I
remember less than a decade ago, the PS2 had some of the best graphics I had ever seen.
To me, it was like the PS1 with a fancy suit on.
Superior visual effects and audio were the biggest changes, and thus better games were
created.
Put together the elements of a hack-and-slash with cartoony animation out of a late 1990s
Disney movie, add in a Pacific Islander environment, and you've got Rise of the Kasai, developed
by BottleRocket Entertainment and published by Sony Computer Entertainment.
For this contribution, I extend my personal thanks to my good friend Jason in Pennsylvania.
Sequel to The Mark of Kri, Rise of Kasai has the same sketchbook-like style in its cinematics
that tell the story behind Tati, the sister of Mark of Kri protagonist Rau, as they fight
alongisde each other against evil necromancers.
Truth be told, not much has changed in the decade between each story, let alone the gameplay.
You select one of two combatants, the unselected being assigned as your partner, and you each
fight through your respective direction.
The battle control is the same as ever: run wild through each level, locking onto enemies
with the right stick, and mash away at each target.
It's a mechanism that reminds me of God of War, a similar, but higher in quality publication
of Sony Computer Entertainment.
One of the reasons I feel highly about this is because of both your partner's and your
enemies' AI.
You can take out an entire company of enemies just by performing the same attacks constantly,
leaving you to wonder why you need a partner at all.
Still, this is the thrill of hack and slash.
You are skilled, the bad guys aren't.
It's akin to the entertainment factor of a Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee movie, where the
protagonist is obviously way more skilled than everyone else.
Once in a while you'll get a boss thrown your way, like this mass of tentacles breaking
through the ground.
Still, it’s more of the same.
Lock on target, hack away.
Rise of the Kasai is decent despite being clunky in AI and overall rapid-fire gameplay,
and since its release was dwarfed by the critically acclaimed God of War by less than a month,
it's all the more reason that one received higher marks than
the other.