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Post by Digitalnametag on Oct 9, 2022 13:47:28 GMT -5
Valkyrie Elysium PS5 FTP 17 hours
Valkyrie Profile is my favorite PS1 game and one of my favorite RPGs period. It does so many things that are unique. Elysium takes some of those things and turns it into a generic action RPG.
Elysium is just okay. The story is serviceable, but rehashes bits wholesale from VP1. There are literally only nine characters with models in game. Everything else is a monster. Shoe-string budget here. The Einherjar are interesting although I feel there should have been more of them. You feel quite limited ability wise until you get a couple as these help with enemies elemental weaknesses, and even then you do not get one to match every element in the game. The game is divided into Chapters that range from a half hour to an hour long. You can save mid chapter but cannot quit without losing all progress. Which means if you miss something (like a flower required for the true end...) you have to replay the entire chapter. That got me twice. Sub-quests are boring kill a bunch of enemies fare. Combat is decent fun but grows tiresome when it is the only thing happening.
Mostly the game just made me realize how much I want to replay VP2. Haven't played that one since the original release. Add it to the winter holiday schedule! Maybe make time for that seventh VP1 run too.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Oct 9, 2022 18:19:24 GMT -5
Star Wars: Republic Commando (Xbox; First Time; 6 hours 7 minutes)
Another story that begins with a journey years back. I remember playing the demo to this on the January 2005 issue of the UK's Official Xbox Magazine, as it was the first magazine with a demo disc we got after getting the Xbox for Christmas the month before. Looking into the issue, I found that it was the same demo disc which featured a demo for Dead or Alive Ultimate, which got me into the Dead or Alive series, along with Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and the well-regarded Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. I had no idea so many of my early memories of sixth gen gaming were birthed from a single demo disc. (If you're interested in reading the magazine itself, you can download or read it here on SEGA Retro, a fansite with a stupidly dedicated collection of gaming magazines.)I recall enjoying that demo, particularly its darker vibes compared to the Star Wars fare I was used to with its moodier choral music, rusted-looking droids that spill fluids onto your visor if you kill them up close, and the grounded escapades of the four-man squad of clones just scraping by. Combined with the reputation the game overall got as one of the better Star Wars games of the day, I think my brothers and I were at least casually curious about trying it one day. But either we never found it or preferred to get other games instead; considering we had a bunch of other Star Wars games including Jedi Academy, LEGO Star Wars, Episode III, and even that Xbox-exclusive Obi-Wan game where you used the right thumbstick to move the lightsaber, I'm rather surprised we never got it. Flash forward to 2014, when one of us (probably me since I kept the receipt tucked away with the manual like every other game I buy) found it in the local second-hand game shop. I think we each played it for a little while, and then completely forgot about it. When I started to work on beating old games I'd had for years for the Game Finish Challenge, this was on my mind from the start. But it's only now that I've finally gotten round to it, and I'm happy that I have beaten it and can talk about that opening story. As for the game itself? It's pretty alright. It's a straightforward first-person shooter set between Episodes II and III where you have three other clone troopers you can order to perform tasks (though you can also do them yourself if you feel the situation requires it), as well as take up firing positions in rooms to deal with enemies more easily. I'd say it's the kind of game that establishes its formula quite firmly and sticks with it for the rest of the game, doling out new environments and sub-weapons but never drifting from the same routine of "go in, blast droids/mercs/bugmen, heal up, head down corridor, repeat". It's just as well I enjoyed the moment-to-moment gameplay enough that I never got so bogged down by that, and there's some structurally neat ideas such as starting the Assault Ship batch of levels by having you cut off from your team and slowly re-uniting with them, member by member, until you're back kicking ass together. Some stages could've been cut down a little bit, as they deffo start to feel quite samey in what you end up doing after a while. I also can't picture playing this on anything higher than Easy cuz aiming was a bit finicky and enemies were bullet-spongey as heck to begin with. I can see why it was well regarded enough, but it's not for me.
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Post by personman on Oct 10, 2022 15:50:43 GMT -5
Castlevania Symphony of the Night (PS1, emulated on 3DS; replay; 18 hours)
It's SOTN.
I don't need to explain shit.
DHEN OUTTA DHEN
Okay, much as I'm sure you all wish I would just leave it at that I have some thoughts lol. I was listening to someone who has been going back into the PS1 library and been evaluating how well they still hold up these days. He covered this game and often remarked how hard it was. I'm ashamed to say I heard that and immediately scoffed because we all know how easy this game is right? But then I stopped and realized I actually haven't played through this game more than once. Sure, my old save has like 200 hours logged onto it but an actual fresh run? Yeah never did it so of course I thought the game was easy because most I remember of it was dinking around being way over leveled for everything. So I got this set up on my 3DS to see if it was easy as I remember.
Which I'll mention real quick: if anyone would like to try this as well I found this game really wants to be played with a certain bios (scph101 to be exact) or else the memory card emulation wont work. Make sure you drop that in Retroarch's bios directory itself as well as making a cia file with it if you wish to go the forwarder route.
Anyways, I've always had a bit of a back and forth relationship with this game. For a while I was annoyed when everyone said this was the best of the series because I was obsessed with Dawn of Sorrow. Later I came around and joined the chorus mostly in appreciation of its detailed atmosphere and music. After playing through Dawn once more though I have to say I started to question if I may like it a bit more. The main reason is the playable character back then I just found Alucard rather boring to play as with his simple melee style and lousy sub weapons. This of course is bullshit because he is actually much more of a jack of all trades with pretty good options for magic, defensive play (only in the first castle and with the right shield) and a wealth of crazy weapons... only problem is if you don't have a wiki open you are likely to never know much of your options even exist lol. His spells for instance you just have to know the inputs to unlock and there is nothing in the game hinting toward them. Same with weapons, a large amount of them have commands to do a special attack and many of these are game changers. Again though with such vague descriptions such as "Extra Effective With Shield" how the hell am I supposed to know that the Shield Rod is the most broken item in the game so long as I press square and circle at the same time lol. Sure secrets are fun but when you get plainly obtuse with things it kinda feels like neat stuff is being kept from you out of spite or something. I'm not saying everything has to be spelled out but least some kind of hint would have been best I say.
Some of the inputs can be a real pain to pull off too. I suppose that might have been intentional since spamming something like Soul Steal would have been broken... but at the same time there's 50 other obscenely broken things that are easy to do lol. But I tired my best to make use of special weapons and spells this time around and I had a blast. At the start I was typically hanging back and slinging spells and doing timed blocks on projectiles with the Iron shield to give me invincibility frames, it felt way different from what I remember and I really enjoyed it. Once I figured out how many weapons had unique attacks it was exciting when I got something new to see if it had a command I could play with. Really the same anticipation I got with Soma and the soul system started to show up here. Even some sub weapons I was able to make use of more than I remember. There's a bunch of consumable projectiles you can use as well but me and my hoarder ways didn't want to use them since there is rarely a way to replenish them. I say they should have been available for purchase from the shop or something, otherwise the scarcity just makes them too precious. It's also a bummer shields become little more than stat items later on since nearly all projectiles just end up bypassing them.
Half the reason I wanted to do a playthrough was to see if it was in fact difficult. I'll admit it, it got me a number of times, things do quite a bit of damage pretty consistently and if you don't know about a lot of the tools at your disposal then yeah you're going to have a tough time if you're just trying to melee all the time. Doesn't help that Alucard is like a leaf in the wind... as in anything sends him flying back all the time even if you took little to no damage. This can become an issue with bosses who frankly and pretty sloppily made in general and on more than one occasion I got stun locked by the bastards. It was also really annoying how things love to simply knock you out of rooms, there is a hallway in the middle of the arena where horseman will just constantly toss you out to the previous screen. They really needed to tone that down. Then there is the famous inverted castle. I honestly never liked it much, it always felt annoying to get through with how awkward running along the ceiling was. This time around I didn't mind it so much since I got a grasp on using the gravity boots consecutively and the bat form's dash to zoom around. Some of the enemies though are just stupid like Azaghal who you can almost never hit without being struck yourself and they can just utterly decimate you.
Course this was their first shot at this kind of thing so of course there will be some rough edges here and there. I believe the game switched directors half way through and even cycled some developers out too so its remarkable it turned out solid as it did. They went crazy with the rpg bits and there is still some ideas only this game really plays with that I wish later entries tried to explore like how you equip both hands separately for instance. The castle had the most adventure game like stuff in it too with special keys, timing when to visit the clock room to open a new path and even little puzzles to get to new areas, and a boss that you pretty need a special head item to stand a chance (unless you can manage judicial use of mist form). The later games really never managed to capture the same cool stuff.
So I jokingly said a ten out of ten for this one... and no its not. It has enough unrefined things I can nitpick that I can't say its perfect. Do I still think it's the best in the series? Yes, more than ever now. Does it have my favorite character to play as? Well I like Alucard much more than I used to but honestly I still found Soma more fun, he still has more variety and is much easier to play. But despite that SOTN had enough other wonderful things about it even if I found DoS a little more mechanically engaging its a step down from this, even if only a little bit.
But... you've all heard this spiel before ad nauseum so I'll just stop now. You all know this game, you all know its awesome and you don't need to hear it again, I already went on too much already lol.
Rating-9
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Post by Woody Alien on Oct 10, 2022 17:34:48 GMT -5
Speakerman (PC Windows, first time, about 1 hour I guess?)
Bought a couple cheap games on Steam, one on sale and another one (this one) I had in the wishlist for quite some time and I wonder why. Finished this one almost as soon as I bought it. Though this time this retro-styled game is almost too retro for its own good... It's an imitation of early DOS platformer games starring a guy with a speaker for a head (for some reason) jumping around and exploring areas. We ask the Man in the Moon for hints, only he's a bastard and at one point he causes us to die, at that point our soul takes control of a little robot so we have to collect disks in order to escape and get to the "bad" end, or find some more hidden disks to get our original body back and escape from this world and its nasty Moon for real. Despite the ending saying it's hard with frustrating jumps and puzzles, in actuality it's much less annoying than real DOS games (mostly because we can save anywhere) and it's not difficult to understand what to do and where to go. It could be nice but it's so short and lacks substance even for a cheap retro-style game. Graphics are fairly authentic with its 4-color palettes but the music is either ambient or techno tunes. This is the "Story Mode" but there's also another exploration mode where we can go around the world map and collect coins and other random stuff, I played with it for a while then stopped because I didn't know what to do anymore... ironically the supposedly easier and more relaxed mode is less friendly than the main one!
5/10
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Post by dsparil on Oct 11, 2022 7:32:34 GMT -5
Ginga Fukei Densetsu [ Sapphire ] (TurboGrafx-CD, First Time)
Easily the best graphics of any shooter on the system which is not surprising since it's also the only one to use the Arcade Card. On the other hand, the gamplay is pretty basic and there's only 5 stages.
Rating: 7
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Post by lurker on Oct 11, 2022 17:16:01 GMT -5
TMNT: Shredder's Revenge (Steam, First Time)
I really enjoyed this one, even if some parts were a bit annoying (Darn Turtle Tenderizer). I plan on getting some more of the achievements, so I'm not quite done with this one. Really enjoyed all the little nods, though I wish there were more bosses that were unique to this one. I thought it was neat that the character selection wasn't just limited to the 4 turtles this time. Edit: Forgot to mention the combat. I really like the variety of moves, though I still need to practice with some (mainly doing consistent grapples). Also, the art style was really nice and I liked the little animation quirks.
Ack, I goofed. Brain was on autopilot. Typed Switch, but meant Steam. It has since been corrected.
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Post by dsparil on Oct 12, 2022 8:32:48 GMT -5
Steam-Heart's (TurboGrafx-CD, First Time) Steam-Heart's (Saturn, First Time)
I had a longer post I accidentally lost, but the short version is that the PCE game is decent but not great while the Saturn game is legitimately good and a full remake.
Rating: 6, 7
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Post by personman on Oct 12, 2022 11:22:39 GMT -5
Soul Blazer (SNES, emulated on 3DS; first time; 13 hours) I actually ended up playing Terranigma first at the recommendation of an emulation forum (is edge emulation still around?... oh shit it kinda is!) and got wind of it being a part of a series along with this game and Illusion of Gaia. I was impressed with Terranigma enough (even though I never finished it on my own) that I tried the other two as well but they didn't really grab me. Thanks to Retrograde Amnesia covering Terranigma and the SNES thread it got me motivated to give this a whirl again and I was surprised by how much I liked it. It's extremely simple and straight forward and really repetitive with how you typically just spawn camp monster closets but the way you open up the dungeons and go back and forth with the towns is really satisfying for some reason, has that nifty Rube Goldberg machine feeling to it. It has a charm with its aesthetic that I can't really articulate beyond 'olde snes', has a similar warm fuzzy charm that games like Sim City and Pilotwings give off. There was just something about the early SNES library it has a unique feel to me. I do think it goes on a little bit long but that may be due to the fact I was strictly only playing it at work making it feel a bit stretched out. My only major gripe is the bosses are pretty bland. The first one and last one are the only two that have any thought put into them and the rest are brain dead and one is really tedious and annoying. Otherwise is a tight solid little package. One that could certainly stand to be fleshed out more for sure but in the context of when it came out and as a nice straight forward affair you can pick up and put down real easy its well served as such. Wouldn't call it essential but if your looking for some more obscure stuff its a good pick. Rating- 7Aladdin (SNES, emulated on 3DS; replay; 1 hour) Slow times at work have continued so I figured I'm gonna blitz through some old platformers I have sitting on my 3DS for nostalgia's sake. I grew up with this version as a kid and enjoyed it well enough after all I loved the movie quite a bit and as a movie tie in it respects its source material pretty well. Save for that one part where they confuse Arabia for Egypt lol. Found it kind of odd that they made a random level that had nothing to do with the film yet they had an opportunity to make a level out of the part where he gets sent to some snowy mountains but then just end up giving it a small blurb and moving on. Anyways the game itself is fine. Level design is good, graphics look great and music is excellent alongside some good set pieces but for whatever reason it just doesn't really grab me. It's kinda like Ducktales where I can't find anything wrong with it but its just kinda vapid to me. Dunno I didn't mind it but was definitely just kinda pushing through it to get it over with once the nostalgia wore off. If I didn't grow up with this I probably wouldn't have dug it up. Never tried the Genesis version but I have that waiting on my 3DS as well so I'll probably try it soon. Honestly even back when it was new I found it weird looking so I'm not going in with high expectations. Rating-5Smart Ball (SNES, emulated on 3DS; replay; 2 hours) My brother picked this one out for some reason. Like I can't fathom why he did back then I mean... here check out this boxart: An anthromorphic frisbee dodges meteors as a rooster albatross hybrid gives chase over Seattle or something...? Uh huh, well it certainly stands out I'll give it that. This one is even weirder for me in particular because my brother and I share the names of the protagonist and his antagonist older brother, Jerry (my name is Jeremiah but everyone called my Jerry then) and Chris respectively lol. It gets even weirder because my dad would often mockingly me call me 'Jerry boy' and guess what the original japanese title is? Yeah, no joke. I'm sure this is all very awkward to read lol, why am I going on about this? *cough* just too weird a coincidence. That aside the game itself feels halfway unique what with being able to climb walls and ceilings and squeeze through pipes. Despite that I never really felt like it used these features in interesting ways, like they're present and the stages aren't quite too typical but they don't really do anything exciting either. The controls aren't the best either, you normally move too slow to be comfortable but holding down the run button goes too fast and makes you really slippery which gets compounded with the ices stages, because of course there was ice stages. In fact said ice stages are pretty poorly made with a camera that won't want to catch up between screen transitions leaving you to careen right into enemies and the like. Hit boxes are pretty big too so you're main means of attacking calls for getting in close and you'll likely take damage first. It's not the best. Least the bosses are easy. Like over in about a second easy. I'm glad for that with the harsh hit detection otherwise they would have been a chore. Other than that its such a weird little game with off the wall videogame abstractions that tickle my brain. Like most pits are lines with these fast scrolling red checkboard things... what is that? Lava? Many enemies have that bizarre japanese goofiness to them. Why are there butt naked dudes waving torches around in the ice level? What is with the dude in his briefs running into a wall just after them? Theres cave men locked up in cages as a gentle looking area that looks straight out of Kirby has a really sinister track playing in the background. Stages 7a and b have a perspective that makes no sense, this robot is made out of dust??? It's surreal enough that the fact you literally battle the constellation of Copernicus seems mundane in comparison. The oart where you dramatically smash through a stained glass window to stop a wedding made me chuckle too. The japanese version had some intermission stages where you talk to npcs that got cut which I'm sure contained more goofiness. Game Freak also co developed this so you've got the guy who did much of the early Pokemon art in the manual as well which I just found interesting to see him draw something other than Pokemon. It has its charm for sure. But as a game its just fine and later on it gets rather annoying with the hit detection issues and fussy controls. I didn't mind the revisit but I don't think I'd really recommend it to anyone unless you're in the business of digging deep in the library. Nice soundtrack though, particularly like this track: Rating-4
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Post by spanky on Oct 12, 2022 14:53:14 GMT -5
personman Agreed on the aesthetic appeal of first gen SNES games. I'm not sure what it is exactly that makes them stand out...maybe the music? Once Street Fighter II comes out, the games take on a different quality. Wild Guns (SNES via NSO, First Time)
This was covered a while back in the SNES thread so I don't have much to say about it except that the NSO allowing me to save my place in the game is a godsend. The game is difficult but very manageable the more you play it. You'll beat it as long as you're patient. Great graphics and aesthetic. I stated this in that thread as well, but Natsume was very good at making the sort of fast paced action game that you typically associated with the Genesis.
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Post by alexmate on Oct 13, 2022 7:24:10 GMT -5
Couple I've missed:
The Legend Of The Mystical Ninja (SNES, 1st time, timer: 3hr 4min) Great graphics, let down by repetition. It is still a very unique platform adventure though.
Rating: 7
Secret of Evermore (SNES, 1st time, timer: 9hr 49min) Amazing graphics and sound with the usual Squaresoft polish. Sadly letdown by too many tedious section and a wonky combat system.
Rating: 7
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Post by ZenithianHero on Oct 14, 2022 18:34:43 GMT -5
Grabbed by the Ghoulies (XBOX via Rare Replay, replay, 5 hours and 30 minutes)I decided to replay Ghoulies for Halloween time. The game is a mix of Rare's humor and a monster mash in a form of a 3D beat 'em up. The combat itself is way better than I remember it. You use the right analog stick to aim the direction of your attack. What sets this game apart and I don't think I see in other action games lately is being able to cause enemy in-fighting and friendly fire. The game works in situations to utilize this mechanic as well. The enemy variety is quite good, some enemies require special methods to defeat such as kicking mummies into fire or needing a special gun to kill vampires. I do find the game infuriating at times unfortunately. Most rooms contain a challenge and the main villain will set a default starting health. Such challenges have a variety of rules such as don't use furniture, don't take damage, don't kill certain enemies. If you break a rule a grim reaper will be summoned and can 1HKO you. Some rooms are narrow which make dodging the reaper tricky. To be fair, the game has methods to even the playfield with powerups. There's even a powerup that bypasses a challenge rule if you are lucky. Later in the game the challenges can be contradictory or strict, it becomes a puzzle. I wish Rare let up on the concept and let the game stew in pure action, the difficulty of the game become gimmicky as result. Another annoying feature plays into the main character's fear. Ghosts can leave you vulnerable in defenses if you get caught in its scares. The game also features absurd QTE jump scares where you are required to hit like 10 buttons in a couple seconds. My muscle memory for XBOX controller against Nintendo's leave me to get finger-tied. That is my fault. But the game loves to place these things conveniently where losing the QTE takes a large amount of hit points and at risk of losing the room progress. I have to say the endgame is interesting. Some spoilers here, After the final boss you are immediately taken to a 13 minute timed gauntlet of going room to room saving kidnapped children. Little less stressful than I was anticipating. You can collect Rare books in rooms throughout the game to unlock minigame challenges in the main menu. These test your skill with record keeping. The idea adds good replay value, although the novelty of these special stages somewhat soured when I played the whole game with nonsense rules in the first place. 6/10
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Post by spanky on Oct 15, 2022 6:46:18 GMT -5
Been busy! By "busy" I mean I've been battling a nasty virus all week so I've been playing old games.
Super Punch Out! (SNES via NSO, Replay)
I’m a big fan of the Punch-Out series and if it was up to me there would be at least game in this series in each console generation. Super Punch Out has a bit of “middle child syndrome” for this series. The NES game is a borderline cultural artifact and the Wii version was so lovingly crafted. But I feel like this one isn’t mentioned that much and I see it criticized by internet randos occasionally. In true contrarian fashion, I think this is my favorite of the games. I love the arcade style power meter moreso than the star punches of the Wii and NES titles. There’s a real feeling of trying to build and maintain your momentum. I also think the 8 separate profiles and time trial mode with leaderboards is a bril.liant idea. In college, I shared my copy of the game with a bunch of friends and we’d all try to top each other’s times.
Like other games in the series, the presentation is top notch. The sprites are huge, the music rocks and I love how the action freezes dramatically when you knock down your opponent. There’s also tons of unique boxers in the game. As much as I like the Wii version I feel like it mines the original NES game for inspiration a little too much. This is one of my favorite SNES game and would certainly be a “desert island game” for me. 10/10.
Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers 2 (NES via PS4 Disney Afternoon Collection, First Time)
I saw a list of Capcom Disney games the other day and I realized that this is the only one I haven’t played all the way through. It’s a very late release for the NES and one of those cartridges that goes for hundreds of dollars. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a Capcom Disney game – a basic, but well playing platformer with nice production values (some of those bosses look awesome). There is a fair amount of effort put into what could be considered a throwaway title. I mean, the show was a few years over by this point and the NES was pretty much dead. But they redrew the sprites, put in lots of cutscenes with dialogue and even threw in some new mechanics and level gimmicks. Despite all this, the game feels like it’s going through the motions a bit, even the music isn’t very good. Not a bad way to spend an hour but it doesn’t really resonate with you at all. 6/10.
Ninja Commando (Neo-Geo via PS4 version of PS2 ADK Collection, First Time).
A ninja themed overhead shooter with a time travel theme. What was it with ADK and time travel? The doctor in the cutscenes even looks like the one from World Heroes. In this game your attacks become more powerful you tap the button….which means you need to be tapping it as fast as you can at all times which is exhausting and not very strategic. You have an evasive somersault move but it has a slow startup and zero invincibility. Enemies cause so much damage that when you fight bosses it’s often more effective to spam your health-draining super attacks than to fight them normally. Hey, it’s meant to drain your quarters. Somewhat fun but I don’t see myself playing this again. 4/10.
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Oct 15, 2022 11:01:36 GMT -5
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - New Power Awakens (Switch; First Time; 3 hours 7 minutes)
To my surprise, I ended up playing the post-game stuff for seven hours or so; checking out side-quests, collecting the Dragon Balls, training new moves, and so on. There's so much to get stuck into that I ended up having way more fun being able to check it out at my leisure, rather than being confined to only do so much before I had to get on with the plot. But I eventually ran out and was still into the game enough that I decided to check out the "New Power Awakens" DLC that was bundled in with the Switch port. It was originally released as two parts, and is so segregated from the main game that you have to return to the main game via a magic portal. I'm considering them as a single DLC in this instance since you can't play the second part without completing the first despite it being selectable from the start. It's strange.
In fact, strange is the best way to describe this DLC. It's a very broad retelling of the two Dragon Ball Z movies Battle of Gods and Resurrection 'F' (which would be retold as the first two story arcs in the Dragon Ball Super anime), with its main focus placed on Goku and Vegeta training to achieve stronger forms. However, it's essentially a set-up for having you grind to ludicrously high levels, in a manner that the main game never encouraged. Training with Whis gives you items that can give you loads of EXP, making you replay the training fights (and later on the brand new horde fights where you deal with dozens of opponents) plenty of times to get those items.
There's a couple of new locales, transformations and attacks to use, and even a couple of neat boss fights against Beerus and Freeza at the conclusion of both parts, but they feel quite bare-bones otherwise. I get the impression that CyberConnect2 were only able to make so much content for this, and had to add some element to lengthen these out or people would beat them in about an hour and yell about having to pay for what essentially feels like post-post-game stuff. It works in that manner, even if it is weirdly segregated from the main game (man, I wish I could take Goku's training costume into the main game).
Vanquish (Xbox 360; First Time; 4 hours 47 minutes)
I got this game back in early 2017 and got as far as the first fight against Victor. I finished that session with the plan of returning to it, but I stopped playing all games I was juggling which had a focus on violence or killing, and this fell by the wayside as a result. It's a pretty cool cover shooter, giving you the ability to slow down time to more accurately aim and boost around to reach cover/enemies more quickly. The combat scenarios do a good job at providing plenty of variety with locales, level layouts, enemies, set-pieces and the works, while also pacing the game at a blisteringly quick rate. There's always something new around the corner, and I appreciate how both that pacing and the surprisingly good cutscene direction as are as fast-paced as the gameplay itself.
Also, I love that Sam will often be seen with a cigarette when the camera cuts back to him during cutscenes; reminds me of how often that happened with Cobra in the Space Adventure Cobra TV series. The gruff gravelly voices for Sam and especially Burns (voiced by good ol' Steve Blum) are hilarious, in that particular way Japanese action games about American soldiers often are - taking the stoic but with cheeky quips aplenty vibe from 80s action heroes and ratcheting it up to eleven.
That said, I think I'm gonna stop playing shooters with "one foot in front of the other"-styled journeys that progress you seamlessly from one end of the game to the next. Playing this, Republic Commando and F.E.A.R. in such close proximity of each other has made me feel the same vibes of the game running out of steam early on (even though that's absolutely not true for Vanquish), and I feel I'd do well to play games that more distinctively segment their sections.
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Post by dsparil on Oct 16, 2022 8:55:40 GMT -5
Nier: Automata — The End of YoRHa Edition (Switch, First Time) Very, very overrated. I can kinda see where the good reviews come from, but I’m really left scratching my head. My main issue is with the core gameplay. This is an absurdly easy game to the point that it’s painfully boring. Without dissecting every last thing, one of the main problems is the dodge which is completely spammable and grants invincibility with no downside. Dodge around in between attacking and you’ll take minimal damage. The second problem is that the skill chips you can equip make it even easier. Regeneration, leeching health on hit, and healing on enemy death will keep you completely healed all the times even at low chip levels; they go up to +8 and lower levels can be fused into higher ones. Other chips are basically worthless at low levels e.g. Critical Up because they barely do anything until they’re very high level but not the ones related to healing. I didn’t do this except to test it, but you might as well play the game on Easy with the Auto-Attack, Auto-Fire and Auto-Evade chips set and let it mostly play itself. You’ll save on controller wear and get something flashy to look at even though it makes combat take longer. The occasional vertical and twin stick shooter elements are okay, but the twin stick hacking mini game is awful. It has a finickiness that the regular twin stick portions don’t have and that’s the one you see the most. People do complain about the gameplay some, but praise the story which I don’t get. The story from start to finish has too many holes, unexplained elements and feels too reliant on twists that don’t make sense. The middle portion in particular is absolute padding that does next to nothing to really justify its inclusion. On paper, there’s potential here but it’s presented in a poor way. What redeems this ever so slightly is the real ending. In an interview with Siliconera a few year ago, Taro said this: (this probably is a spoiler) This isn’t the first time you’ve played around with deleting save data. Why do you feel this is such a big deal for players? Why offer this sacrifice?
When I was young, I was playing Dragon Quest. As I was shifting the cartridge around, my save data completely disappeared. I was very shocked about it, but my parents didn’t share that kind of sentiment. They didn’t understand what the issue was. We were talking about the same exact thing, but my parents didn’t understand whereas I was extremely distressed about the situation. That made me question what the difference was between the reactions to the same situation, which was kind of the origin of the idea.
There’s also another reason that’s more recent. When I was developing the original NieR, that was when a lot of people were starting to post their gameplay videos on YouTube, and that was gaining a lot of popularity at the time. It became a slight issue, at least least in Japan, because a lot of people were experiencing games just by viewing them.
I am accepting of this. I understand that, as technology evolves, there are going to be new ways people enjoy different mediums. That said, for people who are paying full price for a particular game, if they’re experiencing the same thing as someone who’s just watching it on YouTube, I don’t feel that is quite right. So, I believe this particular experience is a special experience that only people who play through the game are going to really understand. I believe that it adds value to the player’s experience. This is something that people who are just watching won’t quite understand to the same degree as people who have spent time and played through the game.
So, that was one of the reasons why I included this kind of deletion of save data into the entire structure. I wanted something that could only be experienced by a player who invested so much time into playing the game. (this is also a spoiler) Having the real ending locked behind a bullet hell variation of the hacking mini-game where you blow up the credits was a mean move to a certain extent. You do have checkpoints, and the most substantial thing is being able to request “assistance” from other players which vastly increases your firepower and I think might make you invincible. It’s not suddenly a multiplayer game, you get extra ships in a tight formation. Then to find out that all that help was from people that willingly had the game delete their saves made it feel a lot more special. I rarely replay anything so I gave it up without much thought, but I extra don’t plan on ever replaying this so I hope that helps someone out. That almost made everything worth it. So in the end, I maybe didn’t feel like I totally wasted my time but I didn’t exactly enjoy that time either for a variety of reasons. It’s mainly that this definitely goes out on a high note instead of petering out. My last save was at 24:35:25. Rating: 6
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Post by dsparil on Oct 17, 2022 14:13:17 GMT -5
God-Fighter Zeroigar (PC-FX, First Time)
The only shooter to grace the PC-FX, and it's actually really good. It also has a full fan translation which really surprised me.
I finished in 02:32:33.
Rating: 9
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