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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Advan Racing - GGAG - 88% (4)
DonPachi - GGGAAAGA - 75% (8)
Firo and Klawd - GG - 100% (2)
Final Fantasy 2 - AABABGBGGAG - 55% (11)
Sentient - BBABB - 10% (5)
XS Junior League Soccer - ABA - 33% (3)
Pretty decent number of votes all around, I was happy to see the votes for Advan Racing, which I had certainly never heard of before, and the discussion on Final Fantasy 2 was interesting. Onwards to the next!
Games for this topic:
Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands
Gangway Monsters
Motor Toon Grand Prix (JP)
PGA Tour 96
Tetris Plus
VS
Just to be clear, there are two games on PS1 called "Motor Toon Grand Prix", this is the one that has that name in Japan, the first game in the series. Also, for fans of the Gen 5 consoles, we're also starting GAB for N64 this week, so be sure to check it out if that interests you.
Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands - G
ReplyDeleteGangway Monsters - G
Motor Toon Grand Prix (JP) - B
PGA Tour 96 - B
Tetris Plus - A
VS - B
Bubble Bobble also featuring Rainbow Islands is exactly what it says on the cover. It's a port of the arcade versions of Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands. Both games work well and have no added load times. There's also a second version of Rainbow Islands, which is basically the same but has enhanced graphics. There's not a ton of frills here, but these are both great games that are rarely offered together for whatever reason. If you already have the games on other platforms there's not a ton of incentive to track down this collection but if not it's a solid way to play them.
Gangway Monsters is an extremely wacky game. On the surface, it's basically Beyblade. You control a top in a concave arena and try to bounce into other tops. However, a monster rides on your top, and your goal is to damage the other monsters by landing your attacks. Every monster has a different attack, which requires a certain amount of energy, which is built up by ramming the other top. Hitting from behind and with speed is preferred, but head-on and side hits work too. The attacks vary tremendously, from simple punches and kicks to guns, bombs, even lightning strikes. Some are easier to hit with than others, but generally those that are easy to hit either take a lot of energy or don't do a lot of damage, so it feels balanced. It takes pretty good control of the top to land and avoid attacks, and when you do something smart, like dodge an attack by going up on the lip of the bowl or pull a quick turn to blast someone, it feels great. Your monsters also level up and evolve as you play, and there's a surprisingly large amount of them to collect for a one-off game like this. The game is also super cute and funny, I love the various monster designs and animations, and they all have voice acting too. This is the kind of total insanity that could only come from PS1.
Motor Toon Grand Prix has a cool sense of style, but that's the only good thing about it, everything else about the game is lousy. Of particular note is the handling, which is ridiculously terrible, the cars swing about the track in an extremely unnatural fashion that just feels weird, not helped at all by the way the camera kind of fishtails to the side when you turn. It's also an extremely simple game, there's no powerslides and only one special pickup (which you obtain at random and is used automatically). There's also only 3 tracks, and the game lacks any real sense of speed even when going fast. It's not hard to see why this one stayed in Japan.
I was expecting a pretty major upgrade out of PGA Tour 96 since PS1's 3D capabilities are so significantly better than the 16-bit consoles, but it's actually a surprisingly modest improvement over its predecessor. There's still no free-moving camera, it's all still shots, the only upgrade over past systems is that it loads the new shots much faster. The inability to look at the area the ball will land is a huge problem, particularly when hitting onto the green, sometimes you'll hit what looks like a good shot only to find out the green is actually significantly sloped and bounce off into a bunker or something, it sure would be nice if you could see that before you hit the ball. I also really hate the shot meter in this game, rather than being straight it's curved and I'm positive the movement isn't quite smooth, and if you're even a pixel off your shot goes way off course. These two factors combine to make a game that simply isn't very fun, but I'm sure big upgrades for the series are coming.
DeleteI'm extremely torn on Tetris Plus. On one hand, I love that it tries to put a fresh spin on a familiar concept through the puzzle mode, which forces you to think about Tetris in a very different way. On the other hand, the Puzzle mode involves an unwelcome amount of luck due to the complete absence of features like Hold and T-Spin that allow you greater flexibility in how you use the pieces you're given. With how little time you have to solve many puzzles before you get crushed, it often feels like you have to get an exact sequence of pieces to have a chance, and it can be all the more annoying if the researcher climbs the wrong way or if you clear a line but just barely too late and get crushed. There's incredible potential here, I really wish they would revisit this concept with a slightly more modernized ruleset because I feel it has the potential to be the best Tetris game on the market.
VS is a pretty basic 3D fighting game whose only claim to fame is that it has 20 characters. The gameplay is similar to Tekken, but much less polished. There's actually no jumping in this game, but mid attacks must be blocked standing, so functionally all mids are overheads. You can often switch between low and mid 3-4 times in a single blockstring, so blocking is almost completely worthless, instead you'll mainly be mashing the sidestep button on defense, which sometimes works but is very inconsistent as moves seem to follow sidesteps or not at random. Many combos aren't actually "true", so you can mash sidestep out of them as well. The game also has absolutely terrible input detection on special moves. It's just too degenerate for me to rate it very highly.