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Last Topic's Ratings:
Army Men: Air Combat - GGAGGGA - 86% (7)
Choro Q 64 2 - GGG - 100% (3)
F-1 World Grand Prix 2 - BBGGB - 40% (2)
Mortal Kombat 4 - ABGGGGGGA - 78% (9)
NHL Blades of Steel '99 - GA - 75% (2)
Quake 2 - AAAGGGGG - 81% (8)
An interesting back and forth on several games in this topic, but nowhere moreso than F-1 World Grand Prix 2. I don't think I've ever seen a game get only Gs and Bs like that. This is the very definition of a "love it or hate it" game.
Games for this topic:
Command and Conquer
Nightmare Creatures
Nushi Tsuri 64: Shiokaze Ni Notte
Pokemon Puzzle League
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2
Xena: Warrior Princess - The Talisman of Fate
I had no intention to make Xena a headlining game, but nothing else would fit. These games have some long titles!
Command & Conquer - A
ReplyDeleteNightmare Creatures - B
Nushi Tsuri 64: Shiokaze Ni Notte - G
Pokemon Puzzle League - G
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 - A
Xena: Warrior Princess - The Talisman of Fate - B
Command and Conquer is sort of a glass half full vs glass half empty situation. On one hand, it's sort of impressive that the game has made the transition to N64 mostly intact, as this is a very big game, taking 2 CDs on PS1, and it's almost all present here on an N64 cart. On the other hand, this is undeniably a fairly major downgrade from PS1, with the special operations missions being removed, the cutscenes being mostly taken out, the music being downgraded to a midi format, sound clips being heavily reduced in quality, and numerous other compromises. One of the biggest differences is that this version has fully 3D ingame visuals, while the PS1 version uses 2D graphics. However, as is often the case with taking a 2D game and moving it into low-rez 3D, I don't actually think this is an upgrade, I feel that the graphics don't look any better on N64, and in fact the readability of the game area has taken a hit compared to PS1. I also said that the cutscenes are only "mostly" gone, they've actually made an attempt to reproduce some of them with in-engine 3D graphics, which, while commendable, doesn't look even remotely as good as it does on PS1. Thankfully the gameplay is still intact from the PS1 version and the game still plays pretty well, so you could definitely make the argument that it's still welcome to have this on N64, but these days I see little reason why you'd play this compared to the PS1 version.
Nightmare Creatures is absolutely atrocious. I feel like this is the flip side of how I sometimes say games do so much right that there's not too much to talk about, this game does so much wrong there's basically nothing to talk about, even after I tried to go back to it and play further seeing as how some people seem to like it, but I still feel you can see everything this game has to offer in like 10 minutes. For starters, the camera is ridiculously bad even by the standards of the era, frequently framing the action from completely nonsensical angles, and the characters have the ability to move too quickly for it to deal with (using the backstep move is a guaranteed way to give the camera fits). The game also looks awful, with laughable draw distance (they try to hide this by making the game "dark") and terrible animation. The gameplay has basically no depth to it, with it being effectively a simple button masher with stiff, lousy controls. Almost every enemy in the game can be stunlocked as long as you get the first hit in and the levels themselves are generic and repetitive. Getting hit barely matters as you revive right where you die and healing items and extra lives are plentiful. Everything this game does is done a thousand times better by Castlevania 64, which isn't a great game by any means, but it seems like a masterpiece next to this. I feel this is likely one of the worst games I've played on the system.
Nushi Tsuri 64: Shiokaze Ni Notte is very similar to the original Nushi Tsuri 64, though perhaps a bit more simplified. It retains the exact same fishing engine and even most of the game engine is the same, for example the menus are unchanged and most of the items, tackle, bait, and so on are the same, even most of the music is recycled, so in a certain sense you could probably say that the biggest issue with the game is that it doesn't really improve on the previous game too much. The biggest change are the new overworld graphics, which are more zoomed in and detailed, though I'm not 100% sure if I find them to be better, but at least it's not totally recycled. As mentioned before, some mechanics from the previous game have also been simplified somewhat, for example to catch bugs and pick flowers you now simply walk up to them on the overworld and collect them, the little minigame is removed, and fighting animals is removed from the game entirely. It's debatable whether or not this is an improvement, honestly it does make the scope of the game feel a bit smaller, but it also puts more of the focus on fishing and that's clearly the best part of the game. They did also add a new minigame that sort of resembles Othello that you can challenge various NPCs to, so I guess that's something. Overall though, a lot remains the same as the previous game and even though progression seems to be a little more straightforward this time this is still a pretty complicated game and it'll be hard for those who don't speak Japanese to get far without a guide, which is a problem because whomever wrote the guide for the previous game hasn't even started working on it yet. Still, the fishing engine still rocks, it has a lot more nuance compared to the older games, and I think this was the right direction for the series (as compared to the awful games that came later), it's just a shame that they were never translated into English.
DeleteI've often talked about how I feel that Puzzle League / Panel De Pon is one of the weaker Puzzle games mechanically, but there's no denying that Pokemon Puzzle League rocks. The first thing to note about this game is just how jam-packed it is with content. This game not only has the standard VS Com mode and endless modes that you'd find in most puzzle games, but also a Puzzle mode, a single player Line Clear mode, a mode where you can make your own puzzles, and a bunch of multiplayer modes, and pretty much all of these have their own progression with various things to unlock. It's really quite remarkable how much they were able to build around this game's formula and to this date this is still one of the most complete puzzle games ever released. On top of this, the presentation is also great, with tons of fun voice acting and music from the anime, and really bright and colourful visuals that look great. As I mentioned in the intro, I do think the core VS mode in Panel De Pon needs a bit of work, mainly because if the game is played properly no one will ever die. The way the "STOP" mechanic works, as long as you keep making chains, you can never actually be killed, and attacks simply feed the opponent more blocks that they can use to make more chains, leading to absurd marathon matches between good players (I've had the final boss fight go on over 15 minutes before). Still, this really only affects the VS mode, modes like Time Attack and Line Clear do a better job of rewarding skillful play. Oh, and the N64 controller is also a great fit for this game, the large and responsive DPad is fantastic for the precision that this game requires (this is the biggest edge it has over the Gamecube version found in Nintendo Puzzle Collection). Overall, this is an extremely solid game and you could definitely make the case that it's the best puzzle game on N64, which is saying something because it's a genre that the system does well.
Ready 2 Rumble Round 2 is such a minor improvement over the first game I had to go back to it to verify that anything had changed whatsoever. Most aspects of the game are almost identical, the changes would mostly be described as tuning changes. Movement is a little slower (which is good, it forces you to actively fight more), activating and getting value out of Rumble mode is a little easier, and blocking is generally weaker. This does result in a game that plays faster and is somewhat more fun, which is good, because the original is just atrocious, but it's still not something I'd say is that great or anything. The stamina mechanic is still almost completely irrelevant, the buildup mode still kind of sucks, and I feel like running away during the opponent's rumble mode is still too powerful, but I guess there are some arcade-style hijinxs to be had here now. I would still definitely stick to the K-1 series though for your combat sport needs.
DeleteXena gets a few points for ambition, but ultimately it's a pretty bad game. It's an early attempt at an arena fighter, similar to Beast Wars, though it's not nearly as good as that game. The game's main claim to fame is that you have full 3D movement which works moderately well, but the game has nothing resembling sensible mechanics. For starters, jumps are absurdly floaty, making jump attacks effectively worthless, the only value of the jump is to reposition. There are specials and combos, but the combos barely work and you can crouch most specials, and crouching is generally very strong due to the fact that jump attacks are bad. You can block (with back even!) but it's usually more effective to just throw out an attack instead since attacks can clank. Generally, the goal of the game is to crouch most of the time and just spam a good button until you win, which stays interesting for a few minutes at best. An interesting wrinkle is that on the hard difficulty setting you fight multiple opponents at once, which makes the game a lot harder, though not in a particularly interesting way, the key is just generally to run away until you can face a lone opponent, and they can also hit each other, which you can use to your advantage. Still, it's novel that they tried to incorporate team battles into the game. There was a fair bit of ambition here, just not really enough knowledge of the general workings of the genre to make a good game.