The Mark of Kri - PS2 Review

April 11, 2003

This is a great game. Just had to get that out of the way. Get it out in the open. So now you know. You should buy it. I bought it used,but if I was a man of means I'd have bought it new without a second thought. That's really all you need to know, but I'll go into detail just because I'm a nice guy.

The game is about a Barbarian named Rau and all his adventures revolving around the Mark of Kri. I won't go into more detail so as to not ruin any plot points. Not that it's a terribly involved story, full of twists and turns and such. It's a simple tale, but it's well told. The game's opening cinema tells of the Mark of Kri and it's history. This cinema gives the player a great taste of this games style. Rather than have the intro consist of CGI or anything like that, it is sketched in. Literaly sketched in. It begins on what looks like a blank piece of parchment, which is slowly filled in with quickly dashed lines eventually arriving at the scene being described. It looks great and really brings the player into this game's space. This game is based on a wide variety of Polynesian cultures and having the game begin with nothing but spoken words and drawings helps set the stage. Speaking of which, all game stages begin in much the same way. Lines slowly fill the screen drawing the level, then colour is added, then the drawing slowly changes into the actual polygonal world and you start playing. Fantastic.

The graphics in general are all fantastic. Polynesian cultures were a big influence on this game as were classic works of animation. Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Walt Disney. You can see all these influences. More importantly, you can see all the love, the attention to detail spent on this world and these characters. Everything animates wonderfully. I always get a kick of going down ladders. I know that sounds weird, but Rau just vaults onto ladders with a wonderful bouncey kind of animation. I dig it. Lest this all sounds to kiddy for you, be assured that this game is very violent. A lot of blood is spilled. All of Rau's foes meet with painful bloody deaths. After one of my first skirmishes, an enemy slowly tried to drag his broken bloody body away, groaning the whole time. How can you not like that? Especially since Rau can use his axe to cut these already defeated foes in two. Rau isn't all brute force though, he can sneak and stealth kill with the best of them. The animations for these stealth kills are, of course, also fantastic. Something as simple as breaking a guys neck is always great fun to watch. Like I've said, the attention to detail is amazing. You don't just drag the guy down and crack his neck, Rau holds on to him for a bit aand shakes him, just to be sure he's gone. While you're spying on your enemies, waiting for the right time to pounce, you'll notice that they are well animated to. They talk to each other, yawn, sneeze on the cold levels and wipe away the sweat on the warm levels. I don't know if I've conveyed how much the look of this game rocks, but I assure you your socks will be rocked. If seeing Rau's cartoony face filled with rage being quickly sketched on the screen while the voice over intones "A lot of people are going to die today." doesn't make you love this game then there is no love in your heart, you cold bastard.

Speaking of the voice overs, the sound in this game is superb as well. Rau doesn't talk much in the game, save for yelling a lot during the battles, but almost every other charcater in this game does. All except for the tall, skinny chick who hung out at the bar: no matter what I did, I couldn't get that her to talk to me at all. Bitch. The Narrator sounds like that old guy from Big Trouble in Little China which is worth at least a couple bonus points in my books. And your mentor/trainer, Baumusu, is a classic. Before every new mission you have the option of training with him. It's a good idea to do so because he teaches you something new each time. When he was telling Rau about how to stealth kill enemies, everyone around the T.V. was laughing. He has such great intonation, like everything is of the utmost importance. Plus he seemed to really like the word stealth. "To kill your enemy with STEALTH, you must first unarm your self to enter STEALTH mode." You probably need to play the game to get what I'm talking about but STEALTH is now a new in-joke between me and my brother.

The game plays pretty smooth for the most part, but is probably the weakest part of the whole package. There's nothing horribly wrong but compared to the artistry the rest of the game contains, the control feels somewhat lacking. It introduces some new concepts into the hack and slash genre and pulls them off with style. You almost always face more than one opponent at once, but you don't have to focus on them one at a time. Using the right analoug stick, Rau can select how many enemies he wants to focus on. The amount he can target depends on which weapon he's using. At the begining of the game , with only his sword,Rau can select three foes at once to focus on, by the time Rau gets to weild the axe that total jumps up to nine. The circle, square and x buttons correspond to different enemies or groups of enemies. So Rau can attack anyone, no matter where they are in relation to him. In front, beside, or behind no one is safe. Lopping off the legs of someone behind you then cutting the person to your left in twain as you chop off the head of the guy in front of you and then letting the momentum of the axe swing you around again so you can burry it into the torso of the leggless wonder behind you is a thing of beauty. But that's not all. To get the most out of the combat system, to deal out the most damage, you have to learn all the combos. When not locked onto anybody, only the X button makes Rau attack. Square and circle are used as modifiers. Combinations of these three buttons produce different combos. So if Rau locks on to only one enemy at a time, he has a wealth of attack options available, when locked on to two foes, his choices narrow somewhat and if he focuses on three he can only use the most basic of combos. You have to pick which plan of attack works best in what situatuion. The block button blocks attacks from all direction so you don't have to worry about cheap back attacks. The shoulder buttons are used to guard, look around, change weapons and use your bird. That's right, I said bird. Kuzo is Rau's spirit guide. There are certain spots in every level that Kuzo can use as a perch so Rau can send him ahead to act as a scout. The Triangle button switches between Rau's view and Kuzo's. So you can get a literal bird's eye view of what lay ahead. Another great way to use Kuzo is to send him ahead, and then use his view to help you snipe enemies in the distance. One of my most satisfying gameplay moments EVER happened during this game. Kuzo was perched right next to an enemy I could barely see with Rau. I guessed where to aim, launched a shot, switched to Kuzo's view and saw the arrow hit just bellow the enemies feet, causing him to look around. I switched back to Rau, adjusted my aim accorddingly, let loose my shot, switched views again and saw the arrow skewer the bad guy through the throat. Incredibly satisfying.

So yeah, Rau can use a bow and arrow. If he's close enough, Rau can lock onto distant foes, if he's too far away, you'll just have to gauge by eye. I've gotten quite good at killing distant foes. I've gotten pretty good at killing guys in any situation. I can hack foes in two (or more) with my mighy axe, skewer people with my spear (taiaha), embed my sword in enemie's midsectons or go barehanded and use the enemies own weapons agianst them. Those are just a few of your melee options. Plus you can sneak up on people in a miriad of different ways. You can attack from around walls or from rooftops. You will not want for choice when it comes to killing people in various imaginative and gorey ways.

So what's wrong with this game. Not much. Just a few niggling control issues. When not locked onto someone, pushing back on the control stick or pad doesn't make Rau back up, rather he stops, turns around and faces the other way. Also, Rau sometimes falls off edges when attempting to kill with STEALTH from above. While on the subject, Rau's death from above kills are pretty lacklustre. There's no special animations for them, instead Rau drop down behind the enemy and then does a normal STEALTH kill. Considering how much care and attention went into the STEALTH kill and wall STEALTH kills, the lack of specific roof STEALTH kills is kind of disapointing. But the STEALTH kill animations that are in the game are fantastic, so it's not a huge loss. Just something I want to see in the sequel. (Please dear God let there be a sequel). As with most stealth based games, the walls can sometimes be a bit 'sticky'. To pick the smallestof nits, the sword combos aren't all that effective. And the arena challenge levels can be pretty God damned frustrating.

The arenas are just one of the bonus bits in the game. Each level has a set of challenges, and a hidden TUKU. If you meet all the challenges on a level it unlocks a battle arena. If you beat the arenas you unlock artwork and alternate costumes, all of which are well worth getting. If you find all the TUKU's you are able to use all the wapons on any level, which makes replaying the early levels really bloody fun. Playing this game is fun. FUN. Plus it looks reall good. And there's blood. Buy this game. At the very least, play this game. You'll be glad you did.

- Tyler