Ship-to-ship combat by Koei?! Sign me up!
The game looks and sounds pretty average. Graphics are decent but nothing to be proud of. Music is forgettable for the most part, which is sad. Sound effects are kindof subdued but they get the job done. There are a few voice clips in the game, usually tied to when something happens ("Full Speed Ahead!" or "Battleship Sunk!") but they hired a dork to say them so they aren't nearly as cool as they could be. The rest of the game is handled with images and text displays. There's no voices or movies, or even animated pictures. Just still images, like the RPGs of yore. As an RPG vet, I can tolerate it. Those looking for some over-the-top FMVs won't find any here. There aren't ANY... the title sequence isn't that great either. It's obvious this was a low-budget game... a serious shame considering these consoles are at the end of their lifespan. Much more could have been done.
The gameplay is pretty simple. It's a 1-player naval action game in third-person perspective. The game is broken up into missions of basic and familiar types and there is a passable story to link them all together, brought to you by images and text in between. In battle you navigate by looking around with the left stick, and using the d-pad and L buttons to control your ship's engines and rudder. Using other buttons, you can call out your air units, toggle weapons, fire, and use a scope to see further ahead. As you might expect, gigantic warships aren't 100% manuverable, so you'll be concentrating more on using the crosshairs to place your shots quickly as opposed to dodging. Thankfully you can defend yourself with suppression fire if you're properly equipped. Very basic stuff really. Blowing up stuff is satisfying. Although the controls are pretty simple, they are arranged differently than what you'd expect, so the game becomes not entirely intuitive right off the bat. I recommend playing the tutorial... it's more fun than reading the manual, at least.
It's worth noting that this game isn't any kind of simulation or world-war game... it's got anime-style characters, over-the-top boss ships, as well as a handful of laser cannons and other futuristic nic-nacs for your ship. That's cool with me, but those crazy psycho war buffs might have some of the wind knocked from their sails (YES! SEAFARING MEDAPHOR! O.o) by the fantasy (and obviously Japanese OH NO) elements. I think they're awesome. Crazy boss battles make for great action games. Just look at any game with -IUS at the end of the title.
In between missions you get to upgrade your ship, which is by far the coolest part. The combinations are E N D L E S S . . . it's quite obvious this is where the developers spent most of their time. You can customize your ship down to gritty details (like how many/tall/where your smoke stacks go) and then take it out to the field. Er... sea. This is what makes the game so much fun. You'll spend just as much time customizing your ships as you will battling, and you'll love them as your children, in that wierd sort of way. This is definently the main selling point of the game, since this part is so incredibly deep compared to the rest of the gameplay.
So on and so forth you will go, building a ship, battling, finding new parts and researching them, and repeating it all over and over again. The game's difficulty and length are both pretty good, as you'll get a few sittings out of it the first time through. However, after you finish the game, there's not much else to do but play again on a harder setting. This game is 1-player only. No extra modes, no deathmatch, not even a hint of online capability.
The Verdict:
To fans of action and strategy games, this might be up your alley if you're looking for some naval warfare. This game is nothing groundbreaking, but it certainly gets the job done. Sadly, other games coming out for PS2 at this point are miles ahead in gameplay, graphics and production value... making this game feel like a throwback to the early years of 128-bit. All that and a lack of real bonus features or extra modes really kill a lot of the replay value, although people who really dig the ship-building mode will find reason to play the campaign a few extra times, since the sheer number of combinations must amount to billions. The game was released at $40, which is what I paid. Although better than $50, this game really wasn't worth that much. It simply just couldn't ever be an A-list title. It's an average game that will appeal to people looking for exactly what it's offering. You might get all the Warship Gunner you need out of a rental, otherwise I'd wait until the price drops or used copies are available. At the end of the day, I did have some fun firing missles at stuff and yelling "COME ABOUT!" to myself in my room.
Pros:
+Blow up stuff with missles and cannons
+Rediculous ship-building mode
+Boss ships are also quite... uh... rediculous
Cons:
-Gameplay really boils down to things that have been done already
-Average graphics and sound
-Story is... average... and is all text and still images to boot
-Controls take some getting used to
-No extra modes, multiplayer, or real variety