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Post by alexmate on Feb 8, 2021 9:41:40 GMT -5
Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES, 1st play, 6h)There are obviously a lot of problems with this game. The level design has taken a big hit from 1 to 2, and there's a lot of repetition in areas as well. The overall difficulty is toned down way too much (even if you barely level up like I did), and some of the sidequests or solutions to things just don't make any sense. There's almost no penalty for dying/getting a game over, and all the bosses are a joke. The dungeons are not very complicated, and the climax of the game is just a strutt through an empty castle. The day/night cycle and RPG elements are also poorly implemented. And yet...I enjoyed this game quite a bit. It was pretty interesting to see what waits for you when you reach a new area, and it plays fine, too. Music's great, of course (why has Monster Dance never been remixed for later CV games???). And while there are some parts that are hard or impossible to figure out without a walkthrough, I found that I wasn't slowed down all that much, and mostly could figure stuff out myself. So yeah, it's a very flawed game, but I am glad that I played it anyway, and glad that I shelved out the money to get a physical cart. Rating: 7/10Pokemon Red (Gameboy. 1st time, Timer: 20hr 35) Classic game. I didn't like some of the dungeons and thought some of the mechanics were tedious such as pushing boulders, but scores 9.
What party did you have besides Beedril? Final party was Beedrill for the awesome pin needle, Blastoise, Snorlax and Chansey for bulk, Zapdos for lightning and agility, and Clefable with different TMs like Hyper Beam, Thundershock etc.
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Post by alexmate on Feb 8, 2021 9:44:49 GMT -5
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (MD\Genesis, 1st time, Timer: 1hr 1min) Letdown by a tedious boss rush, but an incredibly solid port of the arcade game with great graphics and music.
Rating: 8
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Post by spanky on Feb 8, 2021 17:28:54 GMT -5
Beat Panic Restaurant (NES, Replay) this afternoon.
Felt like playing something that'd only take about 20-30 minutes beat, max. Well it ended up taking me over an hour, thanks to the last couple of levels. The game is pretty easy for the most part. But the last level is filled with these french fry enemies that jump in the air and fire up to 4 fry bullets at you as they descend. Way tougher than anything else you've seen in the game so far and they are literally everywhere.
And some of the power ups end up doing more harm than good. That part in the freezer level where the game tries to force you to pick up the throwable plates during a section where you're traveling down a ramp (meaning that your projectiles fly right OVER the enemies you're trying to hit) is a major middle finger. Get the spoons, avoid the plates and forks.
Regardless of my griping, this is a pretty charming platformer with a cute food theme. It has that late-era NES quality with bright graphics, detailed backgrounds and sprites and solid music. It does nothing special or original but it isn't trying to either. Worth a bit of your time.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Feb 8, 2021 18:41:26 GMT -5
Myth Bearer (PC; First Time; 3 hours)
This is a pretty cool top-down action-RPG of sorts designed where JC Bailey, where you fight enemies by going right up to them and clicking on them. You deal some damage, and they deal some in return, so the central idea behind the game is to explore and get more powerful through the usual means of levelling up, finding better equipment, and the like. It's a fairly wide open game, with the ability to encounter many locations out of the intended order, and plenty of places to explore if you're feeling a bit stuck where you currently are. Because of how generally relaxed the gameplay is, it's one of those games where I can happily pick away at it while listening to podcasts or music. I also decided to listen to other things due to how short the music loops are. The tracks themselves are well composed and I particularly like how their arrangements remind me of the old GXSCC fake-bit MIDI player, but only last 2-4 bars or 10 seconds at the longest, which makes traversing the world very tedious after a while.
All in all, definitely a game worth the couple of bucks it costs, with an NG+ and a secret endgame area that you can only reach by not dying to keep folks potentially coming back. JC Bailey's also got a couple of other projects in the works: Deep Rune, a side-scrolling spiritual successor to Myth Bearer that's just begun development, and Unkingly, an action-RPG dungeon crawler inspired by the first Zelda and the King's Field games with 2-player co-op that's been in the making since April. So if this grabs your interest, make sure to keep an eye out for those: jc-bailey.itch.io/myth-bearer
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Post by spanky on Feb 9, 2021 9:45:27 GMT -5
Finished off Mega Man Zero 2 via the Anniversary Collection (Switch, First time) last night. Used the save-assist feature again.
This is a big improvement over the previous Zero game IMO. The levels are more interesting for starters. They also shaved down the rough edges from the first game - Cyber Elves take far fewer chips to level up, you can't fail missions etc.
However it's still pretty tough. There's still more than a few BS blind jumps that resulted in me dying. The stages are not too difficult but the bosses can still be monsters. I jumped into the game blind and picked the Phoenix boss first...who might be the toughest boss in the game, so that was a mistake. Fortunately it was much more manageable after that. I also thought I played the game pretty efficiently and rarely used elves but never got higher than a "B" score on a level. I get that this was marketed towards "hardcore players" or whatever, but jeez!
The plot is sort of bizarre and I think the "wandering around a base between missions" stuff is out of place in a game like this but whatever. I enjoyed it and will move onto MMZ3 next but might play something else first as a palate cleanser.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 9, 2021 10:52:38 GMT -5
B rank is pretty much what a normal good performance will give you. Especially in the first two, the damage limit is very low, and you need to defeat more enemies than you'd think to get full points in the category. Permanent effect elves also deduct permanently so you can't use any elves ever.
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Post by spanky on Feb 9, 2021 17:16:12 GMT -5
On a roll...beat Arrow Flash (Sega Genesis via my MegaSG) this afternoon.
I felt like playing a Sega Genesis SHMUP. The gimmick is that you can transform into a jet or a robot on the fly. From what I can tell, this affects what special attack you use, the pattern of your fire and the pattern of your fire. It didn't seem to affect speed or anything.
As far as Genesis shooters go, it's pretty easy. To be quite honest, I really suck at most of them but I breezed through this one. Part of the reason is that you spawn immediately where you die instead of being sent to a checkpoint. The game is very generous with your special attacks (aka Arrow Flashes)and your special attack in the robot form is really powerful. You get a shield that negates enemy fire and collision damage. It also hurts enemies and you can really rack up the damage in a short amount of time. The final boss is laughably easy. As long as you stay in front of him on the left side of the screen and keep firing, you'll avoid all his attacks. It almost feels like it wasn't play tested properly.
The graphics, sound and weapons were all fine but unspectacular. I enjoyed my time with this but it's just one Genesis shooter out of many.
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Post by Woody Alien on Feb 11, 2021 10:14:21 GMT -5
Monster Slayers (PC Windows/Steam, first time, about 29 hours)
A browser game turned into Steam title, a combination of deckbuilding card game and roguelike progression. Quite addictive like all the titles of this developer that I discovered way back on Kongregate! Runs are fairly short (about 1 hour each), but it takes a lot of time to get characters that are strong enough after all the defeats and make a deck that can hope to be efficient enough against the final boss. I quite enjoyed it even if the actual content is a bit limited (since it was like I said a browser game), but the expansion should take care of that. 8.5/10
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Post by dsparil on Feb 12, 2021 8:45:14 GMT -5
Treasure Mountain! (DOS, First Time) I played this a lot as a kid but never finished. This is an educational game focusing on early elementary school reading, math and life science. You climb up the three looping levels of the mountain by finding the hidden key and collecting two to five treasures per level based on your rank. You need to capture the three scroll carrying elves to get the clues to the key and that's where the education questions come into play. You get the key and treasures by throwing coins at background objects. The key is what matches all the clues and the treasures what matches two. Once you collect 300 treasures—about three dozen trips assuming you collect every treasure—you win. Unlike some of the other games in the Super Solvers series, this one is entirely for little kids to play with someone else. There's a rather large amount of reading involved, and anyone that can read through everything on their own is outside the age range. Higher ranks do have harder questions and more gameplay elements like coin stealing elves and collapsing bridges there isn't anything radically different. I do think that this could have some slight benefit for an adult learning English since the direct reading questions tend to have a focus on trickier or inconsistent pronunciation*. English is only technically my second language, but it definitely was for my parents, and they actually did get some benefit from those parts. There isn't a mode that lets you drill through those questions so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it specifically for that purpose. I have no idea what my time is, but the HLTB time is 2 hours which is literally impossible. The GameFAQs/2 time is about 10 hours which is much more in line with how long it'd really take. This isn't a game you can rush through in any way. It's hard to not interpret everything in a children's game as some kind of lesson, but being methodical about fully completing each level and conserving your coins is the fastest way in the long run and it might take fifteen minutes or more per traversal depending on how lucky you are with the scroll elves. Rating: 7 (this is how I rate it as an educational game) * I highly recommend this video for anyone curious as to why English spelling is so inconsistent; I also recommend that channel in general for anyone interested in languages. Short version is that English has 1300 years of accumulated history while other languages have had their spelling cleaned up at some point to start fresh. This is only alluded to the video, but a major factor is that English doesn't have a central body that can organize this type of widespread change like an official language organization. There were some attempts in early American history to reform it, but only the most minor changes stuck and not even consistently e.g. centre was totally replaced but theatre coexists with the -er version.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Feb 13, 2021 13:35:27 GMT -5
Super Mario 64 DS (DS; First Time; 6 hours 13 minutes) This one's kinda special for me. I first played this one on my sister's DS back in 2008 and it was the first DS game I fell in love with. I wasn't a Mario guy then, and I'm still not, but this is the only main Mario game that I felt any affection for. It's also a game I have struggled over the years to complete; I think I might have attempted well over a dozen playthroughs since getting that old copy from my sister in 2012, and yet I could never make it past more then 50-60 stars. Last time I seriously tried to beat it must've been back in 2015, and that was a rather painful ordeal that really killed my enjoyment of the game.
However, I decided I might as well give it one last shot as part of this challenge, with the simple goal of getting the 80 stars needed to fight the final boss. It didn't matter what I did to get those stars, it only mattered that I got those stars at all. With that established as my starting point, I ended up enjoying and discovering a lot more of the game than I had before. There are notable areas of stages that I never knew existed, stars that I could grab by poking at things placed conspicuously enough to attract my attention, and even a bunch of hidden levels (some of these exclusive to the DS remake) that I stumbled across for the very first time. It was honestly really exciting, and so cool that despite the ubiquity of Mario 64 as a groundbreaking 3D game, there's still so much of it that I've yet to discover.
Playing it on the go, one thought that occurred to me was how this might have inspired the direction Mario Odyssey took. Being made for the Switch, Odyssey had to be designed in such a way that a player would be able to make any amount of progress, even if they only had a couple of minutes. With 64, it really stood out to me how often and how quickly you could collect stars - whether you were messing around or knew exactly what you were doing - and I'm thinking that kind of freeform design not seen in the other 3D Mario games was what encouraged the team to return to it and revamp it for Odyssey.
Something I've often heard criticized about Odyssey is how every goal, no matter the challenge or complexity, is treated with the same basic reward. You can get a moon for doing a really hard platforming gauntlet, or for slamming your butt on that patch of grass. It can make trying anything particular length feel too worthless, and risks having the act of collecting moons come off as tedious when there's so many to get. In hindsight, I feel like 64's interpretation might've fended off those criticisms to some extent, as all stars require some amount of time and challenge to grab, but plenty of them are easy enough to do that you can easily get a star in three minutes once you've got a handle on things. I'm not saying adopting 64's general difficulty would've made Odyssey a universally better game: just that they do things differently enough that folks will prefer one over the other and vice versa.
Either way, I'm so pleased to have finally beaten Mario 64, and it is a rad game. I'd recommend it, but not the Switch version since that's going off in a few weeks and screw everything surrounding the "limited release" guff for that collection. Grab the DS remake or the original in whatever way's most convenient to you, whether that's buying a used copy or... well, ya har, me mates. We've got an ol' game to grab off da internet! (Flies skull and crossbones)
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Post by Digitalnametag on Feb 13, 2021 19:36:08 GMT -5
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox PS4 FTP 38 hours
Yah Ys! Been looking forward to this for awhile. It runs off the same formula VIII does with added Assassins Creed/Batman/Etc style exploration and collectables around a central hub city. This kind of hampers the feeling of exploration as most locations are tunnels underneath the city leading to the central prison. Kinda drab. The theme this time seems heavily borrowed from Persona 5 with a giant prison, a cast that dons strange outfits and have quirky code names, and enemy shadows...I mean NOX. It is pretty cheesy. The story isn't super memorable and neither are many of the characters. At least the localization is pretty good for the get go on this one.
That aside the game is still barrels of fun to play. The rocking guitar licks and fast combat are a blast. I would play at least on Hard mode though. Normal is drop dead easy. I completed everything in the game other than the million gold trophy and the Nightmare mode one. Maybe on a replay some day.
I know some of that sounds negative but I really did like the game a lot! I think Ys VIII is probably the better games in this style but IX switches things up enough that it doesn't feel like exactly the same game. I'm kinda hungry for more Ys now. Well Persona Strikers comes out this month too. Maybe I should buy that PS4 port of Ys IV as an excuse to replay it on something other than Vita... Though I haven't re-played VII or Oath since release either. Year of the Ys replays perhaps?
Random side fact. All of Adol's potential love interests names end with an 'a'. The more you know. Thanks Ys wiki!
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Post by Woody Alien on Feb 14, 2021 10:41:15 GMT -5
More cheap discounted Steam game goodness!
Q-Yo Blaster (PC/Windows, first time, about 45 minutes) Bought on sale for less than $1. A somewhat old-school horizontal shmup made in Chile, first game I've ever seen from that country. Don't know what the title means, but the plot doesn't make any goddam sense as well. Basically there's an invasion of alien insects and Earth is fighting back with an army of miniature weirdos including a loli android, a toy robot, a tomato man, an angel and a floating bloody dog head. It wants to be in part a wacky shooter a la Parodius (with insect enemies reminiscent of Insector X and others that are just random ships and mechanisms) and in part a bullet hell with the opportunity to cancel bullets and turn them into gems to power the special attacks. But it isn't especially good at either so I don't know what to make of it. Graphics and soundtrack are fairly good for a somewhat cheap indie game, but even the style is somewhat indecisive, in part aping old cartoons and Cuphead, in part having a more surreal and colorful slant (vaguely reminds me of Captain Tomaday which could be another source of inspiration). It also gets quite hard whan you unlock Arcade mode. There's also some strange design choices and in general it seems a bunch of ideas that don't really gel together. Too bad because it seemed promising! 6.5/10 Dark Fear (PC/Windows, first time, 7 hours according to Steam counter) Another discounted game. Originally a phone app converted to Steam title, it has no business being this good after being misled by the first impressions and the sad, cheap-looking trailer. It's a horror point and click adventure with some slight visual novel and RPG elements, and hunting/fishing minigames that are integrated in the plot. The controls are very simple because it was a smartphone game, but there's no problem in controlling it with the mouse. The game imitates DOS-era adventures and especially Sierra ones (but not nearly as cruel, thankfully), even having a faux DOS booting screen. The atmosphere of mountain horror folklore is good, the jump scares are thankfully few but effective and well-integrated, the tale of dark magic maybe not too original but compelling and with a couple disturbing moments, the puzzles are simple without being insulting, the graphics quite nice in their pixelated simplicity, the final twist is appreciated and everything in general simply works. Only thing I disliked was the super-cheesy final battle, a stereotypical giant devil with a rock BGM, too bad since the rest of the tracks (made by someone outside the devs) are very good and atmospheric. Good job for the authors (who are British and not Americans despite the game's setting) but I'm afraid they won't repeat themselves since all other titles are the typical crappy little smartphone games nobody cares about. 9/10 for having far exceeded my expectations and being a near-perfect imitation of 80s-early 90s point and click games.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 14, 2021 10:55:21 GMT -5
Faxanadu (NES, 1st play, 9h30m)
I enjoyed this quite a lot! There's some jank to get used to, but once you do, it's not all that difficult. It's kind of linear to some degree, but each part of the game has enough areas to explore that it's worthwile to sketch a bit of a map while playing. But it's also not too big that you have to. Same goes for the dungeons.
Each region is a bit differently designed from the last, and they all have several dungeon-type areas, so there's enough surprises. The final dungeon was especially cool - it kind of loops around unpredictably and was cool to map out.
There are a couple of issues I have, though. For one, there are a lot of cheap or unavoidable hits. The game uses that screen-flip style of scrolling (a la Zelda 1), but sometimes there's an enemy right where you enter the screen. This seems to happen mostly when backtracking, so it seems they didn't really design the game to work properly going from all directions at times. There's also a lot of times where enemies are on a higher or lower level on a screen, will wait for you to get off a ladder, and will be unavoidable because they're faster than you. There's even some cases where you exit a building and immediately get hit by an enemy. You have enough health to take some abuse, but it just feels kind of sloppy at times.
There's also some tedious backtracking here and there, and often it's much faster to kill yourself and respawn, or it's better to re-enter your password (for example when dying), but I guess now I'm asking a little too much from a 1987 game.
Anyway, overall, very much worth playing, especially for the prices it's going for on eBay (10 bucks or so) and taking into account it's pretty meaty for an NES game.
Rating: 8/10
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Feb 15, 2021 6:38:01 GMT -5
The Firemen (SNES; First Time; 42 minutes)
I first heard of this one a few years back; I think it must've been on that old blog run by Gabriel Morton (who used to co-host the Let's Drown Out video series with Yahtzee Croshaw and now runs the keepetclassy channel/website with his friend Aaron); and I liked the idea enough to grab a ROM and pop it on my Wii's snes9gx emulator to be played at some point. Well, I ended up playing it on a whim yesterday and gave it a few attempts until I beat it about an hour ago.
The Firemen is a very cool action game where you play as a fireman and have to hose your way through a burning building to put the fire out, accompanied by a very competent AI-controlled partner who acts as crowd control by axing out nearby fires and opens up doors. The game only lasts about an hour with its six stages, but it manages to get a lot of mileage out of its various ideas - ensuring each stage has a different feel and vibe, while building on the basic ideas introduced from the start in a way that feels very intuitive and deliberate.
Oddly, the way it's paced reminds me a lot of something from the late 00s/early 10s, where the focus isn't so much on player expression but showing off cool set-pieces and getting the player to overcome them. There aren't alternate routes to find, despite the floor maps initially suggesting some kind of non-linearity, and you don't have any items to find beyond water bombs to help you out in a jam and people to rescue who partially restore your health. That does make replaying the game feel somewhat limited in comparison to the kind of games I prefer, where you have a lot of options in what you do and how you go about doing them, but I don't mind since the core game is so solid.
Despite the SNES' library often being considered one of the best collection of games, I don't have any personal passion for them the way many other people do (hence why I haven't written about any SNES games up to this point, nor have I really covered them on my HG101 reviews apart from one or two wanted games). However, I can say that The Fireman is a game I've very much passionate for and it's now one of my favourite games for the system.
(As an aside, I beat the game on Beginner mode. The only notable difference from playing it on Normal is that you start with three bombs instead of one and you take slightly less damage. Otherwise, you can play the whole game and all the challenge is the same, though you won't be able to see your playtime or the credits. I'm bringing it up mainly because nobody seems to have discussed the differences between the two difficulties much, at least as far as I could see.)
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Post by spanky on Feb 15, 2021 7:32:55 GMT -5
The Firemen is a really cool game and I like it a lot better than The Ignition Factor (the other SNES game about firefighting).
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