Customer Reviews

Ring of Red

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Ring of Red is the first game I played on my spanking new PS2, and it succeeded in getting me glued to my seat for the next several hours.

Ring of Red puts you in control of a squad of mechs (much like Squaresoft's Front Mission games) and you'll have about 50 missions (each with different objectives) to undertake. You are placed in an overworld map with grids you can move on, and you can do several things on your turn -- attack, recover, move, standby... depending on the situation. You can also occupy landmarks such as villages and get additional troops. With the levels you gain also come new skills and special abilities.

Unlike Front Mission games however, you also get to command ground troops (yes, soldiers) in addition to your mechs. You have many different kinds of troops -- ranging from snipers to medics, and they all have their own special abilities which can help you win.

The characters are rendered anime-style, which is a plus for me. The graphics are very smooth overall, and you'll see a big jump in quality especially if you've played Front Mission on your old Playstation. The battles are detailed in that you have to aim and move around to adjust your range... so it's more than just sitting around and waiting for your turn to finish. There is also a rich story which serves as the backdrop for the game.

All in all, I recommend this game as this is undoubtedly one of the better PS2 titles out there now. If you liked Squaresoft's Front Mission games for the Playstation, you'll dig Konami's Ring of Red.

If there was a contest for ugliest PS2 game ever made, Ring of Red would probably take the cake.

Visual prowess, however, is not everything. Ring of Red is probably the most challenging game I have ever set my sights upon. It's a turn-based stratgey in the vein of Front Mission 3 or Mechwarrior. The only difference is intead of just exchanging blows on an attack, you engage in a rather elaborate battle, any of which could turn easily turn surprisingly sucsessful or incredibly sour.

This game is very very long, and that's either good or bad depending on your opinions. You are able to save mid-battle and pick up later where you left off, (though keep in mind the game deletes the save file when you load it) but if you die you need to start the while round over. One round averages me about 3 or 4 hours, a lot of that time being attributed to the repetative animations of soldiers' actions, which is my only complaint about this game.

If you're looking for an armchair strategy you can rent a few times and put under your belt, this isn't for you. If you feel like spending 30 bucks on a game that's going to take you a while to get through, go for it. Don't use a gameshark, don't save the mid-battle files to a second memory card so you can cheat if you screw up. Beat this game legitamately, (as time consuming and frustrating as it might get) and when those end credits roll, it will be that much more satisfying.

Mechwarrior fans will lover Ring of Red because it is very closely related to the game. Ring of Red is a story about WW2 not ending with the bombing of Japan. The war dragged on and brought in a new style of combat that involved Mechs. The gameplay learning curve takes a while to master. Once you identify which mechs and squads to match up against oppossing enemy then it becomes very fun. However one thing about this game is that they seemed to cut some elements of the game that should have been there. For example voice-overs, the game could have used voice-overs! And they could have used animations thru the breifing stages and small cutscenes. But the game is still fun but reading thru all the dialogue makes me feel like im in front of my old Playstation again. But all in all its a great game that may have been rushed to fatten the game market for PS2.

This game is challenging and takes a while to play. Fun game though. I didn't know what to expect when I picked this game up but it suprised me. Strategy is what this game is all about and it gets a little frustrating in some parts. But that is what a strategy game is all about :-). Pick this one up if you feel like being challenged and have the money.

This is a great game. It takes a while to learn the basic gameplay and battle sequences. But once you do, the game becomes fun and pretty addictive. There are a ton of missions and chapters, so you'll have many hours of gameplay waiting for you. The story is interesting, the graphics and nice, and the sound is great. Buy this if you love strategy games and hours and hours of interesting gameplay.

Personally, I can't understand why anyone wouldn't like this game. It has everything a person needs from their interactive entertainment. This includes:
1) Nice effects that, contrary to some reviews, do manage to keep your attention. These range from the mechanized tanks themselves moving through their attack patterns, seasonal change-ups, support troops that have their own moves, and some nice looking backgrounds to accent your battles.
2) A degree of simplification in the basic controls that let the beginner play, plus the addition of higher degrees of strategy that don't allow you to bore too easily. Your vehicles, an ever increasing number of oddities meshing robots with tanks, all have specialized maneuvers such as Dodging and Punching other mechs, plus an optimum strike area. The troops further accent this, letting you add in different tactical approaches (do I want to have men equipped with homing missiles, or do I need someone to cut those lines ensnaring my legs?), thereby customizing your approach. Some even allow you to use different types of shells with your mech, allowing degrees of damage to either the enemy robots or the accompanying troops.
3) The enemies do become better as the game moves on. They start to display the ability to think somewhat, plus they develop specialized moves of their own. This is something that can be a bit of a burden, too, with combat taking lots of those 90 second slots.
Anyhow, this is only a little of what the game has to offer, and leaves out much of the story plotting, plus the nice take on post World War 2 worldwide events. If you like Mechs and military showings, this is for you.

This is a good solid turn-based strategy game. You can save the game between missions and you can save the game within each mission. However, for a game which is saved within a mission, it can only be load up once. In other words, you cannot reload multiple times. You can restart from the beginning of the mission, just not the middle. This is both good and bad. It makes the game alot tougher and forces you to really think about your moves. I like it. However, others may find it frustrating if they are used to reload game over and over.

It is a military strategy games which revolves around robots (AFW in his game), although the robots are only part of the game. There are military personal accompany these robot. There are 4 main types of robot and 6 different types of military personal, and you have to decide how to mix and match. For instance, you can put an short range anti-solider robot with anti-personal soliders togther to make this a super pure anti-personal unit. Or you may want to group the anti-solider robot with anti-robot soliders to make a well-adapt battle unit. There is also one unique asepct of this game. It takes a certain time to load the robot's weapon, and once it is loaded you get to decide the duration for aiming. The shorter the time for aiming, the more shots you can fire, but you will miss alot. The longer the aiming time, the more accurate the shots will be. However, if you wait too long, then the enemies may hit you first and stunt you, and you have to start the entire aiming countdown again. Exciting!

Here's the plot, WWII happened totally diferently and lasted longer. Japan is the battleground and center of the world even though it is in ruins and split much like the Korean penninsula.

Tanks are replaced by akward walking tanks that are totally unpractical and inferior to those used in WWII. We are given the excuse that since they can walk they can get over obstacles and thus they are better than tanks, yet the only terrain we EVER see them on is a colloection of WIDE ROADS and OPEN FIELDS.

The fun part is just the ability to control your soldiers around your walking abomination of machinery(especially the old man's "junk" walking robot, like it's that easy to slap one together). Your troops allow you to employ all kinds of fun strategies. My favorite, get 2 troop units with Chain Mines and plant them as you walk towards an enemy close range unit. They will try to attack you, step on the mines, get their legs busted(as well as their troops killed) and then you can go in for the kill.

It will take a good while to beat it, say 20-30 hours but after that you'll never put it in your PS2 again and it will just take up space.

On the plus side, it is cool to see videos clips of old fotage with walking machines inserted(well) into the battles.

Ring of Red is an incredible strategy game by Konami (makers of everything from Contra on the NES to Metal Gear Solid 2 for the PS2.) This game will take well over 30-40 hours to play for you marathon gamers. I was rather unhappy with the ending for it ended abruptly. I hope Ring of Red II will come out soon to tie up the loose ends in this one. A couple things that would benefit this game would be some sort of voice dialouge, the ability to forward through the intermissions quicker, and more special abilities. All in all this was a fun game to play and an excellent strategy for the PS2.

This is a great game for several reasons. The beautiful graphics will catch your attention and the depth will keep you hooked for weeks.One might be tempted to call "Ring of Red," a true mech sim instead of a game."Front Mission" fans will notice a lot of similarities in "Ring of Red." It's a great strategy game for many ages! The play or battles are long and the sequences can't be skipped, making the game some what boring for quick action fans. Overall, the games well-detailed visuals, cool game play, and greats battles, are what I believe make this game a well deserved 4 stars!