Phantasy Star Zero Impressions

Sega's Phantasy Star franchise is finally making its way to the DS, and we've got the first peek straight from Sega's TGS stage show.

TOKYO--It seemed like just a matter of time before Sega would make a Phantasy Star game for the Nintendo DS, and today, the game was finally announced. Titled Phantasy Star Zero, the game will be hitting Japan on December 25. To give details on the game and explain how its name came about, producer Satoshi Sakai appeared on stage at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.
"With the decision to make a completely new Phantasy Star, we've started out with a new world view, storyline, and characters. We decided to give the game this name to symbolize that we're starting back from the roots again", said Sakai.
Sakai then showed off some gameplay to explain the new systems in Phantasy Star Zero. Communication has always been a big point in the series, and with the shift to the DS, the game takes advantage of the hardware's stylus with its new "Visual Chat" system. Rather than type messages to comrades, you'll be able to write and draw on the bottom screen much like Pictochat. It'll then appear on dialogue balloons in the main top screen where the game is played. The drawings can be recorded onto shortcuts, so you don't have to rush on your writings in the middle of battles. The game also allows you to copy other users, which will come convenient if you're not good at drawing.
Phantasy Star Zero takes place on two locations: the Earth and the Moon. You start off the game by creating your character out of three races (Newman, Human, Cast) and their three professions types. Sakai commented that there are a total of 14 different types of characters you can make. Similarly to previous Phantasy Star games, you can customize the look of your character using different body parts. Up to three characters can be saved.
Phantasy Star Zero will feature three gaming modes. Story mode allows you to enjoy the game alone. A demo showed a scene from the flourishing Dairon City, where the main character meets up with his/her teacher, Kai. The game plays in 3D like previous Phantasy Star installments, but the conversation scenes are in illustrated 2D graphics, and there are also anime clips in event scenes.
In wireless communication mode, you can play with three other friends close by and go on missions, communicating with each other using visual chat.
In Wi-Fi mode, you can select three ways to play online: friends play, free play, and single play. Friends play, as the name suggests, will allow you to type in friends codes and play with people you know; visual chat is supported. Free play lets you play with other users though matchmaking; but communication will be done through preset sentences rather than visual chat. Details weren't given on the single play.
In terms of battle, Phantasy Star Zero seems similar to previous installments albeit with some new additions. The game adopts the action palette system from Phantasy Star Online, and you can customize your own actions. As a new element, you can now dodge roll to quickly evade enemy attacks. There's also a charge attack, where you can hold on to your attack button before letting go to pull off powerful photon arts that consumes some photon points. Charging also works for technique moves.
According to Sakai, Phantasy Star Zero will have more than 300 weapons. This time, there will be shields that allow the player to defend against enemy attacks with the use of photon points. There's also a new weapon category called gun slash. As a hybrid weapon, it acts as a sword in close range and as a gun from a distance. Stay tuned for more on the game as it becomes available.

By Hirohiko Niizumi, GameSpot

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 Impressions

If you threw your favorite Tales characters into a giant pot and brought them to a boil, you'd get something like this sequel for the Sony PSP.

TOKYO--Tales series enthusiasts, brace yourselves: Another Radiant Mythology game is coming to the PSP, and it will be overflowing with all of the fan service that the first one provided. We talked with Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 producer Hideo Baba on the Tokyo Game Show floor this weekend and asked him some questions while getting in some hands-on time with this PSP role-playing game.

The most important facet of the original Tales of the World was its cast. It was the video game equivalent of fan fiction, tossing a crowd of well-known characters along with a few original creations into a stew of random quests and a standard Tales combat system. Baba told us that the sequel's structure will remain essentially the same. If his statement applies to the mission structure, it means that you will take various unrelated quests from a local guild, and be able to recruit up to three other characters into your party at any given time. Baba did confirm that the friendship system from the first game will remain mostly the same, so to recruit people, you will want to remain on his their good side. We were more curious about the full cast, but Baba didn't wish to share details, and told us that this information hadn't yet been passed on to the Japanese press either. We also asked if Tales of Vesperia, the most recent game in the series, would be represented, but Baba would only confirm that Tales of the World 2 would include more than double the number of characters as the first.

However, it's unclear why Baba was so tight-lipped regarding the character list. By accident, we were flipping through some Tokyo Game Show promotional material, and a two-page ad for the game showed a complete list of playable and non-playable characters that will inhabit the Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 story. They include Zelos and Presea from Tales of Symphonia, Bruiser and Rutee from Tales of Destiny, Chat and Reid from Tales of Eternia, and Suzu and Arche from Tales of Phantasia. Other characters are ripped from Tales of Destiny 2, Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Legendia, and other games that, as you can guess, all have titles that begin with the same two words. It's a huge and familiar cast, numbering more than three dozen, so if you're a franchise fan, you'll be quite pleased with the selection. However, the biggest news in the ad is that Yuri will represent Tales of Vesperia, and due to the way that the page is laid out, it seems that he will be a playable character. This is good news indeed for those who enjoyed the most recent entry.

As for the story itself, no surprises sprung from the pages of the ad, and Baba didn't have much to say on the subject. He did tell us that the story will be completely different from the first game and will take place in a totally different world. Like in the original, you will create a character from scratch and choose a profession, though we don't yet know what the job choices will be. You can also choose from other options, such as clothing and voice-over styles. From there, your goal is to find out exactly who you are, which leaves things rather vague. But for now, that's all we know.

As for gameplay, combat should be familiar to anyone who has ever played a Tales game. You take control of a single party member, and battles take place in real time within the combat arena. Pressing the attack button will automatically target an enemy, at which point your character will run toward it and perform the move. You can also perform spells known as artes, and though you can have only a limited number of them mapped to the PSP's buttons at a particular time, you have a good variety from which to choose, so you have a certain amount of flexibility in customizing party members to your own style. The three characters you don't control will attack, heal, and use items as the artificial intelligence sees fit, or you can customize their behavior in various ways.

The one play mechanic that we were curious about was a third gauge at the bottom of the screen. We wondered aloud to Baba about what that meter indicated, but like with other facets of the game, he didn't want to get into specifics and indicated only that it related to additional party skills. Nevertheless, we assume that it's the overlimit gauge of the first game, and screenshots confirm this assumption. Perhaps it's just as well that Baba has been so cryptic; RPGs are at their best when we let them surprise us as we play. Regardless, the one thing that we will spring on RPG fans is the release date--when one is announced, that is. Keep your eyes on this space for future updates!

By Kevin VanOrd, GameSpot

TNA iMPACT! Review

Professional wrestling has long been maligned as a place where spandex-clad ogre-men go to act out contrived rivalries and pretend to actually wrestle. While these derisions certainly hit on some truths about "sports entertainment," the remarkable talents and impressive athleticism of its practitioners cannot be denied. If you're the kind of person who enjoys the high-flying, hard-hitting spectacle of pro wrestling in spite of its myriad absurdities, then TNA Impact may be the game for you. It has some aggravating problems, but it does a good job of translating the excitement of TNA Wrestling into fluid action and visceral fun.

A wrestling game is only as fun as the moves you can perform, and in this regard, TNA Impact does quite well. You ratchet up your basic punch and kick attacks by holding the strong modifier or by performing them from a run or in a grapple. This simple layering allows for a wide range of moves without requiring complex button combinations, so it's easy to unleash your nastiest attacks right from the get-go. You can also reverse almost any attack with a well-timed button press, and many reversals can be reversed again. The accessible variety of attacks and the ever-looming possibility of reversals make the action fast and furious.

The more you mix up your moves, the more likely you are to come across some of the game's many technical hitches. When the animations run smoothly, they look good and produce satisfying impacts. When they don't quite line up, you see fists and feet clipping through torsos, as well as apparent misses registering as hits. These oddities are a minor distraction, though, because at least you are still performing the moves you want. The more frustrating glitches cause your character to perform an unintended maneuver, often with disastrous results.

The glitches are prone to surface in a few situations, the most frequent of which are transitions, such as when your character is getting up off the mat, climbing a turnbuckle, or exiting the ring. Because your attack changes depending on your opponent's position, you may often find yourself aiming to punch an enemy as soon as he stands up, only to execute an elbow drop and lay yourself out at his stomp-happy feet. You can also dodge grapples or attacks when you're near the edge of the ring because the animation of rolling out of the ring will often negate incoming moves. Then, there's the particularly tricky situation when your opponent is down near the edge of the ring. Climbing up on the turnbuckle, rolling out of the ring, and pinning an opponent are all mapped to the same button, which makes it very difficult to figure out how to position yourself to execute the action you want. In this case, you're better off avoiding those three actions altogether.

When you're playing against other human players, these hang-ups don't feel so frustrating because you are all subject to the same pitfalls. In the single-player Story mode you can suffer a few miscues and still scrape out a win a win early on. You'll hit a wall when the foes get tougher, though, because the room for error diminishes so much so that a missed move or missed opportunity can cost you the match. This is vexing enough when it's an honest mistake, but it becomes downright infuriating when it's an animation glitch.

The punishing difficulty in the latter part of the Story mode isn't its only weak point. The voice acting feels flat in contrast with the vigorous banter featured on the actual show, and the actor who voices your character is just terrible, dragging every other character down with his lifeless tone (the closest thing you'll find to personality is in the training videos featured in the extras menu). The only incentive to play the Story mode is to unlock new characters and arenas. With each victory, you earn style points, and the more various and risky your moves are, the more points you'll earn. Unlike in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, these points don't actually appear to earn you anything, given that you don't actually customize your character or move set. As if to compensate for the puzzling lack of character creation, there are a lot more unlockable wrestlers in the PlayStation 2 version, though many of them are no-name goons.

Multiplayer is the best way to enjoy TNA Impact, and there's a full array of match types available. One-on-one matches, three-way free-for-alls, tag-team brawls, handicap contests, and the signature Ultimate X matches are all playable, though only two players can actually compete at a time. Ultimate X matches, while dramatic on television, often feel less exciting than normal matches because the focus becomes staying aloft on the cables rather than pummeling your opponents. There's nothing unexciting about that per se, but the hanging combat is awkward and limited. Actually grabbing the X also requires you to tap a button when a moving cursor lines up with a target area--an action that could be diplomatically described as "anticlimactic."
So, TNA Impact is not without its flaws. The character models are good, and the animation is fluid and lively, but the unpolished physics of fighting can create some frustrating situations, and the lo-fi audio often sounds flat. Yet despite these technical shortcomings (and silly costumes), it's still good fun to clothesline, drop-kick, and power-bomb your friends all around the ring. And, ultimately, isn't that what pro wrestling is all about?

By Chris Watters, GameSpot