Sin and Punishment: Star Successor
The Nintendo 64 was a glorious console. One of the best ever made, and it has some of the best games of all time. Star Fox 64, Zelda 64 and Mario 64; they are all timeless classics, but there was another game that drew a lot of attention. Masato Maegawa’s Sin and Punishment: Star Successor is the sequel to Sin and Punishment: Hoshi no KeishÅsha (Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth) released in 2000 for the Nintendo 64, Treasure’s second shoot 'em up on the console. And ten years later, Sin and Punishment: Star Successor ushers in Masato Maegawa’s first foray onto the Wii, and his fourth on Nintendo home consoles since Ikaruga in 2004 and Bangai-O in 1999. I’d expect no less than an awesome shoot ‘em up experience from the creators of Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun and Gunstar Heroes. And the game delivers. The package, however, may leave you wondering about the shipping cost.
The story goes like this: The universe is divided into dimensions, inner space and outer space. Inner space is populated by humans and the Creators, a shady group of beings who can—in an instant—wipe humanity off of the face of a planet. These creators use humans to populate habitable planets to be a frontline defence against invading forces from outer space.
Earth-4, a human colony, was recently devastated by the Creators, and the outer space forces sent a recon unit to the planet. Isa Jo, a relatively rookie operative working for the Creators—and the inner forces—was sent to investigate and to destroy the recon unit. Something happened along the way, the recon unit lost its memory, it assumed the form of a girl named Kachi and Isa’s mission caved. An enigmatic story, for sure. Is it well developed, no.
The game manual asks, “Who is the most worthy of being called human? The alien life-form with an insatiable curiosity about humans, the young fighter struggling to define his own humanity [or] the fighters who wish to end the oppression of humans on Earth-5.” Kachi has a dark secret revealed at the end of the game. For those who have played the first game of the series it might not come as too much of a surprise. And for those who haven’t, you might just ask, “Okay, why does that matter?” Isa is the son of—and this really isn't a spoiler—Saki, from Sin and Punishment, and he has inherited some of his father’s not quite so human traits. A number of the bosses in the game call him a “monster” but I’ll leave it to you to find out how far that description takes his character.
You can play as either Isa or Kachi in the single-player mode. Isa has melee attacks, a single-target lock-on mode and a charge shot that destroys most enemies. Kachi has a lock-on mode that can destroy several enemies at once and the same assortment of attacks as Isa. The Wii controls hold up their end of the gameplay. The game is compatible with any controller you can use with the Wii, including the Gamecube and classic controllers. Most players on the leaderboards seem to use the Wii Zapper attachment to get the highest scores. Who you select to play as has little to no affect on the story or the game’s progression. It’s simply a matter of preference and whether you like riding jet bikes or ostriches.
Sin and Punishment is a damn fine looking game. Bosses are huge and enemies are both colourful and plentiful. The game runs at a constant clip with little to no slowdown. Overall the game's presentation is well done and highly varied. You'll go from being in an underground facility coursing with lava to an under-the-sea tunnel travelling across Japan to an enemy's dreamscape. It's a varied experience, and though the Wii's hardware is limited when compared to the PS3 or Xbox 360, Sin and Punishment looks pretty nice and is fairly detailed.
You can’t play Sin and Punishment with someone through friend codes, but at the end of each level you are given a choice to add your high scores to both local and online leader boards. And because I’m so good at shoot ‘em ups, and I got an advance copy, I placed 16th on easy difficulty on the first level. That was a few days ago, and my score has since been obliterated by about 30 people. Yeah, there are a lot of people playing and most of them are probably way better at these games than I am.
This brings us then to the game’s faults.
I don’t really care about Isa or Kachi. Is that a bad thing? They’re okay characters, but neither engaged me in such a way that made me care about their struggle. I mentioned above that Sin and Punishment delivers an awesome shoot ‘em up experience, but that’s about all it does. It is a bad sign when you have to refer to the manual to find information about the story, and to get the full experience of this game it feels like you have to play the first game. As a stand-alone experience, Sin and Punishment: Star Successor will befuddle most and confuse the uninitiated, which included me.
A few reviews that I've read remarked that plot in most of Treasure’s games are indecipherable or secondary to the main experience and they ask, why bother thinking about them? That's an unfair stance. The story is weak, really weak, but it's still there for the player. For instance, you can make a connection between Isa and Kachi through their pasts. Isa wants to forget his and Kachi doesn’t have one, so they have a personal connection, which helps them transcend the unnatural nature of their friendship. But this development seen in their characters is far too brief to really effect the player. We aren't thinking too deeply when a bullet storm is coming our way is my point. There was ample opportunities throughout the game where direct exposition could have given you all the details. It’s really a matter of having a background with the original Sin and Punishment. Having that makes this narrative experience worthwhile. There is a story here and it’s worth exploring, I just found it difficult to enjoy it with Isa and Kachi in the way.
Why do they look like crazed muppet-children? It’s a small qualm to make, but Isa and Kachi look like children. Children with hover boards and jetpacks. Well, I guess they are kids and one is an aliens, but still. Wouldn’t a story about adult-minded individuals help engage the older demographic of players? They don’t even really develop through the course of the story.
There’s this amazing sequence at the end of the game to which I reacted, “Oh my God.” But the characters weren't as impressed. They just slowly float back down to Earth like nothing really happened. You went into space, destroyed a whole armada of ships and saved the planet. What’s more you found out about your past and connected with an alien in a way that few others of your kind will ever experience. Isa touches down, stretches and things go back to normal. Like he does this everyday. It would have made for a better story telling experience if Isa or Kachi were more human. But like the manual asked, that detail is in question.
There are good stories to be found in shoot ‘em ups, for sure. Is Sin and Punishment one of them? Maybe, if played from an experienced point of view. For the uninitiated, like me, I found the story more or less tacked on to create continuity between a series I haven’t any nostalgia for. It’s always a bad sign when reviewers tell players to ignore the bad and focus on the good. I’ve done that a few times, but it has always been the opposite for me. A good story can hold a game together. An experience held together by gameplay is more of a toy than a videogame. The story isn’t bad—like Star Fox Assault bad—it’s just undeveloped. And for a sequel, which is meant to expand upon all facets of the first experience, that’s a step in the wrong direction.
Play Sin and Punishment: Star Successor for the competitive leader boards, stunning visuals and hectic gameplay. Play it for the nostalgia, Treasure’s legacy and for the difficulty. If you’re looking for a riveting story filled with excitement, or a story that will expand on the original Sin and Punishment, look elsewhere. I mentioned above that there are some references to the first game and that there are some definite connections to be made. I can only hope that Sin and Punishment 3 will develop Isa and Kachi’s characters and bring some story to this amazing shoot ‘em up.
Likes:
- Stunning visuals, great boss fights
- Wii controls work, no flailing around
- Competitive online leaderboards
- Nice environments
Dislikes:
- Isa and Kachi are about as human as the game's case
- The story is a shallow pass at what could be an epic tale
- No character development
- Difficulty at times can be brutal, but it's a shoot 'em up
Review Score
/ 
The review scale at LevelFortyTwo is between 1 and 5. A score of 5 is considered an amazing game, 4 is a well-done game with only minor issues, 3 is in the middle; not great, but not bad, 2 is a very problematic game, and 1 is absolutely terrible.
