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Last Topic's Ratings:
Darius 2 - GAAA - 63% (4)
Horde, The - GBAAA - 50% {5}
Keriotosse - BB - 0% (2)
Mega Man X3 - BAAAAAB - 36% (7)
Puyo Puyo Tsuu - GGAG - 88% (4)
SeaBass Fishing - AA - 50% (2)
Mega Man X3 has the dubious distinction of being the first Mega Man game ever to fall into the low range. In fact, the same game on PS1 was the first Mega Man game not to rate in the high range (it just barely stayed out of the low range on PS1).
Games for this topic:
Last Bronx
Magic Carpet
Mobile Suit Gundam Gaiden Volume 1
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4
Sega Ages Volume 1
World Cup '98 France: Road to Win
It's a day for first installments here, though Sega Ages doesn't have a second volume. We also have some more PS1 multiplats in Magic Carpet and RotK4, there'll be a lot of PS1 / Saturn comparisons throughout these topics (which is a big part of the reason I wanted to run them simultaneously).
Last Bronx - A
ReplyDeleteMagic Carpet - G
Mobile Suit Gundam Gaiden Volume 1 - A
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4 - A
Sega Ages Volume 1 - A
World Cup 98 France: Road to Win - G
Last Bronx is another early 3D fighter. A variety of minor issues hold it back from greatness, but it's generally a solid effort. For starters, I have to note that the game looks pretty good. The character models, animations, and fighting arenas are all quite detailed for their time, and the game also runs quite well. The music is pretty decent too, and although voice acting is a little limited, it gets the job done. In terms of gameplay, it has many of the same issues as other early 3D fighters. For starters, it's a very basic game mechanically. Like many early 3D fighters, you have a variety of strings to use and a couple basic special moves, but there's no cancelling so there's very little freedom in your offense. There are a handful of basic juggle combos but for the most part it's going to be just basic pokes and throws. Another big issue is that blocking is done with a button rather than just by holding back, which is always a bad sign, and you also need to use the guard button to do the roll move, which is actually quite strong. Something I do like is that throws work relatively well, despite having relatively short range they're otherwise very reliable (compare Virtua Fighter's godawful command throw system) and I like the fact that there's an actual throw whiff animation, which many games didn't have yet. Jumping attacks are also fine, this is a rarely early 3D fighter where jumps aren't preposterously floaty and jump ins are actually usable. The AI also feels mostly reasonable, they're not inordinately godlike like many similar games, in fact they can actually be fairly stupid about trying to attack into meaties and such, so if you exploit the AI you can blow through arcade mode with almost no trouble at all. Overall, it's a solid early effort, and certainly worlds better than Virtua Fighter 1 or Tekken 1, but there's still a lot of room for 3D fighters to grow.
The Playstation and Saturn versions of Magic Carpet are very similar. The biggest difference I can see is that the Saturn version has a much better-looking skybox, but the PS1 version runs and loads a tiny bit faster. Either way, it's like 99% the same game between platforms. As before, it's kind of an interesting game, you have to fight monsters, collect mana, and store it in your castle, while also battling rival wizards and trying not to get killed. You have many spells to use, which you unlock throughout the game, which gives the game some replay value but is also its biggest issue, as selecting spells is a bit cumbersome. One thing I noticed quickly is that the Saturn version has a much better initial control scheme, which uses up and down to accelerate and reverse rather than using buttons for this, but actually the controls are fully mappable on both platforms so you can also have this setup on PS1 if you so choose. Magic Carpet uses the same kind of 3D drawing style as Star Fighter, but thankfully the draw distance is better compared to that game and the in-game map does a good job of helping you find objects of interest. I rated this as A on PS1, but it's a fairly borderline game and I feel like the Saturn version feels a little better to play for some reason I can't completely put my finger on. It actually might be related to the speed of the game, the PS1 version almost feels like it runs slightly too fast, in particular acceleration and deceleration feel twitchy in that version, whereas they feel much smoother on Saturn.
Mobile Suit Gundam Gaiden is actually an extremely simple and short game. It's a mech game, similar to GunGriffon, but much more straightforward. For starters, even though this is a Gundam game, you pilot one of the most basic mobile suits ever. you have a basic rifle shot, an autofire machine gun, a grenade, and you can do a sword slash at close range, and that's it. 3 of these 4 attacks are done with the same button, pressing it fires the rifle, holding it fires the machine gun, and dashing towards the enemy and pressing it sometimes does the sword slash. The grenade is mapped to a separate subweapon button and does decent damage, but you get a limited number of them per mission. You can also dash in any direction by pressing twice on the dpad, and the enemies do this constantly. Thankfully, one thing this game does give you is a lock-on function, which works absurdly well, tracking the enemies perfectly, but they dash so much that hitting most types of enemies with the rifle at anything more than point blank range is almost pointless. Dashing into them and using the sword is an option, which would actually work really well if the sword was more consistent, but it's very finnicky and usually works when the enemy is sitting still, which they almost never do. As such, the machinegun with its perfect accuracy will be your go to attack much of the time, as while it does piddly damage, it does eventually get the job done. Issues with the sword aside, the basic gameplay is not too bad, the bigger issue is that the game is also extremely short. There are only 5 missions, one of which is just a short boss fight, I was able to complete the game in only about 30 minutes. The 4th mission is actually pretty tough since you also have to defend a power-plant and it's absurdly easy for the enemies to blow it up (I tried luring them away from it, but it doesn't totally work), but that's about the only hard part of the game, your mobile suit makes up for what it lacks in accurate weaponary with massive amounts of armor, even against the final wave of bosses I was never dropped below half health. This game is actually part of a trilogy and they were clearly all developed together, as they released only about 6 months apart, and with all 3 games it might have a decent length, but even if they were all released as one game I feel like it might still have been A due to how simplistic it is.
DeletePeople always give Capcom a lot of flack for releasing the same game a million times, but really, Koei are the indisputed lords of that racket. 10 years and half a dozen releases later (don't forget spinoffs), Romance of the Three Kingdoms is still pretty much the same game as it was on NES, but it continues to make minor improvements with each game. The most substantial improvement in ROTK4 is that the interface is a lot better than it was on NES. The commands you can issue are now written out in full, which makes it far easier to understand what's going on, and you can also now get advice from the AI about what they think you should do, which sort of helps you learn the game, though a more substantial tutorial would still have been greatly appreciated. When playing this game on Saturn, I noticed that it looked better than I remembered it, and sure enough, this game actually has significantly better visuals on Saturn compared to PS1 for whatever reason, the interface is cleaner, the graphics seem to be somewhat higher in resolution, and the colours are brighter and more vibrant, all of which help the Saturn version seem substantially more like it belongs on a 5th generation console compared to the rather lackluster PS1 version. It's still pretty much the same game at its core, but prettier visuals at least helps it feel a little bit more like a new game.
Sega Ages Volume 1 is a collection of the Arcade versions of Space Harrier, After Burner 2, and Outrun. Obviously, these are some very influential titles, but they're also very old by this point, with the newest of the games being released in 1987. Of the three games, I feel Outrun is the standout title, it still plays well and even looks pretty good. Its gameplay was widely imitated, but save possibly for Road Rash it probably plays the best among games of this type. I was never too much of a fan of Space Harrier or After Burner 2, and I feel that they are also kind of similar gameplay-wise, so I'm not sure it was the best choice to pick those two for the collection, IMO Fantasy Zone would have been a much better choice to round out the collection, but obviously both games have their fans. In terms of the collection itself, there's not a lot of extras, each games have some fairly standard options and that's about it, there's no gallery or anything like that. In my opinion, you'd be far better served by waiting for the Sega Classics Collection on PS2, which also includes Space Harrier, Outrun, and Fantasy Zone, plus 7 more games. These versions have also been modernized, usually for the better (not in Golden Axe's case, but you can just play that one on Genesis).
DeleteWorld Cup 98 France: Road to Win is pretty decent. Compared to Worldwide Soccer, it's a bit of a step up in most respects. Presentation-wise, it's pretty decent. A big change compared to Worldwide Soccer is that there's now commentary, and something a bit unique about this game is that the commentary is in Japanese, but it's clearly still quite well done and diverse, there's several commentators and they seem to have quite a lot to say, and also have pretty good energy. The visuals also look pretty nice, while the players don't have a lot of detail the general animations and effects look decent and I appreciate the little player shadows. Gameplay-wise, it's still a pretty simple game, it's still mostly a shoot / pass / cross game, but compared to Worldwide Soccer the dribble action has been added, which gives you more speed in exchange for less control and being easier to pick off, which feels like it adds a decent amount of nuance when driving towards the goal. Something else I appreciate is the field radar, which is probably given a bit more screen real estate compared to most similar games, but it works quite well and gives a good indication of your teammates on the field, which helps a lot when setting up plays. There's not a ton else to say about the game other than that generally it feels pretty polished in most regards and is fun to play. Still not the very top of soccer for the era but one of the better games on the simplistic side of things.