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Post by ZenithianHero on Aug 16, 2020 17:43:03 GMT -5
Secret of Mana (SNES on Switch, First Time, Around 22 Hours) Played this on Collection of Mana. The game can be annoying when action gets heated. Seems like half the time I attack I miss. I understand this is not meant to be a button masher but I think the accuracy/evasion in this game is busted at times and the combat just drags on as the result. NPC Allies get stuck behind walls and objects. The game doesn't really explain anything regarding shop items and magic either. A little tip: Level up your Dryad magic. I got walled at the final boss because Mana Sword wasn't activated long enough. Send myself back to level up my magic and redo the last dungeon for like 4-5 hours and won after that. Magic leveling grinding is quite tedious and I don't think the game really encourages you to use those spells that many times and catches you off guard.
Complaints aside the actual campaign is quite good overall. As I said before I am going though Mana for the first time. I noticed this series got more of a fairy tale vibe going for it compared to Final Fantasy. I really like the setting of Secret of Mana and the game picks up quickly once you complete your party.
7/10
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Post by JoeQ on Aug 17, 2020 5:06:52 GMT -5
Grim Fandango Remastered (PS4) - Replay, Time: no idea Another replay a long time coming and it still held up great, perhaps even better than I remembered. As usual, got the platinum trophy too. Rating: 5/5Alphabet Challenge: ABCD-FGH-J-LM----RSTUV---Z Number Challenge: --2-------
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Post by alexmate on Aug 19, 2020 13:06:06 GMT -5
11th Hour (1st time, time taken: 4 hours (est). PC) Sequel to 7th guest. I didn't think this was as good. I also rate it lower than both Phantasmagoria games. No doubt graphically stunning at the time, but letdown by tedious puzzles and it's really slow moving even for a point and click. Scores a solid 7 for innovation and atmosphere though.
Rating: 7
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Post by dsparil on Aug 20, 2020 6:43:27 GMT -5
Mario's Super Picross (SNES, First Time)
It's too bad that Nintendo didn't see fit to bring over the other pre-DS picross games. This one adds in puzzles going up to 20x25, manual number marking, a proper Free mode set using Wario as its avatar, and even animations for some of the puzzles. The main problem is that there isn't enough contrast between empty and marked squares. This sticks to the stone carving conceit from the GB game, but the slate grey background makes it hard to find unfilled squares once the puzzle is close to finished. You are awash in puzzles though at nearly 300. It'll be interesting so see how Picross 2 picks up from here.
Rating: 7
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Aug 21, 2020 4:53:34 GMT -5
Jumpgrid (Win10, 2h05m, 1st play)
Checked it out since it was part of the itch bundle. I guess it belongs to the same 'genre' as Super Hexagon. It's pretty fun, but also very annoying at times. Some stages boil down to rote memorization. The ones where there's a more logical pattern at work are more interesting.
Rating: 7/10
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Post by dsparil on Aug 21, 2020 9:38:29 GMT -5
Bug! (Saturn, Replay)
Bug! and the sequel are the only Saturn games I've actually played to completion on real Saturn hardware as I alluded to in the general thread. It's a decent game, and a straightforward implementation of 3D platforming. Contemporary reviews for the Saturn version were kind, but I'm siding with the PC reviews which were much colder. The levels tend to be way too sprawling, and there's so many of them with 3 main ones per world plus a separate boss battle. That you're also supposed to finish it in one sitting is just sadistic. It feels endless in the worst possible way. The pre-rendered sprites look pretty good, but the actual levels are very basic and do nothing to hide the sometimes massive pop-in with huge chunks of a level just suddenly coming into view. I remember the sequel being somewhat better, and I really hope that is the case.
Rating: 5
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Post by dsparil on Aug 21, 2020 18:06:35 GMT -5
Paratopic (Switch, First Time)
This has a positive write up on the site and some good reviews overall, but I came away fairly disappointed. This is a short first-person horror "adventure" game with a very disjoint and spotty plot. That isn't necessarily an issue as this is intended to be more of a mood piece than something with a concrete plot, but there is so much tedious padding that I don't think it really works that way either. It's hard to maintain a sense of dread when you're literally doing nothing for long stretches of time with nothing happening either.
I finished in 0:45 by my own timing.
Rating: 4
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Post by spanky on Aug 21, 2020 21:11:40 GMT -5
Dragon Quest XI (Switch version, 1st play).
Whew. What a ride. I clocked in about 70 hours and my party average was just under 80. It was the first DQ game I've beaten since VIII. I dunno what I can really say about it - It's Dragon Quest and you know what you're getting with it. I will say that this might be one of the easiest DQ games I've played. You can avoid the random battles (all enemies are visible on the overworld unless you're playing in 2D mode) but I still fought almost every encounter I ran into for a good chunk of the game which left me pretty overleveled. Even the AI carried me through most of the battles except a couple really tough bosses. It took me 3 times to beat the final boss, but I got lucky on the 3rd round (basically he didn't curse and paralyze everyone during the first two rounds like he had before) and I didn't even have to swap out party members.
The ending was lovely but maybe too many nostalgic callbacks? I know that's what DQ is kinda about though...
I liked the game quite a bit but like most DQ games except for the really old ones I don't think I ever see myself doing a second playthrough. And I'll admit I'm pretty excited to get to finally playing other stuff - this took up a lot of my time.
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Post by zerker on Aug 23, 2020 8:35:11 GMT -5
Last night I finished FAR: Lone Sails (Switch; First Time). It was okay, but ultimately felt like it was a bit too shallow. Driving the landship does not take long to get used to, and none of the other puzzles were particularly engaging. Also, the need to focus on adding fuel, releasing steam and holding the "go button" means you don't really pay much attention to the scenery you end up driving past.
6/10. Will post play time once Switch gives me details.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Aug 23, 2020 14:38:08 GMT -5
Disgaea 4 Complete+ PS4 Replay 19 hours
Played through the main story and a few side scenarios. Funny how many major features are kinda hidden in this one. One could play through the entirety of story mode without ever seeing Chara World or a Pirate Ship. Of course the real meat of Disgaea is the ridiculous post game anyway. Which I'm going to pass on.
Although I had played others in the series the PS3 release of D4 was the first time I invested serious time in the post game which at the time was best in the series. The release of DD2 and D5 have further improved on this and playing D4 all these years later really dates it. Even the couple added features in this port do little to alleviate this. Who wants to reverse pirate item world for some Statisticians? Not me thank you. Think I'll wait for Disgaea 6 to get my level grind on.
I do really like the cast of D4 (Troy Baker kills it as Valvatorez) and the government corruption story-line will most likely always be relevant. It wasn't quite as funny as I remembered but nostalgia will do that.
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Post by dsparil on Aug 25, 2020 7:41:50 GMT -5
Dead or School (Switch, First Time)
A pretty good action RPG with some significant platforming elements. The main character is Hisako, a teenage girl living in post-apocalyptic Tokyo where everyone has been forced to live in the subway tunnels due to mutants roaming the surface. She finds out about the concept of school from her grandmother and starts off on a quest to find one on the surface. The plot does get more complicated, and school does come up in a way beyond finding a reason to stick the main character in a school uniform. The director of the game dropped out of high school to pursue a career as a mangaka that didn’t quite pan out, and I think you can look at this plot strand as an admission that it might not have been the best idea.
Gameplay is strictly side scrolling with a very strong emphasis on combat. You get three main weapon types; melee, ranged and explosive; and equip one of each. There’s a reasonable amount of variety within each type. Individual weapons can be reinforced up to nine times and have their intrinsic enhancement rerolled. Each weapon slot can take two additional enhancements which contain a primary enhancement (e.g. ammo +X%) and a possible secondary enhancement (e.g. a rocket firing drone that does X damage with Y ammo) which can never appear alone. It’s all very Diablo-esque, and you are absolutely showered with equipment and enhancements. It can be a little hard to handle since the equipment screen can get bogged down loading the full list and there’s no way to sort or filter. You can at least mark something as junk and sell those all at once or do the opposite and sell everything you haven't marked as valuable.
Most of the complexity is in the weapon system as the level dependent character stats are limited to health, stamina, and an equipment weight limit. You gain a skill point for every level and side quest completed which goes into melee, ranged and explosive weapon skill groups. The ranged and explosive groups also include a fair number of generally applicable bonuses, but the melee group is much more focused on the specific weapon type. The single most important skill though is the one that gives you a second life with up to 20% health when maxed out. This is different than just boosting your health as you go into a heightened strength and defense mode at low health.
While the area maps look like this would be a metroidvania, it actually isn’t. There’s 8 in total that you visit in a fixed order, and progression through the area is linear. You do usually start in the middle of the map and progress to one end and then the other and fight the boss. There’s also side areas usually with a specific kind of challenge that will yield a refugee, souvenir item or a side quest goal. You can revisit earlier areas if you want to, but there isn’t any reason to do so unless you missed out on collecting something the first time. You always have the full area map, and everything is labeled beforehand so it isn’t possible to overlook something.
The difficulty is pretty high even on easy. Enemies are mostly encountered in forced waves that respawn if you go back to the previous save point but generally become free roaming once you do make it to the next save point. A big chunk of the difficulty comes from the fact that there is no way to heal between save points. You have to be able to get through in one go. Save points are plentiful enough (and also double as warp points) at least. You do get an indication of how many waves you have to fight and how many enemies are in the current one. It wasn’t quite a struggle to finish, but there’s definitely some tricky parts. Oddly enough, that does not include the final boss which is not that difficult. The part before that took me five or six tries, but I breezed right though the actual boss.
Reviews of this are kinda mixed moreso for the PS4 version, but I also get the feeling that those reviewers didn’t actually play much of it. I did have two or three crashes but they were after dying in boss fights so I didn’t lose any progress. There’s a teensy bit of fan service at the beginning, but there’s nothing more than that. It’s a solid game made by a tiny team—I read the core was only three people—that definitely punched above their weight. It’s not perfect, but it’s a solidly made game. I paid $20 on sale, and it’s certainly worth the full $30.
I finished in about 22.5h.
Rating: 8
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Post by Snake on Aug 25, 2020 19:53:15 GMT -5
Puzzle Bobble 2, Neo Geo (replay, approx. 30 minutes)
I am the King! At least that's what the ending screen gave me. Always a lovable, cool classic. Though the last few levels really become an exercise in precision. First time playing through the Neo Geo version, but honestly, isn't largely different from the Playstation 1 release.
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Post by JoeQ on Aug 26, 2020 11:00:18 GMT -5
Post Void (Windows) - First playthrough, Time: 11h (Steam total time) / 8min 24.80s (successful run time) A highspeed roguelite FPS assault on your senses. It's fucking incredible. Super cheap too! Rating: 5/5Alphabet Challenge: ABCD-FGH-J-LM--P-RSTUV---Z Number Challenge: --2-------
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Post by zerker on Aug 27, 2020 18:35:24 GMT -5
Today, I finished TRI: Of Friendship and Madness (Linux; First Time) which was a charming first-person puzzle game. The main mechanic for this game is drawing triangles everywhere. Initially, these just work as platforms, but as you progress you can then use them to walk on walls, and then reflect beams of light for alternative puzzle types. The puzzles can sometimes be a little fiddly, but I really appreciated the free-form and open nature of each level, which have a significant element of exploration and discovery as you figure out what you can do, where you can go, and how each level works.
9/10, 10.1 hours.
End screen:
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Post by dsparil on Aug 28, 2020 14:31:12 GMT -5
Astal (Saturn, First Time) Clockwork Knight Clockwork Knight 2
Wikipedia treats Astal, Clockwork Knight and Bug as some kind of triumvirate of potential Saturn mascots based on nothing although I think it's clear the Bug was really the one that was supposed to take on that mantle. Astal at least has a site article, but Clockwork Knight does seem fairly forgotten. I wouldn't say they're really hidden gems as they do all have problems mainly in being too short and too easy.
Astal has some nice pixel art, but it's a very slight game. You get a fairly large repertoire of moves none of which matter aside from the one level where your breath attack is used to put out fiery enemies. There aren't many levels, and they are fairly short. There's occasionally a gimmick and one "vehicle" level, but they're too barren overall. It's nice that there's actually little story cutscenes after the bosses, but this is a skimpy package with no reason to replay since it doesn't even keep score. This has "one rental completion" written all over it.
Clockwork Knight is kinda weird. It's like Sega heard that Toy Story was coming well enough in advance to put together their own project about toys coming to life. The Japanese release was a full year before Toy Story premiered, but I can't think of a good reason for why it opens with a vocal music sequence and features prerendered CG sprites with realtime 3D environments. Pixar's short Tin Toy did win an Oscar in '88 so maybe that was the real inspiration? The game itself is okay but lacking in content. The levels are large enough to have some exploration elements, but there isn't much reason to do so except for score chasing.
Clockwork Knight 2 is a significant improvement. You have a reason to explore the levels in finding 4 hidden cards within each. I didn't get all of them, but getting them all does lead to something unlocking. There's also a boss rush mode that includes all the bosses from the first game, and a movie gallery that includes that game's movies too. The ending sequence is pretty nice too in giving little biographical facts about the main characters. It's like Sega really did want to expand this out to bigger series but sales never justified it. Since Sega seems willing to license out their old IP, who knows what could happen if there's suddenly a groundswell of interest. I doubt that will ever happen, but stranger things have happened. It's still too short, but feels like a fuller enough package. Supposedly this and the prequel got a bundle that also included extra mini games and that would certainly have been more worth it.
Rating: 6, 6, 7
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