Month: May 2006

My fears have been confirmed. The game touted as the next gen answer to Dynasty Warriors, the game whose gripping story was inspired by Rashamon, the game so epic I would wet myself with glee has been reviewed. The score: a paltry 70 out of 100. There you have it folks, Nintey-Nine Nights is average at best and broken at worst.

The Game Brink review cites lackluster and glitchy boss fights as the biggest let down. Sloppy hit detection and no save points during levels mean that a lost fight with a boss will send you back to the beginning of the level every time. Bummer. The story is apparently non-existant, despite Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s insistence that it was the stuff of Kurosawa. I can only imagine it will be worse when it is translated and dubbed into English.

It’s not all bad, as the game’s meat and potatoes are in the massive combat. This is executed well according to the review. It’s nothing ground breaking and the reviewer notes that all battles can be won by simply mashing “X” if the player wishes. The half way decent combat, however, is overshadowed by the games faults. More depressing perhaps is the wasted potential that was there. Glutton for punishment that I am, I’ll still be renting it when it hits the states.

Here’s hoping the next Kingdom Under Fire delivers.

I finally laid my hands on Metroid Prime Hunters yesterday. My hands have yet to thank me for it. Everything you’ve read about the hand cramping controls is true. The DS is just a little too heavy to be held with one hand. Tilting it on its side for Brain Age is easy enough and works well, but here it’s pretty difficult. There is an option to use the buttons for aiming, but that sort of defeats the whole purpose of the game—that being to demonstrate PC-esque aiming in a handheld game. In and of itself, the aiming is damned good and rivals said PC. I’ve found myself getting headshots and what not on a somewhat frequent basis, which is cool. Landing those really nice shots is pretty satisfying, as it should be. It is a little disorienting to see “Headshot!” appear in the context of a Metroid game though. But that’s a whole ‘nother barrel of peanuts I’ll get into another time.

I’ve heard that this game is easier on the hands if you’re playing on the resplendent DS Lite. Anyone care to comment? (Given the history of comments so far, probably not.)