Ys informs the storyline of the roaming adventurer called Adol, who flushes ashore in a have town lately plagued by monster attacks and aggresive thunder storms which have left all of them isolated. As he travels to a nearby negotiation, he or she finds a fortune teller caution associated with great danger, requesting him or her to gather the Six Books of Ys in order to unlock the secret of the misplaced the world. Every online game provides a individual arc inside a larger tale: Ys I mainly deals with accumulating the actual books as well as eliminating the source of evil negatively effecting the property, while Ys II involves exploring as well as discovering the actual strategies of Ys itself.

So what’s unique relating to this release? For starters, the games have obtained a substantial visual overhaul, along with large, colorful Second sprites and comprehensive backdrops to make the actual environment truly come alive. The music, as well, is freshly redone, also it sounds simply phenomenal. Conversation has brought a fresh interpretation courtesy of employees from XSEED, and it’s superb, with lots of life as well as subtlety that makes actually simple NPCs appear more interesting than usual. This really is more important than 1 might think at first: the NPCs during these video games are not the typical skippable flavor-text spouts you see within more recent titles, as they tend to decrease delicate hints about what the ball player actually must caused by continue in the games. If you are not paying consideration to what the actual townsfolk say, you likely will waste materials a lot of time winding (and potentially walking foot in really dangerous locations). Regardless of the numerous overhauls the actual titles have obtained, they nevertheless feel, fundamentally, like video games created almost Two-and-a-half decades back, replete with old-school charms.

But if there’s one thing about Ys which has failed to age nicely, it’s the fight… if you’re able to really call it which. Rather than pushing a control button in order to golf swing the sword, you essentially just perform human steamroller along with Adol, ramming him or her in to foes and hoping a person harm all of them a lot more than they damage you back. It’s a program which i assume was created to get round the technical restrictions of earlier Japanese PCs (which were not really built for action video games). It may have worked after that, but nowadays it just seems ridiculous, especially arriving off the superb swordfighting within Oath in Felghana. The problem balance can also be manipulated — If you’re having problems beating someone else in charge or even the enemies increase greatly within strength from one region to another, the solution to your own ills always amounts to “grind with regard to higher levels and cash with regard to much better equipment, after that return to mow all of them down being an almighty killdozer.Inch (This is just on the “Normal” trouble, I should include — easy is actually pathetically easy, but something above the conventional level appears targeted at outright masochists.) Nor of the two video games are extended, but the old-school method of challenge as well as providing objectives to the participant often means wasted time and effort.

In spite of its fabled history and retro necklaces, Ys I as well as 2 is easily the weakest associated with XSEED’s 3 PSP Ys produces. The actual remixed songs and artwork is wonderful, and the tale maintains it’s simple charms, but the gameplay is actually pure retro design — and not completely in a great way, using its archaic “combat” and often meandering focus. It’s certainly the best version of these 2 titles available in English, but unless of course you are a gaming history enthusiast or perhaps a die-hard Falcom enthusiast requiring a constant fix associated with Ys streamed into your own bloodstream, Ys Seven or even the Oath within Felghana are more fascinating experiences.

PROS: Packages together 2 in the past significant classics along with extra supplies, incredible soundtrack, nicely retouched artwork.
Negatives: Traditional fight, unusual trouble balance, astonishing lack of voice acting.

The hardships never seem to end for Kratos, an afflicted Spartan soldier turned god, who must live with the vivid memory of killing his wife and daughter. In all prior God of War titles, revenge has been the driving force, be it against Ares, the gods of Olympus, or anyone who stands in Kratos’ path. Getting on the ghost of Sparta’s bad side is a death sentence.

Ghost of Sparta takes a wildly different turn for the story. Instead of searching for a path to undue his past, Kratos learns from his mother in her dying breath that his aptly named brother, Deimos, is still alive. As usual, the gods attempt to steer Kratos away from his goal, and his unstoppable might proves too much for mortal and god alike.

The previous PSP God of War title from Ready at Dawn Studios, Chains of Olympus, dealt with the complex emotions of Kratos while attempting to save his daughter. Similarly, Ghost of Sparta sends Kratos on a quest to find Deimos, albeit without the emotional impact. Only at the end of the six-hour journey does Deimos even enter into the game, and it ends ten minutes later in the typical God of War way; a mountain of bodies in Kratos’ wake.

The Blades of Athena (i.e. Blades of Chaos) produce the familiarly flamboyant and destructive attacks, including numerous unlockables. A second weapon, the Arms of Sparta, is a spear and shield combo. It isn’t necessary to gameplay, but it is a fun and often useful diversion from the traditional blades. Magic also returns, although no attack is distinctly special or unique in light of former God of War titles.

The short playtime is supplemented by a harder difficulty and several challenge modes. Challenge of the Gods has players complete a variety of objectives, such as not taking any damage when attacked or collecting all treasure chests during combat. Five are achievable immediately after the game’s completion, but an additional eight can only be unlocked after completing the Temple of Zeus; a temple where all of the game’s artwork and unlockable extras are for the taking.

This temple comes at a very high price, requiring several playthroughs to completely unlock. The developers obviously want players to go through the campaign on several levels of difficulty, but it is a ridiculous amount of work. Special magical items, such as infinite magic or 10x money, don’t earn any extra to be used for the Temple of Zeus. It can only be achieved the old fashioned way.

God of War: Ghost of Sparta doesn’t stray far from its roots, which isn’t a bad thing per se. Ghost of Sparta is visually stunning and effectively implements the combat and quick-time events from God of War 3. Although the multiple playthroughs required for acquiring basic unlockables feels like padding to extend the game, the initial six-hour campaign is nevertheless brutally action-packed.

The concept behind P3 is such: you’re cast as a new transfer student at a Japanese private high school, tasked with making friendships, struggling through classes, and dealing with teenage drama. Through a series of events, you find yourself in the Special Extracurricular Execution Squad, a team of students who have the abilities to summon powerful representations of their inner psyche called “Persona.” SEES must destroy the mysterious beings called “shadows” that prowl at night during a time most normal humans can’t perceive, feeding on the minds of the weak. You’re tasked with balancing your dual life — average schoolkid by day, darkness-crushing warrior by night — all while unraveling secrets behind a dark past and a terrifying future. As you build your relationships during the day, the power enhances your personae at night, making party interaction vital to accomplishing your overall mission. It’s bolstered by top-notch writing and characterization, as well as a stellar English localization that makes each and every plot twist a riveting affair.

P3P bases itself primarily on the “FES” edition of P3, which offered additional activities, combat skills, and personae to utilize over the original release. P3P sees the addition of yet more personas, new side-quests, the ability to combine personae and weaponry, and a new skill card system to help bolster the abilities of your personae. Interface and gameplay tweaks, such as the square button “instant warp” menu and the ability to directly control your teammates rather than always having the CPU decide their battle tactics, have also been imported from Persona 4. (Note that having this direct control option does make the standard difficulty level in the game much easier compared to previous incarnations – P3 veterans might want to pick a harder setting.) With these improvements, P3P is easily the most robust edition of the game to date.

Perhaps the biggest addition to P3P, however, is the option to play as a female lead character. Choosing a girl alters the way you and others interact with one another, gives you several completely new characters to build relationships with, and introduces new plot elements to experience. You’ll even have the ability to potentially alter some major story events based on your choices during gameplay — choices that wouldn’t have been available playing as the male lead. To top it off, you’ll also get an excellent, re-done soundtrack with numerous fresh tunes to enjoy.

The transition to portable hardware allows P3′s very lengthy adventure to be partitioned off into enjoyable bite-sized chunks, which is a huge boon, but it’s not a perfect port. Visuals have been stripped back during the transition to the PSP hardware, and nothing is presented in real-time save for dungeon-crawling and combat. However, P3P is an incredibly rare title in the sense that these cutbacks actually serve as improvements in most cases. Non-dungeon maps are much less tedious to navigate with a simple “point-and-click” interface standing in for running around everywhere on foot, and the game’s notoriously lengthy story sequences move much more quickly, as they’re mostly illustrated with dialogue and stills rather than real-time cutscenes — and since they’re mostly dialogue-driven to begin with, they lose little in the transition. The only time the visual downgrade is unappealing is during combat and dungeon-crawling, as character and enemy models have noticeably lower polygon counts and texture quality compared to the PS2 editions.

Another disappointment is the lack of the “The Answer” epilogue story from Persona 3 FES. “The Answer” is a short adventure featuring the robotic Aigis as the lead and the other SEES members in an exploration of distorted time. It doesn’t affect the main story at all (it was completely separate from the main game in P3FES), and mostly serves as an exploration of the lives and motivations of the various SEES members. While I didn’t like The Answer anywhere near as much as the main story ofP3, I can understand why other fans might be upset with its omission from P3P.

Despite being familiar with the game, Persona 3 Portable still managed to utterly consume me. Even when I wasn’t playing it, I was engrossed in thinking about my combat strategies, my persona fusions, my friendships, and all of my teammates at SEES. I came to see these fictional characters as my friends and acquaintances, and even when I knew what was coming in the story, I felt as emotional about it as I did the first time I played. When a game has such a profound effect on me, I believe it deserves nothing less than the highest praise I can lavish upon it.

PROS: Excellent story and writing; strategic combat; blends “relationship sim” and dungeon-crawling gameplay together well; female lead adds new story elements and twists; numerous interface improvements over previous versions.
CONS: Very long; downgraded visuals compared to previous versions; lacks “The Answer” epilogue story from Persona 3 FES.

FAQ #1: What are my options for acquiring PSP games?

A: There are two main options for acquiring PSP games. The first is by getting your hands on a Universal Media Disc (UMD), an approximately 2.5 inch disc which can hold up to 1.8 GB of games, movies, and music data. The second option is to download the games directly from the Internet to your Memory Stick Duo that fits into your PSP unit.

FAQ #2: What are the advantages to each option?

A: Some people claim better video quality when using the more traditional UMD disc, although purveyors of the downloadable game option claim equal quality to that of the UMD discs. The obvious advantage of the downloadable type is that you can gain access to them immediately. Also, the downloadable option is much cheaper: lifetime rights to unlimited PSP downloads can be bought for a one-time membership fee approximately equal to a 1 or 2 month subscription to a UMD rental Web site (see FAQ #3).

FAQ #3: Where do I go to gain access to games?

A: You can find out about the latest available games by going to Sony’s official Playstation Web site. This site is worth visiting as it is beautifully done, with great graphics and informative previews of soon-to-be-released games. You can also rent UMDs directly from rental Web sites that will allow you to rent as many games as you like, but they do limit the number you can have checked out at any one time. For downloadable games, you just sign up at a vendor site and pay a one-time membership fee, after which point you can download as many games as you like, forever.

FAQ #4: What else can I download to my PSP?

A: As you probably know, your PSP can also handle music and videos. The top downloadable PSP game sites also make available to members thousands of music and video titles that are ready for download anytime.

The Sony PSP is an exciting device that offers a great mix of portability and the power of being able to play multiple media such as games, movies, and music. Accessing downloadable games can be a way to get unlimited variety much more cheaply than when renting or buying UMDs.

Cheats – PSP cheats come in a variety of different flavors.  For instance, you can find cheats to fighting games that give you unlimited ammunition, that give you unlimited lives, make you invulnerable or even let you play as a different character altogether. Usually, these types of PSP cheats are codes that you enter at a specific screen in the game, or a specific point before the game loads completely.

Walkthroughs – More helpful than PSP cheats, walkthroughs tell you what you need to do, how to do it and how to get there.  These can be as comprehensive or as minimal as you wish. For instance, if you’re having problems beating that first boss, a walkthrough will tell you exactly what weapons or techniques you’ll need to get past him or her.  If you choose to make your way through the rest of the game on your own, so much the better.  However, a good walkthrough can help you make short work out of some of the confusing games currently on the market.

One of the best examples is that of the RPG.  Traditionally, these are story-based games that require a large amount of leveling, beating specific bosses to advance to the next part of the story or to gain specific items and more.  Walkthroughs have become almost ubiquitous with RPGs, as well as many other types of PSP games.

Helpful Tips – These fall more under the “Walkthrough” category than they do under PSP cheats, but tips can make the difference between enjoying the game and being frustrated.  For instance, to unlock bonus cars in Need for Speed Undercover, you must complete certain tracks under a specific mode (Career mode, for instance).  Tips will help you make the most of your gaming experience, without giving away the entire game, the way a walkthrough does.

Combined, PSP cheats, walkthroughs and tips constitute an enormous body of knowledge.  You’ll find that being able to access these tools when needed is incredibly beneficial.  Whether you’re slicing your way through Prince of Persia, battling in God of War or setting the streets ablaze in Midnight Club: LA Remix, you’ll find these tools give you the means to take your gaming to an entirely new level.

If you just can’t wait for the impending release of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, you can kill some time right now with Kojima Productions’ decidedly clever web-based, online Flash jigsaw game, cutely titled Piece Walker. The game has you matching tiles by placing them on top of the franchise’s iconic boxes, and then walking them to the appropriate place on a board to construct an image from the upcoming game. It’s a decidedly fun game, and you don’t even have to register in order to play. There’s even a competitive multiplayer mode to try.

Atlus announced today that the PlayStation Portable port of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 would make its way Stateside this summer.

Apparently, the developer is skipping over Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Personal 2: Innocent Sin (which never got a US release anyway) in their PSP port series of the super-popular role-playing games.

Persona 3 PSP (or P3P) came out in Japan in November 2009. It’s an “enhanced” version of the PlayStation 2 original with the option to play through the game as a female character with altered story elements as a result. Also, the battle system is tweaked to more closely resemble Persona 4 for PS2.

My first exposure to Konami’s Silent Hill series of scare-fests was back in 1999, fresh off of a week-long bender of Resident Evil 2. Ready for even more malformed monsters and mutant crocodile menaces, I was somewhat surprised when I powered my Playstation on to find an incredibly different environment than RE2′s Raccoon City. Instead of facing a horde of genetically altered flesh-eaters, I was met with twisting camera angles, hauntingly melodic background music, and faceless creepy crawlies straight out of Jacob’s Ladder. Silent Hill’s titular fog-infested locale was frightening in a much more psychological sense, creating a general sense of uneasiness and anxiousness that offered a nice change of pace from RE’s conventional Romero-esque scare tactics.

The franchise hit a high point with the scarring Silent Hill 2, a journey through the psyche of a tortured widower that garnered both critical and commercial acclaim; after a relatively successful direct sequel to the original with Silent Hill 3, the franchise slowly headed back to obscurity with the remarkably dissimilar Silent Hill 4 (originally not even a Silent Hill title), then ran safely back towards the horror conventions it tried so hard to stray from with the American developed Silent Hill: Homecoming. Despite its masterfully frightening origins, the Silent Hill series fell victim to contrived and confusing plot twists, as well as several inherent gameplay issues such as unwieldy cameras and a slow, cerebral pace that proved too taxing for survival horror fans accustomed to Resident Evil’s gut-wrenching pace.

Luckily, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories returns to the game’s glory days by re-imagining the first Silent Hill and combining it with a more psychological ploy that harkens back to the classic second installment; Harry Mason is still searching for his daughter in the barren villa of Silent Hill and as the game progresses, players slowly begin to unravel the mystery of the town and the man who haunts its snowy streets. But rather than being a direct remake, Shattered Memories has an interesting twist: the developers — Climax Group, the promising minds behind 2007′s handheld prequel, Silent Hill: Origins — bills it as a game that “plays you as much as you play it.” Every so often, the core action will be broken up by small psychiatric sessions, prompting an unorthodox doctor to ask you almost uncomfortably personal questions about your hopes, fears, and sexuality. Depending on your answers, the game will shape itself as more tailor-made for whoever’s playing it. After all, what’s more frightening than a horror game that knows what scares you?

While the psychoanalyzation angle is certainly an ambitious one, I just didn’t feel like it went quite far enough. Two separate playthroughs of Shattered Memories with polar-opposite answers did alter character dialogue and appearances, but the game’s simplistic puzzles and repetitive nightmare sequences were left entirely untouched. Add in the fact that the game can easily be completed in about five hours, and there isn’t an awful lot to keep players around for another playthrough.

The aforementioned nightmare sequences are especially disappointing: Unlike previous Silent Hill titles, Harry is unable to actually fight his faceless foes, instead resigned to meekly pushing them aside and scurrying away. Discretion is the better part of valor unless, of course, you’re mired in a dense fog that surrounds a labyrinthine city, at which point it just becomes jarringly annoying. Harry does come equipped with a GPS on his cell phone, but the level design is so straightforward — every path but the one you are meant to take is blocked off by a convenient wall of ice or some other debris — that it’s almost completely useless.

At the end of the day, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories isn’t a bad game by any means — it’s an incredibly original and ambitious project, but the weight of its problems, both old and new, keep it from being much more than a nostalgic love letter addressed to diehard series fans.

PROS: Intriguing psychological angle; looks great for a Wii title; fantastic voice acting
CONS: Far too short; nightmare sequences are frustrating; way too easy to get lost

Although the game doesn’t hit until next May, Konami has put out an early demo of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker on PSN today. The download, dubbed Demo-Ops features four different mission types.

In case you’ve not been following all the pre-release hubbub, the game is set in Central America in 1974, and players take control of Naked Snake (Big Boss) the “legendary hero who had once saved the world from the brink of nuclear war,” (says the press release.) Snake has now turned his back on his country and established what he calls “An Army without a Government” in South America, and is approached by visitors from “A Nation without a Military” (how convenient!) to investigate suspicious activity in Costa Rica.