SNK Heroines ~Tag Team Frenzy~ (PS4) Review

SNK Heroines is a casual fighting game starring only ladies from the rich SNK roster.  Well, except for the one guy that was turned into a female for this game.  And the boss.  And the guest characters.  Anyway, Terry Bogard sells games, so he's now a female, and all of them must battle each other to escape the crazy dream world made by the one guy in the game.

At first glance, the game looks a lot like a King of Fighters.  It has a familiar roster, the boisterous announcer, and is 2-D.  You even have a tag partner, hence the game's subtitle.  Once you spend some time with the game, it probably has more in common with Super Smash Bros., or Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale (still a bad title).  It's not just the items, the simplified moveset, or the super finishes, but a combination of all of them that make it feel that way.

Make no mistake: this is a simplified, watered-down fighter.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but be aware of that before jumping in.  There is a light attack button, a heavy attack button, a special attack button, and a throw button.  Block is also a button, which is not usually the best choice in fighting games.  At least super moves get their own button too.  While that sounds like a lot, the moves are very limited.  You can't even duck!  Combo potential is basically a few lights, a heavy or special, and then trying to tag and chain a few more hits.  Since I'm not great at fighting games, there may be more, but I don't think so.

Like Smash Bros., tilting the stick in a direction with a button press changes some moves, notably the specials.  While this could add some depth and ease of use, it just felt too limiting to me.  Especially since some of the light or heavy normal attacks were just bad.  When a character has about six standard attacks, one of them can't be useless.  It just doesn't work.  Even worse, multiple characters have these, and sometimes they are the combo opener.  I've hit with an attack, and the enemy recovers before I do and hits me back.  How is that balanced?

Special moves and the "dream finishers" (super attacks) take meter to preform.  In a strange move, the life meter and special meter are on the same bar.  The cool part is your special cap extends as you take damage, but the bad part is that it's just not a good decision.  It's just too weird for people that have played a fighting game before.  And while you might think that this game is made for them, there are plenty of references to things that only fans would know.  It's not something that is easily pulled off, and SNK Heroines doesn't.

Depleting a character's health is not the end of the fight.  Instead, you have to actually hit your opponent with a dream finish when their health is red.  One one hand, this should be cool, as it ensures the fights have flashing outcomes.  In practice, it's more like Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale: not that exciting.  The super moves themselves can be cool, as maybe a small handful actually are, but most times they just fall flat.  Instead of a flashy finish, the screen quickly fades out when you hit with the move.  They just peter out, and lack impact.  They don't feel like a strong move that ends the fight, they just feel limp and weak.  This in exacerbated by the hit sparks/hit effects.  A lot of special and super attacks send out a plethora of stickers, teddy bears, and rainbows and stuff that just feels goofy.  Did Lisa Frank design this stuff?  Besides being too large and out-of-place, it feels lazy and stereotypical.

SNK Heroines also has a story mode.  It is more involved than I thought it would be, but it's still barely more than an excuse to make the game.  Kukri traps the women in this magical world made from his mind, and makes them fight.  He somehow steals the despair from the losers, and that will make this world permanent.  Yeah, ok, super plausible.  The cutscenes in story mode can be utterly bizarre, but they can also be funny.  The character interactions and endings are enjoyable too.  So strangely enough, it ends up being probably the best part of the game.

Besides the story mode, there is the obligatory (at this point) Versus and Online modes.  What you might not expect is the amount of unlockable things, including costume pieces.  Since the playable character are all females (technically, here Terry is as well), you have to dress them up.  Each heroine has two purchasable costumes, the first of which is their more traditional/normal one.  The third costume is a bit of a mixed bag.  Some are really nice, and I like them, while others feel very random.  What I really would have preferred is getting some costumes on other characters...think of the possibilities!

Then come the accessories.  There are a plethora of options of baubles and doo-dads that you can put on heads, hands, feet, etc.  Some are already unlocked, and some must be purchased.  You can even remove pre-set ones, and make Sylvie look not terrible.  In the vein of Senran Kagura, there are unlockable backgrounds and poses you can put the characters in.  Most are from the ending scenes.  Once you set it up, you can take a picture of them.  I'm sure someone will love that feature, but it's not really one I would get much use out of.

On one hand, SNK Heroines ~Tag Team Frenzy~ is a party-type fighter, easy to pick up and play.  On the other, I think it's a bit too simple at times.  I might sound pretty negative about it, but the story can be pretty fun, and it doesn't take it self too seriously.  I doubt there will be high level competitions of the game, but that's not what it is meant for.  It's a decent thing to play with a group of friends that don't really play fighting games, although they aren't going to get much out of it.  I think there should be a few tweaks to make it better for the audience that would appreciate it.


The Good:
Simplistic fighter that's easy to pick up and play.

The Bad:
Feels a bit content-light, and the core of the game is niche enough to potentially alienate the casual audience that could easily grasp the mechanics.

The SaHD:
While I think female Terry Bogard is a fun idea, there are a lot of female characters not included, but probably should have been.

(Review code for SNK Heroines was provided by the publisher)

Touhou Genso Rondo: Bullet Ballet (PS4) Review

Touhou Genso Rondo: Bullet Ballet combines the disparate genres of bullet-hell shmup and fighting games.  It's actually not as strange as it would seem, as this has been done before, if anyone besides me remembers Wartech on the Xbox 360.  Basically, it's a one on one fight where you each launch hails of bullets at each other until one person stands victorious.  The characters in the game are people from the various Touhou games, which have the distinction of being well-known shmups that I somehow haven't played yet.

After booting up the game, I jumped into the story mode, since why not?  That's usually where you start.  Turns out, this was a bad idea.  I got a very basic idea of the controls, but was slowly being outclassed by the computer.  Since it was the first opponent, I realized it was just going to get harder.  So, I quit out and found the tutorial option.  This was a good move, even if the tutorial people are a bit too chatty.

Each character has a main shot, sub shot and charge shot, and even melee attacks if you get close enough.  The main shot is, well, your main attack, mostly aimed at the opponent and the sub shot is usually more focused on covering an area, rather than a direct attack.  You can dash, and even slow your movement to make it easier to dodge between shots.  Shooting any of the three shots while dashing or using slow movement will change the shot, giving you access to 9 different types of shot attacks.  I wish the dashing was only active if you held the button down instead of just activating it, so it would be easier to use its shot variations.  I didn't see any option to change it.  If you narrowly avoid an opponent's shot (called grazing), you build up charge.  Once a charge segment is filled, you can use a charge shot at the cost of some of the charge meter.  However, you can also use this meter for other things, like spells.

Spells cost at least one charge segment and a bomb stock (denoted by the "B"s under your charge meter at the top of the screen.  If you activate a spell, it places you at the top of the screen, and your firing patterns change drastically.  Instead of normal-looking shots, you now have firing patterns like a shmup boss, filling the screen with bullets.  You aren't invincible in the mode.  There is a ring around your character that depletes when you are hit.  If it runs out before time does, you exit the mode prematurely.  The opponent can also use one of their bomb stock for an actual shmup bomb, which will clear out some of the bullets, making their lives easier.  It's really cool, but ultimately not very useful against the computer.  Upon activation, they tear into with their shots, while expertly dodging pretty much all of yours.  It would work against an actual person, since they rarely have mathematically precise movement, and are actually prone to freaking out when a screen full of bullets comes at them.

After learning the basics, I then set about trying out all the characters, seeing who fits my style, and what enemies would be a problem.  I started to get the hang of the game after a few matches, and started doing much better.  Strangely, one thing I found that helped was spamming the main shot button instead of holding it down.  I don't know why that made them actually hit the opponent more often, but it made a big difference.  Even so, the CPU is a tough opponent, and I didn't see a way to tone them back so I could eke out some easy wins in the story mode, or any other mode for that matter.  As a computer, they are very proficient in the pinpoint-accurate dodges necessary to avoid damage when they want to.  They also have full access to the 9 shot types and chaining together shots with frame-perfect accuracy.  Thankfully, they don't do it all the time, so you can actually win matches.

A small sampling of what you face when an opponent activates a spell.

Touhou Genso Rondo features a story mode for each character, arcade mode, boss rush, versus cpu, and versus player, online and off.  Story mode is several battles linked by dialogue, just as you would expect.  Arcade mode is more like a survival mode, since you fight an endless string of opponents, with some life being restored to you in-between matches.  Boss rush is you versus the CPU, but they start off in spell/boss mode.  Thankfully you only have to survive until the time runs out to win a match, since the computer is as adept at filling the screen with inescapable bullcrap as they are at dodging your attempts to do the same in the other modes.  Fights in arcade and boss rush are only 1 round each.  Versus CPU and human are pretty self explanatory.  Early on I used the versus CPU a lot to get the hang of each of the characters.  I'm also nowhere near competent enough in my abilities to go online and get destroyed.

Touhou Genso Rondo is very unique and a fun game.  The merging of shmup and fighting game is pulled off very well, and there is a lot of depth to the fighting.  After playing it for a while I really started to get the hang of the game, and the modes offered are good.  The computer can be a real pain, since their accuracy and dodging ability is as good as they want it to be, with sadly no way I could see to adjust it.  Shmup fans should get a kick out of the game, and fighting game players should give it a whirl, too.  You might be surprised how fun (and difficult) the game can be!


The Good:
A well-made combination of shmup gameplay with fighting game mechanics.

The Bad:
If the computer wants to avoid what you throw at them, there isn't much you can do to stop them.

The SaHD:
For whatever reason, I was best with Sakuya.  It also helps that time-stopping maids with knives are cool.

(Review code for Touhou Genso Rondo was provided by the publisher)

Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX!!!!! (PS3) Review

Arcana Heart 3: LOVEMAX!!!!! is an all-girl anime fighter.  Most of the graphics are really good in the game.  The menu, character select, and character art all look great.  The animations of the in-battle characters are good, but the sprites themselves look a little blocky and blurry.  It's not enough to deter my enjoyment, but they do stand out against everything else looking crisp.  The audio is in Japanese only, and a fair amount of the story lines are voiced.

The game is basically a five-button fighter, although one of those isn't an attack, but a dash/tracking move.  That said, it is really made for an arcade stick, since many commands require multiple buttons pressed simultaneously.  It is playable on the PS3's default controller, as I was able to beat the game without an issue.  When using an arcade stick, the multi-button presses became easier.  So thankfully it controls pretty well on both the Dualshock 3 and an arcade stick.

As stated before, there are five buttons for fighting, and the rest are set to different combinations of them.  Each character has a weak, medium and strong attack that can be comboed together.  There is also a homing attack, but it just dashes or floats you toward your opponent.  You can attack from it, but it's not really an attack on its own.  The arcana button will allow you to air launch and wall bounce your opponent, plus helps unleash the special move of your chosen arcana.  The attacks and special attacks flow pretty well from each other, making combat fluid.  The biggest gripes I have are the slow walking movement (necessitating the homing attack to move quickly) and that the homing attack always goes toward the opponent.  It would be nice if it could be used to dash away from them, but I suppose then it wouldn't be "homing".  There are a lot of special attacks to play around with though, and each arcana has a different trick, so being able to pick which one you want is nice.

Thankfully, there is a good amount of single player content.  There is a story mode, that while not super deep, allows you to pick who your next opponent is from a few choices.  Add in some special dialogue when certain characters battle, and you get some decent replay as you make your way through with the different fighters.  While there is a fair amount of dialogue, it feels more like other fighting games' arcade mode.  The story for the After Story mode is much better.  There is an overall narrative, with each girl's story intersecting with the others, so playing through them all gives one big story.  Unfortunately, each story only contains one fight of one round, with lots of dialogue around it.  More fights would have been better, but I like the way After Story was presented and how the stories would weave between each other.

There is still some more single player stuff to the game, though.  There are Trials, which pits you against another fighter, but also gives you a task to complete, like landing a ground combo or doing jump cancels.  It's harder than other games' similar modes, simply because you have to do it while fighting, not in some pre-set scenario.  No fighting game would be complete without a survival mode, and Arcana Heart delivers it combined with a score attack.  To round it out there is also a time attack mode.  While the last two are hardly revolutionary, they all add together to give a healthy amount of single player content to go through if you don't want to fight your friends or people online.

All that single player content aside, a lot of the allure of fighting games is playing against others, especially online.  I played a few matches, and didn't have much trouble finding games.  Non-peak times were much leaner, which is to be expected of a niche fighting game.  The matches I played had barely any lag that I could tell, and it felt pretty smooth once the fight started.  I still got completely destroyed, since I'm not very competitive (or good at fighting games), but it wasn't lag that got me killed.  Of course there's also a local versus mode if you don't wont to go online and have people to play with.

Lots of things are unlockable in the game.  The most obvious are the nice CG images shown throughout the various stories and endings.  There's also the different animations that can be displayed on the side during the fights (since the battles are not in widescreen).  It's better to view them here since they can be quite distracting during combat.  You also unlock "Memories" for the characters, which are separate text-based stories told in several parts.  They aren't necessary to the overall package, but they are kind of fun to read through once.  Trophies run the usual fighting game gamut, from winning x amount of battles online, completing the trials and going through the story modes.  There are many character specific ones which require you to utilize their unique talents and mechanics.  The list is mostly skill based ones, with a few grind-heavy trophies thrown in for good measure.

While not the best fighting game I've played, Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX!!!!! is pretty fun.  If you dedicate enough time to it, there is a deep combat system at its heart (pun not intended).  I'm not very good at fighting games, but there was enough single player content to keep me playing for awhile.  The few matches I played online ran well, so I have no complaints there.  Even if you aren't a competitive person like me, there is still some fun to be had going through the story modes and unlocking different extras.  If you like the more methodical fighting games like Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, give Arcana Heart 3 LOVEMAX!!!!! and all its exclamation points a try.