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Post by mainpatr on Jan 13, 2020 10:34:01 GMT -5
The Darkness (Xbox One via BC, 1st time, 10 hours)
The gunplay shows its age, but the strong atmosphere plus the voice acting of the Darkness made it an entertaining shooter. I liked the bleakness permeating the story and world, the high level of violence and the Darkness itself. The level design is weak, mostly a linear set of interconnected hallways, the hub system is inconvenient, and there are some annoying spots where the game could have communicated essential info better. But the game's flaws were not enough to sour my experience. It ends before it becomes tiring.
Rating: 7.5/10
Now play Riddick or Syndicate if you haven't already. Those are more of a sequel to The Darkness than the actual Darkness 2.
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Post by Snake on Jan 13, 2020 20:56:53 GMT -5
Dragon Ball 3: Goku-Den, Famicom (replay, about 12 hours)
Never released in the US. This was one of 3 Famicom games my father bought for me when we had a layover at Narita Airport, during summer vacation in 1990. Half the game relies on luck, since you're really hoping you get "good" cards to play your attack moves. It's an odd RPG set up where you wander the map like a board game. I don't know if I would recommend this game to anyone, as it can get rather frustrating when you die. The password progress you need to copy down is long enough, and its all in Japanese letters. The graphical sprites are 8-bit pixel art of original manga panels, which lends it some theatrical charm. It's a much more story accurate game than the first Dragon Ball Famicom game, and I find it to be more enjoyable. It gets very, very grindy towards the end. And the final maze/labyrinth can get particularly frustrating. I actually mapped it out on graph paper this playthrough around... and I haven't played this game in over 20 years. It holds a lot of nostalgia for me. Ending is a bit lackluster, but you do get 2 bonus fights against Arale and Raditz. I wouldn't call the music BGM all that good, but I find some tracks a bit catchy, while giving off a certain mood that goes well with the scenes.
Score - 7.
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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 14, 2020 6:51:18 GMT -5
DogolraX (PC/Steam, first time, about 2 hrs)
A short action-adventure game by French developers meant to be a homage to Amiga games like Another World and Shadow of the Beast. It's a shoddy piece of crap full of minigames where the biggest problem is the bad collision detection and controls, but it's so bizarre and absurd that I can't help but like it. The fact that it changes style and type of gameplay every few minutes (ripping off everything from Super Meat Boy to R-Type) is kinda justified by the story about an alien planet and traveling through dreams and other dimensions, probably. Basically it's like a bad trip full of gross mutants, gore and incongrous Deviantart-tier anime girls (which were present in almost every game of the dev team) that only add to the general absurdity of the game. Not to mention the stupid humor and the cheesy public domain sound effects: you'll get tired of hearing the guy going EEEEEUGGHHHH every time he dies or even gets hit.
The devs are French, so I can see where they were coming from, since a lot of French sci-fi is full of weird psychedelic stuff and sexual things, think about Barbarella, Heavy Metal (the magazine), Moebius' works, though this game is obviously not as good as any of these. 5.5/10
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Post by dsparil on Jan 14, 2020 8:22:22 GMT -5
Trace Memory (DS, Replay)
Not sure why I wanted to replay Trace Memory. Maybe it was because I remembered there's Another Code R, but I don't even think it's that although I did get everything set up to play it. Anyway, what I always liked about Trace Memory was how it used basically every single feature of the DS include the screen reflectivity when the system is partly closed! It's a pretty simple adventure game, but with a nice plot. Wish it was longer though.
I finished in 3:25:06.
Rating: 8
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Post by dsparil on Jan 15, 2020 8:30:50 GMT -5
Rygar (NES, First Time)
I've poked around Rygar here and there, and that might be the best way to play it as I didn't think it was all that worth beating. There isn't a huge amount of gameplay variety and grinding for health and magic gets very tedious almost immediately since drops are so rare. The difficulty is also a bit uneven with the final boss being a complete joke. It is interesting in being more or less the first NES action-RPG, but there are too many rough edges. It is fair in not deducting from your health and strength XP when dying, but starting with no MP and 3 HP is still an annoying penalty. It'd be nice to see a faithful remake that clears up some of the issues. I am a little interested in the PS2/Wii remake though.
Rating: 7
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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 15, 2020 17:05:18 GMT -5
Super Panda Adventures (PC/Steam, first time, about 9 hrs according to in-game clock)
A metroidvania made by a lone German guy that looks and feels like one of those mid-90s shareware computer games but is actually quite fun, well thought-out and with RPG elements such as allocating points to upgrade defensive, offensive, magical and other capabilities of our panda character. Maps are good, backtracking is not frustrating, you go back and forth between two planets and the only aggravating thing is that bosses have way too much health and attacks that are hard to avoid (though one gameplay element is a shield that nullifies damage for a while, they're still really tough). A really good surprise! 8.5/10
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Post by alexmate on Jan 16, 2020 16:48:19 GMT -5
Limbo (PC - Steam FTP Time take 3hr 40 Steam timer - listed as 3.8 hours)
Frankly a great game. Better than Thomas Was Alone. Some minor annoyances with the puzzles (I'm bad at games) and I don't think the control was as tight as it could be, it wasn't far off or maybe I'm just really bad. The boy also moved too slow and jumped too short, but this is minor. Future classic, I put the game inbetween Soul Blade and Alex Kidd in Miracle World to give you an idea of how good it is.
Rating: 8
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Post by zerker on Jan 16, 2020 17:07:58 GMT -5
Future classic, I put the game inbetween Soul Blade and Alex Kidd in Miracle World to give you an idea of how good it is. Only if we can read your mind about how you feel about both of those games. The "8" is clearer.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 17, 2020 8:25:12 GMT -5
Let's be nice here. Context is always good to have, and alexmate did previously mention keeping an overall ranking of completed games and mentions those sometimes.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 17, 2020 8:41:48 GMT -5
Squidlit (Switch, First Time)
At first glance, this does come off as a Save Me Mr. Tako knockoff, but I'd say it's really more of a response to its many failings. I don't need to go into the numerous technical* and design issues of that game, but most importantly, it doesn't feel like a Gameboy game at all despite purporting to be influenced by and mimicking them. This really does feel like one mainly Kirby's Dream Land. It's about the same length and difficulty so short and easy but full of charm. There's some funny dialogue, and it does not take it self seriously at all. I do wish it was longer, but it's only $2 full price. I'd definitely buy a sequel.
I finished in 40 minutes.
Rating: 7
*Slightly in its defense, I read that the developer did put together a patch that fixed a few bugs (but not all of them based on the PC patch), but Nicalis refused to release it for Switch.
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Post by paperchema on Jan 17, 2020 13:15:24 GMT -5
The Darkness (Xbox One via BC, 1st time, 10 hours)
The gunplay shows its age, but the strong atmosphere plus the voice acting of the Darkness made it an entertaining shooter. I liked the bleakness permeating the story and world, the high level of violence and the Darkness itself. The level design is weak, mostly a linear set of interconnected hallways, the hub system is inconvenient, and there are some annoying spots where the game could have communicated essential info better. But the game's flaws were not enough to sour my experience. It ends before it becomes tiring.
Rating: 7.5/10
Now play Riddick or Syndicate if you haven't already. Those are more of a sequel to The Darkness than the actual Darkness 2. Thanks for the recommendations. I played Riddick on PC and it's still one of my favorite first person games ever. I will look for a copy of Syndicate.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 17, 2020 18:42:29 GMT -5
Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout PS4 FTP 36 hours
And the award for most ridiculous outfit in an Atelier game goes too... Ryza! The over sexing of the main character aside I enjoyed the game quite a bit. I'm several entries behind (they released three freaking games last year...) but I think I picked the best one to resume the series on. The game starts slow but after a few hours you get all your convenience functions and the satisfying cycle of gathering and crafting takes over.
The battle system seems to have been inspired by FFXIII with roles and real time play but ultimately the game is so easy you never have to make use of it. Throw bombs and make overpowered equipment. Typical Atelier stuff. I like the revisions to the alchemy system as the ol'grid was getting pretty boring. This one uses a flowchart like the Mana games. Characters were charming and instead of generic quests each major NPC has a little quest line to follow that tells a story. The only major let down I felt was the music didn't impress me as much as usual. I think I only heard three vocal themes. Still I enjoyed the game enough to Platinum it. Without the usual multiple endings this one was fairly straight forward so I went for it.
Anyway. About middle of the pack as far as Atelier games go. Somewhere bellow the Dusk games but better than most of the Mysterious series.
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Post by zerker on Jan 17, 2020 18:54:06 GMT -5
Let's be nice here. Context is always good to have, and alexmate did previously mention keeping an overall ranking of completed games and mentions those sometimes. Yeah, that probably came out a bit harsher than I intended. It was a bit of a strange comparison the way it was presented in the post. I was not aware of any specific attempt at ranking games, though I guess it's obvious in retrospect. alexmate , is the list available anywhere? A wider view would paint a much better picture
PS: Limbo is totally between Shinobi and Super Hot.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 17, 2020 23:37:32 GMT -5
Mega Man X SNES Replay 2 hours
And let the Mega Man begin! Being a recent acquisition this was my first time playing this on a SNES. Unlike the expensive sequels with their special chips this one is easily affordable. Man do I still love this game. Does anyone play this without remapping dash to a shoulder button though?
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Post by Null0x00 on Jan 18, 2020 1:49:07 GMT -5
Cleared the 1995 Rise of the Triad: Dark War for DOS in 8 hours using Thi Barrett on the hard difficulty. First time playthrough with the good ending. 8/10. Apogee really pushed their old Wolf 3D engine to its absolute limits with this game, and even though the obvious limitations to the engine and its orthogonal maps (especially compared to Doom), the quality of the levels, the verticality compared to Wolf 3D, the abundance of traps and puzzle solving plus the sheer wackiness really gives ROTT its own unique flavour. Even among the 90's Doom clones, ROTT is unique and fun. Also, this game has the best soundtrack of any DOS FPS.
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