|
Post by Snake on Jan 5, 2022 21:08:11 GMT -5
Yeah! Those banners are an exquisite touch of work! You both have picked some tough games to tackle!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2022 3:28:57 GMT -5
Thanks! I plan to keep doing them assuming I don't get bored, or worse, can't find a logo (cropping bores me senseless). Honestly they only take a couple of minutes. The Switch ones I just used screens I grabbed during my own plays since I wanted to find a way to personalise my reviews a little.
So I was hoping to scratch off a game from my classics to play list with Broken Sword and it seems I've just given myself more. I'll at least given the other entries a look in time as well as the original version. I'm guessing the best way to play the first two is just to throw them into ScummVM. Hopefully the rest of the series also uses fact as a basis for their fiction because I really enjoy that kind of storytelling. Beneath a Steel Sky from Revolution was already on my list. Not sure I'd go as far as Lure of the Temptress.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 6, 2022 15:27:32 GMT -5
1941 - Counter Attack - (SuperGrafx, First Time) 1943 Kai (TurboGrafx-16, First Time) I have a nostalgic fondness for the 194x series as one of its games was the very first arcade game I ever played. I can’t remember exactly which one it was at this point, and I think I ended up gravitating towards Strikers 1945 initially because I didn’t quite realize that it was a separate series from a different company. The greater PCE ecosystem happened to get ports of 1941 - Counter Attack - (as Capcom Arcade Stadium stylizes it) and 1943 Kai, a reworking of the original. Between these two, 1941 is the clear winner. It is one of the very few SuperGrafx games—an updated PCE that only saw five exclusives and one cross compatible game—so the graphics are quite nice although that’s only part of it. As the third game in the series, Capcom really shook things up. The setting moves to the western front which does more than just change the backgrounds. You’re much closer to the ground with buildings to destroy or avoid and passageways to follow. There’s also new gameplay mechanics like a spin attack. This doesn’t lean into sci-fi as much as Strikers, but it’s much less staid and buttoned up than 1942 or 1943. The slight downside is that there aren’t any settings whatsoever. You get three credits, a set difficulty and that’s it. Balancing this out is that the “fuel” mechanic from 1943 is replaced with regular hitpoints that also get upgraded over the course of the game so there’s isn’t any slow attrition of your health. The difficulty is also fairly low and apparently toned down from the arcade version. I’d say that this is actually a pretty good game to ease into the genre because of that, but it also manages to not be boring. 1943 Kai on the other hand is a step up in difficulty from the original which was already harder than vanilla 1943 and is not necessarily a good thing. It isn’t too bad for most of it, but the last few levels turn into such a slog and aren’t a whole lot of fun. Those are new to the PCE version, and they definitely could have used some tweaking. They feel balanced towards multiplayer, and my original attempt at Normal difficulty ended at the first of the new levels. They’re more survivable on Easy since you can take the hits, but that also makes the earlier levels a little dull since it’s nothing but enemy formations and bosses over monotonous ocean. One of the new levels does mix things up a little, but it isn’t nearly enough. I finished in 00:48:09 and 1:11:52. Rating: 8, 6 Gulkave (SG-1000, First Time) And because I’m still finding Compile shooters I still need to play is this game also released for the original MSX. Jeremy Parish is getting close to the end of his SG-1000 coverage and out comes this Compile game. The system itself had a very short life before being substantially upgraded into the backwards compatible Mark III which was modified into the Master System for the rest of the world. The SG-1000 [Mark] II was a very minor non-performance enhancing refresh. Compile released eight or ten games for the platform as sources disagree on if they released the first three or just the third. In a 1993 interview, company founder Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani says they only did the third game, Safari Hunting, while their own defunct website lists them as the developer of all three which serves as the source of this on Wikipedia and subsequently everyone else I’m assuming. Parish says it’s the best shooter on the SG-1000 and I’ll trust him on that one. The platform does not seem well suited to vertical scrolling as the credits of this game scroll very jerkily and the port of Star Force is headache inducing because of it. Horizontal scrolling fairs better although still jerky so the backgrounds are generally minimal. You get 30 levels in all, although it’s roughly the length of any Compile shooter at around an hour for a straight playthrough. Most of the gameplay variety comes from the mixing and matching various enemy combinations. The weapon system is really weird as you have a progressive weapons bar where the weapons are not ordered by strength and pickups move you 1,3 or 5 spaces. As is Compile standard, you can always continue from the current stage after losing all your lives, so can grind through it. The major problem is that it’s just a bland and generally uninteresting game. There aren’t that many different enemies, and the game could have easily been half the length. If you’re in 1986 Japan and haven’t gotten a Mark III, I suppose this isn’t awful per se, but basically anything on the FC would have been a much better choice. This came out the same year as the FDS port of Zanac, and there’s no comparison; this even requires an add-on since it uses the MyCard format rather than a cartridge. Secondarily, the platform itself is so poor in comparison to the FC. There’s a reason why the FC/NES and Mark III / SMS had such a long lives, and the SG-1000 is a footnote. It’s hard to find good screen shots of this game, but look at this and consider that this is amongst the best the platform has to offer. And now look at this screenshot of Fantasy Zone for SMS that came out at the same time: To be fair, something like Yuji Naka's Girl's Garden looks much nicer than Gulkave, but it isn't as reliant on fast scrolling. I finished in 2:32:14. Rating: 5
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 6, 2022 17:59:31 GMT -5
dsparil I got a question about game speed. I know it's okay to turn on a "speed up" function that makes the game go faster. whether it's included in the game or as an emulator option, but what are your thoughts on someone slowing down the game? I'd perhaps wanna be using that myself to make certain games less hectic if it's getting too much for me otherwise, but that could technically be considered a kind of cheating as well (at least when using an emulator).
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 6, 2022 19:27:49 GMT -5
Sorry but that does seem a little too far into being cheat like.
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Jan 7, 2022 8:18:12 GMT -5
Crash Bandicoot on the N.Sane Trilogy (PS4, First Time. 76% Completion)
I have been meaning to pick this up for a while, and a recent sale was what finally motivated me. It's actually on sale a lot but it seems like the kind of thing that would be inexplicably marked down to like 5 bucks one week or given away for free on PSPlus. But that never happened!
I never owned a PS1 as a kid, but I had a friend who did and he had all 3 of these games and I played them a ton. They reminded me of Donkey Kong Country quite a bit. Crash 1 even uses mostly the same environments (jungles, treetop villages, factories, temples) as DKC. Even the evolution of the series reminded me a lot of the Donkey Kong Country games. A fun but rough around the edges initial entry, followed by a perfected sequel and capped off by a very good but overly gimmicked 3rd game. Crash is no Mario or Sonic, but he is an appealing character - what I like about him is he seems to be in over his head a bit
This game is pretty tough. Tougher than I remember. Jumps require you to be verrrry precise and the perspective can be a bit tricky at times. The hit detection with enemies is all over the place and often it's not very clear what enemies you can kill and which ones are invincible. Fortunately each level has a few checkpoints and the game isn't afraid to throw tons of extra lives at you. I know the lives system is sort of outdated in modern platformers, but having only 1 life left when you're at the last checkpoint of a long level absolutely amps up the tension. There's a real thrill to going full "nerves of steel" mode and beating a level by the skin of your teeth. I thought about 100%ing the game but breaking all the boxes WITHOUT DYING on some of these levels seems like more trouble than it's worth.
The remaster looks pretty nice though it highlights the problem I have with remasters of already nice looking games - I think I'd rather look at the original graphics. These are very well done for what they are though. Per the review on this site, it appears that the platforming requires actually more precision than the original game.
Overall I liked this game but it's really rough around the edges - I'm having trouble giving it a score. Let's leave it slightly low at 6/10 because it's sequels are better and those are all in the 7-9 range in my book.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 7, 2022 10:15:51 GMT -5
Air Buster (Genesis, First Time)
I also played the TG16 version (Aero Blasters), but it loops. For the most part, this is a pretty standard shooter. Upgradable main shot, a selection of unupgradable secondary weapons and an unusual feature in a charged bullet clearing blast in lieu of bombs. The interesting element is that the second half of the game takes place in space so you have a zero gravity effect to deal with. This is the source of one of the major differences between the two versions, and the original arcade game might not have had that effect. It’s more like a slight slipperiness on TG16, but it feels more like actual zero gravity on Genesis.
The other major difference between the two is that the last level is significantly toned down on Genesis. Without getting into all the individual details, pretty much every element was made easier. You revive on the spot in both versions so it isn’t an insurmountable difficulty on TG16, but it is less annoying to get through. Differences in other levels are mixed in terms of difficulty however with some bosses being harder on Genesis.
I give the edge to the Genesis version. It feels like a less BS game once you get to the end and even features difficulty levels which is fixed on TG16 and adjustable life and credit counts which are fixed at 3 and 5 on TG16. Neither version has obviously better graphics or music so it mainly comes down to the availability of settings and lower frustration level. Plus, the Genesis version has a graphic of some anime people that shows up on the loading screens which is exclusive to it so isn’t that really the most important difference 😝
I finished in 00:25:50.
Rating: 7
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 7, 2022 10:24:54 GMT -5
Crash Bandicoot on the N.Sane Trilogy (PS4, First Time. 76% Completion)This game is pretty tough. Tougher than I remember. Jumps require you to be verrrry precise I think it's been conclusively proven that the jumping is messed up on N.Sane Trilogy. It's has a slipperiness that the original lacks and you'll slide off edges that you won't in the original. There's been various speculations as to why, but I played a little of the original when I went through N.ST and there's definitely a noticeable difference. I sailed through the first level on PSX, but the remaster wasn't anywhere near as easy. Everyone focused on the jumping at the time, but what you said about enemies makes me thing that all the hitboxes could have been changed. One of the hypotheses was that that Crash's hitbox was left as the default pill shape it is in modern engines, but perhaps the same is true of the enemies.
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 7, 2022 17:30:27 GMT -5
102 Dalmatians: Puppies to the Rescue (PlayStation; First Time; 3 hours 30 minutes) My first beaten game of the year! I wanted to test out PS1 emulation on my laptop, so I downloaded Duckstation and grabbed a couple of small sized games including this to give it a whirl. It's a fairly straightforward 3D platformer that reminded me of Spyro, insofar as your character having a medium-ranged attack and a roll that moves you around faster while also working as an attack in its own right. I was rather amused at how it was based on the live-action films being made at the time but takes its artstyle from the original movie, resulting in a weird hybrid where the dogs look like Pongo and Perdita but don't have those names and there's a parrot everywhere (which I faintly remember being in that live-action film if my memory of seeing a bit of it at the age of 5 is vaguely correct). I don't have all that much to say about it, as it's decent but mostly unremarkable as far as I felt otherwise. Although, it is a game where Frankie Muniz voices a dog. And you can't say that about most games.
Letters covered: #--------------------------
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2022 3:05:09 GMT -5
Bomb Chicken (Switch, First Time, 4 Hours)Bomb Chicken is a puzzle platformer wherein you control a chicken, who can't actually jump, however, as the title suggests they are adept in wielding bombs. Pressing the A button lays a bomb which you can spam to your content propelling the character into the air enabling you to reach areas. Of course sitting on a set explosives is hazardous and you must move quickly before they explode. Unsurprisingly the bombs are also used as a weapon as they can be placed carefully or kicked in order to defeat enemies or destroy obstacles. These very simple ideas together form the basis of the puzzle based level design, which will require the player to learn and learn well so they can stay ahead of the game and not get caught by enemies of course but more pressingly a mistakenly lain bomb blast. What's so immediately inviting about Bomb Chicken is the simple elegance of the visuals. The chicken is striking and well animated, the bombs bounce and flash with colour just to let you know your timings and enemies and platforms similarly pop from the background. The result is a game that communicates its concept with a glimpse. Every interactive element pops from the background here, using more vibrant colours, never clashing with one another to let the player know exactly what needs to be considered without a feeling of being cluttered or visually confused. With such effective readability all that the player needs to concern themselves with is the puzzle ahead. And the puzzles are tough as nails. The frentic nature of the core design concept means having to think on your feet and some of the level design is head scratching. There's a nice variety to the levels, each being different from what came before. You can make your way simply to the end or explore them further in order to find gems in more challenging or hidden areas. Perhaps the most memorable are the boss encounters, although there's only a few. It took me time after time to learn their patterns in order to perfect them, which is a must since one hit is death. The tension is high, but thankfully levels are short meaning there's a much needed break from the action as you successfully reach the end. I found due to this intensity it was best to handle the game in a few levels in a sitting, or even just one for boss battles which could take me 30 minutes to beat due to repeated tries. Thankfully the game is polished to near perfection, meaning any deaths are down to the players own mistakes, delivery making all the difference between a gem and a dud in a tight natured puzzle-action game like this. With Bomb Chicken developers Nitrome feel so adept to the puzzle genre, understanding that simplicity, a high degree of polish and visual communication are key to an enjoyable end product for the user, and that by mastering those allows level design to be as tricky and demanding of the players skill as can be. By basing the game around one button this is a style of design that could work on any platform and would be right at home on the NES. Although there's only a handful of hours playtime here amongst its 29 levels those are guaranteed to be rewarding for anyone seeking a more mentally challenging action experience. Score - 9/10 As an aside my only substantial negative on this game is that the developers chose not to allow screengrabs during play. I don't really understand why, since players sharing their images is a great way of keeping their game relevant and to spread word of mouth. In a petty act of rebellion then I have posted some screens below.
|
|
|
Post by JoeQ on Jan 8, 2022 14:22:58 GMT -5
Star Wars: Republic Commando (PS4) - Replay, Time: not a lot, Rating: 4/5 My first playthrough of the year! Originally played this way back on Xbox. It's definitely of it's time, a squadbased (remember when everyone thought that was the future of FPS'?) first person shooter set in linear levels chopped into small chunks so the console hardware could deal with them, but I still enjoyed revisiting it. Back then I thought it was too short, but now the length felt just right, ending before it got stale. The ending was still a bit too abrupt and anticlimactic though.
I beat the game on Hard difficulty and got the platinum trophy.
Alphabet Challenge: ------------------S------- Number Challenge: ----------
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 8, 2022 20:01:09 GMT -5
Märchen Forest (Switch, First Time)
This is one of the handful of times that I bought a game on extreme sale and then wished I could go back and pay full price! Originally this was a mobile game in two “episodes” under the title of the first episode Märchen Forest: Mylne and the Forest Gift. The subtitle for the second part, Mylne and the Curious Cavern, only seems to show up in the credits for it in this edition. The third part, “Requiem of the astral world” was a piece of DLC. The mobile game got a PC port a few years ago which did not translate the DLC although it was still available to purchase. Then, this subtitle-less edition was released about a year ago with all parts translated, pretty good Japanese voice acting and some graphical improvements primarily to the main characters. Also I should note that the game calls each part an episode on the save menu, but the game progresses completely sequentially.
Mylne and the Forest Gift is a short-ish adventure game unsurprising starring a young girl named Mylne learning about alchemy from her grandfather. This is the only part of the game where the main title makes any sense; märchen is German for fairy tale and it takes place in a forest. You collect items for your grandfather generally by solving the problems of the forest inhabitants and progress through three “ranks” until you finish. You get to the end of the story after two or so hours, and then the game makes a really big shift.
Mylne and the Curious Cavern is actually a dungeon crawler which is the format for the remaining 95% of the game. The original mobile game was only for Android, and while I did find the Japanese store page for it, Google doesn’t seem to require a change log so I have no idea if was always in two parts or if it got added on later. There’s three smallish dungeons occasionally with some randomized floors. You’re generally forced to always progress onward, but there’s a few parts where you can move between floors. The game terms floors rooms, and they are usually on the small side so it’s fitting. There’s also a hunger mechanic, but you use so little food that it isn’t a huge issue. Combat is real time and centered around action commands, mainly blocking, evading and “parrying” in order to use special attacks. You can learn offensive follow up attacks, but regular attacks do much less damage than specials so they don’t get much use in general. The story is good but a little underwritten due to the length of this part. You do find journal entries which fill in some gaps. However the ending is lengthy and could have been attached to a much longer game.
“Requiem of the astral world” is the real meat of the game and is between two thirds and three quarters of the total length. It was basically a complete sequel released as DLC. The mechanics get a big revamp and there’s many additions over Curious Cavern such as skills, a partner character, weapon specific techniques, and significantly larger floors. Regular attacks are much more useful as weapon techniques use a meter that is only filled by them so there’s a reason to hit enemies in between waiting for parry opportunities. There’s also much more equipment as it was a little skimpy in Curious Cavern e.g. there were only three "hats" and two were semi-hidden. Food is a huge element now as it drains much more quickly and active skills use it as a sort of “MP” pool too making this part very survival focused. The story is also more developed and feels satisfying to finish. My only real criticism is that dying has such gigantic consequences that it’s a better idea to reload instead.
I could go on and on as this is a very admirable game made by a small team that built it up over a number of years. It isn’t perfect, and you can see some of the low budget aspects like the very small number of enemies. However, I’d still rank this pretty high up there for Switch RPGs. This was clearly a labor of love by the people that made it.
I finished in 29:34:28. Well my last save was at that time anyway. The timer is broken, but I actually noticed it for once before it became completely useless so I just quit to the main menu after saving. The initial load time is really long, but it isn’t too bad from the menu or in game.
Rating: 9
|
|
|
Post by JoeQ on Jan 9, 2022 13:11:20 GMT -5
Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Gender Bender (DOS via SCUMMVM) - First playthrough, Time: it's a short one, Rating: 3/5
The first and the last adventure game starring Rex Nebular, a man who is like a combination of Larry Laffer and Roger Wilco without the charisma of either. A decent adventure game with some nice puzzles. Tonally it's all over the place: at one moment it's cartoony comedy, the next it tries to be sexy as you peer at extremely pixelated breasts, and then it's suddenly shockingly violent with tons of pixelated gore and blood. A very nineties attempt at being "adult", I guess. The game also feel unfinished in many places. There are several areas that you never get to visit, things that seem like puzzles but aren't, and characters and plot threads that get introduced then immediately dropped. The ending in particular is super abrupt.
I played the game first in Advanced mode and then did another quick playthrough in Expert to see what changed. Not much, just a couple of puzzles got slightly more complex.
Alphabet Challenge: -----------------RS------- Number Challenge: ----------
|
|
|
Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Jan 9, 2022 15:09:09 GMT -5
As an aside my only substantial negative on this game is that the developers chose not to allow screengrabs during play. I don't really understand why, since players sharing their images is a great way of keeping their game relevant and to spread word of mouth. In a petty act of rebellion then I have posted some screens below. I don't get that either. I don't think I've ran into games on Switch where you can't even screenshot yet, but several I own (SSBU, SMTV at least), don't allow video capture. At least with SSBU you can save a replay/video of your match, but just try to remember to hit the Y button after a match when something interesting happened in the first minute... But that doesn't explain why you can't do video capture (too much for the hardware?). With SMTV you could say it's to stop people from capturing the game's performance issues on Switch, if you want to be cynical. I didn't even know you could disallow screenshots as well. That almost seems like some kind of oversight or something on the developer's part. Why on earth would you not allow that? That said, I used to play games on Nitrome's website all the time back in my high school days, so I'm not surprised the game turned out well. I always gravitated most towards flash games with pixel-art aesthetics, and Nitrome's always looked very high quality.
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 9, 2022 15:40:37 GMT -5
SkateBIRD (Switch; First Time; 3 hours 27 minutes)
I never heard of this game until I read about it in a Destructoid article by Jonathan Holmes discussing his favourite games of 2021, and I was intrigued enough by what he said that I gave it a whirl. It's basically a Tony Hawk's Pro Skater game, right down to reusing the button layout and featuring the mission structure from THPS4 where you talk to characters and perform tasks. The main differences are that you play as a bird going round on a skateboard (who you can customize to your heart's delight, though sadly you can't be a crow), all your goals are in the name of helping out your owner - also known as Big Friend - as they work a miserable job at the office, and moving around is quite clumsy and awkward. That last point is the main thing that makes a lot of reviews for the game so middling, and it can still frustrate even hours into the game when trying to get to certain spots or pull off tricks is made a pain.
However, there's plenty of settings that you can change so that the game is comfortably awkward, such as the tightness of your turns, the strength of balance meters (or even turning them off if you prefer), a reset button that takes you back to a certain location which you can use freely between missions if you're trying to nail a tough gap, and getting rid of the in-mission time limits if that's adding too much pressure. I think there's something to be said for having clunky controls or game feel, as they can make the experience more memorable or unique. Honestly, I think the goal structure of "just do one thing at a time" works better here than in THPS4, since actually pulling off the one thing really feels like an achievement - whereas it felt very restrictive in THPS4 considering what you're capable of doing.
I do wish there were more stages or a greater variety of level themes rather than "apartment" and "grey office", but that theming is in service of the surprisingly involved narrative that you get from the pre and post-mission blurbs, so I can't really complain. As is, it's a neat Tony Hawk-like that's endearingly clumsy, and it's got a banging OST to boot with plenty of rad licensed tunes and memorably strange original songs. I'd definitely recommend it.
Letters covered: #------------------S-------
|
|