This game is absurdly dark when you're inside buildings. I had to crank up the brightness to 100 on my TV to be able to see something. I can't believe this was considered OK for the devs/testers!
Anyway, I gave up near the end of the game, as it gets ridiculously hard with sections that require super precise movement and placement (which is almost impossible given how clunky the character is), and also require constant aiming at far away enemies, and the aiming is so bad it loses aim between shots and reloads, and even moves your character out of hiding randomly, leaving him an instant chicken target.
Not to mention how unbalanced the progression is, with some levels being a single room that takes 5 minutes to clear, and other levels being 15 rooms with multiple backtracking, respawning enemies in different locations and flavours, and of course you can only save at the end of each level. Checkpoints inside levels are only valid during a play session, so you can only rely on those temporarily.
Well, at least the Japanese version does indeed come with full English support for voice, menu text and subtitles.
But let's mention the story, which is boring at best, but gets in the way of action all the time, with pointless cutscenes making you grow milk in your breasts even you're a man, and you can't (always) skip them. I found that some cutscenes, like entering a room and seeing an overview of enemies, can be skipped, but cutscenes where characters speak cannnot be skipped. Why?
And I don't know about the Japanese voice/text, but English is embarrassing to say the least. They all speak slowly like trying to make themselves clear to a severely mentally handicapped gorilla, and the way they speak is 100% off from the actual situations, like it's a romantic B movie done with 1,000$ budget (food catering included). It made the game SO MUCH MORE painful to play through that it already was.
Check this cutscene
Bosses are ridiculously generic, most of them have a single pattern of moving and attacking. There's gun guy, shotgun guy, gun woman, rocket launcher fat guy and a bunch of others memorable guys. Haven't made it to the final boss but he's a just a sunglasses guy with, let me guess, a machine gun or something. Or maybe there's like a huge surprise and a Metal Gear will show up and you will fight half naked on it... oh no, can't be that good.
Music is like TWO shorts songs, the outdoor song and the indoor song, and when you lose enough health, here comes the LOW HEALTH song that overrides any other song as long as you don't pick up a health bonus that restores enough health.
Oh there's also a THIRD song in the super secret base, it's some kind of organ church thing that feels a million miles off from the location and feeling of the game, and it sounds like the beginning of Simon's Theme in Super Castlevania IV. What can I say.
Sound effects are THREE vocalisations of enemies getting hit, played randomly when hitting them, footsteps and gun sounds. OK. Maybe I heard a helicopter sound, it woke me up, it was so different. Oh and don't forget the semi invisible ninja gun guy who keeps laughing during the boss fight. My wife almost asked me to divorce. Check it out. Having the same exact laugh every time is stupid, and it's annoying, and it fails being evil-scary like --I suppose-- it was meant to be. Maybe not, maybe it's some kind of Japanese ninja humour (the devs is Omega Force... known for all the Shin Sangoku Musou... oh my...).
The options menu is full of useless stuff, like they spent more time on the menu than on teaching the voice talents to speak properly. You can see all the NPC and weapons and items, and most of them don't do anything, you click on them it makes nothing, they just spent time modeling them, I guess to justify some extra bonus at the end of the month. Yeah maybe I'm being harsh on this one.
I felt bad playing through this, like I was dancing naked on my balcony and all the neighbours and passerbies saw me and took photos and videos.
Maybe one day if I'm drunk enough, or if someone points a gun to my genitals, I will go back and try to finish the game, I sort of want to know how NOT good the ending is, how unexciting the dialog will keep on being, and how many times I can die in 5 minutes while trying to take down 3 shotgun guys down a hallway where there's no hiding spot.
Because you need to know the main point of this game: YOU CAN'T FIRE YOUR GUN WHILE MOVING. This is sort of Time Crisis, but that was a rail shooter, it made sense, and there was a lot of moving anyway. This thing, you're moving all the time but must always stop and hide to shoot. It's frustrating and at this point I've grown full breasts from bodily frustration, and they are full of adrenalinised milk.
And the playable character is called JEAN-LUC, which is French, and they speak his name ten thousand billion times in the cutscenes. AND EACH AND EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY PRONUNCE IT "JON LOOOC" à la English. I will be frank, it is the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced in a game so far. It made all the other flaws bearable, even the laughing ninja. I am still having nightmares about JON LOOOC.
Lucky I had a Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit II disc sitting next to WinBack. Felt much better playing that. A really outstanding racing game!