the masks of Tatsuya, Lisa, and Eikichi while Jun and Maya automatically obtain theres.
The game was an amazing experience and it along with 2 Eternal Punishment are amazing games that it's a true crime they have never been remastered. It's the only Persona game to have a morbid depressing ending where the characters... fail. Like everything they did ended up being for nothing because it was fate and the world against them even though they tried their hardest. Tatsuya is the most tragic protagonist since now he must take the sins of his world, and attempt to fix the alternate timeline in the new world. However regardless if he does or doesn't fix the other sides fate, his world is already destroyed, apart from Sumaru City, he literally can't go anywhere else as the only remnants of remaining life are on Sumaru City in the floating Holy Space ship of Xaliba. However Tatsuya knows the sacrifice he must make, in order for the new timeline to be able to continue to exist happily, away from the awful fate that befell his world.
The only reason why Persona 3 (Original/FES/Portable), Persona 3 Dancing, Persona 4 (Original/Golden), Persona 4 Arena, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona 4 Dancing All Night, Persona 5 (Original/Royal), and Persona 5 Strikers happen is because of Tatsuyas sacrifice and influence in Persona 2 Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment.
Persona 2 Innocent Sin is a tragic story that ends in a hopeful and heroic way.
I hope in the future Atlus does remakes of Persona 1, Persona 2 Innocent Sin, and 2 Eternal Punishment to give newer Persona fans the opportunity to see the amazingness of these 3 games. If not remakes than a collection remaster. These games are amazing.
I absolutely recommend playing Persona 2 Innocent Sin.
1998
Megaman and Bass is a spinoff that takes aspects from Megaman 8, by having a beautiful artstyle, and great music. With the exception of the difficulty where the game feels like a treat to play as 1 character with superior gameplay, while playing as the other character feels the game is punishing you for choosing the other character.
[Game itself]
In this game you get to select Megaman or Bass as playable characters, though essentially this is where you're actually choosing your difficulty option with Bass being Easy/Normal, and Megaman being straight up hell.
The problem with this game, as others point out, is like in Megaman 10, Megaman wasn't built for this type of game because Capcom have never tried or wanted to improve Megaman's overall gameplay for the sake of not pissing off a couple of pathetic fans, who care that Megaman only shoots left and right.
The problem with Megaman in this game is this game contains a lot of enemies that you need to take out at an angle, and Bass has an overhauled gameplay that allows him to shoot in 6 different directions: North-West, West, South-West, North-East, East, South-East and also contains a double jump. Now I'm not saying "give Megaman a double jump" I'm saying it's pretty stupid that even now (well considering Megaman 11) he still only shoots left and right depending on where he's facing.
Give Megaman the full axis of combat to shoot his buster. Now a lot of people say "Megaman has the Mega Buster Charge shot as a compromise" but when most of the enemies (Not even main bosses) have to take twice a full charge shot in order to full kill them, and still get hit by a enemy at a diagonal, Megaman can't reach them, but Bass can.
Honestly this should have been a Bass Game by itself, a spinoff essentially, sort of like Tron Bonnie got on the PS1.
Another issue is that nearly all the stages are full of cheap hits that it's more than likely you'll end up running out of lives before actually reaching a boss, and even then still dying to them, I know thats par for the course with Megaman but if the stage is what's causing the biggest issue in reaching the boss because it feels like it's not built for a certain character (IE Megaman) then it starts to feel like a drag to play.
It doesn't help that the game has a shop system that doesn't allow you to stack the amount of lives you want. What I mean is, Auto the robot (Green Robot with Red Eyes that is friends with Megaman) sells items for you on your adventure, and the more you progress the more items you can obtain/buy.
Most of the time you will be buying lives... the annoying thing is that Capcom never thought to actually allow you to stack buying of items, which means YOU HAVE TO INDIVIDUALLY BUY EVERY SINGLE LIFE. In the game you start with 2 lives (technically 3), and you can get a max of 9 lives, meaning that for the other 7 lives, you need to talk to Auto 3 times in a row to buy the item, it's a pain and a waste of time.
You can buy enhancers/absorbers in order to help Mega/Bass on their journey from Auto, but as soon as you die, you lose all said items ( and no you can't rebuy them until you get the same amount of screws from stages in order to rebuy them from Auto.
The game is a pain to play.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Robot Masters]
The Robot Masters in this game are unique in terms of design (somewhat) but also very strange, and sometimes straight up lazy as some characters are just similar ones from Megaman 8/inspired by.
The difficulty with the robot masters is that most feel like they get cheap hits in, resulting in cheap deaths, and there's straight up 1 robot master who you can't defeat unless you precisely know the exact frame to hit them with a charge shot, if you're not attempting to defeat them with their weakness, and keep in mind, the game starts off with you picking from 1 of 3 robot masters before unlocking the rest, and keep in mind, the one I'm talking about is Astro Man, he's one of the first one's available, and as Megaman is nearly impossible to defeat without the Magic Card ability from Magic Man.
Now I will list all the robot masters, their weaknesses, and their overall difficulty ranging from Piss Easy, Fair, or Straight Up Cheap and Annoying, or HELL. I'll also provide some thoughts on their designs.
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Cold Man- Weakness: Lighting Bolt (Obtained from Dynamo Man however Dynamo is one of the last robot Masters, so you'll probably never fight Cold Man with Lightning Bolt) - Difficulty Fair - Design: Ever thought Cold Man needed to look more like a freezer mixed with E123 Omega from Sonic = Cold Man
Astro Man -Weakness: Magic Cards (Obtained from Magic Man) - Difficulty without Weakness: HELL, Difficulty with Weakness: Piss Easy Design: Same design he uses in Megaman 8, still looks like a stupid weird ball with tiny balls around it with a green coat. It's very stupid looking
Ground Man: Weakness: Remote Mine (Obtained from Pirate Man) - Difficulty: Fair - Design: Cool simple design with drills, the color of a light-ish creamy yellow white mixed with Brown and blue stripes is nice, also the drills are really cool, and the vehicle drill he becomes is awesome.
Burner Man: Weakness - Ice Wall (Cold Man) - Difficulty: Fair and Cheap (Sometimes the hit box is the biggest problem since if he barely scrapes you, you still somehow get hit) -
Design: Love how unique he looks, taking inspiration from Fire Man, but instead, having a esthetic of a flame gas canister with Green flames, really awesome.
Pirate Man: Weakness: Wave Burner (Obtained from Burner Man) - Difficulty - Piss Easy with and without Weakness - Design: Cool Pirate look, has an awesome hat and even a single eye with an area that looks like where another eye should be but instead it's a cover that looks like an eye patch. Also really like how in 1 hand he has a canon like Megaman and Bass, and in the other he has a claw hand. Really cool and unique design
Dynamo Man: Weakness: Copy Vision (Obtained from Astro Man) - Difficulty: HELL with and without his weakness (is the only boss where he literally heals himself as you're about to defeat him making you have to destroy BOTH SIDES OF HIS REGENERATOR in order to stop him healing all his health) - Design: Such a cheap boss having such a shit design, looking like a green coil pylon is insulting, stupid design with an unfair boss fight.
Tengu Man: Weakness: Spread Drill (Ground Man) - Difficulty: Fair with and without Weakness (Just watch his patterns and you'll be fine, you will die, but it does feel like trail and error, not cheap deaths) - Design: Returning from Megaman 8, the design itself is weird, but not sure why the robot exists in the first place if it's based off japanese mythology, it's like making a robot Master of Son Wukong and calling it Son Wukong Man, why? IDK but the design is cool.
Magic Man - Weakness: Tengu Blade (Obtained from Tengu Man) - Difficulty: Straight Up Cheap and Annoying with and without his weakness (He moves everywhere throwing a bunch of stuff that has a small window of avoidance and can result in cheap deaths, but is nowhere as annoying as Dynamoman) - Design: really cool unique magician outfit and while he himself is unique his stage is a nighttime stolen version of Clown Man's stage from 8.
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[Story]
The story is your standard: ROBOTS HAVE GONE HAYWIRE AND ARE WRECKING THINGS and Dr Light asks Megaman to save the robots and also to defeat a new Enemy Named KING. As Bass you're asked to do the same as but with Wily asking you to do so.
You go through the game defeating the robot masters and have a final confrontation with King, where Protoman shows up and uses all his energy to destroy King's Power Shield giving Megaman/Bass a fair fight against King.
After King is defeat King asks them (depending on who you're playing as), why do they fight for humans when robots are superior?
If as Megaman: "It's not about Superiority..."
If as Bass: ".......... because Humans made us"
King then reveals that the true villian behind all of this is... OMG DR WILY (yeah no shit, like he's not in every single other Megaman Mainline game apart from the X-Series and Battle Network, etc).
Dr Wily takes control of King turning the Gold Robot into an evil mindcontrolled purple one, and has him... control a giant tank with 3 weakspots. After his destruction, King says to Megaman/Bass they need to escape before the Bass explodes.
As Megaman he worries about King and wonders if he'll make it.
As Bass he asks what King will do now since everything is being destroyed
King tells (whoever you're playing as): He'll teleport with them but that they need to go first, Mega/Bass do so.
King actually lied, since he doesn't have a teleporting ability like them.
King to Megaman after Mega teleports: "I wish I had teleportation like him... save the robots MEGAMAN!"
King to Bass after Bass Teleports: " I wish I had teleportation like him... we could've been good friends Bass."
As King dies in the explosion, REST IN PEACE YOU KING!
After that you head to Wily's fortress for a final boss rush of all previous robot Masters, and a final 2 phase fight with Wily which ends in him begging for his life.
In Megaman's ending everything is happy and all robot masters are save along with seeing a nice ghost/vision of King being happy knowing that there's someone like Megaman to save the robots.
In Bass's ending - Wily explains that the reason he tricked Bass was because he wanted to see if Bass really was the strongest robot he created to combat Megaman. He did this by creating an equally strong or "STRONGER" robot in terms of King. After King's defeat Wily immediately began working on KING THE SECOND, so he could be a partner with Bass so that they can both take out Megaman and be unstoppable. Protoman shows up and destroys the King 2 project. Wily immediately orders Bass to eliminate Protoman, but he doesn't. Protoman explains to Bass that he is free to do what he wants and doesn't need a master to tell him what to do, but also tells him that Bass will never EVER defeat Megaman because he doesn't have a reason nor purpose to. Until Bass finds that reason, he will never defeat Mega, Protoman leaves. The scene ends with Bass saying, "I Don't need a reason, I am the strongest and I will destroy Megaman"
As the game ends.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall this game has a beautiful artstyle, tedious and annoying gameplay, and a good story in terms of Bass, and a generic one in terms of Megaman.
Now maybe the issue with the difficulty has to do with the version I played being the GBA version, so maybe the original SNES version is better, but personally I had a mixed and bad time with this game because while starting optimistic, I ended up dreading everytime I had to continue the game, so now that I've finally beaten it, I probably won't ever play it again unless they port it to a new Megaman collection, or remake it to be better.
I recommend it if you're a Megaman fan, but I don't if you're a casual player.
[Game itself]
In this game you get to select Megaman or Bass as playable characters, though essentially this is where you're actually choosing your difficulty option with Bass being Easy/Normal, and Megaman being straight up hell.
The problem with this game, as others point out, is like in Megaman 10, Megaman wasn't built for this type of game because Capcom have never tried or wanted to improve Megaman's overall gameplay for the sake of not pissing off a couple of pathetic fans, who care that Megaman only shoots left and right.
The problem with Megaman in this game is this game contains a lot of enemies that you need to take out at an angle, and Bass has an overhauled gameplay that allows him to shoot in 6 different directions: North-West, West, South-West, North-East, East, South-East and also contains a double jump. Now I'm not saying "give Megaman a double jump" I'm saying it's pretty stupid that even now (well considering Megaman 11) he still only shoots left and right depending on where he's facing.
Give Megaman the full axis of combat to shoot his buster. Now a lot of people say "Megaman has the Mega Buster Charge shot as a compromise" but when most of the enemies (Not even main bosses) have to take twice a full charge shot in order to full kill them, and still get hit by a enemy at a diagonal, Megaman can't reach them, but Bass can.
Honestly this should have been a Bass Game by itself, a spinoff essentially, sort of like Tron Bonnie got on the PS1.
Another issue is that nearly all the stages are full of cheap hits that it's more than likely you'll end up running out of lives before actually reaching a boss, and even then still dying to them, I know thats par for the course with Megaman but if the stage is what's causing the biggest issue in reaching the boss because it feels like it's not built for a certain character (IE Megaman) then it starts to feel like a drag to play.
It doesn't help that the game has a shop system that doesn't allow you to stack the amount of lives you want. What I mean is, Auto the robot (Green Robot with Red Eyes that is friends with Megaman) sells items for you on your adventure, and the more you progress the more items you can obtain/buy.
Most of the time you will be buying lives... the annoying thing is that Capcom never thought to actually allow you to stack buying of items, which means YOU HAVE TO INDIVIDUALLY BUY EVERY SINGLE LIFE. In the game you start with 2 lives (technically 3), and you can get a max of 9 lives, meaning that for the other 7 lives, you need to talk to Auto 3 times in a row to buy the item, it's a pain and a waste of time.
You can buy enhancers/absorbers in order to help Mega/Bass on their journey from Auto, but as soon as you die, you lose all said items ( and no you can't rebuy them until you get the same amount of screws from stages in order to rebuy them from Auto.
The game is a pain to play.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Robot Masters]
The Robot Masters in this game are unique in terms of design (somewhat) but also very strange, and sometimes straight up lazy as some characters are just similar ones from Megaman 8/inspired by.
The difficulty with the robot masters is that most feel like they get cheap hits in, resulting in cheap deaths, and there's straight up 1 robot master who you can't defeat unless you precisely know the exact frame to hit them with a charge shot, if you're not attempting to defeat them with their weakness, and keep in mind, the game starts off with you picking from 1 of 3 robot masters before unlocking the rest, and keep in mind, the one I'm talking about is Astro Man, he's one of the first one's available, and as Megaman is nearly impossible to defeat without the Magic Card ability from Magic Man.
Now I will list all the robot masters, their weaknesses, and their overall difficulty ranging from Piss Easy, Fair, or Straight Up Cheap and Annoying, or HELL. I'll also provide some thoughts on their designs.
🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
Cold Man- Weakness: Lighting Bolt (Obtained from Dynamo Man however Dynamo is one of the last robot Masters, so you'll probably never fight Cold Man with Lightning Bolt) - Difficulty Fair - Design: Ever thought Cold Man needed to look more like a freezer mixed with E123 Omega from Sonic = Cold Man
Astro Man -Weakness: Magic Cards (Obtained from Magic Man) - Difficulty without Weakness: HELL, Difficulty with Weakness: Piss Easy Design: Same design he uses in Megaman 8, still looks like a stupid weird ball with tiny balls around it with a green coat. It's very stupid looking
Ground Man: Weakness: Remote Mine (Obtained from Pirate Man) - Difficulty: Fair - Design: Cool simple design with drills, the color of a light-ish creamy yellow white mixed with Brown and blue stripes is nice, also the drills are really cool, and the vehicle drill he becomes is awesome.
Burner Man: Weakness - Ice Wall (Cold Man) - Difficulty: Fair and Cheap (Sometimes the hit box is the biggest problem since if he barely scrapes you, you still somehow get hit) -
Design: Love how unique he looks, taking inspiration from Fire Man, but instead, having a esthetic of a flame gas canister with Green flames, really awesome.
Pirate Man: Weakness: Wave Burner (Obtained from Burner Man) - Difficulty - Piss Easy with and without Weakness - Design: Cool Pirate look, has an awesome hat and even a single eye with an area that looks like where another eye should be but instead it's a cover that looks like an eye patch. Also really like how in 1 hand he has a canon like Megaman and Bass, and in the other he has a claw hand. Really cool and unique design
Dynamo Man: Weakness: Copy Vision (Obtained from Astro Man) - Difficulty: HELL with and without his weakness (is the only boss where he literally heals himself as you're about to defeat him making you have to destroy BOTH SIDES OF HIS REGENERATOR in order to stop him healing all his health) - Design: Such a cheap boss having such a shit design, looking like a green coil pylon is insulting, stupid design with an unfair boss fight.
Tengu Man: Weakness: Spread Drill (Ground Man) - Difficulty: Fair with and without Weakness (Just watch his patterns and you'll be fine, you will die, but it does feel like trail and error, not cheap deaths) - Design: Returning from Megaman 8, the design itself is weird, but not sure why the robot exists in the first place if it's based off japanese mythology, it's like making a robot Master of Son Wukong and calling it Son Wukong Man, why? IDK but the design is cool.
Magic Man - Weakness: Tengu Blade (Obtained from Tengu Man) - Difficulty: Straight Up Cheap and Annoying with and without his weakness (He moves everywhere throwing a bunch of stuff that has a small window of avoidance and can result in cheap deaths, but is nowhere as annoying as Dynamoman) - Design: really cool unique magician outfit and while he himself is unique his stage is a nighttime stolen version of Clown Man's stage from 8.
🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
[Story]
The story is your standard: ROBOTS HAVE GONE HAYWIRE AND ARE WRECKING THINGS and Dr Light asks Megaman to save the robots and also to defeat a new Enemy Named KING. As Bass you're asked to do the same as but with Wily asking you to do so.
You go through the game defeating the robot masters and have a final confrontation with King, where Protoman shows up and uses all his energy to destroy King's Power Shield giving Megaman/Bass a fair fight against King.
After King is defeat King asks them (depending on who you're playing as), why do they fight for humans when robots are superior?
If as Megaman: "It's not about Superiority..."
If as Bass: ".......... because Humans made us"
King then reveals that the true villian behind all of this is... OMG DR WILY (yeah no shit, like he's not in every single other Megaman Mainline game apart from the X-Series and Battle Network, etc).
Dr Wily takes control of King turning the Gold Robot into an evil mindcontrolled purple one, and has him... control a giant tank with 3 weakspots. After his destruction, King says to Megaman/Bass they need to escape before the Bass explodes.
As Megaman he worries about King and wonders if he'll make it.
As Bass he asks what King will do now since everything is being destroyed
King tells (whoever you're playing as): He'll teleport with them but that they need to go first, Mega/Bass do so.
King actually lied, since he doesn't have a teleporting ability like them.
King to Megaman after Mega teleports: "I wish I had teleportation like him... save the robots MEGAMAN!"
King to Bass after Bass Teleports: " I wish I had teleportation like him... we could've been good friends Bass."
As King dies in the explosion, REST IN PEACE YOU KING!
After that you head to Wily's fortress for a final boss rush of all previous robot Masters, and a final 2 phase fight with Wily which ends in him begging for his life.
In Megaman's ending everything is happy and all robot masters are save along with seeing a nice ghost/vision of King being happy knowing that there's someone like Megaman to save the robots.
In Bass's ending - Wily explains that the reason he tricked Bass was because he wanted to see if Bass really was the strongest robot he created to combat Megaman. He did this by creating an equally strong or "STRONGER" robot in terms of King. After King's defeat Wily immediately began working on KING THE SECOND, so he could be a partner with Bass so that they can both take out Megaman and be unstoppable. Protoman shows up and destroys the King 2 project. Wily immediately orders Bass to eliminate Protoman, but he doesn't. Protoman explains to Bass that he is free to do what he wants and doesn't need a master to tell him what to do, but also tells him that Bass will never EVER defeat Megaman because he doesn't have a reason nor purpose to. Until Bass finds that reason, he will never defeat Mega, Protoman leaves. The scene ends with Bass saying, "I Don't need a reason, I am the strongest and I will destroy Megaman"
As the game ends.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Overall this game has a beautiful artstyle, tedious and annoying gameplay, and a good story in terms of Bass, and a generic one in terms of Megaman.
Now maybe the issue with the difficulty has to do with the version I played being the GBA version, so maybe the original SNES version is better, but personally I had a mixed and bad time with this game because while starting optimistic, I ended up dreading everytime I had to continue the game, so now that I've finally beaten it, I probably won't ever play it again unless they port it to a new Megaman collection, or remake it to be better.
I recommend it if you're a Megaman fan, but I don't if you're a casual player.
This review contains spoilers
Kurohyou 2: Ryu Ga Gotoku Ashura-hen (Yakuza Black Panther 2: Asura's Chapter/ Black Panther 2: Like a Dragon Ashura Chapter) is the sequel to Kurohyou: Ryū ga Gotoku Shinshō (Yakuza Black Panther: New Chapter/ Black Panther: Like a Dragon New Chapter).
The game features a 19 year old Tatsuya now, making this game take place 2 years after the events of the first.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Story] (Splitting this into 3 Parts, Final Battle, and Epilogue)
{PART 1}
Set 2 years after the first game, Tatsuya has traveled around the world as a rookie/prodigy boxer. Who's return to Kamorucho after a recent flawless victory knockout in Vegas.
We learn that since the events of the first game, Saki (Tatsuya's love interest from the first game) has moved to the United States for university and that her and Tatsuya had to let each other go, though we only really get this info about her whereabouts during a specific event that happens within the game.
When Tatsuya returns, he actually meets Tomoki, who has become an ex-fighter due to his lost against Tatsuya, but shows no ill-will towards him since Tatsuya taught Tomoki that ego and thinking you'll automatically win a fight will result in humiliation, Tomoki leaves after helping Tatsuya from a gang jumping, before letting him know Kamorucho's changed.
Tatsuya has returned to Kamorucho to visit Saeko, his sister, to let her know about how his boxing career is going, and what's next for him. Before he is available to visit her, he encounters a young teen getting beat up named Shinji Sakamoto, and his friends Yuta Mikami and Tamotsu Saito, Tatsuya helps them and they mention that they're apart of Dragon Heat, and Tatsuya is surprised it's running and operational. Tatsuya isn't exactly mad that Dragon Heat is still active, and decides to go visit it with them, since Shinji is fighting. This is where Tatsuya meets Ryusho Kuki, son of Ryutaro Kuki, who is now the new patriarch of the Kuki Family and runner of Dragon Heat. Tatsuya says that the way Ryusho is indoctrinating Shinji, Yuta, Tamotsu into Dragon Heat at such a young age. Ryusho then says, that Tatsuya helped save Dragon Heat in the past, and most of the teens look up to Tatsuya, and reveals in front of them that the person the teens met, is the Tatsuya Ukyo, the Mad Dragon of Kamuro.
The teens are all in awe, except for 1, Shinji's other friend, Makoto Yashiro, blonde delinquent who actually feels cut from the same clothe as Tatsuya, who currently doesn't have a fighting philosophy. Tatsuya leaves saying that he's not concerned with what happens now with Dragon Heat, after hearing the issues Ryusho has put it in, so much so it might be sold to the Omni Alliance/Ashura Group in Sotenbori.
Shinji curses Tatsuya saying that he's hiding and is scared.
As Tatsuya leaves and meets with his sister, we then see that Ryusho has to meet with Ashura's leader Yasuto Akita and Kozo Nioka (head of the Nioka Family from the first game). We find out Ryusho can't keep Dragon Heat open with it's lack of fighters and income, so they'll have to sell it to Ashura. Shinji curses them and gets beat up by Akita's hired fighter Shinobu Okita, and gets put in the hospital.
Tatsuya finds out later via heading to the hospital to check on Shinji with Makoto letting him know what happened, with Tatsuya later returning to Dragon Heat and agreeing to help save Dragon Heat for the sake of Shinji and those who came before.
Tatsuya agrees to fight for Dragon Heat, and meets with his fighting manager and says that he's quitting professional boxing for the sake of protecting the place that made him. Saeko immediately calls Tatsuya and asks if he's crazy, but Tatsuya responds saying it's for the sake of Dragon Heat and those who came before (specfically talking about Taizan/Toru, their father).
The first fight takes place against Shinobu Okita, who is a strong kick boxer and uses the Kickboxing Style of fighting. Okita is responsible for putting Shinji in the hospital, so Tatsuya destroys him during their fight with an axe kick.
We later learn that for every fight that Tatsuya has, he has to switch between fighting in Dragon Heat, and later having to travel to Sotenbori to fight in Ashura's Arena.
Makoto gets angry after being told to do nothing, and to let Tatsuya handle Ashura, that he immediately leaves for Sotenbori and take revenge against Ashura, however after Ryusho and Tatsuya discover this, they immediately follow him. When they both arrive and find Shinji we encounter that Makoto has been shoot, luckily the person who did it was a young adult who did it because he was ordered to under Ashura. We find out that Ashura are selling non-lethal weapons to individuals but picking and choosing whether the weapons are lethal or non-lethal to cover their tracks. We see that a top seller of the weapons is a famous Lucha Libre wrestler named Meteor Suzuki
Tatsuya's second fight is against Meteor Suzuki, which ends with Tatsuya knocking him out with a mean right punch to the face knocking him out.
After the fight, Tatsuya is taken to Ashura's infirmary to get checked up and healed. This is when Tatsuya meets a mysterious blind doctor named Ryo Nozaki. Ryo tells him that fate will work against Tatsuya and that the more he faces Ashura, the more angry he'll become. Tatsuya says he doesn't believe in fortune telling and gets back to Ryusho and the others after being treated. Ryo tells Tatsuya not to take what he says personally but that fate is set and there's nothing Tatsuya can do to change it.
Tatsuya's next fight is against Shosuke Oba, who is an extortionist who deals with money, and human trafficking. The reason Tatsuya has to fight him is because Tamotsu wants to protect this hostess he met named Ruri who got into trouble of extortion by Shosuke Oba. Tamotsu decides he wants to fight against Oba, to protect Ruri. Before the fight Tatsuya hypes up Tamotsu and tells him to not give up and push on through until the end. However before the actual fight, Tatsuya and Ryusho suspect foulplay and that Ruri is actually in kahoots with Oba, but Ryusho shows her the error of her ways by watching the boy she swindled and played, get beaten to near death, all for the sake of protecting her. She realizes how badly she messed up and in the Dragon Heat infirmary she visits Tamotsu. Ryusho and Tatsuya keep it a secret that Ruri was involved, allowing Tamotsu to continue believing she was a country-bumpkin good hearted girl. Tamotsu is sad he couldnt protect her, but Ryusho reassures him by saying a deal was struck so Ruri wouldn't be forced into anything, and that she's moving back to the countryside.
Ruri's about to reveal the truth of her involvement, but Tatsuya tells her not to, so that she wouldn't destroy her image to Tamotsu. Later in a dinner we find out that Ruri is moving to Hokkaido and that Ryusho made the debt up however she will still have to pay him to keep his mouth shut about her involvement.
Tatsuya then goes to the fight against Oba and fights Oba who uses Sumo Wrestling, with Tats winning via neck submission. Tatsuya encounters Ryo again who says "if you continue fighting, someone will die, that is the next prediction."
Tatsuya and co meet with Yuta who decides to go and meet with his father, only to get into an argument about how Yuta's dad constantly was working, and that he's the reason Yuta's mom died, and never connecting/bonding with his son.
Yuta's father has an encounter with an old friend named Nobu, who is actually here to buy out the pachinko parlor Yuta's dad owns, but he refuses to sell it.
Ryusho and Tatsuya go to Shangri-La to rest up, but there Tatsuya meets with Ryo again, who makes bets at the Roulette table by predicting them via FATE. Tatsuya can't believe it, and still doesn't believe in what Ryo is saying. Ryo predicts someone will die due to Tatsuya's constant battle with Ashura.
We see later that for collateral, the Ashura group end up blowing up the parlor, hospitalizing Yuta's dad. Yuta says he doesn't care especially since he didn't care to raise Yuta and focused more on working. Tatsuya confront Nobu who admits to have been ordered by Ashura into buying the parlor however he never ordered to have it blown up. Nobu walks with Tatsuya to the destroyed parlor but is killed by a mysterious, hobo looking assassin. Before his death, Nobu decides to give Tatsuya a key to a locker, and tells him it has something important within it for Yuta.
Ryusho and Tatsuya head to Sotenbori to confront the killer/assassin named Tanaka Inchiro. Inchiro says he did it for 2 reasons: 1. Under the order of Ashura and 2. Because he gets joy out of pain and death.
Tatsuya and Ryusho attempt to fight him within the homeless lot of Sotenbori but are stopped by Kozo Nioka who tells them if they want to fight, they need to fight properly in the rules set. That means... yes, Tanaka Inchiro is the next fight that Tatsuya has to face. Before that we cutback to the Kamurocho hospital where Makoto and Tamotsu tell Yuta that they found a letter in the locker and that letter states that because of financial troubles, Yuta's asked for a loan that he knew he couldn't pay, but he begged for Nobu to never go after his son Yuta, begging and pleading. We find out that Yuta's dad worked so hard because he wanted to make a childrens playground area so a family can be happy, for the sake of Yuta. We also learn that Yuta spent most of the money to help people like Nobu start their own business out of the goodness of his heart. Nobu's letter ends by saying, not to worry about the contract and to go be with his wife and son. We also learn that Yuta's dad was giving up everything to protect his son. Yuta burst into tears as the screen cuts to black.
Before the fight in the area, Tatsuya states that if he wins the fight, Tanaka has to tell him everything and why he killed Nobu, however if Tanaka wins, he can kill Tatsuya.
Tatsuya defeats Tanaka by knocking him into the Area's electric fence electrocuting him, which really only knocked him out. However as Tanaka is taken to the infirmary, Tatsuya immediately follows, only to find out that Tanaka is unconsious and needs the rest, says Ryo. We cut away in Sotenbori where Ryusho receives a call from Akita that Tanaka is dead, Tatsuya immediately grabs the phone from Ryusho and yells at them claiming that Ryo killed Tanaka, Ryo responds saying that Tanaka had a weak heart so that electricity killed him, however Tatsuya believes none of it. Ryo apologies for not allowing Tatsuya speak with Tanaka, however warns him that if he continues, Tatsuya will end up killing a friend with his own 2 hands.
What happens next is that the group find out that Shinji has left the hospital and is more unhinged. A website pops up where random civilians are being asked to assault others for bounty, and at the top 5 of the list are: 5. Tamotsu, 4. Yuta, 3. Makoto, 2. Ryusho, 1. TATSUYA. The website called KARMA is created by an unknown person, until the group find out later it was actually Shinji! The reason being is that he's angry that Tatsuya is the cause for all of this and that even though Tatsuya is trying to help, he's hurting everyone in the process. Shinji's injury, Tamotsu almost being scammed, Yuta's Dad nearly dying, and Dragon Heat in a tug of War between the Tojo Clan and Ashura, all of it due to Tatsuya's negligence. Shinji has healed up somehow, but infact he isn't as all he was given was temporary medicine that after a while will wear off and if he were to get hit buy someone like Tatsuya, he would die.
Tatsuya allows Shinji to beat him up without attacking back, causing Shinji to break down into tears and cry asking "I don't understand!" And Tatsuya asks if he's done and calmed down. Ryusho steps in and punches Shinji in the chest unconscious.
We arrive back at the infirmary of Dragon's Heat for Tatsuya's next fight, before that Tats confronts Ryo and accuses him of brainwashing and lying to Shinji, while Ryo has no idea what he's talking about. Makoto shows up letting Tatsuya know the next fight is about to begin, but stairs at Ryo almost as if he knows who he is, like a memory, but ignores this feeling to remind Tatsuya and walks away. Ryo says that fate is still saying a friend is bound to die. Tatsuya says fate and destiny can always be changed.
Tatsuya's next opponent is Kaz Kazaki, aka "Grizzly" who's been healed up by Ashura to be more powerful than he was before. Kaz Kazaki is a MMA fighter, one who was put in a position where he could never fight again do to an injury. Tatsuya claims and confirms that he is the one who tricked and manipulated Shinji into taking the drug to "heal him" and later telling him to create KARMA to attempt to get Tatsuya and co killed.
Kazaki denies this by taunting Tatsuya, and heads into battle.
Kaz Kazaki fights in the MMA fighting style.
Tatsuya defeats Kazaki with a left leg Roundhouse kick to the head, and later a axe kick to the top of Kazaki's head knocking him out cold.
Back at the infirmary, Tatsuya is treated and healed up with Shinji coming to visit Tatsuya and apologies for everthing that happened. Shinji says that Kazaki told him a lie that back in Kurohyou 1 Kazaki was suppose to fight Tatsuya but was given money to lose, but because he refused, Kuki's family beat up Kazaki injuring him and ruining his MMA career. Shinji back then believed it for the amount of emotion he had built up he created the KARMA website. Shinji breaks down in tears apologizing, with Ryusho saying it's all in the past, and not to worry. Tatsuya tells Shinji there's no need, because together they need to stand united against Ashura.
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{PART 2}
Later in a Mahjong Parlor, Saeko is playing with a father figure for Makoto, named Minegi who runs said parlor. We later see police storm in and arrest Minegi, Saeko, and Makoto since a new order has requested every gambling area to be purged under the new rule of Tadashi Tsurumi [Returning Villian and true Culprit of Kurohyou 1 who was never brought to justice] banning gambling locations.
Shozo Takenaka gets Saeko and Makoto off scott free, however Minegi is still being held captive and will continue to be until the next day. The next day comes and Takenaka informs that Minegi committed suicide within the prison, shocking everyone. Makoto says it's a lie and that Minegi would never do something like that, and clearly someone killed him.
Ryusho and Tatsuya head around Kamorucho to ask about Minegi, and we find that most locations know Minegi very well, however they have no leads as to who could've killed Minegi. Ryusho calls off the search because Ashura is calling for the next battle. Tatsuya and co head off to Sotenbori with Makoto staying behind to investigate more.
Saeko is later assaulted and kidnapped by an unknown assault as Tatsuya arrives to Ashura, Tatsuya is in a pickle because he needs to defeat his next opponent in less then 10 minutes, and later returning to save his sister before a bomb goes off.
Tatsuya remembers Makoto is still in Kamorucho and asks him to please save Saeko. [This is the only part of the game that let's you play as Makoto and it's pretty limited as he fights in a standard street fight style]
Before heading to the location, Makoto in the back of his head is still thinking about Ryo Nozaki, and later contacts an old friend from a orphanage named Takashi to investigate about a boy from the Orphanage who was blind, however Takashi tells him that he was never blind and all he did was read and hangout with a girl Shizuka. Makoto asks Takashi to investigate Ryo and to give information about him later to Tatsuya.
Back at Ashura, Tatsuya is ready for his next fight, but is warned by Ryusho to be careful of the next opponent since he's known for playing dirty, where he got disqualified for breaking opponents arms when in tought positions. The next fight is against a dirty fighter named Shinahara Masaru, who uses Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighting style. Masaru taunts Tatsuya for how strong he is, but Tatsuya doesn't care for idol chit chat and needs to defeat him as fast as possible, this angers Masaru as the both battle.
At the end of the battle Tatsuya throws a left arm punch and Shinahara grabs his arms and breaks it, it hurts Tatsuya, but he doesn't care as he knocks out Masaru with a mean punch to the face.
Tatsuya is taken to the infirmary and has his arm broken back into the correct place, Ryusho asks if he's alright and Tatsuya says he's fine but they need to return quickly to Kamorucho. Before they leave Tatsuya sees that Shinahara is threatening Akita and... Ryo. We find out here Akita is the not the head of Ashura... it's actually Ryo who runs everything.
We cut back to Kamurocho where Makoto goes to the abandon building to rescue Saeko. He successfully does so but before he is able to save her, he has to fight the main culprit of Minegi's death, Futa Kinjo, a red head afro wearing asshole murder. Makoto successfully defeats Kinjo and rescues Saeko, but before escaping Makoto is confronted by Kinjo and he tells him he wasn't strong enough and pulls out a gun. Kinjo successfully shoots Makoto who is now bleeding out from his injuries.
Tatsuya and co arrive safely back at Kamurocho and find the abandon building. Saeko comes out of the building and tells Tatsuya that Makoto saved her, but that he's dying. Tatsuya rushes in and finds Makoto. Makoto says he's happy to have met someone like Tatsuya and that he finally understood Tats philosophy. Makoto is happy to see that only 2 fights remain in order to save Dragon Heat, and tells Tatsuya,
"POWER is something you use to help others, I think I finally understand what you said...I know it's too late now... but I'm glad I got to tell you... Thank you... Tatsuya." As Makoto dies, the building explodes.
After the loss of their friend, Tatsuya heads to the next fight in Ashura, but before that meets up with Tenma who says that Makoto's friend Takashi shows up and shows them both the picture of Ryo Nozaki, and the girl named Shizuka. Tatsuya asks Tenma if he can locate Shizuka and see what's going on with Ryo and why he's doing all of this and Tenma agrees to do so, as Tatsuya heads for his next fight at Dragon's heat.
The second to last battle for the Dragon Heat vs Ashura agreement is against... Makoto's Killer... Futa Kinjo. Futa fights in the RyuKyu Karate style. Before the fight, Kinjo taughts Tatsuya about Makoto's death by saying that it was prophesized that he would die, using the same words Ryo Nozaki uses, making Tats angry. Tatsuya says he's going to destroy Kinjo, and at the end of the fight Tatsuya grabs Kinjos head already falling and smashes a mean left hook knocking Kinjo out cold.
Ryo shows up and congratulates Tatsuya, but Tatsuya is angry saying Ryo ordered for Makoto's death. Makoto says not to be ridiculous and that fate works in mysterious ways. Tatsuya asks what Ryo's purpose is, and Ryo responds that it's to help people realize they can never change their destiny nor fight against it. Tatsuya responds saying he'll never give up dragon heat to them.
After all of this a bunch of government shenanigans happen with more of the police force coming in to Kamurocho and we find out that Kozo Nioka and Akita are working with Tadashi Tsurumi.
Tatsuya get's ready for his final fight at Ashura against Yasuto Akita, before the fight begins, Tatsuya tells Akita that he has a lot of questions for him after he wins. Akita responds by saying if Tatsuya will be even able to ask them if he's dead. Tatsuya says he still has time left in this world as he charges into the final battle against Akita.
Yasuto Akita uses Pankration fighting style. Tatsuya defeats Akita in a tough battle and secures victory for Dragon Heat. Here we learn Akita's tragic backstory, where we learn that Ashura was originally like Dragon Heat, where a bunch of young teenagers who came from broken homes came to relieve their stresses, since Akita was in juvie in and out.
While in Ashura, Akita worked at a factory and was one day falsely accused of killing his manager just because he had a previous record and because of no alibi. Akita explains that he would never kill an innocent good hearted man, but because of his previous record he was still booked. Akita went to jail but was later saved by... Ryo Nozaki by lying by giving Akita an alibi. Ryo tells him that he paid a random witness to spot Akita at a different location. Both Ryo and Akita were screwed by the system, and that together that can become an unstoppable force to overpower the authority, as both of them form the new Ashura.
Akita asks and begs of Tatsuya to stop Ryo, as he's shot in the chest by a sniper. Before he dies, he tells Tatsuya to go to Cabaret Rouge... as Akita dies.
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{Part 3 - FINAL}
After Akita's death, Tatsuya asks Tenma to locate Cabaret Rouge and see if anyone knows someone connected to Ryo Nozaki.
Tatsuya goes to a grave yard and later sees Ryo who says he's visiting the grave of a woman he knew in the past who had a man. She was in hospital for 3 years waiting for a liver transplant, but died before she recieved it. The man who was with the woman saved every penny to save her, but the day she was suppose to recieve the liver, it was instead given to someone else leading to her death. Ryo made a prediction that Dragon Heat would be lost, but Tatsuya says he overcame that prediction... or did he.
When returning to Kamurocho Tatsuya finds out that Dragon Heat is under the ownership Kozo Nioka. Ryusho tells Tatsuya that while they were in Sotenbori, Nioka had the metropolitan police rushed into Kuki's office and found the title of ownership of Dragon Heat and had it change at the registry so that Nioka is the owner now. Tatsuya has more questions for Ryusho but he asks Tatsuya to give him a day.
Ryusho leaves and calls Nioka to have a meeting, the good news is that Ryusho had planned for Nioka to do this so he came up with a trap. Ryusho knows that Nioka is in cahoots with Tadashi Tsurumi and knows he's been buying locations, and assaulting the previous employees and owners afterwards, and that if Nioka attempts to kill Ryusho all of the public would know and release the info that a Top Yakuza officer is in cahoots with politician Tadashi Tsurumi. Ryusho tells Nioka to cut ties with Tsurumi and takes all important files of wrongdoings and misdeeds of Tsurumi via flash drive.
Later Ryusho meets up with Tats, who's a little annoyed of Ryu being late, but Ryusho tells him he's a busy and popular man, however later is shot in the back by an unknown assailant. Ryusho immediately give's Tatsuya the flash drive and tells him to give it to Takenaka as it reveals all of Tsurumi's misdeeds, Tatsuya says he won't leave Ryusho to die, but Ryusho urges before pursers attempt to steal it from him.
Tatsuya at Cafe Alps looks into the flash drive and sees the connection of all of Tsurumi's misdeeds from both his deals with Ashura and even the incident of the fire in the Champions district. He gets a call from Tadashi Tsurumi's assistant claiming that Tsurumi wants to trade the flash drive for whatever Tatsuya wants, Tatsuya agrees to meet at the top of the Millennium Tower in exchange with the flashdrive. However Tatsuya specifically demands for Tsurumi to come with the deeds to Dragon Heat, or the deal is off.
Tatsuya is about to go to the Millennium Tower but is contacted by Tenma who tells him he found someone in connection with Ryo Nozaki, Yasuto Akita, Ashura, and Shizuka.
At Cafe Alps, Tenma introduces Mirai who is an ex-hostess due to the knew law against gambling and cabaret clubs by Tadashi Tsurumi. Mirai tells Tatsuya she was Akita's girlfriend and that she was friends with Ichikawa Shizuka, who worked with Mirai at the same Cabaret club, Cabaret Rouge. She saw how more and more Shizuka took days off until Mirai visited her at the hospital and learned her condition, this is where she met Ryo Nozaki.
After a few weeks Mirai received a text of Shizuka's death and rushed to the hospital to find Shizuka's dead body with Ryo touching her face. Ryo being broken, says "This is the reality of our society."
Mirai demands to know why she didn't receive her transplant, Ryo refuses to respond, but thanks Mirai for being a good friend to Shizuka.
Tatsuya now knows why Ryo is the way he is, but then asks... why is Ryo involved with Tadashi Tsurumi.
We cut to Shangri-La where we meet a fat nasty guy named Daisuke, who is actually Tsurumi's son, and Ryo confronts him and asks him to come with him.
Tatsuya leaves for the Millennium Tower, lying to Tenma about seeing his girl, when in reality he's confronting Tadashi.
Tatsuya battles through forces of police all the way to the top of the Millennium Tower where he meets Tadashi and another assistant of his named Saeki. Tatsuya knew they were going to try to dupe him and take the flash drive by force.
This is when Tatsuya fights against Saeki who fights using the Ancient Japanese Martial Arts Fighting Style, and a sword. Tatsuya defeats Saeki, and shocks Tadashi, who pulls a gun out on Tatsuya and demands for the flash drive. Tatsuya says he'll be a murderer but Tadashi says he can just say it was a member of Ashura who did it. We also learn that Tadashi Tsurumi wants to cleanse Kamurocho by screwing over 70% of the people there because "This is the reality of Society" and later taunts Tatsuya about Makoto's death, only for Tatsuya to rush and kick Tadashi down, and point the gun inside Tadashi mouth. Tatsuya's about to pull the trigger, but stops himself saying Tadashi has to repent and be brought to proper justice.
However they're both interrupted by Ryo Nozaki who's impressed by Tatsuya who didn't kill Tadashi Tsurumi even after all he's done in both Kurohyou 1 with Tatsuya's family, and even now with the deaths of Nobu, Minegi, and Makoto. We see Ryo brought with him a beaten up and bloodied Daisuke. This is when Tadashi Tsurumi angeredly asked who Ryo is, and this is when Ryo reveals he was never blind and opens his eyes full of rage, saying he'd never forget the face of the man who murdered Ichikawa Shizuka.
We flash back to 2 years ago where we see the fully story of Shizuka and Ryo. They grew up together in the orphanage and fell in love, later as older Shizuka needed a liver transplant, and Ryo saved a lot of money for the transplant. Before Shizuka received it, Tadashi Tsurumi stopped the transplant from being given to Shizuka, and payed off the doctor to give it to his son Daisuke.
Ryo is angry that the tub of lard payed for his useless disgusting son to have the liver that was meant for Shizuka and now that he's gotten him where he wants him, he's going to kill him, however he himself won't kill him. Ryo gives the gun to Daisuke and tells him if wants to continue living his wreckless garbage life, he has to kill his own father. Daisuke is about to, until Tatsuya steps in.
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{FINAL BATTLE}
Tatsuya tells Ryo this not the way to do this and that Tsurumi needs to be brought to justice properly, he even tries to hit home with Ryo by telling him that Shizuka wouldn't want this. Ryo says he knows and he's envious of Tatsuya's will to change fate/destiny but that it will lead to his death.
Ryo states that if Tatsuya wants to stop him he can feel free and try since he's now stronger than ever, removing his top. Tatsuya responds saying he won't be beaten and removes his top, claiming he will avenge everyone that died trying to bring Ryo down.
They both have an epic Yakuza final battle with the "BORN TO BE WILD!" playing the final battle.
Ryo Nozaki uses the CHINESE MARTIAL ARTS FIGHTING STYLE! (IMO it's best to use the KIWAMI FIGHTING STYLE ang going all out against Ryo).
Tatsuya successfully defeats Ryo in a difficult and tough battle, as Ryo seems... at peace. Ryo tells Tatsuya he was right, he won against fate. However Tadashi Tsurumi picks up the gun aiming it at Tatsuya, however Ryo takes a bullet for Tatsuya saving him. Tadashi says he's had enough and is going to kill them both, only for Ryo to tell Tadashi he's finished, revealing the entire confrontation at the Millennium Tower is being live streamed to the public. Ryo finally won and destroyed Tadashi's entire reputation, but still wants more.
Ryo picks up the gun to attempt to kill Tadashi, but Tatsuya tells him not to, Ryo angerly replies it's all Tatsuya's fault. Joining Ashura and teaming up with Akita, making fortunetelling predictions that came true, all of that changed after he met Tatsuya. Ryo says he was happy to meet someone as motivated as Tatsuya to move against fate, it motivated Ryo more to put an end to Tadashi Tsurumi.
Tatsuya reasons with Ryo by saying he knows what it's like to want Revenge, and knows Ryo doesn't forgive himself.
Ryo gets angry and shoots at Tatsuya which graces Tatsuya's cheek. Tatsuya understands but says if he's going to shoot, he better shoot him in the head.
Ryo... puts lowers the gun and says he wishes he would've met Tatsuya sooner and that even at a time like this, he feels he could change his destiny.
Ryo finally understands theres always a chance to change your fate/ your destiny no matter how far we go.
Suddenly raises the gun to his head and thanks Tatsuya for opening his eyes to changing your fate. Tatsuya tells him to stop. Ryo responds:
"You can always change your fate... I just forgot..." BANG
As Ryo shoots himself and dies... he's finally back with Shizuka.
Takenaka, Shinji, Tamotsu, and Yuta arrive to the top of the Millennium Tower with a punch of the police force. Tadashi Tsurumi jumped off committing suicide not wanting to face the repercussions of everything he did... died as he live... a true COWARD.
We cut back to Tatsuya staring and saying... "it's over"
As the game cuts to black and credits role with one of the worst songs I've ever heard in my life.... it's a song that sounds like a mimic of Louie Armstrong in japanese, and the song is genuinely hot garbage regardless if the lyrics are saying something nice.
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{EPILOGUE}
We cut to a week later after the exposing of Governor Tadashi Tsurumi and everything he had done is reported on the news. We cut to Saeko sadly wandering in Minegi's Mahjong Parlor, remembering Minegi and Makoto. We then cut to Dragon Heat who's back in the hands of Ryusho (who didn't die by the gunshot and recovered successfully), and we see fighting is a new and improved stronger Tamotsu who wins his fight and celebrates with Shinji and Yuta cheering him on!
Finally we cut to Tatsuya with Takenaka who reveals to Tatsuya that he found Ryo's Journal and reveals that at Shangri-La all of the betting and predictions were all fabricated and design by Ryo to make it seem like "FATE" by using Ashura to make it come true. It was never fate, it was executing plans by Ryo.
Takenaka responds "Prophecies it's so easy to fool people... Humans are so weak and fragile..."
Tatsuya agrees, and Takenaka lets him know throughout several pages, Tatsuya is mentioned. Takenaka thinks either Ryo was afraid Tatsuya would overcome Ashura, or that he actually was a fortuneteller. Takenaka wonders if Ryo lost his way so badly. Tatsuya says no... in the end he finally remembered.
Tatsuya says he's happy Ryo reminded him never to forget that you can always change fate. Takenaka asks "what do you mean"
The camera cuts to a full shot of Tatsuya saying:
"Nothing happens by chance...I'm gonna see how far I can take these fists... and change the future... it's the only way."
Takenaka responds tells him he understands but for Tatsuya not to push himself too hard. Tatsuya says he wants to push himself to overcome the obstacles coming his way, otherwise you can't obtain what you truly want.
Takenaka responds " That's Ukyo Tatsuya for you..."
The game ends with a final shot of Tatsuyas fist in the air with him saying:
"Of course! My destiny is my own... I'll make of it what I can!"
As the game cuts to black.
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[Gameplay]
The gameplay has a more unique system of combat where now you are able to customize different fighting styles, along with different heat moves. So say you choose the Wrestling style, you are able to choose whatever other heat move attacks that probably don't correspond with wrestling, but it still makes the experience unique and fun.
The camera still has an issue of angling as of course like I said for the first game, it a psp game, and the orignal psp didn't have joysticks, it only had a thumbslider. However here it does seem more manageable than the first.
An annoying aspect of the overworld is that now you have 2 types of random encounters, regular random encounters, and "QUEST" random encounters, where essentially a green arrow will highlight someone getting mugged, a dine dasher, a near on assault, a woman being harassed by 2 dudes, etc.
The worst one is always the woman being harassed by 2 dudes because there's a 1/2 a chance she'll reward you or lead you into another QUEST random encounter that has you fight 4 dudes. I don't understand the logic of this one:
Girl gets harassed by 2 dudes -> Guy saves her -> She says she'll reward him a date or something -> Leads him to secluded area -> Leads guy to get jumped by 4 other guys.
The other example is 3 dudes bullying one dude, but like the girl above, theres 1/2 a chance that the bullied dude is also in on it so you'll either have to fight 3 dudes if the dude legit is getting bullied, or 4 dudes if the "bullied" individual is in on it, Most of the time it's the ladder.
The game also features another returning element of the first game where it has you enter a tournament that has a ranking of 30 fighters and you fight each of them until you reach the top 10 where you fight against the main fighters/villains of the game.
Here however they've introduced in Sotenbori a tag partner system where you can recruit random encounter fighters or ingame fighters to help you in a tag tournament that also has a 30 rank system of it own.
What sucks is you'll probably lose motivation to do it only because unlike in Kurohyou 1, where you can just continuously fight here you can't, you have to wait for one of the 2 tournament helpers to text you letting you know a new fight has come up, but what's even worse is the game randomizes when you fight the next rank.
For example you're rank 21, you're trying to fight Rank 20 to move up, but the dudes will probably recommend you Rank 29 for some reason instead of moving to the next rank fighter. It can make the gamemode feel convoluted and taxing to have to wait for.
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[Minigames]
The minigames are overall fun with only 2 of them being complete ass.
Karaoke got a major improvement with allowing for actual timing and rhythm like in other Yakuza/Like a Dragon Games, instead of just "SPAM X TO FILL A METER" still I do wish the VA for Tatsuya was allowed to sing a song instead of playing the main theme/final boss theme of the game "BORN TO BE WILD".
The only 2 genuinely bad games are: Golf as you have to guess whether you're going to hit the ball in the right direction. And Slots due to how randomized everything is.
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[Cabaret Clubs]
Cabaret Clubs are improved upon in terms of still giving you 3 options to choose from when the girls ask, along with asking for drinks and food. 1 thing I really liked is they added a random romantic moment to happen where a QTE happens to the girl that if you perform correctly gives you extra hearts.
1 thing that was a bad addition was the "decision moment" added where at 1 point you have to collect 5 girl flags by either answering a question about the girls favorite food or drink, or looking at their appearance and pointing something out about an item or body part of theirs. The problem is if you're already maxed or 1 heart away from obtain 15 hearts (you need 20 hearts in order to complete the Hostess and unlock their special Substory - 6 total, this flag system always happens at the 13-15 mark). You can't get anymore until you fulfill all of the flags, and for no reason they show a cutscene where the hostess makes a decision between you and a random Host, and She will always pick the host if you have not gotten all the flags, however once you do, she'll always pick you and you can continue your expedition of hearts. After the 20 hearts are complete you'll get a text from the girl, go on a date, then later get contacted for a substory that usually ends up having Tatsuya beat someone up.
So yeah, it's overall more complex, but it is an improvement, even if the flag system is stupid.
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[Substories]
The substories themselves have major improvement with some of these actually being very memorable and fun. The storyline of the original Gang substory is expanded upon and has a returning fighter from the first game as the primary antagonist of the storyline substory.
There's only 1 genuinely bad story and thats the slot machine substory which is completely random chance since you have to get a jackpot, and because it's a PSP SLOT MACHINE MINI-GAME it's completely randomized and completely unfair, that it's impossible to actually win without trying over and over and praying you actually get a jackpot.
There's also the Cat Master again who needs you to collect 102 cats because they're actually from his daughter's cat cafe and he lost them all again, with now you need to collecting 11 cats per chapter, with 1 of them being a special cat (total 10 special cats in the entire game, 92 regular), what's cool is though the game actually allows you to see the cats if you talk to the old man's daughter who's a caretaker for the cat cafe. Cats are marked on the maps with Cat Icons (not actually appearing in game, apart from in the cat cafe option), and rare cats are indicated by the Cat icon being violet.
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[Characters]
All characters are fantastic with their own backstories and complexity that makes the game fantastic. The only characters who are awful and I'm happy remain awful are Tadashi Tsurumi, Futa Kinjo, Kaz Kazaki, and Daisuke Tsurumi only because they don't deserve any complexity because they're what they're written to be as... shallow, detestable, horrible monsters.
Ryusho, Shinji, Yuta, and Tamotsu are all amazingly written great additions to Tatsuya's crew. Ryo Nozaki is very complex and an interesting character. Yasuto Akita is a mixed bag as he sort of represents that meme of villains with sad backstories, however his works very well that overall I like what they did with him, but you can absolutely hate how he goes from extreme villain to tragic villain.
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[FINAL THOUGHTS]
This game, along with the first is a masterpiece, yes it does have gameplay issues, but I do feel they improved on most of the issues from the previous game.
I think as well, the story here is much better than in Kurohyou 1, but I also think that it's better to look both as 2 parter of the same story. Sort of like how Persona 2 has 2 parts to it:
Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. This game is a second part to a bigger story, and wraps up all loose ends perfectly.
If you're wondering if there will ever be a Kurohyou 3, probably not unless they remake both Kurohyou 1 and 2, but if they do, they probably will make a 3rd game, but it's not needed since 2 wraps up everything perfectly.
I absolutely loved my time with this mini spinoff franchise of Yakuza/Like a Dragon/Ryu ga Gotoku, I absolutely recommend Kurohyou 1 and 2, it's a shame SEGA and RGG STUDIOS haven't remade/remastered these 2 amazing games, but since ISHIN! was remade, hopefully that means Kurohyou/ Yakuza Black Panther/ Like a Dragon: Black Panther can be too!
100% if you are a Yakuza fan play Kurohyou 1 and 2!
#BringKurohyoutotheWest / #BringYakuzaBlackPanthertotheWest
#BringKurohyou2totheWest / #BringYakuzaBlackPanther2totheWest/
#BringKENZANtotheWest
The game features a 19 year old Tatsuya now, making this game take place 2 years after the events of the first.
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[Story] (Splitting this into 3 Parts, Final Battle, and Epilogue)
{PART 1}
Set 2 years after the first game, Tatsuya has traveled around the world as a rookie/prodigy boxer. Who's return to Kamorucho after a recent flawless victory knockout in Vegas.
We learn that since the events of the first game, Saki (Tatsuya's love interest from the first game) has moved to the United States for university and that her and Tatsuya had to let each other go, though we only really get this info about her whereabouts during a specific event that happens within the game.
When Tatsuya returns, he actually meets Tomoki, who has become an ex-fighter due to his lost against Tatsuya, but shows no ill-will towards him since Tatsuya taught Tomoki that ego and thinking you'll automatically win a fight will result in humiliation, Tomoki leaves after helping Tatsuya from a gang jumping, before letting him know Kamorucho's changed.
Tatsuya has returned to Kamorucho to visit Saeko, his sister, to let her know about how his boxing career is going, and what's next for him. Before he is available to visit her, he encounters a young teen getting beat up named Shinji Sakamoto, and his friends Yuta Mikami and Tamotsu Saito, Tatsuya helps them and they mention that they're apart of Dragon Heat, and Tatsuya is surprised it's running and operational. Tatsuya isn't exactly mad that Dragon Heat is still active, and decides to go visit it with them, since Shinji is fighting. This is where Tatsuya meets Ryusho Kuki, son of Ryutaro Kuki, who is now the new patriarch of the Kuki Family and runner of Dragon Heat. Tatsuya says that the way Ryusho is indoctrinating Shinji, Yuta, Tamotsu into Dragon Heat at such a young age. Ryusho then says, that Tatsuya helped save Dragon Heat in the past, and most of the teens look up to Tatsuya, and reveals in front of them that the person the teens met, is the Tatsuya Ukyo, the Mad Dragon of Kamuro.
The teens are all in awe, except for 1, Shinji's other friend, Makoto Yashiro, blonde delinquent who actually feels cut from the same clothe as Tatsuya, who currently doesn't have a fighting philosophy. Tatsuya leaves saying that he's not concerned with what happens now with Dragon Heat, after hearing the issues Ryusho has put it in, so much so it might be sold to the Omni Alliance/Ashura Group in Sotenbori.
Shinji curses Tatsuya saying that he's hiding and is scared.
As Tatsuya leaves and meets with his sister, we then see that Ryusho has to meet with Ashura's leader Yasuto Akita and Kozo Nioka (head of the Nioka Family from the first game). We find out Ryusho can't keep Dragon Heat open with it's lack of fighters and income, so they'll have to sell it to Ashura. Shinji curses them and gets beat up by Akita's hired fighter Shinobu Okita, and gets put in the hospital.
Tatsuya finds out later via heading to the hospital to check on Shinji with Makoto letting him know what happened, with Tatsuya later returning to Dragon Heat and agreeing to help save Dragon Heat for the sake of Shinji and those who came before.
Tatsuya agrees to fight for Dragon Heat, and meets with his fighting manager and says that he's quitting professional boxing for the sake of protecting the place that made him. Saeko immediately calls Tatsuya and asks if he's crazy, but Tatsuya responds saying it's for the sake of Dragon Heat and those who came before (specfically talking about Taizan/Toru, their father).
The first fight takes place against Shinobu Okita, who is a strong kick boxer and uses the Kickboxing Style of fighting. Okita is responsible for putting Shinji in the hospital, so Tatsuya destroys him during their fight with an axe kick.
We later learn that for every fight that Tatsuya has, he has to switch between fighting in Dragon Heat, and later having to travel to Sotenbori to fight in Ashura's Arena.
Makoto gets angry after being told to do nothing, and to let Tatsuya handle Ashura, that he immediately leaves for Sotenbori and take revenge against Ashura, however after Ryusho and Tatsuya discover this, they immediately follow him. When they both arrive and find Shinji we encounter that Makoto has been shoot, luckily the person who did it was a young adult who did it because he was ordered to under Ashura. We find out that Ashura are selling non-lethal weapons to individuals but picking and choosing whether the weapons are lethal or non-lethal to cover their tracks. We see that a top seller of the weapons is a famous Lucha Libre wrestler named Meteor Suzuki
Tatsuya's second fight is against Meteor Suzuki, which ends with Tatsuya knocking him out with a mean right punch to the face knocking him out.
After the fight, Tatsuya is taken to Ashura's infirmary to get checked up and healed. This is when Tatsuya meets a mysterious blind doctor named Ryo Nozaki. Ryo tells him that fate will work against Tatsuya and that the more he faces Ashura, the more angry he'll become. Tatsuya says he doesn't believe in fortune telling and gets back to Ryusho and the others after being treated. Ryo tells Tatsuya not to take what he says personally but that fate is set and there's nothing Tatsuya can do to change it.
Tatsuya's next fight is against Shosuke Oba, who is an extortionist who deals with money, and human trafficking. The reason Tatsuya has to fight him is because Tamotsu wants to protect this hostess he met named Ruri who got into trouble of extortion by Shosuke Oba. Tamotsu decides he wants to fight against Oba, to protect Ruri. Before the fight Tatsuya hypes up Tamotsu and tells him to not give up and push on through until the end. However before the actual fight, Tatsuya and Ryusho suspect foulplay and that Ruri is actually in kahoots with Oba, but Ryusho shows her the error of her ways by watching the boy she swindled and played, get beaten to near death, all for the sake of protecting her. She realizes how badly she messed up and in the Dragon Heat infirmary she visits Tamotsu. Ryusho and Tatsuya keep it a secret that Ruri was involved, allowing Tamotsu to continue believing she was a country-bumpkin good hearted girl. Tamotsu is sad he couldnt protect her, but Ryusho reassures him by saying a deal was struck so Ruri wouldn't be forced into anything, and that she's moving back to the countryside.
Ruri's about to reveal the truth of her involvement, but Tatsuya tells her not to, so that she wouldn't destroy her image to Tamotsu. Later in a dinner we find out that Ruri is moving to Hokkaido and that Ryusho made the debt up however she will still have to pay him to keep his mouth shut about her involvement.
Tatsuya then goes to the fight against Oba and fights Oba who uses Sumo Wrestling, with Tats winning via neck submission. Tatsuya encounters Ryo again who says "if you continue fighting, someone will die, that is the next prediction."
Tatsuya and co meet with Yuta who decides to go and meet with his father, only to get into an argument about how Yuta's dad constantly was working, and that he's the reason Yuta's mom died, and never connecting/bonding with his son.
Yuta's father has an encounter with an old friend named Nobu, who is actually here to buy out the pachinko parlor Yuta's dad owns, but he refuses to sell it.
Ryusho and Tatsuya go to Shangri-La to rest up, but there Tatsuya meets with Ryo again, who makes bets at the Roulette table by predicting them via FATE. Tatsuya can't believe it, and still doesn't believe in what Ryo is saying. Ryo predicts someone will die due to Tatsuya's constant battle with Ashura.
We see later that for collateral, the Ashura group end up blowing up the parlor, hospitalizing Yuta's dad. Yuta says he doesn't care especially since he didn't care to raise Yuta and focused more on working. Tatsuya confront Nobu who admits to have been ordered by Ashura into buying the parlor however he never ordered to have it blown up. Nobu walks with Tatsuya to the destroyed parlor but is killed by a mysterious, hobo looking assassin. Before his death, Nobu decides to give Tatsuya a key to a locker, and tells him it has something important within it for Yuta.
Ryusho and Tatsuya head to Sotenbori to confront the killer/assassin named Tanaka Inchiro. Inchiro says he did it for 2 reasons: 1. Under the order of Ashura and 2. Because he gets joy out of pain and death.
Tatsuya and Ryusho attempt to fight him within the homeless lot of Sotenbori but are stopped by Kozo Nioka who tells them if they want to fight, they need to fight properly in the rules set. That means... yes, Tanaka Inchiro is the next fight that Tatsuya has to face. Before that we cutback to the Kamurocho hospital where Makoto and Tamotsu tell Yuta that they found a letter in the locker and that letter states that because of financial troubles, Yuta's asked for a loan that he knew he couldn't pay, but he begged for Nobu to never go after his son Yuta, begging and pleading. We find out that Yuta's dad worked so hard because he wanted to make a childrens playground area so a family can be happy, for the sake of Yuta. We also learn that Yuta spent most of the money to help people like Nobu start their own business out of the goodness of his heart. Nobu's letter ends by saying, not to worry about the contract and to go be with his wife and son. We also learn that Yuta's dad was giving up everything to protect his son. Yuta burst into tears as the screen cuts to black.
Before the fight in the area, Tatsuya states that if he wins the fight, Tanaka has to tell him everything and why he killed Nobu, however if Tanaka wins, he can kill Tatsuya.
Tatsuya defeats Tanaka by knocking him into the Area's electric fence electrocuting him, which really only knocked him out. However as Tanaka is taken to the infirmary, Tatsuya immediately follows, only to find out that Tanaka is unconsious and needs the rest, says Ryo. We cut away in Sotenbori where Ryusho receives a call from Akita that Tanaka is dead, Tatsuya immediately grabs the phone from Ryusho and yells at them claiming that Ryo killed Tanaka, Ryo responds saying that Tanaka had a weak heart so that electricity killed him, however Tatsuya believes none of it. Ryo apologies for not allowing Tatsuya speak with Tanaka, however warns him that if he continues, Tatsuya will end up killing a friend with his own 2 hands.
What happens next is that the group find out that Shinji has left the hospital and is more unhinged. A website pops up where random civilians are being asked to assault others for bounty, and at the top 5 of the list are: 5. Tamotsu, 4. Yuta, 3. Makoto, 2. Ryusho, 1. TATSUYA. The website called KARMA is created by an unknown person, until the group find out later it was actually Shinji! The reason being is that he's angry that Tatsuya is the cause for all of this and that even though Tatsuya is trying to help, he's hurting everyone in the process. Shinji's injury, Tamotsu almost being scammed, Yuta's Dad nearly dying, and Dragon Heat in a tug of War between the Tojo Clan and Ashura, all of it due to Tatsuya's negligence. Shinji has healed up somehow, but infact he isn't as all he was given was temporary medicine that after a while will wear off and if he were to get hit buy someone like Tatsuya, he would die.
Tatsuya allows Shinji to beat him up without attacking back, causing Shinji to break down into tears and cry asking "I don't understand!" And Tatsuya asks if he's done and calmed down. Ryusho steps in and punches Shinji in the chest unconscious.
We arrive back at the infirmary of Dragon's Heat for Tatsuya's next fight, before that Tats confronts Ryo and accuses him of brainwashing and lying to Shinji, while Ryo has no idea what he's talking about. Makoto shows up letting Tatsuya know the next fight is about to begin, but stairs at Ryo almost as if he knows who he is, like a memory, but ignores this feeling to remind Tatsuya and walks away. Ryo says that fate is still saying a friend is bound to die. Tatsuya says fate and destiny can always be changed.
Tatsuya's next opponent is Kaz Kazaki, aka "Grizzly" who's been healed up by Ashura to be more powerful than he was before. Kaz Kazaki is a MMA fighter, one who was put in a position where he could never fight again do to an injury. Tatsuya claims and confirms that he is the one who tricked and manipulated Shinji into taking the drug to "heal him" and later telling him to create KARMA to attempt to get Tatsuya and co killed.
Kazaki denies this by taunting Tatsuya, and heads into battle.
Kaz Kazaki fights in the MMA fighting style.
Tatsuya defeats Kazaki with a left leg Roundhouse kick to the head, and later a axe kick to the top of Kazaki's head knocking him out cold.
Back at the infirmary, Tatsuya is treated and healed up with Shinji coming to visit Tatsuya and apologies for everthing that happened. Shinji says that Kazaki told him a lie that back in Kurohyou 1 Kazaki was suppose to fight Tatsuya but was given money to lose, but because he refused, Kuki's family beat up Kazaki injuring him and ruining his MMA career. Shinji back then believed it for the amount of emotion he had built up he created the KARMA website. Shinji breaks down in tears apologizing, with Ryusho saying it's all in the past, and not to worry. Tatsuya tells Shinji there's no need, because together they need to stand united against Ashura.
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{PART 2}
Later in a Mahjong Parlor, Saeko is playing with a father figure for Makoto, named Minegi who runs said parlor. We later see police storm in and arrest Minegi, Saeko, and Makoto since a new order has requested every gambling area to be purged under the new rule of Tadashi Tsurumi [Returning Villian and true Culprit of Kurohyou 1 who was never brought to justice] banning gambling locations.
Shozo Takenaka gets Saeko and Makoto off scott free, however Minegi is still being held captive and will continue to be until the next day. The next day comes and Takenaka informs that Minegi committed suicide within the prison, shocking everyone. Makoto says it's a lie and that Minegi would never do something like that, and clearly someone killed him.
Ryusho and Tatsuya head around Kamorucho to ask about Minegi, and we find that most locations know Minegi very well, however they have no leads as to who could've killed Minegi. Ryusho calls off the search because Ashura is calling for the next battle. Tatsuya and co head off to Sotenbori with Makoto staying behind to investigate more.
Saeko is later assaulted and kidnapped by an unknown assault as Tatsuya arrives to Ashura, Tatsuya is in a pickle because he needs to defeat his next opponent in less then 10 minutes, and later returning to save his sister before a bomb goes off.
Tatsuya remembers Makoto is still in Kamorucho and asks him to please save Saeko. [This is the only part of the game that let's you play as Makoto and it's pretty limited as he fights in a standard street fight style]
Before heading to the location, Makoto in the back of his head is still thinking about Ryo Nozaki, and later contacts an old friend from a orphanage named Takashi to investigate about a boy from the Orphanage who was blind, however Takashi tells him that he was never blind and all he did was read and hangout with a girl Shizuka. Makoto asks Takashi to investigate Ryo and to give information about him later to Tatsuya.
Back at Ashura, Tatsuya is ready for his next fight, but is warned by Ryusho to be careful of the next opponent since he's known for playing dirty, where he got disqualified for breaking opponents arms when in tought positions. The next fight is against a dirty fighter named Shinahara Masaru, who uses Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighting style. Masaru taunts Tatsuya for how strong he is, but Tatsuya doesn't care for idol chit chat and needs to defeat him as fast as possible, this angers Masaru as the both battle.
At the end of the battle Tatsuya throws a left arm punch and Shinahara grabs his arms and breaks it, it hurts Tatsuya, but he doesn't care as he knocks out Masaru with a mean punch to the face.
Tatsuya is taken to the infirmary and has his arm broken back into the correct place, Ryusho asks if he's alright and Tatsuya says he's fine but they need to return quickly to Kamorucho. Before they leave Tatsuya sees that Shinahara is threatening Akita and... Ryo. We find out here Akita is the not the head of Ashura... it's actually Ryo who runs everything.
We cut back to Kamurocho where Makoto goes to the abandon building to rescue Saeko. He successfully does so but before he is able to save her, he has to fight the main culprit of Minegi's death, Futa Kinjo, a red head afro wearing asshole murder. Makoto successfully defeats Kinjo and rescues Saeko, but before escaping Makoto is confronted by Kinjo and he tells him he wasn't strong enough and pulls out a gun. Kinjo successfully shoots Makoto who is now bleeding out from his injuries.
Tatsuya and co arrive safely back at Kamurocho and find the abandon building. Saeko comes out of the building and tells Tatsuya that Makoto saved her, but that he's dying. Tatsuya rushes in and finds Makoto. Makoto says he's happy to have met someone like Tatsuya and that he finally understood Tats philosophy. Makoto is happy to see that only 2 fights remain in order to save Dragon Heat, and tells Tatsuya,
"POWER is something you use to help others, I think I finally understand what you said...I know it's too late now... but I'm glad I got to tell you... Thank you... Tatsuya." As Makoto dies, the building explodes.
After the loss of their friend, Tatsuya heads to the next fight in Ashura, but before that meets up with Tenma who says that Makoto's friend Takashi shows up and shows them both the picture of Ryo Nozaki, and the girl named Shizuka. Tatsuya asks Tenma if he can locate Shizuka and see what's going on with Ryo and why he's doing all of this and Tenma agrees to do so, as Tatsuya heads for his next fight at Dragon's heat.
The second to last battle for the Dragon Heat vs Ashura agreement is against... Makoto's Killer... Futa Kinjo. Futa fights in the RyuKyu Karate style. Before the fight, Kinjo taughts Tatsuya about Makoto's death by saying that it was prophesized that he would die, using the same words Ryo Nozaki uses, making Tats angry. Tatsuya says he's going to destroy Kinjo, and at the end of the fight Tatsuya grabs Kinjos head already falling and smashes a mean left hook knocking Kinjo out cold.
Ryo shows up and congratulates Tatsuya, but Tatsuya is angry saying Ryo ordered for Makoto's death. Makoto says not to be ridiculous and that fate works in mysterious ways. Tatsuya asks what Ryo's purpose is, and Ryo responds that it's to help people realize they can never change their destiny nor fight against it. Tatsuya responds saying he'll never give up dragon heat to them.
After all of this a bunch of government shenanigans happen with more of the police force coming in to Kamurocho and we find out that Kozo Nioka and Akita are working with Tadashi Tsurumi.
Tatsuya get's ready for his final fight at Ashura against Yasuto Akita, before the fight begins, Tatsuya tells Akita that he has a lot of questions for him after he wins. Akita responds by saying if Tatsuya will be even able to ask them if he's dead. Tatsuya says he still has time left in this world as he charges into the final battle against Akita.
Yasuto Akita uses Pankration fighting style. Tatsuya defeats Akita in a tough battle and secures victory for Dragon Heat. Here we learn Akita's tragic backstory, where we learn that Ashura was originally like Dragon Heat, where a bunch of young teenagers who came from broken homes came to relieve their stresses, since Akita was in juvie in and out.
While in Ashura, Akita worked at a factory and was one day falsely accused of killing his manager just because he had a previous record and because of no alibi. Akita explains that he would never kill an innocent good hearted man, but because of his previous record he was still booked. Akita went to jail but was later saved by... Ryo Nozaki by lying by giving Akita an alibi. Ryo tells him that he paid a random witness to spot Akita at a different location. Both Ryo and Akita were screwed by the system, and that together that can become an unstoppable force to overpower the authority, as both of them form the new Ashura.
Akita asks and begs of Tatsuya to stop Ryo, as he's shot in the chest by a sniper. Before he dies, he tells Tatsuya to go to Cabaret Rouge... as Akita dies.
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{Part 3 - FINAL}
After Akita's death, Tatsuya asks Tenma to locate Cabaret Rouge and see if anyone knows someone connected to Ryo Nozaki.
Tatsuya goes to a grave yard and later sees Ryo who says he's visiting the grave of a woman he knew in the past who had a man. She was in hospital for 3 years waiting for a liver transplant, but died before she recieved it. The man who was with the woman saved every penny to save her, but the day she was suppose to recieve the liver, it was instead given to someone else leading to her death. Ryo made a prediction that Dragon Heat would be lost, but Tatsuya says he overcame that prediction... or did he.
When returning to Kamurocho Tatsuya finds out that Dragon Heat is under the ownership Kozo Nioka. Ryusho tells Tatsuya that while they were in Sotenbori, Nioka had the metropolitan police rushed into Kuki's office and found the title of ownership of Dragon Heat and had it change at the registry so that Nioka is the owner now. Tatsuya has more questions for Ryusho but he asks Tatsuya to give him a day.
Ryusho leaves and calls Nioka to have a meeting, the good news is that Ryusho had planned for Nioka to do this so he came up with a trap. Ryusho knows that Nioka is in cahoots with Tadashi Tsurumi and knows he's been buying locations, and assaulting the previous employees and owners afterwards, and that if Nioka attempts to kill Ryusho all of the public would know and release the info that a Top Yakuza officer is in cahoots with politician Tadashi Tsurumi. Ryusho tells Nioka to cut ties with Tsurumi and takes all important files of wrongdoings and misdeeds of Tsurumi via flash drive.
Later Ryusho meets up with Tats, who's a little annoyed of Ryu being late, but Ryusho tells him he's a busy and popular man, however later is shot in the back by an unknown assailant. Ryusho immediately give's Tatsuya the flash drive and tells him to give it to Takenaka as it reveals all of Tsurumi's misdeeds, Tatsuya says he won't leave Ryusho to die, but Ryusho urges before pursers attempt to steal it from him.
Tatsuya at Cafe Alps looks into the flash drive and sees the connection of all of Tsurumi's misdeeds from both his deals with Ashura and even the incident of the fire in the Champions district. He gets a call from Tadashi Tsurumi's assistant claiming that Tsurumi wants to trade the flash drive for whatever Tatsuya wants, Tatsuya agrees to meet at the top of the Millennium Tower in exchange with the flashdrive. However Tatsuya specifically demands for Tsurumi to come with the deeds to Dragon Heat, or the deal is off.
Tatsuya is about to go to the Millennium Tower but is contacted by Tenma who tells him he found someone in connection with Ryo Nozaki, Yasuto Akita, Ashura, and Shizuka.
At Cafe Alps, Tenma introduces Mirai who is an ex-hostess due to the knew law against gambling and cabaret clubs by Tadashi Tsurumi. Mirai tells Tatsuya she was Akita's girlfriend and that she was friends with Ichikawa Shizuka, who worked with Mirai at the same Cabaret club, Cabaret Rouge. She saw how more and more Shizuka took days off until Mirai visited her at the hospital and learned her condition, this is where she met Ryo Nozaki.
After a few weeks Mirai received a text of Shizuka's death and rushed to the hospital to find Shizuka's dead body with Ryo touching her face. Ryo being broken, says "This is the reality of our society."
Mirai demands to know why she didn't receive her transplant, Ryo refuses to respond, but thanks Mirai for being a good friend to Shizuka.
Tatsuya now knows why Ryo is the way he is, but then asks... why is Ryo involved with Tadashi Tsurumi.
We cut to Shangri-La where we meet a fat nasty guy named Daisuke, who is actually Tsurumi's son, and Ryo confronts him and asks him to come with him.
Tatsuya leaves for the Millennium Tower, lying to Tenma about seeing his girl, when in reality he's confronting Tadashi.
Tatsuya battles through forces of police all the way to the top of the Millennium Tower where he meets Tadashi and another assistant of his named Saeki. Tatsuya knew they were going to try to dupe him and take the flash drive by force.
This is when Tatsuya fights against Saeki who fights using the Ancient Japanese Martial Arts Fighting Style, and a sword. Tatsuya defeats Saeki, and shocks Tadashi, who pulls a gun out on Tatsuya and demands for the flash drive. Tatsuya says he'll be a murderer but Tadashi says he can just say it was a member of Ashura who did it. We also learn that Tadashi Tsurumi wants to cleanse Kamurocho by screwing over 70% of the people there because "This is the reality of Society" and later taunts Tatsuya about Makoto's death, only for Tatsuya to rush and kick Tadashi down, and point the gun inside Tadashi mouth. Tatsuya's about to pull the trigger, but stops himself saying Tadashi has to repent and be brought to proper justice.
However they're both interrupted by Ryo Nozaki who's impressed by Tatsuya who didn't kill Tadashi Tsurumi even after all he's done in both Kurohyou 1 with Tatsuya's family, and even now with the deaths of Nobu, Minegi, and Makoto. We see Ryo brought with him a beaten up and bloodied Daisuke. This is when Tadashi Tsurumi angeredly asked who Ryo is, and this is when Ryo reveals he was never blind and opens his eyes full of rage, saying he'd never forget the face of the man who murdered Ichikawa Shizuka.
We flash back to 2 years ago where we see the fully story of Shizuka and Ryo. They grew up together in the orphanage and fell in love, later as older Shizuka needed a liver transplant, and Ryo saved a lot of money for the transplant. Before Shizuka received it, Tadashi Tsurumi stopped the transplant from being given to Shizuka, and payed off the doctor to give it to his son Daisuke.
Ryo is angry that the tub of lard payed for his useless disgusting son to have the liver that was meant for Shizuka and now that he's gotten him where he wants him, he's going to kill him, however he himself won't kill him. Ryo gives the gun to Daisuke and tells him if wants to continue living his wreckless garbage life, he has to kill his own father. Daisuke is about to, until Tatsuya steps in.
👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊
{FINAL BATTLE}
Tatsuya tells Ryo this not the way to do this and that Tsurumi needs to be brought to justice properly, he even tries to hit home with Ryo by telling him that Shizuka wouldn't want this. Ryo says he knows and he's envious of Tatsuya's will to change fate/destiny but that it will lead to his death.
Ryo states that if Tatsuya wants to stop him he can feel free and try since he's now stronger than ever, removing his top. Tatsuya responds saying he won't be beaten and removes his top, claiming he will avenge everyone that died trying to bring Ryo down.
They both have an epic Yakuza final battle with the "BORN TO BE WILD!" playing the final battle.
Ryo Nozaki uses the CHINESE MARTIAL ARTS FIGHTING STYLE! (IMO it's best to use the KIWAMI FIGHTING STYLE ang going all out against Ryo).
Tatsuya successfully defeats Ryo in a difficult and tough battle, as Ryo seems... at peace. Ryo tells Tatsuya he was right, he won against fate. However Tadashi Tsurumi picks up the gun aiming it at Tatsuya, however Ryo takes a bullet for Tatsuya saving him. Tadashi says he's had enough and is going to kill them both, only for Ryo to tell Tadashi he's finished, revealing the entire confrontation at the Millennium Tower is being live streamed to the public. Ryo finally won and destroyed Tadashi's entire reputation, but still wants more.
Ryo picks up the gun to attempt to kill Tadashi, but Tatsuya tells him not to, Ryo angerly replies it's all Tatsuya's fault. Joining Ashura and teaming up with Akita, making fortunetelling predictions that came true, all of that changed after he met Tatsuya. Ryo says he was happy to meet someone as motivated as Tatsuya to move against fate, it motivated Ryo more to put an end to Tadashi Tsurumi.
Tatsuya reasons with Ryo by saying he knows what it's like to want Revenge, and knows Ryo doesn't forgive himself.
Ryo gets angry and shoots at Tatsuya which graces Tatsuya's cheek. Tatsuya understands but says if he's going to shoot, he better shoot him in the head.
Ryo... puts lowers the gun and says he wishes he would've met Tatsuya sooner and that even at a time like this, he feels he could change his destiny.
Ryo finally understands theres always a chance to change your fate/ your destiny no matter how far we go.
Suddenly raises the gun to his head and thanks Tatsuya for opening his eyes to changing your fate. Tatsuya tells him to stop. Ryo responds:
"You can always change your fate... I just forgot..." BANG
As Ryo shoots himself and dies... he's finally back with Shizuka.
Takenaka, Shinji, Tamotsu, and Yuta arrive to the top of the Millennium Tower with a punch of the police force. Tadashi Tsurumi jumped off committing suicide not wanting to face the repercussions of everything he did... died as he live... a true COWARD.
We cut back to Tatsuya staring and saying... "it's over"
As the game cuts to black and credits role with one of the worst songs I've ever heard in my life.... it's a song that sounds like a mimic of Louie Armstrong in japanese, and the song is genuinely hot garbage regardless if the lyrics are saying something nice.
👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊
{EPILOGUE}
We cut to a week later after the exposing of Governor Tadashi Tsurumi and everything he had done is reported on the news. We cut to Saeko sadly wandering in Minegi's Mahjong Parlor, remembering Minegi and Makoto. We then cut to Dragon Heat who's back in the hands of Ryusho (who didn't die by the gunshot and recovered successfully), and we see fighting is a new and improved stronger Tamotsu who wins his fight and celebrates with Shinji and Yuta cheering him on!
Finally we cut to Tatsuya with Takenaka who reveals to Tatsuya that he found Ryo's Journal and reveals that at Shangri-La all of the betting and predictions were all fabricated and design by Ryo to make it seem like "FATE" by using Ashura to make it come true. It was never fate, it was executing plans by Ryo.
Takenaka responds "Prophecies it's so easy to fool people... Humans are so weak and fragile..."
Tatsuya agrees, and Takenaka lets him know throughout several pages, Tatsuya is mentioned. Takenaka thinks either Ryo was afraid Tatsuya would overcome Ashura, or that he actually was a fortuneteller. Takenaka wonders if Ryo lost his way so badly. Tatsuya says no... in the end he finally remembered.
Tatsuya says he's happy Ryo reminded him never to forget that you can always change fate. Takenaka asks "what do you mean"
The camera cuts to a full shot of Tatsuya saying:
"Nothing happens by chance...I'm gonna see how far I can take these fists... and change the future... it's the only way."
Takenaka responds tells him he understands but for Tatsuya not to push himself too hard. Tatsuya says he wants to push himself to overcome the obstacles coming his way, otherwise you can't obtain what you truly want.
Takenaka responds " That's Ukyo Tatsuya for you..."
The game ends with a final shot of Tatsuyas fist in the air with him saying:
"Of course! My destiny is my own... I'll make of it what I can!"
As the game cuts to black.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Gameplay]
The gameplay has a more unique system of combat where now you are able to customize different fighting styles, along with different heat moves. So say you choose the Wrestling style, you are able to choose whatever other heat move attacks that probably don't correspond with wrestling, but it still makes the experience unique and fun.
The camera still has an issue of angling as of course like I said for the first game, it a psp game, and the orignal psp didn't have joysticks, it only had a thumbslider. However here it does seem more manageable than the first.
An annoying aspect of the overworld is that now you have 2 types of random encounters, regular random encounters, and "QUEST" random encounters, where essentially a green arrow will highlight someone getting mugged, a dine dasher, a near on assault, a woman being harassed by 2 dudes, etc.
The worst one is always the woman being harassed by 2 dudes because there's a 1/2 a chance she'll reward you or lead you into another QUEST random encounter that has you fight 4 dudes. I don't understand the logic of this one:
Girl gets harassed by 2 dudes -> Guy saves her -> She says she'll reward him a date or something -> Leads him to secluded area -> Leads guy to get jumped by 4 other guys.
The other example is 3 dudes bullying one dude, but like the girl above, theres 1/2 a chance that the bullied dude is also in on it so you'll either have to fight 3 dudes if the dude legit is getting bullied, or 4 dudes if the "bullied" individual is in on it, Most of the time it's the ladder.
The game also features another returning element of the first game where it has you enter a tournament that has a ranking of 30 fighters and you fight each of them until you reach the top 10 where you fight against the main fighters/villains of the game.
Here however they've introduced in Sotenbori a tag partner system where you can recruit random encounter fighters or ingame fighters to help you in a tag tournament that also has a 30 rank system of it own.
What sucks is you'll probably lose motivation to do it only because unlike in Kurohyou 1, where you can just continuously fight here you can't, you have to wait for one of the 2 tournament helpers to text you letting you know a new fight has come up, but what's even worse is the game randomizes when you fight the next rank.
For example you're rank 21, you're trying to fight Rank 20 to move up, but the dudes will probably recommend you Rank 29 for some reason instead of moving to the next rank fighter. It can make the gamemode feel convoluted and taxing to have to wait for.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Minigames]
The minigames are overall fun with only 2 of them being complete ass.
Karaoke got a major improvement with allowing for actual timing and rhythm like in other Yakuza/Like a Dragon Games, instead of just "SPAM X TO FILL A METER" still I do wish the VA for Tatsuya was allowed to sing a song instead of playing the main theme/final boss theme of the game "BORN TO BE WILD".
The only 2 genuinely bad games are: Golf as you have to guess whether you're going to hit the ball in the right direction. And Slots due to how randomized everything is.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Cabaret Clubs]
Cabaret Clubs are improved upon in terms of still giving you 3 options to choose from when the girls ask, along with asking for drinks and food. 1 thing I really liked is they added a random romantic moment to happen where a QTE happens to the girl that if you perform correctly gives you extra hearts.
1 thing that was a bad addition was the "decision moment" added where at 1 point you have to collect 5 girl flags by either answering a question about the girls favorite food or drink, or looking at their appearance and pointing something out about an item or body part of theirs. The problem is if you're already maxed or 1 heart away from obtain 15 hearts (you need 20 hearts in order to complete the Hostess and unlock their special Substory - 6 total, this flag system always happens at the 13-15 mark). You can't get anymore until you fulfill all of the flags, and for no reason they show a cutscene where the hostess makes a decision between you and a random Host, and She will always pick the host if you have not gotten all the flags, however once you do, she'll always pick you and you can continue your expedition of hearts. After the 20 hearts are complete you'll get a text from the girl, go on a date, then later get contacted for a substory that usually ends up having Tatsuya beat someone up.
So yeah, it's overall more complex, but it is an improvement, even if the flag system is stupid.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Substories]
The substories themselves have major improvement with some of these actually being very memorable and fun. The storyline of the original Gang substory is expanded upon and has a returning fighter from the first game as the primary antagonist of the storyline substory.
There's only 1 genuinely bad story and thats the slot machine substory which is completely random chance since you have to get a jackpot, and because it's a PSP SLOT MACHINE MINI-GAME it's completely randomized and completely unfair, that it's impossible to actually win without trying over and over and praying you actually get a jackpot.
There's also the Cat Master again who needs you to collect 102 cats because they're actually from his daughter's cat cafe and he lost them all again, with now you need to collecting 11 cats per chapter, with 1 of them being a special cat (total 10 special cats in the entire game, 92 regular), what's cool is though the game actually allows you to see the cats if you talk to the old man's daughter who's a caretaker for the cat cafe. Cats are marked on the maps with Cat Icons (not actually appearing in game, apart from in the cat cafe option), and rare cats are indicated by the Cat icon being violet.
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[Characters]
All characters are fantastic with their own backstories and complexity that makes the game fantastic. The only characters who are awful and I'm happy remain awful are Tadashi Tsurumi, Futa Kinjo, Kaz Kazaki, and Daisuke Tsurumi only because they don't deserve any complexity because they're what they're written to be as... shallow, detestable, horrible monsters.
Ryusho, Shinji, Yuta, and Tamotsu are all amazingly written great additions to Tatsuya's crew. Ryo Nozaki is very complex and an interesting character. Yasuto Akita is a mixed bag as he sort of represents that meme of villains with sad backstories, however his works very well that overall I like what they did with him, but you can absolutely hate how he goes from extreme villain to tragic villain.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
[FINAL THOUGHTS]
This game, along with the first is a masterpiece, yes it does have gameplay issues, but I do feel they improved on most of the issues from the previous game.
I think as well, the story here is much better than in Kurohyou 1, but I also think that it's better to look both as 2 parter of the same story. Sort of like how Persona 2 has 2 parts to it:
Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. This game is a second part to a bigger story, and wraps up all loose ends perfectly.
If you're wondering if there will ever be a Kurohyou 3, probably not unless they remake both Kurohyou 1 and 2, but if they do, they probably will make a 3rd game, but it's not needed since 2 wraps up everything perfectly.
I absolutely loved my time with this mini spinoff franchise of Yakuza/Like a Dragon/Ryu ga Gotoku, I absolutely recommend Kurohyou 1 and 2, it's a shame SEGA and RGG STUDIOS haven't remade/remastered these 2 amazing games, but since ISHIN! was remade, hopefully that means Kurohyou/ Yakuza Black Panther/ Like a Dragon: Black Panther can be too!
100% if you are a Yakuza fan play Kurohyou 1 and 2!
#BringKurohyoutotheWest / #BringYakuzaBlackPanthertotheWest
#BringKurohyou2totheWest / #BringYakuzaBlackPanther2totheWest/
#BringKENZANtotheWest
So I'm not going to go indepth here as I did with my original review of Ishin since in my opinion I prefer the original 2014 version of Ishin, but I will say Ishin 2023 is not a bad remake, it's great, but it's not as good as the original Ishin.
The gameplay has retained fun aspect that the original has.
I'm happy to say that the card system did not ruin the game and actually I appreciate the integration of them now due to the fact they made boss fights last longer with bosses using their own unique abilities. One thing I really wish they fixed/ made easier to achieve was leveling up without so much grinding like the original, but I guess the remake retains it's grind nature.
The minigames are all here and prestine, I just wish they added an actual courtesan carabet club like from Kenzan for this new version, since this game has the best looking hostess character in a courtesan minigame.
I wish as well they added more than just 1 new song for the karaoke and had more characters singing like Nakagura Shinpachi (Seijima), Hijikata Toshizo (Mine), Katsura Kogoro (Akiyama), Saigo Kichinosuke (Ryuji), and even Ryoma's love interest Oryo.
Esthetically the game looks nicer and has cool new unique tracks with remixed names fitting the style of Ishin:
Soar (Ishin) - Fly (3)
Collision of Our Sword (Ishin) - Collision of Our Souls (5)
For My Sake (Ishin) - For Sake (Kiwami)
Pseudo Fight (Ishin) - Affected Fight (5)
It does suck that they didn't remake any more themes in the style of Ishin, it would have been awesome to hear remixes of:
Pledge of Demon
With Vengeance
The Battle for the Dream
They could've remixed them and renamed them to:
Vow of Devil
With Retaliation
The Clash of Hope
However the cast in my opinion is a major downgrade from the original, where here it clearly felt like RGG cared more about pandering to Yakuza 0 and Like a Dragon fans, by making certain characters from 0 and 7, replace characters from 3-5 that made sense for the roles there were originally casted as.
The downgrades in my opinons are:
Takechi Hanpeita: Originally was a unique character potrayed by Katsunori Takahashi, but now has been replaced with Hideo Nakano (Shibusawa) immediately eliminating the twist from original Ishin.
Todo Heisuke - Originally potrayed by Baba from Yakuza 5, now is potrayed by Zhao, which doesn't match at all, and it's worse with Zhao's stupid glasses. In my opinion it would've been better to have casted Someya from Yakuza 6 Song of Life as Todo Heisuke, since both Baba from 5, and Someya from 6 are as tragic as Heisuke, and would've made more sense for Someya to be the replacement actor instead of... Zhao.
Yamazaki Susumu - This one is just stupid, they replaced Hiroshi Kugihara with Joon-gi Han, even though being an intimating informant with Kugihara made more sense, but I guess we have to pander to female fans who like hot looking korean pyschopaths is the quota they have to fulfill now.
Kondo Isami - the head of the Shinsengumi was originally portrayed by Eiichiro Funakoshi which subverted expectations for the way he acts, and even if he's the head of the Shinsengumi, he's not that strong when Ryoma fights him, his appearance of being potrayed by Eiichiro Funakoshi subverted that expectation, now that he's been replaced by Koichi Adachi, you already know he's weak, and while Adachi in 7 is a great character, he doesn't fit with the character he's portraying in Ishin.
There are upgrades in the cast in my opinion:
Takeda Kanryusai - Originally played by Hiroshi Hayashi, he's now instead played by Yakuza 0's Hiroki Awano, in my opinion both actors worked for the character of Takeda, with both being vile in terms of personality, but Awano clearly loves being vile, while Hayashi doesn't realize he is. So in my opinion Awano was an upgrade.
Ito Kashitaro - Originally played Goh Hamazaki from Yakuza 3 and 4, he is now instead played by Daisaku Kuze From 0. In my honest opinion, either one can work because I think both being casted for this character doesn't make sense. In my opinion Daisuku Kuze should've been Takechi Hanpieta since his overall character in 0 matches more with Takechi than it does with Ito. Goh Hamazaki should've remained Ito if we're taking his overall character from Yakuza 3, but considering 4, it doesn't make sense. In my opinion Ito's recasted character should've been Hideo Nakano (Shibusawa) and Hitoshi Ozawa (Kuze) should've been Takechi.
Oryo - This one might be petty of me, but in original Ishin, Oryo isn't good looking. Instead here Oryo is potrayed by Yuki from Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2's hostess club. Major upgrade and the chemistry with Ryoma/Kiryu is great.
The story still remains it's amazing story told, I'm happy that tracks from the original game are still within this remake, I'm especially happy for them keeping imo the best Yakuza song in the franchise, Assassination of Bodhisattva. I wish they kept the health bare systems from the original/Yakuza 0 because I feel the Red Health bare bosses now have limit the intimidation aspect of the bosses, however I do appreciate that they contrasted this by making boss fights longer, I do wish however they added more dynamic qtes.
Overall I still prefer the original Ishin, however I'm happy to say the card gameplay did not ruin the game and actually improve the gameplay, the cast of the game is a mixed bag, with severe downgrades, the worst being Takechi Hanpeita but also good upgrades, especially Oryo being a great upgrade.
Overall I'm happy with this official Western port of Ishin, I hope however modders for the steam version of the game add some of the original cast as mods, but with options as really the only character who I'm happy got replaced was original Oryo from Ishin (2014), as the 2023 version is much cuter.
I highly recommend Ishin 2023 without the perspective of the original, but if you've played the original, I also recommend this version just so you can compare and later see which one you actually prefer. I actually thought halfway through that this version was actually better, so they did something right, but I do have that bit of bias towards the original.
Still I highly recommend Ishin 2023, I hope one day RGG studios remakes Kenzan, Kurohyou 1 and 2.
#BringKENZANtotheWest
#BringKurohyoutotheWest
#BringKurohyou2totheWest
The gameplay has retained fun aspect that the original has.
I'm happy to say that the card system did not ruin the game and actually I appreciate the integration of them now due to the fact they made boss fights last longer with bosses using their own unique abilities. One thing I really wish they fixed/ made easier to achieve was leveling up without so much grinding like the original, but I guess the remake retains it's grind nature.
The minigames are all here and prestine, I just wish they added an actual courtesan carabet club like from Kenzan for this new version, since this game has the best looking hostess character in a courtesan minigame.
I wish as well they added more than just 1 new song for the karaoke and had more characters singing like Nakagura Shinpachi (Seijima), Hijikata Toshizo (Mine), Katsura Kogoro (Akiyama), Saigo Kichinosuke (Ryuji), and even Ryoma's love interest Oryo.
Esthetically the game looks nicer and has cool new unique tracks with remixed names fitting the style of Ishin:
Soar (Ishin) - Fly (3)
Collision of Our Sword (Ishin) - Collision of Our Souls (5)
For My Sake (Ishin) - For Sake (Kiwami)
Pseudo Fight (Ishin) - Affected Fight (5)
It does suck that they didn't remake any more themes in the style of Ishin, it would have been awesome to hear remixes of:
Pledge of Demon
With Vengeance
The Battle for the Dream
They could've remixed them and renamed them to:
Vow of Devil
With Retaliation
The Clash of Hope
However the cast in my opinion is a major downgrade from the original, where here it clearly felt like RGG cared more about pandering to Yakuza 0 and Like a Dragon fans, by making certain characters from 0 and 7, replace characters from 3-5 that made sense for the roles there were originally casted as.
The downgrades in my opinons are:
Takechi Hanpeita: Originally was a unique character potrayed by Katsunori Takahashi, but now has been replaced with Hideo Nakano (Shibusawa) immediately eliminating the twist from original Ishin.
Todo Heisuke - Originally potrayed by Baba from Yakuza 5, now is potrayed by Zhao, which doesn't match at all, and it's worse with Zhao's stupid glasses. In my opinion it would've been better to have casted Someya from Yakuza 6 Song of Life as Todo Heisuke, since both Baba from 5, and Someya from 6 are as tragic as Heisuke, and would've made more sense for Someya to be the replacement actor instead of... Zhao.
Yamazaki Susumu - This one is just stupid, they replaced Hiroshi Kugihara with Joon-gi Han, even though being an intimating informant with Kugihara made more sense, but I guess we have to pander to female fans who like hot looking korean pyschopaths is the quota they have to fulfill now.
Kondo Isami - the head of the Shinsengumi was originally portrayed by Eiichiro Funakoshi which subverted expectations for the way he acts, and even if he's the head of the Shinsengumi, he's not that strong when Ryoma fights him, his appearance of being potrayed by Eiichiro Funakoshi subverted that expectation, now that he's been replaced by Koichi Adachi, you already know he's weak, and while Adachi in 7 is a great character, he doesn't fit with the character he's portraying in Ishin.
There are upgrades in the cast in my opinion:
Takeda Kanryusai - Originally played by Hiroshi Hayashi, he's now instead played by Yakuza 0's Hiroki Awano, in my opinion both actors worked for the character of Takeda, with both being vile in terms of personality, but Awano clearly loves being vile, while Hayashi doesn't realize he is. So in my opinion Awano was an upgrade.
Ito Kashitaro - Originally played Goh Hamazaki from Yakuza 3 and 4, he is now instead played by Daisaku Kuze From 0. In my honest opinion, either one can work because I think both being casted for this character doesn't make sense. In my opinion Daisuku Kuze should've been Takechi Hanpieta since his overall character in 0 matches more with Takechi than it does with Ito. Goh Hamazaki should've remained Ito if we're taking his overall character from Yakuza 3, but considering 4, it doesn't make sense. In my opinion Ito's recasted character should've been Hideo Nakano (Shibusawa) and Hitoshi Ozawa (Kuze) should've been Takechi.
Oryo - This one might be petty of me, but in original Ishin, Oryo isn't good looking. Instead here Oryo is potrayed by Yuki from Yakuza 0 and Kiwami 2's hostess club. Major upgrade and the chemistry with Ryoma/Kiryu is great.
The story still remains it's amazing story told, I'm happy that tracks from the original game are still within this remake, I'm especially happy for them keeping imo the best Yakuza song in the franchise, Assassination of Bodhisattva. I wish they kept the health bare systems from the original/Yakuza 0 because I feel the Red Health bare bosses now have limit the intimidation aspect of the bosses, however I do appreciate that they contrasted this by making boss fights longer, I do wish however they added more dynamic qtes.
Overall I still prefer the original Ishin, however I'm happy to say the card gameplay did not ruin the game and actually improve the gameplay, the cast of the game is a mixed bag, with severe downgrades, the worst being Takechi Hanpeita but also good upgrades, especially Oryo being a great upgrade.
Overall I'm happy with this official Western port of Ishin, I hope however modders for the steam version of the game add some of the original cast as mods, but with options as really the only character who I'm happy got replaced was original Oryo from Ishin (2014), as the 2023 version is much cuter.
I highly recommend Ishin 2023 without the perspective of the original, but if you've played the original, I also recommend this version just so you can compare and later see which one you actually prefer. I actually thought halfway through that this version was actually better, so they did something right, but I do have that bit of bias towards the original.
Still I highly recommend Ishin 2023, I hope one day RGG studios remakes Kenzan, Kurohyou 1 and 2.
#BringKENZANtotheWest
#BringKurohyoutotheWest
#BringKurohyou2totheWest
2022
MELANCHOLIC...
Sorry I meant Melatonin, is a relaxing rhythm heaven inspired game that has a very inspired gameplay but still needed the tweaking of making sure that the game felt fair with it's inputs.
I can't say there's a story other than it's more a message the developer is giving out, which is to stop stressing over things and try to live your life without the internal worries you might have. Try to balance out your day and try not to get sucked in a black hole of procrastination or addictiveness. Try to move forward with your live and stop comparing yourself to others and try to move forward with your day to day.
The game can absolutely come off as pretentious and to a certain extend condescending as there is no real story and the character you play as is just a representation of youth/modern adults today.
Since most of the activities within each level consists of things like:
- Worrying about social media
- Worrying about love in terms of dating apps/modern dating
- Getting addicted to video games
- Having too many desires
- Overstressing yourself
- Thinking about your Mind and it's overall health, the Time you have in life, the vastness of Space, and tranquility with Nature
- Staying Health in terms of physically while attempting to copy others in order to look good by constantly comparing yourself to others.
The character lives the day by day in a depressing state of never ending feeling of sadness and constant neutrality of just accepting whatever situation they're in. They literally think about the past and future, with the past minigame being represented as a hanger of photos with the character burning photos of their past, almost representing the natural or purposeful decay or forgetting of past memories. While the future... this one is dumb and has no meaning and is just the character in a space ship shooting aliens, unless it represents something about humans not being on planet Earth as our technology improves and our planet dies we conquer others maybe??? Idk the message here is tonally monotone.
The music for each individual minigame is nice with it's own gymic in terms of timing however most of the time whenever you mess up it's because the calibration was never precise and I found myself constantly switching between the game controllers (Regular pro controller and Gamecube Controller) I used because some minigames worked with the Pro better, and some with the Gamecube Controller better (though in the end I stuck with the Gamecube controller better). The calibration of the game just felt off even when you manually decide to delay or speed up the input via the options screen.
The game features 4 nights and a morning chapter where in each night there are 5 levels: 4 of which have a subtitle of what they represent, and the final being a mashup. The levels themselves all have nice music, but I swear the mashups in Nights 1 and 2 are straight up garbage in terms of their sound design. Nights 3 and 4, and morning mashups all sound great, not sure why the developers thought Nights 1 and 2's final levels have such garbage songs.
Nights 1-4 feature the 4 unique levels and 5th mashup levels, while Morning just features 1 level and it a general mashup off all the levels from the entire game as a final test.
The game features both a normal and hard mode for each level and even a editor mode in case you want to challenge yourself with a custom made level you yourself made... not sure if there is a way to download or get other people's remixes/edited levels but probably not.
I think a big issue with the game is that it uses a lofi tone which is relaxing but I think what made something like Rhythm heaven unique was is uniqueness of different styles and having a great payoff with all minigames coming together in the Remix levels.
Clearly this is an homage to Rhythm Heaven, but I feel like the subtle messaging the developers inserted, got in the way of actually making the game feel more memorable and as a worthy addition to Rhythm Heaven styled games.
I think a big issues is how unsatisfying the entire game feels with it's animation in terms of what the game is showing us with the hoodie wearing protagonist throughout his nights, living an overall sickening/pathetically melancholic live, and the final chapter Morning just gives a depressing undertone of "the Day has started a new, but next week will be a repeat of the same issues"
There is no real ending to this game in terms of the character just wakes up and sees that it's morning, it's very anticlimatic and unsatisfying.
Overall I can't say it's bad, since it's not. It's fine, it's meh, it's whatever it's relaxing, but has a pretentious undertone with a lofi twist. With an nonexistant story, and bad remixes for 2 of the nights. The gameplay is fun but can become annoying because of how unsure the developers were about how to exactly calibrate the game where inputs are specific to the controller or keyboard button being used. The game can be relaxing but also the perfectionist in me causes me to also despise aspects of where clearly the game messed up a correct input, where things like Pressing A in the exact Rhythm of a previous input of A, somehow results in a 1/3 chance of either being perfect, but mostly feels like you're going to mess up.
And while some people might say "that's why they added the calibration in the options" it still feels like it's never precise on inputs, maybe that part is on me, but legit it feels like the game is messing you up rather than the controllers you use are.
Idk, It's fine, but i'll forget it after 3 days.
What I won't forget is how depressing this game feels.
It certainly is MELANCHOLIC, I mean Melatonin
Sorry I meant Melatonin, is a relaxing rhythm heaven inspired game that has a very inspired gameplay but still needed the tweaking of making sure that the game felt fair with it's inputs.
I can't say there's a story other than it's more a message the developer is giving out, which is to stop stressing over things and try to live your life without the internal worries you might have. Try to balance out your day and try not to get sucked in a black hole of procrastination or addictiveness. Try to move forward with your live and stop comparing yourself to others and try to move forward with your day to day.
The game can absolutely come off as pretentious and to a certain extend condescending as there is no real story and the character you play as is just a representation of youth/modern adults today.
Since most of the activities within each level consists of things like:
- Worrying about social media
- Worrying about love in terms of dating apps/modern dating
- Getting addicted to video games
- Having too many desires
- Overstressing yourself
- Thinking about your Mind and it's overall health, the Time you have in life, the vastness of Space, and tranquility with Nature
- Staying Health in terms of physically while attempting to copy others in order to look good by constantly comparing yourself to others.
The character lives the day by day in a depressing state of never ending feeling of sadness and constant neutrality of just accepting whatever situation they're in. They literally think about the past and future, with the past minigame being represented as a hanger of photos with the character burning photos of their past, almost representing the natural or purposeful decay or forgetting of past memories. While the future... this one is dumb and has no meaning and is just the character in a space ship shooting aliens, unless it represents something about humans not being on planet Earth as our technology improves and our planet dies we conquer others maybe??? Idk the message here is tonally monotone.
The music for each individual minigame is nice with it's own gymic in terms of timing however most of the time whenever you mess up it's because the calibration was never precise and I found myself constantly switching between the game controllers (Regular pro controller and Gamecube Controller) I used because some minigames worked with the Pro better, and some with the Gamecube Controller better (though in the end I stuck with the Gamecube controller better). The calibration of the game just felt off even when you manually decide to delay or speed up the input via the options screen.
The game features 4 nights and a morning chapter where in each night there are 5 levels: 4 of which have a subtitle of what they represent, and the final being a mashup. The levels themselves all have nice music, but I swear the mashups in Nights 1 and 2 are straight up garbage in terms of their sound design. Nights 3 and 4, and morning mashups all sound great, not sure why the developers thought Nights 1 and 2's final levels have such garbage songs.
Nights 1-4 feature the 4 unique levels and 5th mashup levels, while Morning just features 1 level and it a general mashup off all the levels from the entire game as a final test.
The game features both a normal and hard mode for each level and even a editor mode in case you want to challenge yourself with a custom made level you yourself made... not sure if there is a way to download or get other people's remixes/edited levels but probably not.
I think a big issue with the game is that it uses a lofi tone which is relaxing but I think what made something like Rhythm heaven unique was is uniqueness of different styles and having a great payoff with all minigames coming together in the Remix levels.
Clearly this is an homage to Rhythm Heaven, but I feel like the subtle messaging the developers inserted, got in the way of actually making the game feel more memorable and as a worthy addition to Rhythm Heaven styled games.
I think a big issues is how unsatisfying the entire game feels with it's animation in terms of what the game is showing us with the hoodie wearing protagonist throughout his nights, living an overall sickening/pathetically melancholic live, and the final chapter Morning just gives a depressing undertone of "the Day has started a new, but next week will be a repeat of the same issues"
There is no real ending to this game in terms of the character just wakes up and sees that it's morning, it's very anticlimatic and unsatisfying.
Overall I can't say it's bad, since it's not. It's fine, it's meh, it's whatever it's relaxing, but has a pretentious undertone with a lofi twist. With an nonexistant story, and bad remixes for 2 of the nights. The gameplay is fun but can become annoying because of how unsure the developers were about how to exactly calibrate the game where inputs are specific to the controller or keyboard button being used. The game can be relaxing but also the perfectionist in me causes me to also despise aspects of where clearly the game messed up a correct input, where things like Pressing A in the exact Rhythm of a previous input of A, somehow results in a 1/3 chance of either being perfect, but mostly feels like you're going to mess up.
And while some people might say "that's why they added the calibration in the options" it still feels like it's never precise on inputs, maybe that part is on me, but legit it feels like the game is messing you up rather than the controllers you use are.
Idk, It's fine, but i'll forget it after 3 days.
What I won't forget is how depressing this game feels.
It certainly is MELANCHOLIC, I mean Melatonin
Kurohyou: Ryuu ga Gotoku Shinshou (Yakuza Black Panther)
Is a great spinoff taking place after Yakuza 4, where we play as a 18 year old serious prodigy fighter/delinquent named Ukyo Tatsuya.
The soundtrack for the game is top tier and is amazing, the gameplay is a fun however repetitive in terms of street fights being constant. The game comes with it's romp of substories and includes minigames (some certainly better than others).
The game also features cabaret clubs and cameos from characters from the main Yakuza series including Akiyama and Hana (only appearing in a ramen minigame), and featuring the Florist of Sai as a helpful all seeing eye that helps Tatsuya find answers. The biggest issues with the game are mainly the gameplay in terms of running around Kamorucho with it's camera being a fixed camera since this is a PSP game.
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Story: The story starts with Tatsuya Ukyo, a 17 year old fighting prodigy delinquent, who attempts to rob a Tojo Clan hideout with 2 of his friends. However he get into an argument and decides to do the robbery on his own, he successfully does but accidently ends up killing a high ranking officer with a death blow that he didn't think would kill him.
Tatsuya is spotted by Ryutaro Kuki, Head of the Kuki family for the Tojo Clan and tells Tatsuya that in order to buy back his freedom and make sure he's not exposed for killing Naoki Toda, however the deal is that in order to do so, Tatsuya has to beat 10 different fighters in Dragon Heat.
The issue is that in the history of Dragon Heat, no one has actually won 10 matches in a row as it is explained that each family within the Tojo Clan who are apart of handling/running Dragon Heat select fighters to then get more money, however if 1 family were to consistently win, then it would cause an internal chaotic war because of the financial unbalance. Throughout the game we learn that Tatsuya is surviving by being forced to participate in Kuki's Tojo Clan's affairs all for the sake of not being arrested for Toda's death. However overtime appreciates the people he meets within Dragon Heat and the fights he learns from, forming bonds with people within Dragon Heat.
Tatsuya enters and fighter against Tomoki, a boxing prospect who has quite the ego in thinking he can easily defeat Tatsuya, and gets annihilated in his fight. Tomoki uses the Street Karate Style of fighting.
Tatsuya wins however is later asked by 2 individuals who help with the medicine and recovery side of Dragon Heat, an 17 year old girl named Saki, and a late 40s/early 50s year old "doctor" named Taizan Amamiya. Taizan asks if Tatsuya learned anything from his fight, and Tatsuya ignores him, and continues his way of being egotisitcal and uncaring.
Tatsuya finally learns something during his second fight with a powerful fighter named Sho Hyuga who is cocky but has a philosophy of fight, and Taizan explains to Tatsuya that in order for Tatsuya to truly improve, he must have a philosophy and positive motivation in order to improve. Currently Tatsuya fights only to destroy his opponent instead of equate their strength and overcome it. Taizan describes Tatsuya like a wild animal with 2 options: Fight or Flight, saying that Tatsuya sees an easy opponent and wants to immediately destroy them, however if an opponent were stronger than Tatsuya, he'd most likely flee and lose. Taizan says an important part about being strong and having a good offense is defense, which allows you to perceive your opponents true strength while defending, if Tatsuya never learns this, he will lose.
The game continues with Tatsuya fighting a strong willed teacher from his past named Masumi Yuki that endured constant ridicule and torment's from Tatsuya and other delinquents in high school, holding back his true strength. They both go all out and Masumi breaks down in shame and anger to Tatsuya for all the pain and suffering he endured, Tatsuya apologies and even says that Masumi is strong for putting with such torture and ridicule for so long. They both finally respect eachother when Tatsuya tells him he's sorry and respects his strength.
Tatsuya's next fight is against a Karate Master named Nobumichi Fujimoto, who wants revenge against Tatsuya because his son was beat up by Tatsuya after he claimed that Karate and the Karate his father taught was lame and weak. Tatsuya did beat up his son however after the fight Tatsuya explains his regret and shows his true self and is honest about what happened. You see Tatsuya did beat up his son however he never caused the severe neck injury that put his son in the hospital. The father receives a call from his son from the hospital and they let him know that he's finally going to be able to walk again after so long. The father cries and Tatsuya is happy he could make piece with that. Nobumichi Fujimoto fights using the Karate Style
The next fight is against Hayato Makabe, nicknamed the MAD DOG OF DRAGON HEAT, he was hired by Kozo Nioka
to try to defeat Tatsuya by going crazy and by any means necessary. Hayato Makabe fights using the Extreme Awakening Style.
Tatsuya finds out that Toda is actually alive as he sees him in an elevator at the Millennium Tower, seeing this Tatsuya immediately decides to go and confront Kuki since Toda being alive contradicts what's on the robbery tape and that Tatsuya would no longer need to fight for Kuki since there's no point in having said evidence. However the next day on the news, it's reported that Toda's body had been found and that the suspect is... Tatsuya. Tatsuya again goes and confronts Kuki but Kuki tells him that they never revealed nor sent the tape to the police, so someone is attempting to set up Tatsuya now.
Tatsuya is chased throughout the first half of the game by Shozo Takenaka, a police detective that handled Tatsuya's juvenile cases when he was in his delinquet schoolboy era, but now is chasing after Tatsuya since he's a suspect.
Tatsuya's next fight is actually a rematch against Hyuga who looks more angry and ready to kill Tatsuya, this is due to the fact that he was tricked by Kozo Nioka and businessman Masa into believing that Tatsuya had kidnapped and is holding Hyuga's sister, Chiaki Hyuga (reporter who helps Tatsuya figure out issues within the Tojo Clan and Dragon Heat) for ransom, when infact it's all a lie to try to defeat Tatsuya before Tatsuya breaks the 6 match win mark. Tatsuya and Hyuga make ammends and become friends, with Hyuga letting Tatsuya know that him and Chiaki are moving away from Kamorucho in order to not get involved with anymore Yakuza business, however as a thank you, Hyuga teaches Tatsuya how to Wrestle.
Ryutaro Kuki is assaulted by an unknown assailant at his Family office and has Tatsuya's bracelet planted on him at the scene of the crime. While not dead, Kuki is gravely injured and while at the hospital, he decides to contact Tatsuya to meet him at a safe location. Kuki explains to Tatsuya that the footage of the robbery has been destroyed, but also pleads and begs Tatsuya to win the final 3 matches for the sake of Dragon Heat that give an avenue for people like Tatsuya to let themselves go and entertain. Kuki also explains that he might know who the true culprit of all of this problems occuring and it can be found in a microchip that Kuki installed however he sadly dies before revealing the location, and only gets a few bits of the locations words out. Tatsuya sadly yet determinately agrees to fufill Kuki's wishes.
The 7th fight is against Koumei Cho, who is fighting on behalf of the Nioka Family in order to learn the truth about his mothers death during a fire in the Champions district. Cho is a very emotional, yet strong fighter who fights using Extreme Wild Dance Style.
After his defeat, Tatsuya becomes friends with Cho and helps him figure out what happened to Cho's mother as well as learning info from his sister Saeko. They also visit the Florist of Sai to find out more information as to the goings on at the Champions district and learn about a man named "TORU NOBI" who's supposedly responsible for a fire that occured when Tatsuya and Cho were kids.
The 8th fight is against Tsuyoshi Aramaki, who is a mercenary known for assassinating his targets who was hire by Nioka family in order to finally take out Tatsuya and stop the Kuki's family domination. He uses the Commando Sambo Style. After his defeat he's confronted by Isamu Washio, a businessman who works on the behave of Masatoshi Tsutsui who works for the politician, Tadashi Tsurumi. Isamu scares the mercenary by nearly killing him, but instead leaves him alive. It is unknown what becomes of Tsuyoshi after the fight.
Tatsuya gets some time off before his 9th fight and this is when he takes the time to hangout with Saki and learns more about her past, along with learning how she used to be a judo student, that and that she has an exboy friend who conned her out of money. During this we actually see the boyfriend at an icecream shop, attempting to scam a new girl, only for Tatsuya to obliterates him and tell him to never come near Saki or any girl ever again.
The 9th fight is against an "undefeated" boxer named Tetsuji Shima, and Taizan decides to try to help Tatsuya by giving a hint about Shima's weakspot, that being his eyes because of damage caused in the past. Tatsuya refuses to fight dirty and says he'll best Shima naturally and defeat him by going all out. Shima uses the Extreme God Hand/Boxing Style.
After being defeated Shima asks Tatsuya why he didn't go for the eyes, and Tatsuya says that for years he's been just ignoring rules and trying to finish fights as fast as possible while learning nothing from them. Tatsuya then explains that he wanted to go all out with Shima to naturally best him by pure feat of strength and not because of luck nor dirty tricks, but natural strength. Tatsuya's philosophy is now clear, to truly feel blessed and feel like something is achieved you need to go all out. Shima is impressed and happy that Tatsuya sees his view and philosophy as such and says it's reminds him of a fight he had in the past against, "Toru Nobi" and gets shocked when he sees Toru there at Dragon Heat, leaving Tatsuya confused and later shocked... as we come to find out Toru Nobi is... Taizen Amamiya.
The final 10th Dragon Heat match is against Tatsuya's philosophy mentor/doctor/friend Taizan Amamiya, who actually is Toru Nobi. Tatsuya both angry and respectful is actually happy to be fighting Taizan to see how strong he truly is. However Tatsuya also wants to know what happened years ago at the Champion district, if he really is the man who caused the fire, leaving Tatsuya and Saeko, and Cho orphans. Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi uses the Extreme Man/Taizen Style of fighting.
After finally winning his tenth victory in Dragon Heat, Tatsuya confronts Taizan and is about to punch him out cold until Saeko stops him. Tatsuya and Taizan are held off to the medicine bay and from there we learn the truth. Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi did not cause the fire that killed Tatsuya's mom and Cho's mom, he actually was framed for said incident by... Masatoshi Tsutsui, under the secret orders of the politician Tadashi Tsurumi who caused the fire for the land rights.
Before all of that, we learn Toru Nobi was actually an amazing fighter who was very strong and who was the only person who originally defeated Tetsuji Shima. Originally he was a middleweight fighting prospect who had a common-law housewife, he wanted to support her and their son by getting money, however he was only able to do so via joining Dragon Heat and being paid. After his fight with Tetsuji Shima which ended in a repectful and honorable way in Toru/Taizan's favor, he is ambushed by a jealous fighter... that jealous fighter being... Masatoshi Tsutsui. He hit Taizan with a very strong and impactful death blow that did cause permanent damage to Taizan, leaving Taizan unable to continue with his fighting career. We later learn after the incident that a fire broke out in an arson that killed Toru's wife, and left his son and adopted daughter without a mother, Toru decided to go out for revenge by getting the man responsible for his Wife's murder. We also find out that Toru's wife's name is... Naoko Ukyo... who is the mother of Tatsuya Ukyo, making Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi, Tatsuya's father. We learn also that Saeko Ukyo is not blood related to Tatsuya but still is his sister none the less.
Taizan lost his way after being trapped in Dragons Heat, feeling he would never be able to find and confront his wife's murderer, but now seeing his son reach new levels, gives him a new sense of justice. He's proud of how far and strong Tatsuya has become, from there Tatsuya shares a bonding moment with Taizan/Toru.
Tatsuya finally obtains the microchip but is later contacted by Isamu and Masa about giving the microchip as it contains vital and serious negative information about Masatoshi Tsutsui and that Toda was the one who originally caused the arson of the restaurant in the Champions district. This was done all for the sake of the ownership rights of that area, and that a fire would immediately lead to the Tojo Clan being blamed instead of Masa. Tatsuya agrees to meet with Masa and his assistant, along with his assistant Reiji Shinjo. Saki and Taizan go with Tatsuya to not have anything fishy or dangerous happen to him. Taizan confronts and is about to kill Masa before Tatsuya stops him and they all decide to head to the top of the Millennium Tower to have a final fight.
For the final part of the game we learn that Shinjo is responsible for Kuki's death and was actually taught by Masa the death blow techniques, Tatsuya throws the microchip at Masa since Taizan/Toru has the gun and they have a final agreement, Tatsuya wants to go all out against Masa's assistant, Reiji Shinjo, and if he wins then Masa has to give back the microchip and go to jail and be exposed by everything within the microchip, however if Tatsuya loses, he agrees to return the gun and allow Masa to shoot both him and Taizan, and allow him to destroy the microchip, they all agree.
The final fight begins with Shinjo revealing a strong powerful form and uses the Extreme Man・Shinjo Style of fighting. During the fight the song "THE MUPPET" plays giving an epic final fight.
After his defeat, Tatsuya confronts Masa as he destroys the microchip shocking everyone except Saki, because Takenaka shows up after receiving the microchip info via text from Saki. She knew Tatsuya would do something as drastic as give the microchip to Masa, however she thought ahead and texted the info to Takenaka's police issues phone. Even with the microchip destroyed Takenaka has all the information that immediately allows for the exposing of Masatoshi Tsutsui and Reiji Shinjos involvement. However before they're arrested Shinjo springs forward and hits Taizan with a powerful death blow to the head.
Tatsuya is utterly sadden by this, since Taizan/Toru is dying but he tells him not to worry since his purpose/goal has finally been fufilled and is so happy he got to see his son succeed and become a strong new good-hearted man. He tells Tatsuya:
"Don't Lose... keep on fighting... living is a battle... surpass it... embrace your destiny and take hold of something...[Tatsuya's fighting philosophy]"
As Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi... dies in his son's arms.
We cut to a couple of days later with Tatsuya walking with Takenaka where we learn that Tsutsui and Shinjo are being charged with murderer and everything exposed within the information on the microchip. We also learn that Shinjo confessed to a bunch of things, but Takenaka feels like Shinjo did that on the orders of another individual. From the audio recording, we hear "someone headquarters needs the arson job done" which makes Takenaka and Tatsuya realize that the individual who caused all of this is working for the police. They see a sign that says that the politician Tadashi Tsurum has won an election, and Takenaka says " an elite among winners eh?"
Tatsuya says, "it's not about being a winner or a loser... you have to fight and win to understand."
Takenaka responds before leaving telling him, "Exactly... Don't lose"
Tatsuya ends the game with a final response looking up at the sky with the sun shining down on him, "There's no way I'm going to lose."
As the game cuts to credits!
...
a post credit screen shows us the man responsible for everything Tadashi Tsurumi... as the game cuts to the black leading into Kurohyou 2.
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Gameplay:
[Fighting]
The fighting gameplay consists of fighting via getting into a sideways 2.5D fighting style with Tatsuya being able to learn and use different fighting styles to best his opponents.
Tatsuya will always fixate on a particular enemy depending on if you want him to fixate on him. A lame aspect of the fighting is that while it does feature Iconic heat moves, they can only be performed when grabbing opponents, unlike mainline games where heat moves can activate in different ways.
The game has a limit of a max of 3 enemies being on screen, but will always have a extra enemies appear via a mini ingame cutscene of them running at you. The game has a stamina system where the more you attack without resting, the more tired Tatsuya gets, which leads to more damage being caused to Tatsuya's face, chest, legs, arms, or all of them, so preserve your stamina.
The gameplay is fun at first when fighting, but later gets receptive and is only really fun again when facing against main bosses.
[Traversal/Substories/Kamorucho]
Travesal in the game is annoying due to how the camera has a fixed position and it can disorient you when you move to a new screen, it can even mess you up in terms of substories and main missions when you get to the following missions (oh boy my favorite... said no one). Where the camera can legit screw you over when it changes positions.
Substories are a mixed bag with some being funny and others feeling like a waste of time. There is also a collectathon you have to go through where an old dojo master who is found in the Poppomart and Medicine vacant lot who can teach you/ allow you to refine and improve your abilities and techniques for each of your fighting styles. However he has a substory where you have to collect a total of 101 cats scattered throughout Kamorucho that are only indicated via a cat icon on the map and you have to collect 10 every chapter, the only thing is the cats themselves never appear ingame and are only indicated via a soundbite of a cat meowing. Which can be annoying to collect so I suggest using a guide.
There's also Kamorucho's strongest where a fat guy in an afro tells you about becoming the strongest fighter and lets you know how to do so by talking to him you're put in a 30 ranking system where every new rank you fight a new dude, until you get to the top 10 ranks, where you fight all previous fighters from the story.
In the game as you improve and obtain all fighting abilites you can finally unlock the Ultimate fighting style which is the strongest and fastest in the game which uses no stamina when fighting and has no drawbacks.
Once all substories are completed, you get 1 final showdown against a man named Gaia, who uses a stronger form of fighting like Taizan, Gaia is actually a reference to Baki the Grappler as Gaia uses a lot of grappling in his attacks. After you defeat him you're pretty much done and you've seen everything Kurohyou/Yakuza Black Panther has to offer.
[Minigames]
Cabaret clubs - Your standard romp of order drinks/food, talk to cabaret womens, and either guess right or wrong answers (in the English rom of this games, nearly all of the choices are broken as the translation team didn't bother to translate this mini game, so most responses are just a conglomerate of dots and an occasional kanji).
You have bowling and baseball which are preserved and a little harder than regular yakuza but are still fun to play through.
The saddest minigame is karaoke as it's straight up pathetic as it is not a rhythm game like in Ishin, 0, Kiwami 1 and 2, 3-5, 6, and 7 where there are different buttons to press, here literally all you do is fill a meter by spamming X on the PSP. They must've known this version of Karaoke was garbage so they went back to a traditional improved karaoke in Kurohyou 2.
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[Characters]
The characters within Kurohyou are all unique and amazing. Some you think start off generic but have so much depth to them like Sho Hyuga, Masumi Yuki, Nobumichi Fujimoto, Koumei Cho. You then have a tragic hero that is Taizan with his sad backstory. Saki is a great romantic interest with depth and is sometimes more intelligent then Tatsuya with her ideas and decision making. Ryutaro Kuki starts off as an antagonist who clearly is using Tatsuya for Tojo Clan means, but later learns to respect and care for Tatsuya like a son, so much so he becomes a tragic hero when he decides to destroy the robbery evidence but also pleads to Tatsuya to save Dragon Heat, he dies a good hearted honorable man. Tatsuya is a great character who we see improve himself and becomes a more philosophical and motivated good hearted person, like that of Kiryu, and learns of philosophy of never giving up and going all out until the end.
The only characters who really are garbage in terms of moustache wearing evil villains are: Masatoshi, Isamu, Shinjo, and Tadashi Tsurumi. As they're not given any depth and are just evil bastards, which in my opinion is fine, because I don't want to feel bad for dudes like this, they deserve the punishment they will receive.
I do find it a bit lame that Kurohyou did a Yakuza 5, before Yakuza 5 even existed, where the final fight isn't against the main antagonist, Masatoshi, but instead against his assistant Reiji Shinjo, and while the game does explain that Masa taught Shinjo everything he knows in terms of fighting, it would've been better to to have fought the old man. In my opinion I think having the old fat man fighting in a deadly style subverts expectation, similar to how Frieza's final form is short and not as intimating as his 2nd or 3rd form, but the power he unleashes is intimidating, they should've done the same here for the final boss, instead of making Reiji Shinjo the final boss, or even a character to begin with.
Shinjo doesn't talk or say anything, he's a essentially a strong plank of wood who has the abilities and fighting style of Masa but has no character what's so ever. He's a worse version of Yakuza 5's final boss, where atleast in 5, the final boss was somewhat likable, and the fight with the music in 5 was top tier amazing and remains imo the best fight in the entire franchise even with said boss being lackluster in terms of story. Here, Shinjo is a lackluster final boss who shows up at the end because the real final boss is an old fart, and even though we do get a great music theme during the final fight, the final fight is janky, making it less fun, and more lame.
So in my opinion, Shinjo shouldn't exist as a character at all, and instead Masa should have been the sole antagonist of this game, while still having ties to Tadashi Tsutsui in order to later connect to Kurohyou 2.
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Overall I enjoyed my time with Kurohyou/Yakuza Black Panther/ Like a Black Panther, the story is great with a little bit of convolution towards the end, however it doesn't change how great the story overall is. Even with it's cliffhanger ending, this first game is a great spinoff, that wraps up amazingly in Kurohyou 2. The game is a great addition to the Yakuza franchise. The gameplay can be a bit repetitive and most of the time during the overworld the camera is what you'll be fighting the most against.
The game is a great experience with a good story, with ok/meh gameplay, but I highly enjoyed my time with it.
If you love the Yakuza franchise, I 100% recommend playing this game!
Hopefully one day they decide to remake both Kurohyou 1 and 2 for the west, all I can say right now is either import it, or emulate it.
#BringKENZANtothewest
#BringKurohyoutothewest
#BringKurohyou2tothewest
Is a great spinoff taking place after Yakuza 4, where we play as a 18 year old serious prodigy fighter/delinquent named Ukyo Tatsuya.
The soundtrack for the game is top tier and is amazing, the gameplay is a fun however repetitive in terms of street fights being constant. The game comes with it's romp of substories and includes minigames (some certainly better than others).
The game also features cabaret clubs and cameos from characters from the main Yakuza series including Akiyama and Hana (only appearing in a ramen minigame), and featuring the Florist of Sai as a helpful all seeing eye that helps Tatsuya find answers. The biggest issues with the game are mainly the gameplay in terms of running around Kamorucho with it's camera being a fixed camera since this is a PSP game.
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Story: The story starts with Tatsuya Ukyo, a 17 year old fighting prodigy delinquent, who attempts to rob a Tojo Clan hideout with 2 of his friends. However he get into an argument and decides to do the robbery on his own, he successfully does but accidently ends up killing a high ranking officer with a death blow that he didn't think would kill him.
Tatsuya is spotted by Ryutaro Kuki, Head of the Kuki family for the Tojo Clan and tells Tatsuya that in order to buy back his freedom and make sure he's not exposed for killing Naoki Toda, however the deal is that in order to do so, Tatsuya has to beat 10 different fighters in Dragon Heat.
The issue is that in the history of Dragon Heat, no one has actually won 10 matches in a row as it is explained that each family within the Tojo Clan who are apart of handling/running Dragon Heat select fighters to then get more money, however if 1 family were to consistently win, then it would cause an internal chaotic war because of the financial unbalance. Throughout the game we learn that Tatsuya is surviving by being forced to participate in Kuki's Tojo Clan's affairs all for the sake of not being arrested for Toda's death. However overtime appreciates the people he meets within Dragon Heat and the fights he learns from, forming bonds with people within Dragon Heat.
Tatsuya enters and fighter against Tomoki, a boxing prospect who has quite the ego in thinking he can easily defeat Tatsuya, and gets annihilated in his fight. Tomoki uses the Street Karate Style of fighting.
Tatsuya wins however is later asked by 2 individuals who help with the medicine and recovery side of Dragon Heat, an 17 year old girl named Saki, and a late 40s/early 50s year old "doctor" named Taizan Amamiya. Taizan asks if Tatsuya learned anything from his fight, and Tatsuya ignores him, and continues his way of being egotisitcal and uncaring.
Tatsuya finally learns something during his second fight with a powerful fighter named Sho Hyuga who is cocky but has a philosophy of fight, and Taizan explains to Tatsuya that in order for Tatsuya to truly improve, he must have a philosophy and positive motivation in order to improve. Currently Tatsuya fights only to destroy his opponent instead of equate their strength and overcome it. Taizan describes Tatsuya like a wild animal with 2 options: Fight or Flight, saying that Tatsuya sees an easy opponent and wants to immediately destroy them, however if an opponent were stronger than Tatsuya, he'd most likely flee and lose. Taizan says an important part about being strong and having a good offense is defense, which allows you to perceive your opponents true strength while defending, if Tatsuya never learns this, he will lose.
The game continues with Tatsuya fighting a strong willed teacher from his past named Masumi Yuki that endured constant ridicule and torment's from Tatsuya and other delinquents in high school, holding back his true strength. They both go all out and Masumi breaks down in shame and anger to Tatsuya for all the pain and suffering he endured, Tatsuya apologies and even says that Masumi is strong for putting with such torture and ridicule for so long. They both finally respect eachother when Tatsuya tells him he's sorry and respects his strength.
Tatsuya's next fight is against a Karate Master named Nobumichi Fujimoto, who wants revenge against Tatsuya because his son was beat up by Tatsuya after he claimed that Karate and the Karate his father taught was lame and weak. Tatsuya did beat up his son however after the fight Tatsuya explains his regret and shows his true self and is honest about what happened. You see Tatsuya did beat up his son however he never caused the severe neck injury that put his son in the hospital. The father receives a call from his son from the hospital and they let him know that he's finally going to be able to walk again after so long. The father cries and Tatsuya is happy he could make piece with that. Nobumichi Fujimoto fights using the Karate Style
The next fight is against Hayato Makabe, nicknamed the MAD DOG OF DRAGON HEAT, he was hired by Kozo Nioka
to try to defeat Tatsuya by going crazy and by any means necessary. Hayato Makabe fights using the Extreme Awakening Style.
Tatsuya finds out that Toda is actually alive as he sees him in an elevator at the Millennium Tower, seeing this Tatsuya immediately decides to go and confront Kuki since Toda being alive contradicts what's on the robbery tape and that Tatsuya would no longer need to fight for Kuki since there's no point in having said evidence. However the next day on the news, it's reported that Toda's body had been found and that the suspect is... Tatsuya. Tatsuya again goes and confronts Kuki but Kuki tells him that they never revealed nor sent the tape to the police, so someone is attempting to set up Tatsuya now.
Tatsuya is chased throughout the first half of the game by Shozo Takenaka, a police detective that handled Tatsuya's juvenile cases when he was in his delinquet schoolboy era, but now is chasing after Tatsuya since he's a suspect.
Tatsuya's next fight is actually a rematch against Hyuga who looks more angry and ready to kill Tatsuya, this is due to the fact that he was tricked by Kozo Nioka and businessman Masa into believing that Tatsuya had kidnapped and is holding Hyuga's sister, Chiaki Hyuga (reporter who helps Tatsuya figure out issues within the Tojo Clan and Dragon Heat) for ransom, when infact it's all a lie to try to defeat Tatsuya before Tatsuya breaks the 6 match win mark. Tatsuya and Hyuga make ammends and become friends, with Hyuga letting Tatsuya know that him and Chiaki are moving away from Kamorucho in order to not get involved with anymore Yakuza business, however as a thank you, Hyuga teaches Tatsuya how to Wrestle.
Ryutaro Kuki is assaulted by an unknown assailant at his Family office and has Tatsuya's bracelet planted on him at the scene of the crime. While not dead, Kuki is gravely injured and while at the hospital, he decides to contact Tatsuya to meet him at a safe location. Kuki explains to Tatsuya that the footage of the robbery has been destroyed, but also pleads and begs Tatsuya to win the final 3 matches for the sake of Dragon Heat that give an avenue for people like Tatsuya to let themselves go and entertain. Kuki also explains that he might know who the true culprit of all of this problems occuring and it can be found in a microchip that Kuki installed however he sadly dies before revealing the location, and only gets a few bits of the locations words out. Tatsuya sadly yet determinately agrees to fufill Kuki's wishes.
The 7th fight is against Koumei Cho, who is fighting on behalf of the Nioka Family in order to learn the truth about his mothers death during a fire in the Champions district. Cho is a very emotional, yet strong fighter who fights using Extreme Wild Dance Style.
After his defeat, Tatsuya becomes friends with Cho and helps him figure out what happened to Cho's mother as well as learning info from his sister Saeko. They also visit the Florist of Sai to find out more information as to the goings on at the Champions district and learn about a man named "TORU NOBI" who's supposedly responsible for a fire that occured when Tatsuya and Cho were kids.
The 8th fight is against Tsuyoshi Aramaki, who is a mercenary known for assassinating his targets who was hire by Nioka family in order to finally take out Tatsuya and stop the Kuki's family domination. He uses the Commando Sambo Style. After his defeat he's confronted by Isamu Washio, a businessman who works on the behave of Masatoshi Tsutsui who works for the politician, Tadashi Tsurumi. Isamu scares the mercenary by nearly killing him, but instead leaves him alive. It is unknown what becomes of Tsuyoshi after the fight.
Tatsuya gets some time off before his 9th fight and this is when he takes the time to hangout with Saki and learns more about her past, along with learning how she used to be a judo student, that and that she has an exboy friend who conned her out of money. During this we actually see the boyfriend at an icecream shop, attempting to scam a new girl, only for Tatsuya to obliterates him and tell him to never come near Saki or any girl ever again.
The 9th fight is against an "undefeated" boxer named Tetsuji Shima, and Taizan decides to try to help Tatsuya by giving a hint about Shima's weakspot, that being his eyes because of damage caused in the past. Tatsuya refuses to fight dirty and says he'll best Shima naturally and defeat him by going all out. Shima uses the Extreme God Hand/Boxing Style.
After being defeated Shima asks Tatsuya why he didn't go for the eyes, and Tatsuya says that for years he's been just ignoring rules and trying to finish fights as fast as possible while learning nothing from them. Tatsuya then explains that he wanted to go all out with Shima to naturally best him by pure feat of strength and not because of luck nor dirty tricks, but natural strength. Tatsuya's philosophy is now clear, to truly feel blessed and feel like something is achieved you need to go all out. Shima is impressed and happy that Tatsuya sees his view and philosophy as such and says it's reminds him of a fight he had in the past against, "Toru Nobi" and gets shocked when he sees Toru there at Dragon Heat, leaving Tatsuya confused and later shocked... as we come to find out Toru Nobi is... Taizen Amamiya.
The final 10th Dragon Heat match is against Tatsuya's philosophy mentor/doctor/friend Taizan Amamiya, who actually is Toru Nobi. Tatsuya both angry and respectful is actually happy to be fighting Taizan to see how strong he truly is. However Tatsuya also wants to know what happened years ago at the Champion district, if he really is the man who caused the fire, leaving Tatsuya and Saeko, and Cho orphans. Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi uses the Extreme Man/Taizen Style of fighting.
After finally winning his tenth victory in Dragon Heat, Tatsuya confronts Taizan and is about to punch him out cold until Saeko stops him. Tatsuya and Taizan are held off to the medicine bay and from there we learn the truth. Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi did not cause the fire that killed Tatsuya's mom and Cho's mom, he actually was framed for said incident by... Masatoshi Tsutsui, under the secret orders of the politician Tadashi Tsurumi who caused the fire for the land rights.
Before all of that, we learn Toru Nobi was actually an amazing fighter who was very strong and who was the only person who originally defeated Tetsuji Shima. Originally he was a middleweight fighting prospect who had a common-law housewife, he wanted to support her and their son by getting money, however he was only able to do so via joining Dragon Heat and being paid. After his fight with Tetsuji Shima which ended in a repectful and honorable way in Toru/Taizan's favor, he is ambushed by a jealous fighter... that jealous fighter being... Masatoshi Tsutsui. He hit Taizan with a very strong and impactful death blow that did cause permanent damage to Taizan, leaving Taizan unable to continue with his fighting career. We later learn after the incident that a fire broke out in an arson that killed Toru's wife, and left his son and adopted daughter without a mother, Toru decided to go out for revenge by getting the man responsible for his Wife's murder. We also find out that Toru's wife's name is... Naoko Ukyo... who is the mother of Tatsuya Ukyo, making Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi, Tatsuya's father. We learn also that Saeko Ukyo is not blood related to Tatsuya but still is his sister none the less.
Taizan lost his way after being trapped in Dragons Heat, feeling he would never be able to find and confront his wife's murderer, but now seeing his son reach new levels, gives him a new sense of justice. He's proud of how far and strong Tatsuya has become, from there Tatsuya shares a bonding moment with Taizan/Toru.
Tatsuya finally obtains the microchip but is later contacted by Isamu and Masa about giving the microchip as it contains vital and serious negative information about Masatoshi Tsutsui and that Toda was the one who originally caused the arson of the restaurant in the Champions district. This was done all for the sake of the ownership rights of that area, and that a fire would immediately lead to the Tojo Clan being blamed instead of Masa. Tatsuya agrees to meet with Masa and his assistant, along with his assistant Reiji Shinjo. Saki and Taizan go with Tatsuya to not have anything fishy or dangerous happen to him. Taizan confronts and is about to kill Masa before Tatsuya stops him and they all decide to head to the top of the Millennium Tower to have a final fight.
For the final part of the game we learn that Shinjo is responsible for Kuki's death and was actually taught by Masa the death blow techniques, Tatsuya throws the microchip at Masa since Taizan/Toru has the gun and they have a final agreement, Tatsuya wants to go all out against Masa's assistant, Reiji Shinjo, and if he wins then Masa has to give back the microchip and go to jail and be exposed by everything within the microchip, however if Tatsuya loses, he agrees to return the gun and allow Masa to shoot both him and Taizan, and allow him to destroy the microchip, they all agree.
The final fight begins with Shinjo revealing a strong powerful form and uses the Extreme Man・Shinjo Style of fighting. During the fight the song "THE MUPPET" plays giving an epic final fight.
After his defeat, Tatsuya confronts Masa as he destroys the microchip shocking everyone except Saki, because Takenaka shows up after receiving the microchip info via text from Saki. She knew Tatsuya would do something as drastic as give the microchip to Masa, however she thought ahead and texted the info to Takenaka's police issues phone. Even with the microchip destroyed Takenaka has all the information that immediately allows for the exposing of Masatoshi Tsutsui and Reiji Shinjos involvement. However before they're arrested Shinjo springs forward and hits Taizan with a powerful death blow to the head.
Tatsuya is utterly sadden by this, since Taizan/Toru is dying but he tells him not to worry since his purpose/goal has finally been fufilled and is so happy he got to see his son succeed and become a strong new good-hearted man. He tells Tatsuya:
"Don't Lose... keep on fighting... living is a battle... surpass it... embrace your destiny and take hold of something...[Tatsuya's fighting philosophy]"
As Taizan Amamiya/Toru Nobi... dies in his son's arms.
We cut to a couple of days later with Tatsuya walking with Takenaka where we learn that Tsutsui and Shinjo are being charged with murderer and everything exposed within the information on the microchip. We also learn that Shinjo confessed to a bunch of things, but Takenaka feels like Shinjo did that on the orders of another individual. From the audio recording, we hear "someone headquarters needs the arson job done" which makes Takenaka and Tatsuya realize that the individual who caused all of this is working for the police. They see a sign that says that the politician Tadashi Tsurum has won an election, and Takenaka says " an elite among winners eh?"
Tatsuya says, "it's not about being a winner or a loser... you have to fight and win to understand."
Takenaka responds before leaving telling him, "Exactly... Don't lose"
Tatsuya ends the game with a final response looking up at the sky with the sun shining down on him, "There's no way I'm going to lose."
As the game cuts to credits!
...
a post credit screen shows us the man responsible for everything Tadashi Tsurumi... as the game cuts to the black leading into Kurohyou 2.
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Gameplay:
[Fighting]
The fighting gameplay consists of fighting via getting into a sideways 2.5D fighting style with Tatsuya being able to learn and use different fighting styles to best his opponents.
Tatsuya will always fixate on a particular enemy depending on if you want him to fixate on him. A lame aspect of the fighting is that while it does feature Iconic heat moves, they can only be performed when grabbing opponents, unlike mainline games where heat moves can activate in different ways.
The game has a limit of a max of 3 enemies being on screen, but will always have a extra enemies appear via a mini ingame cutscene of them running at you. The game has a stamina system where the more you attack without resting, the more tired Tatsuya gets, which leads to more damage being caused to Tatsuya's face, chest, legs, arms, or all of them, so preserve your stamina.
The gameplay is fun at first when fighting, but later gets receptive and is only really fun again when facing against main bosses.
[Traversal/Substories/Kamorucho]
Travesal in the game is annoying due to how the camera has a fixed position and it can disorient you when you move to a new screen, it can even mess you up in terms of substories and main missions when you get to the following missions (oh boy my favorite... said no one). Where the camera can legit screw you over when it changes positions.
Substories are a mixed bag with some being funny and others feeling like a waste of time. There is also a collectathon you have to go through where an old dojo master who is found in the Poppomart and Medicine vacant lot who can teach you/ allow you to refine and improve your abilities and techniques for each of your fighting styles. However he has a substory where you have to collect a total of 101 cats scattered throughout Kamorucho that are only indicated via a cat icon on the map and you have to collect 10 every chapter, the only thing is the cats themselves never appear ingame and are only indicated via a soundbite of a cat meowing. Which can be annoying to collect so I suggest using a guide.
There's also Kamorucho's strongest where a fat guy in an afro tells you about becoming the strongest fighter and lets you know how to do so by talking to him you're put in a 30 ranking system where every new rank you fight a new dude, until you get to the top 10 ranks, where you fight all previous fighters from the story.
In the game as you improve and obtain all fighting abilites you can finally unlock the Ultimate fighting style which is the strongest and fastest in the game which uses no stamina when fighting and has no drawbacks.
Once all substories are completed, you get 1 final showdown against a man named Gaia, who uses a stronger form of fighting like Taizan, Gaia is actually a reference to Baki the Grappler as Gaia uses a lot of grappling in his attacks. After you defeat him you're pretty much done and you've seen everything Kurohyou/Yakuza Black Panther has to offer.
[Minigames]
Cabaret clubs - Your standard romp of order drinks/food, talk to cabaret womens, and either guess right or wrong answers (in the English rom of this games, nearly all of the choices are broken as the translation team didn't bother to translate this mini game, so most responses are just a conglomerate of dots and an occasional kanji).
You have bowling and baseball which are preserved and a little harder than regular yakuza but are still fun to play through.
The saddest minigame is karaoke as it's straight up pathetic as it is not a rhythm game like in Ishin, 0, Kiwami 1 and 2, 3-5, 6, and 7 where there are different buttons to press, here literally all you do is fill a meter by spamming X on the PSP. They must've known this version of Karaoke was garbage so they went back to a traditional improved karaoke in Kurohyou 2.
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[Characters]
The characters within Kurohyou are all unique and amazing. Some you think start off generic but have so much depth to them like Sho Hyuga, Masumi Yuki, Nobumichi Fujimoto, Koumei Cho. You then have a tragic hero that is Taizan with his sad backstory. Saki is a great romantic interest with depth and is sometimes more intelligent then Tatsuya with her ideas and decision making. Ryutaro Kuki starts off as an antagonist who clearly is using Tatsuya for Tojo Clan means, but later learns to respect and care for Tatsuya like a son, so much so he becomes a tragic hero when he decides to destroy the robbery evidence but also pleads to Tatsuya to save Dragon Heat, he dies a good hearted honorable man. Tatsuya is a great character who we see improve himself and becomes a more philosophical and motivated good hearted person, like that of Kiryu, and learns of philosophy of never giving up and going all out until the end.
The only characters who really are garbage in terms of moustache wearing evil villains are: Masatoshi, Isamu, Shinjo, and Tadashi Tsurumi. As they're not given any depth and are just evil bastards, which in my opinion is fine, because I don't want to feel bad for dudes like this, they deserve the punishment they will receive.
I do find it a bit lame that Kurohyou did a Yakuza 5, before Yakuza 5 even existed, where the final fight isn't against the main antagonist, Masatoshi, but instead against his assistant Reiji Shinjo, and while the game does explain that Masa taught Shinjo everything he knows in terms of fighting, it would've been better to to have fought the old man. In my opinion I think having the old fat man fighting in a deadly style subverts expectation, similar to how Frieza's final form is short and not as intimating as his 2nd or 3rd form, but the power he unleashes is intimidating, they should've done the same here for the final boss, instead of making Reiji Shinjo the final boss, or even a character to begin with.
Shinjo doesn't talk or say anything, he's a essentially a strong plank of wood who has the abilities and fighting style of Masa but has no character what's so ever. He's a worse version of Yakuza 5's final boss, where atleast in 5, the final boss was somewhat likable, and the fight with the music in 5 was top tier amazing and remains imo the best fight in the entire franchise even with said boss being lackluster in terms of story. Here, Shinjo is a lackluster final boss who shows up at the end because the real final boss is an old fart, and even though we do get a great music theme during the final fight, the final fight is janky, making it less fun, and more lame.
So in my opinion, Shinjo shouldn't exist as a character at all, and instead Masa should have been the sole antagonist of this game, while still having ties to Tadashi Tsutsui in order to later connect to Kurohyou 2.
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Overall I enjoyed my time with Kurohyou/Yakuza Black Panther/ Like a Black Panther, the story is great with a little bit of convolution towards the end, however it doesn't change how great the story overall is. Even with it's cliffhanger ending, this first game is a great spinoff, that wraps up amazingly in Kurohyou 2. The game is a great addition to the Yakuza franchise. The gameplay can be a bit repetitive and most of the time during the overworld the camera is what you'll be fighting the most against.
The game is a great experience with a good story, with ok/meh gameplay, but I highly enjoyed my time with it.
If you love the Yakuza franchise, I 100% recommend playing this game!
Hopefully one day they decide to remake both Kurohyou 1 and 2 for the west, all I can say right now is either import it, or emulate it.
#BringKENZANtothewest
#BringKurohyoutothewest
#BringKurohyou2tothewest
Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is a short yet fun game of solving a murder mystery of who "KILLED" (not so much killed but incapacitated Sonic the Hedgehog).
You play as (INSERT NAME HERE) [Mainly the protag of this game based on the Trailer goes by Barry the Quokka as the official canon name]
Barry works on the Mirage Express as a steward and takes part of Amy Rose's Birthday Murder Mystery and idolizes the conductor who speaks of many things about the train, as well as how he's retiring soon.
Of the cast and crew we see:
- Sonic
- Tails
- Knuckles
- Amy
- Vector
- Espio
- Rouge
- Blaze
- Shadow
Each of them have a unique outfits and lore cards (based on the murder mystery character they're playing on the Train):
- Sonic - Ship Captain [Murder Victim]
- Tails - Detective
- Knuckles - Sheriff
- Amy - Reporter
- Espio - Poet
- Vector - Butcher
- Blaze - Business Titan
- Rouge - Business Tycoon
- Shadow - Locksmith
You go through each cart interrogating and finding clues throughout the respective carts, with different information to later present and interrogate certain characters on the train.
The only time you never interrogate characters is during the Casino Cart ask in that section, Tails and Barry help Rouge and Blaze steal a treasure on the train.
The gameplay consists of finding clues throughout the given areas, then later interrogating and showing evidence similar to that of ace attourney though there is no real punishment for failing completely. You play a minigame when trying to prove said evidence where you collect rings as a gameboy advance/sonic rush styled Sonic running in an isometric obstacle attempting to collect a certain amount of rings to then have a "LIGHTBULB" appear to prove your evidence/point to the accused/interogratted.
You go through all of the game and find out that it was actually _______ who did it!
You also find out that the train itself is a ________________!!!!
Who Eggman himself has always had in order to take out Sonic and Co once and for all... he fails and we get a heart warming moment in the end with all of the members saying that had an amazing experience and they all leave off to their own ventures.
We also see the conductors wife... someone really drew he to be that... milfy lol.
We see that Eggman is waiting disappointedly for the train to arrive, all while Metal Sonic and SAGE!!! are wearing "GO DAD GO!" Shirts which is hilarious, and Sage and Metal have a look of "well it was obvious that was going happen, you always lose."
The game cuts to black and lets us know what happened to Barry, which can be different endings/outcomes depending on if you want Barry to live a miserable life, a normal midclass worker life, or a RICH TYCOON MILLONARE WHO GOES TO SPACE!!!!
I had such a fun time with this game, I really am happy that I spent the time playing it, It's fun short experience that doesn't overstay it's welcome.
Really wish it did have voice acting though, I just love seeing the artstyle! The art for this game is amazing and draws the characters in such a beautifully artistic and stylized way.
I highly recommend this game as it is free and you'll have a great time with it!
Hopefully Sega decides to do more minigame/visual novel type games in the future as little thanks to the community/to give us more of this unique style of Sonic game.
Absolutely play The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog atleast once!
You play as (INSERT NAME HERE) [Mainly the protag of this game based on the Trailer goes by Barry the Quokka as the official canon name]
Barry works on the Mirage Express as a steward and takes part of Amy Rose's Birthday Murder Mystery and idolizes the conductor who speaks of many things about the train, as well as how he's retiring soon.
Of the cast and crew we see:
- Sonic
- Tails
- Knuckles
- Amy
- Vector
- Espio
- Rouge
- Blaze
- Shadow
Each of them have a unique outfits and lore cards (based on the murder mystery character they're playing on the Train):
- Sonic - Ship Captain [Murder Victim]
- Tails - Detective
- Knuckles - Sheriff
- Amy - Reporter
- Espio - Poet
- Vector - Butcher
- Blaze - Business Titan
- Rouge - Business Tycoon
- Shadow - Locksmith
You go through each cart interrogating and finding clues throughout the respective carts, with different information to later present and interrogate certain characters on the train.
The only time you never interrogate characters is during the Casino Cart ask in that section, Tails and Barry help Rouge and Blaze steal a treasure on the train.
The gameplay consists of finding clues throughout the given areas, then later interrogating and showing evidence similar to that of ace attourney though there is no real punishment for failing completely. You play a minigame when trying to prove said evidence where you collect rings as a gameboy advance/sonic rush styled Sonic running in an isometric obstacle attempting to collect a certain amount of rings to then have a "LIGHTBULB" appear to prove your evidence/point to the accused/interogratted.
You go through all of the game and find out that it was actually _______ who did it!
You also find out that the train itself is a ________________!!!!
Who Eggman himself has always had in order to take out Sonic and Co once and for all... he fails and we get a heart warming moment in the end with all of the members saying that had an amazing experience and they all leave off to their own ventures.
We also see the conductors wife... someone really drew he to be that... milfy lol.
We see that Eggman is waiting disappointedly for the train to arrive, all while Metal Sonic and SAGE!!! are wearing "GO DAD GO!" Shirts which is hilarious, and Sage and Metal have a look of "well it was obvious that was going happen, you always lose."
The game cuts to black and lets us know what happened to Barry, which can be different endings/outcomes depending on if you want Barry to live a miserable life, a normal midclass worker life, or a RICH TYCOON MILLONARE WHO GOES TO SPACE!!!!
I had such a fun time with this game, I really am happy that I spent the time playing it, It's fun short experience that doesn't overstay it's welcome.
Really wish it did have voice acting though, I just love seeing the artstyle! The art for this game is amazing and draws the characters in such a beautifully artistic and stylized way.
I highly recommend this game as it is free and you'll have a great time with it!
Hopefully Sega decides to do more minigame/visual novel type games in the future as little thanks to the community/to give us more of this unique style of Sonic game.
Absolutely play The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog atleast once!
Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is an interesting fighter that I'm glad exists to a certain capacity.
I believe having something as Power Rangers deserves to have good games/ games that are unique and fufilling to fans is always a good thing.
I will say the definitive and only way to play this was getting the SUPER EDITION, as I could not have imagine getting the regular game because of how barebones it would've been, atleast here it feels like a proper fighting game roster.
The game has a total of 5 modes:
1. Story Mode
2. Online
3. Arcade mode
4. Vs Mode
5. Practice mode
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The story mode consists of adapting the Shattered Grid storyline except sort of halfassing it too. The gist of the story is that in an alternate timeline, the Green Ranger Tommy Oliver (RIP Jason David Frank) remains evil due to a sad tragic backstory that leads to him killing Rita Repolsa, and later combing his Green Dragon Ranger Power with the Tiger Zord Power to turn himself into a White Green Dragon Tiger Ranger, who he changes his name to LORD DRAKKON.
Lord Drakkon has the ability to travel to different dimensions thanks to his ranger army, which consists of MASTODON MERCENARIES (Black Mighty Morphin Rangers with Rifles and vests) and his main commander, the Ranger slayer (Pink Mighty Morphine Power Ranger, Kimberly).
They travel through different ranger dimensions and world to take out and conquer all rangers of different worlds, with the help of Goldar (who has a black color variant).
Jason (MIGHTY MORPHIN RED), Trini in Dragon Armor (ORIGINAL MIGHTY MORPHIN YELLOW [ RIP Thuy Tang], Kimberly (MIGHTY MORPHIN PINK), JEN SCOTTS (Time Force Red), and Lauren Shiba (FEMALE SAMURAI RED RANGER) travel throughout the worlds to find and save other rangers in order to stand a chance against Drakkon and his forces.
Along the way they meet Gia Morgan (MEGAFORCE YELLOW), Kat (SPD KAT RANGER), Udonna (Mystic Ranger), Anubus Kruger (SPD SHADOW RANGER), Cenzoic Blue Ranger (Ranger from Rita Repolsas past who was killed, later became the ranger morph for Billy Cranston in the 2017 movie), Michael "Mike" Corbett (Magna Defender from Lost Galaxy), Trey of Triforia (Gold Ranger), and some rangers who aren't playable and only seen within cutscenes.
Jason, Trini, Kimberly fight against alternate Kimberly and snap her out of her mind control, Tommy Oliver (Green Ranger) confronts Drakkon in a 1 on 1 final battle, and defeats him in his first form, and then in his super final form. Drakkon is the defeated, the timelines and realities are restored.
The story ends with all the rangers leaving for their world, and we end on original Earth where Tommy talks with Kimberly and he reflects on how he could've become Drakkon, and Kim tells him not to worry since her, Jason, Trini, Zack, and Billy all have is back.
Alternate Kim also appears for the final panel shot of them looking over the world. (Which confuses me, and makes me wonder what she's doing with the original group, maybe she went back to fix her world, or she stayed with them, I'm assuming the first option since it would be weird to have 2 the same person in the same world).
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So yeah fine enough story, I will say though, it's really odd that they shoved more fights in such a strange way that doesn't make sense in context.
The game sometimes has you playing as the hero with some dialogue parts that leads to a fight, and after winning said fight so for example:
You're playing as Gia Morgan (MEGAFORCE YELLOW) and you actually fight Drakkon pretty early on, when you win with Gia more dialogue appears, and after that... you play as Drakkon... and fight against Gia.
So instead of just having a cutscene or having it so you fight a stronger version of Drakkon who can 1 shot you or is programmed to defeat you, you instead have the player control Drakkon to extend fights. Which makes me think there was originally 2 story modes:
1. For team Heroes - Standard Story above
2. Team Drakkon - Where you need to conquer all rangers.
I'm assuming, it's just weird that they do that.
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The gameplay consists of a 3v3 where you select 3 different characters and fight (Similar to say Street Fighter x Tekken, Blazblue, or Dragon Ball Fighterz where you're able to Tag-in-Tag-out)
Each character having unique abilities and ultimate moves (Some better than others, also for some reason some look cinematic and awesome like proper finishers, while some look like powered up super attacks, not really anything ULTIMATE about it, especially Drakkon even though he's the primary antagonist).
The game features Zords that appear to help you by attacking your opponents when you're in a spliff or want to deal extra damage to your opponents.
The maps to choose from are unique to a point, though have a bit a discrepancy in terms of having the SPD Zord and Giant Goldar fighting in the background... while being able to select them as Zords in the character select. It's a descrepancy because the way Zords work is they use special abilites or attack with swords or punches. The issue is that on the specific map I'm mentioning, Goldar and the SPD Zord are fighting in the background and say your opponent is using Goldar, his fist will come from the side which is just strange cause the developers never thought to change the background characters, incase one were chose Goldar and the SPD Zord (visual discrepancy, not that big of a deal but still dumb).
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An elephant in the room I need to address is...the AI
JESUS is this A.I. Unforgiving and tedious and cheap, the worst being Jason Lee Scott (Mighty Morphin Red). He is way too fast and pulls off death combos that are inescapable because the creators never thought to add a recovery or counter.
This doesn't just happen with Jason, this happens with all the A.I. in the game, making it very unfun, and if you're a kid wanting to go into this trying to beat the story, the experience level is far too advanced.
My thought as to what happened with the A.I.:
When this game first came out the A.I. must've been laughably bad, so they most likely used the gameplay style for expert skilled players as the basis for the A.I. when update released.
Problem is now the game becomes WAYYY too difficult for new comers that it almost seems like they updated the A.I. Difficulty, but never properly balanced it based upon ingame set difficulty.
The lack of recovery or proper counters in the game is a big issues as characters like: Eric Myers (Quantum Ranger), Mastodon Sentry, Michael "Mike" Corbett (Magna Defender), and Trini have this super powerful X attack that can be spammed in a 2 second interval.
Quantum Ranger - Arsenal Gun/Sword, if you spam X he does a 3 quick last blasts, however if X is held, he does this gigantic ki blasts that DOES NOT HAVE A LIMIT OF USAGE or RECHARGE, THAT CAN BE SPAMMED EVERY 2 SECONDS, PUTTING YOUR OPPONENT IN A DEATH LOOP.
Mastodon Mercenary - Pressing X causes him to use a 3 round burst that ALWAYS KNOCKS YOUR OPPONENT DOWN and you can continue to spam it, and it knocks them down every time and takes away health.
Magna Defender - Press X allows him to use his laser shotgun which (while only close up) can be spammed and blast opponents away and knock them down until you defeat them.
MIGHTY MORPHIN YELLOW RANGER DRAGON ARMOR - Pressing X causes Trini to use this laser that lasts for 3 seconds that does a lot of damage, because again... the developers decided not to add a cool down time for said attack or a limit, you can spam it infinitely and cheese any opponent.
The biggest issue is that knock down time doesn't give you an opportunity to counter, nor escape a loop of spam or death combos.
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The game has a nice variety of rangers but I feel like playing SUPER EDITION that the roster that this "definitive version" has, should've been the basic roster to start later obtained more DLC RANGERS.
The character roster consists of:
- Jason Lee Scott (MIGHTY MORPHIN RED RANGER) {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [Base Roster]
- Tommy Oliver (DRAGON ZORD/MIGHTY MORPHIN GREEN RANGER / TIGER ZORD/MIGHTY MORPHIN WHITE RANGER)
{MIGHTY MORPHIN}
[Base roster - Green Ranger, DLC Suit - White Ranger/Tiger Zord (Skin Sold Separately on Marketplace not included in Super Edition)]
- Trini Kwan (MIGHTY MORPHIN YELLOW RANGER DRAGON ARMOR) {MIGHTY MORPHIN}
[included in updated 1, now is in Base Roster for Super Edition]
- Kimberly Hart (RANGER SLAYER/ MIGHTY MORPHIN PINK RANGER) {MIGHTY MORPHIN}
[Base Roster, Mighty Morphin Pink suit/Original Kimberly - Free DLC included in SUPER EDITION]
- Kat Manx (SPD KAT RANGER) {SPD} [Base Roster]
- Gia Morgan (MEGAFORCE YELLOW) {MEGAFORCE/SUPER MEGAFORCE} [Base Roster]
- Michael "Mike" Corbett (MAGNA DEFENDER) {LOST GALAXY} [Base Roster]
- Mastodon Sentry {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [Base Roster]
- Udonna (MYSTIC RANGER) {MYSTIC FORCE} [Base Roster - added in Update 1, Base Roster for SUPER EDITION]
-Cenozonic Blue Ranger {POWER RANGERS 2017} [Base Roster - added in Update 1, SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Goldar {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [Base Roster]
- Lord Drakkon {SHATTERED GRID} [Base Roster]
- Scorpina {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Lord Zedd {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Anubis Krueger (SPD SHADOW RANGER) {SPD} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Jen Scotts (TIMEFORCE PINK) {TIMEFORCE} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Eric Myers (QUANTUM RANGER) {TIMEFORCE} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Trey of Triforia (GOLD RANGER) {ZEO}
- Lauren Shiba (FEMALE SAMURAI RED) {SAMURAI/SUPER SAMURAI} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
-Robert James "RJ" (WOLF RANGER) {JUNGLE FURY} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- DAI SHI {JUNGLE FURY} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Ryu (CRIMSON HAWK RANGER) {STREET FIGHTER} [Crossover Guest Character From Street Fighter. SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Chun Li (BLUE PHONIEX RANGER) {STREET FIGHTER} [Crossover Guest Character From Street Fighter. SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Adam Park (Ninja Ranger Black) {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [1 of 3 Final DLC characters included after the release of SUPER EDITION]
-Poisandra {NINJA STEEL} [1 of 3 Final DLC characters included after the release of SUPER EDITION]
- Rita Repolsa {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [1 of 3 Final DLC characters included after the release of SUPER EDITION]
I feel like more DLC costumes should've been added. Like giving Tommy DLC for his Red ZEO suit, Red TURBO Suit, and his DINO THUNDER BLACK SUIT. Or Jason with OMEGA RANGER OUTFIT from the Comics. Or giving Gia Morgan her original MEGAFORCE OUTFIT. Human outfits/models for the Rangers as DLC costumes like Ryu and Chun Li have. DaiRanger Suits from the comics. Adam Park Black Mastodon Ranger Outfit DLC. I think either more cosmetic DLC or unlockables/customization of outfits would've been cooler and add to the longevity of the game, because actively as of writing this, the rewards you can obtain from playing online are just profile banners...instead of something cool to strive to obtain like special costumes.
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Also, while not a bad roster, this feels more like a roster you would see in a standard fighting game, not a final definitive one. I think they should've allowed more time to cook to have the other characters already included in base roster (EXCEPT RYU AND CHUN LI AS THEY WOULD STILL BE DLC), and they could've reserved DLC for more Rangers from other shows:
- Delphine {WHITE AQUITAR RANGER) {ALIEN RANGER}
- Phantom Ranger {TURBO}
- Andros (RED SPACE RANGER) {IN SPACE}
and/or
- Zhane (SILVER SPACE RANGER) {IN SPACE)
[What really sucks is Zhane is seen within a cutscene... which would make anyone think that he's going to be DLC... sadly never was]
- Carter Grayson (LIGHTSPEED RED) {LIGHTSPEED RESCUE}
and/or
- Ryan Mitchell (TITANIUM RANGER) {LIGHTSPEED RESCUE}
- Alyssa Enrile (WHITE WILD FORCE RANGER) {WILD FORCE}
and/or
- Merrick Baliton (LUNAR WOLF RANGER) {WILD FORCE}
- Cameron Watanabe (GREEN SAMURAI RANGER) {NINJA STORM}
and/or
-Hunter Bradley (CRIMSON THUNDER) {NINJA STORM)
and/or
- Blake Bradley (NAVY THUNDER) {NINJA STORM}
- Trent Mercer (WHITE DINO RANGER) {DINO THUNDER}
- Schuyler "Sky" Tate (SPD BLUE/SPD DEKA RANGER) {SPD}
and/or
- Sam (SPD OMEGA RANGER) {SPD}
and/or
- Nova (SPD NOVA RANGER) {SPD}
and/or
- Kelson Henderson "BOOM" (SPD ORANGE) {SPD}
- Koragg (KNIGHT WOLF [Purple]/Wolf Warrior [RED]) {MYSTIC FORCE}
and/or
-Chip Thorn (MYSTIC FORCE YELLOW) {MYSTIC FORCE}
and/or
-Xander (MYSTIC FORCE GREEN) {MYSTIC FORCE}
and/or
-Madison Rocca (MYSTIC FORCE BLUE) {MYSTIC FORCE}
-Tyzonn (MERCURY RANGER) {OPERATION OVERDRIVE}
- Casey Rhodes (JUNGLE FURY RED RANGER) {JUNGLE FURY}
and/or
-Dominic Hargan (JUNGLE FURY RHINO RANGER) {JUNGLE FURY}
and/or
- SPIRIT RANGER (JUNGLE FURY ELEPHANT, BAT, and SHARK RANGERS) {JUNGLE FURY}
[Idea being: the Spirits fuse into 1 and can switch between the 3 animals similar to Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat]
- Flynn MacAllistair (RPM BLUE) {RPM}
and/or
- Dillion (RPM BLACK) {RPM}
-Antonio Garcia (SAMURAI GOLD RANGER) {SAMURAI/SUPER SAMURAI}
- ROBOKNIGHT {MEGAFORCE}
and/or
- Orion (SUPER MEGAFORCE SILVER RANGER) {SUPER MEGAFORCE}
- Hayley Foster (NINJA STEEL WHITE) {NINJA STEEL}
or
- Levi Weston (NINJA STEEL GOLD) {NINJA STEEL}
- Nate Silva (GRID BATTLE FORCE GOLD RANGER} {BEASTMORPHERS)
and/or
- STAG (GRID BATTLE FORCE SILVER RANGER) {BEASTMORPHERS}
and/or
- Blaze (GRID EVIL BATTLE FORCE RED RANGER) {BEAST MORPHERS}
- JJ Oliver (SPD GREEN DRAGON RANGER) {POWER RANGERS: SOUL OF THE DRAGON}
Alot to think about and a lot of characters listed I know, but like there's a bunch of characters to choose from, personally I don't know anyone who wanted:
Cenozoic Blue or Poisandra or Lauren Shiba
But since they're in it, it's like I said, there were so many other rangers to add, that could've made it so fans kept it alive to see characters from all different series, maybe even comics.
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For the most part, I'm glad this game exist, I think if they ever do a sequel, I would want it to build off this one, add more characters from different series and especially popular characters, BALANCE OUT AI BETTER, add proper recovery and counters.
Though because of the issues, I have to give this a solid 3 stars. It's not good, not bad, it's a novelty that it exists, and it's fine, but average. I do hope for a good sequel one day that adds more of what I stated above. Thanks for reading.
I believe having something as Power Rangers deserves to have good games/ games that are unique and fufilling to fans is always a good thing.
I will say the definitive and only way to play this was getting the SUPER EDITION, as I could not have imagine getting the regular game because of how barebones it would've been, atleast here it feels like a proper fighting game roster.
The game has a total of 5 modes:
1. Story Mode
2. Online
3. Arcade mode
4. Vs Mode
5. Practice mode
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The story mode consists of adapting the Shattered Grid storyline except sort of halfassing it too. The gist of the story is that in an alternate timeline, the Green Ranger Tommy Oliver (RIP Jason David Frank) remains evil due to a sad tragic backstory that leads to him killing Rita Repolsa, and later combing his Green Dragon Ranger Power with the Tiger Zord Power to turn himself into a White Green Dragon Tiger Ranger, who he changes his name to LORD DRAKKON.
Lord Drakkon has the ability to travel to different dimensions thanks to his ranger army, which consists of MASTODON MERCENARIES (Black Mighty Morphin Rangers with Rifles and vests) and his main commander, the Ranger slayer (Pink Mighty Morphine Power Ranger, Kimberly).
They travel through different ranger dimensions and world to take out and conquer all rangers of different worlds, with the help of Goldar (who has a black color variant).
Jason (MIGHTY MORPHIN RED), Trini in Dragon Armor (ORIGINAL MIGHTY MORPHIN YELLOW [ RIP Thuy Tang], Kimberly (MIGHTY MORPHIN PINK), JEN SCOTTS (Time Force Red), and Lauren Shiba (FEMALE SAMURAI RED RANGER) travel throughout the worlds to find and save other rangers in order to stand a chance against Drakkon and his forces.
Along the way they meet Gia Morgan (MEGAFORCE YELLOW), Kat (SPD KAT RANGER), Udonna (Mystic Ranger), Anubus Kruger (SPD SHADOW RANGER), Cenzoic Blue Ranger (Ranger from Rita Repolsas past who was killed, later became the ranger morph for Billy Cranston in the 2017 movie), Michael "Mike" Corbett (Magna Defender from Lost Galaxy), Trey of Triforia (Gold Ranger), and some rangers who aren't playable and only seen within cutscenes.
Jason, Trini, Kimberly fight against alternate Kimberly and snap her out of her mind control, Tommy Oliver (Green Ranger) confronts Drakkon in a 1 on 1 final battle, and defeats him in his first form, and then in his super final form. Drakkon is the defeated, the timelines and realities are restored.
The story ends with all the rangers leaving for their world, and we end on original Earth where Tommy talks with Kimberly and he reflects on how he could've become Drakkon, and Kim tells him not to worry since her, Jason, Trini, Zack, and Billy all have is back.
Alternate Kim also appears for the final panel shot of them looking over the world. (Which confuses me, and makes me wonder what she's doing with the original group, maybe she went back to fix her world, or she stayed with them, I'm assuming the first option since it would be weird to have 2 the same person in the same world).
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So yeah fine enough story, I will say though, it's really odd that they shoved more fights in such a strange way that doesn't make sense in context.
The game sometimes has you playing as the hero with some dialogue parts that leads to a fight, and after winning said fight so for example:
You're playing as Gia Morgan (MEGAFORCE YELLOW) and you actually fight Drakkon pretty early on, when you win with Gia more dialogue appears, and after that... you play as Drakkon... and fight against Gia.
So instead of just having a cutscene or having it so you fight a stronger version of Drakkon who can 1 shot you or is programmed to defeat you, you instead have the player control Drakkon to extend fights. Which makes me think there was originally 2 story modes:
1. For team Heroes - Standard Story above
2. Team Drakkon - Where you need to conquer all rangers.
I'm assuming, it's just weird that they do that.
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The gameplay consists of a 3v3 where you select 3 different characters and fight (Similar to say Street Fighter x Tekken, Blazblue, or Dragon Ball Fighterz where you're able to Tag-in-Tag-out)
Each character having unique abilities and ultimate moves (Some better than others, also for some reason some look cinematic and awesome like proper finishers, while some look like powered up super attacks, not really anything ULTIMATE about it, especially Drakkon even though he's the primary antagonist).
The game features Zords that appear to help you by attacking your opponents when you're in a spliff or want to deal extra damage to your opponents.
The maps to choose from are unique to a point, though have a bit a discrepancy in terms of having the SPD Zord and Giant Goldar fighting in the background... while being able to select them as Zords in the character select. It's a descrepancy because the way Zords work is they use special abilites or attack with swords or punches. The issue is that on the specific map I'm mentioning, Goldar and the SPD Zord are fighting in the background and say your opponent is using Goldar, his fist will come from the side which is just strange cause the developers never thought to change the background characters, incase one were chose Goldar and the SPD Zord (visual discrepancy, not that big of a deal but still dumb).
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An elephant in the room I need to address is...the AI
JESUS is this A.I. Unforgiving and tedious and cheap, the worst being Jason Lee Scott (Mighty Morphin Red). He is way too fast and pulls off death combos that are inescapable because the creators never thought to add a recovery or counter.
This doesn't just happen with Jason, this happens with all the A.I. in the game, making it very unfun, and if you're a kid wanting to go into this trying to beat the story, the experience level is far too advanced.
My thought as to what happened with the A.I.:
When this game first came out the A.I. must've been laughably bad, so they most likely used the gameplay style for expert skilled players as the basis for the A.I. when update released.
Problem is now the game becomes WAYYY too difficult for new comers that it almost seems like they updated the A.I. Difficulty, but never properly balanced it based upon ingame set difficulty.
The lack of recovery or proper counters in the game is a big issues as characters like: Eric Myers (Quantum Ranger), Mastodon Sentry, Michael "Mike" Corbett (Magna Defender), and Trini have this super powerful X attack that can be spammed in a 2 second interval.
Quantum Ranger - Arsenal Gun/Sword, if you spam X he does a 3 quick last blasts, however if X is held, he does this gigantic ki blasts that DOES NOT HAVE A LIMIT OF USAGE or RECHARGE, THAT CAN BE SPAMMED EVERY 2 SECONDS, PUTTING YOUR OPPONENT IN A DEATH LOOP.
Mastodon Mercenary - Pressing X causes him to use a 3 round burst that ALWAYS KNOCKS YOUR OPPONENT DOWN and you can continue to spam it, and it knocks them down every time and takes away health.
Magna Defender - Press X allows him to use his laser shotgun which (while only close up) can be spammed and blast opponents away and knock them down until you defeat them.
MIGHTY MORPHIN YELLOW RANGER DRAGON ARMOR - Pressing X causes Trini to use this laser that lasts for 3 seconds that does a lot of damage, because again... the developers decided not to add a cool down time for said attack or a limit, you can spam it infinitely and cheese any opponent.
The biggest issue is that knock down time doesn't give you an opportunity to counter, nor escape a loop of spam or death combos.
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The game has a nice variety of rangers but I feel like playing SUPER EDITION that the roster that this "definitive version" has, should've been the basic roster to start later obtained more DLC RANGERS.
The character roster consists of:
- Jason Lee Scott (MIGHTY MORPHIN RED RANGER) {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [Base Roster]
- Tommy Oliver (DRAGON ZORD/MIGHTY MORPHIN GREEN RANGER / TIGER ZORD/MIGHTY MORPHIN WHITE RANGER)
{MIGHTY MORPHIN}
[Base roster - Green Ranger, DLC Suit - White Ranger/Tiger Zord (Skin Sold Separately on Marketplace not included in Super Edition)]
- Trini Kwan (MIGHTY MORPHIN YELLOW RANGER DRAGON ARMOR) {MIGHTY MORPHIN}
[included in updated 1, now is in Base Roster for Super Edition]
- Kimberly Hart (RANGER SLAYER/ MIGHTY MORPHIN PINK RANGER) {MIGHTY MORPHIN}
[Base Roster, Mighty Morphin Pink suit/Original Kimberly - Free DLC included in SUPER EDITION]
- Kat Manx (SPD KAT RANGER) {SPD} [Base Roster]
- Gia Morgan (MEGAFORCE YELLOW) {MEGAFORCE/SUPER MEGAFORCE} [Base Roster]
- Michael "Mike" Corbett (MAGNA DEFENDER) {LOST GALAXY} [Base Roster]
- Mastodon Sentry {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [Base Roster]
- Udonna (MYSTIC RANGER) {MYSTIC FORCE} [Base Roster - added in Update 1, Base Roster for SUPER EDITION]
-Cenozonic Blue Ranger {POWER RANGERS 2017} [Base Roster - added in Update 1, SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Goldar {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [Base Roster]
- Lord Drakkon {SHATTERED GRID} [Base Roster]
- Scorpina {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Lord Zedd {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Anubis Krueger (SPD SHADOW RANGER) {SPD} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Jen Scotts (TIMEFORCE PINK) {TIMEFORCE} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Eric Myers (QUANTUM RANGER) {TIMEFORCE} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Trey of Triforia (GOLD RANGER) {ZEO}
- Lauren Shiba (FEMALE SAMURAI RED) {SAMURAI/SUPER SAMURAI} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
-Robert James "RJ" (WOLF RANGER) {JUNGLE FURY} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- DAI SHI {JUNGLE FURY} [SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Ryu (CRIMSON HAWK RANGER) {STREET FIGHTER} [Crossover Guest Character From Street Fighter. SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Chun Li (BLUE PHONIEX RANGER) {STREET FIGHTER} [Crossover Guest Character From Street Fighter. SUPER EDITION BASE ROSTER]
- Adam Park (Ninja Ranger Black) {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [1 of 3 Final DLC characters included after the release of SUPER EDITION]
-Poisandra {NINJA STEEL} [1 of 3 Final DLC characters included after the release of SUPER EDITION]
- Rita Repolsa {MIGHTY MORPHIN} [1 of 3 Final DLC characters included after the release of SUPER EDITION]
I feel like more DLC costumes should've been added. Like giving Tommy DLC for his Red ZEO suit, Red TURBO Suit, and his DINO THUNDER BLACK SUIT. Or Jason with OMEGA RANGER OUTFIT from the Comics. Or giving Gia Morgan her original MEGAFORCE OUTFIT. Human outfits/models for the Rangers as DLC costumes like Ryu and Chun Li have. DaiRanger Suits from the comics. Adam Park Black Mastodon Ranger Outfit DLC. I think either more cosmetic DLC or unlockables/customization of outfits would've been cooler and add to the longevity of the game, because actively as of writing this, the rewards you can obtain from playing online are just profile banners...instead of something cool to strive to obtain like special costumes.
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Also, while not a bad roster, this feels more like a roster you would see in a standard fighting game, not a final definitive one. I think they should've allowed more time to cook to have the other characters already included in base roster (EXCEPT RYU AND CHUN LI AS THEY WOULD STILL BE DLC), and they could've reserved DLC for more Rangers from other shows:
- Delphine {WHITE AQUITAR RANGER) {ALIEN RANGER}
- Phantom Ranger {TURBO}
- Andros (RED SPACE RANGER) {IN SPACE}
and/or
- Zhane (SILVER SPACE RANGER) {IN SPACE)
[What really sucks is Zhane is seen within a cutscene... which would make anyone think that he's going to be DLC... sadly never was]
- Carter Grayson (LIGHTSPEED RED) {LIGHTSPEED RESCUE}
and/or
- Ryan Mitchell (TITANIUM RANGER) {LIGHTSPEED RESCUE}
- Alyssa Enrile (WHITE WILD FORCE RANGER) {WILD FORCE}
and/or
- Merrick Baliton (LUNAR WOLF RANGER) {WILD FORCE}
- Cameron Watanabe (GREEN SAMURAI RANGER) {NINJA STORM}
and/or
-Hunter Bradley (CRIMSON THUNDER) {NINJA STORM)
and/or
- Blake Bradley (NAVY THUNDER) {NINJA STORM}
- Trent Mercer (WHITE DINO RANGER) {DINO THUNDER}
- Schuyler "Sky" Tate (SPD BLUE/SPD DEKA RANGER) {SPD}
and/or
- Sam (SPD OMEGA RANGER) {SPD}
and/or
- Nova (SPD NOVA RANGER) {SPD}
and/or
- Kelson Henderson "BOOM" (SPD ORANGE) {SPD}
- Koragg (KNIGHT WOLF [Purple]/Wolf Warrior [RED]) {MYSTIC FORCE}
and/or
-Chip Thorn (MYSTIC FORCE YELLOW) {MYSTIC FORCE}
and/or
-Xander (MYSTIC FORCE GREEN) {MYSTIC FORCE}
and/or
-Madison Rocca (MYSTIC FORCE BLUE) {MYSTIC FORCE}
-Tyzonn (MERCURY RANGER) {OPERATION OVERDRIVE}
- Casey Rhodes (JUNGLE FURY RED RANGER) {JUNGLE FURY}
and/or
-Dominic Hargan (JUNGLE FURY RHINO RANGER) {JUNGLE FURY}
and/or
- SPIRIT RANGER (JUNGLE FURY ELEPHANT, BAT, and SHARK RANGERS) {JUNGLE FURY}
[Idea being: the Spirits fuse into 1 and can switch between the 3 animals similar to Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat]
- Flynn MacAllistair (RPM BLUE) {RPM}
and/or
- Dillion (RPM BLACK) {RPM}
-Antonio Garcia (SAMURAI GOLD RANGER) {SAMURAI/SUPER SAMURAI}
- ROBOKNIGHT {MEGAFORCE}
and/or
- Orion (SUPER MEGAFORCE SILVER RANGER) {SUPER MEGAFORCE}
- Hayley Foster (NINJA STEEL WHITE) {NINJA STEEL}
or
- Levi Weston (NINJA STEEL GOLD) {NINJA STEEL}
- Nate Silva (GRID BATTLE FORCE GOLD RANGER} {BEASTMORPHERS)
and/or
- STAG (GRID BATTLE FORCE SILVER RANGER) {BEASTMORPHERS}
and/or
- Blaze (GRID EVIL BATTLE FORCE RED RANGER) {BEAST MORPHERS}
- JJ Oliver (SPD GREEN DRAGON RANGER) {POWER RANGERS: SOUL OF THE DRAGON}
Alot to think about and a lot of characters listed I know, but like there's a bunch of characters to choose from, personally I don't know anyone who wanted:
Cenozoic Blue or Poisandra or Lauren Shiba
But since they're in it, it's like I said, there were so many other rangers to add, that could've made it so fans kept it alive to see characters from all different series, maybe even comics.
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For the most part, I'm glad this game exist, I think if they ever do a sequel, I would want it to build off this one, add more characters from different series and especially popular characters, BALANCE OUT AI BETTER, add proper recovery and counters.
Though because of the issues, I have to give this a solid 3 stars. It's not good, not bad, it's a novelty that it exists, and it's fine, but average. I do hope for a good sequel one day that adds more of what I stated above. Thanks for reading.
2023
Pizza Tower is a marvelous game with an amazing soundtrack taking influences from Games like Sonic and mainly WARIO.
The games story is very simple, Pizzaface has sent over a message to Peppino (Owner of Peppino's Pizza), and has threaten him by saying that in his tower there is a laser that is pointed directly at Peppino's Pizzeria and that if he doesn't come to the tower and attempt to stop him, he will destroy his restaurant. Peppino goes crazy and runs directly towards the tower.
The tower itself is split between 5 different areas labeled with different names, and have music that are named under different days of the week in terms of week days, each containing 4 levels per stage, and 1 boss:
1. Tower Lobby (Monday): John Gutter, Pizzascape, Ancient Cheese, Bloodsauce Dungeon.
Boss - Pepperman
2. Western District (Tuesday) - Oregano Desert, Wasteyard, Fun Farm ft Mort the Chicken, Fast Food Saloon
Boss: The Vigilante
3. Vacation Resort (Wednesday): Crusty Cove, Gnome Forest, Deep-Dish 9, Golf
Boss: The Noise
4. Slim (Thursday) - The Pig City, Peppibot Factory, OH SHIT!, Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator
5. Staff Only (Friday) - Pizza Scare, Don't Make a Sound, WAR
Final Boss: Pizzaface/Pizza Head
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The gameplay is very simple where you play as Peppino who has a boost charge that gets faster the more open area you're able to run through without colliding, gaining speed in terms of momentum. The game has Peppino obtain different power ups per level which use different abilities pertaining to said levels:
- Knight Armor (PizzaScape)- Allows for sliding via ramps but limits Peppinos jump and he can attack with it
- Bombs (Ancient Cheese) - Blows up enemies and certain destructible objects
-Fire Mouth (Oregano Desert) - When Peppino Eats this hot wing his mouth goes on fire allowing him to blow up TNT blocks by touching them and kills enemies, it also makes him faster but harder to control.
-Ghost Pepper (Wasteyard) - Turns Peppino into a ghost that allows him to phase through certain walls and dash through floating blocks. Controls feel a bit floaty, and while difficult to control at first, later becomes fun to use for it's limited time actually used.
-Mort the Chicken (Fun Farm) - Weird crossover with a generic 3D chicken character, Mort. Who has the ability to hook on to "Mort Hooks" which allows for a continuous jump via pressing the attack button on said hooks.
- Weenie Mount (Fast Food Saloon) - Now a transformation but a ridable hotdog Peppino can use to crash through walls and gains momentum really fast, the caviot is Weenie can't jump, the moment you jump, Peppino dismounts.
-Revolver (The Vigilante Boss) - Vigilante acts like a respectable cowboy, and he want's to make the fight fair, so he gives you a revolver to use in the fight.
-Barrel (Crust Cove) - Peppino get's shoved into a barrel and he can traverse to different areas in a rolling motion, but also in an arc motion depending on where he's rolling the area rolls into a verticle incline/ramp.
- Gustavo and Brick Hour! (Gnome Forest and Pig City) - Gustavo is Peppinos friend who followed him into the tower but who gets into shenanigans with a giant rat, later called Brick who he befriends. During the levels they feature in, Gustavo and Brick traverse the rest of the levels while leaving Peppino to sleep. Gustavo uses Brick as a horse/mount animal and he can use Brick by kicking him towards enemies, leaving him without Brick to run for a limited time, however Gustavo has the same run ability as Peppino, but isn't as fast, later Brick returns and the levels carry on. Usually requiring you to find 1 or 2 of the 5 missing toppings within their respective areas of the levels they're in, however you never finish a level as them as you always switch back to Peppino by the end.
-Rocket (Deep Dish 9) - Peppino gets on a rocket and controls it to get to long areas, where if close to a platform, Peppino can turn the rocket to switch directions, this is mostly just used for 1 of the 3 Secret areas in each levels.
-Greaseball (GOLF)- He's the owner of the restaurant and allows patrons to essentially play golf by having him as the ball. As you hit him, the counter increases for the amount of hits he takes, the less/limited there is the better, as it opens up areas and access to some of the 5 toppings and Gerome the Janitor who opens doors to Secret Food Treasure.
- Grind Rails (Pig City) - Allows for Peppino to grind
- Taxi (Pig City) - takes Peppinos to different map areas
- Pizza Box (Peppibot Factory) - Turns Peppino into a Pizza Box that allows him to attack and jump flap.
- Cheese Ball/Sticky Cheese (OH SHIT!)- Cheese Ball puts Peppino in a ball of cheese that rolls and smashes against destructible walls, and later leaves him cover in sticky cheese. The Sticky cheese limits movement, but allows for Peppino to stick to walls.
Pepper Pizza (Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator): Turns Peppino into a hot spicy red Peppino who has a burning ball spin jump who can cause damage and melt the ice around areas with Ice to reach secret areas, toppings, and Gerome.
- Shotgun (Don't Make a Sound) - Give's Peppino a Shotgun to fend off against the animatronics attempting to jumpscare him. It kills them instantly but it's towards the end of the level.
- War Terminal (WAR) - Computer Terminal which increases the time in the level "WAR". The entire level acts like "The Pizza Time" end portions where you run as fast to the end, same thing here except the terminals add time so you don't blow up and have to restart the level.
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Each level has there unique items, structures, amazing music, and requirements:
In terms of requirements you need to collect 5 toppings throughout the level:
1. Sausage Toppins
2. Cheese Toppins
3. Mushroom Toppins
4. Tomato Toppins
5. Pineapple Toppins (wears cool sunglasses)
You also can find 3 secret hidden bonus stages within each levels within hidden eyeballs through the levels. Each of them give you a higher score towards your rank.
Another requirement is finding Gerome the Janitor so he can open the Secret Food Treasure room (Which is required if you want the true ending) all levels contain these secret treasure rooms, except bosses.
There's a bonus requirement where you have to avoid killing the green cheese Snotty in the 4th area of the tower, however it's HIGHLY LIKELY you'll kill him on accident. If you don't you get a "SNOTTY APPROVE" badge after you complete the game.
A big thing you have to also keep in mind is maintaining a combo streak for more points, as the more points you get the faster you are to rank up.
Ranks include (For Both regular stages and bosses):
D - Awful (Regular Stage: You just ran through the level and didn't care to grab anything; Boss stage: You got hit too much and lost too many lives)
C - Bad (Regular Stage: You collected a single item, probably maintained very short combo, and thats it; Boss Stage: you got hit about 3 times but remained with 3 lives)
B - Ok (Regular Stage: You didn't care to maintain a combo, but collected some of the items; Boss: you got hit 2 times and ended up with 4 lives left)
A - Nice (Regular Stage: Rank you can get by getting a combo chain, but not necessarily requiring all items to be obtained; You got hit twice but recovered with hats)
S - Excellent (Regular Stage: Highest Rank Obtained without all items collected; Boss: you probably did get hit once, but recovered a hat and never got hit again)
P- Perfect! (Regular Stage: You got an excellent change of a combo throughout the ENTIRE STAGE, you collected all 5 Toppins, Gerome and the Secret Treasure, and went to all 3 Secret Areas while maintaining said combo. You also did a second lap of the "PIZZA TIME" segment for levels with lap 2; Boss stage: You never got a hit a single time, and only collected bonus hats dropped to increase your rank and made sure to defeat all bosses without getting hit once)
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
The games bosses are all unique:
1. Pepperman - Narcissistic Artist Pepper
2. The Vigilante - Looks like a cheese slime wearing a cowboy hat, and holds a revolver but is honorable and fair. Phase 1 has you firing and avoiding shots from him while he jumps, boots slides, and uses cowboy cutouts to attack you. Phase 2 is more of the same except the sun sets and everything is black with an orange background making it harder to see and everything gets more hectic but attacks remain the same just at a faster pace. The end of the fight has you doing a final duel where you and Vigilante face eachother for a final draw.
3. The Noise - The Noid of Pizza Tower, in his fight on his stage during Phase 1 when he's on camera, he's playful. When Phase 2 Starts he unleashes more deadly weapons on Peppino.
Fun fact, at the start of the fight, there's a milisecond interval where you can damage the Noise, giving the speculation that as soon as Peppino sees the Noise he just wants to kill him.
4. Fake Peppino - A distrubing/joke character who makes fun of the corrupt/exe versions of characters, who has an overall disturbing aura around him. He looks like a taller more saggy version of Peppino with a weird smile. He uses Peppinos attacks somewhat and his music is the PIZZA TIME theme but messed up and distorted.
Phase 1 of Fake Peppino has him running around walls, throwing his head revealing a brain with eyes, and spawning more fake Peppinos to disorient you.
Phase 2 is unique since it happens immediately with no zoom in on Peppino punching fake Peppino. The area of the copycat restaurant loses it vail of similarity and reveals a disturbing, corrupt, and distorted restaurant, where fake Peppino is more violent, hectic, and fast.
There's a final Phase where all you need to do is escape Fake Peppino who's reveal his more deranged and messed up form. You don't actually defeat him, you escape him. When you escape you notice that the restaurant you were in is a rundown destroyed restaurant with the name BRUNOS PIZZA at the top.
Making many people theorize that fake Peppino is actually a Bruno, a previous victim of PizzaFace/Pizzahead who was transformed into a mimic grotesque Peppino.
5. Pizza Face/Pizza Head- Phase 1 starts with pizza head launch enemies, requiring you to throw enemies at him to hurt him, this phase is really easy.
Phase 2 is when the facade of Pizzaface is revealed and that Pizza face is just a mech used by Pizzaface, a Clown Pizza who wants to destroy Peppinos restaurant for giggles. This fight gives you a revolver again and has you fighting Pizza head by shooting at him while Pizza head uses wacky moves and attacks to cause damage to Peppino.
Phase 3 is gauntlet of previous bosses: Pepperman, The Vigilante, The Noise, and Fake Peppino, except here Peppino is angry and he wrecks all 4 previous bosses as soon as the attack option appears.
The final Phase has you doing the same to Pizza Head, only for Peppino to grab is head and smash it against the top of the tower defeating him once and for all (Maybe)
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The final part of the game has you running through all 5 parts of the tower running as fast as possible before the tower collapses, throughout the way you collect characters like Gustavo, Mort, previous bosses, etc. all before the tower collapses.
As the game ends Peppino (if all treasures have been collected) uses the treasures to revive John Gutter. The gam ends with enemies running away from the rubble of the destroyed Tower, and shows image stills of Peppino, Gustavo, Brick, and some of the bosses and enemies interacting. A very funny/eerie one where both Peppino and Fake Peppino are taking out the trash at the same time.
The game ends with Peppino enjoying a fruitful successful business full of patrons that are enemies from the stages with Gustavo, Brick, Pepperman, The Vigilante, The Noise and Noisette, and Fake Peppino all located within the photo. You also can notice that Pizzahead is there hidden in a detective coat concealing his identity so he won't get spotted.
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And that's Pizza tower!
There are a bunch of trophies to collect for different requirements along with different chef outfits (pallet swap colors) for Peppino to collect via certain requirements fufilled through the game. The games OST is full of amazing, catchy tracks worth listening to, my favorites being:
1. Oregano Mirage (Oregano Desert)
2. Tombstone Arizona (Wasteyard)
3. Yeehaw Deliveryboy (FastFood Saloon)
4. Tropical Crust (Crust Cove)
5. Cold Sphaghetti (Pizzascape Part B)
6. Way of the Pig (Pig City Part B with Gustavo and Brick)
7. On the Rocks (Satan's Choice Pizza in Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator)
8. Calzonification (The Vigilante's Theme)
9. PIZZA TIME NEVER ENDS! (Fake Peppino's Theme)
10. UNEXPECTANCY! PARTS 1-3 (FINAL BOSS THEME)
This game is such a unique and beautiful game to experience that has so much passion and soul and reaffirms the belief that if TRIPLE AAA companies can no longer make full, fun meaningful games like this, there's always indie developers who will!
Mamma mia! I highly urge all of you of getting a slice of Pizza Tower! It deserves the 5 stars!
The games story is very simple, Pizzaface has sent over a message to Peppino (Owner of Peppino's Pizza), and has threaten him by saying that in his tower there is a laser that is pointed directly at Peppino's Pizzeria and that if he doesn't come to the tower and attempt to stop him, he will destroy his restaurant. Peppino goes crazy and runs directly towards the tower.
The tower itself is split between 5 different areas labeled with different names, and have music that are named under different days of the week in terms of week days, each containing 4 levels per stage, and 1 boss:
1. Tower Lobby (Monday): John Gutter, Pizzascape, Ancient Cheese, Bloodsauce Dungeon.
Boss - Pepperman
2. Western District (Tuesday) - Oregano Desert, Wasteyard, Fun Farm ft Mort the Chicken, Fast Food Saloon
Boss: The Vigilante
3. Vacation Resort (Wednesday): Crusty Cove, Gnome Forest, Deep-Dish 9, Golf
Boss: The Noise
4. Slim (Thursday) - The Pig City, Peppibot Factory, OH SHIT!, Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator
5. Staff Only (Friday) - Pizza Scare, Don't Make a Sound, WAR
Final Boss: Pizzaface/Pizza Head
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
The gameplay is very simple where you play as Peppino who has a boost charge that gets faster the more open area you're able to run through without colliding, gaining speed in terms of momentum. The game has Peppino obtain different power ups per level which use different abilities pertaining to said levels:
- Knight Armor (PizzaScape)- Allows for sliding via ramps but limits Peppinos jump and he can attack with it
- Bombs (Ancient Cheese) - Blows up enemies and certain destructible objects
-Fire Mouth (Oregano Desert) - When Peppino Eats this hot wing his mouth goes on fire allowing him to blow up TNT blocks by touching them and kills enemies, it also makes him faster but harder to control.
-Ghost Pepper (Wasteyard) - Turns Peppino into a ghost that allows him to phase through certain walls and dash through floating blocks. Controls feel a bit floaty, and while difficult to control at first, later becomes fun to use for it's limited time actually used.
-Mort the Chicken (Fun Farm) - Weird crossover with a generic 3D chicken character, Mort. Who has the ability to hook on to "Mort Hooks" which allows for a continuous jump via pressing the attack button on said hooks.
- Weenie Mount (Fast Food Saloon) - Now a transformation but a ridable hotdog Peppino can use to crash through walls and gains momentum really fast, the caviot is Weenie can't jump, the moment you jump, Peppino dismounts.
-Revolver (The Vigilante Boss) - Vigilante acts like a respectable cowboy, and he want's to make the fight fair, so he gives you a revolver to use in the fight.
-Barrel (Crust Cove) - Peppino get's shoved into a barrel and he can traverse to different areas in a rolling motion, but also in an arc motion depending on where he's rolling the area rolls into a verticle incline/ramp.
- Gustavo and Brick Hour! (Gnome Forest and Pig City) - Gustavo is Peppinos friend who followed him into the tower but who gets into shenanigans with a giant rat, later called Brick who he befriends. During the levels they feature in, Gustavo and Brick traverse the rest of the levels while leaving Peppino to sleep. Gustavo uses Brick as a horse/mount animal and he can use Brick by kicking him towards enemies, leaving him without Brick to run for a limited time, however Gustavo has the same run ability as Peppino, but isn't as fast, later Brick returns and the levels carry on. Usually requiring you to find 1 or 2 of the 5 missing toppings within their respective areas of the levels they're in, however you never finish a level as them as you always switch back to Peppino by the end.
-Rocket (Deep Dish 9) - Peppino gets on a rocket and controls it to get to long areas, where if close to a platform, Peppino can turn the rocket to switch directions, this is mostly just used for 1 of the 3 Secret areas in each levels.
-Greaseball (GOLF)- He's the owner of the restaurant and allows patrons to essentially play golf by having him as the ball. As you hit him, the counter increases for the amount of hits he takes, the less/limited there is the better, as it opens up areas and access to some of the 5 toppings and Gerome the Janitor who opens doors to Secret Food Treasure.
- Grind Rails (Pig City) - Allows for Peppino to grind
- Taxi (Pig City) - takes Peppinos to different map areas
- Pizza Box (Peppibot Factory) - Turns Peppino into a Pizza Box that allows him to attack and jump flap.
- Cheese Ball/Sticky Cheese (OH SHIT!)- Cheese Ball puts Peppino in a ball of cheese that rolls and smashes against destructible walls, and later leaves him cover in sticky cheese. The Sticky cheese limits movement, but allows for Peppino to stick to walls.
Pepper Pizza (Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator): Turns Peppino into a hot spicy red Peppino who has a burning ball spin jump who can cause damage and melt the ice around areas with Ice to reach secret areas, toppings, and Gerome.
- Shotgun (Don't Make a Sound) - Give's Peppino a Shotgun to fend off against the animatronics attempting to jumpscare him. It kills them instantly but it's towards the end of the level.
- War Terminal (WAR) - Computer Terminal which increases the time in the level "WAR". The entire level acts like "The Pizza Time" end portions where you run as fast to the end, same thing here except the terminals add time so you don't blow up and have to restart the level.
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Each level has there unique items, structures, amazing music, and requirements:
In terms of requirements you need to collect 5 toppings throughout the level:
1. Sausage Toppins
2. Cheese Toppins
3. Mushroom Toppins
4. Tomato Toppins
5. Pineapple Toppins (wears cool sunglasses)
You also can find 3 secret hidden bonus stages within each levels within hidden eyeballs through the levels. Each of them give you a higher score towards your rank.
Another requirement is finding Gerome the Janitor so he can open the Secret Food Treasure room (Which is required if you want the true ending) all levels contain these secret treasure rooms, except bosses.
There's a bonus requirement where you have to avoid killing the green cheese Snotty in the 4th area of the tower, however it's HIGHLY LIKELY you'll kill him on accident. If you don't you get a "SNOTTY APPROVE" badge after you complete the game.
A big thing you have to also keep in mind is maintaining a combo streak for more points, as the more points you get the faster you are to rank up.
Ranks include (For Both regular stages and bosses):
D - Awful (Regular Stage: You just ran through the level and didn't care to grab anything; Boss stage: You got hit too much and lost too many lives)
C - Bad (Regular Stage: You collected a single item, probably maintained very short combo, and thats it; Boss Stage: you got hit about 3 times but remained with 3 lives)
B - Ok (Regular Stage: You didn't care to maintain a combo, but collected some of the items; Boss: you got hit 2 times and ended up with 4 lives left)
A - Nice (Regular Stage: Rank you can get by getting a combo chain, but not necessarily requiring all items to be obtained; You got hit twice but recovered with hats)
S - Excellent (Regular Stage: Highest Rank Obtained without all items collected; Boss: you probably did get hit once, but recovered a hat and never got hit again)
P- Perfect! (Regular Stage: You got an excellent change of a combo throughout the ENTIRE STAGE, you collected all 5 Toppins, Gerome and the Secret Treasure, and went to all 3 Secret Areas while maintaining said combo. You also did a second lap of the "PIZZA TIME" segment for levels with lap 2; Boss stage: You never got a hit a single time, and only collected bonus hats dropped to increase your rank and made sure to defeat all bosses without getting hit once)
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
The games bosses are all unique:
1. Pepperman - Narcissistic Artist Pepper
2. The Vigilante - Looks like a cheese slime wearing a cowboy hat, and holds a revolver but is honorable and fair. Phase 1 has you firing and avoiding shots from him while he jumps, boots slides, and uses cowboy cutouts to attack you. Phase 2 is more of the same except the sun sets and everything is black with an orange background making it harder to see and everything gets more hectic but attacks remain the same just at a faster pace. The end of the fight has you doing a final duel where you and Vigilante face eachother for a final draw.
3. The Noise - The Noid of Pizza Tower, in his fight on his stage during Phase 1 when he's on camera, he's playful. When Phase 2 Starts he unleashes more deadly weapons on Peppino.
Fun fact, at the start of the fight, there's a milisecond interval where you can damage the Noise, giving the speculation that as soon as Peppino sees the Noise he just wants to kill him.
4. Fake Peppino - A distrubing/joke character who makes fun of the corrupt/exe versions of characters, who has an overall disturbing aura around him. He looks like a taller more saggy version of Peppino with a weird smile. He uses Peppinos attacks somewhat and his music is the PIZZA TIME theme but messed up and distorted.
Phase 1 of Fake Peppino has him running around walls, throwing his head revealing a brain with eyes, and spawning more fake Peppinos to disorient you.
Phase 2 is unique since it happens immediately with no zoom in on Peppino punching fake Peppino. The area of the copycat restaurant loses it vail of similarity and reveals a disturbing, corrupt, and distorted restaurant, where fake Peppino is more violent, hectic, and fast.
There's a final Phase where all you need to do is escape Fake Peppino who's reveal his more deranged and messed up form. You don't actually defeat him, you escape him. When you escape you notice that the restaurant you were in is a rundown destroyed restaurant with the name BRUNOS PIZZA at the top.
Making many people theorize that fake Peppino is actually a Bruno, a previous victim of PizzaFace/Pizzahead who was transformed into a mimic grotesque Peppino.
5. Pizza Face/Pizza Head- Phase 1 starts with pizza head launch enemies, requiring you to throw enemies at him to hurt him, this phase is really easy.
Phase 2 is when the facade of Pizzaface is revealed and that Pizza face is just a mech used by Pizzaface, a Clown Pizza who wants to destroy Peppinos restaurant for giggles. This fight gives you a revolver again and has you fighting Pizza head by shooting at him while Pizza head uses wacky moves and attacks to cause damage to Peppino.
Phase 3 is gauntlet of previous bosses: Pepperman, The Vigilante, The Noise, and Fake Peppino, except here Peppino is angry and he wrecks all 4 previous bosses as soon as the attack option appears.
The final Phase has you doing the same to Pizza Head, only for Peppino to grab is head and smash it against the top of the tower defeating him once and for all (Maybe)
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The final part of the game has you running through all 5 parts of the tower running as fast as possible before the tower collapses, throughout the way you collect characters like Gustavo, Mort, previous bosses, etc. all before the tower collapses.
As the game ends Peppino (if all treasures have been collected) uses the treasures to revive John Gutter. The gam ends with enemies running away from the rubble of the destroyed Tower, and shows image stills of Peppino, Gustavo, Brick, and some of the bosses and enemies interacting. A very funny/eerie one where both Peppino and Fake Peppino are taking out the trash at the same time.
The game ends with Peppino enjoying a fruitful successful business full of patrons that are enemies from the stages with Gustavo, Brick, Pepperman, The Vigilante, The Noise and Noisette, and Fake Peppino all located within the photo. You also can notice that Pizzahead is there hidden in a detective coat concealing his identity so he won't get spotted.
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And that's Pizza tower!
There are a bunch of trophies to collect for different requirements along with different chef outfits (pallet swap colors) for Peppino to collect via certain requirements fufilled through the game. The games OST is full of amazing, catchy tracks worth listening to, my favorites being:
1. Oregano Mirage (Oregano Desert)
2. Tombstone Arizona (Wasteyard)
3. Yeehaw Deliveryboy (FastFood Saloon)
4. Tropical Crust (Crust Cove)
5. Cold Sphaghetti (Pizzascape Part B)
6. Way of the Pig (Pig City Part B with Gustavo and Brick)
7. On the Rocks (Satan's Choice Pizza in Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator)
8. Calzonification (The Vigilante's Theme)
9. PIZZA TIME NEVER ENDS! (Fake Peppino's Theme)
10. UNEXPECTANCY! PARTS 1-3 (FINAL BOSS THEME)
This game is such a unique and beautiful game to experience that has so much passion and soul and reaffirms the belief that if TRIPLE AAA companies can no longer make full, fun meaningful games like this, there's always indie developers who will!
Mamma mia! I highly urge all of you of getting a slice of Pizza Tower! It deserves the 5 stars!
1995
Jack Bros is a unique SMT game where you play as 3 Jack demons who traverse through 7 different dungeons to return back to their homes.
The game is very simple requiring you to collect key and defeat other demons while keeping track of time. The 3d aspect comes from the top down perspective as you job is to get lower into each of the levels to get to the very bottom to face against a boss that are huge versions of iconic SMT DEMONS.
With the final boss being Beelzebub (Both his human and true form).
The gameplay differs depending on the character you choose:
1. Jack Ripper - Uses a Scythe and does the most damage out of all jacks and is the fastest however can't attack long range.
2. Pyro Jack- uses flames and is face and has long ranged/ranged attacks with his fire that does normal damage.
3. Jack Frost (SMT MASCOT)- uses snow balls to attack at a long range and quick succession however does the least amount of damage and is essentially the hard mode of the game.
4. Pixie (Cheat Code Character)- Does high damage and is fast, she is only accessible through Cheat Codes and does not have her own unique ending.
The game has unique endings for all 3 Jacks, each that are comedic, and abrupt. The game ends with a roll call of all Demons as the game ends.
The game is a very unique and enjoyable time to play through that I would highly recommend emulating via RETROARCH
The game is very simple requiring you to collect key and defeat other demons while keeping track of time. The 3d aspect comes from the top down perspective as you job is to get lower into each of the levels to get to the very bottom to face against a boss that are huge versions of iconic SMT DEMONS.
With the final boss being Beelzebub (Both his human and true form).
The gameplay differs depending on the character you choose:
1. Jack Ripper - Uses a Scythe and does the most damage out of all jacks and is the fastest however can't attack long range.
2. Pyro Jack- uses flames and is face and has long ranged/ranged attacks with his fire that does normal damage.
3. Jack Frost (SMT MASCOT)- uses snow balls to attack at a long range and quick succession however does the least amount of damage and is essentially the hard mode of the game.
4. Pixie (Cheat Code Character)- Does high damage and is fast, she is only accessible through Cheat Codes and does not have her own unique ending.
The game has unique endings for all 3 Jacks, each that are comedic, and abrupt. The game ends with a roll call of all Demons as the game ends.
The game is a very unique and enjoyable time to play through that I would highly recommend emulating via RETROARCH