Dungeon Hunter Alliance

I love the Vita boxes; they're so tiny.

First off, I hope everyone had a good Memorial Day weekend.  Secondly, I've said it before, but I'll say it again, buying an iPod Touch or an iPad and getting a game from the App Store does not make you a gamer.  If, however, one of those games is released onto a console with extra content added in, making it a real game in the eyes of the console world, then it's okay.  Sounds like it's just a sneaky way for me to be a hypocrite, but it's definitely not that.  It's a loophole...trust me.

Dungeon Hunter Alliance was developed for iDevices but was eventually ported to the PSN.  After that it was polished a bit more, with added Vita features, and slapped onto the PS Vita in cartridge form.  The idea of the game is that you're a king that was betrayed and now you're back to life trying to avenge your death and your kingdom.  It's a simple idea, and the story is pretty bland, but we're here more to talk about how the game plays rather than how awful and cliche the story is.



There's a lot of great loot in this game, and the Vita tracks the last "epic" loot you found, which is fun to see.



As soon as you get past the first section of dialogue, you're put right into the action.  Dungeon Hunter is a simple hack-n-slash RPG a la Diablo.  The formula is basic:  Kill enemies to get loot, use loot to kill enemies, and embark on quests to get more loot until the end of time.  There are three classes to choose from, Warrior, Rogue, and Mage, and each has a pretty large skill tree to level through.  There are auras, activated, and passive abilities that help you demolish your enemies.

4-person multi player is interesting to say the least.

There can be some slowdown when there are too many creatures on the screen and for whatever reason the standard melee attacks tend to miss if you aren't standing right in front of your target.  There are multiple equipment sets and multiple skill sets that you can create with an auto-equip function to keep you equipped with the best as you plow through the dungeons.

The Vita updates here are minimal: the touch screen controls your fairy power, the camera, and the menus.  Other than those few additions the only real new content included on this version is the multi player.  I haven't had a chance to experience it for myself as of yet, but from what I understand it flows pretty smoothly.  The main issue is that all four players are stuck on the same screen, which really hampers movement from one area to the next.

For what it's worth, this game is fun.  There are a few issues that occurred in it's transposing from the iDevice to the PS3 and finally to the Vita, but I can overlook those since I love the genre and can enjoy many aspects of it.  The main question is this, "Is it worth the $20 extra on the PS Vita from the $12.99 version on the PS3?"  I don't think that's something I can necessarily answer, having not played the PS3 version, but I think that portability alone is something that you need to pay for, and a portable Diablo-esque game is something that can't be passed up.

Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention

I have no idea where to start with this game; it's a great game but it feels weird.  It breaks the fourth wall and yet still manages to maintain the dignity of a good Strategy RPG; note that the version that I'm going to talk about is on the PS Vita.  There we go, that's my starting point, the genre.  As you probably have read, SRGPs are one of my favorite genres of all time.  In fact, Final Fantasy Tactics is my favorite game of all time, which I've said enough times to kill an elephant.  In any case, Disgaea 3 is an installment in the Disgaea series, which takes place in the Netherworld. 

Just one sample of humorous dialogue.

In the Netherworld there's an evil school that your main characters are, normally, students of.  Most missions take place in and around the school setting, and your home base and other stats, like Honor Student Quotient, are all based off of a school theme.  It seems kind of silly, but that's only because it is.  The game takes great advantage of the situation and constantly makes reference to itself as a video game, characters playing video games, characters reading comic books, the hero and demon ideals, and a ton of other things that make you chuckle and shake your head.  As you can see from the various screen shots that I have up here, it takes a lot of the qualities from anime and manga that we all so love, which really makes you want to keep up with the story in between all of the great battles.

I like how sharp everything looks on the Vita.

The humor and self-realization of the game are the main things that give it such an enjoyable role-playing experience, but the meat of Disgaea 3 really brings you a great tactical world.  The various stats, HP, SP, Str, etc, all go up to insanely high values, at least 100x as high as your common RPG.  The game itself says that you should spend a million hours playing it...and the anime style, funny dialogue, and strategy elements combined really make it seem like you could spend that much time, and then some sitting in front of your PS3 or holding your PS Vita.

A four-person combo attack.

As for the game play, it's pretty much your typical SRPG.  You move along on a grid and use tactics to eliminate your enemies.  The main innovation that Disgaea provides is the combo attack.  Depending on where your team member is seated in home room, which is your base, they can perform an attack with someone that's sitting next to them.  The combos are significantly more damaging than normal attacks and are even more destructive when you use special skills to combo.  I also like the Magichange feature where your monster allies can transform into a weapon to be used by a teammate that's next to them in home room.  For instance, the prinny monster class, which is essentially a penguin, changes into a laser.  How much more awesome can you get?  I can't think of anything I want more than a penguin friend that turns into a laser cannon.

I've been waiting to write this brief review for some time now, and I finally got the guts to do it today.  The reason I was putting it off is because I could spend 100 paragraphs explaining the game and giving it the props it deserves, but no one wants to read that.  I just wanted to introduce you to the world of Disgaea 3, not write a book.  For anyone that is an SRPG gamer, RPG player, or an anime/manga lover; I highly recommend this game.  Personally I'd take the PS Vita version for the mobility, which I think SRPGs were designed for, but the PS3 version has some great advantages too.

Mass Effect 2

Over the weekend I beat Mass Effect 2 and was surprisingly disappointed.  I'd heard a lot about the series, especially with the third installment just recently releasing, and figured I'd test my mettle against it.  I mean, it's made by BioWare and it's hard to pass up any of their games.  I expected something like Dragon Age, really, and that's what I got.  The problem is that it felt like it was dumbed down more than it should have been.

Looks like it's pretty epic, right?

My main problem with the game is its length; it's just too damn short.  I beat this game in under 20 hours, and that's just barely the minimum for today's RPG standards.  Yeah, this isn't strictly an RPG, but hey, the genre is RPG-Shooter so I'd expect at least 20 full gaming hours.  This includes the main storyline AND all of the side quests that I could get my hands on, not including the paid DLC.  Part of the problem may be that I had the game on Normal, but I died a few times, and if I'm being forced to turn up the difficulty to get myself to die more often so that I can play the game longer, there's something horrifyingly wrong.  One good thing about the short game is that you can beat it once and then load your character back up at the start for round 2.  In my opinion, though, that's not a replacement for a longer, more robust line of main and side quests.

This gets really old, really quickly.

Exploration is such a waste of time in this game.  In most RPGs, when you explore you discover new fights, new items, and a myriad of new quests to begin.  In this game, however, you go from planet to planet and your exploration only gets you the occasional surface mission and some resources.  Resources are great, and are required to get the best upgrades, but the process to get them is so damn slow and boring that it's not worth it.  You have to use a scanner to look over the surface of the planet and then launch a probe when you find a significant source of materials.  There are so many planets to explore that this gets tiresome; it was fun the first few times, but I found myself wishing for something more exciting very quickly.  There's also a few times that you zoom around on the planet in a vehicle and gather data, which is fun, but there are less than ten missions involving that.

The character customization is decent and reminds me of Dragon Age.  Since the two games came out at roughly the same time, that's not surprising at all.  There's also a good array of characters and classes, giving quite a bit of replay value.  I'm disappointed that you can't swap classes when you start your second run-through with a character that you've beaten the game with.  You can retrain your powers using your resources, but there's no option to retrain class that I've seen so far.  The game play is akin to Gears of War or Operation Raccoon City, and the cover system is pretty smooth.  One thing that bugs me about it though is when you need to move over cover: you need to get into cover and then climb up.  Why not just have a climb button or a vault option?  I don't want to get into cover when there are no enemies around, I just want to get up to the next platform!

I like all of the different species in the game; they add spice!

One final thing to gripe about are the planets that have towns.  There are just a few of them, and each one is really small.  It is relieving to not have to fly your ship around and scan for things to do, though.  The shops allow you to buy upgrades, and the townspeople usually give you some side quests to perform.  The inhabited areas are also where you will find all of the missions taking place.

This game has its flaws, sure, but I still had fun playing it.  It has a good story and addictive game play; it just falls short of being a great game.  The exploration mini-game can be unbearable, some of the controls are awkward, and the areas you can explore on foot are just too small.  It's possible that the DLC would increase the game time and world considerably, but I don't know that I want to shell out the Microsoft Points for them.  All of that being said, I think I'll still check out Mass Effect 3 to see if they fixed any of the flaws that I found.