"Easily importable thanks to Virtual Console"

“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

Sin and Punishment is a Treasure developed rail-shooter for the Nintendo 64. When it came out back in 2000, it was exclusive to Japan. Seven years later, it was released on the Wii’s Virtual Console service, finally making its first appearance in North America and Europe. Was it worth finally bringing over?

The easiest way to describe the basic gameplay in Sin and Punishment is to imagine the rail-shooting in Star Fox. However, unlike Star Fox, Sin and Punishment requires you to move your character and your reticule independently of one another. The game also takes place on foot.

Using the classic controller, you can move your character left and right with the d-pad. Double tapping either direction will allow you to perform a quick dodge roll. Though you can’t fly, you can perform a double jump.

The analogue stick is used to aim your reticule. Aiming feels a little slower than I would’ve hoped, so it can be difficult to keep up with especially fast enemies. To remedy this, you can switch to a lock on mode by pressing “A”. You will still have to aim at the target for a good second before the lock on will take effect, but it can be very useful, especially on a few of the bosses. Fortunately, the lock-on is very balanced and not a “solve all” solution. It’s terrible for situations with large amounts of weak targets, and all your shots are weaker when using it.

Neither mode has a charge shot, so holding down the button is your best bet for rapid-fire shooting. Thanks to the sword attack, you won’t be holding down the fire button the entire time. The sword attack is very powerful, but can only be used when enemies are right next to you. To use it, you must let off the fire button and tap it when the enemy is near. Another cool feature of the sword is its ability to deflect certain attacks. For example, when a battle ship shoots a missile at you, you can hit it back with your sword attack and cause massive damage to the enemy.

Though there is a time limit, it’s not “Game Over” when the timer strikes “00″. Once you run out of time, your health will slowly diminish. If you can finish the level or collect more time before you die, you’re in the clear.

Sin and Punishment is a very short game, but it’s packed with variety. While most levels will have your character running in third person, there are a couple levels that take on a side-scrolling platformer perspective. For most of the game, you control a boy named Saki. Sometimes he is a giant, building-sized creature who controls slightly different. There are also a few sections where you control a girl named Airan, but that seemed to be purely aesthetic.

The game has a few difficulty settings and highscore lists to give it some replay value. There’s also a 2-player mode, but it merely allows one player to control the character while another controls the aiming.

There are lots of lengthy cutscenes with full (and terrible) English voice acting, but every one is easily skippable. Even after watching every single one of them, I still have little to no idea what the story was about. All I know is that the end of the game had me standing on the Earth doing battle against another Earth. I’d still recommend watching them on your first play-through. They’re good for a laugh.

Why did I pick this game?

Treasure has a strong history of making top notch shooters. The company is known for developing my favorite SHMUP of all time, Gradius V, as well as other highly regarded titles including Ikaruga. I had also heard very good things about the game online.

Sin and Punishment 2 is coming to Wii in the near future. It looks great, so I felt that I should finish the first game in preparation for playing the sequel. And as I mentioned earlier, the game is similar to Star Fox. I wanted to fill the void later Star Fox games left in me.

How does it hold up with time?

Sin and Punishment was a satisfying experience. It is a very well put together rail-shooter. The graphics may be low-poly by today’s standards, but the dynamic camera angles and strange art direction help the game still look exciting.

The game’s weak points are its length and how linear it is. The game only takes about an hour to beat and there are no alternate paths. It’s a very “arcade style” experience.

You can purchase Sin and Punishment on Virtual Console for 1200 points (twelve dollars). If you really enjoy this style of game as I do, it will be money well spent.

Tags: Friday Old Games, import, N64, Nintendo, rail shooter, Sin and Punishment, Star Fox, Treasure, virtual console, Wii

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.