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Post by personman on Sept 17, 2021 1:49:20 GMT -5
Metroid Fusion (GBA, on the 3DS VC; replay; 14 hours)
I remember not caring much for this one back in the day, from the setting to the powers to the linearity I found it to be a massive disappointment. So of course that means I wanted to try it again and find out if I can see it in a new light. Plus Dread is approaching soon so I'm hyped for Metroid and have to play as many Metroid games as I can to burn myself out by the time it releases next month lol. So do I like it better this time around? Yeah, yeah I do. It definitely feels different for the series and I think it hits the mark for a more actiony Metroid decently enough. I appreciate that enemies are more aggressive and are a threat (in the beginning of course) and they do some cool things. The bosses aren't too bad either. Well, mostly, there are a couple times where the only reason some of the bosses were a threat were due to the fact you stuck in a tiny space and they just smother you with their hitbox. Ridley being the worst example of this. Being forced on a set path was even more severe than I remember it there really is little to no room to wiggle when it wants you on a certain path. From locking doors to outright destroying them which means you best get used to taking the long way around constantly. This gets REALLY annoying when your doing the item sweep at endgame, especially when the map shows no signs of what door way is cut off.
Not to mention the rather dull track that over writes all the games music till you get to the last boss. Who every thought that was a good idea needs a talking to, not to mention locking the doors to every area till you beat the game once. Sure if you load the save file once you finish it everything will be open but just why did you do that at all? Come on. But seriously, there is some good music in this one which sounds really, really good coming from a system that typically had weak audio. But much of the atmospheric stuff gets shoved aside for something that I feel feels more fitting with something like Starfox rather than Metroid. Its kinda petty I know but it just started to really bother me. Then of course the story which, I don't think is the worst thing in the world, it's got a couple decent ideas (I just have a weakness for the trope of protagonist's employers are actually bad guys) but your forced to stop at the navigation terminal way too damn much to listen to a computer that says a ton without actually saying much. It needed to be dialed back.
That all being said it has some great moments that I think save it from all those things. Metroid always was suppose to have a horror tinge to it and taking concepts from Alien or The Thing is a perfect fit. The SA-X honestly is a fantastic villain in a variety of ways and the moments it shows are are the games best. It even plays off the environment too, sure being lost in the bowels of a desolate planet can cause its unease but being trapped in a structure in the vacuum of space amplifies it. I appreciated the setting much more than I used to and I just plain like the graphics for what they are. Game looks damn good even today and looking over it again there is a ton of detail in them that I really enjoyed observing. And again when the proper music for the environments is allowed to play its some really nice sounding stuff, just wish it didn't get smothered by these super bombast themes that intrude way too much.
At the end of the day I liked it. It's a good game, just not my favorite. I have more things I could nitpick but eh, that'd just be petty by now. They wanted to do something a little different with the formula and I always respect that kind of bravery. But I would have preferred they kept more faithful while they tried new things. Which is exactly what they did with Zero Mission as I recall! I'm already started on that one next. You're alright Fusion, about in the same tier as Samus Returns I think though I think I like that one just a smidge better. There also the factor that Kurt mentioned on the site's article that hit the nail on the head: back then these games were rare so not getting more Super Metroid exactly was a let down. Now though you see so much of this genre to the point of nauseum and its clear that this one can hold its own decently enough.
Rating: 7, makes a lot of mistakes but when it does hit the mark it hits them really well.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Sept 18, 2021 16:15:09 GMT -5
A Short Hike (Switch; First Time; 1 hour 44 minutes) I'd gotten this ages ago on the PC as part of the Racial Justice Bundle, but decided to grab it again for the Switch as my computer doesn't run Unity games very well. This was quite a lovely game to play, especially considering that I was playing this on a rainy day passing the time while the electricity was out for a couple of hours. It's nice just wandering round, talking to characters with some short and sweet dialogue exchanges, discovering seashells and other little things, and doing various one-off things that I greatly enjoyed. Probably one of my favourite games in recent memory, for how it lets you take your time and just exist in whatever way you feel like doing. It just makes me very happy.
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Post by personman on Sept 19, 2021 15:37:51 GMT -5
Metroid Prime Pinball (DS, first time; 4 hours)
Took a little diversion in my Metroid bingeing to try out something I passed up. I was never really into to Pinball much so I didn't bother with this game when it came out since I was really not too adventurous back then. Also I didn't have the option to turn something into an absolute emulation monster like I have just recently lol. I was thinking the farthest I could go with 3DS CFW were GBA games but now I have every DS game I was interested in without having to wait for people to stop gouging us all on ebay. This is great!
Anyhow I still don't think I'm too big on pinball but I ended up liking this one quite a bit. The biggest draw for me is that it has a kind of campaign to progress through that uses the first Metroid Prime as window dressing and ends up pulling it off pretty well. You even get a couple tables that switch things up and are really unique to my knowledge and I was pretty impressed. It also pissed me off quite a bit lol but that's on me. It took me quite a bit of tries to figure out how to control the ball better and I'm still pretty shit at it but eventually I was able to aim for the direction I want somewhat. They shake things up with some little mini games that are quick and fitting to the theme, you have boss fight tables which once you learn are pretty tightly designed (though the Phazon mines one is way too much of a push over) and I think it has a couple creative power ups like the Phazon Multiball which gives you a blue and red ball to hit blue and red targets scattered over the table respectively. Not sure if anyone else has done that, I don't really know Pinball games.
Pretty good stuff. I'm not sure I'll go back to it besides for a quick game now and then but I really can't complain with this one. Its solid pinball game that really nails using its source material to its advantage. Honestly I would be pretty open to someone trying to expand on this idea with more tables or even making it somewhat exploratory. Maybe just skew it more towards longevity like if you lose your last ball it isn't a game over as much as you just have to go back to a certain part of the map/table.
Rating: 8, its still a novelty but for the time it has it uses it to the fullest I'd say.
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Post by dsparil on Sept 20, 2021 8:18:08 GMT -5
Soul Axiom Rebooted (Switch, First Time)
This is a first person adventure game set in a digital world, Elysia, created for digitized copies of souls to inhabit after death. I didn't play it, but this is also a quasi-sequel to the developer's earlier Master Reboot which has a similar premise and gameplay structure, but also includes a "monster" that has to be avoided which this doesn't have. The original release was rated very poorly (45 to 57 on Metacritic depending on platform), but I still picked it up when the Wii U port came out as it was promoted fairly heavily at the Nindies@Home presentations. I didn't get very far, but found this update much more fun.
There's a bunch of changes to the original mainly for the better. Most are minor things, but the major one changes the structure of the game. The original version was basically divided into two sections: a main set of twelve levels and an additional set of twelve smaller levels with one hidden inside each main one and only accessible after completing the first set. How many of the second set completed determined how many of the three endings where available; completing an ending brings you back to the main hub so there's no need for multiple replays. This version completely removes the requirement to finish any of that second set aside from one you're automatically brought into. Every ending is available right away, and any additional cutscenes after finishing a level were added onto the completion cutscene for the main level. You also don't have to find the entrances any more as they can be entered directly from the main hub which seems a little unnecessary since they're no longer required anyway.
The story is about four intersecting characters and the Winter Corp. that created Elysia although three of them work for Winter in some capacity. Each of the main levels is based on their memories and there's a lot of fun details in the environments. You get a good sense for who everyone is with some twists in how the backstory plays out; there isn't actually much of a direct story. It's all very Myst-like although the balance of text to cutscene is tilted almost all the way to cutscene. Each level has four collectibles (plus a weird message) that have supplemental information although sometimes it's just a detailed version of something at flashes by in a cutscene. The story was a lot more chopped up in the original, but it's significantly more comprehensible here.
On a total side note, I kinda feel like the Black Mirror episode "San Junipero" slightly rips this game off or Master Reboot. Not that much since the episode is basically an 80s period romance with the idea of a digital world for souls being about 5% of the episode, but they both contain the name Junipero (a minor saint and controversial history figure) which is interesting. This was a Steam Early Access game starting in late 2014 so it doesn't feel impossible.
Rating: 8
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Sept 20, 2021 18:08:54 GMT -5
3D After Burner II (Nintendo 3DS; First Time; 19 minutes)
Apropos of nowt, I decided to grab a bunch of small digital 3DS games through the magic of piracy and see how they fared. For the most part, it's not gone great. I kinda liked Super Mario Bros 2 but the boss at the end of World 2 is overly tough and finicky, while my attempts to play OutRun for the umpteenth time ended in miserable failure yet again - cementing the fact that I will never understand and enjoy the OG game even when playing the version with the most concessions for time limit and difficulty options. Thankfully, I fared a bit better with After Burner II, having beaten it on my first go (with the max amount of lives and the lowest difficulty, but you only get three credits for the whole thing so it still checks out).
It's a very cool game in terms of the spectacle it offers both visually and musically, but good grief is it overwhelming. My thumb was constantly pressing the fire and missile buttons while I was frantically dodging around, to the point where the spots that refill your ammo served as the only breaks for me to crack the cramp out of my fingers before they fell off. I eventually managed a strategy of just weaving back and forth in a semi-circle arc to avoid the aircraft and missiles, while furiously blasting everything at top speed until I got shot down. Thankfully the game ended before I ran out of lives, and I think I'm okay leaving it at that. I do appreciate the existence of the Special mode that unlocks afterwards, which features a slow-down-time mechanic, dogfighting stages and even little cutscenes, but having no continues makes me not want to go anywhere near that right now.
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Post by dsparil on Sept 21, 2021 6:56:54 GMT -5
Pokémon Picross (Game Boy Color, First Time)
For most of the running time, I considered this one of the poorer Picross releases and not a shock that it wasn't released despite being completed, but it does somewhat redeem itself by the the end although It's still one of the poorer releases from a puzzle construction but not content perspective. As the third game in the GB/C series, this is halfway between Mario's Picross and Picross 2 with a combination of single puzzles in 10x10 and 15x15 and four part ones. The first place this stumbles is that unlike Picross 2 which is basically all four part 15x15 puzzles, these are mainly 10x10 which is much less interesting. Multi-part 15x15 does start to show up towards the end, but there's way too few. The second stumble is that you're not creating the picture. Each square actually represents a 3x3 portion of the overall image with the filled in square being the portions that aren't blank. Suffice to say, this makes the main mode which covers all the Gen. 1 Pokémon (but seemingly in no particular order) a little dull despite the relatively high final image resolution. What is better is the Safari mode that unlocks after the main mode is done. There's fifty-one puzzles in this mode and there're greatly shifted towards 15x15 single and four part puzzles with the resulting image being much more fun like Pokémon having a race or a Pikachu with a giant crayon.
I finished in 12:02:19.
Rating: 7
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2021 8:41:34 GMT -5
Pokémon Picross (Game Boy Color, First Time) For most of the running time, I considered this one of the poorer Picross releases and not a shock that it wasn't released despite being completed, but it does somewhat redeem itself by the the end although It's still one of the poorer releases from a puzzle construction but not content perspective. As the third game in the GB/C series, this is halfway between Mario's Picross and Picross 2 with a combination of single puzzles in 10x10 and 15x15 and four part ones. The first place this stumbles is that unlike Picross 2 which is basically all four part 15x15 puzzles, these are mainly 10x10 which is much less interesting. Multi-part 15x15 does start to show up towards the end, but there's way too few. The second stumble is that you're not creating the picture. Each square actually represents a 3x3 portion of the overall image with the filled in square being the portions that aren't blank. Suffice to say, this makes the main mode which covers all the Gen. 1 Pokémon (but seemingly in no particular order) a little dull despite the relatively high final image resolution. What is better is the Safari mode that unlocks after the main mode is done. There's fifty-one puzzles in this mode and there're greatly shifted towards 15x15 single and four part puzzles with the resulting image being much more fun like Pokémon having a race or a Pikachu with a giant crayon. I finished in 12:02:19. Rating: 7 Your opinion is similar to mine on this one except that I'm not a fan of the four part puzzles, though they make sense given the tech. I did find the images for the puzzles in the safari mode a great deal more fun than the main Pokedex so would have preferred if this mode had been available from the start.
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Post by dsparil on Sept 21, 2021 9:37:59 GMT -5
I wouldn't say I'm a fan of any of the puzzles in general since they're all so abstract because of the zoom out that they might as well of been randomly generated. 15x15 is just better than 10x10 from a pure puzzle perspective. It's a shame Jupiter didn't come up with Clip puzzles for this game since that could have let them actually stick to the real art while avoiding the parts of the image that are less conducive to puzzles.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2021 20:40:20 GMT -5
Oh, I agree with all of that. The images not matching the puzzle makes them feel very detached. I think the main reason to play Pokemon Picross (GBC) is the novelty of being an unreleased game, rather than the novelty of being puzzles based around Pokemon. There's just better options available.
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Post by Null0x00 on Sept 22, 2021 5:18:22 GMT -5
Cleared Quake for Windows in 5.5hr on the Nightmare difficulty. Repeat playthrough but first-time on the hardest skill. 9/10. Still love the game and nearly everything about it, and the new Nightdive Studio's port is quite lovely in its own right. If you have never played Quake, the 2021 version is the one to own.
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Post by ZenithianHero on Sept 22, 2021 19:30:39 GMT -5
Life Is Strange (PS4, First Time, 14 hours)
Started getting into my backlog for this so I can catch up here. What do you call this? An cinematic adventure game? There's a lot of choices in cutscenes but you also have to do investigations by wandering the areas too. This a fascinating young adult mystery. The gameplay gimmick is time travel. Max can rewind most events for a different outcome. I like that she uses info prior to rewinding as a way to break the ice with stubborn NPCs and to also solve puzzles. Some situations are really annoying to solve because rewinding takes a while to complete. Life is Strange does a great job of building a world of information for you. So much interaction and narration for objects that catches Max's eye. Everything feels naturally built for moving the story along while also reminding you that this is still an adventure game.
The game's presentation is interesting. There's something oddly nostalgic and charming about the graphics. I can tell they did their best with it, some neat effects and detail to the rooms. Although some textures and models, especially in character model and animation, can be rough. You can tell this is still a budget release. I heard about the remaster coming soon but not sure if I want to play it. What I see here makes it part of the experience.
Not here to spoil the story. This game will carry choices made throughout. I appreciate they comment on things I wasn't sure even mattered which was cool. I will comment that Episode 5 goes crazy psychological. I am actually impressed by the way it unfolds, the outcome you can choose both somewhat satsifying for me. I can totally understand the pros and cons to both endings and given the theming and title of the game, I probably wouldn't have wanted any different endings either way. This story really hinges on how you feel about the major characters. Chloe can be challenging at first but wow did they do a good job of providing character development if you are patient with her attitude and behavior.
I am checking out Before the Storm soon. I have 2 on standby but probably play it next year. Want to get the latest entry too.
9/10
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Sept 23, 2021 6:45:55 GMT -5
dsparil I got a question about Pilotwings Resort. When you start the game, you have five sets of missions - "Training/Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum". There's a sixth set of missions called "Diamond", which you unlock by completing every mission with a three-star rating, and doing those last three missions are the only way to see the credits. I've completed the first five sets, but I'm not able to beat all the missions with three-stars due to how tough/finicky some of the later ones can be.
Should I consider that as having beaten the game with the final set as a bonus test of your knowledge and skills, or will it not count due to needing to beat said missions to see the credits? I'm fine whichever way, since I don't plan on trying to unlock the "Diamond" missions regardless.
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Post by dsparil on Sept 23, 2021 7:13:30 GMT -5
It would have to be all of them including Diamond.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Sept 25, 2021 4:42:21 GMT -5
The Starship Damrey (Nintendo 3DS; First Time; 1 hour 53 minutes)
Back in the early 2010s, Level-5 produced the Guild series, which were a collection of experimental games made by numerous developers led by the likes of Yatsumi Matsuno (Crimson Shroud), Yoot Saito (Aero Porter), Goichi Suda (Liberation Maiden), and Kaz Ayabe (Attack of the Friday Monsters). Among these was The Starship Damrey, a pretty cool if clunky first-person adventure game where you control a robot and navigate an empty starship, trying to figure out what's going on. The atmosphere is rather strange, with basically no ambience apart from the mechanical whirring of your wheels whenever you're moving, but that stark silence combined with the low visibility does create something rather spooky. There's no risk of death, so it's not quite a survival horror game despite having many of the trappings of more classical Japanese horror games.
It's definitely a Japanese adventure game, and that does include examining objects a couple of times to make sure you have all the information you need or notice something that you have to do in order to progress. This is mostly fine as the game guides you intuitively enough through the locations you need to be, but when you're stuck and backtracking, the slow movement can be a pain.
This one was made by Level-5 themselves, so I felt like it tapped into a bit of the adventure game lineage that came from its founder Akihiro Hino's experience working at Riverhillsoft with games like Doctor Hauzer and Overblood. Perhaps there's an element of that, but it's also worth pointing out that the game was designed by Kazuya Asano and Takemaru Abiko, both of whom worked on Chunsoft's Super Famicom horror sound novels such as Otogirisō and Kamaitachi no Yoru as writers or planners. So there's a decent bit of history tied to this game, which I was pleasantly surprised to learn. The end result is quite solid, and it even tugged at my heartstrings at one point, so I'd definitely recommend it.
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Post by Null0x00 on Sept 26, 2021 4:18:30 GMT -5
Cleared Super Mario 64 on Nintendo Switch as part of the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection in roughly 15 hours. First ever playthrough with 82 stars collected. 6/10. I honestly have very mixed feelings about Mario's first 3D outing, as its historical significance can't really mask its noticeable problems with 2021 hindsight. The two major ones are the controls, which feel too loose to make accurate platforming feel reliable or second nature in a game filled with instadeath pits, and this game's camera, which somehow has the amazing tendency to never point in the direction you actually want. Obviously this game was designed solely with the N64's three-pronged controller in mind with its one analog stick and 4 C-buttons so it feels unfair to criticize, but even so I never felt confident controlling Mario in this, which is something I don't think I've felt before in a 3D platformer. Add to that the obtuseness of collecting some of this game's stars/power-ups and playing this starts to become an exercise in trying to guess what the game designers were thinking, which I don't think is ever a good sign. Too often playing this felt more frustrating than fun.
The most damning thing I can level is that playing this made me appreciate Sonic Adventure and Crash Bandicoot more. Once I beat the final annoying fight with Bowser, I was just glad it was over. I just hope the cake Peach finally baked for Mario was worth all the trouble.
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