How can mediocrity be so much fun?
STORY: The Queen of the Vortek, an alien race, wishes to acquire the infamous G-Cells in order to create the ultimate monster. She sends her minions (Gigan and King Ghidorah to name a few) and the war begins.
GRAPHICS:
While the monsters are somewhat improved in design (mostly in skin layers) from their Destroy All Monsters counterparts, the backgrounds themselves look only a little better. Framerate seems to have dropped even more from the Gamecube game I used to play. Godzilla games are slow, which is understandable since the battles in the films themselves were slow as well, but the framerate is completely inexcusable. mediocrity at its finest.
MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS:
Same here. The music isn’t bad, but it isn’t very good either. It’s just “there” to fill the void of silence. Sound effects are few as well. Collapsed buildings are barely heard as murmurs rather than Earth-shattering sounds. The monsters however, possess many trademark sounds, screams and beam sounds.
GAMEPLAY:
Godzilla’s gameplay is lacking. Sprite collision is problematic, while defence, movement, jumping and attacking is slow and sluggish. There are a few combos, and you can mix your attacks, but the unresponsive controls reminded of - gulp - Dragon Ball GT Final Bout. CPU has a tendency to respond well to your actions, while you can’t.
So, my question is: how can a seriously problematic game be so much fun?
You can grab buildings and throw them to the other monster, or grab the monster itself and throw / attack it. It is possible that an entire city can be decimated while the two creatures fight it out (all the environment is destructible, especially in city stages). Helicopters and tanks are constantly annoy you, and in some cases might steal a good opening you had on your enemy. Breath attacks are common, and sometimes two blasts can collide in a tag-of-war contest (which is played like rock/scissors/paper).
By successfully defeating monsters and acquiring G-cells, you get score points which can be used to unlock monsters, stages in vs mode, as well as various artwork and scans from Godzilla Final Wars.
There are some interesting nitpicks as well. Mothra can start out in Larva form (a caterpillar) and transform into Mothra Adult (the butterfly) during the battle, while Orga absorbs the essence of his opponents.
OVERALL:
It is sad that Godzilla Save The Earth is so mediocre of a game. The programmers clearly respect the source material and give it a good presentation. It’s just a shame that technically the game fails to deliver. Only for hardcore Godzilla fans. On the other hand, if you have two-three friends, it could make a fun brawler. But, in such a case, Super Smash Bros Melee is a much better choice ... but then again, not everyone has a Gamecube. I just hope that Godzilla Unleashed will be greatly improved.