Topic: P.N. 03

[odifiend]

I found this title at Best Buy for 10 USD ages ago and I know why.

Gameplay: 5

Everybody probably knows you play as Vanessa S. and she has a really nice body.  Now that I have the positives out of the way ...

The gameplay is the same thing over and over again.  You try to blast enemies in quick sucession to get points, to afford to buy suits, so that you can be better at blasting enemies.  Worse yet is this game is based on enemy memorization, so you are conditioned to dodge attacks at specific times depending on the enemy.  Therefore you are literally blasting the same kinds of enemy and dodging at the same times.

Game Design: 3

This game looks so damn sweet and Vanessa's moves are so cool, but it is style with no substance.  Throughout 15 levels, there are probably 15 different rooms and 7 different types of enemies.  Rooms are repeated and enemies take more damage to increase difficulty instead of being different.  Capcom even has the balls to repeat the same damn boss designs.

Controls: 6

Controls are easy to use except for the energy blasts.  Capcom maps your special moves to the d-pad which works ok for the first moves, but later moves, which require 3 directions, don't work as well.
This game has so much potential because of how fast Vanessa is.  And if Vanessa could shoot in the *&%#$ AIR, the game would immediately improve.

Lastibility: 1

If you can overcome the stale gameplay, there is really nothing more to do.  The unlocked 'hard' difficulty repels you from replaying.

Overall: 4

Pretty dissappointing.  I do have to say though, that the final boss fight was one of the best I've fought.  

[KDR_11k]

Shoot in the air? Sounds like you think you're playing counterstrike or something. P.N. 03 explicitely separates offense and defense, letting the player move AND shoot at the same time would destroy the gameplay. This way you have to try to squeeze out as many shots as possible before dodging the enemy attacks instead of shooting while running circles around enemies.

Interesting thing is, the different health and damage of enemies DOES change the gameplay. On easy, you can blast most enemies before they can shoot and destroy all bosses by using up your supers, not so on higher difficulties.

I dunno, the rooms didn't seem too repetitive to me. Many rooms had similar styles, but they didn't have the same shape (unless you're replaying them in trial mode, of course). The only time you had exactly the same rooms were when you took the same route through the area (and maybe the Mk.II bosses). The environment even changed to a certain degree.

All in all I think you expected the wrong kind of game. It's like playing Ikaruga nad complaining about not being able to stop and turn around or the non-existant story. Sure, you can crit it, but honestly I think you were expecting a different kind of game. P.N. 03 is about chains and highscores. Repetition even comes in handy there because you already know the room layout and can optimize your chaining.

BTW, which difficulty did you play at? I'm assuming normal?

[odifiend]

I did play on normal and made it half way through hard difficulty before I dropped the game.
Regarding jumping while shooting: I just felt if Vanessa could shoot once or twice while jumping it wouldn't leave her as open as it does.
Regarding Repeition: I disagree.  The rooms weren't just similar in style, they were the same.  The amount of enemies that would emerge was different though, i'll give you.  Anyway, there is no defending fighting the exact same boss with increased HP several times.  The train and the rolling spider both were used twice.  

[KDR_11k]

(I think there's a difference between "several tmes" and "twice"...)

I think it's normal for Capcom to repeat bosses before the end. At least they added a new phase to each. In Viewtiful Joe or the Megaman series you fight the unmodified bosses again and I didn't hear people complain as loudly as they do on P.N. 03. Of course that isn't a real excuse, but still. Other games repeat bosses without people complaining that much.

[odifiend]

I don't see where I used the phrasing several times, but if you are talking about how many times I ran through the game, the first time I played a bunch of the trial missions on top of beating the game, so it isn't as if I don't know what I am talking about.
If you are talking about how many times bosses where used, it was that they repeated 2 different bosses twice out of like 4 designs.  I don't count "get to the top and shoot the shielding eye".  So games like Megaman had many more unique bosses.  Still haven't played VJ so I can't comment.

[KDR_11k]

Yes, I was referring to the number of repeated bosses.

Viewtiful Joe has a big boss at the end of each chapter, but in chapter 5 or 6 you have to fight four previously defeated bosses again (I think they have more HP and do more damage than before. Oh, and they look like stone statues now. Not even new attack patterns were added.) before facing the fifth, new boss. You can only save at the beginning and end of the level, so chances are you'll have to play through those four bosses again more than once...