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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Armorines: Project Swarm - AAGBA - 50% {5}
Iggy's Reckin' Balls - GGGAGG - 92% (6) (1 SR)
Jeopardy - ABAAG - 50% {5}
NBA Live 2000 - ABAG - 50% {4}
Pokemon Stadium - AGAGAGGGG - 83% (9) (1 SR)
Tonic Trouble - AAA - 50% (3)
Three squiggle bracket games in one topic! I'm pretty sure that's a record, even though two of them were as a direct result of my ratings. Have I lost touch with the N64 community? I guess we'll find out in the next topic.
Games for this topic:
Blast Corps
Bomberman Hero
GT 64: Championship Edition
J.League Eleven Beat 1997
Lode Runner 3-D
Virtual Pro Wrestling 64
It's time for our monthly wrestling game, I had no idea how many of these there were on N64. Also, Blast Corps, which I'm looking forward to playing again.
Blast Corps - G (SR)
ReplyDeleteBomberman Hero - G
GT 64: Championship Edition - B
J.League Eleven Beat 1997 - G
Lode Runner 3-D - A
Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 - G
I too was really surprised by the reception to Blast Corps. This was a game I played a ton when it was new, though I didn't really go back to it much since then, so I was wondering if it didn't age that well based on the feedback. However, I don't think this is really the case. For starters, this game is super innovative, there's pretty much never been another game like it before or since. Despite this, I feel it's still quite polished for a first attempt. There's a ton of variety and content, in particular I think the medal system is quite well designed, learning how to complete the stages quickly feels rewarding, and the fact that there's pretty much always a fair bit of player choice in terms of how you tackle each stage makes it feel a bit strategic too. For example, in some racing stages, you're given a choice of vehicles, from cars that are really fast to slower construction vehicles, but there'll usually be parts of the stage you can destroy so it's not necessarily the case that the fastest vehicle is the best. There's been a lot of focus on the controls, though except for the Backlash, I feel like everything controls pretty well. The Backlash's drift mode definitely has some issues (you're intended to hold R to go into a kind of drift mode but it controls oddly, it's definitely not as natural as it could be), but there's only a few stages where the Backlash is heavily featured. As far as the presentation is concerned, this is perhaps a bit more basic, most buildings are basically just cubes, though at least the soundtrack is quite good. In any case, when going back to this game, I was still having a ton of fun and didn't want to stop playing, I feel that due to how unique it is, its appeal hasn't really worn off at all. It's really unfortunate that this game never got a sequel, as I feel that there's still a lot that could be done with this concept.
DeleteBomberman Hero is a very different take on Bomberman compared to most, and it could easily be argued that it doesn't really feel like a Bomberman game, but despite that, I still think it's a pretty solid 3D platformer. Bomberman Hero eschews the complex puzzles of Bomberman 64 for a much more straightforward, faster-paced, and more action-heavy experience, which I think is generally for the better. Unlike in Bomberman 64, you now have a traditional jump, and your main attack is to throw bombs, which makes it feel more like a standard action game with the caveat that you can hit yourself if you're too close to the enemy when you attack. The controls are generally pretty good and so is the camera, most stages are framed from a single angle, usually from the side or back, which generally prevents the camera from getting stuck or choosing bad angles. Speaking of the levels in the game, they're short, but there's a ton of them, and there's a target score for each stage as well as some hidden collectables to add replay value. As far as criticisms of the game go, there are no checkpoints, if you die you're going right back to the start of the level with everything undone, the only purpose of lives is that if you run out you lose all your powerups, including any health bar extensions, which definitely feels a bit lame. You can farm 1ups fairly easily on some stages to mitigate this, but it feels a bit tedious. Also, there's no multiplayer mode whatsoever, but with how bad Bomberman 64's multiplayer was it doesn't change a lot. As for the game's presentation, I think you could argue that the visuals aren't that great (pretty much all buildings are basically cubes), but the audio side is pretty good, all the explosions are very satisfying and it also has a good soundtrack. Overall, I feel like it's a pretty decent game, I definitely liked it better than Bomberman 64 at the time, even if it maybe doesn't stand out as much anymore.
Don't let GT 64's name fool you, this is definitely not Gran Turismo for the N64. For starters, it's an arcade-style racer, so the game revolves almost entirely around powerslides, but the powersliding feels terrible, with drifts feeling stiff to execute and difficult to come out of. Pretty much the entire rest of the game is very generic, there's nothing interesting about the menus, progression, or graphics, and with only 6 tracks, there's not a whole lot of game here, either. There's really just not a lot of reason to spend time on this one.
DeleteJ.League Eleven Beat 1997 is another solid soccer game from Konami. I think the players are supposed to be kids, but it barely matters, it plays pretty much like any other soccer game, these kids can clearly keep up with the pros just fine. Compared to International Superstar Soccer 64, this game is definitely a bit more simplistic, even though I feel that ISS64 is actually not too hard to learn, if you want something a bit simpler but with a similar level of quality this is it. One interesting mechanic in this game is that you don't ever really control a specific player on defense, you instead effectively control every player who is anywhere near the ball, but this actually works pretty well. If you miss a slide tackle, rather than immediately having to switch player and hope it picks someone else nearby, you can just mentally switch your focus to the next closest person since your inputs control them as well, which feels a bit more responsive than most games do. Most other mechanics, like passing control and centering the ball generally feel very solid, you can tell Konami has a lot of experience here. My only beef is that this game does seem to suffer from "overly-good goalie" syndrome, where regardless of how many great setups you get they almost always save it, but I suppose if every match didn't end 1-1 it wouldn't be authentic to real soccer. There are actually shootouts here where you control the goalie yourself, and they're surprisingly entertaining, perhaps because of the "MAKE A SAVE!" callout when you actually manage to stop a shot. A quality game overall to be sure.
Lode Runner 3-D is okay. I actually kind of like the game's aesthetic, the visuals and music give the game a pretty neat sci-fi feel. The gameplay itself is decent, it controls well enough and the puzzles are okay, though I feel like some of the stages involve a fair bit of trial and error and it also has load times for some reason, most particularly any time you fail a stage you have to wait a few seconds for it to load again, which is kind of annoying. It's not bad, but it's not something that holds my interest for too long.
Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 is effectively identical to WCW/nWo World Tour. It has the exact same menu interface, so if you're familiar with the game you should have no trouble even though it's in Japanese, and the gameplay is also effectively identical. The main difference is that compared to World Tour, there's significantly more Wrestlers, most of whom are Japanese, and there's now a single player challenge mode and an Edit mode. As with the US-released games, the gameplay is still very good, though the flair of the game definitely does not match WWF No Mercy / Attitude. Still, the wrestler selection is impressive and the replay value is good, and with the new modes it's clearly an upgrade to World Tour. It is still like 95% the same game, though, so there's not really a great need to rush out and buy it if you own World Tour already.