ED-057 wrote:Rhapsody of Zephyr (DC)
西風の狂詩曲
Thanks for this review. Falcom translated the Windows version from Korean to Japanese. Been meaning to try it out. Might have better load times and cleaner graphics than the DC port.
My turn:
Tenchu 4 (Tenchu: Shadow Assassins in NA/Euro)
Wii/PSP
With the series hitting it's 10th birthday and back in the hands of it's original creators, Acquire, Tenchu 4 makes leaps forward in the series! For those not in the know, Tenchu is all about stealth, kind of like Metal Gear Solid but far more emphasis on gameplay, and in a detailed classical feudal Japan setting.
Graphics
Excellent. Attention to detail is stunning: aged wood with cracking paint, reflective water, plenty of trees, finely detailed interiors with non-repeating stuff on the shelf, etc. Only downsides are the oddly blocky bushes (compared to the ultra-fine surroundings) and some slight framerate dips in the PSP edition. In both incarnations, it is a gorgeous game, especially for their respective platforms. A huge step forward for Tenchu!
Another note - the artwork used for the game is simply fantastic.
9/10
Music & Sound
Sound effects finally get a refresh after using the same low-res Tenchu 1 sound effects for several titles. It's all in the detail - bones crack, wood creaks, grass sways. Everything is voiced and well done. Voice acting is superb for the most part. Rikimaru in particular is striking and has a very earthy, breathy, earnest, and very tired tone to his voice. Of note is how well they matched the English voices to the Japanese original. My compliments to the casting director - they hit the nail, and for once I can say you aren't missing out on anything by playing the localized edition.
Music, as usual for Tenchu, is spectacular, dramatic, and beautifully rustic. Cutscenes get appropriately timed music and stages have great tunes, using lots of cello, guitar, acoustic bass, koto, and drums. The introductory vocal theme is also a new height for the series.
9/10
Gameplay
Acquire really shook things up this time. Gone are the wide-open areas, swinging roof to roof with your grappling hook. The game instead focuses on a much smaller, more intimate and dense style. Instead of dozens of copy-pasted houses that you can't interact with, you are now inside intricately detailed houses, mansions, battlefields and caverns. And all that detail is not wasted - more than ever before you can hide under, above, around and inside things. See a set of dressers? Squeeze between them. A large vase? Hop inside. Shoji screens, rafters, bushes, walkways, ponds, rocks - anything. You can use it to hide.
Also different is the way the characters move. You can feel the heft of a real person now, unlike the weightless zipping around of the earlier games. Rikimaru makes noise when he lands, your sword clanks in it's sheath when you run, and movement is all around much more nuanced.
AI is leaps and bounds above the previous games as well. Enemies all have a line of sight that is linked to their eyes, not where their back is facing. So you have soldiers who can look side to side, crank their neck upwards, check underneath wagons, poke bushes with their sword, etc. A fun detail I noted was how the low paid hirelings are much less perceptive and don't care very much about what's going on, but the armored samurai will turn around and investigate if they even hear a footstep.
Combat is now a last-ditch effort instead of a common occurrence. The point is really to be seen as little as possible. Get spotted, and you either have to flee or, if you have a sword, enter combat. Fighting is done by taking turns - the enemy takes some slashes at you, and you have to use the Wiimote or PSP nub to defend yourself with your sword. Once the enemy's time is up, it's your turn to attack. This is really the oddest part of the game, and the only part I am not wild about. It works, but it's not as refined as the rest of the polished-to-a-sheen game.
Also available are a huge variety of stealth kills - now the only way to kill an enemy - no life bars here except in the sword duels. You can do the classic 'sneak up behind' technique, but you have a huge palette of options that are lots of fun. Throw a rock at a guard near a torch and he loses his balance, falling into the fire. Swim near a guard at the edge of a pond and pull him in. Jump from a tree and snap the guy's neck on your way down. Hang from the rafters ala Batman and lift the guard off the ground. Hook him with a fishing pole and yank him across a fire. Pull him off a cliff. Stuff him in a giant vase. And so on. There are so many ways to do your ninja-ly duties that it's almost boggling, and most of them you can do without a single item in your inventory.
10/10
Story
I don't want to give away a lot, but let it be said, this is not the same Tenchu. The story this time has lots of ups and downs, and a couple twists that catch you off guard leading up to one of the most devastating endings in a game. I really am thrilled to see how this continues in Tenchu 5 and 6 - yep, From has announced this will be a trilogy.
10/10
In one line
Fucking awesome.
Get it.
. I'll start it.
