Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand

"Metal Gear Solid meets Castlevania with a sun sensing thing? Sign me up!"

Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand is one of the most anticipated games to come out in a while, but I've been skeptical since the beginning. When the day came that I had the chance to buy this game, I jumped on it, so, how did it turn out? Read on and see!

Graphics 8/10

Now, I'm not one of those people who thinks that graphics make a game, but in this case I can't complain. The nice, chibi style characters do the overall mood of the game justice and it's easy to identify everything.

Sound 8/10

Good, not great, but good. There's not much memorable music with the exception of the title theme. Also, the little dude who follows you around is pretty obnoxious sounding and I could do without the soundbite it plays whenever he shows up but besides that, it's ok. And it's a handheld, so the expectations aren't super-high anyway's.

Gameplay 10/10

Now we've come to the good stuff. I'm going to split this into two categories: Control and menus/ things sun sensor related.

Control and menus

Presenting itself from an 2d isometric view, there was a good chance that this could have been this game's downfall, but Konami managed to make control a precise, smooth love-fest of controly goodness. There's even two types of control options: traditional and not traditional. Traditional is the basic up to go up/down to go down but the non traditional option is cool too, you use up-left to go up. I don't like the second, but decide for yourself. Now to the menus: Their nicely navigated and it's easy to see where your going. No complaints here. If you were confused about the control parts, don't worry, you'll get it when you play.

Now onward to the sun sensor. This is what made this game so different. Yeah, it wasn't the fact that this game was Hideo Kojima's first non Metal Gear project, it was this. This is cool feature, you play this game in the sunlight and this measures the amount and that powers your solar gun. The cartridge seems pretty accurate but shade throws it off pretty bad and even in direct sunlight you may only get 1 or 2 bars, but the fact that the sun sensor is even here makes up for all it's flaws.

Overall 9/10

Overview:
This is a good game. There I said it! I like this game and I think you will too. The only major flaw anybody's complaining about is how you can't play the game at night. I don't consider this a flaw so much as part of the game's flavor, which I think you'll like.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/15/03