Hejin
2002
I've had this on my to-do list for some time now, i remember this coming out and being sort of fascinated by it. I was heavily into Koei's warrior series stuff, and to see them branch out as many companies did in the 6th gen, and do something different was exciting, and a Sci-Fi warriors type game seemed like such a interesting route to take.
Here I am, years later finally having played probably over half of it, and i have to say, it's a disappointment.
I'll start with the positives however, it looks very good for a game from this era, and aesthetically it's pretty interesting to look at most of the time. The music is decent, it's a mix of grand orchestral stuff, with some nice Sci Fi techno ambience, the main hub ship you select missions etc from has some nice vibes.
Now for the less good.
Gameplay wise, the premise is distinct enough from a warriors title, while it does have masses of enemies, and has a graphical look and feel most koei players will know immediately, it attempts to separate itself out, with varied objectives and missions. However, while trying to do a bit of koei warrior stuff, and a bit of sci-fi mission stuff, it ends up messing up both.
The koei warrior stuff, doesn't have enough depth, your melee attacks only hit up to 4 times, and there's no heavy/weak combos or anything, you have one string of hits to use, over and over. And with this being a sci fi, you have guns to use also. However in practice it turns into you standing still, holding the shoot button down, spraying bullets for about 10 minutes at 300 tiny bugs without any real variation. It's extremely monotonous.
The mission based elements take a weird control scheme (more on that later) that's designed for killing 100s of bugs, and try to have you complete very specific tasks that it's simply not designed for. Namely; physically running into the backside of a NPC to push them around through obstacles and platforming bits, and picking out hidden enemies disguised as NPCs among crowds of other NPCs. The second example being funniest, as can you imagine playing dynasty warriors and trying to kill one specific troop out of a crowd of like 40, without hurting anyone else?
Control wise, this game decides to screw with a control layout that koei very much had pinned down at this point, i can't believe i'm actually saying this, as i personally hate this line of criticism, but this has terrible tank controls.
Even once you've got used to them, which really doesn't take too long, you immediately start seeing issues, the game throws piles upon piles of enemies on you, that all move way too fast, and vary in importance when deciding who or what to kill. Unfortunately you can't really target specific enemies, or lock on, the game just sort of does it for you, and at times you want to shoot some giant boss thing, and instead end up shooting pointless filler enemies you don't care about. You can manually aim, but the little enemies interrupt it simply by touching you. There's no block button, and everything feels stiff, you have to finish specific animations before you can begin a new one, there's a dash button, and a jump button, and in most games, you would use the two together for fast jumps, etc. Here that's not allowed, you do one, or the other.
The story shows some promise, there's an attempt at building a world, there's databases, and fluff to read. But it's held back by a terrible script or at least a terrible translation (which was common back then.). Characters say some extremely laughable weird stuff, voices and animations often just don't really match the general design of the characters themselves. It's very funny having the main character with his pretty-j-rock hair-do loudly asking if he's a monster in his goofy baggy pants, all with a voice that just really doesn't sound right for him. Ultimately, what promise the story has just crumbles over how it's delivered, turns out you can't have the cast of DW3 deliver space opera dialogue effectively.
Overall, do i recommend this? I don't know. I found myself oddly drawn to stick with it for some time, even after most of these issues rose. There's a charm here, and it does move pretty fast and respects your time. However, the little things that annoy you early on, become much bigger things later.
Have a look if you want to see koei do Sci Fi, or don't, if you don't want to shoot 375 million tiny bugs for 7 hours.
Here I am, years later finally having played probably over half of it, and i have to say, it's a disappointment.
I'll start with the positives however, it looks very good for a game from this era, and aesthetically it's pretty interesting to look at most of the time. The music is decent, it's a mix of grand orchestral stuff, with some nice Sci Fi techno ambience, the main hub ship you select missions etc from has some nice vibes.
Now for the less good.
Gameplay wise, the premise is distinct enough from a warriors title, while it does have masses of enemies, and has a graphical look and feel most koei players will know immediately, it attempts to separate itself out, with varied objectives and missions. However, while trying to do a bit of koei warrior stuff, and a bit of sci-fi mission stuff, it ends up messing up both.
The koei warrior stuff, doesn't have enough depth, your melee attacks only hit up to 4 times, and there's no heavy/weak combos or anything, you have one string of hits to use, over and over. And with this being a sci fi, you have guns to use also. However in practice it turns into you standing still, holding the shoot button down, spraying bullets for about 10 minutes at 300 tiny bugs without any real variation. It's extremely monotonous.
The mission based elements take a weird control scheme (more on that later) that's designed for killing 100s of bugs, and try to have you complete very specific tasks that it's simply not designed for. Namely; physically running into the backside of a NPC to push them around through obstacles and platforming bits, and picking out hidden enemies disguised as NPCs among crowds of other NPCs. The second example being funniest, as can you imagine playing dynasty warriors and trying to kill one specific troop out of a crowd of like 40, without hurting anyone else?
Control wise, this game decides to screw with a control layout that koei very much had pinned down at this point, i can't believe i'm actually saying this, as i personally hate this line of criticism, but this has terrible tank controls.
Even once you've got used to them, which really doesn't take too long, you immediately start seeing issues, the game throws piles upon piles of enemies on you, that all move way too fast, and vary in importance when deciding who or what to kill. Unfortunately you can't really target specific enemies, or lock on, the game just sort of does it for you, and at times you want to shoot some giant boss thing, and instead end up shooting pointless filler enemies you don't care about. You can manually aim, but the little enemies interrupt it simply by touching you. There's no block button, and everything feels stiff, you have to finish specific animations before you can begin a new one, there's a dash button, and a jump button, and in most games, you would use the two together for fast jumps, etc. Here that's not allowed, you do one, or the other.
The story shows some promise, there's an attempt at building a world, there's databases, and fluff to read. But it's held back by a terrible script or at least a terrible translation (which was common back then.). Characters say some extremely laughable weird stuff, voices and animations often just don't really match the general design of the characters themselves. It's very funny having the main character with his pretty-j-rock hair-do loudly asking if he's a monster in his goofy baggy pants, all with a voice that just really doesn't sound right for him. Ultimately, what promise the story has just crumbles over how it's delivered, turns out you can't have the cast of DW3 deliver space opera dialogue effectively.
Overall, do i recommend this? I don't know. I found myself oddly drawn to stick with it for some time, even after most of these issues rose. There's a charm here, and it does move pretty fast and respects your time. However, the little things that annoy you early on, become much bigger things later.
Have a look if you want to see koei do Sci Fi, or don't, if you don't want to shoot 375 million tiny bugs for 7 hours.
Last time i played this was when it came out, and now I've finally beat it. It only took me 20 years.
I really liked this one more than i expected, i had vague memories of it all being a bit silly, Jean Reno and Samurai running around in 2004 france.
But honestly it all works pretty well, the move away from pre-rendered backgrounds turned out nice, and the new Jaques gameplay is actually pretty fun, to the point that i preferred it.
I also liked the fact that Sammy the Samurai got the more horror-type stages, which felt like a nice throw back to his roots. The Sewer level was straight outta RE.
My only main complaint was the zoo section with the french lady. The lock on is borked, as it keeps targetting the shitty little bird things rather than the big giant monster things, which annoyed the hell out of me.
Plus points for Guildenstern calling Sammy on a mobile phone.
I really liked this one more than i expected, i had vague memories of it all being a bit silly, Jean Reno and Samurai running around in 2004 france.
But honestly it all works pretty well, the move away from pre-rendered backgrounds turned out nice, and the new Jaques gameplay is actually pretty fun, to the point that i preferred it.
I also liked the fact that Sammy the Samurai got the more horror-type stages, which felt like a nice throw back to his roots. The Sewer level was straight outta RE.
My only main complaint was the zoo section with the french lady. The lock on is borked, as it keeps targetting the shitty little bird things rather than the big giant monster things, which annoyed the hell out of me.
Plus points for Guildenstern calling Sammy on a mobile phone.
I've not completed this, so I'll reserve judgement on the game as a whole, but holy hell is the intro to this game far too long. There are a LOT of cutscenes to get through before you get into the game.
2005
My copy of this stinks of cigarette smoke. Otherwise, it's pretty good.
The cheats on this were pretty funny. There was a Halloween mode that turned all the pedestrians into skeletons, and the marker above cars into a ghost.
2002
A mix of fire emblem style battles meets some very light turn based map stuff. It's really not bad at all, it looks good, nice soundtrack, attacks and tactics look cool and feel impactful. There's a vs mode that's actually really fun.
But the main feature is it's story mode, featuring 3 campaigns, all of which have multiple paths where you can follow history, or stray from it.
Koei has a reputation for cutting corners, but i genuinely think this is one of their better titles, there was love put into this.
But the main feature is it's story mode, featuring 3 campaigns, all of which have multiple paths where you can follow history, or stray from it.
Koei has a reputation for cutting corners, but i genuinely think this is one of their better titles, there was love put into this.
2000
The era of japanese made wwf/wwe games was superior to everything we have now.
I hate the modern age of wrestling games, the simulation era. I want something that isn't ashamed of being a game.
Between the early smackdown games, and the AKI n64 ones, we were spoilt. Good gameplay, good rosters, jammin' original soundtracks.
I hate the modern age of wrestling games, the simulation era. I want something that isn't ashamed of being a game.
Between the early smackdown games, and the AKI n64 ones, we were spoilt. Good gameplay, good rosters, jammin' original soundtracks.
2001
By far my favourite Gta game. There's something really cool to me about the way liberty city looks in this, it really screams 90s trip hop vibes to me, like, grey/bluey grim city scapes.
That intro theme is fantastic too, there's just such a good atmosphere that feels very in-universe rather than heavy use of licensed stuff.
Obviously the combat leaves much to be desired, even back when this came out, there's an awkwardness to fights, especially with multiple enemies. The driving is 10/10 though, i could drive around listening to that radio for hours.
That intro theme is fantastic too, there's just such a good atmosphere that feels very in-universe rather than heavy use of licensed stuff.
Obviously the combat leaves much to be desired, even back when this came out, there's an awkwardness to fights, especially with multiple enemies. The driving is 10/10 though, i could drive around listening to that radio for hours.
2005
The 6th gen was so damn good, games companies could take random chances on weird ideas. We got 3 tekken games on the ps2, and Namco just randomly drops a single player nina williams game on the fly.
These days we're lucky if we get more than 1 tekken game per decade.
These days we're lucky if we get more than 1 tekken game per decade.
I kinda liked this honestly, the graphics aren't great for the time, but it is a 2000 release. I have a soft spot for these 3rd person action fantasy rpg type games, there were a few in this era, deathtrap dungeon being another.
It has one of those systems where armor/weapons actually get displayed on your character which i like.
It's a touch too difficult, you really seem to burn through health, and the jumping is pretty awkward, mind you there isn't much jumping to do.
It has one of those systems where armor/weapons actually get displayed on your character which i like.
It's a touch too difficult, you really seem to burn through health, and the jumping is pretty awkward, mind you there isn't much jumping to do.
2003
Truly quite awful. I've heard the gamecube version is a bit better, but it can't redeem it that much.
If you were charting Sonic's decline, i think this is where things run into trouble. Don't get me wrong, the 3D era on the whole is controversial, but here is where there's no doubt.
Starting with positives, the general vibe and soundtrack here is good. I'll give it that. It's upbeat, and simple.
The rest though? Really quite bad. We've now went from SA1's 6.5 characters/story modes, to SA2's 2 story modes, with 3 characters/modes. And finally we bottom out at Sonic Heroes, with 1 character/mode, and 5 stories.
Yes, technically this has the most playable sonic characters, but they aren't individuals, they're a weird chimera that function as one whole moving object with the same set abilities. Each team function similarly, and all reuse the same levels.
Gameplay is a glitch ridden, herky jerky muddle, where you catch on walls every five seconds, fight enemies that now have health bars that slow progress to a crawl and listen to tails saying the same line over and over. I fell through the floor on two seperate occasions.
People seem pretty wrapped up in nostalgia for this one, I'd reccomend revisting it to dispell any illusions.
If you were charting Sonic's decline, i think this is where things run into trouble. Don't get me wrong, the 3D era on the whole is controversial, but here is where there's no doubt.
Starting with positives, the general vibe and soundtrack here is good. I'll give it that. It's upbeat, and simple.
The rest though? Really quite bad. We've now went from SA1's 6.5 characters/story modes, to SA2's 2 story modes, with 3 characters/modes. And finally we bottom out at Sonic Heroes, with 1 character/mode, and 5 stories.
Yes, technically this has the most playable sonic characters, but they aren't individuals, they're a weird chimera that function as one whole moving object with the same set abilities. Each team function similarly, and all reuse the same levels.
Gameplay is a glitch ridden, herky jerky muddle, where you catch on walls every five seconds, fight enemies that now have health bars that slow progress to a crawl and listen to tails saying the same line over and over. I fell through the floor on two seperate occasions.
People seem pretty wrapped up in nostalgia for this one, I'd reccomend revisting it to dispell any illusions.
1997
One of games me and my brother got with our PS1. Made by the same guys as Ride To Hell Retribution.
Somewhat passable little racing game on the surface, but it's let down by various things.
It looks sort of ugly, especially compared the micro machines games that were it's contemporaries.
It plays weird, it's hard to explain, cars are very slippy and the AI ranges from perfect, to getting stuck on terrain. There's hazards that are very luck based too which doesn't help.
The main menu is a war crime, it made no sense to me as a kid, the way you pick what type of race, or what car was extremely unintuitive.
The soundtrack on the flipside, is pretty good.
Don't hate it, full of nostalgia, but it aint good.
Somewhat passable little racing game on the surface, but it's let down by various things.
It looks sort of ugly, especially compared the micro machines games that were it's contemporaries.
It plays weird, it's hard to explain, cars are very slippy and the AI ranges from perfect, to getting stuck on terrain. There's hazards that are very luck based too which doesn't help.
The main menu is a war crime, it made no sense to me as a kid, the way you pick what type of race, or what car was extremely unintuitive.
The soundtrack on the flipside, is pretty good.
Don't hate it, full of nostalgia, but it aint good.
2001
It's difficult to choose between this and 5 for the best DW game, but very easy for me choose when it comes to personal fave.
This one strikes i think the best balance in terms of difficulty, gameplay, visual style out of all the DW games.
DW2 gave us the basic building blocks, but was insanely difficult due to the limtations on your character, no weapons, no items, and your movelist was virtually identical to the foes you faced.
DW3 adds layers onto this, but doesn't crank the difficulty down too much the way that future installments do. This is still a challenging game, but the balance is just right, enemies are capable of all the things you are, but they don't have the extra moves, the fancier weapons or the item loadouts.
All the characters are given their own unique movesets, final weapons, voice overs, and there's 41 characters to play as, and 13 of these are new ones, although they may as well all be new characters considering how basic the 2nd games moveslists were.
OST is one of the best, and is a perfect match for the arcadey action, and really does a great job of matching events in game, and encouraging you on, or demoralising you in the face of a challenge.
The only weaknesses i see, are the voice over, the storytelling, and debateably the fog. Personally, i write off the fog, as it's most likely a limitation of the hardware. As for the story and voice over, it's pretty bad, but it's extremely funny, it's kind of so bad that it almost comes all the way down to being amazing again.
This is the template i hope future warriors titles try for, this gameplay style, take away some of the overt-anime inspirations, ground the designs a little, power up the enemies to be more than filler.
This one strikes i think the best balance in terms of difficulty, gameplay, visual style out of all the DW games.
DW2 gave us the basic building blocks, but was insanely difficult due to the limtations on your character, no weapons, no items, and your movelist was virtually identical to the foes you faced.
DW3 adds layers onto this, but doesn't crank the difficulty down too much the way that future installments do. This is still a challenging game, but the balance is just right, enemies are capable of all the things you are, but they don't have the extra moves, the fancier weapons or the item loadouts.
All the characters are given their own unique movesets, final weapons, voice overs, and there's 41 characters to play as, and 13 of these are new ones, although they may as well all be new characters considering how basic the 2nd games moveslists were.
OST is one of the best, and is a perfect match for the arcadey action, and really does a great job of matching events in game, and encouraging you on, or demoralising you in the face of a challenge.
The only weaknesses i see, are the voice over, the storytelling, and debateably the fog. Personally, i write off the fog, as it's most likely a limitation of the hardware. As for the story and voice over, it's pretty bad, but it's extremely funny, it's kind of so bad that it almost comes all the way down to being amazing again.
This is the template i hope future warriors titles try for, this gameplay style, take away some of the overt-anime inspirations, ground the designs a little, power up the enemies to be more than filler.
2002
A really badly marketed Choro-Q game, the box art makes you think you're gonna be simulating operation desert storm or something.
For those not in the know, choro-Q is sort of japan's version of hotwheels, matchbox or micro machines. And this is one of various games based on it.
The game is extremely light in tone, yes it's about war, and tanks shooting each other, but there's no actual people involved, they're all talking tanks, their turrets even turn to face who they're talking to. The diaglogue reminds me of something like advance wars, enemy generals go 'bummer!' when they lose a battle.
The game looks pretty basic by the standards of the PS2, looks sub-dreamcast-levels at times, but the charm overpowers it, and the gameplay is actually pretty fun. You get to unlock something like 100 different tanks, and customise them, it's a sort of toy-tank-RPG. I do reccomend, as it's very cheap to buy.
For those not in the know, choro-Q is sort of japan's version of hotwheels, matchbox or micro machines. And this is one of various games based on it.
The game is extremely light in tone, yes it's about war, and tanks shooting each other, but there's no actual people involved, they're all talking tanks, their turrets even turn to face who they're talking to. The diaglogue reminds me of something like advance wars, enemy generals go 'bummer!' when they lose a battle.
The game looks pretty basic by the standards of the PS2, looks sub-dreamcast-levels at times, but the charm overpowers it, and the gameplay is actually pretty fun. You get to unlock something like 100 different tanks, and customise them, it's a sort of toy-tank-RPG. I do reccomend, as it's very cheap to buy.
2002
A caRPG
ha ha ha ha....huhhh...
I'll go now.
ha ha ha ha....huhhh...
I'll go now.