Wednesday 16 January, 2008

Gameplay:

In the second hour of play not much changed. I still believe that the game is strong in story and combat. The special abilities of each character are varied and the cut scenes are enjoyable to watch. The battles are always random but certain monsters do appear in only one or two locations. This does make them hard to find but when found easy to hunt. Hunting is one of the side quests that I have really gotten behind. You carry around with you a battle recorder. This keeps track of how many monsters you have killed. In each level there are around six or seven monsters and after you have killed anywhere between 20-30 of each monster you get points. These points are totaled on a board that lists the top 100 hunters in the galaxy. As you kill more beasts you gain higher and higher rankings and at certain points you get rewards for attaining certain scores. This is an enjoyable and easy way to earn cool stuff. Another aspect of gameplay that I find very interesting and unique is the stamina gauge. Your player can only attack so many times before their stamina gauge runs out and you are forced to guard while it refills itself. This adds to a more realistic feeling to the game that you are not just allowed to continually attack with no regard to stamina. Another aspect that is interesting is the dual weapons. Every character has two weapons. One is ranged and the other is for close combat. The ranged weapon will run out of ammo and will take some time to reload. Weapons range form guns and swords to bows and arrows and hatchets. This creates a very interesting feeling to combat.
The bad elements of this game are that many aspects can be very repetitive and boring. One example is the weapons synthesis. You can take two weapons of low level and combine them to create a better weapon. In order to combine weapons they have to be maxed out which requires fighting with them for 10 to 20 battles. The problem is that only some weapons can be merged with each other. Because of this you may have to max out the same weapon four or five times in order to create duplicate weapons to combine with other weapons later in the game. This process while it creates very good weapons and is not a requirement to the game can become very annoying to those that want to get more out of the game than just the story.

Design:

The game world is designed very well. While many of the levels are strait forward get from point A to point B they do have a maze like quality where going in a strait line is either not advisable or not even possible. This makes the game simple to understand yet some what more difficult to execute. The levels range from a desert planet to a jungle planet to a world filled with the best technology the galaxy has to offer. That said many of the levels are very similar and many of the monsters are recycled. A monster that is called a mish will show up in later levels as an ancient mish. The differences will be that the ancient mish will be stronger and a different color but it is the same monster none the less. Another aspect of the game that is very well done is the music. The music that is played in the background adds the tone for the particular level that you are on. When entering a different area the music changes to signify weather you should be scared, alert, or safe. The music coupled with the stunning landscapes of the various worlds lends a feeling of reality that is often lost in video games. The story of the game does seem to be a little obvious at times but there are many twists and turns that add to the enjoyment of the game. There are a lot of cut scenes in the game but they are blessedly short, taking only a minute or two before and after major fights which allows the story to continue in a satisfactory manner without interfering in gameplay to much.
For those that like to complete 100% of the game it might become a little repetitive at some points but all in all this is turning out to be a very enjoyable game.

Mostly a well-done job. There is an analysis of game play and design and a ok summery, but for the future reference try to go into more detail about what was actually happening to you during the game while you played when talking about game play, because it seems like you are describing the game as a whole instead of your game play.

Alon Chanukov (grader)