Here there’s a sleeping guard with sniper rifle, and a paper fan. But, if you’re hunting for paper fans on a second playthrough, you might wall jump up to the balconies above you. There’s snipers here which will kill you in one shot, but there’s a second camo pack behind some benches, allowing you to stay hidden. At the end of the balcony you can rappel, while invisible, to a new area. There’s an excellent moment midway through the game where you find some optic camo and then need to scale some balconies and move around the side of a building. Most of her stages are quite vertical, with an emphasis placed on scaling and descending heights, with exploration rewarded through optic camo pick-ups, hidden sniper rifles and – during a second playthrough – hidden paper fans which when shot will unlock bonus weapons. But controlling Kusanagi the game is tremendous fun, and it’s quite clear everything was designed with her in mind. While it’s possible to duck, you can’t stick to cover, leaving Batou as something of an uninteresting tank. You shoot, roll, run, and shoot some more. Perhaps it is when playing with Batou, since his levels play like any generic run-and-gun. Some critics have said the level design is poor and the action formulaic, but this is far from true. By the far the most exciting power-up, it allows you to hunt down enemies while invisible, Predator-style, with them wholly unable to fight back. Rounding this out is health restoratives, extra armour, and optic camouflage. Kusanagi can also find “stun” gear, which electrifies her melee attacks. For secondary attacks, along with melee and throwing knives, there are explosive and EMP grenades. There’s 11 main weapons in total and you can carry up to two at a time. The implication is that he’s of a stronger build to carry them – which is odd given that Major Kusanagi is a cyborg with enhanced strength in the series. These are needed for taking down some of the larger mechanical bosses. There’s plenty of weapons at your disposal: three types of machinegun, a shotgun, sniper rifle and grenade launcher are available to both characters, while Batou has unique access to some especially high powered rockets and missiles. You can take out enemies covertly, using melee attacks or throwing knives but, if you mess up, the “all guns” approach works well too. It’s extremely well integrated, though not essential to success. Along with acrobatic somersaults and climbing, there’s a strong focus on stealth. Perhaps the Lara Croft comparison is overstated though. Of the 12 available missions seven feature Kusanagi and five Batou, though in one of Batou’s levels he’s actually inside a Tachikoma, participating in an arena fight vaguely reminiscent of the Fuchikoma on PS1. That’s the other change from the previous game: in addition to Kusanagi, you alternately control Batou during some levels. This is a simplified description of SAC– at least when controlling Major Kusanagi. Tighten the character controls and the camera on the right stick, and make the female lead character even more acrobatic, able to scale impossible heights through continuous wall jumping, while clinging and climbing from every urban outcrop. Dress the entire thing up in the world of Stand Alone Complex, with an excellent story scripted by those responsible for the TV series and some well balanced stealth. Imagine basically the Tomb Raider series except with its caves, jungles and ruins replaced by cyberpunk-themed cityscapes and military installations the bears and dinosaurs substituted with robots and terrorists carrying hi-tech weapons. Critics at the time may have failed to appreciate it, but as you’ll see, it’s actually one of the system’s better 3rd person action-platformers. Even if you didn’t enjoy Lara Croft’s outings, there’s still a lot to recommend SAC on PS2. It’s actually comparable to the Tomb Raider platformers in many ways. SAC however, despite coming out earlier, is a far more ambitious game than Bullet Witch ever attempted to be. Bullet Witch, also by Cavia, has strong similarities to GitS: SAC, especially since in interviews it was revealed the same team worked on it. It’s a parallel franchise, akin to Final Fantasy proper versus Crystal Chronicles perhaps. The PS2 game, much like the SAC series, represents a schism from the original manga, first film and PS1 adaptation. The first thing you’ll notice though is that it’s nothing like the previous game on the PS1. Not the most notable of titles to secure an expensive license, but Cavia did a fine job, arguably crafting one of their best works after Nier. For the second game development was handed over to Cavia, which previously had worked on Drakengard and Resident Evil: Dead Aim.
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