Afro Samurai - short review

Really liked this game. Picked it up on the outlet store for €5 more on it being a bargain rather than anything else.

While I would obviously have a hard time recommending people to pay full price for this game, it still stands as a somewhat hidden gem and a good video game adaptation example.

The graphic style, while not extremely faithful to the original, uses cel-shaded to somewhat make the style its own.
The gameplay is perhaps its best feature (as it should be). Although initially you can do little more than button mash some combos, pretty soon you'll come to realize a lot of possibilities attacking and defensive possibilities, including deflecting bullets, one-hit counter-kills and chopping up enemies pretty much any way you want.

The menu presentation is actually quite barebones, as you're rushed from stage to stage, passing through the mandatory (and challenging) bosses [spoiler](including fighting a flying robot through the skies)[/spoiler], without extra save slots or anything. The game is pretty much plug and play, and it's excellent for it.
The ingame presentation is excellent though, making the most of presenting a clean display with no huds. Health is represented by the amount of blood you and your enemies have on your body/shirt, there's a guide if you get lost that appears in-game telling you where you want to go... and of course the lovely cell-shaded visuals, coupled with the heavy red of the blood you shed and the black and white sequences of your "focus attacks". And then of course, there's Mr Sam L. Jackson.

The game also features some platforming that is never really challenging (except for the last stage), but very forgiving, restarting you right before you missed the last jump (and not the entire sequence).

The biggest gripes would be the camera, that sometimes gets in the way, and is never quite right. When you get ganged up by a lot of opponents or by fast moving oponents it gets hard to position it properly so you can follow what you're (and they're) doing. The lack of enemy variety would be another valid point.

Overall, the game has a very old-school vibe to it that I found very appealing. The cutscenes are short (though they can't be skipped, should you have to repeat segments (and you will)), the game is challenging, but reasonable, the gameplay is addictive, the story is very heavily separated in stages (YES, there's a snow level!), and there's boss fights.

I would dare say the PS3 version would even be superior for the lack of trophies. This is just a straight-up, old-school, chop-up party like one I hadn't played in a good while.

If it had come out in the previous generation, I'm sure it would have been a much bigger hit.

Badge of Pride

Athletic Bilbao:


Coventry City:


S. L. Benfica:

Aokigahara Suicide Forest

English subtitles version: http://www.vbs.tv/watch/vbs-news/aokigahara-suicide-forest-v3--2

Panic? Switch!

Once again my recent video game acquisitions have resulted in an interesting piece of printing.
Switch, as it's known in Japan (having been named Panic! in the west), is an animated multimedia work that was made originally for the Sega Mega-Drive's Mega-CD add-on in 1993. This version (having never owned said machine) is the 2002 reedition for the Sony Playstation 2, having been ported by Sega's own music division, WaveMaster (one of only 3 video games it actually had a hand in development, besides music composition and direction).
Without further ado, here it is then, Switch PS2's manual, in all it's zany, Gilliam-esque glory (click for larger pics)

Crying... in colour

I recently acquired this little gem of a video game called "Crying" - a Sega shmup (not a specialty of the company, by far) which was released in the western hemisphere as "Bio-Hazard Battle", a more... literal illustration, perhaps, of the game's content.
As well as a different original title and some minor gameplay and graphic differences, to my great surprise this japanese edition had a fantastic manual; not only by the era's standards, but by current ones as well!
I took the liberty to share it with you all. Enjoy! (click for larger picture)

Metal Black

Although born as Gun Frontier 2, Metal Black feels much more like a sidequel to Darius. The gameplay however is dissimilar, and mainly stands on collecting orbs to power up a laser weapon, with no other weapon variations avaiable (although the more orbs you collect the more powerful standard fire is as well).
This laser weapon is put to devastating effect especially against the bosses, who have laser beams of their own. If both the player and the boss initiate a beam the effect is very similar to what you’d see in Dragonball, with a big sphere of energy slowly heading against the weaker of the two (depends on how charged the beam was) with the end result truly apocalyptic explosion. This of course is incredibly satisfying.
While not exactly “bullet-hell” it does present quite a bit of action on-screen, which is somewhat rare on horizontal shooters, which usually seem to favour narrow corridors and shifting-terrain to keep movement difficult. The Metal Black ship also feels quite heavy or slow, almost Invader-like, perhaps to give an idea of power.
There are 6 stages and a couple of bonus stages, although it is still a moderately difficult game. Unlike Darius the stages are sequential and cannot be chosen.

Graphically the game’s incredible not much by enemy design (again, mostly lifted from Darius), but especially due to the special effects in explosions and the fantastic backgrounds. Along with SNK’s Last Resort this might just be the most impressive looking shmup of that generation.
The music while not as interesting as in Darius Gaiden is still pretty good.

Playing through it I realised with surprise how much Invaders Infinity Gene ended up borrowing. Many of the enemies, the powerups and even the evolutionary design seem to have been lifted from this incredible game. More than an hommage to Invaders per se, Infinity Gene seems to be the evolutionary synthesis of Taito’s shoot em up genre history.
G-Darius and Border Down (G.Rev) also seem to have been favourably impressed with the game and have borrowed several elements as well, however I haven’t had the chance to delve into them.

Satakore have an incredible gallery avaiable, as well as a video of the "arcade-perfect" Saturn version.
The game is of course also avaiable on Taito Legends 2 (Xbox, PS2, Windows)