VideogameVagabond.com

Anyone who has a bulk cable package that includes the Cartoon Network, and knows what the words Adult Swim really mean, will be familiar with Harvey Birdman, the TV series. An Alex Toth/Space Ghost-inspired character, Birdman is a former superhero turned attorney, and through this character Capcom supplies the PS2 and Sony’s PSP with their answer to the popular Phoenix Wright games hosted on the Nintendo DS.

Like the Phoenix Wright games, you play an attorney, gathering evidence, interviewing folks and then trying to present a winning case when the trial commences. Capcom should know their stuff, too, since they make both Phoenix Wright and Harvey Birdman. You’ll find similar pacing, a similar process of getting so many times to choose the wrong argument before you lose your case, and the same story of general game flow.

That said, the two games bear little resemblance to one another in actual execution. On the one hand, while the Phoenix Wright games are extremely retro in their look, the cases you are given to solve are long, involved and challenging, but fully entertaining. By contrast, Harvey Birdman looks great on PS2 and on PSP, with smooth animation that makes it look like you’re watching an episode of the TV show, but the cases are far simpler, less complex and shorter, although still fairly entertaining.

Of course, while Phoenix Wright is a solid mix of drama and light comedy, Birdman is pure comedy with a satiristic bent. Most of the five cases included in the game may seem vaguely familiar, usually because so many elements are send-ups of certain elements of current pop culture. The humor is largely pun-oriented, with a hint of naughtiness thrown in, just like the Adult Swim toon.

Although it’s nice to have an attorney sim on a Sony platform – especially to help ease the wait between new Phoenix Wright titles – Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law is nowhere near as satisfying as one might hope. With shorter, less challenging cases, it’s a good thing this isn’t a full-priced title, or one could come away from the experience feeling perhaps a bit cheated. As it stands, Harvey Birdman performs relatively the same on both PSP and PS2, but seems a better fit to the PSP library, personally. It’s a tidy snack until the next Phoenix Wright game comes out, but don’t expect it to be a full meal.

Fans of the niche-genre of tactics-style RPGs usually have a short list of favorites. Typically, at the top of this list is either Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, depending on which game they discovered first. Both games were developed by Quest, just before Square bought them out and absorbed their development team into their own. Quest is the developer that gave the modern Tactics-style RPG its defining characteristics and identity.

Second or third on the list for most fans of this subgenre is Atlus/NIS America’s Disgaea, one of the companies’ early PS2 offerings. Those who felt Final Fantasy Tactics offered mad depth were blown away by the depth and complexity of Disgaea; some have even compared it’s battle system strategies to algebraic formulas, although I believe that’s taking the hype a bit far, and tends to scare off newcomers to the title.

Now, there’s a chance to reintroduce a whole new generation to the delights of Disgaea while still pleasing fans of the original with Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for PSP. Not only is the entire original game intact for the port-down to PSP, but a complete alternate-reality adventure becomes available after you complete the game, lasting nearly as long as the 100-hour-plus original title.

In the original game, you play through as Demon Prince Laharl, who is awakened from a long nap several years after his father has died and left the throne of the kingdom of the Netherworld vacant. He is accompanied by the scheming Etna and, ultimately, the angelic assassin, Flonne, in his quest to retake his father’s throne.

The alternate reality mode allows you to experience the game if “what if,” mode, a fully developed alternate storyline in which, instead of waking Laharl up, Etna kills Laharl in his sleep and makes her own bid for the throne, redecorating the castle with all-new executive office furniture. (OK, not really.) In addition to adding value to the already long and addictive game for newcomers, this new story mode is what will make veterans of the PS2 classic willing to replay the game again on PSP. It’s definitely worth the journey.

One of the appeals of Disgaea is its incredible depth. There are many ways to progress through the game, many items to buy, many jobs to take on. There is the Dark Assembly, which can be used for everything from rising in rank to petitioning for more powerful items and additional funds. There is the item world, where you can do battle to win upgrades to your items, which level up. And there are the main mission battles, which are plentiful and can often be fought and refought multiple times to level up your party. In fact, the game is so deep, it may be necessary to have the second story mode just to explore it all completely.

The battle system will be immediately familiar to anyone who’s played other Tactics-style RPGs, and has plenty of depth to it as well, since characters gain new abilities as they progress in level. And since the game is filled with great anime-style art, fun voice-acting and an undeniable sense of energy, there’s simply every reason for both Disgaea veterans and newcomers to pick this title up; the second Disgaea title was released on PS2 back in 2006, and word on the street has it that a third Disgaea title is already in development for PlayStation 3, although it is said that the series will retain its throwback visuals even on the new, more powerful platform.

No matter what it is a person enjoys about Tactics-style RPGs, there’s plenty to love in Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness for the PSP. Heck, there’s even a multiplayer mode to further extend the replay appeal, available via Ad-Hoc mode via WiFi. Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness definitely extends Sony’s recent run of quality titles for PSP, ever since the PSP Slim relaunch.

Sometimes I wonder if the Tales series of RPGs from Namco-Bandai was intended as a bedtime tale or a sleep aid; all I know for sure is, they’re exciting enough to put me to sleep fairly swiftly every time I play them.

Maybe it’s because the titles are such paint-by-numbers affairs, a charge which certainly applies to the company’s latest PSP RPG offering, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. Although not as bad as some early PSP RPGs, Tales of the World simply doesn’t inspire a sense of wonder or exploration. Perhaps that’s because there aren’t that many places to explore, and those that are offered must be explored over and over and over again to complete the little mini-missions that push one through the tale and that allow you to advance, ever-so-slowly, in level.

While the level design tends to keep one cautious in the early going, as one can run into monsters capable of wiping you out, the experience is uneven at best, and long after you know a particular area like the back of your hand, you still have to make too many return visits to clear out missions and move on in the storyline.

Sporting an action-based battle system similar to those found in most other Tales titles, there’s simply not much new to be found in Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology that hasn’t been done over and over again in other versions. More than many series far older than it, the Tales series is in need of a deep and abiding reinvention, a complete makeover than turns the series on its ear and makes the games fun and refreshing and new again.

That sort of remix simply is not in evidence in Tales of the World, however. It is a perfunctory, “more of the same old stuff” outing that makes one wonder of anyone’s even at the wheel of the franchise anymore. While once a refreshing change-of-pace series, Tales RPGs are now run-of-the-mill and sleep inducing, and it’s a sad thing to bear witness to.

It’s also a terrible time for a title like this to appear in the PSP platform, as well. With sharp, exciting titles, including RPGs, making their way to PSP in the latter half of 2007, from Jeanne d’Arc to Dungeons and Dragons Tactics to Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, the PSP is quite possibly this fall’s hot platform for RPG action. An asleep-at-the-wheel title like Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology will simply get passed over without a second thought, just like a book on mortgage life insurance sitting on the shelve next to the latest James Patterson thriller.

Dungeons and Dragons Tactics for the PSP is one of the smartest things Wizards of the Coast has done with the D&D license since commissioning Neverwinter Nights on the PC … and yes, I mean the original. Adapting the original game concept into a Final Fantasy Tactics-style RPG is a bit of a new twist to the action-packed turn-based affair that Neverwinter Nights offers up on PC, but the marriage of license to format is pulled off remarkably well.

Of course, there are differences. Games like Final Fantasy Tactics are balanced to depend heavily on side-quests and random battles. That’s not the case here as each mission in Dungeons and Dragons Tactics plays out like a well-balanced mission pack for the tabletop version of the game. Each adventure is scaled to a party of a particular size and level, and works best when tackled as recommended.

Of course, this reduces the amount of combat in the game, but the combat sessions that do occur are full-scale and meaningful. While the story sequences involve an interesting-enough plot, they are unfortunately poorly implemented in the game, evolving in still-art shots and narration rather than as fully-realized and animated sequences found in other modern RPGs.

That’s kind of the point, though. Dungeons & Dragons Tactics isn’t trying hard to be other RPGs; it’s trying to translate its own take on the genre into a fun and playable videogame format. While that doesn’t necessarily work well in the storytelling respect in this outing, in terms of in-game play, such as battles, the grid-map-based approach will call to mind all those hex-maps the nerdy DM would take hours to draw out to that by the time actual gaming got started, the night was almost over.

Graphically, the character models on D&D Tactics are serviceable if a bit lacking in variety, but nicely animated. Spell effects are sometimes a bit of a surprise in the level of detail on display in the PSP format, especially since they take place without a switch to a “battle stage” or a video segment. Sure, they’re not gonna show up the PS3 anytime ever, but the effects are nicer than one might suppose.

The game does a nice job of offering access to as much statistical information and “character sheet detail” as one might desire, without bogging the game down; it’s nice to see a D&D game that doesn’t assume that a non-PC videogame format has to stay insultingly simple. We’re mostly the same audience.

I think whether you’re in front of a PC keyboard and a full stereo cabinet or a videogame controller or a PSP interface, the expectation is – and ought to be – that the D&D name carries a bit of weight and offers a certain style of gaming experience, and mindless Gauntlet-style hack-n-slash is NOT it. That’s something they never got right with the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance series, and thank the L-rd THOSE days are finally behind us!

Now, Dungeons and Dragons Tactics is highly entertaining, especially for D&D fans, but the game is not going to dazzle anyone. Top-notch PSP RPG releases like Jeanne d’Arc, which still has some juice left in it from its late-summer release; Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions; and Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness are all either on shelves or soon will be, competing for the attention of PSP owners.

Among such a dazzling array of solid choices, it might be easy to overlook D&D Tactics. Easy as it might be, even so, it belongs on the shelf of any self-respecting PSP RPG fan.

I finally got it!

As a matter of fact, I’ve had it for a week, but have been so in love with it that it’s been hard to tear myself away to blog about it!

About a week ago, I finally traded in some older games I wasn’t playing anymore and bridged the gap to affordability and bought the brand new, sleeker, slimmer, cooler PSP Slim. I gave my wife the older PSP, which works perfectly fine, so that I could justify the purchase, as well as give her the gift of on-the-go gaming. And since I’ve been using it, I’ve been happier than a mother with set of brand new baby slings.

I decided on the Daxter version because it’s silver and goes well with my old DS. (My wife has matching black - her new DS Lite and old PSP share the same color, too.) Besides, it had a 1GB memory card and the Star Wars one didn’t. The Star Wars one, also, is white, which does little for me. Star Wars was cool 30 years ago, but the more recent sequel sucked raw eggs, so it’s not that big a deal. And my wife enjoys the Daxter game.

Me? I’m whiling away my time with Dungeons and Dragons Tactics until the real plum of the PSP RPG season arrives at my doorstep. This week, I’m expecting to receive Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. Put that alongside Silent Hill Origins, Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness and the long-promised Elder Scrolls: Oblivion PSP, and this holiday season the sweetest Sony platform to be on isn’t PS2 or PS3, it’s PSP!