Recent reviews by Umitencho

After all these years, game devs found a way to make Budokai Tenkaichi 4, by going back to 0.

It's just as zanny & broken as it's predecessors. The biggest annoyance you will find with this game is how slippery rush attacks have become. I have had point black launches while the opponent is fatigued miss.

The story mode is an afterthought as well.

Goku's Saga clocks in at over 5 hours, but the others don't go past 2 hours, while Goku Black's stops under an hour.

For example, in Gohan's saga you have Gohan Black with a character model & all, but in another what if, he fights Super Buu Piccolo, but they use the Super Buu model instead. Super Buu Piccolo is a canon form with a design, Gohan Black isn't. This makes it clear that they can give us what-if characters, but choose not to.

Jiren's is just basically easy mode path vs hard mode path. Goku Black just have all the same generic ending. How about a long path where he turns good or starts a cult or something?

If the devs want specific ideas on how to improve & expand the story mode: hit me up. Let's be honest, we are getting future Sagas.

So why do I recommend this game despite all of this? Because all I wanted was a Budokai Tenkaichi game updated for the times, and I got it. Despite the shortcomings, I am glad I am not burdened with flying around the arena for 90-60 seconds to avoid an over powered foe to contend with like we had in past games. The battle flow feels more natural as well, and I am glad I don't have to go adventuring during battle to find dragon balls.

Dragon Ball farming is easier as well. I only have done 1 online battle so far as of this review, so I can't speak on it with any authority, but reading online says it is toxic as expected. Might still do it for the achievements. Only did one custom battle.

When I played this game, if felt familiar. This due to the game being developed by Spike who made the Tenkaichi & Raging Blast DBZ fighting series of the PS2 & PS3 generation. This meant beautiful expansive maps(for fighting games), limited stage destruction, and 3-D movement. Despite the criticism they received over the decades for this style, I am glad they decided to make this style a signature of their rather being another 2-D traditional fighter clone that we get in FightersZ.

The gameplay, knowing this is as excepted, your movement is more realistic as your character can move around the stage and launch attacks. Each character has an unique moveset or animation that follows the same button mapping so no need to be a combo master to enjoy this game and win battles. Despite not needing to master an infinite amount of button combinations, character attacks have different ranges that can be broken down into width and length. Some are useless at close ranges and vice versa, but all ultimate attacks can be blocked. The more damage you and hit you make on your opponent the more their ultimate bar fills up allowing you to potentially punish them for combo smashing you into annoyance. There are character transformations, but no attack clashes or "beam struggles" as we called it back in the day.

Winning or having a leg up is knowing your character's limits and ranges, and any additional effects their attacks may have.

There is a story in this game that has you playing as your own created character, and as expected the story revolves around why these characters from different worlds are meeting. I give props for having the main bad guys be unique to this game as opposed to making Aizen or some other cerebral baddy from another franchise the main villain to reduce the chances of fans from different franchises calling favoritism.

Speaking of favoritism, the range of characters you get from these franchises is not equal. The franchises chosen are from the Jump magazine. The franchises that get the most representation tend to be the one that are the most well known like Dragon Ball or are ongoing & popular like My Hero Academia with the common refrain of franchises popular in the West get the most representation. There are some franchises represented that most of us in the West don't know about or never gained massive audiences like City Hunter & Saint Seiya, but seeing how people are complaining about Nintendo's choices for Smash Ultimate, it is a delicate balance these days.

There are nine story chapters with a lot of side missions in them. The more you want to do and unlock, naturally the more time it will take to finish the game. I would say about 8 hours minimum if you can master the mechanics quickly. There were times in the game shut down on me.

I enjoyed this game.

Didn't play DLC.

Shadow of War is Shadow of Mordor but more. For the sequel that fleshed the nemesis system out more as you explore the various regions of Mordor and have to infiltrate each Uruk chain of command in charge of each province before siegeing each fortress with your converted forces. Deciding to go more in on this system me to is a master stroke as it scratches that poly sci itch that this series has given me thus far. While you do get a story line about how Uruks can join and betray you, proving that with Sauron now being out and about, that your wraith powers have to contend with influence greater than theirs, combine with the necromancer Uruk story, the game left me wanting more Uruk story lines. Each tribe in my opinion should have had quests and stories that would have fleshed out their motivation and abilities, showing us that Orks and Uruks belong to a multi-faceted society that is just overall brutal, but not mindlessly animalistic. As per usual, the game knows how to get under my skin with who it chooses to be my overall nemesis, and this Uruk was obsessed with me chasing me across regions, and I love it.

This game is controversial from a lore standpoint, but I have never looked to the video game aspect of this media franchise to be lore accurate. What I mean is the identity of the Nazgul. Lining them up with the timeline pretty much makes their choose pre-Nazgul selves pretty timeline breaking, making Rohan founded in the Second Age when it was founded in the Third Age after the first line of Gondorian Kings had failed. The others I don't really care aside from one given a known character background as Tolkien himself was vague on who the Nazgul were as humans. All we know is that 3 were Numenorian Lords and that one was an Easterling named Khamul.

After I beat the main story, I didn't do the reported grind of 5 Castle defenses per castle, so eh.

The game that spawned Warframe. Another one of the 360 era games that I played as a demo back in the day. I was a teen with no money and job k? You play Hayden Tenno, I assume to be a mercenary , sent to capture a typical Russian analog bad guy. Twist is that early on, you are infected with an viral agent that gives you organic metal powers and a bladed boomerang and other powers. Everyone turn into zombies. You transverse an island looking for your infector while battling zombies and military-cdc like forces.

Downside to playing this today is that it hasn't been optimized for modern systems, and there is a fuzzy band at the bottom of my screen that I could never get rid of. The game is stingy as well on the in-game currency, perhaps an attempt to encourage players to play the game more than once, but it does restrict your ability to buy different guns and figure out your own play style in that regard. A bit rough around the edges over all, but seeing as the developers went on to make Warframe, a case study showing that they had the talent and passion for gaming making, and just needed the experience.

I remember playing this game as a demo on the xbox 360, and I glad I remembered now. It's a 3-D Bullet hell game that is friendly towards those not that good towards shooters. Story wise, it is a bit on the nose with the Hilary Clinton analog years before the 2016 election, and the on the surface American jingoism that is flipped on its head at the end. Too bad this game never got a sequel, hopefully Platinum is saving up that Bayoneta money. You will have up to 5 weapons to carry at one time: two types of grenades, one that does the traditional explosion stuff, and the emp that disrupt enemies; and up to three type of guns. For me that was Assault Rifle, Heavy Machine Gun, and Laser Cannon. Your character is quipped with a suit where its energy levels act as your hp bar while also powering weapons like the laser cannon and hand to hand combat. When the energy level hits the red, you are at your most vulnerable and are a few hits from a ko. There are enemy attacks that will kill you regardless of energy levels so it is best to dodge when you can. The armor also has a slow time feature that also drains the energy shield. Once the energy bar depletes it goes into overheated mode where you can not use any energy based weapons or tactics until the entire bar regenerates to full. Another action you can take ad infinity without using any energy is rolling. You will use it a lot when dealing with large groups or big bosses.

A fun time.

This is the game that made me realize that I don't like puzzle platformers. About halfway through I was constantly looking up guides & videos on how to clear each level, and that isn't fun for me. You need to be thinking at least 5 steps ahead, maybe I am just a moron with a low iq for puzzles like this. I can at least say I tried. Portal 2 is basically Portal 1 but with a better story or a semblance of one.

A puzzle platformer with a little lore scattered about. If you don't like a game where you will have to think a couple of steps ahead then this isn't for you.

Pretty Much Quick Time Event: The Game. You play as Ken Ogawa, a ninja who is part of a clan of ninja who hunt monsters. Essentially Tokyo is getting infected in some weird zombie-plagas plague & and it is your job to kill the infected and prevent the spread or the government or organization you work for will nuke the city. Problem is that your Ninja Master and not-Sasuke best friend Kuroh betrays everyone is some 3-d chess game & kills everyone. Now it is just you & a city that gets worse with each mission.

The game cycles through the same enemy types, but the idea is to know which weapon to use. Heavy weapon to break armor, dual blades to redirect energy blasts & transverse buildings, etc... You also get access to ninjutsu in the form of shuriken that helps with environmental puzzles. The cyclone shuriken clears up fires while also acting as an aoe attack and can be used as a combo finisher but is useless against armored enemies. The lightning shuriken is good at stunning enemies but deals the least amount of damage. The flame shuriken can kill infected insects & plants in one hit while carrying general explosive damage for other foes but takes a little time to use. '

You have ninja vision which slows down time & helps you see places to go by highlighting them in blue but runs on a meter than needs time to recharge.

All boss battles will end with an QTE of some form and require you to mix up your repertoire to get through boss mechanics. A downside is that some areas are clearly reused, especially towards then end, but if you can get past that, the last few areas are very fun.

With the way the game speeds through some characters like the Yakuza pair, it can feel like some characterization is missing, Almost like there is an expansive back story that should of been the first part of the game, but instead we are dropped into the point in the time line where everything is coming to a head.
And you at least get an explanation why Ken can’t get infected.

A fun game that suffered from the QTE backlash that was going on at the time.

I have played & beaten this game twice. Once on the Xbox 360, and most recently on the PC. This game is one giant escort mission but done right. You play Monkey, an obvious Sukong Wong clone, who finds himself in a pickle as he is captured by robot like beings and then is forced to go westward by a female tech wizard named Trip through a slave collar.

This game is basically an action adventure platformer as you will be traversing through climbing, parkour, etc... Also built is an ability upgrade system that allows for you to get better health or effects. The female protagonist doesn’t get in the way or die, so you don't have to worry about her getting on your nerves in that regard. She can create decoys and hack in to tech for some environmental manipulation. As the game progresses, Monkey comes to care for & fall in love with his captor, creating a weird case of Stockholm syndrome.

You get the destroyed city (including deteriorating bridge), junkyard with a toxic lake primed with bombs, a robotic factory where you steal a giant robot, and then have a battle on said robot while you hail marry towards the control center for the robots who are hunting humans. Oh, there is Pigsy who is a great mechanic and is hopelessly in love with Trip. I say hopelessly because she falls for Monkey and he realizes this.

There is enough exp to max out three categories, with the fourth requiring another playthrough.


A fun game.

I remembering playing the demo for the first Bad Company on the Xbox 360 many years ago so I decided to play this game. For the record, I rarely play shooters as I am more into action-adventures, fighters, & rpg games; so this review is from a noob to the genre.

I enjoyed this game. It looks like a typical shooter where you are part of a 4 special ops squad where you do the army odd jobs of acting as support to bigger battles, going after targets a big missile wouldn't solve & ect. Another key point of the game is the destructibility of the area. Is it man made? Shoot an rpg at it. You will be taken mostly through three environments: jungle/rolling hills of green, a tundra, & a desert. You will be doing your missions mostly in lush green environments.

Thanks to steam big picture, I could use a controller, but to be honest, a controller is horrible to accuracy, so I used a controller for movement, and the occasional grenade; while the mouse was used for aiming & shooting. I suck at driving period.

To be honest the story is a bit lack luster and just gives you a reason to go shooter everything in sight. It basically boils down to you tracking down a bad guy, a super weapon with the kicker at the end that *spoilers* he was a decoy for a bigger invasion by Russia through Alaska *spoilers end*. I think this is the last entry for the main storyline so it is up to you imagination as to what happens next.

There is a nice plethora of weapon choices, while there were terminals to find, aside for the need to unlock weapons by finding them in the wild, this game is right before the collectathon craze that game devs use today as major padding. This isn't Far Cry and as such even with what little exploration there is, this game is linear and that is fine.

There is enough of a learning curve that players new to the genre can play this game to finish the main story. I didn't play the Vietnam dlc.

Some people might dislike the linear nature of the game, & sometimes weapons, like the helicopter are little confusing to use. One of the worst areas in the game is the desert area, very vast, but very empty. There is a point in said area where you have a boss like battle with enemy choppers that if you don't have a rocket launcher prepped, unless you are skill prepare to died a lot in frustration. Always have a rpg in your loadouts if you can help it.

Also, the enemies don't always show up on the mini-map so be more aware.

So good fun and a good case of early 10's / late 00's game design for the fps genre.