Review by KFHEWUI

"Perfect Weapon is far from perfect"

Blake Hunter is a world champion martial artist and a top agent of Earth Command Defense Force. While in the locker room after one of his matches, Blake Hunter is transported to a faraway alien world. Now he is all alone and trying to fight for survival.

One of the most important aspects of a game is the controls because without controls there is no way to navigate the game. Sadly, this is one of the major areas where this game falls flat on its face. The controls are unresponsive, clunky, and just plain awkward. For example when you are in combat mode, if you double tap Up then you will dash, however if you triple tap Up and hold, you will run. But wait to do a backflip with a 180 degree turn then you have to double tap UP and hold, which makes no sense. If you are doing a backflip, why must you hit UP? It would have made more sense if you would have to press DOWN since you are down a backflip.

The music for this game is decent, however it really is nothing special and it is not something that you will remember after playing this game. Now the one thing that this game actually does right is the graphics. For a first generation PS1 game, this game has incredible graphic and the modeling is very impressive for its time.

The game begins with Blake being kidnapped then he discovers that he is on an ice planet. Now the game begins and you will see the nice graphics, however don't spend to long looking because as it turns out, it is so cold on the planet that your health will slowly drop over time. Now you're introduced to your first objective, which is to find a metabolic adjuster. The time has come now to control Blake, and here is where you are introduced to the horrible controls. Blake starts out on a ledge and must jump to the next area; however it took me a good thirty minutes to figure this out. The reason why is because there is no indication that you must jump forward, however I found it luckily because I ran around randomly hitting the jump button.

When you reach the next area, you are attacked by some wolves, and here is where the next major problem becomes apparent with the combat controls. The wolves are short so you must use low attacks to hit them, however hitting them is a pain because it is hard to tell thanks to the camera and even then some of the low attacks just go right over the enemy's heads. After you beating the wolves, the metabolic adjuster is nearby, and if you don't have any health kits and you took a lot of hits, chances are you are about to die so getting this item is top priority.

After obtaining the item, the next objective is to find the exit so the most obvious choice is to head forward while fighting more wolves. Soon you will come to a giant cave, and here is where you can encounter another big problem. For some reason the camera is fixed when in combat mode and countless time, I have gone too far out of the camera's view. However, instead of the camera moving with you, it just stays still while a giant red arrow appears on the screen and points to where you went out, but guess what? The enemies went off screen with you so they are still beating your face in the whole time and there is nothing that you can do about it. Then there are multiple parts where the camera and background do not match up at all. One part I was standing next to an item I ran through it and did not pick it up. Then I ran over and the camera moved. And it turns out that I was five feet away from the item. Then there are multiple places where the camera is zoomed out and you cannot tell if you have to jump forward or you can walk forward.

So after going through more frustrating fights, you will eventually come to a boss and hopefully beat him. However, if you die then it is game over and you must start over from the beginning of the game. Let's just say you beat him, the exit is right around the corner. You rush towards it as you think victory, but the exit does not work. Here is one of the biggest problems that I have found with this game. After playing through the first two levels I believe I have found the way to activate the exit with no thanks to the instruction booklet. When you beat an enemy, they usually drop these yellow orbs. Apparently, you have to collect a certain amount of these to activate the exit. This brings up the next major issue which is the items. This game has many items, but most of them are completely useless. The reason why is because they have no description on the item screen and not only this, but when they are activated there is no sign of their effects. Which means the only people that know what the items do in this game are the people who made the game, but guess what? They are no longer in business so you cannot email them or call them to ask them about the items and the instruction booklet only tells you the description of 9 items, and out of those nine items, about seven of them are obvious what they do. So to beat level 1 you need about 100 essences and level 2 needs about 200, and I never made it past level 3 so I have no clue, however, I'm thinking it is 300 since you need an additional 100 to beat level 2.

What could have been a must have beat 'em up turns out to be nothing more than a broken game not worth time. The clunky controls, clunky combat, terrible camera, poor instructions, and little story telling all make this a game to avoid.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10 | Originally Posted: 06/13/12

Game Release: Perfect Weapon (US, 11/30/96)

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