» Sat Jul 30, 2011 3:12 pm
YES! I love Colosseum: Road to Freedom! Pure awesome, though I could see a lot of room for improvement with regards to more RPG aspects. The combat is spot-on, though it took a while to get used to it. I also loved the training days, though I only did the exercising one because it was easiest. Once it comes down in price, I'm buying Gladiator: Begins, which is by the same dev studio and is the PSP incarnation of C:RtF. Warriors of the Lost Empire was also developed by Goshow, I really liked the combat and skills. The dev team is pretty good for historical accuracy, much better than Shadow of Rome did in the historic-fidelity department with regards to actual gladiatorial combat.
Hmm, what other games did critics dislike that I like?
Primal - I like the story, and I really like the voice acting and the characters. Non-combat exploration mechanics are decent, but combat is sadly lackluster. They got the shape-shifting spot-on, but by the time the 4th form is acquired there isn't much opportunity to use it against enemies. Another gripe is the lack of utilizing the rumble/vibration feature for combat, it really would have injected some life into the whole savagery of it.
Despite that, I think the combat/exploration was done pretty well. My main gripe is with the 2nd of the four realms, the under-water one, because it is so blasted easy to get turned around - there really needed to be a HUD mini-map. And despite all the models and textures being slick, the GUI representing demon form energy and Scree's energy was especially lackluster and drab - compared to, say, the lovely HUD art for Legacy of Kain: Defiance. Aside from that, once you get used to the combat it isn't so bad. I've certainly played worse games, so I'm sure why critics trashed this one so harshly.
Warriors of the Lost Empire - great game, I sunk a few hundred hours into it playing all four character. Yes, there are about 20 dungeons you can explore and you have to grind through the same ones over and over to level up enough. BUT despite that repetition, the combat is engaging enough that I really didn't mind at all! And I'm usually one who has little patience for hack-n-slash games. It does have its flaws: one of the four characters in particular is poorly balanced, some of the skills are less useful than others; and aside from weapon choice, I ended up distributing my stats the same for all the characters, which indicates that my stat placement doesn't exert enough influence (in the long run) in addition to the auto-progression for character levels. Another flaw is the inconsistent graphic quality - some textures are nice and crisp, while others are blocky and almost pixellated. I can understand why critics might not like the game, it probably isn't to everyone's tastes, but it really clicked with me and I had a lot of fun with it.
