Game:

The Sword of Etheria (2005)

Duration: 18:22

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28

Since I was collecting some things I missed when going through the story mode I decided to snap some video of this PAL exclusive gem. It was released in Japan and Korea too (all under different names) but as far as western releases go this is an exclusive.

It's a Volley Ball Wizard of Oz Power Rangers Beat Em Up Action RPG made by the people behind Suikoden and Castlevenia. It's allot of fun even tho the controls are a bit sluggish, the camera work isnt optimal (well it's a PS2 action game there really aren't any perfect ones there), some aspects of the targeting system are flawed (too long to explain) and the story is one of the most default anime plots ever conceived (wouldn't be so bad if the story didn't take itself so seriously).

Still wasting dudes is fun and the game gets more and more fun as it progresses. Almost every stage introduces it's own gimmick and vast majority of them (excluding the level where enemies come back to life stronger when killed like in Drakengard 3) make the game more interesting. Art direction is beautiful you can clearly see that that's where Suikoden people chimed in.

By stage 6 you can go back and replay any stage previously visited and by stage 12 you can pick any of the main heroes to control which was a great upside for me cause I dislike controlling the main hero.

There is a ton of unlockable content including re-enacting a power rangers episode, Wizard of Oz, many costumes including the dogs from Suikoden 3 and Silent Hill Bunny.

Performance wise this game has a 50/60 hz switch (if you're playing it on a modded PS2 in america press left after the game launches and than X twice in case your TV doesnt display PAL), it runs at anything between 20-60 frames depending on how many enemies there are. Thankfully it works with GSM but as you can see at the beginning the actual resolution is kinda gimped (like pretty much all games on the PS2).

There are lots of cool things they did to make the gameplay flow better:
-They speed up walking when there are no enemies around you.
-There is a very abuseable super attack which you get by playing volleyball with enemies that is the best way of taking them down cause it gives times more yellow orbs than regular killing and if you can keep it up you get multipliers, it's actually easier to do later on in the game where there are more enemies molesting you.
-AI is actually really competent and they have the ability to quickly teleport to where you or another ally hit the enemy to bounce it again.
- This game avoids the problem of "searching for this one little shit you havent killed yet cause you cant move on" as once almost all enemies are killed you'll hear a sound effect and the 2-3 small fries you havent dealt with are gonna skedaddle.
-Endless revives within the level, just gotta mash the x button, you do get a 4th less max HP each time you revive but it's a fair trade in my opinion.
-If you do well enough in the level (get blue magic symbol next to your HP to full) you get a transformation when entering the bossfight which makes you stronger in all regards. I didn't get it here cause I didn't do quite so well with landing the super attacks, also there aren't quite as many enemies in this level (besides at this point in the story you don't have that ability yet)

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