Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth

"Untitled (Minor Spoilers Ahead)"

"Sin and Punishment". Utter those three words to a devout Nintendo 64 gamer, and you may get one of two reactions: an exhalation of awe for the best Nintendo 64 game to never hit American shores...or a scathing diatribe at NoA's staunch refusal to bring it overseas despite excellent reviews from game critics. Even today, the game still has a mysterious air hanging around it. It was supposed to be a rare "mature" experience for the Nintendo 64, but as its release was Japan only, and even then it was quite limited, very few people know what it's like.

Last Tuesday, a mysterious force drove me to eBay and had me search for "Sin and Punishment." There, I had found an auction selling the game for under $30. The catch: the seller had taken the time to modify the cartridge for play on American Nintendo 64s, and it comes complete with the box and an instruction booklet. After a harrowing experience of last-minute bidding, I had won the copy of the game for $61. Now, I will be able to experience for myself this mysterious game, and tell the world what my opinion of it is. (Not that it matters.)

Opening Junk That I Really Don't Know How to Describe

The thing about this game is that it expects you to know what's going on even before you begin the game. They tell you the story in the instruction booklet, and then they play the opening cinema even before the title screen. When you go to start game, you are expected to know how to do everything, because it puts you right into a hallucinatory state. So if you can't read Japanese at all, how are you expected to do anything? Thankfully, the game has a Training section to teach you everything. The hardest part is just knowing enough Japanese to GET to that section. (Here's a hint...second from the top on the left column.)

Training is pretty standard stuff. There's an annoying black ball yapping while the instructions appear at the bottom in Japanese. A Nintendo 64 controller shows the buttons needed for the specific action, so even those that are Japanese-impaired would have a chance to see what's going on. And then you have an opportunity to try the things out yourself. Controls will be explained in a later section.

Now onto the game.

GAMEPLAY AND STORY

Sin and Punishment is a standard, arcade-style rail shooter. The game opens up in a dream world with fields of gold and monsters of doom. In the end, it turns out to be a dream of Saki, the main character. (He has a girl's name and he looks like a girl on the box, so I was surprised to see that he's a guy.) In reality, Tokyo has turned into a battleground between the "Saviors", a cult of which Saki is a member, and the Armed Volunteers, a government-led army that fights both the "Saviors" and the Ruffians, which are revolting food sources. At one point, you must assume the role of Airan, Saki's girlfriend. There's also Achi, the "Savior Girl" that follows you around making weird comments in cutscenes. Yeah. You basically run around, shooting everything that moves, which seems simple enough. Indeed, the first part of the game is quite simple, but it gets progressively harder, which is good.

The game is really straightforward. It really does remind me of Star Fox 64, except you're not on a ship, and there is nothing like All-Range Mode. You go along a set path, killing as many enemies as possible. Like Star Fox 64, bosses are something with a specific attack pattern that you must learn to defeat them easier. Of course, there are a lot more bosses, with between 2-5 appearing in a single stage.

The controls are different from most other games, but quite easy to learn. In case you don't already know, rail shooters are very different from first person or third person shooters. Instead of running forwards and backwards, the game runs for you. All you have to do is move to the side to dodge things. Instead of using the control stick to run side to side, you use it to aim. To move around, just press the left C or the right C button to move in the respective direction. When you need to jump (and you will at times), press the R trigger once or twice, depending on how many times you want to jump.

The Z button is the multi-purpose button. Usually, you use it to shoot. Just press down and a stream of laser energy or something would pop out of the gun. Typical. You did it in GoldenEye. You did it in Perfect Dark. Heck, you even did it in Star Fox 64!

But more importantly comes...the Sword. In Sin and Punishment, the Sword will be your new best friend. It deals at least 50 times more damage than your regular shots. When an enemy gets close, just tap Z to slash at it. Its only problem is that it only works when an enemy is close. But you'll have a hard time beating the game if you don't learn how to use the sword. Another useful function of the sword is its ability to deflect projectiles back from whence it came. Many bosses can only be defeated using that manner.

The A and B buttons serve really no purpose. Pressing the A button would switch your sight from manual to automatic (which allows you to lock onto enemies), and vice-versa. Frankly, I don't know anybody that would prefer manual to automatic, so once the game begins, press the A button once to switch to automatic, and forget about it. The B button serves no use whatsoever.

So those are the controls, but I bet you people would rather hear the answer to a more important question..."Is it fun to play?"

And the answer to THAT, my friends...is Yes. Even if you don't like shooter games, the game does grow on you. Eventually you'll enjoy it every time you kill a rampaging Ruffian or a vulnerable Volunteer. You'll replay bosses just to show them how much you own them! Of course, this does tap into the game's biggest flaw.

This game is short and it's easy. Although with its progressive difficulty, it does get quite hard at later points in the game, but you get another credit (an extra life) with every 100 kills you get. With the placement of the enemies, it's easy to stock up on credit at certain points in the game. That way, so what if you die a couple of times? You'll have extra lives to back you up. And each boss has a specific pattern to defeat it. Once you figure it out, then it'll be a breeze to go back and fight them again. Plus, the game is short. Because it's done in an arcade format, there really isn't much to it. You can easily beat the game in under an hour. If you get good, you can probably do it in 40 minutes or less.

SPOILER ALERT
And the final boss fight. With such a dazzling game, you'd expect it to be dazzling as well. Well, when you first see it, it certainly appears to be so. You see it and it has 50,000 HP, and you think to yourself, "How am I supposed to beat it before time runs out?" I'm not going to tell you how to beat it, but let me say that it's a cinch! And, it's so easy to gain hits during the boss fight that for every time you die, you'd probably get 1-3 credits to back you up. It's fun to play, but it's the most disappointingly easy final boss since Baby Bowser in Yoshi's Story.
END OF SPOILERS

GRAPHICS

The graphics are quite decent in Sin and Punishment. The characters may be kind of blocky, but then again, so were the characters in Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, and Perfect Dark. The game does boast two things: dazzling special effects, and a blazing frame rate (for the Nintendo 64, that is.)

Explosions and projectile animation are really nice in this game. The game does tend to overuse bright lights, but it's all good. It adds to the "Ooh! Aah! Effect" of the game.

And although the frame rate for Sin and Punishment doesn't hit 60 FPS, it doesn't suffer any slowdown whatsoever, even with dozens of Ruffians and humans on the screen. That's something I wish Perfect Dark had, and Sin and Punishment certainly has it. I think it's a good thing that the frame rat doesn't hit 60 FPS. Super Smash Bros. Melee has it, and it certainly does get overwhelming at times.

SOUND

Sound in Sin and Punishment is a mixed bag. The music is pretty good, even though it's nothing more than repetitive techno music. It's quite catch, but doesn't stick in your head to annoy the heck out of you. It's probably great music to accompany the action on the screen. Some of the sound effects are good as well, such as the sound of firing guns and explosions.

Unfortunately, most of the sound effects suck, especially the howl people make when they get killed. Since you kill more than 100 of the Armed Volunteers in this game, it will get on your nerves after a while. Also, it seems as though Nintendo was wanting to bring the game over to America at one point...all of the cutscenes...are DUBBED! That's right. Even though it's a Japan-only game, all of the dialogue is in English! I mean, what's the point? There is no point! And they didn't get quality VAs such as Veronity Taylor or Rachael Lillis to the dubbing. Instead, the dubs sound uninspired at best. It's just not right!

REPLAYABILITY

For a game you can beat in 60 minutes or less, the game has a lot of replay value. First of all, the 60 minute thing is only for the Easy difficulty. There are two more difficulty levels to challenge you. They're probably not at the level of Perfect Agent in Perfect Dark, but they do present a challenge. Besides. The game is pretty fun to play, no matter how short and easy it is. Plus, as I said, there's a Scene Select, so it's fun to play certain levels again and PWN everybody.

There is a two-player co-op mode. I'm not sure how it is, but it works a lot like in Double Dash!! One person controls the character, telling them to when to jump or where to roll. The other person controls the gun and the sword. Maybe it'll work out pretty well with two coordinated people, but other times, it may disprove the old saying, "Two heads are better than one."

FINAL THOUGHTS

So in the end, was Sin and Punishment a game Nintendo of America should have brought over? Yes, definitely. While rail shooters haven't exactly had the best success on Nintendo consoles (which is why NoA decided against localizing this game), it might have had enough oomph to convince fans of House of the Dead to buy a Nintendo 64, with the reviews it got. Although by the time it comes out, the Nintendo 64 would be practically dead, but its release would definitely have been much bigger and much better than the release of games like Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-Traction or Ultimate Bowling.

But since Nintendo isn't localizing the game, is it worth importing? Yes, if you can find a way to mod the cartridge or your system. But since the Nintendo 64's region protection is physical, it shouldn't be difficult to drill holes at certain places in the cartridge so that it would fit in American systems. The overall cost of that should be next to nothing, so the cost of importing would pretty much only be the cost of the game, which can go for between $30 and $60 on eBay. Some people may find the game's length too short to be worth that price. That's fair enough, but if you enjoy this sort of game, you won't regret it if you do decide to import it.

OVERALL SCORE
Well, this certainly is hard. It's definitely one of the better games for the Nintendo 64, yet it's length is one major flaw. I think I'll deduct two points from it and give it an 8. It's a great game that N64 fans should definitely try to import, but it's not necessarily a must-have. (AKA, if you can't find it, or you don't want it, then it's all right.)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/25/04