Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne Vs Rouge Galaxy

So it's been a long week as I've been moving home and looking for work, lol. Here's this week's games!

Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne (Nocturne)

This series is better known for the Persona titles, which is still comparatively underground when you compare it to say, Final Fantasy. Nocturne was released by Atlus for the PS2, the story of the game pits the player in Post-Apocalyptic Tokyo in which they are thrust into a war between multiple factions are they are given a choice to side with a faction or ultimately destroy everything. The game itself breathes new life into the tired old concept of turn-based combat as well as putting a deliciously dark spin on the usual JRPG narrative by not only providing choices to the player which ultimately determine how the game will end, but by more adult themes being prevalent in the experience.

Inter-franchise character development FTW!

What I personally loved about the game was the interweaving of the audiovisual experience by way of the music as well as the press-turn battle system in which the battle turns in your favor by taking advantage of the enemy's elemental weaknesses. The other pluses the game includes are the minimalistic visual style, which ensures that even though the game is polygonal, it will age a lot better than a game that had cutting edge visuals for it's time but which are now almost painful to look at e.g. FFVII. Fantastic work Atlus, bring on SMT 4!

Rogue Galaxy

Developed by Level 5, which received high acclaim for Dark Cloud and Dark Chronicle, this game came as a surprise to many RPG fans and also garnered mixed reactions. Unfortunately, over a long time period, I have come to see this game as one of the most disappointing games ever made. The story follows Jaster Rogue, a young man on a Desert planet with aspirations to become a Space Pirate and the people he meets on the way. Everything about this game appealed to me upon reading the package alone:

• Over 100 hours of incredibly varied gameplay

• Journey through space, exploring huge, detailed worlds

• Use hundreds of customizable weapons in real time combat

And at this very moment, the sounds of 10'000 Mary-Sue Jack Sparrow fangirls thighs quivering deafened the universe.

Now for all intensive purposes, RG delivers on these promises. Unfortunately, there was no incentive for me to go beyond 30 hours of gameplay as the items you received that varied the gameplay were only planet specific, so for example, you'd find yourself navigating laser-beam platforms in the first area of the game, but nowhere else. The other shortcoming for the game 'which I felt was a fatal flaw', was the fact that story was just far too predictable, even for your standard 'good vs evil' JRPG, the fact that the game was virtually flawless on every other aspect just served to sadden me more, as it was all for naught. Jaster's journey, in my eyes, ended before it could begin.

The Winner:

Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne

Ryu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza) Vs Hybrid Heaven

In this week's edition of Carlos vs The Vidya: Two games made by two of Japan's most popular developers! Let's take a look...

Ryu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza)

Released by Sega for the PS2, Yakuza is a 3-rd person adventure game which has been said by many players, a spiritual sequel to Sega's previous Adventure franchise, Shenmue. The game itself takes place in the Japanese underworld, involving street gangs, drug trafficking, the sex trade and of course, the Yakuza. Our hero is Kazuma Kiryu, who willingly takes the fall for his best friend for killing their boss. After coming out of Prison, Kazuma is left putting together the pieces of the last 10 years to find out what happened to his friends.

This game even makes shopping for groceries look good!

Sega is one of the biggest names in Japanese gaming, and it's easy to see why this game has rapidly attained the same level of fame as Square-Enix's 'Dragon Quest'. The gameplay itself is a very deep beat-em-up affair with slight RPG elements such a building up skills and a multitude of sidequests which range from dating hostess girls to winning a game of Mahjong, the presentation, atmosphere and ambience work exceedingly well in telling the story of a hardened Yakuza on his quest for answers and subsequent revenge. As one of Japan's current most popular franchises, this lives up to the hype.

Hybrid Heaven

This game was released by Konami, another highly acclaimed Japanese developer famous for their Silent Hill, Metal Gear and Bemani franchises. What this game had going for it were the epic trailers of a fight scene followed by a man jumping over a ledge that were playing at gaming conventions in the late 90's, therefore sparking discussion on the further untapped potential of the Nintendo 64 as well as helping the masses of optimistic fanboys feel better for Nintendo continuing to make games on cartridges.

Not quite what you were expecting now, was it!?

Unfortunately in Hybrid Heaven's case, it was all a lie, as it turns out the trailer that was shown was CGI footage that the N64 would never be able to handle in real-time. And the game itself is hugely underwhelming. The combat was a mixture of real-time movement combined with menu-based combat choices which involved the player picking what side they were using (left or right), the height of the attack (high, middle or low) and the type of attack (punch, kick or grab). Everything else was conveyed by a clunky control scheme and messy camera angles. At the end of the day the only redeeming feature is if you're a 'Metal Gear' junkie as the main character, Johnny Slater, is a recurring joke character in the MGS series.

Thank you Konami, for realising the error of your ways and for keeping quiet about this abomination of a title.

Winner: Yakuza