War of the Monsters: You too can do the Tokyo Stomp (War Of The Monsters (PS2))

Member Name: JaredVon

Product:	War Of The Monsters (PS2)
Date:	19/09/06 (76 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Simple to play and the movie references contained within are almost endless

Disadvantages: No two-player co-op

Do you like Kaiju? Sure, we all do. War of the Monsters, brought to you from the team that developed the Twisted Metal series (Incog), is a game that pays tribute to all the giant monster movies so many of us grew up with and still love today. The simple but excellent gameplay aside, War of the Monsters is a must for any psycho-fan of men in rubber suits destroying cardboard cities. The game pays tribute to King Kong, The Deadly Mantis, Them!, All sorts of Godzilla movies, Zort!, Mars Attacks, Pulgasari....all sorts of classic Kaiju flicks that the monster geek within us can't help but love.
Well, that might not be true but I know that this game makes the geek in me dangerously happy.

:friend walks into the room:
:blink-blink:
"Is that a giant metal clown beating in a giant praying mantis' skull with a school bus?"
Me: "Yes. Yes it is."

The Rundown: War of the Monsters both is and isn't for the hardcore fan of the fighter genre. It suffers from the same problems that Square's Ergheiz & Tobal #1 were afflicted with...while it was by definition a fighting game, too much attention was put on, well, not fighting.
The attack combos & special moves are all easily done, all a combination of button+back (or forward) or just prettying a combination of attack buttons in rapid succession. Since there's only two "true" attack buttons, the variety of combos is, shall we say, limited. I'm skirting around the issue: Button mashers can do very well at WotM. I know this turns a lot of people off from any fighting game, but there's two things to take into account.
1. With a simple fighting system it's easy to suck people into playing. I'm addicted to this game but after a few sessions with a new player it will honestly turn into a competition. The simple fighting system is also in place because, quite frankly, they needed to focus on a lot of other stuff.
2. The controls, while simple, let you really do whatever you want in a 3-D environment. From picking up buses to climbing buildings to throwing your opponent into an active volcano to air recoveries...WotM really takes the 3-D environment into account and exploits it. So while the core fighting mechanisms are undeniably simple, the gameplay becomes complex as one realizes the level itself IS the best weapon around. The Twisted Metal games (as stated made by the same people) employed this fairly well, as instead of a straight-forward arena you were presented with unique maze-like levels that actually let you form a strategy beyond "learn how to throw a fireball" or "master the Tekken combo that last five minutes." Any fighting came where you can actually run and hide to regroup or just find something freaking huge to throw at your opponent brings me a lot of joy.
The levels varying rather well, with epic versions of New York, Tokyo, Monster Island, Las Vegas and more. If it was the setting for a classic Giant Monster movie, it's probably a level somewhere.

One of the other apparent problems with this game is the fact that fundamentally all the characters behave the same. While their speed and stats will vary (for example, Agamo, the giant statue from an old Daie film, take almost twice as much damage as the other monsters), the combos are often the same and each monster's specials will seem frighteningly similar. Each monster has a range special and a "room clearer" special. The Range attack varies from simply breathing nuclear flame (as the Godzilla-esque beast does) to shooting your rocket powered arm (as the Manga robot does) to regurgitating a parasite that steals life (as the Mantis does). The problem is that these, with a couple exceptions, all work the same way. Even more similar are the "room clearer" specials, which pretty much are used to make space or destroy things in the immediate vicinity.
There are of course some fundamental differences in a few of the monsters. For example two of them can fly...which definitely changes the way the game is played.
The Bosses: While they're cool the first time around, they're all "remember the pattern" dealies. Sure, it's awesome to have to fight a giant Venus flytrap but after you've played through the game a couple of times (and you WILL play through the game a few times) it gets rather dull. So why would you complete the game again and again? For tokens.

The Unlocks:
Like an arcade, you get to spend tokens to purchase things for the game. While some of these are new fighting levels (trust me when I say purchase the Volcanic Island the 1st chance you get), the real meat of the Unlock section lies with the monsters. Beside being able to unlock two new types of monsters, you also can buy costumes. Now I've always thought the whole "buy costumes" feature wasn't that keen, but the way that Incog changes the skin/layout of the monsters with the new costumes really tickles my "holy crap I loved that movie" bone. Unlockable costumes include everything from a giant Sweet Tooth Mecha (a la Twisted Metal), a giant tentacle monster (from an obscure Toho film), MechaGodzilla, Pulgasari (N.Korean Demon Godzilla), Mecha-Kong (from the film that inspired Mechagodzilla)...and a few others I can't think of. Point is that if you're the kind of person who goes after War of the Monsters because you're a film buff, you'll really like it.
The unlock section also has a total waste of tokens hidden within it. Trust me when I say that the minigames are really only worth playing once. Monster shuffleboard, dodgeball, and "Super Destruction Challenge" all sound fun, but after you do it once it really gets old.

The two player mode is also a bit wonky, as the split screens merge together whenever your monsters become close to another. Since this is a 3-d game and the direction controls are subjective, this means someone is going to have to reverse their movement controls. On the plus side, the music (which is fully orchestrated and is classic Kaiju in nature) actually gets louder when you approach another monster, just as it would swell during an epic moment of confrontation in a movie. The other problem with two-player mode is that there's no cooperative mode.
The mode that was rather welcome was the Challenge mode, where you determined the amount of lives, the location, and the number of monsters you could face. Being able to pit one King Kong against 3 Godzillas....well, things like that make Kaiju fans tingly.

The difficult is adjustable, as it is in most games...but the "Hard" setting, while it will get you more tokens, is really, really hardcore. This game's been my stress relief for a couple years now and Hard mode has yet to become easy, no matter how good I think I am at this game.

In closing, all I can say is that while the game is fun and well-made, it's true audience really isn't the most fanatical fighting game purists. It's really a game with a lot of character....a personality that will resonate with anyone who's grown up watching men in rubber suits lay the smack down on model cities. And that, of course, includes me.
So obviously what you read here might be a little biased.
-jared

Summary: I watch too many movies. When I can't watch monster films, this is what I play.