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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness - GAGAABGG - 69% (8)
Extreme G 2 - GGAGBAAA - 63% (8)
International Superstar Soccer 2000 - GGGGG - 100% (5)
SD Hiryu no Ken Densetsu - GAA - 67% (3)
Wheel of Fortune - GABBGB - 42% (6)
World is Not Enough, The - AGGGGGGAGAG - 86% (11)
This was a topic full of ratings that were very borderline, both for making the high range, and also for getting the squiggle bracket. I'm actually surprised that nothing got the squiggle bracket considering how spread out the ratings were.
Games for this topic:
Banjo-Tooie
Cruis'n Exotica
Custom Robo V2
Fighter Destiny 2
Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding
Worms Armageddon
We're nearing the end of the N64 topics, and one thing I got out of this experience is I finally learned how to spell Cruis'n without having to look it up every time. Of course, this skill will probably never be relevant again unless Nintendo decides to port Cruis'n Blast to Switch. Also, we have Custom Robo V2, which is a somewhat Japanese-heavy game, but I wrote a translation guide for it a while back if anyone wants to play it.
Banjo-Tooie - G
ReplyDeleteCruis'n Exotica - G
Custom Robo V2 - G (SR)
Fighter Destiny 2 - G
Twisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding - A
Worms Armageddon - G
Banjo-Tooie is kind of a tough one to rate. I feel it's fairly clear (and a pretty common consensus) that it's not as good as Banjo-Kazooie. There's a few reasons for this, but the one that sticks out to me the most is that it's a lot slower. Besides the fact that it takes much longer to even get into the action due to more cutscenes and other stuff like that (I would estimate it takes about 15 minutes to get into the first stage, by which time you could be almost done Mumbo's Mountain in BK), the stages themselves also play slower. The levels here are drastically bigger than in Banjo-Kazooie, but they're also much more sparsely populated. A big part of this is probably tied to the decision to bundle notes into packs of five, which makes them almost trivial as a collectable in a game that could really use more stuff to do in most areas. I'm also not sure how I feel about the decision to have you retain all of your moves from Banjo-Kazooie, as this means a significant portion of your moveset is available right off the bat, limiting their potential to be used in the level design (many of the old abilities feel nearly forgotten in general). Most of the new abilities are either purely tied to traversal or are linked to the ability to separate Banjo and Kazooie, which in my opinion aren't as interesting as the ones from the first game. I do like the fact that you can now sometimes play as Mumbo, but this feels severely underutilized, Mumbo's only role in most cases is just to activate a Mumbo Pad somewhere in the level, and he never learns any new skills or abilities. One of the main improvements compared to the first game are boss battles and minigames, both of which are much more prevalent compared to the first game, but IMO it's not worth the loss in speed. Oh, and of course, the cop-out on Stop and Swop is incredibly lame, probably one of the biggest letdowns in the history of gaming. In some ways, the game actually feels a bit more like it's a prototype for Donkey Kong 64 than a follow-up to Banjo-Kazooie, the level design definitely feels more akin to what you'd find in that game, but it's not nearly as ambitious (while also simultaneously not having as many issues either). Overall, it's kind of a middling 3D platformer that massively benefits from the fact that these games essentially fell out of existence after N64. If we had continued to see more platformers like this, I suspect this game would have fallen to A, but the lack of competition means this is still one of your best bets for an N64 3D platformer. After all, you can only play Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie so many times before you're going to want something else, though I'd probably only play this one time for every 10 playthroughs of those two games.
Thankfully, Cruis'n Exotica fixes pretty much all of my beefs from Cruis'n World. Point to point racing is back, and the progression system isn't nearly as grindy this time around, the new single race mode helps tremendously in that regard. Track design generally feels a bit more memorable compared to the past games with tracks having a decent number of landmarks, similar to California Speed, though it's not quite on that level yet. Controls and handling are still solid, I like the new stunt moves, though the rubber-banding seems even more severe than before so you'd better not make any mistakes. Overall, this is a pretty decent follow-up to the original and a solid game overall, though I still feel that the first game is more cohesive and it's a bit outdone by California Speed in terms of track design.
DeleteCustom Robo V2, on the other hand, is a very worthy successor to the first game. Like some other sequels, it's basically just more of the same as the first game, but as the first game is very unique and fun that's exactly what you'd want. The biggest change compared to the first game is that you can now change out your body in the campaign, which gives it a lot more replay value. The storyline also kicks off a lot faster compared to the first game, and generally feels a bit more interesting, though a lot of this might be lost on those who don't read Japanese. Another big change is that an entire second campaign has been added, for those familiar with the GC game it's the Grand Battle mode from that title, which adds a ton of additional tournaments with special conditions, which allow you to win even more parts. Of course, the core fundamentals of the series remain very solid, and they've even seen some slight improvements in that downed time is a touch longer so you can do more combos. Overall, this is a super solid game with a ton of content, easily among N64's best. I can't believe they didn't localize these games, these would have helped a ton with the perception that N64 lacked RPG-like games.
Fighter Destiny 2 is very similar to the first game, which is good because the first game is pretty unique, my biggest worry was that they'd make the game more like a generic fighter for the sequel, but they haven't. Like the first game, this game has a pretty unique fighting system, rather than being solely about depleting the opponent's lifebar, like almost every other fighter in existance, the goal of this game is to score 7 points, using a mixture of throws, knockdowns, and ring outs. This adds an interesting level of strategy to the game, for example, if the opponent has 4 points, you know that you can take a throw or a ring out without losing the match, but not a knockdown, so you can try to play around that. Compared to the first game, by far the most significant improvement is to the visuals. The character models and animations are greatly improved, and the game is smoother too. There are also more characters and the Master Challenge mode is more fleshed out this time. Overall, this remains a pretty cool series, it's very unique among fighting games and I think it's a worth addition to any N64 fan's library.
DeleteTwisted Edge Extreme Snowboarding is an all right snowboarding game. Apparently, it was severely overshadowed by 1080 Snowboarding on release, which I find to be kind of ironic because I think there's actually a decent case to be made that it's better than 1080, though it's still not fantastic. Probably the best thing about the game are its controls. Steering and carving generally feels right, which not too many games from this generation really nail, and you can also do tricks anywhere rather than just designated trick spots. Unfortunately, this game has the same problem as most snowboarding games where doing tricks has little purpose most of the time other than to look flashy (I can't believe it took snowboarding games so long to realize that tricks should give you a speed boost) and I also don't like the fact that you can't tuck in this game, pressing jump just makes you jump immediately rather than start charging your jump as in other games. The biggest issue with the game though is the framerate, which is actually pretty bad, it chugs up quite a lot whenever any other racers are onscreen or in certain sections, like the ice tunnel. It's an okay game overall, but it's still nowhere close to MTV Snowboarding.
Worms Armageddon is a pretty decent conversion of the game to N64. Everything seems to have made the transition intact from the PC game, and the resolution and controls work well enough on the console. Loading times are thankfully very brisk as well, and this is quite a good game at its core with a lot of content. I particularly like the training missions, which I felt really helped flesh out the game a bit more compared to Worms 2. I was somewhat concerned that a lot of the Worm voices would be cut or badly compressed, and although there aren't as many to choose from as on PC, the voice quality is still decent. Not too much else to say about this one other than that this is an acceptable way to play the game if you didn't want to play it on PC.