Beneath the Ashes was very mediocre, hardly strayed away from what was offered on the disc, and was not worth $10. Lara’s Shadow is a completely different animal, thanks to the new gameplay elements added. Lara’s shadow can use superspeed and hand-to-hand combat against the undead creatures of the underworld. Natla is trying to restore herself using the machine she used to create Lara’s shadow, and then the tables turn…
Lara can now run up walls using her superspeed. This makes gameplay very fast, extremely quick, and also a lot more fun. She can shimmy walls super fast and can even slow down time to avoid fast-moving obstacles. You also have a kick and punch button, along with a few super attacks. You have a superkick and punch, and you can fire your guns super fast as well, and all of these are very effective.
The fighting is responsive and works very well; it’s just not very deep at all. For $10, this is all you can expect, but I expect Eidos to expand on this with more expansions. What I mainly loved in Lara’s Shadow is the fact that navigating levels isn’t as difficult as it is on the disc. Since you move so fast, you have to navigate quickly, and you don’t need a walkthrough this time around to find out where to go.
I did find some obstacles too hard to avoid since you have to have perfect timing, and this can be very frustrating. I also found that if you fight too close to an edge, Lara will just fall off thanks to the spotty collision detection in the game, and you will die lots of times due to this. Everything else is pretty much the same; while I love Shadow Lara, I just wish there was more. 3–5 hours of gameplay is not that much for $10. If you really love Underworld, I promise you this will be an excellent buy.
Everybody knows and loves Lara Croft from way way back in 1996, when she starred on the PlayStation as the busty, sexy British female adventurer that everyone has grown to love over the past decade. Tomb Raider: Underworld really expands off the recent TR games with better environments, more brain-bending puzzles, less linearity, and more moves than you can count. Tomb Raider has always been about exploration and finding the best route using the environment, and this is still the core gameplay element used. The story of Underworld picks off where Legend (read my review for that) ends with Amanda on the loose and Lara trying to find her way into Atlantis to find her dead mother. While most of the story doesn’t pick up until the very end, there is enough incentive to keep you playing and motivated to press on.
The main element I need to talk about is just how much more detailed this game is. While most of the problems still exist, they can easily be overlooked with all the new features and elements added to the game. The first thing you’ll notice is how much more real Lara looks, feels, and moves around in the game. It’s just amazing to see Lara push brush out of her way, move to and fro in 360-degree motion with her stopping and starting really quick, the way she climbs, the way she places her hands and feet while climbing—it all just looks so damn good and real. The best thing about this is that the controls are still responsive and, most of the time, will do what you want. When you are swinging around poles, climbing walls, or hanging from ledges, you can pretty much get where you need to go with minute problems from the camera and some iffy collision detection issues. A lot of times Lara will jump in the wrong direction because of the finicky camera; she’ll fall off an edge you know you didn’t slip from, but all these are easily overlooked.
Now that all the climbing action is still the same and hasn’t changed much, the new animations, better controls, and sheer freedom you have really make it feel fresh again. Still staying in the action, the combat is exactly the same as before, and this is disappointing. The developers seemed to have taken the slo-mo headshot element from Anniversary and mixed it with Legend’s combat, and you get what you get: Simple lock-on combat with dodges and flips that don’t really do much. While the camera keeps up with the action, there’s nothing much to do but shoot your heart out. You can, however, throw grenades, and this really helps in tight situations. With all of that out of the way, let’s talk cosmetics.
Yes, the game looks absolutely stunning and is one of the better next-gen games as of yet. Everything is just huge and detailed. The sheer scope of the levels will make your jaw drop and make you think, “How the hell am I going to get up there?” This doesn’t just include land; it is also underwater. You will partake in two levels where you are hundreds of feet under the ocean, and it will take a good 4-5 minutes just to swim everywhere. The game really leads away from linearity with massive scope in the levels, and this usually leads to treasure hunting. Throughout the levels, you’ll find silver vases or just objects lying around as treasures for you to pick up. These will unlock extra content when you beat the game, so you must keep an eye out for them. Thankfully, they are easier to get to and easier to spot than in previous TR games, so you can relax. There’s just something great about this game that makes it different from other TR games, and the only thing I can think of is its pure epicness. Running around (yes, they added a run button!) in a sinking boat with a beautiful, sweeping orchestral soundtrack playing in the background just wows you every single time.
The game really does a good job mixing up exploration with action, and it also helps build upon Lara’s character. She is wiser, knows more, is a lot older with bitterness in her heart, and is holding onto all she can to keep from becoming corrupted like the enemies of her past. You really see this and how calloused her personality has become since she is no longer cheerful and happy but bitter and angry, with powerful rage flowing through her veins. The game just becomes so epic and amazing in the end that you wind up forgetting about all the gameplay flaws, and you feel very satisfied in the end. The main reason for this is that puzzles really bend your mind in just the right way to make you smile every time you solve a puzzle that expands an entire level.
Underworld requires you to take everything in and divide it into chunks instead of just looking and solving. Most levels will have you going from room to room to find pieces of a bigger puzzle, and this is actually better in the end. A small feature added is the ability to choose your weapons at the beginning of each level and your outfit. This is really useful and lets you mix things up for multiple playthroughs. There are other elements added to the game, such as your Gauntlets, which let you move certain heavier objects around rooms, Thor’s hammer (which you get toward the end), which is a one-hit kill scenario, and not to mention all the cool gadgets such as better binoculars (it’s actually a DV camera), your grapple hook, etc. You also get your bike back, but this time you get to control where you want to go. In Legend, you just drove straight, avoiding things along a linear path, but this time you drove it around and even used it to solve a few puzzles.
Underworld really is for hardcore Tomb Raider fans, and newbies really won’t like this much unless they get hooked on previous games. With gorgeous graphics, a great ending to a great story, our favorite female protagonist, and a few gameplay flaws, you will have a blast with Underworld.
I first have to mention that this game was made by the extremely talented Square Enix, and Tetsuya Nomura was behind it (Final Fantasy VII, Kingdom Hearts). The World Ends With You is an RPG like no other. They took the cliche elements of RPGs and twisted them around so much that it’s an enjoyable new welcome. First off, the story is the strong point here. You wake up in Shibuya without your memory, and all you have is a player pin. You have to stop the noise and find your way back to the real world. The combat here is great, but it is the most flawed part of the game. You use the stylus to fight with Neku by using player pins. Think of these pins as weapons with different attributes. You can tap empty space to send sparks flying, shout in the mic to create a shockwave, slack up on Neku to hit enemies, use healing pins, draw circles to send meteors crashing, and use telekinesis to send signs, cones, and even cars flying into your enemies. On the top screen, you control your partner (there are three throughout the game) by using the D-pad or the face buttons.
This is where it’s flawed; controlling two screens at a time does not work. You either have to focus on one or the other, but what makes it harder is that you have a combo tree when you hit the button and you have too many up certain cards to make a fusion pin appear for a super-powerful attack. This is really difficult and annoying because some fights make you control both. You can, however, have the game do it on its own, but the AI seems to be flawed since if you don’t, you’ll lose health really fast.
With that aside, everything else is great. While you run around Shibuya, you can visit stores and buy clothes (think armor) to increase attack and defense, etc. What’s neat about this is that each section of Shibuya has a “brand chart,” and if you wear those clothes or pins, you get an attack or stat bonus. This is also the other flaw in the game; each section is a tiny little area, so you’re not going to stop through every section and change your layout, so you just have to use what you like and try to make it popular by fighting the noise. While we’re on that, noise is the enemy in the game. You can scan the area with your player pin, and they all show up as red symbols. Tap these (or more than one for a chain battle) to level up and fight them. When each day of the game starts, you have missions you have to complete via your phone, and you have to get past walls that the Reapers put up. To get past these, you have to meet objectives such as defeating this many noises, buying me this or that, taking this quiz, etc. This tosses things around and makes you want to keep playing. You can add to your attributes without leveling up by eating food. This food has to be digested through battles, and after so many bites, you’ll get the start. You can also change your level to drop more pins if you need some good ones.
Of course, this is a Square Enix game, so it is dialog-heavy, and there are text-based cut scenes every five minutes. This adds to the incredible story, though, so it’s all okay. The graphics are all 2D, but they have the same art style as Kingdom Hearts, it looks like, thanks to Tetsuya Nomura. The sound is a bunch of swishing and bleeping, but the music is pretty nice. There are dozens of tracks you can buy in stores. Overall, if you can stomach odd combat design and you want a great story-driven game, then go for this. This is too complicated for a portable game, but for some odd reason, it still works. I think Square tried to take advantage of the hardware a little too much, but this game will sit in our hearts along with Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts because I know it has for me.
If you’ve been holding out on a PSP (I don’t know why you have), here is another reason to buy one. CC offers an original game experience, and, well, here’s how. First off, people who hate turn-based RPGs can relax. We get a whole new real-time combat engine, and no, it’s not like FF12’s. When you engage in combat, you can select attack, your materia (more on that later), and your items with the L or R buttons. You attack with X (combat is very simple and pretty easy). Now for the new original hate-it-or-like-it idea: the DMW. It looks like a slot machine up in the corner, and this is how you choose your power attacks (overdrives), level up, and your Aeon. This is also random, so it mixes up gameplay, yet for micro-managing freaks, they will hate this. Each character’s face is on the wheel, and as you meet them, they are unlocked. Each character has a special move, either offensive or defensive, and they are pretty neat. You also have numbers, and for example, if you get three 7’s, you level up. If you get two of the same number, you level up your materia. Another thing is that you don’t have magic and all that anymore.
Materia is things like fire, thunder, vital slash, and even graviga. You also have AP now, which is for materia like Vital Slash, Jump Attack, etc. You can also fuse materia together to make different materia. This is really fun to do, and there are tons of combos and different materia to collect. There are plenty of enemy types, so don’t worry.
Now for the story, it picks up after the movie where you play as Zack (yes, just one character through the whole game, yeah, so…deal with it). You have to save the world from the evil projects that people are doing and stop Genesis from taking over the world. While the graphics are amazing and the voice acting (for the first time in an FF game) is great, you also get beautiful pre-rendered FMVs. Now for the issues. The DMW wheel is great, and it’s very fair on leveling you up (I finished at level 38) and balances your character very well for you.
The combat is very simple, with just one button: hit, block, and dodge. This could have been revamped more. The game is pretty short by FF standards. I beat the game in 17 hours, and I did 15% of the side missions as well. Speaking of that, the side missions get dull real fast. You access them through save points, and it’s just a “kill every enemy in the room” type thing, and it’s for getting more items. You can’t get new weapons either; you’re stuck with what you have. You can also access shops through the menu at any time, which is convenient but makes the game even easier. Overall, if you love FF, you’ll absolutely love this. If you hate FF, then try the game, and I’m sure you’ll like it now.
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Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.