Persona 5 Strikers (PS4, NSW, PC) "The Phantom Thieves Strike Back" Trailer

RE-introducing the Phantom Thieves in this all-new trailer for the upcoming Warriors-style Persona 5 Strikers! Get acquainted with the cast of colorful characters from Persona 5 interspersed with red-hot gameplay footage in this trailer. Persona 5 Strikers strikes on the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on February 23rd!

Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection (NSW) "Weapons, Magic ‘n Modes" Trailer

Let's continue our retro theme for just a little bit longer this week with a new trailer for Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection, currently scheduled for a Nintendo Switch release on February 25th. As the trailer title suggests, Resurrection's new trailer showcases some new features, such as--for one--a new series of difficulty modes in the form of "Page, Squire, Knight and Legend" so any player of any skill level will have a fighting chance (or a nightmarish time). There are also new weapons and magic, such as one that transforms Arthur into a rolling boulder. Finally, beating the game once will unlock a mysterious "World of Shadows". Are you personally looking forward to Ghost 'n Goblins Resurrection?

Ristar (GEN) Retro Review

Fresh off the heels of this afternoon's published trailer for Wonder Boy: Ashe in Monster World, why don't we continue the SEGA Genesis themed fun with a look at another platformer from that bygone era? We're looking this evening to the sky, where somewhere Ristar awaits his chance to shine once more. Well, that day has arrived, Ristar--at least on SPC! Here's my retro review of this then-overlooked, but now-rather appreciated SEGA Genesis platformer.

 In search of an unsung, old school platforming hero? Look for the star.

During the 16-bit era, SEGA was a juggernaut in the console space, and a part of what made the console manufacturer and publisher so strong was its grand collection of characters and franchises that helped put the Genesis toe-to-toe with the Super Nintendo. However, for every Sonic the Hedgehog and Streets of Rage that turned into a lucrative series, there were multiple games that never quite enjoyed success, much more a sequel. Ristar is one of these. While SEGA's blue hedgehog still sees games to this day, the galactic hero Ristar was left in the 16-bit era, save for appearances in various Genesis greatest hits game collections and as the starter of each race in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, of course.

Ristar arrived on the SEGA Genesis late in the console's life. In actuality, most gamers of the era were eager to move beyond the 16-bit landscape and towards the fresh tech that Nintendo and SEGA, as well as then-newcomer Sony were set to release. Thus, it's no wonder that Ristar never really got a fair shot at success as a series.

The story of Ristar has Kaiser Greedy, an intergalactic tyrant, using mind control to force each elder of the galaxy's planets to abide by his command. In the process--and if that wasn't enough--the star hero of legend, has been captured by Greedy. Young starling Ristar has an adventure ahead of him, but not just to rescue the elders, but his father--the legendary hero--as well! 

Ristar can climb...

Being a late-gen title on the SEGA Genesis, Ristar is one of the system's most impressive looking games. The pallet is rich and vibrant, overflowing with delightful colors. This is rather astonishing, considering how limited the Genesis hardware was at displaying lots of colors at once, so you can bet I appreciate the hardware voodoo that Sonic Team voo-did. Furthermore, the amount of little, noticeable details and effects in the myriad multilayered environments are truly amazing to look upon, whether they be scrolling clouds in the background or the way the water splashes and bubbles as Ristar enters and exits its surface. Ristar is just a gorgeous game, and fortunately, it plays just as well as it looks.

Whereas Sonic bounces on--in typical platforming fashion--and rolls into enemies to defeat them, Ristar utilizes his arms, able to stretch out in eight different directions a short distance, grab enemies, and then slam into them with the whole of his body to defeat them. Of course, to keep the challenge up, not all enemies easily just stand there waiting to be body-slammed into. Most scurry and scamper about, and many are only vulnerable in specific locations. Additionally, some will simply greet Ristar with a painful star-full of spikes when an errant and careless attempt at a grab occurs. Ristar can also catch and throw certain objects and projectiles as well.

Ristar can grab on to and then catapult into enemies...

Ristar's arms aren't just for offense. No, they're also used to get around the levels--rather ingeniously, if I might add. Stretching his upper extremities to pull himself past poles--from one side to the other, to hang onto monkey bars, latch onto ledges, and to swing upon special "Star Handles" to blast off and reach new heights are just some of the tricks in Ristar's repertoire. Early levels and worlds grant you leniency in missing grabs to pull yourself to safety over perilous spike-filled gaps and chasms, but later levels demand an almost perfect amount of precision as you chain grabs together to make progress. One midgame level has you in a maze of bouncing drums that propel our protagonist high into the air. Some of these drums bounce Ristar directly into a ceiling full of spikes--that is, unless you as the player successfully grab your way to safety via grabbing a pole, before meeting a painful fate.

Ristar can run...

Speaking of painful, Ristar is no certainly cakewalk. While the game can be short, it stars--excuse me--stars out breezy enough, but not too long into the game the difficulty picks up considerably. The aforementioned need to be on top of chaining grabs together is there, but so are the different enemies and bosses to learn patterns from, evading the tricks, traps and hazards that litter each level, and making your way to the goal "Star Handle" are but some of the trials needing to be overcome. Speaking of those specific handles, in each of the platforming-based levels, there is a secret "Star Handle" that leads to a bonus area. Complete the bonus area to acquire a special item. Back at release, and obviously before the Internet (but us olden gamers still had Tips & Tricks Magazine!), these special items would reveal three passwords at the end of the game, revealing everything from a level select, to a boss rush, to an even higher difficulty.

Ristar can... sit on his butt and enjoy the scenery?
(Okay, I don't blame you. The environments ARE really nice!)

Also, unlike Sonic Team's namesake, Ristar is a much slower paced adventure than what the blue blur's original offers delivered. It's a more methodical game, focusing less on skillful twitch running, jumping and speed, and more on careful precision platforming, particularly with Ristar's stretchable arms. 

There are six planets that our protagonist explores on his way to Castle Greedy, where our mind-bending boss awaits. Each planet is set with a different theme and is composed of two platforming levels and boss fight. The opening world, Planet Flora is full of lush vegetation, fauna and flora, perfect for a pleasant welcome into the mechanics of the game. Meanwhile, worlds like Planet Scorch offer less than welcoming fires, deadly walls of flames, and traps awaiting Ristar to unknowingly get caught and subsequently burned inside. Then, the music-themed Planet Sonata features birds that block Ristar's progress, but delivering metronomes to these feathered friends through carrying the time-keeping devices to them will allow them to fly away unfettered. By Planet Freon, the frozen planet, Ristar will be slipping and sliding around, needing to time his grabs or else slide into hazards that will no doubt deliver a star-ache. 

The boss fights are yet another great part to the whole that is Ristar.

What doesn't deliver a star-ache, or a headache for us humans, is Ristar as an overall game. Sonic Team may have left poor Ristar in the blue blur's dust, but there's no denying that the game successfully differentiates itself from the developer's other, more popular Genesis works. The fact that Ristar still plays as well today as it did over 25 years ago is a testament to Sonic Team for making one of the better, more innovative and creative platformers of the 16-bit era. It may be a short game, but it's also certainly a sweet one. With a wonderfully clever grab mechanic that pours over into all facets of the game from offense to traversal, Ristar remains a very worthy play that any platformer fan out there.

[SPC Says: B+]

Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World (PS4, NSW) New Trailer

After its announcement last year, Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World, the remake of Monster World IV (I had a previous lapse of sanity and had "Wonder Boy IV" as the title. -PS), has a new trailer showing off some considerable upgrades compared to its original debut trailer. While not all of the animations are up to a high definition of quality, the game is otherwise looking quite cheery, chipper, and just plain old fun! Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World doesn't have a firm release date, but it does, however, have a release period of Q2 2021!

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (NSW, PS4, XB1) Review

The reviews are about to pile up here on SuperPhillip Central for the rest of the month. First, we engage in a musical journey through the Kingdom Hearts series of games with Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, available on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Let's take a look (or is it a listen with this music game's case?) with the SPC review.

A fun rhythm game? Great music and gameplay are the key[blade].

We've previously seen Square Enix properties get the rhythm/music game approach with the Theatrhythm series on the Nintendo 3DS, offering battles and adventures that took place on musical stages, and featuring franchises like Final Fantasy for two entries and Dragon Quest for an un-localized one. If there was ever any series left under Square Enix that needed a rhythm game for its sensational music, that series would have to be Kingdom Hearts. Now, this has become reality with Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, developed by Indiezero of Theatrhythm fame.

Really, one could describe Melody of Memory as an evolution of Theatrhythm. The major difference here is that while the entries for Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest stayed in 2D, Kingdom Hearts sees a leap to full 3D. It's especially awesome to see all the variety of locales and environments, such as the world of Alice in Wonderland or Hercules' ancient Greece, in wonderful three-dimensional glory, as Sora and friends run through them, attacking foes in time with Yoko Shimomura, et. al's phenomenal music. 

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory's main mode, the sea salt ice cream of the package, if you will, is the World Tour. This mode takes players through a musical journey of Kingdom Hearts music through the memories of Kairi. She regales players between groupings of song stages with recaps of events from the series' long history. Everything from 2002's original Kingdom Hearts up until SPC's Game of 2019 Kingdom Hearts III is touched upon. Not all of the story content here is recycled, though, as there is some new story elements at the end of the game. However, that requires approximately ten hours of playing through music stages to see--albeit this is an extraordinarily fun task.

There are different types of music stages in Melody of Memory, but the majority--and thankfully so since they're the most enjoyable--are Field stages. These have your party of three characters--whether Sora, Donald and Goofy; Roxas, Axel and Xion; Aqua, Terra and Ventus; or Riku and a pair of Dream Eaters--running along a path. As enemies come towards your party, you'll press one of three attack buttons to defeat them, and this is always done with the beat of the music or as notes are played. On many occasions, you'll need to defeat multiple enemies at once, requiring the press of the normal attack button and one or both shoulder buttons (depending on if there are two or three enemies you need to dispatch at once). There are also Ability Crystals that your lead character uses to smash and summon magic, which is designated to the top face button in traditional Kingdom Hearts control style. Lastly, there are moments where your lead character must jump to attack enemies, jump to avoid enemy attacks, and glide, having you guide them along a series of notes with the analog stick or D-Pad.

Field music stages are without a doubt the highlight of Melody of Memory.
The developers must have known, too, as they are easily the most abundant in the game.

Timing is everything. After all, this IS a rhythm game. The better you time your strikes and attacks to the notes and beats, the better your score. Of course, there are visual prompts to follow along with, as you'd be pretty much up Timeless River without a paddle without them! These prompts are two rings: one that stays in the center and one that surrounds the outside and closes in on the center target. Press the button as the two overlap for a Rainbow Excellent grade on that note, rewarding you more points. The grades go from Rainbow Excellent to just Excellent, to  Good, to a complete Miss, also effectively depleting a chunk of your party's HP and breaking your current combo chain in the process. 

While Field levels are the most fun to play in Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, they aren't exactly perfect experiences. This problem is with the transition from 2D, which the Theatrhythm games had, to 3D, which Melody of Memory has. On a 2D plane, it's simple to see notes, beats, and whatnot coming up, but in Melody of Memory, more often than I'd like, the paths that your party travels on occasionally has a lot of curves and undulations. This makes seeing the visual cues and prompts more difficult than it necessarily needs to be. 

The problem isn't just relegated to Field levels. They rear their nasty head into the "Memory Dives", the second type of music stage in Melody of Memory. These have your lead character gliding while a cinematic scene of some sort plays on the screen. It's here where the visual cues indicating what type of action you need to take--whether it's a button press, button hold, an analog stick directional push, or whatnot--can easily get obscured and lost. The screen can just become way too busy visually, much like the Field levels can. 

Meanwhile, Memory Dive stages are my least favorite type of stages in the game, 
though that isn't to say they're horrible--no, not by any stretch of the imagination!

The last type of stage in Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory are the boss battle stages, which show your party doing battle against--who else--a boss. The controls here are set up the exact same as Memory Dives, and you are essentially watching a cinematic. It's more interactive, though, as there are certain sections of these battles where the prompts will be covered in shadow. This indicates the boss is readying an attack. Depending on how many prompts you successfully nail with proper timing, you'll limit the damage (or completely nullify it) from their attack. There are but a handful of boss battles in the entire game, but they are entertaining all the same--at least more so than Memory Dives. 

Sadly, boss battles happen all too infrequently in Melody of Memory's World Tour mode.

That's why it's a bit disappointing that so much of the World Tour mode features Field stages, yet the final game represented in the mode, Kingdom Hearts III, is mostly comprised of Memory Dives. Perhaps Melody was too far along in development to add creatures and scenes from Kingdom Hearts III as Field stages, but either way, it's a bit of a bummer. 

Nevertheless, World Tour features practically every location and major battle represented by songs in Melody of Memory. While some Disney worlds are notably absent, such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Tarzan, there are nearly 150 songs across the entire Kingdom Hearts series showcased in Melody of Memory regardless. World Tour also has a cute way to traverse its map, bringing along the Gummy Ship from the series to move around. Most worlds in World Tour feature two songs each: one for the field version of the world and one for the battle version. (For instance, The Three Musketeers world of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance fame features both All for One and One for All.)

Alongside each song in World Tour is a trio of challenges to complete. In order to pass through some gates that otherwise block your progress in this mode, you need to complete some of these challenges. Most are rather simple, offering tasks like clearing a song without using an item, defeating a certain percentage of a specific type of enemy, or hitting a number of slide notes cumulatively across all song play-throughs, to name a few examples. 

Partners like the "zero to hero" Herc occasionally join in on the musical fun.

Each song has three difficulties: Beginner, Standard, and Proud. The former, of course, has the smallest amount of notes and challenging prompt patterns while the latter offers a stiff challenge with massive strings of complicated prompts and patterns to play through. Each song on each difficulty is rated in challenge by a number: 1 being the easiest and 15 being the hardest. Starting off, I needed to get acclimated to the game well enough, as jumping and hitting targets took some getting used to with the timing, but eventually I moved on to Standard. By the time I completed World Tour, I felt comfortable enough with the game to make the bold leap to trying out Proud versions of songs. Occasionally I did well. Most times, however? Not so much.

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory's World Tour mode also comes with an item synthesis and collection system. You can earn items from regular play, as well as synthesize them in true Kingdom Hearts fashion to create everything from potions to heal yourself mid-song, to entirely new songs to add to your collection. Such songs available are the familiar lyrical songs from Kingdom Hearts I - III (though Face My Fears is questionably absent), but more notably, themes from Disney movies along with a sample of their cinematics such as Aladdin's "A Whole New World" or Beauty and the Beast's eponymous song. You can also collect a host of cards, picturing the cast, characters, enemies, Keyblades, story scenes, and more to add to the longevity. While most of the collectable cards here are random in attaining them (random as in what you'll get--not how you'll get them), there's a degree of fun in acquiring them and browsing through one's collection. I at least loved getting a new card here and there as I played.

Last but certainly not least is the multiplayer mode of Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, which has two players battling it out while playing a song of either player's selection, chosen randomly between the two songs chosen. As you successfully hit notes, you fill a gauge that when full, unleashes some kind of effect on the other player. This can be anything from making prompts appear at the last possible moment to making enemies completely invisible. The player with the most points at the end of the song not only wins the match but wins a reward in the form of a collectable card. While playing songs with other players runs pretty much without any hitches or lag, I feel this is a superfluous mode. I appreciate its inclusion, but I most likely won't spend too much more time with it.

Perform tricks in online matches to turn the battle in your favor--or put the match completely out of reach!

Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory takes 18+ years of series history, most notably the sensational soundtracks, and puts them in one concise musical collection that can be enjoyed by any rhythm game fan or music lover. Those only interested in buying this game for the story should probably just catch the ending on YouTube or something, as the new story content isn't worth the $60 price of admission. Memory Dives and the occasional clutter that inhibits seeing and reacting to note prompts on time also detract from the game, but overall my experience with Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory was a positive one. I definitely ended my time with the game on a good note.

[SPC Says: B+]