Ureview by: Eraser
Ureview points: 28
Ureviewer since: April 2006
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Reviewed On: Monday July 3, 2006
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 7 | Recommends product: Yes
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Introduction
P.N.03 (which stands for Product Number 03) is Capcom's first game in a line of GameCube exclusive games. P.N.03 pits you in the role of Vanessa Z. Schneider, a female bountyhunter/assasin with a body to drool over and a number of suits to match. P.N.03 is truely original in terms of gameplay, but tends to get a little repetitive after a while.
Graphics
This game has truely excellent graphics. The highly stylized white and metal interiors are very detailed and fresh looking. The game also features a small number of outdoor areas which look stunning as well, especially with the clouds of sand drifting by.
Another delight for the eye is Vanessa herself. She is quite a piece of modelling art. Her animations are mostly fluid, although some animations (like her jump) look a little "cut off". Some of the poses she strikes while shooting are mostly interesting for the male audience. Somehow it's just cool to blast some enemies while looking at how Vanessa teasingly moves her hips in circles.
The models of the enemies look good as well, with the bosses being truely spectacular looking. Other effects like Vanessa's "palm shot" weapon, the explosions (where even debris of your enemies flies through the air), smoke effects and other effects look good as well.
The only other complaint about the graphics is that on a large number of surfaces you can see this color banding effect happening. This is probably due to the limitations in colordepth from the hardware. The color banding is not really distracting until you are really looking for it.
Gameplay
P.N.03 is a rather confusing game at first. One could expect a third person shooter in the MDK or Tomb Raider style, but soon you'll find the controls to be getting in the way too much for this type of gameplay. Vanessa cannot strafe, only make dodgejumps to the side. She also cannot move and shoot simoultaniously (*gasp!*). While this seems like a huge flaw in the game, upon closer inspection you'll find that these are fundamental aspects of the gameplay.
P.N.03 can be better compared to a 2D shooter game like Ikaruga or Raptor: Call of the Shadows than to MDK or Tomb Raider. You'll quickly find yourself dodging enemy fire and waiting for that split second in which you can retaliate. You'll be busy doding, jumping and hiding behind invaluable cover
Combos
The interesting part of the game comes into it's combo system. At the moment you kill the first enemy in a room a timer starts counting down. If you kill another enemy before the counter has run out of time, that enemy's point value will be added to your total combopoints and a multiplier will have one added to it. You will also receive a little additional time to your combo timer. When the counter runs out of time or you exit the room, the total combopoints is multiplied with the multiplier, and that amount of points is added to your score. While a single kill could be worth as little as 25 points, if you clear an entire room in a single combo, scores can build up to thousands of points.
Aegis Suits
These points are worth something too, because you can use them to buy new suits. There are a number of suits in the game, each having one or more advantages over other suits, but sometimes also disadvantages. It's important that you carefully select your suit for the next mission. For instance, one suit can have a more powerful weaponblast but at the cost of armor, while another suit has a higher firing speed at the cost of firingpower.
Every suit can also be upgraded to increase their weapon, armor and other offensive/defensive abilities. These upgrades cost points as well, so it's very important that you keep making combos in the game.
Every suit also has two or three "special moves", named Energy Drives. These moves are executed by a button combination entered with the D-pad and the A button. Once executed, Vanessa makes a graceful move closely resembling those made by ballet dancers. Then a force of destruction is created by Vanessa's suit. These special attacks range from a number of guided bolts striking down enemies to a spherical blast exploding everything within it's radius to more standard things like a temporary damage boost to your weapon.
Rooms Rooms Rooms
The entire game consists of 10 missions each having 6 to 20 individual rooms. These rooms all have one or two doors through which you can exit. If you exit a room, you'll get an intermission screen with some statistics over the previously cleared room.
Between missions you can play trial missions. These trial missions can be played at free will to earn more points so you can buy more (much needed) upgrades to your suits. These trial missions are always build up out of 15 randomly selected rooms out of the previously finished mission.
Verdict about the gameplay
While at first, the gameplay takes a little time to get used to, it does get very challenging when you really get into it. The easy mode is really easy to finish while normal mode is already a lot harder. Hard mode takes a lot of effort to complete. However, if you start at easy to continue with normal, you probably won't reach the end because from start to finish, the game introduces little that is new. Capcom could have put a little effort into adding some more twists to the gameplay because as it stands it is all quite basic, simple and plain and only the uniqueness of the gameplay makes the game interesting to play at first.
Only "completionists" will get a huge kick out of this game, as it is definitely a big challenge to complete everything on hardmode (including all trial missions).
Story
There's not much of a story to tell about. All you know is that you are Vanessa Z. Schneider, and that you are working for "the client", a faceless individual that'll tell you what your next mission will be. Short dialogues between Vanessa and the Client will be your introduction to the next mission. These conversations are all text based, so very little voice acting comes in, with the exception of two or three in-game cinematics in which Vanessa talks, in a voice thick with German accent.
The game's story does take a surprising turn halfway through, or at least, it seems that way, but the game doesn't go any deeper into what's going on so it's all one big mystery and not a mystery that provokes thought.
Music
P.N.03 comes with a mainly techno based soundtrack that's pretty good and fits the game fairly well. The only complaint is that the diversity in music is a little on the low side, making things get pretty repetitive again as well. A nice touch is that Vanessa, while idle, taps her foot and snaps her fingers to an imaginary beat. I say imaginary, as there's only two or three songs to which she does it in the same beat, which I reckon is just coincidence.
Conclusions
Although being pretty spectacular and original, P.N.03 feels like it could've been a bit better. The game works, makes sense and is definitely fun to play, but the lack of real progress throughout the game makes it probably not worth for those that are looking for a real complex game with a lot of diversity and depth, which seems to be the fashion these days.
All in all, P.N.03 is a decent game that stands well between many other good games and I would really suggest those that get a kick out of performing well in a game and completing it for a full 100% to get this game. Those that get bored pretty soon with a game will probably leave this game after the 2nd mission. It's a "love it or hate it" type of thing.
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Fun-factor: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
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| Pros: original gameplay, great graphics, wide range of difficulty |
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| Cons: lack of storyline, repetitive |
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