HG101 2021 Game Finish Challenge

[dsparil]

Shin Megami Tensei V (Switch, First Time)

There's some good mechanical improvements, and I liked the move to focusing on environmental exploration rather than dungeons. The story is on the weak side although it still is stronger than Nocturne's. In my very scientific ranking of the mainline "actually labeled SMT in Japan" games, I would put it below Soul Hackers, the IV set and maybe SJ depending on my mood.

Edit: I'll post some longer thoughts in a day or two.

I finished in 63:13.

Rating: 8

[Digitalnametag]

Blue Reflection: Second Light PS4 FTP 28 hours

When I posted about the first game a few years ago I said it was the worst game I completed that year and it would've made a better anime than a game. Why then would I try this one? Because I good sir am a sucker for cute girls and Gust titles. Hot off the release of the Blue Reflection Ray anime we get this odd sequel tie in. Which makes more sense given the Japanese title was 'tie'. Probably not going to drag in new people with a sequel that requires knowledge of both the anime and the low selling first game Gust...which based off the even worse sales numbers for this title they now realize.


Game play is okay. Battle system is based off Atelier Ryza's and is just as ho-hm here as it is there. There could be interesting mechanics but the game is so easy you will never use them. The game is mostly a girls doing cute things together simulator. You spend more time in the visual novel elements than anything else. There is some basic item crafting and management but nowhere near Atelier level. The story ties all the characters of the different Blue Reflection media together. It feels more like an anniversary game than a proper sequel.

I still enjoy the story concept and music. The girls have interesting backgrounds but the story framework doesn't utilize them well. There are a few tear jerk-er moments as in the first one. At least the localization is decent this time around other than a couple odd spots. Seems maybe the writing for the anime and game were going on separate too as some of the stuff seems a bit off.


Overall a mediocre game. An improvement over the first game play wise, but the first title has the better story. Instead of playing either you should just watch the anime for your fill of tragic magical girl stories. You know if you already watched Madoka. I would be incredibly surprised to see a third attempt after this multi-media failure.

[halftheisland]

A few recently...

Mirror's Edge Catalyst (PS4, 1st time, ~15 hours)

I had picked up the impression that this game was considered something of a disappointment on release, but I really enjoyed it! The cracks definitely started to show a little towards the end, and I quite quickly decided that I wasn't going to bother trying to do all of the deliveries, dashes etc. but the fundamental game is solid.

Parkouring your way across the city in first-person remains utterly thrilling and the deliberately stark visual style means this still looks absolutely gorgeous. Combat has never been the series strong point but honestly here I thought it wasn't too bad, with the exception of one or two forced fights throughout the main story. It integrates well into the main action and it genuinely felt like part of the flow in some cases - run, jump, wallrun, kick an enforcer, vault, run.

Everything else was fine, I guess? I enjoyed the soundtrack by Solar Fields but it never quite reached the same level as the first game for me, and I have to confess I missed fairly large chunks of the plot because I just didn't particularly care.

I suppose if I'd payed £50 for it new I would have been disappointed, but I think this was £5 used and I had a great time with it.

7/10

Gris (PC/Windows 10, 1st time, 3 hours)

A staggeringly beautiful experience with relatively little game to back it up. I would probably recommend that everyone should play this once, just because it's short and so utterly visually and aurally striking, but don't expect anything that will challenge even the least experienced gamer. 

The platforming never quite clicked with me - it has a very floaty feel and there are effectively no consequences for failure - and the puzzles, such as they are, posed very little challenge.

If I think of this as a minimally interactive animated work, rather than a game, I feel more positively inclined towards it. It does do some very interesting things with the flow of the levels, with you often going in what feels like the wrong direction but which is clearly where the game is guiding you.

I find this one hard to score. Honestly, probably more like a 6/10 to me, but a *good* 6 if that makes any sense!

Hades (Switch, 1st time, ...40(ish) hours?)

Not going to say much here as I'm still trying to sort out how to do this justice, so let me just say for now that this is an incredible game and one of my favourites of all time. The gameplay, the plot, the music, the visuals, everything just fits together so perfectly.

Even though I've rolled credits on this and finished the main plot, I feel I'll still have a lot more hours to put into this game. I haven't finished a couple of the sub-plots, there's clearly some post-game content to be discovered, and I've yet to unlock all of the forms of the weapons or do much of the Pact of Punishment extras. Hell, I haven't even been through an Erebus Gate yet.

10/10 and I wish I could score it higher than that.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive, replay, 2 hours)

After drifting away from my plans to play a load of Sonic games, I finally came back to this and I'm glad I did. This is a surprisingly brutal experience in places, and it's only thanks to years of muscle memory that I made it through relatively unscathed. Took a really cautious approach and ignored all the bonus levels, just focused on getting at least one extra life out of each stage, so by the time I reached Death Egg Zone I had ~18 lives to play with. I'm glad I did, because that final boss gave me a bit of trouble before I resorted to a super-cautious approach of just picking away one or two hits at a time. Managed to get Metal Sonic down to basically a two-cycle defeat which was nice.

Going to hop straight into Sonic 3 & Knuckles, really glad I took the time to play this again. The levels are all so well-designed and the music is easily the best in the series IMO. I have a feeling this might be the highest point in this process for a while!

9/10

[dsparil]

Pictooi (Switch, First Time)

There's some positives here and there like the little fact you get after finishing a puzzle, but this is almost entirely a complete misfire otherwise. The vast majority of the 300 puzzles are 10x10, and many of the larger puzzles don't have good construction. It's also missing a lot of commonplace features like being able to wrap around the puzzle and even marking off solved group let alone having the game do it automatically. There's a whole bunch of bugs including the line highlight not staying in sync with the selected square which is one of the worst bugs a picross game can have. There's just a general sloppiness all around. The game even congratulations for finishing before you're actually done! It must have been a total flop because it came out this summer and there haven't been any updates even to fix the most obvious bugs and omissions.

I finished in about 17.5 hours. There is a built in timer that measured 09:27:23, but it somehow manages to both over and undercount.

Rating: 4

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On SMT V:

The main thing I want to say is that the DLC is totally not worth it. I got the "deluxe" version that bundles in everything, and it's on the low effort side. The "grinding DLC" for IV was its own area, but it's just mitamas taking the place of normal enemies in this one. You still encounter mitamas in the regular game, the DLC just adds an option to replace some encounters with them. It wasn't something I used except at the very end to alleviate some pure end-game grinding. Likewise, the special demon DLC just adds some semi-quests were you get told where they are, fight them and then get them. Of the three, Cleopatra is the only one that's actually useful in having a Debilitate-like ability that drops attack and defense two stages and Luster Candy. On the other hand, the DLC that adds in the fiends from Nocturne and the Demi-fiend as an extra superboss is more on the worth it side if you want to fight and fuse higher poly versions of those demons. Demi-fiend is also way more difficult than anything else in the game including the normal superboss.

Also on the story being weak, I think it's okay on a high level. The main issue is that there aren't enough cutscenes. The average RPG is about ten to twenty percent cutscene closer to twenty for a standard jRPG, and this barely hits five i.e. three hours close to half of which is path specific versions of end game scenes. That time is the literal cutscenes, but including story related dialogue scenes doesn't extend it out that much.

The gameplay is the most important thing, and it does nail that. Once you unlock it, demons being able to pass on stat gains and experience does make fusing lower level demons less pointless. You might end up with a demon that's still stronger than the originals which is nice. I played on Normal which is a decent level of challenge although it's still hardest at the beginning and not super hard towards the end. One of the things I don't like about Press Turn is that it's too easy to abuse towards the end once you have demons with Null element passives and enemies waste turns. I did like how it was just four large areas with no world map. It's more like it's all dungeon since they're not wide open spaces like Xenoblade or anything. The third area in particular is very maze-like. The downside is that only one of the proper dungeons is actually any good. The first is a mini one, and the third is the final dungeon and fairly boring.

[dsparil]

Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master (Genesis/Switch, First Time)

Not sure why I went with Shinobi III as the first Genesis NSO game I played as it's in the Genesis Classics Collection. I certainly never finished it there anyway partly because I didn't understand how much easier Mijin makes bosses if you're about to lose all your health. My only real complaint is how finicky double jumping can be. I know you're supposed to do the jump close to the apex of the first one, but you also seem to not be able to double jump when starting on some surfaces.

I finished in 2:31.

Rating: 8

Edit:

MUSHA (Genesis/Switch, First Time)

I'm going with the contemporaneous consensus that this is okay but not spectacular. It's a competent vertical shooter with graphics that can be nice at times and a little on the easy side but not a total pushover even on Easy. Although I'm not qualified to place it within Compile's overall oeuvre, I guess I just expect more from them. I didn't feel terribly compelled to keep going up the difficulty ladder.

I finished in 1:50.

Rating: 6

[ommadawnyawn2]

I do like some of their later games better but MUSHA is still great (haven't seen anything about it being generally disliked either), and much more accessible than most shoot 'em ups before it. It becomes kind of "auto-pilot" at times on easy though.

[ZenithianHero]

Star Horizon (Switch, First Time, 2 hours 30 min)

It is a rail shooter set in space. It's alright much of my time with it. Its issues are when the game's auto-aiming system isn't great at certain situations and there's constant blindspots for enemy fire. The short play time was actually padded by replaying stages to grind out upgrades, the game can get intense if you aren't keeping up with it.

5/10

[Null0x00]

Cleared Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon for Windows in roughly 3-4 hours on the Nightmare difficulty. First Time.

8/10. A pretty good expansion where the new maps, weapons and monsters mostly compliment the original Quake experience, with the only exception being the Spike Mines that can silently instakill you and just frustrate. I also appreciate that the devs actually went to the trouble of making a brand new boss that's actually a step above the two in the original game.

[Null0x00]

Cleared Xmas Shooting - Scramble!! in the Arcade mode with no continues on Easy difficulty in 2 hours with a final score of 7506206. First time playthrough.
7/10. A solid bullet hell cute 'em up with nice art and music, its basically feels like Xmas themed DLC for QP Shooting - Dangerous!! made as a separate game. Still, what's here is good, and the unlockable formations do add to it.

[dsparil]

Dec 7, 2021 18:34:16 GMT -5 ommadawnyawn2 said:

I do like some of their later games better but MUSHA is still great (haven't seen anything about it being generally disliked either), and much more accessible than most shoot 'em ups before it. It becomes kind of "auto-pilot" at times on easy though.

It seems like more modern views are much more positive than when it came out. Moby Games has this blurb from CVG:

MUSHA is yet another vertically scrolling shoot 'em up. Why are there so many of the flipping things out on the Megadrive? Oh well, whingeing apart, the plus side is that MUSHA sports very impressive graphics (with amazing Thunderblade-style parallax in the canyon level) which set a great atmosphere and the action is fast and furious. Unfortunately, it's let down in a number of other key areas. First of all, the game isn't very challenging at all. Anyone who's at least half decent at shoot 'em ups will be able to complete MUSHA in less than an hour, and there's little to persuade you to bump up the difficulty level yourself on the option screen. Also, although you have a nice amount of control over your extra weapons, even at full-power they aren't half as impressive as say, Truxton's. MUSHA is a smooth, playable blast, but it's a shame it's so unoriginal and unchallenging. Give it a miss.

That sounds about right to me. Gleylancer was easy but fun enough that I beat it on every difficulty but this was easy but a little annoying at times.

[Deleted]

I'm not as big a fan of Compile shmups as most (largely due to a preference for horizontal games), but I appreciate that they don't drop you in the deep end right off the bat. It seems their main criticism is the difficulty, or lack thereof, but I'd imagine there's a great number of people like myself who enjoy the shmup gameplay without being particularly skilled. It seems about as subjective as a criticism as you can possibly get really.

[ommadawnyawn2]

MUSHA:
I thought you meant today's view for some reason, guess I was tired! I don't really read old reviews as they're generally not very good, like that one doesn't even say why they don't think playing on harder is better or why a shooter being easier is bad when they were generally so frustrating back then.

Well you didn't try it on Normal? Again it's a bit auto-pilot on easy, and I guess even normal at times. Don't know why it was annoying for you but I like it more than Gleylancer (GL with the homing weapon anyway, I'll have to try it without sometime). Not that GL is bad at all, it's just slightly worse to me. I found most backgrounds kinda bland and sometimes bullets were hard to see for me. Bosses also tend to die too quickly even on higher difficulty. Sometimes there's also dead space/pauses in the action but it's less of a problem on hard. I also didn't like how you're stuck with one gun drone formation throughout, when MUSHA did it better two years earlier. GL has great cutscenes and music however. 

Truxton I didn't like that much due to its unforgiving checkpoint system and deaths, various spongy enemies mixed with overly weak enemies for some of your weapons and I found it more repetitive and less aesthetically pleasing too. I guess the bomb was impressive and I like smart bombs, but not sure which I prefer between that and the gun drones in MUSHA which probably affected how crazy the main weapons could be. MUSHA could've had a couple more weapons considering it came after Aleste 2 though which had like twice as many or more.

[Apollo Chungus]

Santa Claus Junior (Game Boy Color; First Time; 1 hour 42 minutes ~ ESTIMATION)

My folks and I have had to briefly move into a hotel due a storm that's going on at the moment, and I passed some of the time by playing one of the games I'm planning to write about for HG101 on my new laptop, taking screenshots and notes along the way. Santa Claus Junior is a 2D platformer made by German developer Neon Software (best known for the PS2 action adventure game Legend of Kay), where you play as a young boy trying to rescue Santa Claus from an evil witch. I've got a few thoughts on this game, but I'll save those for the review. I will say that I did enjoy myself, though it did get quite tricky at times.

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Now we return to your regularly scheduled shmup discussion.

[alexmate]

Beavis and Butt-head: Do U. (PC - 2 hours estimate, 1st time)

I'm a fan or was when I was younger. Mechanically it's OK and features Mike Judge doing the voices as well as some decent animation for the time.

Rating: 7

[dsparil]

Gleylancer is easy on the lower difficulties, but each difficulty setting is a clear step up. Like I put when I finished it, all the difficulty names need to be moved down a peg. Even on the easiest difficulty, you still get cutscenes, a lot of voice clips from the ship's computer and some decent graphical and level variety. It still feels like it's worth playing even on a difficulty level that isn't challenging. The recent rerelease adds a button to change option modes which I didn't realize the original version doesn't have.

Since I was going to bring it up:

Gunstar Heroes (Genesis/Switch, Replay)

Rating: 10

I gave it a replay on all difficulties like I usually do when replaying it. Even on Easy, there's a lot of fun from all the explosions, the weapon combos and all the nice details. I'm not quite done with it, but Ristar is another game that isn't particularly difficult but it's awash in personality. Not a fair comparison to MUSHA in terms of genre or cart size (8 and 16 vs 4 Mbit), but my point is that MUSHA gives you a few crumbs of personality and that's it. Shooters live off of personality and/or weirdness even something otherwise military themed like Strikers. I would put that even above gameplay because shooters need something to liven things up. It'd be one thing if MUSHA was Sengoku Ace but a few years earlier, but it's mostly generic sci-fi stuff with a few Japanese touches. It doesn't fully commit to that on an aesthetic level and the gameplay / level design isn't interesting enough to make up for that.

Easy isn't bad if there's some real substance otherwise. Sometimes raw difficulty can be substance, but some games are just sadistic e.g. Jump King, so I don't care for those types of games all that much. I ended up replaying MUSHA on Normal and it came across as being a little easier than Easy since I knew what was coming. Hard up to level five wasn't any challenge either, but then five is a huge spike comparatively. It's probably fine if you've built up a stock of options and can burn through them, but I hadn't and it was way too frustrating for me to keep going. However, I looked at a video of a Hard play through and the rest of it does seem to go back to being relatively easy. I'm almost tempted to just get through stage five on Hard because I've already spent so much more time on it than I ever expected to.

Edit: So stage five with enough options is fine. I burned through ten getting through the turret sections that gave me trouble before. After that, the difficulty does go down a smidge although not as much as I thought it would. I don't know, I guess it's grown on me a little bit but also not that much. I also played a little of the original Aleste which is okay and Super Aleste which is actually a lot of fun.