Godai: Elemental Force (PS2) 28/2/2024 (Part 1)

Shoddy beat em' up that 3DO boldly make claim to creating. I just can't even begin to describe what's wrong with this digitalised kidney stone, it has some of the worst graphics I have ever seen on the PS2 and the gameplay is only a few steps a head of it, its like the developers made a secret pact to produce the most shockingly abysmal game they could get away with to create havoc in the world and after the way I'm feeling after spending two days playing this I can confirm that they succeeded.
From the get go the case is literally giving you the evil eyes (rather like David Beckham did) and telling you to Godai, this sets the precedent of how this game will treat the player which is the same level you would show a cockroach. The gameplay is so outdated, even for its age, that I would trust a bottle of crystal Pepsi to be less hazardous to my health then anything in this. You have the most rudimental attacks you could imagine with a three stage animation being your only weapon, you have a roll and a dash sure but they don't do any damage and will get you killed most of the time so like I said this basic attack combo will have to get you through the game. You can pick up weapons which will replace your basic attack string with a slightly different string that does more damage, yippie, but don't get too cocky as the weapons break down faster then Holly Willoughby and what's worst is that if a weapon breaks its gone for good so you have to swap out your weapon, which is beyond clunky would you believe, and then hope you find a power up that repairs your weapon. This reminds me about the pick ups in this which are just left to the whims of fate as to what's inside a pot when you break it but its never what you desperately need, at full HP? here is five heals, need HP? sorry all repair kits, I found a continue in a pot one time that I thought was a scripted drop but nope it wasn't there when I had to replay the level so if the game decides to screw you then there's nothing you can do but take it.
Did I say continue? Yes that's right, if this pre-historic time capsule wasn't already gruelling enough, there's also lives that you have to do everything in your power to preserve because if these run out then you will have to do the mission all over again which happened to me many... many times, if you lose too many lives during a mission then you simply have to reset or else you won't have enough for the harder bosses and levels, its that black and white. There are only four different enemies you'll encounter for the whole game and you'll be seeing them a lot, luckily they have the most simple AI with two of the types programmed to just walk in a straight line towards you which makes them ripe for the projectiles you get in a rare show of mercy by the devs. So the fighting and enemies are about as interesting as a Ford Focus user manual that leaves the level design to try and salvage some enjoyment from this dreg heap but to no ones chagrin they too are just glorified laps of tedium, the only, and I mean only, fun you'll have in this game is using the dumb hover jump and seeing how far through levels you can get by running past or flying over everything which is, thankfully, surprising far.
For what ever machoistic reason you make it past the first few levels then you'll unlock the first of four elemental force powers that the game is supposedly designed around, I won't mention if they are good or not because I'm sure you've figured it out without my input, what they do well is dropping the game's FPS down from a pottering 15 to a chugging 5, how such poor looking engine asset effects manage this is a remarkable feat of engineering by the devs I concede, I'm grateful that these powers are in though as I genuinely don't think this game would be completable without the healing water one. The music is ok with some nice all be it generic oriental music, that is when you can hear it over the ear splitting yells made by the enemies, its not quite Flame Hyenard levels of pain but its too godai close for comfort.
Story: Evil samurai guy kills your parents when you're a baby but a good ninja guy saves you, twenty years later when you've grown up and trained in martial arts, the evil samurai guy comes back to kill you, the end... gripping stuff. There's some very brief extra lore in the loading screens that they don't give you enough time to read otherwise I think my summary is about as good as any you'll get about this game.
Right form the title and all the way down to the gameplay this game is rotten all the way through, I don't know what the devs were trying to prove by making this but whatever their intentions they failed miserably, maybe they were held at gunpoint idk. The army men games look like prime Mario compared to this, 3DNO more like it.