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Post by spanky on Feb 6, 2023 12:45:23 GMT -5
Adventures In The Magic Kingdom (NES, First Time)
I spent last week in Florida, visiting Disney World with my family. I honestly had mixed opinions about my time there* but I realized that I had never beaten this game. I knew it was very short so I thought this morning would be a good time to give it a whirl. I always thought theme parks as a great video game setting. I had never been to Disney World and was surprised by the size and scope at it all. You could probably make a really amazing open world game here. This game however...leaves a lot to be desired. It's basically 5 short minigames based on Disney rides - 3 vehicle games and 2 platformers tied together by a Dragon Quest styled overworld view of the park. You beat all 5 rides (and answer a number of surprisingly tricky trivia questions from park guests) and the game is over. It takes less than 20 minutes to beat if you know what you're doing. The games themselves are hampered by some surprisingly bad controls for a Capcom game, cheap deaths and a lot of trial and error design. It's not particularly attractive either, with the overworld view of the park being very lifeless and some jittery scrolling. When people talk about Capcom's Disney games, this one is usually left out of the discussion and it's easy to see why. 3/10.
*The Good: The kids loved every moment, the park is very clean, you can see a lot if you plan ahead and use the fast passes, everything was well put together and professional. The Bad: The cost, two 14 hour days on my feet about killed me, the hyperreality aspect of it all, the "Disney Adult" phenomenon grosses me out, caught Covid there.
Robotrek (SNES, First Time)
Also finished this up, which I had been working at for a while. This is a short, somewhat easy RPG with some neat original ideas and a lighthearted storyline. You play as a young inventor in a battle with a goofy criminal gang known as the Hackers. You fight by creating robots and having them battle for you. Battles take place on a Final Fantasy style battle screen but with grid based movement. You can equip your robots with a variety of melee and ranged weapons - most that you will invent yourself or create by combining two different items. The game allows for full customization of each robot's stats. While this means it can be very easy to create an unstoppable death machine if you know what you're doing, you can work yourself into a corner if you don't (Hint - Don't waste a ton of points on the Charge stat). If you grind a bit, you'll find that you will max out many of your stats very quickly. You can also program attack routines that allow your robots to do special attacks - but these drain your Charge (basically your ATB bar) stat. In general, the more powerful the attack, the more the Charge drains. The challenge level is very manageable until the Big Eye boss - he will absolutely slaughter you unless you've built your stats up correctly. Fortunately it's pretty easy to alter your stats...Once you have your stats allocated properly, and crafted some good weapons and armor, the game almost becomes a cakewalk. It's a very small scale game, with only a couple towns and maybe a dozen dungeons. Robotrek tries to get as much out of these areas as possible. While the small world and Quintet's in-house style give the game a very cozy feeling, the larger dungeons will have the traipsing through the same areas 3 or 4 times - this can get a bit tedious, especially since the game likes to send you back to town to talk to an NPC before you can advance. The triggers to advance the game or solve puzzles can be sort of obtuse as well. There is a built in hint feature, but it's rarely useful. The game can be kind of funny with silly characters and dialogue. Unfortunately, while the translation can be very amusing sometimes, it also means the story is a bit of an incomprehensible mess, especially towards the end game. This is a decent game but never sold particularly well. It came out in the shadow of Final Fantasy III and I don't think Enix US had any idea how to market it (the box makes it look like some sort of hard sci-fi game). A cute RPG like this probably didn't stand much of a chance in this era - I mean look how poorly Earthbound did initially. 6/10.
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Post by personman on Feb 6, 2023 19:49:56 GMT -5
Tunic (PC, played on Steam Deck; first time; 30hours)
I was nearly done typing a big long rant about this thing and Chrome decided to nuke it. I'm too pissed off to do it all again so I'll try and do a short version.
I thought this was going to be Zelda with a dash of Dark Souls flair. It's actually the opposite with a feature that was supposed to enrich the game (the in game manual) but actually hurts it more than anything in my oppinon. Mostly due to it being in a fake language. It also tried so hard to recreate the days of playground rumors and stuff that it wound up making itself into an ARG sort of affair which just means the moment has passed and these days doing the end game 'puzzles' will likely just wind up having you look up the solution online which are nothing more that d-pad inputs and aren't really satisfying to solve.
It tried to stand out and harken to older days but in trying so hard to do so it became a delusion of what people thought those days were like. The rest of the game itself is simply adequate with not much else you haven't seen before. I can't in good conscience say its bad but I can only see the appeal of its other features by acquiescing and saying its not for me which isn't a glowing endorsement. Not to mention a lot of the culture it attracted I find really off putting. It's alright but the fact I heard people saying was a game of the year contender is way, way too damn generous to me.
Rating- 6 Again, it's alright but a lot of its ideas they completely fumbled and the rest of it is just very run of the mill leaving only a few scant whiffs of some charming environments, a somber mood and some slightly clever meta bits with its plot. You've mostly seen all this before and done better. I wouldn't call it essential at all and in fact would warn many people away from it.
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Post by Snake on Feb 6, 2023 20:56:48 GMT -5
Metroid, NES (replay, 2 hours, 10 minutes)
I think it's been many months since I actually sat down with any game. Metroid is possibly the 3rd or 4th NES game I've ever played (Gyromite and Duck Hunt making up the 1st two games). This playthrough marks the 2nd time I've actually done a legitimate play without relying on the JUSTIN BAILEY password. It's a grind. It's a grind if you die. It's a grind to claw your way back to full energy boxes. It's a bit of a grind of a slog in the first part of Brinstar, having make your way to the Long Beam and missiles and such. So the best thing to do in Metroid is to not die, and just be good enough to find the E-Tanks to get life back. But somewhere around picking up the Wave Beam and the ScrewAttack, the pacing and game play starts to feel more satisfying and fleshed out. Even to the point of after finishing, I still wanted to play around some more as a near-fully powered up, no space suit Samus. Apparently the time was still good enough to get Samus' swimsuit ending. It became a pleasant, nostalgic memory lane kind of playthrough by the end of it. A solid effort for such an early NES game. While not my favorite soundtrack, Hip Tanaka's 8-bit melodies keep things catchy for Brinstar and Kraid's Hideout.
6/10.
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Post by lurker on Feb 6, 2023 21:49:06 GMT -5
Tunic (PC, played on Steam Deck; first time; 30hours) I was nearly done typing a big long rant about this thing and Chrome decided to nuke it. I'm too pissed off to do it all again so I'll try and do a short version. I thought this was going to be Zelda with a dash of Dark Souls flair. It's actually the opposite with a feature that was supposed to enrich the game (the in game manual) but actually hurts it more than anything in my oppinon. Mostly due to it being in a fake language. It also tried so hard to recreate the days of playground rumors and stuff that it wound up making itself into an ARG sort of affair which just means the moment has passed and these days doing the end game 'puzzles' will likely just wind up having you look up the solution online which are nothing more that d-pad inputs and aren't really satisfying to solve. It tried to stand out and harken to older days but in trying so hard to do so it became a delusion of what people thought those days were like. The rest of the game itself is simply adequate with not much else you haven't seen before. I can't in good conscience say its bad but I can only see the appeal of its other features by acquiescing and saying its not for me which isn't a glowing endorsement. Not to mention a lot of the culture it attracted I find really off putting. It's alright but the fact I heard people saying was a game of the year contender is way, way too damn generous to me. Rating- 6 Again, it's alright but a lot of its ideas they completely fumbled and the rest of it is just very run of the mill leaving only a few scant whiffs of some charming environments, a somber mood and some slightly clever meta bits with its plot. You've mostly seen all this before and done better. I wouldn't call it essential at all and in fact would warn many people away from it. I like the whole retro instruction manual aesthetic and how you filled the book out as you went.
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Post by personman on Feb 6, 2023 22:41:41 GMT -5
Sure, I actually really like the concept too but the way they went about it was the worst way they could have I feel. It still helps to a point but having most of it in a made up language is just going to distract and confuse people only serving to be cryptic for the sake of it.
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Post by Woody Alien on Feb 7, 2023 6:49:36 GMT -5
Two free games on Steam again, but things are going to change soon... probably.
Shine Within (PC Windows, first time, about 1 hour)
Yume Nikki-esque game in terms of graphics and atmosphere, not so much as content. You are a random girl who is transported into this strange world and to progress you have to treat kindly all the monsters within. Certainly sweet and with a cute message, but with extremely easy puzzles, a vague story and some "creepy" content that never really goes anywhere. It was made by some guy as his first project so there's not much more I can say about it. 5.5/10
Chasing Styx (PC Windows, first time, time is in the image but it was closer to 5 hrs 30)
A game originally for the Xbox marketplace, sort of a cross between top-down run-and-guns a la Mercs and a bullet hell game. Cerberus lets some bunnies escape around the Underworld and has to find them before Hades gets pissed. The plot is an excuse but the idea of having Cerberus as the "ship" with his heart as the hitbox and the two additional heads as "options", and rotating them to deflect/destroy enemy bullets is actually quite clever. Destroying enemies lets you level up and this means more slots for power-ups and other upgrades, but you have to find them in treasure chests first. It's an interesting game, even if the graphics and enemy designs are nothing special for the most part and the bombastic BGM get annoying after a while, but still I had a good time with it even if I usually suck at bullet hell games. There are all the usual things like boss rush, survival mode etc. but I don't think I'm good enough to unlock those and update Cerberus' cute puppy appearance with more unlockable costumes. 7/10
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Post by dsparil on Feb 7, 2023 8:33:32 GMT -5
China Warrior (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
Was this a practice game for interns that was accidentally released? Easy contender for worst Hudson game.
Rating: 2
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Post by spanky on Feb 9, 2023 7:32:07 GMT -5
Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy via NSO, Replay)
Thought I would do a quick run of the original Kirby to break in the new games added to the NSO. I haven't played this in a long time and it's easy to forget what a different game it is when you don't have the copy ability. Boss battles especially are a lot more challenging and strategic when you can't just run up and hack them to death with a sword or whatever. Still even at it's release, the whole "suck n blow" (lol) gameplay was sort of novel as was the concept of character in a platformer who could freely fly. There's actually a few powerups here that don't appear in other games but that's pretty much because the copy ability negates them. It plays great - it's very fast for a GB game. A lot of older GB games feel like they are stuck in molasses but this is very zippy. Kirby has a lot of personality as well with tons of cute animations and details like the warp star animations add a lot of flair to the game. It sounds really sharp too though some of the tunes sounded a little off key to me (maybe the emulation?).
It's very short, and very easy. I beat it in less than 20 minutes and only lost one life because I was careless. Copy would add a new dimension to the games but what we have here is perfectly fun and competent, though you might want more of it. 7/10.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 9, 2023 10:58:36 GMT -5
Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy/Switch, Replay)
Took this for a quick spin to check out the display modes in the GB NSO games. It actually looks pretty good with the GBC colors, but Wispy Woods looks terrifying with redlined eyes and mouth. I'm a little surprised that there's never been a ROM hack that actually adds in copy abilities probably by hacking DL2. It's always been a shame that Spring Breeze in Super Star was a cut down version.
I finished in 00:24.
Rating: 7
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Feb 9, 2023 14:28:34 GMT -5
Captain Commando (original on Arcade, played on Nintendo Switch; First Time; 36 minutes)
There was a sale on games for the 1st Capcom Arcade Stadium where everything cost a singular Euro, so I decided to grab a trio of games - this, Bionic Commando and Battle Circuit. Captain Commando is a pretty cool beat-em-up where you take on a variety of strange opponents across a series of surprisingly quick stages. It's fairly standard for the genre, giving you the usual dash and special attacks, weapons to pick up, and a small number of differences between its four characters (space dude, a mummy, a ninja and a baby piloting a robot), and the level design isn't particularly remarkable beyond providing some nice backdrops for you to fight in. But it moves at a fast clip and doesn't throw lots of nonsense at you on the lowest difficulty, which made this a nice and breezy time.
I'd say the only really tough part is the final boss, who flies around and throws elemental attacks that freeze you in place. That took a few continues to counter, but I eventually managed to take him down. I've only played three Capcom beat-em-ups including this, the other two being Warriors of Fate and the original Final Fight, and I'd say this is as good as Warriors of Fate albeit for different reasons. Both of them are infinitely better than Final Fight though lol.
Condemned: Criminal Origins (Xbox 360; First Time; 5 hours 37 minutes)
I've been wanting to try out another horror game since it's been a while, and I was encouraged to pick this up after hearing an online friend regularly praise it and seeing it as b-roll in ThorHighHeels' video about liminal spaces in video games. It's a fairly cool first person horror adventure game where you're an ex-FBI member who's been set up for murdering cops while on the hunt for a serial killer, and you stumble your way through abandoned subways, buildings and alleyways in an attempt to figure out who set you up and why. There's a strong sense of atmosphere with some truly grotty looking locales, eerie ambient music punctuating your journey and various sound effects that make even more incidental moments come off as quite spooky. The tension as you try to find random melee weapons to either make your way forward or fend off crazed homeless people is also really well done. (Yes, you do spend a weird amount of the game fighting the homeless as an ex-cop; shit's pretty uncomfortable and not in the intended way.)
I think my only major criticism comes from how structurally similar this is to F.E.A.R., which was made by the same developer Monolith Productions not too long beforehand. They're both linear spooky games where you traipse about abandoned areas, fending off strange forces while occasionally suffering unexplained hallucinations that blur the lines between reality and fantasy. While the execution of both is different (aside from one being a shooter and the other an adventure game; Condemned is much more visceral while F.E.A.R. is mostly cold and sterile, for example), I felt like they reminded me of each other a bit too much for me to appreciate them as contrasting takes on similar ideas. But that's more a "me" thing than a problem with either game, and I'd happily recommend them if you wanna dive into horror-themed takes on first person games.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 10, 2023 12:16:36 GMT -5
J.J. & Jeff (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
or Kato-chan & Ken-chan for the Japanese release. A pretty good "advanced" variation on the original Wonder Boy.
I finished in 03:09:17.
Rating: 7
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Post by spanky on Feb 12, 2023 15:58:07 GMT -5
Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins (Game Boy via NSO, Replay)
Another game I haven't played in ages. This was a common fixture of my childhood and I remember being beyond excited to play a handheld game that seemed to resemble it's console counterparts much more than it's prequel. It's delightfully weird and I really appreciate that a 30 year old Mario game has such a crazy variety in it's environments and characters. You have a spooky world with foes based on horror movie icons and Japanese goblins, a water world mixes things up by having levels take place inside a sunken battleship and a whale and probably the most bizarre of all, a series of levels taking place inside a gigantic clockwork Mario statue (and the levels themselves seem based on toys) I am also playing Super Mario 3D World right now and while I am enjoying it, it really does lean into the standard "Mario Worlds" - there's a water world, a desert world, an ice world etc. There's tons of enemies that are appropriate to these environments (giant ants in the big house, bees in the tree, toys in the Mario statue etc) that never appear in another Mario game.
Wario would become a great character but here he's pretty much just a mustache twirling Anti-Mario. He does turn into a horrible little goblin when you beat him.
It looks great, maybe not as fast or as smooth as Kirby but at the time this really did look like something that could have been on the NES but with less color. The control is slightly off. It's a bit loose with some questionable hit detection here and there. It's not bad, but go play Super Mario Bros 3 after this and you'll see what I mean. The large sprites and comparatively small playing area can make things a bit tricky during the boss fights. I like the music too and how they resisted the urge to use standard Mario tunes. I think Super Mario Land 1 has a better soundtrack however.
I guess the only dull point I suppose is that the power ups are pretty standard. The only real new one is the bunny ears (unless you count the low G astronaut levels, which are very cool) and that is just the racoon tail with 2/3 of it's abilities removed. The game throws TONS of powerups per level at you - I just wish they had more to add.
The game isn't super long by Mario game standards but it's huge for a Game Boy title of this era. I also like how you can play the zones in any order you wish, something that I'm not sure any other Mario game does.
I played this so much as a kid that I eventually burned myself out on it and even began to dislike it a bit. Revisiting again years later made me realize how good it is. Rough around the edges, but brimming with unique ideas. 8/10.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 13, 2023 15:20:52 GMT -5
Victory Run (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
Hudson's racer based on the Paris-Dakar Rally. It's okay, but the physics are a little weird which is mainly what holds it back.
I finished in 02:17:20.
Rating: 6
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Post by dsparil on Feb 14, 2023 6:00:12 GMT -5
Fire Emblem Engage (Switch, First Time)
Supposedly a different FE game was in development after Three Houses that got canceled or shelved, and this very much feels like something put together under a tighter than expected deadline. Everything is worse and less ambitious than Three Houses and there's even only around half the total content. The story is the blandest and most generic imaginable and too many of the maps have boring designs. The later story maps and Paralogues in general are better, but you have to get through a whole lot of dross.
I finished in 39:05.
Rating: 6
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Post by spanky on Feb 14, 2023 7:49:42 GMT -5
Tokimeki Memorial (Super Famicom, emulated with the fan translation, first time)
Beat this for the SNES thread. I got the bad ending but I think that counts?
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