I took Raiden out against Kratos, Fat Princess, and Sir Daniel Fortesque in a PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale…battle royale. Some of you have been playing a beta version of this game, so I might not be telling you anything you don’t know, but I’ll give my quick take on the TGS demo that I played. Raiden handled quite well, very easy to control and straightforward, as I imagine most character might be. He primarily slashed with his sword and let out fierce side kicks as his main offensive maneuvers. I enjoyed the game’s well-documented system of building up to different levels of special attack, though against these CPU failbots, his level one special was practically always killing someone.
My battle stage was the Parappa dojo, which was kind of boring overall, but I suppose it fit the theme of just being a room where you fight, straight up; that’s kind of the idea of a dojo. I’ve seen other stages with a little more flavor to them, so don’t judge the whole game on that one level that I ended up playing, though.
The game controlled very tightly. Never were there any moments where I found myself not doing what I wanted, or my character seeming to ignore my commands. Since comparisons to Smash Brothers seem to be all over the place with this game, let me make that one: when I play Smash Brothers, I have no fuggin’ idea what is going on, but I took hold of this game right away. I know people will say “That’s just because you suck at that game!” and to this I will say “Yes, you are correct. I do.” Be that as it may, the end result is the same. One handles very well for me, the other one doesn’t seem to ever do what I want it to do. In the end, I’m far more interested in PlayStation All-Stars.
