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Post by dsparil on Jan 24, 2019 16:05:49 GMT -5
toei You're really picking and choosing your dates though. FF4 is unquestionably the first classic SNES RPG. The order they came out in the US is irrelevant since that's not when they were actually developed. The US missed out on plenty of SNES RPGs like DQV, FF5 and SMT1 (all from '92 just to name a few) which all came out before PSIV. More to the actual point I made, regardless of how you feel about the story that's attempted to be told, the amount of text dedicated to it is very small. I've played plenty of RPGs from the 80s across numerous platforms and PSII has an extremely small amount of text. Nei dying is the most elaborate moment in the game, but it's still only around a dozen lines of text plus the sole scripted cutscene which itself is very short. Palma being destroyed is likewise treated with a dozen or so lines of text. It's almost an afterthought. I'm not expecting a novel, but even a little bit of actual dialogue would have gone a long way. There's around five or six total moments of exposition excluding the intro and ending. A little bit of actual story dialogue like even FF2 has would have gone a long way.
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Post by toei on Jan 24, 2019 17:09:17 GMT -5
toei You're really picking and choosing your dates though. FF4 is unquestionably the first classic SNES RPG. The order they came out in the US is irrelevant since that's not when they were actually developed. The US missed out on plenty of SNES RPGs like DQV, FF5 and SMT1 (all from '92 just to name a few) which all came out before PSIV. More to the actual point I made, regardless of how you feel about the story that's attempted to be told, the amount of text dedicated to it is very small. I've played plenty of RPGs from the 80s across numerous platforms and PSII has an extremely small amount of text. Nei dying is the most elaborate moment in the game, but it's still only around a dozen lines of text plus the sole scripted cutscene which itself is very short. Palma being destroyed is likewise treated with a dozen or so lines of text. It's almost an afterthought. I'm not expecting a novel, but even a little bit of actual dialogue would have gone a long way. There's around five or six total moments of exposition excluding the intro and ending. A little bit of actual story dialogue like even FF2 has would have gone a long way. Well, I'm picking dates according to my own tastes, admittedly. I don't think FFIV is a classic in the same category as FFVI, Chrono, Lufia 2 et al, at all. It's a 8/10 at best for me, as are other early SNES RPGs like Lufia or Breath of Fire. I think the story has some awfully stupid moments (the whole unending mind control mess with Kain) and there are too many moment when you enter a dungeon and find you can't go back, which is needlessly aggravating. I also felt like Cecil was much cooler as a Black Knight and didn't have to turn into a dork just to symbolize his moral redemption. That the US releases dates are irrelevant has been my point from the start, though, so I'm not sure why you seem to think we disagree there. But DQV is no DQVI (I hear people love the DS remake, but if we compare the originals, both DQIV and DQVI and much better); FF5 is obviously no FF6, either - it's not even as good as FF4, and is absolutely not a classic by any measure -, and SMT1 has an intriguing setting and premise, but it's still a very flawed dungeon crawler, as is SMT2 (once you get a few decent fusions going, the game becomes very easy, and all that's left is drudging through endless dungeons fighting pointless random encounters). Beyond tastes, though, I'd argue the best late SNES RPGs, like FF6, Chrono, Lufia 2, Earthbound, etc., are objectively more polished than FF4 or DQ5. Their stories are more developed, their characters, too, the encounter rates are lower or replaced by better systems, the dungeons more streamlined or better-designed, etc. And Phantasy Star IV was the first console RPG to offer that sort of polished experience (and sadly, the only turned-based Genesis RPG to do so). I really don't think FF2 NES had more text (which is exactly what I've been talking about when I mention script size) than PS2. Or DQ3, or most console RPGs up to then. A dozen lines of text is a lot for a console RPG at that time! You have dramatic events in NES RPGs resolved in literally 3 or 4 lines. I agree it would have been better to have more, of course, but it wasn't par for the course at all. I suggest you skip PS3 entirely, because it's far more terse, particularly in the official localization. They did streamline the dungeons and speed up the battles, though. Too bad the walking speed is so sluggish.
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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 24, 2019 17:37:08 GMT -5
Detention (Steam, on Windows) first time played, 5 hours (both good and bad ending)
A really interesting and well-done narrative game from Taiwan that starts as a typical Asian-style adventure horror game but is ultimately something less (as in gameplay) and something much more, i.e. a meaningful and sad personal story that is correlated to the country's history of martial law and oppression. The style is great and the narration is subtle, with all the hints and metaphors coming together at the very end to signify the real tragedy of what happened to the protagonist.
This is the dev team's first title (released 2 years ago) and I'm going to check their next title (another horror adventure, seemingly) that comes out in a month.
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Post by foopy64 on Jan 25, 2019 21:09:19 GMT -5
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces IIReally cool game, awesome levels and puzzles. Combat is a little lacking, but it was still fun to play. First time playing, took me 14 hours. Another impressive showing from LucasArts! RIP EDIT: Forgot to mention I played it on Windows through GOG!
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Post by toei on Jan 25, 2019 22:08:58 GMT -5
Claiming:
Edo no Kiba (Super Famicom) A lot of Telenet games are flawed and lack polish, but this one flat out feels unfinished. There's a level that has basically no enemies. Had potential, though.
Cyborg 009 (Sega CD) Riot's best side-scroller, this one is actually pretty decent despite some technical issues. The superspeed ability is fun to mess with, and the auto-running stage is really well-made.
Aladdin (Master System) Cinematic platformer with some adventure touches that aim to faithfully recreate the movie in abridged form. The controls are a bit stiff during the larger, non-linear sections, but it's definitely worth playing through once.
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Post by zerker on Jan 26, 2019 6:45:44 GMT -5
Finished Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) yesterday, though I hate that "Marvel's" is considered part of the title...
It was a lot of fun; I'd rank it as an 8/10. Combat was really overwhelming at first, but I got pretty good at it by the end. Swinging around and smashing in for the random crimes was a pretty good time. Wasn't fond of the Taskmasker challenges, and since I stopped seeking them out, I was basically locked out of the later upgrades. I'll probably do a little bit of cleanup for the secondary quests before moving on.
No clue what the completion time was.
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Threads
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the disco before the breakdown
Posts: 122
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Post by Threads on Jan 27, 2019 5:33:24 GMT -5
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut (Windows, first playthrough) - 41 hours, 54 minutes - 3.5/5
This started off really well but loses steam badly once you hit the DLC through the end of the game. The DLC itself is bland while overstaying its welcome while the ending of the main game falls into the same pitfalls the original game did (too many enemies, condensed level designs) to a further extent. Things were topped off with 4 ending choices that each felt unsatisfactory for different reasons. Hopefully I can track down a copy of the original version (is it even possible to get that on PC anymore?) so I can play the game without the DLC integrated because I can see that scaring me away from replaying.
Otherwise, I mostly enjoyed my time with this before the last 3 or 4 hours. Boss fights and the social battles were a drag but everything else was right up my alley. Loved traveling around the hubs, exploring for different pathways and the like. Spent most of this playthrough being stealthy and nonlethal, in fact I thought I had finished without killing anyone or raising an alarm but I didn't get either achievement. I'm curious where I messed up.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 27, 2019 9:55:01 GMT -5
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut (Windows, first playthrough) - 41 hours, 54 minutes - 3.5/5 Hopefully I can track down a copy of the original version (is it even possible to get that on PC anymore?) so I can play the game without the DLC integrated because I can see that scaring me away from replaying. The Ultimate Edition has that as an option. It's PS3 and Mac only though.
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Post by zerker on Jan 27, 2019 10:45:23 GMT -5
Spent most of this playthrough being stealthy and nonlethal, in fact I thought I had finished without killing anyone or raising an alarm but I didn't get either achievement. I'm curious where I messed up. You wouldn't happen to have hacked a security bot and let it go on a rampage, would you? ... so satisfying.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Jan 27, 2019 14:57:11 GMT -5
The Smurfs (GB, played on GBA) (30:00) (Rating: 7/10) (replay) Taz-Mania (GB, played on GBA) (30:00) (Rating: 4/10) (1st time beaten)
Inevitably, any household with kids that has a gaming system is gonna end up with some random licensed games. I thought it could be fun to revisit some to see how they hold up.
The Smurfs is a pretty good platformer. We had the PC version as well, which is similar to the SNES and Mega CD version from what I can tell, while the GB version is like the NES and SMS version. The PC version I could never get very far in, but the GB version I've beaten a couple of times as a kid. It's a pretty memorable game, honestly, and has a great soundtrack.
Taz-Mania is just your typical licensed crap. It's pretty playable for the most part, but the central mechanic (turning into a tornado) is never really used well at all, and the level design is boring as hell. The final boss seems kind of unfinished. There are a couple of annoying Outrun-esque minigames between stages that just drag on and on. Also the game seems to think that the character's name is Taz-Mania.
I also played some Daffy Duck in the Martian Missions but couldn't stand it for more than half a stage. I never really liked it as a kid either.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 27, 2019 15:28:37 GMT -5
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom (Genesis/Switch, First Time) PSIII I actually enjoyed a lot! The battles are speedy, and there's barely any grinding. They might actually be a little too fast as messages can speed by too quickly to read at times. The battle interface has more traditional full and single turn autobattle options although issuing individual commands remains clunky. You can also target individual enemies now with enemies divided into front and back rows and left and right groups which affects attack techniques.
The enemies themselves have lost their idle animations and the attack animations are very subtle. A few enemies only use sprite movement to convey attacking which I dont mind. I was going to suggest that as an alternative to attack animation when writing about II as Soul Hackers uses that technique to very good effect. It seems like a perfectly viable solution, but I'm assuming that it's faster to draw small animations than it is to design and program them.
I also like how techniques are divided into groups of 4 with the ability to adjust the strength of them. The actual process is a little weird as they're arranged in the corners of a square/rectangle, and you move a cursor to adjust the strength. It nowhere near as straightforward as simply allocating points, but I appreciate the attempt. Being able to change the strength allows for each technique to have a specific purpose without having "duplicates" that are simply stronger versions. The TP required also stays the same which is nice.
The concept of having a total of 7 scenarios is sound, but it seems like there could have been more to differentiate them. There's hypothetically 4 endings, but two of the final generation characters have very similar ones. They're in different branches so they likely have differences earlier on. I finished as Aron and it seems like the alternate Adan path in that branch is nearly the same but with one significant story difference. The two middle generation choices do seem to be rather different so the similarity may be due to insufficient time.
Unlike PSII, I don't think the general sketchiness of the plot is that much of a limiting factor here. It doesn't go as big for the most part so having less detail doesn't rob the story moments of their significance to the degree it does in II. It might have been better to only have two generations though with the first serving as an intro with double length second generations leading to two endings. Going for three does seem to have stretched the developers resources a little thin towards the end.
Rating: 8
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Post by toei on Jan 27, 2019 15:52:34 GMT -5
dsparil That was definitely the case (that they ran out of time). They told the co-director of PS2 to make a new Phantasy Star with an all-new team and gave him very little time to do so. His vision was overly ambitious, and he had to cut out a lot of story content. You know those short illustrated cutscenes at the start of the 3rd generation? There probably should have been more like those, especially for the 2nd gen, and definitely more text. I would have liked for the characters to have at least a bit of a personality, and to have known more about Lune, Siren, even Miun. Not to mention that by the 2nd gen, the towns are all almost completely empty. Or what about the big reveal about the nature of your world? The way it was presented, it had zero impact. The fan re-translation is actually a little more detailed and flavorful, though some sentences are worded clumsily, but not enough to blame the localization for this. There are also story moments that aren't represented visually at all; after Lyle's kingdom is attacked and supposedly destroyed by cyborgs, it looks perfectly fine, except the NPCs are gone. You're also right in assuming that the 3rd gens are all basically the same, besides the first few minutes. Worse still, there are certain things you do in only one of the 2nd gens, like finding Laya's little sister, that you have to do in the other half of the 3rd gens if you took a certain story path. So really only about 80% of the 2nd gens is unique, and the 3rd gens are almost all redundant. Regarding the TP system, the main issue for me isn't how it's organized (I find it pretty easy to manage), but the fact that attack magic is nearly useless. Other than that, I like how it works.
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Threads
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the disco before the breakdown
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Post by Threads on Jan 27, 2019 19:09:36 GMT -5
Spent most of this playthrough being stealthy and nonlethal, in fact I thought I had finished without killing anyone or raising an alarm but I didn't get either achievement. I'm curious where I messed up. You wouldn't happen to have hacked a security bot and let it go on a rampage, would you? ... so satisfying. I did not but I won't lie and say i didn't consider it. Some of the enemy arrangements had me frustrated and wanting revenge after dealing with them. I think I might have accidentally killed someone while breaking through a wall at one point. I was reading about how if you break through a wall with an enemy nearby they'll get killed which is probably the only chance I can think of. Unless the grunts in boss fights count also.
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Post by Null0x00 on Jan 27, 2019 23:39:53 GMT -5
Burning Rangers (Sega Saturn) First time I've played and beaten it. Pretty good, although it's blatantly obvious the Saturn hardware just can't handle what this game needs in the visuals.
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Post by foopy64 on Jan 28, 2019 0:43:20 GMT -5
Mega Man 3
Unfortunately I am not talking about the NES version. I just forced myself to beat the DOS version of Mega Man 3, this is a first time completion. I'd say it took around 2 hours total. I used DOSBox and set the cycles to 1444. I took this number from the rules that megamanleaderboards.net uses to speedrun this game... I gave it a 3.5 in my spreadsheet which is the lowest rating I have given yet!
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