Let's Be Frank Here

One sure way to know if I played a great game is that I can't stopped thinking about it even after I finished. The game lingers on and I feel satisfied enough not to play another game yet.That happened with Alan Wake, I proceeded to watch the bonus material and subsequently finished the DLC episodes.

Unfortunately the same didn't happened with Dead Rising 3. Something was missing, that intangible factor that makes a game great.The game felt long and repetitive. Of course the same was said of Alan Wake but I certainly didn't felt that way. 

This new Dead Rising game removed the loading time in the previous games, providing a truly new experience for the series. Unfortunately, the city Los Perdidos that you are trapped in feels lacking in character. For sandbox games, the real star is always the city. If the city isn't interesting then your game isn't going to be very memorable.

The formula of finding other survivors and psychos is beginning to feel very routine now.  Each survivor will always have a quirky request before joining your crew but it always boils down to a lame fetch quest. The psychos are just as predictable as well. This series is in dire need of a new creative change of direction.

RE Anniversary

Normally anniversary puts me in a good mood and today is RE's 20th anniversary. I dusted off my old dioramas and games for the occasion but somehow this 20th anniversary feels especially hallow for me.

That means Capcom has not made a good RE game for more than 10 years. It's been more than 10 years since RE's best creative minds left the series after RE4. All Capcom does these days is basked in the old glory days and put out remasters of the RE classics.

The last RE game, Revelations 2 looked like junk compared with today's modern games. It scored pretty decent reviews but I honestly thought maybe RE6 is actually better. Revelation 2 was good enough to be heralded as the best RE game since RE4. Problem is we are still waiting for something better than RE4 that would set a new benchmark for the series.

 

That would never happen I fear. At least not in Capcom's offices.

All You Can Carry

Resident Evil mini-games are usually a hit or miss.

For every the 4th Survivor, there is uhm, what is that Code Veronica mini-game called again?

RE Zero has its own mini-game called the Leech Hunter. I never gave this mini-game much of a fair shake until now.

It follows the first Mercenaries reward system. You want infinite ammo in the story mode? You got to finish Leech Hunter first and do it well. There are no countdown timer in this, your only challenge here is the inventory slot. You are tasked with collecting 50 leeches each for Billy and Rebecca within the training facility. You can't drop the leeches once you picked them up and each item slot can only carry up to 10 leeches. Obviously as you reached closer to 50 leeches, the game gets progreesively harder because your inventory gets tighter.

It's pretty challenging, never has inventory management in a RE game became so critical. Some players came up with the loophole of wiping all the enemies in the facility before picking up any leeches since there is no timer. Sure that could work but the danger is if you die in the middle of combat then all the hard work is wasted. Your leech count at time of death would be very little if you used this strategy. 

This mini-game is carefully thought out, you can only pick up the right color leech for each character. This prevents using Billy as the attacker and leaving Rebecca as the supply mule. You need to use both character as according to how the leeches are scattered and there are 3 random arrangements for the leech and weapons each time you play.

This is one of the better mini-games in the RE series. The RE0 game itself isn't all that great but bear in mind that REHD or any other RE game during this era never had any mini-games.

Nickel and Dime

After all that good feelings, it's time to talk about the ugly side of the game business. Unfortunately Capcom is once again the guilty party.

When Capcom started to unveiled the new bonus costumes for RE0 remaster, I was getting a little suspicious of how much effort they are putting in. After all, they basically phoned-in the new bonus costumes for the earlier RE remaster though that was understandable being their first major HD remaster title. For RE0, there was a major t-shirt contest where fans can submit their own design. Then there are the throwback costumes to the previous RE games. Unfortunately Capcom have decided to charge the new RE0 bonus costume as DLC.

This is a classic example of publisher witholding content to nick an extra dime from consumers. After all the game is already more than 10 years old and any new content should be deemed part of the remastering packaging. But looks like the basic $20 is just enough to cover their remastering fee and you need to pony up an additional $10 for the new costumes.


To be honest, the new costumes are a nice throwback to the series history.  I wasn't so fond of the fan design T-shirt idea as it seem out of place in this game. But the costumes from the past RE games got me nostalgic of the series. It's just too bad that's probably all we are getting for this year's 20th anniversary of RE.

This Needs A Remaster

Onimusha is a game that aged well in some areas and not so in others. Still it's hard to believe it was a launch title for the PS2 considering how bad games are in this generation.

The in-game graphics hold up really well but unfortunately not for the CG cinematics. Thankfully the CG was only used sparingly in this game. Even the subtitles doesn't have the usual jagginess you get when watching SD on LCD TV. Somehow the subtitles are missing during the CG making it hard to play in Japanese. I certain don't remember this problem until I started playing it again.

The part that didn't aged well is how you can't switch weapons without going back to the menu. And the game forced you to switch up the weapoons quite a lot to face different enemies and open doors. It's also a lot harder than most newer games but still fair enough so you don't complain. Problem is I don't have the tendency to save often anymore with how lenient games tend to be these days. So I had to replay a lot as it's hard to unlearn what you learnt over the years.

I took 5 hours plus to finish what it roughly a 3 hours game. It wasn't pretty, I felt like Kobe trying to survive in the NBA at his current age.

Keep The Home Fires Burning

This mobile strap comes with first edition copies of Devil May Cry 3 JP Edition

The Devil and Bayo series shares this weird symbiotic relationship. They obviously have the same fanbase (me being one) but coincidentally the games never competed head on. 

The Devil series did their thing and faded away for a bit then the Bayo games came and kept the fires burning. I don't think it would be too far to say that if it wasn't for Bayonetta, DMC4SE would never have happened. 

One man that has a hand on both series is action director Yuji Shimomura. He crafted the cutscenes in both the series, making the games just as fun to watch as it is to play. Yuji started in this genre with DMC3 which is probably still his best work if you asked me. His work on the Bayonetta series has been less impressive perhaps because the Devil work were so outstanding.

I can't pick out a single impressive scene from Bayonetta 2. That creative energy that I expect from Yuji just isn't there, not sure if the story and characters just didn't suit his strengths. Bayonetta 2 felt like a lower budget game to me and considering how hard Platinum fought to make that game, I believe that to be the case. The cutscenes felt just as long as the first Bayo but less impactful, there isn't much scenes of showing off that you come to expect. 

DMC4SE new scenes looked very promising, I can't wait to see what Yuji has cooked up as it certainly looked like he found his vigor again. 

The inside of the strap has a different color depending on which character

This is for Vergil. There is also one for Dante and Lady

Jumping The Gun

I have a set of 5 figures but I keep coming back to these two

What's the first button you instinctively reach for when you want the character to jump?

It's usually the lowest button on the controller regardless of what system or generation, that's how buttons are normally mapped to by default. You don't go against the system especially if it's a technical action game like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta.

The first Devil May Cry game mapped the jump action to the Triangle button. That's right, it's on the highest button on the gamepad for reasons I failed to understand. The buttons also cannot be re-configured so you are basically stuck with unlearning what you learnt through years of playing these games.

Thankfully as I tend to have multiple copies of these games, I discovered that the Japanese version of Devil May Cry doesn't have this type of insane button mapping. Jump is actually mapped to the X button like how it usually is. For once, owning multiple copies of the same game actually paid off and I can put this import copy to use despite have to start all over. Or if you are not the nostalgic type, you can always pick up the HD collection as it's seems they have fixed this problem on the HD reissue.

This anniversary re-issue is actually pretty sweet, it comes with a bonus soundtrack disc and a nice new cover art. When I first bought it, I even got a bonus DVD of the wesker report and trailers for other Capcom games. Those were good times, too bad it never lasts as with all good thing.

A Zap from the Past

Now I already pointed out that Revelations 2 is very similar to Zero in terms of gameplay. That nostalgic call back is ultimately its main downfall. 

As RE fans are aware, there are two types of RE games – the early fixed camera angle games and the RE4 styled games. Zero lets you control your both characters at the same time which works well in the early fixed camera angle games. You could separate both characters and place them in in different rooms. You determine where each character goes and does what. In that aspect, the game is light years ahead of RE5 or Revelations 2. The two characters never felt like they were attached at the hip like in the latter games.

In Revelations 2, you can’t separate the two characters and one of them is helpless but not completely unarmed. You have separate inventory for each character even though they can never be apart and one don’t actually use firearms.Online co-op would have be nice though it’s hard to imagine how much fun it is controlling a character that doesn’t fight. Using the second character to wave the flashlight around is as boring as it sounds.

Capcom wisely put the RE0 remaster on hold as they didn't want to saturate the market with another game. In retrospect they should have just remaster Zero and forget about the lame Revelations sequel. 

I Need More Controller

Devil May Cry is never far from gamers' minds despite not having a proper sequel for more than 5 years. It's a cult series for sure and cult followers expect more. Like retail copy more, I get that because I'm one of those too. DMC4 SE will be released strictly through digital distribution on current hardware. Looking back at DMC3 SE, it's unreasonable to think that Capcom would do more than distribute this on the digital medium.

This reissue looks largely the same as DMC3 SE in terms of content except it took 7 years to arrive. DMC3 SE only had a Greatest Hits cover despite being a year apart. I remember importing the japanese edition of DMC3 SE just for the new cover art. I dusted off the game to play recently after a bit of Bayonetta fatigue and the game still holds up remarkably well. Of course, it claimed the life of another dualshock2 controller but these imitation stuff never do last anyway.

The Art of Remastering

Bayonetta Wii U and Resident Evil HD are two recent high-profile ports that really show you the different philosophy adopted by its publishers/developers.

Nintendo could have easily slap a Definitive Edition label to Bayonetta and charge $30 for the port but instead they decided to bundle the game free with every purchase of the sequel.

Of course, Capcom is infamous for making a quick buck off everything they can find in their vault so no one was expecting them to give RE HD away for free. 

The issue here is the level of effort put into the port and despite charging for RE HD, Capcom's effort on RE HD remains subpar as usual. Early on Capcom announced that Chris and Jill BSAA costumes will be new additions to the HD Remaster. The logical assumption would be to have the young Chris and Jill wearing the BSAA costumes of their older counterparts. That would be the ideal case except it required a lot more work than simply pulling the BSAA models from the RE5 DLC and sticking it in HD remaster. Which of course, Capcom did so in the end. 

I wasn't very surprised with Capcom's efforts on RE HD Remaster but I was surprised with what Nintendo and Platinum Games did on Bayonetta Wii U. Now when the Bayonetta port was announced, the Nintendo costume were highly publicized and were directly supervised by original director, Hideki Kamiya. Recently, the concept artist revealed sketches of the costumes on Platinum Games blog and divulged that Kamiya insisted small details like the Samus suit had to be the classic original from the NES Metroid. 

Nintendo and Platinum games did a fine job on the Nintendo themed costumes. If they had delivered just a steady port with no additional costumes, a lot of gamers would have been more than satisfied. What I didn't expect was that these concept drawings also made their way into the bonus gallery after you completed the game. Clearly one publisher went the extra mile with the small details while the other was quick to call it a day. 

Labels like Remaster really don't mean all that much anymore and in the end, you got to walk the talk or risk becoming easy target for obsessive fanboys. Sure Capcom are patting themselves on the back because RE HD broke all sorts of digital sale records while Bayonetta 2 probably sold a criminally obscene amount. But passionate gamers care and so do passionate developers, some of which used to work in Capcom and are now working in Platinum Games.

Pretty Ballerina

Sometimes I get the urge to boot up an old game and the beautiful thing about that is I never have to feel guilty about not finishing it if I do. After all, I probably finished that game several times already so if the itch isn't there anymore I will just leave it be.

PN03 was an obvious choice this time, I looked back fondly at the Gamecube library of games and realised that slowly one by one of its exclusives are slowly being remastered for new platforms. Probably not this one though, Capcom sees no commercial value in remastering this game and it will probably stay one of the last surviving Gamecube exclusives.

It's a pretty short game that you can simply blast through on a lazy Sunday afternoon but of course, I still took several weeks to finish the game. When playing it again, it occurs to me that Vanessa's Aegis suits are no different apart from the color change. There are like a dozen different Aegis Suits that you can use in the game and one doesn't feel any different from the other - aesthetic wise or functionality wise.

Another thing that also occurred to me when reflecting on Mikami's body of work is the man has a serious fetish for woman's posterior. Well, I will just leave it at that for now.

What A Revelation

When playing Revelations 2, I knew it was going to be a very nostalgic game and so far the quiet nods to the series past games hasn't been as cringe-worthy as say, Resident Evil 6. But I was surprised that the game resembles Resident Evil Zero the most as you can zap between the two characters just like Zero. I always thought that the character zapping mechanics from RE Zero was a relic from the past, made redundant now that games have advanced to the point where you can have a second player play together. Certainly Capcom must have other ideas about this or simply couldn't be bothered to rework the game engine around to include online co-op.

The game looks almost exactly like Revelations HD and it's pretty sad because past RE games are usually heralded for it's cutting edge graphics. The first Revelations was able to push the boundaries of what was thought impossible for the 3DS system and now Revelations 2 looks remarkably less impressive than RE5 or RE6. The series deserved better and certainly so do the long time fans but it's hard to see a resurgence with the exodus of talent Capcom experienced over the years.

Talking about My Revelations

With Revelations 2 is almost upon us now, I thought it would be a good time to reflect back on the first Revelations game and what made it so great. I first played Revelations shortly after getting a Nintendo 3DS so the experience is a little less than a year ago and still pretty fresh in my mind. I find Revelations' acclaim a little unwarranted, I mean sure it was miles better than Resident Evil 6 but let's not make it sound like the second coming of Resident Evil 4. I do want to point out what made Revelations better than most recent RE entries

1. No More Umbrella
Let's face it, the original storyline that spans across the first 3 RE games is now a convoluted mess thanks to the many different writers who pitched in over the years. It's hard to make an sense of the Umbrella legacy anymore or tie up the loose ends which Capcom so clumsily attempted to in RE5. Thankfully, Revelations told a new story much like RE4 did without much ties to the original storyline aside from the iconic characters appearing. No silly homages to the series like what happened in RE5 Gold or RE6, it was a servicable story with nice twists and a brand new villain.

Remember the feeling when you first got the Colt Python?

2. Simple Guns
The RE games has always placed a strong emphasis on the guns used but in the early games, you are able to figure out which weapon works best against which enemies because the weapons were slowly introduced into the game as you play. That way you formed a strong bond with the weapons because you become very familiar with the ones you are using before you get a new toy. In RE6, I actually lost track of which ammunition goes to which weapon when I was clearing the character inventory. Too much awesome weaponry was clearly not a good thing and Revelations wisely scaled back on the number of weapons deployed. It doesn't introduced the weapons into the game as masterfully as the old games but at least, it was manageable and fun.

Aside from this, there are some aspects which makes RE Revelations not so great like the annoying new side characters and episodic chapters. In the end given the dire strait predicament of the series right now, the first Revelations certainly did more right than wrong but it still pales in comparisons to the early RE games under Mikami's supervision.

Digitally Yours

I would like to talk about a gaming trend that has became more and more prevalent over the years, digital distribution of games. Some say it will spell the end for brick and mortar game shops eventually though maybe not in Japan where they still love their game box arts and so fore.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because it's starting to affect me, several of my favorite series have recently announced digital-only distribution of their new releases. Unlike some other fanboys, I don't feel less ownership of the game if it's digital, it's just I would like to have some tangible to add in my proud collection. I do enjoy the convenience of not having to get up and swap discs when it's digital but to me, it's just a minor annoyance I would gladly put up with to own the physical copy.

Now developing games are becoming more costly and putting out a physical copy isn't as cheap as one may think, there are logistics involved and not just the mere cost of writing the actual disc. I get all that but I really wonder for the case of Yakuza 5, is Sega allowing the fate of the series to continue down this road? It's really a chicken and egg dilemma, are you going to able to foster new fanbase if you don't spend the money to put physical copies in stores and promote the game? Rebirth HD and Revelations 2 will sell on their own even if it's digital only as the Resident Evil franchise is huge so in Capcom's case, it's just a matter of Capcom trying to save some bucks by going this route (to be fair, Capcom did distribute Rebirth on disc in Asia region and also give a significant discount for the digital version of Revelations 2).

Yakuza is a series on its last legs in the West, each sequel has seen diminishing sales so it's almost like Sega is doing this just for the fans and not hoping to reach out to new fans. While I applaud Sega (and Sony) for doing this, I'm also sad that Sega is no longer interested in investing in this franchise overseas though it's probably been that way for some time now. Well I guess I will always have my Asian copies and now not have to worry about ugly box art on the western version anymore.

Hello Stranger, What Are You Buying?

The Resident Evil games have been pretty predictable these days when it comes to unlockable features after completing the game -  it's the usual offering of Mercenaries mini-game and bonus costumes. These are some of the series mainstays since the beginning and the theory of why fix something that isn't broken is a logical reasoning why Capcom never bother to come up with something different for each new game.

Jill wonders where The Mercenaries have gone on Revelations?

So naturally I was very intrigued when I unlocked the Raid mode upon completing Resident Evil Revelations as this was the first bonus mini-game that isn't the Mercenaries since RE : Code Veronica. All I knew prior to playing the game is that the story mode doesn't feature co-op but Raid mode does though you still have the option of playing the game solo if you like. 

After playing Raid mode for a bit, I quickly discovered it's nothing more than the same story mode with the cutscene removed and co-op mode tacked on. As the main game is designed for portable play, each chapter were made to be very brief so these chapters are now individual missions that you can play separately on Raid mode. The objective of each mission remains largely the same but now there are no cutscenes or loading time to interupt the game-play, thereby allowing co-op play. It's almost as if the main game was meant to have co-op play as there are always a NPC character in each stage but yet it was strangely omitted.

So in the end, it turns out Raid mode wasn't a brand new mini-game as I would expect and the Mercenaries isn't featured in this game probably because Capcom expects you to buy the standalone Mercenaries 3D game also  released on the Nintendo 3DS. Nicely played Capcom, you always know what your fans want (or don't want) and give it to them. At a price, of course.

You wanna play Mercenaries on the 3DS? Be prepared to pony up the cash

Justice for All

Since upgrading my Nintendo DS to 3DS XL, I felt the need to clear the backlog of unfinished games on the old DS especially an ongoing series such as Capcom's Ace Attorney. So I spent the last month resuming my save game of Apollo Justice which I probably first started more than a year ago and finished the last two remaining cases over the weekend.

Now Apollo Justice was the first real installment of the Ace Attorney series made for the Nintendo DS as the previously 3 games were originally Gameboy Advance games that never made it out of Japan until they were ported to the Nintendo DS. If you never knew this, you wouldn't be able to tell after playing all four games as Apollo Justice doesn't look very different aesthetic wise from the earlier games. The interface remains the same, sprites of old characters like Phoenix Wright looks identical in the flashback sequence (he has aged in the present story you see) and there isn't much changes introduced apart from new characters.

Capcom bundled the first 3 games and ported them to the 3DS, so it's a port of  what was already a port. 

The real draw of the Ace Attorney game is the story and in that sense, the fourth game does the series justice in the final case where events from 7 years ago all come together to explain Phoenix Wright's involvement in this one. It's hard to remember why I took this long to finish Apollo Justice, I guess the fatigue of playing all four games in a relative short amount of time on the same system eventually wears you out. Like remember when Capcom ported all of the previous RE games to the Gamecube after doing a full blown remake of the first? Same thing with the Ace Attorney games and eventually you get underwhelmed with game's dated graphics running on more powerful hardware, no matter how good the games were back in the day.

Anniversary Reflections

Capcom has been guilty of their fair share of cheap port and quick remakes but Deadly Silence should not be counted as one of them. Released to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Resident Evil, Deadly Silence looks and plays like the original except now you are playing the whole thing in the palm of your hands.

The pre-rendered background could be copied over directly from the original but the 3D character and object polygons could not so Capcom had to re-draw everything from scratch. A rebirth mode was added where many of the newer RE moves were implement to the original included the all-important quick turn, knife attack and quick reload. All of these moves could now be performed without going to the item menu just like in Resident Evil 4 and 5. Some of the pre-rendered background were redrawn to accommodate the new costume and puzzles in addition to a handful of new camera views of "background" for the knifing mode.

I wasn't impressed with Deadly Silence back during the tenth anniversary but now I'm beginning to see the effort the team put into the port. It made have been all fans got ob the tenth anniversary but right now it seems a lot better than what we are getting for the 15th anniversary this year.

Devil-Bringer Back to Where It Came

Next to go on my ps3 hard disk was actually the very first game I install when I got the system, Devil May Cry 4. Sentiments aside there is really no reason to keep this game data on my ps3 as there are no patch or dlc for the game so re-installing the game in the future should be fairly quick.

I initially plan on just viewing the cutscene through the story theater and be done with it but being the sap that I am, there is no way I will be able to do that without feeling guilty. So I thought I should have a quick playthrough the game without worrying about ranking and just clear another one of the six difficulty modes in the game. A friend of mine absolutely loathe this game when he first played it for reasons I couldn't see why but I begin to have similar feeling after rushing through the game. Maybe my heart just wasn't in it this time as I was expecting enemies to be shuffled around and other surprises in the son of sparda hard mode. From what I can remember everything feels the same as before and after Bayonetta, playing as Nero just feels woefully one-dimension. In the end I just couldn't wait to devil bringer this game back to where it came - my collection where it will remain for a long time to come.

Feeling Retro: Dino Crisis 2

I had the Dino Crisis 2 disc sitting in my PSOne disc tray for a very long time before finally feeling nostalgic about playing it. To my surprise once I started I couldn't stop as I was simply having too much fun with it. I remember when the game was first released I was reluctant to embraced it because it deviated so far from the formula and element of fear Mikami had established in the first game. The game was Capcom's swansong to the PSOne and sure enough had pretty graphics to boot but it really didn't matter as the Playstation2 had just launched.

The Dino Crisis series really went off the rails with the Xbox exclusive Dino Crisis 3 but part of the problem with the series had already begun in Dino Crisis 2. Don't get me wrong Dino Crisis 2 is certainly a worthy sequel but I always had a sneaky suspicion that Capcom felt a compelling need to introduce new and bizarre dinosaurs with each new sequel of the game. Dino Crisis 2 felt great up until the part when the Giganotosaurus was introduced into the game. I'm not sure what kind of dinosaurs were introduced in Dino Crisis 3 but from what I could remember they sure don't look like dinosaurs to me. It's almost like it's encoded into the design philosophy of Capcom for making Dino Crisis sequels at that time, to come up with new, more off-beat dinosaurs with every sequel. That's why I think the series has remained dormant for so long and will likely stay so for the time to come. We don't need new dinosaurs in every sequel Capcom we just need new ways of killing them.

No Wayne It's Luka

In an effort to clear some valuable hard disk space on my ps3, I went back to playing Lost Planet shortly after finishing Dead Rising 2. I lost my save game file a while back after updating the patch for the game so in a way, I was starting anew again. It wasn't a big loss as Lost Planet had hardly anything to unlock upon completion something uncommon for a Capcom game.

The most worthwhile was the character Luka which you could unlock for play in the online campaign as well as in the story campaign, an exclusive addition to the ps3 version. In order to unlock her you would have to locate all the hidden target marks for any one of the difficulty modes. I decided to try and do so when I started playing the game again so I had to go back and re-do all the earlier missions I cleared. What I initially thought would be a pretty quick affair turned into a long obsessive hunt as I was more consumed with finding these target marks than enjoying the game. When I finally did locate all the target marks and unlock Luka, there was a huge sigh of relief but then a quick realisation of what's the point. The cut-scenes of the game are unaffected by this change and also the viewpoint of the game doesn't really show off the character model very well. Oh well at least I achieved a new unlockable this time around and can proceed to delete the game data off my hard drive.