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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Arc the Lad - GBAGAAA - 57% (7)
Extreme Power - GG - 100% (2)
Missland - GG - 100% (2)
NBA Fastbreak '98 - AA - 50% (2)
Need For Speed - BBBA - 13% (4)
X-Men: Children of the Atom - AAABBBA - 29% (7)
I was pretty happy to see that someone else rated Extreme Power and Missland, as (by chance) those seem to be among the most obscure JP-exclusives out there, I had a very tough time finding any information about them beyond the scant details here on GF. Of course, our journey into the unknown is only just beginning.
Games for this topic:
Air Combat
Choujin Gakuen Gowcaizer
Hugo: The Evil Mirror
Puzznic
Tomb Raider
Worms
For those who don't recognize the name, Air Combat is actually Ace Combat 1. Also, we have the first Tomb Raider game here as well, which is obviously also heavily associated with the Playstation brand.
Air Combat - A
ReplyDeleteChoujin Gakuen Gowcaizer - B
Hugo: The Evil Mirror - A
Puzznic - B
Tomb Raider - A
Worms - A
Fans of Genesis GAB probably got the impression that I hate the Flight Simulator genre with a passion or something. I actually have nothing against the genre at all, it's just that it's a genre that is incredibly reliant on 3D graphics (you can tell this is the case because earlier flight sims always attempt to mimic 3D), and once you have the real thing there's no going back. Air Combat is an extremely basic game, the gameplay can basically be summed up as "approach target, circle behind, lock on, fire missiles", but it's leagues more playable than anything comparable on the 16-bit systems. As for the specifics of this title, as noted, the gameplay is very simple. Compared to games like Starfox 64's all-range mode or Extreme Power, there's just not as much nuance to the action, and it doesn't look especially pretty either. Buying planes seems like it would add some measure of strategy, but money is super abundant so it's not hard to just always buy the best plane available, and your wingmen are virtually useless, no matter what setting I set them to I don't think they ever took down even a single target. Still, it's got a very solid framerate, decent mission variety and I appreciate every mission seems to have a unique music track, many of which are pretty good. I doubt there's much reason to play this compared to more recent games but for its time it was a huge step up.
In the arcades, Choujin Gakuen Gowcaizer was a fairly average 2D fighter with a single unique mechanic - After you beat an enemy fighter, you can learn a special move from them (only one such move can be learned at a time). Combined with the fact that you can choose the order to fight the opponents in, this gave it a sort of vaguely mega-man ish vibe to it. Unfortunately, the PSX version lacks this mechanic entirely, and is just a huge downgrade in every way. The graphics are significantly downgraded, many of the special moves and animation frames are missing, and the CPU AI also seems to be really dumb, for example they have absolutely no idea how to deal with projectiles. If you want to try this one out play either the Arcade or Neo-Geo versions.
Hugo is a fairly simple 3D platformer, similar to Crash Bandicoot. It has a decent amount of variety thanks to its 4 playable characters and varied stage designs, but it's very short, it has only 6 levels and I was able to beat the entire game in just over an hour. Compared to Crash, I feel that the camera angles are better here, it was almost never difficult to judge jumps, and the cutscenes are kind of funny, but obviously it's also a much shorter and less complete game. There is a tiny bit of replay value in that you can collect gems in the levels, which unlock extra health, but the final boss is so simple that it's never really necessary. Overall it's a decent single playthrough and the chase level is pretty cool, but it's nothing groundbreaking.
Of all the franchises I didn't expect to see again on PS1, Puzznic has got to be near the top. The game is virtually identical to the NES version, in fact I know I recognize some of the puzzles. The main difference is there's now some colourful characters for you to "battle against" in the single player, but apart from clogging up part of the screen they don't really do anything, and in fact, this version is actually worse than the NES version because the Gravnic mode has been removed. About the only thing it's got going for it is that you can now save, but overall it's hard to recommend this. Even on NES it was A-level at best.
I feel like people are being a bit too hard on Tomb Raider. While it is clearly somewhat dated now, it's clear that it was innovative for its time and there's a few things about it I still find impressive. Besides the fact that it sets some of the conventions for 3D action games, the thing I think works best about the game is actually its atmosphere. The levels have a very organic feel to them, which I think helps the feeling of exploration, and I like the way the game uses music to create tension at key moments. I can definitely see how this would have been quite a spectacle back in the day. As for the controls, I feel that they're mostly fine, I rarely had trouble making Lara jump where I wanted, and I appreciate the fact that they included a tutorial in Lara's House to learn her many actions. The only time I started to have issues was when I needed to combine platforming with gunplay, such as during the T-Rex battle, which took quite a few tries because I would often slip off of rocks or whatever. Even though the combat is probably the weakest part of the game overall, I definitely see why it needed to be there, again it's to create tension and set the mood, after all it wouldn't be very exciting to explore these unknown areas if there was no danger whatsoever. It also encourages you to find secrets so you can get more medpacks. Overall, this is clearly a game whose time has come and gone, but it's still an interesting period piece in its own way.
DeleteWorms is one of those games where I just can't find any rating I'm happy with. Worms is, as its core, a fun concept. However, the first game is much more limited than the others. There's no story mode, way less weapons, you can't do the backflip jump yet, the Ninja Rope doesn't quite control properly, the graphics are worse, the stages are smaller, and so on. There's really absolutely no reason you should be playing this game when you could be playing Worms Armageddon (Worms 2 is not on PS1). This pushes me towards B, but while playing Worms, I was still having a fairly good time. Blowing mines into people or killing two worms close by so they hurt each other is still fun, probably too much fun for a B-level game. I guess that leaves A, but I still don't really feel good about it.