Monthly Archives: May 2020
I finally hit 200 Subscribers on Youtube!!!
Thanks to all of you great people, I managed to finally hit the milestone of 200 subscribers on my Youtube channel so I did a video to celebrate. This video has footage of past videos and streams so do bear that in mind.
The Sword Of Etheria/Over Zenith Review
It’s not often that you are able to talk about a game that was never localized in the US but managed to be localized in Europe. Usually it’s the US that get the localization and not Europe, probably due to the fact that to localize in Europe requires you to translate a ton of different languages so that every country can enjoy the game. The Sword of Etheria, otherwise known as Over Zenith in Japan is one of the few games that we got that America didn’t and because of this, the game kinda flew under the radar.
At first glance, The Sword Of Etheria appears to be Konami’s attempt to make a 3D Beat Em Up that distinguishes itself from other games in the genre with its juggling mechanic which involves knocking the enemy back and forth between 3 different characters. In a way it’s kinda similar to Star Ocean Till The End Of Time’s metagame but unlike Star Ocean Till The End Of Time, in Sword Of Etheria your teammates can only be controlled by the AI. While having to manually control these characters would have been difficult, it would have arguably allowed players to feel more involved like in Star Ocean Till The End Of Time but unfortunately the biggest issue with the game is that there really isn’t that much involvement at all.
The Sword Of Etheria is primarily a 1 button game, though there is another button for a musou esque finisher called a deathblow that requires what is called the tension meter to be filled to a certain amount in order to use it, using the attack consumes all your tension but the attack differs depending on how much tension you have built up. To build up tension, you have to knock enemies back or into the air and keep hitting them, using your teammates to assist you by having them hit the same enemy. Put simply, you have to utilize this juggling mechanic to use the deathblow. One thing that bothers me though is that the tension meter slowly decreases over time so you can pull off a great combo only to have nothing to use your deathblow on and it gets wasted. Also performing deathblows on enemies gives you more yellow etheria so using them is kinda important.
There really isn’t much else to the combat system, there’s a knockback and launch attack you can perform by pressing forward and back though I find it easier to button mash in most cases since it knocks the enemy automatically with its finisher, there is also a button you can use to tell the AI to target a specific enemy but I never really found it useful outside of boss fights where I used the AI to deal the damage while my controlled character keeps out of the way. You see if you die in The Sword Of Etheria, you have to button mash your way back to life but if everyone dies it’s game over. Therefore it’s easier to just let the AI take all the punishment while you stand far back, sure you don’t get a good score at the end for doing so but it’s enough to get you through the game.
Ultimately the issues with The Sword Of Etheria have less to do with what the combat system actually is and rather how it actually works, The combat system is brilliant in theory and the whole idea of juggling enemies between multiple characters is something I’d like to see in more games. The thing is though, The Sword Of Etheria isn’t the only game to do this as tri-Ace have made two games that completely thwart The Sword Of Etheria in this department, those two games being Star Ocean Till The End Of Time and Valkyrie Profile 2 Silmeria, both games arguably do a better job at executing this idea than The Sword Of Etheria does. The silly thing is that The Sword Of Etheria has a lot in common with games I like as not only does it have the juggling of those games but it also has a similar design format to that of Chaos Legion in the sense that you are moving between arenas and fight tonnes of enemies at a time. Heck it even has a similar intermission screen at the end of each stage, it’s like a perfect combination in theory but unfortunately it doesn’t really work as well as it should.
First I want to address the fact that the combat is excruciatingly sluggish and while I do understand that making the combat any faster would make juggling too easy, the problem is that the recovery time for every single action is insanely long to the point that simply missing an attack can really screw you over big time as you are left wide open to be attacked. Add to that the fact that you are surrounded by countless enemies that often knock you down with their attacks and you are in for a world of hurt. Sadly the only viable method of crowd control is to utilize the deathblows but they require players to build up tension. The problem is that you have to be constantly on the move to avoid getting hit by enemies and by doing so, your allies will have a tough time knocking enemies towards you. There are times where the AI knocks the enemy miles away from my location with the intention of that enemy reaching me and before I can reach the enemy, the combo ends.
I think what they should have done is given the player the option to automatically swap to the receiving character and also added the lock on system from Curse Of Darkness so that the juggled enemy would stay locked on without having to hold the button down. Also I find the lock on in general to be really difficult to deal with at times and this is due to the AI constantly attacking everything and knocking enemies to you without you even knowing about it. The only way to stop the AI from fighting by themselves is by pressing triangle to tell them to come to you. The problem is that they will go back to auto fighting the moment they reach you, therefore there’s no way to effectively manage the AI, which can make the combat an absolute nightmare at times, especially when there are tonnes of enemies on screen. It’s particularly aggravating when you launch a locked on enemy, expecting the AI to go after it; only for them to launch a different enemy towards you instead of going after the enemy you were locked on to. The AI targeting doesn’t really help much either, in fact it can actually hinder you as they will rush to attack an enemy you’re about to launch, causing them to be unable to chase the enemy due to them recovering from an attack animation.
Unfortunately, that’s just the beginning of the game’s issues. It seems to me that the developers realized that their combat was lacking, so they decided to bring more variance to the levels in order to prevent players from becoming bored due to the game’s repetitious nature but this only ended up making matters worse. Some levels have objects known as “ords” that you have to break using deathblows, other levels have hungry wall monsters that try to eat anything nearby, including the player, players have to knock enemies towards these hungry wall monsters in order to finish them off. Then there are levels where you have to protect certain objects from being destroyed by enemies. One particular level has you fighting fake enemies that don’t have shadows and to kill them you have to kill the real enemies that have the shadows, these fake enemies will still attack you though which is really annoying. Finally there’s a level where you are chased by a black void that hurts you if it catches up to you so you have to rush through as quickly as possible.
These things really drive me up the wall…
These gimmick levels turn what would be a tolerable 3D Beat Em Up into a huge ordeal, it’s bad enough that the combat isn’t brilliant but having to deal with all this unnecessary bullshit on top of that is ultimately what made my overall experience with The Sword Of Etheria a frustrating one. I’d love to point out some redeeming qualities to the combat system but there aren’t many, the characters movement speed is fast enough to keep things moving I guess, also the camera is pulled back far enough so you can see what’s going on which is a plus and I suppose the AI aren’t the worst I’ve seen, it does manage to send enemies my way most of the time but it doesn’t always work out that way. I find that its easier to launch enemies and let the AI build up tension rather than receive enemies and usually that’s what I do in order to build up tension because the AI are really good at building up tension, especially when you equip them with tension gaining gear. Speaking of which the yellow etheria gained in each level can be used to buy equipment and power ups for your characters in the intermission screen, so there is an element of growth in the game but sadly there’s no new moves to learn like in Devil May Cry.
I will give the combat one thing and that’s the fact that it’s quite fun to watch, even if it isn’t all that fun to play since seeing the AI beat the living crap out of enemies is satisfying and some of those deathblows look pretty cool, particularly the level 3 deathblows… if you can get them. The problem is that there’s no real feedback satisfaction to be gained from actually interacting with the combat, sure you get to watch the AI do cool stuff but all you are doing is mashing square each time they knock an enemy towards you only to finish with circle, that’s it.
Now you do get the ability to block though it’s kinda pointless in a game like this as you are rarely in a situation where guarding is worth doing. In the first stage of the game where you fight the first boss, you will need to block a lot since you’re the only character and the fight consists of blocking attack strings then mashing square till you win. Later on though, you’ll be so preoccupied with juggling enemies that you won’t have time to guard attacks. It should be noted that if a player performs a perfect guard on an enemy, the enemy becomes dazed but considering the fact that you only need to hit an enemy a couple of times to daze them, there’s no point in performing a perfect guard. It would have been better had the perfect guard given tension and perhaps changed the player character’s regular attack into a unique counter move that would automatically launch an enemy towards the other characters right after performing the perfect guard, further encouraging the use of the guard system. Sadly the guard system feels like an afterthought which is a shame.
Later on in the game there’s an ability to transform your characters into their Lex Armor form which gives them magical armor resembling that of a mech suit. the symbol on the left hand side of your health bar needs to be maxed out in order to do so which requires blue etheria. Lex Armor form didn’t really seem to be that much different from the regular form other than the fact that it lets you perform a unique deathblow when maxed out so it’s not really as interesting as it sounds. Seems like a missed opportunity to me. If nothing else, this feature really emphasizes the fact that The Sword Of Etheria favors style over substance when it comes to gameplay.
“It’s particularly aggravating when you launch a locked on enemy, expecting the AI to go after it; only for them to launch a different enemy towards you instead of going after the enemy you were locked on to”
So what we are left with is a hollow combat system and large arenas and annoying gimmick levels. The visuals don’t really look all that impressive for a late PS2 game either, I mean they’re decent enough but they’re not exactly striking. Since you’re mostly fighting in empty arenas, there’s not much to say about to levels either other than they’re just kinda there. There are a few interesting looking levels which resemble a somewhat twisted version of the Jabu Jabu’s belly dungeon in Ocarina Of Time but those levels are also quite annoying, especially the first one where you start with none of your party members and have to deal with the annoying wall monsters that try to eat you and acid falling from the ceiling, making the arenas a pain in the ass to fight in.
One thing that should be noted though is that The Sword Of Etheria is surprisingly heavily story driven for a 3D Beat Em Up. There’s even an affection variable which changes which characters team up with you at certain points. The story itself is basically a retelling of The Wizard Of Oz but in the most anime way possible. All the characters are supposed to represent the characters from The Wizard Of Oz but to me they resemble characters from other videogames. The protagonist of the game and the character you control for most of the game’s stages is named Fiel, what kind of a name is Fiel!? Anyways his design seems to resemble that of Wylfred from Valkyrie Profile Covenant Of The Plume, which came out a few years later on the DS. He’s voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch who plays the hot headed heroic role as usual.
Eventually you meet a character named Leon who is voiced by Dave Wittenberg and while this character was clearly inspired by the Leon from Castlevania Lament Of Innocence (due to the fact that he shares the same name and can wear Leon’s outfit as an unlockable), his appearance and personality resemble that of Cliff Fitter from Star Ocean Till The End Of Time who is also played by Dave Wittenberg which is hilarious, especially considering the fact that they’re both fist fighters. On top of this, Leon’s level 1 deathblow is similar to Cliff’s fiery tackle. He also has the tendency to call Fiel “kid” all the time much like how Cliff likes to call Fayt Leingod (the protagonist of Star Ocean Till The End Of Time) “kid” as well. Just thought I should bring this up for I personally found this to be amusing. I will say that the voice cast does a decent job overall (with the exception of Dorothy’s voice), though Dave Wittenberg was the real standout for me here.
Despite all this however, the story as a whole isn’t really all that remarkable, there are a few interesting ideas explored but it doesn’t really go anywhere. The cast of characters do their job but they aren’t really fleshed out, not that you’d expect this to be the case considering the nature of the game. All I will say is that I hope you don’t mind reading through dialogue because there’s quite a lot in this game, you can skip most of the dialogue but you can’t skip the dialogue choices that influence the variables. For an anime version of The Wizard Of Oz, it kinda gets a bit crazy and can also get a bit dark at times which kinda took me off guard.
Is there any saving grace to this mess of a game you ask? Well actually, there is. The Sword Of Etheria has an amazing soundtrack composed by Michiru Yamane, the same person who composed the music for many of the Castlevania games. I personally consider The Sword Of Etheria to be her best work as there are some really awesome metal tracks to enjoy in this game and the soundtrack as a whole is full of energy, it really gets you pumped up to kick tonnes of ass. If nothing else, I highly recommend listening to the game’s amazing soundtrack because it’s absolutely brilliant. It is such a shame that the rest of the game fails to live up to its incredible music. For this reason, it’s impossible for me to hate this game, that and the fact that the concept as a whole is really cool.
So to all of you who never got to play Sword Of Etheria in the west, hopefully this review has reassured you that you haven’t missed much, though I do recommend giving the game’s OST a listen to. I can imagine that there will be a few people who actually like this game for its idea alone and to those people, please keep enjoying it. The Sword Of Etheria could have been so much more but it’s far from the worst 3D Beat Em Up I’ve ever played, it just isn’t all that good to me and I can’t recommend it to anyone unless they have to play every 3D Beat Em Up ever made, in which case you might as well. There are so many better games out there but there’s no denying that Sword Of Etheria is one of the more interesting 3D Beat Em Ups out there and people deserve to at least know of its existence even if they aren’t going to play it. Heck you never know, one of you may even be tempted to try it and by all means do so if you feel like it’s something you might like. Just know that as much as it pains me to say it, I couldn’t get any enjoyment out of the experience outside of the music. The Sword Of Etheria is kinda like Zone Of The Enders to me in the sense that it’s a Konami game with mechs that I really want to like but can’t despite their amazing soundtracks.
Story/Plot: Mediocre
Visuals: Satisfactory
Gameplay: Mediocre
Music: Excellent
Lifespan: Decent Length
Difficulty: Medium
Would You Replay? No
Overall: Mediocre
Value: N/A (I can’t recommend a purchase sorry)
TL;DR:
The Ultimate Rant: Why Modern Gaming Is Fucking Dogshit
Sorry Y’all have to see me repeat what I said in as previous article but this was a video response to The Button Mappers and since it’s related to what I do here, I thought I might as well put this video up on my blog just as a recap of how terrible gaming has been in recent years.
Video is rated 18+ because some of the footage in the recording is not suitable for younger viewers. Sorry it’s all I could find, does kinda give some insight into what the Warcraft 3 Battle.net experience was like back in the day.
JRPG Fanbase Stereotypes
Cynical Gaming Blog 