Nippon Ichi Software or NIS, the creators of Disgaea and Phantom Brave, released a retro-style RPG for the PlayStation Portable entitled Cladun: This Is An RPG!, will this game be a hit despite having retro-style graphics?
Games and Gadgets for the Geeky Pinoy
Archive for the ‘PSP’ Category
Best in Gaming for 2010
The year 2010 was a blast for gaming, with new console and peripheral announcements such as Miscrosoft Xbox Kinect and the PlayStation Move (which reminds you of a certain console) and the Nintendo 3DS. But let’s not forget the games that made their mark on the year 2010.
So let’s take a look on the games that made on the top list of the best on their respective consoles:
Gametrailers held their annual Game of The Year Awards to grade which games are the top hitters and which are not
DJ Max Portable 3 Review
Pentavision has just released the third incarnation of their popular rhythm game entitled DJ Max Portable 3, the sixth game for the PlayStation Portable. Will this game be a hit to rhythm lovers and long-time DJ Max fans?
Long before DJ Max Technika became a hit in the arcades, there were several versions of DJ Max to the PSP, which became a hit. For those who haven’t tried DJ Max Portable, the gameplay is similar that from Beatmania, only without a turntable. You have to press the corresponding button as notes fall down from the screen, continue timing the press to make a combo, rack enough combos to fill up your meter to unleash fever mode, a special mode where you can multiply your combos, the longer your combos, the higher your score will become. You can also adjust the speed of the notes before and during the game.
The first thing you will notice in DJ max Portable 3 is the new presentation, it makes you feel that it is whole new game, all of the videos are now in HD, giving a more fluid and crispier look.
DJ Max Portable 3 now features a new gameplay called the Remix System, with the Remix System, you now have an additional two side panels on the screen, making it a total of three panels instead of the original of having just one, when notes come out in one the two side panels, you have to push the analog nub to that particular direction, making the game feels like you are actually playing a real DJ turntable.
In addition to the Remix mode, some of the game modes returns to the game, such as the mission mode, where you are given a challenge to complete a certain objective in order to accomplish the mission and unlock a reward such as new tracks, avatars, wallpapers, most of the unlocked contents can be seen in the Lounge mode.
Sadly it only features quite a few songs compared to the previous games, and most of the songs are from the Technika 2 series and others are remixes from older songs. Despite the somewhat small tracklist, it still offers a variety of songs such as House, Techno and Pop.
Another sad part is the tedious grinding in a casual game, it feels like all Korean games are required to be super grindy, and the bad part is that to unlock new contents and songs, you need to level up and to make it worse, when leveling up, you have to pick from 3 boxes to get a random reward, so the chance of getting a new song is pretty slim. It would be better if they retain the Club Mission mode from DJ Max Black Square to lessen the repetitive grinding.
The multiplayer mode was removed, which was a bad move. and there is no online leaderboards to check on your ranking, instead the game will give you a code where you will input it on the DJ Max website, they could have offered an online feature via WiFi to receive song and mission updates similar that to Rock Band Unplugged for longer gameplay times.
Overall, DJ Max Portable 3 would have been a better game it wasn’t for the tedious grinding, and the lack of a multiplayer feature lessens the gameplay time for players. Although the new Remix mode still offers a good amount of entertainment despite with several flaws to the game.
If you are a fan of DJ Max, you might give this a second chance, otherwise if you are looking for a good polished rhythm game, better stick with the older DJ Max games or with Rock Band Unplugged.
Game Rating: 6 out of 10
DJ Max Portable 3 was developed by Pentavision and published by PM Studios
Dissidia 012 Update
After the success of Dissidia Final Fantasy; a fighting game for the PlayStation Portable that pits some of your favorite Final Fantasy heroes and villains in an epic deathmatch. Square Enix was given a green light to produce a sequel to the hit portable game, entitled Dissida 012 (012 is pronounced as Duodecim, a Latin word meaning twelve), the announcement was published on the popular Japanese game magazine Famitsu last September. Although it was already hinted the development team behind Dissidia is also interested in making a sequel.
The story of Dissidia 012 takes place before the events of the first game, making this a prequel. The game will also introduce new characters to add to the original 22 character roster, some say that the additional new characters will roughly around 4-10 characters, as of now, only 4 characters were revealed: Kain Highwind from FFIV, Tifa Lockhart from FFVII, Vaan from FFXII and Lightning from FFXIII. Aside from new characters, there will be new costume sets for each character, some are even from the original works by Yoshitaka Amano. There are plans of including codes to Kindgom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Final Mix and The 3rd Birthday to promote Dissidia 012, these codes gives access to Cloud’s Kingdom Hearts costume and Lightning’s Aya Brea costume.
A new gameplay feature was been added, called the Assist System, this gives you the ability to call out a support character to aid you in battle by inflicting damage to your opponent, but take note that your support character can be countered, making them inaccessible in a short period of time. Performing an Assist requires consumption of one Action Gauge bar for Brave damage and two Action Gauge bars for HP damage. Along with the new feature, new move list is added for the old Dissidia characters, giving you a chance to experiment new combos with your old favorites, as well as new maps and soundtrack.
And it is already reported that the local version of Dissida 012 is already in the works, and it is expected to be release in Q1 of 2011.
While there are still some characters that haven’t been revealed, I will be making a Dissidia 012 wishlist in the coming days to check out which characters do you wish to be included in the sequel (or rather prequel) to Dissidia Final Fantasy, so stay tuned for that…..
sources:
Phantasy Star Portable 2 Review
SEGA has released the sequel of their Sci-Fi themed RPG: Phantasy Star Portable 2, will the sequel surpasses the original and solve some of the major game issues from the original?
Phantasy Star Portable 2 takes place 3 years after the event of Phantasy Star Universe as you start out as the new recruit of Little Wing: a private military group residing on the space colony resort Clad 6, PSP2 offers a whole new storyline and new characters, with guest appearances of characters from Phantasy Star Portable and Phantasy Star Universe (you can also import your character from the first game and also in demo version of PSP2).
Gameplay is still the same from the original with some few changes, you still be able to bring a certain number of weapons during the mission with the inclusion of a new shield weapon. With the shield, you can now block any attacks from enemies, reducing the damage you receive, but reducing your Photon Points (PP) for every successful blocks, performing a perfect block (by blocking any incoming attacks at the right time) let’s you land a critical attack, you can also use the block command with any two-hand and twin melee weapons. Aside from the new block command, the evade command is also new to the sequel; this enables you to dodge any attacks from enemies and also avoiding obstacles, of course at a cost of PPs. The new features makes the game feel like a Monster Hunter game, but in a Sci-Fi setting.
Another change in the game is the replacement of the Photon Charge with Photon Points (PP), instead of having different Photon Charge per weapon (you consume PC whenever you perform a skill attack or a range attack, but PCs gradually regenerate over time, and every weapon have different amount of Photon Charge) you now have a unified Photon Point. Some range weapons now have a charging attack, by holding the charge button, you can shoot a more powerful splash range attack, this is very useful in a crowded area. Also, skills doesn’t level up when you frequently use it, to get higher skill levels, you either buy one in the battle shop or from monster enemy drops.
Aside from some changes to the game, there’re some new additions to it, one of them is the Room customization. You can now roam around your room and add furnitures to it, you can also buy tickets to change you room’s overall appearance. You can now also roam around the Little Wing, the simplified map navigation is now replaced with a fully detailed level of Little Wing. Game difficulty has been increase, now button mashing on bosses will be now difficult as they can deplete half of you life in one swing, a well placed strategy and good teamwork will increase you chances of victory.
Graphics-wise, it is still the same with the original, but with more dungeons, monsters and equipments. some certain short cutscenes now have character artworks to add elements to the storyline. Voice acting is still mediocre, they still retain some music from the original and some new musics to add the intensity of the game.
The controls is still clunky as before, the camera control on the directional button is hard to use especially during a heated battle, the lock-on control can sometimes become clunky at certain times. Character AI has improved a bit but still unreliable even with the new command function, there are still situations where your AI teammates get stuck in a map and will only respawn near you if you progress farther from them.
What excels PSP2 from it’s predecessor is the inclusion of an online multiplayer mode, which the original lacks. You can now play multiplayer mode with other players via the PSN (the Ad-Hoc multiplayer mode is still available) aside from that, you can chat with other players by inputing messages with the virtual keyboard and animated emoticons. With this inclusion, you can now interact with other players from around the globe just like in a typical MMORPG.
There are also promotional items that you can acquire by inputting passwords from the vision phone in your room, some promotional items include weapons, costumes and furnitures based from previous and current SEGA games and also from popular Anime series.
Overall, the game is still feels and plays the same like with the original with some flaws still retains, but with new added contents it manage to increase the playing time, but what makes it better is the addition of the online gameplay, which will ensure more multiplayer action. Fans of JRPGs and Monster Hunter games will surely get this, if you want an RPG with multiplayer co-op features, then grab Phantasy Star Portable 2
Game Rating: 7 out of 10
Phantasy Star Portable 2 is developed and published by SEGA.
Persona 3 Portable Review
Atlus has released the portable version of their 2007 hit RPG Persona 3, now entitled Persona 3 Portable. Will this game become a toned-down budget version of the original, or will it even surpass the original version itself?
The setting is still the same as with the original; it takes place on modern day Japan where you take control of a high school student who’s part of a secret organization called the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad (SEES) where the student involved in the group has the ability to summon the manifestation of their inner self which is called a Persona, they can summon their Persona by shooting a gun-like device called the Evoker into their heads. the SEES investigates the Dark Hour, a time which occurs only during midnight where beings called Shadows appear along with the giant tower called Tartarus where the Shadows reside.
The new addition in P3P is the introduction of a Female protagonist, on the original version, you only control a Male protagonist, now in P3P you get to choose between the two. Choosing the Female protagonist can alter some aspects of the storyline, such as having a different assistant in the Velvet Room and getting different Social Links.
Navigating to the world is now simplified with the exception on the dungeons, players now guide a cursor on the screen to navigate and interact with characters and areas, although this makes moving on different maps and interacting with characters much simpler and faster, it also lessens the feeling of experiencing the whole Persona world. Real-time cutscenes are now replaced with illustrations and character portraits, but they still retain the voice overs during the cutscenes.
The Battle system is still the same with some additions that were borrowed from Persona 3: FES and Persona 4. Gameplay is turn-based, in the original version, only the Protagonist is playable while the other party members are controlled by AI but they can be guided by using the Tactics command, now in the P3P version all members are playable. You can get an extra turn if you managed to land a critical hit or even exploit a weakness on the Shadows, knocking them down, if the whole opposition was knocked down, you can perform an All Out Attack; a special move where all of the party members will attack simultaneously, causing a ton of damage against your enemies.
Social Links is one of the best sellers of the game, during the day, you can interact with characters and make friends with them, creating a Social Link with them, continue interacting with them and your Social Link rank increases, with high ranked Social Links , you’ll be able to create stronger Personas.
And then during at night, at the time of the Dark Hour, you get to explore the giant tower Tartarus, which spans more than 200 floors and is separated with different sections. The maps in every floor of Tartarus are randomly generated, so every time you revisit the same floor, you’ll always encounter a different map.
Another good part in the game is that you have to balance between fighting Shadows and doing every school life and increasing Social Link Ranks, giving you options on which to prioritize first, focus more on dungeon crawling and you might flunk in school; focus only in day time activities and you’ll get a hard time defeating shadows and bosses, so you have to plan ahead on what you have to focus first. Also, every time you perform an activity, times passes on the game, so you only have limited time, but this doesn’t force you to rush on your grinding, as you can still enjoy a casual time despite having a time limitation.
The music in P3P is quite good, it has that funky beat with some mix of hip hop and Jpop, even the battle theme has vocals in it, and new soundtracks was added for the Female Protagonist story. Voice acting is also quite impressive, it makes you feel like you are actually watching an Anime series.
Overall the transition of Persona 3 to the portable console is quite good, it may not be a perfect transition, but it still retains the feel of the game. You can still enjoy a lengthy game even if you’re on a go. Newcomers to the game will still enjoy the game even if it was toned down just to fit it on the portable console, and old timers will still feel nostalgic on this one as it has new additions for more game time.
Game Rating: 9 out of 10
Persona 3 Portable was developed and published by Atlus.
New PSP Games from Gamescon 2010
Gamescon or also called Leipzig Games Convention, is an annual gaming event held in Germany, Imagine an E3 version of Europe.
During the said event, there are PSP games being showcased and scheduled to be released this year, so let’s take a look on some of the games:
Patapon 3
Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep
The 3rd Birthday
Dragon Ball Z Tenkaichi: TAG Team Battle
Lord of Arcana
No Heroes Allowed
I will post trailers of upcoming games from other consoles in the following days.
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Game Review
Hideo Kojima finally release a new chapter for his epic masterpiece franchise Metal Gear with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and it is only available for the PlayStation Portable, promising better gameplay and more action for the portable console. will this proves that small consoles can pack a big game similar to next-gen consoles?
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is the sixth PSP MGS game (if you include MGS: Digital Graphic Novel) and takes place ten years after the events in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and four years after Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops. The game continues the story of Big Boss aka Naked Snake as he leads his newly formed mercenary group Militaires Sans Frontieres (MSF) where they investigate a mysterious armed group deployed in Costa Rica.
The gameplay is still similar to the traditional MGS gameplay; classic stealth action game, that is, you can sneak behind enemies and perform CQC (Close Quarter Combat) or you can shoot tranquilizer darts to knock them out, but once you get detected, more enemies will storm out in the area to eliminate you, in this case you can either hide or completely neutralize the whole opposition. You can opt to go stealth or go gung-ho. They also added the camouflage system from MGS3 to the game, giving you more advantage when going stealth.
The bad side is the PSP’s limited buttons and lack of a second analog stick making some buttons to have multiple functions, and using the directional button as camera control and the analog stick as movement can give the players to maneuver and navigate to the areas, especially during boss battles, good thing they featured a new control setting similar that from the shooter control from MGS4 (making the triangle, circle, square and X buttons as camera control) giving that FPS-like controls to Peace Walker, although this could give some who are new to these kind of configurations a tough time to master.
The game is divided into missions similar that from Portable Ops, where the in-game save feature is remove and replacing it with post-mission saves. The Main Ops focus on the main story of Peace Walker while Extra Ops is more of a VR Mission-like missions, these composed of simple tasks like reaching a goal point without being detected to more difficult missions like defeating a hard version of a boss encountered in the Main Ops, and just like in VR Missions, EX Ops offers more than 100 missions.
Boss battle missions in Peace Walker is a real pain in the ass to beat, and sometimes it encourage you to beat in Co-Op (but still they can be finished even in single player), and one of the coolest part here is the enormous size of the bosses, especially the AI bosses, some event the size of a building, giving you that epic battle feel when encountering a boss. Some certain boss battles let you capture vehicles and use them for your army, and midway through the game, you get to salvage parts from AI bosses to build your very secret weapon (it starts with an M), so secret that you have to play the game to know more about it. There’s also a special guest from a very familiar monster from a very familiar monster game franchise.
During missions, you an rescue POWs (Prisoners of War) or capture enemy soldiers and turn them into your recruit for your mercenary group MSF which is similar to the recruit feature of Portable Ops. Instead of carrying soldiers to the truck, you can instantly transport them via Fulton Recovery, a parachute device use to recover soldiers for you army, the idea is more of an oddball and fictional, and later in the game, you can get to recruit soldier via WiFi access. Recruited personnels can be assigned to different tasks to improve your Mother Base; homebase of MSF, tasks such as R&D (Research and Development) to develop new weapons, Mess Hall for food supplies, Combat for your army strength, soldiers in the Combat category can be deployed on Outer Ops (a mini strategy game) to get funds, you can also use the captured vehicles to Outer Ops. Having a base management feature adds more replay value to Peace Walker, giving you more reason to play again after completing the game.
One of the major things you will notice on Peace Walker is the ability to play with a friend via Co-Ops in both Main Ops and Extra Ops, the first Metal Gear game where you can play multiplayer in a main story. Co-Op feature is one of the key features of Peace Walker, and it has some advantages. You and your friend can go into “Snake in” a co-op buff that grants you increased life and defense as well as a “Snake Formation” where the player in front will control the movement while the player behind will focus in shooting. Aside from Co-Op mode, there’s also the Versus mode with classic modes like deathmatch and capture the base.
The graphics is just amazing, at a first glance, you wouldn’t notice this as a portable console game, but from a PlayStation 2 game. The maps in the game are fully detailed, the trees in the jungles to the vehicles such as tanks and helicopters. Cutscenes are presented in a form of animated comics similar to the ones in Portable Ops with artworks from Yoji Shinkawa and Ashley Wood. In addition to the animated artwork cutscenes, there are also quick time events during the scenes to keep players entertained during the lengthy scenes.
Voice acting is still impressive as ever, having the Hollywood-like performance, as David Hayter also returns to lend his voice as Snake. Peace Walker offers almost hours of dialog from cutscenes to mission briefing files. Soundtrack is still epic along with good theme songs like Heaven’s Divide by Donna Burke and Koi No Yokushi Ryoku by Nana Mizuki.
If you are a Metal Gear fan, PSP owner or even a stealth game fan, you shouldn’t miss this game. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has tons of replay value with lots Easter Eggs giving you hours of gaming action, and this another reason for you go multiplayer with play with your friends. In other words, you should get Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.
Game Rating: 10 out of 10
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is developed by Kojima Productions and published by Konami
