Kingdom of Paradise
The game takes place in the land of Ouka, a place where clans rule like nation states. There are five clans, Eastern Seiryu Clan, Northern Genbu Clan, Western Byakko Clan, Southern Suzaku Clan, and Central Kirin Clan. Each clan possesses different fighting styles that respectively utilize the elements of wood, water, metal, fire, and earth. Three hundred years prior to the game's present, a war raged between Ouka and the western continent Seima referred to in history as the Great War. After years of fighting, Seima brought with them a monstrous beast of power. The lords of each clan were able to seal the monster and end the war. Afterwards, the land of Ouka was able to know peace for three hundred years because each clan lord protected a secret. They each held a sword and protected a gate, all of which together held the evil beast in captivity.
In the opening sequence of the game, a lonely warrior named Shinbu is returning from a bodyguard detail to his home town. This is when his adventure begins and he starts to become the hero he never thought he could be. On his journey home, he notices a girl running hastily by him and pursuing her are three grisly men from the Kirin Clan. Shinbu notices she is wearing the colors of the Seiryu clan, which he served at one point. He decides to protect her and fights off the clansmen. The girl he saved, Sui Lin, turns out to be the sole survivor of a Seiryu clan massacre. The Kirin killed the Seiryu clan lord and all of the Seiryu disciplines. Sui Lin is now trying to rebuild the Seiryu clan and is looking for a former disciple who was kicked out of the clan for breaking clan law. Oddly enough, Shinbu turns out to be that person. Shinbu must overcome his own personal strife and save the people of Ouka from the the power hungry Kirin clan lord and a three hundred year old evil.
Overall this story seems generic, but there are several elements to it that keep it original. First of all, the game play offers enough freedom to keep it exciting and the characters are developed well. The game also features voiceovers and cinematic scenes to tell its tale. The deliver is good and should be entertaining the first time through.
Gameplay:
I enjoyed the story driving Kingdom of Paradise, but it was really the game play that kept me playing the game nonstop from beginning to end. The game play is a lot like Dynasty Warriors in terms of the hack-and-slash game play. Your character runs around on a map and when bad guys show up, you unleash melee attacks with your sword to hack-and-slash the bad guys. The interesting dynamic to fighting are the different fighting moves and styles you can use. From each of the five clans, there are thirty different moves, for a total of one hundred and fifty different attacks your character can use.
These attacks are stored in kenpu. Alone kenpu are useless, you need to have bugei scrolls to connect them together. Kenpu are collected throughout the game at various times. They will randomly appear when you defeat an enemy. Bugei scrolls are a combination of different moves, which are defined by different clan styles. In the game you can collect various bugei scrolls at different points in the story and the more you collect, the more variety of attacks you have.
Kingdom of Paradise also offers special bugei scrolls called free style scrolls. These bugei scrolls have no predetermined set of moves. You can freely build them as you wish to get the full freedom of the game. This becomes an interesting aspect, as you can try several thousand different combinations of moves to find one that works for you. Also the more kills you get with a free style scroll equipped, the more moves it can hold. The maximum is ten moves for a scroll. Additionally, there is a special bugei called the San'yuan. This is a sacred and powerful bugei that only some can master. You'll need to achieve this to win the game.
The other aspects of fighting are hiken arts and chi arts. Hiken arts is basically the ability for Shinbu to throw his sword, which will return to him like a boomerang. Chi arts are equivalent to magic. As you progress in the game, you will be able to read the scared writings from each clan and learn their chi art. This gives you the ability to use magic of the five elements wood, water, metal, fire, and earth.
The notion of elements tie into all notions of fighting--melee and chi arts. For instance wood is strong against earth, but weak against metal. These concepts have to be taken into consideration when fighting the bad guys, especially bosses as some chi arts won't have as much effect as others. In terms of bugei, kenpu from different clans work better against certain bad guys. You'll have to think about this when developing your arsenal of kenpu, bugei, and chi arts.
For the most part, figuring out all of these different aspects comes with a low learning curve. I was able to pick up all I needed to know while playing without much difficulty. The controls were also pretty straightforward, except the defend command drove me insane. The button you used to launch an attack is the same button you use to defend from an attack. You have to make sure you press it at the right instance to try to block an attack inside of launching one. This can be a pretty big deal when you accidentally launch an attack and leave yourself vulnerable to the enemy.
The biggest drawback to this game is the loading time. When you move from one area on the map into another or attempt to load a saved game, there is a noticeable delay. This also occurs during the cut scenes when the spoken dialogue is being loaded. This gets really annoying when you are replaying a cut scene because you failed to defeat a particular boss and you can't skip it. Some cut scenes you can skip and others, crucial to the story, you can't. But despite the delays from loading, the game is still fun enough to make the wait worth it. Another slight drawback is due to the static camera. Despite this is a 3D game, you have no control of the camera angle. Most of the time this isn't a problem, but there were a couple of points when I found myself under a ledge and getting my butt kicked because I couldn't see.
The game also takes advantage of the PSP's network connectivity capabilities. Using the wireless LAN in Ad Hoc Mode you can connect with another PSP to trade Kenpu and fight one on one. In Infrastructure Mode you can connect to a wireless access point (i.e. router) that is connected to the internet to download additional Kenpu and Items.
Graphics:
As for how it looks, Kingdom of Paradise is a pretty good looking game. It utilizes the 3D-rendering capabilities of the PSP well. The 3D character models are competitive with console machines and make a good use of detail to produce some fairly life-like characters. We really only see this level of detail during the cut scenes. In game, the characters are not as detailed, but still look good. The drawback is not a lot of character models used. Several models for town citizens and bad guys are consistently used. Some of the bad guys get different colored clothing or some minor fix, but there is simply little variety in this department. The environments and settings also look fairly generic and when in the background lack any real detail.
Audio:
In the audio department Kingdom of Paradise gets two thumbs up. The reason is that it is a nice sounding game. The sound effects from the battles work for the game and there is sufficient use of ambient sounds. All of which utilize the stereo capabilities of the PSP well. The background music also works out and usually fits the game's tone, although there are some points when it's just as easy to turn it off as not. The real strength in this game comes from the voiceovers, which appear during cut scenes. The voice actors incorporate emotions to make the character lively and they are partly what made the story so intriguing.
Conclusion:
Kingdom of Paradise turned out to be a really fun game. It offers a fairly well developed story with intricate characters and voiceovers to keep you entertained the first time through. The real excitement comes from the hack-and-slash game play and the ability to customize your character's fighting arsenal. After you beat the game, you can replay the game with stronger enemies and start with all of the kenpu you finished the game with. This adds a nice amount of replay value to the game, which means you'll get more for you dollar. From start to finish, you should get about 25 hours of game play the first time.
Overall, I feel Kingdom of Paradise is an exciting and fun game. I enjoyed sitting through the story and trying to collect as much kenpu as possible, as well as developing my own fighting styles with free style bugei scrolls. In the end, there is enough freedom in this game to keep it entertaining and even if you beat the game, you can still play through to collect more kenpu and fight stronger enemies.
* This game requires your PSP's firmware to be at least version 2.00. The UMD disc contains an installer for version 2.00.