Greeting friends, enemies, people who wonder who the hell I am. I havn't said a single word in about 6-8 months (When I got my new PC), but now I have played something again to completion.
Tokyo Beat Down for the Nintendo DS!
What we have here is the equivalent of a Flash game ported to the Nintendo DS. I longed for Campy beat em up action. I got campy, I got humour, I beat people up, but it wasn't worth the money.
What be good:
The writing. It's completly absurd and greatly tongue in cheek. If you don't giggle at least 4 seperate occasions, you aren't reading, or you have no sense of humour (I.E. your idea of funny is Dane Cook playing pac-man with his ass).
The challenges : To get upgrades, you must find an old man. You find these old men by talking with people in random areas. They then provide you with a challenge, either defeat all enemies within a time limit for a health boost, or defeat all enemies without getting hit once. The latter proving to be near impossible until your 30th try or so. They always appear just within your reach like a carnival game, so it's kinda fun.
Bosses - A mixed bag, but some bossess are entertaining. Most fall into the trap "Well, if we let him assault without any distraction, they'd win within seconds, so lets have endless goons", but they can provide a decent challenge. Some bosses do not provide any challenge. I'll leave this at good, since bad is going to be LOOOOONG.
What be bad:
The fighting: You - The story plays out through three charecters. They all fight the same, minus different animations for attack, special, and throw. In addition to Punch, Kick, Jump, there is a block button that is functionally useless, save for it lets you release your special attacks (Think Mike Haggars spinning clothesline, does damage to yourself as well), and a button to pull out your gun. There is also a bullet dodge, and running attacks.
Note One: Jump: You can't attack in jump, you can't attack until you straighten up as you land, and enemies can still hit you while you jump. Completely useless, save for split second timing over a slide attack.
Note Two: Gun: The gun knocks enemies down and does about as much damage as a single punch. There are special guns, shotgun for spread, machine gun for bonus damage, and rocket launcher for instant death, but once they have run out of ammo, that's it till you find an ammo box or another gun. Mildly useless.
Note Three: Block: Useless. As mentioned before. Cannot block enemy bullets or slide attacks. Never tried to see if blocking from behind helped.
Note Four: Bullet dodge: - When an enemy pulls out a gun, you hear a click. Sadly, when they shoot, you hear a boom and fall down. Dodging when you hear a click is useful, but they will just step up and match you. Also, any shotgun wielding enemies will hit you. You cannot dodge a shotgun shot unless you were just knocked down.
Note Five: Tae-Bo BeatemUp: Until your combo gets to level 4 (I never found level 5) your best bet to actually beat up enemies, bosses and normal, is to punch/kick alternate, so no combo ever starts. Once an enemy is knocked down, they are invincible. The last hit of your combo is always a knockdown, so rather than spending 5 minutes on an enemy, waiting for them to get up, just punch/kick/punch. Works on bosses too. Even the last one.
Alright, I'll stop with the notes. Let's just say that after the game was halfway done, I skipped as much combat as I could. Boring and repetitive. Also, since the scenes end when you get to the right, you can skip about half the combat in the game anyway. However, as a beat-em-up, you'd kinda hope for fun combat, eh?
The game is funny, and tongue in cheek. The game is not very fun however. Sound is fine, appearance is about a PS1 grade with higher resolution, but nothing very memorable. Worth it if you have 4 hours with nothing else to play and want to beat up 4 enemies on a screen at once alternating punch/kicks, and if it only costs about 10 bucks. You'll smile, you'll giggle, you'll cheer on the Fist of Justice. And then you'll never play the game again, have any compulsion to play the game again or tell your friends to play the game.
About a 4/10. The writing alone saved it from a 2/10, but it's slapstick and 4th wall humour, even though it's great, will not stand tall in the annuls of time. Lewis Cannon is not the next Gene from Godhand, and Gene wasn't even the next Axel, let alone Haggar. Let that confusing comparison end this shortened review, as if you had ever read one of these before, let it be known I am not concise, and I do not ever stop. Much like this ending.
Have fun ladies & Gents.
See Ya George.
"He did not die - He passed Away"
At least following a comedians own jokes makes his death easier.
