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Post by Snake on Aug 5, 2019 12:17:41 GMT -5
Eight Man, Neo Geo (1st Time, about 30 minutes)
Never read the manga or watched the anime, but it felt like they may have taken some creative liberties with the series. It's a 1960's ~ 1970's futurist feel, but with repetitive enemies. Mostly robots, cyborgs, a predator look-a-like, and demonistic ghost thingy for an end boss. Controls and action is solid, early Neo Geo SNK fare.
5/10.
Fatal Fury, Neo Geo (1st Time, about 2 hours)
Most of my play time felt like button-mashing. I could never beat Geese Howard when I was kid. He just felt impossibly cheap. He is still impossibly cheap. So many times I had to see that sequence of Geese kicking you off the side, with the count down screen of you falling down the building, every time you lose to him. All the other opponents, you could get by on regular moves. But for Geese, all my wins felt like they depended on the... NEXT FATAL ATTACK. All the dashing moves, like Joe's flying knee, Terry's Burn knuckle, and Andy's dashing elbow. They all have pretty much the same ending of kicking Geese off the building, and then standing at the end of a cliff as the "King of Fighters" until the credits roll in. For it's cheesiness and lack of polish, I still strangely enough, like this game. I like the setting, the wannabe 1980's B-movie martial arts motif.
6/10.
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Post by moran on Aug 6, 2019 15:42:08 GMT -5
Altered Beast - Gen - Replay - 20 minutes 5/10
Not much to say about this. For a game that's considered a classic its so bare bones and quick.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Aug 6, 2019 16:58:38 GMT -5
Streets of Rage 3 (MD, played on Win10, 1st play, 1h10m)
Technically Bare Knuckle III, which is usually recommended over SoR3.
It does its fair share to add things to the formula. There's some more stage hazards and stuff, and some gameplay changes. It goes more out there with the locales too. Ultimately, most of the combat feels pretty similar, though. I'll try some of the new characters to see how that changes things, as I just stuck with Axel for this first playthrough.
I don't know what the general opinion is on SoR2 vs SoR3 these days, but I'd say they're probably about equal. I appreciated SoR 2 more after I played through it with different characters, though. One thing's for sure - the soundtrack is a major step down from SoR1 and 2.
Rating: 8/10
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Aug 7, 2019 6:39:57 GMT -5
People tend to like the pacing and music better in SoR 2, as well as Max over Zan. I'd agree with the first two points but the core mechanics are great in 3.
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Post by JoeQ on Aug 7, 2019 9:28:08 GMT -5
Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call (PS2) - First playthrough, Time: 81h 07min (timer)
Another long RPG down. I beat it on Normal with the True Demon Ending.
This might well be my new favorite JRPG. It's certainly the best one on PS2 and the best SMT game. Just amazing on all fronts and outside some QoL improvements of the later entries it's hardly aged a day. Got 100% Demon Compendium too, which was a bit of a pain.
Rating: 10/10, easily
Alphabet Challenge: ABCDE-------MNOP--S-------
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Post by Snake on Aug 7, 2019 11:24:07 GMT -5
Snatcher, Sega Genesis CD (1st Time, over 6 hours)
Feels like it marries elements of Blade Runner and Terminator, and turns it into some intriguing fan fiction. If there's any themes that Kojima likes to work in to his games from Snatcher, Policenauts, to Metal Gear Solid, it is sexual perversion of the protagonist, the medical and pharmaceutical industry, science fiction, robots/cyborgs, and toppling a corrupt and violent power. Plenty of convoluted, unnecessary but cool/fun details throughout the game. Especially for hardcore Konami gaming fans. And even silly things, down to the phone numbers you can videophone. They really don't make this style of dark, graphic violence these days. Though I suppose it is reflective of the times -- just as there hasn't been much in the way of gritty, gory, bloody anime or Hollywood films in the recent decade, compared to the 1980's. The shooting sections really do get frantic towards the end. And I love the sense of tension and build-up as you're working to solve what's going on. Great, moody soundtrack. That intro is among my all-time favorites. I think I wouldn't mind having an actual Metal Gear following me around and being good company, as opposed to a smartphone.
8/10. I was quite entertained. Worth experiencing at least once.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Aug 8, 2019 10:21:46 GMT -5
Mega Man & Bass (SNES, played on Win10, 1st play, 7h10m)
Good to play such a fantastic Mega Man game after the dissapointing 7 and 8. Of course this one didn't get rereleased on modern platforms, but those two did. For shame, Capcom, for shame.
This game deserves more attention. I think because it re-uses some MM8 assets and is known to be very difficult, some people maybe think it's one of the lesser entries, but they'd be sorely mistaken to skip it. And besides, neither of those points are really valid anyway.
Yes, there are a lot of shared sprites, the intro boss is the Green Devil from MM8, and both Astro and Tengu Man reappear. But most enemies in MM8 were highly underutilized because of the lame level design and lack of traditional MM gameplay. In this game, the level design is good ol' Mega Man, while still offering enough new IMO. In that regard, it feels close to MM9/10/11, and is at least better than 11.
And sure, it's hard, but I feel the game gives you enough to overcome everything. MM8 had no E-tanks, and instead focused more on the items and upgrades you could get in the shop. This game has the same system, but it's way, way better, due both to the fact that the items in the shop are just way better thought out, and the fact that the game is more difficult and more traditional. The only downside is that one of the best items is a health-regenerator that can be abused by just idling for a while. This is kind of a drawn-out process but it becomes nearly essential in the Dr. Wily stages, which become pretty crazy (the second stage has 3 parts and 4 bosses, while the final stage has the typical robot masters rematches but in between platforming challenges). For once, I actually had to really think about what to use when, and the 8 robot master weapons were pretty good utilized as well.
And I have to mention the soundtrack. One of MM8's biggest flaws was the utterly forgettable soundtrack. This game, though, is as good as ever in that department.
Seriously, this is just a fantastic game on-par with the best games in the series. Classic MM fans would be foolish to not give this one a serious try.
Rating: 9/10
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Post by toei on Aug 8, 2019 11:49:49 GMT -5
Hagane (SNES), first time. One of the rare side-scrollers for the SNES where the action actually gets intense, with a wide variety of moves and weapons giving some depth to the fighting. The platforming controls take a while getting used to, though, and the early platforming sequences in the game are all pretty bad. Still a good game overall.
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Post by Snake on Aug 8, 2019 12:40:08 GMT -5
Mugen Senshi Valis: Legend of a Fantasm Soldier, PC-Engine CD (1st Time, about an hour and a half)
A remake of the very first Valis game, released after Valis IV. Gameplay mechanics and level design that is significantly different than the Genesis/Mega Drive version. A bit tougher, and not as forgiving. But I think it sports an overall, cleaner, sleeker look and feel. Controls are less clunky, and boss fights more enjoyable. I would almost compare it to Mega Man. Run, shoot, jump, slide. A rather predictable plot of a high school girl, thrown into another world/dimension, and reluctantly becoming its savior, while having to deal with a classmate rival.
6/10.
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Post by alexmate on Aug 9, 2019 10:28:18 GMT -5
Streets of Rage 3 (MD, played on Win10, 1st play, 1h10m)Technically Bare Knuckle III, which is usually recommended over SoR3. It does its fair share to add things to the formula. There's some more stage hazards and stuff, and some gameplay changes. It goes more out there with the locales too. Ultimately, most of the combat feels pretty similar, though. I'll try some of the new characters to see how that changes things, as I just stuck with Axel for this first playthrough. I don't know what the general opinion is on SoR2 vs SoR3 these days, but I'd say they're probably about equal. I appreciated SoR 2 more after I played through it with different characters, though. One thing's for sure - the soundtrack is a major step down from SoR1 and 2. Rating: 8/10 I agree. Both 8/10 games for me. I think 2 has tighter level design and better music, but isn't a huge leap from 1. SOR3 is arguably one of the best looking games on the MD and has a great atmosphere, but suffers from spamming enemies to make the game more challenging when it wasn't necessary.
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Post by dsparil on Aug 9, 2019 11:57:24 GMT -5
Return to Zork (DOS, First Time) I don't think I've ever written this, but I think about how some games have design that seems hateful. This is the first game I'm aware of whose design was deliberately so. In a recent Digital Antiquarian article (which was actually not the inspiration for playing this), developer William Volk says this: "'People hated Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2 — panned it,' he told me. 'So, we decided to wreak revenge on the entire industry by making Return to Zork completely unfair.'" This is essentially RtZ in a nutshell. It has a lot of potential, but seems to delight in being completely obtuse and confusing. The actual reason I played this was simply because all the Zork (the text and graphic adventures) were on sale on GOG relatively recently. I actually bought a boxed copy of RtZ that got remaindered a few years after it was originally released so I have some previous familiarity. There are some good points like the game is kinda funny at times, and the the cast is mainly professional actors including a few higher profile ones in hilariously tiny roles. In something that amuses me to no end, five out of seven members of Blake Lively's immediate family (parents and three half-siblings) are in this game but not her (or her brother) as she was 6 at the time. That the world was robbed of this potential fun fact might actually be the most disappointing element. The flip side of the more positive aspects is that they are also not implemented terribly well. Like a lot of "comedic" games, it's more in the neighborhood of being funny than actually being so. The cast is also squandered as none of the roles are really all that significant. Almost no one has more than a handful of lines as basically everyone is a minor character. The only exception is the wizard that communicates with you through an orb that you start with. He has a lot of dialogue, but is also annoying. For an FMV game, there also isn't that much video. There's a few transition animation between spots, but you mostly just go immediately to the next spot. Characters have some animation, but there's also plenty of static images with the just the mouth moving. I'd be one thing if the video content was pushing up against the limits of a single CD, but the data track is only 160MB! The rest is music, but it also doesn't seem to exclusively use Redbook audio so that seems like a bad trade off to make. Now for the real issue, the absolutely unfair puzzles. It starts right from the beginning with the "bonding plant". You have to dig up it up with your knife of all things instead of simply taking it which is a piece of information that could have been communicated to you in the file on the bonding plant in the town hall available later in the game. What makes this really super unfair is that the plant actually serves no direct purpose. You need it to get into a comedy club and simply can't without it alive (taking it kills the plant). It only exists to screw you out of progressing and has no narrative purpose at all. That might be the worst offense, but there's just so much nonsense in general since what was presumably a much better game was twisted into this. It's maybe not too bad if you're sort of noodling around, but it literally is obtuse for the sake of being obtuse if you're actually trying to finish. I ended up restarting and using a walkthrough which did cut down on the frustrating quite a bit. I think an adventure game should still be worth playing with one and this is right on that worth it/not worth it line. The time spent on trying to screw people over could have been better spent on making a more comprehensible plot which is in short supply. Rating: 5
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Post by Snake on Aug 10, 2019 11:49:02 GMT -5
Hahahhahahhahah!
That's exactly why I enjoyed Return to Zork. It's completely nonsensical and unforgiving. It's way too easy to make the game unfinishable from losing or deliberately throwing away necessary items. But you can do really stupid things, like carry raw meat around, that eventually rots. Then all the NPC's will begin to complain about how you stink. Then you can throw the rotting meat at some of the characters and get punched in the face for it.
The acting and dialogue is simply a joy. Who could've guessed a lot of those actors were related to Blake Lively?! I only recognized Jason Hervey, the older brother from "The Wonder Years," sitcom.
The game is heavily flawed, and the puzzles have almost no logic at times. And that stupid chess game, I only won on sheer dumb luck. But I love the amount of character and freedom it has.
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Post by Null0x00 on Aug 10, 2019 15:41:13 GMT -5
Cleared all four episodes of The Ultimate Doom for DOS using the Crispy Doom sourceport with only the default vanilla Doom features. So, no jumping, no vertical mouselook, no mods and the original locked 35FPS for the original Doom experience. Cleared in 6 hours on Ultra-Violence (Hard) mode. Rating: 9/10. It's Doom. Does anything really need to be said at this point?
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Post by ResidentTsundere on Aug 11, 2019 2:33:39 GMT -5
I beat Magic Sword on the Xbox 360's Final Fight: Double Impact collection. Kind of an annoying game, but I beat it with the bad ending. Mwahaha! It took approximately 55 minutes.
First time playthrough.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Aug 12, 2019 2:58:16 GMT -5
Fire Emblem: Three Houses NS FTP 65 hours
Enjoyed this a lot. Let's get the criticisms out of the way first. It borrows heavily from Persona 3-5 (which I love) with a calendar based time system. This can make the game kind of drag at points as you can easily spend more time wandering the academy talking to people than battling, but if you aren't concerned about min/maxing you can easily skip to the next battle. I am heavily considering skipping a lot of the management stuff the second go round. You could easily shave 20-30 hours playing this way. I played through the Golden Deer route on normal difficulty. Definitely play on hard if you have any kind of tactics game experience. Normal was too easy. All the time spent teaching characters skills ends up being a bit too rewarding by making the game a cakewalk. Only once or twice did I feel close to losing a unit and even then I could have made use of the rewind feature.
On to the good stuff. This is easily the best looking Fire Emblem game yet. High production values all around. The voice acting is pleasing, the localization excellent, and the character designs are good. Every character in my route was interesting and each had some hidden depth. Nearly everyone I've talked to about the game prefers the house that they picked which is an awesome thing in a game with multiple routes. I initially picked the Golden Deer because everyone else seemed to be going Black Eagles but by the mid-point of the game I felt really good about my decision. I just finished the game but I would love to see what the characters in the other houses have to offer. And creating that feeling is an impressive feat.
I like that the online components are more palatable than Fates' 'My Castle'. Having a base of operations to roam in Three Houses is much cooler than Fates magic dimension crap. You can easily spend a lot of time roaming around in Three Houses but the character conversations and texts do a lot of work world building.
Hopefully the game is a bit more challenging on hard mode. As far as Fire Emblem games go I would rank FE7 and Echoes higher as they play faster and are more challenging. Way better than Fates though. If you've never played much Fire Emblem and love Persona or Anime maybe give Three Houses a try. I might wait a few months for DLC to release but I will do another play through. Maybe two.
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