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Post by dsparil on Jul 5, 2021 5:04:49 GMT -5
Spooky Ghosts Dot Com (Switch, First Time)
A short and simple Halloween themed Metroidvania that of course makes total sense to play in the middle of summer. I got this on release, played it for a few minutes and then dropped it for some reason. It's been eating away at me, so I finally got around to beating it. I honestly do not like many of the design elements and the bosses are too spongy, but it's short and charming enough for that to not get become a huge deal.
I finished in 01:05:48.
Rating: 7
Stunt Race FX (SNES/Switch, Replay)
I feel like SRFX is one of the most obscure localized Nintendo games which is not terribly surprising since it's a bit too much for the Super FX to reasonably handle. I do have a soft spot for it as it was the game that made me like racing games way back then. The googly eyed characters add a little personality, and the racing itself has a character that isn't quite replicated in any of the other Nintendo racing games.
Rating: 7
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Post by spanky on Jul 5, 2021 6:50:13 GMT -5
Oh man, I loved Stunt Race FX as a kid. It compared pretty well to Virtua Racing for the Genesis. Maybe not as technically impressive, but overall there was a lot more meat to the game. I also remember it was one of the first games to come out under the Play It Loud banner so all the marketing for this silly googly eyed car game had extreeeeme ads. Have you ever played the overclocked mod of the game? It's sublime.
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Post by dsparil on Jul 5, 2021 7:57:39 GMT -5
I did see that. I tried boosting Super FX speed a little in BSNES, and it is nice that it's possible to get a bit of performance enhancement that way. I prefer to keep things stock in general, but I might keep that in mind if I replay it.
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Post by alexmate on Jul 5, 2021 11:25:51 GMT -5
Predator 2 (Genesis, 1st time, timer: 34mins) Fairly mediocre top down shooter with a really annoying collect the hostage mechanic. Some impressive isometric effects and weird soundtrack choice. It's OK, but there's way better 16 bit shooters.
Rating: 6
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jul 5, 2021 11:33:41 GMT -5
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (OG on PlayStation, Played on Xbox 360; Replay; 6 hours 30 minutes) I've had a really tough time trying to get into new games recently; I must have attempted at least a dozen titles in the last few weeks, and although a lot of them are quite interesting or compelling, they keep throwing me up with unexpectedly overwhelming sections without any alternatives (Ninjin: Clash of Carrots, Gato Roboto), puzzles without much help or direction (Last Window), stretch checkpoints way too far apart for their own good (Wario Land 4, Stubbs the Zombie), or are generally too difficult for me to tolerate even on the easiest modes (Strife, Rayman on the GBC). It's been stressing me out like crazy, and as I don't have very much going on in my life right now besides helping around the house or helping to mind my dad following another surgery, I've fallen into replaying games as something of a personal crutch. So that leads me onto Symphony of the Night, which I mainly went with so that I could have something to play while downloading Enchanted Arms (a game I really hope will be awesome without overwhelming or irritating me). It's considered one of the inaugural classics of the Metroidvania/Exploraction style, and one reason I've come to appreciate is how much choice you get in terms of equipment. You can choose from various weapons, sub-weapons, equipment, familiars and more so you can explore the castle and fight enemies in whatever way is most comfortable for you - yes, this frequently breaks the level of challenge after the first couple of hours and things open up, but I think that allows for just about anyone who can get over the opening section to enjoy the game.
I wouldn't consider it my favourite of the Castlevania games in this style, as that title belongs to Circle of the Moon, but there's plenty to admire and adore about this one. If nothing else, that general approachability makes for a great game to blank out to while listening to a podcast, which I did plenty of during this playthrough. It was the right game at the right time, as far as I'm concerned.
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Post by ZenithianHero on Jul 7, 2021 14:41:09 GMT -5
Sakura Wars (PS4, First Time, 20 hours and 30 minutes)
Finally gotten around to playing this. I bought the game around the time it came out. This was delightful game. Worth playing if you want a story to casually go through. So much care and effort was put into the production, graphics and storytelling. They nailed the anime episodic style here. This was one of those new cast sequels and change in gameplay. I only ever played SW5, they kept similar adventure direction where you pick choices in time limit and run around finding NPCs. I like the cast in this, they grew on me almost immediately. The actual plot was a bit standard hero vs dark sorta thing but given they haven't been making sequels I don't mind. Many side scenes are your cliche harem anime situations. They come off strong and dumb with this, the writing is entertaining but sometimes the game just has to know when the reel it in and you can decide to skip much of it anyway.
The combat changed from strategy to musou hack and slash. Controversial, but I like musou gameplay. The game gradually added light platforming to the stages which I liked. There wasn't much of penalty for falling in pits and you can clear even bosses with your special moves. Being overpowered, the combat is little too simple majority of the time. If they make a sequel they should offer difficulty settings, less enemy clearing rooms and more attacks to learn. Maybe it is harder if you weren't gaining trust levels for the team? But I don't think it was making a difference. You curb stomp near everything but the final boss. I noticed the game had big patches that improved the gameplay such as adding lock-on. I could see why somebody wouldn't like this game back when it originally came out. The change in format did leave me disappointed that the theme of teamwork was reduced to picking a secondary character, the rest of the team shows up as cpu allies time to time but with the strategy before everybody can be played at all times. This sorta change also meant certain characters do not get much combat screen time either.
The game also comes with a Koi Koi mode where you play Hanafuda with all the characters. Play it straight from the title screen, so that is good for if I want to reinstall the game for a quick match.
Anyway, I hope Sega decides to localize the classic entries. I worry the series be kept back into the vault after what happened to the mobile game. I am not sure if this game sold that well too.
7/10
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Post by dsparil on Jul 8, 2021 7:41:22 GMT -5
Picross NP Vol. 7 (SNES, First Time)
Getting towards the end of the NP line. Nothing new over Vol. 6, and the Nintendo theme is Wario Land II.
I finished in 09:28:25.
Rating: 8
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Post by dsparil on Jul 9, 2021 13:16:06 GMT -5
Final Fantasy (GBA, Replay)
Finally getting back to playing through the main FF games after doing VII to XII (minus XI) in in 2019 and 2020. For the original to VI, it's going to be what I have on hand which is the GBA and DS versions. This turned out to not be the best idea for the original game since I forgot how ridiculously easy the Dawn of Souls version is. There's changes to the max level and to stats, but enemy HP and damage has been adjusted to take this into account.
I think the main source of ease comes from the additional castings that are possible. This version moves to a standard MP system, but it isn't actually as generous with castings as the easy difficulty in the Origins version which gives you many, many more castings after the first few levels. For example, I finished the game at about level 65 with the max mp of 999 on my white mage. This gives you 28 castings of Curaja or 26 for Healaga while Origins gives a level 65 WM 54 castings for spell level 7 alone plus the hundreds for other spell levels.
The big difference is that Origins still has the normal difficulty so you're not forced into such an easy game. This is a little bit of a problem for the first game since it's still basically all grinding with only a few smidges of story. Maybe if damage was doubled the difficulty would even out a bit. As it is, playing without a white mage is the only way to inject any difficulty. Maybe SE deliberately wanted to make this a beginner's game, but then there's still the less than obvious progression.
I finished in 15:35.
Rating: 6 (DoS version specifically)
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Post by personman on Jul 9, 2021 18:49:32 GMT -5
Mega Man Dr. Wily's Revenge via 3DS virtual console, 2 hours
Cause I can never seem to stick to one series anymore I went and got the Gameboy Mega Man series on my 3ds and intend to revisit them all again. Why? Well despite what people think they do branch out on their own enough to be considered something more than just abbreviated versions of the console games. Also nostalgia. Sue me.
I think I only played the first game once on an emulator and didn't think much of it. Kinda feel the same way but now a days I can appreciate they tried to design some of the levels to take advantage of the boss weapons, a little more than usual than I remember for most games in the series, particularly the last stage, just about every screen feels like its trying to tell you 'use x weapon you dumb kid' and despite how sadistic it is I appreciate that. It was a little janky that the second set of bosses were just thrown at you and you could only really use their weapons in one stage though.
Otherwise its just a solid tiny Mega Man game. Nothing great but serviceable and certainly better than the 2nd one which I remember being pretty lackluster... which is the one game in the series I owned. Go figure.
Rating: 6 not too bad. Mostly a curiosity for fans. Also that music in the last stage sounds so joyful and I found that bemusing.
EDIT
Mega Man II vis 3DS virtual console, 1 hour
And just like that I rampaged through the second game. This thing is pathetically easy in so many ways, for one you get every single function that Rush has so you can just plain bypass any platforming challenging, health pic ups are coming out of the damn walls, and 1 ups, metal blade is still broken, bosses are mostly brain dead with the only one giving me trouble was Magnet man. Plus E tanks being everywhere. Just geez, I don't mind things being breezy but this here is just too much. As I said before I did own this one growing up and it was one of my first Gameboy games so maybe there some muscle memory buried in my being still but none the less it still is way too easy. Honestly just kind of bland some how I can't quite place... maybe its just because it uses a lot of assets from II which I firmly believe is the most overrated Mega Man game ever. You heard me.
But it's over in the blink of an eye at least. Still, it feels rushed and sloppy. Like what with with the last boss? Wily is about the size of a midget for some reason
Rating 4, its kind of a joke, even for a dinky Gameboy game. No reason to really play this.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jul 10, 2021 4:35:19 GMT -5
Last Window: The Secret of Cape West (DS; First Time; 11 hours 29 minutes)
About five or six years ago, I played through the DS adventure game Hotel Dusk: Room 215 by Cing (who had also made the Another Code games). At the time, I remember being disappointed with it because, despite its reputation as one of the best adventure games on the DS, I found it rather boring. Aside from the solid music and fantastic rotoscoped animation, I felt that its writing was too dull and the formula too repetitive to feel anything more than "it was okay".
For some time now, I've been fascinated with the relationship that a person can have with any particular work, namely trying to understand how much of a work's qualities will be seen as good or bad depending on that person's own tastes. In this case, was Hotel Dusk really a repetitive, dull slog, or was it just a relaxed game that I wasn't looking for and couldn't appreciate at the time?
This cognitive dissonance has been on my mind after playing Last Window, a sequel made a couple of years later that was only released in Japan and Europe (and the final game developed by Cing before their bankruptcy and closure). Last Window shares a lot of Hotel Dusk's qualities, such as a slow pace, being confined to a single location and getting to know the other people residing there, a regular structure to things such as calling Rachel for updates. So you'd think I'd find this game equally dragged out and tiresome, but I ended up being enthralled by the whole thing. I was always pushing to see what would happen next, laughing alongside the characters, curiously exploring rooms and solving various neat touchscreen puzzles, and getting to know the cast as people.
I don't believe that makes Last Window an enormous improvement over Hotel Dusk. No, it's more that I've changed a lot over the last five or six years in how I understand and appreciate things, particularly the likes of video games which can be designed and enjoyed in countless ways for countless reasons. I wanted something out of Hotel Dusk that it never wanted to give, and I couldn't see that, so I came to dislike it. Now, I can see what Last Window wants to do and I went along with the ride, so I came to cherish it.
There are some aspects I'm not so keen on, mainly in terms of trying to solve puzzles that don't explain themselves terribly well. There's one near the end of the game where I just threw up my arms and followed the walkthrough, as the path you're meant to take to understand why you're inputting the solution is a bit too much. I also wish that there was a button to fast-forward through the text, as some sections can force you into a Game Over if you make the wrong choice or say the wrong thing and make you repeat the entire conversation. This made certain conversations where I got one phrase wrong gruelling, as I had to click through ten minutes' worth of text to get back there with no recourse but to wait and mash the touchscreen.
However, it's ultimately an excellent, unique game with a charming, relaxed vibe that I really wanted and needed at the time. If you have the ability to play them, I'd happily recommend checking out Hotel Dusk and Last Window as a duology of DS adventure games with a style like nothing else.
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Post by Null0x00 on Jul 11, 2021 5:15:12 GMT -5
Cleared Cruelty Squad for Windows in 4.5 hours. First playthrough. Game has a dynamic difficulty system so there is no user set difficulty. Possibly the weirdest shooter I've played since Killer7. Play as a Dennis Rodman looking assassin murdering people in a game that feels like the unholy lovechild of Hitman, Deus Ex, Quake and a GeoCities page circa 1994. Despite the look, is actually really playable and quite fun, and warrants multiple playthroughs to improve your level times as you buy the body modifications and the various weapons.
8/10
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jul 11, 2021 7:49:49 GMT -5
Konami Krazy Racers (GBA; First Time; 1 hour 8 minutes)
Yesterday ended up being unexpectedly busy and stressful, so I played a couple of games for a while to help calm me down. I'd previously played a good bit of Krazy Racers at the start of the year, but gave up thanks to incredibly difficult Time Attack challenge for Magma Castle 1. I figured I might as well give it another shot since you can get through each cup in about ten minutes, and I thankfully managed to overcome that challenge. It's a very good kart racer, with great controls, solid level design, and a nice breezy pacing that makes it excellent for quick plays.
Refunct (Switch; First Time; 21 minutes)
This is a very short first-person platformer by Dominique Grieshofer, where your goal is to jump across platforms and hit switches, which opens up areas around you that let you hit more switches. It's a deliberately tranquil game, with no external pressures, and no risk of injury or death. You can just take your time solving the puzzles and learning how to use simple wall jumps and wall runs to make your way to the collectible red spheres, which only add to the completion percentage along with landing on every platform to give them colour. I'm not sure if the design is randomly generated or not, but I might replay this every now and again as it makes for a lovely way to do some stressfree jumping and parkour.
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Post by lurker on Jul 11, 2021 10:14:15 GMT -5
Konami Krazy Racers (GBA; First Time; 1 hour 8 minutes)
Yesterday ended up being unexpectedly busy and stressful, so I played a couple of games for a while to help calm me down. I'd previously played a good bit of Krazy Racers at the start of the year, but gave up thanks to incredibly difficult Time Attack challenge for Magma Castle 1. I figured I might as well give it another shot since you can get through each cup in about ten minutes, and I thankfully managed to overcome that challenge. It's a very good kart racer, with great controls, solid level design, and a nice breezy pacing that makes it excellent for quick plays.
Refunct (Switch; First Time; 21 minutes)
This is a very short first-person platformer by Dominique Grieshofer, where your goal is to jump across platforms and hit switches, which opens up areas around you that let you hit more switches. It's a deliberately tranquil game, with no external pressures, and no risk of injury or death. You can just take your time solving the puzzles and learning how to use simple wall jumps and wall runs to make your way to the collectible red spheres, which only add to the completion percentage along with landing on every platform to give them colour. I'm not sure if the design is randomly generated or not, but I might replay this every now and again as it makes for a lovely way to do some stressfree jumping and parkour.
I played the Android/IOS installment of that Konami racing game though it’s been defunct for awhile and I have no way to play it. Mainly played it because Sparkster was one of the characters, though it was annoying how much repeat there was with the courses, with the only difference being the track layout.
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Post by Woody Alien on Jul 11, 2021 12:38:50 GMT -5
Omen Exitio: Plague (PC/Steam, first time, about 4 hrs 20 mins)
Italian-made game bought in the Steam sales, it's a "Choose your own adventure"-style interactive book/visual novel heavily based on the Call of Cthulhu pen & paper RPG. With character build and all, but no sanity points and such. Quite nice, with a well-written story, penciled portraits, appropriately creepy BGM and multiple endings. It's kind of strange to play it now given that the main plot is about a mysterious cult about to unleash a deadly plague on the world, but I enjoyed it and I'm going to reach the other endings in the next days. There's still the option to play it in English and other languages if you're interested, anyway. 8/10
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Post by dsparil on Jul 12, 2021 5:33:01 GMT -5
Abyss of the Sacrifice (Switch, First Time)
I picked up this VN/adventure hybrid mainly because it had been on my wishlist for some time and it literally has never been on sale outside of a release discount when it came out last year. This was originally an unlocalized PSP game back in 2010 and is only now seeing a wider release. The story is about five young women that find themselves as the last inhabitants of the underground city in which they live after everyone else seemingly evacuated. The game progresses by picking a scenario out of a list divided up by character and “chapter”. Sometimes you get a free selection, and other times they have to be done in a specific order.
What really drags this down is the very inconsistent quality of the puzzles. The best of them are usually doing something unique and maybe even innovative, but there’s too many uninteresting and poorly communicated ones too. There is a built in hint feature which does help for the situations where you seemingly need to read the developer’s mind to understand what to do. A lot of the difficulty comes purely from obtuseness or from hard to see items and hotspots.
The story also starts out promising, but ends up fairly boring by around the middle. The problem here is that the point where the story branches isn’t done well. They repeat a lot of the same information, and it’s very easy to get repeatedly funneled into the generic bad ending without a guide. You need to pick scenarios in a certain order to get each ending and the order feels very arbitrary most of the time. Each branch also just repeats a lot of the same information sometimes even repeating stuff from much earlier. The true ending branch isn’t much better in this regard and the ending itself is not satisfying at all.
Once you hit any ending, you can “rewind” back, but there is significant scenario overlap in each branch with ordering being the main difference. You can skip all the dialog and even the puzzle sections, but it still takes way too long. Without a guide it isn’t even clear that there’s a very specific point that the stories branch from. That’s really an overarching problem with the story and puzzles. You can kinda tell what they were going for in hindsight, but it’s too obtuse when you’re actually going through it.
This was the developer’s second project in general and the first and seemingly the last full length game aside from this port. While I played this, I got some vague similarities to the Parascientific Escape trilogy on 3DS and was not surprised to find out that they are by the same company. Basically, play those instead. The story and gameplay is better, the length is nearly identical for the whole set and they only cost $15 total versus $40.
I finished in 16:42:06.
Rating: 5
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