Tuesday 20 December 2005

Pic of the day: Pretty landscapes, ugly fighting. Screenshot once again stolen from my old friends at ToTheGame.com, since mine just became too blurry. I don't have the equipment to hold the camera (and game console) still for these long exposures. :( And the on-screen text is now in English, by the way. Or at least in the Latin alphabet.

"Kingdom of Paradise" game

Despite the religious title, this is actually an action role-playing game for the Sony PSP (Playstation Portable). It is somewhat unclear why the title is that; perhaps it is the beautiful landscape? Perhaps it is the character's goal of restoring peace and righteousness to the fivefold realm? Perhaps it is some Japanese subtlety that is lost in translation? The British version is supposed to be called "Key of Heaven". But that one won't be out for a few months yet. The American version has been out for weeks, and finally came into my hands this week, just barely in time before the holidays.

Not that I will play it during the days off from work. I play it on the bus. At home I have other things to do. And it is eminently playable on the bus ... except that for the first time in 15 years, I have now forgotten my stop. Luckily it is the last stop, but it is still embarrassing. For me, certainly not for the folks who made the game.

***

The PSP is not exactly drowning in good, original RPGs. That is an understatement, of course. Software is the weak point of the system, and probably a big reason (along with the price) that Nintendo DS is sweeping the floor with the beautiful, highly advanced console from Sony. The sales figures from Japan are not exactly cheerful for Sony, I would say. They desperately need some games that can show off the power of their machine. KoP is to a large degree just such a game.

Needless to say, you will never get the kind of picture you get on a PC. But the landscape is crisp and beautiful, the characters well drawn when zoomed in on, and the movement smooth except for the occasional zoning when you enter a new area. Even during battles, the machine pulls through quite well. The secret is in the restrictions. The landscape is beautiful but not movable. Camera control is completely in the hands of the game, you cannot pan the camera and look around. This upsets some players, but is clearly the reason why such a sharp image can work with minimal delay. Also during battles, the camera is so far out that you get a good tactical view ... and at the same time, there is less work for the machine to draw all the moving warriors. All in all I am quite impressed with the graphics.

The music is clearly meant to convey an "oriental" feel, probably more traditional Chinese than Japanese. It does repeat after a while, of course, but it is pretty and unobtrusive. One funny feature I noticed is that when I did not move my character in a long while, he started to play a melody on his magic sword. By touching it in different distances from the hilt, he created different notes, a simple but hauntingly beautiful melody. A nice way for the character to combat boredom!

The game also has a good deal of voiced dialog. It is largely well done and adds to the atmosphere. The voice actors may have some small problems with Japanese words, but it's not like most customers will notice. While the story is rather linear with little or no appeal to creativity, it is setting the mood nicely. You play the young hero who was expelled from his fighting temple for excessive curiosity. A cute young girl runs by, chased by angry swordsmen. The girl wears the uniform of your old temple, and you jump to her rescue. A story of tragedy and heroism goes from there, with plenty of cut scenes and dialog in between the even more plentiful fighting.

The controls are kept simple. The Start button pauses the game and lets you do all kind of setup, saving, looking at the map and arranging inventory. You can place a few items from your inventory into a small set which you can cycle through with the Left shoulder button. The Right shoulder button cycles through your Bugei scrolls, basically combos of sword forms. You can move with either the directional buttons or the mini joystick. And you fight by pressing the O (circle) button.

A little more about the combat system. It may sound overly simplistic to use only one button for fighting. That's where the Kenpu and Bugei system kicks in. Kenpu are sword forms (it is a real word, although I am not sure if the meaning is quite the same.) In the game they are found on narrow tiles. You can sometimes find them in chests, but usually they drop off defeated enemies. Basically you learn new sword moves from fighting, which I think is a good idea, despite the slightly corny implementation. The Bugei are scrolls where you arrange your Kenpu, one after another. When you fight with your sword, your character will perform the moves in the order they are strung on the scroll, one after another, one move for each time you click the button. So the game rewards intelligent planning rather than awesome trigger fingers, making it ideal for the armchair warrior such as I. ^_^

And make no mistake, there is planning involved. There are around 150 Kenpu or fighting moves, but you start with very few and only scroll. This changes over time. Some of the different styles are positional: Do you prefer to stand back and make quick moves in front of you? Or would you run through the enemy line, executing first a front cut, then a slower circle cut and finally a back cut? Then when you visit other provinces, you learn new elemental forms. Select the one that is strong against your opponent, but don't forget that you can build up...

Oh yes, the magic system. The magic energy is called Chi, and is once again a real word. (The Japanese word is Ki, but the game uses mainly Chinese names. I believe it is also transliterated as Qui.) In oriental philosophy this is a mystical vital power, but in common superstition it is sought after because of its magic qualities. This is how it is used in the game. There are five variants of Chi, each having its center in one of the five provinces. You start with Wood (which for some reason gives you control of lightning.) The other variants are Earth, Water, Air and Fire. Each of them is weaker against some elements and stronger against some, in a "paper, scissors, stone" kind of way. When you fight enemies from different clans, you have to consider their magic alignment. Attack them with the element that is their weakness!

While sword moves are imbued with Chi, you can also unleash it directly in a devastating area-of-effect attack, like a lightning or fire storm. You hold the rectangle button down for a second or two to "charge" your Chi (you will see a meter going up to full) then press the button once more to unleash it. During the charge phase you are completely vulnerable, so it is best done before making contact with the enemy. Under these ideal circumstances, the magic is so powerful that most reviewers feel it makes the game too easy. There is no depletion of Chi either, you can do it again and again even in the same battle, as long as you manage to avoid the attacks while charging. Fine, if you think it is too easy, just don't use it. And it is worth noticing that the various magics, as I mentioned, are not effective against the same enemies. Your skill in each type of magic rises only when that magic is used, so you risk coming to a new area with only newbie skills in the magic that is useful there. Then you have to decide: Will you use the new magic anyway, leveling it up through use, or will you try to use the stronger forms of the less effective magic and hope to win by sheer force?

As mentioned above, the sword forms are also imbued with elemental Chi. If you attack an enemy using forms that belong to the element he is weak against, you do more damage. But each element can also strengthen another element in a certain order. If you make a circle of five different elemental moves in the right order, each of them will be successively stronger due to the accumulated Chi from each of the moves before it, and when you come to the sixth move after a full circle, it is far more powerful. Failing that (and you probably will fail that for most of the game, because you don't have all the Kenpu) you should at least make sure that the moves you do use, are in the right order. If you skip a step or go the wrong way, you ruin the build-up. For instance, wood strengthens fire. Wood is your starting province so you probably have lots of it. When you get one fire attack, if you put it as the 6th (last) attack after five wood attacks, you make it much more powerful than if you put it at the beginning.

The developers say that you can only expect to find around 70% of all Kenpu during one play-through of the game. On the other hand, you will get several of some of them. Thanks to the PSP's wireless mode, you can easily hook up with your friends who own the game, and exchange your surplus Kenpu for some you lack. (You can also duel them, but I won't make any guarantees about your friendship if you win.) You can also download a few Kenpu from the Internet. Those are high-level forms that could prove useful early in the game when you don't find that sort of stuff naturally.

Finally, once you have played the game through, you can play it again, keeping all your forms and scrolls and levels. But the opposition this time around will be a match for your higher level, so the second round is far more challenging. Or so they say, I have obviously just started on the first. I doubt I shall complete even the first game: It is not like I usually complete anything. Except the occasional journal entry.

***

In conclusion: This game is a great show-off for your PSP, quite playable, and will appeal to those interested in the "martial arts" genre. It lacks the broad appeal of Nintendogs, The Sims or Animal Crossing. Sadly, so does every other game on the PSP as of yet, so this may still be one of the very best. Recommended.