This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Floating Runner: Quest for the 7 Crystals - BBBB - 0% (4)
Gradius Deluxe Pack - AAA - 50% (3)
Kattobi Tune - AA - 50% (2)
NBA Shootout 2004 - GA - 75% (2)
Sheep - AAA - 50% (3)
Vigilante 8 - GGAGGAG - 86% (7)
Another one that was pretty much what I expected, though I'm glad to see that someone else tried Kattobi Tune, that felt like it might be one of those games where only I played it.
Games for this topic:
Inspector Gadget: Gadget's Crazy Maze
Marble Master
Mega Man Legends
NHL Open Ice
Supercross 2000
Yami Fuku Natsu: Teito Monogatari Futatabi
For whatever reason, despite being a big fan of the Megaman series, I've never played Megaman Legends before now. I'd also like to call attention to Marble Master's ridiculous box art, I kind of want to play it for that alone.
Inspector Gadget: Gadget's Crazy Maze - B
ReplyDeleteMarble Master - A
Megaman Legends - A
NHL Open Ice - A
Supercross 2000 - A
Yami Fuku Natsu: Teito Monogatari Futatabi - G
Gadget's Crazy Maze is a really tedious puzzle game that has nothing to do with the show. You move around the environments, pushing gems to make matches of 3 in a row, with the goal to remove all gems from the map. You cannot pull gems, so a single wrong gem push usually renders the level impossible to complete, and there will also be situations where even making a match can screw you over (if there's 4 of a colour of gem and you make a match of 3, you're done), so there'll be a ton of tedious restarting, particularly because the controls are slippery as well. The maps quickly become big and complex, taking several minutes to complete, and a single mistake forces a complete restart, which, when combined with the fact that the game is never really fun or entertaining quickly kills any potential entertainment value. I can't imagine what they were thinking with this game particularly given the game's target audience, who would never have anywhere near the patience required to play it. Definitely just skip this one.
Marble Master may have very exciting looking box art, but it's a pretty dull game. It has quite a lot of mechanics, you drop marbles from the top, each of which has a certain amount of weight, and the marbles sit on top of scales. When the weight on a scale tips to one side, it tosses the marble on the top of the other side of the scale to go flying. The goal is to position 3 marbles of the same colour to line up side by side, which clears them. There are also many types of special marbles you can get in various ways, so many in fact that there's a reference page you can access to remind you what they all do. It's functional enough, but I find it quite dull. I think it actually might be a case of the game being somewhat too complicated, when I think of many of the best puzzle games they have relatively simple mechanics, but there's so many things going on in this game that it's almost impossible to keep track of them all, so much of the action simply feels chaotic and arbitary. The game's one saving grace is its mission mode, which is somewhat interesting, it gives you unique clear conditions for each stage that both can help you learn the game and also makes it feel more focused. Unfortunately, there aren't that many of these in total and the difficulty ramps up way too fast, if this mode was more fleshed out the game might be better, as it stands it's a very low A.
Megaman Legends is such a painful game to rate. Many aspects of the game are fantastic, most especially the presentation, which is absolutely top notch. The visuals look great, the story and cutscenes are funny, the characters have a ton of personality, and the production values are very solid throughout. I also like the concept of the the game, Megaman and RPG mechanics are a good mix, as we'll later see in the Battle Network series. Unfortunately, the gameplay simply sucks. Megaman games are characterized by their fast-paced action and fluid controls and they have been completely lost in the transition to 3D. The controls in Megaman Legends are stiff and frustrating and simply never feel good to use. Attacking enemies on the ground is tolerable, you can just strafe and use auto aim, though obviously this carries none of the nuance of the gameplay of the 2D games and you also feel like you can't turn quite fast enough to properly circle strafe, but the moment any verticality is introduced the game quite literally grinds to a halt. To target airborne enemies, you're forced to use the lock-on to target them, which completely prevents you from moving. Considering that you lock on by holding a button, I see no reason why they couldn't have allowed you to continue moving while doing this, or, better yet, implement a persistent lock-on ala OoT's Z-Targetting. The lock-on is also extremely inconsistent about which enemy it targets, which makes trying to take out airborne enemies even more annoying as sometimes the game will decide to lock onto a ground enemy instead. If you can put up with the lousy gameplay there's a ton to like here, so I actually never hated my time spent with the game, but there's no way I can give it a G in good conscience. This is a game that desperately needs to be remade because with a proper control scheme this would the easiest of easy Gs. Oh, and this has nothing to do with my rating, but they should have kept his name as Rock Volnutt for the english version. They could still refer to him by the title of "Megaman" but trying to pass that off as his actual first name sounds ridiculous.
DeleteI wasn't aware this was the case, but NHL Open Ice is the predecessor to Wayne Gretsky's 3D Hockey. Compared to that game, this game has far more in common with NBA Jam, playing almost identically to Jam except for the change of sport. Like Jam, it's a 2 on 2 game, the controls are virtually identical, there are special shots that almost function like dunks, and the UI is pure Jam as well. Compared to Wayne Gretsky's 3D Hockey, the game is definitely faster paced and crazier, but also feels more repetitive and has less nuance, in particular I feel like positioning is vastly less important, shots go in so frequently that there's little reason to even try to get open or pull off one-timers, which doesn't really capture the essense of hockey well IMO. There are some things I like here, like the stat breakdown between quarters and the announcer, but even some of the features from Jam TE are missing, for example there's no player injuries so you never have to switch out your players. Overall, I think 3D Hockey is the superior game in most ways, but this is still definitely good enough for A. It's fun for a few games, but it definitely does get repetitive pretty quickly.
The PS1 version of Supercross 2000 feels quite a bit better in most ways than the N64 version. My biggest issue with the N64 version was the control, which is still somewhat problematic here, but feels a fair bit more responsive. My biggest issue is that when you do a very tight turn you almost completely stop, forcing you to try to do a slightly less than tight turn, but the general physics for the bike feel adequate, allowing the races to be much more enjoyable. The commentary of the game is also better here, there's more general announcer chatter about the courses and the riders, which helps give the game more personality. Overall, with functional control you can appreciate what this game does well, it has a lot of tracks, the presentation is quite good, and there's a decent amount of nuance to the racing. The progression of the game still feels a bit lacking and I'm still not 100% a fan of the way it controls but it's no longer one of the worst games of its type.
DeleteYami Fuku Natsu is at the very borderline of how Japanese-intensive a game can be for me to consider it to be eligible for GAB, in fact, I probably wouldn't have allowed it if not for the fact that I find it to be pretty interesting and I didn't actually have that much trouble playing it. The game kind of feels like a cross between Grim Fandango and Resident Evil, it spends a lot of its time as an adventure game, where you'll wander around various environments using Resident Evil-style tank controls, interacting with other characters, finding and using items to solve various puzzles. This would normally be something that I wouldn't consider to be suitable for foreign audiences, but thankfully the game is fairly linear and has a well-designed interface to help even non-native speakers figure out where to go. For example, items of interest are usually highlighted with a white sparkle, and when characters tell you something important, it will be highlighted in blue. The game also features a fairly simple dialogue tree system where a basic "say everything to everyone" approach makes progression simple enough. Of course, you'll miss out on some story this way, but the game has a lot of cutscenes and the visuals and presentation are generally pretty good so I still felt like I got the gist of it. The basic concept is that you get mixed up in some paranormal events and have to find four spiritual stones, aided by a computer program that can detect paranormal activity and a mysterious white cat that also seems to be sensitive to the supernatural. What sets the game apart from other adventure games is that periodically you have to enter portals to the demon world, which allows you to traverse the same environments, but with various changes. For starters, there are enemies in these areas and you have a health bar, so the game has some action elements. You can't actually fight, you simply have to avoid enemies, but it's not actually too taxing. Your health bar is really more like a stamina bar, it depletes a little bit when running and you lose a big chunk if you get hit, but if you can find a spot to stop and catch your breath (there are some safe areas even in the demon realm) it recovers very quickly, so save for a handful of very powerful enemies you're not usually in too much danger, which is good because there's puzzles you need to solve here too. One interesting wrinkle is that the demon realm actually takes place in the past, so affecting things here will also make changes in the "present" (the real world). One puzzle involved unlocking a door in the past, unblocking a passageway for the cat, then returning to the present so the cat can go through the passage and find something on the other side (which is otherwise inaccessible in the present). Overall, even with the language barrier it's clear that this is a pretty cool game. I wish someone would translate this, but it seems to be very unknown, luckily I was able to find a Japanese playthrough on Youtube which did help me at one point where I got stuck, but I'm sure it would be easier if I could read all the dialogue.
Delete