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Post by Digitalnametag on Feb 19, 2023 14:48:03 GMT -5
All good stuff. I was there at the time though…so I remember it vividly. How much Shadow Dragon sucked, and Awakening saving the franchise. There are probably posts on this very forum of me talking about Awakening on release. Hah found one. And BAM! Ten year old post. Also saw a post of me complaining about Radiant Dawn’s difficulty… Awakening has completely absorbed my free time. Sorry Ni No Kuni. So far this is my favorite Fire Emblem yet. The melding of all the different FE's systems is awesome. I forgot how much I enjoyed the skill system. The number of times required to play through the game to see all supports is staggering. (14-15?) Thanks to the pair up system and repeatable overworld enemies you can bring an unused character up to speed pretty quickly. "cause you gotta marry them all off yeah? I want to see Donnel's (the villager with a bucket on his head) relationship with every lady. Hilarious! I'm on chapter 15 at the moment. Haven't managed to recruit any of the kids yet being their missions are balls hard and meant to be taken on when your units are near the end of their promoted class. Playing on normal/classic difficulty. I reset when I lose a unit, and perhaps I should just play casual mode instead, but damn it if that's not how Fire Emblem is meant to be played! Normal is pretty easy so that only happens when I do something especially stupid. Have to play on hard next time. Thought I'd grown out of FE games after Shadow Dragon, but now I'm thinking that SD just sucked. Awakening has rekindled my love.
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Post by JoeQ on Feb 19, 2023 16:59:50 GMT -5
God, I'm not mentally prepared for Awakening being ten years ago.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 20, 2023 5:54:07 GMT -5
Pic-A-Pix Pieces (Switch, First Time)
Another picross I've had for a while but only played sporadically. As the title suggests, this is all multipart puzzles, 20, going up to 20x20 per part. The twist is that this is all color! Color multi-part is an area the official line still hasn't gone so that does give this some uniqueness. It's a little no frills, but a solid collection otherwise.
I finished in about 37.5h.
Rating: 9
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (Game Boy/Switch, Replay)
I think SML2 was the first Game Boy game I ever played. I was at some dinner party with my parents and whoever I would have known was sick or something and all the other kids were really little. Someone gave me a a GB with this to occupy myself. It's a cute game with a lot of nice touches like the space levels, and it feels very much like Wario Land 0 even if that wasn't the actual intention. On NSO, not one to play in GBC mode. The sprites look okay, but the backgrounds get a desaturated aqua color that's a bit hard to see.
I finished in 1:02.
Rating: 8
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ (Game Boy Advance / Switch, Replay)
Such a great little collection with a good combination of weirdness (which got most of the attention) and a billion references to other games usually but not always made by Nintendo. It also feels like a throwback to a time before smartphones being everywhere when there was a real market for a time killer like this.
I finished in 01:14.
Rating: 9
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Feb 20, 2023 14:31:46 GMT -5
dsparil Oh nice! I'll write up about the game then, and another game I beat just now. --- Midnight Wanderers (original on Arcade, played on Nintendo Switch; First Time; 28 minutes)
One of the games you can get on the 2nd Capcom Arcade Stadium is Three Wonders, an arcade game which contains three separate fully fleshed out games on the one arcade board. This is the first game, an action platformer where you make your way through linear levels while blasting at enemies. You can find power-ups that increase your ranged attack and firing speed, as well as change what the attack does, but you're gonna need to rely on shooting and dodging carefully to make your way past enemies since you stand still when firing. I'm usually not good at these kinds of "crap's flying at you from everywhere" games, but this one turned out to be not too bad. Bosses have neat strategies, there's a deliberate pace with level designs and even the enemy spawnings that can encourage taking things patiently, and I feel like I'd actually have a chance with the game without relying so much on tanking my way through (though I admittedly did that a fair bit anyhow).
It's a cool little game, backed up by a briskly paced campaign and some nice visuals/music. I did attempt Chariot, this game's sequel also featured in Three Wonders, but gave up because it got overwhelming and insane in that way shmups often end up doing.
Unsolved Crimes (Nintendo DS; First Time; 6 hours 23 minutes)
I was in the mood for playing more Japanese adventure games on the DS and decided to give this one a go because, despite looking for all the world like a generic western procedural game, it was actually developed by Now Production: a studio I mainly know for developing the Splatterhouse sequels (including Wanpaku Graffiti on the Famicom), Dragon Valor on the PS1 and Beautiful Katamari. It's a first-person adventure game where you solve murders by examining crime scenes, looking back over evidence and testimonies, and answering questionnaires in order to figure out who's responsible. Most of the cases are self-contained, but you do get a handful of smaller cases connected by a running plot involving your partner's kidnapped sister, which play out as one-off action setpieces that get increasingly more frantic over the course of the game.
It's a decent enough game, and I like being able to explore these environments in such close scrutiny - the upside of having low-detail environments is that it makes looking for evidence and clues much easier, and being able to interact with them via the touch-screen adds a nice sense of tactility to your investigations. The questionnaires I found a bit more tricky, giving you a certain amount of tries before you get a game over for screwing up too often. To be fair, that difficulty was more of a "me" thing - sometimes the wording of an answer threw me off, and other times because there was so much information that I couldn't keep it all in my head. They're fairly forgiving, letting you re-examine the files to make sure you know what you wanna say and giving you the chance to back out at any time. Some questions also give you an extra guess attempt once completed and you can always restore your previous/start the questionnaire over if you get a game over.
In terms of personality, it's a standard enough police procedural with a light dash of dry humour, some cheeky funk music during the menu, and the usual degree of shocking truths and bittersweet confessions. I don't really play games with that kind of vibe, so it was neat getting to experience the atmosphere of something I might see in one of the procedural shows my folks like watching through a cool first-person adventure game.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 22, 2023 5:24:15 GMT -5
Youkai Douchuki (Arcade/Switch, First Time) Youkai Douchuki (NES, First Time) Youkai Douchuki (TurboGrafx-16, First Time)
Namco's brutally difficult journey through Hell, at least in arcade form. The home ports make changes to make it easier at least.
The Arcade Archives version doesn't translate the title and transliterates it as above so I guess that's what it is. It's literally something like Yōkai Travelogue.
Not sure about my arcade time, but it must have been at least 3 hours. 1:43:26 and 2:35:28 for FC and PCE.
Rating: 7, 6, 6
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Feb 22, 2023 6:27:18 GMT -5
Knights of the Round (original on Arcade, played on Nintendo Switch; First Time; 42 minutes)
The OTHER medieval-themed Capcom beat-em-up with a levelling up system from 1991. I wasn't aware that this also had a "score = experience" system like The King of Dragons, so it's doubly weird that both of these games should be so alike and come out around the same time. Admittedly, Knights of the Round is more grounded and barely has any fantasy elements apart from the odd magician/wizard. Otherwise, this is a fairly solid brawler, and I like how there's a push to emphasize more tactical combat through the blocking system that temporarily grants you invincibility. But that admittedly doesn't last very long and it feels like enemies can get in a few more hits than in other beat-em-ups thanks to that.
It's another Capcom beat-em-up of the early 90s, with only the one character specific move (upper attacks for Arthur & Lancelot and a dash for Percival) as the thing that makes it stand out from the others. Except that it doesn't, and so I kinda felt like I was going through the motions with this - especially with the limited mobility that makes fighting more agile or tricky enemies an exercise in attrition. Perhaps that's a "me" issue, because I played four Capcom brawlers within a fortnight and so their similarities become a lot more noticeable. Even the pacing feels a bit iffy, with you essentially doing the same type of stage progression twice (go through some populated place, then a battlefield, then a castle to defeat an evil monarch). At least one of the latter stages throws a curveball by having you wander into Japan and fighting against a samurai for a boss.
I should probably give these beat-em-ups a break, or at least play one from a different studio or a different point in time so there can be some more tangible differences in what your character can do.
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Post by excelsior on Feb 22, 2023 6:32:12 GMT -5
Infernax (Switch, First Time, Time to follow)Infernax is a nicely put together Metroidvania that takes cues from Simon's Quest, with plenty of modernisation and some combat inspiration from Zelda 2 thrown in. There's not too much that stands out except that execution is generally on-point allowing for an enjoyable adventure. Visuals are drawn very simply in this one but everything comes together nicely, creating a nice, but unimposing appearance. Controls are near perfect, allowing complete command over the hero's movements outside of one dash manoeuvre unlocked late game. World building feels nice and consistent, with plenty of optional side quests and secrets, and a morality system impacting the endings allowing for replayability. What did surprise me was the difficulty, or lack thereof. I was lead to expect a tough as nails quest in accordance with the likes of Holllow Knight. Just a quick Google on the difficulty gives me quotes such as 'hard as hell' and 'masochistic', but I have to question how far these players journeyed. Infernax is one of those games where the difficulty is higher at the start, but I would say as soon as you unlock any upgrades it quickly reaches the point of trivial. To be fair, I enjoy easy games plenty of the time as long as they keep me engaged, which to Infernax's credit it did. Expect bosses to be particularly easy though, with limited variety to their patterns and not enough health to outlast you as it's easy replenish your own via spells and items. They do look nice though. Well, not the one that looks like female genitalia with teeth, that ones just scary. Score - 8/10 Live A Live (Switch, First Time, Time to follow)As an anthology I figured I'd breeze through Live A Live in a week or two, however this was not the case. I suppose it's inevitable that I would find the quality uneven due to the variety of focus, settings and storytelling found. This variety can be seen as a strong and weak point, dependent upon your view of the individual chapters, which I'll mostly post about in the General thread. From a setting point we cover various historical and futuristic time periods and varied locals, and each story follows a particular hero. There's a good deal of differentiation in focus, particularly in how hands on they are in storytelling and how much combat is featured. Some chapters focus on exploration, others on grinding and some are almost entirely about following the story. The included settings allow for a fantastically varied soundtrack which never fails to deliver, selling it's environments and giving each theme it's own personality. Unfortunately the game shows its age in the selection of protagonists offered as there is a lack of diversity there, which was disappointing. Tying the stories together is the grid based combat system, which adds a little interest in chapters where it both moves freely and at a brisk pace, though several chapters feature longer battles which bog the game down. There's also a map system which shows your next objective point which again helps in some chapters, but feels like a hinderance in others. Without going into too much detail Live A Live feels uneven. There's likely something for everyone, and the experimental nature feels deserving of praise, but a few missteps can't be overlooked, especially as the late game feels unsatisfactory. Score - 7/10
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Post by dsparil on Feb 22, 2023 9:26:19 GMT -5
Magic Knight Rayearth (Game Boy, First Time)
Even more of a beginner RPG than the SFC game. It's made up of three stories of about fifteen minutes with each Knight separated and on their own. This is super simple mechanically and very easy, but what does make it hold up for someone whose age actually hits two digits is that this is very much a spectacle. There's a lot of silly events, a whole bunch of portraits, and even a smidge of sampled voice acting! This is a 4Mb game which was the second largest size, and I don't think 8Mb carts where even available when this came out in 1995.
I finished in 00:42:05.
Rating: 7
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Post by excelsior on Feb 23, 2023 5:07:03 GMT -5
X-Men 2: Clone Wars (First Time, Mega Drive via Steam Deck, 4 Hours Appx)I've had some fun with this game in the past, but a proper playthrough reveals a game rife with poor collision detection, badly positioned (often offscreen) spongey enemies and stiff, unresponsive controls. I'm trying to avoid that 'O' word since I don't like it, but it certainly feels like X-Men 2 gets a pass for its inclusion of unlimited use of super powers and the fact that you can play Magneto. Honestly, many of the abilities don't really serve a purpose. It's good that stage design encourages use of the full selection of characters, but it doesn't necessarily feel like it's intentional, but rather results from poor enemy or stage design. The main characters and many backgrounds are well drawn, but some of the enemies are too small, or don't really fit the theme. I liked the late game Phalanx designs though. Score 5/10
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Post by Apollo Chungus on Feb 23, 2023 9:45:49 GMT -5
After two and a bit weeks, I'm finally getting round to doing these. No idea why I had such trouble trying to write about them in the past, but here they are! --- Sonic Robo Blast 2: Blue Heaven (Windows; First Time; 41 minutes)
This is quite a old map pack, originally developed by Bill "Tets" Reed during the game's Version 1.09.4 days from 2003 to 2007. It was never finished, only having five zones, and it was recently ported to V2.2 by Radicalicious (albeit without Tets' permission due to them dropping out of the SRB2 community, which means that this port may be taken down at some point if Tets does come back and requests it be taken down). I was curious to try an older SRB2 map pack, and this is quite a good one.
Level design's solid, with a fair few alternate routes to check out and some good flow that keeps things interesting throughout. The music's shockingly good, providing lengthy tracks that have an oddly melancholic vibe to them which makes the adventure feel way more compelling - it's worth saying that the music was originally composed by Jarel "Arrow" Jones (one of the original SRB2 composers) for other projects such as the cancelled Sonic: Emerald Quest game and an old fangame called Sonic Legends (no relation to the one on SFGHQ).
For a blast into the past, it's pretty cool and one I'd definitely recommend giving a look if it interests you.
mb.srb2.org/addons/blue-heaven.4709/
Sonic Robo Blast 2: Emerald Quest (Windows; First Time; 54 minutes)
This has absolutely nothing to do with the Sonic: Emerald Quest fangame I mentioned above, and is a map pack designed by kriby with an experimental twist: you're given seven two-act zones and you can play them in any order. First act is a regular level, while the second is a boss-only stage that rewards you with a Chaos Emerald. Getting all seven is the only way to access the final zone, which will otherwise throw you out if you don't have them all.
The structure allows for plenty of freedom, which'll make repeat playthroughs quite enticing just to see what orders of levels you can experiment with. Levels are mostly linear with some secret areas off to the side, and it makes for a breezy enough adventure going between locales so regularly. Theming's a little vanilla for most of the stages, though I appreciate how one of the zones goes for a neat mixing of ice level and waste-spewing factory; I've not seen that before in any Sonic game and it's a cool little theme.
I quite enjoyed playing this and there's plenty to keep you coming back if this sounds up your alley, so definitely give it a go.
mb.srb2.org/addons/emerald-quest.4605/
Sonic Robo Blast 2: Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (Windows; First Time; 19 minutes)
This is another port of an old map pack, originally created by STHE123O and OmegaShow, and recently ported to V2.2 by XG5 (based on the earlier 2.0 port by Mr. Thompson and HYPER SONILDOW). It takes you through redone versions of all the Hero Mode stages from Sonic Adventure 2, either recreating the original rhythms of the level or doing an entirely new design with the same concepts.
It's a pretty alright way of experiencing one half of Adventure 2 through the gameplay of Robo Blast 2, though I'm rather surprised at how short the whole thing. I tend to dawdle a fair bit when playing these, and it still took me only barely a minute to clear most stages (the slower paced Treasure Hunting stages were the exception, since I was playing as the Adventure version of Sonic and needed to navigate places normally meant to be explored as Knuckles). Levels are also very linear, so there isn't a whole lot I could really do besides getting to the end. This isn't for me as much as I hoped it would be, but it's nice to have this around for people to try in more recent versions of the game.
mb.srb2.org/addons/sonic-adventure-2-battle-2-2-port.4767/
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Post by excelsior on Feb 24, 2023 6:38:39 GMT -5
Ms Splosion Man (Switch, First Time, 9 Hours Appx)Before we get started, the first thing you're going to want to do when playing Ms. Splosion Man is head over to the sound options and turn off the dialogue. Otherwise, we're 'treated' to an endless spewing of tired pop song and movie quotes, that reduce the supposed heroine to a purely sexist stereotype. There's still some obnoxiousness to digest in occasional cutscenes, but best to minimise it. Gameplay is quite nice, with puzzles being built around Ms. Splosion Man's explosive jumping abilities, which allow three explosions on land and interact with objects in various ways. There's three lengthy worlds, although these don't do much to differentiate from one another in terms of theme. They do introduce new gameplay mechanisms, although this is happening throughout and so the only thing defining the end of a world is a boss battle. There's frequent checkpoints in stages, although these become further spaced out as the game progresses, which feels a little unnecessary, this being a trial and error style of game. You die in one hit, so better once you've passed one puzzle to not have to repeat it and have to endure through several. Puzzles are smartly put together although we have an all too frequent problem with a zoomed out camera making it difficult to read actions and what's required of you. When readability issues appear the flow of gameplay is broken leaving the strength of Ms. Splosion Man's fast-paced and fluid simplicity of movement behind. More often than not though, this is a fun game that provides a nice level of engagement to its puzzle solving, requiring some degree of thought without ever becoming excessively difficult. Unfortunately this games humour and personality are intrusive to what would be a nicely put together puzzle-platformer. Improvements could be made to the design to make areas smaller and easier to read - I always think the exact same puzzle can be presented in less space in platformers such as this one. I also didn't need as many stages as Ms. Splosion Man had, which could have had some amount to do with a lack of variety in its themes. Score - 6/10
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Post by spanky on Feb 24, 2023 7:23:52 GMT -5
Metroid II: The Return of Samus (Game Boy via NSO, Replay)
Is this the definitive black sheep for this franchise as far as main entries go? People love Super Metroid, Zero Mission, Dread and the Prime Games. You'll see people go to bat for the original, Fusion or even Other M but I can't really recall too many people standing up for this entry.
The sequel to Metroid sends Samus search and destroy mission to eliminate all the Metroids on their home planet. Fortunately, there's only 39 of them. Unfortunately, these ones can mutate into new form. Perhaps the biggest change from the original is that it is much more linear, and there are arbitrary barriers separating each section of the game. New areas are flooded with acid until you destroy all the Metroids in a particular area, then the acid recedes somehow. There's never any sort of explanation for this. One part of the game requires you to trek through the acid for a bit, and is one of the tensest and best parts of the game, once you figure out that's what you're supposed to be doing.
The black and white graphics really enhance the mood and help drive home the fact you're on a hostile alien planet, and the overall design of the environments is much more natural looking. The music can be creepy and atmospheric in places but I don't really like the jaunty main theme that plays through much of the game.
There's a bunch of cool new items and by the end game you really feel like a master of your domain. You'll have an infinite jump that rips through enemies, a plasma beam and a Spider Ball that lets you stick to every surface. The final boss, the Queen Metroid is pretty righteous and worthy of being a final boss. I used the trick where you roll down her gullet and lay bombs in her stomach. I didn't know about that until this playthrough.
Unfortunately, the fact it's on an 8-bit portable system holds it back a bit. Though it is much more linear overall, you'll still be backtracking through each individual section to hunt down the Metroids and it's easy to get lost because there's no sort of map and many of the environments are repeated, and the lack of color and lead them looking the same. Full disclosure, I played through this with a map I found online and found it much more enjoyable. I was able to get the good ending as well. It's well made and fun to play so I can't be too hard on it, but the series doesn't really resonate with me until Super. 7/10.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 24, 2023 7:33:51 GMT -5
Ninja JaJaMaru — Big Adventure (NES/Switch, First Time)
The first Ninja JaJaMaru[-kun] is a really repetitive stage based action game. I might get through it some time, but it's basically 20 stages of the same thing over and over until it loops back to the beginning. This second game is more of a traditional platformer. It's made up of two loops of five levels and five bosses each, and then loops right back to the start of loop 1 after the end of the second. It's a bit less repetitive given the greater variety, but it's also sloppy and a bit buggy.
Rating: 5
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Post by Digitalnametag on Feb 24, 2023 14:06:02 GMT -5
Digimon Digital Card Battle PS1 FTP 22 hours
A tax return gift to myself picked up earlier this month. Much in the vein of the Pokemon TCG GB games, Digital Card Battle adapts the Digimon card game into video game form. The adaptation is dramatically different from how the physical card game played. The cards are based off the second TCG series and the story features characters from Adventure 02. However you pretty much just go to Gyms, errr Battle Arenas to unlock new areas and collect more cards. The credits roll about half way through the content signalling the end of the story, but a ton of new opponents unlock post credits.
So what about the game play? It's alright. Building a new deck based on an element outside your starter is not feasible the first half of the game without some series grinding. And for the love of all that is holy turn off the fight animations. They easily double the length of a card match which range from 5-15 minutes. The game truncates the Digimon evolution levels into just three forms (plus side evolution Armor) and the battles play out a lot like a rock paper scissors match. There is some strategy with effect cards and deck building but generally the game is pretty simple. If you are desperate for more card battling games maybe try this one? Otherwise just play the excellent Shadoverse Champions Battle or even the Pokemon TCG game.
Digimon (especially Adventure) is my favorite anime from childhood and even with all that nostalgia I just think this one is okay.
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Post by dsparil on Feb 25, 2023 13:17:32 GMT -5
Ninja JaJaMaru — The Great World Adventure (Game Boy / Switch, First Time)
A pretty great GB platformer all around with good graphics, enemy variety and environments. The levels are a bit short, but there's twelve of them each with a distinct boss that has some pre- and post-battle dialogue. I think this is technically the fifth game, but the third and fourth are RPGs in the other collection so I'm saving those until after Return to Dream Land Deluxe. What's interesting is that the main JaJaMaru collection also includes a GBC remake! It's not an obvious slam dunk over the original version however since many of the bosses have had their HP reduced to the point that they might die before even attacking.
The versions in the collection also have a new English translation, but the original English version, Maru's Mission, was not included. It actually has several significant differences from the Japanese game. In the original, you travel around the world going from Japan to an aquatic interlude then Romania, Greece, Egypt then a second interlude ending with Brazil and the US. The US version swaps the US and Japan which also added in a third interlude stage. There's also some new bosses and reorganization to get around religious content restrictions e.g. final boss Satan is replaced by Muramasa who attacks differently and only has a single phase. There's other little tweaks here and there plus a new intro and ending. It's different enough that it does feel like a major oversight to exclude it, but it is nowhere near as bad as the overpriced Darius console collection not even including either Super Darius.
Side note, but so many of the bosses draw from Greek mythology despite the stated location that I slightly wonder if this was originally a different game entirely. There's also a GB action-RPG but that one was by original original developer UPL—this series has a much milder version of what happened to Wonder Boy and Harvest Moon / Story of the Seasons—so it isn't included.
I finished in about 1.5 hours across the three playthroughs.
Rating: 8
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