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Post by dsparil on Jun 25, 2021 14:45:23 GMT -5
Crystalis (NES/Switch, Replay) This is of course a classic, and compares well to its contemporaries particularly in regards to the plot. It isn't a perfect game as the dungeons are fairly poor and certain required tasks aren't communicated well, but it's a solid outing especially for a company that made so very few RPGs of any kind. Rating: 8 Totally! There's a tragedy in SNK not making a sequel to this game in some form for Neo Geo. While not as cryptic or poorly translated as Castlevania 2 in terms of hints, I agree that there are times where I would get lost in the labyrinths on where to progress. Sometimes I'd get stuck on why I couldn't do any damage to some enemies or even bosses! But really, all it took was some old-fashioned grind to up your power level within being able to damage them. It is quite strange. I've never gotten the impression that the game was flop, but I think a sequel would have been timed a little weird. SNK probably didn't want to make a game for a rival system that wasn't a port, but the AES didn't have any home exclusives. The director also did the Samurai Shodown RPG, but it's hard to get any info on most of the staff and the ones that do also tend to have giant gaps in their credits. It's too bad that the GBC version isn't better. The music was so grating I only got a few minutes into it. It did drop the elemental immunities for enemies so maybe it's okay with the sound off.
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Post by JoeQ on Jun 26, 2021 6:00:40 GMT -5
The Last Guardian (PS4) - First playthrough, Time: no idea Team Ico's much delayed third game, it definitely feels like a fusion of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, though not always in a good way. The game is very polished and can often be amazing, but this is hampered by it also very often being super frustrating to actually play due to the way the controls, animations and Trico's AI work (or rather doesn't). Your enjoyment of the game will heavily depend on how much these bother you. As usual, I unlocked the platinum trophy, which required 3+ playthroughs. Definitely not recommended, since the trophy list is very annoying. Rating: 3/5Alphabet Challenge: ---D-------LM-OP--ST--W--- Number Challenge: 0-23------
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Post by dsparil on Jun 26, 2021 6:44:01 GMT -5
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle (Genesis/Switch, Replay)
Give this a quick spin because of the recent Miracle World remake which is apparently not good or at least not accurate with even worse controls. Kinda weird EC isn't the one that got remade since it's a little better and fairer in general than MW.
Rating: 7
Root Film (Switch, First Time)
Grabbed this visual novel about a bottom of the barrel film director that scores a big break but gets dragged into a bunch of murder mysteries mostly on a lark. My feelings for it went up and down, but it comes together well enough by the end. It has a good presentation and every scene is either a unique CG or puts character art into the background instead of using portraits for nearly everything. It's more on the simplified adventure side of VNs so there's a bit too much stumbling around looking for the next event trigger. However, you mainly just visit locations and any interactive areas are cycled through and marked with a box so there's no pixel hunting. The only real downside is that the beginnings of the mysteries are built up more than the endings so there's a tendency to jump to the conclusion a little too quickly. I'd still recommend it for anyone that likes mysteries but more for the overarching plot instead of the individual ones.
Edit: I finished in about 12.5h.
Rating: 7
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Jun 26, 2021 11:21:36 GMT -5
I've only played the Alex Kidd iMW remake demo, but would say the basic movement controls are tighter there. They also keep the more floaty kind for the classic mode which you can switch to any time.
I've read that the vehicles don't control as well though but also that the devs are looking into it. One thing bothering me was that they removed the alternate way of dealing with ghosts by spawning items via the star blocks, a kind of unique, semi-hidden mechanic for the game.
That's quite a generous score for Enchanted Castle compared to most of the internet but I also kinda like the game. Just wish they didn't make you play janken to buy things, removed most action-based boss fights and only had one castle level in it.
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Post by dsparil on Jun 26, 2021 13:36:19 GMT -5
Even at release, it wasn't reviewed terribly well. I think that's more an artifact of it being an "SMS+" game rather than a proper Genesis game. I think it's fine on it's own. I think they each do certain things better than the other, but replacing shops with more janken was a bad idea.
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Jun 26, 2021 15:05:48 GMT -5
Yeah sort of. I do think there are certain better candidates for such a label, such as Fatal Labyrinth, Super Hydlide or Shadow Blasters.
Being able to whip out a vehicle and then put it back into the inventory at any point is a fun mechanic.
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Post by JoeQ on Jun 26, 2021 16:16:57 GMT -5
Alex Kidd was never that good to begin with, but Enchanted Castle is just terrible.
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Post by dsparil on Jun 27, 2021 4:50:57 GMT -5
I'm not going to defend Alex Kidd too much since they're all such trifling games overall, but there's contemporaneous platformers that are much worse on a purely design level like Linus Spacehead in the Quattro Adventure pack for NES. Nearly every platformer Codemasters put out for the their unlicensed Aladdin Deck Enhancer is bad, but that one is it's own special breed of awful. EC is like a breath of fresh air compared to those. The graphics are nice and bright, and the various vehicles are fun to play around with.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jun 29, 2021 10:38:33 GMT -5
Dragon Ball: Advance Adventure (GBA; Replay; 1 hour 29 minutes)I wanted something short to play since the only games I otherwise want to play right now are quite lengthy affairs, so I decided to blitz through this pretty cool action platformer adapting Dragon Ball from the beginning through to the Piccolo Daimao arc. This was actually one of the earliest games I covered for HG101, but while my opinion of it at the time was only that it was fairly middling, I've come to appreciate it more since.
It's very to the point, with just enough moves to help you fight enemies or explore but no more than that, and I feel that's a great part of its charm. Other games have more developed mechanics or more interesting level design, but they can sometimes be a bit too much depending on what you're in the mood for. In the same way that Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest can be a good JRPG to play through if you just want something simple without all the fluff and fuss usually inherent to the genre, Advance Adventure is a good action platformer. Plus, it looks and sounds great, so you get a very aesthetically pleasing game on top of all that.
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Post by toei on Jun 29, 2021 11:32:22 GMT -5
Totally! There's a tragedy in SNK not making a sequel to this game in some form for Neo Geo. While not as cryptic or poorly translated as Castlevania 2 in terms of hints, I agree that there are times where I would get lost in the labyrinths on where to progress. Sometimes I'd get stuck on why I couldn't do any damage to some enemies or even bosses! But really, all it took was some old-fashioned grind to up your power level within being able to damage them. It is quite strange. I've never gotten the impression that the game was flop, but I think a sequel would have been timed a little weird. SNK probably didn't want to make a game for a rival system that wasn't a port, but the AES didn't have any home exclusives. The director also did the Samurai Shodown RPG, but it's hard to get any info on most of the staff and the ones that do also tend to have giant gaps in their credits. It's too bad that the GBC version isn't better. The music was so grating I only got a few minutes into it. It did drop the elemental immunities for enemies so maybe it's okay with the sound off. The Neo Geo was an arcade platform first and foremost, and SNK only started selling them as consoles due to fan demand, after which it was always a luxury/highly specialized console. So I don't think they saw themselves as really competing against the SNES, Genesis and PCE on the console market. Hell, Samurai Shodown RPG got ported to both Saturn and PSX, too. But they got so completely into fighters after Crystalis that I don't think the company was interested in making a RPG. It wouldn't have really fit in with their overall direction. Even the other RPG they made was a spin-off of one of their fighter franchises.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Jun 29, 2021 12:31:54 GMT -5
Hades Switch FTP 25 hours (and counting...)
Finally made it to the end credits. At first the game seems simplistic, limited, and overly difficult, but given time and repeated attempts to escape Hades domain the game really grew on me. And you grow better at the game. A brilliant system. The characters were interesting and attempting to build a good set-up to face the bosses is fun. The amount of different dialogue for boss fights is amazing. I have made around 40 attempts and still see new dialogue before the boss fights.
At first brush I scoffed at how this could win so many game of the year awards, but after playing for so many hours I can definitely see. The game becomes addicting. The temptation to make just one more run before turning the game off. I still may get to the epilogue yet. For now though Scarlet Nexus arrived today and I'd like to give that a go.
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Post by alexmate on Jun 30, 2021 11:35:11 GMT -5
Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (SNES, 1st time, timer: 2hr 37) Good points (Skywalkers): * The Ewok level was great, I would be quite happy if that was the whole game. *Great midi versions of the John Williams' score. *Good, but not overly impressive graphics for 1994. *Follows plot of film accurately. *Fairly impressive 3D sections. *If you liked the first game or are a fan of the films you will probably enjoy this.
Bad points (Star Wars Holiday Special): * Suffers from all the previous problems of the other games: confusing platform layout which reminds me more of something like Turrican, boring 3D sections, repetitive gameplay. * All the Super Star Wars games are pretty much the same. *Arguably weakest entry in the series. *Super long levels which go on for days on some stages. *If it was made today, would probably be DLC rather than a new game. *Hair pulling difficulty. *Tedious and tough end level, last level is weakest in the game IMHO.
Rating: 7
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Post by personman on Jun 30, 2021 12:04:25 GMT -5
Wario Land II via 3DS virtual console, first time, about 4 hours
A nice improvement over the first that branches out and feels like its own thing. Levels are a fair bit more puzzle like now and just generally more interesting than the last game. Don't care for how getting full completion involves annoying memory games but at the same time it was a decent way to incentivize getting as many coins as you can to make them bearable. It actually really surprised me that once I finished the game I was shown that there were a bunch of branching paths with a good number of levels exclusive to them. Game is actually pretty damn big even with how briefs the stages can be. It's impressive. However I don't think I'm too interested in going after them feeling a little platformed out right now.
Rating: 8 really good stuff for a little Gameboy game
Nanostray DS, replay 2 hours
One of the games I wanted to reacquire. I was really pumped for this back in the day for I was really focused on things like shumps and little else back then. When I got this at release I even participated in the leaderboards and held the 3rd or so spot for a good while too. Honestly even today I still think the games looks and sounds pretty nice for the DS and the levels are still pretty solid and more memorable than Iridion 2. Big problems I have with this game though are its controls and how they designed the systems. This unfortunately was the time where everyone just HAD to use the touch screen for something no matter how dumb it was, so you have to handle switching weapons exclusively through touch which for a game like this is just pants on head stupid. Not that the weapons are really that interesting anyways and typically the simple default gun works fine barring a few small situations. Then the scoring system is rather dumb where you have to pick up items to get anywhere but the things disappear in the blink of an eye. So, they give you the option to pull things in with a button, sounds fine right? Well using this feature drastically reduces your score... so to get the things you have to grab to get score you need to decrease your score enough to make them worthless. Right.
Then of course being a euroshmup enemies are very bullet spongey as you'd expect. This is circumvented by your special weapons and pick ups to replenish them are very common. But again to get a high score you have to pretty much forgo them and only focus on enemies waves to get a high multiplier making you just leave half of your enemies alone. I really hate when games give you these options and then just punish you for using them, If you hate them so much game then don't even give them to me for crying out loud. In short even though I remember having a blast trying to compete for score in this game back in the day the best way to play it is to just not care about score and use your weapons and stuff to your hearts content.
I still say it's not bad. Its a challenging tidy little game with nice music and graphics that I personally feel have a retro playstation era vibe. I wouldn't recommend this to many people but for enthusiasts collectors you could do much worse. I remember emulating the sequel and found it far, far better... now if I could just find a copy that won't cost me all the gold in Fort Knox.
Rating: 6
Echolocaution Steam, first time, 2 hours
Steam sale is upon us and I decided to grab this little game I saw on twitter a while back. It's basically a souped up flash game with really simple gameplay and a run time that's over in the blink of an eye. It also really has no true win condition though there are collectables to be found that fills up a menu. So I guess this won't count for the ranking or what have you, I just felt like mentioning it because...
It's just too goddamn cute. Personally work has been horrible lately and the heat wave that's burning us all up has got me pretty depressed so something light hearted and simple like this is just what I needed lately. Plus I always wanted to be a zoologist even since I was a kid and bats have always been my favorite animal. Plus I'm glad to see any kind of media that isn't demonizing them after the recent years. Anyways, theres only one stage, the gameplay has a solid foundation and could branch out to other things but ultimately doesn't take itself seriously (you can pretty much just tank the owl that attacks you no problem) and there really is nothing to go for beyond the achievements and getting the collectibles. It's over in and hour really.
So I'm not exactly recommending it. But the pixel art, the SNES style music, the character designs just hit really well for me so I figured I'd just toss it out there anyways. Its only 5 bucks and honestly it may make for a real good game to have your kids try out.
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Post by dsparil on Jul 1, 2021 9:13:29 GMT -5
Echolocaution Steam, first time, 2 hours Steam sale is upon us and I decided to grab this little game I saw on twitter a while back. It's basically a souped up flash game with really simple gameplay and a run time that's over in the blink of an eye. It also really has no true win condition though there are collectables to be found that fills up a menu. So I guess this won't count for the ranking or what have you I checked out a video of it, and it fulfills them enough. There technically isn't a rule about length, and it does conclusively end even if there's only one level.
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Post by dsparil on Jul 1, 2021 9:56:44 GMT -5
Here are the current rankings:
Total Game Completions:
dsparil - 122 Apollo Chungus - 84 excelsior - 41 spanky - 26 alexmate - 21 halftheisland - 21 personman - 21 Son of Suzy Creamcheese - 18 ZenithianHero - 15 JoeQ - 14 Digitalnametag - 13 Woody Alien - 11 Snake - 8 Null0x00 - 2 toei - 1
First Time Game Completions:
dsparil - 87 Apollo Chungus - 75 excelsior - 39 alexmate - 19 halftheisland - 19 JoeQ - 14 personman - 14 Son of Suzy Creamcheese - 14 ZenithianHero - 14 spanky - 13 Digitalnametag - 11 Woody Alien - 9 Snake - 5 Null0x00 - 2 toei - 1
Total Time Spent (Reference Only):
dsparil - 780h 47m excelsior - 430h 40m Apollo Chungus - 370h 32m Digitalnametag - 307h 30m halftheisland - 141h 51m JoeQ - 138h 30m ZenithianHero - 138h 30m Son of Suzy Creamcheese - 122h 19m 22s spanky - 113h 40m personman - 99h 23m alexmate - 74h 30m Woody Alien - 43h 17m Snake - 27h 9m Null0x00 - 20h 30m toei - 4h
First Play Time (Reference Only):
dsparil - 648h 49m excelsior - 413h 40m Apollo Chungus - 329h 31m Digitalnametag - 264h JoeQ - 138h 30m ZenithianHero - 131h halftheisland - 124h 51m Son of Suzy Creamcheese - 98h 19m 22s personman - 80h 7m spanky - 77h 25m alexmate - 70h 30m Woody Alien - 32h 17m Null0x00 - 20h 30m Snake - 10h 9m toei - 4h
Total Time Spent (Timer + Estimated + Reference):
dsparil - 701h 51m 3s (342h 46m 3s/155h/204h 5m) excelsior - 548h (0s/528h 30m/19h 30m) Digitalnametag - 348h (0s/348h/0s) Apollo Chungus - 242h 39m (216h 41m/25h 58m/0s) halftheisland - 195h 27m (19h 12m/176h 15m/0s) ZenithianHero - 185h (0s/185h/0s) JoeQ - 171h 25m 32s (81h 25m 32s/15h/75h) Son of Suzy Creamcheese - 158h 10m (64h 35m/93h 35m/0s) personman - 152h 53m (0s/110h/42h 53m) spanky - 113h 40m (0s/0s/113h 40m) Woody Alien - 73h 55m (30m/73h 25m/0s) alexmate - 66h 57m (48h 7m/18h 50m/0s) Snake - 13h 2m (4h 17m/8h 45m/0s) Null0x00 - 9h (0s/9h/0s) toei - 4h (0s/0s/4h)
First Play Time (Timer + Estimated + Reference):
dsparil - 596h 14m 20s (283h 12m 20s/154h/159h 2m) excelsior - 522h 30m (0s/503h/19h 30m) Digitalnametag - 314h (0s/314h/0s) Apollo Chungus - 226h 49m (200h 51m/25h 58m/0s) halftheisland - 178h 27m (19h 12m/159h 15m/0s) JoeQ - 171h 25m 32s (81h 25m 32s/15h/75h) ZenithianHero - 171h (0s/171h/0s) Son of Suzy Creamcheese - 137h 45m (50h 10m/87h 35m/0s) personman - 122h 37m (0s/86h/36h 37m) spanky - 77h 25m (0s/0s/77h 25m) alexmate - 65h 27m (46h 37m/18h 50m/0s) Woody Alien - 60h 55m (30m/60h 25m/0s) Null0x00 - 9h (0s/9h/0s) Snake - 8h 45m (0s/8h 45m/0s) toei - 4h (0s/0s/4h)
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