Apr 15, 2015 Become the King of the Monsters and lay waste to cities with brute force & atomic breath as you battle. Godzilla (ゴジラ ＧＯＤＺＩＬＬＡ, Gojira) is a video game developed by Natsume Atari and published by Bandai Namco for the PlayStation 3 and 4. It was released on December 18, 2014 in Japan, on July 14, 2015 in North America, and July 17, 2015 in Euro.
'Godzilla: The Game' PS3 Review
Written by Zechs on Saturday, July 18 2015 and posted in FeaturesDestroying cities, fighting Kaiju, and smashing puny humans as Godzilla shouldn't get old right? NOPE, it sure doesn't.
* This review is based on the PS3 port.
So Godzilla: The Game (or Godzilla Vs.) arrived for all systems earlier this week. Being that I am a huge nut for Kaiju, I tried to hunt down the PS3 port at various stores and came up empty (and humorously found that it was only available on the Playstation Network). I've been burying myself into this game for the latter half of this week before taking a few breaks here and there. That's when I looked on some of reviews of the game from various other sites saying how awful this game is. Given that this will likely scare away fans of the genre, I decided to give the other side of the argument.
I've played this game and I love it. I'm not calling it utter perfection (and I will get to my own issues with it), but this game perfectly captures the various eras of Godzilla. It's not really trying to reinvent the wheel or anything. It gives you, the Godzilla fan, what you truly want: to be put in the green-scaled suit and rampage through various cities in Japan. Is it difficult? NOPE. Is there strategy involved? Slightly. Is it insanely fun destroying a city and fighting a rival Kaiju or man-made machines? HELL YES!
So some are hating the whole political system based around the game. But in the nature of a Godzilla game, it makes perfect sense. In the various eras of film (most specifically the Heisei and Millennium Eras), the politics were always interesting to watch as they laughably tried things by the book, thought that the problem would just go away, or went all out spending their country's budget on robot Kaiju that ended up tanking their administration. These aspects of the game are paying homage to that fact.
The mandate of the church in the new testament. The Mandate of the Church. Aldergrove Baptist Church. Reading: Matt 28: 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. The Church is by definition “the body of Christ.” It is the “divine organism” in this world that worships and serves our blessed Lord while continuing to rejoice that all who have been born again are the members of His body. February 2003 the Mandate for the Church? God forbid the Church ever do this, for we would no longer be the Church! Here, then, is Jesus’ charter—His mandate —for the Church: that we should say to the world, “We speak to you of what we know and of what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony.”. Paul Lowenberg preached, 'The mandate of the church is generally considered in the words of Jesus, 'Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.' Webster says a mandate is 'a formal order from a superior court to an inferior one: an authoritative command, an injunction or order.'
As for the controls? It took some getting used too, but once you get it down the controls are easy. Really, the only time I had any camera issues was fighting a rival near a G-Energy station and the darn station was blocking my view. Still, the controls are as you expect. Godzilla lumbers his way through a city. Yes, there's a charging option. But, for those expecting a quicker Godzilla? Come on, know what freaking character you're playing. If you want quick and fast then you obviously want the '98 Godzilla to be in this game. For true-hearted Godzilla fans, the representation here of the King of Monsters is perfect.
That leads me toward the other feature of this game that others have issue with: no health bar. Basically, Godzilla is a walking engine of destruction and you can die in it if you take a TON of damage (like being tag-teamed by two Super Xs or getting an all-out assault from Super Mechagodzilla). But hey that's exactly like being freaking Godzilla! In the movies, he's an almost unkillable force of destruction. The designers here chose wisely in throwing a health bar out the window and have a damage system enabled that has a quick health regeneration. You are after all playing as Godzilla here. Why really limit yourself? That would displease fans of the franchise?
Now it goes without saying: there are some problems with with this game. Take for example, the music, which is, well, basically meh (save for a few choice selections from composer Akira Ifukube's original score from the '54 movie). However, there's a custom soundtrack feature for the game. The developers knew their score was meh and thought, 'Okay fans can improve on it ' So you have the ability to do so. If you want to hear more Ifukube tunes, or dump other Godzilla scores instead, you can do that.
Might I say, it does even heighten the experience. Because nothing beats an announcement for example say the Super X is here and then suddenly hear this music (from Reijiro Koroku's The Return of Godzilla score) playing as it enters the field of play. Hearing a respective theme for a rival kaiju and while battling them just makes the experience even more enjoyable. Hell, when I first did this, I freaking squeed at how much fun I was having.
However, there are three big issues I have with the game. The first being the random creature system it employs. There is a logic to it all (you have to destroy a certain percentage of the city to unlock some Kaiju), but they should have just been unlocked period with no percentage holding them back from doing so. Then again, maybe it's because I've only beaten the game on normal setting and haven't fought any of the larger Kaiju yet (save a 100 m Hedorah, which was hilariously fun).
The second issue is well, this game does favor the Heisei Era quite highly, and really only throws us a bone with the 2014 movie (with that Godzilla being the final boss and an alternate Godzilla to play with in 'King of Destruction' mode). I was kind of hoping to see various forms of Godzilla here. From his original '54 design or maybe even some of his Millennium forms (from the 'regular' design used in Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megagurius) to the wickedly evil design from GMK (2002), or the slim fast design of Godzilla Final Wars. When you're playing a Godzilla game, you have to expect more designs of the King, and yet there's only three. That's kind of sad. You'd think there would be more variety to be had, but there's sadly not. Which leads me to my other problem. You're only allowed to play with two forms in the game's normal 'Destruction' mode which makes sense, but with the 2014 version playable in one mode, why can't he be in the other one?
The final problem I have is this is basically a direct port of last year's game that came out in Japan with nothing more added. This has NONE of the add-ons that its next generation systems have. So those who are looking to play as the other kaiju or have multiplayer battles? You're gonna find yourself out of luck here, given the only ones who have all of that are the next gen ports, and that's kind of sad. I mean it shouldn't be that hard to have that sort of additional system here too, so come on. Throw us a bone here, Bandai! The last freaking Godzilla beat-up was for the freaking Wii that used the same bloody models Atari used in their previous Godzilla fighting games for years. It shouldn't be that hard at all; why can't you do the same? Why not theow us that bone for all consoles too?
With all that said and done, is this game worth the $50 purchase? Not really, given this is a year old port. This game for the PS3 feels more worth $40 given that it's just a direct port of last year's game from Japan with nothing really added to it like the next gen systems have. Still, if you've played out those Atari made fighting games or want an updated Godzilla game for smashing cities, you can't go wrong with buying this game. It perfectly captures the feel of being Godzilla in a Heisei movie, and with a few modifications to the musical score, it's even better in that regard . While some could find it quite repetitive, being a beast that can barely be killed whose only compulsion is to smash everything in sight, as a Godzilla fan, I highly enjoyed it. I just wish this port just got the extra goodies the next gens have. Or throw us a bone with more Godzilla skins than just simply three.
Still, if you're looking for a legit experience as Godzilla? Don't believe the haters from the reviews. They got this wrong. If you're a Godzilla fan and don't mind just playing as the King of Monsters, you're gonna have a lot of fun with this.
4 out of 5