Product

Marvel Ultimate Alliance

Platform

PlayStation 2

Publisher

Activison

Rating

★★★☆☆

Summary

A fun multiplayer beat-em-up with RPG elements, Though inferior to it’s predecessor in several ways.

Review

Marvel Ultimate Alliance is the sequel, of sorts, to X-Men Legends 2. Like the X-Men Legends games, Ultimate Alliance is an action RPG, where you plough through enemies to acquire experience points, money and items to upgrade your characters with. You can have up to four player characters at one time, with those not currently controlled by a player being handled by the computer. You can change which character you are controlling at any time, but most players will have a favourite that they will use as much as possible.

Ultimate Alliance is a superhero game, and every character has a slew of special abilities, including flight, super strength, electrical blasts and magic. The characters are an eclectic mix, drawn from throughout the Marvel universe. They range from mutants of the X-Men to Thor, the god of thunder. As a superhero game there are other things the characters can do, such as destroying the scenery, throwing large objects and throwing enemies around. Every character has a range of basic punches, kicks and grapples he can perform.

The settings, like the characters, come from all over the place. They include giant helicopters, alien cities, Atlantis(why is there always an underwater level?) and Aesguard, home of the norse gods.

Compared to X-Men Legends 2, the game system is substantially improved. You can now rearrange your characters skill points freely, rather than having to spend a big lump of cash for the privilege. This means you always have quick access to all of your character’s powers. Also, the grapple feature, where you can grab enemies to punch their lights out, throw them of ledges, or disarm them wasn’t present in X-Men Legends 2. However, I find the storyline and setting for X-Men Legends 2 to be superior. The eclectic mix of characters and locations is less satisfying than the dark and gritty setting with just the X-Men. The environments if Mavel Ultimate Alliance seem to be much less interactive than the earlier game. Less stuff will break, fewer things for super-strong characters to throw around, that kind of thing.

Like most ‘hack-and-slash’ RPGs, Ultimate Alliance is much, much more fun as a multiplayer game. While the computer can control up to three characters, it’s just much more fun with someone beside you. It’s a shame that a couple of required mini-games are one-player only.

Overall, Marvel Ultimate Alliance is a fun multi-player game that doesn’t quite live up to it’s predecessor.

★★★☆☆

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Product

Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army

Platform

PlayStation 2

Publisher

Koei

Rating

★★★★☆

Summary

A stylish action-rpg, but the challenge is lacking somewhat

Review

Often described as ‘evil Pokémon’, the Megami Tensei series pre-dates that game by more than a decade. Few of the Megami Tensei have been seen in the English speaking world, after all, one can imagine how a game that presents God’s Law and Lucifer’s Chaos as equally valid sides to choose would go down in America, even if said game shows much more of Judeo-Christian mythology than most Christians know (Satan and Lucifer are not the same! Satan is God’s angel of death, not even a fallen angel!).

Anyhow, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army is an action RPG set in 1920’s Japan. The games protagonist, Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th, is a Devil Summoner with the ancestral duty of protecting the Capital. Of course, mundane matters can be left to the police, as a Devil Summoner your dealings are with the occult. As a pretext for snooping around in mysterious happenings, you are given a job as part of a private detective agency. Your first case opens with a girl calling for help. You meet her on a bridge and she comes forward with an unusual request: to kill her. And at that moment she is kidnapped right before your eyes. Such begins a long story Involving monsters, demons and even the army.

The core gameplay is, of course, combat. Raidou is armed with a katana, with which he can perform a few different moves: A lunging thrust, a spin attack and a regular attack that can be used in a three-hit combo. He also has a gun, which does less damage generally, but can be loaded with varying types of elemental bullets. Raidou can also block attacks with great effect, and attempt to confine a demon into one of his demon tubes.

You can also have a demon fight alongside you in battle. In the Megami Tensei universe, ‘demon’ is a general term for supernatural creatures. Everything from gods to fairies are ‘demons’. Demons are drawn from a wide range of cultures, however the ones in Raidou Kuzunoha are mostly Japanese, with a smattering of Judeo-Christian angels (such as ‘Throne’ and ‘Power’), and a few others besides (Thor is one of the top-tier demons). Having the right demon beside you is important. A demon hit on a weak point (such as most ‘Pyro’ class demons vs. ice damage) will not only take big damage, but will also stand stunned for a bit. A demon that its hitting it’s enemies on their weak points, on the other hand, will rapidly build up ‘tension’ that will let you use a powerful combo attack.

Stunning enemy demons by hitting their weak spot also opens them up to being ‘confined’ by Raidou, turning them into allies. The easiest way to stun them is to use the appropriate shot in your gun. Once you’ve done that all it takes is a simulated tug-o’-war to make the demon your own, if you’re strong enough to control it.

Combat can be quite challenging, but once you’re set up with a couple of demons with ‘Dia’ class spells for healing, the risk isn’t quite as present. Still, a charm spell at the wrong time and it could all be over. The controls seem slightly slow to respond. The fact that there is a moment’s delay between pushing on the control stick and Raidou turning has caused many a swing at empty air.

Outside of combat, you’re mostly running around talking to people. Random encounters come frequently, but combat is engaging enough that I was only cursing them rarely. Demons have field abilities to help with your investigations. Some can fly, or crawl into tight spaces. More importantly, some can read minds, or calm down a hot-head.

A final use for demons is to be fused. Fusing two demons together makes a new demon that may inherit some of the skills of the demons used to make it. A demon can be sacrifice-fused to make another demon stronger, and finally, a demon can be forge-fused into your sword to make it, and Raidou, stronger. You can always confine the demons you need to progress, so fusing is optional, however forge-fusing is the only way to get a stronger sword.

Graphically, it holds up amongst other late Playstation 2 games. The visual style is impressive and is carried through consistently. The music isn’t the greatest game soundtrack ever, but it sets the mood well. The whole thing is styled much like an old detective show, split into 12 episodes. The storyline is very interesting, but, unfortunately, much is left unexplained, even at the end.

Ultimately, I rate this game above-average. With it’s action-rpg system and simplified fusion system, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army is probably the most accessible of the Megami Tensei series. If you haven’t played a Megami Tensei game before and think that the heavy occult-nes of it all sound intriguing, or have played one but found the complex systems and/or the turn based combat a turn-off, give this one a try. If you have played other games in the series, then this is Shin Megami Tensei lite with an action combat system.

★★★★☆

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