Genji: Days of the Blade

[slade]

Ok, picked this game up last week, yada yada yada, I'm having more fun with it then most of the 360 titles I've played.

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.

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

Ok, picked this game up last week, yada yada yada, I'm having more fun with it then most of the 360 titles I've played.

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.

The fire in the burning village from the Demo? Yeah that looks sweet.

[slade]

The demo didn't have that stage. You mean the videos of the game? Yeah, it looks pretty awesome especially when you have to go through those burning buildings.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

Thanks, Slade.

I went ahead and got rid of Dark Kingdom for Genji. It's not a bad game so far. I only played to the point where the first guy game ends, and the other characters' game begins. Here's my quick impressions:

Camera - So far, I don't have a problem with the camera. I'm so used to playing Playstation action games (especially Japanese) that have so so cameras with no manual controls that this one hasn't bothered me so far. DMC is the first that comes to mind for me in this aspects.

Graphics - I wouldn't call it as good as Gears graphics. I really couldn't, and wouldn't compare since they have such different backgrounds. Gears is supposed to look post-apocalyptic with very little color variance to give the feeling of a dying planet. Genji has more colorful graphics because of the burning environment (I have no idea how the rest of the game's environments look, though). Regardless, the game does look great.The OPM mag in the review claims the game would look the same as Genji 1 on a SDTV....they were complelely wrong. Absolutely wrong. Character designs are an improvement.

Gameplay - I enjoyed slicing and dicing enemies with the first character. I have a feeling I won't enjoy the 2nd character as much, since I've never been a fan of characters wielding big, bulk weapons, especially most of the characters in Ninety-Nine Nights.

Story - I haven't progressed far enough to give an impression.

Overall, though I thought Dark Kingdom was decent, I should have picked this one up instead of just getting it. The game does feel like it's better than the rep it has received.Is the game more fun than Dead Rising and Lost Planet?

[slade]

I kinda like this better then Dead Rising and it also beats what little I've played of Lost Planet. If you liked games like Onimusha and just like hack n' slash games in general, this one is a no-brainer.

And yeah, Benkei is typically slow but you get Shizuka right after and she's fairly fast although they balance that out with making her really weak. When Buson joins your party, then the real fun begins.

[slade]

Quick correction: You get five weapons per character. I just picked up Indomitable for Benkei. I think I'm nearing the end of the game.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

I think this game outdoes Onimusha, from what I have played of them. Part 4 (Dawn of Dreams?) is better since it has more characters and a controllable camera. I probably should have kept that one longer.

I picked up a 2nd weapon for Benkei but haven't used it yet. I'm hoping it's quicker, but for some reason I doubt it. I don't see much playing time for Benkei besides knocking down barriers.I won't keep him too weak, just in case.

Shizuka's "Square" attack is kind of slow and weak. It has it's uses, but I wish I could give her a sword.

Have you installed this game?

[slade]

Nah, I haven't installed it. Load times aren't that bad. They're on par with what I've seen this gen.

And yeah, I don't get much use out of Benkei except for knocking down barriers, crowd control and one of the bigger enemies that appears later on in the game. There's an item you'll get further into the game after defeating various bosses that levels up all your characters at once. I've only used that for Benkei and his health bar is pretty big to begin with so I have not had to level him up all that much aside from his weapons which do the most amount of damage.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

I wonder if anyone has installed the game, then turned around and traded it in?

I found an attack for Shizuka that makes her more playable. When her 2nd weapon (the fan looking weapon) is found, she has a decent attack with the triangle button. I can deal with that better than some of her other moves, though I still have to switch weapons to get a better square button attack.

[slade]

You mean the exploding thing where she tags an enemy with that green bomb thingie? That's a useful move early on but once you get Buson, you won't need it.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

I haven't picked that weapon up yet. It must be in the section where you control either Shizuka or Benkei.

The 2nd weapon, the Dancing something, is the first new weapon you get for her. It does a couple of kicks and I believe a short range attack with the weapon. Until I get the weapon you're referring to, this will have to do since Benkei isn't a fun character.

Also, I found a copy of DMC 2 that I must have put up a little while ago. I may do Lucia's disc, since I never beat her part. Best game in the series :D

[slade]

No, it was the 2nd weapon of her's that I was talking about. You press R1 + Triangle and she will rush forward and tag the guy with an explosive. Afterwards, you only have to hit the guy with a regular move to make it explode.

PS. DMC3 is way way better. In fact, I can tell you right now that it will still be better then God of War 2 and Ninja Gaiden 2 put together.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

You already know how I feel about DMC 3 (vastly overrated) from your Ninja Gaiden thread in the Xbox forum. The franchise is going in a direction (aka the same) that I'm just not feeling.

From a fun factor, there's a few other action games I would put in front of DMC 3.


Genji - That may be the same weapon, but I haven't tried out R1 + Triangle. As soon as I finish Lost Planet, I'm going to get right back on this.

[slade]

Yeah, I know you like the weaksauce games. :p

Anyway, I finished the game a few days ago. Will do a bigger review when I get the time. It's not as good as Onimusha 4 but is better then Onimusha 1 and 3.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

Yeah, I know you like the weaksauce games. :p

Anyway, I finished the game a few days ago. Will do a bigger review when I get the time. It's not as good as Onimusha 4 but is better then Onimusha 1 and 3.

Please, you like Capcom. Everything they make is weaksauce, including the game I just beat.

I didn't play the Onimusha games long (didn't play 2 at all), but Genji does feel better than 1 and 3. It doesn't hurt that the devs didn't try to put a real person in the game as a main character. Only Bioware can get away with that, and even then it's just based on a real person and not the actual person in game.

How long did it take to finish?

[slade]

Please, you like Capcom. Everything they make is weaksauce, including the game I just beat.

Wha????? I know you did not just say that. The most notable games from the PS2 era prove you wrong.

How long did it take to finish?

Took about eleven hours.

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

Wha????? I know you did not just say that. The most notable games from the PS2 era prove you wrong.

God of War ! & II aren't developed/published by Capcom. Metal Gear Solid series isn't made by Capcom. Grand Theft Auto series? Capcom didn't publish it in N.A. I don't even like this series, but what about Final Fantasy? Not by Capcom. Tekken TT, 4, and 5? Nope. Virtua Fighter 4 & its remix? Nah. Madden? Uh...no.

Come on, Slade. You're giving Capcom too much credit when it comes to what they've made lately. When I think great Capcom games, I honestly have to go back to the NES when they had Bionic Commando, Strider, and Mega Man (especially part 2).

Eleven Hours isn't bad.

[slade]

God of War ! & II aren't developed/published by Capcom. Metal Gear Solid series isn't made by Capcom. Grand Theft Auto series? Capcom didn't publish it in N.A. I don't even like this series, but what about Final Fantasy? Not by Capcom. Tekken TT, 4, and 5? Nope. Virtua Fighter 4 & its remix? Nah. Madden? Uh...no.

Come on, Slade. You're giving Capcom too much credit when it comes to what they've made lately. When I think great Capcom games, I honestly have to go back to the NES when they had Bionic Commando, Strider, and Mega Man (especially part 2).

Eleven Hours isn't bad.

When did we start talking about all this? We were talking about you calling Capcom games weaksauce, which is almost an oxymoron. Capcom games aren't weaksauce with a few exceptions here and there like Okami.

Anyway, for me, Capcom did not really step into the limelight until the PSX generation. Before, all they had that I really played a lot was Street Fighter. For everything else, I turned to either Sega or Konami. With the PSX, they brought out RE which was the most notable series on the console for me. .

[DrunkenThumbmaster]

God of War ! & II aren't developed/published by Capcom. Metal Gear Solid series isn't made by Capcom. Grand Theft Auto series? Capcom didn't publish it in N.A. I don't even like this series, but what about Final Fantasy? Not by Capcom. Tekken TT, 4, and 5? Nope. Virtua Fighter 4 & its remix? Nah. Madden? Uh...no.

Come on, Slade. You're giving Capcom too much credit when it comes to what they've made lately. When I think great Capcom games, I honestly have to go back to the NES when they had Bionic Commando, Strider, and Mega Man (especially part 2).

Eleven Hours isn't bad.

Wasn't Strider released on the Genesis?

[Rogue Bounty Hunter]

There was a Strider for NES that I thought was better than the one on Genesis. It has some nice music too, especially the ending theme.