I got two reviews I want to write. I know I have yet to do a RE5 one, that is coming I still have more I want to do on that game. I finished two games recently, Castlevania Order of Eccelsia and Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop. One was fantastic, the other pure poop, guess which is which.

Castlevania Order of Eccelsia -

This is the 6th handheld CV game in the SOTN style, you'd think that by now this would be getting very repetitive and old. In some ways that is true but somehow the forumla still works, Castlevania is always a great action game. The best part about this game is that it tries different things while refining all the additions to the gameplay that has come before it.

The largest change from this game is that it mostly takes place outside of Dracula's Castle. Like Simon's Quest its an adventure that takes you all over Translevania. Unlike SQ its more linear in that you unlocke new areas once you get through a current area, so its not this open world type setup, you choose a location from a map.I loved this cause it gave the game a sense of adventure. How many times can we do the castle and have it feel fresh. Portrait of Ruin tried to get out of the castle but it was done in a way that felt half way, as if they were not fully commited to the idea. In this game you play a full games worth before you ever step foot in the castle, best part is that the castle is still huge. So its a massive game, with tons to do.

Like some of the last few CV games it has side quests form NPCs, in this game it comes from villagers. There are some neat quests like taking a picture of a rare monster. Each villager has specific rewards like one gives health items, one gives armor, etc. My favorite is a dude that gives you classic CV1 music that you can play at any time!There is a lot to do and find, it will keep you going back to explore the various locations over and over. As you play you unlock secret areas that are skill tests, one in the form of platforming and the other in combat. It has all the hidden areas and secrets you come to expect from a CV game.

Continuing the tradition of new attack systems, OoE has the gylph system. Using weapons is no more, the entire game is based on spells. Some spells generate a sword or an axe so don't worry, its not like its all magic spells. However it allows you to really customize your character and make it so magic can be treated the same as a normal physical attack, normally you have your weapon and magic is secondary. In this game theyevened it all out where having only magic attackscan be as powerful as using weapon spells. It is also not as overwhelming as some of the other combat systemswhich have so many spellsand weapons that many end up as useless. Here you have your 10 basic types of attacks/spells and you find updated versionsof those types as you play so you hardly find something thats useless, its more about progression than experimenting if this enemy skill you learned is worth using. I really like the third slot, which allows for a special skill, like summoning familiars, stat buffers, or even transforming you into an enemy character. The best one is this magnenticbubble that lets you grab onto certain points and slingshot, it comes into playin many different scenarios from platforming to boss fights.

Speaking of boss fights, this game has a great collection of them. Right from the first battle you get a boss fight that feels fresh, mainly cause of the use of the magnentic bubble.The game has a great mix of pattern bosses with straight up combat bosses. Like the rest of the game, the difficulty of these bosses are tuned to perfection.

While this game is taking elements of all the past CV games, what sets this one apart from the rest, aside from the outside the castle game world, is how fined tuned everything feels. They took how many years of this formula and refined it so you are only getting the best aspects of the gameplay. The difficulty is perfectlybalanced as well, its hard as hell when it should be, it rewards leveling up noticably, and using the right type of attack has a dramatic effect. It is a game where playing strategically makes all the difference and in some past CVs it felt like you could just plow through the game with a few powerful attacks.

I guess the only complaints I have is that the game is kind of linear. Yeah you can choose where to go but you always progress from one location to the next. It elminates backtracking which is fine but at the same time it doesn't allow for that feeling of exploring, of not knowing which direction to go next, of discovering an area you are not ready for. The castle portion brings back a bit of those feelings but never to the extent of say SOTN.

Overall the game feels like it takes the SOTN forumla and polishes it up as much as it can. It has allthe best ideas form the series rolled into one great game. For some it may not be enough cause there is no doubt that there has to be some fatigue with this formula, it's almost a yearly event to get these games. I think it is time for a drastic change to the formula but I am happy we got this last hoorah.

Overal Score: 9.2

Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop:

I am angry that I even have to write about this crap fest. Some genious at Capcom thought it would be a good idea to port over a game to the wiithat actually used the power of the 360 to make its gameplay work. I understand that some games have much nicer graphics but other than that it can be replicated on the wii, NOT THIS GAME. What makes Dead Rising work is that it has so many zombies on screen that you have to plow your way through them to get to your objective, once you take that element out of it you have such a crappy game. On the wii you may get 20 zombies on screen at once, at any given time three or four maybeclose enough to you to attack. They are almost always spaced out enough that you can run past the majority of them without getting touched. To try to adjust to the small amount of zombies the game blocks off many paths, removes the ability to jump over objects allin an effort to steer you down small paths so you have to go through the few zombies it has. Still doesn't work, it just makes moving around the mall more annoying.

Also for some reason they couldn't make their own engine for this game, this game is basically RE4 with DR dressed over it. When I mean its RE4 I mean IT IS RE4. It has the exact same controls, yes it has tank controls, you cant move and shoot. It has the same exact guns as RE4, the same exact shooting animations, the same reloading animations, the same aiming cursor, the same button promts, the same sniper zoom in screen, and a merchant. Because its like RE4 the focus of the game has gone from melee weapons to shooting weapons. Most of the melee weapons are still there and yeah you can do a few wiimote motions to use them but for the most part you have so much ammo you never run out.Sadly unlike RE4 the enemies dont fit,shooting slow moving zombies is boring. You almost have to go out of your way to kill enemies which kills any of the fun of the combat. This version adds a few extra enemies like zombie poodles and parrorts... yeah it still sucks. I though boss fights would be better cause of the better shooting controls, nope, they all suck. Nothing was done to adjust this game to the new controls, it just feels bad.

But that is not the worst of it, Dead Rising 360 had a whole real time aspect to it. i know for some that was a negative, but it added a much needed pressure to the gameplay. It forced the player to decide whether to save a hostage or leave them to die cause there was not enough time. The time mixed with the huge crowds of zombies is what made the gameplay work on the 360. Without those aspects what you are left with is a series of escort missions, which is exactly what the entire Wii version is. The game is totally linear, you have to complete the current mission to get to the next one. Each civilian is a mission, you go to a screen and choose from about two or three different missions that require you to go to a certain section of the mall to rescue a person and bring them back. You cant do two missions at once you have to do one at a time. Run out of the office, run through the mall, get the civilian, run back. Over and over and over and over again. In between boring rescuing of people you get the story missions, which are ok at times. Luckily you get a shortcut system to make the trips easier, doesn't fix how boring it is.

This version is a total waste of time for anyone that played the real version, not one thing was done to make this better or make it fit on the wii. If you never played Dead Rising I recommend to still avoid it as its boring. At least it isnt broken, and it has a lot of content. Also when you beat the game you unlock missions that are actually fun, maybe the whole game should have been these crazy missions, like fight giant zombies. Other than that, the game is totally forgettable.

Overall Score: 4.5