SH3 - Beaten. Lady freaking -rules-. I was kinda worried that she'd be a pushover with the sidequesting I did, but nooooooooooo. I screwed up on a combo and let the Malice Unbral get a turn with stock, which prompted Lady into "Lady mock puny full HP party". Before I knew it, everybody ate about 800 damage without much fuss and that was that. Then, I took my gloves off and had Slim Mask of ? have a little talk with her. 700 damage Hail crests are fun, but I still had to keep my eyes wide open. Awesome final fight, and I loved the scene leading to it and after it. Got the good ending, too - what the hell, Malice Soakers and Gilbert give three billion Soul. Sooooooooo.
Now that the game is over, I think some thoughts are in place.
First, the plot and writing mostly fails, and so does the PC cast. Johnny is really just there, Natan doesn't exist, Shania isn't great as she is and the excess fanservice ruins her already limited character worth. Frank is absolutely infuriating: he's what happens when you try too hard to be funny. Jesus, brazilian geriatric ninja is an outlandish as hell concept as is, it doesn't need fucking oni crotchguards, stupid gimmick swords and fish lanterns. And Frank just acts like a complete clown, making it all the more annoying. The rest of the cast just... doesn't exist past their introductory scenes and arc (this is a freaking pity in the case of Mao and Hilda, since they just -write themselves- otherwise). They pulled off a bunch of potentially hilarious gimmick characters and do nothing with them, which leads to very subpar humor in a fairly humor-toned game. If you care about plot and writing over gameplay, the first half of the game is downright painful because of that. The writers didn't do the spastic stupidity in SH1 (and, in the end, it kinda helps), but they just didn't feel like pulling an effort with the PC cast.
Now, the villains? They're the saving grace of the plot. Lady and Killer is a bizarro take on Alice/Yuri that ends up far more endearing and interesting. Somehow, they made a silent character -work-. The tension between Killer and Gilbert is also fun, although it was kinda wasted, too. But Lady and Killer are the -one- thing that's worthwhile about the plot, and they're cooler than Yuri/Alice due to the rather twisted take they approach. Aruze could actually make love interests cool, what the hell.
So, what does the game have going for it? The gameplay. The gameplay is freaking awesome. The combo/double system allows you a great deal of battle flow manipulation, and it's pretty well-balanced in how enemies can and WILL use it to its fullest just as you can. Since they actually have passable offense to begin with, the quirks of the system makes enemies generally dangerous if you let them get turns - worse yet, turns with stock. It makes battles worth paying attention to, and the boss battles are fun to romp through even when they're not that dangerous (this is rare). And the high-profile fights, like Lady, are absolutely joyous. I did as many sidequests as I did because I really liked the gameplay in general, and they almost always meant more gameplay. So, yeah.
And, really, the plot... isn't as infuriating as SH1. Lady and Killer are far better than anything SH1 could ever dream of (and dear god, they really make a huge mockery of Albert Simon. But then, I consider Albert Simon one of the most poorly, spastically written villains I've ever seen), and the script is actually tolerable when it's not trying humor. SH1, on the other hand, just did -everything- wrong while trying everything. SH3 at least had a bit of focus, and this makes things easier to forgive.
It's just a lot of wasted potential in the writing, sadly. But the gameplay delivers it all, Lady and Killer exist and everything else was just pretty pleasant (although whoever thought a "lol shania has teh titz" joke was a good idea needs a bullet applied to the brain stem. Dearly). It's a pretty bipolar game in a sense, but it's a great gameplay game and that was all I asked after the disaster that was SH1. Probably a 7/10 game, the writing and plot issues are pretty bad in hindsight of the potential for fun the ideas had.
