TwiddleGeek

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The Prime series has managed to do what few people, including myself, thought would work: Transform the Metroid series into a successful first person adventure. The term FPS is a little inaccurate for this series considering the majority of your time will be spent adventuring and puzzle solving, but Prime 3’s new controls and streamlined gameplay feels the most shooter-ish to date. The game actually takes elements of story from Prime: Hunters on the DS, as well as a bit of the shooter-ish feel.

Rather than typical FPS running and gunning, Prime is all about the environment and story. Now filled with tons of voiced dialog, supporting characters, lots of scripted events, and — thank goodness — clear objectives… Prime 3 is a far more streamlined game than Prime 1 or 2. In fact, I felt Prime 2 was an absolute mess at times of hard to locate save points and endless expanses to explore. Though Prime 3 gives you a whole system of planets to explore and hop between, this is nicely broken up into nearly linear, easy to follow sections accessible by Samus’s signature ship. For me, this really improved the gameplay by leaps and bounds over Prime 2.

The biggest advancement with Prime 3 over the previous versions is easily the control scheme, which really makes the action feel fast and fun. The developers take advantage of the new found freedom with some interesting interfaces, some nifty gadgets, and even some combat requiring precise aim and strategy. Limited ammo guns have been kicked to the curb, and we’re thankfully back to stacking beam weapons ala Super Metriod once more. While I was a fan of Prime 1, Prime 2 was more of the same and less of what made it fun. Prime 3 is the return to form that should have been, and at just over 11.5 hours my first play-through, great fun start to finish.

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New Super Mario Bros. is an interesting mix of old school and new, hardcore and casual gaming. One the one hand, the game is a complete throwback to the days of 2D platforming Mario. On the other, it’s been given a modern revamp with 3D models rather than sprites, new moves like wall jumps, and a few new power-ups. More interesting, at first glance the game feels so easy that even the most casual player could finish it in a single weekend with little difficulty. But if you play to collect all three Star Coins on every level, it suddenly becomes a lengthy and frustratingly challenging adventure.

If you loved Mario 1 and long for more side scrolling action, you’ll be right at home here. This isn’t a remake, rather it’s a new game in the 2D series that takes the gameplay back to its roots. It’s not even very much like Mario 3 or Super Mario World as there’s no flight, no Yoshi, and no real goal other than reaching the flagpole. If reaching the goal is all you care about, dashing through the 8 worlds is a snap. Too easy, in fact. I was severely disappointed with the game on my first play through due to how simple it seemed to be. But after you complete the game once, you gain the ability to save anywhere. Now it’s time to go collecting, and this is where things get interesting.

Hidden in every level are 3 Star Coins… collecting these can make your life very difficult. Sometimes they’re well hidden, but in many cases they’re tantalizingly just out of reach. Many require some perfectly timed jumps, some tricky use of an enemy head-stomp, or even the use of one of the new power-ups to obtain. To completely finish the game you need to not only find every one of these coins, you also need to unlock every single alternative path via secret exits on several stages. The casual players can easily ignore all this and still have fun, but the hardcore really need to take up the challenge to complete this game in order to get the full potential out of it.

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If you’ve played Melee, there’s really no point in asking if you’ll like Brawl. Brawl basically is Melee, only sporting a fresh coat of gfx paint, a handful of new characters, Subspace Emissary, and online play. If you dislike the core gameplay, Subspace Emissary is not going to be a reason to buy this game. Otherwise, though, it’s a lengthy and enjoyable 10 hour adventure with cutscenes that look like something from Square Enix at times.

But SSE is just a fun bonus compared the heart and soul of any Brawl game: the battles. New characters like Pit, Metaknight, Pokemon Trainer, and Sonic are all fun to play as and easy to pick up. Olimar is nearly worthless, while Snake takes a lot of skill to master. Dedede is a slightly more versatile heavy fighter than Bowser or Donkey Kong, while Diddy isn’t terribly impressive but passable none the less. Zero Suit Samus feels, sadly, weaker than I’d like… but Samus in her power suit is still one of my favorites.

Final Smash moves add an exciting dynamic to an already hectic game. For those worried they break the gameplay, they can be turned off easily enough. I would contend however that they are no more broken than scrambling to get the hammer item, and a whole lot more fun. Many can be dodged, some require aiming, and some are just worthless. Unfortunately that’s the most broken thing about them — they’re just not equally useful.

Brawl still plays more or less exactly like Melee, but with a few tweaks to the system. All the mechanics are the same, but some say it feels faster, while others claim it’s a bit slower. Items are now much easier to grab in mid-air, smash attacks have been added, and veteran fighters’ moves have been tweaked. With more characters than ever, more items, assist trophies, and more new stages, plus the stage builder to play with, Brawl can easily breath fresh life back into the series if Melee has gone stale.

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When Hour of Darkness first hit on the PS2, many hailed it as the best SRPG to date. It’s in-depth mechanics and practically unlimited room for character growth left many players absolutely addicted. For some reason however, the craze passed me over. Perhaps it was just the depth of the mechanics creating such a steep learning curve, but I just didn’t find myself hooked. Giving it another look on the PSP however, it’s clear I missed an incredible game.

First of all, Disgaea has a wonderful style, storyline, and humor. More than anything else, this alone really helped to draw me into the depth of the gameplay mechanics. It’s much easier to get hooked in a deep, extensive game if the basics are simply fun to begin with. While you don’t really have to spend much time in the item world or with the Dark Assembly in order to win, they’re there if you wish to use them. Sometimes I wanted to power up a rare equipment item just a bit, sometimes to improve a character, and sometimes I just wanted to explore. Learning to exploit things like totem throws, merging monsters, and +EXP geo-squares becomes part of the fun of getting to the end of the game. Disgaea loves to stack the odds against you and practically taunts you to figure out how to get around the rules.

My one complaint with the whole battle system is just that the only character to gain any EXP is the one who deals the killing blow, unless it’s a random -initiated team attack. I would be much happier if everyone fighting, or everyone who had dealt damage, or even everyone attacking in the final chain gained some exp. While current system is certainly not unworkable, I certainly found it to be annoying and a bit of a drag in leveling. Otherwise, Disgaea is an incredibly lengthy, enjoyable SRPG all around. The main quest took me a whopping 38 hours, and many will spend far more doing everything and completing the bonus stages. Even the PSP bonus Etna mode clocked in at an extra 10.5 hours for me. Perfectly suited to quick play sessions on the PSP, if you missed this the first time around there’s no reason not to pick it up now. If you’ve already played it out, Etna Mode probably isn’t enough reason to rebuy, though it was quite an enjoyable extra.