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Post by personman on Aug 8, 2023 17:11:22 GMT -5
Yeah maybe its just me but I really don't like that wave effect at all. Without the rest of the sprites being distorted along with it (which would have been problematic) it just looks wrong to me. I didn't realize the resolution was that much lower though, yeah in that case I can see the argument for the Sega version being better in that regard. Doesn't bother me personally but I understand.
Oh yeah that GBC game. I stumbled onto that thing on an old rom site and thought it was a bootleg rom hack or something. Yeah I completely forgot about that little thing, and it was legit? What a joke lol. I remember there being a PSP game announced that looked absolutely awful, think Atari was behind that one.
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Post by dsparil on Aug 8, 2023 18:05:34 GMT -5
Shiny was developing the PSP game as they were owned by Infogrames/Atari at the time, but there's conflicting information on how far it got. A one level demo, a remake of New Junk City, got sent out to journalists so it got that much work at least. I kinda think Shiny as a developer is mostly overrated, so it's mixed whether it would have actually been good.
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Post by dr_st on Aug 9, 2023 13:12:35 GMT -5
Yeah maybe its just me but I really don't like that wave effect at all. Without the rest of the sprites being distorted along with it (which would have been problematic) it just looks wrong to me. Turns out there are other special effects that were taken out of the PC port: www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Earthworm_Jim:_Special_Edition
A few visual effects are absent relative to the Sega CD version; eg. the foreground fog in What the Heck, the darkness vignette in Intestinal Distress, and the distortion effect in Down the Tubes/Tube Race.
Of these I found the "fog" in What The Heck particularly useless and annoying - glad it's gone. The darkness in Intestinal Distress is the only effect, which, I think, could be useful to keep - it serves an additional purpose of making the game a bit harder by limiting your view distance. With that said, the narrow horizontal resolution of the SNES would probably achieve the same effect, had that level been present.  |
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Post by excelsior on Aug 13, 2023 7:45:38 GMT -5
- Publisher - Enix
- Developer - Almanic Corp
- Genre - Action RPG
- Initial Release - 21 December 1992
The dawn of time...You are one of the first creatures to inhabit the earth! There were no peace treaties back in the early days, just your character in a jaw-clamping, teeth-flying, survival of the fittest, right to live. With the new Multi-change option and "Book of Life" feature, you can create and save up to 50 of the biggest, baddest creatures you can conjure up! The only thing standing between you and the fabled land of Eden, are 4.6 billion years worth of Mother Nature's meanest creations!
 
 
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Post by excelsior on Aug 13, 2023 7:55:27 GMT -5
I'm hoping people here have played this one. E.V.O. is a level based action RPG, where starting as a fish gameplay involves gaining experience which can be used in exchange for altering parts of your creature. Each stage has you start in a particular form and is told from the perspective of evolution of species. It is a follow up to 46 Okunen Monogatari ~The Shinka Ron~ ( 4.6 Billion Year Story: The Theory of Evolution), though that game uses a turn based combat system, whereas this one uses action. It's a nice enough concept to make the game interesting even though it does have its flaws. Though there is some small amount of freedom in how you shape your creature, it's really very guided but also particularly grindy. The soundtrack is also something of a mixed bad. Despite flaws, though, I really took a shine to it when I first played it.
Ranking - B
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Post by retr0gamer on Aug 13, 2023 12:30:38 GMT -5
I gave this a quick go so can't comment on it. I recently listened to the hg101 podcast about it and they were quite down on it and recommended the pc98 version over it. I'm wondering if I should give this a miss and play that version instead?
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Post by excelsior on Aug 13, 2023 13:15:35 GMT -5
I gave this a quick go so can't comment on it. I recently listened to the hg101 podcast about it and they were quite down on it and recommended the pc98 version over it. I'm wondering if I should give this a miss and play that version instead? Hmmm. Both have their share of flaws, honestly. The turn-based combat in the PC98 game is extremely simple to the point of being boring. The SNES game seems like a translation of that to an action setting. I'd say the storytelling and fantasy elements are the benefits of the PC98 game, but preference will probably come down to which style of combat is preferred. |
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Post by ommadawnyawn2 on Aug 13, 2023 15:26:59 GMT -5
I've been putting this one off for years but I think I'll try it soon with some codes or a hack to speed up grinding. I like the concept and the OST.
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Post by dsparil on Aug 13, 2023 17:26:29 GMT -5
This is without out a doubt one of my favorite SNES games. There aren't too many games directely themed after evolution in general and even fewer in an action format which is more appropriate and tactile. All I can think of right now is EVO, Seventh Cross: Evolution on Dreamcast and the early stages of Spore. EVO is without question the one with the most raw playability. There are problems with the gameplay like the bosses being too hard and it would be nice for some greater variety, but it's unique enough as a game that I can look past that.
S
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Post by spanky on Aug 13, 2023 19:30:21 GMT -5
It's been a long while since I played this one and I ended up using lots of frameskip and save state abuse but I think I remember it well enough to rate it. Very cool high concept game but as others have said, the execution is a bit lacking. Being able to evolve your own chimera is neat but the most powerful builds are pretty obvious and you end up being pigeonholed into the type of creature you need to create as the game is really tough unless you evolve the most powerful creature features. You're also going to have to grind a ton.
I do like the weird ass story which on top of evolution being responsible for life, throws in elements of (if I'm recalling correctly) monotheism, polytheism, gaia theory, and even aliens influencing life on Earth. The stuff that goes on in each individual chapter can get kinda weird as well.
It's slightly underwhelming overall which always disappointed me as the game looked really cool in magazines back in the day. I'd normally give this a C but it's originality brings it over the B threshold.
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Post by retr0gamer on Aug 14, 2023 4:22:59 GMT -5
I think what threw me off this game was I played it on emulation and saving the game isn't obvious without the manual. I've not gone back since I realised there was a save game feature but it is high on my list of games I want to try.
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Post by Snake on Aug 14, 2023 11:23:12 GMT -5
E.V.O. - The Search for Eden
I really enjoy revisiting this game. I love the concept of evolving and choosing jaws or horns for attack/defense advantage. I think the only thing that felt off to me was the sense of "scale," between staying as a dinosaur and evolving to a mammal. You would think they would try to keep the proportions more true to real life. Getting to "human" felt like a cheat code though. My first few play throughs, I never got human, so I had to look up what you needed to evolve on a FAQ.
I would rate the difficulty level comparable to Castlevania 1 or Mega Man 3. Hard enough, maybe even to the point of cheese, if you're just new to the mechanics. Once you get the technique and the boss attack patterns down, there's a sense of accomplishment of completion. What's a great built-in to kinda of hold that challenge is that your grinding gets capped, so you're forced to learn to fight instead of bulldozing on just over-leveling.
Music, being a Koichi Sugiyama feature, basically feels like something that could be re-used in a Dragon Quest game. The classical influence may not be for everyone, but it has mood and emotion, with a few catchy BGMs that I quite like.
The backplot itself has interesting mixes, with a sense that your soul is reincarnating into a body across epochs, anthropomorphic Gaia that needs rescuing from an alien, the ancient bird people civilization that you eradicate, etc. A totally unique experience overall.
Rank - A+
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Post by excelsior on Aug 21, 2023 2:57:06 GMT -5
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Post by excelsior on Aug 21, 2023 3:02:57 GMT -5
OK, so this is admittedly a bit of a joke/filler week as I've run out of prepared materials and plans for coming entries. I'll be planning the next couple of months over the next week. This marks a good opportunity to make recommendations if there's anything anybody would like to see covered soon, so feel free to include those in replies.
So Shaq Fu is obviously a bit of a punchline. I haven't put a tonne of time into it, nor am I familiar with other versions of the game. I am familiar enough to say that I don't care for how it plays, looks or sounds. Collision detection feels sloppy which is a major flaw for a game like this. Characters are really small compared to other fighters. I guess this is the biggest problem - comparing to other fighters. It isn't the worst game I've played or anything but there just isn't any justifiable reason to play Shaq Fu on SNES.
Ranking - F
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Post by dsparil on Aug 21, 2023 5:19:09 GMT -5
Originally, I was going to be a bit nicer to Shaq Fu because it is interesting in some ways but then I remembered that Andre Panza Kick Boxing did all of those first and better. A realistically proportioned rotoscoped game with realistic movement can work in a game and it helps to be working in a limiting context e.g. quasi-simulation. Once you tie that to a game that's cloning SFII, the overall design complexity goes up and expectations change. It was still early enough days for the genre that you'd never know who could make a good fighting game e.g. SF1 + SNK's awful Street Smart led to Fatal Fury, but it can take an attempt or two. Ironically, the Game Gear port fixing up some issues, but it looks like garbage and is super barebones. It's still an interesting failure unlike the recent-ish sequel which was just a boring beat-em-up.
I'll go D-, the "gentleman's F".
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