*** Overall: 8.5 ***
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*** Graphics: 7.5 ***
the fighter & enemy graphics are drawn in a classic anime style. they
look true to anime, but when compared to normal video game sprites,
they aren't quite up to snuff. each character(enemies and heroes) has
only a handful of colors and the detail of them is limited. they do
however, seem to be animated nicely as their movements do not look or
feel choppy. some of the larger characters get slightly pixelated when
they're in the foreground, although it's not enough to be a
distraction.
the backgrounds are a different story and sport far more detail than
the characters in addition to having multiple layers of parallax and a
line scrolling floor. there are many different backgrounds ranging
from battle fields to towns to prairies, and they suit the various
paths/storylines nicely.
overall, the graphics are solid, but simplistic. they produce a true
cartoony/anime feel/look, and i think this is what the developers were
aiming for, but personally, i would have perferred something a bit more
detailed and capcom-esque.
there is also a quality fmv anime intro which is quite long and
introduces all of the characters in the game fighting. this is a
delight to behold, BUT, this fmv is only featured in the intro and is
not to be found anywhere during play. you do, however, see some
stills(character portraits) from this anime featured in the character
select and attribute screens.
*** Sound: 9.0 ***
typical punch, kick, hack and slash sound fx. there's some minor voice
samples and grunting but nothing noteworthy that makes you go "WOW".
all of the fx, including the magic, are solid and appropriate.
what makes the sound so great is the excellent background music. it's
instrumental and sounds professionally orchestrated to set the mood of
the game perfectly. set it on pause and listen, that's some quality
background music.
*** Gameplay: 8.0 ***
it's a typical sidescrolling fighter w/a few twists. the first and
foremost thing you'll notice is that this game doesn't feature true
lateral movement like other games in this genre. instead you get 3
planes to fight on, foreground, midground, and background. using the L
& R buttons you can move back and forth from each. think of it as 3
different street fighter games lined up behind each other. also, in 2
player and versus mode, the action will zoom out ala sam.shodown which
will scale everything down and allow a larger playfield for you and
your friend(s).
each character has many different attack and magic techniques. the
characters are all styled in different rpg capabilities: fighter,
mage, cleric, ninja. the mage has more magic ability than the others
,the fighter has stronger attacks, the cleric can heal and so on. the
joypad buttons consist of a light attack, hard attack, defend(block),
magic and undead hero(i'll explain him later). using these buttons in
conjunction w/joypad motions will perform various normal moves, special
moves or magic(depending on if you press an attack or magic button).
it's very easy to do combos w/the way the system is setup. for
example, you can start off w/some light attacks and finish w/a hard
attack, or start off w/some light attacks, do a special move that will
send your opponent into the air, then do another special move that will
send you into the air and hit him again. you can rack up some seriously
high combos in this game easily, the only catch here is that some
enemies aren't so willing to be combo'd.
the enemy AI is decent. many of the enemies are simple fodder, but
other larger enemies sport many different attacks and offensive
capabilities that will keep you on your toes. there are also boss
characters that you fight periodically along the way(which bosses you
fight depend on what decisions you make.) when you fight these boss
characters, it's usually one on one, although sometimes it's not. :)
the enemies will usually attack in large groups at a time. sure
most of the baddies you're fighting will be wimps, but, you're fighting
4 wimps on either side of you, looking to get cheap shots in on you
when you're not looking, plus you have to keep your eye pealed for the
wizards or cyclops's that came out w/the wimps and is looking to get
close once you knock your current opponent out of the way. it gets
pretty hectic at times, and it can be easy to lose where you are in all
the on-screen action, especially if you're in the background of a
zoomed out scene of a 2 player game. not only will your character be
smaller than usual in this situation, but he/she will be blocked out by
characters/objects in the foreground. this is one negative that can be
said about the gameplay, as this sheer amount of onscreen action can
not only confuse you, but it can lead to a second complaint that is
that the game can sometimes show signs of slowdown during this
pandemonium. these are the only 2 real negatives about the gameplay
that i can think of. the slowdown only really happens when there's a
ton of onscreen sprites, and some of them are doing special moves/magic
that require more animation to occur on-screen. because of this,
slowdown doesn't seem to occur often enough to be bothersome.
fighting and killing enemies racks up experience points. based on the
number of points you make you can allocate experience bars to different
traits of your character. you can only allocate these bars at
certain pre-defined points in the game. you can increase the strength,
vitality, spell power, spell amount, or luck of your character. doing
this DOES change the way your character plays. for example, if you
increase the spell power of the mage, you will see a noticeable
difference in the damage his spells do.
a stage or two after beginning the game, a non-player character called
the undead hero will join your party. he may not seem it at first, but
he is an asset and a key to your winning the game. undead has an
unlimited life bar and will do whatever you tell him. this is
programmable by hitting the undead hero button. you can tell him to
attack the enemies, defend you, follow you, don't do anything, or go
beserk. this last option can only be done once per scene and is very
helpful. undead will usually do a large magic blast which will take
off a large percentage of the baddies life bars, only problem is, he's
vulnerable to attack while he's charging up to do it. so you have to
defend him. undead's sort of like having another player play w/you. if
you get really low on energy, or you need your butt saved, he's there
to help out. or if you want a real challenge, or don't want him to
hog all the enemies, you can turn him off by telling him not to do
anything.
there is also a couple other non-player characters(seleena, resistance
knights)that will occasionally(based on the storyline) join in to help
you out, but they aren't programmable like undead is, as they do what
they want, which is usually attacking the baddies. the whole
non-player party character is new to me in this genre, and i think it's
been pulled off nicely, even though it does feel a bit alien at first.
lastly, this game features an ongoing storyline that is based
partly on what decisions the player makes. at certain points in the
game you will be asked what you wish to do. making these decisions
will change the storyline, and affect where you go and who you meet or
fight. this also affects the outcome of the game as there are 4
possible different end-bosses to fight and 4 different endings(although
i have recently heard that there is actually 10 different endings).
it's your basic fighting engine, w/a ton of extras(rpg like characters,
, an ongoing storyline based on user decisions) and new ideas(non
player characters) that makes it stand above any other side scrolling
fighter you've ever played, as it never has to be played the same way
twice. the only thing that hurts it is the fact that you can lose
where you are in the action sometimes.
*** Replayability: 9.5 ***
there's so many different ways to replay this game, it's incredible!
first off, there's story mode where you(and a friend if you play 2
player) can choose from 1 of 5 unique characters and take different
game paths everytime you play. the story mode never has to be the same
way twice and has many different end bosses and endings depending on
the decisions you make. plus, if you get tired of playing or have to
prematurely end your session, you can reset the game(A + B + C + Start)
and it will save your last location so you can pick up where you left
off the next time you boot the game up.
secondly, there's versus mode which is an excellent party game. up to
6 characters whether they be player or cpu controlled duke it out in a
condensed stage. the neat part here is that you can choose from any of
the characters(45 in all) that appear in story mode, even the
villagers. on top of that, there's even more options. you can set it
up so there's teams of 3 on 3, or 5 on 1. i could go on and on about
all the other versus options such as character editing and logging, but
you get the point.
it's the variety and number of options in addition to a solid game
engine that makes this game such a blast to play by yourself and
especially w/friends.
*** CD-Access ***
i'd estimate that the load is anywhere from 6-7 seconds. these loads
only happen between levels or sometimes stages, so they don't happen
that often, and they never interrupt gameplay. you'll be playing for a
good 5-20 minutes, depending on what and how many enemies you're
fighting in a given level or stage, before the game needs to load.
plus, one thing i do like is that when it loads, you're not blatantly
reminded ala capcom that the system you're playing is a cd system.
there is no "NOW LOADING" on a black screen message. there will be
either a blank black screen(between stages) or a black screen w/the
name of the next level(between levels). i know this is a bit of
nit-picking, but "NOW LOADING"-only screens are a personal pet peeve of
mine.
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*** Other ***
this game is $40 brand new at e.b.! let's hope that this is a trend
that will continue.
all of the character moves are ON THE CD in a sort of database for you
to reference. let's hope that this is the start of a trend as well.
"manuals? we don't need no steenkeen manuals...."
*** Summary ***
is GH a substitute for capcom's D&D:TOD who's 32 bit conversions were
unwittingly and unjustly cancelled? yes and no. yes, becuz we need a
sidescrolling fighter on the 32 bitters, and GH fills that void nicely
and is also a great entry in this category overall. no, becuz GH
doesn't look nor does it feel like a capcom sidescrolling fighter.
what GH is, is a sidescrolling fighter w/rpg overtones, simplistic
graphics, great sound, and addictive gameplay w/alot of variety that
should keep your interest for quite a long time. especially at $40,
there's no reason