Jump Ultimate Stars

Jump Ultimate Stars (JUS) is a dream come true for most anime fans. The game features 300 characters from 41 mangas. Though only around 40 or 50 are able to be used as fighters, they can offer quite a few different approaches. The other 250 or so make up help and support characters, more on this later.

Graphically the game looks pretty good, nothing spectacular, but the graphics works as the fights can be very fast paced and hectic. The characters look cool and their attacks look like they would in the show. The stages you fight on look nice, they are framed by the walls of a manga or comic panel. Where the game shines graphically is in the presentation. The first time you go to a world in mission mode (which will be explained later) you see a few panels from a manga. It looks like they took the scenes directly from the respective manga. Also when putting a battle character in a deck (which will also be explained shortly) the “cards” look quite nice. Very colorful, and many are quite cool.

Now onto the most important part of this type of game, the gameplay itself. JUS is a fighting game similar to the Super Smash Bros. As mentioned above fights can move quite fast and be frantic depending on your opponent. You have three buttons that attack. B is your weak attack button and it with a combination of up, left/ right, down, or no direction on the D-pad will vary the attacks. Y is for strong attacks and you can do different variations just like you can with B. X is used for strong attacks, each character has two, one for no direction/left/right on the D-pad and another for Up on the D-pad. Down on the D-pad causes you to block. L and R are used have to do with decks. There are a few other techniques that can be found in guides.

The single player mode needs to be played to unlock more fighters. It’s a lot like event mode from Super Smash Bros. Melee. You are given an objective, when you complete it you get the next one. There are 5 or 6 objectives per mission and the number of missions per level varies from 1 to 5 or 6. The objectives range from KO all opponents to break the walls before time runs out. If you complete multiple objectives at once it will count the game will show all the ones you complete. So you may complete all 6 at once.

Now when it comes to decks (this is what you fight with), you’re given an area of 20 spaces in which you have to put your characters. Each deck must contain at least 1 battle character, 1 support character, and 1 helper. The battle characters range from taking up 4 to 8 spaces, support 2 to 3, helpers all take up 1. If characters that like each other are next to each other they may give the other a bonus (usually they are from the same manga series). You’ll start out with one deck, which has two battle characters, a support character, and if I remember correctly 1 helper. When you make a new deck you must assign a leader as that battle character will be the first one out in battle. You can assign the R or L button to support or other battle characters. Fighters can be switched at almost anytime (with the press of R/ L or by pushing their picture in the touch screen). Supports can be called in at almost anytime in the same way. Some supports may attack your opponent, give them or you a status effect, or heal you or give you some SP (used to do special attacks) back. The controls are responsive.

As battle characters take up more spaces they generally become more powerful. For example Ichigo in his 4 koma form is basically just Ichigo from the beginning of the series, while his 8 Koma form is his Bankai form, which is much more powerful. But of course they come with the trade off of taking up more room in your deck.

The online play for the most part works very well. When playing with friends there is little to no lag in my experience. When playing with random people you occasionally get some, but JUS just pauses for a second until the connection is good again.

The game isn’t without problems. There is on a rare occasion slowdown during the main game. And the online mode can sometimes have some lag. Another thing that is a bit of a problem for most of us not in Japan, is that the game is in Japanese, with no English option. It’s not that big of a deal since you can find a good guide at a place like GameFAQS, but it does make things a bit more difficult, especially when unlocking characters, as there will be some anime that you have heard of, but others that you haven’t.

Rumors are suggesting the game may get a PAL release, but nothing is for certain last I heard. Still though, the DS is region free, so if you are a big anime fan this game is for you. If you aren’t an anime fan, I don’t know whether you would like the game or not as some of the appeal is having characters from some of your favorite anime/ mangas fight. I’d recommend using a site like Play-Asia.com rather than Ebay.

Overall this game is a great pickup for most any anime fans.

9/10

Just a quick note the following is a list of animes that are in the US now or have been that have a Battle character in the game: Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Naruto, Bleach, Black Cat, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z, and probably a few that I’ve forgotten.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Wii)

Yet another licensed game, but this one actually plays pretty well. I know it’s hard to believe but in short I found myself having fun playing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the Wii. Harry Potter fans can probably stop reading now and go pick up the game, but for those of you that are curious let’s look at the game in more detail.

Graphically there isn’t anything jaw-dropping, but overall the visuals work very well. The character models look good, the in game cut scenes look good, maybe the only real gripe you can find is the facial animations aren’t that great, but not bad either. It may not be the most graphically impressive game on the Wii, but one thing to remember is you never see a loading screen at any point in the game. There’s some loading, but it’s hidden, sometimes the game will make you walk from place to place as it loads the next area, but that’s never a big deal. The opening scene after you select new game or a save file is simply used to load the world of Hogwarts, but it’s not just a screen saying “Loading.”

Now while the no loading thing is quite cool, the sheer amount of space you have to explore is amazing. In past Harry Potter games the load times got pretty bad. OotP (Order of the Phoenix) totally solved that problem. You’d really have to play the game yourself to see how big Hogwarts is. Let’s say I start off in Gryffindor Common Room, go down the grand stair case, take a secret passage to the dungeons, go over to the Herbology greenhouses, through a secret passage back to the grand stair case take another secret passage to the library, take the long way back to the grand staircase, take a secret passage out to the boat house, go through the grounds and back to the grand staircase, and go down to the bottom floor and take a secret passage to the seventh floor all without seeing a single load screen. (If that was confusing don’t worry I’ll explain what keeps you from getting lost in a little bit.)

Something that I usually don’t look at as much is presentation; however this OotP does this part quite well. From the opening title to the extras you unlock, everything feels very much like it should in the Harry Potter world. The title menu is a copy of the Daily Prophet and you select new game or continue. The music in the game works well, and they have the “Hedwig theme” in the game that so many associate with Harry Potter. All the voices I could find were done by their movie counterparts.

The gameplay is focused on exploration a lot, meaning very few wizard duels in OotP. Spells are done entirely through gestures. The spells generally work well if you take time to make sure you are doing them right, but I seem to have a bit of a problem with the ones where you have to move the Wiimote in a circle. But generally spell casting feels very good. The spell that allows you to make things move around in the air works particularly well, once you use the spell you tilt the Wiimote to make the object float in the direction you want it to. There is a flaw in the control system and it happens when moving around. Moving Harry around feels sluggish, it’s not a huge deal and once you adjust you probably won’t really notice, but I feel it should be said as it is a small flaw in the game.

As I stated earlier, while there are few duels that are required, you can actually try to get others to duel with you. Did someone tick you off with a comment they made toward you? No problem, just hold B to aim at a person and make sure they are highlighted, then you can use a combat spell on them. They may run away, or they may start a duel. Sometimes one of their friends might be with them. The dueling works pretty well, but it can be a bit hectic.

As for the exploration there is a lot of it to do. You can find certain items, statues, or animals to get what are called Discovery Points which can make your spells stronger and unlock movies done by the movie cast and some of the development team talking about their role in the game, or certain scenes, etc. While I usually don’t care much for this type of thing, some of them can be interesting. To keep you from getting lost in your wanderings around the castle you have the Marauder’s Map. At anytime you can press the – button to view it and search for a person that you need to find or any room/ place within the castle and grounds. You can push A on the place and then hit – again to go back to the game and footsteps will appear along the ground to show you where to go. One part that was really smart is that the map takes into account the secret passages you have passwords for, so if you have the password for the shortcut to the library and you are near the grand staircase, the footsteps will lead you to the portrait (where the secret passage is) and tell you to go through it. The Marauder’s Map is a very good tool to have with such a large area to cover. Which brings me to a sub-point about the exploration, with such a large area, some may say, “Yeah, but won’t it take forever to get from one place to another?” At first it may, depending on where you have to go, but once you open all the secret passages you can get around very quickly.

You could probably finish the game’s main story (which the game butchers quite a bit) in 5-10 hours, but to complete the game 100% you could probably spend over 20 if you don’t use a guide of some kind to find everything.

Anyways to finish up, I wish there were a bit more action in this game, but altogether Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is very well put together. Not to say it doesn’t have some flaws (sluggish movement, one spell motion that was a bit tough to get right, and not quite enough action), but Harry Potter fans will probably easily over look those. One thing that I really wish was in the game is the ability to fly around Hogwarts grounds like you could in previous Harry Potter games on a broom, but ultimately it’s a minor gripe. Even people who aren’t really fans of Harry Potter may enjoy the game, but I’d suggest a rental or playing it somewhere before you buy. Overall I’d give Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

8/10 With Harry Potter fans being able to add one-half to full point to the score.

Edit: Right now according to the game I have it 60% done and have 16 hours on it. I still have a bit of the story left to go. One final note, unlike most Wii games when your batteries are low there is simply an icon in the upper left corner of the screen instead of a message popping up ever 2 minutes to tell you that your batteries are low. It's a much better way to let people know.

Spider-Man 3 (Wii)

The Spider-man games have been one of the few licensed games in recent years that have been good. Who can forget the atrocities that were Superman 64 and Aquaman, both considered to be among the worst games of all times. E.T. for the Atari 2600 is considered the worst game of all time by many. Spider-man 2 was one of the games I had the most fun with on the Gamecube. Naturally when Spider-man 3 was announced I hoped I’d be getting a bigger, more fun Spider-man 2, with Wii controls. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way.

Let’s start with by taking a look at the graphics. The game itself doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t look particularly great either. The character models and buildings all look good enough, but that’s all they ever approach. However, that’s not to say there aren’t any issues with the graphics. The first problem that really stuck out to me was some of the cut scenes looked pretty ugly, I remember early on in the game I was Peter at the Daily Bugle and he had a lot of white in his eyes, like his irises and pupils were too small. When camera in the cut scenes is closer to Peter this doesn’t happen. The second thing is in game there is a lot of pop-in/ out. When you climb a building at a certain point all the cars and people below disappear, when you come back down past that point they all come back. It’s not too huge of a deal to me, but I know some people really hate this type of thing. It does detract from the overall atmosphere of the game as well.

The controls are what got many, myself included, most interested in this game. Webslinging is done by holding B and swinging the Wiimote, or holding Z and swinging the nunchuk. Depending on which hand you use, Spider-man will use that hand. So if you use the Wiimote Spider-man will use his right hand (though the web may go to the left), and the nunchuk will make Spidey use his left hand. At first it feels a bit unwieldy, but after playing it for a while, it can be quite fun. Adding a swing boost in and you can cover quite a bit of ground quickly. You can start down on the street, swing around and use the swing boost to get higher until you can jump across rooftops, then jump off the top of a building back toward the ground, only to save yourself a few feet before you hit the ground (but it doesn’t matter if you do hit the ground from really high up as it won’t hurt you). Altogether swinging and jumping works pretty well.

The only gripe I have with movement is the wallcrawling, it can feel clumsy when trying to make precise movements. The best example of this is early on you have to complete a mission where you must crawl down a building and defuse several bombs, while the crawling itself isn’t bad, it’s just really slow and you will need to find a quicker way to get around on these walls which is where you run into the problem, it’s very difficult to move deftly. This isn’t that big of a setback as it only happens once or twice in the game (including this time), but it’s still another chink in Spider-man’s armor.

The games biggest flaw has to be the combat. The A button is used for a strong attack, B is used for webbing, and shaking the Wiimote does a weak attack. There are more attacks to unlock, but even then combat choices are meager. You can execute a 4 hit combo by shaking the Wiimote 3 times for 3 weak attacks and then pushing A for a strong attack. One thing I really ended up not liking was the Web Rodeo (where Spidey uses a web to swing an opponent around in a circle), in Spider-man 2, you could throw someone up against a car or building, but in Spider-man 3, once you hit a car or wall, they just end up standing there, and it doesn’t really do much to them. Something new to the series is the web mount. It allows you to climb on the back of enemies that are bigger than you and punch them a few times before jumping off. If the combat was better, this game could have been a lot more enjoyable.

The main game is pretty short, you could probably beat it in 6 or 7 hours, but finding all the games secrets and getting 100% will keep you playing for a long time, if you like it enough to continue. Altogether the game is disappointing, and this is coming from someone who a few months ago went back just to swing around in Spider-man 2. The swing mechanics are fun, but the combat drags the game down. At the game’s $50 price tag I can only recommend this game to the really hard core Spider-man fans, which have probably already picked this up. To everyone else, rent it if you are interested, or wait for a $20 or less price tag.

One final thing, one reason this game turned out the way it was, is because from what I’ve heard, working with a movie studio for a licensed game makes things very rushed. If Vicarious Visions had more time, they could have put out a good game, but in it’s present state it is a:

6/10

Edit: You may of noticed I said nothing about the black suit, that's because I only used the thing once aside from the one time you have to use it. I just didn't feel the point in using it.

Introduction

Well I decided to start this to write reviews of mostly video games, but on occasion I may review other stuff. I'll be looking at Wii, Nintendo DS, as well as some games from last gen to start off.

Let me know what you think. Constructive Criticism is welcome. Also as I'll say in my profile, I review a game based on how much fun I have with it, so I may occasionally, or more than occasionally leave out technical graphic complaints, like "...the textures on that grass are horrible", etc. Anyways to start off I'm going to write reviews for Spider-Man 3 and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix both for Wii. The Spider-man 3 review may be up tonight, or it may have to wait until tomorrow or Monday. After that I may throw out a few DS reviews, but we'll see how the first two go. I may occasionally provide a news update, if the news is big or of particular interest.