|
Post by spanky on Jan 21, 2022 12:37:06 GMT -5
Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back (PS4, First Time, 100%)
This is an improvement over the original in pretty much every way. It's much easier, but after how punishing the original is, especially in this collection, that's hardly a bad thing. Notice I said easier, not necessarily easy. It's a pretty tough game, especially if you're going for 100 percent completion. The port here is nice enough to give you hints on how to find some of the gems which I appreciate (I would have just looked them up otherwise).
The slide, crouch, belly flop and long jump are all welcome additions but the fact they all use the same button can cause problems. The slide ostensibly lets you move faster but if you hold the button for a hair too long, you'll go into a crouch animation which cause me to die several times. The hit detection and control still feel a little off in this port but it's much better than the first game. Thankfully it is pretty generous with extra lives. The game also remembers the number of times you've died at a particular checkpoint and gives you masks if you die a certain amount of times. This holds even if you leave the level and come back later.
This is still a little rough around the edges and I'm not sure if that's the game itself or the port. Regardless, I did enjoy my time with this. Onto Warped! 8/10.
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 21, 2022 19:50:24 GMT -5
Archlion Saga (Switch; First Time; 1 hour 55 minutes)
I was having an arse-ache trying to find games I could play without stumbling into frustrating nonsense, and decided to look up more Kemco games published on the Switch to see if there was something as easy as Frane: Dragons' Odyssey. Among the 40-odd games they've published, I chose this one as it prided itself as an easy "pocket-RPG" (the first in a series of games in this style afaik) where the combat is really simple, you can turn on a breadcumb trail to see where you need to go, and you never need to worry about grinding. It's not often you see a game openly boasting about its core appeal being that it can be beaten in a few hours without stressing out the player, so I gave it a bash.
Forget Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest, this is a real beginner's RPG! There's no sidequests and only two very simple navigation puzzles, you just pick attack/guard and occasionally special moves that charge up every few moves, you have a pendant that always restores some health and cures silence, and you can easily find stars that can give you extra XP following a battle or resurrect you at full strength. If you just want the basic gist of an RPG without spending ages on a single dungeon, then this really is the game for you. Mind you, it's not particularly compelling mechanically as battles eventually become a war of attrition - restoring your health and dealing enough attacks until the enemy goes down - but it's fine enough for what it is.
Letters covered: #A--D-F------------S-----Y-
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 21, 2022 20:11:50 GMT -5
I liked Archlion Saga when I played it. It's like a full length game squished down to two hours. The second and so far only other game in this series, Everdark Tower, isn't as good though and it's more like a padded side quest. It's been two and a half years since that one and I get the feeling Kemco quietly decided to not pursue the series. It is a shame because there is a space for quick RPGs which otherwise was only filled with action RPGs like the earlier Ys games.
|
|
|
Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 21, 2022 21:24:14 GMT -5
Super Robot Wars 30 NS FTP 72 hours
Whew! That was a long one. Fun but a bit too easy. Mostly the game devolves into using your favorite units to see how quickly you can destroy the enemy. Nothing like taking out the final boss in two hits on turn one!
Most of my familiarity with the series is from the Atlus localized OG games on GBA. Easily two of my favorite games on the system. Those benefit from not having to be familiar with a dozen plus anime series to understand what is happening. Most of the story in 30 is based around Gundam U.C. but then the events of every other anime featured also took place or is being told throughout the story. This is a really shitty world. Were talking multiple alien invasions, world wars, space wars, and the infamous colony drop. Some of these series are presented well and that works for them. Like say Brave Police J-Decker introduces the characters origins and tells the story so you understand the premise without having to watch a bunch of random anime from the 90s. GaoGaiGar does not do this. Anytime GaoGaiGar events were happening I just WTF. Probably wouldn't have picked Gundam Victory for a big 30th celebration game either...
For the most part the game is just stupid fun. Blow stuff up with your favorite overpowered units. I wish they still had SR points in stages to give some incentive to play well. The game is probably too long as well and I don't like how the end pretty much tells you to buy the DLC to conclude the story. Still a recommend for robot anime fans.
|
|
|
Post by alexmate on Jan 22, 2022 10:52:30 GMT -5
Left 4 Dead 2 (Windows, 1st time, Timer: 8h21) Really good, but more of the same.
Rating: 7
|
|
|
Post by Apollo Chungus on Jan 22, 2022 18:46:06 GMT -5
I liked Archlion Saga when I played it. It's like a full length game squished down to two hours. The second and so far only other game in this series, Everdark Tower, isn't as good though and it's more like a padded side quest. It's been two and a half years since that one and I get the feeling Kemco quietly decided to not pursue the series. It is a shame because there is a space for quick RPGs which otherwise was only filled with action RPGs like the earlier Ys games. Dang, that does suck. There's a pretty decent concept with the "pocket RPG" series that you could use as a basic framework to tell different stories or try new things, without the weight of having to make a dozen-hour game looming over you. And yeah, I'd also be up for more quick RPGs; actual quick RPGS, not games that are """short""" for the genre but still go on for 10-15 hours. Maybe it's worth looking round and compiling a basic list of short RPGs that are seven hours max, for people who'd like to play an RPG without making a massive commitment (even 10 hours can be a commitment). Until then, I've got another game to add to the list: Black Belt Challenge (Game Boy Advance; First Time; 1 hour 27 minutes) I recently decided to try and beat a game under every letter in the alphabet for fun, since I realized that every game I'd beaten so far has had a different letter. (I'm gonna re-edit my earlier posts to reflect this.) For today, I went with a GBA-exclusive fighting game made by Guerilla Games of Killzone and Horizon fame, which I'd grabbed some time ago since it was a Dutch video game and I thought about covering it for HG101. No idea if I will do that, but I will say for the moment that it's a pretty decent fighter. There's plenty of variety with the characters' playstyles (though some like Bingo and Stahfelder suck), and the combat works well enough even if I find it a bit too underdeveloped.
The thing that stood out to me is how on every difficulty but the very hardest, opponents are not aggressive at all. You can very easily use your special attacks to juggle your opponents over and over until they go down, and they won't do a thing to break out of it. That made playing through the arcade mode a bit of a slog, which had me resorting to listening to Top Gear compilation videos after a while. On the upside, I like how the challenge mode gives you coins to unlock pieces of concept art; that's a neat way to keep folks playing and encouraging them to learn how the game works.
Letters covered: #AB-D-F------------S-----Y-
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 23, 2022 9:47:25 GMT -5
Saints Row IV: Re-Elected (Switch, First Time)
I was expecting a game where you play as the president fighting off an alien invasion and instead got a quasi-superhero game where you mainly fight off aliens inside a simulation after being captured by them. That’s fine although the potential for a light grand strategic element à la X-COM feels a little wasted. The larger issue is that grafting super powers onto a GTA clone leads to nearly every weapon being pointless along with nearly every vehicle. There is some genuinely fun gameplay like the non-combat related superpower challenges, but there’s also a lot tedious elements and combat in general is the worst part of the game especially against the Warden mini-bosses.
This was significantly buggier on release, but a frightening large number of missions freeze in the loading screen after completing them. I had to replay the third to last one no less than five times until it finally decided to complete and an earlier one three times as it kept trying to play an unrelated cutscene while the game was still loading. Anecdotally, any mission from the second half of the game can be like this.
Another problem I had is that the game basically expects you to have played earlier ones in the series as it isn’t particularly plot heavy and leans on prior knowledge to really know who any of the characters are. You do get bits of summary, but it didn’t feel like enough. It’s also a little too crass for my liking. In a world where Bully doesn’t exist (or any of the Lego games), the lack of self seriousness would be refreshing, this simply doesn’t have a story that counterbalances that. I’m not saying that a game like this needs to be lighter in tone, but Bully for example scopes a full crime narrative into a school while this goes bigger but drops a lot along the way.
I suspect the root cause of my issues with this game come down to it originally being conceived as an expansion titled Enter the Dominatrix to the previous game that got blown out to a full game; some supposed bits from that version are a piece of DLC for this and is interspersed with some interviews with the characters. The alien aspect and superpowers became the focus, but then it seems like not enough got added into the game. I got 100% task completion and around 300 of the ~1200 collectibles (mainly points to upgrade your powers) for an overall total of 86% along with both pieces of DLC, and I still didn’t even crack 20 hours to give a sense of how little overall content there is. I only paid $2.79 so I don’t feel like I wasted my money, and I did still feel compelled enough to finish the whole thing which counts for something.
I finished in 17:46.
Rating: 6
|
|
|
Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 23, 2022 12:06:13 GMT -5
Super Mario Bros. NES replay 30 minutes
Mega Man 2 NES replay 1.5 hours Difficult Mode
I definitely prefer later Mega Man games to the first two. The addition of the slide in 3 adds a lot to the game play. Sure most of 2 is pretty easy (outside of Heatman's block stage without Item-2) but some of the boss patterns feel too random making perfect runs or Mega Buster only (outside of the last boss...) runs tricky. Quickman being a primary example. Some of Airmans shots seem impossible to avoid as well. Later games bosses have stronger defined patterns that make them more fun to play against. Mega Man 2 is still fun though.
|
|
|
Post by personman on Jan 24, 2022 13:25:29 GMT -5
Geez, things have been so insane I haven't had time or energy for anything. Instead of bumping last years thread since the moment has passed I just wanted to say a thank you to dsparil for your work. Compiling all that stuff is no mean feat and its been a boon to me to have a space to do my ramblings on what I've played once more without getting chewed out (except when I forget what isometric means lol)
Anyhow, first entry of the year:
Megaman Legends (PSX, emulated on 3DS; replay; 33 hours)
This game blew my mind back in the day. Sure, by that time we saw a few series make the leap from 2d to 3d but Megaman was my bread and butter back then, MM2 was one of the first games I ever played, I replayed MMX and its sequel religiously, even if I only got to play about 5 of the games in the series it probably took up more than half of my gaming time. As such seeing it move forward like this had a much bigger impact on me than say Mario 64 did. I loved this one a ton and honestly I still really like it. But does it hold up in the grand scheme of things? Eh, sorta.
It has some big problems, most will likely site the controls just plain being old which is fair. I personally got used to them really quickly but I can see how many would get hung up on them with how fidgety they can be and turning about with the shoulder buttons is rather sluggish. Combine this with the fact that the game has a weird front loaded start that is actually pretty overwhelming to new comers I could easily see many being turned off of the game which is plenty fair especially saving the Capital district from the pirate attack. That really was way too much to ask of people just getting used to the game, and back then people were still getting used to 3d games on top of it. Thankfully the secret to success is pretty simple to pick up on: don't bother locking on, the auto aim of the buster in this one is so generous you really never need to do it and that way you can keep moving. It was really wise they did that for the time and once you learn to leverage that the whole game becomes a hell of a lot easier.
In fact after the big pirate attack in the beginning the whole game just kind of rolls over really. So long as you take you time to scour everywhere and find what weapons you can get and upgrade your gear you'll be ready for anything it throws at you. I never got a gameover once in this replay, I mean I played the thing to death back in the day so maybe I can't really gauge how difficult it is anymore but I have a feeling most wouldn't have too much trouble with it. Which is fine really because while I wouldn't call the gameplay bad its really held up by its charm. While I can't really make a claim since I really don't know anime well at all I get the feeling this series whole feel is modeled after classic anime. Like the real old stuff, Tatsunoko stuff maybe? Like, plucky good guys meeting a new community and helping them out, goofy villians who flirt with being a bit more chaotic neutral, the protagonist having a shrouded past without being mopey about it. That sort of thing. I really find the whole thing very charming even today with lovable hammy voice acting you get the feeling they were all too excited about the prospect of having so much voice dialogue in a game to really care about how awful most of it is, ha. Tiesel steals the show completely (though the guy who voiced him was a garbage human being. go figure) though I got a kick out of everyone. Save for Roll, her deliveries are bad enough to be annoying, especially her over used '...Huh...?' that just makes her sound like shes high.
But the whole package just has an enthusiasm about it, the city had a bunch of nice little details you'd expect from a rpg, it has a nice sense of space. Hell all the optional ruins are completely connected too which... I just realized... fully connected game world? MML is the Dark Souls of Megaman! *Price is Right theme*, hoo boy, I should start a Youtube channel! (no I shouldn't). I even just like that they bothered to model the interior of a lot of vehicles and stuff that only get used in one shot of a cutscene, that's just a kind of effort I don't see as much these days. Then you have that little morality system tack on that I just find amusing for how ludicrous it is to put in a Megaman game, ha. Otherwise only a couple more things stood out to me: one, the game is so weirdly paced that its both front loaded AND back loaded via the side content. You pretty much don't get the chance to do all the side quest till the game is about over which also means you won't be seeing the lion share of the special weapons either which is really sad. The system for developing them all perfectly goes hand in hand with encouraging you to explore and go find stuff but again, you don't really get the chance till you really don't need them. Whats worse is they needed to give another pass over how much money it costs to upgrade the things because good lord its way too spendy. I stubbornly farmed money to get everything maxed out and it took about a week and a half to get it all done. It's like they expected the game to go on longer or something. And two: the level design is either good or lack luster depending on how you look at it. The main dungeons are completely linear affairs with not too much going on in them. If you want to look at the game trying to be Zelda (though MML was before OoT but you know how people are) then I can see why one wouldn't be too jazzed about them. Personally, even if the game isn't just trying to be Megaman in 3d, having such levels works just fine for a Megaman game. Would I have liked more Zelda like dungeons? Sure and I think the sequels do that to a point; but otherwise I believe they're fine.
That's probably the best way to describe the game these days. It's fine I say. Would I recommend it? Maybe to a Megaman fan if they haven't played it since its one of the weirder spin offs in the franchise. Anyone else? Eeeeehhhhh probably not but... I still think the thing is so charming I may tell someone to try it so long as they can stomach some retro jank, after all its short enough that one wouldn't lose too much time giving it a play through (I was just being a completionist) and you have to admit you could do so much worse than this on the Playstation. SO much worse.
Rating: 6 , if one tempers expectations I think about everyone could have fun with it. Not a must play by any means but it won't kill anybody if they get curious.
|
|
|
Post by Snake on Jan 24, 2022 14:09:51 GMT -5
I played the the SNES version of Knights of the Round as a kid. It was perfect rental fodder - a game that might have been a slightly disappointing 70 dollar purchase but made a killer weekend rental. Piccolo going to Burger King?! ^__^ Totally. It's not bad as 2-player fare to play with friends from time-to-time. On the other hand, paying $70 and keeping it in reasonable condition, you could turn around and hock it for like, $300 today. Seems like SNES games are fetching a fair premium these days. Exile, Turbografx CD (replay, finished in approx 2.5 hours).
Haven't played this game in over 2 decades. It was nice to revisit, and get the references to history and real-life places and historic figures (though some names are exactly spelled correctly -- like Backos is likely Bacchus). One of Working Designs early translations, that isn't half bad; before they went overboard with creative liberties in localization. The game itself took a bit of grinding. I was dying to often in the first stage, but it got too easy where I never used items either. I spent a bit too much time wandering aimlessly at one point, since there are times where you need to backtrack to trigger an event for progress. A decent action/adventure title. 7/10. Death Smiles, arcade (1st time, approx. 30 minutes)
This game was seriously too easy for a Japanese 2-D, danmaku bullet hell title. Power-ups are miniscule, and rapid fire just needs a hold-down of a button. Colorful, vibrant, fun backdrops and enemies, if gothic lolita witches are one's speed. 7/10. Final Fight, arcade, (replay, approx. 41 minutes)
Straightforward, revisit. Still the best version visually and pacing wise, though Sega/Mega CD port has the best music and voice-overs. Mike Haggar is my character I find, though I found myself switching to Cody more than Guy for his reach. 7/10. Fighting Street, Turbografx CD/Street Fighter, arcade. (replay, approx 35 minutes, and 30 minutes)
Oh man, what a product of the late 1980's. Playing the Turbografx "Fighting Street" version of Street Fighter, the pros are the insanely cool music! Though the pacing of transition between fights takes too long, and the button responsive nes is just not there. Especially when the gameplay is wittled down to 2 buttons. I found myself keeps the buttons on turbo, and just mashing to get hadokens and shoryukens out. Which basically made the last 2 fights against Adon and Sagat a crap shoot. The original first Street Fighter plays "smoother," but still clunky, less responsive special moves. The game really shows its age, compared to Street Fighter 2 and later games. Out of all the characters, I would have liked to see Retsu, Geki, Joe, and Lee have some kind of comeback in a new Street Fighter game. 6/10.
|
|
|
Post by spanky on Jan 24, 2022 20:46:35 GMT -5
I played the the SNES version of Knights of the Round as a kid. It was perfect rental fodder - a game that might have been a slightly disappointing 70 dollar purchase but made a killer weekend rental. Piccolo going to Burger King?! ^__^ Totally. It's not bad as 2-player fare to play with friends from time-to-time. On the other hand, paying $70 and keeping it in reasonable condition, you could turn around and hock it for like, $300 today. Seems like SNES games are fetching a fair premium these days. Lol, that picture is fanart of this odd scene. Dude I had a mid sized toy store in my town and I bought so many mid to late era SNES games off their clearance rack in the 2nd half of the 90s. Stuff like Sparkster that goes for a mint nowadays. Of course I didn't keep most of them around. I remember they had a stack of Earthbounds for 20 dollars that nobody bought.
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 25, 2022 5:23:52 GMT -5
Megaman Legends (PSX, emulated on 3DS; replay; 33 hours)It has some big problems, most will likely site the controls just plain being old which is fair. I personally got used to them really quickly but I can see how many would get hung up on them with how fidgety they can be and turning about with the shoulder buttons is rather sluggish. I played a tiny bit of Legends last year, and remapping the shoulder buttons to a right stick works out okay. Not as well as it does for King's Field, but it does clean up the controls somewhat.
|
|
|
Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 25, 2022 19:27:29 GMT -5
Doki Doki Literature Club Plus NS FTP 6 hours Charming? A neat game but the big warnings you get when opening the game on console kind of give it away. I did get the true ending. Not near as disturbing as advertised either...The main gimmick is neat and I dug the heartwarming ending song. Some of the stuff just had me laughing though. Yuri stabbing herself, the graphical glitches, and the random hateful speech. The game isn't long enough to delve into issues like Sayuri's depression in any meaningful way. I'm sure the game is a bit more fascinating playing it on a desktop blind where you have no idea what to expect. Going in I heard it was a bit disturbing and that probably was enough to ruin the impact. It is still enjoyable and well made. If you can stomach the(intentionally) bad poetry.
|
|
|
Post by Woody Alien on Jan 26, 2022 9:25:18 GMT -5
Project Kat - Paper Lily Prologue (PC Windows, first time, about 45 minutes)
Yet another free Steam game, this time a simple adventure that is supposed to be the prologue of Paper Lily, an in-development horror game. Looks like a RPG Maker title but it has been made in another engine. For what it is, I enjoyed it: graphics (both pixel art and full-screen animesque illustrations) and audio are nice, and the writing is especially refreshing. Kat the protagonist is a sarcastic, down-to-earth girl that reacts to tales of horror with skepticism and pragmatic behavior, of course in this world rituals and creatures exist but it's good to read dialogues that sound fairly realistic and not the usual childish or overwrought stuff you can see in these kind of games. The game description even includes "seance debunking" as one of its features! Now I'm kind of curious about the full game, whenever it comes out. 7/10
Swords & Bones (PC Windows, first time, about 3.5 hours)
Another game by SEEP, an Italian duo specialized in simple retro-style arcadey games that cost a scant few bucks. Looks like a generic medieval hack-n-slash platformer, but the challenge lies in that you have to memorize enemy patterns and obstacles since hitboxes are pixel-perfect and you have 3 hitpoints and one life. But it's not nearly as difficult and frustrating as it sounds, since you can retry the short stages as much as you want, and you can access the power-up shop whenever, as a good compromise between arcade-style difficulty and more modern design choices. I actually like how committed SEEP are to their philosophy of making retro arcadey titles with a few concessions to modernity, and even if some of the graphics suck, what you see is what you get. Completed more or less 100% by finding all the trophies in each stage and unlocking the golden armor and final gauntlet of stages.
I think I'm going to buy their Rastan-inspired game next. 7/10
|
|
|
Post by dsparil on Jan 26, 2022 9:53:19 GMT -5
Space Harrier (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
I've decided that I am going to create a thread for all the PCE shooters I've been playing so I'll keep the supplementary info for that. I picture those as being more like capsule overviews with some extra info rather than being opinionated so there probably isn't going to be too much informational overlap. I want to finish off the last 1988 game, Dragon Spirit, before creating it though. Also, before this chronologically is Fantasy Zone which loops.
Aside from the lack of the checkered ground, this might actually be better than Space Harrier II. The action is smooth while the sprites in SHII move at a lower frame rate than the ground which is a little jarring. The only problem apart from Space Harrier being a basic score attack game in general is that there are better versions available specifically the 3D Classics and Sega Ages versions.
I finished in 00:25:13.
Rating: 6
|
|