As everyone is aware of, I am a Capcom whore - well as offical as one can be in that catergory, so when my friend came over and woke me up after a nights work, I was alittle skeptical that he had this game in his hands. Infact, when he knocked on my bedroom door and asked if I wanted to play Maximo I responded with a rude "It isn\'t out yet, damnit" and rolled back over. He kept on and I finally got up so that I could cuss more. Behold! To my surprise he had a copy of Maximo: Ghosts to Glory in a shiny BlockBuster case (Well, okay it wasn\'t shining). Needless to say I was excited, I mean here is a new Capcom game, a month early ( it won\'t be released State side until mid-Feb). So, we rushed off to my room to start a journey that isn\'t finished yet but has already resulted in one broken controller...
Gameplay[/color]
I\'ll skip telling you the storyline as its cliche\' as they come and I\'ll go straight to the gameplay. Well, the gameplay is actually typical of the 3D platformer genre also, but its the difficulty and that makes Maximo stand out. As any \'hardcore\' player remembers the countless hours and screams of the old 16-Bit Ghouls n\' Ghosts, it was insane. It was insanely difficult and while this game never reaches that level of difficulity , it does get rather tough and will have you cussing quite a few times and if you\'re a new player, you\'ll be muttering words such as "why me, Capcom? Why ME!??" .
The gameplay is simple. You go in a world, you then select a level of that world. You jump and slash your way through the world. Easy, right? No. The enemies will attack you with no pity. They\'ll attack you while you\'re making jumps that look impossible and sometimes are impossible, because of their attack. If you manage to make it to the end of the level, you\'ll find yourself infront of a crystal you must bust to clear the level, but as always it isn\'t so simple. If you find yourself infront of that crystal you can also gurantee that you are about to be swamped with one final barrage of enemies each level. It isn\'t rare to find yourself at the end of the level with full armor to only be to killed and have to start back at some check point that isn\'t even remotely close.
While we are on the subject of dying , which is a subject you\'ll get use to extremely quick in the game. Lets address the continue and saving scheme. To save you must beat a level, then go back into the main world and pay a 100 coins to save. Often times you\'ll find yourself with just enough to save. If you want to continue though (and you will) you need to collect 50 spirits by busting up tombstones / snowmen or whatever happens to hold them in that world. After you continue, the price doubles. As you can see, this can get risky fast. Oh and two other things that are really slight. If you want extra armor / health or whatever, you need to buy that a lot of times, unless you find it somewhere in the level. And if you save the game with 1 man, who has one hit before he\'s dead, that is how it saves. Unlike a lot of games now\'a\'days, whatever status your current guy is when saved, is how he\'ll stay, so it is extremely easy to mess your character up in the game, requiring you to start all over.
Now that I\'ve addressed some of the difficulity issues, it wouldn\'t be fair not to mention the help you get. Maximo can learn different abilities such as a sword thurst / sheild throw and many other things. You can only "lock" four of them though, meaning if you die and you have eight, four of them you keep. It adds a level of strategy to the game. You\'ll also find armor hidden through out the level.
Control[/color]
Controling Maximo can take some getting use to , but it isn\'t that hard. He can learn extra moves beyond the sword slash, such as a double jump then sword to the ground, which is just XX + Triangle. Nothing complicated. I honestly have no complaints about the control scheme.
Graphics[/color]
The graphics in Maximo are somewhat a dissapointment. Maybe I\'m spoiled or maybe I expected too much. Things such as the water effects - or lack of water effects is extremely primitive. The same applies to fire effects and a lot of the textures. There is also quite abit of pop-up in certain area\'s, which is totally unacceptable. FInally, the CGI isn\'t that impressive either. It really is no wonder that Maximo is released on a CD format . Capcom certainly slipped up on the graphics in Maximo.
[Sound[/color]
The sound is about the same. Average in most ways . It doesn\'t stand out, but it certainly isn\'t terrible. Then again, I do have mono speakers...Hmmm...
Overall[/color]
Maximo:Ghosts to Glory is a game that will have a lot of the newer players crying in frustration in certain levels, but older players who whine that games are too easy now\'a\'days (I know I\'m guilty of that) will find a certain comfort in the game. Sure, you may scream a few times about a cheap death or the typical laugh at the end of your continues, you know the laugh that seems to go on forever taunting you. But, you\'ll be back and you\'ll find yourself enjoying a solid platform game . Yeah, it could of been better, the camera could be alittle more friendly in certain area\'s (love the camera tilt! :rolleyes: ) and the enemies could be just a tad less harsh and the graphics could of been improved quite abit. That said, let it be known I haven\'t completed the game yet and this review is a tad premature. My journey still has at least two more worlds to go, which translates into at least eight more hours of cussing and maybe one more broken controller.
SCORE[/color]
8.0
