Archive for the ‘Review’ Category

K-On! Houkago Live Review

Published by Chad on October 11th, 2010 - in Anime, Gaming, Review

Sega just released the PSP game of the hit Anime series K-On!, will the game promises a great music rhythm gameplay or will it only pleases the fans of the series?

A fair warning though, as there is no English release for the game, expect a lot of Japanese texts and you will have a bit of hard time to navigate through the game if you are not prepared, you can refer to this link for a guide to navigate the game.
If you’ve been playing the Project Diva series (which is also developed by Sega) you’ll notice some similarities to it, such as customizable characters and room and MTV-like videos in every song. The gameplay is the same to any music rhythm games; while the music is playing, you press the right a button at the right time, make consecutive hits to make a combo and your score goes higher, make a lot of misses and it’s game over. You can use powerups during the game to boost your performance.
What’s good to the game (and also rather interesting) is that every character (5 in total) have different button inputs which correspond to their musical instruments, as if you are really playing the instrument itself. aside from the rhythm gameplay, there’s the Sing mode where you create your own music video, it’s only difficult to navigate as it is full of Japanese text. Another plus to the game is that it has a multiplayer option via Ad-Hoc (up to 5 players) to play with your friends, which some games like Rockband Unplugged lacks.
The graphics is also quite similar to the Project Diva game, although not that spectacular. You can customize your characters with different costumes which you can acquire as you progress the game, you can also interact at the menu screen where there’s a chance to open an event scene will recreates a scene from the Anime.
The tracklist offers 19 songs from almost all of the soundtracks of the first season, the tracklist is really disappointing as it will only a very short gameplay time (you can complete the whole tracklist in just around 1-2 hours) and there is no DLC for additional songs. And the sound is pretty weak even if you maxed out the volume both the PSP and the game, so it’s best to use a headphone and stay in a less noisy environment while playing.
Overall K-On! Houkago Live is a still good game, despite having very few songs. And this one of those rhythm games that you can enjoy with friends. Fans of the series and rhythm games will enjoy this game.
Game Rating: 7 out of 10
K-On! Houkago Live was developed and published by Sega
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Persona 3 Portable Review

Published by Chad on September 7th, 2010 - in Gaming, PSP, 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.
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Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Game Review

Published by Chad on July 8th, 2010 - in Gaming, PSP, 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
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Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3 Game Review

Published by Chad on July 1st, 2010 - in Gaming, PSP, Review

Fans of the hit anime Naruto will surely get the newest game Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3 from CyberConnect2. The Japanese developer was already developing previous Naruto games since the PlayStation 2, and this is their 3rd Naruto fighting game for the PlayStation Portable. But will this fighting game deserves to be the on the blockbuster list, or should it be cloak into the shadows and be ignored, let’s find out…

The story in the game takes place during the beginning of the Shippuden series, where Naruto returns to their village after two years of training. Some parts of the storyline was slightly changed to fit in the game and to avoid newcomers to the Naruto series to get confused with some plots from the previous series.
There are several game modes in Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3, aside from the traditional free battle and multiplayer battle, there’s the Master Road. It’s more of a story mode where you progresses through the story by completing missions, this composed of conditioned battles against 1 or more opponents to side-scroll adventure where you need to reach the goal or defeat a number of opponents within the time limit. As you progress through the Master Road, you get to unlock characters, jutsu attacks and bonus materials. There are tons to unlock, but with missions that are really repetitive makes it annoying to complete the story mode, but the good part here is that 1 to 3 players can join your mission via Ad-Hoc.
The game has simple controls: Circle for the regular attacks (you can also make combos with the Circle attack), Square for the weapon attack, Triangle for the special jutsu attack (you can combine Triangle with the Circle attack) and X for the dash, you can also perform Awakening attacks and every character have different Awakening attacks that grant special conditions. Despite having customizable jutsu attacks in every characters, the controls rather feel stiff, and it’s very easy to perform combo attacks by just button mashing, and the controls doesn’t feel right during the side-scroll adventure missions.
Graphics in the game are just average, although the Ultimate jutsu attack scenes are still fun to watch. Cutscenes in the Master Road involved conversations with still portraits with some simple animated effects to flesh out the story. As for the audio, you can get to choose between the Japanese dub and the American dub, but I’m pretty sure that most of you will opt for the Japanese dub.
Multiplayer is the major plus in Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3 as now you can duke it out with 3 other players in Ad-Hoc either in a tag team of free for all, yet sadly, the control issues can drag the multiplayer funfactor down, but still playable.
Overall Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3 could have been better if they improve the controls and added some unique gameplay features. The multiplayer is still fun, you just have to bear the stiff controls. Naruto fans will still enjoy the game, but if you are looking for a good multiplayer fighting game, you might opt to find somewhere else.
Game Rating: 6 out of 10
Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Heroes 3 was developed by CyberConnect2 and was published by Namco Bandai Games.
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Fat Princess Fistful of Cake Game Review

Published by Chad on March 17th, 2010 - in Gaming, PSP, Review

The PlayStation Network’s (PSN) widely recognizable game, Fat Princess, has just arrived on the portable console with a longer title: Fat Princess Fistful of Cake. With more maps and gaming modes and more humor, will the portable version gets the same excitement as from the console version?

For those who haven’t played the original Fat Princess, here’s how the game works: in the default game mode (Rescue the Princess), the game revolves on storming the enemy’s castle and rescuing the princess, but watch out, as the opposing force is also attempting to rescue their princess that is imprisoned on your castle. To slow the enemy’s pace on rescuing their princess, you feed the princess with cakes scattered around the game map, the more you feed, the fatter the princess gets, making her larger and more difficult for the enemy to carry princess out of your castle.

You can get to select five different classes (Warrior, Mage, Priest, Ranger and Worker) by picking up a hat that is generated by the hat machine inside your castle. You can upgrade your castle to fortify its gates, create catapults so your troops can infiltrate the enemy castle faster and even improving your hat machines to upgrade your character classes like rangers using muskets, warriors using spears and so on.

Aside from the Rescue the Princess mode, there are other modes like Demolition, where you attempt to plant a giant bomb on the enemy castle and set it to explode before the enemy does that to your castle and many more.

The portable version is almost the same as with the console version, but instead of 32 players, the games is limited to 24 players, and only allow 8 real players (the rest are controlled by the computer), but what’s better on the PSP port is that it’s 50% bigger than the original, with more maps and modes, and also a single player campaign that composes of 15 chapters which at the same time gives you an introduction to Fat Princess and it’s basic gameplay. The story is introduced in a story book-like presentation with added internet humor to make the presentation funny and entertaining.

The single player mode will give you a few hours of pure mayhem, but the best asset on this game is the multiplayer mode, you can select from Ad-Hoc to Infrastructure to join multiplayer matches, sadly it’s only limited to 8 players and rest will be AI-controlled. The lack of voice chat from the original is a bit letdown as this will be difficult to coordinate with your teammates online.


Music and the sound effects are okay, with the quirky and crazy voice overs still retain the humor, the music tracks are catchy too.

Fat Princess Fistful of Cake is one great game, as it also stays faithful to the original game with more added content. The single player mode may be short, one of it’s best feature is its multiplayer capability, a great choice to play with your friends, in short, it’s an all-in-one package. So if you are looking for a new kind of game for you and your friends, this one is for you.

Game Rating: 8 out of 10

Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake was developed by SuperVillain Studios and published by Sony Computer Entertainment America

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Dante’s Inferno PSP Game Review

Published by Chad on March 2nd, 2010 - in Gaming, PSP, Review


Electronic Arts (EA) and Visceral Games just unleashed the PlayStation 3 game Dante’s Inferno to the PlayStation Portable system. Will the portable version be a hit for the on-the-go gamers or will it fail to meet the same intense action?

Dante’s Inferno is inspired on the Inferno, the first book from Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, “The Divine Comedy”. The story revolves on Dante, a knight from the Third Crusades, who tries to rescue his murdered wife’s soul, Beatrice from Lucifer, who tries to make her as his bride so he can escape from Hell and tries to take over the Throne of God. and Dante has to pursuit Lucifer and take him down, but he has to face Lucifer’s minions in the nine Circles of Hell and also his wicked past before the can reclaim his beloved wife.

At the first glance, you would probably compare Dante’s Inferno to another popular action game (ehem* God of War anyone?) although it looks and feels like God of War, there are still some original stuff on it. One of these was having a unique character development system called the Absolve or Punish System, where you can choose to develop your Holy or Unholy skills depending on how you eliminate your opponents. You can also get exp points for your skills by punishing or absolving lost souls such as Pontious Pilate, Elektra and other historical figures that appeared in The Divine Comedy poem.

The controls are somewhat similar to God of War, so players who played GoW will have to trouble playing Dante’s Inferno. The combat is as usual, intense similar to GoW,which can make the game a bit unoriginal.

The Graphics is still good, but not that very impressive, what makes it up for it are the cut scenes, instead of in-game scene, they take the cutscenes from the PS3 version, making it more entertaining to watch, and they manage to fit almost most of the important scenes without sacrificing the quality.

Sounds are mediocre, the soundtrack is very few and feels as if they are all the same tracks. Sound effects is still good, from the sound of the scythe swinging to the screech of the damned souls. Voice acting is pretty impressive, as well as the script, it feels as if you are watching a Hollywood movie.

Some of the major drawbacks is the frequent loading sequences, every time you enter a cutscene, the game loads for a couple of seconds, and you’ll encounter this very often. Another is the lack of replay value, after completing the game (which can be done in around 5-6 hours), you’ll be entertained with a comic book feature and a hard mode, but it would been nice if they had some more unlockables like a challenge mode feature and new weapons and costumes.

Overall,for a portable version of Dante’s Inferno, the game is still good if you want more intense action games and if you want to experience how the gameplay of the PS3 version would feel like, or if you just want to play a God of War-like game. Although the game was good, it still can’t beat the incredible experience the portable version of God of War was able to provide. But you still shouldn’t miss out this game, with an epic storyline and great gameplay, despite having the frequent loading issues, it’s still worth to be added in your gaming collection.

Game Rating: 8 out of 10

Dante’s Inferno was published by Electronic Arts and developed by Visceral Games.

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Lunar Silver Star Harmony Game Review

Published by Chad on January 21st, 2010 - in Gaming, PSP, Review

The Lunar series has another remake on the classic RPG, now titled Lunar Silver Star Harmony,
the game is ported to the PSP with newly improved graphics, gameplay and more secret stuffs.

The very first Lunar was created in the Sega CD on 1993, then a PlayStation remake of the game was ported on 1999, will the 2nd remake of Lunar bring the players back into the old school style of RPG?

*The Demo version of Lunar Silver Star Harmony was used for the review

The Story focuses on the role of Alex, a young boy from a small town who dreams of becoming an adventurer like his idol, Dyne. He is joined by a menagerie of playable and supporting characters who aid him on his quest, including Luna, his childhood friend and sweetheart; Nall, a winged, white, cat-like creature with an uncertain past; and Ramus, son of the town mayor with dreams of becoming a rich businessman.

The graphics of the game has dramatically changed, the character sprites and animation are now more fluid, the background design has also improved too. Although the anime cut-scene is still from the first remake from the PlayStation.

Voice acting is also good, but the original cast from the PlayStation remake was changed bringing new voices to the main characters, the music is still faithful to the original with some improvements.

The gameplay is still the same with some slight changes, one of them is the introduction of a limit break style of attack where a meter constantly increases every turn where you can unleash a powerful attack to your enemies. Another addition is the cut-scene on the character skill, giving them a dramatic presentation to any battle. One annoying problem here is whenever you move to a new location, the background music fades down and then goes back when you are in a new location, this can be annoying when moving to different areas, hope they change this in the retail version.

Sega CD version

PlayStation version

PlayStation Portable version

After finishing the demo version, you’ll be able to save your clear data and you can import it to the retail (full) version of the game. What’s inside the clear data is still unknown.

Overall the game is still worth to play despite having the simple turn-based gameplay. If you are a fan of turn based RPGs or you already played the original and the remake, this game is still worth your time.

Game Rating: 7 out of 10

Lunar Silver Star Harmony was developed by Game Arts and published by Xseed Games

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Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus Game Review

Published by Chad on December 29th, 2009 - in Gaming, PSP, Review

Gundam fans rejoice! The sequel to the hit Gundam vs Gundam arcade game is now here.
Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus, the latest from the Gundam vs series features new mobile suits, gameplay and game modes, but does this beat the original?

For those who are new to the Gundam vs Gundam game, it is a co-op fighting game based on popular Gundam series (from the original up to the upcoming series) and was originally ported on the arcades in Japan. With it’s popularity, it was ported into the PlayStation Portable.

The gameplay is still the with same with the original: each team starts with 6000 points and every mobile suit has it’s own class specification; 1000, 2000, 3000 (1000 being the weakest and 3000 the strongest) whenever your mobile suit is destroyed, it will deplete your points depending on the class, even from your teammate’s mobile suit (so when your mobile suit which is a 3000 class gets destroyed, 3000 will be deducted from your total points) and when your points reaches zero, you lose.
You can call out mobile suit support for a limited number of times to aid you in battle and it has three commands: offense, defense and support.

Although the gameplay mechanics is still the same with the original, there are some couple of changes, gone was the G-Crossover; the ability to summon a devastating attack on your opponents by teaming up with your partner and calling out a massive weapon/mobile armor in the field.

With the G-Crossover gone, they’ve added a new feature: the Next Dash. This feature gives you the ability to cancel your move instantly when dashing, creating new strategies when fighting. The Next Dash is a welcome feature as you can now make combos easier and able to dodge attacks quickly, plus you can now block manual by pressing down and up, the automatic block was now removed in favor for the manual block (this is only applicable to mobile suits equipped with shields).

There are more than sixty (yes sixty folks!) mobile suits available and some of them are hidden characters (from the original 0079 series up to the upcoming Gundam Unicorn). Each of the mobile suits have their own unique specialty (from the Virtue Gundam’s destructive range attacks to Epyon Gundam’s melee only attacks)

Game modes that are included in GvGNP were the traditional Arcade and Versus mode with more courses to choose (from easy to hard) and now you can tag along a friend in Arcade via multiplayer. Every courses now has a mid and/or end boss battles that involves fighting against giant mobile armors (aka robot giant bosses that’s almost the size of the whole battlefield) New in the game modes was the mission-based Next Plus mode, where you can tweak your mobile suit’s stats and participate in missions (more of a campaign mode) customized mobile suits cannot be played on the Arcade and Versus mode.

Game AI is far more smarter than ever, enemies can now quickly dodge your range attack consecutive times (even on easy mode setting) and now able to land quick combos on you and depleting your life bar by half.

The controls are very easy to remember, as most of the basic controls are accessible within reach and with a single press of a button, and controlling your character is now much easier thanks to the new Next Dash system, and you can use the directional button for moving your characters instead of the analog, and the controls are fully customizable.

Soundtracks are based from the opening songs of the Gundam series which makes you relive the moments in the some of the famous scene of the series while playing, and it’s a big plus especially for Gundam fanatics and Seiyus (Japanese voice actors) of every main hero and villain of the included series can be heard in the game, a double bonus for the fans again.

For the graphics, the mobile suits are quite detailed considering this was scaled down from the arcade version, the animations are fluid, even on an all-out heated battle. The battlefields are somewhat bland and almost the same with the other fields but still bearable.

Overall, GvGNP is still a great game, it even surpasses the original game. Although it would be nice if they added some more game modes (like defend the mobile armor or 4-player individual deathmatch) and having a customizable skills would be great to give more diversity to the game. On the bright side, the Next Plus mode is a great addition (if you can read Japanese) as this can add more gaming time, and with more unlockable contents (mobile suits,courses, movies, images and audio clips) this will give you more reason to play even more.

This game is recommended for Gundam fans and even Armored Core fans if you are looking for a quick mecha battle without tweaking or customizing your mechs before a battle.

Game Rating: 8 out of 10

Gundam vs Gundam Next Plus was developed by Capcom and published by Namco Bandai Games for the PlayStation Portable

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