"A Red Apple": Gravity Rush 2 review

Overall Score: 4.78/5

A 

The first Gravity Rush came out on Vita in 2012 and remastered on PS4 in 2016. The game is a 3D beat'em up platformer with RPG and sandbox elements. Gravity Rush 2 builds on this further, it is the first game, but bigger and better. Bigger city to explore, more gravity powers to use. The gameplay is fluid and intuitive, visually the game looks great, and many tracks from the soundtrack are great on their own.


Gameplay: 4.5
When people ask me what the game is like I describe as "it's like Mario 64, but you can manipulate gravity." You're able to run around and jump on a 3D plane and your attacks consist of kicks, though unlike Mario, Kat is able to grab objects in a gravity stasis field throw them at enemies.

Kat's gravity powers carry over from the first game intact. By manipulating gravity, Kat can "fly" (technically she isn't flying, but instead falling in a different direction), run along walls or the ceiling by re-orienting gravity, and she's able to slide along the ground. This adds a "vertical" aspect to the gameplay where the player is able to float in the air and attack flying enemies, including large flying bosses. The developers also took full advantage of this in the game's level design. The city from the prior game, which is also featured in the second part of GR2, Hekseville, is built into the "World Pillar" (this huge Yggdrasil looking tree trunk like pillar) like artificial branches on a tree. The player is able to run around on the underside of the city's districts by shifting gravity to make the "ceiling" the floor.

Then in the new city introduced in GR2, Jirga Para Lhao, take things a step further. JPL is literally a floating city, with individual blocks serving as separate airships. Rather than cars, people get around via air-boats. Furthermore, all the city blocks aren't at the same altitude, so the player has to jump and fly around to reach different parts of the city.

Now all these abilities and gameplay elements wouldn't mean jack if the execution was poor. And that is not the case. Controlling Kat and her gravity powers is very intuitive. Controls are your typical, Left Stick moves Kat around while the Right Stick rotates the camera. Triangle unleashes Kat's special attack, while Circle engages the Stasis Field and grabs objects that Kat can then throw. Using Kat's gravity powers can be seen as activating a gravity mode by pressing R1, this causes Kat to float and a crosshair to appear, now at this point the Right Stick is used to aim where Kat will travel, alternately the Dual Shock 4 controller (or the Vita if you're streaming the game, more on that later) can be tilted to aim Kat. Then you can press R1 again or X and Kat will fall in that direction, what ever surfaces Kat lands on will be the "ground". As she falls the player can change Kat's direction of fall by tilting the Left Stick.

 

In this "gravity mode" the pressing Square will execute a diving kick or a warp attack. The game has an auto-lock system where the enemy the crosshair is put over will be automatically locked and Kat's gravity kick will home in on that target.

As the game progresses, Kat will pick up different gravity styles, Luna Style will make her lighter and allow her to launch into a dive and do a rocket jump. In this mode her Gravity Kick becomes a warp attack and she'll warp to the target and unleash a series of kicks. Luna Style also adds a dash element to Kat's standard attacks. Later on, the Jupiter style is unlocked. This style makes Kat heavier, so she falls/flies, and slides faster as well. Her standard attacks become a series of heavy punches. Kat's Gravity Kick then becomes a charged kick that has a shock wave effect on impact. Her Stasis Field attack also changes, instead of grabbing several objects, she'll gather them into one giant ball and hurl that at the target. The ball is essentially a bomb as it explodes on impact. Kat's specials also change based on style, Normal Style, she performs this drill attack. In Luna Style she becomes a kind of machine gun and automatically grabs stuff with the Stasis Field and throws them. And in Jupiter Style she causes a mini black hole.

Raven also becomes playable later on and she controls a bit different from Kat. She only has one style, her Gravity Kick hits multiple times rather than one heavy strike, her Stasis Field can also summon energy spheres that she can launch.

Scattered though out the game are a few platformer-puzzle segments. In these segments Kat is cut off from her gravity powers and the player has to work their way though the puzzles. Though is this kind of a mixed bag. Some players might appreciate the break in just beating up on various enemies, though others might be annoyed by the break in the action.

The game can also be streamed onto the Vita, and it plays pretty well on the Vita. The touchpad controls are mapped to the center of the Vita's touch screen and the R2 and L2 triggers are mapped to the upper left and right corners of the Vita. At first it make evading and Gravity Sliding a bit awkward, but it doesn't take long to get used to it.

Though it isn't just controls, the game also adds quite a bit of stuff on the side, and a lot of little things that just kind of spice up the game. First off, the stuff on the side.

The game isn't stingy in the least when it comes to stuff to do on the side. There are quite a bit of challenge missions to do across both cities. Things like time trial Gravity Slide races or defeating enemies within a time limit. Other players will send you challenges to beat their time. Along with challenge levels there's quite a bit of side missions to do along side the main the storyline mission. Lastly there are several Rift Zones that the player can go when they want. These zones have gems (currency to power up Kat's abilities) to collect and optional powered-up bosses to earn experience from.

Then we get to Dusty Coins. Dusty Coins can be used to unlock outfits for Kat, decorations for her Pipe House (Kat lives in giant pipe in Hekseville). Dusty Coins can be collected though taking photos with the camera Syd gives Kat earlier on and having other players rate them, or though Treasure Hunts. Treasure Hunts are online challenges that work like this, though out the game are treasure boxes loaded with gems, you'll get a photo hint of a treasure location taken by another player and you'll need to use it to locate the treasure in the area. After locating it, you take the photo hint and upload it for the next player.

Along with the photos, the player can unlock gestures for Kat, that can be used both in photos and interacting with people around Jirga Para Lhao and Hekesville. She can greet people who'll waive back, scare people and cause them to startle, and she can sing which will make people clap, among other gestures. Other gestures also include Kat eating something, like a skewer or ice cream. While in the photo mode, the player can change Kat's outfits. This time around, unlike the first game, the player can get Kat's outfits for free.
 
They don't really affect gameplay, but little things like this show that this was a project that the developers cared about.

I had to take half a point off, because of the lack of a lock-on button. There are a few times where you're trying to engage a particular enemy in the distance, only to have Kat target a closer enemy. It gets annoying, but not game breaking, and hasn't gotten to the point to causing me cheap deaths. In a few areas the camera will get kind of weird, like clipping though texture if Kat is standing in a nook at a weird angle.









Stability: 4.9
I didn't have too many stability issues. I did get one crash where I took a saved a screenshot using the PS4's Share feature, though I wasn't able to reproduce the crash. The other issues I had were a few minor frame rate drops during the final boss fights, where a lot was happening all at once. Also in these fights I had some weird pop-in issues. I would quickly land in a park from high altitude only see the street and grass textured, with the tress, benches and what ever else catching up and popping into existence a second later.

Other then network associated weak connection issues that pop up now and then, the game ran smoothly, streamed to the Vita.



Plot: 4.5
The plot takes off shortly after the end of Gravity Rush, though the story can stand on it's own. The player won't be too lost about what's going on if they didn't play the first game, it would help though.

The story follows Kat, an amnesiac (in fact, "Kat" isn't even her real name, but a name that Syd gave her at the start of Gravity Rush 1 when she couldn't even remember her name) with the power of manipulate gravity, thanks to her magical cat companion Dusty (Dusty's presence around her all the time being the reason Syd started calling her "Kat"). Gravity Rush 2 starts with Kat, and her friends, fellow Gravity Shifter Raven and Hekseville police detective Syd, being pulled into a gravity storm and dropped off either in another parallel universe or another part of the planet, the game doesn't make it clear. While Raven's whereabouts for much of the first half of the game are unknown, Kat and Syd are picked up by a tribe of nomadic miners, that travel into Rift Zones and harvest resources.

The first half of the game covers Kat's exploits in Jirga Para Lhao as she and Syd try to figure out how to get back home, eventually they are joined by Raven. Eventually Kat gets back home to Hekesville, and story then focuses on what has been going on since they were gone and Kat starts uncovering her past and regaining her memories. Without spoiling anything, Kat gets caught up in some major events in both cities.

The plot moves along more less at the player's pace. Like sandbox games such as Grand Theft Auto, or Saint's Row, there is a large area to explore and various side-missions and subquests you can do for people, along side the main story missions. Personally I was able to get some good mileage out of the game by doing all the side-missions and the treasure hunts. The story and side-mission dialogue is told both though cutscenes and though comic book-style dialogue boxes.

While it doesn't get too heavy into things, the plot does touch a bit on social inequality with Kat wondering about the state of affairs with people on one side of JPL just trying not to starve, while citizens on the other side of the same city revel in excess for the sake of excess.

Kat as a character is strong willed and upbeat, as well as hard working. She cares a lot about her friends and those around her, and many of the side missions have to do with helping someone out. Kat's close relations extend to her ever-present companion Dusty, treating the magical cat as a close friend, rather than as a tool or "attack dog". This is emphasized more in the story telling where Dusty has his own dialog boxes, even though his dialogue wholly consists of cat sounds like "Meow!", purrs and hisses. There are also scenes where we see Kat picking up Dusty and hugging him. There are a few instances in some of the side missions where Kat's kindness and work ethic seem to be exploited by other characters, but Kat is aware they're just trying to get her to do something for them. Showing that she isn't completely gullible. She also isn't oblivious to what's going on around her and at some points in the plot makes some insightful remarks about the the events going on around her. 

Kat also has her moments of doubt, as well as a bout of mild jealousy towards one of the characters introduced later in the game. While Kat can be excitable at times, such as when a character like Syd volunteers her services to someone without asking her ahead of time, generally she remains calm. Though we do see her become angry when her friends are harmed. All this comes together to humanize and make Kat a believable character.

For their part, Syd and Raven act as foils to Kat. Raven is more on the quiet and brooding side, contrasting to Kat's upbeat personality. Whereas Syd comes off as lazy and adverse to doing any actual work, even during his time as a police detective, contrasting with Kat's work ethic.

However there are a few plot points that don't get explained too well, if just completely glossed over. It isn't enough to ruin the main plot, but it is enough to leave the player scratching their head with a few questions about how *spoiler* ended doing what they were doing and how long they've been in the city. All in all though, the plot is well done and well told.


Graphics and Visuals: 5
I don't know how much the visuals push the PS4 (standard)'s hardware, but the game looks nice and runs at a largely constant 30FPS. In the lower district of JPL, the weather is rainy and gloomy with a haze in the distance. In the downtown and upper class area you'll see the clouds drifting though between buildings.

There was also an eye to detail on both Kat and Dusty. Kat's outfits are fully animated, her skirt outfits like the Jazz Singer and the 2B outfits will flutter in the wind and have accompanying shadows, that will reflect the wind effects on her clothes. The game doesn't use a "universal" shadow model. Dusty for his part is also fully animated, along with idle animations where he'll walk around Kat, sit down and look around and occasionally meow, his appearance is also animated. Being a magical cat, Dusty has the appearance of the night sky, and his "stars" don't stay static, rotating the camera around will cause the "stars" to swirl around.

Other characters are also animated, you see people around the marketplace in JPL walking around with some carrying crates (that Kat can cause them to drop). You'll also find street performers juggling bowling pins or playing music. Occasionally you'll find Raven somewhere (usually at a food stall) and her idle animation has her looking around and sweeping back her hair.














Art and Music: 5

As with the first game, Gravity Rush 2 makes use of cell shaded graphics, giving the game the appearance of an animated film.

Both cities, Jirga Para Lhao and Hekseville have their distinct looks. JPL is made up of several districts. The lower district where the poor reside. This area looks something like the more poverty stricken areas in South East Asian cities, with shanty looking structures made of wood and corrugated metal. Then the middle district, where the ports, marketplace and commercial districts are. Here the city has a very colorful palate. The commercial area with all the skyscrapers have a sort of South East Asian metropolis look it it. Like something closer to Manila than Tokyo. The Marketplace and docks have a sort of Latin American/South American feel to it. The clothing style of the people in the city is the kind you'd see people in a tropical region wearing. To add to the feel of the region the soldiers on patrol have this sort of bandito look and carry rifles that look somewhat like AK-47s. Higher up at the top of society, literally and figuratively is the district where the wealthy live. This distict has a sort of Bel Air feel, with massive floating mansions, around a large central park island with a larger theater. The residents here have an '80s looking style to their attire. Farther up where the government facilities are, the aerial battleship that serves as military's HQ, has the look of a banana republic's military base.
 
Hekseville remains mostly unchanged since the first game. The city still retains it's Roaring '20s look and feel. The old town, and recreation districts still retain an old world European style to them. The industrial district retains it's Dickinson look and feel, while downtown still retains it's 1920's American metropolitan look and feel.

The Rift Zones are back but they're different zones in this game from the first, and they have a wider variety in theme. One looks like a city ruin floating in an abyss, another looks like a series of giant cacti while another is dark, like night sky kind of dark, and lit with large torches.  

In both cities, each district has their down distinct characteristics and music. The lower class district of JPL is rainy and gloomy, the marketplace and port has a kind of Mexican seaside tourist -trap town in the spring/summer look and feel to it being bright and sunny. Hekseville, maybe because it was carried over from a Vita game, has less stark variety than JPL. The main standout being the recreation district which is perpetually at night with Las Vegas-style neon lights.

While Kat was somewhat based on ganguro fashion that was popular with rebellious Japanese girls, this time around while she keeps the same physical appearance, she gets a myriad of new outfits, including collaborations with outfits from Nier: Automaton and from Phantasy Star Online 2. The best part is that unlike the first game where other than the school girl uniform, the other outfits were paid DLC, Kat's outfits here are all free. They're either unlocked though the course of the story, unlocked though side-missions, unlocked by having GR1 Remastered save data on your system, or free DLC.

Along with their distinct looks, both JPL and Hekseville have their own distinct music styles, with specific themes for each of their district. The music for the lower district fits the gloomy atmosphere, with a slowly strummed guitar. Then the music picks up the pace for the middle district with a sort of upbeat fiesta kind of music, which goes hand in hand with the tropical attire the residents here wear, even in the downtown area which has more of a South East Asian, rather than Latin/South American look to it. Then moving further up, the best way I can describe the music is like '80s anime music, the kind with the alto sax leads. Something you would expect to hear in SDF Macross or Project A-Ko. Which is fitting given that the people here have flashy '80s outfits that look like something out of Scarface. Further up at the highest level is the government district where the military headquarters is located. The music here has a darker more foreboding tone, but retains a high tempo.


Hekseville's music remains the same as in the first game, though the music to the industrial district has changed, along with the conditions there. For those that haven't played the first game, the music has more a European feel it it. The old town district's music is focused around flutes and strings, while the recreation district music is more swing, and the downtown music is more fast paced, centered around piano and accordion to go along with the feeling of a bustling metropolitan downtown area. 

The rift zones also have their own unique sound tracks with fit their themes well. For instance one zone is a dark region lit by giant floating torches, the background music for this region is centered around gentle percussion and piano.

Many of the tracks from the soundtrack, I would listen to outside of the game. 

Final Verdict: Must Buy
This is a game that anyone can enjoy. The plot doesn't get too heavy, and remains more on the light hearted side. The violence is no worse than what you'd see in Mario 64 with Mario punching goombas and what ever other enemies. The most sexual content you'll see in the game is probably Raven's outfit. There's little in the way of profanity and F-bombs are non-existant. Gameplay is well executed, intuitive and fun. It's a game that should be in every PS4 library.

"The Circle is complete": Super Return of the Jedi Review

Overall Score: 4.5/5

A-

It's hardly a secret that movie based video games are crap. Generally they have horrible, poorly thought out and half-assed programed gameplay and level designs that seemed like a second thought. This is not one of those games. This is one of the most well done, well balanced 2D platformers I've ever played and possibly one of the best video games directly based on a movie. By that I mean the events of the movie is depicted in the game, rather than being a side story to the movie, or some spin-off.

Gameplay: 4

The gameplay is best described as an evolution of the Super Star Wars Trilogy. Super Star Wars had the most basic of gameplay. You run, you jump, you shoot, you slide, you double jump and you fly an X-Wing in Mode Seven and in pseudo flight sim sequences. There was very little difference between Luke, Han and Chewie, the only real difference being that Luke gets Anakin's old saber a few levels in. Difficulty wasn't too hard. It could be challenging but nothing that'll make you want to snap the controller in half.

Then Super The Empire Strikes Back came along loaded with much more features. Luke started out with his blaster and saber and later gained quite a number of Force abilities (a little too many abilities, you have 8 and have to cycle though them one by one to select one). Han now had grenades he could throw that did heavy damage. Chewie had a spin move that let him spin "though" enemies damaging them as he did so. The Mode Seven levels were back and had the player in T-47 Snowspeeder and the X-Wing. Though they also upped the difficulty and there are portions in the game where even on Easy it can be brutally unforgiving. You'll be memorizing level passwords in no time. Other issues where a lot of the levels were huge and rather maze-like in that areas tended to look the same and it was very easy to lose track of where you were.

Despite the difficulty and unpolished nature of Empire, it still had great features added in. Just needed a bit more polish, and that's what Super Return of the Jedi does. The game is more or less what you would come to expect from a 2D platformer of the era. You run left or right, you can jump and double jump, you can slide, and you have your myriad of attacks and abilities. Each character is slightly different from the other. Luke has the Force, Han has grenades, and Chewie has a spin attack, etc. In between are also vehicle segments where you take control of a landspeeder, a speeder bike and the Millenium Falcon, to mix things up a bit.

Luke loses his blaster, probably because we never see him use one in RotJ, but he keeps his Force abilities. However the list of abilities is paired down to 5 from 8. Here are the abilities Luke has:

• Heal - which converts a portion of your Force meter to health.
• Freeze - which freezes all the enemies on the screen. 
• Lightsaber throw - Luke throws his saber and you can control it around the screen to attack enemies. Pretty much balances out Luke's lack of a gun. 
• Vanish - Luke becomes invisible. 
• Deflect - Essentially an auto-block ability. 

The abilities that didn't carry over from Empire, were slowing down time, flying and mind controlling enemies. This isn't so much a bad thing since the player has to cycle though all of them. Though personally I would have kept Mind Control over Deflect, since Deflect is pretty redundant when you have a block button. Other than his Force abilities, Luke also has the ability to block and deflect attacks back at his enemies. Additionally his double-jump also includes a saber slash.

Han Solo also returns to the game, though he controls mostly identical to Empire. He has his basic moves, his blaster remains upgradeable with the following upgrades, while the stock blaster shot still ricochets off walls.

• Flame - just a basic firepower upgrade.
• Seeker - fires micromissiles that home in on enemies. 
• Rapid Ion - rapid fire and firepower upgrade, Ion shots can also ricochet off the walls the same was as the stock blaster does. 
• Plasma - slight decrease in rate of fire, doesn't ricochet, but massive firepower upgrade. 

Han also retains his grenades from Empire, and the player can control the angle and distance they're thrown to an extent by pressing the D-pad up or down while the grenade is thrown. You can hoard grenades though the levels and dump them all on the boss making VERY quick work of it. While Han's double jump doesn't have an attack integrated in the way Luke's does, you can still shoot and throw grenades mid-jump, and can even execute the double jump while shooting.

Chewie also returns largely unchanged from Empire, the same as Han. His bowcaster is upgradable with the same power-ups as Han's blaster and he still retains his spin attack. In general Chewie plays more or less the same that Han does, but with his spin attack instead of grenades.

Which brings us to Leia. Super RotJ is the first game in the trilogy where she appears as a playable character. Leia appears in three incarnations and in a sense she's a bit of a three-in-one character. Her first appearance is in her bounty hunter disguise. In this form, she controls similar to Luke. She's armed with a staff with similar range to his lightsaber, she has a vertical slash attack with her double jump the same as Luke, and she can also use her staff to block and deflect attacks, like Luke can. Though unlike Luke, holding down the attack button for a few seconds allows her to charge up a powerful energy blast.

Her next appearance is in her slave girl outfit. In this outfit she plays largely the same but there are few differences. Instead of a staff she now uses her leash as a chain whip. She still retains her energy blast, but now she is unable to block attacks as she no longer has a staff, and instead she has a spin attack similar to Chewie's instead. Her double jump attack is also different as it is now a horizontal slash instead of a vertical slash.

Her third appearance is in her Rebel Commando gear. Her form here is a bit of a disappointment. She loses her energy blast, the double jump slash attack, and her secondary abilities. She plays basically like Han, but without the grenades. There's also a weird thing where her standing shot is at the same level as her crouching shot, where as Han's shots travel lowers when he shoots from a crouch. I would have done something like an overcharage shot as her secondary ability. Have a power meter that drains when she fires a powered up shot.

Last we get to Wicket the Ewok. Wicket himself isn't really all that special either. He's more or less like Rebel Commando Leia. Though the arrows he shoots do stick in walls and Wicket is able to jump on them and use them to reach areas he couldn't from regular jumping. Though like Commando Leia he lacks a secondary ability. I would have given him a large, comically large, stone hammer, that has limited range, has a little bit of a wind up, and does heavy damage like Han's grenades.

The game also has several power-ups scattered across the level, they come in the form of permanent (well permanent till you die) power-ups and limited time ones. The permanent ones come in the form of health bar pick-ups that, naturally, extend your life meter. The other permanent pick up is in the form blaster upgrades. One last one, exclusive to Han, are his grenade pick-ups. The limited time use ones come in the form of a personal shield that makes the player invincible to all damage for a few seconds. There's a thermal detonator pick up that will clear the screen, but you have to set it off within a few seconds of picking it up otherwise it goes away. There are also point boost pick-ups that come in the form of Vader's helmet, these can be stacked, 2x, 4x, 8x, etc. Other pick-ups are health and Force replenishment pick-ups, as well as 1-ups. Though out the level are also Alliance emblems, these act like coins in Super Mario, collect 100 and you get an extra life. 

Like it's predecessors, Super RotJ retains it's vehicle levels as well, though aside from the speeder session in the first level, and the speeder bike level in the middle, the vehicle levels are exclusively the Falcon. The speeder sections are similar to prior games, making use of the SNES's Mode Seven, though unlike the X-wing the levels are largely linear, in that they're designed to box the player in to moving in only one direction.

While the X-wing is gone, there are three different level styles that we use the Falcon in. The first time we ride out in that barely functional bucket of bolts is as a glorified turret section. The second time we ride that hunk of junk into battle is in a Mode Seven level like the X-wing levels of the prior games where we're flying along the Death Star II's surface, fighting TIE Fighters and Interceptors. The third time we fly out in the fastest ship in the fleet is a very impressive sequence, impressive for the SNES. This time we're in a 1st person, pseudo-flight sim sequence from the Falcon's cockpit, flying inside the Death Star. Though the game play in this sequence is largely as a glorified rail shooter. The player is essentially flying down a tunnel and the only thing the player has to worry about is rotating the ship to keep from hitting the sides and to dodge obstacles that protrude into your path.

Lastly are the level designs themselves. As opposed to Empire, the levels in Super RotJ aren't as long or repetitive. It's no where near as easy to get lost as it is in Empire. In fact, they struck a great balance between making the levels large enough to have lots of places to explore, while not being to huge and maze-like.

Overall the gameplay is amazing and feels well polished, however Rebel Commando Leia and Wicket were a bit of a stumbling block in that there could have been more done with them. On the Shield Generator level where Commando Leia is playable, Han and Chewie are also playable, making it kind of pointless to use Leia.


Stability: 5
As with other games of the era, Super RotJ doesn't have an issue with stability. All the features work the way they should, the passwords work, there aren't any weird crashes, or collision glitches in the levels. Basically everything in the game does what it needs to do.


Plot: 4

By and large the plot follows the events of the movies. Granted things have to be changed a bit here and there and new "scenes" added in to make levels out of, but it is a faithful translation of the events from movie into game. For instance, the second level of the game takes place in the Tatooine desert and it's the path to Jabba's Palace. Another example is the level where Luke infiltrates the Imperial base on Endor to get to the Death Star, and the levels on the Death Star itself. Which isn't a bad thing considering that the only thing Luke did on the Death Star II was get taken to Papa Palpatine's office.

The plot is moved along though cut scenes that are essentially 16-bit renders of screen shots from the movie with scrolling text at the bottom. These cut scenes are essentially lifted directly from the movie. In a sense you could think of Super RotJ as a retelling of the movie. If the game stuck strictly to the movie, then it wouldn't be a very long game.

Though given the certain liberties taken with the plot, I always thought there was a BIG missed opportunity at the end. Towards the end, one of the levels is entirely a duel (boss fight) between Luke and Palpatine, what I would have done is yes have a duel with Palpatine and Skywalker... but with Anakin Skywalker. I would have given the player a chance to control and play as a redeemed Anakin, still in his Vader armor. I'd have basically given him the same abilities as Luke, just with different animations.





Graphics and Visuals: 5

The game is easily one of the best looking 2D platformers on the SNES. The sheer attention to detail shows that this game isn't just a typical movie cash in. For instance, most characters have an idle animation when the player lets them stand there long enough. Though while Luke will just shrug, Leia takes her bounty hunter helmet off for a breath of fresh air, and Chewie just starts howling, Han and Wicket actually have multiple animations. Han will do a the shrug that he does in the movie where him and a group of Ewoks ambush the group of Imperial Troops outside the Shield Generator, and he'll swap out the power pack in his blaster. Wicket will either pull out a fruit to eat (that he finishes in like 2 bites) or he'll pull out the battle horn. Though it isn't just idle animations, the sprites themselves are pretty detailed. Detail to the point that even Leia's butt is

rendered on her slave girl sprite when she does her spin attack. The vehicles are are also detailed, with the Falcon rendered with panel lines on it's sprites. On the speeder bike levels, Luke and Leia's clothes are animated and flutter in the wind.

The level designs, in terms of visuals, are no slouch either. The level featuring the Tatooine desert has those humidity lines/haze in the background giving a feeling of oppressive heat. Along with the rocky designs, we also have rocks in the foreground, adding a feeling of depth to the stage. But unlike other games that have a foreground (Jurassic Park 2, on the SNES) the foreground details don't block anything important. Jabba's Palace also does the same thing, though instead of rocks in the foreground it's various patrons and clutter hanging from the ceiling. While the foreground sometimes does block enemies or power-ups from view it's not a major thing as the enemies never stay still, and nothing blocked is important to getting to the end of the level. The ceiling foreground rarely dips further than the HUD at the top of the screen. The later Endor Imperial Base level also has the same sense of depth, but this time instead of the effect being due to a foreground, the background is animated to give a sense of depth. In these levels you have trees in the background that scroll at a different rate than the Death Star II or the Shield Generator dish, resulting in the Imperial machines scrolling behind the trees, giving the sense of depth.

The vehicle levels have also been given the same level of detail. The "walls" on the speeder bike levels aren't just an endless green blur, vertical browns were added in for the massive tree trunks. On the Death Star II's surface you'll see missing panels on the stations surface as well as out of place orange-red panels, giving the sense that the station is still incomplete. The "tunnel" in the final two levels take design elements directly from the movie. You'll find exposed power conduits and what not in the level, that if you look closely you'll see the Falcon fly by in the movie. Even the "low bridge" segment where the Falcon loses it's Direct TV dish, is present and more than likely you will bang into it and take a little damage (though it is possible to slip by and not take damage, just barely though). That's what Han gets for letting a guy who keeps around a lot of Colt 45 fly his ship.


Art and Music: 4.5

The art of the most part is largely inspired from the movie. Many of the bosses in the Tatooine levels you'd notice as background characters in Jabba's Palace. The same goes for the Endor and Death Star levels, though there are some strange looking bosses. One boss looks like a two sided Lamba-class shuttle, with two cockpit sections on opposite sides of the vessel. Of  course, in other cases the bosses are major characters like Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, and Emperor Sheev Palpatine himself.

Then you get these mecha bosses that show up on Endor and on the Death Star II that just feel totally out of place in Star Wars. They look very anime inspired and look more like they belong in another LucasArts game, Metal Warriors. 

As mentioned earlier some liberties had to be taken with the source material to make a video game out of. Essentially what this resulted in was several locations in the game getting a re-imagining. Probably the location to get the biggest overhaul was the Rancor Pit. In the movie the Rancor Pit was largely just a big concrete basement level room. Not really all that much you can make a 2D action platformer game level out of. So what the devs at LucasArts instead did was re-imagine the Rancor Pit as a sort of Indiana Jones style crypt. Complete with bones of the Rancor's meals.

Another set of levels that got an overhaul were the Death Star II levels. This time around, events on the Death Star II were reimagine to appear that rather than letting himself get captured, Luke infiltrated the station and fought his way to Palpatine. The first level consists of a lot of catwalks and exposed machinery lending to the impression that the station is still a work in progress. While the later levels, ascending Palpatine's tower look far more completed, as if it was one of the first areas of the station to be completed.

The music is largely taken straight from the movie, with a few tracks being remixed to make them longer for use as background level music. There really isn't all that much to say about the music, other than they help to set the tone and add to the immersion of the game, helping to make the player feel like they're playing events in the movie.

Final Verdict: A great game for fans and gamers in general.
This game is hands down one of the best movie based games out there. There are several reasons for it. First, the right kind liberties were taken from the source material to make it into a game. The key events of the movies were preserved, but the surrounding events were re-imagined in a way to make for good level designs. It's not too unlike how many anime shows would be turned into a movie by re-imagining events (Macross and Escaflowne have done this) but keeping in key elements/events intact.

Second, this game was the last of a trilogy of games. A trilogy that didn't just rinse and repeat. Instead LucasArts took the base game (Super Star Wars), improved on the formula by adding more gameplay elements (Super The Empire Strikes Back), and finally refining those added elements (Super Return of the Jedi).

What we get at the end is a very polished game, that shows a movie based game really can be a more than just a cheap, cynical cash grab. Even if you're not a fan of Star Wars, the gameplay is enough to carry the whole package. If you're looking for some old school platforming to play, then you will enjoy this game, it is as I have foreseen.

"Enemy battleship sunk!": Warship Gunner 2 Review

Overall Score: 4.98/5

A

Roaming around in a big vehicle of destruction is nothing new for video games, rather it's quite the opposite, it's a staple in video games. Though where Warship Gunner 2 differs from other vehicular combat games, is that instead of some tank or ice cream truck, or a laser equipped jet, or a giant mecha, things are taken to a larger scale and you get a full sized warship. A full sized warship that you can customize from the hull up, with a huge selection of parts in nearly any combination you want. This game is pure shoot 'em up 3D arcade action. This game is just pure fun.


Gameplay: 6

Gameplay is the most important thing of any game, and here the gameplay really shines. Controlling your ship while attacking targets from every direction is fluid and intuitive. Every command you need is literally there at your finger tips, no need for any weird input commands.

• L2 & R2 - steer your ship left and right. 
• L1 - enters Engagement Mode where your weapons go into auto-fire and attack target individual enemies. 
• R1 - Scope mode, zooms into your scope for long range attacks. 
• Triangle and Square - cycles though your ship's weapons. 
• Circle - Auto-steering mode where your ship automatically travels where your gunsight is oriented. 
• X -fires your selected weapons.
• D-Pad Up and Down - controls your speed from Reverse, Idle, Cruising Speed, Flank Speed. 
• D-Pad Left and Right - steers your ship. 
• Left Stick - moves your gunsight and rotates the camera. There is a large circle on the HUD that doubles as a close range radar, when the gunsight hits the edge the camera rotates. Within the circle, icons for enemy ships, subs, structures and even schools of fish (depending on optional equipment) appear relative your position.
• Right Stick - Tilting the stick up will zoom into binocular mode, while tilting it back down will zoom you out.
• R3 - will snap the camera to point directly forward or directly behind. 

On the surface the game is a 3D action game on with your ship on a 2D plane. You're armed with cannons, guided missiles, torpedos, and even optical weapons and huge Wave Guns that can take an entire fleet out with one shot, inspired by Space Battleship Yamato's  Wave Motion Gun.

The controls change slightly underwater. Instead of Engagement Mode L1 causes your sub to dive, while R1 under water will bring you back to the surface, though on the surface it functions the same as before, activating the scope. While underwater, most weapons aside from torpedoes, VLS missile and some energy weapons will be unavailable.

There is a limit to how deep you can go, you can go deep enough that enemy weapons can't reach you, but on the other hand you're unable to fire your own. This is useful mainly for escaping. You can also rise just below the surface to periscope depth and have access to the binoculars. Also underwater you control your ship in a full 3D environment.

The this all comes together to give the player a very fluid control scheme for their maritime fist of rage. Traveling in one direction and delivering full broadsides from your battleship, or a Macross-style Itano Circus from your guided missiles destroyer in another direction is as easy as walking, and not something that you'd need to give a second though to.

You have a wide array of ship types, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, carriers, battleship-carrier hybrids, submarines, and two special classes, frigates, and superships.

Destroyers - Destroyers are light, fast and agile. They're armed with a variety of weapons ranging from guns, to rockets, to guided missiles and torpedoes, to depth charges and even laser weaponry much later in the game. Destroyers also have the most slots for optional equipment such as counter measures, AEGIS systems that allow for multi-lock, equipment to enable auto-fire,etc.

Cruisers -  Cruisers are medium scale warships and will serve as your workhorse for many of the earlier levels. They can be equipped with the same weaponry as the Destroyers but can also carry guns of larger caliber, dual purpose "hi-elevation guns", and heavier energy weapons. Cruisers can also be equipped with launch facilities for seaplanes, helicopters and VTOL jets. While they are larger than destroyers and can take more punishment, Cruisers also have less equipment slots (though more than battlships). Cruisers become useful again later when you unlock later parts that grant speed and defense boosts and unlock the more powerful weapons like the rapid firing, high damage output, Advanced Gun Systems and the energy weapons like Plasma Guns.

Battleships -  Battleships are your heavy combatants. They can be armed with large caliber guns, missiles, tactical nukes, rail guns and heavy laser weaponry. They have the highest weight limit and the most Hit Points (HP), and can also equip aircraft facilities to operate the same aircraft as Cruisers. However this all comes at the cost of Battleships having the least amount of equipment slots. A well rounded battleship, with heavy offense, heavy air-defense and respectable armor will always be useful.

Aircraft Carriers - By and large, as far as a surface combatant goes, Aircraft Carriers are essentially heavier Cruisers. The weapons are largely limited to Cruiser-type weaponry, though they are unable to carry torpedoes and depth charges. However as the name says they are able to carry all manner of aircraft, ranging from scouts (fly beyond the range of the ship's radar and sonar), interceptors (attack other planes), fighters (attack other ships and ground targets), bombers attacks other ships and ground targets, but less effective against ships), attack helicopters (essentially the same as fighters) and support helicopters (fly around the map and retrieve pick-ups like heath and ammo replenishment). Carriers also have the same number of equipment slots as Cruisers. While in real life, Western carriers largely rely on their air wing for offense and defense, here you can mount guns and guided missiles and build yourself a "guided-missile carrier" out of a Nimitz-class hull with the same design philosophy as the Soviet/Russian Navy in regards to carriers.

Battleship-Carrier - AKA the "battle-carrier", the battle-carrier is a battleship-carrier hybrid. It can mount all the weaponry and armor of a battleship, but also is equipped with a flight deck for a small air-wing. Unlike Battleships, Battle-carriers are not limited to VTOL aircraft, however they have smaller air-wings than true carriers, though the high tier hulls have air-wings almost as large as lower tier Carrier hulls. They also come equipped with only the same number of slots as Battleships. 

Submarine -  In the game Submarines essentially function as a submersible destroyer. They're light and reasonably fast and agile (depending on engines and equipment) and can equip most of the same weapons as Destroyers. Underwater the player has full 3D control over the sub and can control the sub's turn and pitch. 

Frigates - Frigates are essentially something between a destroyer and a battleship. They're as tough a battleships, have similar weigh limit to lower tier Battleship hulls, and can be armed with the same weaponry as destroyers. Frigates are a special hull type that is not unlocked until much later in the game. Once unlocked the Destroyer will fall completely out of use, given that the Frigate is basically a Destroyer on steroids, leaving no real reason to keep using them once the Frigate hull is unlocked. 

Superships - Superships come in several forms, there are dual hulled versions of Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships, there's a giant Battlecarrier that carries and air wing as large as a conventional carrier's, there also a supercarrier with the HP and armor of a battleship and a huge airwing. Other superships are hulls based on bosses, such as the Drillship hull, a Battleship that mounts a huge bow mounted drill and circular saws on the side of the hull. Then there are the joke hulls, like the Shark Sub where in-game your sub looks like a Great White Shark. 



While there's a wide variety of ship types and existing classes you can use to completely wreck your enemy, you can also design your warships from the hull up. Various ship parts ranging from hulls, weapons, structures, aircraft and electronic parts can be researched and development, and after completing development. Which brings us to the other focus on the game, designing and customizing your own ship. 

You can design your ship from the hull up, completely from scratch. You can take the Yamato-class's hull and put the Iowa-class's superstructures on it, and remove the rear turret and replace it with a cluster of Vertical Launch System anti-ship missiles. Or you can take a cruiser hull, build it for speed then equip it with an AEGIS for multi-lock and mount a single large Guided Plasma Gun, and wipe out entire fleets in just a few blasts. Or you could take a carrier and equip it with tactical nuclear missiles and fire that off into a a fleet then launch your aircraft to pick off the survivors, just be careful to fire the missile first as you can down your own planes. 

Or you can load a pre-designed ship, and go with either something that actually exists or take an existing ship like the WWII era Nelson-class and do your own modernization to it, that it never had in real life. Other pre-made designs are fictional classes and concept classes that were never built like the Montana-class battleship. They range from some WWI classes such as the British Renown-class battlecruiser to modern classes such as the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force's top of the line Atago-class guided missile destroyer. There are so many combinations that you can do, though you can't make an air ship, so sky is literally the limit. Though naturally, not having to adhere to any design limitations, be it budgetary or laws of physics, if you know what you're doing any custom ship you come up with will be more powerful than the real world designs.

The development trees for hulls and structures are divided into four, American, British, Japanese and German-classes. Differences are largely cosmetic though there are some slight differences in stats and some hulls are wider or longer than others. Though it isn't only limited to those four nations, other nations such as Italy, France and Russia have parts under one country or another. 

Given all the different parts to equip, you can even take an older hull, and with the right load outs keep it competitive into the later levels. This is especially true with the Battleships. 

On one hand I want to say it's too bad that the game lacks a multiplayer, given that the PS2's network adapter has long been out by the time this game came out. But on the other hand, there would have to be some MAJOR tweaks to the multiplayer to make the game balanced. One way Koei could have done this though is limit equipment to only weapons that exist in the real world, or to only WWI and WWII equipment, for competetive modes, and let them use what they want in co-op modes.


Stability: 4.9
Having come out in the era before patching, companies only had once chance to get a game right. Here Koei did largely that. The game doesn't have many (if at all) stability issues. I've played both the PS2 disk version and the digital re-release on the PS3, and no crashes, failed saves, failed loading, or freezings. At most there would be some sound issue where the ambient background music wouldn't kick in until the battle themes come on when you engage the enemy. It's a very minor thing, but enough to be noticeable. 


Plot: 5

The story takes place in an alternate 1930's centered around the Kingdom of Wilkia, a colony founded by Germanic people (Germans or Scandinavians) in what is the real world Russian Far East. WWI had happened and the colony, having risen up and joined the Allies won it's independence, as the Kingdom of Wilkia.

 In the 1930's the country's royal government was overthrown by factions within the military lead by Grand Admiral Karl Weisenberger and the Kingdom was reorganized into the Empire of Wilkia ("for a safe and secure society"). The Empire goes on to invade other countries, triggering a world war. However the war was planned long in advanced and a series of superweapon warships making use of a mysterious black technology (later revealed to be derived from an alien vessel discovered in the North Pole) were developed behind the royal government's back. Using these superweapons, the Empire went on a rampage across the globe, annexing Wilkia's ally Japan and other unsuspecting countries as well as drawing in smaller countries under it's umbrella and pressed their militaries in service under the Empire's banner. 

However the coup wasn't a complete success, King Vilk and his Royal Guards were able to escape the coup and flee the country, and established a government-in-exile based in London. It is with the Royal Guards where the game's protagonist, Captain Schultz serves. 

The plot follows Captain Schultz and his crew in their fight to reclaim their homeland. At the start the government-in-exile has to prove itself as a viable force to be taken seriously. After several major victories, it gains the legitimacy it needs and begins to rally together all the various countries under threat of invasion from the Empire, as well as (in the case of Germany and France) nations strong-armed into non-aggression pacts with one-sided terms and chafing under the Empire's heel, and soldiers still willing to fight the Empire after their nations capitulated (such as Italy). After rallying enough forces to the anti-Empire cause, the Allies take the war to the Empire. First driving them out of Europe, then using the US as a launching point to drive the Empire back across the Pacific to it's home turf. Things finally come to a reckoning where the Royal Guards alone launch an invasion of the Empire, breaking though the Empire's last line of defense and storming the coastal capital city to take the head of Grand Admiral Weisenberger and topple his totalitarian military dictatorship. 

While the general plot remains the same, there are three paths the player can take, each with a different character as Schultz's Executive Officer. One is longtime friend Lieutenant Werner, who serves in the Royal Guard alongside Schultz and were trained by the same instructor. Instructor Tsukuba, a veteran of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Schultz's instructor while in officer training. Dr. Braun, a German engineer whom Schultz and crew save from pursuing Imperials. Each path has levels unique to them, as well as a plots specific to each character. Additionally, there's also a separate, "true ending" that you don't get until the second play though.

The plot is moved along though text narrative, mission briefings and post mission dialog. Unfortunately there is no voice narrative, though that isn't so much a big deal, just seems like something is missing given that by the time this game came out, spoken dialog in video games was pretty much the norm. Though in the Japanese version, the in-game voice that announces "enemy ship sunk" and other dialog changes with each different XO character, in the US version it's a single person providing that voice. Despite these short comings though, the multi-path, multi-ending plot more than makes up for it. This combined with the sheer number of parts to unlock/R&D result in a game with great replay value. I got this game the day it came out in the US and I didn't play any other game for about 6 months.


Graphics and Visuals: 4

The graphics and the visuals aren't exactly the best the PS2 has to offer. However this is probably due to the fact that the game models every bit of equipment on your ship. If you put something on your ship, it will be modeled and placed on the ship right where you put it. Not only is each part modeled, but they're almost all animated. Gun turrets and missile launchers rotate and elevate, radar arrays are constantly rotating, Despite that, there are still changes in weather from bright and sunny with calm seas and good visibility in the South Pacific, to stormy with rough seas and poor visibility in the North Atlantic.

I've mentioned the eye to detail on your ships, and this eye also extends to your base. A massive mobile dock serves as the player's base. As the player develops more and more of the development tree, the base also expands. Even the dock is animated, you'll see helicopters taking off from helipads, you'll see trucks driving around, cranes rotating and defensive gun turrets moving. The floating dock looks "alive".







Art and Music: 5

The boss designs and the fictional designs are mostly carried over from the first Warship Gunner, Naval Ops: Warship Gunner, though the railguns got a redesign in this game. That said the bosses have their own unique look. The bosses are all huge and their intro is done in a way that makes them look intimidating. Some of the weapons have a funny quirky look to them, like the Cat Beam (the lasers emitted even sound like angry cats), which literally looks like cat loafing on your deck. Or the Crab Laser which looks

exactly like a large metal crab sitting on your deck. Regarding the real world equipment, the hulls and the structures look accurately modeled. When you built the Iowa-class or Yamato-class battleships, you will recognize them right away. People with an interest in naval history, or naval warfare history will appreciate the eye to detail Koei had in modeling the hulls and structures. 

As with the Kessen and Dynasty Warriors games, the soundtrack to Warship Gunner 2 is actually pretty good. There are tracks just for sailing around that are more calm, some of the tracks are more foreboding. Then once you engage the enemy, the tracks change to ones more fast paced and appropriate background music for battle. Boss introductions are accompanied by a track reminiscent of the theme to Jaws. While the first game made use of a few rock tracks, Warship Gunner 2's tracks are mostly orchestrated, with a few having prominent strings.



Final Verdict: If you love arcade shooters, don't pass this up. 

I would easily recommend this game to anyone who loves arcade style shooters were you just blow-up everything in sight. The game is just a real blast to play, and the naval combat setting, sets the game apart from others. Given the huge replay value, even at the full launch price of $50, you would hands down get your money's worth on this game. If you have a working PS2 you can get the original disk from Amazon used for $38.90, or if you have a working PS3 you can download the digital re-release from the PlayStation Store for $9.99. I literally cannot praise this game enough, and it deserves a place in any video game collection.