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Post by dsparil on Sept 7, 2019 7:03:47 GMT -5
Astral Chain (Switch, First Time)
This is certainly a flashy game, but that's about all it has going for it. This isn't the most disappointed I've been in a Nintendo published game only because I wasn't originally planning on getting it, but it is easily the least fun I've had with one that I can remember. The combat is very dull and looks substantially better than it is to play. The plot is remarkably awful for how the long it actually is, there's no explanation or resolution to basically anything and the final section is utterly generic. It gets interesting for a single File (chapter) in the middle, but then drops it without ever returning to what gets brought up there.
I'm on the extreme end of hating this, but I truly do not understand where the good reviews are even coming from especially the ones that call it Platinum's best game.
I finished in 16:23:13.
Rating: 5
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Sept 7, 2019 15:14:08 GMT -5
Micro Mages (NES, 1st time, 1h05m)
A homebrew NES game that just came out and I was surprised to see show up in the mail so soon. I pretty much just got this for the novelty of having an indie game to play on the NES, but thankfully I ended up really liking the game. It's clearly a modern-made game, but playing it on a CRT with the original NES contoller still makes a huge difference, atmopshere-wise. The devs challenged themselves to fit the game in 40kb, so there's a second loop that changes every stage you have to beat before you get to the true final boss. They had a video explaining how they fit the game in such a small size and it's fun to compare the first and second loop versions of the stages.
There's actually some clever ideas here regarding the scoring, such as destructable checkpoints. Destroying them leads to more points, and points are how you get 1UPs, but obviously mean you're at a disadvantage when you die. I know they're not the first game to have destructabe checkpoints, but I found they worked really well here. I had a pretty strong urge to go for the high score despite this being a game that has a definite end, which is rare for me. Scoring is just really well implemented. I do think the game would've been better without continues, but you can always just not use them and maybe destroy all the checkpoints as an extra challenge.
Rating: 8.5/10
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Post by dsparil on Sept 9, 2019 6:58:12 GMT -5
Pilotwings (SNES/Switch, Replay)
I love Pilotwings, but it's basically a tech demo masquerading as a game. No one seemed to care at the SNES launch as it is pretty flashy for a 1990/1991 game, but the content is pretty thin especially if you have familiarity with the controls and aren't constantly redoing challenges. It's a pretty bad value even at VC prices, but that's less of an issue as a "free" game with NSO. I did forget to check if NSO is emulating the original math co-processor the more accurate one from later print runs; the plane in the demo crashes in updated ones.
Rating: 7
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Post by Snake on Sept 9, 2019 10:20:47 GMT -5
Final Fight CD, Sega CD (1st Time, approx. 40 minutes)
Lord only knows how many Final Fight CD's were sold new when it was released. On one hand, it is a complete arcade experience... with rearranged, remastered audio music. And voice overs during the redrawn ending scenes! Cheesy voice overs, but not quite at the level of so-horrible-it's-entertaining. As it is playing off Genesis/Mega Drive hardware, the color palette is on the slightly muted, drab side (64 allowable on-screen colors, as opposed to SNES's 256 colors). The action and sprite frames seems to move a bit sluggish, compared to arcade and SNES counterparts.
7/10.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Sept 9, 2019 15:53:16 GMT -5
Final Fight CD, Sega CD (1st Time, approx. 40 minutes)
Lord only knows how many Final Fight CD's were sold new when it was released. On one hand, it is a complete arcade experience... with rearranged, remastered audio music. And voice overs during the redrawn ending scenes! Cheesy voice overs, but not quite at the level of so-horrible-it's-entertaining. As it is playing off Genesis/Mega Drive hardware, the color palette is on the slightly muted, drab side (64 allowable on-screen colors, as opposed to SNES's 256 colors). The action and sprite frames seems to move a bit sluggish, compared to arcade and SNES counterparts. 7/10. Final Fight CD doesn't actually show more than ~30-40 individual colors simultaneously at any one point IIRC. It probably has some overlapping ones between the four sub palettes though. The color choices are also not quite optimized and could be closer. If the MD had just one or two more sub palettes, the game could've looked almost identical besides somewhat smaller sprites I think, since each arcade sprite uses 15 colors and that's the size of a MD sub palette (besides the one with the background color which uses 16, it's actually 61 in total if you don't use any tricks or shadow/highlight mode which potentially doubles that amount).
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Post by Digitalnametag on Sept 9, 2019 19:33:18 GMT -5
Chrono Trigger (DS) Replay 19 hours
Haven't played this since the DS re-release over ten years ago now. Where does the time go? Despite times march Chrono Trigger remains one of my favorite games. Not many RPGs can pack a meaningful adventure in or around 20 hours.
I like the ATB system here but I can see why it never became that popular outside of 90s-00 Square stuff. You get more strategy out of a traditional turn based game. Being able to weigh your options instead of choosing a command in a split second allows for a larger design space. Seeing turns wasted as you scroll through a tech/spell list searching for the right move is frustrating in any game with ATB. I suppose one could always enable the 'Wait' mode eh? This would however eliminate a lot of the difficulty in these games.
Musings aside Chrono Trigger is still awesome. I should really get around to playing Chrono Cross again to see if it holds up as well as I remember it. Been 15 years or so now.
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Post by Snake on Sept 9, 2019 19:52:14 GMT -5
Final Fight CD, Sega CD (1st Time, approx. 40 minutes)
Final Fight CD doesn't actually show more than ~30-40 individual colors simultaneously at any one point IIRC. It probably has some overlapping ones between the four sub palettes though. The color choices are also not quite optimized and could be closer. If the MD had just one or two more sub palettes, the game could've looked almost identical besides somewhat smaller sprites I think, since each arcade sprite uses 15 colors and that's the size of a MD sub palette (besides the one with the background color which uses 16, it's actually 61 in total if you don't use any tricks or shadow/highlight mode which potentially doubles that amount). Ah, I see. That makes a lot more sense! Pity about the color choices. Considering that the Sonic the Hedgehog games come across with vibrant colors, I think a few tweaks to Final Fight could have left it with a brighter,vibrant feel.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Sept 10, 2019 4:52:58 GMT -5
^This color hack does a pretty good job of getting the existing colors closer (of course more changes to how the graphics are done to begin with are needed to get the best results): www.romhacking.net/hacks/2087/This quick mockup I did shows what it could look like without sub palette and tile variation+size limitations (134 to 57 colors, MD on the right). As you can see the MD palette itself is very close: i.imgur.com/Qs9MhR2.png
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Post by dsparil on Sept 10, 2019 7:13:03 GMT -5
I like the ATB system here but I can see why it never became that popular outside of 90s-00 Square stuff. You get more strategy out of a traditional turn based game. Being able to weigh your options instead of choosing a command in a split second allows for a larger design space. Seeing turns wasted as you scroll through a tech/spell list searching for the right move is frustrating in any game with ATB. I suppose one could always enable the 'Wait' mode eh? This would however eliminate a lot of the difficulty in these games. I nice advancement in Lost Sphear was being able to position you characters before using an ability. Of course this made the 360 degree Cyclone attack even more overpowered than it was in I Am Setsuna.
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Post by Snake on Sept 10, 2019 11:05:13 GMT -5
^This color hack does a pretty good job of getting the existing colors closer (of course more changes to how the graphics are done to begin with are needed to get the best results): www.romhacking.net/hacks/2087/This quick mockup I did shows what it could look like without sub palette and tile variation+size limitations (134 to 57 colors, MD on the right). As you can see the MD palette itself is very close: i.imgur.com/Qs9MhR2.pngOh wow! That's pretty freaken amazing. Ace hacking work.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Sept 10, 2019 12:45:08 GMT -5
I nice advancement in Lost Sphear was being able to position you characters before using an ability. Of course this made the 360 degree Cyclone attack even more overpowered than it was in I Am Setsuna. I did forgot that about Lost Sphear. It did have some neat improvements to ATB but I just couldn't get into it. Those Tokyo RPG Factory games just seem to be lacking something. Their action game Oninaki looks more interesting than the last two though.
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Post by dsparil on Sept 11, 2019 7:38:59 GMT -5
Alone in the Dark (DOS, First Time)
I've played this on and off over the years, but never really sat down and finished it before. It did "create" the survival horror genre, but it also isn't a super fun game to play. Wikipedia notes that the creator got disenchanted during the testing period and it shows. Some of the more annoying aspects like the walking speed and awkward method of running should have been worked out then. Also annoying but not common is that the recoil from firing the rifle will make you open a door if you're pushed into it if you can even get it to fire as it sometimes won't for no reason. There's a lot of little problems like that which aren't actually products of age but were likely overlooked due to the general novelty of the game. The "final boss" is also very anticlimactic and way more than a bit silly, and there's basically no ending.
For the most part, it isn't too bad though. There's a lot of nice detail from the books, journals and various parchments scattered about the mansion. It is a little odd that there's quite a few Lovecraft references, but the game doesn't seem to act on them. The adventure game aspects are pretty good, and it's a bit of shame that the game isn't really just a regular adventure without any combat. Not that there is that much, but it isn't fun at all. (Edit: To clarify, I don't mean to take out the monsters. You only have to fight a handful, and it's just awkward and a little buggy.)
Way later edit: I did know going into to this that it's an "officially" licensed Lovecraft game. It's not particularly evident in the final game.
In some ways, this is really a prototype for the Twinsen games (and Time Command to a lesser extent). Those nail the controls and semi-modal interaction even though they drop the "cinematic" camera angles.
Rating: 7 (but maybe really a 6)
Jack in the Dark (DOS, First Time)
Jack in the Dark is a teensy two room game which was made as a promotion for AitD 2. It isn't super notable except for the fact that it technically has more of an ending than the first game! Its weird fusion of Halloween and Christmas accidentally presages this modern era where some stores start stocking Christmas decorations in late August.
Rating: 7
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Post by dsparil on Sept 11, 2019 8:54:23 GMT -5
I nice advancement in Lost Sphear was being able to position you characters before using an ability. Of course this made the 360 degree Cyclone attack even more overpowered than it was in I Am Setsuna. I did forgot that about Lost Sphear. It did have some neat improvements to ATB but I just couldn't get into it. Those Tokyo RPG Factory games just seem to be lacking something. Their action game Oninaki looks more interesting than the last two though. I liked Lost Sphear a lot once it really got going particularly the second half. That's probably my main problem with their games; they start out too dull. Once you get the vulcosuits and put up some artifacts, it really starts to get more interesting.
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Post by Snake on Sept 11, 2019 13:02:32 GMT -5
Street Fighter, Arcade (via PS4 30th Anniversary Collection) (Replay, approx. 25 minutes)
Ha! Fighting Sagat is like a crapshoot for me. Just pray you can pull off "Doragon Paaaan" enough times when it counts. It's nearly hopeless to even attempt to fight with kicks, hadokens, or hurricane kicks. For once, I noticed in the credits that he music was done by "Yuuki chan's Papa," who also composed and programmed for Final Fight. While have the music sounds more like looping jingles, I find it unique that the style tries to emulate Thai traditional music by the time you're fighting Adon and Sagat. The only alternate version of Street Fighter 1 I know is "Fighting Street," on Turbografx CD, with an additional ending screen of Ryu, waving from the airplane. Still wearing a karate gi. I have to say, the Turbo CD version really makes the music come alive, with reworked audio. While the game itself is clunky controls, I still enjoy it from time-to-time.
5/10.
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Post by zerker on Sept 12, 2019 16:13:08 GMT -5
Micro Mages (NES, 1st time, 1h05m) I hope you're happy. I just ordered a copy of this too.
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