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Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

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RogerRoger

@mookysam Thank you! Although thinking about it, my cautionary tale would only be of real use to the most determined of webheads, as the game (along with all of the Spidey games published by They Who Must Not Be Named) got de-listed a while back, and is difficult to track down as a result.

Yeah, it was the LEGO games I was primarily thinking about back there. Like I said, those weren't too much of a problem for me, because it meant I got two different versions of something I was looking forward to, and could play them back-to-back without fear of identical repetition. It's still odd, though, because the Vita was supposed to be capable of so much more, and it shines a light on some of Sony's marketing hype for the machine when you realise that, actually, it fared better when presenting lesser versions of a game well, rather than greater versions of a game badly. I do love my Vita, always have, but you're absolutely right about it being an "awkward, undefined midway point" of a console, bless its heart.

And yes, I think you've just identified one of the major reasons why the Vita wasn't more successful; its third-party library was either safe and underwhelming, or pushing the console's capability beyond its comfort zone, and neither approach sold well enough to justify continued investment and refinement. I mean, there are some brands that transcend quality and top the charts regardless, and Spidey's certainly one of 'em, so for him to arrive so late and fall so flat says it all, really.

Thanks again for reading, and glad you enjoyed some of my savage honesty!

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@Ralizah My thanks! Yeah, I've reviewed a couple of open-world Spidey games before, and wanted to take a different approach this time, so I'm grateful for the feedback. Parts of it ended up being an analysis of the Vita itself more than anything, which I enjoyed thinking about.

Gravity Rush is on my "must replay this year" list because, whilst I remember really enjoying the experience, its details are hazy. It's gonna be interesting comparing the different approaches to making a game succeed on the Vita, rather than just trying to make it work. And yes, I've seen a lot of discussion drawing parallels between the Vita and the Switch (just before posting, I went back and edited one of the opening lines in the above, because I initially called the Vita "the most powerful handheld ever created" without acknowledging how the Switch has blurred the distinction in recent years). I guess The Amazing Spider-Man is kinda like the Vita's answer to The Witcher III on Switch, which I recall you reviewed a while back, astounded that the game even runs on the hardware at all, let alone how well (or badly).

That's a nice way of looking at handheld gaming. Honestly, despite it being true that I only play them in shorter bursts, I was trying to be a bit objective with that point, because I'm super-precious about my handhelds, and they never leave my apartment. I still think that it would've been better had Beenox broken up the long, linear story missions into smaller chunks, simply because it'd then be a matter of player choice to complete one, two or seven of 'em in a single session.

And, er... "pride", yes, let's use that word!

It's the flaw in my curiosity about such things; when I was reading about the game and realised it'd been ported to Vita, I was all, "How would that work? Would it even be playable?!" and watching clips on YouTube didn't answer every question I had, so in that instant it became inevitable that I'd end up playing it for myself someday. I've learned to surrender to such moments!

The Vita has a hidden screenshot function. You press the PS button and Start at the same time, and it takes a snapshot of the screen, saving it to the console's Photo app. There are then multiple ways to get them off the flippin' thing, and all of 'em are needlessly complicated, but it's doable. Let's just say that my PC's Vita screenshot folder will never be as extensive as my PS4 or PS5 ones!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Ralizah

@RogerRoger When the device a game is on ends up heavily influencing the experience, for better or worse, you kinda can't treat the software as if it's abstracted from the machine it's running on. Anyway, I'm a big fan of talking about games in terms of their historical context, which includes the devices that host them.

Haha, I saw that 'most powerful dedicated handheld line' and couldn't resist thinking: "Well, axtually, the Switch Lite is a dedicated handheld and is also way more powerful," but I get where you're coming from. A dedicated handheld that was only a dedicated handheld and not a budget revision of a device marketed as a home console by Nintendo. But yeah, one can recall the other easily, as both carried the flame of hosting home console-esque experiences on a handheld device.

Given it's Gravity Rush 2's fifth anniversary, I'm actually mulling over playing both games again on my PS4. I never fully beat Gravity Rush Remastered, and I'd love to get the platinum trophy for both games. As much as I love the series, I always felt a little betrayed that Sony moved development of the sequel over to the PS4, but now I'm just sad that it's gone and we'll never get another Japan Studio game again.

Oh, totally, I'm a big fan of 'portable-friendly' game design, even on home consoles. Certainly on any device that can be used away from the house, as some people really do use it as a way to pass the time on buses and such. Personally, I'm too self-conscious to play video games in public, but I've also always been a person who's borderline neurotic on that front with everything. It's become a running joke in my household that I must be 'hiding something' because I close my laptop when anyone's walking nearby and practically break out in a cold sweat any time someone asks to use a device of mine.

I've become a bigger fan over the years of playing games on... shall we say... sub-optimal platforms at times. Partially as a check on any tendency toward performance snobbery that might possess me, and also out of pure curiosity. Everyone knows Resident Evil 2 ran fine on a PS1, but how much more fascinating is it that the game was ported to the N64, despite the vastly different storage capabilities of that system's cartridges? Ditto with Witcher 3 on Switch, and Spider-Man and Resident Evil Revelations 2 on Vita.

I feel so stupid for asking. I literally have thousands of screenshots in my Vita's image gallery. I guess, since I just never bother exporting those pictures to my PC these days, I kinda... didn't think about the fact that you could do that.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

RogerRoger

@Ralizah That's a good point. I also noticed that we have very few Vita reviews in this topic, so I figured it'd be helpful to talk a little about the console in conjunction with its games. I don't feel the need to give context about the PS4's capabilities, for example, because it's kind of a given that everybody here has one and knows what it can (and can't) do!

Darn, I forgot about the Switch Lite! [hangs head in shame] Although...

Ralizah wrote:

A dedicated handheld that was only a dedicated handheld and not a budget revision of a device marketed as a home console by Nintendo.

...thank you for effectively demonstrating that there's a limit to how specific you can make a description before it becomes too unwieldy!

I very nearly grabbed Gravity Rush Remastered instead of planning to replay the Vita original, but my desire to spend more time with my Vita this year stopped me (and yes, it stings that A: the Vita lost a great exclusive and then B: we lost Japan Studio entirely). That being said, if I have enough fun, I can totally see myself grabbing Gravity Rush 2 at some point, as I've never played it before. If you do end up giving them a second shot, I'd love to read your thoughts. No pressure, mind!

Same. I think I tried playing my PSP on a train once, but I got really self-conscious and uncomfortable, so didn't make much progress on... oh, it must've been a Star Wars game (because hi, I'm RogerRoger). I also don't like sharing my tech either, although I'm at a slight advantage given that I live alone. Nobody can see me fastidiously clean my Vita after every single session, even if I was only using it for ten minutes and didn't have to touch the screen. As a fan of cinematic games, I do appreciate longer sequences that hold my attention, but do agree that it's better when things can be broken up into smaller chunks, without shattering immersion. Life always seems to roll on around us regardless!

For me, there's an element of "Well, I've got all these consoles, so I might as well use 'em!" alongside that same curiosity you describe. With regards these third-party, multi-platform licenced games, I try to avoid duplicates of truly identical titles; it's one thing if you've got a PS3 game and its DS counterpart, because they're gonna have to be totally different gameplay experiences, but when you go from a late-gen PS2 game to its slightly-fuzzier-but-otherwise-identical PSP port I find that there's less to be learned, no matter how impressive some of the technicalities might be. But yeah, the bigger the difference in hardware, the more interesting some versions become. I had no idea Resident Evil 2 made it to the N64, for example! How'd they manage that?! Now I'm gonna have to look up a comparison on YouTube!

Don't feel stupid; because it's a hidden function, I always forget that the Vita can take screenshots, too. You can't export them to a PC any more, either, not unless you've still got the old media management proprietary program installed, and even then it might not work. I had to connect my Vita to my PS3, copy them over, and then use a USB to get them from my PS3 to my PC. Phew!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

LtSarge

Mass Effect Andromeda (PS4) - Review

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The Mass Effect series is a Sci-Fi action RPG about exploring planets, befriending alien races and saving the universe from destruction. It’s an extremely beloved franchise, mainly thanks to its trilogy of titles where your choices matter and they carry over to the next game as well as a vast cast of memorable characters. However, today we’ll be looking at the series’ latest entry, Andromeda, which wasn’t received particularly well when it launched in 2017 due to many technical issues. The question is then, how well does this game hold up years later?

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Unlike the previous games, this one doesn’t take place in the Milky Way galaxy, but instead in Andromeda. The alien species of Milky Way have joined together to create a project called “The Initiative” where the purpose is to explore a new galaxy. You’ll be playing as Ryder, either male or female, who later on becomes the Pathfinder. The goal of the Pathfinder is to find new planets for The Initiative residents to settle on. When you arrive to Andromeda, you’ll learn that the trip has taken over 600 years, the majority of the residents are still in cryo-sleep and you’ve encountered a hostile alien race. On top of this, you’re forced to land on a planet which you thought was habitable based on prior research but apparently is not. Your job then is to find a way to fight back against this new alien species and restore the previously thought habitable planets to a better state.

The reasons behind leaving isn’t actually explained in the main story but instead through unlocking fragments of your AI companion’s memories as you progress through the game. As a Pathfinder, you have an AI implanted in you in order to perform tasks that a regular human isn’t able to do. That’s how you’ll be able to restore the planets as they all contain so called Remnant technology that is able to terraform the planets and the only way to access the technology is through your AI companion.

Throughout your journey, you’ll meet several characters that will join your team. To begin with, you have two human teammates, Liam and Cora, that were with you as you arrived in Andromeda. Later on you’ll befriend Vetra; a turian, Drack; a krogan, Peebee; an asari, and lastly Jaal; who’s an angara, one of the new alien species that you’ve discovered in this galaxy. Contrary to the previous games, you have a much smaller crew overall and besides your teammates, there are also Kallo and Suvi; the pilots, Gil; the engineer and Lexi; the doctor. Because of how small your crew is this time around, it’s been very easy forming strong bonds with them and at the end of the game, you’ve basically become a family.

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This is the one of the key improvements from the main trilogy that makes Andromeda stand out to me. The games used to constantly introduce new characters and that made it hard for me to become attached to everyone. Andromeda focuses on fewer characters and ultimately the results turns out much better. Add the fact that you can spend over 60 hours playing this game, doing epic story missions, memorable loyalty missions with your teammates and general side quests that genuinely felt meaningful, and you’ll be spending a lot of time getting to know your friends.

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This brings me to my next point, which is that this game does an outstanding job of feeding information to you about your teammates in a natural way. This mostly happens through chatter, which occurs when you’re out exploring planets in your Nomad vehicle or on your spaceship the Tempest. Your teammates will constantly have new things to talk about and as you pair them with other members, they will have different things to say. This aspect truly brings the game to life and makes for a more immersive experience.

Speaking of planets, another thing this game did a better job at compared to its predecessors was making huge open worlds that were more detailed and filled with meaningful things to do. That’s always been something the previous titles haven’t been able to achieve. After all, the series is all about exploring a galaxy with different planets, which gives you the expectation that there will be massive areas to explore. They tried doing this in the first Mass Effect, but the planets were mostly empty. That’s not the case at all in Andromeda and I can say that I absolutely loved exploring the open worlds in this game. As you progress through the story, you’ll discover planets with different biomes such as desert, ice, jungle and bog. You’ll be able to help out the inhabitants with various missions, clear our enemy bases, and ultimately restore the planets to a better state.

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One thing that’s impressed me is the game design. There are five primary planets that you’ll explore and at first you’d think they’ll all be massive in scope. The first two planets are, but then you get to the third one and you realise that it’s very small. So small that you don’t need a vehicle to traverse it, you can just walk around. That’s something that I appreciate as it’s such a breath of fresh air compared to sticking to a strict formula. Because the last two planets are also fairly large in size, so I was very glad to see that they made the third one small. And I’ve also noticed other great aspects of the game design. Throughout the game, you’ll be restoring the planet by connecting Remnant structures. At first you do this by solving Sudoku puzzles (which I absolutely adore!) but later on you don’t need to do anything other than activate them with the push of a button. In the final phase of restoring the planet, you’ll gain access to a Vault and here you’ll have to do different things each time in order to clear them. Again, I just like the fact that the game doesn’t follow a strict level of design of forcing you to do the same thing over and over. It kept my playthrough interesting from beginning to end.

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Subsequently, I just loved being a Pathfinder in this game compared to a Spectre in the previous ones. Each time you build a new outpost on a planet or rescuing an alien species, you'll be praised by your leaders. Because the work you're doing is actually meaningful: you're contributing to the survival of your people. That's why I find the missions and the side quests in this game to be more satisfying in general compared to the main trilogy. Getting constant praise in this game for all the work I've done as a Pathfinder just motivates me even more to keep playing.

Moving on to the gameplay side of things, once again, it’s a vast improvement compared to the predecessors. The series has always been a cover-based shooter with limited movement and that’s something that I didn’t really like. However, Andromeda has added the ability to jump, hover and dash, and those three things alone make the gameplay so much better. You’re allowed to move around more freely, which makes battles more dynamic. On top of this, you’re also able to hotkey three weapon abilities to the shoulder buttons. Since I decided to focus on a biotics build, I had powers such as singularity, shockwave and charge mapped and all of this combined made for some truly exhilarating battles, which I will demonstrate below:

Another thing worth mentioning is that this time around, you don’t choose a class from the beginning and stick with it until the end of the game, like in the previous titles. Instead, you have access to all of them at any time and depending on which areas you decide to spend your skill points on, you’ll increase the rank of that class, granting you more powerful stats. So as I previously mentioned, I went with a biotics build, which enabled me to level up the Adept class that specialises in biotics. At any time though I can switch to another one, for example Vanguard, and use it instead. In other words, you can focus on multiple classes and there’s even an option to switch classes during battles. This is a huge change for the series’ formula and a most welcoming one for people who want more choices in terms of combat styles.

In terms of music, the series really isn’t known for its soundtrack as there are barely any standout tracks to begin with. The only song I remember from the trilogy is the “Uncharted Worlds” theme that you hear when navigating the systems. There is a theme like it in Andromeda, but I didn’t find it as memorable.

One thing I’d like to close off with before the verdict is this game’s messaging. The most important thing this game teaches you throughout your playthrough is to respect and befriend all kinds of species (the real world analogy being the different human ethnicities). This was true of the original trilogy as well, but the fact that you arrive to a new galaxy together with other species and then discover a new species that’s already cautious of other ones due to a poor encounter with a previous one emphasises this aspect even more. As a human, we’re helping out other species we arrived with because we’re in this together, so it doesn’t matter what you look like or who you are. If an asari and a human are in danger, I wouldn’t simply choose to save the human just because I’m a human. Everyone is treated as an equal. And then showing the new species that not all species are bad shows that we can form strong bonds despite all the bad stuff that’s happened. I just love this game’s messaging, it teaches you this so naturally that it absolutely doesn’t feel forced and because you’re spending so much time with the game, it just grows on you. I feel like if there ever was a cure for racism, this game would be it. I’d just let those kinds of people play this game and see how their view of the world changes.

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So as an overall package, I found Mass Effect Andromeda to be the best game in the series. While I didn’t like the story as much as in Mass Effect 3, the game delivers much improved character interactions, more open worlds with lots of things to do in them and a massively improved gameplay system. It took me 66 hours to complete the story and the majority of the side quests. You could easily finish it in 20-30 hours, but I highly encourage you to spend more time with it. Because unlike the previous Mass Effect games, which would only take around 30 hours to complete, you can spend more time getting to know the characters better and the world around you in general. That has always been something I’ve wanted to do more of in the series, so I’m glad that Andromeda is much longer than its predecessors. Some games just get more appealing to play if they take a long time to complete (Persona, Trails of Cold Steel, Mass Effect and so on).

To round off this review, I’d like to show a clip of one of my favourite moments in this game and hopefully you’ll get a better idea for why I love it so much.

Edited on by LtSarge

LtSarge

Th3solution

@LtSarge Nice review and appropriate since the EA Play is on sale, and I was considering subscribing to 3 months with the thought of trying to get through the Mass Effect trilogy again and maybe even finally try Andromeda.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Ralizah

@LtSarge Outstanding write-up and screenshots! This is definitely one I've heard a few people say wasn't as bad as its reputation suggested for years now, so it's definitely going on my to-play list after I play through the remastered trilogy.

I guess the flipside of that is that ME Andromeda has been perpetually cheap for years, so finding a copy to add to my PS4 backlog shouldn't be difficult at all.

I'm glad to hear they spruced up the planet exploration with some variety. While the planet exploration was a cool idea in ME1, you're right that it always landed you on the same patch of samey wasteland with an enemy encampment to explore. They should have improved on this system in ME2, but instead they opted for the lame minigame where you scanned planets to collect resources.

Will absolutely be adding this to my eventual to-play list for when I clear through the remastered trilogy.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

RogerRoger

@LtSarge That's a cracking Mass Effect: Andromeda review up there! Great use of screenshots throughout, as well, and I enjoyed seeing your others over in the screenshot topic, too!

Glad to see your bond with your shipmates didn't wear thin, and that you've come away enamoured with the connections your Ryder forged with them. Andromeda has some amazing support characters who all faced an uphill struggle in the wake of an entire trilogy of favourites, so in my opinion they did an even better job making them so endearing so quickly. I also agree that the role of Pathfinder is more interesting than that of Spectre. Don't get me wrong, it was fun to be a free agent, zipping about and making galaxy-wide political decisions with a gun, but the complexities of the Pathfinder role are more fluid and open to interpretation. After all, you're the alien this time around, and colonialism is a tricky subject. I did feel some of the major choices were designed to generate artificial tension, but then I've always felt that about BioWare games; still, the one where you could either destroy the kett facility with all the angara inside or leave it standing to free them felt particularly stupid. Same with some of the romance options, which were equally frustrating for different reasons.

My only other problem with Andromeda is its soundtrack, which you also addressed. Outside of that gorgeous main menu theme, the whole thing felt generic and forgettable, or was just straight-up M.I.A. at times. I've come to expect better from John Paesano (although I gather it was a collaborative score, which'd make sense). It's funny that you should share the bar fight scene as a story highlight, because that's one I specifically felt could've used a bit more punch (pun semi-intended) so, back when I had more free time and no backlog to speak of, I played around with it in SHAREfactory to satisfy my nerdy curiosity.

You really got to grips with everything the gameplay had to offer, especially in terms of all those fancy combat abilities! That first clip is almost unrecognisable to me, as I'm one of those boring people who picks a pistol and stands way back, going for headshots. I don't think I've ever been a biotic in any Mass Effect game before, so I'm in awe of those who can warp around a battlefield, doing what you did there!

Anyway, like I said, excellent review and real glad you connected with Andromeda as much as you did, as it's criminally underrated and definitely overshadowed by its launch catastrophe. Calling it the best Mass Effect game is high praise indeed and, even if I don't personally agree with that sentiment, I can totally see where you're coming from! Fingers crossed for Mass Effect 4 now, eh?!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

LtSarge

Apologies for the late replies everyone. I haven't been in the mood to talk about the game the last few days due to fatigue after having spent so many hours playing it as well as writing the review.

@Th3solution Thank you! I think you could probably play through the entire trilogy in three months for sure, so go for it! If you have the time to play Andromeda as well, then that's just icing on the cake!

@Ralizah Thanks! Yeah, in the back of my mind, I've always thought this was going to be a good game despite what others have said. Because the main complaints have always been about launch issues, but it's been five years since the game launched so surely they've polished it since then. And while I did encounter several bugs, the majority of my 60+ hours with the game was experienced without any issues. Some may not remember this, but even Mass Effect 2 had numerous bugs. I vividly remember getting stuck on one planet and not being able to progress, so I had to revert to a previous save file.

Keep in mind though that you're still scanning planets for XP, minerals and so on in Andromeda. But I rarely felt the need to do that. While I do want them to remove this aspect of the series in future entries, I think it's needed for the increased immersion, i.e. you're exploring many systems with planets in them.

But yeah, definitely give this game a go after you've finished the trilogy. Would love to hear other people's thoughts on it after giving it a proper try.

@Bentleyma Thank you! And yeah, I couldn't believe they actually had a scene like that in this game. It just made me love it even more!

@RogerRoger Thanks, I appreciate the kind words!

Yeah, it doesn't really make sense to want to kill everyone inside just to destroy the facility. After all, the whole goal is to defeat the kett, so what's the point in destroying the facility if they won't be around to use it? Saving the angara lives is more important. One choice though that made me feel bad was during the mission to save the salarian ark and you had to choose between Drack's scouts or the salarian Pathfinder. My reasoning was that this whole mission was about saving the salarians, so of course I was going to save every last one of them. I didn't even know Drack had scouts on board until the last minute. When I made my choice, he pretty much hated me for a while and even brought up how I chose the salarians when I did his loyalty mission (which was a nice attention to detail). But either way, I would've had either Drack or Kallo be mad at me depending on my choice, so it didn't really matter. Pick your poison and all that. But at least I got all the Pathfinders together (even if the salarians would've just appointed a new Pathfinder).

I actually really enjoyed romancing Peebee and seeing her character grow throughout my playthrough. Even though I don't know what it's like romancing the others, I get the feeling that she has one of the best character developments among your teammates. At first she was simply with us so that she could continue her research since we were looking into the Remnants anyway. Towards the end, she saw us as her family and she finally managed to open up to a close relationship with somebody else, even though she was afraid of letting somebody into her life again. It was just so nice seeing all of this develop during my playthrough.

Haha, that's a really good video and fitting music to that scene! I agree, the game desperately needed more music but I feel like that's true of the entire series anyway. Hopefully they'll focus more on this aspect in the next game!

Up until ME3, I've only used the Soldier class throughout the series because I preferred keeping the gameplay simple. However, by that point, I desperately needed some changes to combat and so I decided to give biotics a try. It was seriously so much fun, it's basically like having superpowers and I highly enjoyed using them in both ME3 and Andromeda. I can't imagine playing through Andromeda without biotics, it would've been so boring for me.

Something that I just now realised is, maybe I've been playing a lot of these games wrong by not choosing the "superpower class". Another series that comes to mind is Borderlands, which also has classes. I've also always used the soldier class there but after having played through the Mass Effect series, maybe the push I need to finally finish Borderlands 2 (as it's one of my New Years resolutions) is restarting it one last time and choosing the class with superpowers instead. You've definitely given me some things to contemplate on now after this discussion!

Edited on by LtSarge

LtSarge

RogerRoger

@LtSarge When I reached that decision regarding the kett facility, I literally yelled "Has nobody ever heard of a time bomb before?!" Just plant some charges around key structural supports, wait until everybody has been evacuated, and then detonate them. It's frustratingly simple!

That other choice you mention was handled much better, I agree, and there was value in going back and seeing how both paths played out. Like with everything, Andromeda got plenty right to balance out the stuff it got wrong, the romances being another case in point. I'm glad you found Peebee's romance well-written and packed with proper character development, and I've heard similarly good things about a few of the others, but unfortunately my choices had serious issues at launch, ones that either went ignored or got eventually fixed in updates that took far, far too long to arrive. I respect how difficult it must be to get such a detailed, multi-faceted game consistently right across the board, but it made me feel less important as a fan and gamer, which sucked. Anyway, I've ranted about it plenty before, so let's stay positive!

Seeing that you used to play the same way I do, and reading you rave about embracing the biotic abilities and their impact on the combat mechanics, makes me wonder whether I should try mixing things up in future playthroughs. I'd stop short of saying that I've played the games "wrong" (BioWare games are all about personal choice, after all) but I certainly haven't experienced everything they have to offer, thanks to my habit of repeating most decisions and sticking to "my" version of the game. I hope that Mass Effect 4 retains the basic gameplay feel from Andromeda, because it's one of the aspects of the game they nailed, for sure. In the meantime, best of luck with Borderlands 2 there!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

RogerRoger

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Platform: PC, PS3, PS Vita (version played), Wii U and Xbox360
Release Date: October 2012

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Developed by acclaimed British studio Criterion Games, Burnout Paradise is an open-world arcade street racer with an emphasis on freedom and social connectivity. Players can roam around in whichever vehicle they prefer, triggering a range of races and other events by approaching certain points of interest and performing a burnout. Victory can be achieved by driving well, but is guaranteed to the aggressive, as takedowns of fellow racers are rewarded. Across the fictional Paradise City, brightly-coloured billboards beg to be smashed, whilst driving through garages will instantly repair your car and refill its nitro. All the while, your stats are tracked and uploaded for other players to compare and compete with.

Oh, sorry, my bad. Got confused there for a second. Let me start over.

Developed by acclaimed British studio Criterion Games, Need for Speed: Most Wanted is an open-world arcade street racer with an emphasis on freedom and social connectivity. Players can roam around in whichever vehicle they prefer, triggering a range of races and other events by approaching certain points of interest and performing a burnout. Victory can be achieved by driving well, but is guaranteed to the aggressive, as takedowns of fellow racers are rewarded. Across the fictional Fairhaven City, brightly-coloured billboards beg to be smashed, whilst driving through garages will instantly repair your car and refill its nitro. All the while, your stats are tracked and uploaded for other players to compare and compete with.

Phew! Almost reviewed the wrong game there! Boy, that would've been embarrassing!

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Deliberate facetiousness aside, I suffered a permanent state of déjà vu during my eight-odd hours playing (and don't get me wrong, thoroughly enjoying) this second incarnation of the Most Wanted subtitle, but it really is just Burnout Paradise again, only this time with licenced cars and a soundtrack that's slightly less out-of-date. Considering that both games were released so close together, I'm genuinely surprised more wasn't done to give Most Wanted a unique personality of its own. I mean, there's an oft-overlooked truth in the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" but this just feels silly, particularly when you realise that EA, the publisher in both cases, was seemingly happy to risk diluting both brands by replicating the same experience so quickly and so blatantly. Then again, they're also the wheelbarrow of cash behind most annual sports games, so maybe I shouldn't scrutinise that point too closely.

Perhaps it's my fault for playing offline. Most Wanted places heavy emphasis on social integration, even moreso than its predecessor, and I imagine most of its fun would come from teaming up with friends, beating their records and working together to unlock all available cars. As it stands for solitary folk, driving around Fairhaven City in a bunch of beautiful polar bear assassins still feels wicked cool, but the lack of a story beyond "beat these ten other street racers and become the most infamous of them all" makes Most Wanted the kind of game you play until you've had your fill of it, rather than a journey with a definitive end point. I might've made it to the top of the Most Wanted list, but I only needed to drive 30% of the game's vehicles in order to do so, and yet I still feel qualified enough to write this review.

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To their credit, Criterion appear to have crafted all those cars to perfection. It might be an arcade racer, but each set of wheels handles exactly as you'd expect its real-world counterpart to handle. Switching from a graceful supercar to a twitchy hot hatch can be unexpectedly jarring the first time, and an effort has been made to represent a wide range of vehicle types, with pick-up trucks allowed to lumber around off-road tracks and the terrifying Ariel Atom spending most of its time on long, straight highways. None of the engine noises sounded recycled, either, with the Bugatti Veyron's distinctive voice preserved alongside various V6, V8 and V12 roars from the likes of Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Ford, Lamborghini and Porsche.

Rather than revel in their detail, however, you get these abstract little vignettes at the start of each event, some of which get properly weird (thankfully, they're skippable). Each make and model comes with a to-do list of five challenges; one easy, two medium and two hard. Completing these earns modifications for said vehicle, ranging from lighter bodywork to re-inflatable tyres, which you can apply anytime via the in-game EasyDrive menu, accessed via the D-Pad whilst out and about. You'll also earn SP (swap the S for an X and you'll get the idea) and, when you hit certain thresholds, you'll be invited to take on and takedown the next rung of the Most Wanted ladder. Rinse, repeat, roll credits.

The events themselves are as good as street racing can get, which naturally means they become bloody annoying after the sixth time of smashing into a slow-moving NPC SUV who just happened to be changing lanes (without indicating!) mere meters from the finish line. Circuit Races and Sprint Races will be your bread and butter, whilst Speed Runs task you with trying to maintain a high average speed on a point-to-point route, and Ambush Races want you to escape a police dragnet as quickly as possible, by any means necessary. Speaking of the police, they're already a presence during most of the events, intervening in races by setting up roadblocks and deploying spike traps (which is when those aforementioned re-inflatable tyres will come in handy) as well as chasing you down and attempting to PIT you. They're not the most persistent or direct of threats, but my kneejerk attempts to avoid them still resulted in a fair few crashes.

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Since I'm not super-comfortable with the vilification of law enforcement anyway, I focused on races which didn't immediately start with a high Heat level, and this allowed me to notice the outrageous rubber-banding employed by Criterion for... well, for whatever reason developers employ it. I can't think of a good one, so found myself getting frustrated more often than not, after my tactical efforts to hamper the progress of my fellow racers were rendered all for naught by a handful of teleporting map icons. It was also noticeable up close and personal; even a few feet in front of me, rivals would trundle along, happy to careen into walls and whatnot, but as soon as I overtook them, they became lightspeed examples of perfect precision. Grr.

Despite the game's obvious attempts to cheat me, I kept going, and my enthusiasm stayed strong enough to carry me to the most natural conclusion Most Wanted has for loners. This was partly thanks to the novelty factor (I don't play many racers) but also thanks to the Vita version's performance. Flying in the face of my previous conclusions regarding the console's multi-platform fate, Criterion clearly didn't consider catering to handheld fans beneath them, and ensured that this portable port launched alongside its big brothers in fine form. Some graphical flourish has been sacrificed in favour of a steady 30fps, and resolution blurring can make oncoming traffic tough to spot when travelling at breakneck speeds, but it's still pretty enough, and is always very, very playable. There's no object or texture pop-in, and lighting looks great throughout the map's steady day-night cycle. Loading times are brief, too, even when opting to jump to another car on the other side of the city. From a technical perspective, it's an unquestionable triumph on Vita, and doesn't leave me feeling like I've played some kind of "lesser" version.

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And that makes all the difference because, had I played this on PS3, I think I would've come away feeling a bit disappointed. It wouldn't have been doing anything new or interesting for me, and I would've felt like I'd wasted my time and money, because I've played Burnout Paradise. Twice, in fact. Had the PS3 original, traded it in, and then picked up the PS4 remaster a couple of years later. Sufficed to say, I'd done the whole "sandbox street racing" thing already.

But I'd never been able to do it away from my television before. Need for Speed: Most Wanted might only be Burnout Paradise all over again but, on Vita, it's a Burnout Paradise which you can carry around in your pocket and, in place of its own identity, that gives it real value.

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Ralizah

@RogerRoger Great piece! A lot of people don't seem to understand the sentiment, but some games are just far more impressive experiences on handhelds vs home consoles, even when they're technically lesser experiences in terms of raw specs. There's just something exhilarating about playing a game away from the TV that didn't feel like it should have been possible. Particularly years back when the Vita was still alive and handheld gaming platforms still had dedicated libraries.

I've never played Burnout Paradise, so maybe this game would feel less samey to me. It's great to hear it performs well on Vita, though, and mostly holds up as a technical showcase on the system. I imagine that the game probably looks great shrunk down on a small OLED screen.

You've really been on a kick with these Vita games lately! There's an unfortunate lack of Vita reviews, so I'm actually a fan. Have any other games on the system lined up?

RogerRoger wrote:

in a bunch of beautiful polar bear assassins

Polar bear... assassins?

RogerRoger wrote:

Since I'm not super-comfortable with the vilification of law enforcement anyway

I get the sense 2020 would've been particularly rough for you if you'd been an American.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

RogerRoger

@Ralizah Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah, as much as I didn't necessarily need Most Wanted in my collection, given that I'd played Burnout Paradise twice before, its handheld status and impressive Vita performance really did make all the difference, in a way I might've dismissed before. Normally I'd opt for the home console version if given the choice, but my recent rediscovery of my Vita and my desire to broaden the types of games I have for it helped; that, and I kinda wanted something to prove my downbeat analysis of The Amazing Spider-Man wrong, as I felt bad for dunking on the Vita when it probably wasn't its fault. They're two very different games, and I'm sure Fairhaven City would look kinda rubbish if viewed from an elevated perspective all at once, but at least Criterion managed to prove that the hardware was at least capable of a like-for-like experience.

If you've never played Burnout Paradise before and like the sound of Most Wanted, then know that it's still available via the Vita's PS Store (for much cheaper than a physical copy fetches on eBay, since most physical Vita games have become overpriced collector's items nowadays) and that servers for its deep online integration are still running, provided you're prepared to open an EA Origin account.

The whole "polar bear assassins" thing was my esoteric way of briefly acknowledging the awful environmental impact such supercars have in reality, but was clearly way more esoteric than it needed to be. My apologies for any confusion!

Oh, and if I were American, I get the sense my view of law enforcement would be very different. I don't mean any offence by that, and shouldn't judge from a distance, but... well, yeah.

I'm gonna be taking a short break from my Vita, as I've neglected The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for far too long, and I have another old Spidey game to play as well, but I should be back before long because I'm planning to replay Gravity Rush, Tearaway and Uncharted: Golden Abyss at some point this year, in order to fulfil one of my 2022 resolutions. Knowing me, unless something goes terribly wrong, I'll probably end up writing reviews for each of 'em, so watch this space!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Ralizah

RogerRoger wrote:

Yeah, as much as I didn't necessarily need Most Wanted in my collection, given that I'd played Burnout Paradise twice before, its handheld status and impressive Vita performance really did make all the difference, in a way I might've dismissed before. Normally I'd opt for the home console version if given the choice, but my recent rediscovery of my Vita and my desire to broaden the types of games I have for it helped; that, and I kinda wanted something to prove my downbeat analysis of The Amazing Spider-Man wrong, as I felt bad for dunking on the Vita when it probably wasn't its fault. They're two very different games, and I'm sure Fairhaven City would look kinda rubbish if viewed from an elevated perspective all at once, but at least Criterion managed to prove that the hardware was at least capable of a like-for-like experience.

Handheld consoles can really be made to sing, but they usually require a decent amount of effort and optimization when it comes to home console ports. A big reason you stopped seeing that as much with a lot of Vita ports, IMO, is because the culture of multi-platform game development that became standard during the seventh gen made developers less eager to create bespoke ports of their games.

RogerRoger wrote:

If you've never played Burnout Paradise before and like the sound of Most Wanted, then know that it's still available via the Vita's PS Store (for much cheaper than a physical copy fetches on eBay, since most physical Vita games have become overpriced collector's items nowadays) and that servers for its deep online integration are still running, provided you're prepared to open an EA Origin account.

I gotta say, I really wish I'd gone physical with the Vita! It was just so tempting to d/l games on it, though.

I guess the good thing is that, now that I've hacked my Vita, I can use a MicroSD card to expand my storage and have my entire library on the console all the time.

RogerRoger wrote:

Oh, and if I were American, I get the sense my view of law enforcement would be very different. I don't mean any offence by that, and shouldn't judge from a distance, but... well, yeah.

Fair enough. Like virtually every other social and political institution in this country, the way law enforcement is handled is in need of drastic reform that it won't get for generations, if ever.

RogerRoger wrote:

I'm gonna be taking a short break from my Vita, as I've neglected The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for far too long, and I have another old Spidey game to play as well, but I should be back before long because I'm planning to replay Gravity Rush, Tearaway and Uncharted: Golden Abyss at some point this year, in order to fulfil one of my 2022 resolutions. Knowing me, unless something goes terribly wrong, I'll probably end up writing reviews for each of 'em, so watch this space!

I recall you started TGAA1, and got at least two cases in, I believe?

You know, I don't think I ever realized just how many Spider-Man games there were out there.

I loved Gravity Rush, liked Golden Abyss, and wanted to like (but really, really didn't) Tearaway, so it'll be interesting to get your perspective on those games.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

RogerRoger

@Ralizah That's absolutely true. Not to mention the vast install base for Nintendo's family of DS and 3DS consoles, which made bespoke versions or ports a surer bet (and then you had the unique design of those consoles as well, meaning developers often had to start from scratch and think differently anyway). With the Vita, since it was technically capable of hosting a straightforward, somewhat downgraded port of a PS360 game, I think the demand for innovation and attention was definitely lacking.

Yeah, I don't mean for this to come across like a boast, but I'm real proud of my physical Vita games. It's not my biggest collection, but it's one I think of incredibly fondly.

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I've got a couple of digital downloads as well (relatively small stuff, like Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock, CounterSpy, Grim Fandango Remastered and Super Star Wars, as well as a handful of PSP games I double-dipped out of curiosity) but, because I haven't tinkered with the hardware, I'm within arm's length of my 14Gb memory card's limit. All this talk of turning off the Vita's PS Store makes me nervous to start deleting things, otherwise I might've been tempted by the Sly Cooper series, as well as tactical shooter Unit 13. Then I really would have everything for the console that I'd ever been even mildly curious about, albeit not all accessible at once. Despite your regret regarding physical games, it must be real nice (and convenient) to have such an extensive library at your fingertips! From what I understand, the Vita's raw power can become real special when hacked and modified.

Our public services share that same need for drastic reform, but the dynamic (and therefore the debate) is slightly different because we don't weaponise our police. There is an element of "we only ever hear about the bad apples" which can overshadow the genuine day-to-day heroism of law enforcement, but that's the price you pay for a free press, and it's a price worth paying to keep it that way. Anyway, that's a weighty and delicate conversation for another time, place and topic, methinks!

I actually managed to finish the third case in Adventures, so I presume that I'll be returning to the charred remains of a stagecoach, to figure out who was trapped within. Might be sooner than I'd expected, as well, as this Spidey game seems quite short. If you start counting from his famous PSone adventure in 2000, Spider-Man has headlined seventeen games, and many of them boasted bespoke handheld versions, too. I thought I could be selective, but there's something I find addictively comforting about (almost) all of 'em, so I've surrendered to the idea that I'll end up playing the lot.

Your reaction to Gravity Rush doesn't surprise me, but that's real interesting (and unfortunate) to hear you disliked Tearaway so much! Thanks for continuing to read and reply to my reviews, and I'm glad you're interested in more. I'll try and pull out all the stops for future Vita pieces, then!

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Ralizah

@RogerRoger I do think we've arrived at the point where most companies simply wouldn't develop much for something like the NDS if it was around today. You saw that shift with the 3DS, frankly. While it had a pretty massive library of amazing exclusives, the sheer scope of its software lineup was still pretty vastly reduced from the NDS before it, and the biggest reason for that is that NDS launched before the seventh gen took off, and 3DS arrived at the tail end of that generation.

And, you're right, the Vita being a pretty beefy handheld at the time would've tempted companies to do as little as possible to adapt their games to the hardware. This is probably the biggest way in which the "portable PS3" reputation it had worked against it.

My regret is most born out of the loss of the resell value for those games. In terms of user-friendliness, digital is a million times easier on Vita. I went with one of those insanely expensive 32GB cards when I first got the system, and then, a year or two ago, hacked the system, installed custom firmware, and replaced it with a 400GB MicroSD card. Lemme tell you: you'll never, ever run out of space with one of those. The sheer amount of stuff you can do on a hacked unit is pretty astonishing, honestly, even if you don't delve into the obviously illegal piracy side of the equation. The biggest appeal to me, for example, was that I was able to complement all of the PS Classics I bought on PSN with rips of my own PS1 collection, turning the Vita into a true portable PS1.

I actually do own 5 or so physical Vita games, tbf. It's obviously not as nice as your collection, though, which you clearly love deeply.

The third case in Adventures is probably a top five case for me in the entire series. It actually went to places that I was a little disappointed Farewell, My Turnabout in the second game shied away from, and was incredibly memorable as a result.

Yeah, it'd be fitting for you to own Spider-Man's entire video game career, I think.

I expected to enjoy Tearaway a lot, honestly, so I was a little floored by how boring I ended up finding it. Pity, too, since it's a great showpiece for the system's capabilities.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

RogerRoger

@Ralizah Again, spot on. Makes me wonder how much the Switch really led that change, or whether Nintendo created the Switch in response to design and development trends they could see forming, based on their experience with the 3DS. We're still seeing examples of major multi-platform games being reduced in size, in order to fit them on a cheaper Switch cartridge, so there's definitely a "make one game work on everything" mentality that's overtaken the diversity we used to get across concurrent systems like the GBA, DS, PS2 and PSP, when you could buy one title four times and get four different games!

Yeah, that whole "portable PS3" marketing tactic really backfired for the Vita. I'd rank that as one of Sony's most crucial mistakes with regards how they handled the handheld.

Don't blame you for lamenting the loss of potential income from physical Vita games; some of them are ludicrously expensive to get "Used - Like New" nowadays, let alone brand new and sealed (you really don't wanna know how much I paid for Spidey). Smart move investing in that 32Gb memory card from the get-go, though. I couldn't afford one. The 14Gb one was my top spend at the time, but I was also kinda against downloading games back then, too, so I figured I was futureproofing myself anyway. Definitely one of life's learning moments; things always change, particularly when it comes to technology!

Good grief, you could probably download every Vita game ever made onto a 400Gb card, and still have room for all your PSone Classics! That's a bonkers amount of storage! You've also ripped your PSone games to your PC's emulator, haven't you? But then I suppose we come back to the appeal of portability, and how you've mentioned that you often prefer handheld consoles for the intimacy they provide. Blimey, I'd never put my Vita down if it could do all of that! I'd wear the poor thing out!

Sorry, yeah, I'm not an obsessive photographer, but I do enjoy capturing snapshots of my stuff, so I just happened to have that picture handy. What are the five Vita games you own physically?

Can totally understand why you love that third Adventures case, yeah. I need to watch a recap before I get back to the game, as I previously played it during a rough week, and can't quite remember all of its intricate moving parts with the accuracy I'd like to. I do remember grinning throughout, though. It had some truly bonkers moments, as well as some very memorable characters!

Thanks. I just love the irony, considering I suffer with severe arachnophobia!

That's my fear, as well. I recall reckoning that I'd platinum Tearaway, given how charming and easy it was in its first few hours, but I never did. I'm gonna look at a guide, to see if a second pass could wrap everything up neatly, although I'm also hoping my current Vita kick will make it more special than it is.

"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."

PSN: GDS_2421
Making It So Since 1987

Ralizah

@RogerRoger I think the design of the Switch was primarily motivated by problems mostly unique to Nintendo. Given:
a) Nintendo will never abandon handheld gaming tech, given that's where their bread has ALWAYS been buttered. Just compare the frankly gargantuan sales of most of their handheld consoles over time to their shrinking home console sales prior to Switch, aside from the Wii.
b) Nintendo proved with Wii U/3DS that they can no longer simultaneously juggle two concurrent devices with their own respective libraries.

Developing a hybrid was, frankly, their only good option at that point.

It's a happy accident, IMO, that the appeal of this design resonated so much with their base that it actually ended up leading to dramatically improved third-party support. Because it took years for major publishers to stop distancing themselves from Nintendo after the Wii U disaster.

Yeah, in terms of Sony and the Vita, I think it took them awhile to really fully realize they weren't interested in pursuing portable gaming tech any more. The way they advertised the Vita was kind of a side-effect of that. Reporting has suggested there was deep skepticism about the device before it even launched, so it's no surprise that Sony pretty much abandoned first-party software development on it after that first year or two and left it to indies and Japanese companies to float the device along for the rest of its lifespan.

I dunno, man. That 32GB memory card investment was painful. The smart move, realistically, was probably what you ended up doing: buying big games physically, and then downloading smaller stuff on a cheaper card. But I knew there'd be a lot of stuff I wanted to download, and I'd personally regret it if I cheaped out with the memory. I guess it all worked out in the end, even if I ended up having to do something I'm not fully comfortable with to achieve it (thankfully, Sony is totally apathetic about people modifying their Vitas, so I'm not too worried about the CFW triggering an account ban like it undoubtedly would on something like the PS3).

Indeed, I have my full PS1 library on my Vita AND PC now. It's quite cool. PC is technically the better place to play, since you get the benefit of upscaling games, it's easier to take screenshots, etc., but yeah, I can't resist finally having playable portable versions of PS1 games that were never uploaded to PSN.

The games I own are:

  • Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars
  • Corpse Party: Blood Drive
  • Demon Gaze
  • Persona 4 Golden (the first game I bought alongside the system, in fact!)
  • Valkyrie Drive Bhikkhuni

I also bought a Senran Kagura game physically on the system, but I sold that years back.

For a period of time, it really was the go-to hardware for the sort of bizarre Japanese games that used to proliferate on Sony's home consoles.

I think the bigger issue for me is that Tearaway is utterly shallow once you rip away the gimmicks that drive the game and look past the (phenomenal) presentation. MM's game live or die on how deeply you can immerse yourself in the "creative" aspects of them, and that sort of approach really just didn't resonate with me. It'll be interesting to see if you end up falling in love with it like a lot of people did, though.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

Ralizah

Mega Man Powered Up

Platform: PSP

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Mega Man Powered Up is one game I've wanted to play in this series for years, but never really had the opportunity to do so until now, as it's one of a handful of PSP games that never enjoyed a digital release on PSN, leaving it stranded as an out of print UMD release on a long-dead handheld. MMPU is a full remake of the original NES Mega Man game (the one that nobody likes and was pretty much forgotten about after the release of the amazing Mega Man 2) that manages to impress in a number of ways. It's one of the only Mega Man games to enjoy fully voice-acted dialogue, for example. Not hard when the original Mega Man didn't even have any dialogue in it, you might say, but that's where I'll stop you, because Capcom went the extra mile of including a surprisingly large amount of dialogue in this release. You actually get a proper story set-up this go around, brief exchanges before boss fights that develop the personalities of each Robot Master, and so on.

Pretty much every aspect of the original game was re-evaluated or touched-up in some way. The game's default mode offers more player-friendly level layouts, story events, and so on, but you can also play in a mode that preserves the game design of the NES original. As in later games, collectibles are incorporated into the game's various stages, incentivizing the player to return to previous stages with newly acquired weapons. And these collectibles aren't just ticking off items on a checklist, either: the game actually features a surprisingly robust lever editor that is unlocked as the player finds new modules to use in it through the game's various levels. This ancient PSP title from 2006 even featured the ability to share and download levels you've created with other players.

To be honest, the amount of optional content in this game is almost overwhelming. I haven't touched on the large challenge mode, either, or the fact that it includes two new Robot Masters, or the fact that, amazingly, you can play this game through with at least eleven unique characters, including the eight Robot Masters, Proto Man, and Roll, and they all have unique dialogue/plot events for their playthroughs! You can even unlock optional costumes for Roll. A completion rate counter in your save file will helpfully remind you of how far you are from seeing everything the game has to offer, which might end up being a bit maddening for completionists.

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So, this all sounds fine and dandy, but are there any downsides?

Well, yes.

The biggest marmite element of this game will be its overtly cutesy aesthetic. It feels like the original Mega Man if it was viewed through the lens of a cartoon aimed at small children. All of the characters have been reimagined in adorable chibi form, even in the game's 2D portraits. The majority of the in-game dialogue is deliberately campy. Even the OST has lost a lot of its 8-bit edge, with the remixed tracks smoothing out the rough corners and making everything sound much friendlier and approachable in the process.

Listen briefly to the theme for Cut Man's stage in the NES original for example:

Now compare to the version in Powered Up:

All of the tracks are like this. They don't sound... bad, but they sound inappropriate for a 2D Mega Man game. The combination of the new visual style and remixed music often gives the game a somewhat bland feel that robbed some of the enjoyment from it for me.

Even putting aside the aesthetic, though, there's no getting around the fact that Mega Man 1 is almost unquestionably the worst game in the series. The changes made to this remake help, but oftentimes it just feels like they're smearing an excess of lipstick on a pig. This would have been a great opportunity to ditch some of the unfriendlier aspects of the original. Does Guts Man's stage REALLY need to center around infuriating insta-death sections where you have to precisely jump on and off moving platforms before they dump you into a pit? Did the profoundly frustrating Yellow Devil boss, which is even more frustrating in this version than in the original since I couldn't replicate the Thunder Beam pause glitch that made him bearable in the NES game, really need to be here? It's great that the game has so much stuff to do, but if the core experience is unsatisfying, piling on a metric ton of padding (very well done padding, mind you, but still padding nonetheless) isn't going to fix it.

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Powered Up remakes of Mega Man 2 and on could have been amazing fun, but, unfortunately, MMPU ended up selling pretty poorly on PSP, so plans for more remakes in the same vein were quickly canceled, which is a shame. Mega Man Powered Up is the best version of a fundamentally mediocre game, and is filled with cool ideas and a surprisingly robust level of polish for such an old handheld game. If you like Mega Man 1, it's a must-own. If you don't, it's still an interesting remake in its own right, and one of the more interesting PSP-exclusive games. Let's hope this gets remastered or something so that it's not trapped on a dead console forever.

6.5/10

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

PSN: Ralizah

LtSarge

@RogerRoger Great review of Need for Speed! It's nice to know that the game holds up well on Vita despite the AI's rubber banding and the game's focus on the social aspect. I actually have a digital copy of Most Wanted because EA gave it away (along with a few other titles) years ago but I still haven't played through it because it takes up so much space. However, your review has made me more interested in giving this game a go, especially since I haven't played the console version of Most Wanted. Would be really cool to experience a game like this on the go, for sure!

@Ralizah Excellent write-up! I really enjoy reading reviews of titles that I haven't heard of since it lets me learn something new and this time, I learned that Mega Man 1 got a remake, which I had no idea about! It sounds like the best way to experience the first game even though the music doesn't feel appropriate compared to the original OST and the art style is more chibi. It's too bad that it's not available digitally as I would've loved giving it a try on Vita.

Speaking of Mega Man though, I've been browsing the Wii U eShop the past few days and noticed that there are tons of Mega Man games on there. It sounds to me that you really like this series, so do you have any titles that you would recommend getting on there? I have the Mega Man 1-6 and Mega Man X 1-4 collections already, and most of the games have been ported to modern consoles anyway. But there's apparently a subseries called "Mega Man Network" on GBA and those games are available on Wii U eShop. Are they worth getting would you say?

LtSarge

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