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Post by toei on Mar 2, 2020 15:31:39 GMT -5
GG Aleste 2 (Game Gear) Verytex (Genesis)
First times. Verytex is just decent, minus the final boss which is horrible, but the music is a 9/10. It's one of the best game soundtracks I've come across in a long, long time.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Mar 2, 2020 18:49:45 GMT -5
Mega Man Zero 3 PS4 4 hours replay
Hey remember the other day when I called Zero 2 the best Zero game? Yeah I'm full of it. Zero 3 is the best. Cyber elves that you can use without lowering your score (or killing), more bosses, an interesting story, selectable upgrades, and no more weapon leveling. Plus the Recoil Rod. So much fun bouncing through the stage. And finally you can skip the boss dialogue! Unlocking all those mini-games is a giant pain though. Good thing I don't have to do that for any Trophies!
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Post by dsparil on Mar 3, 2020 9:25:50 GMT -5
The Get Out Kids (macOS, First Time)
A kinda cute quasi-adventure about two kids in the mid-80s. It's broken up into 24 chapters of varying but short length. There might be a simple puzzle or two that needs solving or the chapter might be mainly narrative with a little bit of interactivity added. The gameplay is simple to the point that it does seem geared towards children, but the story is fun enough to still be enjoyable for adults. It's clearly going for an 80s adventure movie vibe which it more or less does successfully, and it's basically the length of one.
I finished in 1:25 by my own timing.
Rating: 8
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Post by Digitalnametag on Mar 3, 2020 18:37:29 GMT -5
Mega Man Zero 4 PS4 Replay 5 hours
I think I've only played this one once before as I barely remember it. Bosses were a bit more difficult in this one as a lot of them float around just outside saber range so you have a harder time combo striking them and now only EX Skills have element attributes. And some of those are no good for hitting bosses with. You can apply every element to the buster but that doesn't seem to due much more damage than a regular charged Z-Saber slash.
Eh. The new weapon the Z-Knuckle kinda sucks but the chip system is mildly interesting what with collecting parts from enemies to make upgrades. Cyber elves have changed yet again to with only one that you can equip but you can change its effects. This one is alright but I can see why I only played it once. So yeah. Zero 3 is the best. And with that I've cleared out the Zero games on the collection. The ZX games are a little longer so I'm feeling the need to play something different for now. Back to my Three Houses Blue Lions play-through!
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Post by Snake on Mar 5, 2020 13:02:33 GMT -5
Mega Man:Dr Wily's Revenge, Gameboy (1st time, about 2 hours)
Okay, this game was pretty brutal. A short mash-up of Mega Man 1 and 2 bosses, and a pretty challenging last level leading up to Wily. I died more than I cared to, trying to figure out what worked on Dr. Wily's machine and his attack pattern. Actually, what I really disliked were some of the enemies, like the circling cutter blade. Impressively faithful adaptation of the NES-style gameplay, where as some other Gameboy games like Ninja Turtles and Mario Land seemed to have almost been made from a clean sheet of paper.
6/10.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 6, 2020 8:38:21 GMT -5
Sayonara Wild Hearts (macOS, First Time)
I didn't like this too much at first, but it won me over by the end. At its core, this is just a really simple but flashy score attack game. The beginning is way too simple and a little boring, but it gets substantially better in the second half. In some ways, it pulls its punches creatively a bit too much and throws out something interesting only to have that part not last very long. For example, there's a section where you control a ship but it doesn't even last the entire short level! It would have been better to have a smaller number of longer levels (many are extremely short) each with a unique twist or vehicle. The Mac version also has some weird technical decisions and issues. The Delete key is used as "back" in menus and you have to press Shift twice to skip the intro. I have no idea how I even figured that out. It also ate my save not once, not twice, but 4(!) times.
I played this as part of Apple Arcade, but it is available for basically everything. At a full price of $13, the content it honestly a little skimpy, but it's worth playing overall.
I finished in about an hour.
Rating: 7
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Post by alexmate on Mar 6, 2020 10:11:44 GMT -5
Mega Man:Dr Wily's Revenge, Gameboy (1st time, about 2 hours)
Okay, this game was pretty brutal. A short mash-up of Mega Man 1 and 2 bosses, and a pretty challenging last level leading up to Wily. I died more than I cared to, trying to figure out what worked on Dr. Wily's machine and his attack pattern. Actually, what I really disliked were some of the enemies, like the circling cutter blade. Impressively faithful adaptation of the NES-style gameplay, where as some other Gameboy games like Ninja Turtles and Mario Land seemed to have almost been made from a clean sheet of paper. 6/10. I've completed this. As tough as any other Mega Man game. Above average is how I would rate it as well.
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Post by Null0x00 on Mar 6, 2020 20:39:22 GMT -5
Cleared vanilla (non-BFG edition) Doom 3 for Windows on the veteran (hard) skill level in 9 hours. Repeat playthrough.
Oh man. This is the first time I've done a complete playthrough of this game since it first came out in 2004, and 16 years later my feelings on it sadly haven't changed in that it's an impressive technical showpiece hiding an incredibly mediocre game. Honestly, it feels almost like the developers completely misunderstood what made Doom great in the first place, and instead of a fun, fast-paced action game that rewarded exploration, we get a slow, linear set-piece shooter like Half-Life, but without any of the actual set-pieces to make it work. It's basically the same cramped, one-way corridors for 80% of the time, and playing hide and seek with monsters in the dark isn't interesting enough to sustain an entire game. There are other minor problems to. Armour absorbs basically no damage and is essentially useless, half of the weapons suck, the camera shake on getting hit is infuriating, monsters too frequently teleport in without any warning, the final boss is a complete joke, it's too long, and I lost count of how many times the game would put an imp behind a door ready to lunge at you. It's cute the first couple of times, but not at the fiftieth.
It's both a horror game where the scares are boring and predictible, and an action game where the fights come so frequently they become tedious. It's a jack of all trades, and a master of nothing. 6/10.
I can only hope Resurrection of Evil is better.
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Post by JoeQ on Mar 8, 2020 6:26:40 GMT -5
Zoo Keeper (DS) - First time, Time: N/A A simple, but addictive match 3 puzzle game. I beat the Normal mode, which gets you end credits as well as the bizarrely tragic story. For good measure I also reached rank #1 in all four modes too. Rating: 7/10------- Cosmology of Kyoto (Windows 3.1) - First time, Time: N/A A bizarre mix between a first person adventure game and a historical tour guide. You wander the dreamlike streets of ancient demon plagued Heiankyo, while witnessing various historical events and gruesome ghost stories. Along the way you will also most likely die and be resurrected multiple times. As an adventure game it's very, very simple and the UI can be frustratingly janky (the version I played also suffers from some emulation issues), but the game's unique atmosphere and aesthetic make up for it. Rating: 7/10Alphabet Challenge: A-CD-F-H---LM--------V---Z Number Challenge: --2-------
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Post by dsparil on Mar 10, 2020 9:31:31 GMT -5
Final Fantasy X (Switch, First Time)
Technically this is my first time finishing FFX, but I got most of the way when I originally played it around 2006. For some reason pretty much everything irritated me to no end this time. I wasn't particularly enthused the first time around seeing as I gave up at the forced Kimahri fight on Mt. Gagazet, but I didn't find it as annoying.
It is interesting in how the game dumps many standard RPG elements, but I think the substitutions are better on paper than in practice. The sphere grid does allow for some customization, but way too late in the game. I really wish I had used the expert grid since it allows for freer customization. The downside is that it's smaller, but you'd have to grind like crazy just to fill out a character's section in the standard grid anyway. Kimahri is the only one that really has any realistic opportunity for customization, but your options are fairly limited. Customizable equipment sounds good, but they have no intrinsic strength so you end up with a bunch of useless or highly situation specific equipment. It takes way too much grinding to actually add attributes since the item costs are so high. Same thing goes with enhancing Aeons. It takes 99 Hi-Potions just to teach one a basic Cure! The elemental ones can just cast an attack on themselves, but the ones that aren't are basically screwed. I never even got enough items to add some really basic abilities. All the customization stuff is basically impossible without a guide and a whole lot of grinding.
I don't want to go on and on since I'm clearly in the minority. FFX was voted viewers' favorite in the series in NHK survey from just two weeks ago. I suspect that the story plays better in Japanese. The voice acting is very awkward for Tidus and Yuna in particular. It does seem to be an issue of trying to match up the dialogue with the pre-existing animation and it suffers for it. Some of the delivery is just weird while off screen parts like Tidus's narration are totally fine. Definitely some growing pains since it's so amazing in XII! I also think that since the story is very front loaded, the game makes a much better impression if you've only played part of it.
For the remaster itself, it's actually a little skimpy. $50 retail for the double pack puts this higher in price than VII to IX, but with fewer enhancements. The main characters have had their models touched up, but that just makes them stand out against everything else which is still at PS2 level. There's some really basic stuff like speed increases that the others have (including XII: TZA), but this one lacks. You still can't skip cutscenes! The only addition is a quick heal menu which seems like it's only accessible using the touch screen. That is a nice addition though. There is a new orchestral soundtrack, but I thought it sounded a little weird.
Kinda wish I had skipped this though and gone straight to X-2 which I have on PS2 but barely played. I would have preferred to have kept my more neutral memories.
I finished in 35:05:20.
Rating: 6
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Post by Snake on Mar 11, 2020 11:49:23 GMT -5
Mega Man 2, Gameboy (1st time, approx. 1 hour)
Okay, this was significantly, laughably easier than the 1st Gameboy Mega Man game. I really only needed to E-can twice, for the 3 part Dr. Wily machine at the end. Half the bosses, I didn't even bother to change to the sub-weapons. And the 9th robot master, with the pogo stick? I never even found a proper use for that weapon. But overall, it is an impressive selection of bits from NES Mega Man 2 and 3, with even a more cinematic cut-scene of an ending. Decent, but I wouldn't call the level-design "lovable," nor would I necessarily call the difficulty "balanced."
6/10.
Ys 3:Wanderers from Ys, Turbografx CD (1st time, approx 3 hours)
Superior to the SNES version? In some ways. While half the audio music quality is better thanks to the CD format, graphic colors are less vibrant visually while also coming across more pixelated. Compared to the effort put in to porting Ys Book 1 and 2, Ys 3 feels half-hearted. The voice acting feels like they last-minute got the office accounting and the janitor to do the voice-overs. The translation wording of the dialogue also feels quite unnatural. While Ys Book 1 and 2 would have character art whenever someone was speaking with voice acting, Ys 3 just gets cut-ins of voice-overs. Interestingly, they chose to give Adol some actual text dialogue for Ys 3. The first 2 games, he was really more of your Dragon Quest/Chrono Trigger/Soul Blazer type avatar where you kind of had to fill in the blanks of how the character would respond.
Gameplay itself, the leveling up seems to happen a lot quicker than on the SNES. I was able to grind to full-levels before the last 2 dungeons. And the final battle feels a lot easier compared to SNES --- different kinds of attack patterns. Here, you could just jump and hack away; for SNES, I recall having to deal with separate hands, and waiting for some kind of vulnerable moment.
Still, while a bit of a black sheep across the whole Ys series, I still kinda enjoy it.
7/10.
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Post by mainpatr on Mar 11, 2020 12:57:30 GMT -5
Isn't Ys V the real black sheep?
Re: Mega Man 2 GB What's with that "music" in the game?
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Post by toei on Mar 11, 2020 13:52:41 GMT -5
mainpatr Nah, III was considered the black sheep up until the remake, especially in the West. It's a bigger departure than V, which changed the battle system but is still a (pretty good) overhead action RPG. Also, lots of people played the SNES version of III, despite it being the worst damn port of the game. The TG-CD version has better music; the Genesis version plays better and runs more smoothly.
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Post by dsparil on Mar 12, 2020 7:29:10 GMT -5
Ys 3:Wanderers from Ys, Turbografx CD (1st time, approx 3 hours)
Gameplay itself, the leveling up seems to happen a lot quicker than on the SNES. I was able to grind to full-levels before the last 2 dungeons. That sounds about right compared to the SNES game. It's probably the same for both. I think I was maxed out before that point in the SNES version. I used the tree full of birds to grind. I forget where that is exactly.
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Post by mainpatr on Mar 12, 2020 8:44:52 GMT -5
That sounds like the mountain area.
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