Maken Shao Demon Sword

[sideshow]

I just played through the PS2 European version of this game and its pretty damn bizarre. There are 19 different enviroments spanning across the globe from China, India, Moscow, Instanbul, Transylvania, Athens, Mecca, Washington DC, and so on. Whats cool is that pretty much every boss you fight, after you beat it, you can brain jack in their mind and then play as that character. I found about 14 different characters to play with. Each character can be powered up to obtain 4 unique attack moves. The environments graphically are on the dull side since this is an early PS2 title but the character artwork is amazing. Kazume Kaneco's artwork is just as bizzare as any of his Megai Tensei stuff. I couldnt believe it but you actually play as Bill Clinton later in the game! The game is nonlinear and branches out so you can choose what levels you want to play next and so forth. There are decisions to be made in the cutscenes by saying yes, or no. I'm not sure what the outcome is for choosing what but it gives the game replay value. The gameplay is satisfying where your constantly locking on enemies and manuevering around. If you dont use defense in this game then the enemies will kick your ass. Whenever an enemy is going to do a strong move the character will blink and that means get the hell out of there or you will be pummelled cause you cant block that move. Of course once you upgrade a character fully you can obtain an unblockable move yourself. The best thing about this game is that the levels are not too long and your constantly travelling to a new country. The enemy designs will make you flip cause its absolutely bizarre. Its not the best hack and slasher by no means but worth playing just to see the character artwork. The action is third person instead of first person like in the dreamcast original. Atlus R&D1 did a pretty good job on this action title and is well worth playing.

[necromaniac]

I own the DC original and love it.
The translation/voice acting could have been better and the endings are downers but it's a fun game none the less.
I need to get my hands on a PS2 copy so I can compare.
The weird atmosphere that both audio and the visuals create is hard to find elsewhere, even in the SMT series.

[sideshow]

I think another thing the PS2 version adds over the Dreamcast original is more moves to each character. Durying the boss battles you can easy guess which moves you can acquire just buy studying their attacks. The main thing I hated with the game is that you have to play levels a couple times over and over to fully upgrade the characters. Its possible to beat the game with the standard moves but is really challenging. Upgrading is a must towards the end. Graphically, the game looks the same as the dreamcast version. I believe there was some shadowing of some sort added but its minor.

[kal]

I've always avoided picking this game up, for no apparent reason (it was a budget game here I'm always edgy about that) but I'll definately get it now, since there's no multiplayer I'll get the PS2 version sicne it's a little better?

Thanks muchly for the heads up.

*edit* Just read that the game holds a total of 16 characters, seems cool.

[sideshow]

The gameplay doesnt get dull. Just about every level has a new character to find. If you get sick using one character just play as another. Each character has there own unique stats and weapon.

[kyouki]

I had this on the DC... that version is a first person game, whereas from what I understand the PS2 game uses a third-person camera.

The textures seem pretty awful in the PS2 version, based on the screens you posted. The DC game is pretty low poly, but the environment textures are decent for the time... it would be interesting to compare.