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Last Topic's Ratings:
Bubsy 3D - BBGBBBBBBB - 10% (10)
Casper - ABGAA - 50% {5}
Colorful Logic 2 - AA - 50% (2)
Cool Boarders 3 - AAAABB - 33% (6)
Pro Pinball: The Web - GA - 75% (2)
Taxi 2 - BAAA - 38% (4)
Well, the one good thing you can say about this topic is we'll never have to play Bubsy 3D ever again.
Games for this topic:
Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon
Kitchen Panic
Mary King's Riding Star
Motor Toon Grand Prix (US)
Project Horned Owl
Pro Yakyuu Nettou Puzzle Stadium
Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon is the first game in the Chocobo's Dungeon series, which wasn't released in the US, but has a fan translation available. It seemed like a good time to cover it because Chocobo GP was just released, and some of the characters are from this game. Kitchen Panic also looks kind of interesting, and at long last, we have the US version of Motor Toon Grand Prix.
Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon - G
ReplyDeleteKitchen Panic - A
Mary King's Riding Star - G
Motor Toon Grand Prix (US) - G
Project Horned Owl - A
Pro Yakyuu Nettou Puzzle Stadium - G
Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon is a pretty decent game. Compared to the sequel, it's a lot more simplistic in a number of ways, but a little more complex in others. For starters, there are no ally characters here, Chocobo always ventures alone, and there's also almost no story whatsoever, with the game being comprised of only two dungeons and a couple bosses. What little story there is largely amounts to a tutorial on the game's mechanics, but it's quite brief, letting you explore the game mostly on your own. This is kind of refreshing in a way, there's nothing to bog down the dungeon crawling action, which is thankfully pretty decent because there's basically nothing else to the game. As with most Mystery Dungeon games, you'll spend most of your time exploring randomly generated floors, fighting enemies, finding items (most of which are unidentified), stepping on traps, and generally trying not to die a horrible death. One major difference from most other Mystery Dungeon games as well as the sequel is that there is a fairly robust ATB system in this game. When in combat, Chocobo and the enemy's ATB bars will fill up, and enemies will attack when their bar is full. Chocobo is not subject to this restriction and can attack early if he wants, though this has less power, and Chocobo can also attack or use items at any time, even if the bar isn't full. This kind of gives the game a bit of an action-rpg esque feel to it and it feels significantly more frantic compared to most other games of this type. There's a couple other neat ideas too. Whenever you use a potion, you're left with an empty bottle, which you can refill at various springs throughout the dungeon to get another type of potion. Like in the sequel, spells are used in the form of books, which can only be used once, but they are common and level up if you use them enough, though in this game you can also make them cast quicker with certain types of nuts (due to the removal of ATB in the sequel, spells just cast instantly there). There are also systems to identify and improve equipment, and you can gradually unlock storage and other features in town as you progress through the game. Despite the simplicity of the game, it's well-balanced and feels pretty fun to play, the translation is worth a look if you enjoyed the sequel or similar games.
Kitchen Panic is an okay platformer. Mechanically, it's a very simple game, you can run and jump and that's about it. Something that stands out immediately about this game is that you have absolutely no method of attack, you can jump on some enemies to stun them, but you can't actually finish them off in any way. You can push stunned enemies around (and this is sometimes necessary to solve puzzles) but they'll always get back up sooner or later. Instead, all of your abilities are centered around traversal. By holding Up or Down while jumping, you can perform a spin move. You'd think this would be an attack, Sonic-style, but it's not, if you land or collide with a wall during the spin you can perform a special move. Landing in the upwards spin results in a high jump, while landing in the downwards spin results in a long, forward jump. Touching a wall in the upwards spin tosses you downwards quickly, while touching a wall in the downwards spin results in a wall jump of sorts. The wall jump is cool, an occasionally you can make cool skips with it, but the levels are generally designed so that you can't really do too much with it, which is kind of a bummer. Scattered throughout each stage are a handful of silver pots of soup and one gold pot of soup, and if you collect them all on each stage you can access a bonus stage, similar to Yoshi's Island. When compared to something like Clockwork Knight, this is a much longer game, but I also don't find it to be quite as fun, I feel like the lack of any combat abilities results in the game feeling somewhat too simple and not very exciting, and the level design isn't anything to write home about either. It's not terrible, and if you were a huge fan of Yoshi's Island maybe it might be worth a look, but it's definitely not on the same level in terms of quality (and I don't even like Yoshi's Island).
DeleteMary King's Riding Star is a simple game, but I like it. It's an equestrian game where you participate in three different types of events: Dressage, where you have to follow a set program, cross country, which is a timed race through a course with a number of jumps, and show jumping, which is similar to cross country but in a smaller arena and with even more jumps and turns. In between competitions, you have to care for the horse, which mainly involves brushing it, giving it food and water, and cleaning its stable. There's not a great deal of nuance to any of the events, jumping is mostly just a matter of good timing and dressage is quite simple, but I feel it captures the essence of the sport well. I particularly like the music and commentary, the music is very elegant, as befits the sport of kings, and there's dry british commentary to accompany the events. About the only thing I would have done to improve the game would be to flesh out the aspect of training the horse a bit more, but what's here is pretty solid. It's certainly way above any other game of this type that we've covered so far.
Motor Toon Grand Prix (US) is drastically better than the Japanese game of the same name, to such an extent that if the cars didn't have the same designs you probably wouldn't even realize it was related. For starters, all of the critical problems from the first game have been fixed. The game now controls sensibly, there's a lot more than 3 tracks, and there's now proper powerups. In terms of control, the regular steering is pretty loose, but you can do a powerslide that gives you somewhat tighter control. It still feels a little slippery, but this is probably intentional to go along with the toony aesthetic, and it's certainly a million times better than the first game. The new powerup system is actually quite unique as well. As you race around the track, you collect coins, which you can trade in for powerups whenever you like. I actually don't think any racing game has done this before or since, so it's a nice change of pace. If you're frontrunning and don't need powerups, you can feel free to just stockpile coins in case you somehow lose the lead. It actually takes a little while to get a powerup since the slot reels have to select it for you, so you can't just go on a powerup rampage if you have a lot of coins, which is kind of regrettable (I think this would likely be hilarious), but it's still pretty fun. As for the courses, they're much more numerous and they also look pretty good visually. About the only thing the original game had going for it was its colourful and cartoony sense of style, which is even better realized here than in the original. Overall, it's a pretty solid and fun racing game with a nice sense of style, and probably one of the most improved sequels ever (but a fair bit of that is that the original was so bad).
DeleteProject Horned Owl is a decent light gun game. It has many of the features that you'd expect from other good games in the genre, for example enemies that are about to shoot you show a targeting box before they fire, letting you know who needs to be taken out immediately to avoid damage. The one thing I don't like about this game is that your shots have travel time, forcing you to lead targets to some degree. While this arguably gives the game a bit more nuance, it also makes it feel substantially less responsive. Even if I react to an enemy in time and fire at him, if my shots don't get there in time I still take damage, which feels bad, and it particularly causes problems during boss fights, where the multitude of projectiles the bosses bombard you with feel almost impossible to shoot down without using grenades. It's otherwise a pretty solid game and I like the anime-style cutscenes between missions, but I feel it's a little bit below the best entries in the genre for this generation.
Despite looking almost the exact same as the SNES version of the game, there are some surprisingly significant gameplay changes in Pro Yakyuu Nettou Puzzle Stadium. For starters, the core of the game is the same, it's a baseball game that has Puyo Puyo for its gameplay. You make matches to make plays, for example, when batting, a 1-chain is a ball, a 2-chain is a hit, a 3-chain is a double, a 4-chain is a triple, and a 5-chain is a home run, and while fielding, a 1-chain is a strike, a 2-chain is an out, a 3-chain is a double play, and so on. This is kind of a neat idea, it makes Puyo Puyo's gameplay much more accessible. Even if your stack reaches the top, you're not out of the game, you just have to wait a few seconds and you're given a fresh screen to work with. This creates a game with a lot more back and forth to it, and matches can have surprising comebacks and swings if a player gets a good run. Compared to the SNES version, there's quite a few differences. One of the biggest ones is that there's now offsetting. If the batter and fielder attack at the same time, the batter gets a hit if his chain is larger, if not it's an out, so if you do a 3-chain and the fielder does a 2-chain, that's a hit, but a 3-chain and a 3-chain is an out. Another big change is that you now can't do double plays in situations where they would not be possible in real baseball. On SNES, a 2-chain for the fielder scores 1 out, a 3-chain scores 2 outs, and a 4-chain scores 3 outs, regardless if there's enough people on base for this to be possible, but on PS1, you will only get a single out if there's no one on base. This acts as a massive buff to offense, as on SNES you can simply have a 4-chain ready to retire a side the second they go up to bat, but on PS1 you either need several chains or to let them get on base first. I think you can likely make the case that this adds more strategic depth to the game, but it also has the side effect of making the game play MUCH slower than it does on SNES. A 9-inning game on SNES takes about the same length of time as a 5-inning game on PS1, and will have a roughly comparable score in most cases. Another small change is that the PS1 version has lost the scenario mode from the SNES game (it basically put you into special games that you had to try to win), but it wasn't very fun and isn't a big loss. The PS1 version can also save with a password, and has some other small changes, like tracking the statistics of your batters and allowing you to change each team's drop pattern by selecting different pitchers. My gut says the SNES version is probably a little better overall, but it's still a pretty fun and unique game on PS1.
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