Musashiden II: Blade Master

Hey, my first PS2 review! I'm moving up in the world! Alright, for me a game ought have a few elements for me to enjoy it. If it's a fighter like Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter or the gajillion clones out there, it's pretty straight forward. Beat bad opponent to submission and maybe do a fatality. Story line is usually secondary to taking out aggression. Simple and to the point.

A FPS, must be a bit puzzling, other wise its usually a good way to shoot moving objects. I grew up with Wolfenstien 3D, the original DOOM, and nowadays I want a bit more to my senseless killing which is why Black is my particular favorite.

RPG's however, are games that are involved. You need more then senseless killing, and blowing things up. And while this isn't an RPG as RPG's have now become known as the turn based FF style of playing, this is still an RPG.

I was okay with the simple story line. I was okay with the hack and slash. Even the graphics were stunning to my eye.

Then there was the initial scratch...

Not really being able to configure my controller. I am a big stickler on camera angles. Generally speaking, most games give you the option to change how the axis operate. This game however, does not. So not only am I fighting bad guys, I am also fighting x amount of years of playing with the alternative camera angle function.

So I figured, all right, I will adapt....

...yea....

But then little things like, taking 45 minutes to get to the save point really kind of irkd me. And that is if you RUN to the point in which you can save. That's not even taking time to kill all the enemies along the way. That kinda bummed me out. I actually had to play through the Tutorial 3 times because each time I started to play, something distracted me, or I had to go somewhere, because you know, I really didn't anticipate having to make a day of playing a game...

That little scratch was starting to itch...

Then once I finally made it to the point at which I could save the game, I thought finally! I can save, now I don't have to make my life playing this game! Great...

...

But really, so what? There is no real clear direction in the game. Your almost supposed to "know" what it is you need 20 minutes before you actually need it! And I hate going online to find the answer. Usually going online to find the answer within the first act of a game is a sure sign that either you are an idiot, or the game play is just not all the clear.

But then that scratch, that turned to an itch, it now getting really raw from me scratching it...

So I finally get my first mission. Save the princess... Okay fair enough, sounds easy... Found the princess, get her out the forest, and then BOOM, the boss...

An hour later, I am still no closer to beating this guy then when I started! Oh sure the how to's tell me what to do, but not only am I fighting with the boss, but I am still fighting with the controls and the damn camera angles! I suppose I could just quit and come back later, but OH YEAH, if I do that, then I have to go and do everything I had done before just to get back to the point that I am at now! At this point, my scratch that turned to an itch that turned to a raw region of skin, is now a festering wound.

This game is not fun, this game is royal pain in the ass. No save points, no direction, no indication that you are actually accomplishing something, nothing. Just some very pretty graphics, and really bad dialogue, which was intentional, but at this point it is something else to complain about.

I had such high hopes for this game. Square Enix/Soft has put out some absolutely remarkable games, but this one is just awful.

I would rank this just slight above Prince of Persia Warrior Within. Not a failure because of bad and buggy programming, but a failure because it was thrown up out of someones imagination, made with leftovers of Kingdom Hearts (there are some movements in the character mapping that made me think of Kingdom Hearts, mainly the hanging off the ledge action), and mixed with some Japanese history for American OVA fans to get off on.

Oh well, it will make a decent coaster.