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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2022 2:36:24 GMT -5
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. I've seen a lot of cases of blocking video capture on PS4 games. The usual reason is to block spoilers and Atlus did it with Persona 5 too so that's likely their policy with Switch only giving the devs an on or off option (PS4 allows them to turn it on or off at varying points of play). Bomb Chicken is the only Switch game where I've encountered the block on screen captures though and it doesn't really have a story or anything that would count as a spoiler so I don't get it. If it were an oversight I'd have expected a patch to correct it since it's a few years old now so I believe it's likely intentional. Web games completely passed me by but when I looked up Nitrome even I had heard of a bunch of theirs so although they did appear to come out of nowhere with Bomb Chicken to me it's clear they were well established previously. Their name caught my attention with the marketing for the upcoming Shovel Knight: Dig so I will be sure to check that out on release.
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Post by ZenithianHero on Jan 10, 2022 20:42:48 GMT -5
Rise of the Tomb Raider (PS4, First Time, 19 hours)
The second game in the Survival reboot. It has been years since I played the 2013 entry but it's more the same here. OP Bow to use, climbing hook is still a fun mechanic. You have to hunt down animals for materials. It's a solid campaign back then and its sequel, while lacks new tricks up its sleeve, still worth playing. I think the first game had better story and pacing. Rise has plenty more tombs and crypts,the general location of the game is a step up.
7/10
Rise of the Tomb Raider: Blood Ties DLC (PS4, First Time, about an hour)
A DLC chapter from the main menu. Lara explores the manor so she can find proof to the deed of the place from her uncle. No combat, the game is entirely narrative driven with document/relic searching for clues such as getting the combination to the safe. It's alright, you get good details about Lara's childhood and her parents relationship. The idea of the documents tying into solving a puzzle was solely missing from the main game, kinda a nice change of pace here.
7/10
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Post by dsparil on Jan 11, 2022 8:26:27 GMT -5
Air Zonk (TurboGrafx-16, First Time) Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly-Paradise (TurboGrafx-CD, First Time)
The first Air Zonk is such a great game with nice cartoony graphics and so many bizarre weapons associated with each of the selectable partner characters. It is on the easy side, but the hardest difficulty (Spicy) does up things some. Easily the best shooter out of the PCE games I’ve played. I’m not saying I prefer cute-em-ups, but there’s just so much variety in this.
The sequel on the other hand does not fair well. It’s somehow worse looking despite being a CD game, and more generic for the most part especially with the weapons. It’s also much easier even on the hardest difficulty. Not that I particularly like rockabilly music, but there’s barely any and it isn’t even a graphical motif! There’s still some bright spots, but I get the feeling that the developer didn’t get anywhere near enough development time.
I finished in 00:36:14 and 00:38:25.
Rating: 9, 6
Sega Ages Thunder Force AC (Switch/Arcade, First Time)
I should say upfront that I don't like the AC version of TFIII. There doesn’t seem to be any special hook to it, and it’s especially annoying to switch weapons in an arcade game where you can’t pause to do it. Then I played the original Genesis game which is so much better. It feels a little too similar overall to count separately, but two out of the eight stages are different and the originals are much better than the replacements. Even in the stages that are the same, the difference between seem to suck the fun out of the arcade game. The Sega Ages version does add unlockable ships and an easier “Kids Mode” so at least there's that.
Rating: 6 (probably give TFIII a 7)
Shiro (Switch, First Time)
While I was playing this action platformer, I got to a point where I was certain I was mainly going to complain about how ridiculously short it was because it felt like it was at the natural end point. Then it kept going for a little bit longer so instead I’m going to complain about how it ends very abruptly. This is basically three long levels, and the end of level one is what set up as the “goal”. It would have made more sense narratively to stick levels two and three in the middle of level one. It’s also a little pricy given the scant content at $5 full price (although I paid $3.70), but that’s low enough in absolute terms that it feels weird to complain too much.
Rating: 7
Edit: Also slipping in and still alphabetical by coincidence:
Summer Carnival '92 — Alzadick (TurboGrafx-CD, First Time)
Considering it was for a competition, it isn't surprising that this is a very short game with only two easy stages. However, better known companion game Recca is tough as nails, pushes the FC beyond what I think anyone ever thought possible, and is a full game too. It might have been interesting to see what Naxat would have done had they put in more than a bare minimum effort for their own competition, but I guess we'll never know.
Double Edit: How could I forget Recca's amazing soundtrack!
I finished in 00:07:49.
Rating: 5
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2022 3:47:38 GMT -5
According to Wikipedia the Air Zonk games were released 7 months apart so you're probably right about the rushing. The change of developer no doubt hurt it also since it wasn't made by Red Company.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 12, 2022 7:34:14 GMT -5
I didn't realize they were that close together in Japan. Feels like it could have been rushed to release before the market was completely dead like Vectorman 2. Wikipedia cites some American reviews that are pushing up against when the system was discontinued so it must have been a late '93 release and one of the last American releases in any case.
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Post by spanky on Jan 12, 2022 8:01:12 GMT -5
I think the only other Turbo games I remember being covered in magazines after Super Air Zonk were Bonk 3 and Dynastic Hero. The system was very dead at that point.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 12, 2022 9:44:03 GMT -5
What's interesting is that the base system and CD together ended up having a tick-tock pattern to releases for the first five years (roughly 20/40/20/40/20) in NA and then fell of a total cliff in '94 with only three games: Dynastic Hero, the fighting game Flash Hiders and Bonk 3 on CD. That one even came out more than six months after the system was discontinued! I'm also a little surprised how long the system managed to hold out in Japan with a fairly full slate of releases in '95 even though the system was discontinued in Dec. '94 there vs. May '94 in NA. I wonder if NEC was trying to hasten the transition to the PC-FX by discontinuing the PCE at the same time only for that to not work. Well, they had other missteps that didn't help either.
Edit:
Armed F (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
First a note on the title. Armed F is the title that the Arcade Archives version uses on Switch so I'm going with that. No one seems to agree on if the original full title is Formation Armed F or Armed Formation F. In the absence of the official title, I would have gone with Formation Armed F as Formation is in tiny letters above a giant ARMED F. I'm not sure how anyone could even interpret it as Armed Formation F. It's too bad this isn't a situation like with Panzer Dragoon Zwei where the Japanese website makes it clear that the II is not meant to be part of the title.
Anyway, the site's article notes that the main thing with the original arcade game is the detailed graphics are mainly lost in this port. You still get a touch of the weirdness like the carcass level (less gross than it sounds), but this is basically a shadow of its former self. The formation aspect is also underbaked as all it lets you do is temporarily position your options forward a bit or back and back firing. You also need to have a banked F (up to 4) to even do it. Without of the graphics, all you have left is a really easy game that doesn't have much going for it. It's probably not literally the worst game on the platform, but it certainly feels like it could be among the least worth playing.
I finished in 00:29:01.
Rating: 4
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Post by dsparil on Jan 13, 2022 10:27:47 GMT -5
Atlantean (TurboGrafx-16, First Time) A home-brew game from 2014 this time around. It’s literally Underwater Defender. I forgot if Defender is an infinitely looping game, but this only has four non-looping stages made up of a few waves of enemies, a mine avoidance portion and a boss. There’s even an ending! It’s nice that there’s multiple difficulty levels, and you can set your lives and bombs between 0 and 9 so it’s easy to set it to your skill level. For a game that costs $10 for the ROM—there was a physical version too at one point—it’s a little pricey unless you’re a big Defender fan interested in a reskinned and lightly tweaked variant. So, maybe not really for me, but a well put together game otherwise. Edit: Meant to include the itch.io link. aetherbyte.itch.io/atlanteanI finished in 00:37:38. Rating: 7 Evil Tonight (Switch, First Time) I touched upon this game when it first came out in October. Basically, I have the strong impression that it was rushed out without proper gameplay (as opposed to bug) testing in order to be released before Halloween. There were near daily balance patches with some days even having multiple. By November, things slowed down with a focus mainly on miscellaneous bugs although there still was some rebalancing. It wasn't until early December that the game finally stopped getting patched. For the game itself, it’s a top down “16-bit+” (so really 32-bit) take on Resident Evil. It’s fine in general, but it plays much more like an action game than the first RE trilogy which doesn’t mix particularly well with the need to conserve ammo. Your main weapon for the beginning ends up being the knife which is tied to a stamina bar as is all the dodging you’ll need to do. There’s also no where near enough healing items towards the beginning. One of the later patches adding in automatic healing at save points at the lowest difficulty which moderates things substantially. Despite all the patches, I think everything still comes down to imbalance. You’re absolute drowning in ammo across four weapons and health restoratives towards the end, but you’re barely scraping by for too long otherwise. All the enemies are bullet/knife sponges, but the bosses are complete pushovers. The graphics are nice at least although the story and puzzles aren’t anything to write home about. I finished in 03:07:40. Rating: 6
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Post by Woody Alien on Jan 13, 2022 18:19:10 GMT -5
Since dsparil was so kind, here's my participation to the '22 Finish Challenge!
ImageStriker (PC Windows, first time, around 20 minutes?)
Speaking of those "time attack" shmups, here's a free shooter I found on Steam that imitates the early 90s vertical scrolling shooters in the style of Star Soldier and many others from that time. Six stages lasting 1.5 minutes each and a simple scoring based on chains. This is the kind of shmup that I enjoy: no bullet hell, no arcane scoring requirements, very simple but clear graphics, just some good easy fun (but I have yet to try Hard mode). There's also the "Caravan" mode for max scoring and nothing else. The dev is only making these kinds of retro style shmups, including an homage to Taito's Ray series with their homing lasers, so I'm going to keep an eye on them. 7/10
Tiny Echo (PC Windows, first time, about 1h 30)
Bought during the Steam sales, very simple and relaxing "adventure"/environmental exploration game with no dialogues about a tiny eyeball-headed creature going around to deliver letters to the equally tiny humanoid animals inhabiting this magical forest. The "puzzles" are extremely easy, then again you just have to go around, click on everybody (there's an achievement if you click on all the insects and other little critters), wait for the other areas to open and relax with the watercolor-style world, soothing ambient noises and muted BGM. I have no idea about the plot, what is a metaphor and what isn't, but it doesn't really matter, it's just a cute little story for when you have some time to spare without wracking your brain or having to "git gud". 7/10
Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (PC Windows, first time, Steam counter says 10 hrs)
Another Steam sale purchase, never really cared about the anime this game is based on, but I like Krobon and his Team Ladybug's works and metroidvania in general so I thought it was going to be great... but it was a disappointment. That's the reason of the low score, it's a perfectly nice and serviceable game but it feels too simple and easy and, despite being based almost completely on their previous Shin Megami Tensei Synchronicity Prologue free fan-game, it's nowhere near as charming as that one. The pixel art is awesome, but the music is really forgettable, the plot makes no sense, their typical humour is nowhere to be seen (guess they neede it to be "epic"), the areas kind of all look like the same without gimmicks or stuff besides the bow-and-arrow puzzles, most enemies are dumb, some polarity-switch abilities of the heroine are underused; in general it seems like they were more worried about being faithful to the anime's aesthetics instead of making a game with its own identity, feels like a random IgaVania copy (some Castlevania references are blatant) which is fairly short for the price it's sold at. Hope that their next games are going to be better than this one. 6.5/10
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Post by spanky on Jan 14, 2022 13:20:38 GMT -5
Contra: Hard Corps (Japanese version, Mega Drive via PS4 Contra Anniversary Collection, First Time)
The collection was marked down to 5 bucks. I have easy ways of playing most of the games on this collection but I thought I'd go ahead and get this for convenience purposes. Contra: Hard Corps, at least the US version has really echoes the overall je ne sais quoi of most Sega games of that era. It's fast, tough, nonstop action. It's tailored to a certain type of hardcore (puns!) gamer. Yeah, the Nintendo Contra games were like this but I really feel like the Sega game takes things to the next level (another pun!). Wasn't this game intended as a response to Gunstar Heroes?
I've never been able to make it too far in the game due to it's brutal difficulty. I'd always heard the Japanese version was easier so I thought I would try that this time around. And boy, they weren't kidding. You have 3 lives but you also can take 3 hits per life which helps you conserve your weapons. On top of that, there are infinite continues that restart you at mid-level checkpoints. This turn an insanely challenging game into a bit of a walk in the park, honestly. I blew through the entire thing in less than an hour.
It's a hell of a game though. The Contra games before this were known for this bosses and mid bosses, but that's a focus here. They are all really creative and they are juuuust easy enough as to where they are fun to fight and not especially frustrating. The color palette of the Genesis gives the entire thing a grimy, somewhat gross aesthetic which fits well with the overall theme. 4 playable characters is a great idea and I was able to use all 4 on my playthrough.
Since this is in Japanese, I didn't know what choice I was making in the dialogue scenes. I got one of the bad endings - fought the heart boss and the main bad guy gets away at the end. Still, I'll count it. The much more manageable challenge of this version is definitely less satisfying than it would be to beat the other one, on the other hand I think I'm more likely to play this one again.
As far as the collection itself - it's fine but has less to work with than it's sister Castlevania collection. The arcade games are nice but it is a little cheesy that they pad out the collection by adding the Probotector games. A little extra effort to include Rebirth, or even the PS1 games would have been preferable.
8/10.
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Post by alexmate on Jan 14, 2022 13:25:39 GMT -5
Broforce (Windows \ Steam, 1st time, Timer: 10hr 39) Great game, but outstays its welcome, plus no check points at each part of the end boss.
Rating: 8
Expendabros (Windows \ Steam, 1st time, Timer: 1hr 16) Standalone add on, DLC.
Rating: 8
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Post by dsparil on Jan 14, 2022 15:43:15 GMT -5
Contra: Hard Corps (Japanese version, Mega Drive via PS4 Contra Anniversary Collection, First Time)
The game does have a bad ending, but it's an early failure ending and obvious. The one you got is a "you haven't seen the last of me!" type of ending. One thing I noticed that I thought made the game a little easier is that sliding makes you invincible. Is this actually one of the earliest games with that kind of mechanic? Since Treasure was ex-Konami, it was hard for me to not think it was a direct reaction to not supporting its primordial stages. HC is so much better than these types of reactions tend to be too. My question is which is better? I think the bosses on average are better in GH, but HC does have some of its own quirky bosses despite the darker aesthetic. Plus it has the different paths with different stages and actually letting you change firing mode. I need to play HC more, but I'm staring to lean towards it.
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Post by spanky on Jan 14, 2022 20:18:09 GMT -5
Contra: Hard Corps (Japanese version, Mega Drive via PS4 Contra Anniversary Collection, First Time)
The game does have a bad ending, but it's an early failure ending and obvious. The one you got is a "you haven't seen the last of me!" type of ending. One thing I noticed that I thought made the game a little easier is that sliding makes you invincible. Is this actually one of the earliest games with that kind of mechanic? Since Treasure was ex-Konami, it was hard for me to not think it was a direct reaction to not supporting its primordial stages. HC is so much better than these types of reactions tend to be too. My question is which is better? I think the bosses on average are better in GH, but HC does have some of its own quirky bosses despite the darker aesthetic. Plus it has the different paths with different stages and actually letting you change firing mode. I need to play HC more, but I'm staring to lean towards it. I've always thought Gunstar was better than HC - it has a lot of spark and some great original ideas to it...but now that I've played a reasonably challenged version of Hard Corps, I'm not so sure of my opinion. It was a pure thrill ride the entire time - but the game as a whole is still very "new" to me whereas I've played Gunstar to absolute death. I probably need to think about it.
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Post by dsparil on Jan 15, 2022 6:39:00 GMT -5
Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (Switch, First Time)
There's been some mixed things said about this metroidvania on this very forum over the years, and I fall more on the meh side of things. The sprite work is very nice, but the gameplay is a little bland. After the introductory area, you have some freedom in pursuing the main practical gameplay objective (finding the pieces of a crest), but because of this, most of the areas in the game are not designed with the small handful of movement upgrades in mind. You get a smidge of greater complexity towards the end but not nearly enough.
I finished in 03:30:28.
Rating: 6
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 15, 2022 7:30:33 GMT -5
Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand (SNES; First Time; 6 hours 14 minutes)
Late last year, I ended up grabbing translations of various Japan-only action-adventure games for the SNES, including this and Ys IV: Mask of the Sun. I've always wanted to get into Ys, as it's intentionally a simple action-RPG series and that sounds quite up my alley, but I've not had much luck so far. While I did beat Ys Chronicles I about two or three years ago, I couldn't play Ys Chronicles II cuz the save system was busted when playing Ys Chronicles II, I found Ys III on the Mega Drive to be too intense going into it, and the first boss battle of Mask of the Sun was way too tough. I might try the PC Engine CD versions of these games down the line and see if that fares any better, but I'm happy to say that I had a pretty good time with Ys V.
I'm aware that it's generally the most obscure game in the series, being the only main title to not have a localized version (either translating the original like with most games from VI onwards or in the form of a remake like Memories of Celceta). I'm also aware that it isn't as highly regarded, mainly due to being perceived as a generic SNES action-RPG. It's probably because I haven't played much from that particular group of games, but I thought that Ys V was quite enjoyable. It's an easy enough game where you can carry plenty of potions, combat is very straightforward, and dungeons are quite simple. And those are the things that I really like about it, since I can just boot it up and go on some adventures for a while without tough puzzles or overwhelming boss fights getting in the way.
In a weird way, it reminded me a bit of Brightis on the PS1, with its focus on a protagonist who can jump and slash at enemies. Part of me wants to go back to Brightis every now and again, but I stop because I know I'll eventually come up against that final dungeon which I found impossible to navigate with how dark it is, so this scratched that itch something fierce.
Letters covered: #------------------S-----Y-
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