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Post by halftheisland on Jan 12, 2021 9:43:42 GMT -5
Another one to clear up the last of the games I started during the Christmas break
Golf Story (Switch, 1st time, 17:39)
This really is an utterly strange and charming little game and one I'm very glad I took a chance on. The idea of a golf-based RPG is odd enough, but the developers have brought to it a distinctly surreal sense of humour. Although the developers are Australian - and knowing that I can see a good bit of that culture in the characters and dialogue - in terms of tone it feels very similar to some of the stranger end of British TV (think Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Inside No. 9, League of Gentlemen) but without quite so much of a horror bent.
Mechanically, everything you do in the game revolves around golf, with the exception of some disc golf courses and one drone flying section. Smashing barrels, hitting switches, scaring away crabs, feeding alligators, digging for buried treasure and many more bizarre challenges are all built around the core golfing mechanic. Thankfully, this is extremely strong and fun to play - just complex enough to require a bit of care and attention, but simple enough to rarely feel like a slog.
Graphically and musically the game sits firmly around the 16-bit era aesthetic, although the developers have introduced a number of modernisations to make the game feel more appropriate to the modern era. There are loads of lovely little touches that just add so much to the world - it sounds like a small thing to pick out, but the slightly dynamic speech boxes and the use of variable size/weight fonts in them gave loads of expression to the characters and allowed the timing of the jokes to flow really well.
The plot is simple enough in structure - plucky young golf player works his way up to the pros, taking on various challenges along the way. There are some notable digressions and some genuinely surreal sections which I'd rather not give away, but suffice to say there's at least one moment where the plot takes a turn you're not expecting. However it's the world and the characters within it that really make it shine. From main characters like your hapless coach, the crooker owner of your home course and the girl who seems determined to be your rival, down to the little one-line NPCs you find dotted about the course, everyone has genuine character to them.
I suspect the sense of humour throughout the game will be love it or hate it thing and is most likely to put people off, but it really clicked with me. I can't remember the last time a game made me genuinely laugh out loud, let alone stayed consistently funny through around 20 hours of play time.
I really have very few complaints about this one, and what I do have are minor. The music looped just a little too often and could get grating over some of the longer courses, and the later game gimmick of sticking you with a useless partner to essentially give a one stroke penalty got a little tired after a while. I also found the final course to be a bit of a difficulty spike and the first to really require a bit of focus to get through.
Really thoroughly recommend this to almost anyone. 9/10
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Post by spanky on Jan 12, 2021 10:22:22 GMT -5
I loved Golf Story but I petered out during the end game difficulty spike...I should really pick it up again.
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Post by halftheisland on Jan 12, 2021 10:38:30 GMT -5
I loved Golf Story but I petered out during the end game difficulty spike...I should really pick it up again. I would say that Blue Moon Dunes felt to me like the first course where it's really necessary to do and pass all of the optional challenges dotted around before you go on to the match play. The putting course in particular was deeply frustrating to work through but a godsend when it came to actually sinking putts during the match. It's also definitely one which rewards a safer playstyle - most of the others you can generally go for the eagle and more rarely albatross without too much trouble, here you're generally best going for par and the occasional birdie. |
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 12, 2021 10:40:07 GMT -5
edit: I had typed a long answer, basically agreeing with you. But something went terribly wrong. When I find the time I'll try again.
Funnily enough, I was thinking about that fan game shortly after I wrote that original post, so I might check it out in the future. I'll have to beat a few more games before I do that, though, just so I don't accidentally end up with even more games that I forget to play. On that note, I've got a couple more games to write about now: The Legend of Zelda: The Lampshade of no real significance (PC; Replay; 8 minutes)
Ever since people had been discussing the discontinuation of MacroMedia Flash, I'd been thinking about revisiting at least one of the games I remember playing on the Armor Games website back on the school computer in the late '00s (never really went to Newgrounds, since you could easily stumble onto a bunch of porn and adult-rated games). I decided for the hell of it to go back to this one, since I remembered it so much that it always pops into my head whenever I hear the castle sneaking theme from Ocarina of Time, which is used as the theme for this silly little fan game.
It's a very basic trading quest, similar to the one from Link's Awakening where you find an item and give to someone who needs it, who then gives you another item that you'll hand to another character and so on. What makes it memorable for me is how innocuously strange and 2005 it is, with folks such as Big Boss from MGS3, Samus Aran, and Dante from Devil May Cry hanging around, trying to revive an unconscious man by dousing him with water and tazing him, and presenting such a mundane activity with enough of the typical Zelda presentation that it feels somewhat convincing.
It's not a spectacular game by any means, but it has always stuck with me even though it's not my favourite Flash game and I'm not that big of a Zelda fan. It's fun for a quick laugh, and it was made by Tom and Adam Vian, who've since developed the likes of Snipperclips and Detective Grimoire as SFB Games - so it's a pretty cool footnote of gaming history. If anyone wants to give it a look, here you go: www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/253819
Polyroll (Switch; First Time; 2 hours 30 minutes)
(The time given above is an estimation, since the Switch doesn't accurately record your playtime unless you're using the Parental Control app.)
This is a 2D platformer inspired by 90s PC platformers and Sonic the Hedgehog in particular, to the point where it was initially shown off as a demo at the 2018 Sonic Amateur Games Expo where people can post Sonic fan games and original games. (Heck, the rad promotional artwork was drawn by Tracy Yardley, who drew many issues and covers for the Archie and IDW Sonic comics from 2006 to 2019.) As such, you can run around with the ability to hit enemies from any angle, roll into them and even do a spin dash. There isn't as much of a focus on momentum apart from using the spin dash to bounce off nearby walls, but it's a very cool game. The level design is quite nice, with plenty of secrets to keep you revisiting stages to the point of even including optional worlds that are fleshed out as the normal ones, and it controls very well. If I get caught out by an obstacle or an enemy, I know exactly what I have to adjust and the game responds in kind.
I've beaten just the normal worlds and the final boss, but I'm planning to check out the optional worlds and see what else is there to find. It's that good that I'm eager to give it more time, so that should speak to how much I've enjoyed it. I kinda even want to cover it for the website, but I'll have to wrap up my other reviews before I consider doing that. If you want to give the game a bash, or try out the demo, it's also available on PC through itch.io and Steam: hofstudios.itch.io/polyroll |
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Post by dsparil on Jan 12, 2021 15:04:08 GMT -5
Assemble with Care (macOS, Replay)
I first played this a little over a year ago, and feel exactly the same way I did then. You play as Maria, an American or maybe Canadian repairwoman visiting the British town of Bellariva for a food festival. There's two parallel plot threads about a local cafe owner and her sister along with the mayor and his daughter. You fix some items for them over 11 levels that each take a few minutes (plus intro, outro and a new epilogue level), and that it. It's fun but way too short with levels that are too simple. This is also something much better played on a touch screen since using a cursor lacks any tactile feeling which does add to the experience. As part of Apple Arcade, the shortness is more of an academic issue, but I definitely would have preferred a smaller number of more complex jobs even if it was the same total length.
I finished in about an hour.
Rating: 7 (originally 8, but -1 on desktop)
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Post by windfisch on Jan 12, 2021 19:56:19 GMT -5
edit: I had typed a long answer, basically agreeing with you. But something went terribly wrong. When I find the time I'll try again.
Funnily enough, I was thinking about that fan game shortly after I wrote that original post, so I might check it out in the future. I'll have to beat a few more games before I do that, though, just so I don't accidentally end up with even more games that I forget to play. Next try  : While I have got no attachment to the Power Rangers show whatsoever, I’ve played most of the 8 and 16 bit games based on it out of curiosity. The good news is that none is completely terrible, but they do vary in terms of quality. The Natsume-developed SNES titles are easily my favorites, especially the first one (a lightweight Ninja Warriors Again, if you will). The Movie game for the Mega Drive falls somewhere in the middle. The core gameplay is really solid, very reminiscent of the Streets of Rage sequels, albeit not quite as deep. It simply feels good to control your character. Like you said, the main issues concern pacing and enemy variety. What really baffles me, is that they did not even allow for the two basic foes to appear side by side, instead of assigning each exclusively to different stages. With just a little more effort, they also could have used the good old trick of recoloring enemy types and giving them slightly altered attributes (like the different Foot Soldier classes from Turtles in Time). Another huge issue is that it often feels too long until enemy waves are finally cleared and the screen is allowed to scroll a bit further. Come on, at least give us the illusion of progress! On top of that, the first two stages are especially dull, even though those should be the ones to wow the player (so they would see the awkward bits only after buying the game, dummies). Here later stages are actually a relative improvement, offering a bit more variety in terms of mid-bosses and objects to interact with. Overall this game feels very rushed - it probably was, since it apparently got released in NA roughly a month after the movie. With just a little more time in the oven, it could've been pretty good. Here’s hoping for a romhack… ...which the fangame almost is, being basically a remake of the Mega Drive Movie-title. Pacing-wise it fares much better and new elements, mostly lifted from the SNES games, offer more variety. There are even grainy Mega CD-style FMVs for crying out loud! I still prefer the Mega Drive version’s slightly weightier and more versatile controls, but as a whole, I find the fangame more enjoyable. It’s not quite as good as the SNES Power Ranger games (its homebrew origins are visible at times), but pretty close. |
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Post by dsparil on Jan 13, 2021 9:25:01 GMT -5
Picross S2 (Switch, First Time)
S2 introduces Clip Picross which is the replacement for Miicross from the e series. Instead of having a set of 80x80 puzzles divided in 10x10 sections, Clip is less rigid and is made up of 5 puzzles of various total and individual sizes with an overall theme. They start out small at 30x30, but top out at 120x120. Pieces are given out for completing the last row in a page and for whole page completions. They also are not given out sequentially so multiple puzzles will have clips available at the same time. You don't need to touch Mega mode to get all the clips which is good since the Mega and regular still share puzzles. Clips don't necessarily touch each other as the name implies so the full space isn't all puzzle, but the sum of all the puzzles falls within the range of Miicross content so it isn't a big deal.
I finished in about 15 hours.
Rating: 8
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Post by halftheisland on Jan 13, 2021 12:45:23 GMT -5
Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Master System, 1st time, 1:08)
I enjoyed this one a lot more than I had anticipated. I got a game over in Sky Base on my first run yesterday, so took things a bit more slowly and carefully this time. There's an interesting strategy by which you actually want to avoid getting enough rings for a one up in the main stage, as this resets your counter to 00 and essentially ensures you don't get a bonus stage. Instead, by collecting enough rings and then hammering the bonus stages you can generally get two one ups (one from rings, one from monitor) plus a continue in each stage.
Using this strategy, I had 16 lives and I think 4 continues by the time I reached Sky Base this time around. While the level itself took a few lives and the final boss took a few more while I figured out the pattern, I still had plenty of safety margin to work within which made this not too stressful an experience. It helped having done most of a run yesterday, as the levels are compact enough that I could remember most of the traps that caught me out and some of the bonus extra lives etc. dotted around the place.
Overall I thought this was actually a really solid game, with its own unique charm. I was expecting an inferior copy of the Mega Drive game and I think it's to Ancient Corp./Sega's credit that they took a different approach and worked more within the limitations of the system. I thought the bonus stages in particular were really fun, and there were some neat ideas e.g. in the vertical climbing of the Jungle level or the more puzzle-focused final level of Scrap Brain. The music in particular deserves a shout out - while not quite the same as the iconic Mega Drive soundtracks, the songs were generally pretty well put together and the Bridge theme in particular became a bit of a favourite. (Turns out on looking it up the music is by Yuzo Koshiro, which explains that!)
The controls can feel a little awkward at times coming from the Mega Drive version, and backtracking can be a tricky proposition because of the way the screen scrolling works (not impossible, just sometimes requires a leap of faith). Other than that, the main issue was the slowdown, particularly in the water levels, which led to more than one accidental death. The fact that there is no way to recapture dropped rings, and that spikes are also dangerous from the horizontal, meant that some aspects were definitely harder than in other games, but overall if taken carefully enough this never got too frustrating.
I only got a couple of the Chaos Emeralds, but I did enjoy the way they were dotted around throughout the levels rather than part of the bonus game. No particular urge to go back now this is ticked off the list, mind you.
Calling this one a 7/10 overall.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 14, 2021 6:46:31 GMT -5
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance GC Replay 24 hours
Lost two units late in two maps and was too lazy to restart. You get a lot of units anyway. No restarts! One of the better Fire Emblems. However, I still think the battle animations are lame/slow compared to the GBA ones. Turning them off speeds up game-play a bunch. I did find myself missing some of the luxuries of the new games. Not very many promotion classes in this one. I sure had a lot of Paladins.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 14, 2021 9:18:15 GMT -5
The Pillar: Puzzle Escape (Switch, First Time)
A pretty good escape room-esque adventure game divided into 8 levels. You mainly solve a few varieties of puzzles placed on screens affixed to crystalline monoliths. There's generally two sets of fours puzzles on each monolith and solving all of them unlocks something in the environment. There's also a fair amount of more traditional mechanical style puzzles, and I wish there were more of them. I saw a lot of comparisons to The Witness which I haven't played, and while it does clearly seem to be an influence, it's purely limited to the concept of having puzzles on screens.
Overall, I did like this for the most part. It's a small game made by two people in their off time, so I don't want to be too hard on it. The only thing I wish was better is the story which is incredibly abstract, and it isn't entirely evident that there is one until it's nearly over. The full price of $10 is a bit high for the amount of content although I paid $8 since it's on a new release sale. The mobile price is a more reasonable $5, and I don't think this is something that would be too difficult to play on a touch screen.
Rating: 7
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 14, 2021 10:17:42 GMT -5
Got another game to add to my list of replayed games, though this was rather accidental... The Fancy Pants Adventures (Xbox 360; Replay; 2 hours 26 minutes)
Back in the mid-00s, a guy called Brad Borne put out a pair of pretty sweet platformers called Fancy Pants Adventures, where you controlled a stick man in fancy pants who ran at blistering speeds around levels full of steep cliffs, winding hills and tricky challenges aided only by a versatile jump and the power of his momentum. It was often compared to Sonic back then, and while I don't know much I'd agree with that, it doesn't change the fact that they were cool games worth checking out. They were very popular, to the point where Borne ended up making a sequel that came out for consoles in 2011, published by EA of all people (presumably at the tail end of their attempted "let's greenlight original games and not dick over customers/staff" phase in the late 00s).
This sequel takes on a bit of a different structure from the earlier games, with more open levels and plenty of optional collectables and bonus room challenges. In a way, it reminded me a great deal of other platformers from the 2010s such as Rayman Origins/Legends and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, though that's probably because they were all taking inspiration from New Super Mario Bros. - particularly the Wii game as its 4-player co-op was also featured in this game for whatever reason. It's a structure that I'm not a fan of, but it works well enough here and gives plenty of incentive to revisit stages. The most iffy addition was combat, where you come to a complete stop to attack your enemy. It breaks the game flow and feels like something that Borne had to add, with how it's made relevant when you run into an enemy who can't be taken out in any other way. Otherwise, it's a pretty solid game, and it even unlocks remixed and expanded versions the original two Fancy Pants games if you wanna give them a bash.
Like I said above, this became something of an accidental replay because I was genuinely convinced that I'd never beaten this game. I remember trying to grab every collectable and getting frustrated by it to the point of giving up (I didn't realize that I wasn't into 100%-ing 2D platformers with tons of pick-ups ala Yoshi's Island), and nothing else. But when I beat the game, I faintly recognized something from the end credits and decided to check out my old Xbox 360 profile. It turns out I did beat the game all the way back in 2013 - I even completed the OG Fancy Pants games as well - but I'd completely forgotten everything after the first handful of levels!
(Doing some research on the series, it turns out that this sequel was eventually reworked into Fancy Pants Adventures World 3, and Borne eventually developed another much bigger sequel that came out on Steam a few years ago called Super Fancy Pants Adventures, which even includes another reworked version of the first game's levels with an extra level added in for fun. I had no idea there was so much to this series!)
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Post by JoeQ on Jan 15, 2021 16:29:45 GMT -5
Drill Dozer (GBA) - First playthrough, Time: no idea My first playthrough of the year! (Technically I also beat Lost Kingdoms, but since I started that last year I'm not counting it)
A fun little platformer from GameFreak with a strong core theme of drilling. I beat the main game and bonus levels, and got all 31 treasures. The bonus stuff was goddamn brutal compared to the relatively easy main game. Rating: 4/5Alphabet Challenge: ---D---------------------- Number Challenge: ---------- 
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Post by personman on Jan 16, 2021 20:33:58 GMT -5
Alright, here we go again. Wonder if I can stick with this the whole year this time. Project Wingman- (Steam, first time, 21 hours) I miss Ace Combat. I really do. After the snooze fest that was 6, the mediocrity of pretty much all the handheld games and complete insult that was Assault Horizon the series went kaput in my eyes. Now it seems like the series bounced back with 7 and that makes me happy. So what did I do? Go get an imitation instead lol. But I don't mean that derisively, they have the feel, sound and look of the series down pat and they deserve to be commended. I'd even say they did a few things better even. Sadly though its mostly small things such as wingman chatter and presentation cause much as I hate to say it the most important things they do well but just barely don't make it above adequate. Mainly the mission variety is even flatter than AC4. You pretty much do nothing throughout the game than lay waste to a map of specific targets and that's it save for some empahsis on fightign enemy squadrons as boss fights, which was really cool but those too get repeated like 8 times with little variation. AC4 had a couple things to shake things up, AC5 had tons. I mean sure I wasn't ever bored with the game per say just it all blended together for the most part. Its a shame because things are presented so well they are SO CLOSE to hitting absolute gold and standing right next to the likes of 4 and 5. It's such a shame. But still even getting that close in a genre you don't see come around so often? Lucky for them that takes it really, really far in my opinion. Otherwise, for 25 bucks its a pretty good value for the money and I say if you're an AC fan go check it out. The options for secondary weapons are pretty varied, its not a bad selection of planes to fly (I think they even have functioning VTOL on the Harrier clone if I heard right) and the presentation is great fun for your typical gritty, bare knuckle... cheesy military epic (the ending was very weird though. Didn't quite stick the landing). Oh and since everyone is obsessed with rogue likes these days they have a mode for something like that too. I hate that kind of thing but if you like it more value for you then. Rating: 8 Lost in Vivo- (Steam, first time, 10 hours) I really loved this one. It probably doesn't do anything groundbreaking and I'm sure many will be put off by how easy it is to defend yourself but the atmosphere carries it all for me. The sound design is just fucking superb with the whole 3d positioning thing (yeah, wear headphones for this). You'll always feel like you're being stalked by something. Besides, it has a phew songs I just had to go out and download right away. for instance: its all just really well done and you can tell a lot of passion went into this one. But, it does fall a little short. You mostly deal with a character arc for the majority of the runtime and its satisfying enough. Then they introduce another character and just shove them aside immediately for the over worn trope of evil science being evil and I'm pretty sure the 'boss' of the area is a SCP reference before suddenly looping back to the protagonist's issues out of the blue and leaving things a little too vague to be satisfying I felt. It's not terrible but could have used more fleshing out. But like the last game I mentioned presentation carries this one a ton for me. The PS1 esque graphics are delightful and KIRA just plain has a knack for making this dark yet cozy (to me) environments. The game sports a nice handful of extras and secret modes that may just be walking simulator types but I didn't care because I just found them compelling enough to look at and sit around in. Game isn't revolutionary or anything like I said but for what it is the little thing packs a good punch. Give it a gander with tempered expectations and I think any horror fan will like it. Rating: 8 SEGA AGES Thunder Force AC- (Switch, first time) Grabbed this since its 3 bucks on the eshop right now. Honestly TF3 has never been my favorite shmup I thought 4 was far better, something always seemed off with 3. And then I forgot that there was an arcade version of this game and something seemed even more off lol. It's been a long dang time since I played TF3 but I swear that stage with the ruined spacecraft used to be some kinda ice planet and Hades (along with the best song in the game) is totally missing in favor of a really boring stage that looks like a fantasy temple? Uh, ok. I swear the music sounds worse too though most sources seem to say most of it is a the same. Hm. Still though, its a classic game and admittedly the raw power they let you have does feel nice, even if its a little stupid how much you can just coast by holding down the fire button and nuke whatever entered the screen for a micro second. Just, 4 was plain better in stage design and music. You do actually get a couple unlockables most notably the fighter from TF4 though its weapons are way too weak for a game balanced around you being a flying battleship main gun. Neat that they went the extra mile though, M2 are good folks and this is a great port I just wish it was the Genesis version instead. The new stages are really dull in comparison. Rating: 6 |
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Post by mainpatr on Jan 17, 2021 1:26:19 GMT -5
Alright, here we go again. Wonder if I can stick with this the whole year this time. SEGA AGES Thunder Force AC- (Switch, first time) Grabbed this since its 3 bucks on the eshop right now. Honestly TF3 has never been my favorite shmup I thought 4 was far better, something always seemed off with 3. And then I forgot that there was an arcade version of this game and something seemed even more off lol. It's been a long dang time since I played TF3 but I swear that stage with the ruined spacecraft used to be some kinda ice planet and Hades (along with the best song in the game) is totally missing in favor of a really boring stage that looks like a fantasy temple? Uh, ok. I swear the music sounds worse too though most sources seem to say most of it is a the same. Hm. Still though, its a classic game and admittedly the raw power they let you have does feel nice, even if its a little stupid how much you can just coast by holding down the fire button and nuke whatever entered the screen for a micro second. Just, 4 was plain better in stage design and music. You do actually get a couple unlockables most notably the fighter from TF4 though its weapons are way too weak for a game balanced around you being a flying battleship main gun. Neat that they went the extra mile though, M2 are good folks and this is a great port I just wish it was the Genesis version instead. The new stages are really dull in comparison. Rating: 6 What the heck is up with Thunder Force AC's ending text? "The flame if it's ambition?" What!?!? |
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Post by personman on Jan 17, 2021 7:21:18 GMT -5
Not to mention the game can only be played in Earth. So don't take this with you on your trip to the International Space Station or its off to the slammer with you!
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