Treasure's continuation of the underground N64 classic proves to be an exhilarating but short journey.
Treasure has never been your typical game developer. Usually companies adapt to trends in the video game market but Treasure has kept a zealous devotion to arcade style action ever since the company was founded in 1992. In a sense, the company is a one trick pony but they should get credit for constantly trying to reinvent genres. This will become apparent as soon as you start the game and realize that it's a rail shooter where you have the ability to control your character on the screen. The gameplay feels similar to the old Star Fox games (although you have less control of where you want to go). You also have a dodge maneuver ("do a barrel roll!!!"), the ability to charge up your shot and there are constantly more enemies on the screen than what you can possibly destroy, the boss battles are epic and the levels share a great variety. Sin & Punishment surpasses the Star Fox games however, when it comes to creativity and massively-adrenaline-fueling-non-stop-over-the-top-action-that-will-make-your-grandma-swallow-her-dentures.
The creativity that Treasure put into this game is truly remarkable. Each level takes you on a ride unlike any you have previously experienced. The gameplay remains somewhat the same throughout the game but it will at times feel like you're playing everything from a platformer to a racing game to a vertical shmup. Playing this game made me wonder if Treasure had assigned new level designers for each level. This approach separates Star Successor from the abundance of rail shooters currently available for the Wii (House of the Dead Overkill, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Dead Space Extraction and so on). The diversity of the game also makes it difficult to properly categorize it. It is at its core, a rail shooter, but an "arcade action game" is a much more fitting label in my opinion.
The creativity does not only extend itself to the variety of the levels but it also flourishes in the levels themselves. Treasure constantly throws in new twists that will catch you off guard and require fast adaptation in order to survive. Thankfully, Sin & Punishment doesn't put as much emphasis on pattern memorization as Treasure's previous releases, such as Ikaruga. There are also plenty of checkpoints along the way which remedies the frustration of dying. If you happen to loose all of your lives (which you will at some point), you can always start over from the last stage that you unlocked. These additions balances out the aggravation that you would otherwise have, playing this game.
Of course, this wouldn't be an arcade game if it didn't have epic boss fights. I can confidently say that Sin & Punishment does not disappoint in this department. Bosses will frequently appear during the levels and each battle feels like you're a mosquito fighting godzilla. Thankfully none of battles feel recycled though their grandeur wears off over time since Treasure constantly tries to triumph themselves with each new boss fight.
The fast thrilling gameplay is unfortunately wrapped in a horrible storyline that's beyond shallow and the voice overs rivals the language dubs in the old Jackie Chan movies in terms of stiffness. What's even worse is that Treasure mixes horribly executed cutscenes into the levels. It's during times like these that it becomes painfully apparent that Treasure is after all a one trick pony arcade game maker machine. Thankfully, they added a skip button for these "story" sequences.
If you were even the least interested in this game though, you'd probably not give a hadouken about the storyline. What immediately catches ones attention is the arcade action and if you're familiar with any previous games by Treasure, you'll know what to expect from this one; high quality and over the top arcade fun. However, you'd also expect a short game that is well executed (apart from the story of course...). This is were Sin & Punishment: Star Successor falls a bit short compared to Treasure's library of games. Previous Treasure games such as Guardian Heroes, Ikaruga and Sin & Punishment for the N64 all had unlockables that upped the play time. Star Successor has next to nothing. Instead, they've added online leaderboards to compensate for this. It's a nice feature but unless you're hardcore about it, the question to "upload your stage score" that pops up at the end of each level will probably serve more as a nuance than a play time increase.
Where arcade games really shine is in the multiplayer though. Unfortunately, Star Successor's local 2-Player mode (that's right, there's no online mode...) disappoints. You would expect the second player to be able to walk around with his/her character on the screen like the first player but no. All that he/she gets is a cursor on the screen. If this was a typical rails shooter were you simply controlled a crosshair on the screen, this would not be an issue, but for this kind of game it's unacceptable. It completely ruins the experience and moving that second crosshair around makes you feel like controlling Miles in Sonic 2.
Even though Star Successor is a short game that is best played alone with a constant finger on the "skip cutscene" button, it sure is a blast to play. There is little to come back to once you've completed the game but the few hours that you'll spend playing this game will be a delightful experience (that is, if you're into arcade shooters). I would recommend picking this game up (or renting it) as it was largely overshadowed by the big releases that we saw last year such as Mass Effect 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Red Dead Redemption, Heavy Rain, Bayonetta, Starcraft II, Bioshock 2, Halo: Reach and the list goes on (wow, there sure was a lot of sequels released that year...). I highly doubt that Treasure will put out a sequel to this game but then again, Treasure is not your average game developer.
Pros:
- Fast paced arcade style action at its finest
- Epic boss battles
- Imaginative level design
Cons:
- Short main mode
- Low replay value
- Laughable cutscenes