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Post by dsparil on May 14, 2020 7:38:23 GMT -5
SNK Gals' Fighters (Switch*, First Time)
I only have the most passing familiarity with SNK fighting games, but I did like this NGPC quite a bit. It's cute and silly rather than overly salacious like SNK Heroines (although Heroines is fun too) with some solid gameplay. There are some extra features like a frame by frame rewind and a digital copy of the original manual although it only has a selection of the moves available. It would have been nice if there was an actual command list. Overall, a fun port that really makes me wish I had managed to save enough pennies to have gotten a NGPC before it was discontinued.
Rating: 8
* The rewind feature makes me think that this is emulated, but I can't find any info on that.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on May 14, 2020 8:20:33 GMT -5
Cave Story (Wii, 1st play, 6h15m)
I've never really been able to get into this game. I bought it back in the Wii days and I only beat it now. But I felt like I had to give it another shot since I love Kero Blaster so much.
First thing I noticed is just how bad the english translation in this version is. It's actually hard to read at times because it's so unnatural. It's like you're reading anime fansubs or something. I don't get how translations like this happen. Are the english lines not written by a native speaker or something?
Anyway, the game is fine. I played with original music but new graphics for some reason. I like a lot of things in the game more on paper than in practice. It's kind of non-linear but also pretty linear, which doesn't really work for me, and there's a bunch of secret stuff that you can't really figure out by yourself. I don't know...I feel there's some missed potential here. But then, it was just made by one guy way back in 2004.
Rating: 7/10
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Post by ZenithianHero on May 14, 2020 16:44:20 GMT -5
Cave Story (Wii, 1st play, 6h15m)I've never really been able to get into this game. I bought it back in the Wii days and I only beat it now. But I felt like I had to give it another shot since I love Kero Blaster so much. First thing I noticed is just how bad the english translation in this version is. It's actually hard to read at times because it's so unnatural. It's like you're reading anime fansubs or something. I don't get how translations like this happen. Are the english lines not written by a native speaker or something? Anyway, the game is fine. I played with original music but new graphics for some reason. I like a lot of things in the game more on paper than in practice. It's kind of non-linear but also pretty linear, which doesn't really work for me, and there's a bunch of secret stuff that you can't really figure out by yourself. I don't know...I feel there's some missed potential here. But then, it was just made by one guy way back in 2004. Rating: 7/10 Never played the Wii version, I can only imagine they polished the translation since because I didn't think it was that bad when I played it on 3DS.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on May 15, 2020 6:30:06 GMT -5
Never played the Wii version, I can only imagine they polished the translation since because I didn't think it was that bad when I played it on 3DS. I don't think they touched the translation since the Wii release, but I might be wrong about that. I don't know if you played Cave Story 3D or Cave Story+ on 3DS, but I'm pretty sure + has the same translation to this day. I didn't notice it until this playthrough either.
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Post by dsparil on May 15, 2020 6:35:48 GMT -5
Cave Story+ does have a new translation, but I'm not sure about 3D. Whether or not it's actually better is a different story.
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Post by dsparil on May 15, 2020 7:02:41 GMT -5
Zenge (Switch, First Time)
This is an okay puzzle game, but I don't think it rises to its full potential. The gameplay is relatively simple. You have to move various oddly shaped pieces along predefined tracks to a specific location, and the pieces are able to block each other off. Some elements do get added like flipping, rotating and linking up peices so there is a little variety. Once all the pieces are in places, you get a picture which tells part of a generally hard to follow story. A smidge of text to go along with each one would have gone a long way. There's 70 puzzles total, but they're fairly simple. There are some that do get pretty creative. The problem is that there's maybe 10 good puzzles and 60 mediocre ones. On one hand, I very gladly would have paid more for an overall higher quality, but on the other, I'm not sure I would have impulsively splurged if it were more expensive; the full price now is $2 and it's on a "new release sale" for even less.
Rating: 6
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on May 15, 2020 9:50:43 GMT -5
Cave Story+ does have a new translation, but I'm not sure about 3D. Whether or not it's actually better is a different story. Yeah, I just watched some footage of + and it's different from the Wii version. I'd say it's better for sure, from the few parts I've seen.
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Post by Snake on May 15, 2020 10:47:29 GMT -5
Soldier Blade, Turbografx-16 (1st time, approx 50 minutes)
Being able to take a few hits, while just suffering a weapon debuff kind of makes this game rather forgiving. It really does start to amplify the level of bullet hell towards the end boss though. For a console that was really prolific for shooters, it's a solid, easy to understand game. But I think easily forgotten too.
I found the ending to be kind of funny. "2092 AD, and the major powers that be still decide that humanity is not ready to know that we've already made alien contact."
6/10.
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Post by alexmate on May 15, 2020 14:53:08 GMT -5
Super Metroid (SNES - 1st time, timer: 5hr29)
OK. so this is no doubt a great game, but it isn't a 10\10 game for me. The difficulty level is way hard even the first boss. It's probably not one I will replay hence the score, I like the atmosphere and the music is easily some of the best on the SNES.
Rating: 8
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Post by alexmate on May 15, 2020 14:57:44 GMT -5
Operation Wolf (Arcade, replay, about 20 mins)
Just wanted to do some shooting to vent a bit, I'll post some more significant endings in the next few days. I actually had the DOS version as a kid but never finished it; once you get past the first two stages it becomes surprisingly easy. Maybe I'll try the sequels just for fun.
7/10
OW3 is worth playing. It's more like Lethal Enforcers. I've not played Operation Thunderbolt.
SNK Gals' Fighters (Switch*, First Time) I only have the most passing familiarity with SNK fighting games, but I did like this NGPC quite a bit. It's cute and silly rather than overly salacious like SNK Heroines (although Heroines is fun too) with some solid gameplay. There are some extra features like a frame by frame rewind and a digital copy of the original manual although it only has a selection of the moves available. It would have been nice if there was an actual command list. Overall, a fun port that really makes me wish I had managed to save enough pennies to have gotten a NGPC before it was discontinued. Rating: 8 * The rewind feature makes me think that this is emulated, but I can't find any info on that. I played and completed the NGPC version a few years back. I would agree with an 8\10 as that's what I would rate it. It plays great for a hand held fighter and unlike most SNK fighters the difficulty is on the easier side.
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Post by dsparil on May 16, 2020 16:29:47 GMT -5
I played and completed the NGPC version a few years back. I would agree with an 8\10 as that's what I would rate it. It plays great for a hand held fighter and unlike most SNK fighters the difficulty is on the easier side. I'm under the impression that SNK was basically the company to make legitimately good handheld fighting games. I certainly never came across one.
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Post by dsparil on May 16, 2020 17:47:37 GMT -5
Piczle Cross Adventure (Switch, First Time)
A really great picross game that's truly up there with Picross DS and Picross 3D. I have the other two Piczle games on Switch, but this is the first one I've finished. In Lines DX, you create colored lines and Colors is a color picross game as the name implies. This is pure black and white picross. What really makes this great is the that it's wrapped in a very light story that doesn't take itself seriously at all. Pretty much from minute one with the intro starting with "Previously on the Piczle Cinematic Universe" it really just grabbed me. It's just so silly with a lot of nice little touches. There's quite a few puzzles too at about 300 divided into about a dozen themed areas; the puzzles are objects that have been "pixelated" and need to be put back together. The slight exploration element adds just enough to break up the puzzling without being overbearing and makes up for the lack of puzzle animations. It'll also automatically fill in a row with Xs if you've marked off enough â– which is a feature every single future picross game should steal. This is just such a huge love note to picross that it's hard to find much real fault in it.
The timer time was 12:45:05 but that's actually just the sum of the fastest completion times. I'm going with the play log time of about 22.5 hours.
Rating: 10
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Post by mainpatr on May 16, 2020 18:01:54 GMT -5
Piczle Cross Adventure (Switch, First Time) A really great picross game that's truly up there with Picross DS and Picross 3D. I have the other two Piczle games on Switch, but this is the first one I've finished. In Lines DX, you create colored lines and Colors is a color picross game as the name implies. This is pure black and white picross. What really makes this great is the that it's wrapped in a very light story that doesn't take itself seriously at all. Pretty much from minute one with the intro starting with "Previously on the Piczle Cinematic Universe" it really just grabbed me. It's just so silly with a lot of nice little touches. There's quite a few puzzles too at about 300 divided into about a dozen themed areas; the puzzles are objects that have been "pixelated" and need to be put back together. The slight exploration element adds just enough to break up the puzzling without being overbearing and makes up for the lack of puzzle animations. It'll also automatically fill in a row with Xs if you've marked off enough â– which is a feature every single future picross game should steal. This is just such a huge love note to picross that it's hard to find much real fault in it. The timer time was 12:45:05 but that's actually just the sum of the fastest completion times. I'm going with the play log time of about 22.5 hours. Rating: 10 I thought that said "Pickle Cross Adventure" at first.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on May 17, 2020 10:02:25 GMT -5
Super Metroid (SNES - 1st time, timer: 5hr29) OK. so this is no doubt a great game, but it isn't a 10\10 game for me. The difficulty level is way hard even the first boss. THe first boss is hard, but it's also the only hard part of the game. Once the game properly gets going, taking damage is pretty much trivial.
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Post by Woody Alien on May 17, 2020 14:13:45 GMT -5
OW3 is worth playing. It's more like Lethal Enforcers. I've not played Operation Thunderbolt. Tried to play it, and I'm sorry but I can't agree with you. I don't see the point of making a sequel of a game and making it completely different from the predecessors. Besides the ugly and grainy digitized graphics and the "urban apocalypse" setting, what's the point of making the ammo limitless if every other weapon you can find works in mostly the same way? Why removing the other items such as bulletproof vests and energy items? Why having hostages that hinder you if you shoot them instead of giving you bonus if you save them? Bosses are unappealing as well and have way too much health to the point that defeating them takes almost as much as completing the stages. Not to mention the useless bonus stages between areas... I don't add it to the challenge since, because of its rules, I'm taking way more than 2 credits max per level to finish it because there are way too many enemies and too few life bars that can't be replenished.
I finished Operation Thunderbolt though, so I'm adding it to the list!
Operation Thunderbolt (arcade, first time, 15 minutes)
OW's sequel is more advanced and has better graphics but somehow it's much less charming than the first one, also because completing the stages doesn't give you any actual advantage between areas. And there aren't humorous touches like the soldiers following the hostages with a knife. At times it feels like a Taito game that wants to be a SNK one (e.g. Mechanized Attack), given the ludicrous amount of enemies and bullets in some stages. The final stage is especially hilarious with the plane full of hundreds of hijackers throwing dozens of hand grenades. I got the bad ending because I couldn't save the pilot taken hostage by the final boss (you can't continue if the boss kills you). Competent game but very forgettable. 6/10
Trivia: I had to run it on Raine since on an old MAME version it ran like crap for some reason.
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