Let's have a specific thread where we talk about this very misunderstood game, including its flaws.
THE RUMP
Most people who have seen it in action agree: it's absolutely amazing. How it's shaped, how each butt cheek is individually animated and how it wiggles and jiggles. Back in the day, this was a revolutionary butt. No one had seen a butt like Vanessa's outside of fighting games. It was big, it was round and it bounced all over the place when she ran. This is what initially got famous:
That's an actual, in-game animation when she fires away. And she fires away a lot, because this is a shooter. But people who actually played the game also discovered something else. Vanessa's rump wasn't square shaped, it wasn't flat and it wasn't firm. You can literally see the booty flab bounce up and down during her running animation, simply because her butt isn't firm enough to keep still:
But P.N.03 didn't just have most bounce per ounce back in 2003, it also had this:
This is what it looked like in the actual game
This is what it looked like on Dolphin, where you could move the camera closer
Notice her thighs are also jiggling
All of the above are not physics. Rather, everything in P.N.03 was manually animated. That means the jiggle looks exactly the same every time for specific movements (bad), but it also means it looks a lot better than the jello physics found in Soulcalibur II, released the same year:
And regarding size and shape, Vanessa's rump was the kind of rump that would've gotten the headline "Look at the size of that big, fat ARSE!!" in British tabloids:
Note the size of her ass compared to her thighs and waist. Note the complete absence of muscle definition. But most of all, note how it looks smaller than it actually is because of her black chaps covering her hips and the side of her buttocks. Her rump is wider than it looks.
THE GAMEPLAY
P.N.03 is an old game, but I still see new YouTube playthroughs getting posted now and then. Most of these have one thing in common: the YouTubers have no idea how to play the game properly. I would like to break this down into several categories:
You can't shoot while moving
This is probably what got people most annoyed back in the day. They expected a modern sci-fi Devil May Cry and got a modern, sci-fi Space Invaders. Here's the thing, the game is not designed for you to run around and shoot freely. Just like God Hand, another excellent and equally misunderstood game, P.N.03 is all about precision and patience - not about running around mindlessly mashing buttons.
The camera sucks
The sole purpose of the camera is to let you, the player, peek out around corners. For example, you hide behind a wall, and you can't see the enemy. Then you can use the camera to look at the enemy without having to move. The camera is not supposed to be changed often, only in certain situations.
The controls are bad
They're not. Everything in P.N.03 is very precise, and unless you actually have control over your actions, you will suffer. This didn't sit well with people who were used to games that allowed for many mistakes without punishment.
The game is too difficult
It's not, unless you just rush forward expecting the game to go easy on you. But if you study and analyze the enemies' patterns, you will quickly learn how to dodge their fire. And this is key to P.N.03's gameplay. Before firing, every enemy flashes red - that's your hint to get out of the way. Know the pattern, know when to get out of the way and know when to strike back. It's that simple.
The real challenge in the game comes with the combo meter, where you have to destroy enemies in rapid succession, very much like The Mercenaries in Resident Evil 4 and 5. Since the timer does not add up, but simply replace the current combo time with a new time (for example, if you timer is 10 seconds and you destroy a small enemy, it'll change to 5 seconds instead of 15 seconds), you have to destroy the enemies in the correct order. This sometimes means damaging a large enemy without destroying it, then take care of the small fries, and the kill of the big elephant. This gives P.N.03 a strategic element to it as well.
THE CONTENT
Now this is where the game suffers, and this is where I'm going to stop praising everything. P.N.03 is an extremely short game, and you can see the developers were aware of this. There are 11 missions in total, and each one lasts approximately 5-15 minutes. That's it. So in order to artificially lengthen the game, Capcom decided to put in Trial Missions. In the Japanese version, there's only one Trial Mission per level. But in the western version, there are five. Why is this?
First of all, the Trial Missions are just reused rooms put in a random order. Think of the dungeon maker in the Switch remake of Link's Awakening. Second, the sole purpose of the Trial Missions is to make the game feel longer than it actually is. This is also achieved by having a store with expensive outfits and upgrades. You're forced to play the Trial Missions to rack up points if you want to buy everything in the store. And just like that, the game gets you to replay the same rooms over and over again.
But there's more. In the western version., all the items in the store are much more expensive than in the Japanese version. And not only that, but to unlock the famous thong suit in the western version, you need to finish every single Trial Mission in the game with a Professional ranking (and there are 50 Trial Missions in the western release, compared to 10 in the Japanese version).
This is where I see legitimate critisism against P.N.03. It knows it's a short game, and it tries to artificially be longer. But there's no denying that the extremely tight development schedule of the game took its toll on the content.
FINISH
Now, let's have a discussion about her rump, the controls and the content. Do you agree with me? Or do you see it differently? Have you played the game?
THE RUMP
Most people who have seen it in action agree: it's absolutely amazing. How it's shaped, how each butt cheek is individually animated and how it wiggles and jiggles. Back in the day, this was a revolutionary butt. No one had seen a butt like Vanessa's outside of fighting games. It was big, it was round and it bounced all over the place when she ran. This is what initially got famous:
That's an actual, in-game animation when she fires away. And she fires away a lot, because this is a shooter. But people who actually played the game also discovered something else. Vanessa's rump wasn't square shaped, it wasn't flat and it wasn't firm. You can literally see the booty flab bounce up and down during her running animation, simply because her butt isn't firm enough to keep still:
But P.N.03 didn't just have most bounce per ounce back in 2003, it also had this:
This is what it looked like in the actual game
This is what it looked like on Dolphin, where you could move the camera closer
Notice her thighs are also jiggling
All of the above are not physics. Rather, everything in P.N.03 was manually animated. That means the jiggle looks exactly the same every time for specific movements (bad), but it also means it looks a lot better than the jello physics found in Soulcalibur II, released the same year:
And regarding size and shape, Vanessa's rump was the kind of rump that would've gotten the headline "Look at the size of that big, fat ARSE!!" in British tabloids:
Note the size of her ass compared to her thighs and waist. Note the complete absence of muscle definition. But most of all, note how it looks smaller than it actually is because of her black chaps covering her hips and the side of her buttocks. Her rump is wider than it looks.
THE GAMEPLAY
P.N.03 is an old game, but I still see new YouTube playthroughs getting posted now and then. Most of these have one thing in common: the YouTubers have no idea how to play the game properly. I would like to break this down into several categories:
You can't shoot while moving
This is probably what got people most annoyed back in the day. They expected a modern sci-fi Devil May Cry and got a modern, sci-fi Space Invaders. Here's the thing, the game is not designed for you to run around and shoot freely. Just like God Hand, another excellent and equally misunderstood game, P.N.03 is all about precision and patience - not about running around mindlessly mashing buttons.
The camera sucks
The sole purpose of the camera is to let you, the player, peek out around corners. For example, you hide behind a wall, and you can't see the enemy. Then you can use the camera to look at the enemy without having to move. The camera is not supposed to be changed often, only in certain situations.
The controls are bad
They're not. Everything in P.N.03 is very precise, and unless you actually have control over your actions, you will suffer. This didn't sit well with people who were used to games that allowed for many mistakes without punishment.
The game is too difficult
It's not, unless you just rush forward expecting the game to go easy on you. But if you study and analyze the enemies' patterns, you will quickly learn how to dodge their fire. And this is key to P.N.03's gameplay. Before firing, every enemy flashes red - that's your hint to get out of the way. Know the pattern, know when to get out of the way and know when to strike back. It's that simple.
The real challenge in the game comes with the combo meter, where you have to destroy enemies in rapid succession, very much like The Mercenaries in Resident Evil 4 and 5. Since the timer does not add up, but simply replace the current combo time with a new time (for example, if you timer is 10 seconds and you destroy a small enemy, it'll change to 5 seconds instead of 15 seconds), you have to destroy the enemies in the correct order. This sometimes means damaging a large enemy without destroying it, then take care of the small fries, and the kill of the big elephant. This gives P.N.03 a strategic element to it as well.
THE CONTENT
Now this is where the game suffers, and this is where I'm going to stop praising everything. P.N.03 is an extremely short game, and you can see the developers were aware of this. There are 11 missions in total, and each one lasts approximately 5-15 minutes. That's it. So in order to artificially lengthen the game, Capcom decided to put in Trial Missions. In the Japanese version, there's only one Trial Mission per level. But in the western version, there are five. Why is this?
First of all, the Trial Missions are just reused rooms put in a random order. Think of the dungeon maker in the Switch remake of Link's Awakening. Second, the sole purpose of the Trial Missions is to make the game feel longer than it actually is. This is also achieved by having a store with expensive outfits and upgrades. You're forced to play the Trial Missions to rack up points if you want to buy everything in the store. And just like that, the game gets you to replay the same rooms over and over again.
But there's more. In the western version., all the items in the store are much more expensive than in the Japanese version. And not only that, but to unlock the famous thong suit in the western version, you need to finish every single Trial Mission in the game with a Professional ranking (and there are 50 Trial Missions in the western release, compared to 10 in the Japanese version).
This is where I see legitimate critisism against P.N.03. It knows it's a short game, and it tries to artificially be longer. But there's no denying that the extremely tight development schedule of the game took its toll on the content.
FINISH
Now, let's have a discussion about her rump, the controls and the content. Do you agree with me? Or do you see it differently? Have you played the game?
