Teen Titans
Plot:
The Hive Academy has a nefarious plan; they are going to clone the Titans
and use their powers to take over the world. Arriving home
to the Titan's Tower to find their security system disarmed, they have
to fight Hive soldiers through their own home only to discover that samples
of their DNA have been stolen. Tracking the Hive's movement, the
Titans have to search the city for the Hive's base and stop them before
it's too late. The Hive are watching their movements though, and
training the clones. Soon the Titans have to fight themselves in
addition to the Hive's members.
Gameplay:
This games harkens back to the old NES and SNES days in both appearance and execution. A sideways scrolling fighting game, players can be anyone of the Teen Titans and can switch between characters at any point in the game. Each character has their own unique attacks and abilities, so each character gets some play throughout the game. Robin can hack computers, Beast Boy can change into a bird and fly through small spaces, Cyborg can punch holes through the floor in certain places, you get the idea.
The downside of this game is that it is very repetitive. Obviously aimed at young players, the Titans walk through streets, sewers and office buildings fighting Hive soldiers wherever they see them. There really isn't too much variation between the levels aside from the backgrounds.
One
of the things that is bothersome is that the Titans are all of the same
fighting strength. Cyborg's punches do as much damage to a villain
as Raven's, which is ludicrous. They each have a special attack too,
but they all seem to do the same amount of damage too. Aside from
the fairly rare times when their special abilities are needed, it doesn't
really matter which character you are playing. Two of the Titans
can fly and shoot ranged energy bolts (Raven and Starfire) and using one
of these two makes the game much easier. (There are several areas
where the character has to jump from one small landing to the next to get
by a river of raw sewage or some other obstacle. Just flying over
these is the easiest thing to do, and made me wonder why the programers
even bothered with these parts.)
When characters are on the ground, they can only attack a villain right next to them. This makes the two characters with ranged attacks while flying doubly useful. It's pretty easy to pick off the baddies by flying low and letting a salvo go before flying out of range.
As
for the villains, there really isn't much of a mix. There are only
four different types of villains (aside from bosses and the clones) and
all of these go down fairly easily. A few hits and they are gone,
often without doing any damage to the Titan. If your Titan does get
damaged, don't worry. Just switch to another one and the one who
was damaged will heal over time, even if you aren't using them.
This game was obviously aimed at younger gamers. The game play
is very straight forward, with hardly any branching to confuse new gamers.
If a Titan's special ability is needed, there's a color coded arrow telling
to player which hero to select. When an area is finished, an arrow
points the player in the right direction to go. Nothing that could
possibly confuse a novice. Unfortunately, this will also make someone
whose beaten a few games to roll their eyes.
Graphics:
The graphics are really good in parts, and pretty average in others. The sprites used for the Titans themselves are very well done. Their attacks and special abilities are all different and animated very well. They even change the Titan's facial expression on the character selection page to match their health level.
On the other hand, everything else is just so-so. The backgrounds
are very simple and sparse, something that could have come from a Sega
Genesis or NES game. The villains are a little better, but not much.
They only used four bad guys in the game, and just changed their color
for some variety. Very uninspiring.
Audio:
The sound was okay. The game cycles through a couple of songs
during the game, and a simplified version of the Titan's theme plays on
the options screen where the save game icon is located. Each Titan
has one catchphrase that they shout when they defeat a clone or finish
a level. It's fun listening to Raven exclaim "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"
but the others didn't do much for me. I was hoping for a little more
in the way of digitized voices, but this is acceptable.
Conclusion:
This would be a great title to get a Titans fan who hasn't play a lot of games before. The gameplay is simple and it's easy to progress through levels. New gamers, on the other hand, will probably enjoy thrashing the bad guys over and over without really having to worry about getting a game over. For those gamers this cart is Recommended. This really isn't aimed at someone who has beaten Halo 2 and Soul Calibur 3. Since there is no difference between villain's powers or the Titans' fighting ability and hints are constantly dished out, anyone whose had any gaming experience will grow tired of this rather quickly and can probably skip it.