The Save Points!

Today, September 10th 2009, a few demos came out on the PS3/PSP, all of which I thought might be at least mildly interesting to check out: TMNT: TITRS, Katamari Forever, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes and, for the PSP, Half-minute Hero.

TMNT:TITRS was one of my anticipated games this summer, yet I never checked out the 360 version, Katamari always intrigued me because of its popularity, Star Wars… well, it’s Star Wars…. and Half-Minute Hero has an interesting concept.

So, which of those fail, and which of those should we buy? Read my impressions for each of them and see! (I’ll make this short)

TMNT: Turtles in time Re-Shelled
Turtles in Time on the SNES is one of the best beat ‘em ups out there. The arcade version is still quite fun to play. So when I saw a remake was coming, I was pretty excited. And then it came out, and reviews started bashing it and all. So I looked at videos and reviews and it frankly didn’t look as fun as the SNES or arcade versions.

So today I downloaded the demo. My impressions? Let’s just say I’ll keep playing it on my MAME arcade cabinet. The gameplay is okay, but the attacks just don’t look like they’re doing much and everything feels really floaty. The upgraded graphics kinda feel like they gave up on them halfway through, they lack polish IMO, and overall the package isn’t as fun to play as before. There’s minor changes to the overall gameplay(because of the slightly changed perspective and the fact that it’s 3D now), but nothing big.

So… I won’t be wasting my money on this. But if you’ve never experienced the arcade original, or the SNES version(if so, WTF have you been doing all these years?), it’s worth checking out, for sure(it IS only 10$ instead of the relatively high prices for the SNES version). Otherwise, I’d say that you should pass on it.

Katamari Forever
This… I don’t really know what to say about this. To be totally frank, I never understood the appeal of this series. I always found the gameplay to be incredibly boring and the controls were on the lame side when I tried it on the PS2.

So I went at this not expecting much. And, well, I was right. The Katamari series has never done it for me, and this entry just confirms this. The first part of the demo is incredibly lame. You have to roll your ball in water and then roll it through the desert to make plants grow, but your water depletes so you must contantly get back to the water hole at the beginning. After 5 minutes you’re graded by how much of the desert you restored. This part was just lame with the constant back-tracking, though it did help me get used to the not too great controls(enough so that I actually don’t mind them at all anymore).

The second part is normal Katamari stuff, just rolling the ball in a room, picking stuff up to make it bigger, enabling you to make an even bigger ball by picking up bigger stuff. After a few minutes time stops and you’re graded on your ball.

Overall, I just don’t get it. The controls aren’t fun, the concept isn’t fun, making big balls isn’t fun… I did kinda like the graphic style, and the music was the usual wacky Katamari style if that’s your thing. But overall it was very unenjoyable. If you liked previous Katamari games though, you’ll have little reason NOT to pick this up. It’s just like the older titles.

Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes
This is a horrible game….

Okay, I guess I should develop this more.
You have 2 mission types to choose from: Jedi missions, and Clone missions. They are both played in a really weird point of view(third-person, but far away and in a strange angle) which is incredibly unintuitive. You walk around a linear path and kill stuff, no matter if you chose Jedi or Clone. Clones have guns and special weapons, while Jedis have lightsabers and force power.

Clones can throw grenades and shoot, and that’s about it. Combat is uninteresting at best, with no challenge whatsoever. You can crouch and hide behind crates while still shooting, but that’s about how deep it goes. Oh, and there’s really lame puzzles.

Jedi battles are just as lame, except you have to get close to enemies and button mash. You can also stun them with the force. And you can just on certain enemies, where you can either destroy them, or control them for a little while. This sucks…

Overall, this is a bad game, and I can’t believe it’s coming as a full-priced disc-based game. It’s barely high-enough quality to be a free downloadable game.

Heck… for the lolz… The Save Factor for this game is: 0$ (not even worth thinking about).

Half-Minute Hero
Well, the only PSP demo this week, and… I don’t even know what to think of it. The concept is crazy. Each stage is an RPG, that you have 30 seconds to finish. This includes leveling, finding treasures in dungeons and the confrontation with the final boss. Crazy.

So, how does it play? Well, you have an overworld map, and walking through it gets you random encounters, which play out automatically depending on the monster you’re fighting, and your level and equipment. These battles give you experience and money, which are used to level up and buy stuff. On the map, there’s towns, dungeons, traps, battles and the final castle. Of course, 30 seconds isn’t really long. The first stage you can play in the demo takes around 25 seconds to complete(maybe a bit less… though you know when you can beat the boss when the screen tells you “You>Evil”…. I think), but the second takes a bit over a minute. That’s where the Time Goddess comes in. In the towns (which are side-scrolling and small, filled with NPCs and stores that only sell 1 item), there are Time Goddess statues. Those statues, at a cost, let you reset the timer to 30 seconds. Each time you use them the cost increases, preventing you from abusing them. One good thing is that time stops when you’re in towns, so you don’t need to rush when you’re in there.

The first mission is simple. Level up a bit, buy the weapon in town, heal up, and pwn the boss. It’s easy and takes around 25 seconds to complete. The second level has 2 towns, a castle where you can recruit soldiers to help you, a quest in the first town which requires talking to an NPC in the second town, a dungeon with treasure and equipment, multiple types of equipment to buy, items to find (there’s an herb on your boat, which you can use to heal when you want without wasting money in a town) and special equipment to get to beat the final boss. This one took me 1 minute 20 seconds to beat the first time, and a bit less the following tries.

Overall… I think I had fun with this. Depending on how long the stages are in the final game, and how many stages there are, this could really be a fun release. I’m definitely getting that. It’s the only demo this week that I really feel is worth buying when the final versions come out. People who like doing speed runs will dig this for sure.

jobocan Console, demo, Games, Handheld, impressions, Lulz, ps3, psp