Written: Sunday. September 13, 2020.
I only recently finished this game on the PPSSPP Emulator. It's the first Ben 10 game title on the PSP, and I've played it a few times in the past. One time, I played it briefly when one of my classmates brought with him a PSP to school (it was Foundation Day, so we were allowed to bring gadgets during those days), and then other times I just played it on the PPSSPP but never really had the time to finish the game completely.
So since I have all the time in the world (due to Covid), I allowed myself to play the game again on the emulator (via PC), and I finished it two days ago, I think.
*I played the game on Hard Mode, just to give more context*
Although this is an old game, here are my thoughts on it:
- The game-play is fluid, but not that fluid.
- The best transformation for me is definitely Heatblast. His combos are just fun to watch and make happen, especially when you get the 'triangle-triangle-circle' combo that lets you obliterate enemies by flying to the sky and shooting them below with your flames. His Flame Tornado combo is also similar to Cannonbolt's Tornado combo (which conveniently have the same pattern), which makes Cannonbolt my second favorite transformation to use.
- My least favorite transformation would have to be FourArms. He gets slow by the latter half of the game once you've completed all of the 5 transformations available (more on the topic of transformations later). His combos are slow, his movement is slow, his every punch is a half-a-second long each punch. I get that he's big so he has to be proportionally correct when it comes to gravitational physics or whatever, but take a look at what they did to Cannonbolt's movement. He's supposed to be slower than FourArms, even. But Cannonbolt is faster and more fun to play than even the other fast transformation in the roster: XLR8!
- XLR8 was fun to use in the beginning, but once you get Cannonbolt, you sort of lose interest with the speedster. I like XLR8's design in the show and also in the game, but Cannonbolt being faster and having better combo skills makes XLR8 look like a sloth in comparison. And XLR8 gets whiplash on one of his special moves...why? Cannonbolt gets dizzy in the show, but never gets dizzy in any of his combos. Plus, because of his large mass, I am able to wipe out mulitple enemies at the same time, and that makes for satisfying gameplay for a beat'em up. XLR8 could only really attack one to two foes, if you're not using the Quicksilver skill all the time.
- Wildvine was the weirdest in the bunch. I get that anybody who's playing this game would have to experience using the dude the least within the entire game-play, but Cannonbolt is only the second-to-the-last, and he was still able to win me over with his skill-set. Wildvine was just really there to be used as a Spider Man rip-off with his dangling gimmick. When it comes to his combos, I couldn't really remember what they were. The bomb skill he gets is useless, cause most ranged attacks in this game are pretty useless. Even Heatblast's Dragon Breath wasn't a heavy hitting attack for the enemies, so I would always resort to his melee attacks, or the AOE combos.
- It gets repetitive, feels longer, and also shorter by the end.
- I feel like they should've given the 5 transformations more work to do in the stages.
- FourArms can only move boxes.
- Heatblast can absorb fire.
- XLR8 can move at the speed of light, just in order to get to the next area in time.
- Cannonbolt goes up through ramps.
- and Wildvine does the Spider Man thing.
- Much like the show, the problem with each of the transformation Ben has is that we don't get to really feel like he's transforming into them. We don't get intimate with these different alien species. We don't get to see where they came from, or their individual personalities, or useful tricks. Ben sort of just uses them to beat enemies up and find a way to mobilize through tough terrain. Since they were already using the gimmick of having only 5 transformations available in the game, why couldn't they have made stages specifically meant for each of the five? Was that too hard to do?
- FourArms could've been better if he was given that Intergalactic Battle Arena Stage, like one of the episodes of the original Ben 10 series, where he gets to team-up with Kevin's malformed state. That would've been a cool stage to play in, having only FourArms available in the Omnitrix for that particular stage.
- Heatblast could've been greater than he already is (do you sense the bias at this point?) if he was also given on of those one-off stages where Ben gets to work his way on a terrain that only Heatblast could operate in, which is mostly places where there's fire, radiation, and...actually, that's it. Or, you could've repeated the episode where Ben gets sick, and has to use the Ice version of Heatblast to save the day. They already brought along the bug guy (can't remember his name), they could've brought in the sick Ben as well.
- XLR8 could've used more of his speed powers, specifically the Quicksilver skill that he has where you maneuver him with the joystick for a brief second before he reenacts the movement you made...but have that gimmick for the whole stage. Make the stage fully in slow motion, while XLR8 is the only one moving at a normal speed. Then, have a specific set of enemies to deal with that have XLR8's speed (how? uh, Dr. Animo?). That could've been a great stage right there. Sweet dreams are made of this; who are you to disagree?
- Cannonbolt could've used more of his rolling ability. Like, have a tangent game-genre stage where he's just rolling up like a ball, racing style. Like, literally have a stage that's just basically a rip-off of Need For Speed within all that chaos.
- Wildvine...I really don't have much thoughts for him in this game. He was a fever dream, really. Uh...I guess since they ripped off the Spider Man swing, have Wildvine just swing himself through the whole stage. There, you m****r-f*****s.
- No post-game?
- Sure, there's that one Null Void stage, but nothing else to my knowledge. And I only got to beat Vilgax's butt just that one time? He could've been showing up in some of the earlier stages just to set the mood for the final battle. The actual final battle was dull and boring, cause your main goal is just to beat a giant Vilgax up and use Cannonbolt to go up through ramps.
- I wanted to beat Vilgax up several times in different ways, and repeating the same stage doesn't give me that satisfaction, even in Hard Mode.
Overall, I liked playing the game, but it needed a lot of work. I was of course disappointed with the lack of alien transformations I got to play as. Just think of what it could've been like to have a stage where you get to play as Grey Matter and have him do a heist at this complicated building, or have DiamondHead instead of Wildvine, or have a stage where you get to dive deep into the watery abyss with RipJaws, or have Wildmutt instead of Wildvine, or have a stage where you play as StinkFly and have to move around the sky avoiding and shooting up acid towards flying enemies, or have Upgrade, or Upchuck, or Ditto, or an early version of Ghostfreak, instead of Wildvine.
Score: 6.5/10
Thanks for reading. Subscribe for more.
Comments
Post a Comment