Ben 10 Alien Force: The Rise of Hex (Xbox 360) Review

Ben 10 was always a concept I liked, but thought would work even better as a video game.  While looking through my backlog of games to play, I finally set on trying out Ben 10 Alien Force: The Rise of Hex, which I had acquired years ago.

Being a downloadable TV show tie-in game, I have to admit my expectations were lowered.  The game is a fairly simple action-platformer, where you can change into various alien forms as you unlock them.  Ben has health denoted by green bars at the top of the screen, and energy denoted by yellow bars underneath that.  Pressing the right trigger will bring up the wheel that shows your alien forms, and allows you to choose one.  Each alien has special abilities.  Unfortunately, they seem mapped to either the Y Button, B Button, or Right Bumper.  Sometimes you can use more than one of the buttons for different abilities.  It's kind of a mess.

The game starts off fairly easy, but definitely gets harder as you go.  Most of the difficulty is the spotty hit detection, clunky combat and inaccurate platforming.  Yes, that is pretty much most of the game.  Invincibility time after taking damage seems short, and there are times when I'm not even sure the enemy is taking damage, even if it looks like they might be.  It's also way too easy for enemies with projectiles to hit you because Ben's hit box is bigger than each of his forms.  It does change based off the form, which is at least a plus.

It just feels like a lot of the difficulty is just the cheap damage.  Ben has no real defensive moves, so you are stuck killing an enemy in your way, or trying to avoid them.  You will get damaged by even touching an enemy, as if the game was made back in the 80s, which makes running around them less appealing than it should be.  Many times there were instances where it felt like the game was requiring me to take damage to proceed.

Jumping from platform to platform was also hit or miss, as many times throughout the game I would attempt jumps that the game needs you to make, only to have them not work over half the time.  I imagine most of these instances again stem from the larger than the model hitboxes getting stuck on parts of the environment.  Many of these areas also had instant death pits or spikes just for good measure.  Oh, did I mention that there are some spikes that are instant death and some that just damage you?  Yup, consistency is definitely not an alien Ben can use.

There are 15 stages in the game, plus three boss fights.  Each stage lasts from about 5 to 15 minutes.  It is possible to take some extra time if you get stuck in a stage, which admittedly happened to me once or twice.  Dying on a non-boss stage sends you back a bit, so it's more an inconvenience than a punishment.  This actually helps balance out the bad aspects of the game, so I'm okay with it.  The boss fights are probably the hardest parts of the game, since you have to do them all in one go.  Figuring out exactly what to do is more annoying that it would seem, and can easily cause you a few extra attempts to figure out what silly thing the game isn't communicating to you.

Besides the main game, there is a survival mode and a time attack mode.  Survival pits you against endless enemies to see how long you can last.  Harder enemies spawn the longer you last, but there is only one stage for it.  It also has instant death pits, which feels counter-intuitive to the survival idea.  It's an okay addition, but doesn't offer more than a few minutes of extra content.  The time attack mode is just the story mode again, but you can post your completion times to the leaderboard.  Again, not really substantial content.  The biggest reason to replay the game or the other modes is to get the game's achievements, which of course varies in importance person to person.

I still think the concept of Ben 10 would make a great game.  The Rise of Hex just isn't it.  Sure, I could cut it some slack since it is a licensed downloadable game, but much of the core elements of the game just don't work right, which is a big negative to any game.  It might appeal to fans of the show, but I imagine that it might be too hard for some younger fans.  I wouldn't recommend this for people like me that haven't really seen the show, as it will probably give you a bad impression of it.  Maybe it's for the best that the game was de-listed from the Xbox Marketplace.


The Good:
Solving some puzzles by switching alien forms quickly (or mid-air) is pretty cool.

The Bad:
Wonky hit detection and combat, plus the platforming doesn't always seem to work.

The SaHD:
I think having more than 3 songs in the entire game would have been a step in the right direction.


(Ben 10 Alien Force: The Rise of Hex was obtained for free on the Xbox Marketplace.  It has since been delisted)

A.W.: Phoenix Festa (PS Vita) Review

A.W.: Phoenix Festa involves the characters and backstory from the anime/light novel, but now adds an ability to play as a hero of your creation.  Half of the game is the training/sim portion.  You will train to raise your stats, take jobs for money, schedule duels, go on dates, and shop, each taking half a day.

To train, you just select an option from the menu, and it will give you some randomly determined increases to the indicated stat (Atk, Def, Speed, etc).  It takes HP to train, so training your HP first/early is very much advised.  If you train enough, the level of training will increase, which increases the amount gained.  There is also a condition icon that will go down as you train, so you will have to rest every so often to keep yourself in peak shape.  Resting will also restore about half of your max HP.  It's the same HP you use in fights, so you don't want it too low for any planned encounters.

You can shop for new weapons, recovery items and presents to give the girls.  No matter how much you buy, it takes half a day, so buy as much as you can in one trip.  It's the same deal for visiting the lab to upgrade your weapon.  Most weapons can be upgraded (to increase damage) twice, and refined up to five times to reduce prana consumption.  It also costs a rare material called manadite to do either of these things, but you can instead spend an arm and a leg (or 1 million, whatever) to buy it direct from the lab.  You get some pieces of manadite through events, so try to use those instead of buying it directly.

If you need more money, you can take one of the jobs from the list for some quick cash.  The more difficult the job, the more money you earn.  Any time you complete the level of a job, it goes up by one to make it harder the next time.  The monetary reward will increase as well.  The other way to earn money is to wait until payday (Friday).  The higher your rank, the more money you get.  So if you have a chance to duel and increase your rank, go for it!

Fighting is the other half of the game.  Fights are in third person, and are pretty much an action game.  You can lock on to your opponent, run around, attack, jump and block.  The in-game tutorial covers basics about HP and Prana (think of it like stamina), but not the actual buttons.  Square is your normal attack string, and triangle gives you a special attack.  Once your weapon mastery has gained a level, you can unleash super moves by holding L (block) and pressing Square.  Your different attacks are based on the weapon type you currently have equipped.  You can also dash after opponents, or away from their attacks, by using the R Button.  Guarding is very useful against some opponents, but it does take prana for every hit blocked.  Be very aware of this, as you will need some to counterattack.

Battles come in a few flavors, but most are one on one or two on two.  They aren't too hard once you get the hang of what to do, unless the enemy has much higher stats.  Since there isn't any level indicator, or even any way to tell the relative strength of an opponent before a fight, I tended to either win easily, or get squashed.

When the game starts, it lets you pick between the main character of the story, or make a created character.  Me being me, I choose to make a character.  I mean, why not?  It doesn't say there is any difference other than starting point, so I jumped right in after making my own guy.

It was actually pretty hard.  Not really the combat (when fighting appropriate enemies), just everything else.  I thought it would be easy to choose one of the girls and start to increase intimacy, but it isn't.  You can only really deal with them if the game randomly chooses them to talk to you.  If they do, you can either ask to fight them, go on a date, give them a present, ask to team up, or send them away.  Presents cost money, and if their intimacy isn't high enough, they don't want to duel or date you.  There's no free way to increase intimacy except for random events.  I don't much like that way of doing things.

You can schedule dates ahead of time, but again, if your intimacy isn't high enough, you will get rejected and waste half a day.  Same deal with duels, but there are set times where opponents cannot reject a duel.  This is a good way to increase your rank, but the opponents you can choose from are, you guessed it, random.  When the deadline for choosing a partner arrived, I had to make a last ditch effort to grab one of the girls as my partner.  It wasn't the one I wanted most (or even second), but I picked the one that I had the highest intimacy with, and... she barely accepted.  I was actually shocked to have almost failed right then and there.  It was quite a wake-up call.

So after that, I saved and quit, then rolled another save file with the main character Ayato.  Wow, it makes a huge difference.  Yes, he starts closer to the Festa deadline, but his stats are jacked up to where he is clearly stronger than your create-a-character.  They also quickly give him a powerful weapon (an Ogre Lux) and the girls trip over themselves to give him intimacy points (even if you already have a partner).  He is much easier to get through the game with... they should have mentioned that somewhere.  Definitely start with Ayato, it helps a lot.

Also, start by watching the anime.  Since the story places you at a school, there are tests to take.  Seriously.  At set points, you have to answer questions correctly, or be forced to take a makeup test a few weeks later.  Problem is, the answers aren't found or told to you in the game.  I checked the digital instruction booklet and they aren't there either.  I had to go to the Wikipedia article for the game to find them.  If you watched the show you may know the correct answers, but it seems ridiculous that they aren't in the game for people that haven't seen the show yet.  Maybe it isn't a big of a problem as I think it is, but it just seems like a bad decision.

One run through the game takes a few hours, based off your reading speed (or if you are skipping text) and activities chosen.  The fights aren't really the most difficult part of the game.  I found the random luck with getting skills and intimacy with the girls to be a much bigger factor in how far I could advance in the game.  Since there are multiple girls, there are multiple endings, giving the game some very good replay value.  There is a new game+, but you only keep your titles and skills.  The skills can help you a lot, but I do wish more stuff could carry over.  They even threw in a battle mode, where you can fight with a lot more characters that just the heroes and heroines.  You can also test your skills in a survival mode.

I would say A.W.: Phoenix Festa combines its two halves very well.  The battles are fun, and stat training is straight forward and enjoyable.  The dates and intimacy system is where the game needs some balancing.  It's too random, and not being able to choose a girl in any obvious way is kind of annoying.  It's still a pretty fun game, but I didn't end up enjoying as much as I thought I would when starting out.  That said, I still had fun.  I am interested in seeing the anime, though, so I may still gain a new appreciation for the game after seeing some of the show.  At the very least, I should be able to pass the tests without "cheating"...


The Good:
Combines action and simulation portions of the game very well.  Plus, there is a lot of good replay value in choosing which girl will be your partner.

The Bad:
Getting useful skills and intimacy with the girls is either too random or costly.

The SaHD:
After looking up some stuff for the game, it seems the created character is considered "hard mode".  I had to learn that the hard way.

(Review code for A.W. Phoenix Festa was provided by the publisher)

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate (PS Vita) Review

Shiren The Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is a mystery dungeon style game, and also a game with a very long title.  To change a sick woman's fate, Shiren must brave the three towers and retrieve the magical dice of Reeva, the god of fate.

For those not in the know, mystery dungeon games have many similarities to each other.  Their dungeons are multi-floored, and every floor is randomly generated each time you enter it.  Placement of items and enemies is also randomized, and what appears is random within a range.  If you die...sorry, when you die, you lose everything you have on you and are kicked back to the town.  Every time you enter a dungeon, your level is reset to 1.  You will automatically heal while moving around the dungeon, but only if you have some of your fullness meter.  It sounds a lot more complicated than is, but these are the basic tenets of the genre.

Shiren does up the ante by adding a lot of unique mechanics.  Well, at least I haven't seen them before in the mystery dungeon games I've played.  It adds so many little things that they have tutorials dedicated to all of them...seriously, all 9 or so pages of them.  In a nice twist, you will actually experience the tutorials, not just read about them, but they keep adding more.  Some of them would have been better as just a note, or text, instead of having to do a simple dungeon to illustrate them.  These tutorials open up well before you encounter them, so you have plenty of time to forget about them.

Most of the unique mechanics are pains in the butt for the player, with my least favorite being night.  Monsters get stronger, and you can barely see where you are going.  To compensate, you get skills that can only be used at night, but I'd rather it just not be in the game.  Sure, it is one of many on the list of mechanics that don't need to be here, so maybe it's just the metaphorical straw.

Thankfully, Shiren can have others follow him into dungeons on his journey.  Some are free, some are random, and some are actually useful.  They aren't the smartest bunch of NPCs, but they can be decent shields and extra attacks if positioned properly.  The only real downside to them (besides the ones that cost money, or leave randomly) is when an enemy actually manages to kill one.  This will almost certainly level the enemy enough to evolve into a stronger form, which will then almost certainly kill you.  Thanks, game.

Before Shiren can make his way through one of the towers to retrieve a Die of Fate, you have to do a 5 floor dungeon.  Every.  Time.  The towers have a recommended order, and each subsequent one adds a floor or two to the top.  After getting all three dice, you then go to another town, and have to continue through to another dungeon.  Guess what happens if you fall in there?  Yup, back to the first town, and through the 5 floor dungeon, the tower you last beat, and then to the dungeon again.  I don't know why they can't just let you warp to the town you made it to, or allow you to skip the first dungeon after completion, but they don't.

Maybe it's to keep your level high enough to survive the other dungeons?  That could work, but enemy damage jumps up every other floor regardless, lessening the impact you get from grinding.  Well, as much grinding as you can do.  They actually built a mechanic into the game that will make you auto fail a dungeon if you take too long on a floor.  So, you have to rush through, but take your time.  It just doesn't make sense.

Most of my gripes come down to the fact that the game is mean.  You are punished for not grinding and punished for grinding.  You are punished for the random number generator not going in your favor.  Oh, did you have items kept in that pot?  Too bad, this enemy just threw dirt into it and destroyed them.  Is that a good sword?  Too bad, you stepped on a trap that made it weaker.  Did you lose your strong sword but it was tagged?  Then go through 15 floors to find it again!  Since the game saves a lot without telling you when, it is a pain to save scum by using the cloud.  Making it through Shiren takes more luck than skill, which is something I don't like.

I should mention that there is a way to keep your stuff if you fail...but you have to be rescued.  You can only do it so many times, and you will have to wait for another person (nearby or over the internet) to actually come and rescue you.  It would be great if it didn't result in just sitting around for an hour or so waiting for someone to show up.  Maybe if they sold a million copies it would be feasible, but it's not a feature I got to experience.  There's also some versus multiplayer and co-op, but again, I don't know anyone with the game to be able to try them out, and I did sit around hoping for some random people to no avail.  At least the game has the option, even if less than 10% of players (my estimate) will actually be able to use it...

While it can take anywhere from a few hours to a lifetime to make it through all the normal dungeons, Shiren does throw some nice extra ones at you as well.  First is the two puzzle-like dungeons, Statue Cave and Explosive Rocks.  Statue Cave is moving around statues to their proper location, like a block-sliding puzzle.  There are many different stages of it, and each gives you a reward when you complete it.  Explosive Rocks is the mystery dungeon equivalent of Minesweeper.  So, if you actually like that game, you will probably like it here.  At least it is a decent way to get some items if/when you run out trying to get through the story.  Besides those, there are a host of other challenge dungeons that each have one or more unique quirks about them.  I'll definitely give the game props for having a variety of dungeons to delve through.

Overall, Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate is a tried and true mystery dungeon game.  For better or worse, it clings to the established formula, and doesn't offer any real modern amenities to help the player through the game.  While it does offer some other content, the game is just too unforgiving and mean for me.  Other games in the same genre are much more fun, while still being hard and unforgiving, leaving Shiren feeling too old-school and random.  Having some reliable method of actually getting stronger for harder dungeons, or not having to make your way through past dungeons to get back to where you fell would be leaps in the right direction.  As it stands, it is hard to recommend over previous mystery dungeon offerings on the Vita.  However, if you like this style of game, and are itching for a challenge against the RNG, then by all means dive in.


The Good:
The sprite artwork is really cool, and the extra puzzle and challenge dungeons are a nice touch.

The Bad:
As a normally unlucky person, I do not like leaving my progress to a RNG instead of player ability, learning and knowledge.

The SaHD:
Probably the only reason I got as far as I did is because I met a shape-shifting companion that would join me for free early on.  She's the best!

(Review code for Shiren the Wanderer was provided by the publisher)

Dex: Enhanced Edition (PS4) Review

Dex is a mish-mash of styles, combining action, platforming and numerous RPG aspects into a 2D sidescrolling game.  There are dialogue trees, stat points, stealth, fist fights and gun battles.  All of this is set in a 16-bit looking cyberpunk future.

Visually, the game has a great atmosphere.  The city areas are dark and gritty, with many of them run-down.  Throw in some neon signs and you have the proper mix for cyberpunk.  Some of the areas are hard to see in because they are so dark, but thankfully it's not the worst I've seen recently.  It feels appropriate to the setting, even if I'd like an easier time seeing in some places.  You can also zoom the camera in and out in many areas to get a better view.  I also really enjoy the sprite-based graphics.

Movement is done with the left stick, and feels very responsive.  The jumping is pretty good (and great if you get a certain enhancement).  You can climb up ledges to get to new areas, and even take cover behind certain boxes to try and evade detection.  If you can sneak up behind most enemies before they notice you, you can even do a stealth takedown.  I really enjoyed doing that, but it isn't as easy as it would seem.  Dex (your player character) has line of sight, so the areas that she cannot see will be darkened in and will not show enemies.  This can make it harder to sneak around, but there are sometimes alternate paths around enemies.

Hand to hand combat is done pretty well in the game.  Most enemies can block, so you have to time your attacks when they are open, and block their attacks.  The bigger enemies also like to knock you down, which is annoying.  The right stick will also roll in either direction, which you need to dodge certain moves.  Unlike most other games that have a similar system, I felt I had enough time to actual realize they were doing the unblockable attack and then dodge it before they did it.  Once you figure out the rhythm of combat (and get some nice skills or augments), it becomes much easier, but it can be pretty unforgiving in the first half of the game.

Dex can also buy and equip guns.  You hold one button to bring them out, and the right stick will then aim it.  They were a little slow for my liking, so I rarely used them.  I can see a few instances where they would be helpful, but I didn't feel they were necessary.  Enemies with guns, however, were very annoying, and should definitely be taken out first.

When Dex needs to hack into something, the game shifts over to the cyberspace mode.  Instead of controlling your character, you move around a circle in a top-down twin stick-like shooter.  It reminds me of Geometry Wars, but much easier on the eyes.  Your cursor will shoot in whatever direction the right stick dictates while holding the button, and you even get some special attacks.  Some are one time use items, but the better ones take energy, which will refill over time.  These attacks are also upgradeable.  The beginning was a bit rough, but once I got the 'pulsewave' ability, it became much easier.

Instead of using Dex's health for cyberspace, it will use her focus meter.  There are several different enemy types and traps to watch out for.  Enemy contact or shots will deplete the focus meter, and if it fully drains, you are kicked out of cyberspace and take some actual damage (humorously listed as 'brain damage').  Focus will refill up to 25% over time when in the real world.

The hacking is not limited to the virtual world.  You can also hack some things with AR.  This is probably my most used thing in the game.  You can hack security cameras to not trigger alarms, turn turrets against your foes, and even stun enemies if you buy the right skill.  That last one is almost broken good, since you can slide behind them and choke them out without a fight, even after they see you.  When hacking things in AR, there will be enemies constantly coming to attack you, so the quicker it gets done, the better.

Gaining levels in Dex grants you skill points that you can put into several different skill lines.  Since there are multiple ways to go through the game and quests, you have a lot of freedom in what you choose to major in.  I put most of my early points in lockpicking and hacking/AR, then some in endurance for the HP boost (since HP doesn't increase with levels) and augment slots.  Once you can install the augments, there are some really useful ones, like the higher jumping and being immune to poison gas, among others.

Unfortunately, there are also some problems in the game.  While moving through the areas of town, there was some screen tearing.  It wasn't too major, and only seemed to be in the more heavily populated zones.  There are a few other glitches.  Occasionally I wouldn't be able to hit/target some enemies unless I left the area and came back, and I wasn't able to figure out what caused it.  When in cyberspace, there are times when the game hiccups, and then puts my cursor in a wall.  I can't move, and my only options are to die or reload.  Yuck.  There are also a handful of missable quests and trophy/achievements.  Completionists such as myself won't have much trouble getting most of them, though.

Dex runs about 15 to 20 hours, especially if you do all the sidequests.  The game starts out a lot harder than it ends, mostly because of the skills and augments that you can purchase.  Early on, I would save and load a lot while trying to make my way through the fights, but it was much easier once I had a few specific skills.  Until that point, you can skate by using items you find and the doctor to heal you.  There are a few bottomless pits to watch out for as well.

Dex is a really fun game, especially once you start getting somewhere.  It is a mix of game types that are pulled together really well, and there is a lot of freedom in quest resolutions and skill choices.  This also gives the game decent replayability, since the length of the game is right where I think it should be for this type of game.  Old school action fans and RPG fans should definitely try the game out, as I had a lot of fun playing through it.


The Good:
Expertly mixing 2D side-scrolling action and platforming with RPG elements.  Many different outcomes and paths through the quests.

The Bad:
It is really easy to take damage, and costly to fix it.  Plus, getting glitched into the wall during the cyberspace segments is annoying.

The SaHD:
I enjoyed the game enough that I'll likely play the Xbox One version at some point, too.

(Review code for Dex was provided by the publisher)