GoDai: Elemental Force
Score: 38% ESRB: Teen Publisher: 3DO Developer: 3DO Media: CD/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Action
Graphics & Sound: Since I can't bring myself to come up with some witty, thought-provoking intro, I'm just going to come right out and say it - GoDai is a bad looking game. From the poorly done cinemas to the blocky, cluttered levels, GoDai just screams 'rush job'. Every level is a cluttered mess of flat, muddy, lifeless textures and blocky characters who all look alike, reducing it to little more than a PSOne game with a higher polygon count. With so little detail I was hoping that the frame rate would at least be up to par, unfortunately I was wrong. I had a hard time determining exactly what was causing the slowdowns; sometimes it looked like it happened when more than two people were on screen, other times I thought it was when I used magic. I soon came to the realization that the game is just slow. I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt and say maybe the game was just supposed to be this slow, until I saw that even the RENDERED cut scenes were choppy. I give credit to whoever did the music, since it is easily the best part of GoDai. It has a very appealing 'serenity' about it and never gets in the way. Unfortunately, the rest of the sound is not as good. The sound effects are okay, but could stand some fine-tuning. The voice acting is hard to understand, and except for Hiro proclaiming 'This doesn't look good' before every (and I do mean EVERY) mission, I had no idea what anyone else was saying.
Gameplay: GoDai's story has an interesting premise, but is so full of cliches that it quickly becomes unappealing. Hiro's father is the King and Master of the Elemental Forces. Because of this, everything is just hunky-dory in the kingdom. All of this changes when an army of ninjas (why is it always ninjas?) attack and kill the King and Queen, but before they can get to the newborn Hiro, the King's bravest soldier, Sho, escapes the kingdom. Years pass, and Hiro is trained in combat - of course, he has no idea that he is the Prince, or anything else that happened before the attack. Soon that pesky army of ninjas attack again and kill Sho. Hiro then sets out to master the elements and reclaim his throne. (I am not even going to begin to decipher what culture GoDai is supposed to represent- but whatever it is, I weep for it.) GoDai sets up some interesting mechanics, but fails to capitalize on even one of them. Obviously, the big selling point of the game is supposed to be the 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' style the game tries to emulate. Instead of just jumping, Hiro instead leaps like 30 feet into the air and gently floats to the ground. As neat a trick as this is, it tends to get annoying and the level designs do nothing to take advantage of it. Think about it, what good are moving platform puzzles if you can simply float over the pit? To make things even worse, except for certain battles you are forced to fight, you can easily float over entire levels without any problem at all. The second is the use of a 'slow-motion' button, but that problem deserves its own section. Sure, GoDai has a few bugs, and those bugs have a few bugs - but is it fun to play? Sadly, the answer is no. In fact, GoDai manages to take all the fun of going to the dentist and combine it with that of listening to an 'Al Roker sings his favorite Show Tunes' album. As you play through the first temple, it is mildly enjoyable, but once you realize that you are fighting the same two enemies with the same weapons (that break way too easily I might add), the fun just disappears. GoDai does feature a two-player 'Ninja Attack' mode, but like the rest of the game, its just way to buggy to be any fun.
Difficulty: This is probably the hardest section of this review to write. As a game, GoDai is not very hard, especially considering you can literally fly through a majority of the boards. However, I did find the bugs harder than any ninja in the game. If I wasn't dying because of some cheap hit or because my weapon broke, I was dying because I was too busy trying to cycle through the weapons/magic menu. To make matters worse, the game crashed on me at least two times while I was playing.
Game Mechanics: Mastery of the ninja arts takes patience and practice; unfortunately it will take more than patience to master GoDai. At first, I figured it was something I would just have to get used to, but if I am halfway through the game and still not used to the layout or responsiveness - that's a problem. The control is just way to loose and unresponsive to be of any use. Of all the issues I had with the controls, the 'slow-mo' button seemed to present the most. From the minute I saw this feature mentioned in the instructions, I groaned. I am not really looking for an answer to this question, but am I the only person who is tired of 'bullet-time' effects? I have no problem when it aids gameplay, but as I played through the game, I got the feeling it was just thrown in just to do it. Despite the manual saying you can use it to dodge throwing stars or knives, thanks to the choppy frame rate you can see the projectile and dodge it before it even comes close to hitting you. The manual also suggests using it to slip behind enemies. The problem is that when you try to do it, as soon as you release the button, Hiro suffers from some paralyzing 'brain-fart' and the enemy you were supposed to 'surprise' instead gets a nice cheap hit. Jumping seemed to present a big obstacle as well. Hiro can jump from just about anywhere in the game, but if he is standing within a few feet of a wall, he seems to forget how to jump. However, if you back up just a bit, he can leap over it. Weird, huh? If anything, GoDai did teach me the importance of good camera angles in an action game. For whatever reason, the camera seemed to have a mind of its own the entire game and would just pick its own angles, regardless of the situation. There's no nice way to say it, GoDai is a total disappointment all the way around. After seeing all the neat mechanics and directions the game presents, it never once feels complete. To me, it seemed that in the rush to do the 'cool' things, someone skipped over the fundamentals. GoDai is a pass - it is as simple as that. If you are craving some kind of martial arts game, or at least something with an Eastern flair, I can recommend at least five other games that will do just nicely.
-Starscream, GameVortex Communications AKA Ricky Tucker
NFL GameDay 2003 Gravity Games Bike: Street. Vert. Dirt.