[Game Review] Samurai Shodown II (XBLA)

(Rough draft version, to be updated later tonight.)
- Later update, I accidentally deleted the review and never got around to re-writing, consider the article K.I.A.

A somewhat belated review, but with the recent release of STHD, quite a lot of people have a renewed interest in fighting games.

Let’s start, as usual, with a brief history lesson. The original Samurai Shodown was released by SNK for the arcades and SNK’s own Neo Geo home console in 1993. Immediately it became a showcase for the company’s hardware and the perfect example of how a fighting game can be inspired by Street Fighter 2, without shamelessly copying it*.

*None of that World Heroes bullshit.

[Game Review] Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (STHD for short) could have been a legitimate candidate for the "Game with the longest name ever" award, if not for that Penny Arcade game. It is, however, the favorite for receiving the "Most often remade" award, currently numbering... Actually, I lost count.

More importantly, though, it's also one of the prime candidates for the "Most finely-tuned and balanced competitive game ever", and that one is something to brag about.

Enough fancy talk for now, though. Time for a little history lesson. Given that the first edition (oh, there’ve been a few) of Street Fighter II, called The World Warrior, came out seventeen (17) years ago, and the last version, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, came out fourteen (14) years ago, quite a few people may have missed on the behemoth that this game was back then. Not only did it shape the entire fighting genre for years to come, as countless imitators appeared overnight, it also became a new benchmark for success in the market.

At a time when videogames were still ignored by the mainstream, SF2’s protagonists Ryu and Ken were amongst the few characters alongside Mario and Sonic to be recognised by anyone except the most dedicated of gamers. SF2 not only managed to revitalize the Arcade (the what?) scene, where it created huge lines of people waiting to play that guy “that just beats everyone!”, it was also the first arcade game to be ported (almost) perfectly in a home console, in its 1992 SNES version*.

Lastly, and perhaps more importantly, it was the first competitive game to achieve such unprecedented popularity. There were games were it was much more fun to beat a human opponent than the CPU before (*2) but never before was a game so perfectly balanced for competitive play, nor had its multiplayer aspect as its focus. I’m probably going to get crucified for this, but I’ll argue that had it not been for Street Fighter II, the entire competitive aspect of gaming would have been vastly different, and games such as Quake 3: Arena and Counter-Strike might have not been as popular.

Just look at the early FPS games, none of them had anything more than an afterthought of a multiplayer. Technological issues were obviously a factor here, but competitive multiplayer in FPS’s didn’t become a factor until after the popularity of fighting game (and SF2 in particular) tournaments.

Now that the history lesson is over, let’s take a closer look at this specific version of Super Turbo. As you may have guessed, the “HD Remix” part refers to the game being redone for a contemporary audience. The graphics were redone in High Definition, from scratch, by UDON Entertainment, also responsible for the successful Street Fighter comic books, the music themes were remixed by the people of OverClocked ReMix (*3), and the gameplay was rebalanced by long-time Street Fighter tournament player and gaming developer, David Sirlin.

This means this version is a labor of love from people who love Street Fighter and “get” what made it great back in the day, and why it is relevant even today, more than a decade since its release. Their intentions, to make this new version the best possible. The result is a game that looks, sounds and plays great, even without nostalgia clouding our judgement. STHD is a great game with our current standards.

So, without further delay, on with the lists:

Things STHD does right:

- It’s Super Street Fighter II Turbo, for the HD generation. As corny as that sounds, it’s true. Gorgeous high-definition graphics, a remixed soundtrack that works wonderfully in a contemporary environment and the tried-and-true gameplay of Super Turbo, a game that’s still being played competitively today, with some enlightened changes that make it even better (*4). It’s an amazing remake of what’s undeniably a classic game, it’d be hard for anyone to ask for more.

- Another thing about the music, the folks at OCRemix managed to make even Sagat’s theme sound good. I never thought that was actually possible.

- Yet another sidenote on something mentioned earlier, the changes made to the gameplay and certain movement inputs succeed in making the game simpler (so that you don’t have to worry about actually performing the move but rather when to perform it) but never make the game simplistic. You still have to have the muscle memory and timing needed for pulling off a 7-hit combo, button-mashers need not apply.

- The online multiplayer is amazing, which is a needed change after the atrocity that was Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting on the Xbox 360. Capcom had an entire beta test devoted to getting it right, and through the use of GGPO, they succeeded. There’s the occasional laggy match every now and then, but for the most part it’s very smooth, even when playing across continents.

- You can’t see which character your opponent selects on online multiplayer. This is HUGE. So many times people would cheese it out, waiting for you to pick a character after like half an hour, so they could pick a counter-character. One of my favorite changes.

- There’s no denying it, Super Turbo is still one of the best fighting games around, and this enhanced version only adds to that. It’s intuitive, easy to pick up yet demanding enough to challenge most players when it comes to mastering it.

People that had either forgotten about this fact through the years, or had never spent any time with SF2 back in the day, now have the perfect opportunity to remember/find out what the big deal is(*5).

Things about STHD that aren't that hot:

- For all its smoothness, there’s a few bugs plaguing the online multiplayer part. The music sometimes stops abruptly and you have to restart the game, health bars have the tendency to disappear leaving you clueless as to how much life either player has, and there’s also a few random disconnects as a fight is about to start. The latter is particularly annoying in ranked matches, as it counts as a defeat. Nothing a patch wouldn’t fix, let’s hope one is on the way.

- The animation is unchanged from the original, as this would have required remaking the entire game from scratch. As a result, it looks kind of strange at times, but you get used to it eventually.

- Being a rather delayed project, means that STHD was released very close to the next real chapter in the franchise, Street Fighter IV, which is coming out in late February. As such, STHD may be seen by some as merely a prelude to SFIV. Their loss, however.

- No other single-player modes other than Arcade (Story) and training. I confess, I’m just grasping at this point. A survival mode or such would have been neat, but it’s hardly a glaring omission. Multiplayer is the game’s selling point, after all.

Things I just don't get:

- The lack of a real demo is rather perplexing. The Playstation3 version has no demo whatsoever, while the X360 version got the Ryu/Ken multiplayer-only beta version offered earlier this year with Commando 3. Not that you need a demo for what is essentially a fourteen year old game, but it could help convincing those sceptical newcomers.

The above signify that on George's Intention-Meter, Super Street Fighter II HD Remix receives of the title of:
The Genuine Article

TL;DR version:

Seriously, just listen to this music:


If you ever loved Street Fighter 2, chances are it will remind you why it was that great back then, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it. If you were never a fan, well... what’s your excuse? As I said earlier, there’s a reason why people are still playing this game, in tournaments or otherwise, and why it makes so many “Best Games Ever” lists.

Go on, try this shiny new version. You know you want to.

* In fact, it’s still Capcom’s best-selling game, even after all these years.
*2 Hell, its prequel was one of them!
*3 You can download the full soundtrack at their website, too!
*4 I can actually do Hooligan Throw now.
*5 One thing I find particularly amazing is seeing how many people this release has brought back to this game. Styles of play differ for each version of SF2, and people using them are very distinct. You can tell when somebody hasn’t played SF2 since, say, Champions Edition, and seeing them back in a SF game just brings a smile to my face. I’m weird like that.

[Game Review] Too Human

Some people say there's no such thing as bad publicity. Of course, people say lots of things, and not all of them are right. If Too Human by Silicon Knights is any indication, they're wrong about this bad publicity thing too.

Too Human had been floating around as a concept for a good while now. Originally planned as a game for the original Playstation, one can only guess what that game would have been like. In my idealistic dreams, I like to think of it as a traditional isometric action-RPG, with the atmosphere of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and the addictive gameplay of the Diablo series.

Regardless of what might have been, the Too Human we got is still an action-RPG, only it emphasizes more on the action part, with the ability of pulling off huge combos. The analogy I like is that Too Human feels like a (clumsy) combination of Devil May Cry and Phantasy Star Online. The emphasis on gathering more and better loot is also here, similar to the Diablo games, although the various categories of loot are shamelessly ripped from World of Warcraft, with the colors white, green, blue, purple, orange and red* denoting progressively better loot, exactly as in Blizzard's game.

I mentioned bad publicity earlier, and that's what this game was getting long before its release. Not from professional gaming journalists originally, but rather from gaming enthusiasts in forums such as NeoGAF. This in turn opened up a whole different can of worms, recall the 1UP Yours podcast with Silicon Knight's Dennis Dyack if you will, but that's not something I'd like to get into right now. At any rate, this early yet very negative word of mouth was what made the release of a demo a necessity, though it's hard to tell if the demo worked for better or worse, given the game's scope and ambition.

You can't fault Too Human for being ambitious, Hell, it claims to be the first part in an "epic trilogy"** that's to be finished by 20XX, where XX stands for "God only knows". Sadly, though ambition can sometimes be a fantastic driving force, it's also a main ingredient in any good recipe for destruction. It feels like Silicon Knights got themselves into something bigger than they could handle, since even aspects where they usually excel at (voice acting and storytelling) are surprisingly mediocre this time around.

That's not to say it's an awful game that has no redeeming features, so without further ado...

Things Too Human does right:

- Loot-based gameplay is always addictive, and quite fun. The game successfully teases you with pretty items from the first fifteen minutes, and it never stops on giving.

- Online two-player co-op is fun with a friend, if you get two classes that complement each other well. Sadly, playing the game cooperatively means that you don't get to see a single cutscene throughout the game.

- Once you get the hang of it, the gameplay is pretty smooth and fun, and once you get in a rhythm, you'll be dispatching foes left and right with ease. Sadly, it takes a while before that happens, and that is rather disappointing. Which leads us to...

Things about Too Human that suck:

- The control system. It's been discussed back and forth since the release of the demo, and some people argue that a dungeon-crawler such as Too Human just wouldn't work if you just had to mash the A button over and over.

I agree with this statement, though I fail to see how tying a bunch of moves to the right analog stick works better. It's clumsy, unintuitive and takes far too long getting used to. And this is coming from someone who played 2D fighters on the Dreamcast D-pad without problems.

- The graphics are really, really bland. Not only from a technical point of view, though the rather low number of polygons doesn't help, but mainly from a design point of view. Stages are composed of huge empty corridors, with uninspiring architecture, while the characters and enemies themselves are at best completely unspectacular, while others look utterly ridiculous. My favorite would be Fenrir, which looks more like an angry chicken than a cybernetic wolf***.

- The second stage of the game, Ice Forest, is atrocious. It's far too long, in fact it's longer than the rest of the game combined. Seriously, the game took me 10 hours to complete and 6 of those hours were spent on Ice Forest alone. To make matters worse, it's badly designed, with either huge breaks in the action, or huge segments where you don't get a second to breathe between enemy waves.

- The story likes to think it's much smarter than it really is. I can't get into many details since the game is still pretty new and I'd like to avoid spoilers, so I'll be brief. First of all, the whole idea of the Norse gods portrayed as technologically advanced individuals is not as original as it believes, and it's also presented in a very superficial manner (Odin has a secretary? Really?)

Moreover, nothing really happens story-wise until the very end of the game, where things simply get messy. Solliloquies filled with self-righteousness, enough angst to rival Kratos, an ending that leaves too many questions unanswered... You get the idea. If the rest of the game was top-notch, these would be mere footnotes, but as it stands, it makes the game feel pretentious.

- While you get fancy and shiny items from the get-go, if you want to get the absolute best item sets in the game, you'll have to grind yourself retarded. And while some people enjoy grinding, given the game's short length, I'm not sure if anyone will be willing to visit the same four areas over and over again.

Things I just don't get:

- Seriously, whose idea was it to cut all cutscenes from the multiplayer campaign? I know the game is supposed to be a loot-based dungeon crawler, but that's way too fucking cynical.

- For a game that's copying so many games which are played (either predominantly or exclusively) online, the fact that Too Human's multiplayer is limited to two players is mind-boggling. Dyack claimed this was the only way to keep the game balanced, but I'm not buying it.

Hell, balance, shmalance. If you could play this game with two more people, it would have been much more fun thanks to cooperation/communication, even if you just breezed through the entire thing.

- I also don't get what happened with the voice acting. Silicon Knights consistently provided with some of the best voice acting in the field, yet this time around, it varies from underwhelming to "just okay". I guess it's a side-effect of the silly storyline.

- Don't even get me started on the Valkyrie/Death sequence.

The above signify that on George's Intention-Meter, Too Human receives of the title of:

Superfluous Monkey

TL;DR version:

Yes, in all fairness I had already declared my opinion of this game in my review manifesto, but Too Human is an interesting case that demands further investigation. It is, in a few words, a decent game which would like to think of itself the equivalent of sliced bread.

This is painfully obvious during its groan-inducing cutscenes, which feel more like punishment and less like reward after fighting yet another wave of identical looking baddies.

*Although we never actually got artifacts ("red" items) in WoW, they existed as a concept originally.

**I dream that one day we'll never get an "epic trilogy of whatever" ever again.

***Seriously, a cybernetic wolf. How can anyone fuck that one up?