Displaying items by tag: PS2
Retro of the week : Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven (Playstation 2)
Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven is an undercover game on Playstation 2 and above all a reference for ninja games.
You are going on an adventure with Rikimaru and Ayame in feudal and fantastic Japan. You are ninjas who must kill in the shadows, with your ancestral and lightning techniques but also with your ninja tools which will be important to make your way in enemy territory in all discretion.
You have the freedom to finish the game fast enough or to extend your ninja experience with explorable levels and sumptuous settings.
Additionally in this playstation 2 game, there are two multiplayer modes that are available to play with each other or against each other in levels that are small but cool enough to spend hours together.
A retro game to try ... 'POUF' Ninja smoke disappearance
New Playstation Plus Offer
Warning it’s going to be great!
Playstation has announced and given news about its new offer (or offers)! A small Tweet on the social network around 2 p.m. on March 29 announces the new offer and a link to the Playstation Blog for more information. We looked at that and we dissected the information.
First word, flexibility. New offers but not necessarily change! Indeed, those who already have Playstation Plus and for whom everything is already perfect, nothing changes. Neither the price nor the offer per se. Everything remains the same. So, there is only addition! Playstation Now will therefore disappear as soon as the new Playstation Plus is started. Those who already have Playstation Now will then switch to the equivalent offer of the new Playstation Plus. So, by losers, only winners!
For the first offer, as I said, nothing changes for those who already have Playstation Plus. We stay at the price of 59.99 € per year with free games and the possibility of playing online, called Playstation Plus Essential.
For the second offer, Playstation Plus Extra, it includes everything that is accessible via Essential plus a catalogue of 400 games (approximately) released on Playstation 4 and 5. These games can be downloaded to play offline. Which is a very important point to know! The prices change (a little too much for my taste, I admit)! We therefore go to 99.99 € per year. It is clear that the offer is still not bad, taking note that games like Spiderman, Spiderman Miles Morales, Death Stranding, God of War, Mortal Kombat or even Returnal will be part of the catalogue. However, I find the price a bit high.
This is my humble consumer opinion; I understand that this change must also have been very costly for Playstation and the time invested must have been considerable and will still be considerable.
For the third and last Premium offer, it is a pretty good offer. The bill will be salty, but it must be said that there too it can be worth its money (I am not ready to spend it sincerely, but I understand that many can do it). We are talking here about everything that the other two offers already include of course. In addition to this, there are still around 340 games added to the PS 4 and 5 catalogue. Then there are PS3 games in streaming yes yes, but not only! There will also be great PS 1, PS2 and PSP classics available! Even download to play offline too!
In streaming we will have access to many other games from these generations of consoles as well. The price will be €119.99 per year. As much as I find the price difference between Essential and Extra far too high, the difference between Extra and Premium is not very big. While the difference in service is however (in my opinion) much more significant between Extra and Premium than between Essential and Extra.
This service will be available on PS 4 and 5 and on PC except in Japan initially, that will come later. The switch to the new offer is coming in June and will be progressive! Given the big changes, this will be done little by little and part by part. It will therefore be necessary to wait and at the same time it gives time to weigh the pros and cons.
This offer, without wanting to compare with other consoles, still meets a fairly recurring need in recent years. Give players access to games they no longer have, games they have missed or are missing. It also responds to the casual player by default who does not have time to invest a lot in games and for whom this kind of offer could allow him to find forgotten games or simply, games. There will also be a special version of Playstation Plus for customers without streaming and cloud access.
It will be one in between. It will therefore be cheaper than the Premium and will offer, apart from streaming and cloud access, the same thing. This offer is Playstation Plus Deluxe.
It is clearly noted that Playstation is trying to work closely with their studios and third-party studios to expand their catalogue for the Extra and Premium versions and thus create an increasingly attractive offer.
Once the new service is available in your region and you already are under subscription with the Playstation Now service, you will automatically have a Playstation Plus Extra. Naturally without additional cost for the service scale.
The change will first take place in Asia, then North America, Europe and then the rest of the world. The streaming and cloud advantage will also be extended to more regions than before to allow more people to take advantage of the new offers.
We are therefore heading towards a major change that can only bring more to everyone. As much for the players as for the video game giant.
More news will be coming in the weeks to come! In the meantime, good game to all!
Dark Chronicle
I'm going to talk about a game that I loved and that took me by the guts from start to finish. It was one of the games that struck me the most. Its story, its play mode, the different tasks to be completed, the characters and the graphics all played an important role for me. In this game, everything and I mean everything, I liked. I have no frustration or frustration that could discourage me from playing.
This game was so memorable to me, when I said I was taking the "Retro" theme for the podcast, that it was the first one I thought of. I hadn't said that I would do a presentation of this game, but in my head I only had this game in mind. Even as I forced myself to think of other games, there was still.
A huge fan of RPG and Nintendo, the list of games that meet these criteria is enormous. Still, this is the game I took for granted. I’m very happy about it and I’m sure I will honor it. Dark Chronicle, for those who are new to this game, then do whatever it takes to play it. For gamers who don't know the name, maybe the name Dark Cloud 2 will make them understand what I'm talking about.
Indeed, Dark Cloud 2 is the same game, but it is the American name. Dark Cloud had never been released in Europe, so having a game called Dark Cloud 2 wouldn't have made sense. So the game was renamed Dark Chronicle for regions that did not have a first Dark Cloud.
This is a small detail, but I want to show that yes, I know what I'm talking about. I like this game okay? Hope this is understood now.
The story
We start at the beginning of the story. We are a young teenager, named Max, working in a workshop with his teacher Cédric. He has a camera that is very useful to him, but we'll get to that later. He lives in a large house in a small walled village and no one leaves the village. He has an amulet that his (missing) mother gave him before she went missing.
One night at the circus, Max takes the opportunity to go to the show. A child steals his ticket and after doing everything to find it, he has a strange argument with the child who then disappears. The circus boss turns out to be a villain and tries to catch / kill you. He wants your amulet for his boss. While spying on the mayor and the boss of the circus you learn that your amulet could be important and that there is a train in town that would allow you to see the world.
Max manages to escape and goes through the sewers. There really begins the pattern that the game adopts in terms of game play. How we fight, how we evolve and how we will advance in the different levels. We will come back to this later, for now it's time for history. In the sewers Cédric comes with the robot to help you. After a brief stop in town again, you improve the robot with your camera (I'll explain later). You return to the sewers and use the robot to move forward.
Coming out of the sewers, you take the train. This had been kept secret, no one in the village was to know that it was still in working order. You take the opportunity to travel the world. On your first trip, the circus leader comes back to bother you. Once you think you've got rid of it, Monica arrives to save you.
With the help of her sword she eliminates hi,, she has a stone similar to Max's. Max's is red, hers is blue. Monica is from the future and has come to Max's present in order to change the course of history. The game's antagonist did everything to destroy the world in Monica's past so she could be invincible in their time.
The game will revolve around that a lot. Traveling in the future (Monica's present) and the present (Max's present). Max being an inventor, he is not only able to create beautiful things for his robot, to develop his weapons but he is also able to create a world. Using the information you have in Max's present, by having the necessary materials, you can recreate the world as it should so that in Monica's present everything is reconstructed again.
This allows you to be able to see the world as it should be and to be able to beat the villain of the story. The game is then quite simply done, with the train you get to one place, you kick the butt of the monsters, you take whatever you can take, you recreate the world and you go to the next place.
By recreating a location, you go into the future where you will learn new things about the antagonist and how you can destroy it. You then see what the world must have looked like without his intervention, and you can go back and forth even if the rebuilding in Max's era is not over. So you can go and see the evolution according to the modifications you have made. This is handy because sometimes you can see what best can be done to make sure Monica's present is properly restored.
The story is poetic and above all very well told. It's quite simply written and put together, its charm lies in the way the story is told and how it is brought to life by the characters. We are quickly taken to the guts and we feel part of the fine team that must save the world. So through the journey you really learn what it is about. An evil being from Max's past destroys everything that is important so that in his future he can be more powerful and he can win for sure. This future is Monica's present. Max is therefore in between. He's in the (more or less near) future of the villain, that's why his world is so empty, but he's in Monica's past. In her present everything is chaos because of the misdeeds of this evil being. Since Monica has the blue amulet to go to the past, she finds Max who has the one for her to go to the future. So they can travel together and counter the monster who wants to destroy everything.
What the villain destroys in the past, Max recreate in his present, so he can counter the antagonist in Monica's present. You see ? It’s simple and yet one would get lost easily.
The combat mode
This is free fights, not turn-based or anything. We are right, in the hard. So you have two weapons. Max has a wrench and a pistol. If you kill with either weapon, experience points go to the weapon that was lethal. You can then choose to be more melee or more to shoot from a distance. The same goes with Monica who with her weapons gives these two options. The fights are quite dynamic and it must be said that it is instinctive and easy to know how to handle this mode without too much hassle.
Evolution
Max is not evolving. These are the weapons that evolve. The evolution diagram is quite simple, you initially have a choice of evolution, depending on the choice made, part of the evolution tree is no longer accessible and the tree then continues in another direction. If after evolution you don't like it, you need a new weapon to evolve it the way you want it to.
You get orbs in combat, depending on the orb it also gives you access to all possibilities in your weapon evolution tree. It is therefore important to have orbs in stock. Otherwise, we can get stuck because we don't have the necessary orbs.
It's the same for Monica, but she has more conventional or classic weapons. She has a sword and a bracelet that allows her to cast magic spells. The evolution is the same.
Since characters don't evolve, they don't have stat boosts, but health still needs to evolve. And this is also where Monica's travels in the present become important. By going to her present you can find wooden boxes, well hidden, they have apples. These can increase your HP. Here too you have to be careful that you are consistent enough because if Max has HP that goes through the ceiling, Monica will not survive long. I guarantee you that in boss fights you will regret it if you are not balanced.
Secondary characters
Depending on the characters chosen, you will have certain bonuses. There is Cédric that you can have in your team passively to help you. There are many other characters that can be obtained throughout the story. It will take small tasks to be able to recruit them. Everyone can help you in one way or another. It allows adaptation to the situation you find yourself in and it allows you to play in one way or another.
Graphics
For the time (2003) it can be said that this was a huge success. This is a cell shading graphic, so a cartoon style. It’s very successful and colorful. It fits superbly with the story and the way the story is told. The graphics add a real touch to the story and make the whole thing even more magical. There is nothing wrong with that, plus it ages pretty well so it's a win for everyone.
The camera
So what is this device for? It is used to have the ingredients for your recipes. So yes, if you don't know the game you might think I'm mixing words that shouldn't be in the same sentence. I swear to you, however, that it makes sense.
So you can find recipes for crafting items. For that you have to photograph certain things. For example you might need a belt and a barrel to be able to make a tank or the like. These inventions are mainly dedicated to improving your robot to make it totally bad-ass and super killer.
I remember having a robot with katanas and propellers to move around. Yes, just that. And frankly it was great fun. You can also have it with machine guns and mechanical spider legs. There is a lot of fun to have a design that you love.
There are also specific moments to photograph so that you can have other bonuses. For example taking a boss at a certain angle, this will bring you gems giving superb stats to your weapons.
Critical welcome
Speaking of specialist press reviews, the game has received a superb reception. Everyone agrees to describe it as a great game that deserves to be played by all. I naturally agree with that. However, I do not think he was seen too much by the majority. I don’t know what that could be, but he didn’t have the global success that I would have wished for him.
The other truth is that the overwhelming majority who have played the game have an over-positive opinion of the game, proving that the game was worth it and that everyone should enjoy it.
Small useful info, the game is available on the PS Store for the PS4. I bought it, of course, I'll be playing it soon, that's for sure.
End
As you can see, there is a lot to do. Lots of photos to take, lots of weapon and robot evolutions, recreating the world, beating monsters. So much, plus you can go back as much as you want in the levels already done to be sure not to forget anything along the way.
This game, just talking about it makes you want to play it again. For those who haven't played it and have a PS4, the game is available. So don’t hesitate!