"My review of Capcom's stylish new shooter."

P.N.03 (Pronounced P N 3) is the first game of the Capcom 5 to be released. It was directed by the creator of the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry series, Shinji Mikami. This game however, is unlike anything from Shinji Mikami that I've ever played.

The story follows a female mercenary named Vanessa Z. Schneider who has been contracted by a mysterious client to take out an army of robots on the colonized planet of Öde.

P.N03 is a fast paced shooter with a bit of old school flavor. There is no exploring to do here, no switches to push, no puzzles to solve, or a lot of cut scenes to watch. The game has Vanessa shooting, dodging, and jumping all over the place racking up points, doing combos by killing enemies in rapid succession, and generally just blowing robots the hell up. Levels are divided into rooms ranging from 5 to 21. You are scored on your performance after clearing each room. In the final room you will face a boss and after beating it you'll receive an overall score along with a rating. The ratings are Rookie, Amateur, Regular, Professional, and Destroyer.

Points that are earned during gameplay by doing combos and clearing rooms without taking damage. These points can be used to purchase new suits for Vanessa, upgrades for her suits, and continues which are really just lives.

The suits can be upgraded in 5 different attributes. These attributes are barrier, palmshot, automatic, energy, and overdrive. Each suit can only be upgraded a certain amount of times in each attribute. Some suits don't have a certain attribute. Some only have half of a certain attribute than another and so on. This adds a some strategy to the gameplay. Each suit is best suited for certain levels and situations. Using different suits can also add some challenge or make certain situations easier to handle. Barrier is your shields or armor. You don't see anything to represent this barrier. Suits with low barrier simply take more damage. Palmshot is how fast you shoot when you are tapping the A button. Automatic is how fast you shoot while holding down the A button. Energy is how big your health bar will be and Overdrive are the different special moves that Vanessa can perform. Upgrading Overdrive will also give you a bigger Overdrive energy bar. Overdrives are performed by pressing different combinations on the D-pad and finishing them off with the A button. For example to do the Swan Pro you press Left, Right, Left, and then A.

The controls in P.N.03 definitely take some getting used to. Vanessa controls a bit like Lara Croft. She has to turn and face in a direction before she can run in that direction. This can be frustrating at first but, once you get the hang of it, it's not too big of a deal. This system actually works quite well when you're shooting at hordes of enemies. And believe me, you'll be doing a lot more shooting than admiring in the scenery. The game gives you a turning button to help with the tank like turning. Pressing the Z button while standing with make Vanessa do a 180. If you press the Z button a hold the stick a little bit to the right or left, she'll do a 90 degree turn. This comes in handy when running down corridors. Jumping is also a bit awkward. The turning system coupled with the jumping doesn't make for good platforming. Vanessa can jump forwards, backwards, straight up, and to a bit to the sides. I say a bit because it's just a straight up jump with a little movement to the sides. This system leaves a lot to be desired when jumping from platform to platform but, it works quite well when you're dodging enemy fire. You'll need to jump to avoid missiles. To be fair, there really isn't a whole lot of platform jumping in the game. It's only used to spice up the level design a bit. Sidestepping is a very cool and integral part of the game. Not only are you staying alive but, you're looking good while doing it! When Vanessa sidesteps she does a twirl and a little pose. If you press the button to sidestep without moving or shooting again, Vanessa will do a Matrix style no hands cartwheel to the side. This is very useful for when enemies shoot large balls or beams of energy at you. You can sidestep to the left with the L button and to the right with the R button. Sometimes this sidestepping seems a bit unresponsive. You have to stop tapping the A button to shoot to sidestep and sometimes you have to let go of the A button and stop shooting to sidestep when using the automatic fire. The sidestep is much more responsive when using the automatic fire though. You can also crouch in the game by pressing and holding in the Y button. This is useful against enemies that shoot at Vanessa's torso. You can crouch to then stand and fire then crouch again and so on. You can also roll to the left and right while crouching by pressing either L or R and roll forward by pressing forward on the control stick while crouching. The X button changes targets. The game automatically targets the nearest enemy but, sometimes enemies move ahead of others and the target doesn't move from one enemy to another until you kill it. If you don't want to get shot by them, you better change targets and take them out.

The music in the game is all techno. It's very cool and very fitting for the futuristic theme of the game. If you want to hear the music head on over to the P.N.03 website and download some of the trailers.

The graphics are a mixed bag. The environments all look pretty jaggy and the textures are low quality. Vanessa's model looks extremely good though. She looks very smooth and she is very well animated. I have never seen a videogame character shake her ass like that! The level design leaves a lot to be desired. The design of the rooms is pretty good but, the rooms are used over and over again. You'll find yourself in the same rooms in a lot of the levels. That's not to say that the same rooms are used from beginning to end. It's just that you'll see some of the rooms from previous levels in later levels.

Overall I have to say that this game is extremely fun. The game is challenging and rewards you with unlockable suits and story cut scenes after some levels. It has tons of replay value too. Not only will you want to beat it in all 3 difficulties but, you'll also want to try your hand at the preview levels which mix and match different rooms from different levels and let you earn points to buy more stuff. The game is super fun but still has some flaws which can not be overlooked. Specifically in the control, graphics, and level design departments. If you're into shooters, you have to try this game. I'm almost certain you'll love it. I look forward to the sequel. Oh, there better be a sequel!

8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/03, Updated 04/09/03