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I've always been a fan of games that fall into the 'other' genre. With only a few exceptions, they are some of the most original and high quality games out there. Often these games become cult classics, and never get the enormous followings that some of the more generic, well publicized titles receive. For some reason the general gaming public just doesn't seem to know what to do if their games don't fall under one of the big five categories.

I never had a chance to play the original Deception, but I love its sequel. Deception 2 offered original gameplay and some really nice, gruesome deaths. There was definitely room for improvement, though. It was a pretty short game, so in order to prolong the playability, once you beat it, you started back at the beginning with all of the traps you had developed. Speaking of traps, there could have been a greater variety of them to make the game more interesting.

Fortunately, Deception 3: Dark Delusion is here to improve on those aspects that its predecessor lacked. It is still hampered by poor translation and a confusing storyline, but to find out more about that, you're going to have to read this review. Gameplay:

The gameplay in Deception 3 is essentially identical to that of Deception 2. The game is broken up into three basic sections. The first part of the game is driven by a menu system. In this section you have the option to take the trap license tests, practice your trap setting skills without enemies, or develop new traps.

The trap creation is the most interesting feature of this menu-driven section. Trap creation is accomplished by combining four basic elements together. The first element is the basic trap type - you select from the basic groups of wall, ceiling and floor traps, and then select from a number of sub-categories. These sub-categories include choices such as push wall, pendulum, explosive, vacuum floor, bear trap, etc. The next step in trap creation is to choose an emblem for the trap. The emblems come in a number of flavors from the mundane fire to the unpredictable cursed, with a myriad of others in between. Next, you choose a feature-modification ring to add to the trap. The rings also come in a number of flavors, each with its own power from reducing the recharge rate to making the trap set itself off automatically. Finally, you add power orbs to the trap. The number of power orbs you use (from 1 to 4) determines the power of the trap. Though emblems and rings are optional, you must have at least one power orb to make a trap.

Once you have thrown together a number of trap parts, you get to see what your trap will do. If you are satisfied with its damage and description of its special effects, you can choose to make the trap - if you have enough dreak. More on dreak later. Incidentally, if you prefer not to make traps yourself, you can always ask the computer for a list of the traps that it recommends you build.

The next aspect of Deception 3 is the story mode. These skippable movies explain the plot to you... Well, they try to, anyway. There are a number of faults in the story mode of D3. First, the translation from Japanese is fairly poor. It usually isn't a problem to figure out what people are trying to say, but once or twice I had a lot of trouble, and often I said to myself "boy, this translation sucks," which really ruined the flow of the story for me. The second problem with the movies is that they introduce a lot of random characters. Everyone you kill in Deception 3 has a name and a personality, and most of them make their way into the cutscenes. The problem is that you kill so many off that until fairly late in the game, it's tough to tell who's important. Again, this is partially due to poor translation because everyone sounds like a thug from the way they speak English.

Finally, once you've either skipped or watched the cutscene, a short paragraph pops up to attempt to explain to you what just happened in the cutscenes. Unfortunately, these are translated even more poorly than the rest of the game.

Ahh, on to the game! The third section of the game is the real reason people like this series. Armed with a nine traps selected from your stock, and a number of traps built into the rooms, you must go forth and kill people. Your character, Reina, has no direct attacks. The only way she can do damage is through her traps. In any room, one trap of each type (ceiling, wall, and floor) may be set up. Once the traps have charged, you must lead your unwitting victim into the path of their wrath. For maximum damage and points, you must set off traps in combinations. One of my favorite is the magnet-wall, iron ball from ceiling, and explosive trap combo. Be careful, though. The enemies in the early section of the game are fairly easy to kill, but as you progress your opponents gain missile weapons and special powers such as magnetism and teleportation.

Once you kill all of the bad guys in a level, you get ark points, which then translate into dreak points. It is with the accumulation of dreak points that you can create bigger and better traps. More ark and dreak points are awarded for feats such as hard hitting combos and clearing the level without taking damage. Longevity:

Wow, this is a huge step up from Deception 2! There are a ton more missions, plus an expert mode, plus a license mode to keep you playing unique levels for a lot longer than in number 2! In addition, with over 2000 traps to create and find, you'll have to work a lot harder to make them all. Granted, the number of traps seems a lot lower when you consider that they counted each power level of a trap as a different trap, but it's still a nice step up. I still find my favorites and use them often, but I am always on the lookout for something better.

Finally, a lot of the early levels are way too short. In fact, one of the big letdowns for me was that it's too easy to kill enemies. I planned out a really neat infinite combo, and the stupid enemy died after like five or six hits! I want tons of ark points, damnit! Controls:

The controls also haven't changed much from Deception 2. There is still vibration, but no analog, which I found somewhat disappointing. Aside from the translations, this is the part of the game that could have used the most improvement. Movement is a real chore in Deception 3 because Reina turns so slowly. When the enemy gets within melee range, it can be very difficult to get away. Fortunately, there is a turn-towards-enemy button to facilitate the run-past-trap-then-set-it-off-when-the-enemy-walks-over-it-in-pursuit trick. When there are two enemies in the room it doesn't always pick the right one, though. Graphics:

Not much has changed graphically in Deception 3 since its predecessor. Textures do seem a little cleaner with brighter colors, but overall it's the same stuff. That's not to say that the graphics are bad by any means. They are actually rather nice for the aging Playstation. A lot of effort was put into the details of both the levels and the characters. This is particularly noticeable during the cutscenes. The textures are pretty high res., so there is very little pixelization during the frequent close-ups.

My one big graphical gripe for this title is that the animation of the characters feels very hollow. The characters don't shift their weight properly at all. They just sort of go through a walking or running cycle as they slide along the ground. The only exception to this is when enemies are very damaged. Then they stagger along and shift their weight quite nicely. On the flipside, the running animation is the worst. The animation doesn't match up with the speed of the running at all. In fact, it's pretty humorous to watch characters 'run' away from each other at a ridiculously slow pace.

The deaths, as always, are somewhat graphic. Now that we have so many games out there that start with disclaimers regarding their graphic content, I would have hoped for at least an option in Deception 3 to see some bodies chopped up or blown to bits. Instead, dead enemies just thrash about in pools of their blood when they die. Of course, if they were blown to bits, I guess they couldn't deliver their incredibly clever death lines.

I give it a 9 for great textures and nice models. Sound:

Nothing surprising here. The few digitized voices there are are in Japanese, which I actually quite like. Other than that the sounds are all background music and trap and dying effects. There's nothing terribly subtle or innovative in the sound department here. It sounds fine and the music is good for the mood, but overall it's standard fare. I suppose I do have to give a little extra for the death screams, which are always fun to listen to. Overall:

Well, overall Deception 3 is a great game. I gave it the marks I did because for such a minor upgrade it took an awfully long time to be released. I wouldn't call Deception 3: Dark Delusion a disappointing game by any means, though. If you loved 2, you'll love 3. If you've never played the series, check it out. It's an engrossing and fairly disturbing little game, though not as disturbing as number 2 was. Thanks for bringing us more of this excellent series, Tecmo!