Punishing the Sinners

It's a fact, Nintendo is seen as a "kiddy" game company, what with titles such as Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, and Pokemon. While this probably isn't such a big deal in their native Japan, here in America, that's a big no-no, and that image probably played a part in many a gamer jumping ship to Sony, Sega (before they went belly-up), and Microsoft.

So, back at the turn of the decade/century/millenium, during the final years of the Nintendo 64, Nintendo decided to try to dispell this by commissioning Treasure to create a "mature" game for them. This game would soon become the title known as Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Earth. With fast-paced gunplay, blood, mild swearing, and an English voice cast right out of the box, it seemed that this title was a surefire way to redeem Nintendo in the eyes of the people that had forsaken them.

...Unfortunately, there was a problem.

By the time the game came out in Japan, the market for Nintendo 64 games in North America was incredibly weak. Because of that, while the game was initially tended for a NA release, it was ultimately cancelled, and Nintendo's kiddy image endured.

Nintendo never spoke of it again, until 2007. With the advent of the Wii's Virtual Console, and the news that it would start offering Japanese games for the international audience, the demand for Sin and Punishment went through the roof. And Nintendo delivered.

Yep, so the world finally got to play this gem. And it was good.

Indeed, the game is pretty good. Someone once called it "Star Fox on feet." That's pretty accurate: It's an on-rail shooter. Your character (either Saki or Airan) automatically moves through the stage, and it's your job to aim their gun and blast the enemies, slice them with the sword if they come to close, and jump over and dodge obstacles. Sounds simple, but the game itself is pretty challenging, even on Easy Mode on your first play through. Luckily, you get continues during the Story Mode, but if you run out of continues, you have to start the entire game over from the beginning. As you go through Normal Mode, and eventually Hard Mode, the number of continues available to you decreases.

As I said, this game is not easy. If you find yourself in trouble, you can always practice the stage in the Scene Select mode, where stages are unlocked there as soon as you reach them in Story Mode. Pretty useful for practice, but my main gripe with it is that there are no checkpoints in Scene Select, which makes the more challenging stages seem more difficult than they are in Story Mode (Stages 2-2 and 3-2 come to mind, especially 3-2).

Speaking of the story... I'm not entirely sure what's going on. Basically, a horde of creatures called Ruffians is taking over Japan, and while the Armed Forces help dispatch of them, they also oppress the Japanese. So Achi brings together another group, led by Saki and Airan, to fight off both the Ruffians and the Armed Forces. Sounds simple, right? But from there, it gets complicated: After defeating Kachua in Stage 1-2, Tokyo is flooded by a sea of blood from who-knows-where, Saki is somehow transformed into a giant Ruffian for his final fight against Kachua, who also transformed, Airan is given a vision into the future by Achi, where she meets up with her son Isa and which tricks her into shooting the giant Saki in the head, Achi turns out to have ulterior motives such as wanting to destroy [the] God[s], and finally, after chasing down Achi, she transforms into a planet--aiming to destroy Earth and replace it with herself--for the final battle in the game.

...Yes, I did pretty much spoil the entire game. Why? Well, the thing is, this game can be beaten in under an hour. A shame, too. I wish it was longer, but the replay value is still there, what with the increasingly challenging modes and fast-paced gunplay. It controls very nice... as long as you're using the third control scheme. I don't know what's up with the first two schemes--maybe they work better on a N64 controller, but unfortunately I have no way of testing that out. On a Gamecube controller, at least, the third setup works extremely well, and I honestly think that that one should have been the default setting.

The graphics are very nice for an N64 game, and the music is enjoyable, too. I especially love the tracks "Agave", "Wait Soon Ripe", "Spiral Up Fortune", "Ally's Riskers", "Blood Infactor", and "Within Earshot". That's about half of the entire soundtrack, though. The English voice acting... Well, it could be better. It's not awful, but... eh. It's also funny how the game uses the Japanese subtitles during cutscenes. There's an unlockable option to turn them off, but no option to turn them to English, which is odd.

It was seven years late, but Sin and Punishment finally made it over, and we finally got to see what we were missing. This is now one of my favorite N64 games. ...Should I really call it one of my favorite N64 games, since I played it on the Virtual Console, and have no way of getting the N64 version? Ah, who cares? This game is awesome.

It's legacy is undeniable, too. Saki appeared in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as an Assist Trophy, though he really should have been playable. Maybe in SSB4? There was also a long-awaited sequel released in Japan last year, and will be coming out in North America in a few months. This game is called Sin and Punishment: Star Successor, and features Isa (son of Saki and Airan, whi appeared in the first game) and a new character named Kachi. If the trailers on the Nintendo Channel are anything to go by, this game is going to be even more awesome.

...The wait begins.