This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Cabela's Big Game Hunter: Ultimate Challenge - BAA - 33% (4)
Colin McRae Rally - GGGGAG - 92% (6)
Dead Ball Zone - AB - 25% (2)
Hello Kitty Illust Puzzle - GA - 75% (2)
Strider - BAAAAAAA - 44% (8)
VR Golf '97 - BA - 25% (2)
If you had told me that Hello Kitty would be the second-highest scoring game in this topic when I made it I wouldn't have believed it, but I guess it just speaks to the timeless appeal of picross as a game.
Games for this topic:
Animaniacs Ten Pin Alley
Bushido Blade
NASCAR 98
NHL Rock the Rink
Robocod: James Pond 2
Tsumu
Kind of an eclectic selection this time. Bowling, swordfighting, Nascar, Hockey, everyone's favourite fish in a powered suit, and a hamster with a forklift. There's something for everyone here!
Animaniacs Ten Pin Alley - B
ReplyDeleteBushido Blade - A
NASCAR 98 - A
NHL Rock the Rink - G
Robocod: James Pond 2 - G
Tsumu - A
Animaniacs Ten Pin Alley sucks. Somehow, adding the Animaniacs actively made this game worse, it feels like it has even less personality than the original, which it is otherwise identical to. The biggest change is the addition of the characters from Animaniacs, but they talk fairly infrequently, so this doesn't really add much to the game. One of the biggest missed opportunities is that when you hit a strike, it loads a cutscene rather than just showing the strike and having your character say something. Besides the fact that there's only a couple of these cutscenes and they are lame, this also results in load time, which feels very jarring and you can't turn this feature off. This means the characters only tend to talk when you get a spare or screw up, which is not too often if you're playing well. Having them talk occasionally during difficult shots, like when trying to nail a split or when the ball is inching towards a lone pin, would have been appreciated. Mechanically, the game is super basic and the new wacky lane adds nothing to the game, other than just randomly screwing up your shot from time to time (compare other games which place obstacles on that lanes or things like that). Overall, I just can't believe how soulless this game is considering what a great franchise it's paired with.
Bushido Blade is an exceptionally unique and ambitious game but parts of it also feel very unpolished so it's hard to know how to rate it exactly. The basic concept of the game is that it's a fighting game without health bars. When hits are landed, characters will either be staggered, knocked down, injured, or killed outright, with most battles lasting 3 hits at most. This sounds like it would create a very high risk game that is very spacing dependent, and it kind of does, though regular attacks are extremely easily deflected if the opponent isn't doing anything, so even a well spaced attack is rarely particularly rewarding. Instead, the optimal strategy is usually to wait for the opponent to miss an attack, then hit them before they recover, which feels like it doesn't have quite as much depth as if offense was a bit more rewarding. The game features a somewhat interesting story mode, which is made up of many interconnected maps in one large area. You can run from one map to another, though this takes a while as you must wait for your opponent to catch up, and the running and especially climbing controls are not great. There is a hidden good ending in story mode that requires you to run through the entire area and jump into a well without killing anyone, then beat the rest of the game without being hit, which is legendarily annoying to accomplish, particularly considering that story mode also forces you to fight "honourably", which means no attacking your opponent in the back or on the ground, among other things (of course, the AI is not subject to this). When playing the modes where this is not a factor, the game is a bit more fun, and it can be an interesting multiplayer game that doesn't require a massive amount of practice to get into. Still, going back to this, I was a bit surprised at how rough many parts of it felt, possibly due to my familiarity with the sequel, which makes a fair number of improvements to the formula.
NASCAR 98 is ok. It's a very arcadey game with very basic physics and little collision mechanics to speak of. Visually, it looks decent, but there's no commentary yet, which is sorely missed compared to later games. Compared to the Psygnosis Nascar games, it feels like it has much less depth and isn't as well-polished, and it also feels very inferior to NASCAR 99 and 2000 as well. It's still not that bad overall, but it's one of your worst NASCAR options on the console and I probably wouldn't recommend it.
As noted, I didn't really intend to put NHL Rock the Rink up after Dead Ball Zone after I noticed how similar they were, but maybe it's not such a bad thing that I did because it's hard not to draw a comparison between them. Both games are wacky sports games that involve big hits and insanely fast-paced action, but NHL Rock the Rink is better in almost every way. For starters, although the game is still crazily fast, it is a bit easier to follow, generally due to better visuals and goalies that do their job a little better (this is one of the only times I'll ever praise a game for having good goalies but given the speed of the game it's essential here). I also think this game's progression system generally works pretty well, you face off against the real NHL teams (yes, surprisingly they are actually in the game) to progressively earn better gear and the idea to have each game go to 5 points rather than lasting for a certain amount of time is an interesting one that keeps matches interesting until the very end. I also appreciate the announcer, even though the total number of things he has to say is somewhat limited, his energy does help sell the idea behind the game. Despite this, it still has a few of the same flaws as Dead Ball Zone as well. The biggest one is that the game is so fast-paced and crazy that it simply doesn't really have a lot of nuance. You have access to a special shot and special check move, and both of these are crazily strong, to the point that there's almost no need to ever use any other button. You can try to set up fancy plays with one timers and such, but the special shot, which can be used almost infinitely, does a far better job at scoring, which makes playmaking and rink awareness feel somewhat trivial, and this is likely the game's biggest weakness. I feel it's clear that using the special moves should require some of your "bonus" bar to execute, which would create an interesting tradeoff between using these moves or holding out for bonus, but they're effectively unlimited so there's nothing to stop you from spamming them as much as you want. Defense is also similarly lacking in strategy, about all you can do is press triangle if you happen to be near someone, the game moves so fast and turnovers happen so often that you have minimal control over your positioning, often just recognizing what is happening is a struggle. Still, I do appreciate this game's sense of style and I still find it to be fairly fun even if there is some room for improvement. I think it's probably a low G though I could definitely also see the case for rating it as A if you think the gameplay is simply too mindless.
DeleteWell, shut my mouth. I was all ready to write something about how Robocod: James Pond 2 is just another port of a game we've already played a ton of times already with slightly upgraded graphics and a new cutscene at the start, but it's not! While this game does have mostly the same mechanics as James Pond 2 on SNES and other systems, it's actually a completely different game, with drastically different level design and a fun new mechanic where finding 3 bells on each stage gets you a bonus level, making it feel more like a stealth sequel rather than a port. There is probably some room to debate whether the level design is better compared to the original, it's certainly much harder, even right off the bat, so the difficulty curve might be a little questionable, but at the same time it probably does a bit better of a job of making use of some of James Pond's unique abilities and vehicles a little better than the original game did, and the Penguin Bombs (which are now Elf Bombs) are far better integrated into the game than they were originally. I think it would probably make the most sense to treat this game as though it was actually the second half to the original game, bearing that in mind the difficulty feels reasonable and it does a good job of fleshing out some concepts that were underutilized originally. You might still be able to make the case that some aspects of this game might feel a little dated by now (this was a very late Playstation release), but for fans of the original game I still think it's very cool that this exists and I feel they really went the extra mile with this port. Imagine if instead of simply porting a game like Super Mario Bros 2 to GBA, Nintendo gave it entirely new levels. I'd buy that in a heartbeat. This one was definitely a nice surprise.
DeleteTsumu is a very unique puzzle game where you control a hamster with a forklift. The goal of the game is to pick up blocks containing pieces of a picture and deliver them to a certain location to assemble the picture. This is a lot harder than it sounds because you're not able to rotate your forklift into empty space or a space that already has a block, so you have to think a lot about your positioning and frequently raise / lower the forklift or move backwards to get to where you need to go. It's hard to explain, but the tutorial does a pretty good job of teaching you the basics even if you can't read Japanese. Like Sutte Hakkun on SNES, there's also a ranking system whereby the game remembers how many moves you use on each stage and gives you a grade for them, which helps add replay value, though unlike in that game you also have a strict cap on how many moves you can use and you fail if you use too many. The game's puzzles are often quite subtle and there's a nice "aha" moment when you solve them, for example an early puzzle focuses on navigating a lengthy path to deliver 3 blocks to the goal. Navigating the path is a little tricky, but the real puzzle is that you don't have enough moves to make the journey three times, you need to stack two of the blocks first, then deliver them and unstack them when you get there, so you only need to make the journey twice. There's a ton of little tricks you can do in the game and it actually does have a decent amount of nuance, though I really wish it had an undo button because even after I started learning the mechanics I sometimes press the wrong direction and lose moves, and restarting the whole puzzle over again takes a while. At least there's very chill music in the background to ensure it doesn't get too frustrating, because it gets hard pretty quickly.