"Multiplayer - Ok! Single-Player - Um...."

Rengoku: Tower of Purgury

A PSP launch release that was mistimed. Rengoku was marketed as a single player game, but should have been singled out as a multiplayer ad hoc game. In the single player game, you can collect weapons and accessories...and use them against an unfortunately dumb ai. In the multiplayer game, you can beat the best of the best in human players.

Story - 8/10

A cliche sci-fi story, in which a battle android gains self-knowledge. The player fights as this A.D.A.M (automated dueling machine) and tries to escape his own oil-stained past by finding out who runs the battle tower and who makes the androids fight.

It's a storyline that has been explored by countless Star Trek episodes. Some machine gains sentience, and then goes off on a bloody journey paved with human problems to find his/her raison de existance. Religious overtones may make this game quite objectionable...

Gameplay - 7/10

Your objective is to scrap all other androids on the floor, and take out the level boss. Rinse and repeat for eight floors.

Control - 4/10

Rengoku has more control issues than a b-list star. Weapons are mapped to the triangle, circle, square, and x buttons. Each button corresponds to a part on the droids body. Triangle equals head, circle equals right hand, square equals left hand and x equals legs. It's an okay control scheme, but movement has been mapped to the control pad. It feels weird to me, as the first time I turned on Rengoku, I reached for the analog nub and was startled when my A.D.A.M didn't react.

Strating (moving back and forth while targeting an enemy) is accomplished by holding down the R button, which is a dead-giveaway in muliplayer that you are going to be moving left or right.

Targeting is also accomplished by a shoulder button, the left one. Tap it once to get a lock on the nearest enemy unit. It should work in theory, but when in mortal combat with three other human players, sometimes the lock will focus on the wrong unit, and you'd end up losing to the rabble of enemies.

Graphics - 3/10

Two words - just a-okay. The whole look of Rengoku is industrial, with boxy rooms and metallic surfaces. A vast improvement on level design would have been to add indications of floor level to the scenery, and to add more breakable items. Maybe hidden areas like Wolfensein would have been fun...ambushing enemies from a hidden room. Anyway, the look is just okay, but could have been so much more.

Sound - 6/10

Fill up that mp3 player before loading up this game. Repetitive...driving techno music with lots of drumbeats accompany you as you slash your way through a pile of androids. Droid and human alike would go nuts in this tower, listening to that drivel. In fact, I played through this entire game with the volume off.

Voice-acting is off playing hooky in this game. The story would have be dramatically improved if the pre-boss battle conversations didn't have to be read.

Multiplayer - 9/10

Multiplayer consists of several modes. Some use the weapons in single player, but most modes use the weapons that are found in the arena. This is a pro and con - new players who don't know the range of weapons can't do much damage to veterans, but the veterans can get lousy weapons too. Two player multiplayer seems like a game of hide and seek, and four players seem like missiles are flying everywhere. Multiplayer games usually last for a short five to ten minutes.

You can also trade weapons in ad hoc mode too. You can help a friend build a good robot by sending him a few advanced weapons. In fact, I gave away a AG-Platoon (a rare machine gun), the first time I did weapons trading.

Multiplayer is still not very balanced, although. I went up against a friend who was still on the first try to finish the tower, whilst I was on my second run. He lost to me in a matter of minutes, with my more advanced weapons. He only managed to deal a tiny amount of damage by sneaking in using optic camouflage and slashing at me before I turned my guns on him.

Final Words - 6/10

A decent game marred by lack of features and lack of intuitive controls. Half-decent if you can find two copies of it used, and a sparring partner for this game. If not, don't visit this Tower.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 02/16/06