SNES Game of the Week 118 - Clock Tower

[excelsior]

Aug 21, 2023 5:19:09 GMT -5 dsparil said:

I'll go D-, the "gentleman's F".

What ARE you trying to say, m'dear? 

[spanky]

Yeah I can't be contrarian with this one...it just sucks! It's definitely a misguided experiment. "Hey, let's make a fighting game that looks and plays like Flashback!" It's admirable they tried something different as the fighting genre was very young but was already saturated with SF 2 clones but it just doesn't come out well at all. The SNES version is missing nearly half the cast of the Genesis version because EA wanted to save money on cart sizes. Not that it really matters I guess. It must have sold fairly well regardless because the game was super easy to find in the aftermarket, to the point where there was at least one website dedicated to collecting (and destroying I think?) as many copies of the game as possible. Why does a mummy wear spiked Road Warrior football pads? Anyway, this is an F.

[Snake]

Shaq Fu

What a concept!  Makes no freaken sense!  Shaq knows kung-fu, but his opponents are freaken aliens 'n shit.  While I have to give it up to them for creativity, and different play modes, the overall feel and play is just junk.  I'm amazed at anyone who got this game purely for Shaq being on the cover.  Such a cult game, it somehow made its way as a plot device for a sitcom episode of "Fresh Off the Boat."  Interestingly, I can still think of worst playing fighting games.  So I score this one a:

Score - D+

[ommadawnyawn2]

Beat EVO finally. Cool idea and some fun and unexpected moments, but messy and mostly mediocre in execution, with a so-so translation. There is so much potential to the evolution system but it needed more zelda-like or immersive sim elements where you try different stuff to proceed to really shine. Not teleporter mazes and grinding. Loved the various bad endings though. 

It's a C- for me.

[excelsior]

Aug 22, 2023 17:41:33 GMT -5 ommadawnyawn2 said:

Beat EVO finally. 

Yeah, sorry about that. It's a fairly lengthy game. This is why I don't cover many RPGs on here, even though it's a major genre on SNES/Super Famicom. I'm much happier to pull out a game that can be beaten in a couple of hours for the benefit of anybody who would like to play along.

[ommadawnyawn2]

No worries, I eventually did use codes to skip grinding and just took out every enemy in each area once pretty much

With cut back grinding and removing the hit stun it's more of a B I think. Personally I would also switch the songs around a bit, there's one that's like 15 seconds long that they repeat several times (or variations of it); that and allow for stocking up on multiple green crystals.

[excelsior]

• Publisher - Sony Imagesoft
• Developer - Sensible Software
• Genre - Sports
• Initial Release - February 1994

Take charge of your favourite club or national team from all over Europe in a whole host of different cup and league competitions. 

With all the atmosphere of European Soccer at its highest level, you (and your friends) can take a squad of 15 players on a cup to glory!

There's no other football game quite like it.

  

  

[excelsior]

Yep, that's right! We're finally covering another sports game. And I'm afraid there could be more on the way. 

So Sensible Soccer (or Sensi for short) was released in the States under the rather dry title Championship Soccer '94. It started back on the Amiga and Atari ST back in 1992, though acted as a successor to Sensible Software's previous football outing, MicroProse Soccer, back on the C64 and ZX Spectrum.

Sensi, isn't much to look at, and the sound can be a bit annoying, but it shines in the gameplay department. Balancing a simulation style of play with ease of control, it fits into that nice box of being simple to pick up and play, yet more difficult to master. The view gives a really simple look at the players, but it's effective enough and ensures the action is followed onscreen. Of course, the game is at its best with 2 players and I didn't play all that much of the single player campaign.

There's a bit of British humour, as a substitute for proper licensing we get some rather daft team and player names as options:


Bad Words Utd vs Pizza Toppings was an eternal rivalry in our home.

The box claims this is probably the best football game ever. At least as far as the SNES, I'd say they're probably right.

Ranking - A

[dsparil]

It was Nasty Things vs. Chinese Food for me! A friend of a friend had this and would bring it over pretty frequently. I'm a little harder on it because of the merely serviceable graphics. The gameplay is solid, but a little bit of flash helps when you're someone like me without a huge amount of interest in the sport. I'll go with a B.

Total side note, but I've always found it very ironic that soccer as a spectator sport has always had so much trouble in the US despite so many kids playing it. Messi starting to play in the US maybe has a teeny chance of turning it around since there does seem to be a bit more interest in the last few weeks.

[excelsior]

The only thing I hear about why Americans don't like football/soccer is that 'nothing happens'. On the surface this doesn't make sense, especially when popular US sports like US football and Baseball are so stoppy-starty. I eventually came to realise that 'nothing happens' actually means the score doesn't go up very much - there's not many goals in a game. It's an entirely reductive take not only considering football, but every sport assuming the only time 'something happens' is when the score increases.

[dsparil]

People say that, but I've never been fully convinced of it. Hockey scores around the same rate and has never had that problem. Ironically, I think that there might actually be too much happening in the average game. I've always thought that it's always been about the commentating just as much as the actual game and the downtime in football and baseball gives them time to fill. Maybe it's just a baseball thing, but people do get upset when the local announcer changes and sad when they retire.

[spanky]

I think the fact that it was almost exclusively played kids by in the US for decades contributed to it's reputation. People thought of it as just a youth sport. I have one friend who is an enormous sports fan that is very dismissive of it for that reason. I think that's starting to change though.

Oh, and I've never played this! It looks well uh...I'll give it a shot this week!

[personman]

Wait,this was made in England and they titled it Soccer? I thought only we called it that in the states. I mean football makes way more sense as a name for it. American football just what, refers to people running like nearly every sport? I think elsewhere in the world our football is called rugby right? Sounds better to me but I cant really buck the trend living in the heart of the US lol.

What is a sports.

I can relate with only really seeing soccer played by kids here. Hell I played as a goalie in a local youth team myself (was torture). After I grew out of that the thing just seemed to disappear. I only occasionally hear about it nowadays when the world cup is going on since I work with a bunch of folks from Mexico and the like.

[excelsior]

Rugby is pretty different from American Football, really. Rugby is more free moving like football and the like rather than having 'plays' or 'downs'. The rules are very different.

As for American Football video games, I'm unsure how to go about covering them for this thread. I find these games to be pretty impenetrable to somebody not familiar with the sport, so it would be a case of me introducing a game without being able to participate. All other sports are pretty pick up and play as far as video games go, and I think we will be able to cover those easily enough. It's a shame, because I would like to cover one or two from each sport at least.

[dsparil]

Yeah, I'm not aware of any SNES football games that simplify it down. Tecmo Super Bowl III would still be a good choice for some that ties back to a classic or Madden 98 (or 95 for something not so ridiculous late in the system's life) that ties into the modern day.