"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.

Should have been called Whale Shark with the way this thing controls: Tigershark (PS1) Review.

 Overall Score: 3.2/5

D+

This game is a perfect example of what happens when you have a genuinely interesting and unique concept, but completely drive the bus off a cliff in the execution. The concept is you have a high speed hydrofoil assault craft skipping along and blasting ships, aircraft and land targets and at the push of a button submerges and becomes a submarine fighter. This could have been one of the best games of the PS1. But what happened? Well, read on...


Gameplay: 2

The gameplay concept was certainly something I've never really seen before, nor have I seen many others try to do anything similar since. It's a "flight" sim and an arcade style 3D shooter.

You control the Tigershark, a combination hydrofoil attack craft/midget attack submarine. On the surface the Tigershark is a high-speed attack craft armed with a 25mm gatling gun, and a variety of guided missiles and rockets. You have full control over the craft and control the vessel on a 2D plane while on the surface. On the surface the game plays pretty well. Not the best, but not horrible either.


The point where the game goes off a cliff and where the problems lie is when you take the Tigershark underwater. The Tigershark controls way too slow and clunky. Underwater you have the option of two control types, an advanced type and a simplified type. In the advanced type, pushing Left or Right on the D-pad rotates the Tigershark and it controls like a flight sim. However the issue is that the Tigershark is slow to roll and slow to bank. The other issue, is there are no controls for Yaw, you can't turn the craft from side to side, without rolling the whole thing and banking. It is literally slower to maneuver underwater than the F-4 Phantom or A-4 Skyhawk starter planes in Ace Combat 2 (which came out in the same year). This lack of mobility would be a noting more than a nuisance, in fact it could be the factor that sets it aside from a flight sim, given there is more resistance in water than air. But the thing is, the game doesn't take the slow movements of the Tigershark into account and the player is essentially a sitting duck for guided torpedoes. While flight sim games like Ace Combat has guided missiles being fired off at the player, the missiles can either be evaded though tight turns, or countered with chaff or flare. Here you're unable to do any of that and just end up having to take the hits, and of course, take too many hits and you die. Not just torpedoes, but the underwater gun-towers also have sniper accuracy. You simply cannot evade attacks due to the control's clunky response, and the enemy comes at you from all angles.

In the simplified type, Left and Right on the D-pad turn the Tigershark. While this gives it faster turning, it's pitch still remains slow and doing a loop is near impossible. Both control styles are essentially unplayable under water. Even with the Dual Analog or Dual Shock controllers, the game doesn't take advantage of the analogue sticks.

To sum it up, the game only becomes playable when you play with cheats enabled. If you want to see this idea well executed, check out the submarine levels in Warship Gunner 2 on the PS2. These levels are one of the ways this game could have been effectively done. But I stand by the statement that had this game played like Ace Combat when underwater it would have easily been an excellent game.


Stability: 5
At the very least the game isn't broken in terms of stability. It runs without crashing, freezing, or locking the player in a can't advance situation. The game doesn't have issues in saving or loading or with game save data on the Memory Card.

The game also runs well, but that I mean there isn't a bad polygon tearing, or major collision issues. so at least it has that going for it.


Plot: 4
The game actually shines pretty well on the plot. As usual the plot puts us in the near future where natural resources are running low. To solve their energy issues Japan had developed a series of underwater geothermal taps constructed along fault lines on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. All is well till the technology is stolen and copied by the Russians.

The Russian taps however, like the Soviet-built Chernobyl nuclear power plant, are inferior to the Japanese taps, and run the risk of the destabilizing the "Ring of Fire". As a result of the Russian taps, Japan is hit by as series of massive tsunamis and 60% of the country ends up underwater. With Japan in shambles the Russians move in to gobble up what's left.

Enter the US Navy with it's experimental underwater carrier the USS Olympus, and it's prototype one-man hydrofoil-submarine attack craft. The USS Olympus and the Tigershark prototype are the most advanced naval vessels developed, and spearhead operations to send the Russians back. 

Yes, it's another case of "the Russians are bad" but the way this is gone about is done is a completely different manner. Rather than the "trying to restore Russia's place" we see all to often today. Russia in this game has more a Soviet machine feel to it. It doesn't come off as a fallen superpower, but rather one that never relinquished the title. Though I suppose you could say the plot is a product of it's time to an extent, it hadn't even been 10 years since the Berlin Wall came down when this game was released.

The story is moved along though mission briefing sequences, and there are few cut scenes. Which isn't really an issue, as it means there is little in the way that would interrupt the gameplay.


Graphics and Visuals: 2

The visuals in the game are about what you would find in the early days of the PlayStation, around what you would see when the system came out in 1995. Here's the thing, when this game came out it was 1997. Ace Combat 2 with it's excellent graphics came out in this same year. Even the modeling of the titular Tigershark looks likes something from the Sega CD. I know that graphics aren't everything, but I'm sorry, 1997, on the PlayStation? This is unacceptable.

To add to the dated look of the game, the explosions and smoke trails seem to use low-res sprite based graphics. The graphics would have been acceptable as a launch game along side Warhawk, but this was 1997, the PlayStation had been out for two years at this point. Again, I'll mention Ace Combat 2 that came out in the same year. The graphics between these two games look
almost a generation apart.

I'll admit, maybe it isn't a fair comparison given that Ace Combat 2 was made by Namco, a much larger company with more resources, but it still doesn't change the fact that the game looks very dated for the year it came out in.  It wouldn't even really be a big deal if the gameplay was fun, but the game having poor play mechanics, is just made exponentially worse with the poor graphics. Just like how great graphics accompanying great gameplay can improve a game's overall experience, poor gameplay with poor graphics will have the inverse effect.








Art and Music: 3

OK I have to admit, the Tigershark itself is a very cool design. It's sleek, looks very high-tech and the menu screen is actually the Tigershark's holograpgic cockpit (real shame the game doesn't have a cockpit view, but maybe given the graphics, that's for the best). The USS Olympus itself is also a slick design.

By contrast the Russian vessels have a very utilitarian, made for mass production, very "Soviet" look to them to contrast with the American Tigershark's top of the line design. If the Tigershark is an F-16 or a French Rafale, then bulk of the Russian subs and ships are the MiG-21 or MiG-23. The only thing comparable to the Tigershark is the Russian's own hydrofoil/attack sub prototype that's encountered later on in the game.

Where the art and design certainly stand out from an otherwise bland package, the music, like the gameplay falls short. There isn't much to say about the music other than there are only a few tracks and all of them are pretty forgettable.


Final Verdict: Don't bother.

I really wanted to like this game, I really did. But it's slow-as-molasses controls underwater just completely hamper any attempts to have any fun with this game. It's a unique and interesting concept completely hampered by poor execution. Maybe in the hands of a more talented developer this could have been an awesome game. But the awful truth is that the team at N-Space just wasn't up to the task of taking this concept and making something great out of it. Maybe this was just too ambitious a project for the this dev team.


Truth be told there there is some fun to be had with the game if you turn on the invulnerability cheat and just play the game as a power fantasy, but that's the thing, the game is only really fun after you "break" it. But then if you're at the point of doing that, then unless you're playing for the story, what's the point after a couple levels?

"Deploy all suits now!": Assault Suit Valken (Cybernator) Review

Overall Score: 4.4/5

B+

Reaching a bit back for this one. Known as Assault Suit Valken in Japan, Cybernator came out in the US in 1993, the era before Konami became the fan pariah it is now. Typical of the 16-bit era, Cybernator is a side scrolling run-and-gun arcade style action game. Think Contra if Bill Rizer was in a big mech.

Gameplay: 5
To a degree the game is your typical 16-bit fare. Although, while run-and-gun side scrollers were a dime a dozen before the PlayStation came onto the scene, Cybernator is a particularly well made one.

The player controls the titular Assault Suit Valken, a towering humanoid mech that stands about 2 stories tall. The Valken comes equipped with a vulcan gun that has a slight spread effect, a punch attack, and an indestructible shield that is used for blocking attacks. Other weapons come along like a powerful laser cannon. The Valken also comes with a booster for limited flight and boosted jumps, as well as grind rollers on the feet to allow it to "skate" short distances. The player can also direct the angle to fire the Valken's gunpod from, from straight up to straight down (for a total of 9 directions the Valken can aim), so the player can attack targets above them as they ascend, or strafe targets below them as the drop down, or boost jump or hover. The shield is also conveniently given it's own button so the player doesn't need to cycle though to equip it in order to block attacks. Aiming the Valken's gun is done with the d-pad, but there is also a "hold" button that lets the player lock the direction the gun is aimed, allowing the player to move forward with the gun angled upward or downward, or with the gunpod aimed forward to retreat back while firing forward. The Valken itself can also take a pretty generous beating itself before going down, meaning the player can take quite a number of hits, it certainly is no "glass cannon", but be careful it isn't a Gundam either. With health pick-ups along the way, the game certainly isn't "Nintendo hard" either like, say, R-Type III, but it is plenty challenging enough.

Along with the usual surface levels that have you stomping around in the Valken there are also several levels that have a sort of flight pack or "sturm booster" to use Gundam terminology, that player more like side scroller shooter along the lines of R-Type. The nice thing is, this format is actually introduced in the second level, so the player is able to experience both styles of levels right away.

Levels range from space colonies, to deep space, to various locations on Earth, spanning from snowy mountains to the enemy capital with the final location being the enemy government's assembly building. The levels in deep space actually differ from levels in the colonies or on Earth in that there is less gravity and less friction so the controls become more floaty or slippery, adding to a functional difference between being in space an in an atmosphere in addition to an aesthetic difference.



Stability: 5
As standard with the era, before DLC, before patch downloads, a company had only one chance to get it right. You released a broken product and that game was done, there was no fixing it once the game had shipped. That said, I've played though the game with nary a hiccup. No crashes, no can't advances, the game is perfectly stable.


Plot: 4 

According to in game text, the game happens in the context of a massive war between two superpowers, the Federation and the Axis, over the dwindling resources left on Earth. Story progression is done though text between missions, and in mission dialogue, with a short intro at the start of the game. Fortunately the game will pause for a bit as the text scrolls, so the player isn't trying to fight and read at the same time. The player fills the boots of Jake, a pilot with the Pacific States Marine Corp. within the Federation military hierarchy.

While extremely light by modern standards, the plot is actually fairly fleshed out for an action game of the era. Usually for a lot of action games of the era, there are a few paragraphs of plot in the instruction booklet, and that's it. You can fill in the rest with your imagination. Here we actually have a few named characters with regular dialog from them.



The overall plot itself isn't really all that original. Natural resources run low and war breaks out between rival powers, and ends with your side eventually storming the enemy capital and bringing the war to it's conclusion. No crazy twists at the end. We don't see your side doing anything questionable. It's pretty cut and dry. But on the same token the plot is presented in a more in-depth way than it's contemporaries.

Though for some reason, while the Japanese version had character profile images in the dialog boxes, these were removed for the US localization. Not a huge deal, but it does cause a little bit of a disconnect where you can't really see what the character looks like, rendering them down to just scrolling text. The game also has two endings, a good and a bad ending, which on you get depends on your actions in two levels, one where a desperate enemy commander tries to drop an orbital space fortress on Earth (ala Gundam colony drop), and the other where the enemy is attempting to launch a shuttle carrying critical payload.

Compared to the original Japanese version there was a bit of cut content in Cybernator, not to the extent of the butchering that happened to Castlevania Dracula X. Cut content includes:

• The previously mentioned character images in the dialogue boxes. 
• The vast majority of the radio chatter between Jake and his squadmates.
•  A scene depicting the European Union banner as the Axis flag.
• A scene where the enemy president commits suicide, via shooting himself in the head, once he realizes the war is lost, possibly an allusion to Adolf Hitler given the enemy side is called "Axis". 
• A post-credits radio transmission that hints to the events of Assault Suit Laynos (another game in the Assault Suit series. Laynos was renamed Target Earth for the international release and Valken takes place before Laynos).

A couple things with this. On one hand I wanted to score the plot a 3/5 due to the cut content, but I ultimately decided that 4/5 would be a more fair score. For one thing, cutting content from the original Japanese version for the international releases was just about par for the course during the '80s and into the early '90s. It wouldn't fair to apply 2017's standards (when this kind of thing wouldn't be tolerated) to the customs and regular practice of 1993. Second, even with the cut content, there was still more of a story presented than there was with the game's contemporaries.

Graphics and Visuals: 5

The graphics, while sprite based actually has quite a bit of detail in the Valken's animation. The arm will rotate to aim it's gunpod in the appropriate direction and the Valken will change it's posture depending on the angle the gunpod is pointed at. When jumping up, the Valken will actually look up, or while drifting back in the low gravity levels, the Valken's legs will swing forward to accompany the Assault Suit's backwards movement. The level of detail is such that you can even damage the environment. Shooting the ground in some level will actually cause the ground to "crater" with rudimentary damage modeling. Might not be a big deal now, but this is 1993 on the 16-bit SNES.

The game also makes use of a variety of colors, such as the screen grab to the right which depicts a boss battle amid an atmospheric re-entry. In contrast once arriving on Earth, one level has a more alpine setting.

The Valken as well as the enemies have smooth animation, as well as the screen scroll. The total package at the end is a game that looks great in these still screen grabs, and looks just as great in motion.

 Art and Music: 4
The art style has very strong anime influences. The Valken itself has a blocky design and bears a bit of a passing resemblance to the Scopedog Armored Trooper's (Armored Trooper VOTOMS) design style. The Valken also has a bit of a resemblance to the Wanzers of Front Mission. Unlike the flashier Mobile Suits and Variable Fighters, the Valken has a more utilitarian look to it, the way a tank would. It doesn't have any superfluous design features like an ornate fin on the head or spikes on the shoulders, nor does it have a high-vis paint scheme. It's a blocky, olive drab machine without any features that it doesn't need. If the Panzer IV or the M4A3E8 Sherman or the T-34 were reincarnated as mechs, the Assault Suit Valken would be it. 

Character design is provided by famed artist Satoshi Urushihara, known for various anime, and video games (bit of warning he also does hentai so if you run his name though a google search you might get some NSFW hits), and the game reflects his distinct style. Even rendered down to 16-bit, his style still stands out.

The music, well, the music is there and does well for the background tone and atmosphere. It does it's job, but compared to other music from the era, like Street Fighter II or Castlevania IV and Dracula X are much more memorable tracks than Cybernator's outing.  That's not to say the music in Cybernator is bad, but I quickly forgot about it after I finished the game.



Final Verdict: Worth Playing!

An excellent game that sets itself apart from other side-scroller run-and-gun arcade shooters of the era. It has great intuitive gameplay and a good challenge. It's not controller breaking Nintendo Hard, but it will put your skills to the test. It, alongside games like Castlevania IV are exemplar of the kind of quality that Konami once put out. If you're looking for a good 'ol fashioned old school action game, you won't go wrong on this one.

"Primal Eyes": Parasite Eve Review

Overall Score: 4.6/5

A

Parasite Eve came out in 1998, during SquareSoft's golden age that gave us games like Tobal No.1, Front Mission 3, Bushido Blade and Einhander (one of the reasons I remember the 32-bit era so fondly). PE introduced a unique RPG battle system in that it focused on modern firearms rather than swords, staves and mythical weapons. A battle system that unfortunately for what ever reason Square-Einx has not opted to bring back, be it in another entry in the series or implemented in another RPG.

Gameplay: 5
In a general sense, Parasite Eve's gameplay is rather typical of SquareSoft RPGs of the era. The battles occur in real time and player action is dictated by an Active Time Bar (the blue AT bar) that determines how often the player can act. The player is given both a set number of Hit Points (health) and "Parasite Energy" (basically magic) that increase as Aya level's up.

Where the gameplay deviates from other SquareSoft RPG's like the Final Fantasies and Xenogears is in two elements. The first is the player is able to move Aya around on a 2D plain. The player can maneuver her to dodge enemy attacks or place her in a more tactically advantageous position, such as moving around a corner to filter in and engage monsters one at a time, or moving to a position where you can hit multiple targets at once with a shotgun.

Second is the focus on gunplay. Unlike many RPGs where the weapons are more fantasy oriented, the gameplay here is focused on modern firearms, ranging from handguns, to rifles, to shotguns, sub-machine guns and even explosives like grenade launchers and rocket launchers. The the AT bar is filled and the player hits the action button a green hemisphere will appear that shows Aya's attack range with that particular weapon. From here the player can attack with their equipped gear, use an item or access Aya's superhuman "Parasite" abilities (spell casting). You'll also see a box that shows the number of shots the player can fire on a given turn, each shot can be independently targeted. However for balancing reasons, the total damage each gun does is an aggregate of all the shots, in other words the more shots you have, the less damage each individual shot will do, and you will also be locked in a shoot animation where the player is unable to move Aya about. But on the same token the more shots you have, is the more enemies you can attack.

Handguns are your basic weapon, Aya starts out with a Beretta M-84F (though official art has her depicted with a Beretta M-92, same handgun STARS carry in Resident Evil, as well as the weapon of choice for another detective, John McLane). Later on Aya will also have access to rifles, which naturally have greater range, and sub-machine guns which can attack more targets. These three all fire bullets that one hit one target. Aya will eventually also have access to shotguns and rocket launchers, which attacks have an Area of Effect (AoE) and can strike multiple targets in a single shot. There are also grenade launchers with have status effect attributes.

Each of the firearms in the game use ammunition, so it is possible (though very unlikely, the game isn't as stingy with providing the player ammo, as Resident Evil or Silent Hill are) to run out of ammo. In that event, police clubs, aka "nightsticks" make an appearnce and can be equipped as a last resort. However they are generally weak, have short range, and are slow, with Aya having to take a second to wind up her strike.

To further add depth, the player will come across weapons with special effects, such as Cyanide, which acts like inflicting poison on the target, or Dual Action where the player can act twice per turn without having to wait for the AT meter to fill to act again. Though, SquareSoft didn't stop there. The player is also able to customize their weapons by using Tools and Super Tools to move attributes from one weapon to another. For example, if you find a relatively weak handgun that has the Dual Action attribute, you can use a tool to move that attribute to your current weapon of choice, However if you use the basic Tool, the weapon you're moving the attributes from will be destroyed and you can only move one thing. In contrast, using the more rare Super Tool, the weapon with the attributes being moved from will be preserved.

As I mentioned Aya has her form of "magic", however these largely come in the form of support spells, such as health recover spells, or spells boosting defense or offense stats. Aya's primary form of attack are her firearms.

Outside of battle the game is more the typical RPG. There is an area to explore and within this area are items to find and things to interact with such as switches. Encounters on the "field" are semi-random. While you cannot see the monsters on screen, the way you can in other games such as Trails in the Sky, or the much later, Xenosaga, there are several fixed points in the field that will trigger an encounter. Once the monsters in these points are defeated then the player can pass though without being engaged, however if the player leaves that screen or flees from battle, that encounter point is still active.

Where the game does fall short though is there is a very limited number of places to explore. Instead of a world map, the player is warped to various parts of the city via a menu system. However while the game is short on exploration, it makes up for this to an extent with an EX Mode. In EX Mode the weapon and armor you had equipped in the last battle are carried over, though the biggest addition is access to the Chrysler Building. The floors of the building are randomly generated, the layout is maze like and all the areas look the same so it's very easy to get lost (I generally use graphing paper to make a map to keep from getting lost). Every 10 levels there is a boss encounter and a an express elevator the player can use to avoid having to trudge though the maze. At the top of the building is the true final boss and defeating this monster will lead to the canon ending.

I'd slam this point on more, but I can see what SquareSoft was doing with this. They wanted to put a bigger emphasis on storytelling. This ended up with a nice side effect of the player having to do next to no grinding. As long as the player is wise about their weapon upgrades, then just playing though the dungeon areas will net enough experience points to get though the boss at the end without too much trouble. In fact, only time I really did any grinding was gathering up the 300 pieces of "junk" needed to give to Wayne to get the one of several super-weapons in the game from him.


Stability: 5
I've played both the original PS1 disks and the digital version, and I've never had any sort of stability issues. No freezes, no crashes, no areas failing to load resulting in a can't advance. Nor have I had any memory card related issues. Never had data fail to load or fail to save (as long as you didn't open the trey or shut the system off when you're not supposed to), nor have I had any memory card data disappear for no reason.

Plot:4

The plot is centered around Asian-American (Japanese mother, American father) Detective Aya Brea of the New York Police Dept. and follows a bizarre occurrence in NYC during the 1997 holidays. The plot is something of a sequel/based on the book of the same name (the book's author Hideaki Sena even gave his approval of the game). The game makes references to the events in the book, and the scientist Maeda Kunihiko is specifically in NYC because the similarities between the on goings in NYC (the game) and the incident in Japan (the book) and is conducting an investigation of his own.

The plot to the book and the game follow the theory that the mitochondria in cells had once been a separate independent organism, but over time had been absorbed though a symbiotic relationship. Here the plot begins when in one individual, be it though a mutation or evolution, the mitochondria had once again become an independent organism and began controlling the it's surroundings, this entity being refereed to as "Eve" in reference to Mitochondrial Eve. This individual, a woman named Kiyomi Nagashima, was rendered brain dead in a car accident. Following the accident, her organs were harvested as she was a donor. Her liver was harvested and the cells within caused the events of the book were cultured from her liver. Her kidneys were donated to a woman named Mariko, who would eventually move to the United States and marry an American...

There is some time discrepancies, but it is implied that Mariko from the book is Aya's mother. Chalk up the discrepancies to "retconning" when the events happened.

Mariko would have two daughters, Maya and Aya (seriously...?), unfortunately Mariko and Maya were involved in a fatal car accident, leaving Aya to be raised by her father. Mariko had listed herself and her daughters as donors (something very familiar about all this...), Maya's kidney went to a girl named Melissa Pierce while her cornea went to Aya to cure a defect in her eye.

Fast forward twenty something years...

Eve once again awakens, this time within Melissa and sets out to do what she attempted to do in Japan decades prior. Standing in her way is Aya Brea, who's own mitochondria had evolved in a different direction, granting her immunity to Eve's cellular manipulations and super-human abilities. As Eve carries out her machinations, Aya is hot on her heels, determined to stop her.  Though the course of the game, as with the book, Eve sets out to birth the "Ultimate Being", a creature to supplant humanity.

Aya herself is cast from the same mold as Jill Valentine or Claire Redfield. She's tough and determined and she's portrayed as confident. She has a good rapport with her partner, NYPD veteran detective Daniel Dollis, and the relation is somewhat similar to Martin Riggs and Roger Murtaugh. Aya is the younger less experienced half (though she's not a suicidal loose cannon the way Riggs was early on), and Daniel is the older seasoned veteran. In fact Daniel's character design is clearly influenced by Danny Glover's appearance in the movie.

As a police officer, she had a strong sense of duty, and when things go side-ways, while everyone is running away, she's running in the opposite direction. Aya is certainly not someone who needs to be saved when things go wrong. Her personality is also quite down to Earth and she doesn't go around with an inflated ego. She doesn't claim to be a hero or anything of the sort. While it is mentioned in the instruction booklet (yeah remember those?) that she can be stubborn, we don't see her being a bitch.

We also see a softer side of her when it comes to children or people in need. She's always warm and kind towards Daniel's son Ben, coming off as a sort of big sister figure to him, and she always tries to aid those she comes across in need, even if their injuries are undoubtedly fatal. On the same token she can also be sarcastic, especially towards people that show any romantic interest in her. Though whether this is just her way of shooting down advances or her being too thick headed to noticed the interest isn't really elaborated on.

  

Graphics and Visuals: 4
The in game graphics and visuals are certainly some of the best on the original PlayStation. Taking cues from Resident Evil, that backgrounds are all prerendered, allowing the developers to have a very detailed setting. However, for better or for worse, this gives Aya's on field model and objects to interact with a strange sort of glow, or brightness that cause them to stand out. On one hand it looks a bit strange, but on the other hand, it helps the player in that they're less likely to miss items, especially key items, and they'll never lose track of where Aya is on the screen. Aya's animation on screen though isn't quite as smooth as we see later on in Final Fantasy VIII or even in the earlier Resident Evil. In some instances the distance she moves doesn't quite match the strides she takes in her animations, resulting in making her look like she's running on ice or something.

As with Final Fantasy VII, Parasite Eve makes pretty extensive use of CGI movie cut scenes. The visuals in these cut scenes is somewhere between FFVII and FFVIII's movies. While not as detailed as FFVIII's it was certainly some of the best at the time the game came out. Though the actual animation though is pretty smooth. It doesn't get fuzzy and low res looking, nor is the animation choppy, like what you would see on those FMV "games" we saw on the Sega CD.

Speaking of the FMV cut scenes there was one that was kind of odd. We see an F-15E Strike Eagle taking off from an aircraft carrier and being escorted by a pair of AV-8B Harrier IIs. For those who don't know, the F-15E is a US Air Force fighter and not capable of operating from a US Navy carrier and the Harrier is operated by the US Marine Corp from amphibious assault ships. Would have made more sense if it was a flight USN F/A-18C Hornets. I suppose I should leave this one alone since not everyone reads up on military history and weapons systems as I do, but on the same token Metal Gear Solid came out around the same time and Hideo Kojima damn sure did his homework on military gear in that game. I mean hell was it that hard to find a book in the library, find a picture of some random USN aircraft carrier and look at what planes are sitting on it's deck? Especially with parts of the development staff here in the US?


Art and Music: 5
Aya's character design is one of my favorite heroine designs. While promo art has her in some risque poses, being in topless or nude (but still tasteful) positions, in game she's not presented in any sexual sort of way. Which tells me that was more of a decision of marketing rather than the developers and their intentions for the character. Sex sells after all so lets make Aya sexy in the promo materials.

She's often seen in art wearing an evening dress, but that's because when she first appears in the game she's going to an opera on a date. For most of the game though she wears a very practical outfit consisting of a black leather jacket, a white shirt, jeans and black boots. She doesn't go around showing off cleavage, or in a very short mini-skirt. On that note, the other appeal of her character design is that she has a more realistic proportions, she doesn't have huge D+ sized boobs, nor does she have an exaggerated butt. She's probably about as far as you can get from Tetsuya Nomura's other heroine design, Tifa Lockhart.

This comes together to make a very believable and realistic design. She looks like how you'd expect a plain-clothes police detective might look. In a sense without exaggerated proportions or flashy outfits, Aya's design is kind of an "everywoman" sort of design, she looks like someone you could (and probably have encountered someone who looks a bit like her) run into in the streets.

The soundtrack to Parasite Eve has more of a dark and brooding tone to it. Opera style singing is often used in music and scenes associated with Eve, while the battle themes are faster paced more electronic sounding, which according to composer Yoko Shimomura, were influenced by American nightclub music, when her and game's development staff visited several. The result is a soundtrack that has a tone that's like something between SquareSoft's flagship title Final Fantasy, and Einhander. Given that several of the tracks were influenced by nightclub music, the soundtrack is certainly a product of it's time (the late '90s), but I wouldn't call that a bad thing given that the music really fits the game.

Final Verdict: Must buy for RPG fans.
Often games from the 16 and 32-bit era would be pointed out as needing an HD remake. Re-released with graphical updates, but leaving the gameplay alone. Parasite Eve is easily one of those games deserving such treatment.

The firearms based RPG battle system certainly brings something unique to the table. Nothing really seen before it and nothing really seen again since. This is one I highly recommend, the game can be had digitally from the PlayStation Store for $5.99