Sunday, February 18, 2007

Genji: Days of the Blade

Combat: The active weapon switching is not really active weapon switiching. It won't let you switch weapons in the midst of a combo or if it does, you have to really set it up, which I have not been able to do so, so far. In DMC3, you could interrupt one weapons animation by replacing it with another weapon and going from there. That led to some creative combos but the same is not true for Genji. However, there is a slight fix and that comes from being able to switch actively between four characters. You could start a combo and finish it off by switching to another character. For instance, start Yo****sune's basic combo and end it off with a strike that hurls the enemy straight up, switch to any one of the four characters and catch the enemy as they are falling down. One creative switch is using Buson, who twirls his spear above his head and you can catch the enemy in that as he comes down.

The Kamui gauge from the first game also makes a return but it has been neutered somewhat in this game. In the first game, when you activated Kamui, everything around you slowed down and incoming attacks could be dodged and countered by pressing the buttons that flashed on screen. You had a set time limit for the thing. In this version of the game when you enter Kamui, you and all the fighters around you enter a separate plane and from there you have to do some rhythm based button pressing if you want to get rid of all of them. If you successfully pull this off and clear the whole room full of enemies, you'll get a lot of Mashogane, which can be used to upgrade your weapons.

As for the weapons, you get four of them per character. You're alloted four slots for weapons in the menu for each character so that's what I'm going off of when I say that.

Camera: It sucks and is horrendously bad moreso then any other action or survival horror game I have played. They alleviate this somewhat by giving you an onscreen diagram of the place you are fighting in, which shows your position and the position of any enemies that surround you. Keep an eye on that and you won't get blindsided by any enemies. During actual combat inside a fairly confined area, this can prove to be the one thing that saves your life.

Story: Pretty good actually. Not as good as Onimusha 4 so far but it's better then Onimusha 3 and 1. I've never heard any of the English voice actors before though. They are either Japanese people who speak with British accents or actual British voice actors. Some crazy accents going on in this game. You also get to revisit some of the stages from Genji 1 like Gojo Bridge and Magyoji Temple. I'm at the end of this sequence currently with a boss fight against the main antagonist from the first game pending. Magyoji Temple especially, looks beautiful.

RPG aspects: You can upgrade weapons, health and your Kamui gauge but I didn't see a slot for upgrading armor like there was in the first game. I'll miss that aspect since you could buy different looking armor for the characters in that game which would change their appearances either slightly or drastically.

Graphics: They're pretty, better then Gears of War and the flame effects in the beginning are better then any other game that is out right now. Well, maybe Lost Planet comes close with its explosions. I haven't even gotten to the biggest graphical showcase of the game yet which everybody says is the fleet battle where you have to jump from ship to ship. The FMV seems to stutter in some instances though. Usually this is right at the beginning of the FMV and then it's fine but it's still an issue they should have hammered out.

Finally, I like the game. It definately seems to have been a victim of the PS3's hype and sticker price. It's a lot better then the reputation it has been given.

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