Star Ocean - Until the End of Time Review (PS2)

 

The PS2 version of Star Ocean is the third in the series, but like many other Square franchises it is not necessary to have played the other games to know what is going on. The story follows a boy named ‘Fayt’ who is busy minding his own business on a holiday planet when it comes under attack from an unknown military force. Thus you are thrown into an epic tale spanning across the galaxy, with twists etc, you know how it goes- while Star Ocean may not innovate in the tale that is told, the way it unravels is a slight break from the norm.

The title is placed in a highly futuristic setting, it is then somewhat of an irony that the game crash lands you onto a primitive planet filled with knights and dragons where due to intergalactic law you can not use any form of technology more advanced than your surroundings. This means even though you have the technology to level a city at the flick of a button, you have to run round with a sword. At least it appears the developers have a sense of humour.

Combat is dealt with in real time. All of you who have had just about enough of random encounters and turn based fighting rejoice. Enemies can be seen on the map and engaged at the player’s choice. However, it can be all to easy to keep running past creatures while exploring the map meaning you are missing out on much needed experience- you have been warned. 

Combat itself works extremely well. Computer AI is decent enough and characters can be given set instructions to carry out. However they do tend to not heal themselves so boss battles often result in players taking control of the main healing character while the computer deals out punishment for you. During combat there are numerous special moves available at the touch of a button and skilled players will be able to string massive combinations together, indeed it all works so well it makes you wonder why we bothered with turn based fighting for so long.

Graphically the title is not outstanding. Characters and locations are nicely created but there is very little that will cause you to marvel at what is on screen. Cut scenes are well done but are normally only a few seconds long. This may please some people who do not want a constant precession of ten minute long story segments, but when the PS2 takes a few seconds to load up a scene which runs for about three seconds,  then takes a few more seconds to load up the game area again it creates an incredibly disjointed feel and effects the general flow of the game no end.

One of the titles undoubted strengths is the subtle beauty of the musical scores that run through it. While in space you are treated to cold, empty sounding melodies that float around the game area, truly outstanding. The only time the music falls down is when entering one of the many dungeons. After building a mood throughout the game with gentle melodies that perfectly fit your surroundings walking into the first dungeon area on a sixteenth century planet to be greeted by the sounds of Japanese synth pop is a little out of place to say the least. However, like so many things in Star Ocean after a few hours you get used to it and it begins to fit the overall feel of the title.

While many other RPG’s claim to be epic, Star Ocean definitely is. Spanning two discs there is more game in there for you money than almost any other title currently on the market. In order to get through to the end you are looking at putting in somewhere in the region of fifty plus hours. If you want to collect all the battle trophies and complete all the side quests, inventing sections etc, then you could easily see that play time double. When you take into account the multiple endings available it shows that Star Ocean is ready and willing to absorb how ever much of your time you want to put into it.

While far from being perfect Star Ocean is a well put together title that offers a lot of fun for RPG veterans and new comers alike. While there is not really anything that drives you through the game it is more than likely that players will stick with it until the end due to its easy going nature. Star Ocean is a game you have to play through at your own pace, there are so many things you can do that are optional it is a title that personifies the idea that the more you put in the more you will get out. Maybe not quite up to the standard of other square adventures of times gone by, it is never the less a highly enjoyable experience and one well worth checking out.

Overall 7/10

Ys: Memories of Celceta Review (Playstation Vita)

The Ys franchise has been around since the late eighties but the games have rarely made it over to the west. Some of the titles are available via Steam or the Wii virtual console but this is the first time the series has seen a major release upon European shores. We won’t go into a long history lesson on the plot as the game acts as much as a self-contained adventure as a continuation to the timeline. Because of this it is easily accessible for newcomers to the mythology of the world.

The plot follows a young adventure named Adol who is found in a great forest suffering from amnesia. As Adol you are tasked with exploring the forest and recovering your memories. Along the way you will encounter characters who remember you. Some of these will accuse you of things that you may or may not have done and a large part of the game is in investigation these claims, normally by heading to a dungeon, in order to find out what is actually going on.

An action RPG, Memories of Celceta has characters exploring the world away from random battles. All the enemies are on the screen from the start and you will need to use your array of weapons and special powers to defeat them. Combat is similar in some respects to the Tales series (or later Star Ocean games), where you have a small group of heroes fighting in real time. The player controls one character while the AI controls the other two.

Unlike many games the AI is actually pretty good at handling the characters and there weren’t many moments when it did something stupid or put them in harm’s way. They do attack but we found that we needed to dive in to perform at the heart of the battle. This means you can’t just sneakily hide somewhere while the computer does all the work.

You’ll gradually get more characters join your party and each has their own strengths and special abilities to use on the map.  For instance, one can pick locks while another is capable of splitting rocks to open the way. All members of your party gain experience during your adventure whether they are in the on screen party or not which means you are free to experiment and swap characters in and out without them lagging behind in terms of stats.

As you level you will gain new combat skills that you can assign to different buttons. To use these skills you have to strike enemies to build a meter. Finishing off an enemy with one of these skills then fills a different super move meter which when full unleashes a lengthy and powerful combo. It’s a simple system but one that works well.

Collectible items also have a system to follow. As you gather bits of plant, minerals and other objects you can combine them for items of higher value. Collect enough coal and you turn it into iron ore, collect enough iron ore and can turn into silver ore etc. These items can then be sold for much higher values than before as well as being used to craft new weapons and objects.

As you explore the forest you will fill out your map which highlights areas of interest and stone markers. Any marker visited can be used to quick travel around the map and also acts to heal your health and cure status ailments. This means you aren’t constantly backtracking and keeps the pace up. 

Aside from your main quest there are also numerous side quests in each area. These normally appear after solving the areas problem and take the form of messages pinned on the town’s board. Reading the board once adds all the quests to your map so you only have to glance at the quests once. This further streamlines the experience and allows for quick and easy access to what there is to do around you. You can also save just about anywhere, except during boss fights. If you die you get a retry option which normally puts you at the entrance to the last room you entered as well so there is little repetition of events.

In fact the only thing likely to stall your progress through the game is the somewhat strange requirement that some dungeons have to make you find a number of pieces of stone tablet in order to proceed. You need these to make a shape on certain doors (like a picture slide puzzle), before the door will open. We found ourselves stuck a number of times because of missing a piece and then had to trudge around the dungeon looking for it.

Overall, Ys does a very good job of bringing the action RPG genre to the Vita. It looks lovely and there is a strong and pacey quest to undertake. It may lack a little depth but it’s a player friendly and enjoyable game and one that fits the Vita very well. If you are in need of some dungeon exploring action then this is the game for you.

Overall 8/10

Wire Strippers, Beer and a Spectrum: Part 3

Written by Dan Gill

Wire Strippers, Beer and a Spectrum: Part 1

Wire Strippers, Beer and a Spectrum: Part 2

With the keyboard membrane replaced, I was all set to load up some games.  I hooked up the off-white Sanyo cassette recorder to the Speccy, put in the copy of 'The Hobbit' (which had clearly been lovingly recorded to a 15 minute Boots cassette some 30 odd years ago), typed LOAD “”, pressed ENTER, then PLAY.  Nothing. No screeching, no lines on the screen, not even a coloured border.  At this point I thought it must have been the volume on the cassette recorder.  Nope.  Perhaps the 'Format' switch on the player should be set to normal instead of data?  Nah.  Maybe it's the lead?  Not on your life.

After spending what seemed like an eternity fiddling around with both cassettes at my disposal and all the settings possible on the recorder, I managed to progress to a screen with a red border and nothing else.  Something was clearly not right, and I was hoping it was the cassettes.  With this in mind, I hit eBay again in order to procure an original cassette.  I spotted the original 'Dizzy' for £2 (as a 'Buy it Now'), and bought it.  Sadly this meant I would have to play the waiting game again, at least as far as running cassettes went.  I remember reading an article about running cassette based games using alternative methods, and figured this would be the best time to try them out.

In the article I read, the author had managed to load Speccy games using his iPod, on which Spectrum games were played as MP3s or WAV files.  This makes perfect sense when you think about it, as all the cassette recorder is doing is playing data to the computer as an audio file.  This then reads the code and spits a game out all over your telly. 

In order to convert the files I downloaded several programs.  The first was OTLA (http://code.google.com/p/otla/ ).  This program is great in the respect that it takes seconds to convert titles, will output to MP3 or WAV, and will even speed up the loading times, meaning most games are running within a few seconds (something that wouldn't have seemed possible to computer gamers back in the early 80s).  My first conversion was Matthew Smith's classic, 'Manic Miner' (available legally and for free – as are many others – from http://www.worldofspectrum.org/).  Once I'd copied the file to my phone and set the volume correctly, I was able to load the game almost instantly.  The black magic works!  Truly, we're living in a technological golden age. 

Now I knew how to convert files, I simply had to try some others.  I downloaded some more files (they're tiny, so I grabbed loads), and began to convert more.  The success rate wasn't the best, sadly.  Some titles loaded fine, others would get so far and return to the Speccy's boot screen, and some wouldn't even attempt to load.  As awesome as it is to load games instantly, I needed more compatibility.  I found some success in TZX2WAV (ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/tools/pc/TZX2WAV_02b.zip), which maintained the original loading times, and coped admirably in faithfully converting anything I could throw at it (everything played through the Spectrum too), but I felt that converting a file seemed an unnecessary process at this point, and started looking for a better alternative – something which would play the files in their original TAP or TZX format.

I found PlayTZX (ftp://ftp.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/tools/pc/Playtzx-win32.zip) to work brilliantly.  It played TZX files perfectly by dragging them to the program's executable, then output straight from the headphone socket of my laptop and into my Spectrum.  Unfortunately I'm a little bit picky, and still felt the process could be streamlined even further.  I did what I should have done to begin with and checked on the Play Store on my phone, and the App Store on my iPad.

For my phone I found TeeZiX (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.rift.tzxdroid – Free) to to the job.  Just throw a load of TZX, TAP or ZIP Spectrum files onto your phone, play them through this and you're sorted.  Well, mostly.  I found that a few games just wouldn't load, but it was only a few.  If you're looking to play Spectrum tape files through your Android device, this is the way to go.  However, Speccy Tape for iOS (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/speccy-tape/id460743976?mt=8 – Free) is, in my opinion, the best way to play Spectrum tapes to your computer outside of having a working tape deck.  I shows you on your device what is loading in real time (you know, the screeching noises, lines on the screen and so forth) so you know what you should be seeing on the real Spectrum.  So far I've run into no problems loading games.  This is now my second weapon of choice for loading games, as will be explained.

While I was waiting for my copy of 'Dizzy' to arrive, I received a gift from my good friend “Muppet Man” Kev – a copy of futuristic sports game 'Xeno'.  I must admit it wasn't a game I'd even heard of before, but I was grateful for an actual, genuine game to run on my Spectrum from cassette.  Sadly, the copy of 'Xeno' pretty much confirmed that no audio was coming from the cassette recorder.  It looked like another purchase was required in order to get that authentic experience of loading tapes.

My copy of 'Dizzy' arrived a couple of days later (I tried to run it anyway – no luck), and decided to go looking locally for a replacement cassette recorder.  Living in Exeter's city centre is ideal, as there are a plethora of charity shops and pawn brokers to be found.  I nipped ten minutes down the road to the nearest charity shop to me (and on of the shops which sells electricals.  So may don't these days).  Amazingly they had one in stock for £10.  It was practically on my doorstep all along.  I promptly bought it and returned home, connected it up and (after more volume adjustment and waiting) had 'Dizzy' loaded.  My quest for a fully working ZX Spectrum 48k setup was finally complete.

So, after a week or so of rigorous eBay combing, component switching and general fannying about, I was able to create the authentic early 80s computer gaming experience I was after.  Even with the cost the new keyboard membrane and replacement cassette recorder I still feel I bagged a bargain, and am thoroughly happy with my new addition to the retro collection.  Now I just need to get a few more cassettes for this, and I can start on my next conquest – fixing up my Amiga.  But that's another story for another day.

TxK Review (Playstation Vita)

Jeff Minter has been creating unique games for years now but his most loved creation was for the commercial failure that was the Atari Jaguar. Tempest 2000 proved so popular that even now people hunt out the Jaguar just to play it. It’s easily one of the best games ever made and Minter revisited the formula later via Space Giraffe in 2007. Now we have the third version of the game for the Playstation Vita and it’s been more than worth the wait.

The game is presented in a smooth vector style with your ship moving around the top of a shape and monsters landing and approaching from the bottom. The aim is to stop them reaching the top by blasting them away. When they reach the top of the shape they begin to move along it and try and grab you. Quick players can duck underneath the enemies as they rotate or blast them off quickly.

As the game progresses the amount of enemy types increase far more than in other Tempest games. You may start with the monsters that simply head up and roll across the top of the screen but there are soon enemies that shoot back at you or electrify parts of the vector shape. By level thirty you’ll need super reflexes and skills to survive and things get delightfully chaotic.

To help you along the way are a host of power ups which can dramatically change your style of play. Along with more powerful lasers the most useful are the jump and Ai Drone. The jump allows you to leap away from the rim of the level and over creatures moving along the top. You can shoot when you jump but anything you hit will not increase your score. This means players are faced with the risk/reward scenario of shooting things from a safe distance or upping their score. The Ai Drone acts as an assistant and will roll along the rim blasting away at enemies. It can even save you if one of the monsters reaches you and begins to drag you away.

Another twist to the normal shooter genre is the use of the smart bomb. In contrast to most shooters, using the smart bomb actually doubles the points you receive from destroyed enemies. This allows players to frantically dodge enemies until they fill the screen and then blast them for maximum points. It’s a satisfying action and watching the electro bomb work its way down the shape blasting everything is a great sight.

As well as the increased creature types the levels also do some new things. Some continually rotate around while others bend and split meaning that different routes around the shapes open or close as the level progresses. These levels take the simple Tempest formula and create something more intense. This is where the game really shines and they act to raise an already excellent game to whole new levels.

There are three different modes available in the game but they more or less boil down to the same thing. The Pure mode has you start from level one and go as far as you can before dying. The Classic mode lets you start from any level you have reached with your score and lives intact. This means if you lose two or three lives on a certain stage you can return to them and try and get through with more lives or a higher score. The final mode is Survival. This is like classic but no extra lives are given throughout the game. All the modes have online scoreboards but it can be difficult to see where you rank against your friends due to some strange decisions with how information is displayed.

TxK represents a game perfect for the Playstation Vita. All the neon and music work perfectly with the fast gameplay to create a game perfect for the Vita’s screen and perfect to be played on the go. It’s typical of Minter to take a system and perfectly craft a game around its strengths. This is a game that gets its hooks into you early and just won’t let you go. It’s a full on adrenaline ride filled with clever touches and the odd moment of quirky humour and exactly the sort of thing we want for the Vita.

Overall 9/10