Dark Mist + Expansion - Japanese Impressions

After several weeks of whining about not having a US release of Game Republic's (Folklore, Genji) fantasy twin stick shooter "Dark Mist", I finally plunked down for another PSN ticket and nabbed it, along with the "Depths of Darkness" expansion pack. So far, this is looking like one of the best games on PSN.

Dark Mist plays like the bastard stepchild of an SNES Zelda game, and Neo Contra. You control Artemis (or one of several other characters if you have the expansion) as she traverses small top down view dungeons, one room at a time, occasionally branching off to different paths to grab keys or eliminate room guardians so you can complete labyrinths of increasing complexity. Each labyrinth has a guardian miniboss, and every 5 or so maps you fight a real boss. I have fought a single boss thus far, which had varying attack patterns at different levels of health. Quite engaging, and i hope theres more where that came from.

You can play the game like Neo Contra with "hold direction / position" buttons, or opt to use twin stick shooter type controls. I found it more comfortable to do the latter. Shaking the controller does a melee attack which is mostly used for dispersing the "dark mist" that has spread throughout the dungeon.

The mist, as the games title suggests, plays a large role in the game, making it difficult to see enemies and shots, seemingly lowering your weapons effectiveness, and hiding items and special mist clearing orbs which give you bonuses if you find them really fast. Mist seems to spread if you don't clear it completely, so it can come back to haunt you if you leave some alone for too long and a second set of monsters pops out.

Each character has 3 special attacks that you can level up by collecting powerups dropped by monsters and mist clearing orbs. Collecting one "level" of powerups gives you more consecutive shots of your special weapons. Recharge time is several seconds per shot. You only gain "experience" for the currently equipped special, and you can rotate them at any time. You can take multiple hits, and it seems you get an extra one after the 1st boss. When you die you get a chance to continue or quit, continuing resets your score. You can also pick up where you left off when you quit.

The main game is used to unlock levels for use in time attack, and eventually hard mode will become available, along with other options.

There are some online modes including a battle royale for up to 4(5?) players it seems, but there were no rooms available when i tried to go on for some reason (still looking into that). There are also mode specific leaderboards.

Overall I really enjoyed the few hours I spent with the game and look forward to many more. Can't recommend it enough, and for those like me too impatient to wait for the US release, there is next to no Japanese language in the game outside of options and instructions, so don't be afraid to check it out.

Where to buy:

1000 yen Japanese PSN Ticket
3000 Yen Japanese PSN Ticket
5000 yen Japanese PSN Ticket

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New PS1 games on Japanese PSN store 2/28

New PS1 games added to the Japanese psp/psn store this week. There's also a PSP theme for "My Stylist" if you're into that.

Where to buy:
3000 Yen Japanese PSN Ticket (will net you 5 PS1 games)
Playstation Store (for PC/PSP)

PS1 game Full List (600 yen each as usual):
-Baroque Syndrome
-Ide Yosuke no Mahjong Kyoshitsu
-Um Jammer Lammy
-Wai Wai Bowling

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Return to the Three Kingdoms - A Dynasty Warriors 6 Review

The Dynasty Warriors series, and it's spinoffs have never been media darlings. Despite being almost universally panned by critics with every new incarnation, this series continues to make its way across the ocean. This past week, the US finally saw the release of the latest game in the Dynasty warriors franchise, Dynasty Warriors 6 (Shin Sangoku Musou 5 in Japan), and I have finally been able to spend some time with it.

Dynasty Warriors 6 marks the fifth outing of the main series in it's present form (The original "Dyansty Warriors" was a PS1 1 on 1 fighting game). For those new to the series, the basic concept is you play a famous general in a romanticized version of historical battles. The style is basically that of an epic Chinese action movie, with over the top character personalities, costumes, and odds.

Each general is basically a legendary persona from the famous historical novel "Three Kingdoms" attributed to Luo Guanzhong, their portrayals are "extreme" versions of the characterizations of the novel. This legendary status is conveyed to the player in the way that you glide through battle felling hundreds of enemy troops with sometimes a single flurry of attacks, it's all quite dramatic really.

With the first next gen entry of the main series, Koei and Omega Force decided to mix things up a bit by scrapping the core fighting mechanics for the new "Renbu" system. I had mixed feelings about the change at first, with the focus being more on one attack button combo strings, but it works surprisingly well, and doesn't feel like a downgrade in complexity. The new system allows for an infinite string of attacks, with slight pauses when you hit the end of the string. The length of these strings is affected by the renbu meter, which you raise by beating guys up as fast as possible. The meter will fall if you stop hitting people for too long, so there is a push to keep moving.

Character development is performed via level ups and skill points spent on a skill tree which you can eventually max out(thus obtaining every skill). There is no option to "re-spec" so you your choices are permanent, but its only a matter of time before you have everything anyway because you get enough points to max out the tree. You can also collect weapons and warhorses which you can take into battle with you and level up separately in lieu of bodyguards.

Items have been scrapped, as well as hunting for ultimate weapons(hopefully this will make a return in an expansion of some downloadable content) seemingly in favor of a group of three "targets" for each stage. The game keeps track of each target completed and you are granted bonus experience for each one completed. Unfortunately once you are powerful enough you can just bum rush the boss to get all 3 before they hit a failure condition. It still feels good hitting all 3 at once though.

One area where the "Musou" series has always had trouble is the localization, specifically the voice acting. Previous entries have felt somewhat like a badly mixed Jackie Chan film from the early 90's, with corny dialog delivery, name mispronunciation, and an effects mix that sounded like it was recorded on a different planet from the action on screen. After 5 incarnations, they finally pronounced Cao Cao correctly. The overall quality of the voice acting seems much higher this time around, although many of the actors are reprising their roles from DW5, something about the delivery this time just feels more "right". Cut scenes are all done using the in game engine and have some great direction this time around.

Graphically the game is far from impressive, but leaps and bounds above the previous entry. The sheer number of on screen characters causes some slowdown from time to time, but nothing detrimental to game play. Every character has been redesigned from the ground up with wild new costumes and weapons, A welcome change after having very similar designs for the first 4 games.

Unfortunately, the number of characters with a story mode has been decreased to only about one third of the total cast and the number of available playable characters since the previous game has also been reduced by a small number. It seems that the aesthetic improvements may have come at a cost, and I can only hope this is remedied in a future "Xtreme Legends" expansion.

All in all I was very satisfied with this entry, theres just something special about beating the living crap out of thousands of guys while listening to a rocking soundtrack and I recommend it highly to any action game fan.

Buy it here:

US Version - PS3
US Version - 360
JP Version - PS3
JP Version - 360

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