Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth

"There are not words to describe this game, so I'll have to make some up..."

Fragnanimous. Xylokantastic. Quarendellian. The long and short of it is that Sin and Punishment is easily one of, if not the, best N64 games to grace Nintendo’s flawed platform. Treasure is God, and this game is a manifestation of their covenant with gamers worldwide. Or at least it would have been if Nintendo of America had released this game in the U.S. Treasure specifically designed this magnum opus for foreign audiences. NOA is guilty of numerous crimes against humanity for not giving U.S. gamers this great game. In fact, if I ever get around to creating a break-away republic from America, I will make sure to try them in a military tribunal.

Gameplay: 10
First off, this game is an on-rails 3D shooter. This is one of the very few 3D games Treasure has done, and it is of of the best 3D games ever made. If you do not know what on-rails means, then the best examples I can give you are Panzer Dragoon or Star Fox. Only this game does not take place in a flying vehicle or animal. No, in Sin and Punishment, you are all by yourself, shooting countless enemies with the utmost precision. The game is damn near flawless, and few could find issue with its solid gameplay. Sin and Punishment is perhaps the best on-rails shooter ever made. No surprise considering Treasure is the developer.

Story: 7
Ummm, there is a story. Can I tell you about it? No, not really. While everything is in spoken English, the story does not make a whole lot of sense. Something about mutants called Ruffians running a rampage throughout the world. There are some groups trying to stop them, and you play as two members of one of the rebel groups. Beyond that, I am confused. Perhaps the translation is not the greatest. Maybe Treasure realized story was not the main concern when it comes to a shooter.

Control: 9
The controls are great, never sloppy. You use the control stick to move the cross hairs. The Z trigger fires. The R button jumps. The Left and Right C buttons let you strafe (very important). The A button switches between a more powerful shoot you must automatically aim and a weaker one which locks onto enemies. Why not a 10, as these controls work flawlessly and are the best one could hope for in a game like this on the N64? Two words: learning curve. I don’t care who you are, these are not the kind of controls you know the moment you pick up the game. No, your first experience with the game will probably involve realizing that up is up and down is down, which may seem weird for a shooter, and that you have to strafe. About the up is up business, if you want, you can set the controls so that the Y axis is reversed. In a completely pointless move, Treasure has offered an alternate control scheme, where you use the center prong of the controller with your right hand, while your left hand works left and right on the D pad for strafing and L for jumping. It is an interesting idea, and one which may appeal to lefties, but it seems to me that a left-handed gamer would have long ago become accustomed to using their dominant hand for the control stick. This seems even stupider when you consider that this left sided control scheme makes the A button, which will occasionally come into play, essentially unreachable.

Graphics: 9
By today’s standards, the graphics will undoubtedly look a little crude, but for the N64, this is some of the best ever seen. Some very good looking character models. The bosses are both impressive and imposing. One odd style choice was the amount of pointiness. I can understand why a bunch of robots could be pointy, but the people have some pointy angles to them. Nevertheless, there are some fine looking environments with great explosions, and, best of all, very little slow down.

Sound: 9
The sound effects are dead on. The music is very good for what it is. And what is it? Electric 80s pop rock. Yeah, it would not be my first choice either, but it fits the game very well. And one of the best bits is that everything is voice acted in English! And it is good English too. None of that laughably bad translations.

Replayability: 10
One of the most crucial aspects of any shooter, 2D or 3D, is its replay value. Rarely are shooters long games, so, if the game is going to get extensive playtime, the developers have to give incentives to play through again. For most shooters, the farthest the incentives go are getting the high scores, perhaps unlocking some bonus galleries for doing so. Well, Sin and Punishment has that feeling of wanting to get the best score, but it does not suffer the tedium that can plague other games. I cannot fully explain it, but somehow Treasure made playing through the levels again and again not seem like a chore. For one thing, there is a hit rate, which counts how many enemies or obstacles you have killed or destroyed without dying. While it may not sound like much, the idea manages to grab hold of you, as you consider strategic ways to kill your foes while getting the highest hit count. Also, there is a two player option, but I have not played it, so I cannot fairly critique it.

Language barrier: 1
OK, this seemed like a good idea to include as this game is an import. I decided that 10 would be the worst game for someone with no Japanese experience, 0 meaning it contains virtually no Japanese. Good examples of each extreme would be a text heavy RPG and a Kirby game. Well, Sin and Punishment is one of the best games for those with no knowledge of Nihongo. All of the cut scenes have English voice acting, so you will never get lost. And as you are relegated to a fixed path, you will never be confused on where to go next. The menus may confuse some, but a little experimentation should quickly establish what each option does. And if you know Katakana, one of the Japanese scripts, you should have no problem here. In fact, the only conceivable obstacle for the Japanese challenged is the training mode, which occasionally explains some basic moves in Japanese. Luckily, there is usually a diagram of the N64 controller, so you should be fine.

Rent or Buy?
Well, as far as I know, there is no way you could really rent this game, so that is out of the question. So that leaves buying, an option I strongly recommend. I doubt many Japanese import web sites would still have copies of the game, but I recommend checking out eBay. That is where I got my copy, which, nicely, had been converted to play on my US N64. If you can find this game, snatch it up right away. You won’t be disappointed.

Closing Comments
If you cannot tell, I regard Sin and Punishment as both one of the best games by Treasure and one of the best games available for the N64. It is a damn shame NOA never released it Stateside. I suppose they can be forgiven, as Sin and Punishment came late in the lifetime of the system. Still, far too people will never get to experience one of the finest games of all time. Do not let yourself be among those unfortunate people. Hunt down a copy of Sin and Punishment and buy it. You can thank me afterwards.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/22/02, Updated 12/22/02