Inuyasha: Secret of the Cursed Mask Reviews

Customer Ratings:

I must say, Bandai does have my interest. A game that lets you create your own character and meet the Inuyasha cast, building relationships with them? Sounds pretty good. The story involves the original character you can control, who you pick is male or female, winds up getting transported to the feudal era and encountering none other than everyone's favorite dog-demon. Shortly afterwards you team up with the regular cast of the show, including Kagome, Shippo, Miroku, and Sango. Having played the demo, I can confirm the game will feature the English Dub cast, such as Richard Cox, Moneca Stori, Jillian Michaels, and the rest. Inuyasha also follows you around on the game map, similar to, say, how Pikachu follows Ash in Pokemon Yellow. Although the graphics are nothing ground-breaking, they are at least okay to look at, despite the fact that the characters are in a super-deformed style similar to the older Final Fantasy games, but you must admit seeing a chibi Inuyasha running around isn't boring, to say the least. Sadly, I wasn't able to experience combat yet, but the game does seem to be satisfying on the most part. Apparently this game will also include the many aspects of the series, including the action(boss battles) romance(relationship forming... hmm....), and humor(...... if you've seen the series you'll probably have an idea), so the game looks to be at least satisfying to the Inuyasha fans, like me. I wouldn't know about the casual RPG fans yet, though. But still, being an Inuyasha fan I can must say I am looking forward a lot to this title. See you in November for a full review.

ANTICIPATION: 5/5

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Inuyasha: Secret of the Cursed Mask is one of my most highly anticipated games! If you haven't heard already, it's an action/adventure RPG created by Bandai in which you journey with the cast of Inuyasha! As if that alone weren't enough to make a fan foam from the mouth, the game also allows you to form relationships with the characters, battle alongside them, and wander through the beautiful environments created by Rumiko Takahashi. The plot, created just for the game, maintains a nice, anime feel. A young boy or girl (whichever one you like more) falls down a wormhole and into feudal Japan. There, he/she is met by Inuyasha, a dog demon with a quick temper, who introduces him/her to the rest of the cast. Your character will meet Kagome, a cheerful schoolgirl from present day, Miroku, a (...) wise monk, Sango, a fierce demon slayer, and Shippo, a cute fox boy who isn't above the occasional trick. Inuyasha and friends agree to help him/her find his/her way home on one condition: that he/she help them find the Cursed Mask. The game is voiced by the American cast, so you can expect to enjoy the vocals of Richard Cox, Moneca Stori, Kirby Morrow, Kelly Sheridan, and Jillian Michaels. The graphics are also true anime style, bubbly and childish. Personally, I really don't see what's wrong with them (I think they're actually very cute). But hardcore RPG fans might be put off with the game for that precise quality, which is unfortunate for them. Basically, if you are a true blooded Inuyasha fan, you'll LOVE this game. If you aren't one, you might not find it completely up to par.

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I really enjoyed this game! I'm a HUGE Inu-Yasha fan and I really loved the battles and the interaction you have with the characters. It was nice to see everyone from the series in it and having you as the main character, get to form some kind of relationship with them, be it positive or negitive. What I was really happy with, was the fact that they used the actual voices from the series instead of impostors. Definately worth the money. I look forward to the next game to coming out. A must for all Inu-Yasha fans!

Honest reviews on Inuyasha: Secret of the Cursed Mask

Inu Yasha has never been my absolute favorite--a mild interest, but never transcending that. However, good RPGs are hard to come by, unless you're talking about SqareSoft Games *coughFinalFantasycough*, and I was glad to find out that Inu Yasha had an RPG out. The manga was beautiful, but the anime left something to be desired, especially the despicable English dubbed version. Thus, I purchased the game.

STORY:

There are so many things wrong with this game! Firstly, the storyline is completely unoriginal. Yes, there are two "new" character "created specifically for the game by Rumiko Takahashi herself".

Too bad they're completely lacking any personality. The game developers were too uncreative to come up with a new plot using the original Inu Yasha characters, so they decided to make up new characters and simply replay the original story: Kid has traditionalistic Japanese background -Kid accidentally travels back to Feudal Era -Kid needs to get back to original time. Oooh. Talk about uniqueness.

DIALOGUE:

Secondly, the dialogue is laughable. Do they really expect me to quiver in fear when a loin cloth-clad demon hobbles over to me and exclaimes, "I'm gonna eat you! Blarg-har-har!". What does your character do? Threaten him with his cell phone. Wow, Takahashi's new characters are certainly lacking common sense. Later in the game, when your character is informed that Sango is a demon slayer, he/she asks: "A Demon Slayer? What's that?" Be careful you don't hurt yourself over that answer.

When main characters talk, an anime cut-out picture of them appears on the screen, and the dialouge appears underneath while the voice-over plays. The voice-overs, I feel, were horribly done. In one scene, Kagome will unleash an ear-splitting shriek of horror, however, in another scene she dully 'screams' out "Ahh." An exclamation mark isn't even included. The lines are dull, and many times, lines like "I see", "Oh", or "These enemies are all talk" (a personal favorite, since none of the monsters utter a word in battle) are over used and wasted.

Also, for the historical context of the game, the dialogue of the NPCs is completely out of place. Obviously the people of Feudal Japan did not speak the same as us. At some points, it sticks true to history; for example, one man refers to the village headman as "M'lord", but most of the people speak completely out of context. I don't know about you, but phrases like "Dude", "Bummer", and "Bring it on" don't exactly remind me of Feudal Japan. However, this might simply be a translational flaw.

GRAPHICS:

"This game can't possibly be a PS2 game," I thought while playing it. The only three-dimensional aspect of this game are the character designs--which, I might mention, other than the Inu Yasha cast, all the other people look exactly the same with different colored clothing. Even the characters aren't very detailed. Granted, they're in "chibi" form,(super-deformed, whatever you want to call it; basically a child-like redition of the original character) the character designs are too block-like and chunky.

The scenery, much to my horror, although lovely, was completely two-dimensional. Meaning, you were only able to walk on a water-color painted path. Many times, because of the horrendous lack of much-needed adjustable camera angles, it was excruciatingly frustrating to figure out where paths began and end, which doorways could be entered, and simply, WHERE THE HECK YOUR CHARACTER WAS! The screen would stay stationary as you became a wandering dot in the distance traveling down the path. If the game designers were too lazy to design the scenery, the least they could do was give you some control over what you saw with camera angling.

MUSIC:

Some pieces in the game are pleasant, if existent. The major problem with the music was that most of the time, it simply wasn't there. Traveling through long, nearly un-navigatable paths call for some pleasant background music to take your mind of the fact that this game has absolutely NO MAPS, save your simplistic "World Map".

I guarantee you will be ready to feed this game to your dog after trying to figure out where the heck you are without a field map. But back to music, the only sounds while traveling across the field is a loop of tweeting bird noises. Very engaging, yes? Battle music is obnoxious after your tenth battle, and battles are stifflingly frequent. While a few songs are engaging, the music plainly stinks because of lack of variety. Almost every village has the exact same song, and it becomes boring very quickly.

BATTLE:

Trying to seperate itself from the "random battle" system of many earlier RPGs, the game designates hazy purple clouds as "high encounter areas" where your character is more likely to enter battle. The only way to "reduce" these encounters is to walk, and walking is slower that a tranquilized slug saturated in molasses. Battles occur much too frequently, and they're turn-based, as opposed to the Zelda "hack-and-slash" battles.

The battle system quickly bored me, but what bothered me most was the unimaginative monster designs. Like our handsome little loin cloth demon in the beginning, the monsters in the game run along the lines of "Rabid Badger Monks", and such. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to take on a religious badger in battle. In all, there are probably 10 different monster types, but depending on which area you're traveling in, they all look the same but have different colors and names.

Bats, wolves, ghosts; these are not Rumiko Takahashi's creative and beautifully horrifying demons I fell in (figurative) love with. These are your typical RPG monsters, and not even very good ones at that. They're names aren't very creative either. "Death Mask" and "Rabid Wolf" don't strike much fear in my heart, but occasionally the designers decide to get fancy and throw out some unpronouncable "Japanese" sounding name, just because they can.

SOUND EFFECTS:

To put it quite simply, there are none. In fact, the designers actually wrote in the battle sound effects. "Whack", "Dong", "Boom"; you get the idea. Magic spells, or any other attacks that aren't directly offensive get a little more technical, but not much more. Your character, harnessing the powers of the "Shikigami", (another one of those wtf Japanese-sounding words)says virtually the same thing whenever summoning the power. Perhaps the most technical sound effect in the entire game is the ever-engaging twittering bird-loop. And that was sarcasm.

INTERACTIVITY:

Wow! Your own original character can interact with the Inu Yasha cast!! It's like a dream come true! Oh my god, I'm hyperventilating with joy!

Sorry, it's not exactly like that.

To be quite blunt, other than walking, battle, and choosing what character you spend your "days off" with, there is absolutely no level of interactivity in this game whatsoever. Nada. Zip. Everything you say is predetermined (and often very degrading to your character's reputation, since most of the time whatever he or she says is stupid or senseless) and there's nothing you can do about it.

The humorous thing, however, is that it almost appears that the Inu Yasha cast realizes your character's evident stupidity, and none of them really enjoy your company. My personal opinion is that they'd be overjoyed when you return to your own time, and are only "assisting" you to get you out of their hair.

OVERVIEW:

Overall, it seemed like the only purpose of this game was to get it out onto the market as quickly as possible while Inu Yasha was still popular. It's completely lacking the imagination of Takahashi's series and the beautiful music from the anime.

For future reference:

A field map would be greatly GREATLY appreciated. Not knowing where you're going and high monster encounter frequencies are not a good combination, especially when the only places where the game can be saved is on the World Map, or an occassional random "save cat". (Go figure that one out.)

Like transfering a book to a movie, when adapting a series into a game, it's wise to stick with the original storyline. Fans feel save in familiar territory, and it gives newbies a feeling of security when they talk to fans. Throwing in new major characters can be successful, but only when done well.

Keep things in one dimension. If they wanted it two-dimensional, the designers should have gone the "Paper Mario" way. Mixing 2-D and 3-D produced a confusing and unpleasant hybrid to the eye.

Music is a vital part to a video game, especially field music. Traveling through tedious fields isn't so bad if the background music is relaxing or engaging; bird-loops are simplistic and dull.

Overall, I'd avoid this game regardless of whether or not you're a fan. Fans will be appalled with the unimaginative character dialogue and flat plot line. Newbies will be baffled by character references (If you don't know who Naraku is, the Inu Yasha characters will make sure you feel plenty stupid) For gamers (RPG hardcore or not), the flaws are too apparent not to notice and are a serious handicap to the enjoyability of the game. You're best off waiting for something better to come along.

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Okay, I'll admit, this RPG isn't as involving as say, Final Fantasy, but it's still good. If you are a fan of the Inuyasha series, I highly recommend it. The graphics are good, not great, but, well, how can you not love a chibi Inuyasha? (Although a chibi Shippou is kind of redundant...) The gameplay is your standard RPG far; go fetch this, save this person, do this little mini-game, fight a turn-based battle, so forth and so on. Then again, the element that draws any fan of the show isn't really the gameplay, it's the joy of being able to interact with the characters from the show. Based on your actions and who you choose to spend time with (or don't choose to spend time with) you can get one of 12 possible endings. Just a note here, in order to get the second ending with that person, you first have to play through the game, get that persons first ending (which unlocks their second ending), then play through the game again to view the second ending. This is what gives the game it's replay value. After all, you want to see all the ending don't you?! (On a personal note, I have unlocked Sango's first ending, now I'm trying to unlock Sesshomaru's, because I love him.)

The gameplay itself can be a little mind-numbing because this game has a very high random battle rate. This is especially noticable when you start your second game, because you keep the stats from your first game, making the first hundred or so battles one hit kills on your part (although, this is also good since you don't waste so much time and can get to the ending quicker).

The script for the game is a little bit of a double edged sword. You get authentic voice acting from the cast you've grown to love, BUT, the dialogue itself is asinine.

All in all, this is an average RPG, that people who don't like or know the show should just rent. But for those of you like me, who love Inuyasha, it's definately a must buy.