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Post by personman on Oct 17, 2022 15:26:26 GMT -5
Bucky O' Hare (NES, emulated on 3DS; replay; 2 hours) I think I got this for a good report card or something. Was always curious of the actual series behind this one back then because I thought it looked real cool but now more out of morbid curiosity because its uh... dorky beyond belief lol. I do recall watching a couple episodes of the short lived show and most I can remember is it having a hilariously unfortunate script ("Give me all your willies!") that and back when Devinatart was one of my main haunts I followed an artist who also just happened to be a part of a sizeable fan fiction community who made their own extended universe of the thing which is just kinda adorable lol. Anyways, the game itself: I've seen a few people review this one over the years and people seem pretty luke warm on it commonly taking issue with it swiping ideas from a ton of other popular NES games. You've got the Quick man lasers in the form of lava floes, the goddamn Wily blocks are here and you bet its over a field of spikes, You've got those giant snakes you use as platforms like a level from Battletoads, and I remember reading that many later gimmicks are cribbed from Ninja Gaiden which I can't confirm, never tried that one. The last level is a shmup too so I guess you can make a stretch and say since its Konami they're ripping them selves off. I guess. But that's just the thing, it mimics are good stuff (mostly) and it's not like its straight plagiarism either. The level design is really good and I can't help but smile that damn near every single screen has a goofy gimmick to it and most of them work. However it may turn people off as the game is like one big huge trial and error gauntlet especially the later half of the game where every other screen is like a puzzle almost. Enemies don't really pose a threat at all but stage hazards on the other hand are out for blood and you're going to get nailed by them constantly. It very much has that old 'We're not letting you beat this in a rental' energy. But in actuality you can quite easily with a little persistence since the start of every single room is a checkpoint so you don't have to worry about being set back too far and continues are infinite. Personally I think it ends up balancing out what would have been infuriating and making it pretty alright. You're mileage may vary of course because it certainly does its fair share of cheap crap you have to know is coming. You also get four characters to switch between on the fly and I'm always a fan of having options to tackle challenges or meeting a stages' demand for certain abilities. They vary in their usefulness though, Bucky is an all arounder and has a hi jump that was more useful than I remember it, Blinky clears certain blocks and can fly, though it is lame you have to pretty much do the Green planet first for him. Deadeye has a spread shot which is kinda nice and he can climb up walls but I never found much use for him outside of the second to last stage, Willy has is all offense and is nearly your best boss killer with a Megaman charge shot, only there are few cases you can use it since he has to sit still for it. Then Jenny ends up being the best for bosses since her charge summons a ball of destruction you can control while you sit out of harms way. They aren't the best cast for certain but I found them all decent enough at the end of the day. Game looks real good as well. Erm, actually the backgrounds look real good, the characters look real simplified and weird to make up for them. Willy for instance is making that tiny mouth Kirby face when he looks confused or something. Deadeye looks like some kinda fish in a hat and I swear anything Blinky does just looks indiscernible. Kinda bugs me but also makes me laugh. The soundtrack is great though and so many of these tunes have played in the back of my head for many years. It's really energetic and matches the games aesthetic perfectly. Couple of my favorites: I'll admit have a soft spot for this one. I played this a ton back in the day and I've always found it fun because despite how much of a jerk it can be it lets you just get right back up and try again. As such I don't find it stressful like even some of my favorite older titles can be. It's nothing amazing, hell you can even argue for it being C tier but if so I say its at the very least C+. If you wanna try something off the beaten path give it an afternoon maybe. Rating-7
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Oct 18, 2022 16:42:10 GMT -5
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Trunks: Warrior of Hope (Switch; First Time; 3 hours 38 minutes)
This is the third bit of DLC for Kakarot, which follow the story of Trunks from the Cell arc who travels back in time to change the past and prevent his hellish future where Androids No. 17 and 18 wreak havoc. It's a composite retelling of the Trunks TV special where he trains under Gohan as a young man and his ending in the Cell arc where he's able to finally change his future for the better, along with a bonus chapter that tells a scenario exclusively covered in the Dragon Ball Super manga.
Thankfully, it's nothing like "New Power Awakens" as it's a fully fleshed out expansion pack with a whole host of main quests, side stories, fully animated cutscenes and a bunch of boss battles that do some really cool stuff. Mostly, it's a continuation of the flashy finishers seen with the Beerus and Freeza boss fights, but then there's excellent moments that I'd actually rather not spoil since the surprise is partially what makes them so impressive. I was really struck by the quality of this expansion, and its short length means that it's able to maintain a much more consistent quality than the main game's post-Saiyan arcs.
I also really appreciated the side-quests bringing more elements back from the early parts of Dragon Ball, such as Master Roshi being a proper martial arts master again by teaching Trunks about how his potential to improve in body and soul compared to the Androids (in the main game, Roshi's mainly a comic relief who sometimes makes pervy jokes, with how limited his role is by this point in the series). Made going out to find them more satisfying despite sometimes being mechanically repetitive; I can't believe they had two side-quests in a row that involved you going out to sea, then having to return home and collect materials for Blooma to invent something for you, and then go back out to sea!
And with that, I've finished pretty much everything in Kakarot that's currently there. I've no idea whether I'll try to grab the Bardock expansion and the later DLCs (which I hope are also fully fleshed expansions) whenever those come out. But despite the mid-game slump around the Freeza and Cell arcs, I've come back round to appreciating Kakarot as a shallow but fun action-RPG to dabble in. Definitely most fan when you've got the freedom to explore, find sub-quests, do training and all that jazz. Thanks for the birthday present, bro. Sorry it took so long to get round to.
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Post by personman on Oct 19, 2022 4:11:29 GMT -5
Rocket Knight Adventures (Genesis, emulated on 3DS; first time; 4 hours)
Always heard a bunch about this one, even managed to snag a copy a while back but just never got around to playing it before it eventually got sold off with much of my collection. I won't lie at first I didn't care for this one, I had a hard time getting used to when to dash and it does have a fair amount of cheap stuff towards the end. I game over'd and had to start over like four times, game is no joke. I think it came off as a bit of a shock since I've been spending so much time with familiar and more relaxed stuff lately and it got on my nerves. However once I started learning its tricks I enjoyed it much more and each run got easier. It was just that last level that stuck in my craw lol.
The level design seemed a bit haphazard at first but I think its more me than anything. It's pretty clear they took a lot of influence from Sonic and I think that made my brain instantly think 'oh this game is all about going fast!' and it took me a minute to figure out that you need to be much more more judicial with it. It has some nifty flourishes like a cavern of rising... amber? that will reflect you and the platforms where the foreground is blinding you. There is some finesse you can learn with the dash since you're in invincible while jetting around or spinning in place so your offense can be used for defense too. Pretty nifty. Only things I don't care for are the shmup segments. They aren't terrible and I eventually was able to handle them with relative ease but the hitboxes are way too big for the crap they want you to weave in between, especially on stage 5. Appreciate the Gradius homage though.
The last stage is rather overboard. Like its mostly a boss gauntlet, first encounter is easy then there are some annoying enemies after him. Then you fight your rival and he is just a goddamn bastard I tell you. Then he has a second phase where he's mostly off screen and hard to track, not too great. Then once you manage that you get much more damage sponge enemies before moving on to the last boss who... also is zooming around off screen all the time and makes hitting his moving weak point an absolutely bitch. Ugh, he's easier than the duel with the rival though. Finally beat him after like 20 hits and you... get pursued by them in one last act of spite and he is pretty damn ruthless. Lose to them here and you have to fight the whole last boss over again. Alright... partner, you did enough, settle down. Hell this all takes place on a space station, there are way too many bosses, said bosses have a ton of phases and health then the final boss has one last desperate stab at you while you fall back to earth. Yep, we found the prototype to the last stage of Metal Slug 3. Yes this is truth, this is what I believe, at least for now. * blank face *
Anyways, its a charming game and you can tell they put a lot of love into this one. There's little animated intermissions, it does the Sonic 3 thing where they pantomime a little story and heck, I think I heard they wanted make Sparkster Konami's mascot when mascots were all the rage in the 90s. That certainly didn't play out for damn sure. Bit of a shame this didn't see much success, there's real heart to it and I can't help but love how it looks like a playable saturday morning cartoon. You can tell it was trying to ride on Sonic's coat tails which you think would have helped grab attention, I mean Sparkster looks like an Archie Sonic character really lol. While I think it has its issues I can easily see why it has such a positive reputation. Good stuff, think I'll plan on trying the sequels sometime. Well, maybe not the 2010 reboot that looked pretty bad.
Rating-8
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Post by spanky on Oct 19, 2022 6:18:04 GMT -5
Rocket Knight is easily the best of the Sonic clones. I mean that's not hard when your competition is Bubsy, Awesome Possum etc...
The sequel is worth checking out too. It's actually 2 entirely different games depending on the platform.
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Post by dsparil on Oct 19, 2022 7:16:00 GMT -5
Meteor Blaster (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
One of the earliest TG16 (since it's American) home-brew games from 2003. Developer MindRec is possibly the earliest homebrew developer at least for commercial games. This is an Asteroids clone and a sort of prelude to the CD-based DX version from the following year which has some gameplay enhancements. That one is also 99 levels versus 25 which is more Asteroids than I can handle. The full DX version is commercially available while the earlier one is freeware. I did order DX ($13) and Hypernova Blast ($18), the developer's other shooter. In all honestly, it did feel a little sketchy because MindRec's website has some functionality issues, but the payment goes through PayPal and they did put out a collection of games this year. I haven't received them yet, but I'll note in the other thread once I actually do. I wish they were on Itch.io like Atlantean because I really do not need a physical copy.
I finished in 00:19:54.
Rating: 7 because I'll be nice
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Post by lurker on Oct 19, 2022 23:58:48 GMT -5
The music's great, too...
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Oct 20, 2022 17:12:36 GMT -5
Space Harrier (Originally on Arcade, beaten on Xbox 360; Replay; 24 minutes)
Was kinda bored and itching to play something on the 360, so I pulled out the ol' reliable Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection and messed around with some of the bonus arcade games you can unlock. While Zaxxon and Fantasy Zone were unmitigated disasters (on account of how crap I am at shmups), I managed to beat Space Harrier on the easy difficulty and only using 8 or 9 continues. Space Harrier's a fun enough game to blast through, listening to that awesome theme tune and ducking, weaving and shooting your way at what can sometimes feel like a million miles an hour. Some stages were a bit too tricky for me, especially when sticking the insta-kill columns in tight packs, but I managed to get through pretty okay otherwise.
I recall beating this about a decade ago, and going by the "2 continues per stage" rule and considering there's 18 stages, there's no way I could've used up 36 continues in that session despite being considerably worse at the game than I am now. So I'll consider this as a nice little replay to cap off the evening.
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Post by dsparil on Oct 21, 2022 8:36:45 GMT -5
Meteor Blaster DX (TurboGrafx-CD, First Time)
For science I had to finish this. One of the things that this adds over the original is boss battles and those really kill the pace. It's the same boss over and over and the area you have to hit is tiny despite the giant sprite. The levels are over in seconds, but the boss can take ten minutes because of its ridiculous sponginess.
I finished in 03:07:52.
Rating: 5, really play the freeware one instead and buy DX if you want to through the developer some money
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Oct 21, 2022 15:25:09 GMT -5
1943: The Battle of Midway (Originally on Arcade, beaten on Switch; First Time; 46 minutes)
I ended up having a few hours to myself today and after getting some stuff done, I got the itch to try out another arcade game I could beat within a single session. So I downloaded the free games that come with the 1st and 2nd versions of Capcom's Arcade Stadium collections, 1943: The Battle of Midway and SonSon, and gave the former a try. I moaned briefly last night on the HG101 discord about my distaste for shmups, but I wanted to try and disprove that somehow by giving this game a shot since it offered various difficulty options and unlimited continues (something not offered by Zaxxon and Fantasy Zone).
I managed to beat it, and it's actually not too bad. It's a basic enough game but offers some neat depth through mechanics like losing health when using the screen clear attacks and shooting at the POW icon to change whether you get health or one of several weapon types. That basicness is actually a great virtue for me, since I only have to focus on enemies or attacks appearing on one plane of the screen (compared to something like Xevious having you balance shooting ahead and bombing below). Even in terms of just playing it, I enjoyed the flow I got into of blasting away while ducking and weaving round enemies and their projectiles.
That said, I came away feeling not too great. Part of that is because of how long it is, going on for 16 stages, but without offering up enough variation in visuals or bosses to really justify that in my mind. The other problem is that even on the easiest difficulty, the game gets outrageously hard and overwhelms you with bullets and stuff. Even worse is how hilariously cruel it can be, with one example being how you get no invincibility time when you respawn, which often results in a plane crashing into you immediately and costing you some health. By the end, I was very done with the game and have no interest in playing it to completion again. But as something to fart around with for a few minutes, it's pretty good.
This is the first shmup I've ever beaten, and I'm happy to have done so.
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Post by dsparil on Oct 22, 2022 9:34:47 GMT -5
Immortals Fenyx Rising — The Lost Gods (Switch, First Time)
Pleasantly surprised by this one. First of all, the gameplay is very different including that it’s actually an overhead game. I really was not expecting that. Potions are gone, you can only save at Altars to the gods, upgrades are handled totally differently, and the upgrades themselves are in a completely different order. No gliding everywhere here! There’s more of a focus on collecting various resources, but this is mostly a non-issue past the beginning of the game since they are everywhere. For example, you have to use figs to even be able to save, but I ended up with ~150 left over by the end.
A bit of shame that this is locked as DLC to a game it’s only slightly tied to in story. It’s worth playing on its own. As a total collection, Immortals God Edition which rolls in the DLC is worth it for the $25 since you get two nice pieces of DLC.
I finished in 10:38:29.
Rating: 8
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Post by personman on Oct 22, 2022 13:41:16 GMT -5
Disney's Aladdin (Genesis, emulated on 3DS; first time; 2 hours) I've heard a good deal of discourse about the two versions of this game and I'm sure you have too. I never got a chance to try this till now so I just always ended up shrugging and going with the SNES version by default. Now that I've finally gotten around to playing through this will I switch sides? Well... not exactly. To put it bluntly this is a style over substance affair. Hit detection is sloppy, they make sacrifices to play feel for the sake of animation and the stages definitely have some readability issues. Like I lost nearly all nine of my lives in the first escape from the Cave of Wonders level on one single jump because I just plain couldn't see I had more platform to run on that blended into the lava background really well. You have a sword but half the time it feels useless against anything other than little flying enemies since its short range and wind up just invites more hits from guards and the like. However you get a plentiful supply of apples to toss at things and this is the main way you'll want to attack since they actually do damage rather than simply stunning things like the other game. It's even funnier that all the bosses save for one are immune to sword attacks so when Jafar turns into a big monster snake (actually not really big at all in this one, looks pretty dumb in fact) You just defeat him by pelting him with apples. You know what? Gold star lol. But at the same time it can't be denied that the SNES game is just so damn typical, like while its craft and care is clear it really never innovates on anything and there are some things that are just kinda tacked on and useless. Like the apples. This version on the other hand I noticed something: it's level design is more unique and the game felt like Earthworm Jim which lo and behold I looked it up and David Perry worked on it so that tracks. I really liked that game so I warmed up to this one too. His style of level design I always found neat because even if you rarely leave a critical path its sloping and zig zag nature makes the levels feel more explorative and such. It's solid stuff for what it is. Of course most people will cite the graphics and yeah there is no arguing that its a technical marvel. They had to make sacrifices though and while the environments still look fine for what they had to work with I still find the graphics in the SNES game far more richly detailed. Sure the animations are simpler but they are miles from bad either so honestly does it really look that much better? Besides the technical feat it achieved really I'd rather look at the SNES backgrounds, it just kinda bugged me most of them here were pretty much one color. And what is with the tone in this one? Like its far more jokey than I remember the movie or Disney itself being back then... am I remembering wrong? Like I think the tv show had a more comedic nature (man I watched that show like every week as a kid but can't remember anything about it lol) but still, you see a random stop sign in the dunes of the second stage, mickey mouse ears on piles of bones in the dungeon and even the dang crab from Little Mermaid is chained to a wall... uh? This feels way more like Looney Toons to me than Disney. It really bugged me when you finish a level and Al' does this: Again it's been years since I've seen the movie or the show but I remember him being a bit more of the straight man of the cast lol. This just seems a little out of character for him and again more like Looney Toons to me, they loved to revel in the 'neener neener' stuff. Alas, even the presentation I think was better in the SNES version, it follows the movie much closer for one, the last boss feels much more like a climax there than here where its more difficult but just kinda silly; and the music is far and above nicer to listen to I say. Probably not a popular opinion but I've never been a huge fan of Genesis FM synth and this doesn't do anything to win me over. So on a fundamental level I think Capcom's take on it is a decent step above. It looks more consistent, the mechanics are more polished and music more palatable. But, Virgin's take stands out far more and is just plain more interesting one way or another. Even if it's got some rough edges I never really found any spots that were really bad. It's solid all around and I suppose at the end of the day both are about neck and neck. If I had to pick one or the other with a blind fold on I wouldn't be upset ending up with either or. Neither of them are my favorites either though lol but I enjoyed them still and while I wouldn't call them anything but average the nostalgia that comes from the license will likely add to their worth for anyone growing up with them in the 90s. Rating-5 Now that I'm done with that I think it put me in the mood to revisit Earthworm Jim now. Have the Sega CD port waiting on my 3DS, should be interesting to see how that is since I've always been curious of it.
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Post by Woody Alien on Oct 22, 2022 15:36:38 GMT -5
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara (PC Windows, first time, about 3 hrs I think)
The Steam version of the collection of the two Capcom D&D-branded arcade brawlers from the 1990s, Tower of Doom and Shadow over Mystara. Had it bought long ago but only played for a short period of time, now years later I decided to get back to them and play them to the end. I can't say much about this collection since they don't do much with the original games, just some filters that kind of suck, a few modifiers, in-game stats and in-game achievements and challenges that give you points used to unlock concept art and other goodies related to the original arcade games. The games themselves are still quite good, especially the second one which is great: Capcom was really at the top of their game for arcades back then and as an official D&D product they really do a good job of giving the feel of a RPG campaign, with some cool character designs and BGM added. And purely as a brawler it's also cool that they had so much replayability with branching paths, multiple secrets, alternate skins for characters, etc.
I'm kind of sad that I didn't manage to play them back when they came out, I almost never managed to see them in the wild and also didn't have that many friends that enjoyed going to the arcade like me, also I didn't care at all about D&D at the time unlike your usual stereotyped geeky teen (only genuinely managed to play it for some time in my mid-late 20s).
I'm not giving a vote because the games are still great but there's not that much difference between this and playing them on MAME.
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Post by JoeQ on Oct 22, 2022 19:38:27 GMT -5
Marathon 2: Durandal (Windows) - Replay, Time: about 8h, Rating: 4/5Originally played the XBLA port over a decade ago. The most beloved entry of the Marathon series and for good reason... mostly. It builds on the foundation of the first game and delivers a uniquely ambitious (for it's time) story and mission based FPS in a time when other doomclones were content with "lol whatever just kill everything". It has it's shortcomings and questionable design choices for sure, particularly in the later levels, but I've always had a big soft spot for the series.
Now I'm finally ready to play Marathon Infinity, the most divisive and wildly ambitious game in the series. Alphabet Challenge: ABCDEFGH-JKLM-OPQRST------ Number Challenge: --234--7--
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Post by spanky on Oct 22, 2022 20:02:01 GMT -5
personman Your review is making me want to try the game again. The game was a massive hit in it's day and won all kinds of awards...and while I was blown away by the graphics I remember the game itself feeling sort of sloppy.
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Post by personman on Oct 22, 2022 22:52:30 GMT -5
It's a decent time! Just despite its success I wouldn't call it a classic by any means lol.
Just noticed there is a little known Game Gear version that the site says is pretty good for what it is. May have to add that to my list as well.
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