The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermilion -- Field Position.

The Legend of Heroes for the PlayStation Portable is a traditional Japanese RPG. You sort of have to take into account that this is a 2005 port of a PC game released in 2000 that is remaining true to a game engine originally released in 1989. The Legend of Heroes has a world map but no overworld. You move from town to road to dungeon and back and forth without any change in the engine. You explore the towns as you explore the roads as you explore the dungeons. There is no camera control as the camera is locked and the game world designed so you don't need to worry about it. The only buttons you use on your PSP are the analog nub or the D-pad, depending on your preference. They both move the character around the screen and navigate the menus. The X button is your confirmation button. The square button brings up the menu. The circle button brings up the pet menu. The triangle button is the button to back you out of the menus and return to the game. That's it. Yes, no, and two menus. There is nothing breaking the mold here. You go from town to town doing this task or that task and advancing the story by talking to the non-player characters. There is a little more depth than games from 1989. In battle you have to be concerned with your position on the battlefield. The characters actually move about the field and the field itself will scroll in four directions being larger than the typical static single screen. The enemies move about the field as well. You have to contend with range. You need to be within range to attack. When going to move one of your characters you'll get a ring around them showing you their range. With characters that have ranged attacks, you'll get a ring that has different shades showing their maximum physical movement and the range of their ranged weapons beyond that. It might not sound like much but being out of range might mean you're not able to get into range to heal the person you need to heal or that you're stuck alone amongst a horde of enemies. You will have to pay attention a little bit more than a Final Fantasy game of the era. The game's battle menu allows for seven commands. Attack is pretty obvious. Magic allows for you to use offensive or defensive or healing magic. Deadly is a special powerful attack that can be accessed once you've built up enough power in a meter under your character. The meter fills as you attack creatures, use magic, or take damage in battle. Skill allows you to use the special skills of the characters. The character Mile for example can steal items while attacking. Item will allow you to use your items in battle. Wait will allow you to hold your ground and let enemies come to you which might be a better strategy in some situations. Run allows you to attempt escape from battle. Another aspect of the engine is that it allows for you to see your enemies in the field before battle. No random encounters. The creatures will even let you know a bit about how strong they are as you get near them. There is an icon above their heads. The green face shows you that the creature is unaware of you. The red face shows that the creature sees you and isn't afraid of you. The creature will start to pursue you. The blue face shows that the creature is afraid of you and will start to flee from you. The battle screens load in and out rather fast. As do the transitions between towns and fields and dungeons. The battle system for The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermilion is a good thing. It's entirely functional and slick with ease of use. The battle system is entirely conventional for 2006, but it would have been very impressive for 1989. Next time will cover the storytelling of the game and answer the question of if Falcom's charm extends beyond the Ys series.

The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermilion -- A History Lesson of an Initial Impression.

Next up for me is the PlayStation Portable game The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermilion. Are you ready for a headache? Good, here's a little history on the games. You have to go back to the beginning. It all begins in 1984 when Falcom releases Dragon Slayer for the NEC-PC8801 Japanese computer. Falcom would start to create games that would be considered apart of the Dragon Slayer series even though they would feature new stories and characters and even genres. Dragon Slayer 2 would become the game Xanadu in 1985. To make things more confusing some of these games would spawn their own sequels and that came into play with Xanadu Scenario II in 1986. But it doesn't stop there, that would be too easy. Some of these games would see spinoff titles. Again in 1986 there came Faxanadu for the Famicom. See how clever the Japanese are? It's a Xanadu side-story but for the Famicom, hence Faxanadu. They were busy in 1986 because the third title in the Dragon Slayer line appeared with the name Romancia. The year 1987 brought about the fourth title in the Dragon Slayer line, and that's Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family. You might have played this title before, it hit the Nintendo Entertainment System as Legacy of the Wizard. Still in 1987 they release the next in the Dragon Slayer series with the title of Sorcerian. This one proves to be quite popular and it sees the release of three follow up titles in 1988 with Sorcerian Additional Scenarios Vol. 1, Sengoku Sorcerian, and Pyramid Sorcerian. So that brings us to the sixth in the Dragon Slayer series with Dragon Slayer VI: Legend of Heroes in 1989. I should round up the Dragon Slayer series before going into Legend of Heroes. So on to 1991 and game seven for the Dragon Slayer series with Lord Monarch. Another popular entry with a couple of follow up titles. The year 1991 saw Advanced Lord Monarch and 1994 saw Monarch Monarch. In 1994 Falcom decides to remake Xanadu as with the same treatment they were doing with the Ys series but for some reason they kept going and made it part eight of the Dragon Slayer series. The year 1994 saw The Legend of Xanadu and they remade the original's sequel as well with 1995's The Legend of Xanadu II. Okay. So that's the Dragon Slayer series. Back to The Legend of Heroes and The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermilion. So if Dragon Slayer VI: Legend of Heroes is game one in The Legend of Heroes series, where does A Tear of Vermilion fit in? The second game in the series was released in 1992 under the title of The Legend of Heroes II. Now this is where it's going to get a little confusing. Game three in the series is called The Legend of Heroes III: The White Witch. Game four is The Legend of Heroes IV: A Tear of Vermilion. Game five is The Legend of Heroes V: Cagesong of the Ocean. Game six is The Legend of Heroes VI: Second Chapter. Now see, the first two games in the series weren't connected in any way. They decided to connect games three, four, and five with placing them in the same world with a shared history. The three games have become known as the Gagharv Trilogy. They take place on different continents and in different times, but they're sharing the same world and reference each other. So why did Bandai go with game four of the series as a jumping off point? A Tear for Vermilion is the second game in the Gagharv Trilogy but it's the first one chronologically. The Legend of Heroes III: The White Witch is the first game of the Gagharv Trilogy to be released, but last chronologically in the story. A Legend of Heroes V: Cagesong of the Ocean is the last game to be released in the Gagharv Trilogy but it's the middle chapter. Bandai released part four of the Legend of Heroes series first because it's the first story chronologically speaking in the Gagharv Trilogy. They're releasing The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch in the US as well. Say what? Isn't that the third game in the Legend of Heroes series and the last in the Gagharv Trilogy story? Yeah, it is. So are we getting part five of the Legend of Heroes series and the middle chapter of the Gagharv Trilogy better known as The Legend of Heroes V: Cagesong of the Ocean? It all depends on how The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch sells. Do you have a headache? You should. This is what I've decided to jump into with my next game The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermilion on the PlayStation Portable. Next time should be the proper initial opinion...

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai -- Final Opinion.

My after the credits save file for Genji clocks in at eight hours and thirty-five minutes. So a little over twice as long as I was told it would take to complete the game. The storytelling style of Genji is tight and to the point and I for one appreciate that style. Not every game needs massive story full of all the grandiose trappings. Genji's story is straightforward and even simplistic. But it's well told. Everything makes sense, which isn't usually the case dealing with Japanese legend or mysticism. The story won't win any rewards for originality but it doesn't matter when it's told so well. The music and voices add to it in that they offer up authenticity to the game. The music is all traditional Japanese in nature and fits perfectly. The voices being in Japanese come of as credible. I can't say if the voice acting is good or not, you know, not understanding Japanese and all, but I can say it doesn't come off as overacted or cartoonish in any way. It might very well be like the most emotionally bankrupt English vocal work and I wouldn't know or care because it just seems to fit. The graphics are as good as you're ever going to see on the PlayStation 2. They're up there with the best for the platform. The gameplay as I stated in the last entry is solid and fun and it remains so throughout the game. It never gets cheap as they ramp up the difficulty. It's not like the game is ever truly tough, but near the end it's not exactly a cakewalk. I'm going to give Genji: Dawn of the Samurai an 8.

Genji -- A Little Bit of This and That.

I'm roughly five hours into Genji, and just into chapter two. I have no idea how many chapters there are but it's clear the game is going to take me a tad longer than four hours to finish. Genji brings a little bit of this and that from a few games. It's predominantly Onimusha 2 with some Shinobi and Shenmue thrown in. First of all, think a simplified Onimusha 2 with the same structure of an overworld map with hotspots. It uses villages as a means of offering up NPCs for information gathering and shops for you to buy and sell items, weapons, and armor. It has map locations where all of the combat takes place just like Onimusha 2. In the combat is where you'll see some differences. First of all, it's a generally simplified combat. The left analog stick as per usual moves the character around on screen. The X button is jump. The square button is attack. The triangle button is special attack. The circle button is talk or investigate or use depending on the situation. The R1 button is block. The D-pad works as a hotkey for whatever items you've assigned to it whether they be offensive or defensive potions or medicine. Holding the R1 button will act as a multiplier for your attacks. Meaning, you'll do a different attack holding R1 and hitting special attack in combination with the analog stick than you would just special attack and the analog stick. It's designed to be a more simple combat system. This is furthered by what the game calls kumai mode. Kumai mode essentially acts as Shinobi's tate system in that if you successfully chain the kills together you're rewarded. L1 is the button for kumai. Activating kumai causes what amounts to slow motion of the enemies and Shenmue's quick timer events. But in keeping with the more simple design, you'll only use the square button. You'll get flashed the square icon under your character when it's time to attack and you have only a set time to hit the button or you'll fail the kumai. It is nowhere near the finger taxing skill needed to pull off a fifty combo tate in Shinobi and it's not trying to be. Shinobi was trying for what amounts to a dance, and Genji is trying for the same effect, albeit a much slower dance. It's a fun pacing that I'm enjoying a lot. The combination of a little of Shinobi and Shenmue thrown into Onimusha 2 seems to have resulted in a fun combat engine. Genji's combat works for me. Next time should cover art design and storytelling.

Genji: Dawn of the Samurai -- Initial Impression.

Next up for me is some hack and slash action in the form of Genji: Dawn of the Samurai for the PlayStation 2. My expectations for this game are pretty much something of an Onimusha clone. I've spent about an hour with the game. Supposedly that's roughly a quarter of the game according to some accounts. My initial impressions are that it's simply gorgeous for a PlayStation 2 title. The art design and graphics are great. The game also has an air of authenticity in that most of the story is spoken in Japanese and subtitled in English. The controls seem responsive initially. The story starts out pretty much standard stuff for the setting and genre. We'll see how it differentiates itself from the Onimusha series, which I consider the standard barer for the genre. I have a good feeling about this one.

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology -- All in One.

Street Fighter Alpha Anthology is a collection of four arcade titles from Capcom. Well, depending on your point of view, it might be a collection of five titles, but I'm saying four. The game offers Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Super Gem Fighter Mini-Mix. In 1995 Capcom found interest in its numerous variations of Street Fighter 2 waning and it wasn't quite ready to count to three so it introduced the Alpha series. The Street Fighter Alpha series is known as Street Fighter Zero in Japan because the series is a prequel to Street Fighter and Street Fighter 2. The most easily noticeable change made to the series was in its new art style. The Street Fighter Alpha series featured a more stylized anime art style than the rest of the series to date. In the gameplay it offered up far more substantial changes. It introduced meters that would fill up from your use of normal and special moves. When the meters were full you could attempt to unleash a super move. They also added what they called alpha counters which allowed you to parry and auto-counter certain moves with a well timed button sequence. They also upped the story aspect of the game with final matches in the games taking place against character specific rivals instead of an end boss. With it being Capcom, that's either a good or bad thing depending on your opinion of Capcom's eternally cheesy sense of story. The super move meters and alpha counters added seriously needed depth to the Street Fighter series. The art design gave it a higher sense of style. The story added some level of character to the characters. Having another huge hit on their hands Capcom released the sequel in early 1996. It followed the same route as the updates to Street Fighter 2 before it in added some gameplay tweaks and the offering of a larger character roster. The substantial gameplay update came in the form of what's called a custom combo. Build up the meter just like before but when successfully launched you have a certain amount of time to just mash away and connect with as many hits as possible in trying to get the highest possible amount of hits in the combo. Now that Capcom had counted to two with the series it looked as if it would follow suite with the Street Fighter series and not be able to count to three with the release of Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold later in 1996. It featured a rebalancing of the characters and overall adjustments to the combat based on the recorded player data. The usual arcade fighter standard version update. Capcom would count to three with Street Fighter Alpha 3 in 1998. It offered a substantial update in allowing you to choose the mode of play between three selections they called ISMs. A-ISM allows you to play with one super combo. Essentially reverting the game back to Street Fighter Alpha. X-ISM allows for you to play the game with multiple super combos. Essentially allowing you to play the game with the most amount of depth offered in Street Fighter Alpha Gold. V-ISM allows for you to play the game using custom combos. Essentially allowing you to play the game as Street Fighter Alpha 2. It's a cool system that allows fans to play in their preferred modes. Street Fighter Alpha 3 also introduced a bunch of the Street Fighter 2 character holdouts to the Alpha series as well as introducing a few entirely new characters. Included in Street Fighter Alpha Anthology is Super Gem Fighter Mini-Mix which is otherwise known as Pocket Fighter. It was released in the arcades of Japan in 1997. It's a totally whacked out fighter played entirely for laughs. In it you use fighting moves to knock gems from your opponents. Gems allow you to build up your meters and allow for special and super moves. So while you're having to deal with fighting your enemy, you also need to contend with the collecting of the gems. The characters are all super-deformed to help with the comic nature. The moves are all insane and again are all for laughs. The game features characters from the Darkstalkers series of titles mixed in with those of Street Fighter. All of the games featured in this collection are the arcade versions for the first time. They are replicated perfectly. Every frame, every animation, every sound effect, and music track are all arcade perfect. If you have the Capcom Street Fighter arcade sticks for the PlayStation 2, then you truly have the arcade games at home. The controls actually work great with the standard PlayStation 2 Dual Shock 2 controller. There is an option to load the entire disc onto the PlayStation 2 HDD. This would allow for you to load the initial games faster. That's really the only place where there is any load time in the PlayStation 2s without HHDs. The loading up of the system interface and main menu are lightning fast. The loading of the selected game takes a few seconds varying of course between the faster Street Fighter Alpha and the longer Street Fighter Alpha 3. Once you're in the actual games themselves there is zero loading time. It's just like the arcade games for all of the titles represented. The emulation level is awesome. There are no extras like histories or art or movies or developer commentary as in other collections. Once you play the games to meet certain conditions you'll be able to unlock a mode that will allow you to essentially create any type of match against any character on the disc. It will also allow for a new ISM that allows you to play the Alpha series reverting back to Street Fighter 2. It's a one-stop option that allows you to create any type of match up you could possibly think up. That's a pretty decent bonus in my opinion. I'm impressed with Street Fighter Alpha Anthology and I'm giving it a 9.

Psychonauts -- Final Opinion.

Twenty-seven hours later the credits roll on Psychonauts. My initial impressions seem to have rung true. The story and the characters are very good. They're the reason to play the game through to completion. The story is well written and smart and funny. The characters are charming and exceptionally well voiced. The graphics are varied, brightly colored, and vibrant. The art design is original and interesting throughout the game. The levels feature the same basic platforming throughout but the concepts of the levels are great and are a part of what's best about the game. The game isn't perfect though. It actually has a few major faults. The camera at times is a real pain in the ass. The camera for the most part gets the job done, but when it goes bad, it really goes bad. On a particular boss, where the perspective of the camera changes mid-battle, I died fifteen times within mere seconds because the camera refused to orientate itself and I couldn't see the boss that was attacking or even my character itself. You try fighting a boss you can't see with a character you can't see with instant death hazards around you also can't see. FUN! Another area the game doesn't really work is in its going overboard with the collection aspect. Literally the most collection happy game, going beyond Donkey Kong 64 with ease. Donkey Kong 64 didn't bother me, and the world seemed to hate it. Psychonauts just goes too far with what you need to collect to see the real ending. The last aspect of the game that isn't really up to par is in just how glitchy the overall game is. You'll fall through the floor here and there. You'll get stuck in walls. The collision detection will fail. You'll hit invisible walls mid jump. I'm knocking off a point for the collection overdose, one point for the camera struggle, and half a point for the overall glitch infestation. I'm giving Psychonauts a 7.5. Mr. Schafer needs to get himself some better coders for his next game and he might reach greatness.

Psychonauts -- Initial Impression.

Up next for me will be the PlayStation 2 version of the game Psychonauts. The game is the latest title from Tim Schafer of Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango fame. All of those games have a couple things in common. First of all, they're all point and click adventure games. Secondly, they're all predominantly comedies. Psychonauts marks a departure for Mr. Schafer in that he's moved away from the point and click adventure games to that of 3D action platformer. The comedy has remained. Psychonauts is the story of a boy who has come to a summer camp that acts as a training ground for psychic secret agents. The camp itself acts as a hub world and the levels themselves all take place within the minds of the camp's counselors. I've messed around within the camp itself and have run through the first level. I've come away with the impressions that the characterization and writing are top notch. The game and its characters are genuinely funny. The camera doesn't come off as the worst thing ever at this point. It's not perfect, but it's not problematic. The graphics are initially impressive. The voice acting is very well done. And what's most apparent initially is how much there is of collection based platforming. I don't think I've ever seen a game with more crap to collect than Psychonauts, and yes, I'm taking Donkey Kong 64 into account when I say that. It was annoying me in the first level, and I would say that I have a considerably high tolerance for collection based platforming. We'll see if the story and the gameplay are enough to overcome this annoyance...

Table Tennis -- 50-50.

To put it bluntly, Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis is equal parts great fun and great frustration. The game controls well enough. You can play the game in combination with either the left analog stick and the buttons or the left analog stick and the right analog stick. The left analog stick will move your character to the left and right and toward and away from the table. The right analog stick or the face buttons will provide you with different types of spin on the ball. The A button or down on the right stick provides topspin. The Y button or up provides backspin. The X button or left provide left spin. The B button or right on the right analog stick provides right spin. As you play, if you hold the stick direction, or whatever spin button down, you'll build up a charge which adds to both the level of spin placed on the ball and also focus to the focus meter. You only add to your focus meter with successfully made shots. The left and right bumpers allow you to use focus stored up in your focus meter. Focus is essentially slow motion that will allow you the extra time to get into place on far reaching shots. There isn't much else to the controls. The games are fast and frenetic and fun. Or they can be. They can also be frustrating to no end. The game's AI is rather cheap. Almost to the point of cheating. It makes impossible shots for you to make no matter the computer character's stats. I'm about halfway through the game's hard tournament. I haven't been online with the game yet. I'll have to see if the online mode is the title's saving grace. The offline mode irritates me. It's a shame though, as when it's fun, it's great fun.

Suikoden Tactics -- Final Opinion.

I have completed Suikoden Tactics with a total time of forty-two hours and thirty-six minutes. The story of Suikoden Tactics turns out to be one of its strongest assets, but only for those who have played Suikoden IV. If Suikoden IV's story seems small and tightly told in comparison to the others in the series, there is a good reason for that as it really is half the story. The other half of the story of the Island Nations and the Kooluk Empire is told in Suikoden Tactics. Suikoden Tactics starts up around the same time that the hero of Suikoden IV and Snowe are doing their Furball patrol in the back streets of Razril and goes all the way through what happens after the war between the Kooluk Empire and the Island Nations. It tells a rather mean story that further explains what the Rune Cannons are that feature so prominently in Suikoden IV. It reveals the horrifying secret behind them, and it goes on to deftly bring in the Scarlet Moon Empire from the original Suikoden, so that the entire series is connected. Suikoden Tactics is a rather interesting tale that isn't the standard for the genre. On the surface it's politics and intrigue as in any Suikoden title, but there is a lot there for those wanting something new or different. I can't imagine what I would make of this story having not played Suikoden IV.  It seems to me one would be missing so much from not having played the other game. Most of the characters you can recruit come from Suikoden IV's 108 Stars of Destiny. They come with all the baggage established in Suikoden IV. You know their relationships and their histories. All of the little bits between characters referencing the events the previous game would come off as seemingly random bits of character development without getting the references. A lot of the charm would be gone. As I stated in previous entries Suikoden Tactics brings an interesting new system to the genre and it also brings along a couple of flaws. The graphics are actually really good for the PS2 and the genre. The music is classic Suikoden stuff. The controls are workhorse and functional. I don't think you can do much with them considering the genre. I enjoy the Vandal Hearts functionality in the menu based towns. The optional quests in the quest guild help to round out and give flavor to the world if you so wanted. Otherwise you can just go from story battle to story battle and streamline the game. There is a ton of optional stuff to see and do. The game will make you want to pull your hair out at times, but that comes with the genre to a degree.  I'm giving Suikoden Tactics an 8. I don't know what's next up, I just know it's not going to be Suikoden V. I need a little break from Suikoden.