Review: Malicious (PS3)

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5 mins read

Malicious is what happens when you take two of Japan’s most popular game franchises, and shove them into one game, But somewhere this game went horribly wrong and the result is a game that is… horrible.

It takes the basic idea of Dynasty Warriors (press square a lot to defeat hordes of enemies) and meshes it with the epic monsters of Monster Hunter. So the game works like this – from a central hub, you’ll pick one of five (yes, just five, but we’ll get to that in a second) stages. In that stage (really just a Colosseum with a couple of bits of scenery) is a gigantic boss, and a whole bunch of little enemies.

You’ll kill the little enemies, which earns points which can then be spend to either heal your avatar, or unleash powerful effects. You have 30 minutes to take down the big boss.

To make life a little easier, there’s a range of attack options you have. You start out with just some basic fist attacks, and a weak ranged attack. Taking down bosses grants extra abilities, which in turn allows you to take on tougher bosses. Make no mistake, though this game allows you to pick the levels in the order you’d like to take them on, the game goes from being quite easy to brutal if you try and take them on in an alternate order to the default.

The game also tries to help you out. Your character, being the athletic sort, will largely autojump over small obstacles. After all, having to manually jump would be a distraction from the ultra violence, right? So, aside from a camera that likes to be wonky from time to time – especially when you engage the auto-target on the minions and the game picks random ones behind you for your next target – your only job in this game is to mash those buttons and take down those bosses.

And button mashing this game is indeed. Bosses are universally one or two-note, making the strategies to take them down painfully obvious from the first minute or two of the game. I’m by no means an expert at Monster Hunter, but for me the joy of that game is in working out the weaknesses of each of the monsters. With no weapon and armour crafting, and combos being incredibly easy in execution (even more so than Dynasty Warriors), this game is not taxing in the slightest on the brain.

And indeed, it might well put players to sleep. Once the basic strategy to defeat the boss is figured out, the mind numbing process of repeating that tactic 10 or 15 minutes until the massive boss health bar is depleted begins. You play on autopilot, and the game just runs through the motions.

What’s so tragic about all this is the fact the game is presented so impeccably. Character art is gorgeous, animation is slick, the environments are limited but nicely detailed, and the bosses are true sights to behold.

Unfortunately, even if you can look past the braindead gameplay and enjoy the pretty visuals, the game is over way, way too quickly. There’s just six bosses (the initial five + a final boss). All that’s left after that is to try and score those good end-level ratings, but since the game is fairly generous with the high ratings, that’s not an onerous task. There’s no alternate characters, there’s no plot to enjoy, and there’s no real variety in the bosses tactics.

As someone who loves the Dynasty Warriors franchise, and appreciates Monster Hunter for everything is stands for, his attempted meld of the game styles fails badly. There’s nothing overly broken in the game aside from the camera, but it manages to be monotonous despite lasting a handful of hours. A true feat, though not one developers should be striving for.

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  • Can you please show videos of yourself playing the game?  This might be the first negative review I've seen of this game, so I'd like to see how you play the game to understand the relevance of your review.

  • I'm sry about that

    but I think you didn't play it at all

    Or maybe it hard for you

    this game is similar to megaman than what you have mentioned and its just for $8

    noobs last days 😛

  • Hi D-Du,

    Thanks for dropping by to say hello!

    I don't have any video capture equipment, unfortunately, but I will say this: I freely admit that I'm not that great at this game. I got through easy comfortably enough, and just scraped through normal. I was able to largely spam my way through these levels.

    It still wasn't very engaging. I'm not very good at Monster Hunter either, but I can certainly enjoy the depth and variety that its monsters throw at you. I'm very good at Dynasty Warriors, and I found this game simple in comparison.

    I know this is only a $10 original game, but there are a lot of $10 game out there that are better value. For a little more you can pick up a retail copy of Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll, which does provide much the same content, but a whole lot more of it.

    The positive reviews I've seen (and I'm paraphrasing here) say that the game is cheap, pretty, and action packed. I do agree with all of these things, I just think the game needs a bit more before it can be called a genuinely "good" game.

    Appreciate the feedback! I hope this helps clarify my position/ experience with the game 🙂

  • I think your first mistake was to compare it to games such as Dynasty Warrior and Monster Hunter – Malicious is not a title as grand as those. Of course, in comparison to big budget games, Malicious is not up to par, however, for the value for money, it is worth it. 
    The game is well done in a many aspects – the soundtrack and the visuals are a pleasure and very refreshing in comparison to the games I currently own. As for the plot, there is one. Unfortunately, it requires you to read a few pages. It would be nice to be introduced to a cutscene before each boss to understand how they came to be, but reading the back-story is not unenjoyable.The gameplay can suffer from the unruly camera controls and auto-aim, but that's not to say there isn't a way to not effectively use the aim (i.e. manual aim) without ruining the experience. And this is an experience worth having for £6.49 or however much it is in other countries, especially at a time when most game studios are offering DLCs at 7.99 or higher. However, for any more than its current price, it would be hard to justify purchasing the game.

    I may be biased because I am smitten with the game, or just easily entertained. 

  • I think your first mistake was to compare it to games such as Dynasty Warrior and Monster Hunter – Malicious is not a title as grand as those. Of course, in comparison to big budget games, Malicious is not up to par, however, for the value for money, it is worth it. 
    The game is well done in a many aspects – the soundtrack and the visuals are a pleasure and very refreshing in comparison to the games I currently own. As for the plot, there is one. Unfortunately, it requires you to read a few pages. It would be nice to be introduced to a cutscene before each boss to understand how they came to be, but reading the back-story is not unenjoyable.The gameplay can suffer from the unruly camera controls and auto-aim, but that's not to say there isn't a way to not effectively use the aim (i.e. manual aim) without ruining the experience. And this is an experience worth having for £6.49 or however much it is in other countries, especially at a time when most game studios are offering DLCs at 7.99 or higher. However, for any more than its current price, it would be hard to justify purchasing the game.

    I may be biased because I am smitten with the game, or just easily entertained. 

  • Hi Neon,

    Thanks for taking the time to drop by and leave a comment!

    Glad to hear you enjoyed the game – when I review games I try not to take the price of the game too much into account. I've played some amazing games that are, if not better than full-priced retail games, close to that quality, and I personally didn't think this game was up there.

    It's a pity, because I did really enjoy the presentation, and I went into the game quite excited. Hopefully a sequel can resolve the issues I had with it, and then I'll happily score it 5/5. 🙂

    It's good there's an alternative opinion here!

  • Hi Neon,

    Thanks for taking the time to drop by and leave a comment!

    Glad to hear you enjoyed the game – when I review games I try not to take the price of the game too much into account. I've played some amazing games that are, if not better than full-priced retail games, close to that quality, and I personally didn't think this game was up there.

    It's a pity, because I did really enjoy the presentation, and I went into the game quite excited. Hopefully a sequel can resolve the issues I had with it, and then I'll happily score it 5/5. 🙂

    It's good there's an alternative opinion here!

  • Hey, thanks for the reply.

    I do agree, it is a shame they didn't polish the game to the standard it  should be at, and a sequel would be great. 

    Also, your review was well done in many aspects – the soundtrack and visuals were a pleasure and very refreshing in comparison to the other reviews that I currently own. 

    5/5

  • Hey, thanks for the reply.

    I do agree, it is a shame they didn't polish the game to the standard it  should be at, and a sequel would be great. 

    Also, your review was well done in many aspects – the soundtrack and visuals were a pleasure and very refreshing in comparison to the other reviews that I currently own. 

    5/5

  • Hey, while you're around, what's your favourite enemy in this game? I liked the fight with the evil woman best, I think. 🙂

  • Hey, while you're around, what's your favourite enemy in this game? I liked the fight with the evil woman best, I think. 🙂

  • Sorry for the late reply, 

    I would say it's a tie between the floating fortress and the evil lady, both ended up changing enough for me to consider not to spam the lance at them and to mix it up. The flying dude gets an honorable mention. What about you?

  • After the evil lady, I liked the setting for the battle with the giant. That was a spectacular fight. 

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