Game Review: Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom

 Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom released on November 23 2010, developed by Game Republic and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. 

  The game is set in a fantasy world where Tapeu (the hero) befriends Teotl (the Majin) to rescue a lost kingdom from an ancient evil which is spreading across the world. Your journey will take you through several different locations of the kingdom, from forest ruins to a crystallized town. Along the way you will fight enemies both large and small requiring good use of the Majin's power to effectively beat your opponents.

Tapeu (left) and Teotl (right) the protagonists of the story.

 The story isn't very unique but it does have some nice twists that make it interesting, sometimes its not delivered very well however. As an example, during a boss battle, the boss will narrate how the "new" kingdom was built over the ruins of the old one and suffers from no disease or poverty. The boss asks the question whether you are the real enemy, this kind of moral dilemma isn't explored sadly but it was refreshing to hear.

How does it play?

  Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is an action-adventure game that utilizes gameplay mechanics similar to the Zelda and Metroid franchises. The game has an interconnected map that you can explore at will, however, certain areas or items won't be available to you until you gain the required power or item to advance further so be prepared to backtrack a lot. Luckily, this is made easier with a fast travel room which lets you warp to the 4 main locations of the map, this however is accessed only after you've beaten each area's boss.

 Right from the beginning of the game, you will notice a very close relationship between your character and the Majin, this relationship is a key aspect of the game and both characters complement each other in several ways.

  As an example, Tapeu can attack enemies but his strength is rather weak and it will take several hits to bring down enemies, particularly later in the game. Enemies are not killed when Tapeu beats them, the Majin needs to be close to absorb their souls and kill them for good. You can command the Majin to help you in battle, his powers deal more damage and he can take more punishment than you, he is however very slow and can be swarmed by smaller and faster enemies quickly.

 Using and combining the Majin's powers will help you dispatch of enemies more effectively.

 Although the game isn't too deep about customization, there are several items you can collect to increase the Majin's powers or enhance several stats for Tapeu through items of clothing.

The journey will take around 15 or 20 hours to complete depending on how much you play, its taken me around a month to complete the game and I still have some items to pick up as there are plenty to collect.

 One of my problems with the game is that its not that difficult, the puzzles are pretty easy to figure out. Some of them might force you to think a bit more but overall their not that deep. 

 The combat isn't very complex either, battles are more about utilizing the Majin's abilities effectively rather than figuring out attack patterns, its not boring however and once you know how to defeat your opponents it will be more fun and faster to deal with.

 

The game sports some colorful and varied visuals.

How does it look?

 The game has a particular fantasy look that shares some artistic aspects with games like Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus, the graphics aren't particularly that great but they get the job done. There are night and day cycles as well as rain. 

 The world and characters look good and the environments are nice and varied, although I couldn't shake the feeling that throughout the whole game I felt I was playing through an underground maze rather than an open world.

 Sound on the other hand can be a mixed bag, while there are some nice music tracks they are often recycled through the game which makes them a bit repetitive. Voice acting could have been a lot better as well, while I don't have a problem with it, the voices themselves don't feel too convincing at times, particularly the Majin's, there isn't much dialogue or conversations as other games though, so it shouldn't be an obstacle.

 One thing I noticed is that the game burrows some name ideas from Aztec and Mayan civilizations names like Teotl, Ixtab or Tlaloc seem to resemble names from those cultures.

 

Feeding the Majin with different fruits will allow him to get stronger or gain new abilities.

 Final verdict?

 To be honest the game itself might not feel unique if you have played games like Zelda or Metroid, but lets consider something for a moment, how often do you see these types of games nowadays? there are very few and thats why I recommend this game to adventure and puzzle fans.

 Throughout my play through I noticed no game breaking or technical issues, only once was I forced to relaunch the game as the Majin seemed to got stuck on a wall after a battle and wouldn't move, so keep in mind this game has no checkpoint or auto save feature, be ready to save constantly.

  Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom might not be on equal level of quality as the games it burrows ideas from, but despite being a budget title it is money and time well spent if your looking for a fun and different kind of experience in today's gaming world.

Gameplay: 4/5
Presentation: 3/5
Final Score: 4/5

Girls at War : Women in Video Games

When it comes to games these days, there is one undeniable rule as far as female characters are concerned, either their included as eye candy or their not included at all, at least thats what most games seem to follow.

 However, we can't deny how long we've come from saving the princess in Super Mario to having female heroines like Lara Croft or Chell from Portal, but we still have miles to go nonetheless.

 Chell from Valve's Portal.

One of the first action heroines in games was Samus from Metroid, although her true identity wasn't revealed until the end of the game which surprised a lot of people back in the 80s. She became an important icon of video games and she is still as cool as she was decades ago.

 But what separated Samus from other female characters is that, although she was revealed in a "sexy" outfit at the end of the Metroid games, she was still wearing a big and powerful suit of armor giving her powers beyond human level and yet still being something other than eye candy.

 What gamers were "rewarded" with at the end of Metroid for the NES.

As video games began to grow up and its users along with them, the demands of gamers began to change. In the 90s a lot of the kids from the 80s were entering their teen years and this was eventually used by having female characters that exploited that demographic.

Lara Croft is an icon from that era, a voluptuous heroine that hunted for treasure and rare items across the world, a female Indiana Jones if you like. Still, she was eventually used as eye candy to promote the eventual sequels of games up until recent years. Its not that the games utilized her female body to sell the games because they were good, but it did create an image of women that for some reason still lingers around today.

 There were other female characters in the 90s that also followed the idea of eye candy, fighting games were clearly one of them in series like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and so on.

Female fighters from Mortal Kombat.

 When we were fast approaching the 2000s, it seems that there was another shift in how women were portrayed in games, which I still tie to the gamers who played them. During this decade, we saw women starting to be portrayed with a little more respect and not just eye candy.

 Some female characters like Alyx Vance from Half Life 2 or Violet Summer from Velvet Assassin, were women that starred in games that wanted to portray authentic female heroines, eye candy wasn't good enough to gamers now as their demographic had aged as well and demanded more.

Violet Summer from Velvet Assassin, a fictional character based on real life WW2 heroine Violette Szabo.

 There are still a lot of lingering trends in games regarding women like I mentioned above, their still added for the most part as eye candy and very few games actually care for a respectful and honest portrayal.

Mass Effect from BioWare is an excellent sci-fi RPG that allows the player to choose the gender of the main character, who nonetheless behaves very "manly" through the game itself. Here, the player is allowed to flirt and eventually romance other characters depending on their gender, but a lot of the women portrayed in the game serve as eye candy, particularly Miranda Lawson an interesting character herself but still used in the same old ways.

Proper and respectful use of female characters in Mass Effect 2.

What seems to be interesting is that now women also play games and their an untapped demographic that developers could take advantage off. The percentage of women who play games is still not as big as that of men, but it is a bigger number than previous generations.

As a gamer myself, its not that I cringe when I see female characters as eye candy, but it does bother me that this is the norm still and their inclusion in games, particularly those of the action or shooter kind is mostly avoided. Is it because of authenticity? or scared to cause unwanted attention? or is it simply that we haven't reached a point where it doesn't matter whats between the legs of our heroes but what they do and stand for?

 Anya Stroud, formerly a communications officer in Gears of War now suits for battle in part 3.

I applaud developers who want to do justice to female characters in games and I encourage them to continue to do so. Epic games finally decided to include women as combatants in their next installment of Gears of War, after a lot of requests from fans through the years.

There is some big potential to create female characters and heroines to be "cool" just as male characters are, it has been hit or miss through the years, but it seems were reaching that point, hopefully the male demographic understands and accepts that playing a woman is not "girly" or "weak" but a different way of seeing and experiencing games, their worlds, stories and characters.