Playstation games (short reviews)
Silent Hill: A game of psychological horror, with a nightmarish athmosphere,
and a terrifying mood. The 3D graphics are very well done and the musics
and sounds are terrific (the best I heard in a Playstation game). The FMV
sequences are beautiful and really add to the experience. This is the
most intense experience I had with a game, and this is the game which moved
and scared me the most. It can only be compared to the best Clive Barker's
stories from Books of Blood or to the Jacob's ladder movie. There is a solid
story and an insane, nightmarish, mood that pervades the whole thing.
Everything is well realized: every place you visit actually make sense, and
has an interesting design. It's only flaw in my eyes: it's too short. You
can solve the whole thing in about 20 hours... There is less physical horror
and foul things than in Resident Evil (both 1 and 2), but the horror you feel
is even worse. Here you don't play a super-hero: your character is winded
after just running a minute or two, and his aiming if awful with a gun,
especially when he is out of breath. But that just add to the game too: he
is an ordinary character in an infernal story, not an action hero that
nothing can reach.
Tenchu: Ever dreamed to be a a ninja ? In this game you play an anonym
stealth assassin in service of your Lord in the feudal Japan (either a
sturdy guy or a smaller, deft girl). That's not a beat'em up: here,
everything depends on your stealth and your silent kills. You don't have
to kill everyone, just fulfill your mission objectives, efficiently,
fast, and don't be spotted by the ennemy. In this game you can kill any
unaware guy in only one back stab (cool FMV sequence, then). If they
are alerted and see you come, it's far more difficult for you, though
(and your score is lessened). The graphics are not the best seen in a
PSX game, not very precise, and there is some polygonal errors. But the
characters and the places really have a style and are all very well
designed. It's the bloodiest and the most violent game I saw on a
playstation: when you cut the throat of an unsuspecting ennemy, it's
just like you actually do it. An awesome gameplay and a total
replayability.
Vandal Hearts: simple tactical game: a few tactical parameters are taken
into account, but that works very well. It takes an hour to learn all the
rules and you'll have days of interesting tactical combat trying to think
of the most effective strategy in each case. This is an incredibly
addictive game with a really interesting background story. This is not an
RPG though, because you cannot change the plot of the story, just
succeeding or failing (by winning the battles or loosing them). The
graphics are dated, they are not as beautiful as most games coming out
these days, but that's quite enough to enjoy that really nice game.
Final Fantasy Tactics: A tactical game with some rpg elements, like Vandal
Hearts, but far more complex. Here, sophistication and details is the rule.
Everything you ever dreamed to be in a tactical game or in a rpg game is
here: your character may have several jobs, each of them have dozen of
skills distributed seven categories. You can personalize the ability of
each of your unities with Experience Points and Job Points (gained during
battles depending on what you do), and by a clever use of job changes. Mixed
with the tons of equipment, you can just do anything you want. The battles
are very well designed, and hard! The graphics are well-realized sprites.
The story line is rather interesting (and there is few choices you can do
to modify the plot). You'll need at least 4 to 6 hours to master all the
elements and concepts of this game, but you won't regret it: there is
literally hundreds of hours of complex, intelligent gameplay for you if
you master this ultimate tactical game. The more you play it the better
it gets.
Suikoden: This is my reference in RPG games. Maybe it is less special
nowadays than it used to be, with all these new RPG that keep coming.
But the story is still very good, the graphics (sprites) well-done (if
not exceptionnal by today standards), and the gameplay just perfect:
there is always several things to do, lots of new characters to be
found, former characters to develop, and a troup to increase in number
for the final battles.
Final Fantasy VII: No need to present this reference. In my opinion,
it's an interesting game but somewhat overrated. Though it is rather
well done, it has some problems too:
- a rather confusing story (taking too much directions with too
much twists in the plot and not enough details on most parts of the
story).
- The controls of the game are not very easy to use at first and could
have been far better.
- The combat system lacks of tactics, and random combats become boring
at last because you just have to use always the same combination with the
usual ennemies. And the 100th time you do the same thing is not very
interesting.
This is still a very enjoyable game with a very long story, a huge
continent to explore, and lots of interesting things to do in that
game.
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