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Last Topic's Ratings:
Adventure of Little Ralph - AGGG - 88% (4)
K-1 Grand Prix - GA - 75% (2)
MediEvil - GGGGGGGGGA - 95% (10) (1 SR)
Motocross Mania - BBBA - 13% (4)
Space Rider - BB - 0% (2)
Turnabout - AGG - 83% (3)
A pretty average topic this time, I certainly thought Tobal No 1 would be more popular. It just goes to show that just because you've heard of something a lot doesn't mean people like it.
Games for this topic:
Buckle Up
Brave Fencer Musashi
Colony Wars
Hexen
NCAA March Madness 2001
Ridegear Guybrave
I've started playing Brave Fencer Musashi a bunch of times, and everytime I'm think "this game seems cool" but then I get distracted somehow and I never get very far. I'm looking forward to finally giving it a proper look. I also think the imports from this topic look pretty cool too.
Buckle Up - A
ReplyDeleteBrave Fencer Musashi - G
Colony Wars - A
Hexen - A
NCAA March Madness 2001 - G
Ridegear Guybrave - B
Buckle Up is a super weird game. In a certain sense, it looks a bit like the Choro Q games, and the physics feel a bit like Choro Q HG2 / Road Trip, but the gameplay is more in line with GTA. You can't shoot guns or anything, but you'll spend a lot of your time running from cops, hitting pedestrians and stealing cars. The game is divided into stages, with each one having a unique map and mission objective, and there are comic-book style scenes between the stages that tell what is clearly a fairly insane story. The game's biggest issue is likely the controls, most of the cars other than the default one have lousy handling, and the methods to beat the stages can be somewhat cryptic, for example on the first stage you have to cross a thin patch of water to reach an island and I don't know how you'd ever figure that out (I had to watch a video). It would probably help if the game was translated (though I'm not surprised it wasn't), though it definitely feels a bit rough around the edges.
Brave Fencer Musashi is indeed a pretty cool game. Although it is frequently compared to Zelda (probably because you have a charged spin attack), it actually reminds me more of Digimon World, in the way that the game allows for somewhat nonlinear progression around a central hub area where you can rescue various villagers who assist you in different ways. Of course, the gameplay is very different, but the progression loop feels a bit similar. One thing I really appreciate about this game is its sense of humour, it has some extremely wacky writing and almost never takes itself seriously, and it's also backed up by some fairly competent voice work. There's also a fairly neat system where you can absorb abilities from enemies, which is often necessary to pass certain obstacles, and can also make combat vastly easier and helps add variety to the game. The visuals aren't especially great, and the camera work is particularly shoddy, but that's about my only complaint for the game, it's otherwise a pretty good time.
Colony Wars has many similarities to Wing Commander 3. In both games, you'll fly predetermined starships on a sequential series of space missions, with significant focus on the narrative between missions. In both games, customization is nonexistent, you certainly won't be upgrading ships here, in this game you don't even get to pick which ones to fly on each mission. The first big difference between the two games is in terms of the presentation. While Wing Commander 3 uses real actors, Colony Wars is all CG, with much of the narrative being voice only, and there's no question that Wing Commander 3's presentation is much more captivating. Secondly, there's the matter of the way the storylines branch. In Wing Commander 3, they can branch based on some of your actions between missions, whereas in Colony Wars, the branch is simply based on whether or not you succeed or fail at various missions. However, the one area where Colony Wars has a massive advantage is in terms of its gameplay. Wing Commander features an insanely messy interface where dozens of button presses and combinations are needed to accomplish anything and most of your time is spent waiting for things to happen. Colony Wars is a vastly faster-paced game with a much slicker interface that makes pulling off complex manuevers and blasting enemies with many different weapon types a breeze, and the action is much more brisky-paced, too. That being said, the game is still very simple and the lacking presentation does hurt it a bit, so I think it's only an A overall. If only the two games could have merged their strong points, a game with WC3's presentation but Colony Wars' gameplay would be an SR-level game for sure. Well, we'll see what happens with the sequels.
Although it is similar, Hexen is a very significant downgrade compared to the N64 version. It's slower, it looks somewhat worse, and all of the multiplayer is cut out. There are also some strange omissions, like the flavour text that should appear when entering levels is completely gone. I do find the control scheme to be somewhat better though and the core gameplay is still intact, but there's no question that the N64 version is the one to get if you have the option.
DeleteNCAA March Madness 2001 is a very solid game. It's a sim-style basketball game, but it feels very fast-paced and the presentation is excellent, with great player models, camera work, and animations for its time. The control scheme is quite good too, in order to map more actions to the basic buttons, certain actions are executed by holding the button for a little while, which feels intuitive and also gives the game a bit of extra depth. The game is also very robust in terms of modes and customization, featuring all the kinds of standard modes you'd expect, plus a fairly interesting coaching mode where you're initially assigned to a small team and have to try to accomplish certain meagre goals for them like beating a high ranked team and placing decently in your division as you try to land new jobs at one of the more elite schools. Overall this definitely feels ahead of its time.
Ridegear Guybrave is a beat-em-up game with mechs, but somehow it manages to take what should be a really interesting concept and make it feel even more repetitive than is usual for the genre. I think it's probably because enemies respawn instantly and endlessly, forcing you to try to avoid as many of them as you can in order to progress to the next area, which in itself is not easy because they try to block you and you aren't very mobile. The core combat is also very simple even though you can equip different weapons, it's still mostly a 2-button game and the weapons seem limited in use compared to your basic melee attacks. There are also a bunch of long cutscenes that are totally unskippable. This one definitely turned out to be a lot less interesting than I had hoped.