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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 9, 2019 17:18:54 GMT -5
I'm in this year too!
I started with several games last year but then during summer and autumn I played much less for several reasons, let's play more in 2019. Anyway my first entry:
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (Steam/PC Windows) started around Christmas, first time completion in-game timer: 6h 40, good ending, haven't started New Game+
Another sort-of metroidvania platformer, the visual and aural part are top notch, and there's some fun boss fights, but in the end it is an average title: some parts are nice, but the pointless plot and shallow characters make you lose interest quickly. The combat is very repetitive (only one weapon), the platforming becomes stale near the end as well and I don't like how they turned a cutesy series (though I only played Momodora III before) in Dark Souls-lite just for the sake of it, complete with some frustrating elements.
I liked it but can't say it's anything memorable, I may or may not play through it again for the New Game+ or achievements.
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Post by Snake on Jan 9, 2019 17:33:19 GMT -5
Go! Go! Ackman (SNES, Replay) I like GGA quite a bit even if it is a bit of a trifling game. It might have been the first untranslated game I ever played, even before the fan translation came out. I actually wanted to learn Japanese so I could understand the games in the series, but my dad thought that was a dumb reason so I never did 😕 Apparently the fan translation only exists because the game was easy to hack. The sequels have compressed text, and there's not enough interest in semi-obscure Toriyama manga to get them translated. The whole "run" of the manga is like 60 pages! Rating: 8/10 Wow! 8/10! I love Toriyama mangas, but never tried a play through of Go! Go! Ackman! Maybe I'll give it a shot sometime. Pity Toriyama has only done a few limited runs of one-shot mangas since Dragon Ball. But with the kind of passive income royalties he makes from Dragon Ball, he never has to work.
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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2019 18:54:42 GMT -5
Go Go Ackman was just a short-lived promo manga for V-Jump (a videogame Shonen Jump offshoot), so yeah, it never really went anywhere. It had potential, though. The animated short was subtitled last year. I personally don't like the games at all, though the first is probably more playable. I think it's either the second or third that I really hated.
My understanding is that Toriyama pretty much destroyed his health doing Dragon Ball, which is why he never did a long series again. But I really dug Kajika (which is like DBZ in concentrated form) and Cowa (which is more pre-Z DB), and Sandland was good too.
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hades
Junior Member
Posts: 57
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Post by hades on Jan 10, 2019 1:14:24 GMT -5
Miracle Warriors (SMS) First time, Gfaqs says 34.7 hours which is probably about right
This is one of those games I have started before but never made much progress! That changed when I received an actual physical copy a few days after Christmas and plugged it into the SMS. This is an oldschool Rpg in every sense. Late last year I played through Phantasy Star and was impressed with how well it held up, and more notably outside of the beginning area how little grinding was required. This is nothing like that, I cannot see how you could steadily progress in this game without significant grinding. Levels come slow, and once you have a party, members only gain experience when they are the ones attacking (unless you use magic items which are limited) and combat isn't exactly speedy. Most monsters can do significant damage requiring healing after every battle until quite late in the game, which slows it down more. At the start healing is massively expensive, most of your guilders(money) will probably go into healing for the first few levels unless you get lucky with the enemies you face.
You only get a 5*5 view of where you are on the world so even navigating can be a challenge. The majority of the screen is the view of the land from behind your character, though this is just aesthetic as no useful information is displayed here.
Combat is played from a first person view, and only one character can attack at a time, and generally this is true for enemies except some have abilities that can damage the whole party. The graphics in combat are actually pretty good, and the monster designs are I believe from Rieko Kodama. Not animated, but there are a lot of fairly original monster designs and only a handful of instances of palette swaps, and even these have spikes added or something to differentiate. You will see new enemies all through your quest which helps with the tedium of the grind! The music is surprisingly good for an early SMS game the over world theme gets you in the mood for adventure, battle music creates a sense of danger and urgency.
Their are some problems with the translation as the directions to the final dungeon reference a town that is nowhere in the game which kinda gave me a bit of confusion once I reached that point. There are also a couple of other things that are clearly errors, but overall you get enough direction that you have an idea of what to do even if some of it can be cryptic. But thats half the fun, when you have an aha moment, and this was at least clear enough I never had to reference a FAQ, and I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. Overall this wasn't a bad game if you can deal with grinding, but it's about as archaic as I would tolerate. I'd rate it 6.5/10
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Post by JoeQ on Jan 10, 2019 5:35:07 GMT -5
Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4) Replay (NG+), Time: 60h I started a few days before New Year's. Replayed on Insanity difficulty to get the last few remaining trophies. Still the worst Mass Effect. Rating: 3/5
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Post by Null0x00 on Jan 10, 2019 6:02:04 GMT -5
Forgotton Anne (PC) Time: 8:50 Rating: 9/10
Best 2018 game I've played so far. A gorgeous puzzle-platformer that feels like an interactive Ghibli movie.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 10, 2019 6:11:34 GMT -5
Mass Effect: Andromeda (PS4) Replay (NG+), Time: 60h I started a few days before New Year's. Replayed on Insanity difficulty to get the last few remaining trophies. Still the worst Mass Effect. Rating: 3/5 Two questions which only matter for bookkeeping: 1. Is 60h an estimate or is that how specific the game gets? 2. Does that include the original play through?
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Post by JoeQ on Jan 10, 2019 6:23:44 GMT -5
60h is just for this replay, I estimated it from the game's internal clock which only gives total time. Total time for both playthroughs was something like 142h.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 10, 2019 6:40:03 GMT -5
60h is just for this replay, I estimated it from the game's internal clock which only gives total time. Total time for both playthroughs was something like 142h. Thanks!
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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 10, 2019 6:52:13 GMT -5
Go Go Ackman was just a short-lived promo manga for V-Jump (a videogame Shonen Jump offshoot), so yeah, it never really went anywhere. It had potential, though. The animated short was subtitled last year. I personally don't like the games at all, though the first is probably more playable. I think it's either the second or third that I really hated. My understanding is that Toriyama pretty much destroyed his health doing Dragon Ball, which is why he never did a long series again. But I really dug Kajika (which is like DBZ in concentrated form) and Cowa (which is more pre-Z DB), and Sandland was good too. I tried the first two GGA games emulated, the first is fine but it's probably the second you hated, since it has nice graphics but the gameplay sucks and has a lot of questionable decisions. I like the character designs of the enemies though, those angels inspired by various musical genres. I read a bit of the manga as well and it's probably one of the first examples of the now tired Japanese trope of "devils being petty criminals at best and angels being self-righteous, murderous assholes".
Cowa! was pretty good and funny, haven't read much of his other short series.
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Post by JoeQ on Jan 10, 2019 7:17:07 GMT -5
Cowa! was pretty good and funny, haven't read much of his other short series.
Sand Land was fun too, it's basically a more serious take on Cowa!
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Post by paperchema on Jan 10, 2019 7:21:31 GMT -5
Go Go Ackman was just a short-lived promo manga for V-Jump (a videogame Shonen Jump offshoot), so yeah, it never really went anywhere. It had potential, though. The animated short was subtitled last year. I personally don't like the games at all, though the first is probably more playable. I think it's either the second or third that I really hated. My understanding is that Toriyama pretty much destroyed his health doing Dragon Ball, which is why he never did a long series again. But I really dug Kajika (which is like DBZ in concentrated form) and Cowa (which is more pre-Z DB), and Sandland was good too. Toriyama also admits to being lazy af. He would rather play videogames than work . If you haven't read them yet, his Nekomajin short stories are really good too.
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Post by paperchema on Jan 10, 2019 7:44:06 GMT -5
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice (3DS, first time, 31 hours).
A major improvement from Dual Destinies, and a return to form. All cases are really clever and full of great twists. It was also great to see characters like Ema Skye and Miles Edgeworth again. Prosecutor Simon Blackquill proved that he was by far the best thing Dual Destinies added to the franchise; he's such a funny character. And the new side characters were cool too. The writing is still inferior compared to Shu Takumi's games (Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice sound too many times like the same person), but this was definitely a step in the right direction. I'm optimistic that the next trilogy could be on par with the original.
However, it is time they finally solve some plot threads from Apollo Justice and rethink the gameplay mechanics. It's annoying when you figure out something, but the game forces you to show very specific pieces of evidence in a very specific order.
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Post by moran on Jan 10, 2019 10:50:00 GMT -5
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - GBA - 6:08:42 - 8/10
Replayed this for the first time since 2003, and probably would have ranked higher for nostalgia’s sake. But it’s so much shorter and straightforward than I remember it. Still great and one of the top Castlevania games, but left me wanting in the end.
Also, is there an easy way to add green to text on the mobile site?
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Post by dsparil on Jan 10, 2019 11:57:23 GMT -5
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - GBA - 6:08:42 - 8/10Replayed this for the first time since 2003, and probably would have ranked higher for nostalgia’s sake. But it’s so much shorter and straightforward than I remember it. Still great and one of the top Castlevania games, but left me wanting in the end. Also, is there an easy way to add green to text on the mobile site? You need to wrap the text in a font tag with color="#66ff00" as an attribute which is probably more trouble than it's worth. If it's the top line, it's pretty easy to see just bolded.
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