Kamen Rider - Climax Heroes OOO review

Kamen Rider Week continues, this time with a review for last year's Kamen Rider game, Climax Heroes OOO!

Some nice boxart too.

It had been a few years since we'd gotten any Kamen Rider games, Kamen Rider Kabuto being the last. But, 4 years later we we're gifted with Kamen Rider Climax Heroes, for the PS2. This game had the lead riders for each Heisei series, along with other riders, playable, in a Rider Vs. Rider fighting game. A year later we got Climax Heroes W, a port to the Wii that included the 11th Heisei rider, W. But, in 2010 we we're given one of the best Kamen Rider games to date. Climax Heroes OOO.
This game vastly improved on a lot of things from the last games, such as an easier form changing mechanic, making all of the main rider's Final Form's playable, along with having a nifty custom BGM feature. All of this put together what was probably the best Kamen Rider game released at the time.

This game was on both Wii and PSP, and both of the games had a couple differences to eachother. The first and foremost being the graphics. The graphics in the Wii game are vastly better then the PSP, i'd even call them close to being "beautiful" graphics. The PSP's graphics weren't anything special for what the PSP can do, but they were still pretty nice to look at. The second being the custom soundtrack feature. The PSP version of the game let you use your own songs in the game, meaning, for example, you would be able to Kamen Rider Kabuto's Hyper Kick with Lord of the Speed playing, which made things very epic.

The gameplay was that of a regular fighter, Combo, block, move, combo, block, special, combo, etc. It is spiced up a bit by the "Rider Gauge" however, some attacks drained your rider gauge, which needs to be full to change into your Final Form or use an Ultimate attack, it's also spiced up that bit more with the games "Climax Time", when a rider is put into low health, Climax Time starts, causing both players rider gauge to fill, along with allowing a "Final Reflect", a technique which can allow you to use your Ultimate Attack when your opponent tried to use them. The gameplay certainly isn't anything special, and the AI is rather...Dull. (Seriously. If i want a fight between Blade King and Kiva Emperor, i want that. But the AI will almost NEVER change forms, even on the hardest difficulty!) Overall, the gameplay is decent and fun, and that's enough for me really.

This game's story mode is called "Ragnarok Mode" and can be played through as either OOO or W, I don't actually know the story myself, as i have almost no understanding of japanese what-so-ever, but some stages in ragnarok mode took on a beat-em-up style of gameplay, which at first was a nice change, but soon just got repetitive and annoying.

This game also boasts a decent lineup of Riders, some completely unnecessary (Most of the Ryuki Riders, Auto Vajin), some incomplete (i.e KickHopper and Garren, lack Ultimate attacks), but most of all it's a fun lineup, along with a secret rider.

Overall, this game is good, and for those who actually bought the game (me!) got a free limited-edition Ganbaride Card with it, which was more then enough for me to make up for the price. This game is certainly worth playing for any Kamen Rider fan, and i'm sure they will enjoy it.