Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Answers
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of Teen Titans 2
I'm having a bad case of d?j? vu. It's November, and Majesco just released a pretty flawed Teen Titans game on the Game Boy Advance, developed by A2M (Artificial Mind and Movement). Oh wait, this game is the sequel. Following last year's
repetitive Teen Titans beat-em-up, Majesco and A2M have once again aligned to create a new Teen Titans experience with a whole new set of problems.
This time, all of the Titans (except Robin) have been captured by The Brotherhood and The Brain. Players take control of one Titan at a time, beginning with Batman's sidekick, to free the rest of the team and take down the baddies once again. The game plays very similarly to last year's platform brawler, with the addition of new moves, environments and enemies.
Once again, the game emulates the look and style of the now-defunct cartoon well. Titles are dynamic and filled with audio from the program, including the theme song with vocals. Menus revolve around the Titans Tower and sport the same low-color style of the show's intro. Cutscenes feature large talking heads that flap their lips to the dialogue (although the font is a bit hard to read), and tie the action together well.
Visually, the game is on par with the Titans' last adventure and characters look great as they're performing their attacks. Robin in particular is dodgy and fast, and whips between key poses straight from the cartoon. Effects animation, such as splintering doors and mini-explosions really heighten the action. Attack style and mobility varies greatly from character to character, and every Titan has a few unique abilities up their sleeve; Robin can scale walls Ninja Gaiden-style, while Cyborg can use the jets under his feet to float forward like Princess Peach. Each character has a pretty wide variety of attacks at their disposal (although aside from being more or less powerful than one another, most of the attacks vary in just visuals).
So what's not to love? Well the combat for one thing. The game falls into a common brawler pitfall in that attacks are not responsive to player control. Pressing the B button doesn't cause Robin to attack, it causes him to queue up his attack animations. What this means is that tapping the button several times in a row starts an attack combination that goes on long after players have stopped pressing the button. These attacks cannot be cancelled or overridden by jumping or running, so players may find themselves mashing the jump button in frustration in an attempt to get away from approaching enemies.
Luckily (given the poor combat mechanics) enemies are pretty dumb and isolated. This makes surviving each level possible, but pretty boring as well. Most enemies have only one form of attack, and use it sparingly. The enemies that do attack more fiercely have dull patterns (run up, then punch, punch, punch) that can be exploited so that the Titans rarely have to take any damage in this game. The enemies aren't broken, and they're occasionally fun to beat on, but they add nothing to the overall quality of the game. There's also very little enemy variety so players will fight the same couple of soldiers over and over and over.
Environmental enemies fare better. Wall-mounted guns pop out unexpectedly and little floating electrical balls have a secondary spider form when they're knocked to the ground. These enemies tend to cheat a little (they can pass through walls that the player cannot) but they add a much-needed element of complexity to the enemy roster.
Another major problem is the poor level design. Rather than being focused and driven, level design is incredibly random and spread out; Paths that require many difficult jumps often lead nowhere, not even to a powerup. And levels are designed to taunt the player, with a large percentage of platforms just a few pixels out of reach. I can't count the number of times my character visibly cleared the top of a platform, but somehow still managed to fall back through it. Because of this, players will likely attempt to make many jumps that can't be made. Adding insult to injury, levels are peppered with death pits at the bottom that are often wide and can't be seen until the character is falling right into them.
Just as bad is the constantly inconsistent collision. The same art that has a collision in one spot might not in another (big no-no). This requires a lot of jumping and testing, and of course more falling. Levels are pretty ugly and devoid of any landmarks as well; players will pass the same objects over and over and since enemies respawn as soon as their location is offscreen, it's easy to get lost in each environment. Fighting the same enemy for the seventh time while trying to figure out where to go gets old fast.
Boss encounters offer a nice break, and feature fun pre-fight dialogue, although the battles themselves are not particularly creative. They tend to play out more as endurance challenges than a mixture of mind and might. The game features some odd combat exploits as well, such as Robin being able to block just about anything by hiding behind his cape. Since this move uses the same directional input as his uppercut, it's easy to just alternate between the two with each enemy and never take any damage. The camera is surprisingly solid and (aside from enemies firing at the character from offscreen) never obscures the action. In fact, the camera will even dip or lean a little to hint at hidden areas, which is a nice touch.
Audio in the game matches the show well with good sound effects and a few audio clips. Music is a bit synth-heavy and unoriginal but keeps up the energy of the game. Music and sound effects can only be turned on or off in the options, not turned down.
©2006-11-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
repetitive Teen Titans beat-em-up, Majesco and A2M have once again aligned to create a new Teen Titans experience with a whole new set of problems.
This time, all of the Titans (except Robin) have been captured by The Brotherhood and The Brain. Players take control of one Titan at a time, beginning with Batman's sidekick, to free the rest of the team and take down the baddies once again. The game plays very similarly to last year's platform brawler, with the addition of new moves, environments and enemies.
Once again, the game emulates the look and style of the now-defunct cartoon well. Titles are dynamic and filled with audio from the program, including the theme song with vocals. Menus revolve around the Titans Tower and sport the same low-color style of the show's intro. Cutscenes feature large talking heads that flap their lips to the dialogue (although the font is a bit hard to read), and tie the action together well.
Visually, the game is on par with the Titans' last adventure and characters look great as they're performing their attacks. Robin in particular is dodgy and fast, and whips between key poses straight from the cartoon. Effects animation, such as splintering doors and mini-explosions really heighten the action. Attack style and mobility varies greatly from character to character, and every Titan has a few unique abilities up their sleeve; Robin can scale walls Ninja Gaiden-style, while Cyborg can use the jets under his feet to float forward like Princess Peach. Each character has a pretty wide variety of attacks at their disposal (although aside from being more or less powerful than one another, most of the attacks vary in just visuals).
So what's not to love? Well the combat for one thing. The game falls into a common brawler pitfall in that attacks are not responsive to player control. Pressing the B button doesn't cause Robin to attack, it causes him to queue up his attack animations. What this means is that tapping the button several times in a row starts an attack combination that goes on long after players have stopped pressing the button. These attacks cannot be cancelled or overridden by jumping or running, so players may find themselves mashing the jump button in frustration in an attempt to get away from approaching enemies.
Luckily (given the poor combat mechanics) enemies are pretty dumb and isolated. This makes surviving each level possible, but pretty boring as well. Most enemies have only one form of attack, and use it sparingly. The enemies that do attack more fiercely have dull patterns (run up, then punch, punch, punch) that can be exploited so that the Titans rarely have to take any damage in this game. The enemies aren't broken, and they're occasionally fun to beat on, but they add nothing to the overall quality of the game. There's also very little enemy variety so players will fight the same couple of soldiers over and over and over.
Environmental enemies fare better. Wall-mounted guns pop out unexpectedly and little floating electrical balls have a secondary spider form when they're knocked to the ground. These enemies tend to cheat a little (they can pass through walls that the player cannot) but they add a much-needed element of complexity to the enemy roster.
Another major problem is the poor level design. Rather than being focused and driven, level design is incredibly random and spread out; Paths that require many difficult jumps often lead nowhere, not even to a powerup. And levels are designed to taunt the player, with a large percentage of platforms just a few pixels out of reach. I can't count the number of times my character visibly cleared the top of a platform, but somehow still managed to fall back through it. Because of this, players will likely attempt to make many jumps that can't be made. Adding insult to injury, levels are peppered with death pits at the bottom that are often wide and can't be seen until the character is falling right into them.
Just as bad is the constantly inconsistent collision. The same art that has a collision in one spot might not in another (big no-no). This requires a lot of jumping and testing, and of course more falling. Levels are pretty ugly and devoid of any landmarks as well; players will pass the same objects over and over and since enemies respawn as soon as their location is offscreen, it's easy to get lost in each environment. Fighting the same enemy for the seventh time while trying to figure out where to go gets old fast.
Boss encounters offer a nice break, and feature fun pre-fight dialogue, although the battles themselves are not particularly creative. They tend to play out more as endurance challenges than a mixture of mind and might. The game features some odd combat exploits as well, such as Robin being able to block just about anything by hiding behind his cape. Since this move uses the same directional input as his uppercut, it's easy to just alternate between the two with each enemy and never take any damage. The camera is surprisingly solid and (aside from enemies firing at the character from offscreen) never obscures the action. In fact, the camera will even dip or lean a little to hint at hidden areas, which is a nice touch.
Audio in the game matches the show well with good sound effects and a few audio clips. Music is a bit synth-heavy and unoriginal but keeps up the energy of the game. Music and sound effects can only be turned on or off in the options, not turned down.
©2006-11-03, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved