Genre: Action, Beat-em-up, Fighting game(?)
Available Platforms: PS3, 360
Platform I played it on: PS3
Developer: PlatinumGames
Publisher: Sega
So, what is Anarchy Reigns? It is a difficult game to define. It’s a PlatinumGames joint, so you expect it to be a non-stop thrill ride, but it’s really not. It’s sort of a 3rd-person fighting game/beat-em-up, similar to those anime fighters that come out every other year, like DBZ and Saint Seiya. It features a whole cast of diverse characters, each with their own play styles, supers and move sets. The game seems to be heavily skewed towards online multiplayer, which is weird for Platinum. This is clearly evident from the lacklustre, repetitive and cheap single player story mode, and the fact that an attempt was not even made at split-screen local multiplayer. So, again, I ask: what is Anarchy Reigns?
Anarchy Reigns is the sequel to the Wii-exclusive game MadWorld. It takes place in a (sort-of) post-apocalyptic world, where thing such as mutants and psychos exist and inhabit random desolate locations and everything is still fucked. The game follows two protagonists who share a parallel storyline. The first, on the “Black Side” story, is returning MadWorld protagonist, the Chaser (bounty hunter) Jack Cayman, who is searching for a fugitive named Maximillian Caxton for Max’s daughter – with the twist being that Max killed Jack’s daughter. The second character, on the “White Side”, is the newbie Leo Victorion, the pretty boy Strike Force member, who (along with his team) is also looking for Max – who happens to be his mentor. In case you couldn’t tell just from the summary, this story is not great. Its nothing more than a tacked-on, predictable, cheesy and repetitive mess, and it doesn’t really go anywhere or do anything special. The only fun thing about the story is that it introduces you to the cast of colorful characters that inhabits the universe, but even these are just short, throw-away interactions; with a few exceptions such as the Blacker Baron, who is thee worst racial stereotype in video gaming, but is hilarious because he knows this and plays it up to the max.
The gameplay is pretty standard action beat-em-up fare. You have your light and heavy attacks that can be strung together to create combos, your block, dodge and jump functions, and your “Rage of the Gods” mode. The game mixes things up a little by introducing supers, which act similarly to how they do in fighting games. You build up a super meter by using normal attacks and blocking enemy attacks and once you have enough meter you can throw out a super: a light version which is weak but can be chained together and take one block of super per attack, or a heavy version, which takes 2 blocks but does massive damage. These moves are flashy, powerful and can be combo’d into, which means that you will be using them constantly. Add in the fact that you cannot upgrade your character in any way, shape or form to get new moves or abilities throughout the story – like you would be able to in any other beat-em-up worth its salt – and you get gameplay that is just repetitive, simplistic and boring. The game also features only 4 levels (all of which are nothing more than tiny, bland arenas) and a highly repetitive mission structure, which makes playing through it a chore, to be honest. Thankfully, it’s short as hell (took me +-6 hours), but it still manages to feel padded.
I’m not even sure what exactly this game is meant to be. It’s not deep enough to be character action, like a Bayonetta or DMC. Hell, even Western beat-em-ups have more depth! It’s not deep enough to be a proper fighting game either. It’s fun that there is a large variety of characters, but the fact that you can only play with them in a select few story missions, training mode or online feels like a missed opportunity. I mean, sure you can go through the story levels with them after completing the main story, but who really wants to do that? The game would’ve benefited immensely from forgoing its shitty story entirely and just having an arcade-like story where you have a few boss battles with a character of your choosing. The tacked-on story and corny dialogue that the game already has would’ve been completely fine and understandable in that format.
Now, I’m usually one of the first people to line up and suck some Platinum dick, saying something along the lines of: ‘Despite all this, it is still a Platinum game and therefore good’. But no, I will not be doing that. This is my least favourite of all of their games. Not being an online multiplayer type of guy (I didn’t touch it in this game either, so I can’t comment whether it’s good or not), I focus heavily on the single player experience of a game and this one is just not that good. It’s got a confusing story, and while there is some good voice-acting and funny dialogue, it just isn’t that compelling or interesting to play through. The only strong points of the game are the colorful characters and the awesome rap soundtrack, but other than that, there’s nothing here. Maybe if you enjoyed MadWorld or are a hardcore Platinum fan, you will enjoy this game a lot more, but otherwise it’s impossible for me to recommend this game to anyone.
Conclusion: 2.5 Black Baron Shoryuken’s out of a possible 5
RANDOM MUSINGS 