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Post by Woody Alien 2 on Mar 22, 2024 14:16:18 GMT -5
Kargast (Steam, first time, about 3 hrs and a half)
Another little indie bought for cheap during the sales. Sort of a horror RPG with comedy elements, or that's what the description says. I don't know what I saw in it since it turned out to be one of the dullest, most uninteresting and repetitive games I've played. The titular Kargast is a sort of purgatory where the nameless kid we control falls in, he will find other kids trapped in their personal fantasies/whatever and turned into bizarre characters that he will have to defeat and recruit, by finding one of their personal belongings in the dungeons. The gameplay loop is all like this and never changes, and the combat is one of the most basic and dullest I've ever seen: no leveling, moves, items, XP or anything, only having to hit a bar when it passes over a cursor a la Undertale but even more simplified, and cure yourself when needed. Enemies only ever attack, with no animations or anything, and your only hope to make this slog end faster is to find their elemental weakness from the skills of the other kids you've recruited. Dungeons are overly long and empty slogs where pretty much nothing happens (thankfully there are almost no random encounters either), story is barely there and unoriginal, final twist is nothing special either, feels like that the two people who made this just stopped caring at one point. There are even two palette-swapped sub-bosses one after another and they even point this out in-game!
For a game based on fantasy it seems to have been made by people with zero imagination. The only decent things are the techno and 80s synth tracks, but they are too few in number and feel out of place. 4/10
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Post by dsparil on Mar 24, 2024 18:03:18 GMT -5
Princess Peach: Showtime! (Switch, First Time)
I feel mostly mixed. For some things, mainly the low difficulty and simplistic "play" storylines, I wouldn't be too critical since this is a game for kids. Although, it is more narrowly targeted towards them than I expected. However, there are things that are more "objective" issues. The main one being the short length. There's thirty main levels total divided between the ten transformations and each of their three levels has a tendency to actually get shorter through the sequence and sometimes even get less complex. Maybe I just marathoned through it, but in any case, having so many different modes makes them all feel so lightweight. The less combat oriented ones (Detective, Figure Skater, Mermaid, Patissier) really could have used a lot more development while the other six have too much overlap in their gameplay. It would have made more senes to have say five and have them cover double the levels. I think Dashing Thief (really a secret agent type) is the standout since the gameplay seems to mostly have been cribbed from Chibi Robo Zip Lash, but really any of them have potential.
Rating: 6
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Post by Woody Alien 2 on Mar 25, 2024 7:26:46 GMT -5
Witchcraft Candy Hunt (Steam, first time, 50 minutes)
Simple short free horizontal shmup for everyone (kids included) starring a cute witch who has to save Halloween from a monster who stole the candy. Flying cats act as options and floating crystal balls give different shots if hit a la Twinbee. Only three long stages, nothing special or original but it's good enough and I always liked these kind of colorful cute-em-ups. No lives either, it just subtracts a certain amount of candies from the total you have collected if you are defeated. Really simple with just a few power-ups but it's not as easy is it may first seem. Strangely though I found the second boss much tougher than the third and final one, despite having 2 forms while the final one has three. Maybe I used the wrong weapon against it... 6.5/10
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Post by dsparil on Mar 27, 2024 8:39:10 GMT -5
Final Zone II (TurboGrafx-CD, Replay)
I liked this well enough when I originally played it two years ago after mislabeling it as a shooter (only level 3 is). However, it compares extremely poorly to sibling Red Alert in every way.
I finished in 00:58:53.
Rating: 6
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Post by personman on Mar 28, 2024 2:16:12 GMT -5
Megaman X7 (Switch via Legacy Collection Vol.2, replay, 3 hours) Ah yes, the black sheep of the series. Nevermind everything between 4 and 8 can wear that label but seems the common opinion is this is as bad as it gets. Really I can't blame anyone but personally I don't mind this one nearly as much as 5 or 6. Don't get me wrong its still awful but this one is far less painful to me and while both this and 6 are pure jank I feel like 6 was spiteful where this is just well meaning incompetence. There is just so much wrong with this thing that goes beyond the bad 3d segments but in many ways to me that I find interesting or down right funny; for instance despite having his damn name in the title X isn't even unlocked till you get half way through the game and potentially not till the final gauntlet, that is just bizarre. I've been neglecting Zero this whole marathon I've been doing and when I last played this in the collection that came out a while back I focused just on Axl, so I did the unthinkable and primarily played as Zero. Starting out it was about as miserable as people say. He of course has no range, doesn't do more damage than Axl for the huge risk he needs to deal with and the hit boxes are so huge and muddy that you're usually just going to be taking non stop contact damage from everything. Fortunately much of this can quickly be remedied with the upgrades you get from saving the hostages and while they still can be killed and removed from the game entirely for the most part the ones that are put in dickish places don't offer anything other than a health pickup. Still though having to earn fixes to a broken character doesn't feel good but at least its not too painful to make Zero half way functional after a couple stages, in fact while I still believe the game was mostly designed around Axl I did manage to get decent mileage out of his move set even if some of them overlap like Anteater's skill is just a better version of the Crow dude's weapon (which is a shame I liked the laser daggers ). Much as people make them out to be I'd only say 1 of stage is truly horrendous like some of 6's were and its just one segment in the air force level; which I say that and I didn't have an issue breezing through it this run. Guess because I knew it was coming, otherwise I didn't struggle with any of them even the really bad hover bike stage is pretty painless. Again they certainly aren't good stages and strictly speaking of stage design wise they're really dull though if you want to look at the details many are really interesting just how nonsensical most of them are setting wise; like sure the Megaman series in general has been cartoony but an endless field of lava isn't usually in its wheelhouse either. This extends to the bosses as well they are just... so much lol. Some are real typical and a joke like you'd expect by now such as Stone Kong or Warfly but others are just wild with either how janky they are or just being down right funny. The most famous is ... just a sec *looks up bizarre name* Flame Hyenard for reasons I'm sure you're all aware but everything else about him and his fight is weird as hell too. He can make clones despite nothing alluding to it, you pretty much have to fight him on top of this robot gazzele thing which begs why the hell the giant arena is there in the first place, the little intro cutscene for him is just awkward as hell, just what the heck was going on here? lol I love it. Otherwise despite being really sloppy most aren't difficult at all even with Zero, in fact with him mostly upgraded you can get so much health and i-frames for many of them its viable to just sit still and face tank them as you whittle whoever down. Another sign of how bad this whole thing is but hey I'll happily take the free ride. Only fight I found out right terrible is the one with Red and much of that is thanks to the lack of camera control. Sigma's second phase is also pretty bad but is so easy to cheese even with Zero it's no big deal and loops back around to being funny in my eyes. Also, really cool boss rematch room, a little out there and doesn't quite feel like it belongs but still neat. And I love the voice acting so much. It's just the right kind of bad with some actors actually seeming fine but their deliveries so damn botched, probably due to the goofy script. Zero just sounds like he is so done with everything which hey, who can blame him? X's completely wooden performance just fits alogn with how out of touch he is in this game and Red and Sigma just constantly ham it up and it had me smiling and chuckling the whole way. Has a pretty decent OST too and while no where near my favorite it does have some bangers here and there. Suppose that's already too much said about this thing but still my stance remains, I think it's better than X6 by a decent margin. However its such a royal mess I'm not exactly defending it either. As I said before its a real close race for which is the worst and I'd say either direction is valid. Regardless don't play either of them lol it is only for the morbidly curious and masochistic... like me...? Rating-4
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Post by alexmate on Mar 28, 2024 11:28:03 GMT -5
Ninja Five-O (GBA, 1st time, timer: 2hr 48) I completed on easy mode, but did it again on normal to get the proper ending. No doubt a great modern game, but the mechanics aren't as good as they should be and some deliberately punishing sections. Still scores an 8, but is borderline between a 7.
Rating: 8
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Post by Woody Alien 2 on Mar 30, 2024 6:57:47 GMT -5
Robot-X (Steam, first time, about 3.5 hours?) bought during the sales last year, it had a bug of some sort so I did not revisit it, replayed it now that Steam needs Win 10 to work.
Copy-pasting my Steam review here: Neat throwback to 90s platform games and run & guns, starts easy then becomes more challenging though never too frustrating or unfair. Additional levels are pretty tough however. Cute and serviceable graphics with a few cool touches, the enemy mooks changing outfits depending on the setting is another nice nod to retro games. Right length too, not too short but doesn't overstay its welcome either. 7/10 Makis Adventure (Steam, first time, see image) Should be "Maki's Adventure", but the dev is a young German guy and that's how the game is listed on Steam.
Heard about this game on r/Metroidvania, downloaded the demo, then bought it and then immediately finished it. Dev said on the FAQs that it would last 5/6 hours, but maybe if you complete the absurdly time-consuming achievements, since it's doubtful you'll need more than 3 hrs to do everything. Shame that it is so short, because it's genuinely nice. The story of a demon that turns into a shark when into water and has to recover two forms (a hammerhead shark to break rocks and a mako shark to go fast and pass certain obstacles). The platformer part seems made for combat given the dodge rolls, wall jumps and the like, but it's undercooked because there are just a few enemies and it's more of an exploration platformer with a few simple puzzles and several mini-games that however either give you paltry sums of money or nothing. Another interesting touch is that the main game is a pixelated 2D with some cute effects but the main "hub", the sea where the various islands and ships are, is a low-poly 3D environment, and this comes back for the final boss fight too where you also finally can switch between the three shark forms for combat too. However having to constantly fix the camera is a big hassle when you're fighting and not just placidly swimming everywhere. Many things can be improved but for the first try of a young inexperienced dev this is very charming and promising, the idea of a "sea-troidvania" is genuinely cool and it would be nice if he could expand on it. 7/10
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Mar 30, 2024 19:16:55 GMT -5
I keep forgetting to post about these, and my laptop battery's about to go so I'll just post the names and hopefully write more detailed thoughts about them tomorrow. (Right, I guess we'll be updating this in chunks lol - OKAY WE'RE DONE AT LONG LAST)Devil Express (Browser; First Time)This was a pleasant surprise. I was wandering through itch.io looking for something to play and pass the time, and decided to go for this. It's a cool little adventure game by Bad Pet where you play as a delivery guy who ends up at a strange apartment block. You go round knocking on doors and chatting to people, asking them if they want or need anything different, and helping them out if need be. It's a casually paced game, and I found it really compelling to take mental note of the relationships between the tenants, catch a glimpse of somebody's daily life, or have a brief chat with the guy minding the elevator. Things develop and change as you go about your business, which makes for a nicely rewarding story despite only being an hour long. In a way, it's the perfect kind of basic interactive short story where you can get invested in what's going without having to dive into loads of prose or tricky puzzles, and I'd definitely recommend it for that. bad-pet.itch.io/devil-expressDeus Ex: Human Revolution (Xbox 360; First Time)This is the first time I've properly played a Deus Ex game, apart from an aborted attempt I made of this back in 2016. At the time, I felt I had to be playing it "the right way" (ie, don't get seen and don't kill anybody), and trying to live up to that became tedious quite quickly. Over the last couple of years, between this and playing similar games like Dishonored and the 2014 Thief helped me to realize to appreciate that all those options you get in immersive-sim type games are that - options. Not incorrect things to be avoided or ignored, and allowing for a greater degree of flexibility where I had no issue getting spotted and caught in shootouts if that's what it came to. I enjoyed my time with this quite a bit, exploring the streets of Detroit and Hengsha, doing little quests, sneaking and hacking into places willy-nilly, crawling through more vents than John McClane and occasionally stopping to take in the vibes of these places. At the time, I was having some anxiety issues again and it was great having this to come back to, where I could spend an hour or two in this world and feel like I had some measure of control to keep me grounded. That said, I deffo enjoyed playing it more than I enjoyed the narrative side of things, which is quite dry. I wish there were more books and characters who didn't solely discuss "the plot" or things surrounding it, and it didn't help that I never clicked with Jensen's throaty quiet tone. Still, it's cool to finally get round to playing Human Revolution for more than an hour and even beating the damn thing, after it's been sitting on my shelf for years and years. I'm curious enough about the series that I'm thinking of checking out the other games, or at least those I can play (which for now means the original Ion Storm games, and the sequel-turned-original-title Project Snowblind by Crystal Dynamics). Hopefully I'll like them too. Sonic Robo Blast 2: Official Level Design Contest 2021: Round 2 (Windows; First Time; 2 hours 2 minutes) I got in the mood to play some Sonic Robo Blast 2 again, and went with this on a whim. It's part of the Official Level Design Contest, which allows people to show off maps they've been working on (either as one-offs or as part of a larger intended project). I actually started this ages ago but dropped it for whatever reason, meaning that I only had a handful of stages left to go. I can't remember any of the levels I'd already beaten, but it's a nice excuse as any to get reacquainted with SRB2. Neat collection of solo SRB2 maps by various folks. I forgot I'd played most of these months ago and beat it this afternoon on a whim. mb.srb2.org/addons/official-level-design-contest-2021-round-2.3579/Sonic Robo Blast 2: Official Level Design Contest 2022: Round 1 (Windows; First Time; 1 hour 19 minutes) The next day, I was still in the mood and played another OLDC collection of maps, as I've downloaded a bunch of them months ago. There's a few maps on here I quite liked, such as the Rayman-inspired E nchanted Enclave by Vixuzen (which has two major routes and a day-to-night cycle that changes for each playthrough), the open-ended pizza delivery mission of Rogerregorroger's Spiral Hill Pizza, and the all too brief but moody Yearning Yachtyard by PhilJFou. Shame there's only 14 levels to go around that can often be quite short (and very rarely too long), but it's still pretty good. mb.srb2.org/addons/official-level-design-contest-2022-round-1.4156/Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PlayStation; Replay)Pro Skater 2's often considered the best of the classic Tony Hawk games, but it didn't quite make an impression on me the way 1 and 3 did. Partially that's because we never owned a copy and borrowed it off a cousin a couple times, so while I remember being amazed by the ability to make your own skater and the guest appearance of Spider-Man (coming in from the game Neversoft were making round the same time), I don't have specific feelings of fondness for it. This is my first time playing it since 2020, and my thoughts are more or less the same - it's a cool sequel that adds some nice stuff, but I'm not that wild about it. I don't enjoy the soundtrack for the most part, I feel like levels are too repetitive structurally compared to what 1 had to offer, and although the cash system is quite cool, it feels like it discourages replaying previous stages in a way that hurts the game. I much prefer 1 and 3 for nailing their intentions in ways I find more compelling. UPPERS (Windows; First Time; 8 hours 24 minutes)I was chatting with some friends the other week about the Kenka Bancho games, a series of neat beat-em-up/RPG games that have mostly never left Japan, and they pointed out that their developer was a studio called Bullets (not Spike as I'd mistakenly assumed, they were the publisher). I looked into the other games they made, and stumbled across this translated port of a previously Japan-only Vita game originally released in 2015. It's a pretty solid brawler where you play as a couple teenagers looking to impress all the girls by beating up all the strong guys, which happens through some straightforward but also super satisfying combat. You can also complete small tasks near groups of girls, and doing that will invariably increase your stats and also uh... trigger a slot machine where you could be lucky enough to obtain three pictures of panties in the same colour. Yeah. This is definitely a game from the early-mid 2010s, which I somewhat recall as a time when Japanese games (especially those that had no plans of releasing internationally) seemed like they had to get quite horny in order to appeal to the public. The Gigolo missions in Killer Is Dead, the frequent releases of the Oneechanbara and Senran Kagura games, the photography missions of Natsuiro High School - plenty of cool looking games that also have just enough sexually-charged imagery/aspects (especially especially involving teenage schoolgirls) that it either becomes part of why you enjoy those games or something uncomfortable. In this case, I'm not too fused - it doesn't ruin the thing for me, but I'm deffo more uncomfortable with it than comfortable. Most of the worst stuff can be ignored, but it's also stuff that's ingrained into how the game works, like how those panty slot machines increase your stats or how you're revived from otherwise fatal attacks by being knocked into the bosom or lap of your "support queen" (what the game calls the girl who follows you around and provides passive stat boosts). On another note, I deffo get the sense that this was a small scale project that simultaneously felt the need to make the game last, so you've got 10 fairly small stages but loads of missions where you play through chunks of those stages fighting different types of enemies or bosses. Each mission only lasts a couple minutes, which works super well with its original release on a handheld system and gives it an addictive "just one more mission" quality. At the same time, some levels don't really have anything new to offer, and it's very tedious having to replay stages so you can unlock the "end of chapter" boss fight. The combat's cathartic enough that this only started to become a problem near the end, but it's still a bit unfortunate for what's otherwise a solid brawler.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 1, 2024 8:00:38 GMT -5
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition (Switch, First Time)
Standard disclaimer, don’t play this on a console due to save game deleting bugs.
Icewind Dale (and the sequel) I’ve never even touched before. I didn’t get the original release after being lukewarm about BG and never got the sequel either. That was mostly a mistake as this both looks nicer than any of the BioWare BG games, and has all the dungeon crawling I was missing from the first BG. There’s six main dungeons total, although the last three are really one really big one divided in two with a smaller transitionary middle portion.
First off, although the game is focused on combat, there’s still a decent plot. The player party is your standard band of adventurers that starts out in the fishing village of Easthaven. Ironically, this is the only location in the game that actually is in the Icewind Dale region. The action then shifts to the druidic village of Kuldahar in a mountain range to the south. From there you investigate the strange disappearances in the village which leads to bigger things that of course are dungeon related. However, the dungeons do have side quests and characters so it isn’t just nothing but combat.
The gameplay is unsurprisingly very similar to Baldur’s Gate given the engine, but there are differences. The major one is that there’s no recruitable characters. This wasn’t a difference for me considering how I played the BG games, but some people might miss the party interactions. I went with a tweaked version of the party I used before: Undead Hunter (Paladin), Inquisitor (Paladin), Half-Orc Fighter/Cleric, Half-Orc Fighter/Thief, Elf Bard, Human Dragon Disciple (Sorcerer). Nothing too surprising minus the bard as they are actually decent buffers that gain songs versus just having the one option in BG I and II. The final one at level 11 gives regeneration, direct damage reduction and armor class bonuses which is very nice.
One point of contention with the EE version is in the addition of the new races, classes and class kits of BG II and the Beamdog additions. For example, original designer JE Sawyer was positive about seeing the game get rereleased but thought that the BG II extras break the game balance. I’m a little split on this. Personally, I don’t think most of the class kits are hugely earth shaking. However, the sorcerer does break magic progression from being able to just pick spells, and the Dragon Disciple kit makes them less frail at the expense of one spell per day per spell level; by the end of game, my sorcerer even had the second best armor class of any character. The addition of the Half-Orc and being able to get 19 strength and it’s damage boost mildly skews things to the player.
I would argue that it’s actually the original Heart of Winter expansion that breaks the game. Vanilla IWD gives an experience penalty for using lower difficulties, but HoW also adds in experience bonuses for using the higher ones. If you play on Insane difficulty like I did, you get double experience. You do have to contend with double damage and a few extra enemies, but ranged weapons are still overpowered and the AI still has the same “exploits” as the original BG. You can’t get double damage if you don’t get hit! The game also uses a level cap (originally 20 but HoW or EE boosted it to 30) not an experience cap so you’re not penalized level-wise for using multi classed characters. The extra experience helps a whole lot in the beginning and middle, and you end up always feeling a bit ahead of the curve. I didn't end at those huge levels, you need multiple replays for that, but the ~1.6m per character I had puts you in double digits even for multi-classes.
On a technical level, this is less crash happy by a fair amount than the BG collection. It does however still have save game deletion, but the lessened from the lowered crashing. It does still have all the miscellaneous slowness and AI weirdness though. Considering that there’s substantially less of a mod community, a console isn’t as bad a way to play, but I’d still recommend against it.
Overall, whether this is better or not than BG is a matter of taste. I’d say yes since the wilderness is so boring, and there really isn’t that much inter-party stuff as BG II. In any case, definitely worth playing.
I finished in about 22.5h.
Rating: 7 (really 8 but minus 1 for the lessened but still existent save game deletion)
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Post by dsparil on Apr 1, 2024 10:07:37 GMT -5
Here are the current rankings:
Total Game Completions:
Apollo Chungus - 35 dsparil - 33 personman - 23 Woody Alien - 18 spanky - 12 JoeQ - 6 Digitalnametag - 5 excelsior - 4 alexmate - 2 Snake - 1
First Time Game Completions:
dsparil - 29 Apollo Chungus - 27 Woody Alien - 17 spanky - 9 personman - 6 JoeQ - 5 excelsior - 4 Digitalnametag - 3 alexmate - 2 Snake - 1
Total Time Spent (Reference Only):
dsparil - 215h Apollo Chungus - 182h 30m Digitalnametag - 105h 30m personman - 98h 30m spanky - 84h Woody Alien - 62h excelsior - 52h JoeQ - 27h 30m Snake - 18h alexmate - 7h
First Play Time (Reference Only):
dsparil - 165h Apollo Chungus - 139h 30m Digitalnametag - 98h spanky - 78h 30m Woody Alien - 55h excelsior - 52h personman - 36h JoeQ - 19h 30m Snake - 18h alexmate - 7h
Total Time Spent (Timer + Estimated + Reference):
dsparil - 195h 54m 8s (27h 24m 8s/102h 30m/66h) Apollo Chungus - 171h 45m (43h 55m/2h 20m/125h 30m) Digitalnametag - 120h (0s/116h 30m/3h 30m) personman - 102h 30m (0s/24h/78h 30m) spanky - 84h (0s/0s/84h) Woody Alien - 75h 52m 27s (23h 7m 27s/52h 45m/0s) excelsior - 50h 30m (0s/14h/36h 30m) JoeQ - 35h 2m (17h 32m/0s/17h 30m) Snake - 10h (0s/10h/0s) alexmate - 5h 25m (5h 25m/0s/0s)
First Play Time (Timer + Estimated + Reference):
dsparil - 152h 15m 21s (23h 45m 21s/62h 30m/66h) Apollo Chungus - 131h 58m (40h 8m/2h 20m/89h 30m) Digitalnametag - 113h 30m (0s/113h 30m/0s) spanky - 78h 30m (0s/0s/78h 30m) Woody Alien - 67h 52m 27s (23h 7m 27s/44h 45m/0s) excelsior - 50h 30m (0s/14h/36h 30m) personman - 43h (0s/12h/31h) JoeQ - 19h 36m (2h 6m/0s/17h 30m) Snake - 10h (0s/10h/0s) alexmate - 5h 25m (5h 25m/0s/0s)
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Post by spanky on Apr 1, 2024 19:42:00 GMT -5
Star Trek 25th Anniversary (PC via Steam, First Time)
I am a pretty big fan of Star Trek but I've only played a handful of the games and have never been impressed. I've heard this is one of the better ones so when I saw this on sale I decided to give it a shot. This is a pretty standard adventure game done in the classic 90s point and click style. This is the CD-ROM version of the game which includes full voice acting with the legacy cast, and they all sound great!.
The game itself is set up like a series of 7 episodes. none of which would have been out of place in the series. You have ancient defense mechanisms that produce organic constructs of your fears, space pirate hijackings, Harry Mudd...The dialogue is well written with some fun banter between Spock, Kirk and Bones. It looks pretty great too.
The actual adventure game stuff is hit or miss. A good chunk of the puzzles can be figured out by talking to Spock or McCoy or using your Tricorder on everything, which is well, logical with the series. There's also the occasional dialogue option, most of the correct response should be obvious if you're familiar with Kirk and the series, but you can also be a total dickhead which is amusing(but can dock your score). Fortunately, there isn't a ton of "adventure game logic" but the game does require you to research on the ship's computer and pay attention. Hope you know something about base 3 and base 6 math! There's also a handful of glitches here and there and it's possible to get yourself into an unwinnable situation in the last mission. The game also isn't consistent with it's actions. Sometimes you can pick stuff up using the USE command and other times you have to PICK UP. Occasionally instead of just USING something you have to USE KIRK then use him on the item. It stumped me few times. I used a guide quite a few times and had zero compunctions about this. I never played these sorts of games growing up and I feel like I never really developed the stort of logic they require.
The big flaw however is the inclusion of space battles. These are in full 3D space and while it can be kind of fun and tense at times, they are just WAY too tough. You are graded on your performance in each episode and if you do well enough, you can get your ship upgraded. However, even with the upgrades, the final battle which has you outnumbered 3 to 1 is nearly impossible without a lot of luck and save scumming.
I feel like I've been doing a lot of complaining and my score seem slightly of low but it really does represent the series pretty well and I'd recommend it for any fan of Star Trek. I heard the sequel, Judgment Rites is much better so I'll pick that up next time it's on sale. 6/10.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 4, 2024 5:51:14 GMT -5
Metal Gear (MSX/Switch although I feel like it's actually fully ported, First Time)
Finally grabbed the Metal Gear collection. I ended up with my first physical Switch game in years as the physical version is routinely available for around half price, but it's only ever been 20% off on eShop. Anyway, Metal Gear is very primitive as a stealth game with enemies whose line of sight seems to literally be a pixel wide line. As personman put it last year, the game is more like a really big Zelda dungeon so I don't think it's a huge deal. It is however overly obtuse seemingly to only pad out the length. There's a lot of little things that are very important but easy to overlook, and it's annoying to have to juggle keycards when there's so many and all the locked doors have the same marking. I ended up using maps just because it got so annoying. The game is a good time overall, but it could use a few tweaks here and there.
I finished in about 3.5 hours although my final timer time was 02:30:08.
Rating: 7
Edit: I forgot to mention that it seems like you can save anywhere, but saving just puts you back at your last checkpoint which are generally but not only the elevator shafts.
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Post by Woody Alien 2 on Apr 4, 2024 12:51:07 GMT -5
The Dream of Shadowlands - Episode 1: Into the Darkness (Steam, first time, about 1h 30)
An episodic horror top down adventure whose 1st episode was distributed for free like the shareware games of old, when I first downloaded it it was Win 10 only so I couldn't play it at the time on my old PC, so I forgot about it and recovered it now that I'm going through my backlog.
A young girl gets transported in a mysterious world, meets a humanoid demon dude and they stick together to survive and discover the secrets of cults and ancient deities who lurk there. It doesn't sound too original but the author, a young woman, used 80s and 90s fantasy and horror anime as inspiration and even if there are some cliches the result is not bad, considering she did it almost all by herself with no prior programming knowledge. The style is definitely based on 90s anime most notably Slayers, Rayearth and the like.
Combat is a bit clunky but that doesn't matter too much since it's not the main focus and being too aggressive is not rewarded anyway, there are a few simple puzzles based on cyphers, blocks and sequences to be memorized but they are brief and not annoying. The focus is mostly in the atmosphere, the bizarre landscapes and creatures and the banter between the two main characters, again inspired by anime and manga but without being too cheesy. And it's all fully voiced to boot!
The main voice actress is also the person who did almost everything else, first episode came out in 2020 and the second about 2 years ago, third one (out of possibly five) is still in development because of real life issues and other commitments. I will probably buy the other ones too since they cost so little and I'm interested when the dev documents her productive process, especially the artistic part (scanned drawings). 7.5/10
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Post by dsparil on Apr 6, 2024 6:49:26 GMT -5
Metal Gear (NES) (NES/Switch)
This is really more of an addendum to my MSX version post. It's grossly overstated how different the NES version is from the MSX version. There are some large differences like the separation of the two basement floors into their own buildings, a handful of simplified floor and a few more outdoor screens such as the new opening. It's also notably harder with only a handful of checkpoints rather than entering an elevator being one. However, the vast majority of the game is essentially one to one with the original. That one is better overall, but the NES game is an okay substitute.
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Post by dsparil on Apr 10, 2024 4:21:52 GMT -5
Snake’s Revenge (NES/Switch, First Time)
In some ways, Snake’s Revenge is the game that the NES Metal Gear should have been. It’s generally better programmed, and the graphics are nicer with some missing effects put back in. Getting rations and ammo from knocking out enemies is back from the MSX game too and at a rate that makes punching worth it. On MSX, I basically knocked out every enemy I came across and only had something like three drops.
The downside though is that overall game is just not as well designed. This isn’t readily apparent at first, but it really starts to drag in the second half. The bosses are also almost uniformly way too difficult. The same goes for the new side scrolling portions which are sadistic. There is some good stuff here, and it’s a salvageable game if someone made a thoughtful tweak patch.
Rating: 5
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