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Him:
"Yeah, and it sucks. But I can't get enough sunlight in my room."
Her: "Why? Is it solar powered or something?"
Him: "Ummm...Yeah. Well, sort of. The game itself isn't solar powered,
but you need the sun in order to play it."
Her: "...Okay, now I'm really confused."
Him: "Well, here. I'll show you. Basically, it's a vampire hunting
game that has a little sensor built into it that checks the level
of sunlight, right?"
Her: "Okay..."
Him: "If there's no sunlight, the vampires get stronger and your
character can't beat them. Plus, there's a clock in the game, so
the vampires run around at night and are inactive in the daytime."
Her: "Oh, okay! Huh. That's really clever!"
Just then, it starts to snow.
Him *looking skyward*: "Oh, damn."
Her: "Ooh, snow...And you have to play it outside, you said?"
Him: "Unfortunately, yes. It's so cloudy I can't do this from inside.
Bleh."
Her: "Hmm...You know what? I take that back. I mean, it sounds really
clever and all, but it must actually be a huge pain in the ass,
huh?"
* * *
That's easily the best summation of Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django
I've ever heard: It sounds really clever, but it's really a huge
a pain in the ass.
For anyone unfamiliar with the series, here's the gist: You assume
the roll of Django, a hunter of Immortals (read: Vampires) who is
working to save the land from a curse brought upon it called "the
Undeadening" (yes, seriously) that has turned the inhabitants into,
obviously, the undead.
Japanese-to-English wording snags aside, it's a pretty conventional
setup, particularly coming from the company already responsible
for the most recognizable vampirically-oriented series of games
ever. Developer Konami wisely chose to distance the setting of Boktai
from it's other, more famous franchise Castlevania by giving
the former a distinctly Latin feel, which sounds weird but winds
up keeping things a bit more fresh than you might expect. Usually,
when we think Vampire, we also subconsciously think Western Europe,
so it's interesting to see how just that one little aspect can put
a whole new spin on an established idea.
The game kicks off with Django returning from his adventures in
the first game only to discover that nothing has changed; the Undeadening
still plagues the land, and the Immortal menace still looms large.
This second installment has Django heading out to discover why his
earlier efforts were in vain, and to finish what he started. There's
a lot of plot here that I won't get into, as the narrative twists
are actually pretty cool, and it would be a shame to ruin them.
Suffice to say that you don't need to have played Boktai 1
in order to be able to follow the story here. Enough is explained
that anyone who missed out on the first one will be brought up to
speed in short order.
The game is played as an isometric-view action title, sort of halfway
between Secret of Mana and The Legend of Zelda. There're
towns to visit, people to talk to, and shops to shop at when you're
not out clubbing skeletons back to death with a hammer, and the
game does a remarkably good job mixing the puzzle and combat elements
so that neither one feels stale at any point. The game is challenging
but (provided you've got access to as much sunlight as you need)
is never frustrating, and there's even a dramatic gameplay shift
about halfway in that alters how you play the game. It's lively
and moves along at a good speed, giving the player frequent rewards
for progress without seeming forced.
In short, it's the first game all over again, which certainly isn't
a bad thing from a gameplay point of view. If anything, it may be
a tad too similar to the first game in other respects; the graphics
are nearly identical from what I could see, and there's relatively
little to distinguish the two at first glance. The art style, music
style, and general gameplay flow are all identical, so if you're
hopping straight into this game from the first one, expect to possibly
be a little under whelmed. If you're never played the first one,
though, then Boktai 2 is a remarkably detailed little game.
The graphics are clean and well-animated and the aesthetics are
very deep and well thought out. One thing I like is that the game
looks equally good on a GBA SP or a GBA. Everything is bright, colorful,
and well delineated, so those who didn't cash out on their old Game
Boy model for the new SP hotness won't feel left out.
In fact, given the location of the sunlight sensor on the game cart,
it's actually beneficial to play this game on the old-style GBAs.
The way the game reads sunlight is though a tiny square-shaped solar
cell on the back of the see-through game back itself, right near
the label. What this means is that if you play the game in an old
GBA, the sensor is located on the back of the console itself, where
(in my own experience) it collected a fair amount of light without
having to be manually aimed at the sun. In an SP, on the other hand,
the sensor winds up facing upward just below the systems' controls.
This seems like it would be a better spot, but more often than not
I found my own shadow or the shadow of the screen blocked the light.
Worse, if the sun was shining directly on the sensor, it was also
shining directly on the screen, which made it impossible to see
because of the reflection. This wasn't a game-killing problem or
anything (I'll get to that in a second), but if you've got an old-style
GBA, it seems as though this game was designed with that in mind.
Before we even get into the whole sunlight thing though, there's
something that should be said about this game: For a Gameboy Advance
title, Boktai 2 is ridiculously complex. What looks at first
like an action title very quickly morphs into a surprisingly complicated
action-RPG, with frequent dialogue cutscenes to further the meaty
(if somewhat insane) plot, an alarmingly deep item customization
system, and an experience matrix that tracks your individual skill
level with all of the games weapons. This won't come as a surprise
to vets of the first game, but anyone expecting a Nintendo-esque
title that you can pick up and put down as you please will be surprised,
as this is very much a full game. No concessions are made, commitment-wise,
to the fact that it's on a portable system, and it demands every
bit as much attention as a console game would.
In fact, there's a very noticeable Metal Gear Solid influence
on display here, showing up on everything from the combat system
to the item menu to even some direct references later in the game.
This shouldn't come as too big of a surprise: Hideo Kojima is an
executive producer on the game, and his presence is quite obviously
felt here, right down to the subtle breaking of the "fourth wall"
his games are known for. The term "postmodernism" gets thrown around
a lot (often erroneously) in dealing with Kojima games, but it applies
here; the game is self-referential, both in-game and by design,
to the fact that it is, in reality, a game.
If this all sounds a bit too heady for a GBA title, you're not alone.
I've found that most people are generally more tolerant of these
kinds of design elements when they're in the mood for them. By nature,
a portable system is designed to be a pick-it-up-and-put-it-down
affair, so when a game comes along that completely eschews that
ideology in favor of something more demanding, some people don't
digest it as well as they might if it were on a console.
Personally, I love the fact that the game is as engaging as it is.
Taking everything as a whole, Boktai 2 is not only a solid
title, it's incredibly well-designed. It's on par, gameplay wise,
with the best the old-school Zelda games have to offer, and
it runs rings around them in terms of complexity and plot.
So, why the low score?
Here it is: For everything I liked about Boktai 2, it was
clearly not designed for people who live in areas with crappy weather.
It's not as though the game doesn't try to be accommodating. You
can store solar power for later use, and a good chunk of the game
allows you to play it in any conditions you choose. Later in the
game, it even flips the script a bit and makes darkness the necessary
factor in advancing. In the end, though, you have to go outside
or be near a reasonably bright window that gets in a lot of sunlight
at any period during the day, as opposed to just the morning or
the evening. Otherwise, you'll hit a point where you simply cannot
progress in the game.
This is all fine and good for someone who lives in Northern California,
or Miami, or Texas, or anywhere where the weather isn't completely
insane. If you're from an area where the whole going-outside-at-will
thing isn't a big deal, then feel free to mentally add 2.5 points
onto my score for the game. It's excellent, and unless you're allergic
to complexity, you'll enjoy it.
If you're from New England, particularly from the coast, you're
almost certainly going to fall into the same problem that I did
playing this thing. I'd be cruising along, smacking around the undead
and fusing weapons together and generally enjoying myself, and then
I'd hit a boss fight. It's possible to return to bosses later once
you've accumulated enough sunlight and finish them off, but I always
wanted to just get it out of the way so I could keep going. So,
that meant tossing on a hat, gloves, possibly a scarf, and heading
out into the direct sunlight to keep playing the game. My neighbors
probably thought I had gone insane, standing outside in full winter
gear pounding away on a GBA in the middle of my landlady's garden.
After I'd recharged my solar batteries, and not wanting to stay
outside in the freezing cold, I'd have to come back upstairs, take
everything off, and resume play, only to need to repeat the whole
process later down the line.
That pretty much killed Boktai 2 for me. It got to the point
where, as much as I enjoyed the game, I'd get to a point where I'd
run out of solar energy and simply didn't care enough to go through
the whole process of getting more. It became a chore to play, and
that's an instant death mark for any game. Nobody's going to want
to pay for something that requires so much effort to enjoy fully
that it doesn't feel worth it. The fact that our daylight is significantly
shorter than our nighttime up here didn't really help a whole lot.
It wasn't even a condition of the terrible weather; it's dark when
I get home from work, and artificial light doesn't work. That meant
I had to turn the game on before I left specifically to charge up
my solar energy so I could play it when I got home.
To be fair, it is conceivable that anyone could finish the game
even with next to no sunlight by just using that method, and the
game makes a pointed effort to let you bend the rules a bit if you
need to, but it drains not only the fun out of the game, but the
whole point. It's really a shame, too. Had they made the whole sunlight
thing optional, I could see the Boktai series as being some
of my favorite GBA games -- there's so much there to like, but when
the central gimmick fails, it drags everything else down with it.
As it stands, I get the feeling the game simply wasn't designed
to be played by people who live where I do, so I'm grading it based
on that. Again, if you're from a sunny climate, this review really
isn't directed at you; everyone else, I stand by my decision here.
Overall: 6.5/10
Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django is an excellent idea hindered
by a lack of foresight on the part of the developers. If you live
in a nice, warm, sunny place, then never mind that low score, it
doesn't apply to you at all -- get this game. If you live up North
like I do, then you're going to want to wait for the seasons to
swing before you try this game. It doesn't matter how good a game
is in every other conceivable way: If it becomes a chore, you're
not going to want to play it. Unless you're super-dedicated, either
wait for the summer or spend your money elsewhere.
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