E3 is one of those events where you’re really obligated to have a plan. There is so much to see and you only have twenty-one hours to see it. While this may seem like a lot of time, the most sought after exhibits will often have at least an hour’s wait.

Do you tackle those big attractions first, or do you go after the smaller games in hopes the lines will break off later? Do you go after the games you’re interested in first, or the games you know are major attractions? Do you eat the crappy, overpriced food at the event for lunch, or do you leave to get better food but take up more time?

Regardless of what you decide, any semblance of a plan tends to go out the window on the first day, when you finally arrive and just breathe in all that’s happening. On my first day, it was all about getting a feel for things and finding out where everything was. Aside from checking out the 3DS, which was one of the top things I wanted to do, I didn’t really try any games. The first day was also the shortest. But after I got my bearings, the second and third days became all about playing games.

Head past the break to read about Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Videogame, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, and Donkey Kong Country Returns.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

If you listen to Wing Damage’s Barrel Roll podcast, you’ll know I’ve talked pretty harshly about this game based on the footage and impressions coming out for it. So it made sense that Sonic 4 would be one of my first trials; now I could see how it really played against my criticisms. And truthfully, it did feel about as mediocre as I expected it to. I only played the second stage of the four stage demo, since they only had two playable kiosks and a camera crew was taking up a lot of time at one of them.

One thing I will say is that the play control was a lot better than I expected it to be, and it felt pretty close to a true Sonic game. It does seem like they’ve gone back and paid attention to the physics of the older games. This gives me a bit more faith in the game being good.

The stage layout, on the other hand, had some pretty annoying snags. This was mostly due to the vines which you had to swing from to get over large gaps. Despite swinging as hard as I could, leaping off of the vines didn’t seem to create much distance, and trying to reach the next vine or solid surface was often a pain. A lot of times you had to use the homing attack to get to other vines, but they only became visible for just a second, and by the time you reacted you could no longer home in.

Overall, though, the game seems like it’s being improved on. If they cut out ridiculous stages like the mine cart ride, and quit recycling so much content from earlier Sonic games, this could actually turn out to be a good one.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Videogame

I found my way to this game while waiting for my friend to get through the demonstration of the new Mortal Kombat. I am pretty unfamiliar with this Brave and the Bold animated series, and had just only learned about this game a couple weeks ago.

Developed by WayForward, who’s well known for Shantae and Contra 4, the game is essentially a 2D brawler that has two player co-op. The characters and environments have a cartoony, hand-drawn look that didn’t impress me much in the original trailer, but looked somewhat better in person. Also making the game more cartoon like, it has comic book-esque cut scenes before and after each mission, and I’m told the game will feature the same voice work from the show.

I played a stage with one of the Warner Bros. reps. We got to play as Batman and Robin, though I’m told there are a total of five playable characters in the game, who become available depending on the situation. You can also select assist characters, who you can summon to deliver a super attack should you lose a life. Each character has typical melee attacks and can grab and throw enemies. You can even grab and throw each other to attack. Each character also has their own sub-items. Batman, for example, has his trademark batarangs, while Robin has a bar weapon that can create energy waves.

It was a pretty fun game, though one I would want to play with a friend; it doesn’t seem like it’d be that great in single player. I also found the controls to be somewhat cumbersome, with some special moves requiring waggle that I didn’t get down too easily. But admittedly, I usually just want to rush in and spam attack in games like this and not worry so much about technique. All in all it’s a decent brawler, and up your alley if you like the cartoon at all (though personally the original animated series strikes me as way cooler).

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

Like Sonic 4, I was excited when I heard this was first announced, but lost enthusiasm the more I learned about it. While it is a 2D Castlevania, even borrowing many graphical elements from the DS titles, it eschews much of the Castlevania setup. Instead of exploring some grand castle, you face a number of smaller castles, which are somewhat like game boards.

The goal is to find out how to get to the boss and defeat it (I imagine anyway, since I never got to the boss). What really lets me down is that you have a time limit. At first I thought this was just a limit for the demo, but asking the Konami rep about it, each castle will indeed have a time limit to beat the castle, or else you fail the mission. Perhaps it will be more than the paltry ten minutes I was allotted, though.

One unique feature is that you can look at the entire map at once, and even play the game this way. Furthermore, the boss will eventually “wake up” and start sending attacks throughout the whole map that you have to avoid. Though I believe you can carry health items, they can also be found just lying around to instantly heal you. Enemies do not respawn once they are defeated, so backtracking can get boring, running through large areas you’ve already cleared out.

The major thing is figuring out how to get to the boss in time. This is where the coop factor comes in, since up to six players can play on a map at once. The players start in different areas on the map, and having them around is much better than trying to tackle the map yourself, since they can easily unlock areas you can’t get to yourself without a bit of legwork.

It’s an interesting title, but one that seems to have little to do with Castlevania beneath the surface.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

A very surprising revival of Kirby on the console; this game seems to do for Kirby what Yoshi’s Island did for Mario, though perhaps more effectively. The visual style has changed drastically of course, and now characters and objects are represented as mere outlines of yarn. Kirby has also lost a lot of his trademark abilities – he no longer inhales enemies, but instead grabs them with a whip-like length of yarn. Attacking quickly will rip enemies apart, but holding the attack button will allow Kirby to bundle up and hold onto enemies. Kirby can also attack straight up now. Kirby has also lost the ability to fly and steal enemy abilities, it seems, though he now has his own built in abilities. He can now float down like a parachute, and ground stomp, turning into a weight.

The game has a co-op mode like Kirby Super Star, with player two playing as a blue, Kirby-like character, which the Nintendo rep told me is named Prince Fluff. There are a lot of dynamic elements to stages, such as being able to grab pivots that pull landmasses towards you (and literally scrunch up the background). There was also a point where my friend and I grabbed a power-up that combined us into a huge robot that we could both control certain aspects of (I could move around and fire missiles, while my friend controlled the robot’s punching attacks).

During the stages, you can collect beads, awarding better medals the more beads you collect. Each stage also has three treasures to find, and finding these will somehow be integral to the finished game. Curiously, while hitting enemies made us lose beads in the demo, there was no indicator of health or damage. The Nintendo rep said in the final game there would be damage, but seemed reluctant to give details about it, so perhaps there is something special in this.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Yet another surprise announcement out of left field. I absolutely loved the original Donkey Kong Country, though it’s been so long since I’ve last played it. If anything, Returns showed me that I’ve gotten a bit rusty. So far as I can recall, the game plays pretty much just like the original did.

The one major new addition now is the ability to monkey-slap the ground by shaking the remote and nunchuk. You’re usually notified of when to do this, and it can cause various changes to occur in the stage. It can also be used to crush objects. Shaking the remote is also necessary to do the rolling attack, which I didn’t like so much.

I played co-op with my partner, and honestly I was humbled by how bad I was (the Nintendo rep also talked to us like we were five, saying things like “You did it!” when we beat an enemy and such, which also didn’t help). The stage we played had a fair amount of moving platforms over an abyss, and I was judging my jumps pretty poorly.

I was also getting rocked by these crab enemies that seemed to be an homage to Mario Bros. After jumping on them, they would get angry and move faster, holding their pincer straight up. You had to monkey-slap the ground and knock them on their backs, then jump on them again to finish them off. These guys had a habit of digging up right beneath my feet, and I couldn’t help but run into them again and again.

The music carried over the DKC style and the visuals were vibrant and delightful, but don’t expect to just monkey around (Haha, see what I did there?). At the very least, I could tell that the difficulty came from my own shortcomings, and the game never felt real cheap. A lot of people are excited for this one, and I can see why.

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That’s all for this segment. Tune in tomorrow for part 2, where we’ll get a healthy dose of Capcom and more. It’ll be a slam dunk!

Tags: Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Videogame, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair, Donkey Kong Country Returns, E3, E3 2010, hands-on impressions, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Nintendo, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, Wii

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 19th, 2010 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Features. 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.