Super Princess Peach -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me I'll be going back to the Nintendo DS for the game Super Princess Peach. Super Princess Peach is a traditional 2D platform game in the same vein as Super Mario World. Nintendo hasn't made one of these in ages it seems. At least one I wanted to play. The gimmick here is some touch application of course. In the game Bowser finally gets the idea to get rid of Mario, "the green guy," and Toad before doing anything they'd normally be around to stop him for. So he kidnaps them all and locks them up in jail. The only one left to save the day is Princess Peach. Bowser has locked them up on Vibe Island where the Vibe Scepter has been used and everyone's emotions are out of control. The emotions come into play in the form of abilities. I have completed the first world and its six stages. From the time I've spent playing I can tell that the traditional controls are tight and responsive. The touch aspects don't seem intrusive. The graphics are bright and colorful. The level of animation is decent. The music sound quality is great. The love them or hate them Mario voice samples are present.  Hopefully this will prove to be every bit as classic as the great Nintendo mascot platformers of yesteryear and be a good omen for the upcoming New Super Mario Bros.

Grandia III -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Grandia III with a time of fifty-two and one-half hours at the final save before the hour long final boss battle. Nothing has really changed from the previous entries. The plot is all too familiar with its Japanese RPG storytelling style. The characters are far more alive and react and show actual emotion compared to most other Square-Enix productions. The battle system is still the best turn based Japanese RPG battle system to date. The graphics are very impressive for the PlayStation 2. Like all Game Arts games the art direction is exceptional. The game and characters and enemies look great.  The music is actually comparable to the plot. It's pretty average, except for a handful of tracks used in key moments where Iwadare returns to great form. The quest while generic, is long enough, especially if you're out to max out your skills and magic. The challenge is there. Some of the bosses rank up there at brutal. You really need to understand the battle system to stand a chance at defeating most of the bosses in the later half of the game. In the end it all comes down to a tradeoff. Do you need originality in your RPG? Or can the strength of the battle system and characterization of the characters be enough? It was enough for me. I'm giving Grandia III an 8.0. It's not as strong as Grandia or the damn near perfect Grandia II, but it's well worth playing and still above most of the current generation genre entries.

LEGO Star Wars -- Final Opinion.

I have completed LEGO Star Wars and unlocked all the characters. The only question to really answer is if the game retains its charm through to the finish. The answer is yes. In fact it becomes more charming as it goes along. The gameplay remains the same for most of the levels except for the one vehicle level in each episode. The pod racing, Clone Wars, and the Jedi Starfighter levels change up the gameplay in obvious ways. The graphics improve as the game goes along. The opening battle of episode three is quite impressive. The sounds and music are straight from the movies, so they're all exceptional. Another thing that's impressive is how they creatively decided to handle the duels given the nature of the combat engine. It's how they've handled the new content they've had to create for the game, with wit and good-natured fun. The humor sticks around from start to finish. You can't help but laugh out loud at a few moments in the game. I'm really glad I picked this up. I can't wait until the next one where you'll get to play through episodes four through six. I'm giving LEGO Star Wars an 8.5.

LEGO Star Wars -- A Connection that Works.

LEGO Star Wars allows you to play through episodes I-III of the Star Wars saga. The gimmick here is in the art design. Everything has a LEGO look. I find it exceedingly charming. But as every gamer knows, it doesn't matter how good it looks if it plays like crap. How does LEGO Star Wars play then? You can describe it in two words, simply fun. As I mentioned in the initial impression, the game plays very simply. Just like the 16-bit days where almost every action game was a variant on attack, jump, and magic / special attack. You control the character with the left stick of course. The A button is for jumping. The B button is for attack. The X button is for your special move. The Y button will allow you to tag out to the other player. That's it in the story mode. There isn't much more to it in the free play mode either. The L and R buttons cycle through the available characters for each level in free play mode. Story mode is where you progress through the main game and unlock levels for free play mode. Story mode contains two collection aspects. In story mode you can't switch to other characters who wouldn't normally be there. In all on foot levels in both modes you'll have a computer controlled character tagging along with you. You can use the Y button to tag out to them and take control of the other and back and forth. In the story modes you'll be collecting LEGO studs. They spring out of items destroyed and items that you use the Force on. As you go through the level collecting them a True Jedi meter will appear at the top of the screen. The object is to collect enough of them to fill the meter for each level in the game. Doing so will unlock a special bonus, so says the manual, I have no idea what yet. If you die, you lose studs. The other collection aspect within story mode is collecting the LEGO canisters. There are ten canisters hidden in each level. You'll only be able to collect a few of them within story mode. Some of them are right out in the open, it's just figuring out how to get to them. Others require you to do some hidden objective before they'll appear. Getting to them becomes the puzzle because certain characters can do specific things which will allow them to reach the canisters. Jedi characters can use the Force. The Force is used in various ways. It can be used to manipulate any glowing object. You can stack items to allow you to reach higher areas. You can use the Force on items to assemble them into a makeshift bridge to cross a gap. It can also be used as a weapon against enemies with Force push. All the levels contain hidden canisters you're just not going to be able to reach in story mode, and that's why there is free play mode. In free play mode, you can switch to different characters you've unlocked to use their specific abilities in order to find the canisters. They also just provide simple variety in replay value for the levels themselves. Characters who aren't Jedi can't use the Force obviously, so what sorts of things can they do? Well, characters with blasters fight that way. Blasting away. But they also have ascension guns which are used at certain grapple points that will allow them access to areas the Jedi can't reach. Droids of the protocol and astromech varieties are able to bypass certain doors and use computer terminals and the like. Jar Jar Binks jumps higher than any other character. Other characters can't jump at all. All of these combine to create a puzzle nature to the action. The collection of the bolts serves another purpose. You're able to buy bonus extras, like special weapons, invincibility, extra playable characters, and so on. There are a lot of things to buy. There are fifty plus playable characters to earn alone. The game lightly follows the story line of the saga. I say lightly in a twofold manner. First off, like all games based on movies or other media, they have to create sequences to fill out the game. Stuff that doesn't exist within the films. What they've done here is great in that regard.  Secondly the game is just lighthearted. It's actually laugh out loud funny in the little twists they've thrown in. They've changed some of the character's natures to suit the style in an all for laughs sort of way that works because of the essentially super-deformed and overly cute nature of the LEGO visuals. The key being that the creators obviously love and respect Star Wars and that shows. Everything is done in a playful and good-natured way. It's just strangely too much fun slicing through Battle Droids with a super-deformed Darth Maul.

Grandia III -- Simplified Design.

Game Arts games (Lunar and Grandia) have always offered a little more in the design of things. They've always been lush and full compared to other games. Given that current trends in game design are headed toward simplification how does Grandia III compare to previous Game Arts efforts? In a world where Square is making games where the dungeons consist of literally walking straight up into the screen for ten screens or so Grandia III comes off as overly complex. But in actuality, even Grandia is falling victim to this trend toward simplification. Grandia III offers up less complex dungeons and towns compared to the first titles in the series. Grandia and Grandia II both offered massive sprawling towns where it was possible to actually get lost in them. The dungeons sure, but it took an hour to explore the starting town in the original Grandia. That's gone. The towns consist of a few buildings each. The largest town in Grandia III is on par with the smallest in Grandia II. The dungeons have faired a little better. They're still puzzle based. Grandia III still retains the mild adventure dungeon aspects. You'll need to be pushing down trees to make bridges, figure out how to move boulders out of the way, open locked doors, get around ancient traps and the like. The dungeons are large enough and have a mild maze aspect to them. The days of Phantasy Star 2's evil behemoth dungeons are most likely gone forever, and that's sort of a shame. I enjoyed the sense of accomplishment each dungeon gave. Modern dungeons are starting to seem like just filler in between story segments and it shouldn't ever be that way. The overworld doesn't even exist much anymore these days. And I think that's a real crime. Grandia III revolves around the concept of flight. Yuki, the main character, is a pilot. Grandia III's overworld is there, but you fly where you go. You actually control the plane and have little to do but point it in the general direction of your destination since the concept of exploration is gone. Once the destination is within range, an icon asking you to press the circle button will appear on screen. That's all there is to it. It's a strange approach given the story is focused on the spirit of adventure to some degree. Imagine Skies of Arcadia without that wonderful world to explore. In watering down what made RPGs so great originally in order to sell them to anime fans and Madden players and anyone else who wouldn't normally play them, they're killing the genre for those who loved it originally. At least to me it seems that way. Maybe I'm wrong.

LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game -- Initial Impression.

As is often the case I've decided to play an action game while playing through a turn based RPG. This time it's going to be the Gamecube version of LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game. Why the Gamecube version? Supposedly the PlayStation 2 version doesn't work with the original launch model of the system, the kind I have.  Sony probably figured it was okay to do that because they didn't think any original models were still working and everyone who had one had purchased a later model.  Yeah that's a joke, but sort of not really, know what I mean? The Xbox version isn't on the backwards compatibility list for the Xbox 360 and I'm just not desperate enough to pull the Xbox out of its final resting place. I have run through the first three levels of the game. I say run through as opposed to complete because it's a little clear right off the bat that the collection aspect present in the game will take some time and effort. There are an awful lot of things to unlock. What's clear about this game early on is essentially its 16-bit level of gameplay. The gameplay is the classic stuff of fire, jump, and magic. That's as complex as it gets. Graphically it comes off initially as somewhat in the gray area. The graphics are sparse and unimpressive on a technical level. But they initially come off as somewhat charming as well as far as art direction goes. The game seems fun and funny. The question as always is will it still be so by the time the credits roll? Only one way to find out.

Grandia III - Plot Vs. Character.

Grandia and Grandia II both contained great characterization and engaging plots so Grandia III has a lot to live up to. Does it succeed? The answer is no unfortunately. What does Grandia III do right? The answer there is characterization. The characters are the same deep seemingly real people they've always been in the series. The characters actually show emotion. They actually react to every detail. In other words there is far more to them beyond their visuals to let you now who they are. They're the exact opposite of your standard Square characters. The characters feel. They're not designed to just look teenage hip and angst-ridden. All Game Arts games have had a serious depth of conversation. Conversation both amongst main story characters and every last NPC in the game alike. Grandia III continues that great tradition. You can talk to every NPC three to five times and get little details of the character of the entire world. It's this lush attention to detail that helps give the overall game character. When you talk to an NPC in a Game Arts game, your party characters actually respond to them. Entire conversations are had. It's not just your main character either. Any of them might respond, and your characters could in turn respond to their response kicking off an entire exchange that further builds on their character development. It's this massive detail that keeps piling on information that allows you more insight into the characters should you choose to seek out and speak to all the NPCs. The Grandia series even goes one further. It actually has dinner conversations where the characters just sit around and talk to each other for the sole purpose of character development. Grandia III continues this tradition wonderfully. Another aspect of the Grandia series that's been carried over is the characters having minds of their own. They enter and leave your party on their own accord. You never really have control over them. They will just up and leave to do whatever they feel they must at whatever given time. There isn't any swapping out of characters to suit the player. The characterization for Grandia III has met the standards set by Grandia and Grandia II. So that leaves the plot. How did the plot fair? Not so well I'm afraid. The problem here is that it's all so very me too. It's something you've seen before a dozen times over in Japanese RPG storytelling. Earnest adventure seeking youth meets virtuous maiden with urgent task of world importance to complete. Said girl is being pursued by agents of evil. Said youth and maiden fall in love along the way and their love will see them through.  Grandia and Grandia II both featured great twists near the end, and it remains to be seen if Grandia III will follow suit. Part of the problem here is the removal general exploration. The game is exceedingly linear. You go from A to B to C with absolutely nothing in between. While you enjoy the characters along the way, they're just never venturing off the very well worn path. There is nothing really wrong with the plot, it's just that you've done it all before. I will have to wait until the very end to see if that changes of course. As of thirty-six hours in, the plot is standard stuff, and by result a little bland. Next time should deal with design. Puzzle, dungeon, and overworld design in fact.

Grandia III -- Even Deeper.

A case could be made for calling the battle system in the Grandia 2 the best turn based RPG battle system in existence. The Japanese can never leave anything alone and must do something to the system with each outing.  Did Game Arts screw it up? Did they make it better? The final verdict is still out, but I can say they've made it deeper. The basic Grandia II battle system returns intact. You still have the IP Gauge which is a wheel on the screen showing icons for each of the characters and the enemies. This gauge will tell you the order of who will act and when. There are different colored zones on the gauge. You can see when an enemy has come up with his course of action, and when he'll go to do whatever it may be. You still have the ability to cancel an enemy attack by attacking them while they're in the red zone of the IP Gauge. Doing this successfully resets the enemy's position on the gauge. You could theoretically stop every last enemy from ever getting an attack off. Below the IP Gauge is the Command Wheel. This is where you enter your actions for each character when their icon comes around to that section of the IP Gauge. Pressing up or down cycles through the commands. Pressing right accesses the special moves. Pressing left accesses magic attacks. You can cycle through commands for combo, critical, defend, item, and flee. You have two forms of attack now because of the newest addition to the battle system, the aerial combo. When an enemy is in the red zone that signifies it is going to execute its course of action as soon as it clears the zone, you can attack them with a critical attack which will launch the enemy into the air. You need to combine attacks with another character to pull off the aerial combo. After one player has launched an enemy into the air with a critical attack, the other player needs to attack them with a combo attack.  The resulting combination move racks up serious damage and if it manages to kill the enemy it earns an aerial finish bonus. The aerial finish bonus adds more experience and gold value to that creature. It adds an another layer of strategy to the combat system. You need to plan ahead and time it so you can pull off the aerial combos. It's harder said than done as most of the battles are versus four or five enemies at once and the simulated action is retained from the previous Grandia battle systems. Everything has the illusion of real time action. All the enemies and your characters are running around the battle area. The run over to attack, they run around enemies to get where they need to be, they run away from attacks, all at once. The game pauses to allow you to enter your commands. It's entirely turn based, but the illusion is very well done. And the movement does come into play. If your character has to run all the way across the field to attack a creature who happens to make its move at the same time and gets too far away from your character then your character won't have the energy to pull off their move. Or if your character goes to attack and the creature's turn also comes up and it runs to attack someone else your character is likely to miss. Another element to factor in is what's good for the goose is good for the gander. In other words, your attacks can be canceled by enemy attacks. Your moves can be blocked. Your position on the IP Gauge reset. The game still employs skill books and mana eggs for its special moves and magic respectively. You can find or buy books and eggs. You equip them to your skill and magic slots on your inventory screen. As you level you'll earn more slots to be used under the specific sections. The stronger skills and magic take more slots to equip. Just like the last game. But they felt the need to expand the skills and magic as well. Like the last game, the more you used them, the more powerful they became. You need to use your special skills in battle a number of times to start learning what they call secret methods. What this actually does is threefold. First off you can gain increased effectiveness, which makes the skill stronger. You can earn this three times per skill. You can also reduce the time it takes for you to execute the move. And you can reduce the time you need to wait before using the move again. Now that wasn't enough. They created a system where you can now fuse skill books and mana eggs. Fusing allows you to extract a new and more powerful skill or spell from a book or egg. But it comes at a cost. The skill book or the mana egg will be destroyed. With magic for example, you can fuse a Leaf Egg with a Leaf Egg to create a Forest Egg. If you fuse a Forest Egg with a Stone Egg you'll get a Holy Egg. So now, not only are you leveling your skills and magic, you're sacrificing the books and eggs to create new and more powerful types. To all this the alignment system is intact. Fire damages ice and all that.  So you have spells and skills that do damage with elemental alignments further complicating things. There are no random battles. You still see all the creatures on the dungeon and area screens. You still can sneak by them. Attack them with your attack animation to stun them and get the surprise advantage in battle. You can also be surprised the same way and be at the disadvantage at the start of the battle. The few boss battles I've fought have a definite step up feel to them. They're considerably tougher than the standard battles. Could be interesting to see where that aspect goes. There is an awful lot to do within this battle system and it somehow remains frenetic and fun. I'm impressed. It's too early to tell if it's for the better yet though.  Next time should cover the story and characterization of Grandia III.

Grandia III - Initial Impression.

The next game up for me is Grandia III for the PlayStation 2. Grandia III is developed by Game Arts, the makers of Lunar, and is published by Square-Enix. An interesting mix of companies. Luckily Game Arts are the developers and not the Square side of Square-Enix. Game Arts has a rich history of RPGs plastered with great characterization and heart. Far more emotional content than that of the reigning RPG kings of Square. The first few hours of the game reveal once again a story that's seemingly going to be full of characters with actual character. Imagine that. It's also clear that the game is going to be pretty. That the battle system is still going to be fast and fun. It's also clear that Noriyuki Iwadare is once again handling the score as his rather distinctive sound is there from the start. Hopefully the story will go somewhere great, the characters will retain their initial charm and go somewhere interesting, the battle system will live up to its legacy, and Iwadare's work reaches his standard level of greatness. We'll see. Next time should cover the battle system some would argue the greatest turn based battle system in history.

Blood Will Tell -- Final Opinion.

As of this entry I have completed everything Blood Will Tell has to offer. All in all it took me just three minutes over twenty hours to complete. Finding all forty-eight parts and defeating 3,595 demons. I've completed Dororo mode and unlocked all the concept art and the bonus movies. The concept art is rather cool and the movies are great. They're well worth the effort in completing Dororo mode. And it will take some effort. Dororo mode is tough. The game plays perfectly. The controls are great. The camera isn't ever an issue thanks to it automatically locking on and tracking the bosses. You can disable it if you need to. It's the best of both worlds. The graphics are PlayStation 2 pretty. They're far more function over form in practice though. The art direction is great. In the character design, the world design, and the demons and fiends, it's all top notch. The storytelling is smart and very well done. It's a great story with real heart to it. The voice acting is again very well done. The music is fitting and subtle in a subdued score sort of way. The game is lengthy and satisfying for the genre.  The only real flaw is the using of a few of the bosses again. They're more than just palette swaps in that they have different attack patterns, but they're still reused. It's my only issue in a nearly perfect title. I loved it. I'm giving Blood Will Tell a 9.5.

Blood Will Tell -- Bloody Well Fantastic.

As of this entry I have completed the story mode of Blood Will Tell. I have fought the impressive last boss, completed the game, and watched the credits roll. I am however not finished with the game. I have unlocked the Dororo mode. This is a collection of challenges based off a few levels of the game in which you control Dororo out to collect treasure against a timer. You are rewarded with concept art and movies in the now unlocked gallery mode. I've described the combat as great and I'm pleased to have found that the boss battles themselves also live up to that standard. That's quite important as there are more than fifty bosses to be fought. The bosses themselves are impressive in their range of size and scope. They do palette swap a few of them here and there, but you won't really care as you'll find most of them to be decidedly unique in action. The game has a couple of different types of bosses. They break down as story bosses and optional bosses. Bosses you have to complete because the game's plot demands it, and bosses that you might not even see unless you seek them all out. It's to your benefit to seek them out as they all provide you with a body part that powers up Hiyakkimaru. All the fiends in the game are introduced via a little scene where their name and level is given. Their levels are shown because you can find an optional level forty-four boss within chapter one. The level represents where your arm blade levels might need to be in order to effectively defeat the boss. If your blades are only level twenty when fighting something level forty-four, your blades will hardly even scratch the boss. If they're level fifty then they'll rip through it as if it were made of paper. The boss battles themselves are for the most part challenging. Some of them are really hard, no matter your levels. You'll want to find them all because it's the key to the final chapter, and the cool as hell final boss, and the true ending. Missing that would turn out to be a crime in my opinion as I'm amazed at how much I truly enjoyed the story. If you can deal with the decidedly goofy concept of retrieving your own body parts you'll find a story that is both very well written and acted with class. The story starts dark and gets worse, which of course is for the better, if you like that sort of thing. The characters aren't knights in shining armor and noble and otherwise one-dimensional. They do however show real emotion and things don't always work out in nice little neat conclusions. The story and characters both have real depth. I was truly surprised at how well the story worked for me. I fell right for the big plot twists hook, line, and sinker. There is a plot device that's running through the whole game that they play with that pays off wonderfully at the end. Next time will be my final opinion on Blood Will Tell.

Blood Will Tell -- Well, Bloody Good.

Red Entertainment has taken a famous old Japanese comic and turned it into a bloody fun hack and slash action game. You alternately control two characters through the game, Hiyakkimaru and Dororo. Hiyakkimaru is the one on a quest to seek his missing body parts. Dororo is a little boy with aspirations of being the greatest thief in the world. They play entirely different from each other. Hiyakkimaru is the main character you'll have control over. The left analog stick controls character movement. Holding L1 will allow you to strafe. The X button is jump. Jump in conjunction with a direction on the analog stick while holding L1 allows for you to jump and dash out of the way of oncoming enemies and attacks. The square button is a light attack, and the triangle button is the heavy attack. The circle button is used with the analog stick to issue one of four commands to Dororo who will be tagging along most of the time you'll be in control of Hiyakkimaru. You can command Dororo to attack, search, collect, or stand close. Attack has Dororo actively fighting. Search has Dororo looking for hidden items or enemies.  Collect has Dororo acting defensively and running around collecting items. Stand close has Dororo returning to your side. The game features the standard light and heavy attack combos but then adds some new elements. Pressing R1 will fire Hiyakkimaru's arm cannon, a machine gun attack from his elbow. Pressing and holding R2 will have Hiyakkimaru kneel down so he can aim his leg cannon. Pressing the triangle button fires the leg cannon, which acts as a grenade attack. Holding down the triangle button will cause Hiyakkimaru to glow. Releasing this attack successfully into an enemy makes the player enter slice mode. A series of button indicators will show up in a box at the bottom of the screen as well as a timer. You attempt to get through as many of the buttons before the timer runs out. You need to press the triangle button to finish off the attack before the timer runs out. You're rewarded with a Shinobi like tate kill sequence. Pressing L2 switches Hiyakkimaru's combat modes. He can use his arm blades, or use a standard sword. The standard swords are found throughout the game. They offer different powers. They'll add elemental attacks or defenses to poisons and the like.  You'll also find scrolls throughout the game that you can use in combination withthe swords that give them different magic attacks.  In both of Hiyakkimaru's combat modes there will be a meter that fills up. When it's filled up he can perform a special attack. In the sword mode the attack is based on the scroll. In the arm blade mode it's something else entirely. The attack is launched by pressing both the light and heavy attack buttons simultaneously. The swords do not level up. You'll need to find more powerful weapons as you go. Hiyakkimaru's arm blades do however level up by simply using them. It's incentive to kill everything as you're going to need all the help you can get in defeating all of the fiends in the game to reclaim your lost body parts. Dororo controls essentially the same way with his jump and strafe abilities as well as his light and heavy attacks. He differs in having no weapons and therefore being extremely weak in both offense and defense. He does however have a couple of ranged attack where he'll throw rocks at the enemies. You use him mostly as a plot device, as a means to solve minor puzzles, and for his thieving ability. The premise of the game has you trying to get your stolen body parts back and each one is being guarded by a fiend. That means each one is earned by successfully completing a boss battle. The game really is a boss battle showcase. They're frequent, they're cool, and they're predominantly original within the game. Each regained body part will help you in some minor or major way. If you retrieve your left leg, and I say if because it's dropped by a hidden optional fiend, you'll earn the dash ability. Pressing L3 will allow you to dash across the levels at a much greater rate of speed and it even offers up new attack possibilities. With his left eye for example, you'll be able to see the game in color. The first parts of the game are in black and white until you find your eye. The hippocampal synapse controls your short term memory and will allow you to remember how many enemies you've killed in the game. The adrenal glands secret adrenaline which translates to boosts in speed and stability, and max hit points. The game has statistics for attack power, endurance, speed, regeneration, stability, luck, and max hit points. Each of the recovered body parts will add to a few of those stats making Hiyakkimaru stronger. Red Entertainment has managed to take a rather weird Japanese comic and turn it into a really fun action game and really make the most of the premise. The combat is fun and fast. It controls great and is perfectly responsive. I dig it. Next time should cover boss battles and storytelling.

Blood Will Tell -- Initial Impression.

The full title of the game I'm playing next is Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu's Dororo. Released in Japan as Dororo, the game is the first title produced by Red after being acquired by SEGA. Dororo was a serialized comic that started appearing weekly in magazines starting in 1967. Dororo tells the story of a man who sold his son's body to demons for power. The infant was missing forty-eight body parts. The father, disgusted by the sight of the child, set him adrift in a basket on the local river. He floated down the river for miles before being found by a doctor who was returning from studying medicine in China. The doctor took in the infant and started to perform operations on him to replace the missing parts. Cut to eighteen years later to when the now young man learns of his past and his mission to set about reclaiming his lost body parts. Each part being held by one of the demons. It's a totally apeshit insane story that's actually quite cool in a demented sort of way. But that's the concept. It's otherwise an Onimusha like hack and slash action game for the PlayStation 2. In the hour or so I've spent with it I've had some issues with the camera and not much else. It seemingly controls well enough, looks and sounds decent, and is set up as a total boss extravaganza. We'll have to see how it all pans out of course. See if the camera gets better, where the challenge goes, how the graphics fair, how the story pans out, and if it turns out to be any fun. My initial impression tells me the odds are good.

World of Warcraft -- Final Opinion.

After playing Ragnarok Online for however many hundred hours I spent playing it I stated I'd never play another Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game again as long as I lived. Even still I always said the genre held great potential. Potential that's almost entirely fulfilled in World of Warcraft. The game was sold as the solution to all the genre's woes. It doesn't quite get all the way there. It falls short in the spawn rate and aggression rate of the creatures. Still too many creatures that suddenly appear out of nowhere or latch on to you from large distances. Most of our deaths came from this rather than us doing something wrong or stupid. It does a much better than average job at dealing with soloing or playing in small groups as far as most of the general quests are concerned. It falls apart considerably in the instanced dungeons. You need to either be too high a level for the dungeon or be in a large group of players, where again it becomes too easy. So it's either damn hard, or too easy. No middle ground. Like all online games lag plays a role. We had our share of lag deaths and server crashes and down time. Blizzard seemed to always be on top of it in at least they were constantly active and there and working on things. Player versus player is probably the aspect most hurt by lag within the game. With hundreds of players fighting each other at once, and a good many of them lagging, it's just going to take some fun out of it. Too bad because what's there is generally very entertaining. Like Ragnarok Online, I've just spent too much time with this game. I have twenty some unplayed console titles sitting on the shelves waiting to be played. Tempers have started to flare and I have at least decided to play out the remaining time on the account by only playing a few hours a day and will focus on the console side of things. I have thoroughly enjoyed World of Warcraft, much more than I ever thought I would. I'm going to give World of Warcraft a 9.0. I'm most likely going to be back for a couple months more of play when the expansion pack is released.