Kamen Rider Super Climax Heroes - Review

It's been a while since I promised the last game review; A review I totally forgot to do. Making up for that, I will be reviewing the new Kamen Rider game, Super Climax Heroes earlier then I usually would this year. Specifically, the PSP version.

Following the trend that has started since Kamen Rider Decade's "Kamen Rider Climax Heroes" game for PS2, 2012 has bought the release of a new Climax Heroes game, Super Climax Heroes, for both the PSP and the Nintendo Wii.
In my review of Kamen Rider Climax Heroes Fourze, I went on to tell everyone how I was very disappointed by the game, as it was only a clone of Climax Heroes OOO but with a few more characters and a new mission mode tacked on. It wasn't a very good game.  But this year's Climax Heroes is completely different, dare I say, Super.

Super Climax Heroes completely changed the battle system; while it's still the same at the very core of things, battle now uses a free-run system, instead of being on a 2D plane like the preview Climax Heroes games, this game allows you to run around the battle field freely. This was a very welcome change, as it not only makes battles feel a bit longer, but also slightly more challenging. It also introduces "Rider Arts", special techniques each Rider can use in battle, along with a (albeit, very shitty.) flight system.

The Free-Run system has causes something many have dreaded; A change in controls. Although the control scheme is now different, I feel as though it's actually much better then the previous controls. Everything flows much easier. The only issue this has presented is charging your Rider Gauge, however with the ability to combo much easier now with the Rider-Cancel being the R button (For PSP) you won't normally find this to be an issue. Another new mechanic introduced is something like a Barrier-Burst technique. This allows you to, at the expense of some of your Guard Gauge, create a burst of energy that will knock your opponent away if you get stuck in a combo. All of these changes make game play a lot more tactical; You'll need to think more then you did before and plan out your combos before you try to execute them.

Another welcome change is the character roster. I thought that Climax Heroes Fourze was quite shallow in that regard. However Super Climax Heroes adds many more characters. Each character is well done; there are no useless new characters like in Climax Heroes Fourze. Each character plays differently and well and overall none of them feel like they were just tacked on at the last minute. (Well, except for Wizard Hurricane Dragon; but that WAS tacked on at the last minute.)

On another note, quite a few of the original actors reprise their roles and provided voices for the game. This was very welcome; making the game have much better game feel then it previously did. This game also has a secret character in Kamen Rider Fourze Meteor Fusion States. All in all this game did amazing things for the character roster, along with completing the rider lineup for some series, which include Blade, Kabuto and W. (Excluding movie riders save Eternal and Skull.)

Now for the new story mode, Super Hero Mode:

Super Hero mode is somewhat like a mix between OOO Ragnarok mode and Fourze's Heroes mode. There are a bunch of locations, and at each of these locations are various missions, ranging in difficulty for you to take. These missions have very simple objectives; Beat the enemy or Beat the enemy within the time limit. Super Heroes mode lasts much longer then Heroes mode in Fourze, taking me about 3-4 hours to complete. Along with taking longer it is also much more challenging. The missions start out easy as you'd expect but as you progress will actually get harder and becoming challenging even to those who have played the previous games. This new challenge was a great addition and made the game feel fulfilling to play.  There is no order in which the missions need to be done, allowing for some freedom.

                                       

But don't worry; This is a kids game. With the increased difficulty they also introduced a Level up system that is used in Super Heroes mode. When you finish a mission you will be awarded RP, which I assume stands for "Rider Points". This RP can then be exchanged to increase your characters stats; Health, Attack, Defense and Special/Finisher. There are also skills that can be purchased for each character that will have varying effects; Such as increasing your rider gauge over time at the cost of Defense. This somewhat nullified the new challenge presented, But I still think it didn't make it too easy. 

Another change is the lack of pictures to be unlocked in the gallery mode. Now we have special figures which can be unlocked while progressing through Super Heroes Mode.

These figures come with a small description of the character, there is a figure for every rider playable in the game; Along with a few form upgrades and some that only appear during a finisher.  There are also special figures that can be unlocked, which brings me to my next point; the password system.

The password system is very simplistic, you enter 6 Riders and if the password is correct you'll unlock new missions, which give special figures. These missions are not too impressive; They aren't challenging at all like I had hoped and are easily finished. 

The custom soundtrack feature in this game allows a song to be set for each form, rather then just each rider. This is nice, however I think it may be going a little overboard with it. I wonder what they'll do for it in next years game.

Overall, this game still suffers many of the problems the previous Climax Heroes games have had; It's very short and somewhat easy. It does improve on these, with the game being longer then the previous games along with being more challenging. The free-run system, new controls and mechanics make the game lose a lot of repetitiveness from the previous games, however after a while like anything, will get stale. If you're a Kamen Rider fan, this game is for you. If not I would say to skip out on it, as there are much better fighting games to play. It's a good attempt at fixing the problems with the game, but still has a lot of flaws.