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Post by halftheisland on Jan 7, 2021 13:03:12 GMT -5
Yeah, it looked from an initial investigation like most of them have some kind of "win condition", even if they then loop back to the start. I have a separate list of all the various oddities - including the popcorn machine! - that I intend to try out of interest, even if they can't be finished or I don't intend to play them through. EDIT: This should have the full list I've pulled together, any input on obvious things I've missed or discounted would be much appreciate. Hi there. I'm a huge Sonic\Sega fan. First of all 2 hours with all emeralds is a really good time. The GG\SMS version of Sonic 2 is a totally different game to the MD version. Personally if it is a choice between MS and GG pick MS as it is a bigger screen size as standard. Sonic Eraser is an unfinished prototype so I don't know if it is completable. Good luck with the challenge. Cheers, it really surprised me how much of the level layouts, structure of the special stages etc. I still remember after all this time! Good to know on the GG/SMS version and yeah, generally if there's no real gameplay differences etc. I'll be tending to pick the SMS version of those. In general, where something is multi/cross-platform my aim is to either pick what I've got immediate access to (PC, PS4, Switch) or most fully/accurately emulated (this one obviously varies wildly). Where it's feasible I'll at least try and have a quick look at other platforms but certainly won't feel the need to finish the same game several times just to do a comparison. This has gone from a vague idea to a full spreadsheet and a set of rules, so I guess I'm doing it now!
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 7, 2021 13:34:14 GMT -5
Before I attempt to kick this off, I'd like to ask dsparil about the first time rule. Some of these games will be ones I attempted to play years ago, but never beat despite making some progress into them. Will they count as a replay since I have partially played them before, or can I consider them as a first time since it'll be my first time finishing the game? First time finished, doesn't matter if you've made progress before Awesome to know! Thank you!
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2021 6:29:14 GMT -5
I'll throw my hat into the ring - apologies in advance if anything doesn't meet the rules. I still like to post about completions in the general chat, so I will continue to do that with games where I have more to say.
Blood Will Tell (PS2, 15hrs, first time) Posted about this in the general chat - it's a nice action game with an interesting premise. The first level is presented in black and white and I think it is more visually interesting. A shame it didn't stay that way.
Rating 7/10
Kingdom Hearts (PS2, 25hrs, first time) Ambitious but unfortunately not enough gameplay polish for me, and the level design is often confusing.
Rating 6/10
Chibi Robo Zip-Lash (3DS, 8hrs, first time) Chibi Robo controls nicely enough in this and the grapplehook effect works well. Unfortunately level design really never evolves through the game and so it becomes very repetitive. There's some vehicle sections and bosses, and these are fine, but nothing exciting. The strangest idea here is how level progression is done by spinning a wheel to see how many levels you go forward within your current world, with you looping around. It doesn't make sense, because you have to beat all levels in a world to progress, and if you land on the same level you have to replay it. I found the answer was to ensure I just moved one forward each time. It seems to be a case of quirkyness for its own sake.
Rating 6/10
Kings Field II (PS1, 25hrs, replay) Just called King's Field in the west for those not familiar. Really nice grindy action dungeon crawler with a nice interconnected world. There is a nice mysterious storyline in the background, like other FromSoft games you can enjoy the game with or without paying attention to it. Visuals are very basic but I find that to be part of the charm. Very addictive to me.
Rating 9/10
Everblue 2 (PS2, 8hrs, first time) I played this because I am a fan of the Endless Ocean games on Wii, Everblue is the predecessor for those. This version is more gamey, and objective based than that series, but unfortunately I found that to be to its detriment. The focus is less on exploring the sea and observing wildlife and more collecting sunken treasure or helping locals and progression can be awkward (especially the middle auction house part). In the ocean the draw distance is very low and there isn't a great variety of ocean life. I find visuals really important in a game like this and they are really not much to look at here. You enter sunken ships throughout on missions and the visuals here are better, but it's not that interesting to me. Just not what I was hoping for in this game.
Rating 5/10
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Post by halftheisland on Jan 8, 2021 11:55:38 GMT -5
Hit a game over in Death Egg Zone in my first crack at Sonic the Hedgehog 2 today - I know I got a bit sloppy and hasty in the later levels so need to give it another go taking things a bit slower and picking up plenty of spare lives etc. A good reminder that these games absolutely don't mess about and that I used to struggle with them for hours when I was younger. However, I have finished something else today: ABZÛ (Switch, 1st time, about 2 hours). In contrast to the general feeling about this I've seen both here and in other places online, I absolutely adored this for what it was - a minimally interactive audiovisual experience, rather than a game as such. I was just packed with so many breathtaking environments and beautiful music, to the point where I had to stop myself screenshotting it every few minutes. There definitely is little to nothing to it in terms of interactivity / challenge, but I really enjoyed just taking a leisurely swim around and releasing new kinds of fish etc. I actually kind of resented the little section towards the end where it introduces the kind of pyramidal sea mine things, which although they can't really "hurt" you still felt a bit jarring compared to everything that had come before. In terms of the plot, I certainly didn't really pick up anything throughout the game but I did find it interesting to see in the credits that it is based on / inspired by the first tablet of the Enūma Eliš (Babylonian creation myth), and reading that does give an interesting context that is perhaps missing in the game itself. The swimming controls were wonderful and the atmosphere actually reminded me in a lot of ways of Ecco the Dolphin - it's a hopeless thought, but I would love to see this team taking a crack at a 3D Ecco game, or at the very least this tech being used for it.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 8, 2021 13:58:10 GMT -5
Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SNES, Replay)
I don't think I ever played this version when it was new and only first encountered it as Wii U VC. After that supposed code to unlock Shin Akuma was "found", I figured I'd give it a run through. I'm calling the code a complete and utter hoax until I see a video of someone doing the whole process from start to finish because it totally did not work for me and the site that originally propagated it both provided no evidence and isn't particularly reliable either. Shin Akuma is accessible with a cheat device, and every video I've seen conveniently goes from the title screen straight the VS mode skipping the entire unlock process.
That aside, it's a little shocking that SFA2 even exists on the SNES at all. It's only to the fact that SNES carts can have additional chips that this even exists as it required the same graphics decompressor used in Star Ocean. It's a pain to actually play though because of the weird loading pause right when the match is supposed to start. There's also some other weird pauses, but in less troublesome places. At the time, someone with only a SNES might have been thankful for one last Street Fighter, but there's little reason to play it today.
Rating: 7 (I mean it still is SFA2)
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Post by spanky on Jan 8, 2021 14:13:44 GMT -5
As someone who was one of those kids that only had a SNES at the time the SFA2 port was released, the game felt like a minor miracle. You have better options today of course but I always considered it one hell of an impressive port. Hit a game over in Death Egg Zone in my first crack at Sonic the Hedgehog 2 today - I know I got a bit sloppy and hasty in the later levels so need to give it another go taking things a bit slower and picking up plenty of spare lives etc. A good reminder that these games absolutely don't mess about and that I used to struggle with them for hours when I was younger. The old Sonic games do this thing where they are pretty manageable thanks to the ring system UNTIL the final boss where they decide to stop giving you rings.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Jan 8, 2021 14:32:19 GMT -5
Yeah, it looked from an initial investigation like most of them have some kind of "win condition", even if they then loop back to the start. I have a separate list of all the various oddities - including the popcorn machine! - that I intend to try out of interest, even if they can't be finished or I don't intend to play them through. EDIT: This should have the full list I've pulled together, any input on obvious things I've missed or discounted would be much appreciate. Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles are swapped. Though you should really be playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles like god intended! I did a little classlc Sonic marathon a year or 2 ago. Just stuff that has been released on a home system (so no LCD stuff or arcade games that have never been ported). Didn't go any farther than whatever game came before Sonic the Fighters though. There's some interesting games but also a lot of really bad ones. Sonic Eraser is very infuriating, but I did end up beating it eventually. I think if you leave it running too long without doing anything, the game puts you back to the title screen and deletes all your progress, so if you actually plan on 'finishing' that, keep that in mind. There's also more stages than you'll see reported on most places on the internet. Sonic Spinball 16-bit and Mean Bean Machine were the only ones I couldn't finish. Mean Bean because it just gets too hard (didn't play the 8-bit versions with the puzzle mode) and Sonic Spinball because it was just so god awful that I couldn't stand to play it anymore, even for the sake of the marathon, even with a infinite life exploit, even though I was at the final stage. The 8-bit version is surprisingly a lot better, although it's still bad. I'll throw my hat into the ring - apologies in advance if anything doesn't meet the rules. Did you start all of these after december 17th? If so, that's a pretty impressive start to the year, honestly.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2021 14:56:13 GMT -5
I'll throw my hat into the ring - apologies in advance if anything doesn't meet the rules. Did you start all of these after december 17th? If so, that's a pretty impressive start to the year, honestly. I did, I was basically on my own through Christmas and no work. I'm a bit gamed out already.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 9, 2021 6:56:34 GMT -5
Arrest of a stone Buddha (Switch, First Time)
I was actually a lot closer to finishing than I thought. Overall I did like this, and my frustration with the action stems more from slight bugs involving off screen enemy spawning than the actual design. There were one or two levels where that seemed like much more of an issue than others. I can see where the mixed reviews come from, but this is definitely a game that comes together by the end.
I finished in about 3.5h.
Rating: 7
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Post by alexmate on Jan 9, 2021 11:54:10 GMT -5
Donkey Kong (AKA: Donkey Kong 94) (Gameboy, 1st time, Timer: 3hr 55m) First game of the year and it's a cracker. Took me about an hour longer than I expected it to. With the old Arcade Donkey Kong I struggle to get further than the first level, this one has tighter controls, seemingly shorter levels and plays easier.
Rating: 8
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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2021 12:14:36 GMT -5
I finished 3x3 Eyes: Juuma Hokan for the SNES about a week ago. First time.
It's an adventure game based on the long-running manga series, which looks and controls like a side-scroller. There's a very basic turn-based fighting engine for the few boss battles you come across. The first third of the game is set in Kowloon and has you running around one of those huge, interconnected buildings, looking for various items to progress and talking to a few NPCs; it kind of reminded me of Shenmue 2 before its time. Unfortunately Chapters 2 and 3 were kind of a drag, and I didn't like the game much by the end. Also, the story doesn't make a lot of sense, which is probably a mix of it being based on a manga (so it doesn't bother introducing anybody or anything) and a so-so fan-translation.
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Post by halftheisland on Jan 9, 2021 13:54:05 GMT -5
I'll have a lot more to say about this one, but between work and writing up my albums of last year elsewhere, I'm pretty burned out on writing at the moment. However, I wanted to note here my first major completion of 2021:
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch, 1st time, 57 hours).
Got this for Christmas and I've been playing it pretty much whenever I can since. I chose Black Eagles for my first playthrough and got what I believe to be one of two possible endings for them (there are two warnings of decisions which will drastically change the plotline, but presume only one affects ending).
I loved this and will definitely be going back to do the other Black Eagles route and the two other houses, although I'm going to take a break to clear some smaller bits and pieces as I was getting a little burned out on it by the end.
Hopefully have more to say on this once I've got the energy for it, but for now suffice to say this is my first 10/10 of 2021.
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Post by spanky on Jan 9, 2021 15:04:45 GMT -5
Farted around and beat Mega Man X2 (SNES via jailbroken Super NT, replay). I haven't played this one since the PS2 X collection and before that I hadn't played it since the mid 90s when it was released. The latest version of the Super NT jailbreak is compatible with the special chip found in this one so I thought I would give it a whirl. It works but runs a bit rough though - the wireframe graphics cause the game to chug quite a bit. I'm pretty sure it runs a lot smoother on the original cartridge. The chip isn't utilized for a while lot, just some goofy wireframe graphics that are sparingly used. This was mainly a way to cut down on piracy right? I love the original Mega Man series, but I'm not a huge fan of the X games. X1 is brilliant though, but this feels like a step down in almost every way. The aesthetics are off putting (this game has some really terrible music and X3's is even worse), and I kinda hate X's pacifist warrior schtick. The thing is, at the end of the day, it's a Mega Man game and it's better than than 90% of the stuff out there. Well done in every way and extremely solid mechanics. The X-Hunters are an interesting idea since they can force you to shift up your normal level order, but holy cow they are TOUGH in the early stages of the game and I don't really have the patience to track them all down (plus the Zero fight is pretty fun). I do miss how beating one level would cause other levels to be affected. Donkey Kong (AKA: Donkey Kong 94) (Gameboy, 1st time, Timer: 3hr 55m) First game of the year and it's a cracker. Took me about an hour longer than I expected it to. With the old Arcade Donkey Kong I struggle to get further than the first level, this one has tighter controls, seemingly shorter levels and plays easier.
Rating: 8
Love this one - my personal pick for the best original Game Boy game. Shame the GBA sequel isn't as good.
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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 9, 2021 17:45:44 GMT -5
Dragon Climax (Windows/Steam, first time, about 4 hours)
Another game by a duo of Italian developers making these cheap-looking, pixelated retro-inspired titles. This one is based on these simple single-plane brawlers like Kung Fu Master, Kuri Kinton etc. with a little more exploration, and is slightly more polished than their other games. Controls are a bit clunky but it's all part of the homage. Classic cheesy story of a little girl being kidnapped and her siblings, a martial arts expert and a kunoichi, defeating waves of thugs in 7 stages with a boss at the end of each. There's also a slight RPG element with the heroes spending XP points at the dojo to improve their abilities, and so on. Strangely, one of these abilities is to have your weapon last more, but I counted 3 or 4 weapons in the whole game so it's really underused.
For what it is, however, it isn't bad. 7/10 (as far as I can see the title is not really related to anything, it just sounds "cool")
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 9, 2021 19:01:19 GMT -5
dsparil I wanted to ask about using save states with a specific game: Startropics on the NES. I'm aware that save states should only be used for saving your progress and resuming it at a later date, but I want to know if there are specific in-game circumstances that can allow for a bit of wiggle room on using states.
For whatever reason, Startropics gives you a limited amount of lives when you attempt a dungeon. Losing all your lives means you have to do it again, which feels rather odd when the only points you'll respawn at are either the beginning or the mid-point of the dungeon. What exacerbates this is that when you die, you only get three hearts when you come back to life - considering you quickly get more hearts and there are very few ways to replenish your health, this means dying actively makes you weaker and puts you at a greater risk of dying again and getting a game over.
In this specific context, I would like to use save states in Startropics at the beginning and mid-point of dungeons so that they essentially serve the same function as the checkpoints, but without what I feel is a pointless and time-wasting punishment. If you feel it still shouldn't count, that's fine. I'll carry on playing the game regardless and simply not bring it up here.
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