The Official Games Radar Reviewer Handbook (Third Edition) cites two important criteria to look for when reviewing anime-based games. The first? They have to appeal to the fans of the anime. And the second? They also have to be fun enough to appeal to everyone else. Some games only manage the first point; a rare few manage both. Bandai's new One Piece: Grand Adventure is a textbook case of an anime game that is packed full of fan service but is lacking in areas of greater substance. Even so, it
Mario Party practically invented the party game, a sort of video board game where winning relied almost as much on luck as actual skill. Love it or hate it, the thing sold gangbusters, inspiring a legion of clones often based on kiddy anime licences. One Piece: Pirates' Carnival is the latest of these, featuring the lovable and wacky cast of Shonen Jump's famous "One Piece" manga / anime. But unlike most of its peers, Pirates' Carnival does enough stuff right to actually make it worth a play or
Almost, but not quite. That's the skinny on One Piece: Unlimited Adventure. For the 60-or-so hours it'll take you to complete the story mode, you'll command the characters from the One Piece anime and manga franchise, explore a beautiful 3D rendered island, and have a free pass to beat the stuffing out of the soldiers that frequently get in your way. There's just one catch. The majority of those 60-hours will be spent gathering rocks, bugs, fish, and other silly bits of junk.
The game opens
A pirate’s life for us? Not if it involves this much brainless scavenging. Continuing on from Ganbarion’s so-so Unlimited Adventure, Cruise bears little proof of two years’ development. Button mashing. Hiking around confusing maps. Scooping up an inordinate number of coconuts. Have we slipped through a wormhole back to 2007?
A pirate’s life for me? Not if it involves this much brainless scavenging. Cruise 2 is hardly a standalone adventure, but the second half of a bigger game simply hacked off in the name of money-making. Cruise 1 abruptly ended and Cruise 2 abruptly begins, dropping you in to flee a boss you technically fought two months ago.
Onechanbara is one of those bizarre, yet wildly popular franchises that makes absolutely zero sense without the disclaimer "Japanese fan favorite." The series is so popular that not only has it spawned games on the PS2 and Wii, but also an admittedly awful feature film of the same name. Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad, however, is the first installment to make the leap to HD on the Xbox 360.
You won't find many M-rated games on Nintendo's squeaky clean console, but of the few, you will find that Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers is a doozie. This raunchy blood-spewing romp is set immediately after the events of the simultaneously released Xbox 360 title (Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad). Here we follow not only sisters Aya and Saki as they attempt to unravel the secret of the Baneful Blood, but also the travels of two more unlockable characters, Misery and Reiko, former enemies from the Xbox game.
By
Edge_
posted June 10, 2004
Here's the dilemma: do you chastise a sequel regardless of achievement because it fails to significantly push its series forward, or do you accept the few tweaks and additions typically displayed by follow-ups as sufficient evolution, given that the game's very nature discourages daring development? Fans yearn for more of the same, while the game enthusiast tends to favour innovation over franchise loyalty.The latest Onimusha mostly treads a path well travelled by its commercially successful
By
PSM2_
posted January 21, 2004
First, a warning: this isn't Onimusha 3, despite the fact that the first thing it shows you when it loads up is a huge, incredibly exciting trailer full of Jean Reno. Instead, it's a sort of stopgap featuring all of the best characters so far in a series of duels against more-or-less static backdrops. Comparisons to Power Stone are inevitable, but they aren't exactly fair. Okay, so the Versus matches tend to be four-way tussles where finding Power-Up crates is just as important as hitting
Japan just can't seem to catch a break when it comes to demons. Dawn of Dreams takes place fifteen years after the original Onimusha trilogy, but the action-packed essence remains fully intact. Emperor Hideyoshi is up to something unspeakable with the nation's cherry trees, and plans to turn every last citizen into a mindless drone under his command.
Your only recourse is to stop this evil with lots and lots of bloodshed. You start out controlling only Soki - a blond samurai ogre with two
