Omega Labyrinth Z Should Not Have Been Banned

*WARNING – Potentially NSFW images included in the following post!*

Earlier this year, the first game to be refused an age rating here in the UK – and effectively banned – since 2008’s Manhunt 2 fell foul of the Video Standards Council who decided that Omega Labyrinth Z for the PS4/Vita will not be permitted for sale in Britain. Publisher PQube (a company well-known for localising niche Japanese software for us Eurozone dwellers) appealed the decision but failed to change the VSC’s mind. The game was also refused classification in Australia, Germany and Ireland, leaving the United States as the only recipient of Omega Labyrinth Z outside of Japan. The game is expected to be rated as a 17+ “Mature” title.

So, what is so bad about Omega Labyrinth Z that it invited near universal condemnation? Let’s break it down and see what exactly we’re dealing with here…

The Game

Omega Labyrinth Z is – on the surface – nothing special or wholly original. Scratch that; it’s completely unoriginal seeing as how the game is a roguelike dungeon-crawler of the type that we have seen too many times to count. For those that don’t know, the “roguelike” label describes a subgenre of dungeon-crawlers, usually unforgiving in nature with randomly-generated dungeons to loot and enemies that move when the player character moves. Player death usually results in a complete loss of loot so risk/reward is the nature of the beast. The genre saw somewhat of a revival thanks to the likes of the Nintendo DS and PSP though the games were still niche and usually only on the radar of importers. One notable series that broke somewhat into the mainstream however was the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon spin-offs.

The OG Roguelike originally released in 1980 was called…erm…Rogue.

But enough of the history lesson. It isn’t the core gameplay itself that has attracted the dreaded ban hammer unless it’s now a crime to punish unoriginality in the world of videogame development (not actually a terrible idea now that I think about it…). Hopefully, this brief overview of the game’s plot from Wikipedia will explain the actual reason:

The game follows a group of girls as they explore a dungeon in search of the fabled “Holy Grail of Beauty”, which is said to be able to grant any wish. Protagonist Aina Akemiya searches for the Grail in order to increase her chest size, as she feels uncomfortable about her small breasts.

In itself, that usually wouldn’t be enough to warrant a ban. It’s the usual titilliating, Japanese fan-servicey stuff that is commonplace in anime and the anime-styled JRPG’s that Japan has been pumping out for years now, many of them being localised in the West without issue. The overriding detail that pushed things too far in the eyes of the Video Standards Council was the fact that the game takes place in a girls school and involves characters that look and sound distinctly underage.

As the girls traverse dungeons, they defeat the monsters within and release “Omega Power”, an energy which increases their stats as well as the size of their breasts, the latter depicted with animations that show their clothes ripping open, exposing their bras. In addition to this nonsensical seediness, unidentified items are appraised by wedging them between one of the character’s breasts and shaking them about (though it is worth noting that this animation is entirely skippable for those who don’t wish to see it).  Other points of note are the special items that allow the player to “touch” one of the characters in order to boost their stats as well as defense-boosting equipment coming in the form of underwear.

That’s pretty much the game: another uninspiring roguelike experience dressed up with racy elements designed to titillate.

The Controversy

The VSC here in the UK were not impressed by any of this. Naturally, the fact that the characters are depicted as schoolgirls when all of this hyper-pervy stuff is going on was never going to down well but the touching element as well as the removal of clothing seems to have cemented their decision that the game should be refused an age rating certificate. This comes at a time when we as a society are experiencing the frequent media exposure of child abuse crimes, grooming gangs and online sexual exploitation of minors so it is understandable that organisations such as the VSC will not want to be seen to grant such risque software a retail release, even with an 18 certificate.

The game is completely unashamed. Ratings boards equally unshamed in their damning of Omega Labyrinth Z.

The VSC justified its decision to ban the game by saying that Omega Labyrinth Z‘s content would be “unacceptable to the majority of UK customers” and that it posed significant harm to the “moral development of younger people”

The refusal to grant classification also affects any digital release of the game on PSN.

Analysis

Okay, so we know what the game is about and we know why we won’t be getting it here in the UK (and the the other aforementioned locations). Let’s talk about it: should Omega Labyrinth Z have been treated this way?

The very first thing I wanted to bring up was the fact that this game is a sequel and the original wasn’t localised at all. In fact, it wasn’t even attempted and subsequently blocked. It was just another breast-obsessed anime-styled RPG that was destined to remain in Japan along with countless other games over the years that have centred on similar themes. These sorts of games are pretty normal for the Japanese market and so the initial issue for me is that trying to release a game such as Omega Labyrinth over here is always going to result in a clash of culture. Is it so different to how such “normal” acts as kissing in public or consuming alcohol in the street are considered crimes in the likes of Dubai? Some things are simply considered to be wrong in certain cultures and attempting to bring the two together will result in inevitable resistance from those wishing to protect their culture/society.

In the case of my aforementioned Dubai example, those in power do not wish for their society to be influenced by Western customs. Similarly, the VSC here in the UK – as well as the authorities in general – will not wish to permit the sale of entertainment that appears to promote sexualisation of underage girls. On a moral basis, it’s not really a decision that can be argued.

What we can say is that publisher PQube should have known much better than to even try in the first place. There is undoubtedly a market for such software because Japanese games with similar themes have a niche following all over the world and at the end of the day, PQube are a business and they wouldn’t have attempted to spend money localising the game if they weren’t certain of a profit on their print run of Omega Labyrinth Z. With this been said, wouldn’t it have been fairly obvious that they’d be battening down the hatches and fighting off a storm of criticism over a game that features schoolgirls’ shirts bursting open for the gratification of the player?

Despite the outrage over Omega Labyrinth Z, we’ve actually been seeing stuff like this for years now. It’s nothing new.

Well, perhaps not as obvious as you may think and this leads me into one of my pet peeves regarding the ratings systems: one game getting banned while other similar titles hit the shelves without receiving any attention at all.

To date, SIX Senran Kagura titles have been released here in the UK, all without any blockade. These third-person beat ’em ups feature female ninjas who also look of questionable age. Gratuitous panty shots and utterly titanic boobs also star in this series of erotic fighting games while one of the spin-off games in the series (Peach Beach Splash) takes the form of a third-person water pistol FPS and yes, there are bikinis and no, not many of them are what you’d describe as modest.

A similar lack of fuss was shown when Tecmo added the brand-new character of Marie Rose to Dead or Alive 5, one of gaming’s most sexualised franchises. Though classified as being an eighteen year-old, the character definitely doesn’t look it and you have to wonder – with all of the skimpy outfits available for the characters – why this wasn’t queried.

So Omega Labyrinth Z is the devil incarnate but this gets off the hook?

The simple answer is that those likely to raise issue simply didn’t know about these games. They are after all pretty obscure and will only sell to the same niche target audience over and over. They aren’t widely advertised or featured on supermarket display stands like Call of Duty and FIFA are so unless they are brought to the attention of SJW killjoys, nobody would notice their existence. The same subtle release have been true of Omega Labyrinth Z though had the VSC and other ratings boards across the globe not made it publicly clear that they’d refused to rate the game so why now and why not with the likes of Senran Kagura? You can make a safe monetary bet on the fact that if you showed the games that got away to pressure groups, they’d be outraged and calling for greater controls on our media (not a great thing at all).

So now I find myself at my next point. Omega Labyrinth Z was refused a rating by the VSC on the grounds that it is unacceptable and – more importantly for the point I am about to make – damaging to the “moral development of younger people”. First of all, I feel obliged to remind everybody that the ratings system is there for a reason. Supplying your ten year-old son with Grand Theft Auto is simply bad parenting. Likewise, buying your young child an 18 or ‘Mature’ rated game that has been rated so for its sexual content is also bad parenting. It isn’t the products themselves at fault. The VSC clearly mention “younger people” so if they mean consumers below the age of eighteen then they shouldn’t be playing the game in the first place. Let’s not encourage a culture of blame where “evil” entertainment or alleged poor regulation of media are at fault. Parents not taking heed of the age ratings on a game box and the symbols identifying the content (violence, sexual themes, bad language etc.) need to take some responsibility for their actions.

But let’s say for a moment that playing Omega Labyrinth Z could – worst case scenario – potentially turn a person into a raging, perverted paedophile with unsavoury sexual tastes. On a milder scale, let’s say that it could simply make perverts out of us or promote a subconscious, warped expectation of reality in male minds where all females should be made from an idyllic mould and shopping for F-Cup bras. Young, developing minds being tainted in this way is the concern that the VSC had about Omega Labyrinth Z but if this really such an issue then it would have already happened with the slew of previously released software that the VSC did grant ratings to.  Senran Kagura, Dead or Alive, Onechanbara, Valkyrie Drive and too many other games/series’ to mention should have already corrupted gamers on a mass scale yet this isn’t the case. To be so easily influenced by the smut in these games would mean that you are either too young to be in possession of the game(s) in question (see my previous point about poor parenting) or that you are already mentally unstable to some degree and easily open to suggestion. This is a tiny percentage of people in reality and the vast majority of gamers playing erotic or sexy games aren’t going to be damaged by them.

I can defend the game as much as I like but even I find it impossible to defend the way characters’ busts jiggle wildly whenever they start speaking. For me, THIS is the sort of detail that goes too far, not the main content itself.

I have been playing the likes of Grand Theft Auto and other 18-rated games long before I was of the correct age according to the ratings logos on the boxes. Should my parents have bought these games for me? Not at all! However, I didn’t get negatively influenced by them and start roaming the streets, looking to terrorise the city. I didn’t get the idea of driving about dangerously at high speeds and I haven’t become some sort of sex pest with no respect for women. I played games filled with adult content and I certainly haven’t been damaged by them. Am I the only one? No. Everybody at school played the violent videogames well before they should have done and we have all grown up to lead normal, boring adult lives. Mortal Kombat didn’t spawn a generation of young gamers eager to beat others to a pulp and rip out their spines either.

We should also consider that this game originated in Japan. This is a country oft poked fun at for its seedy entertainment and obsession with schoolgirls yet it is also one of the countries with the lowest rates of sex crimes involving minors. If the likes of Omega Labyrinth were so dangerous then Japan – with its utter wealth of suspect software – should be a cultural disaster by now, ridden with rapists and paedophiles but this isn’t the case.

The evidence increasingly points to an overreaction on the VSC’s part and I while I can completely understand why they felt the need to block Omega Labyrinth Z from hitting UK store shelves, I also don’t see the game being the great devil that it has been made out to be.

My Personal Opinion on the game

So what do I think of the game and would I want to play it? First of all, no, I wouldn’t want to play Omega Labyrinth Z but not for the reasons that you’d expect. I wouldn’t play it because I find roguelikes dull and one of gaming’s lazy copy-paste formulas dressed up with different skins. As a gameplay experience, the banning of Omega Labyrinth Z is no massive loss.

Aa far as smutty content goes, I cannot deny that I do enjoy a bit of it. I’m a huge Dead or Alive fan and I also play the anime-styled JRPG’s that usually feature some saucy scripting or unnecessary hot spring side stories. As a veteran of these sorts of games, the majority of Omega Labyrinth‘s premise doesn’t strike me as anything new or particularly outrageous and had there not been a fuss kicked up about it then I wouldn’t have even raised an eyebrow at an RPG where the goal is to collect energy that increases the size of the female characters’ chests.

I don’t find this offensive at all unfortunately. Sorry.

As far as I am concerned, videogames (like movies and books) are escapism and I firmly believe in only the very worst being censored or banned. If somebody wants to ogle anime boobs then so what? Let them. Likewise, if somebody wants to piss away hours on a mobile phone puzzler (hours that could have been used on something a lot more constructive) then let them.

If I had to remove something from Omega Labyrinth Z that I wasn’t personally sold on then it would be the whole touching mini game because that does go too far in my own mind. I love me some digital T&A but I don’t get excited by virtually touching up a female character, especially when they DO look so young. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t fear for a moment that doing so in a videogame will transform me into some sort of hideous scourge on society but at the same time, it doesn’t turn me on and I do have to concede that the ratings boards were correct to question whether this element of the game was really included in good taste. Had it not been then I’d be a lot more confident that Omega Labyrinth Z would have had an 18 (or even a 16) slapped on the box and sent on its merry way. As it is, it seems like the developers were really pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable. That said, we must remember that the game was designed for the domestic Japanese market first (likely without any concern given to international consumption) and so we are judging a product that has not been made with our society in mind.

I’m less angry about this specific game being banned than I am about a game in general getting banned. I am heavily against censorship and the chokehold that it places on creativity and the arts. I am all for people being able to decide for themselves what they wish to consume or not consume – not for organisations to decide for them. Sure, this one game alone being banned won’t change much but there is always the “where does it end?” question that inevitably comes up when you stop to consider the possibilities. We live in a world where some are shouting loudly to ban this or ban that; demanding that we agree with them about their ideas of what is or isn’t offensive. I for one would like to retain the right to decide for myself.

Conclusions

Ultimately, I don’t think Omega Labyrinth Z should have been banned. As I said above, I believe that the VSC were correct to say “no” to the aspect of the game that involves touching up girls because let’s face it: it isn’t something in a videogame that anybody could proudly admit to doing is it? At the same time, I don’t for a second believe that the game was developed to promote or glorify such activity in real life. Pervy games have always existed in the Japanese domestic market and I see this as a case of a developer simply getting carried away and pushing the boundaries of acceptance. For something really nasty that definitely should have been banned, look no further than the infamous “Battle Raper” fighting game on the PS2…

But due to the inconsistencies with what draws the attention of those rating our entertainment, the fact that I don’t believe a game like this could genuinely damage minds and the fact that I think we need to be free to decide for ourselves what we feel comfortable with consuming, Omega Labyrinth should have been left alone. The game should have been released with the highest rating available and then it’s up to us to say “You know, I like the look of this game but some elements are a bit too much so I’ll pass”.

We need to also bear the snowball effect in mind when it comes to censorship, the resulting damage on the arts and pre-emptively bowing to the will of pressure groups. Capcom, don’t forget, censored certain aspects of Street Fighter V that it was concerned would draw criticism from some corners and that was – in my opinion – very sad to see. I certainly won’t lament missing out on Omega Labyrinth Z‘s roguelike gameplay but its banning over here in the UK carries greater symbolic significance in my mind.

DS90 Plays: Mortal Kombat XL [PS4]

Confession time: I do a very poor job of concealing my love of fighting games and yet – until very recently at least – I’ve never liked Mortal Kombat. It isn’t the fault of the series’ signature gore and excessive, almost comical blood-letting because as a fan of horror films and OTT slasher flicks in particular, I actually quietly approved of this frivolous violence. My REAL issue with Mortal Kombat has always been the fighting itself. While the likes of Street Fighter and Tekken involved fluid combos and smooth animation, Mortal Kombat was clunky and just…not fluid. I also didn’t really find myself drawn to many of the character designs either despite the iconic and creative fighting styles of the likes of Sub Zero and Scorpion.

I still distinctly recall picking up MK: Armageddon on the PS2 which was – at the time – the latest game with the biggest and most comprehensive roster ever. It did not impress me and I quickly binned it off, scolding myself for even bothering. Then, something pretty amazing happened: the series received a reboot of sorts for the PS3/360 simply entitled “Mortal Kombat” though the fighting game community referred to it as MK9 (a much better name…don’t get me started on the naming of sequels!). Cautiously, I decided to have another go and this time, I actually ENJOYED what I was playing! MK9 still felt a little ponderous and clunky in that “classic” Mortal Kombat fashion but this time, combos felt like they flowed better and there was at last a game that I wanted to learn. Brutal (in a great way) x-ray special moves made their debut and fatalities had never been so disgustingly graphic (again, in a great way!). It was still no contender for the my own personal Hall of Fighting Game Fame but it was at last a Mortal Kombat that I could call a “good game”.

MK9 pulled no punches whatsoever.

Happily, Netherealm/Warner Bros. saw fit to continue down this path of improvement and released Mortal Kombat X for next gen machines. More of the same but with even better aesthetics and gameplay, MKX won a lot of fans early on in the PS4/XBOne days – while fighting games were particularly thin on the ground – and sold deservingly well as a result. Thanks to my positive experience with MK9, I was definitely interested this time but I held fire on purchasing because I just knew that – as with MK9 – a “Komplete” edition of some sort with all the DLC on-disc would be released. As it transpired, MKX became the cleverly-titled MKXL and I duly purchased a copy. For one reason or another however, the game sat sealed on my shelf for a veeeeerrry long time until I finally decided to rip the cellophane off a couple of weeks ago.

As with Mortal Kombat (9) Komplete Edition, the XL version of MKX includes all of the previously released DLC outfits and characters and it’s the latter that were very special additions to the MK universe. MK9 hosted the legendary Freddy Krueger as a surprise (but fitting) guest fighter; MKX went even further, raiding the 70’s/80’s horror/sci-fi archives and sending tournament invites to the Predator, Alien, Jason Voorhees and Leatherface. I couldn’t help but be impressed and take notice of MKX on release purely for these classic movie characters since their respective movie franchises are ALL favourites of mine. Definitely a perfect example of guest characters that make sense in a fighting game unlike a few other instances that raised a fair few eyebrows…*cough* Soul Calibur IV *cough*

Another thing that has impressed me is that amount of content (or should that be ‘Kontent’?) in MKXL. For starters, the game features a pretty decent story mode with loads of cinematics and fights that really make you use most of the characters at least once. Some may not like this and I must admit that I’ve not really been a fan of it in the past when I already KNOW which characters I don’t want to use but since I’m not a massive MK veteran, a bit of forced experimentation with the roster is no bad thing.

So far I’ve settled on the fun combos of Sonya Blade and her cool daughter, Cassie (above).

Then there are the various survival modes and stacks of unlockables to collect from the ‘Krypt’ such as additional costumes and artwork. And when I say ‘stacks’? I mean it. There are loads of unlockables that can be purchased using the in-game currency which is thankfully pretty easy to accumulate by doing well in offline survival and arcade modes. All of this is good news because I’ve long being vocal about how crap Street Fighter V is for making the player pay for everything down to palette swaps and there are other fighting games that take a similar F2P approach where competitive online play is prioritised and offline types have bugger all to do. MKX may not be my favourite fighting game in terms of pure gameplay but it has my respect for not trying to squeeze every last penny from the player.

As for that all-important gameplay, I definitely still sense some of the classic MK clunkiness but X somehow feels a little better. I’m enjoying the combos a lot more and finding that experimentation with stringing them together seems to be a lot more viable this time around. I’m definitely here for the fighting this time as well as the entertainment factor that the ridiculous gore and fatalities provide.

Sub-Zero who? THIS is what we want to see!

Overall, it’s relatively early days for me and this game but I’ve cleared the story mode a while ago and been hammering the other offline modes with Sonya Blade and Cassie Cage, learning combos and working out how I want to play. This is a phase I would never have made it to with the ‘classic’ games in the series so I consider this proof enough that MKX (and MK9 before it) have at last transformed a gimmicky series into something half-decent. If I had any complaints at all then it would be that the character models still look a bit stiff and ugly (it’s difficult to explain…) compared to those in the likes of Tekken and that a lot of the past characters such as Cyber Sub-Zero and Scarlett are absent. Fatalities and Brutalities are also still a bit too situational and fiddly in some cases…having to keep referring to Google on my phone to work out what I’m doing wrong is annoying!

Otherwise, colour me impressed. As a veteran gamer who has seen a lot, it ain’t easy to do!

The Nintendo Switch: A Wii-U Owner’s Perspective Pt3

So far I’ve talked about why the Switch isn’t appealing to me right now and also the upcoming releases that potentially have the power to change my mind. The concluding part of my Switch ramblings is going to focus on the dream games that would certainly encourage me to part with my money if they were to ever see the light of day. Once more, I’ve organised my picks into a Top Five of no particular arrangement so without any further unnecessary talking…let’s go!

F-Zero

Yes, it’s the game that people have been demanding for years from Nintendo who seem wholly disinterested in bringing Captain Falcon and lightspeed futuristic racing back to a console near you. It didn’t happen on the Wii and it didn’t happen on the Wii-U either but there were a few teases last generation with the F-Zero-inspired Fast Racing Neo plus the F-Zero DLC for Mario Kart 8. A proper F-Zero sequel though? Nah; you’re dreaming, boy! F-Zero GX on the Gamecube was a stunning game: super fast, skill-demanding and beautiful to look at. The soundtrack deserves a huge mention too for being so flippin’ awesome (I have the soundtrack CD and listen to it regularly). True, it was a collab effort with Sega (and some Namco input) but even so, it’s a tragedy that GX remains the last main game in the series at this point in time (I’m not 100% on the release dates of the various GBA games…) and if Nintendo were ever to finally follow it up with a new installment that was at least on par with GX quality-wise, then I would buy a Switch to play it.

Disaster: Day of Crisis

One of the Wii’s true hidden gems, Disaster was a really fun survival game that mixed natural disaster survival with Time Crisis-style shooting sections to great effect. The Wii became known (sadly) for the many bad games that had motion controls shoe-horned in for no good reason other than to be seen to have implemented something. Disaster was one of those games that used motion controls in many different ways but in such ways that actually made sense and made you feel like you were interacting with the game rather than just flailing your arms for the hell of it. There was a cool first-person driving section for example, running away from walls of water or performing CPR. For a game that was stuck in development hell for a long time before finally surfacing, it was impressive that Day of Crisis managed to be so entertaining and that’s why I’d love a sequel. Yes, this is one instance where I would miss motion controls but give us another disaster scenario with some new characters and the same varied gameplay and I’d buy it for a dollar.

A proper Pokemon game

By ‘proper’ I mean a full-on handheld style adventure in 3D on the big screen. This may actually be a possibility if Nintendo do indeed wind their dedicated handheld focus down and pour everything into the Switch given how it is both a home and portable machine. In the past though, we have been cheated (I like to think so anyway) on numerous occasions. The two Pokemon Stadium games on N64 were essentially glorified 3D battles, Pokemon Colisseum on the Gamecube was a heavily simplified take on the traditional formula and its direct sequel – XD: Gale of Darkness – insulted by being more of the same with recycled locations and assets from Colisseum. The rest have been filler games such as Pokemon Channel or the shallow Pokemon Battle Revolution. Imagine if they made a full-on 3D, free-roaming world in a similar vein to Zelda: Breath of the Wild but with a bit more focus on story and (obviously) a more densely populated world? Imagine actually flying on one of your bird Pokemon and searching for new locations or travelling the seas and seeking out new islands just like in Zelda: The Wind Waker? The possibilities are actually huge and even though I’ve kind of fallen out with the franchise after Diamond/Pearl, I’d jump straight back in if my dream style of game hit the Switch.

A proper Paper Mario game

Once upon a time, Nintendo had an extremely endearing Mario spin-off RPG series on its hands. Packed full of charm, humour and challenge, these were seriously good RPG experiences with a beautiful art style to boot and so much creativity. I am of course only referring to the N64 and Gamecube installments of Paper Mario. I do personally like Super Paper Mario on the Wii but it was certainly different to what had come before. The real problems with the series began with Sticker Star on the 3DS and continued with Colour Splash on the Wii-U. It is said that Shigeru Miyamoto made the decision to bin off any original or Paper Mario-exclusive characters and this is why the newer games are populated with Toads, Koopas and…er…not much else. Bad gameplay design also reared its ugly head with certain areas of the games impassable unless you had a specific sticker or card which you may have to return to the hub world for and thus incur lots of painful, backtracking which needn’t have been necessary. Colour Splash did give out hints in advance in fairness but often by the way of cryptic clues which tended to frustrate rather than assist. The RPG style of the previous games was also severely watered-down and to cap it off, battles could often become impossible if you didn’t have the right stickers/cards. I did personally still enjoy these games to an extent (Colour Splash moreso) because the graphical style and creativity has never gone away but if Nintendo could give us a PROPER Paper Mario just like the old days then it would honestly be a system seller in my eyes.

Wave Race

The recent Mario games prove that Nintendo knows how to make beautiful water that you’d just love to leap right into. Couple this with the fact that racing games have never really died in popularity and I can see a Switch sequel to Wave Race being a very fun game. It’s another franchise that Nintendo has left to die in the wilderness with only a brief jet ski racing segment in Wii Sports Resort giving Wave Race fans any hope that something may happen. The major obstacle to a Wave Race resurgence would obviously be its general lack of popularity or recognition amongst the traditional famous Nintendo franchises but since this is a fantasy list, I don’t care. Make it happen and I will open my wallet.

So that concludes my series of Switch-related posts. Perhaps I came across as quite negative about Nintendo’s current console in Part 1 but the truth is, there are games on the horizon that could tempt me as well as the above dream sequels which would DEFINITELY tempt me. Thing is though, even leaving aside the fact that I feel burned for being a Wii-U owner, I also have a PS4 and various older machines so for me to invest money and time into another console…well, I need to be persuaded a little harder than others maybe. Thanks for reading and I will hopefully be back with some more regular posts very soon…

The Nintendo Switch: A Wii-U Owner’s Perspective Pt.2

So last time (it’s been a while), I posted about why I haven’t been sold on the Nintendo Switch thus far despite being a Nintendo loyalist (in a non-rabid fanboy way) since the Gamecube. The release schedule of ports, upgraded Wii-U games and a general sense of feeling “forgotten” by Nintendo were my main reasons BUT I concluded by saying that I’d go away, have a look at the upcoming release schedule and report back with some games that might make me change my mind. Due to a bout of sickness (some form of super-cold of doom which is going around here in the UK right now) I haven’t been up to making that follow-up post but I’m back now with a Top Five list of upcoming Wii-U games that might tempt me to buy a Switch…

1. No More Heroes 3

If you’ve read my discussion piece on Suda51 then you’ll know that I’m a bit of a fan of No More Heroes and Suda51 in general. The first two games were a bit ropey as far as the technical side of things went but were immense fun thanks to the sheer style being served up with many side orders of out-there wackiness. I’m no longer 100% confident in saying that a Suda51 game will be definite hit (thanks to a few recent efforts being a bit disappointing) and wouldn’t even say that the likes of NMH3 are antidotes to the mainstream that we desperately need anymore BUT I would still like to play this based on how much I enjoyed the two Wii predecessors. The teaser trailer looks promising too so fingers crossed.

2. Mario Tennis Aces

Mario’s tennis outings have always been some of more enjoyable spin-offs starring Nintendo’s main man but recent installments have dropped the ball (hur, hur) somewhat. I didn’t play the 3DS version and the Wii-U’s Ultra Smash was widely regarded as a huge disappointment due to being a flimsy release with little content. Before that, the Wii received only a port of the Gamecube’s Power Tennis which in itself wasn’t a gold medal-winning game due to the divisive inclusion of super moves and the constant, unskippable cinematic animations that came as part of the deal. It’s actually the GBA version of Power Tennis that was considered to be last great Mario Tennis game and it isn’t hard see why. Gameplay was tight and addictive on the small screen and the accompanying story mode gave players something to sink their teeth into. It was a great game and it’s one that I still have on my shelf. Thankfully, Mario Tennis Aces is looking like it will make up for the run of disappointing sequels thanks to the inclusion of a story mode. I expect that the gameplay will be great as well and to be fair, that side of things hasn’t been the issue over recent years.

3. Fire Emblem Warriors

Okay, I’m kind-of cheating here because this game is already out BUT it made it onto this list because…I hadn’t realised that it had already hit the store shelves months ago! How did that sneak out? Talk about not keeping up with release schedules…sheesh. Anyway, I like Fire Emblem and I like the Warriors games from Koei so this should really be exactly my kind of game. The only sticking point for me is that they went down the fanservice route and filled the roster with Awakening and Fates characters. Understandable seeing as how they have to shift copies of the game but I was hoping for some more variety and not just the usual suspects that we’ve come to expect recently such as Lucina, Robin and Camilla’s over-worked bra. There are no characters from Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn for example. Looks like decent fun but I would have to buy it cheap which is never going to happen with the words “Fire” and “Emblem” together on the front cover…

Before I move on though, I will also make an honourable mention for the brand-new (traditional) Fire Emblem game that is slated for a 2018 release. There is no information or images as of yet however so nothing to go on. I will remain cautious due to how I currently feel about the series and the direction that Nintendo/Intelligent Systems have taken in recent years but even so, it’s got to be worth keeping an eye on.

4. Shin Megami Tensei 5

Before the increasingly-popular Persona series of RPG’s stole the limelight, Atlus also pumped out a fair few similarly dark (if not darker) RPG’s under the Shin Megami Tensei umbrella. In fact, many may forget that Persona 1-3 were released with the ‘SMT‘ prefix before the games finally found western fame and it was dropped. The “Megaten” games were great RPGs that offered something different and more niche versus the typical mainstream alternatives such as Final Fantasy and I’ve always been a big fan. Not much is known as of yet about Shin Megami Tensei V for the Switch but it’s being touted as an exclusive RPG for the system and it’s exactly the kind of thing that would make somebody like me sit up, look away from my Playstation and take notice. Of course, there’s every chance that Atlus might decide they need more return on their investment and also release SMT V for the PS4 but we aren’t privy to the details of their deal with Nintendo (if there is some sort of exclusitivity clause in action at all). For now, it makes my list.

5. Yoshi

I was a huge fan of Yoshi’s Woolly World for the Wii-U. The game looked beautiful with its unique thread-based visuals and was actually an extremely tough challenge to achieve 100% on; far more so than the naysayers slating it as a “kiddy” game would have you believe. It was the creativity oozing from what was on-screen that made me fall in love (as with Kirby’s Epic Yarn on the Wii) with Woolly World and Yoshi for the Switch looks set to run with that. The footage so far shows off a heap of interesting twists on the tried-and-tested 2D platformer and I’m impressed that Nintendo can keep finding ways to make their quirky platformers feeling unique. I’m definitely looking forward to this one, whatever the proper title for the game will be.

So that’s my top five (or top four if you discount my sly bit of cheating!). The third and final part of this series of Nintendo Switch-themed posts will focus on the games that I’d LIKE to see produced for the Switch…the kind of things that would definitely make me rush out and splurge on a console of my own. With this being Nintendo, there are loads of franchises that could tempt a veteran gamer like me…

Nintendo Switch: A Wii-U Owner’s Perspective

I don’t really want a Switch.

“Well, why are you bothering to waste your time telling us that or moaning about something you don’t like?” I hear you ask.

Well, it’s a reasonable deal in fairness since I’ve been buying Nintendo’s home consoles since the Gamecube. I’ve bought into the platforms that struggled at market and I’ve defended the likes of the GC and it’s excellent first-party software as well as the Wii when uninformed types were saying “it’s shit” without even looking at the games. The Wii-U however? That was one child that needed the a LOT more defending than its older siblings and as an adopter of the console who stuck with it to the end, I actually feel quite aggrieved about the Switch and its success.

Now contrary to what you may be thinking, I’m NOT the kind of person who gets annoyed or even affected in general by the success of a product that I don’t wish to buy into so this isn’t going to be one of those rants where I tell people to “buy a proper console” or whatever. No, my grievance is simply with the fact that I feel at least slightly shafted by Nintendo. After all, some of the big games that have helped make the console so popular are things that I have already paid full-price for and enjoyed on the Wii-U. Mario Kart 8 for example is a fantastic game but I’m not buying it again after paying out over £200 for a Wii-U, £40 (approx) for the game and then the DLC on top of that.

Other must-have games such as Pokken Tournament, Breath of the Wild and the upcoming ports of Hyrule Warriors and Bayonetta are all things that I have already played on the Wii-U. I suppose to sum up my gripe with the Switch, I would say that I think Wii-U supporters have quickly been forgotten. The likes of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe weren’t marketed as brand-new games but they certainly come with that image which is – in fairness – understandable given how a lot of people missed them the first time round on account of the Wii-U being such a relative retail flop.

But I paid a lot of money for these things and stuck by the Wii-U, comfortable with the knowledge that a small but perfectly-rounded library was no bad thing. The result of my loyalty is a follow-up console that I really don’t want when the best games currently available (Mario Odyssey aside) are things that I’ve already finished with. I can’t say that I think Nintendo actually care either because a large portion of the consumer base that have made the Switch a success are bound to be new customers who didn’t care about the Wii-U or even knew that it existed. We helped keep them afloat and now we have been ditched.

I DO want to play this but I can’t justify an entire console for one game. Last time I did that was with the Atari Jaguar for Tempest 2000 and it was daft!

That sounds more than a little bitter doesn’t it? Well, let’s continue with an open mind and have a look at what else is available shall we? The first barrier I hit is a very familiar one that blighted the early days of the Wii-U: updated ports of old games from other consoles. You have the likes of Resident Evil Revelations, Doom, Skyrim and LA Noire – all great games that won’t suddenly become rubbish by being on the Switch but I’m only interested in new experiences. Obviously, these versions of previously-available titles will be improved or more “complete” than the originals and being able to play them away from the TV screen is a fair selling point but they just don’t do it for me. Then there is the pricing issue…Doom for instance is currently £40 on Amazon whereas I can pick up a brand-new copy on the PS4 for between £10-£15.

Yes, these new versions are probably aimed at people who DON’T have loads of consoles or are Nintendo followers only but the fact remains that many gamers have multiple machines beneath the TV these days. Heck, it has become kind of mandatory since the days of the Wii to own a Nintendo console + either a Playstation or an Xbox since multi-platform releases haven’t really been possible since the Gamecube given the technical gulf between Nintendo’s hardware and those of Sony/Microsoft. When they DO arrive they are late and usually compromised in some way.

Ultra Street Fighter II is the kind of game that is certainly my kind of thing given how I’m a die-hard fan of fighting games but the harsh reality is that the game is simply an updated edition of HD Remix which came out years and years ago on PSN/XBLA. It is a superb update of Super Turbo but I don’t fancy buying it again just for Evil Ryu and Violent Ken, unless there is a bit of a bargain to be had of course.

A favourite of mine but again, I’ve already played it. Oh and Capcom? How many more revisions of Street Fighter II have you got left in you? I mean, really!

And away from the un-rewarded loyalty complex that the Switch has given me, this is the other main issue for me: excellent games that are difficult to justify buying unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade or are SO Nintendo that even the concept of holding a Dualshock controller is like being asked to stick your naked arm deep into the bowl of a public toilet that has been clogged-up for weeks.

So let’s be clear: I’m not saying that the games are shit, nor am I saying that the hardware is shit. I’m saying that there is little to entice me into getting involved with Nintendo’s latest offering. I’m glad that the Switch has been a success because things didn’t look good for Nintendo during the Wii-U days and as much as I feel part of a forgotten audience, there’s no way I’d have wanted to see them throw in the hardware towel. Ironically, it seems that the Switch is an amazing prospect if you HADN’T shown your support in the previous generation and passed-up the Wii-U because all of a sudden, you have loads of genuinely great games to play that won’t already be familiar territory.

So this leaves me one final angle to cover: looking to the future. Are there any brand-new games i.e. not ports/updates inbound for the Switch that would make me want to buy one? Well, there are some that I am aware of but possibly others that I’m not so stay tuned for a follow-up post where I will discuss my findings.

Top Five Characters For Soul Calibur VI

With the recent announcement/reveal of Soul Calibur VI having properly sunk in now, I think it’s fair to start theorising about a potential roster. Well, I say theorising but that process is a potentially depressing affair since – if done logically – it involves putting together a hypothetical roster based on what the marketing men think will sell the game. I’d rather lay out a top five countdown of the characters from that I want to see return to the Stage of History. I have put together my dream shortlist with three things in mind:

1. The game’s story is supposed to be further back in the SC timeline (around the time of the original Soul Calibur) so I’d like to think that some of the older characters that were dumped for the later games might be able to return in all their glory.
2. No guest characters. That is a separate list for another time (possibly). These are all original SC characters that have been in the games before.
3. These are simply characters that I like!

With those loose “rules” established, I shall waste no more time and jump right in!

Zasalamel

Amongst all of the clones and ‘mimic’ fighting styles that were in Soul Calibur III, Zasalamel’s scythe-based style was refreshingly individual and certainly interesting to learn as well as fight against. I also really liked his visual appearance despite the obvious Assassin’s Creed similarities that his original outfit (pictured) was guilty of displaying. Better yet, SCIII‘s plot saw Zasalamel morph into the demonic final boss, Abyss who shares a lot of Zasalamel’s basic fighting style. Abyss is one of the coolest and most bad-ass bosses in a fighting game and while I highly doubt that we will ever see him again, I would at least like Zasalamel to return from his post-Soul Calibur IV exile.

Cassandra

We’ve already seen Sophitia revealed as one of the first two characters in the game and while Sophie will always be my #1 character in the series, I have to say that I missed her spunky, more aggressive younger sister in SCV. Yes, people will say that we don’t need any more Alexandra family members (they’re everywhere!) and others will argue that more females with big boobs are unnecessary but as far as I’m concerned, Cassandra has been a staple since her debut in SCII and her omission in SCV was one of the most disappointing in my opinion. She actually has a very different fighting style to Sophitia and while nobody can argue that the way she battles is overly unique or interesting, I’ve always enjoyed her character and she is in many way (whisper it) more endearing than her sister. Yes I feel treacherous for even typing that…sorry Sophitia!

Hwang

A true classic who debuted in the original Soul Blade (or Soul Edge in other territories) for arcade/Playstation but was ditched by the time of Soul Calibur II for the younger and (I suppose) cooler Yun-Seong. Hwang made one more appearance as a non-fleshed out bonus character in Soul Calibur III and was properly re-instated for the rare arcade edition of SCIII but hasn’t been seen since which is a pretty rubbish way to treat one of the founding characters of the series if you ask me. Even Yun-Seong didn’t make it to SCV, meaning that the most recent installment in the series had no Korean characters and no Falchion wielders. I really enjoyed playing as Hwang in Soul Blade and I also think he looks pretty cool so I’d like to see him again for those reasons but also because he simply SHOULD be in an SC game again.

Li Long

Another founding cast member of the series, Li Long was treated even worse than Hwang. The original nunchaku wielder didn’t even make it off the Playstation to the original Soul Calibur since Namco had already elected to introduce the new, cooler character of Maxi who became the default (and only) representative of the nunchaku style from there on. Like Hwang, Li Long was given a bonus character slot in SCIII and also re-instated properly for the arcade update. Interestingly, he was armed with a new double nunchaku style that actually set him apart from Maxi. I would love to see Li Long return with a more fleshed-out version of this style in Soul Calibur VI. Like Hwang, I just think that he should be included for historical reasons.

Night Terror

Up until this point, my list has been fairly safe, predictable even. We can’t have that though can we? So to finish off my top five, I’ve decided to put the case forward for the true boss of Soul Calibur III. If you thought Abyss was monstrous enough…well, you hadn’t seen anything yet. Night Terror is a beastly version of Nightmare, the result of Soul Edge’s vengeful will fusing with Nightmare and nobody enjoyed fighting this creature. Massively over-powered, boasting insane priority and immune to ring-outs (he flies back up to the stage!), Night Terror was everything a cheap boss should be. I lost count of the amount of times I heard “versus, Night Terror!” as I kept hammering the option to try the fight again. For all his cheesiness however, I absolutely loved the idea of a souped-up Nightmare that had been overcome by raw power and transformed into a truly imposing boss. Like Abyss, I highly doubt that Namco would ever bring this guy back but I would certainly take him over Algol or Elysium any day.

Honourable mentions!

Because five is never enough is it? Not when there have been so many characters both major and minor in Soul Calibur over the years. Seong-Mina should definitely grace an SC game again for the same legacy reasons as Hwang/Li Long but also because she has always been a fan favourite who certainly didn’t deserve to be left out of SCV. Valeria from SCIII was a second-tier bonus character but did at least have a cool fighting style based around kicks and bladed footwear. Did I forget to mention that she was a pink-haired shopkeeper/maid design with eye-poppingly big boobs? Funny that… Another classic that I hope returns is Rock because honestly, I don’t like Astaroth that much when it comes to the large “power” characters and Rock already had to swap his original axe style for a mace so that he had a “reason” to return for SCIII & IV.

Because five wasn’t enough and I’m greedy…

If you read my post on femme fatales then you will already know that really like the nutty Tira but will she fit into a pre-SCIII plot point? I’m not sure but I think Namco would be mad to leave out such a unique fighting style. Setsuka is another dangerous lady with a fairly individual style that I’d like to see again, not least because I used her a lot in SCIII and found her to be utterly lethal with some crazy combos. Lastly, would actually like to see Edge Master come over from Soul Calibur V since the “bad-ass old guy” archtype needs some representation and I don’t mind there being at least ONE mimic character. Just please, Namco, don’t waste 3-4 slots with them like you did before? Ta.

So those are my choices. What do you think? I’m cautiously optimistic for a few of these but I also fear that Namco might see some of the older or more obscure characters as less marketable and won’t include them. I’ll reserve any form of judgment until we know more however. Let’s see who they’ve chosen…

Is Suda51 Overrated?

Overrate (verb) : to have a higher opinion of (something or someone) than is deserved.

I realise that the very title of this topic may appear sacrilegious to many but it was something that came up when chatting to a friend about games in general and I thought it was worth exploring. This friend (who has been gaming since the SNES days so has an opinion I put some stock in) had recently completed Flower, Sun and Rain for the DS and described it as “horrendous”; one of the worst games he’d ever played. He had then also tried to play through Shadows of the Damned on the Xbox 360 but gave up part-way through on account of the game just not striking him as interesting enough to continue. I’d not played Flower, Sun and Rain myself so I wasn’t able to share (or not share) his scathing criticism of that particular game but I DID have a copy of Shadows of the Damned for PS3 in my (embarassing) stack of unplayed games. Naturally, I decided that it had to be moved up the pile. I had after all purchased it on the back of it a) being a Suda51/Grasshopper-developed game and b) the positive comments that the game seemed to get on forums from those who had played it.

I may not have bothered with this discussion on whether Suda51 is overrated as a developer at all but I did play Shadows of the Damned and I had to agree with my friend. The game was a painfully standard, linear third-person shooter with irritating mechanics, dull/miserable environments and “edgy humour” which amounted to your speaking gun constantly spewing out phallus jokes. I have to stress that the game wasn’t bad: it worked and was perfectly playable but it also did nothing to interest me or keep me playing beyond the first 4-5 levels so I binned it off because I’m not the person who likes to persevere with average games if I have other things to be playing.

It’s far from ugly but we’ve seen all of this before.

This was a genuine disappointment because I’ve always been a big fan of anything that Suda51 and his Grasshopper Manufacture team put out. In a gaming landscape dominated by FPS’s, sports games and seemingly endless sequels to cash-cow franchises, I admired the way in which he pushed forward with risky and incredibly niche concepts that went against what the marketing men wanted. Games like the bizarre Killer 7 or joyfully weird No More Heroes were welcome treats in release schedules that often did little to turn me on. Shadows of the Damned does indeed have some noticeable splashes of Suda51 weirdness but the overriding sense was that I was playing a fairly standard shooter that had had gore, tits, swearing and penis jokes thrown at it. Now these aren’t always bad things in themselves but such additions can come off as lazy attempts to sell a game to an adult audience. I’m not saying that this was the intention but it’s just how Shadows of the Damned rubbed me up personally. Ultimately, it just didn’t sparkle and keep me intrigued as many of Suda51’s previous efforts had done in the past.

This was how I ended up giving a second thought to what my friend had said about beginning to believe that Suda51 is overrated. Had he simply been lucky with his first few “big” releases for us Western gamers? Has he ran out of ideas in recent years? Or were his games actually not all that good when considered as standalone products and not antidotes to what the industry was trying to get us to buy? Before we go any further, I’ve pulled up a list of all the games that Suda51 has been involved in so that there is some sort of reference before I attempt any further analysis. Titles that I have put in bold are the ones that I have personally played.

• Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Final Bout (Super Famicom, Director)*
• Super Fire Pro Wrestling Special (Super Famicom, Director)*
• Twilight Syndrome: Search (Playstation, Director)*
• Twilight Syndrome: Investigation (Playstation, Director/Writer)*
• Moonlight Syndrome (Playstation, Director/Writer)*
• The Silver Case (Playstation, Director/Writer)*
• Flower, Sun and Rain (Playstation 2, Director/Writer)*
• Michigan: Report from Hell (Playstation 2, Original Plan/Producer)
• Killer 7 (Gamecube/Playstation 2, Director/Designer/Writer)
• Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked (Playstation 2, Director/Writer)*
• Contact (Nintendo DS, Producer)
• Blood+: One Night Kiss (Playstation 2, Director/Writer)*
• No More Heroes (Nintendo Wii, Director/Designer/Writer)
• Flower, Sun and Rain: Murder and Mystery in Paradise (Nintendo DS, Supervisor/Original Game Staff)
• Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (Nintendo Wii, Director/Writer)*
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Nintendo Wii, Executive Director)
• Shadows of the Damned (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Executive Producer/Writer/Story)
• Rebuild of Evagelion: Sound Impact (PSP, Creative Producer)*
• Sine Mora (Xbox 360/Playstation 3/PSVita/PC, Producer)
• Diabolical Pitch (Xbox 360, Producer)
• Lollipop Chainsaw (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Creative Producer)
• Liberation Maiden (Nintendo 3DS/iOS, Original Concept/Creative Director)
• Black Knight Sword (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Executive Producer/Writer)
• Killer Is Dead (Playstation 3/Xbox 360, Executive Director/Screenwriter/Story)
• Short Peace: Ranko Tsukigime’s Longest Day (Playstation 3, Original Story/Scenario Writer/Overseeing Director)
• The Silver Case (Remaster) (Playstation 4/PC, Producer)
• Let It Die (Playstation 4, Executive Director)
• The 25th Ward: The Silver Case (Remake) (Playstation 4, Producer)
• Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes (Nintendo Switch, Director/Writer)

A few things to note from the above list:

1. Games marked with a * were only released in Japan. The bulk of Suda51’s early work didn’t make it to the West save for the few titles that have been remastered/remade in recent years.
2. As you can see, he has had varying roles on different games. It is hard to consider everything Suda51 has been involved with to be all his own for example.

The important, most prominent titles from his back catalogue for us in the West would arguably have to consist of:

• Killer 7
• No More Heroes
• No More Heroes 2
• Flower, Sun and Rain (DS version)
• Shadows of the Damned
• Lollipop Chainsaw
• Killer is Dead

This focused selection of games are what I would consider to be most crucial to us (and this discussion) because despite Suda51’s large portfolio, these are the titles we know him best for. But how do we recognise a Suda51 game without prior knowledge of his involvement? Typically, the games won’t be technical masterpieces and will often be behind the curve in terms of graphics and modern mechanics BUT sheer style tries (and often succeeds) to compensate. We’re talking crazy plots, bizarre characters and moments that make you think “I can’t believe they got away with including this in the game!”. Blood, heavily sexualised females and all manner of self-indulgent elements (such as Suda51’s love of wrestling and America for example) will also inevitably play a part in these experiences which are arguably style over much substance.

Lollipop Chainsaw was gory, sexy and oh so very weird. Unmistakably a Suda51 creation.

[On a brief side note, it is also important to remember that our impressions of Suda51 titles here in the West are skewed by the fact that we only really received the downright bizarre stuff with bloody violence and daring attitude. Some of his earlier works that remained in Japan focus on crime and mystery. It’s a shame that we didn’t really get a lot of those things over here.]

The big draw for a Suda51 game back in the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox generation was the fact that we they were simply different and challenged the status quo. True, oddball games have always existed on any gaming platform but the likes of Killer 7 received a lot of press attention pre-release and these sorts of games were hailed as the antidote within a generation of gaming that had become obsessed with sequels, FPS’s and violent crime titles that were striving to be realistic and gritty/urban. Suda51 games were bright and colourful but also extremely dark and bizarre. No More Heroes on the Wii for example was a breath of fresh air on a console drowning in family-friendly software and fitness aids. The updated ‘Heroes’ Paradise‘ edition on the PS3 made very few waves however, an assessment which could also be levelled at the direct sequel to the original on the Wii which – while being the far better game – failed to garner as much interest and intrigue.

No More Heroes doesn’t hold back on the violence but was a more endearing experience than the senseless violence in the likes of GTA which were striving for realism.

And this for me is the crux of the issue when asking the question “Is Suda51 overrated?”. Once the shock value has worn off, once we’ve become partially desensitised to the wackiness and once we no longer need a cel-shaded champion to save us from being overrun by miserable brown WWII shooters, where does that leave a Suda51 game?

Speaking from my own personal experience, I adored a game like No More Heroes despite the fact that it is a heavily flawed game. It was unable to escape the necessity of motion controls (when the game would have been better without) and the barren open world was pretty awful for travelling around in to name two examples but I was able to forgive it because it was deliciously quirky and just the sort of thing that I wanted more of here in the West. It felt good to support the game on the Wii too at a time when newspapers and parent groups were furiously demanding that their little white family box not be made a home for the likes of NMH, House of the Dead Overkill and Madworld. Thing is, gaming has moved on as have expectations. We are no longer so prepared to put up with clunkiness or terrible game design masked over by style alone. Additionally, the last generation of consoles really opened the gates for more weird Japanese software. The PS3, PS4 and PSVita for example are home to lots of JRPG’s, visual novels and racy games such as Senran Kagura and Valkyrie Drive – all the sorts of games that we used to rarely get and would have to go out of our way to import for modified/hacked hardware capable of playing them. Sure, a Suda51 game will have a billion percent more artistic merit than a game like Senran Kagura but the underlying feeling is that we – as gamers – are no longer starved of ‘different’ experiences.

So to come full circle and return to Shadows of the Damned, it’s entirely possible that I would have really enjoyed this game and been prepared to overlook the flaws had it been a PS2-era release. As a PS3 game however, it simply didn’t excite and tried too hard to be hardcore and openly controversial. The following Lollipop Chainsaw was much more likable but then again it was far more akin the likes of Killer 7 and NMH in its colourful but bloody tone. That said, I’m sure that it failed to impress gamers in general who could look past the short skirts and nutty cutscenes. After all, zombies, linearity and a combo-based grading system were hardly revolutionary concepts.

I’ve yet to play Killer Is Dead but it seems that the critics saw through the style based on the general concensus that it isn’t a particularly fantastic game. Personally this doesn’t bother me and I will of course give the game a go (since I seem to be more forgiving than most…) but it’s interesting to note that there was very little fanfare surrounding its release despite the game – on the surface at least – bearing resemblances to past triumphs.

Killer is Dead certainly looks similar to past Suda51 efforts.

Is Suda51 overrated then? I don’t think so. I think his most lauded games were products of their time, praised in comparison to what was then considered to be stale on the same platforms. Times change as do expectations and what we have access to. His output was – in effect – being rated against what gamers wanted to escape from and therefore I believe that the general perception of what a Suda51 game is has always been a little warped. Personally, I’m a fan but it will be VERY interesting to see how No More Heroes 3 for the Switch fares when it releases. The Switch – in my eyes – is a huge success like the Wii but other than Mario Odyssey (and discounting Wii-U ports) there doesn’t seem to be many must-have “big” games. Could NMH3 tap into that same hunger for something different and exclusive that existed back in the Wii days or has the audience moved on?

Crystal Dreams

This last week saw me finally polish off the e-shop download of Pokemon Silver Version for 3DS. I ended up spending around 60hrs with the game and in truth, that figure could have easily been shaved by a considerable amount had I not spent ages hunting out my favourite monsters and training them up even though I had no space for them in my final/ideal team. I felt like a bit of a boss taking a Lv60+ team of Lugia, Typhlosion, Tyranitar, Dragonite, Raikou and Gyarados into the final showdown with Red (I would have also taken Ho-Oh but I needed Gyarados as my ‘HM slave’ to navigate Silver Cave) and I managed to beat the toughest trainer in the game on my first attempt. That Snorlax that bothered me so much back in the day? No problem! Typhlosion ended that sucker with a few Dynamic Punches. Yeah!

It was a very nostalgic experience overall and I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting the classic sound effects, sprites and simpler Pokemon mechanics that I’d been missing with the newer games. Despite the amount of hours I invested into Silver, I’m still keenly waiting for January 26th and the next classic re-release that I’d been hoping for…

Pokemon Crystal Version was the edition that everybody had really been clamouring for when the Gold/Silver re-releases were initially announced and I can only presume that Nintendo held it back on account of it being so similar to G/S that nobody would buy either of those versions. This way, gamers like me will double-dip and I can’t deny that I have fallen for their nefarious marketing tactics! Yellow Version was re-released alongside Red/Blue but that was likely a different scenario given how Yellow had quite a lot of differences compared to the games it was updating and was changed-up to follow the TV show more closely.

Crystal is more of a subtle update over its direct predecessors but is – in my opinion anyway –  the definitive edition of the second generation of games. When this game was originally released, the introduction of animated sprites was incredibly special for example. The first iteration of the Battle Tower debuted in Crystal too (and boy was it brutal!) and a slightly tweaked storyline put Suicune into a position of prominence, allowing the player to eventually battle the legendary Pokemon without worrying about it fleeing as it, Raikou and Entei would immediately do in Gold/Silver.

Gotta love those old sprites!

Crystal is – like most of the early Pokemon games – quite nostalgic for me as I clearly remember receiving it for Christmas on the year of release along with a brand spanking new Gameboy Advance. How ironic that the first game I played on a new system was one via the backwards compatibility! The more advanced (see what I did there?) aesthetics of those shiny new GBA titles didn’t deter me from embarking on a second tour of Johto however and in 2018, history is set to repeat itself. I really cannot wait and I’m fortunate enough to have received a £15 e-shop voucher from my sister at Christmas so I’m saving that for the 26th!

It’s also worth mentioning that Nintendo have slightly tweaked this version of Crystal in a rather special way. Aside from Pokemon Bank compatibility, they have also included a way to battle and capture Celebi without the need for any sort of special ‘event’! Wow! Celebi has long been one of those Pokemon that has been impossible to capture without being fortunate enough to attend a special event and outside of said event for Gold/Silver/Crystal (or the Japanese bonus disc for Pokemon Colosseum), I don’t believe Celebi has been made available since.

Roll on the 26th!

Why I love Femme Fatales in Videogames

Contrary to the fact that I’m not posting on here every day, I do actually have a lot of things to say and various topics/reviews semi-written in my mind (just not physically typed-up where it matters…) so it’s a shame that life just loves to get in the way. Anyway, today I have found some time…time to plunge my arm into that insane melting pot of thoughts that is my mind and retrieve this topic centred on Femme Fatales in videogames. Or “Why I find dangerous, psychotic videogame girls sexy”. Yeah, that didn’t sound so great as the official title hence why I didn’t go with it.

So, what is it about femme fatales that I like so much? Well, I’m probably not alone in saying that I find strong women attractive and as much as I will unashamedly confess to having fun with pretty bimbo types in the likes of Dead or Alive Xtreme, I much prefer a strong lead female with a well-written personality/backstory. That’s the normal part. The not-so-normal part is that I find the psychotic, killer archtype pretty damn attractive as well when it comes to videogames (and books and movies too for that matter). Maybe it isn’t so strange though given how many guys seem to get some serious wood over DC’s Harley Quinn?

As well as attractive, I just consider the really bad girls to be straight-up cool and interesting. To better illustrate my point, I’ve compiled a shortlist of some of my favourite femme fatales who immediately spring to mind…

Tira (Soul Calibur III)

Let me begin by saying that Soul Calibur‘s most attractive lady is – without any doubt – Sophitia for her Greek Goddess-like charms and I will always ‘main’ her in any SC installment or at least her style via custom-created characters (the less said about her absence in SCV and poor replacement in the form of her daughter, the better). When Tira was introduced in Soul Calibur III however, I took an immediate liking to her. The blue hair was very out-of-place in the game but otherwise, I really dug her sexy green rags, feathers and pet raven. Most importantly though, her fighting style was new and unique and actually utilised her loopy personality with multiple stances accompanied by visible mood swings for the character. Tira is nuts and loves killing in an excitable child-like way that really does remind my of Harley Quinn. A really fun character that I am pleased to see appear in every installment since her debut.

Jane Doe (Devil’s Third)

Devil’s Third for the Wii-U is no classic. It was in fact, a pretty poor game in my opinion that could (and should) have been something rather more special but the end product was a generic third-person action game full of the cheap crap that should have been left behind years ago in videogames such as invisible walls, inconsistent difficulty spikes and painful linearity. There were a few good elements though and some interesting characters (that were pretty much wasted by being in this game) such as Jane Doe, one of the toughest bosses in the game. A voluptuous Spanish beauty clad in a traditional Japanese kimono (when you first meet her in the game), she soon ditches the far eastern garb for…sexy lingerie and a massive rifle?!? Yep, she’s a bit of a mish-mash of things but all you need to know is that Jane has killer curves and equally dangerous attacks. Fight from a distance and she will try to gun you down but get up close and personal and try to dance toe-to-toe with her? Yeah, you will probably die…a lot. She has several kinky moves involving choking Ivan with her thighs or trying to break his neck while making suggestive groaning noises. If this kind of thing turns you on then repeatedly falling foul of her cheap one-shot kills may not be a terrible thing.

Bad Girl (No More Heroes)

Surely a cute blonde in a Little Bo Peep get-up can’t be that dangerous, right? Wrong. The original No More Heroes was one of a slew of games for the Wii that dared to ignore the trend for family-friendly software on Nintendo’s crazy successful lil’ white box and us gamer’s loved Suda51 for it. The sequel is arguably the better and more streamlined game but the original is worth playing, even if it’s just for Bad Girl. That sweet, butter-wouldn’t-melt image is quickly discarded as Bad Girl reveals herself to be a foul-mouthed, beer-chugging psychopath with an unpredictable personality and a love for beating bound/gagged male gimps to death with her trusty baseball bat. It’s the kind of madness that can only come from somebody like Suda51 and Travis Touchdown’s encounter with this crazy lady is as memorable as it is fucked-up. Is it wrong to be just a little bit turned-on by Bad Girl’s insanity?

Selvaria Bles (Valkyria Chronicles)

Now for character that has partially been ruined on the internet by exaggerated fan art: Selvaria Bles from Sega’s most excellent Valkyria Chronicles for PS3. This is a game that I cannot praise enough and while the sequels are an acquired taste for the truly devoted, the original is an outstanding tactical RPG that was a true breath of fresh air upon release, both in terms of gameplay and world design. The character of Selvaria was one of the best things about the game in my humble opinion. One of the opposing armies’ main generals, Selvaria wields the ancient power of the Valkyrur and is a feared force known to all. On the battlefield she is practically invincible and can destroy tanks with a single shot from her huge energy lance. There is a particular chapter in the game where Selvaria suddenly rocks up midway through the battle and proceeds to utterly demolish a player who foolishly believes that they can actually take her out like any other enemy boss. All you can do is frantically hide and attempt to complete the mission without Selvaria slaughtering all of your units. Valkyria Chronicles’ superb storytelling comes to fore when it initially portrays Selvaria to be a cold, merciless warrior but in reality she is simply being used by Maximillion, loyalty and love for her leader exploited so that he may wield her power in the Europan war. The DLC chapter titled Behind Her Blue Flame is particularly touching as Selvaria is revealed to be warm and caring towards your nameless engineer character. It’s a small bit of quality writing that shows that even the enemy is human and not necessarily evil.
Selvaria makes this list for being a great character in general, a fearsome/memorable enemy boss and a rare example of a female character designed to be attractive but also strong and succeeding on both counts.

Ayane (Dead or Alive)

I suppose when talking about femme fatales, I should be talking about “bad” girls and – as already mentioned – sexy nutcases but Kasumi’s half-sister from Dead or Alive isn’t really either of those things. She’s cocky and arrogant as a character but not an evil/bad person yet I suppose I will say that she leans more in that direction just to get Ayane on a list of some kind – she’s a bad girl at the least in some sense. Whenever I play Dead or Alive, I always ‘main’ Ayane because I love her speed, agility and the way that you maintain a distance from your opponent and punish them when they close in. Of course, it helps a ton that Team Ninja have always made her aesthetically pleasing on the eye and while most fanboys prefer Kasumi, I prefer her purple-haired nemesis for some reason. Surely it couldn’t be because Ayane is one of the most top-heavy of the DOA girls? No (what do you take me for?)…she’s just a cool girl in a cool fighting game. And she’s a ninja – everybody loves ninjas.

Nina Williams (Tekken)

There aren’t may Irish characters in videogames and even less female Irish assassins so Tekken‘s Nina Williams pretty much has the niche to herself although there’s nothing particularly Irish about her, especially with respect to her voice-actress who is…er…not very Irish. This blonde bombshell was clearly Namco’s version of Virtua Fighter‘s Sarah Bryant back in 1994 when the original Tekken was released into arcades and (more importantly) the Playstation. A cool-headed assassin with top-tier combos and a selection of bone-snapping holds, Nina may look like a sexy model but she’s utterly bad-ass and calculating as per her assassin occupation. I’ve always mained Nina in Tekken (after Kazuya) and love her combos plus her variety of special ops-inspired outfits. I even have a soft spot for her solo PS2 game, Death By Degrees, despite the majority of people agreeing that it’s a poor game (possibly something I can properly re-visit and speak about in the future). Also, you have to admire Namco’s way of keeping Nina youthful between Tekken 2 and 3‘s large time lapse by explaining that she’d been placed in cryogenic storage. We certainly weren’t complaining.

There are undoubtedly more great examples of femme fatales that I have forgotten about and countless more from games that I haven’t even played so what do you think? Do you also have a little something for the wackier ladies in gaming? Do you agree or disagree with my choices? Let me know!

“It has risen again!” (Medievil remake coming for PS4)

There have been some very interesting announcments in the world of videogames over the past few days but there was one in particular that got me feeling all excited as well as depressingly sceptical. That announcement? A remake of Medievil is heading for the PS4 next year (source here).

First of all, let’s begin with some positivity and explain why I’m excited about this. Medievil is one of my all-time favourite games and along with such other Playstation classics as Spyro the Dragon, Crash Bandicoot, Driver and Tekken, it is one of the reasons why I fell in love with gaming in the first place and am still here today (for better or for worse). Thanks to my Dad, we got the original grey Sony slab beneath the TV in our house in 1998/1999 and one of the best things that came in the box was the most recent version of the famous “Demo 1” disc. This disc contained demo versions of all the big releases that had just hit the shelves as well as some previews of upcoming titles. Medievil was one such game on the disc and my Dad and I must have played that demo a thousand times before he bought the full game.

The dreaded boulder section of Mausoleum Hill. Not so difficult as an adult but slightly more fiendish as a wee nipper still new to games!

I can only decribe the game as having a “magical” atmosphere. The design is a clever mix of horror and comedy with a perfect balance between the two being struck. Aesthethically, it reminds me of a Tim Burton movie with all the darkness and evil elements being kept in check by funny bits and the almost cartoon-like character/scenery design. The twisted shape of the gravestones has always stuck in my mind for example as have the sinister airborne demons from later in the game. Don’t forget the imps or killer pumpkins either. In short, the game has a lot of memorable visuals and made the sort of impact on me that other games (despite their quality) have failed to do in the 19 years or so since I first experienced Medievil.

The music too was incredible and carried a haunting, gothic tone that thoroughly bewitched my ears and added to the magic. To this day, it is a perfect example of an impressive, fitting videogame soundtrack composition and I often stick some earphones in and revisit my favourite tracks via Youtube.

I re-played both games last year as I so often do and found the original to have lost none of its charm. Yes, the game felt a little bit clunky and unforgiving (especially when it comes to falling from edges) at times but overall it still held its own. That graphical style in particular has really helped Medievil age well and does a super job at compensating for the general ageing that all early 3D videogames have suffered with many being cited as “unplayable” due to how poor they look today or how offensive those once cutting-edge textures are on the eyes.

If I were a female groupie then this kind of graphical style would have me dropping my undergarments in an instant.

Medievil 2 (to discuss it quickly) was a little different in that I also recalled it fondly but upon re-playing the sequel (I usually just revisit the original) I found it to be a lot more fiddly and frustrating than I remember with numerous irritating elements such as the Dankenstein boxing match, trying to save all of the civilians on the Kew Gardens level and the monstrous difficulty of the final few levels. I’m ashamed to admit that I had to resort to an old-school print-out of cheat codes from back in the day that had been folded up and stuffed inside the game case. As far as personal gripes went, I missed some of the classic weapons such as the magic bow and dragon armour. Obviously with the game being set in more modern time, these fantasy items made no sense but even so, I still mourned their absence. The game is still decent and worth playing but I much prefer the fantasy setting of the original which didn’t come with so many annoying, gimmicky additions to the core gameplay. At the time of writing this reaction to the remake announcement, it isn’t clear whether Medievil 2 will join the original and mirror the recent Crash Bandicoot remasters (which included all three main PS1 games) but I can honestly say that I’m not fussed either way.

Unfortunately I now come to the part of this article where I must do a bit of doom-mongering and air my reservations. First of all, I’m usually extremely sceptical about ANY remake (whether it’s a videogame, movie or music) because more often than not, it isn’t really needed and in the case of older games, developers feel the need to expand on things or add new bits to the original formula in order to give a game the necessary meat that it needs in order to exist as a full-fledged release in the modern age where consumers have come to expect more for their money. In my eyes, Medievil is a perfect game and doesn’t need anything adding to it so there’s that.

Secondly, it is utterly vital that they preserve a) the tone of the original b) that superb soundtrack (whether it gets remastered or not) and c) the balance between gothic horror and comedy. Before anybody accuses me of baseless assumptions, let’s not forget that Medievil was already re-imagined for the PSP as one of the machine’s launch titles and that version changed several things as well as tipping the scales firmly towards comedy. It has not been well-remembered by fans of the original and the comedy look to the ghost at the end of the remake teaser trailer does give me cause for concern.

The tomes on these stands provided hints and added to the game’s lore/atmosphere.

In general I am trying to remain on the fence until we have some more information or at least some footage to make a judgment on what kind of direction the developers behind this remake are taking. Using the PSP game for a base would be an instant turn-off for me and many others (judging by the comments section on the official Playstation Blog page for this news story) but remaking the game and losing that special balance in general would also leave me no other choice other than to say “no thanks”.

If it does turn out badly then it’s important to remember that we will always have the original to comfort ourselves with whether we dig out that old Playstation copy or fall back on the PSN re-release. When we still have this choice, I try not to moan or rant too much about what I consider to be “botched rehashes” because nobody can take away our memories or ability to play a game as it was originally released and nobody forces us to play a remake. Even rare games are available to play via emulation these days so we will always be pretty much sorted for the OG products when the marketing men take a steaming dump on our memories.

Here’s hoping that I will be looking forward to revisiting Gallowmere in 2018.