Foul Play (XBLA) Review

The premise of Foul Play is solid and unique.  You play as Sebastian Dashforth, the renowned demonologist, and his assistant Scampwick, while he is performing a play about his life.  As such, the only real danger you are in is from the audience growing bored.  In a new and interesting twist, you and your partner do not have a health bar- instead you have the audience's mood meter.  Performing high hitting combos, parrying attacks and fulfilling requests will make the crowd love your performance and allow you to continue the play.  This makes it harder to lose as long as you are fighting guys and trying not to get hit.  The payoff here is mastery, not completion.

The art and style of this game is really cool.  Since you are performing a play, all the action takes place on a stage.  There is an audience in the foreground and curtains on the sides.  The floor, background and props all change from scene to scene, further driving the theme.  Finally, the enemies are actors as well.  This is my favorite part, because when you get the more outlandish villains, like the squids and werewolves, you can see the person in the costume.  It's a great little touch that completes the whole idea of this being a play.  There's also a fair amount of comedy, like the stagehand/ janitor appearing in various capacities, vanquished enemies crawling off of the stages or being dragged off for their next scene... there's even one poor guy who forgot his line.  The music is fitting as well, but the visual elements are the high point for me.

Combat is basically a side-scrolling beat-em-up game like Final Fight or Castle Crashers.  You have a normal attack and a launch attack.  Combos can and will extend into the air.  There is a bit of tracking on the attacks, so you will move toward an enemy while attacking.  When an enemy attacks, they will have 3 little lightning bolts above their head.  Pressing the B Button will allow you to parry their attack.  For the small enemies, this will cause Dashforth or Scampwick to grab them and perform some special moves to the hapless victim.  You can increase your combo easily with the flurry attack, throw the enemy into breakable stage props or other enemies, or finally piledrive them into the stage, damaging other enemies nearby.  These are easily the best moves the characters can perform, as they give you easy combos and crowd control.

By gaining levels, you will get even more special moves.  There's a powerful vertical attack, a higher launch attack, a non-parry air piledriver, ground pound and a baton twirl.  I tried out these moves, but found them to be very limited in their usefulness.  The baton twirl and ground pound would be the most useful, but the charge time lessens their usefulness.  A charm exists that reduces the charge time, but there are better charms to use and more useful attacks.  As it stands, the parry flurry, throw and piledriver are easily the most useful attacks in your arsenal.  They will also be necessary to completing some of the challenges.  The dodge maneuver is also useful for the times when the parry won't cut it.  Overall, the combat is really fun.  You get to smash lots of enemies, and the parry allows you look good while doing it.  There's payoff for being both defensive and offensive, which I really appreciate.  Thankfully the controls are really responsive too.

Wait a minute, that's not a REAL werewolf...

Besides the satisfaction of being good at the game, playing well will help you perform certain "challenges" in most of the acts.  There are ones for getting a certain combo amount, performing perfect scenes (your combo doesn't drop the whole fight), rescuing the extras, and more.  These are fairly fun and add something else to shoot for while playing.  A few of them are pretty hard, depending on the enemies during the act.  Besides the satisfaction of performing well, completing all three challenges in the act will reward you with a charm.  Up to two charms can be equipped, each with different effects.  They are basically the game's form of equipment, and they can make some of the challenges easier.  Note that they charms are unlocked in the order listed, not for completing the challenges for the corresponding act.  So to get the final charm, you will have to do them all, not just do the challenges for the final stage.  Thankfully, the challenges do not have to all be completed in one run through the stage, so do what you can and come back for the ones you missed.

Foul Play has 22 acts spread across 5 plays.  The first run through the game takes about 6 hours or so.  If you are aiming for full completion (all stars and charms), it would likely double that.  As mentioned before, the game isn't that hard to complete.  The only time I actually had trouble was the final boss, and that was until I figured out what to do to beat him.  As long as you are defeating enemies and trying not to get hit, you can make your way through the game.  The hard part is getting all the stars and completing all of the challenges to get the charms.  For the most fun, I'd recommend playing the game co-op, as it will also make some of the requests easier.

I did have a few problems with the game, though.  Flying enemies (gargoyles, mermen, etc.) were sometimes annoying to hit, since they can float around the fighting plane and make it difficult to land an attack.  Their movement also made jump attacks just as hard to land.  If you are surrounded by a lot of enemies, or a few larger ones, it can be hard to know where you are.  This can make it difficult to avoid hits, since you don't know if you are facing the right way, or out of the way of an attack.  There are some boss attacks that are hard to avoid with all the action on-screen, too.  Finally, when multiple enemies are attacking at once, the game decides which one you parry when you hit the button, not the enemy you are facing or the direction you are pressing.  This lead to times where I intended to parry the smaller enemy for the safety of the flurry, or to throw them into the larger one, but would end up blocking the large enemy's attack and then get hit by the others.  In the end, these were not enough to keep me from having fun with the game.

Foul Play is all about putting on a show.  Showing off fancy moves for the crowd and remaining untouched throughout a whole scene is fun and rewarding.  For me, the concept is well thought out and executed.  Combat is fun, even if I had a few problems.  If you are a fan of side scrolling brawlers, give Foul Play a try, especially if you can bring a friend or find one online.  It might be pretty short to run through it, but mastery will take time and make it even more fun.

Dragon Fantasy: Book 2 (PSN) Review

Earlier this year, Dragon Fantasy: Book 1 was released on the PSN, and paid homage to classic RPGs from the NES era of gaming.  Book 2 draws its inspiration from the next generation, mostly Chrono Trigger, with some more from Earthbound and even Pokemon.  The Chrono Trigger inspiration is easily seen when you look at the game.  As opposed to the previous game's first person perspective, the game now shows all of your characters on the map and in battle, and all of the enemies appear as you move around.  If you don't like random encounters, you'll appreciate the way this game does it.

The battles will take place where you start the fight, which is both good and bad.  Good because it just feels more fluid, and you can sometimes maneuver an encounter so the enemies are bunched up.  Bad because sometimes the enemies really spread out, occasionally ridiculously so.  Also, wandering enemies can and will join the fight.  Early on, this makes some battle much more difficult than they have to be.  In a nod to Earthbound, if you are significantly stronger than the enemies, starting an encounter will have the main character "SMASH" them, winning the fight instantly.  This does get you full Exp, Gold and Items, so it is basically just saving you time and the enemies' embarrassment.  Enemies will not respawn until you leave the dungeon, which is helpful when making your way through it (or back to the save point), but less so when you want to grind or missed catching a particular bounty (more on this later).  For good measure, there's even two ship battles, where you must grab rock monsters to launch at the enemy ship.  They are pretty fun, but it would be nice if there were more than two, or a way to repeat them later in the game.

The skills and spells you get will give you some variety in hitting all of your foes.  You get some single target ones, a few ones that target a line and a lot that hit a radius (both small and larger).  Seeing some of these skills and hit boxes will really remind you that this game was inspired by Chrono Trigger.  Skills and spells will, of course, take MP, but after a few levels you won't run out quickly.  The effects are much better than the previous game, and all characters and enemies have animation to go along with their movements and attacks now.  I'd say that all of these things make the look and fights of the game better, even if enemies adding themselves to the fights gets annoying.

Is killing enemies the only option?  Not quite.  You can also capture them, and they will serve as party members (now you see why I said there was a little Pokemon thrown into the mix).  This is almost necessary for the parts of the game where a character will be without the rest of the main party, so make sure to carry a few capture nets for good measure.  Monsters you capture will have a different name that usually goes along with their class/type or what they are in reference to (the thief's name is Robert Heif, for example).  They also will likely have a unique skill or two, and then learn the same pool as other monsters you capture.  Monsters have low MP, but the skills they use are cheap.  Adding them to your party is useful to fill its ranks, but they just don't perform as well as the named characters.  It is fun to catch them all, though.

Last time, the story was told in 3 separate chapters that could be started in any order and all fit into an overall narrative.  Dragon Fantasy: Book 2 picks up where the third chapter left off, as our heroes are taking a boat trip.  After about 2-3 hours, you will be given a similar choice, all of which tie together.  It's a nice way of giving some freedom to the players while still maintaining a strong, overarching story.  I think it's pulled off very well, and many times I kept playing because I wanted to see what was going to happen next.  While it overall feels slightly more serious than the last game, there is still plenty of humor.  There is lots of silly dialogue, enemy names/attacks and tons of references to gaming/RPG culture.  You may know from my other reviews that I'm a fan of things like that, so I like that aspect of the game.  For me, the story and the parodies/jokes are solid and enjoyable.

There are a few diversions from the main story if you are so inclined.  Besides catching monsters, there are several side quests called "bounties".  Completing these will give you some money and usually an item.  Bounties come in three flavors: capturing a certain monster, killing a certain monster and examining a certain location for an item.  They aren't very hard or out of the way, so there's no reason not to do them.  Completing the story and about half of the bounties took me 13 and a half hours, so it is longer than the first game, which is a plus.  Cleaning up the trophies and the remaining bounties took me another 5 hours.  Thankfully, I was able to make my way through the story without the need to grind, so the balance of the game is good, too.

There are a few downsides to the game as well, as it is lacking some polish.  For a week, one of the bounties was unable to be completed.  There are ways to make NPCs slide along a line, sometimes even off the map.  At first, auto-saving on the PS3 would make movement really lag.  The Vita had it slightly better, where the auto-save would have the game sit on a black screen for a few extra seconds, but had no lag while you could move.  However, Woodsy's final spell, Metios (maybe my favorite reference in the game, right down to the MP cost), would turn the game into a slideshow on the poor Vita.  The silver lining to this is the developers are still working to polish the game, and talking directly to the community for feedback.  Problems are fixed fairly quickly, which was a great thing.

If you are a trophy hunter, or just disappointed that the previous game didn't have a platinum, you will be happy to know that Dragon Fantasy: Book 2 does feature a platinum for your efforts.  You will get a few trophies for story progression, and a few for doing side quests and capturing monsters.  Be aware that capturing 50 different monsters can be almost impossible later in the game if you haven't been grabbing them when you can during the story (because of the SMASH described above).  There's also a trophy in the beginning that's easy to miss, where you have to fight a Rock Man (who's Mega powerful) so it can be captured a little later.  The only grinding trophy is to get a single character to lvl 99 (no, using a captured Nugget doesn't count).  Fighting solo will get this much faster, and you can use that character to finish the final boss solo and claim that gold trophy for your collection, too.  Not too bad a list, as they are all obtainable.

Fans of 16-bit era RPGs should check out Dragon Fantasy: Book 2.  While you will get more out of it if you have played Book 1, it's definitely not necessary to have played that to enjoy this game.  It is a lighthearted take on RPGs that we know and loved, with a decent story to boot.  While at launch the game was lacking some polish, this will be less of a problem as time goes on.  The music is pretty catchy and the graphics and animations are pretty good.  Save for a few instances, the game played well on both PS3 and Vita, and you can use the internet to transfer your save file from one to the other.  There's even some multiplayer coming to the game soon, which I will update the review with when I get a chance to check it out.  Dragon Fantasy: Book 2 is fun and I look forward to Book 3.

PAX Impressions: "Mighty Monday": Part 4

The final part, #4, will focus on the indie titles that I saw and played at the Indie Mega Booth (or something along those lines).

Dragon Fantasy: Book 2
I enjoyed Book 1 of Dragon Fantasy, so it stands to reason that I would be looking forward to Book 2.  The style is more like Chrono Trigger (the first game was like Dragon Warrior) and the enemies were on the field as you fought (no random encounters).  I mostly watched a bit and talked the lead creator about the game.  Adam Rippon was pretty cool throughout my encounter with him.  A real down to earth guy, he was also pretty candid about the game and other things.  He also seemed interested in bringing a version of Dragon Fantasy to other systems, which would be cool to see.

Since the show was about a week and a half before the game came out, I was able to get a review copy, so a review of Dragon Fantasy: Book 2 will be here soon if you are interested in hearing more about the game.

Foul Play
I had not heard of this game until I wandered across the booth at PAX, and it looked like a side scrolling beat-em-up in the vein of Castle Crashers.  Since I like those kinds of games, I figured I would give the game a spin.

I'm glad I did.  The game is set up as a character performing a play about his life as a demon hunter.  High hitting combos and evading enemy blows would win them over and get you more points.  The presentation was really nice and I liked the concept.  The game also played pretty well, and was definitely build for co-op since the main character has a side kick helping him perform the play.  The enemies were also actors, and wouldn't die so much as lay down and crawl away when the lights were off of them.

My partner (another random dude) and I performed well enough that after the boss of the stage, we got an "encore" where enemies from the stage would rush us and we could fight them off again for more points.  It was really fun and I look forward to trying the full version.  As it stands, I did receive a review copy so in the near future I can tell you all how the full game panned out.

Galack-Z
The game has been described as taking the best of 80's anime and cramming it into a space flight/ shooter game like the original Asteroids.  After seeing it in action, that is a very good way to describe it.  The main character was named A-Tak (har har) and his look and spacecraft did remind me (and just about everyone else) of Macross/ Robotech.

The game isn't a standard shoot-em-up (shmup), either.  You can slyly go around unsuspecting foes and catch them off guard.  This is important because the bigger enemies can kill you quickly.  The ship controls in a floaty manner reminiscent of Asteroids (as mentioned before), so you have to be careful not to run into your surroundings.  Probably the best part are the missiles.  You can target several enemies in your cone, and fire a barrage of missiles (complete with missile trails) to destroy them.  Yup, Macross.

The game is slated to come out next year, but looked surprisingly far along.  The developer talked with me a bit about the game as said they started with making the core concepts solid and plan to build all of the other stuff on top of that.  Given what I saw of the game, they have a solid core intact, so we will see what all gets piled on the top.  The game looks fun, but hard, and I look forward to trying it next year!

PAX Impressions: "Might Monday": Part 3

Bayonetta 2

I enjoyed the first Bayonetta (not on hard difficulty, though), so I was anxious to see how the sequel is shaping up on the Wii U.  I really don't like her with short hair, but the game was really fun.  I was definitely very rusty at getting the Witch Time dodge at first, and the normal grunt troops were hitting me a lot.  After a few of them it was time for the miniboss, which I did much better on.  The demo ends with a gigantic boss fight, and the whole game was very flashy, as you might expect from a Platinum Games game.

The controls were responsive, and I really like that getting hit does not completely deplete the magic meter like it did in the first game.  When it's full you can activate Umbral Climax mode, which will make your attacks very powerful and hit a very wide range for a limited time.  I stood in line for 3 hours, and it was pretty much worth it.  I was apprehensive about the game heading to the Wii U (before I knew why), but it plays really well on it, and I hope it supports the Wii U Pro controller, since I recently picked one up.

Bayonetta 2 also has a touch screen play style, where you can play the whole game just using the touch screen.  The guy in front of me tried it out, the brave soul.  First thing I noticed was the massive health bar.  At least they give you lots of leeway, and it made me question just how accurate it all was.  Sliding the stylus around the screen would move Bayonetta, and flicking it up would make her jump.  Sounds good in theory, but games like that have had spotty platforming because of it.  You can tap on enemies to unleash stylish combos automatically, so I imagine it's better if you would rather watch the game than play it.  Dodging was done by flicking the stylus away from the enemy.  I had trouble getting the timing right when I could push a button, so trying to time that would be a nightmare unless they were very generous with the timing.

While the demo sometimes had Jeanne (from the first game) fighting beside you, the demo assistant was tight lipped about her being playable in the main game.  Either way, I'd like to try the release version, as the demo was fun.  Now if only we could get a costume for Bayonetta that makes her look more like the design in the first game...

WWE 2K14
The graphics appeared better than last year, but I thought last year's game looked fine until Chriz aka The Mole showed me some comparison pictures that highlighted just how bad they were.  The game was pretty fluid, but felt as fast as WWE 13.  Supposedly they were going to slow it down, but wrestlers still got up from moves quickly, which admittedly I prefer earlier in the match.

The match I played was from the "story" mode, 30 years of Wrestlemania, and it was the Undertaker vs. HHH match #2 3 (Hell in a Cell).  Thankfully I was the Undertaker.  If you have played any historical matches in any of the Smackdown vs. Raw or WWE games, you know that you are given a laundry list of things to accomplish besides winning the match, all in the name of accuracy.  Just like previous years, you don't have to do them all (but will likely get a bonus for doing so), and some of them are probably hidden.  The first two were visible, but the rest came out as the match went on.  Unfortunately, when fulfilling one of them, getting HHH to moderate damage, caused a cut-scene that also put me in moderate damage.  Yeah, not fun there.  Pretty much all of the bonus objectives I did would result in a scene of some sort, like last year's game.  I still managed to win, but I had to work for it more than I wanted to.  The match I did was pretty fun, but the "story" match reminded me of last years, which wasn't my favorite (but should have been).  We will see how the final version is later this fall.

EDF 2025
I really liked EDF 2017, and even kinda liked Insect Armageddon.  2025 goes back to the style of 2017, and played really well.  Pale Wing, from the PS2 EDF, returns and we get another "class" in the form of the Lancer.  He has a mechanical apparatus on his head/shoulders that allows him to wield heavier weapons.  It also makes him really slow.  The weapons I saw him use were a big hammer and two shoulder-mounted vulcan cannons.  Pretty cool looking, but probably not ideal for every mission, and likely best with another player to help you out.

Each demo station was set for co-op, so some random dude and I jumped on.  Since I really liked the jet armor in IE, I wanted to try out Pale Wing.  I didn't read the weapon descriptions thoroughly enough.  I though I was picking a rapid fire weapon and a grenade launcher, but I ended up with a single-shot rifle and a grenade.  The rifle was ok, but ate through energy quickly if I fired it quickly and the grenade...sucked.  I tried it a few times, but it flew really slowly toward the target.  After helping up my partner (he set it to hard, sigh...) I flew to the top of a building and tried to throw a grenade down on the ants/spiders below.  The grenade then proceeded to fly backwards and destroy the building I was on and kill me in the process.  Thanks, I hate you too grenade.  It was funny to watch my poor soldier fall down 300 feet while flailing her limbs around and crash onto the floor.

After waiting a bit to get help, we tried to wade through the enemies.  It didn't go so well and my partner was quickly overrun.  The problem is, the spiders were all over his body, so I couldn't rescue him.  They flooded toward me and it was soon over.  Oh well, it would have been much better on a different difficulty and if I had read all of the weapon's stats.  One cool thing I will also mention is the larger enemy spiders.  They will still shoot webs at you, but if one hits you, they will slowly drag you toward them.  It's a small thing, but pretty cool.  I imagine it will be annoying after it happens a lot, but still pretty neat.  I'm looking forward to the release of EDF 2025 since 2017 was lots of fun and this is more in 2017's style than Insect Armageddon.  I'm sure my buddy DTJAAAAM is looking forward to it as well.