Reviewing games is touchy, especially when there are many different types of gamers out there who expect many different types of things from the games themselves, and from reviewers. I’m not incredibly experienced in writing game reviews yet, but I try my best to get the highlights covered, perhaps even talking in-depth about features that I find extremely good or severely lacking. To get to that point, I play the games I review a reasonable amount of time – and that time could vary from title to title.

I beg your indulgence for a few moments.

I’m not a big fan of saying, “I’ll finish a game before I review it” or “I’ll play X number of hours before I review it”, because to be perfectly honest with you, if a game doesn’t hook you in the first couple hours, at the very latest, then there’s a problem somewhere along the line. I don’t think anyone – reviewer or casual gamer alike – should be forced to play a game when the developers have failed somewhere in grabbing the attention of the player early on.

That being said, with non-RPG titles, I usually put three to five hours into the game play before a review. If I get really into it and finish the game, more power to me. Games that I dislike early on, like X-Blades, are on the lower end of that scale. I think I saw all I needed to see after about three hours of game play, if that. How would the major issues I have with that game change after the three hour mark? After five hours? After I finish the game? Trust me, the camera and control issues aren’t going to change at any point in the game.

RPG titles I will likely play longer. Some of these games are dozens and dozens of hours to completion and sometimes the story takes a bit longer to get rolling. In a 10-hour action title, the story has to be approached at a different pace than a 40-hour RPG, and the same could be said of my reviewing. In my review of Sacred 2, I stated that I played about 12 story quests into the game (about eight hours of game play because I get sidetracked a lot) and I still couldn’t figure out the story – that’s a problem which I recognized after the fourth or fifth story quest. I gave it extra time because, well, its an RPG. (Apparently, in this case it didn’t matter ’cause the story is so all over the place that after nearly 10 hours of play I still hadn’t figured it out.)

If I play a game less than the average time for a title, I’ll say it in my review in the spirit of full disclosure. I’ll also tell you why, because usually those are games that really, really suck (like Too Human or X-Blades). Potential players should know what the issues are that early in the game, and why they caused me to stop playing.

So, as you can see, there are a lot of variables involved, so I won’t give solid specifications on how much of a game I’ll play before I review it.

If you’ve read my previous reviews, you’ll notice I use a scale of one to ten as the final score. I hope readers focus more on what I say about the game than the final score. (I’m not convinced I’m going to keep the “final score” idea, I might just get rid of it altogether and just discuss the game and leave it at that – but I haven’t decided for sure yet.)

I tend to view reviews and thoughts from individuals who run smaller gaming blogs as a more accurate depiction of these titles, so I build my reviews with that in mind.  Sometimes I think the large gaming sites put too much stock in what the general gaming public wants instead of taking each game and reviewing it on its own merits.  For example, I dislike blanket statements that knock games for not innovating, considering a feature to be a holdover from years past.  Instead of complaining that a game isn’t an innovative title, why not take the game on its own merits and consider how that “non-innovative” feature works in the game.  A great example of this is Persona 4, which uses a mechanic that many game reviewers despise these days – turn-based battles.  It works well in Persona 4 because its executed well.  Whether its a tried-and-true mechanic or a new, innovative one, if it works well in the title, why is the game dumped on?  Along those same lines, innovation does not automatically mean a game is great.

Taking that into consideration is really what I focus on when I write my reviews – I don’t care about the “mainstream”, FPS-or-nothing crowd or appealing to what they want to see.  I’ll take each game on its own merits and consider how the features I want to discuss work in that specific title, not on some larger “non-innovative” scale that some reviewers seem to be in the habit of using.

Well, those are some of my thoughts on my own, personal review philosophy.  Its not something written in stone – mostly its just stream-of-consciousness rambling.

I honestly find it hard to start this review, frankly because I don’t know where to start.  Do I start with the over-sexualized, scantily-clad, smack-talking heroine?  Or do I start things off by talking about the awkward, too-sensitive, mind-of-its-own camera?  How about the boring, repetitive combat?

I have this thing that I do with all my reviews – I try to find at least one thing that this game does well.  I did find that – the artwork and environments are eye candy, on a visual level.  I enjoy the fact that you can tear apart parts of the environment and there aren’t many invisible walls in the games different “combat zones”.  Ayumi, our heroine in this tale, is nicely designed, but a bit over-the-top.  It is nice to see an anime-inspired action game, which is the whole reason I rented this game to play in the first place.  See, I’m trying to be positive!

The issue is, there’s so much that is negative about this game that it snuffs out the few glimmers of light.  The story is overly cliché and not explained very well, although I was impressed with the few stylized cut scenes that were scattered throughout the game.  I was disappointed there weren’t more of them – after every couple “combat zones” I expected to see one, shining new light on some little nuance of the story, yet I was disappointed nearly every time.  The battling felt so monotonous and long-winded that it would have done well for the game to flesh out the story by adding more cut scenes.  But, I digress.  Its likely the audience the developers were searching for would disagree with my RPG-minded brain chemistry.

The controls themselves were fine, and fairly standard for a title like this.  My problem was with the camera.  I seriously felt like pelting my 360 controller through my TV every time the camera would either whip around Ayumi on its own when I was trying to look somewhere else or when it wouldn’t move at all when I wanted it to.  Sometimes it was way too responsive, other times it wasn’t responsive enough – if at all.  This complicated battle sections that were already too long.  Maybe I was doing something wrong, maybe not.  It seems a bit long-winded to have to sit there hacking and slashing for 20 minutes before you clear one battle area.  That’s called artificially inflating the length of the game.

As far as the game mechanics themselves, things were sound, although it didn’t seem like the basic tutorials were enough to really let the player understand how things work.  The new spells and abilities – both “light”- and “dark”-based – were fun to use, when they worked.  Again we have the same problem that we had with the camera, it seemed that spells like the “fireball” often would not even cast when I tried, even when the cool-down was up.

Unfortunately, the armor-less eye candy that is Ayumi couldn’t keep me focused.  The camera needs to be tighter, the story more engrossing and the game mechanics easier to grasp.  I applaud the efforts of the developers to attempt to introduce an anime-inspired hack-and-slash action title to the North American minds infatuated with God of War, but in the end it was likely more of a detriment than a benefit to the genre.

Score: 3.0 (out of 10)

I’ve always loved Atlus, their localization team has always been great. Nothing impresses that more into my mind than Crimson Gem Saga. At its heart, it’s a very traditional JRPG and the sequel to the game Astonishia Story. (Basically, its Astonishia Story 2, but with a new title both in Japan and North America.) Although it’s a sequel, you don’t need to have played the original title to figure out what’s going on – its laid out very clearly in the opening acts of the game.

You play as Killian von Rochoff, who, at the beginning of the story, graduates from Green Hill Academy in the hopes of becoming a chevalier. His dreams do end up becoming a reality, although not in the way he hoped. He’s swept into the secret search for the Wicked Stone, formerly known as the Crimson Gem. Along the way, of course, you pick up various party members with other skills to round out your band of warriors. I can’t say the story and characters aren’t cliché, but the dialog is so amazing you won’t even care. Atlus did an excellent job of localizing this title. That’s all I can really say. They did an awesome, awesome job. Many of the little quips the characters make made me laugh out loud.

The voice acting isn’t top notch, but its not horrible, either. The voices fit the characters pretty well, but still fall prey to being overly dramatic and sometimes tiresome when the same phrase is repeated over and over again in battle. The music fits the mood that the characters find themselves in, as well, but there’s nothing that really stands out. Overall, the audio is well done, but not amazing.

The visuals are stunning on that little PSP screen and the character sprites are well animated and enjoyable to watch. Keep an eye on Spinel on the battle screen right after a fight, as they’re doing their little victory dance – perhaps her sprite is a bit too animated, if you know what I mean.

For a battle system, you have typical turn-based fare, with a couple improvements to liven things up a bit. This isn’t a new mechanic, by any means, but requiring you to “tag” the enemies (which are seen on screen, no random encounters here) so you at least start on equal footing will keep you on your toes. If you manage to sneak up on an enemy, your party gains a fairly sizable advantage in battle. If the enemy sees you first, you have a few seconds to reach it, but if you wait too long, it will come after you with a vengeance and gain an advantage for itself.

Combos with the different characters during battle also spice things up, the only downside is that both the characters have to learn the combo skill before you can use this. This gets me in to a lukewarm part of the game mechanics – the skill system. As you battle, you gain skill points, and these are put into a pool that any of your party members can draw from. Each character has their own skill tree that is geared toward the type of attacks they’re designed to use – magic, physical assault, healing, a combination, etc. The problem isn’t that set up, but it’s the fact that to just uncover a skill and see what it is it costs you skill points. Then, you have to spend even more points to actually learn the skill. This strikes me as overly problematic because it will (at least for me) lead to mandatory grinding in mid- to late-game.

It would have alleviated the problem somewhat if each character had their own pool of skill points or, better yet, just have the entire skill tree exposed from the start of the game so you can at least plan in what order you wish to learn the abilities. This is really my only major gripe with the game. And, truth be told, if you enjoy a major grind-fest, it might not bother you so much.

One other small issue I have to comment on is the lack of being able to move my character at a 45 degree angle on the field screen. The movement always seems slightly off. Its hard to describe, really. Its also not that big of an issue, but probably the one thing that always got me saying, “What is up with these controls?!” every time I picked up the game to play.

Crimson Gem Saga is exquisite in so many ways that even the one major issue I have with the game pales in comparison to how great the title is overall. Its definitely one of the best RPGs for the PSP. It might be too old-school or grindy for some people, but if you enjoy those types of games, you can’t miss this title.

Score: 8.5 (out of 10)

The sights and sounds of the Dragon Quest franchise are near and dear to my heart. The very first title with that name (or Dragon Warriorin North America) was the game that introduced me to RPGs and was game that jump-started my love of the genre. “A Slime approaches!” is all I think about when I see slime-type enemies in these newer titles.

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride was never released outside Japan until this DS remake, so having not seen any of the original game, its hard to make comparisons about anything, really. A few things were added and, obviously, the graphics were improved. Touch-screen controls were added, but they aren’t necessary by any means. In fact, while playing games like this (Chrono Trigger DS and Final Fantasy IV DS are two other examples), I would much rather use the buttons than the stylus any day of the week.

The story is rather unique for a standard JRPG. As the journey begins, you are a young boy, accompanying your father on a few errands here and there. Eventually, time passes and you grow up into a strong young man with greater responsibility. The option to marry the girl of your dreams presents itself about half way through the game. You’re allowed to marry one of three girls – each has their own strengths and weaknesses. That girl will travel with you for the rest of the game, so base your decision on more than the color of their hair. You have other faithful companions that stick with you through thick and thin, as well.

The graphics were updated to look pretty spiffy, most notably the terrain, towns and dungeons. The lighting effects in various areas are rather impressive for the DS. I really can’t say much about the character sprites. Some of the characters always look either angry or like some sort of alien, whichever you prefer. Although, the anime-style character portraits are nice, and should be a style familiar to fans of the DQ franchise.

What I enjoy most about this title is the story and the straight-forward battle system. There are no frills, no skills learned from equipment, no special combo attacks with various party members, nothing. Its simply old-school, turn-based RPG goodness. The variety comes from the choices you can make as to how your party is set up. This comes in two ways: 1) I already mentioned you get to choose a female character for your mute main character to marry, and each of the three girls available has different strengths and weaknesses, but also 2) you can get monsters to join your little band of travelers and build your party with the strengths and weaknesses you want. If you only have two set party members and want a melee-strong party, fill it with two monsters you acquired who focus strongly on melee attacks, if you want a magic-heavy party, do the same with monsters that are casters, if you want some buff/debuffers, do that. The choices are literally endless. Throughout the early part of the game, your main character is likely the main healer and damage dealer, but the entire party together, assuming you start adding monsters to it, can handle just about anything, and then some.

However, this game isn’t all roses, there’s quite a few thorns, most of which are likely holdovers from the original release, and can be blamed on its age. Way too often its way too difficult to figure out where to go next. You’ll finish one “quest”, one part of the story, you end up in the town where it all started and…well, you just have to figure out where to go next. You either have to talk to every person in town (sometimes multiple times) or explore around the world map until you find someplace that might be your next destination. If this was in a new game, I would knock it down a notch, but that’s just the way RPGs were back when this game was originally developed. Its still incredibly frustrating.

Also, something about the text bothers me. There’s way too much of it. When I want to save the game, I don’t want the guy at the church to go through his whole schpeel. Every. Single. Time. When a major event happens to my party, like a main character joins or leaves, the dialog stays on the screen for what seems like an eternity, while music plays in the background. No, hitting the “A” button won’t close the dialog box. This happens often, as well. Really, the only part of the game that should have anywhere resembling a novel’s worth of dialog is actual story segments. In that case, it wouldn’t be a problem. But, if I want to save, just let me save, without all the extra time spent scrolling through dialog boxes.

I also would have liked to see maps of interior locations, dungeons mostly, and a better, clearer world map. As it stands right now, its hard to tell exactly where you’re going or plot a direction to go on the pixelated world map. I dislike the requirement to only full-save the game at a church. You can quick-save anywhere on the world map, but to completely save your game in the regular manner, you must be at a church.

Overall, I quite enjoy Dragon Quest V, and will likely continue playing it until completion. The thing that irks me, though, is that while the developers are remaking the title, a lot of these little annoyances should have been taken care of. After all, they went through the trouble of adding touch-screen support, and even a new female character and all the dialog that goes with it, just for this remake. It would have been nice if they made the game a little less rough around the edges while they were at it. If you’re into very traditional JRPGs, this is a goldmine of quirky fun and turn-based adventure definitely not to be missed by fans of the genre.

Score: 8 (out of 10)