P.N. 03 should have spent more time in development but it's still a solid game with most important aspects intact.

User Rating: 7 | P.N. 03 GC
By ahren | Review Date:
Created by Shinji Mikami, the genius behind such Capcom super-hits as Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe and the highly anticipated Killer 7, P.N. 03 seems to be one of the rare Mikami games that has fallen through the cracks. Originally released in late 2003, the first thing most people noticed about P.N. 03 (which stands for Product Number Three) is its appealing protagonist Vanessa Z. Schneider and her sexy, dance-like attack style. Set on the colonized planet Öde, the story of P.N. 03 follows our cybernetic mercenary heroine on her latest assignment. Control over the C.A.M.S. (Computer Arms Management System) has been lost and Vanessa has been hired by an anonymous client to clean up the mess by shutting down or destroying the C.A.M.S.' various facilities. The story of P.N. 03 takes a serious backseat to the action. Very little back-story is given pertaining to Vanessa, her client or even the universe in which the game takes place. Most of the story is told through text-based conversations between Vanessa and her client similar to the codec conversations in Metal Gear Solid but minus the voice work. There are also a handful of pre-rendered, computer-generated cut scenes but for the most part, the story is both underplayed and confusing. The real focus of P.N. 03 is on blasting droves of robots into submission. In this respect, P.N. 03 comes off as a very old school game wrapped in a futuristic skin. Enemy robots will advance toward you as you frantically mash buttons in an attempt to destroy them all. After you clear each room, you will be given a status report of how you did and rewarded points based on your performance. Play mechanics like these will undoubtedly conjure comparisons to such old school classics as Space Invaders and Galaga. Rather than toting guns to do her dirty work, Vanessa Schneider is equipped with a form-fitting cybernetic Aegis suit. The Aegis suit provides her with a shield barrier, palm-firing energy blasters and an energy drive that can level everything in her path with a single massive blast. The control scheme in P.N. 03 feels like a slightly modified version of that found in Resident Evil. Controlling Vanessa’s movements is not always quite as fluid as her animations. Pushing up on the analog stick will move her forward, while pulling back will cause her to take a small hop backward. She requires a wide birth to turn; however performing a quick 180º spin is as simple as tapping the ‘Z’ button. Vanessa can also crouch, roll, perform forward and backward jump flips as well as use a variety of dodge moves to evade enemy fire. Evading enemy fire becomes extremely pivotal in P.N. 03 because Vanessa cannot fire her palm blasters while running or jumping. Finding cover and sending a volley of energy blasts when the coast is clear will become your main means of dispatching foes. Firing on enemies is as easy as facing in the right direction, Vanessa will automatically lock on to the nearest enemy in her line of sight, but you can also switch targets by pressing the ‘X’ button. When there is no cover to be found you can use Vanessa's dodging techniques to cartwheel and spin your way through the hail of weapon fire coming your way. Vanessa can also activate her energy drive (the small pack in between her shoulder blades) which will pop open, extend a series of conductors and begin to glow. At this point, Vanessa is rendered impervious to enemy fire as she conjures up one of a series of massive attacks, which have the capacity to wipe out every enemy on the screen. Activating the energy drive requires the input of a combination of directions on the control pad followed by pressing the 'A' button. For example, to activate Vanessa’s Pegasus Pro attack you tap left, right, left and then 'A'. Unfortunately, these attacks can only be initiated on the control pad, which means you will have to quickly take your thumb off the analog stick and find the control pad in the heat of battle. Generally, this is not a problem but for gamers with bigger hands it can be difficult to get the combination right on the first try, and thus without taking damage. The gameplay in P.N. 03 revolves around a simple combo system. Once you destroy the first enemy in a room, a timer will start in the upper right corner of the screen. If you can destroy another enemy before that timer reaches zero it will constitute a two hit combo and extend the timer for another few seconds. Generally, there are no more than eleven robots per room and getting them all in one combo can either be easy or extremely difficult depending on the room topography and the caliber of the enemies. You will also receive bonus points each time you manage to clear a room without taking damage. Points may seem like a moot antiquity from games of the 8-bit era but they do manage to serve a purpose in P.N. 03. Between levels, you will be able to use your accumulated points as currency to buy upgrades for your Aegis suit and eventually new Aegis suits with varying attributes and color schemes. Some Aegis suits will have higher capacity shield barriers, while others will grant the ability to fire Vanessa's palm blasters automatically or have allocations for multiple energy drives. At first, you may feel that there is not much need for the upgrades, however as the game progresses, upgrading suits and especially finding a suit with automatic blasters will become a necessity. Due to the fact that there are only eleven main levels in the game, you will find that in order to garner enough points to power up your suit you will need to complete the unlockable trial missions between each stage. The trial missionls take the rooms of the previous main level and randomly generate a new mini-stage consisting of twelve to eighteen rooms. Going through the trial missions is worthwhile because you will be able to amass a large number of points while not being penalized if you happen to die. However, for players that dislike backtracking, the trial missions should be avoided at all costs. Blasting your way from one end of a trial mission to the other is easy enough but you will not get the full points (and thus unlock the next trial mission) unless you clear all of the enemies from every room. There is no map, so the only way to make sure you have completed everything is to take every branching path and then turn around and pick up the trail where you left off. This can be extremely tedious and sometimes when you encounter three of the same rooms randomly generated one after another it can be difficult to figure out where you have been and where you need to go. Patient gamers should not have a problem with it, however those that feel backtracking is the black plague of modern game design will want to stay far away. One gets the general sense that a lot more effort could have been put into the visuals of P.N. 03 in order to utilize the full capabilities of the Gamecube's hardware. As it stands, the game looks very much like it was originally created for the less powerful Playstation 2. The character model of Vanessa is probably the most shining aspect of the game's graphics. She is highly detailed and equipped with a number of fluid animations and well-captured motions, most notably when performing her energy drive moves. The developers even added a nice touch to have Vanessa nod her head and snap her fingers in time with the music when she is standing idle. The environments, on the other hand, are rather sparse but this seems to be more of a stylistic decision rather than a shortcoming on the developer’s part. The majority of the game takes place in the clinical, white corridors of the C.A.M.S. facilities. They look similar to that of Tipoca City on the planet Kamino as seen in the film Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. In other words, you will be seeing a lot of smooth white walls, long corridors and vast, cavernous, empty rooms. There are a handful of levels that take place outside in the dusty desert surroundings, but for the most part, Vanessa will not be getting a whole lot of natural sunlight. The robotic enemies that you will be facing in P.N. 03 are well detailed and some of which even have the ability to transform in order to use other weapons. However, due to the sheer volume of enemies thrown at Vanessa, you will begin to see many of the same enemies over and over again. When you destroy a robot, it will generally explode and pieces will scatter everywhere, however the pieces all disappear shortly after and larger enemies that do not fragment completely become transparent, allowing you to run right through them before they disappear. The bosses at the end of each level are rather uninspired. Some levels will simply have you facing against a generator, which only requires you to dodge or destroy its defenses while blasting away at its core. Other levels will pit you against larger robotic adversaries, but they are still relatively easy to defeat. The final boss of the game, known as Alraune, is the epitome of what all the bosses in this game should have been like. With nearly ten different attacks and a large imposing presence, this boss battle may strike you as being both memorable and worthwhile. It is just a shame that all the bosses were not as good as Alraune. The sound in P.N. 03 is well short of spectacular. Sound effects consist of the requisite energy blaster noises that emanate from Vanessa's palm blasters, various mechanical whirs generated by the machines and many explosions. Oddly, when you defeat an enemy and it explodes these large pieces of heavy metal fall to the ground but make no noise. The music in P.N. 03 consists of what sounds like one long track. If there is more than one song then they are all so strikingly similar to the point of monotony. It is not bad music by any means but after fifty-five levels, it can get a tad old. Luckily, the game gives you the option to adjust the volume levels of the sound effects and music, so feel free to turn down the in-game music and put your favorite Crystal Method album on the Hi-Fi. Later on in the game, you may be surprised to hear a few lines of dialogue but the presence of voice work is virtually negligible. Overall, the sound in P.N. 03 is lacking. The text-based conversations between Vanessa and The Client would have worked much better had they been voice acted and this is definitely a game that would have benefited greatly from a licensed soundtrack in the same vein as Wipeout XL and Frequency. P.N. 03 offers a good challenge initially, however by the time you buy an Aegis suit that supports fully automatic fire, you'll find blazing through enemies to be much easier. Where the game begins to redeem itself is in the higher difficulty levels. Enemies become tougher to kill, and fire faster and more accurately. If you complete the game on the easy difficulty setting and then go on to start a new game on a harder difficulty setting you will find that your entire inventory of Aegis suits follows you from game to game. This means that the sweet Ultra Fusion Blazer suit that you spent all of last game building into a cybernetic cat-suit-of-death will be at your disposal from the very start, allowing you to blaze through the levels almost as easily as you had on the easy difficulty setting. The game also goes overboard on dolling out continues (which serve the same function as extra lives in most other games). When you die, using a continue will start you in the exact same room in which you died with a full life and energy drive meter. It is not uncommon to be roving the corridors of P.N. 03 with 20+ continues on hand, so on the off chance that you do bite the big one it won’t be much of a setback. What sets this game apart, besides its lack of polish, is its sense of style. Vanessa Schneider is quite the cybernetic mercenary-badass with a flair for dancing and an extremely original character, as well. The environments, despite their uniformity, are interesting too. If you enjoy the first level you will most likely enjoy the rest. Technophiles and sci-fi lovers will not have much difficulty finding something to love in this game. The story, although extremely downplayed, actually brings gamers back to the good old days when the bulk of a game's story was found in the instruction manual rather than on the screen. The story in P.N. 03 has to be inferred and, in some spots, simply imagined. While some might consider the lack of story to be shortsighted, others may see it as charming. In the end, P.N. 03 definitely gives you the impression that it should have spent a bit more time in development but it is still a solid game with most of the important aspects intact. It could have used a bit more polish before release but considering that it is now a budget title frugal gamers and curiosity-seekers should not be afraid to pick it up. It is easy to see why this game got a bad rap from those who paid full price for it upon its initial release but now this game is well worth the ten dollars you are likely to pay for it.

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