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Last Topic's Ratings:
Alien Trilogy - AGGBAGG - 71% (7)
Cindy's Caribbean Holiday - B - 0% (1)
IHRA Drag Racing - BBBBB - 0% (5)
Kirikou - GG - 100% (2) (1 SR)
Strikers 1945 2 - GGGGG - 100% (5)
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater - AGGGGGGGGGA - 91% (11)
I wonder if we'll see any PS1 titles getting a significant number of SRs. Due to the sheer number of games available, it seems like SR totals would likely be somewhat lower compared to other systems.
Games for this topic:
Air Hockey
Kyuin
Legend of Dragoon
Moto Racer
Shockwave Assault
Arcade's Greatest Hits: Atari Collection 1
I'm kind of sad that we have to call Air Hockey by its much more boring American name rather than it's awesome Japanese title (Hooockey!!). Also, we have a fairly well known RPG here in Legend of Dragoon, which I've never actually played before. Also, when I was first making this list, I thought Shockwave, Shockwave: Operation Jumpgate, and Shockwave Assault were all different games, but it turns out they're actually all part of the same game. Score! We're cutting down the PS1 list already.
Air Hockey - A
ReplyDeleteKyuin - A
Legend of Dragoon - G
Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 - A
Moto Racer - A
Shockwave Assault - G
Air Hockey is okay. I agree that the powerups are kind of annoying, particularly because they stop time to display a message or animation (this is a good example of how more visual flair is not always better), which definitely does interrupt the flow of a match. Also, the puck probably moves just a touch too fast to be reactable in some cases. That being said, I do appreciate the goofiness (it isn't translated well, which kind of helps the appeal), and the 2 player options are more robust than I expected, giving you both the option to play vs as well as 2v2. I think it's an A, but only just barely. It's worth noting that this was a budget title in Japan.
Kyuin is a very basic shmup. Its main unique gimmick is that you ride a vaccuum cleaner, which is not just for show, the nozzle can suck up some weaker enemies and enemy shots, which also powers your super attack. Beyond this, you have a very standard assortment of shmup weapons and a 2P-S mode, though the game seems to drop more frames than I'd expect for a PS1 game. One thing I do like is that when fighting bosses, their HP is displayed, more shmups need to do this, but other than that it's a fairly routine affair.
I spent a ton of time on Legend of Dragoon, maybe more than on any other games we've done for GAB, but in the end I think my first impression was correct - it's a fun, classic PS1 RPG. In many ways, it's very reminiscent of the Final Fantasy titles on PS1, in particular the visual style is almost identical, but it falls a bit short of them in scope. For example, it lacks a true world map, most of its cutscenes are rendered in-engine rather than FMV (and time has not been kind to these), and it lacks the depth of customization that the FF titles offer. That said, the prerendered backdrops are often gorgeous, particularly towns and areas near water, and the music is also very solid, it definitely still offers that unique charm that people associate with the PS1 RPGs. The real point of contention for me was the battle system, which is also the place where it diverges most from its PS1 brethren. Legend of Dragoon's battle system is fairly simple, but is marked by extreme use of action commands, similar to the Mario RPGs. However, whereas those games would have only 1 or 2 inputs for most attacks, most attacks in LoD will have you inputting 3-5 of them, resulting in vastly less damage or even you being hit instead if the timing is not very precise. This does add a welcome level of interactivity to what could otherwise be a fairly routine battle system and it's always satisfying to nail the full chain, but it also has the side effect of making battles take a while, particularly because the animations are also fairly lengthy and there's a bit of a pause inbetween attacks for some reason. The main reason I put so much time into the game is that I wanted to see if this would eventually cause battles to become tedious, but for the most part it didn't. There were a couple areas where I got lost for a while and the random battles did start to grate on me to some degree, but for the most part the game does a good job of balancing monster HP so that the battle system doesn't wear out its welcome, and it does help to add some extra intensity to boss fights as missing too many combos may spell defeat. There's also a wide variety of characters to use (each with their own, differently timed combos), and the addition of the dragon transformation mechanic helps add more variety and depth into the battle system (and also makes the characters feel appreciably different from each other, something FF sometimes struggles with). I wondered for a while if this game might actually be pushed down to A simply due to the wide variety of great RPGs available on PS1 that it has to compete against, but despite looking at the game with a critical eye throughout my playtime I was always having fun, which I feel is a good indicator that it is G, even if it might not be one of the RPGs I would put at the very top on this system.
DeleteThe thing I appreciate most about The Atari Collection 1 is the documentary provided along with the games. These games are a piece of history and the added videos and interviews really help to give it context. There's also a decent amount of options available when playing the games. Ultimately, though, these games are fairly dated, especially super breakout, which is fairly forgettable, and there aren't really a lot of them in the package considering the amount of space available to the medium.
Moto Racer is an interesting package. For starters, it's almost two separate games. The game features both superbike racing and motocross racing, and they play drastically differently. The superbike racing is ball-bustingly fast (eat your heart out Jet Moto), though IMO, the control here is not quite good enough to accommodate the extreme level of speed (it's very twitchy and thus requires extremely precise control and timing), and the tracks are also very narrow and full of sharp turns with little warning, mandating almost complete course memorization to get anywhere. The motocross racing is vastly better, with much better controls and physics, leaving other motocross games we've rated in the dirt easily, but it's only half the game. I feel like the superbike racing would be A and the motocross would be G, but it probably averages out to A overall. I'm curious to see if the sequels will improve the superbike segments enough to pull it into G territory.
DeleteShockwave Assault is kind of a cool game. It's one of the FMV heavy games from the mid-90s like Megarace and Crime Patrol, though this time it's a space shooter. Even though your craft has full 360 degree motion, you have limited vertical control and the horizontal area is very limited, which makes it feel a bit more like a rail shooter where you can turn around to some degree rather than a true flight sim. There are also somewhat varied mission objectives across the different stages, but they generally boil down to "shoot most enemies" and occasionally "destroy key targets", don't expect anything fancy here. The game's main appeal lies more in the cutscenes and voice work than the main gameplay, though, with fairly elaborate FMV sequences featuring real actors. The production values are not on the level of a real movie or anything like that (you can tell that everything is recorded in front of a green screen), but it's still a far cry from the terrible VA that you'd find in most games of this vintage and it does add some extra excitement to what would otherwise be a fairly basic game. A bit borderline, but I think this would have been fairly cool in its day so I'm giving it a G.