Game Review
Since I posted a review of the PS1 Inuyasha game, I figured I might as well review the PS2 game as well.
INUYASHA: The Secret of the Cursed Mask
Once again, the sole intended audience appears to be gamer Inuyasha fangirls. Are there really that many of us??
It's nice to see, however, that Bandai has taken my previous advice to heart, and instead of a side-scrolling fighter game, we have an RPG. Storyline is pretty good, and for the most part, true to the nature of the anime. They overdid it a bit with Inuyasha & Kagome's incessant bickering tho, and the introduction of the player character feels as artificial as it is.
Which brings me to the "main character." You can pick a male or a female avatar - it doesn't seem to make a difference which you pick. I started with the male character, but the dialog & intro scenes seemed so unlikely and awkward I switched. I haven't had this little sympathy for an avatar since Kingdom Hearts' Sora - after he dissed Kairi and Kairi failed to slap him for it.*
The voices are done by the same actors who do the voices for the Cartoon Network version. Which would probably be a particularly nice touch if I didn't have such a strong preference for subtitles. I'd rather they'd spent that money improving the animation of the character movements.
One last note: this one *will* let you save multiple games on the same card. Normally this would be such an assumed thing it wouldn't deserve mention, but it was actually lacking in the PS1 game.
Summary: Pretty cute, and definitely an improvement over the first game, but I can't think of a single person I'd actually recommend it to. Maybe tenshihitomi?
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*He's spent most of the game up to that point searching for her. He finally finds her - and then promptly leaves her. Telling her to "stay there" because it's "too dangerous" for her to come along. WTF?? She just saved his life, too (in the cut scene). She should've smacked some sense into him at that point but instead she *giggles* and says "okay." My interest in the game storyline plummeted at that point.
INUYASHA: The Secret of the Cursed Mask
Once again, the sole intended audience appears to be gamer Inuyasha fangirls. Are there really that many of us??
It's nice to see, however, that Bandai has taken my previous advice to heart, and instead of a side-scrolling fighter game, we have an RPG. Storyline is pretty good, and for the most part, true to the nature of the anime. They overdid it a bit with Inuyasha & Kagome's incessant bickering tho, and the introduction of the player character feels as artificial as it is.
Which brings me to the "main character." You can pick a male or a female avatar - it doesn't seem to make a difference which you pick. I started with the male character, but the dialog & intro scenes seemed so unlikely and awkward I switched. I haven't had this little sympathy for an avatar since Kingdom Hearts' Sora - after he dissed Kairi and Kairi failed to slap him for it.*
The voices are done by the same actors who do the voices for the Cartoon Network version. Which would probably be a particularly nice touch if I didn't have such a strong preference for subtitles. I'd rather they'd spent that money improving the animation of the character movements.
One last note: this one *will* let you save multiple games on the same card. Normally this would be such an assumed thing it wouldn't deserve mention, but it was actually lacking in the PS1 game.
Summary: Pretty cute, and definitely an improvement over the first game, but I can't think of a single person I'd actually recommend it to. Maybe tenshihitomi?
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*He's spent most of the game up to that point searching for her. He finally finds her - and then promptly leaves her. Telling her to "stay there" because it's "too dangerous" for her to come along. WTF?? She just saved his life, too (in the cut scene). She should've smacked some sense into him at that point but instead she *giggles* and says "okay." My interest in the game storyline plummeted at that point.