Developed by Chair Entertainment and Epic Games, Shadow Complex brings about some much hyped adventuring in the vein of the Castlevania and Metroid franchises.

The story takes place in the world of Orson Scott Card’s book Empire, and is a companion to the soon to be released sequel, Hidden Empire. You play as Jason Flemming, some guy out hiking in the mountains with a girl he met at the bar. She goes on ahead and gets captured by some members of the “Progressive Restoration” who assume she is a spy. This leaves Jason alone to save her, and eventually stop this secret militant group from plunging the United States into another civil war. Throughout, the story is told through overheard conversations between soldiers, as well as a few short cutscenes.

Starting with a measly, yet endlessly useful, flashlight you’ll collect many weapons, armor, and items along the way just like any game in this style. You’ll be heftily rewarded for exploration, with achievement points, experience to gain more accuracy, and other bonuses. The flashlight will aid in exploration by causing objects to glow a certain color to indicate what weapon will have an effect. Think x-ray scope in Super Metroid. Unfortunately the camera angle at a couple spots prohibits you from being able to see the object in question, but this is so seldom it’s inconsequential.

The controls are very good with some minor issues. First, aiming into the background takes a lot of getting used to, which is understandable since I don’t believe I’ve seen anything like than done before. While understandable, it’s quite annoying to be getting shot repeatedly by one guy while you can’t get a shot lined up. Fortunately, the increases in accuracy from level ups will help smooth this over. Secondly, I noticed there was a little bit of wonkiness with ledge grabs. Once you gain double and triple jump abilities, sometimes the additional jumps weren’t responsive.

Combat is solid aside from the aforementioned 3d aspect, although there’s only a few types of enemies, and very little to speak of when it comes to bosses which is a big let down to me. Some large mechanical enemies have life bars, but most are easily dealt with and since most appear in other areas I hesitate to give them the title, “boss”.

Shadow Complex is very sparse with music using it only to accent certain areas, but it always tends to fit just right. Nothing mind blowing, but very well fitting to the mood, and the graphics running on the Unreal Engine are top- notch.

In addition to the campaign, there are three challenge map packs. For the most part, I was unmoved by these, playing them only for the achievements. They weren’t bad by any means, but while playing them I just wish they were built into the map somehow. It would have been far more satisfying if the tougher challenge rooms had some item behind them, even if that item didn’t do anything. It just would have been nicer than running around in the white rooms with a mannequin.

While it may not be perfect, Shadow Complex certainly outshines some of the more recent games of its kind. Despite the controversy of recent 360 Live Arcade price increases, this is another one that can be put into the “Worth $15” category. 4.5/5

A puzzle game developed by Square Enix, Yosumin! Live delivers some fun quadrilateral action, but not to its full potential.

The game play is fairly simple and straightforward, create squares and rectangles with the four corners being made of the same color yosumin, meeting the quota for each color erased, or number of square sets, etc before time runs out. Of course there’s plenty of special pieces such as wildcards that give a time boost, movable pieces, pieces that shuffle the board and more. Two different modes of play are offered endless and battle. In endless mode you go through fifty stages completing the task for each on before you begin again at stage one, while in battle mode, two players vie to create sets on a shared game board in an attempt to force each other’s time bar to reach zero while maintaining their own. This review will focus largely on endless mode.

While there’s little challenge early on, later stages will test your perception with fast timers and tough quotas. Overall the game has a pretty good difficulty curve, getting more challenging each stage without taking any radical jumps to get you stuck more than once or twice at any given quota.

Much like the difficulty curve, the achievements for this game are a good spread. There are easy achievements such as clearing the whole board in one set, difficult achievements such as clearing battle mode against the computer within thirteen minutes and no continues, and time consuming achievements such as clearing a total of 100,000 yosumin cumulative.

Like most games, this is not without its flaws. The first, and immediately noticeable one is very minor, yet speaks quite a bit. The menus cannot be navigated with the thumbstick, only with the d-pad. While you may think this is a joke or hairsplitting on my part, take a second to think about what this is saying. This simple coding omission, being that most menu navigation nowadays is done with the stick and not the d-pad, makes me think that they rushed this game and/or they just didn’t care enough. It’s like opening a book and seeing a glaring typo in the first sentence. It sets a bad vibe that I just can’t shake.

Another flaw could not really be avoided due to the medium. I immediately felt that this would be much better played with a mouse. After doing some minor research, I found what I had suspected, that this was in fact from a flash game, no surprised there really, but also it has been ported to the Nintendo DS which could be quite the good time. Fortunately the DS isn’t region locked since it’s only out in Japan.

While I said the difficulty curve is fairly sound, from about stage thirty onward though the randomness can really start to get to you since large shuffle pieces just show up out of nowhere instantly changing everything, destroying  any strategy you had in mind and eating up a good three or four seconds which could make all the difference. Large yosumin will also randomly appear sometimes taking up nearly a quarter of the field and really hampering your options. Sometimes these appear right before you select a piece, which has more than once caused me to retry a stage.

Graphically the game is vibrant and crisp with bright colors and fun backgrounds. Musically the game is average, but it’s a puzzle game so what do you expect. The background music is decent but I find myself turning iTunes on every time same as most other puzzle games.

All in all Yosumin! Live provides some decent puzzle fun in a unique way, but hardware limitations keep this from being all that I can imagine it is on the PC or DS. Obstructive randomness also keeps this game down earning it a 3/5.

Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana by NIS is an RPG centered around alchemy. The story starts off lightly with the lead hero, Klein, wandering about the countryside trying to learn more about alchemy and improve his abilities. He is soon joined by the female lead, Lita Blanchimont, and they form a galgazit troupe, which is basically a group of mercenaries that act for the good of the people. The real story takes root when, on a mission, a powerful alchemist named Mull attacks the group, endangers Lita, and of course has a plot to alter the world in catastrophic ways. All the galgazit work becomes side quests which are fun little diversions.

The main story may not be the most gripping, but that doesn’t really matter, as there’s so much humor off to the side, as well as in many of the story line locations. This game is very funny, ranging from Lita’s arbitrary feud with the standoffish magic shop owner, the rivalry between the bumbling baker’s apprentice and hillbilly grocer, and Pamela the friendly ghost. The point is, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously even nearing the end, and that really works for it.

The battle system is fairly simple turn based with some minor strategic elements in attacking multiple enemies or healing multiple allies based on positioning. Overall, nothing too special, but it gets the job done just fine.

Where the battle system lacks, the dungeon controls more than make up for it. It plays a bit more like a platformer than an RPG since you can jump, and acquire a variety of abilities to use out of battle to gain access to various areas, although the most used one will be “element extract” which you will find yourself using almost constantly.

As I said in the first paragraph, the game is centered around alchemy, and element extract will destroy objects in dungeons or towns into raw elements for Klein to use in creating mana items. Only he can use these items which can be a real hassle since the healing mana items make the regular healing items look like crap.

Creating mana items is all fine and dandy, but sometimes it seems there’s just too much alchemy. Using certain items, you can perform weapon synthesis on certain pieces of equipment to power them up. Also, some shops have an option to perform shop synthesis to create new items, most of which don’t really do a whole lot except maybe need to be used in another shop synthesis. You’re also rated on the quality depending on what items you use, and this feels like a pointless afterthought. While some of these can be fairly amusing, most of the time it doesn’t seem worth the time.

In terms of difficulty, it’s a bit hard to say as sometimes you need a bit of luck to get by, more so than most other RPGs. Overall though I’d have to say it’s about average to a little above average nearing the end. One thing that bothered me was that the poison status effect is too damn strong. Some enemies would hit for decent damage plus poison, effectively taking a character down to half HP in one turn, leading me to just run from every battle in certain dungeons since I didn’t want to spend my whole time in menus healing after every fight.

The visuals are top notch, and the level designs are original. One moment you’ll be walking through a giant slimes stomach, and the next you’ll be on an oversized chess board. Character designs are well done, and although there was quite a bit of palette swapping going on for some enemies, there are a few memorable bosses such as a giant unicorn made of prisms.

Many parts of the game feature voice acting which was amusing for the most part. At least in my opinion it was. There seemed to be an issue which wasn’t unbearably prevalent, but enough to be mentioned, and that was sometimes the voice track would cut out mid sentence. My copy of the game was new, and my PS2 has never shown an issue like this before or since, so I know that if it isn’t a glitch in all the copies, there’s at least a buggy batch out there. Musically the game is fairly average until later in the game with the second normal battle track, “Beat of Illusion”, a couple of the later boss themes, “Horned Enigma” and “Duke of the Stratosphere”, and my favorite, “Eternal Eyes”, which is the theme the titular dungeon.

Overall, this is a very good RPG that may be a little overwhelming with optional errands. Thinking back I’m really looking forward to giving this a second go, as the humor was excellent, and the parts that dragged, didn’t for very long. This game gets a 4/5.

(This review is based on the Xbox 360 version)

Eternal Sonata is an RPG produced by Namco Bandai and Tri-Crescendo, loosely based around composer Frédéric Chopin. The game takes place largely within Chopin’s dream as he lies on his deathbed, although occasionally you’ll be given a cutscene where the doctor talks about his condition. In between each of the chapters the game is divided into, you’re treated to one of Chopin’s pieces as well as some historical information about his life. These portions are an excellent addition, and are far more interesting than the main story

The main story in this dream world is centered around you’re party of characters’ journey to stop King Waltz from creating and army of what is essentially zombie soldiers by giving all the citizens a drug that cures most any disease, but with a side effect unknown to most everybody. Overall, the story is nothing too special, and most players will see every twist coming miles away.

One plot point sticks in my mind as being handled just dreadfully, and that is the scene of a certain character’s death. It is the most ridiculous Shakespearian death scene ever, with the character flopping around the room for what seemed like half an hour, and by the end of this scene meant to be sad, I was just laughing.

All the characters have their own reasons for trying to stop him, but there’s very little character development, and personally there were only a handful of characters that I even cared about at all since some of them spouted heavy handed life lessons practically ever time they opened their mouths, and these incidents made me want to go into battle and intentionally let them die, but there’s one problem with that.

Overall, the game is painfully easy with only a few challenging bosses. Now this holds true for the initial play through, but there’s an encore mode which is supposed to be much more difficult. Having not yet tried this, I cannot comment on it. The AI for the enemy units is fairly dopey with the exception of the pirate type enemies which actual try to get behind you, but more on the battle systems later. Buying items isn’t a hassle either, as the game practically throws money at you, so you never have to worry about being under prepared, and overall the game is about as linear as an RPG can get, with no overworld or map of any kind.

The battle system is solid, and fairly unique. Battles are turn based, but with an element of real time action. Your actions are fairly limited to: attacking and/or using a special, using an item, or tactically moving away from an enemy. Defense is possible by pressing the defend button right before an enemy attacks you head on, which almost all do, since the AI is far from perfect. The same goes for enemies, so it’s best to attack the rear. While this could get old, there’s a party leveling system which changes the battle elements slightly at certain points in the story. These party level ups are spaced perfectly too.

One major element in battles is the lighting. Character’s have two sets of specials, light and dark. Depending on where you are positioned, in light or shadow, will determine which is available to you. Also some enemies will change form when they move between the two and gain or lose stats accordingly.

The visuals are absolutely striking, a perfect fit for a dream world. All the graphics are crisp, clean, and vividly colored. Character design is excellent as well all around, with musical themes naturally playing a part throughout.

Of course I couldn’t forget to mention music, especially with a game that weaves music through everything. Naturally it is phenomenal, and this game couldn’t get away with anything less considering that is the main theme.  Each track seems to mesh well with its designated area, aiding to your immersion into this fantasy world. In addition to the background music there are items called score pieces you can find which are short music clips. These are used to play a little mini game with certain townspeople in which you attempt to match one of your score pieces with theirs, and can win prizes if it sounds good. That’s also the issue I have with it right there, music is subjective, and sometimes I’d hear the resulting session and think, maybe it wasn’t a perfect match, but it wasn’t too bad. Then the NPC would have some snotty retort on how it sucked. Maybe it would be better if I knew how to read sheet music, but really, I shouldn’t have to know that to play this game.

All in all, Eternal Sonata is a mixed bag of good and bad. This game strikes a chord between the flat characters and story and the sharp visuals and sweet melodies, so when it comes down to it, this deserves a 3.5/5.

Welcome everybody. You may know me by Chocowulf or Hockeyrama, but this alias, Mawk Five, is the first pseudonym I’ve conjured that truly resonated with me. It feels more personal(My initials,MAtt WK with the number five.) and a bit more original while maintaining a certain ring to it.

This blog will largely consist of reviews and thoughts on video games, movies, shows, and other media, but it will also contain other musings and ramblings as I see fit. Sometimes this will tie in so video of my own, how often though is yet to be determined.

I feel that after so many years and so many experiences, I can adequately make solid reviews, especially for games. Articulating these thoughts in a full written review will be a fun challenge though, as I have never been much of a writer.

I hope you enjoy my page and check back in the future when I get some actual content up. I hope to type up my first review by May 15th if not sooner.