The Bouncer
Score: 70% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 4 Genre: Miscellaneous
Graphics & Sound: All right, let's get this out of the way: The Bouncer is the best-looking game on any system as of this moment. Period. The game simply oozes graphical excellence, from the character models to the FMV. Unfortunately, the environments are completely non-interactive, which means you won't see anything being thrown. A door opens occasionally, but that's it. The models, however, are highly detailed, to the point that they're dangerously close to FMV. And there's a slight motion blur on everything in the game, giving it a slightly surreal, dreamlike feel. If it weren't for the damned camera, which often puts itself in the worst possible location for fighting, the graphics could be lauded near-unconditionally. As it is, there are only a few places where you will get amazingly frustrated at the camera, but they are there. A special note must be made of the FMV in The Bouncer -- aside from the fact that it comprises roughly two-thirds of the game (if not more), it is absolutely gorgeous. Square has almost completely nailed facial movements in both FMV and in-game, and it only makes me want the Final Fantasy Movie even more. The sound in The Bouncer is solid as well. The music is fairly standard techno, but it's good fairly standard techno, which is a pleasant change from most games nowadays. In fact, we received a copy of the soundtrack -- check out that review here for a more in-depth look at the music in the game. The sound effects are solid, although there's not much to speak of. You've got punches, grunts, and the occasional taunt, and that's pretty much all she wrote for The Bouncer. There's no whizzy-gig magic going on or anything like that, so no spell effects with requisite sounds. The English voice acting is surprisingly competent, as it made me cringe much less than your standard video game speech. However, the game is subtitled, and I highly suggest putting it on the Japanese voice acting with English subtitles for the full effect. The voices sound rather truer to the characters, and it helps distinguish the somewhat futuristic world of The Bouncer from ours.
Gameplay: You may wonder why I devoted so much space to the graphics and sound of The Bouncer. Sadly, that's because there really isn't much more to the game. While The Bouncer touts itself as an action RPG the likes of which have never been seen before, it ends up playing as a somewhat interactive movie with extremely spotty difficulty and a painfully short play-through time. In The Bouncer, you play as three different characters -- bouncers, in fact -- on a quest to rescue the 'mascot' of the bar, one Dominique Cross. [Any questions as to why a fifteen-year-old girl is a mascot for a bar should be directed to the Fantasy World Commission.] Instead of picking a character and sticking with them throughout the entire game, you have a chance to pick your character before pretty much every battle in the game. This is actually a key feature, as the two characters that you do not control are controlled instead by the A.I. While the computer does an absolutely atrocious job of controlling your friends [although it did beat the last boss for me finally after about thirty tries], they're necessary for you to be able to beat most of the bosses. Since you need them for the ol' bait and switch, you need to raise everyone's levels up so that they last more than a few seconds in the battles. This is done by gaining Bouncer Points, which you get from finishing off opponents and completing areas. This, of course, means that the computer has a bad habit of stealing your kills, but such is life. For some reason, they don't get the Bouncer Points they should get either. The game itself consists of standard beat-em-up fare. You're pitted against some number of enemies, and you have a number of moves at your disposal. The Bouncer makes use of the analog buttons on the Dual Shock 2, so that you can hit both light and hard with a given type of attack. Different button combos do different chains. You can also buy new moves with your Bouncer Points, which are activated with face buttons plus a shoulder button. Unfortunately, the game itself follows a very repetitive structure. You'll watch a minute or two of FMV, fight for under a minute, watch a minute or two or three of FMV, fight for a minute, and so on until you beat the game. When you die, you get kicked back to the title screen and have to reload your save game. This is a major pain in the ass when you get to the near-impossible boss fights, as you'll be seeing that damned load screen twenty or thirty times in a row. Ugh. There are a few extra modes in The Bouncer, which let you play against your friends or do an Endless Mode where you fight until you drop. The multiplayer is surprisingly fun, but it's as shallow as the main game in the end, and the Endless Mode is not much better. And, to be fair, you have to complete the game quite a few times before you can see all that there is to see -- the FMVs change depending on whose viewpoint you're playing from, and certain characters are only unlocked if you play in certain ways. Still . . .
Difficulty: It's been a long time since I've played a game that was this over-the-map when it comes to difficulty. You'll fight three or four battles which are near-trivial, and then get pummeled by a boss four or five times until you get lucky. The last boss took me around thirty tries on my first play through, and that was with balancing my character's stats. I can only imagine how bad it would have been if I hadn't. After you beat the game, you can load those characters into a new game, which makes the going considerably easier. That's still no excuse for the wishy-washy difficulty, however.
Game Mechanics: Controlling the characters is simple enough -- use the analog stick to move around, the four face buttons for different types of attacks, and the shoulder buttons to block or use special attacks. There's not much to learn, and it's easy to pick up. In fact, it's almost too easy -- you'll soon tire of simply wailing on the buttons to defeat your enemies. Bosses require a little more strategy, but not much. The enemy AI is competent, but the helper AI is damn near nonexistent. Indeed, they are often more annoying than helpful . . . even if they did kill the last boss for me after an hour or two of frustrating attempts. The menus are easy to navigate, and Square must be applauded for the combined Japanese and English support. The ability to skip FMVs is also terribly handy, not to mention necessary. The Bouncer is bold, beautiful, and way the hell too shallow. It certainly has some replay value, and it's a great showpiece for the PS2, but as a game it's way too short and not enjoyable enough. If a few more months had been spent tightening the game, making it longer and more involved, I could give it a universal seal of approval, but as it is only the hardcore Square fans and complete graphics junkies really need apply.
-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications AKA Phil Bordelon
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