Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition (Xbox One) Review

Darksiders II follows up on the original Darksiders, but stars Death as he seeks to gain redemption for his brother War, who was unjustly blamed for the events of the previous game.  I originally played this on the Xbox 360, but now the Deathinitive Edition has been released for the current gen consoles, and bring with it some improvements, the previously released DLC and a cutesy name.

The graphics have improved some, but it isn't a huge jump.  Lighting effects, on the other hand, look much better than I remember.  This is one of the things specifically mentioned as an improvement, and it is obvious.  The game loads a little quicker, although there are parts where it studders a bit while doing so during gameplay.  Also, there were times during cut scenes where the audio was out of sync with the video.  I'm not sure if it's just a problem with the Xbox One version, or if that was present in the 360 version (it was a few years ago that I played it after all).

Combat is action-oriented, but with many RPG mechanics.  The X Button is your main weapon (scythes), and the Y Button is whatever your equipped sub-weapon is, which ranges from claws to giant hammers.  There are a few different combo moves to fill out your arsenal, but I really only stuck to a few I found useful.  Where War (in the previous game) was beefy, Death is much more lithe.  Hence, he dodges instead of blocks.  The timing can be very strict, as many times I was a hair too slow and just ate an attack.  If you dodge too early, most enemies will track your movement and hit you anyway, so you have to be pretty precise.  Sometimes Death didn't want to dodge in the direction I was pressing, which again would lead to me taking unnecessary damage.  Locking on to enemies helps your attacks aim at them, and is especially helpful when using the gun Death gets.  Plus, it will show the enemy's HP.

Besides two weapons, Death can equip a few different pieces of armor on his shoulder, waist, hands and feet.  These can be purchased, found in chest or dropped from enemies, and will show up on his character model.  While most of them will increase stats like defense, some pieces have skills attached to them, like health regeneration.  Also, there are some special weapons that you get when you defeat a boss.  The last special piece of equipment would be the possessed weapons.  These rare items can be fed other pieces of equipment to power them up.  While cool, I rarely used them, as I tended to find better stuff.  I do like the boss weapons, though, since I'm a special item hoarder.

Every kill and completed quest gets you experience, which will predictably level you up after you gain enough.  Besides increasing your stats, you will also gain a skill point to put in one of Death's two skill trees.  There are several active abilities in each, and more upgrades to modify those active skills.  Each "tier" of skills is accessible by leveling up, and you can freely choose to mix and match abilities.  Plus, you can buy a respec from Vulgrim the shopkeep if you want to reallocate your points.  The only part that isn't the most user friendly is mapping the active skills.  You can't do it from the skill tree, but must press down on the d-pad when not in the menu.  Then you can highlight a skill and hold down the Right Bumper and the button that will activate the skill.  Not a huge deal, but can be hard to remember all of that if you want to put on a new ability or change one you have set.

Besides combat, there is a lot of exploration for Death to do.  There are several areas you travel to, and dungeons to overcome.  Each area tends to be connected by narrow canyons that are a perfect time to mount your horse and run through them.  I'm not sure if these areas are so the horse feels useful, or to helps seamlessly load the next area (or both), but ultimately it doesn't matter.  They are just there.  Anyway, there are lots of little side areas that tend to have collectibles in them, or at least an extra chest.  You can also fast travel to many explored areas, which makes  jumping back and forth to dungeons and finishing up side quests much less of a hassle

Dungeons have the most platforming sections, and a fair amount of puzzle parts, too.  The puzzles aren't too hard, mostly pulling switches and placing balls in the right spot, but I do really like the ones that use the golems.  Death can ride around on certain golems, and they can destroy the corruption and fire their fist off on a chain that Death can use to cross some chasms.  They are fun to use.  Death also has some now standard platforming skills at his disposal, like wall running and climbing around specific wall areas.  For the most part the controls for these are spot on, but there are instances where I was trying to run along the wall and the game thought I wanted to run straight up.  Sometimes Death will also do this when you are jumping next to the wall, even if you aren't pushing toward it.

The game has supposedly be re-balanced from its initial release, and some fights did seem a bit easier.  Still, the game isn't too hard on the normal setting, just make sure to have spare health potions on hand, since you will very likely need them.  It's very easy to get hit, especially from off-screen, and the best source to heal yourself is potions.  There are some skills and abilities that will heal you, but it is not near enough to help you in a tough fight.  I did also occasionally get lost in a dungeon and not realize what I had to do to proceed.  It was usually me not noticing an area I could platform to, and not a result of the dungeon puzzles.  Lastly, there are times where the camera won't cooperate during combat.  Sadly, that is par for the course in 3D action games, but it is annoying to take some cheap damage when you can't see what's going on or get your bearing and try to dodge out of trouble.

Content-wise, the game is closer to RPG than action title.  This gives the story over 25 hours, and even more if you are like me and search around for all the extra stuff to do.  Since this version includes the DLC, you will even get another 3 hours or so of extra stuff.  There's also a lot of collectible stuff to pad the length even further.  If you are going for achievements, you will likely go through the game again to get the difficulty related achievements.  Overall, a good length for the cost.

I like Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition and think it is a very fun game.  It has a few small issues and the combat isn't as tight as, say, a Platinum Games game, but it's still solid.  If you like action RPGs and didn't try out Darksiders II when it was initially released, I would recommend trying it out now on the current gen systems.  It's less worth it for repeat buyers, but if you didn't get any of the DLC last time and would like to go through the game again, it is worth the price of admission.

Samurai Warriors 4-II (PS4) Review

The original Samurai Warriors 4 was really fun.  I loved the new hyper attacks.  However, the story mode was more focused on the factions, which I guess some people didn't like as much.  Instead of an Extreme Legends version, we have the character-focused stories in Samurai Warriors 4-II.  Honestly, I wish they stuck with the previous nomenclature, as mixing numbering systems is... silly to me.

Putting the name aside, let's focus on what actually matters: the game.  As mentioned previously, this entry focuses on more individual stories for the characters introduced in SW 4 and added for this iteration.  For each story, you must use the main character, but then can also choose one other from the list of available people to accompany you into battle.  Switching between them is quick, but it is on the Options button (PS4), which was kind of awkward to hit easily.  There are 13 total story modes, 8 of which have to be unlocked, and each containing 5 stages.

The newest character to join the roster is Naomasa Li.  He is Naotora Li's adopted son who just happens to look the same age.  I don't think it's intentional, but I thought it was pretty funny that it looks in no way like he is Naotora's son, but sure, why not?  He's pretty solid with some good hyper attacks (he is hyper attack inclined) and a few really good charge moves that hit huge areas.  His rage super is also really funny if you watch sentai shows.  The create-a-character also returns, which is always a plus.  All of the costumes are available at the start, but you can only give them weapons of characters you have unlocked.  Coincidentally I made a sentai-looking character, and gave him Naomasa's move set.  Boy was I surprised it was an accidental perfect fit.

Combat is largely unchanged from the previous iteration, with the hyper attacks seemingly less powerful.  You still have your standard attack string with various finishing moves based off when you use the other attack button in the combo.  The biggest addition is the skills you can use in battle.  The d-pad can scroll through skills you learn and then activate them.  These have a variety of effects, from stat buffs to heals to gaining more exp or money from kills.  They are on a cooldown, so use them when you need them.  Plus, you can equip several at once, so there's no reason not to load up when a character unlocks them.

Battle Objectives are still present in SW 4-II.  If you don't know, each stage has a checklist of objectives and bonus objectives for you to try and do during battle.  Normal ones are part of the flow of battle, like defeat some person before they attack your leader and stuff like that.  The bonus ones can range from "make sure no one dies" to "use this character to beat this one" and similar things.  While I like the replayability aspect of the objectives, they are pretty obtrusive when they first come up.  The action pauses and it shows the player what the objective is.  Yes, it is nice that you can't really miss them, but it gets annoying when it stops you mid combo to tell you to beat the enemy you are currently fighting.  In the other games, the bonus objectives tended to give you extra rewards, but it seems like they just give bonus experience now.  It does give you a reason to play the levels in Free mode, though, if you want to clean them up.

Again they have changed how to combine weapons in the Warriors games.  This time, adding a weapons to your chosen base weapon will increase the experience of that weapon.  If it gets enough experience, it will level up and get stronger.  This will thankfully also increase the skills on it.  However, you cannot transfer skills or elements from one weapon to another, so it isn't perfect.  There is a level cap based on the star rating of the weapon.  If you combine two weapons of similar compatibility, there is a chance you will increase the max level.  This system also applies to the mounts, which is cool and kind of silly if you think about it.  (You are merging horses... is that legal?)  Anyway, the system is pretty nice, but I would prefer if there was a way to replace skills or add them to a weapon, so it was easier to make your perfect equipment.

There are now skill trees for each of the characters, laid out on a big hex-based grid.  You have to spend skill tomes that are acquired as battle drops or purchased from the shop.  Each skill costs certain numbers of different color tomes.  Once a skill is purchased, the ones next to it are then unlocked for purchase.  If you buy a skill next to an unlocked and unpurchased skill, then that one receives a discount, which is very nice.  Even more nice is some skills can become free if you surround them with purchased ones.  The skills are either passive ones that will do standard stuff like increasing attack damage or health, or active skills discussed above.  This system is new, and once I got the hang of it, is pretty cool.  The only thing I'm not too keen on is it can be hard to buy a lot of skills, since you don't seem to get many tomes per battle, and I don't want to fork over the cash since I need that for weapon and mount synthesis.

There is also a Survival Mode in SW 4-II.  It feels like a mix of the one from Samurai Warriors 2 and Samurai Warriors Chronicles 3.  Since you only have one character to keep track of, it is much more focused and easier to understand what you are doing.  It's also more fun because of it.  The standard survival is a 100 floor tower that you have to fight your way to the top of.  You have a time limit that gets extended every time you go up a floor.  It's a good way to get some experience, and there are nice bonuses the higher up you go.  However, it's not advisable to push your luck, since dying makes you lose all the stuff you collected.  You can exit on any floor once it is cleared by activating the circle near the stairway up.  There are also really strong versions of the characters that appear on some floors.  They are always pretty obvious since they have blue skin, and they pack a punch!

The survival challenge has four specific battles that have weekly rankings.  While at first I wasn't sure I'd like them, the rewards changed my mind.  These challenges are timed, and task you with a specific task, like killing a lot of enemies or gaining a lot of gold.  Those two are fun, but I'm not too keen on the racing one.  You have to kill standard bearers and run to the exit.  They've had similar racing ones in the Warriors games before, and I didn't like them there either.  Getting high ranks will give you strategy tomes or money.  Every week the rankings will reset and give you another opportunity to get the top spot.  The mode is more fun than I thought it would be, and can be a good source of cash and skill tomes.

At first I wasn't sure there was enough content in the game, but at about 2-3 hours per story mode and 13 stories, that's pretty decent.  The survival and survival challenge modes are more fun than I initially thought as well.  The focus on the characters more than the factions/groups should appeal to those that complained about that in SW 4.  If you are a fan of the Warriors games and somehow skipped SW 4, then I would recommend Samurai Warriors 4-II.  I'm sure fans of the series will also enjoy it, but most of the content is focused on the story, which may not be enough to get owners of SW 4 to buy 4-II.

Code: Realize (PS Vita) Review

Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ is a visual novel that follows the story of Cardia (you can rename her if you wish).  She has no memory of anything prior to the last two years of her life, where she lived in a mansion by herself, waiting for her father to return.  Why would she live by herself?  Well, her body secretes a deadly poison that melts things that touch her skin or blood.  That's not too conducive to making friends.  She even has to wear special clothes so she doesn't melt them off, too.  This poison makes others view her as a monster, so she stays away from society, hidden in her father's mansion in the woods.

The story of Cardia's meeting with five fateful friends (and a few other people) is actually really good.  The characters are all unique and have some good interactions.  It is set in a more steampunk version of Victorian era London.  The story thankfully does not follow every little detail about their lives, so things happen in a more natural progression instead of everything being crammed into a week or so.  It goes to some places and situations I would not have guessed.  Even so, the story does make sense and doesn't really have any crazy swerves.

There are some dialogue choices in the game, but not near as many as I would expect from a visual novel.  They do affect the direction of the story somewhat, but it can be hard to tell how.  At the end of the eighth chapter, the game will seamlessly transition into one of the five guys' ending paths.  If it wasn't for the trophy pop, I wouldn't have known as soon as I did.  I'm not fully sure how it choose what path to put me on, since I didn't think my answers skewed toward Victor that much, and there are no affection meters to see how the choices affect things.  However, figuring out how to get a specific character's path isn't too big of a deal.

The reason for that is after completion of the game, the Path of Genesis is opened in the main menu.  From here, you can choose any completed chapter to replay.  Plus, if you choose one of Cardia's, you can lock yourself into one of the character's paths, regardless of the answers you put.  Nice!  It cuts out a lot of the repeat story while still leaving you plenty of playtime.  If you choose one of the guys' chapters, you can choose to max out their affection, which will get you the true ending.  Again, that is really cool.  It makes it easier to get all the endings without forcing the player to reload several save slots or replay large chunks of the story.  Yes, the skip function will help with that, but I prefer this function instead.

Since the save files and the game don't track playtime, I'll have to estimate.  The story was a decent length, and never hit the "ok, let's just get through this" point.  Quite the contrary, I easily came back to play it whenever I had a few minutes.  It probably ran me about 8 hours to get through it all, as I was actually reading.  If you just mash through, it would be faster, but there would really be no point.  I'd like to go through and finish the other routes.  They diverge a lot in their direction, and of course I want to see them all because I enjoy the story and characters.  That should add another several hours on to that.

I've discovered over the past few months that I enjoy playing visual novels.  Code: Realize is no exception to that.  It's a really nice story with colorful characters that I had fun playing.  Yeah, you could be that person who complains about "reading isn't gameplay", but whatever, I had fun.  The game looks really nice and most if not all of the character's dialogue is voiced in Japanese.  If you are in the mood for an interesting story that has several different paths, then give Code: Realize a try.

Blood Bowl 2 (PS4) Review

Back in high school, a friend and I played Warhammer 40k, and then eventually Blood Bowl.  He liked it much more than I did, mostly because I won one out of our 5 games.  I had a solid team, but had lots of difficulties getting past his mummies and vampire.  Still, I was looking forward to trying out the video game of Blood Bowl 2, because maybe this time will be different.

If you have never heard of or played Blood Bowl, it is a tabletop dice-based strategy game... about football.  American football, to be specific, and if you care about such things.  Anyway, during your turn you can move your units based off their movement allowance, hit an enemy that started next to you, blitz (attack from a distance once per turn), pass or foul an opponent on the ground (once per turn).  When moving, you can "go for it" and try to move and extra square or two, but each has a chance to fail.  If you fail, you fall down.  Just about everything in the game has a similar chance to work.  Want to pas the ball?  There's a chance to fail.  What to pick up the ball?  Yup, you guessed it.

It does make sense for a tabletop game, but it sometimes comes across as weird.  I mean, most units have no greater than a 50% chance to pick up the ball?!  It just sounds crazy.  You need to be careful what moves you do and what chance you have of succeeding.  You can buy rerolls for your team to help out, though.  If you are moving in any square next to an opposing unit, then you must make a dodge roll.  These rolls are shown at the bottom of the screen, but the game doesn't really go out of its way to point them out.  This is much more streamlined than the physical Blood Bowl.  There are also special die when you attack another player, with several results.  You can knock them down, be knocked down, both be knocked down, or push them.  When knocked down, there is a chance you will be stunned (down for an extra turn), knocked out (out of the game with a chance to come back on each kick-off) or even killed.  You can probably guess what that does.

Now, I'm not going to say the computer cheats in its matches, but I will heavily imply it.  There seem to be many instances of them having much better luck with dice rolls overall.  Whereas I seem to get more push results than knockdowns, they can easily flatten my team.  There have be too many instances of them winning on a red die roll.  Red is for when you are outperformed, and the target gets to choose the result.  Yes, there is a chance that both would be bad for the person with the advantage, but the AI gets it more often that it should.  It's likely a rubberband mechanic, but the computer tending to get better rolls is always a pet peeve of mine.

Each match consists of two halves with 8 turns each side.  So, each player gets 16 turns with a reset in the middle.  These matches can easily take over an hour.  Campaign mode matches are longer, simply because they don't have a time limit on turns and the turn doesn't end when you have a bad roll and fumble the ball or fall down.  League matches, online and single-player, have a time limit for each players turn, and a failed roll will end your turn.  This makes matches take less time, but not by much.  Sometimes AI opponents will take a minute or so to decide how to even start their turn.

Campaign mode follows a story as you play the newest coach of the Reikland Reavers, the lowest team in the league.  There are several matches, and for the first few, it will add a few rules each time.  While it's not a great tutorial, it is pretty effective at easing you into all the various rules of Blood Bowl, and is pretty fun to play.  Between each section the announcers will go over some story, and even poke fun at the fact there even is a story.

The other main mode is League.  If you do single-player, there are several options of leagues to choose from, each with different rules for who fights who and how to get eliminated.  There are some good options in there.  Online is pretty similar, but more complicated.  You have to apply for a league and then be approved.  There are tickets given out to actually compete in a match.  While it is nice to be able to coordinate matches with people from different areas, it is really more complicated than it should be for friends to do it.  Yes, there are Friendly matches, but the progression your team has during league play is nice, so it would be nice if it weren't so complicated to set them up and do them.

Team creation is pretty much what you would expect.  You make your team by picking one of the races and then buying players.  Each new team is given a set amount that allows you to buy enough players to actually play.  If you have some left over, or get more, you can buy replacements or team abilities to help out, such as rerolls.  You can name the team and pick the icon to represent them.  You even choose your sponsor and home stadium.

Probably my favorite part of the game is the announcers.  Since they don't directly call every action, it doesn't seem as manufactured as, say most wrestling games.  Their commentary is pretty funny, since a chunk of it is stories about Blood Bowl and other various ramblings.  In the same vein, loading screens also have little "did you know" stories about funny Blood Bowl trivia.  Back in the day these were my favorite part of the codex, and it's nice to see a similar thing in the game.  Plus, these are all ones I hadn't seen.

One really cool and probably overlooked feature to the game is Cabal TV (like cable TV, only... more? evil).  It allows you to watch the games of other players, like it is an actual sport.  It has some stored on the server, but you can also search for live ones, or games played by your friends.  A cool idea, but not one I would personally use much.

Well, for better or worse Blood Bowl 2 really reminds me of the table top game I played many years ago.  Opposition is stiff, and I never really feel like I'm winning, even if I am.  Maybe that's because the AI always seems to get better rolls, or that their units tend to have an ability that makes it so I'm on the losing end of an exchange.  It's not a bad game, it just feels a bit too random for my taste.  It does feel very faithful to the physical game, but without the cost of buying all the miniatures.  Campaign is a nice distraction when you don't want to play with your friend or online.  I really enjoy the character of the game, represented by the announcers and the loading screen stories.  If you like the tabletop Blood Bowl, then I would recommend Blood Bowl 2.