This game sort of has two discussion threads already:
Zero's review, and
this one. I'm particularly interested in this post of Zero's from the latter:
Zero said:Does this game really have any comparisons as far as other games? I'm curious. The closest I can think of are Starfox and Panzer Dragoon, but man... I dunno. This game has the melee actions, and the 2D parts (which morph into 2D/3D and into 3D and back), and the boss rushes, and all kinds of insanity. One of the bosses I fought was basically a 2D sword duel!
Man. I'm a huge fan of the first game, as some of you may well know, but this one is again blowing me away. It's pretty much why I play video games. I even said to my brother earlier while he was watching me play "can you imagine how awesome it would be if more developers were doing this?" I didn't necessarily mean the 3D (+2D+2D/3D) SHMUP, but just the whole focusing on the core gameplay first and foremost and throwing one crazy gameplay scenario at you after another thing. I feel like something got lost in the transition to 3D gaming and games like this bring it back (if only for a bit...)
Are there any games comparable to Sin & Punishment in this way? The closest I can think of is WarioWare.
Star Successor does in some ways feel like a dead evolutionary branch. I also enjoyed reading
Tim Rogers's review of it, and this section stuck out to me:
Tim Rogers said:Treasure is probably the first foundation building block of the Monument of Games to Come. At this moment, in this context, it’s almost a tragedy how many great game ideas Treasure strung together in this sequel to Sin and Punishment, only to (no offense, Nintendo fans) just bang it out on the Wii with sloppy PS2-like graphics that betray the genuineness and delicious idiosyncrasy of the graphic design. If they don’t want to be rich, why does it look like they’re trying so hard? Or, like us, do they merely type really fast? (That’s a metaphor. Explanation: We usually have to warn girls whenever we drunk-email them on dating sites: just because the message is like 2,000 words long doesn’t mean we spent time on it.)
What we have here, at any rate, is the game equivalent of “Django” — a bizarre, virtuosic, misunderstood mishmash collision of great ideas and terrifying filth, to be later lauded as a turning point in the creative development of some great Quentin Tarantino-figure to come.
By all rights, this is what should have happened, but it hasn't. I've been reading about the history of Treasure, and I've learned that the dude who directed the first Sin & Punishment, Suginami, made a significant chunk of Alien Soldier all by himself. His dream was a game with hundreds of bosses. Not Seven Force, but Seventy Force! Is there no one else on the planet who shares this guy's specific ambition and breakneck style?
I would count the 3D Mario team and maybe a few indies like Jonathan Blow, Billy Basso, and Toby Fox among Suginami's allies in terms of sheer creative variety, albeit at a slower pace. What else is there?
