GameHoof.com

Since I’m a big fan of the Saint Seiya anime series, I have no hesitation in purchasing this game. Although both I and w2n think that the anime will make a superb RPG game, Namco Bandai as its developer has decided to make a 3D fighting game instead.

Saint Seiya: The Hades is the follow up title to Saint Seiya: The Sanctuary released in 2005. In this game, player will have to battle against an army of Spectres who begin to claim back their powers after being held for 243 years by the might of Athena.

Pegasus Meteor!

Characters

Currently, w2n has managed to finished the story mode and unlocked 24 characters, which include 5 Bronze Saints in both their tattered and repaired Bronze Cloths, 8 Gold Saints, 9 Spectres and 2 special characters.

The Bronze Saints in both tattered and repaired Bronze Cloths:
Pegasus Seiya
Dragon Shiryu
Cygnus Hyoga
Andromeda Shun
Phoenix Ikki

The Gold Saints:
Aries Mu
Taurus Aldebaran
Gemini Gemini
Leo Aiolia
Virgo Shaka
Libra Dohko
Scorpio Milo
Gemini Kanon

The Specters:
Aries Shion (former Gold Saint)
Cancer Mephisto (former Gold Saint)
Pisces Aphrodite (former Gold Saint)
Capricorn Shura (former Gold Saint)
Aquarius Camus (former Gold Saint)
Gemini Saga (former Gold Saint)
Wyvern Rhadamanthys (Judge of the World of the Dead)
Garuda Aiacos (Judge of the World of the Dead)
Griffon Minos (Judge of the World of the Dead)

Special Characters:
Sagitarius Seiya
Lyra Orpheus

Saint Seiya: The Hades

Graphics

As with other PS2 games, one primary factor in my decision to purchase this game was the graphics. While I don’t expect the graphics to come in par with the likes of Tekken or Soul Calibur series, I’m not disappointed either. The 3D engine has made it possible to depict the zodiac Cloths in sparkling appearance inside the cut scenes, especially for the Gold Cloths and the Specter Cloths. Then again, I still prefer the usual 2D anime style for the cut scenes.

As for the fighting scenes, the graphics are OK in my book. The characters movement, attacks and special attacks look fine as with the effects of cosmos beam, fire and explosion. The developers also took a special effort to make sure the different zodiac palaces do look different, something that I did not notice while watching the anime (they looked all the same to me). For an extra, the columns will crumble whenever a character being smashed into it, which unfortunately leaves a trail of thick smokes that can disable you to see your character for a moment.

Huge fighting arena

Gameplay

Suffice to say, the control in Saint Seiya: The Hades is quite simple, that it won’t make any difference whether you play the game for a while or a month. The character movement looks great with the quick sideway dash and forward dash. My favorite is the sideway dash, which performed by twice tapping the up or down button. Your character will dash sideway, circling your opponent, and combined with forward dash effectively enable the player to step on almost every spot in the 3D arena.

The basic actions are attack, block and cosmos charge. You can increase your cosmos meter by attacking or pressing the cosmos charge button. Once the cosmos meter is fully charged, you can perform special juggle attacks, cosmos attacks and the Big Bang attacks which is unique for each character (my favorite one ever since I watched the anime is Hyoga’s Diamond Dust).

The game does not come with long chain of complex combos that is a today’s common feature in this genre. Instead, player will only need to rely on simple attack combination plus a healthy amount of sideway dash. In this way the developer has chosen to make Saint Seiya: The Hades enjoyable even for non-fighting game fans.

The sideway dash really looks cool

Audio

Since this game is based on the latest anime of the series, I couldn’t find anything that resembles the tunes of Pegassus Fantasy or Blue Forever, which is a shame because I think it was Pegassus Fantasy that truly represented the anime series. The overall BGM is good, my favourite one is during the character selection screen. The only available voice over is in Japanese, which is great for fans who want to hear the dialog from the original Japanese casts. The subtitle is available in 4 different languages.

Early animation for the Big Bang attack

Overall

At first, it was hard for me to give an impartial judgement since I am a Saint Seiya fan. But after forking out hours of my time playing this game, I was actually enjoyed the gameplay without bothering anymore for the storyline or the fact that this is actualy a Saint Seiya game. So I can say that Saint Seiya: The Hades can be enjoyed by both fans or non-fans of the anime series.

That said, enjoy the game!

Publisher: Atari
Developer: Bandai Namco
Release Date: August 2006
Perspective: Third-Person
Type: 3D Fighting