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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Battle Arena Toshinden 2 - ABAGA - 50% {5}
Championship Surfer - ABB - 17% (3)
Cyber Sled - AAGGGA - 75% (6)
Ghoul Panic - AA - 50% (2)
Nightmare Creatures - GAGGAGGA - 81% (8)
Ray Tracers - AABBA - 30% (5)
I was pretty surprised to see Ray Tracers that low, particularly given the highly favourable reaction to Cyber Sled (both are early arcade style games), but those sort of contrasts are what make GAB interesting.
Games for this topic:
Arcade Party Pak
Big Bass Fishing
Carton-Kun
Fox Hunt
Gokujou Parodius Da Deluxe Pack
Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit
GF mistranslates Carton-Kun as "Katon Kun", in case anyone can't find it. Also, we have another game in the Need for Speed franchise. It might seem like we're going through them pretty fast, but there's still plenty left.
Arcade Party Pak - A
ReplyDeleteBig Bass Fishing - A
Carton-Kun - G
Fox Hunt - B
Gokujou Parodius Da Deluxe Pack - G
Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit - G
The first thing that stands out to me about Arcade Party Pak is that it's a very diverse set of games. Toobin, Rampage, Smash TV, 720, Super Sprint, and Klax covers about as many genres as you possibly could in a collection like this. Something worth noting about this collection is that all of the games here have ports on the NES, though the versions in this compilation are the arcade versions. The emulation here is of quite high quality, with no sound issues or anything like that, and there's a decent degree of customization available, both in terms of control and standard arcade-style dip switch options. For the games themselves, IMO Toobin is the clear highlight. The Arcade version is very different from the NES version and it plays great with the PS1 pad. Smash TV is also fun, even though this game has many good ports, being able to use the PS1's dual analog setup is nice, and comes the closest to the original arcade setup of any port we've seen so far. Super Sprint is a great game, but I don't feel it plays as well here. The arcade version is very dependent on the wheel and it feels somewhat weird to control using any of the control options, though by lowering the sensitivity I was able to get something that kind of feels playable, I'd still rather stick with the NES version. Klax is a completely fine conversion, but offers nothing the NES version doesn't apart from better sound quality. Rampage is very dated, the framerate in this game in particular is pretty bad, and generally Rampage: World Tour and the other Rampage games from this gen are tons better. Every version of 720 is a dud so it's kind of a throwaway. Overall, the collection is kind of borderline. One thing I do appreciate are the interviews they include with the original developers, these are interesting, though there's a cool looking arena shooter arcade game behind them during the interviews and I kept thinking I wished I could be playing that instead (it turns out it's a game called War: The Final Assault, and an N64 port was planned but cancelled). Overall, it's a decent set of games but I feel the easy availability of good home ports of most of the titles and the existence of the superior "Midway Arcade Treasures" collection keeps this from G range.
Big Bass Fishing is all right. The best thing about the game by far is how simple it is. There's tons of fish in the water and it's easy to get them on the line, in fact most of the game is timed and relies on the fact that you can catch fish very fast, which is a welcome change from the many very slow-paced fishing games out there where it takes forever to find a fish. The actual fish fighting is a little weird, it took me a while to figure it out, basically, messages will be displayed onscreen that tell you what to do. Generally, you hold X to reel and press directional buttons as they appear to tire the fish out by moving the rod. Sometimes it will tell you to let the fish run, which means you must release the reeling button. It doesn't take too long to catch them at any rate. There's not really a lot more than this to the game, there are three modes, but they all feature essentially the same gameplay, just with slightly different goals for each stage, generally I find the arcade mode to be the best. It's also sort of a weirdly fanservicey game, you play as the aptly named Babe, a big-breasted chick who is featured prominently on the game's loading screens and shakes her butt whenever you catch a fish. Overall it's not a terrible game, certainly better than most fishing games of the era, but it's not something that would probably stay interesting for all that long.
Fox Hunt is another one of those bizarre games where I don't know what to say about it. Like Toonenstein, it's another product that is only a game in the loosest possible sense, in this case it's effectively just a movie with exceptionally limited interactivity. The game consists of a number of short FMV scenes where you can press the action button or one of the directional arrows to make something happen. There are no real puzzles or anything and guessing the right action to take is essentially just luck, so you'll spend a lot of time looking around small enviroments for the thing you're supposed to interact with or dying in fight sequences. The movie itself is actually not bad, the acting is fairly decent and it can be funny, but the biggest problem is that the gameplay is actively a detriment from it, as it just makes it take longer to get to the next part of the movie while you're figuring out what to do. If I could just watch the movie without having to do anything I'd have more fun.
DeleteThere's not a ton to say about Gokujou Parodius Da Deluxe Pack, it's a compilation of Gokujou Parodius and Parodius Da. Parodius is essentially "better Gradius", it plays almost exactly the same but with more playable characters and much more diverse environments. Obviously, Gradius is one of the best horizontal shmups already, the Gradius Powerup system gives it a ton of nuance and replayability, and that's increased even further here with the addition of more playable characters. The port quality to PS1 is great, the games both look and sound pretty much perfect, and there's a lot of content here to keep you occupied. About the only criticism I could see is that you could get Parodius Portable on PSP instead and get the entire series, but you can't really complain too much about how good these games are.
Carton-Kun is somewhat similar to Vadims and Gunpey, where the goal is to rotate pieces to make shapes. Unlike in Vadims and Gunpey, where you can only make diamonds and lines respectively, here the rule is that you need to create any continous shape, but there are pieces that touch 1, 2, 3, or even all 4 edges to contend with. Compared to Gunpey, I think this helps make the game feel vastly less luck-reliant, since there are far more viable shapes you can make, and you only lose if your entire board gets full, rather than a single column, preventing you from screwing yourself over by making a big combo that leaves a single column untouched. Despite this, you shouldn't think the game is easy, it can get quite hectic when pieces start falling fast and especially when playing against the AI. Something that's nice is that the game is quite well fleshed out, with a boatload of modes. There's the standard mode where the blocks fall from the screen, and you have to stop the board from filling up, and also a mode where the screen is always full and you have to make as many points as possible, and both of these can be played with several options, including a vs player and vs com mode. There's also a puzzle mode, where you have to figure out how to make various shapes from preset pieces, a tutorial mode (which is important because I didn't initially understand the game's combo system, but they explain it with a little video) and even a decent number of unlockables. It even has a bunch of charming characters and the music is quite catchy. Overall, this is just a very solid package with a lot of content that feels unique, I'd definitely recommend giving this a look for puzzle fans. This is going on my list of favorite finds from GAB so far.
DeleteWhile Need For Speed 1 sucked and Need For Speed 2 was okay, but not quite there yet, Need For Speed 3 is where the series really becomes the franchise we all know and love. This game is a monumental step up compared to NFS2, not only does it look drastically better, but it also controls like a dream, and the track design is also a lot better. I'm sure some people will complain that the PS1 version is a huge downgrade compared to the PC version, which is true. Besides looking worse than the PC version, there's been a ton of content cut out of this port. In particular, the titular Hot Pursuit mode is almost totally axed, the progression system associated with it in the PC version is gone, and the mode where you can play as the cop and catch speeders is totally removed as well, which is a huge loss, as the game's progression feels quite scant on PS1, there's basically just the tournament mode to play through now. It also doesn't look as good as the PC version and there are some minor framedrops on PS1, though nothing too severe, it still looks quite great and runs well for the platform. Ultimately, that's basically what it's going to come down to. This is far from the best version of the game, but it's such a good game at its core and enough of it makes the transition that it still compares well against most other racers on the platform. I just wish they had made a PC-perfect port to Dreamcast or something.