| Blood Will Tell (Dororo) review |
|
It’s a trick that Hollywood is guilty of time and time again. For every ‘Armageddon’ there is a ‘Deep Impact’, every ‘Red Planet’ has a ‘Mission to Mars’ and so it goes on, with studios copying each other in the vain hope that the audience are so hungry for more of the same that they’ll happily shell out to see Tim Robbins get sucked out into space.
On first inspection this appears to be the angle RED has taken with ‘Blood Will Tell’. With Capcom firmly establishing the market for gun ‘n’ sword demon despatching with Devil May Cry, it was only a matter of time before shrewd developers tried to grab a share of the market by releasing a game that features guns, swords and the ubiquitous demons. As obvious as such comparisons are they’re also a disservice to Blood Will Tell (Dororo in Japan), which is based on the original and popular manga penned by Osamu Tezuka.
As a result there is a decent enough backstory to the game, which helps to explain the bizarre state of health of the main player character Hyakkimaru. Hyakki is a Ronin on a quest to slay forty-eight fiends each of whom have stolen a part of his body. Don’t worry though, our hero doesn’t hobble around on crutches: thanks to the miracle of ancient medicine he’s been kitted out with some interesting toys, Steve Austin style. For example where a normal person has forearms he has swords, instead of an elbow a machine gun, and no surgically altered hero should think about leaving the hospital before a cannon has been implanted in his thigh. (Just in case that isn’t enough to dispatch the bad guys, he’s taken along a samurai sword for good measure.)
RED has extended the ’missing parts’ concept, by intentionally building-in missing parts to the game itself. Features which most games have from the get-go, like colour graphics and rumble support are eerily absent from the game and only come along when Hyakki has earned the corresponding body part. For example the entire first stage is played out in black and white until Hyakki recovers his eye. It’s a technique that strengthens the link between the player and the game and really helps to bring home the fact that Hyakki’s entire perception of the world is incomplete. It is this voyage of self-repair and discovery that drives the narrative of the game forward and links the episodic chapters together into a coherent and compelling story, told through some well-produced cutscenes and, with the exception of Hyakki’s young female sidekick, some good English voice acting.
The game's titular character, Dororo, is a young girl who follows Hyakki around, generally helping out by finding items, attacking monsters and hunting down secrets within the game world. During every level the story requires Dororo to go-it-alone for a while and, with the switch in characters, the focus of the game shifts to a platform game with a few simple puzzles to overcome. Whilst offering a refreshing change to the hack ‘n’ slash gameplay, problems arise when Dororo has to use her ranged weapons which, unlike Hyakki’s machine gun, don’t lock on to targets; lining her up to hit distant enemies with a rock or dart proves frustrating.
It’s somewhat of a letdown then that RED also omitted to include some of the gameplay elements that are expected from a modern action game. Reading the manual it all sounds rather exciting: Hyakki can perform combo attacks with his sword or sword arms by using the square and triangle buttons; holding down the triangle button charges him up ready for a slash attack which requires the player to input a sequence of button presses within a time limit. The game also features a levelling system and player attributes similar to a roleplaying game that affect Hyakki’s performance.
The reality however is one of gameplay devices that simply don’t gel. The combat system at no time allows for movement between styles; instead the player is faced with the somewhat tiresome job of mentally selecting a mode of combat for every encounter, be it gun, standard sword combos or the slash attack. Once decided there will be no opportunity to mix it up a little by interweaving gun play and sword play or linking from standard combos to a slash attack without first knocking an enemy over and charging the attack up. It makes for a very turgid and repetitive experience which is at odds with the high-polish exhibited in the rest of the game, with its excellent but non-intrusive use of music blended with visually beautiful environments and enemy designs which are both varied and imaginative. Most of the levels are fairly linear with only a few areas requiring wider exploration. Although linearity itself isn’t a problem within a game so heavily story driven, the fact that levels need to be revisited in order to track down the remaining fiends means that the player will find themselves spending a good amount of time retracing their steps.
Unsurprisingly forty-eight fiends translate to forty-eight boss battles, which is a large number for any single game. Through the early parts of the game the boss encounters are superb with some truly imaginative designs married with some devilish attack patterns that bring the player's bum firmly to the edge of the seat. Sadly this intensity doesn’t last the course and once Hyakkimaru’s left leg has been regained, most of the bosses can be beaten by simply dashing around the back and letting rip with his sword. The experience is further diluted by the re-use of boss models with only a palette-swap and name-change for differentiation. Once they start reappearing, Hyakki will be so pumped up that the fiends simply won’t stand a chance. This lack of challenge is pushed even more into stark relief when put alongside the final boss battle which demands the player make full use of all the moves and combat techniques at Hyakki’s disposal in a truly epic and extremely tough battle.
With a tweaked combat system and more balance to the boss battles Blood Will Tell could have been a magnificent game. However as it stands the core mechanics are too regimented to elevate it above an enjoyable fantasy romp. An opportunity squandered. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
System: Sony PlayStation 2
Genre: Action
Developer: SEGA WOW/RED
Publisher: SEGA
Players: 1-2
Version: United States
Writer: Trevor Bradbury
|
Pros:
- Rich atmosphere and engaging characters
- A good story told through a highly polished production
|
Cons:
- Banal combat system
- Dororo’s voice grates on the ears
|
|
|
|
|
|
