Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard Game by Press Start Studio/SANUK GAMES SARL Reviewed by Philip "Pocket Squirrel" Wesley Size: 39MB Save: Memory Stick/Memory (1 slot) Released: February 2011 Works with: PSP 1000, 2000, 3000, Go. ESRB Rated: M Rating Descriptions: Blood and Gore, Violence Quick Opinion: Maybe.... **************************************************************************** Opening Snide Remarks: I love "horror" games, especially games with zombies and slashing stuff. This game showed up on the PSN Store in the PSP Minis section and I had to buy it. It appears to have everything I like in this genre: Zombies, Pseudo-Religious Overtones, stylish character design, and the protagonist is a nun with a huge scythe that also shoots guns. It was also very cheap. So, I decided to go ahead and purchase this game to see what it was like. I suppose that is the real problem with the PSN store when it comes to PSP games and PSP Minis. Only one in about every 100 games has some sort of demo. So, if I get interested in a title, I usually have to download it to see what is in it. Was "Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard" worth the money I spent on it? That is why you are reading this review. **************************************************************************** Gameplay Description: The game has two initial options available when you start out: Story and Survival. Story has six areas and three (?) bosses to contend with during gameplay. Survival is a test to see how many days you survive against ever strengthening zombie hoards. The gameplay is pretty simplistic, Square buttons slashes, X buttons jumps, and Triangle button fires your gun. When you kill zombies, you earn Zombie Hearts which can be used to purchase new weapons, upgrade existing weapons, learn new skills, expand your powers, and increase the amount of damage you can dish out on the zombies. When you slash zombies, you fill up a spirit gauge that allows you to fire your gun. You also have a life gauge that is depleted if you get hit in an attack and refills when you pick up certain randomly dropped items. Every few levels, the game shifts from day to night or a boss is revealed. Bosses have their own life bars and patterns to memorize and exploit. Some bosses have a weakness to certain kinds of guns, and you can switch between purchased guns by hitting L or R. The course of the game is as follows: Select an area to investigate, kill the set number of zombies in that level, go buy upgrades, select another area to investigate, kill the set number of zombies, wash, rinse, repeat. There are bits of dialogue to give the story some depth, but the real draw here is slashing through tons of zombies. Do yourself a favor and select the HARD difficulty when you start out. This way you will have much stronger zombies from the get go. The gameplay really consists of walking left or right and hitting the Square Button or Triangle button like a mad person. Zombies stagger toward you from both sides and you may have to jump out of the way in an effort to get away from the zombies hoards. The zombies become very strong, very quickly and will require more and more hits to kill regardless of your upgrades. Some of the zombies are immune to your normal bullets, so I suggest getting the flame-thrower, ice gun, explosive gun, or holy gun as soon as possible. Survival Mode is split into days, when you leave an area you get another day. You have to plan your upgrades carefully to make sure you survive until the last day! The gameplay is a very repetitive, but that is not a negative thing unless you get easily frustrated with how quickly the game starts trying to overwhelm you with zombies. This is not a game for those who are not able to button mash very, very quickly. Let me quickly tell you the story of Takahashi Meijin. Takahashi Meijin means "Master Takahashi" as is the name given to Toshiyuki Takahashi, the former CEO of HudsonSoft. He is pretty famous for one amazing feat: He could push a button 16 times per second back in the 1980's. This helped him demonstrate amazing skills in shoot em up games like Star Soldier. This is a slash 'em up game where it would help to be Master Takahashi. That said, the animation does prevent me from really slicing up the zombies as quickly as I can. My average is only about 12 to 13 shots per second. Liked: It gets tough really quickly and slashing through tons of zombies is fun. The gameplay, while very shallow, does aspire to some greatness. I feel that the game could use more to it and I will elaborate on that in the game design section. Hated: It really gets repetitive very quickly. The slashing animation takes too long which prevents me from hitting enemies as quickly as I would like to be hitting them. It is also pretty short once you get the hang of it. **************************************************************************** Graphics Description: The graphics are really gorgeous in this game. The nun you play as, Angelika, is pretty well animated. The zombies, bosses, and weapons look great too. The art style of this title is a bit anime inspired and the storyline has slight lesbian overtones. The backgrounds are very detailed and fit the mood of the game very well. The problems with the graphics come from speed of animation, and form some of the levels that have a light background. Some of the areas with lighter backgrounds make it difficult to see the top screen information that lists the amount of zombies left. I feel they could fix that by putting a black outline around the score/zombies remaining/zombie hearts text. The zombies look different enough and get viciously murdered in satisfying ways. You can set them on fire, dust them with holy beam, freeze them, or do other things that result in gore flying everywhere. One particularly nice touch is the amount of temporary blood splatter that sticks to the screen in the game. Of course, the nice backgrounds and animations come at the cost of 5 to 10 second loading times. Liked: Looks pretty good! Loved the gibs, gore, and blood splatter. Also, I like the weapon animations. The backgrounds, atmosphere, and look are top notch. Hated: They need a black outline on the information on the top of the screen. Also, the loading times -due to the graphics- are kind of bad. **************************************************************************** Sound/Music Description: The music is moody goth-jazz with a bit of drum and bass thrown in for good measure. It does a good job of establishing the mood of the game. However, it gets really annoying after a while. The same can be said for the noises the zombies make. The noise your scythe makes as it rips through them or the noise the weapons make as you zap, fry, freeze, or puncture the zombies is great. Lots of great squishing noises. Everything sounds pretty great, but some of it can grate on your nerves after a while. Liked: The musical compositions and sounds in the game are pretty great.... Hated: BUT they are very limited and loop too quickly. **************************************************************************** Play Control/Game Design: This game reminds me a bit of the "Princess Crown" series of Vanilla Ware games. This would be a lighter version of that type of game. If you have played Muramasa or Odin Sphere, you may get an idea of what it feels like the developers were going for. Honestly, I feel that the limitation on size that the game has due to being a PSP Mini may have had a negative effect on the game. The upgrades are nice, but I feel that the game could add more to plate. Think of this as the difference between eating at Taco Bell or eating at a real Mexican/Tex-Mex/Hispanic food place. Sure, the food is much pricier, but you can get Sopapillas. The game could also use some platforming or some sort of sequel. The game right now feels like it was designed to be more cheap than challenging. Instead of making the zombies smarter or type resistant, they just made them take more hits to kill. You also spend a lot of time in the same areas just grinding for zombie hearts to get the upgrades. While this means that you can creatively put your zombie hearts into your weapons of choice, it also makes the game seem like it is just grasping for play time. It gets to a point where you need to be very "pulled in" by the atmosphere of the game. Unfortunately, the music and sound effects will eventually scratch upon your last nerves. The game has a ridiculous amount of potential though. The character designs may seem like a cross between Soul Eater and Chrono Crusade; but the main character is likable enough. The whole lesbian overtones seem cheap and tawdry, because they are cheap and tawdry. Ha ha. We get it. However, the backgrounds, graphics, animation, weapons, and atmosphere of this game demands that it be "fleshed out" into a longer game with jumping puzzles, larger bosses, more variety of enemies, and maybe some Castlevania or Metroid style level structure. Liked: There is a lot of potential in this game and -for what it is- you get what you pay for in this title. The presentation is great and the play control is easy to use and understand. Hated: A lot of potential just feels wasted. I love the atmosphere, but I really would pay a lot more for a longer, more in-depth game. I know it has roots in the cell phone market and it feels like it. **************************************************************************** Improve: Take this atmosphere and expand on it. Look at Muramasa or the current Castlevania titles and emulate that. A better example would be to check out the Shaman King side scrolling titles that were on the Game Boy Advance. RIYL: Slash 'em up or Beat 'em up games. **************************************************************************** Final Words: If you do not buy the atmosphere of this game, then you are not going to enjoy this game. Sadly, Twin Blades (The name is a spoiler), gets a lot of atmosphere right but feels like a flash game or an iOS game. It is mindless and cheap, but it is fun. If you like the atmosphere, invest the money and you will not be disappointed. However, it will make you feel pain that it is not a much deeper game. **************************************************************************** Score Gameplay: ** Graphics: ***** Sound/Music: *** Play Control/Game Design: ** Value: ***** Star Total: 51 Personal Opinion Merit: 21 Final Score: 72% Letter Grade: B ****************************************************************************