Looking back on all the negative reviews and all the positive reviews from magazines and internet sites, I can honestly say that Bouncer needs to be played in some capacity so you can formulate your own opinion about it. With the 5-minute impressions I gave last Saturday, my views were incredibally harsh and inexperienced, however, they were far from completely innacurate.
Background/Foreground:
First off, I want to dispell any rumors about incredibally short length. Sites reporting the game being "2 hours long" are only partially correct. Sure, it\'ll take anyone roughly 2-3 hours to beat the game once from start to finish, but that\'s completely beside the point. If you play games one time and throw it in the trash when you are done, you are missing a whole slew of different things that makes the Bouncer really stand out.
I beat the game my first time and sat back, dropped the controller on the floor, and listened to the nice soothing song playing during the credits and watched another short FMV about Sion and Dominiques past, of which I am sure changes with every characters ending. To put it simply, once I finished the game, I picked the sweaty controller back up again and commenced playing. Even though the story was bland and of standard "save the princess" fare, I found myself largely addicted to the gameplay, of which I reported to be both repetitive and boring in my impressions.
Earlier, I said the game was of your typical storyline fare in which case I am referring to the ever-present Mario storyline that is in lots of games even today. You start off as one of three hereoes: Sion, Volt, or Koh. Your objective in the game is to fight your way to the Mikado corporation and retrieve your kidnapped ally, Dominique Cross. Sure, it sounds washed up and done, but the Bouncer presents a take on this theme not found in any game to date. The atmosphere is brooding and dark while the characters present their own dramatic flair to the story in their personalities and design.
Each bouncer you can select from has their own different techniques and styles setting each apart from the other. Sion is the well-rounded all out decent character anyone can jump in and use while Koh is a faster, yet weaker character, and Volt is the strong guy of the bunch presenting brute strength over finess and speed. Each character has their own set of combos and special moves as well has their own take on the story as well presented in a combination of button holds and taps. One of the best features about the Bouncer is the ability to change characters before every fight. Just before a battle, a character select screen appears and you are to choose one of the three protagonists to battle it out with the enemies on-screen. After the battle and everytime before, the character you choose has a bit of dialogue and their own perspective on the take of the events. For example, if you choose Sion, his story revolves around nothing except saving Dominique while using another character such as Koh, the game is shown as a way to become more powerful and show off your skill. In any case, each characters take on the story is fully refreshing each time you venture through it.
Graphics:
Graphically, the game is superior to all games available. Only in Shenmue have I seen lusher textures or more details. The Bouncer even rivals the facial animations of Shenmue, in fact, it\'s difficult to tell when FMV starts and in-game graphics begin, or end for that matter. The visual aura of every piece of the game is stunning. I wish I could say the same for the sound effects and English voice-overs, but all in all, the presentation of the game is utterly breath taking. Every emotion in each character is presented skillfully in-game and their personalities and nuances truly come alive with each scene. If there was ever a game to show off to your friends, this is THE title to do it.
Gameplay:
Gameplay wise, there is LOTS of different combos you can execute thanks to the dual shock 2 controller and lots of special moves which have to be earned per each character. The pressure sensitive buttons allow for multi-hit chain combos just by pressing the buttons with different degrees of pressure. In addition, at the end of a combo, you can do a special move by holding the L1 button and pressing 1 or 2 buttons in tangent with it. Plus, not only does each character have a wide range of techniques and combos, there is also triple team combos that are executed by your party of three. When a teammate motions to your character and says some type of phrase in battle, pressing the R2 button will trigger a triple team attack. The attack itself isn\'t particularly damaging to the character, but it is impressive as hell to watch. Just watching the teamwork reminded me of those double attacks present in Chrono Trigger.
However, even though the triple team attacks are amazing and that feeling of teamplay leaves you bubbling with joy, your teammates are about as dumb as doornails. They generally stand there watching you get pummeled by the enemies while they too take a beating from time to time. Only when the last hit needs to be nailed on a difficult foe do they chime in and steal your Battle Points, more on that later. It\'s pretty sad though, but even in game, you are forced to choose a favorite "helper" every once in awhile and I must say, maybe it\'s just my version or maybe it\'s everyones version, but Koh is utterly useless as a helper character. Volt tends to be right up in the action with you and he tends to land a strong hit ever once in a great while, but most of the time, Volt just takes a fierce 4 or 5 hits and he\'s out for the count.
Cons:
With that said, here comes the biggest thing I hate about the Bouncer, the lack of a 3 or 4 player mode in story mode. I\'m sure if Square and DreamFactory worked hard enough on it, they could have come up with an awesome split screen mode where players split up to accomplish certain tasks. Playing the game alone can become stale pretty quickly once you\'ve gone through the game at least once with each character, but after that, it\'s about as fresh as milk from the 19th century.
The Bouncer\'s foibles are simple at first, but they take away from the full experience over time. For starters, the battles are hectic with multiple characters onscreen teaming against you and throwing you off guard, but they battles tend to be scripted and slow from start to finish. Just moving around an enemy in battle tends to be a chore as the game has a type of proximity detecter hat automatically slows your characters movements once the two of you are within range of eachother. It\'s a small detail, but it\'s nothing like the videos we saw from TGS just a short while ago. Speaking of the TGA videos, the backgrounds are about as interactive as a 90 year old granny in a colma. Sure, she\'ll twitch every once in awhile just like you can throw an enemy into a wall, but after that, don\'t expect much. Ya, they\'re petty gripes, but it\'s enough to throw people off attack wise from time to time.
Speaking of throwing people off, the camera angles in many situations are fairly poor and fail to show you much of the scenery, as well as your opponent, which can be useful to you in the battle. When moving forward, the camera angle is decent enough to get a clear view of everything ahead, but once you back track, the angle remains constant and you have to guess if there is anyone behind you. Personally, I would have killed for an "over-the-shoulder" camera angle, but, there\'s little I can do about it now.
Replay Value:
The RPG "level up" battle point system acquired when defeating enemies is a great way to keep you continuing to play as well as the different perspectives of the story mode with each character, but the replay lies solely and skillfully on the multiplayer modes. Nothing like having four peeps over and crushing eachothers fighters, and more importantly, their spirits with wonderful smack that can only be backed up with excellent fighting.
Overall:
The game overall is utterly beautiful in many ways graphics wise, but there is much to be desired in the gameplay. The game holds so much promise, but it\'s hard to really see that when there is so many things holding it back. It\'s a good game to watch story wise, but gameplay wise, there is much to be desired and many fixes need to be addressed. Here\'s hoping the Bouncer 2 will be the game we all wanted when we first saw it in video form at TGS.
Score: 7.5/10
