Gamer--freakz

Title says it all, I have been to AFA about a month ago, but today I just went to STGCC (Singapore toy,game,comic convention), and unlike before, I came prepared, with cash, so I bought a bunch of stuff!

Anyway stay tuned as I update about my STGCC experience tommorow.

Gamespot score:n/a

my score:8.5

(+)Pros:-Possibly one of the best dreams come true for both namco and capcom fans,-loads of cameos make for one of the most exciting game of all time,-simple to pick up stragetic tactics,- slick battle system,-main game alone is extremely lenghty.

(-)cons:-close to no replay value,-visuals can be rather lacking


gameplay time:40-50hours( long)





Here's possibly one the most fun games ever(to me) on the PS2, namco X capcom. Lets begin with some personal ranting, namco X capcom was a japan only release. Whats up with that? Either namco or capcom should have the balls to dub or at least translate this and have it localized. Seriously! I saw some english scans and got super hyped but up to today, 4 years later, the PS2 is now close to dead, and not an ounce of the english release of namco x capcom was heard. Sad I am, truly. Still that won't stop me, this is one of the only japanese games that I own that I personally went online to look for the in game script, print it out, and had it beside me when Im playing the game, to understand the characters' individual speeches. Thats how far I went for this game, now time to move on.



The game's story may not be extremely phenominal or fantastic compared to some of the more dazzling RPG games out there, but with the involvment of so many different namco and capcom characters, the amount of badasstitude in the story is basically unimaginable. So its basically alot like kingdom hearts, where warriors of 5 worlds experience a dimensional rift, and all meet together. This happens for the villians too, and now drauga has loads of underlings, and he requires to capture some maidens for his total resurrection (sound familiar?). The story revolves around the game's originals, Arisu Reiji and shaomu, as they work as combat agents in tokyo, and are suddenly jumped on by some gnosis and are soon saved by the chicks from xenosaga, and later even run into chun li. The game has loads of characters and the story later takes place in all the 5 different worlds, and the battle slowly deeepens as more characters get pulled into the fight.

With the involvment of so many different characters, they sure went all out with the character arts. The characters all have excellent portraits, and when the characters go all out with the vocal bashing, you can tell that they all have awesome seiyuus too. Many characters, in which you may have portayed them as silly( arthur, klonoa) or too damn serious (Jin, Ryu, dimitri), all look pretty damn good in this game, portrait wise. Also character wise, the selection is superb, we have all sorts of popula characters, such as megaman volnut, the long lost mike haggar, captain commando, strider, jin kazama, mitsurugi and many more. Obsure characters got thier shot too, as the game sees more of the more unpopular characters, like the unknown soldeirs or maybe beradibou man and wonder momo( who knows , they may be popular in japan). Still, the game is super solid character wise, and they are packed with alot of personality.

With all the grids and funky looking squares on the field, followed by its own battle screen with 2 sides both filled with text content, battle counters, and many other wierd numbers, namco X capcom may look like it has a very diverse combat system, but no it doesnt. Its really easy to pick up. On the field the game is simple, you pick your unit, move it anywhere you want, near an enemy or far away, to iniate either a close or far range attack, then you will move to the battle screen. Likewise when the enemy attacks you. In the battle screen, you or your enemy press a combination of O and D-pad buttons, making a combo of attacks, chaining them together as you look at the damage counter rise. As usual when a unit's HP hits 0 it goes bye bye. All the characters may have very diverse fighting styles but its basically jus mashing the attacks you know are strong until the enemy bites the dust. Oh and when you have your special gauge maxed, you obviously get your own special attack, which will hit hard. Same with the damage gauge, when you get hit too hard or get hit too many times, it fills, and when its maxed out, your character will be stunned, remaining motionless on the field for awhile. Following this are many other options in battle, such as on screen field special attacks, in which a unit consumes some of its SP to do a death defying attack that hits an enemy or a certain amount of enemies. Some of these require a few specific units to team up and perfrom the attack, while some can do it alone.

As appealing as it sounds, the game is just that simple, and its easy to pick up. Following that are the downfall of the visuals. While they all seem "cute" on the field and somewhat a little more serious on the battle screen, a little more could have been done to make them a little bit appealing. Even something like street fighter standard would suffice really, since the sprites in battle in this game look rather short. Even big bad bosses like alastor or the T-rex from dino crisis look only abit above average height, when they should be towering over your characters. Finally, though the game campaign is long as heck ( later stages last more than 2 hours each), when you clear it theres absolutely nothing left to do, resulting in 0 replay value.

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Conclusion? If you are a huge fan of namco, capcom or both, this game is an absolute must. Even if you don't know much about either side, its a great stratetic RPG game on its own, and should not be overlooked. Sadly that this has no english release, but a little bit of researching can get you the very bits and pieces of the script, and you can fully understand the story.

Happy gaming!

gamespot score:n/a

my score:8.0

(+)Pros:-New visual improvement both 2D and 3D wise,-new hearts system makes it much easier to fill up hearts,-much more partners to choose from to increase replay value,-has a much larger area to roam about it.

(-)cons:-other than main sotry characters the rest of the minor ones all have the same "tournament" storyline,-tag duel AI still sucks terribly

gameplay time:20-30 hours(average)






I want to archive my reviews....but Im not sure how -.-. Anyway, for today, the game reviewed will be yugioh 5Ds, tag force 4. Sure sure tag force 5 is out, but I havent played it, and I have only done up till 3. Im still behind time for reviews so I'll try to pick up the pace, my next period of holidays are coming soon so I assume I will have to time to do more reviews to quickly catch up. So yeah, being the 1st 5Ds yugioh game on the PSP, its pretty big. There were huge overhauls, mostly the visuals and the addition of the synchro system. Its good that they didnt add turbo duels in though, that would have sucked tremendously.



Story wise, like most yugioh games, it follows that of the anime. The arc that follows this game is the dark signers arc, which is now, quite old. Anyway, expect to fight dark signers when teaming up with main story characters during thier individual stories, mostly with the signers, since the minor non existant characters each get stupid stories.





Like in all of the previous tag force games, the hearts system still takes effect. But unlike in tag force 2 or 3, tag force 4 starts you off with no hearts for all the characters in the game (tag force 1 deja vu anyone?). So like tag force 1, you go around dueling whoever who want to raise thier hearts. If theres specifically someone you want to be your partner, all you need to do is duel him/her until the 1st heart fills, then you will initiate a story event during the next day after you maxed the heart out. Do this until 4 hearts are filled to clear that particular character's story. Simple as pie. There are a lot of available partners this time round so theres alot of replay value to go around.





The gameplay system, remains as one of the game's only unchanging factors. You get what you got in the old games, destiny draw, syncrho and whatnot. And of course tag duels still remain as the game's main focus, though you will still be solo dueling most of the time as your partners will screw you up big time. All the story duels are tag duels, thats bummer big time, since some of the story duels can be really really hard. Speaking of which the visual animations during dueling have improved, slighty. They redid most if not all of the character models, though they still dont have voice, they do look more polished than the older models. Also the character portraits look more defined, and the old map roaming system is gone, its changed to an all new 2D area to area roaming mechnic. Though each area is slighty smaller than an area in the old tag force games' duel academy, there are much MUCH more areas to walk around. The areas are split into 3 categories, satelite(low class), city(mid class) and the higher new domino city areas( high class), and each oof these areas are filled with duelists, so one can duel to hi/her heart's content.

So far, from tag force 1 to 4, 4 is possibly the best of them all, but even the best has flaws. All the minor characters, though they have stories just like the other story characters, their stories are all the same, and its pretty lame. They all have "tournament" storylines, where its all just about beating people until you get the trophy for yourselves. Also, as a flaw that keeps carrying over from the previous tag force games...is the horrible partner AI. Though through the course of the game you get to update thier decks(as always), they still manage to screw up or do stupid things 85% of the time. I really hope konami fixes this stupid AI shit soon, I mean, they always seem smarter when they are playing against you, but never when they are playing WITH you.

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Though 5Ds is a lot different from GX conecpt wise, those who are willing to adapt to the change and play tag force 4, will find a huge improvement to the game, not just visually, but as a game overall. I havent tried tag force 5, but I would say 4 is a great game, a big step foward for the tag force series.

Happy gaming!

Gamespot score:7.0(good)

my score:7.8

(+)Pros:-Drastically improved visuals and presentation,-cases still overall provide satisfatction for those who successfully solve them,-music is still great as ever,-new characters make the game all the more interesting,-3D item inspection is back,- has the best opening case for all the ace attorney games so far

(-)cons:-Disappointing final case,-Cases take abit too much time to warm up before becoming interesting,-new characters pack far less personality than older characters

gameplay time:20-30 hours( Average)






Ready for more objections? The era of the court for phoenix is over, and a new man takes his place. Behold, apollo justice! The new face (kinda) for ace attorney. Being the sequel to the phoenix trilogy, apollo justice is a continutation to the all so fabulous story of ace attorney, with the same old gameplay with a little bit new tweaks here and there. Now lets get this damn courtroom show on the roll! (Forgive the pun,Im a little high today).




Apollo justice's game is same as phoenix's games, the game revolves around its own individual cases. BUT like in T&T, apollo justice's 3rd and 4th case are connected in a way, though its not as impactful as T&T's 1st,4th and 5th case connection, you have to play 3 to fully understand 4. In the game which takes place 7 years after the end of the phoenix trilogy, you play as apollo justice, a rookie attorney who gets his lucky 1st case to defend the unexpected. Thats right, he gets to defend none other than the famous Mr wright. Knowing that wright would never commit a crime, Apollo's mentor,kristoph gavin, gets apollo on a request to defend Wright, only to have the case take a turn for the unexpected and have things flip around in a way that no one would expect.



Though the ace attorney title got anew change and a new leading man, the gameplay however remains unchanged. You are to solve murder cases, 4 specifically in this game. During these cases you go around to gather evidence, then later present them in court, to help defend your client, who is supposed to be innocent. Evidence gaining on the field is tedious, but when using the evidence later in court it will be incredibly satisfying. You get to search secluded spots, interview weird people for clues or leads, and now, you can also inspect items you find in a 3D grid. This is a cool new addition, though it should have been in long ago, since its been missing for like 2 games.

In the mighty courtroom lays the immortal unaging judge, apollo himself, and the opposing prosecutor. Sadly though this game lacks prosecutors, it only has an older looking payne, and the main rival of apollo,klavier gavin. Though klavier spots some serious good looks and shares plenty of similarities to ol'edgeworth, hes nothing like the cold prosecutor we all know. Anyway, gameplay in the courtroom is where things heat up in this game. In the courtroom apollo and the opposing prosecutor will exchange fire with words, each figthing for his own right. While the prosecutor calls out his own witnesses to hold testimonies(which are mostly lies) against your client, you are to press the witness and look for contradictions, then present the corresspending evidence to make the witnesses shit thier pants. Music in the courtroom is impressive, and it makes you feel like you are on a roll. Also, while phoenix had his magmata in the previous games, apollo too has his own magical device, his bracelet. This allow him to perceive habits of testifying witnesses and exploit them as a weakness for the witness. Though looking for this habits can be tedious, its a cool new feature that allows you to search your witnesses in more detail.

While apollo justice sounds like a perfect improvement from the phoenix games, it actually is not. Unlike previous phoenix games where cases get real and heated up pretty quick, apollo's cases take a little long to start up. Finding ramen stalls, lost panties and watching live performances of your rivaling prosecutor are some of the many things the game likes to pit you to do before getting "on scene". Another step back for the cases is that they arent as twisting and suprising as before, especially the 2nd case. Even the 3rd case had too much of a clue too who the bad guy would be. Finally, the new characters of the game severly lack personality compared to the old characters. The only characters with decent personality are maybe the older ema skye and trucy.

While the game is a step back for the franchise, its still a must play for all phoenix wright fans out there. Though there arent any besides ema and phoenix, the cameos are awesome, better than the new characters anyway. Its too bad that they didnt mention any of the important story characters of the previous games like edgeworth or maya, it would be interesting to see what had became of them. As said, this game is one the AA fans wouldnt want to miss.

Happy gaming.