Sin & Punishment review

A unique shooter?

Review written by
YoshLee

October 22nd, 2009

If my previous two reviews have said anything, it's that above all else I love games that end up being overlooked by the general gaming audience yet still pack lots of fun. This is why I was very eager to make this review of Sin & Punishment, one of my favorite shooter ANYTHING games, and one of my most played VC games.

Sin & Punishment is a 3rd person rail shooter, that follows 3 characters Saki, Airan and Achi. They're a team known as the Savior Group who fight to defend Japan from corrupt armed volunteer soldiers, mutant Ruffians, and-blah blah blah, who cares it's a railshooter - if you're going to buy this it'll be for action! (albeit the story is a little more original than the generic World War 2 simulators we see barfed out every year).

Anyways as far as gameplay goes the system is unique, slick and tight. Even though the aiming was originally meant for the N64 controller it still maps to the GC controller very well. That's not to say your fingers and thumbs won't get as sore as they can physically get, but that's due more to the number of enemies who are spread around the screen and positioned very cleverly so it's always fun to shoot one after another. This is made even more fun when the environments are destructible, giving you the option of nipping each enemy off one by one, or blowing up the platform they're standing on to take them out in one big boom.

The character you operate uses a gun that has two different forms of shooting you can use to take down enemies. You can either use one that automatically locks on to the enemy you point it at, but does less damage, or one that you need to constantly be moving to hit the opponent to do considerably more damage. Both of these forms of shooting are useful and you'll have to make use of both to defeat specific bosses, but the real kicker I see in the gameplay is the ability to deflect large projectiles and use melee attacks. Your gun also comes equipped with a (laser) sword attached to it. This lets you both slash enemies that come in close contact, and deflect heavy projectiles like missiles back at whatever you're currently aiming at. This is a unique feature I've never seen in any game, it's also something you have to use cleverly if you want to defeat specific bosses, especially when you've got a time limit. It's also here where I think I gained a fondness for Sin & Punishment, the fact that so many things in this game works well leaves me impressed.

*Sighs* I might as well get this part out of the way as fast as I can. The graphics look pretty terrible. The in-game animations are good, but the cut-scenes make all the characters look like lifeless dolls and although some of the environments look nice, others look like washed out grey grit-fests. Even if this was the N64 era, my opinion on Sin & Punishment's graphics wouldn't be very different. I suppose by N64 standards they're not bad but, I still don't think there is much to see.

To my fortune though unlike the graphics, the sound quality is up to par. Its music collection may not vary as well as other games, but all fit their level well, and aren't that bad to listen to either. The voice acting is nice too, in fact the cut-scenes would be fine if the graphics were prettied up.

This game isn't all that long really. You could probably beat it on Normal in two to three dedicated days. However, I think the same can easily be said about other popular action games. The length may not be much, but you'll love every second of it, with its chaos-filled stages. Besides the fact that I still play Sin & Punishment after I've beaten it and have had it downloaded for well over a year gives me the feeling it's not meant to be the type of game that has you playing it for months, but rather the sort of game you love to revisit.

Overall Sin and Punishment may not be perfect, but it's unique, fun, probably something you've never played before, and for 1,200 Wii points it's more than worth the money. I highly recommend it. Now it's time for me to eagerly await Sin & Punishment 2 on Wii.