A solid improvement over the previous game, and a must-play for fans. Non-fans won't stick around long, though...
And so, Saint-Seiya - Hades Chapter is the second 3D fighting game from Dimps featuring the Saints of Athena. The players will find the 5 Bronze Saints (Seiya, Hyoga, Shiryu, Shun and Ikki), as well as the Gold Saints battling the forces of the evil Hades in the final storyline of the series, who seeks the death of Athena (how convenient a plot), but this time the links and goals are a bit more convoluted than a linear "you're our only hope !" plot.
Obviously, Dimps heard the same kind of criticism I havmentioned and revamped deeply the fighting engine, and cranked the graphics up a notch yet again. The models are sleek and extremely detailed (the cool movement the hair do in the wind are worth mentioning too), yet retaining the look and feel of both the manga and the anime. Voiceovers are in Japanse with subtitles, a good move that keeps the epic feel of the series, and most dialogue in the Hades (read "story") mode are spoken lines by the character models, which is immersive and visually pleasurable,.
The sounds pleasurably ring right, with punches, kicks, groans, as well as blazing or warping sounds with name attacks powerfully shouted when the Saints unleash their powerful moves. it is worth mentioning that, when defeated, the signature epic shriek from the series play, emphasizing the St-Seiya aspect. The music is a bit generic, but suits the game and the subject well, and has even enjoyable tunes.
The gameplay underwent a welcomed lifting. Now the characters run really fast across the screen, and the buttons have been remapped. Now you have Light, Medium, Strong and Special attacks, plus Guard and Cosmos.
The Light button can unleash a canned combo that you can cancel and switch at anytime with Medium, Strong and Special moves, which gives a liberal amount of follow-ups and juggles, even if there are 2 Medium and 2 Strong moves at all. Think of a watered-down version of the Guilty Gear combo system without any progression order, so you can follow a Strong with a Light move, then Medium, Special then Strong. It add tons of freedom, especially since the speed was at least doubled when compared with Sanctuary.
The Special moves have been rethought too. Now, instead of simply pressing Special while guarding, rushing or simply mashing it, you have to enter Street Fighter-esque motions, which helps make you feel you control the power of your Saint and make for a quicker gameplay. Each special move consumes Cosmos, which you charge with the Cosmos button, ala King of Fighters of Dragonball Z or by beating up your opponent (getting beaten up counts too, FYI), so you'll have to find lulls in the action to reload to unleash more power yet again.
To unleash the ultimate moves, called Big Bang, you need to fill your cosmos gauge enough, then hold Cosmos and press the corresponding key, related to the power level (Light, Medium and Strong), which is better than loading a secondary gauge until desired power level (such as in Sanctuary). The execution of the move is similar to Sanctuary, in that there's a prerendered in-engine cutscene depicting the action. Youn still counter by pressing a key at the right instant, then entering a button-mashing contest, but there's a twist to it now : in Sanctuary you just had to press Circle everytime, then it was a button contest similar to DBZ Budokai 3. No you must press the RIGHT key (between the four face buttons), then if it connects, the attacker will mash the buttons to struggle, while the counterer will have to input the right keys as shown in a column. It's way harder, and I have yet to get the timing right to even countering.
New to the game are also a special hit by pressing Cosmos+Special. Your Saint will uppercut the foe, and then 3 choices will pop for each side. Based on a Rock-Paper-Scissors system, cinematic blows will be exchanged for extra damage. It turns out that the fighting engine is deeper than Sanctuary, still a bit shallow compared to the canons of fighting games (Virtua Fighter, SoulCalibur, Tekken, Street Fighter, King of Fighters or Guilty Gear), but just like Budokai, it's efficient enough to appeal to all fans of the series.
The story mode is fairly long, with a ton of branching depending on the reply you'll select (you unlock a new one for each chapter each time you beat story mode), and it will net you most, if not all, of the characters. You can also play VS with a friend or the Computer in the 1000-day Battle mode, or unlock Eternal Battle (survival) and a Time Attack mode, plus a lot of cinematics and stuff in the gallery. All in all, the replay value is quite good and the 40 playable characters (even if there are some duplicates with only costume variations) if appealing enough to give it at go. Fans will be pleased with the ambiance and the extras, but more casual watchers will feel a bit deterred since the game explicitly sticks as close as possible to the episodes without explaining everything.
In the end, I'd say that with a boosted engine, better controls and more climatic battles, St-Seiya Hades Chapter is a very good translation of the series, and an above average fighter. Being a fan of St-Seiya, I'l very pleased with the quality of the game and simply recommend it, as well as Sanctuary (having a saved game of Sanctuary unlocks 5 characters), because playing St-Seiya really is tons of fun, and there's enough game modes to keep coming back at it.