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Last Topic's Ratings:
Boundary Gate: Daughter of Kingdom - GA - 75% (2)
Disruptor - GGGGG - 100% (5) (1 SR)
Gekioh: Shooting King - BA - 25% (2)
Primal Rage - GAABBB - 33% (6)
Votoms Gaiden: Blue Knight Berserga - AA - 50% (2)
XS Junior League Dodgeball - AA - 50% (2)
Boundary Gate is the first game that starts with "Bo" to reach the high range. Somehow that stood out to me.
Games for this topic:
Cubix: Race 'N Robots
Gen'ei Tougi: Shadow Struggle
Groove Adventure Rave: Yuukyuu no Kizuna
Jumping Flash 2
Player Manager 2000
Vermin Kids
I actually think this looks like a pretty interesting topic. Also, "Vermin Kids" is quite a title. I wonder how they would have localized that if it came to the US.
Cubix: Race 'N Robots - A
ReplyDeleteGen'ei Tougi: Shadow Struggle - G
Groove Adventure Rave: Yuukyuu no Kizuna - G
Jumping Flash 2 - G
Player Manager 2000 - B
Vermin Kids - B
Cubix: Race 'N Robots is an extremely simplistic racing game for kids. Probably the most notable thing about this game is the way it controls. Rather than having a standard accelerate / brake setup, you control everything with the left stick, so you tilt forward to accelerate and left / right to turn, with a sharp turn being down left / down right, which obviously also involves releasing the accelerator, sort of like in a snowboarding game. Actually, it works relatively well and gives fairly precise control, which is probably a good choice for kids. As a kid's game, it's also very short and easy, with only 9 races. It has a significant focus on story, as there's a cutscene before and after each race, though it's a bit lame that they showcase the focus on the heroes' fight with a robot named Kolossal, who is never actually an opponent at any point in the game, it's always just the four kids. You can unlock a fifth robot after finishing the game but it's still never the villain. There's a few standard weapons to use (as well as Solex, which is basically just coins from Mario Kart, I was hoping it would be some kind of turbo), and you can unlock some gallery pictures, but it's a very short game and I finished it in about half an hour. It's not a terrible half hour or anything, there's just not really a lot to keep you playing.
I was absolutely blown away by how good Gen'ei Tougi is. Being an early 3D fighter my expectations were almost nil, but this is a very strong contender for the title of best 3D fighter of the era despite how early it came out. The main thing to say about this game is just that it avoids the pitfalls that almost every other 3D fighter falls into. Jumps are quick, the game has sensible framedata, strings actually combo, you can special cancel, there are launchers and juggle combos, there's no jank related to lateral movement, block is done by holding back or downback, the AI plays fair, and it also runs really well. In many ways, this feels like a good 2D fighter that just happens to be 3D, as with no sidestepping the 3D mechanics have minimal impact, but that's the way it should be. I guess if you were going to have one criticism it might be that the game is somewhat simplistic, meter usage is very simple and there aren't really any advanced mechanics to speak of, but it's extremely well polished and combos feel satisfying to pull off so it's not a problem. Speaking of meter, this game does have a super meter, but no supers, instead meter gives you access to Alpha 2-style custom combos. These can be fairly scary, as you can chain a bunch of lows and overheads together, though they also have a weakness in that you can't quickly turn around during them, so if the opponent can get behind you you're forced to execute a backdash to reorient yourself and this wastes a lot of your combo time (in some cases you may even be punishable, like if your back is to the corner). The presentation is also pretty good for its time, and there's even a "build-up" mode where you can learn special moves from the other characters. Overall, this is just an incredibly solid package that now really makes me want to know how good Heaven's Gate is, considering it was made by the same developer.
Groove Adventure Rave: Yuukyuu no Kizuna is a very simple action RPG that reminds me a lot of the Legacy of Goku series on GBA. Actually, it has so much in common with those games and came out around the same time that I actually looked it up to see if this was a GBA port or had the same developer, but it doesn't. Still, it very much looks like a GBA game, it has the same kind of visual style that you often saw with the system, and the brisk pacing and general simplicity of the game feels along the lines of what you'd expect from a portable title. Like Legacy of Goku, this is a very simple action RPG where you mainly just use a single attack button and have access to a charged attack. You can also jump, but there's not a lot of platforming, in fact you can usually just skip over pits by simply holding forward into them for a second, and the game will auto-cross it for you. As noted before, the game's pacing is very fast. Your movement is appreciably quick and areas are generally fairly small. You attack quickly and enemies don't have too much health so fights go by fast, and enemies aren't too threatening so you can even just run past them if you want. The gameplay isn't really anything to write home about, but it does improve once you get access to the elemental charged attacks, which are sometimes cleverly used by puzzle and boss fights, for example the second boss is in an airship and you can't initially hit him, so you have to use the tornado attack to ground him and then wail on him for a bit before he flies off again. It's nothing too revolutionary but it still felt like a clever use of the mechanics. In terms of presentation, it's not too bad. Unlike Legacy of Goku, which was a retelling of the manga, this game appears to be more of a side story for Rave Master, featuring a totally original story set in the same world. The story is actually pretty decently told, and it's a fair bit twistier than I expected initially. The game throws a few pretty significant plot twists at you early on that did make me want to keep playing to find out more about what was going to happen. Overall, this game is pretty borderline between A and G. I do think it's a little better than Legacy of Goku overall and I think it would be solidly G on GBA, though on PS1 RPG fans might be looking for a slightly meatier experience than this. Still, good pacing and a decent storyline can carry a game pretty far, and the production values are also pretty good, I particularly enjoy Plue's many funny animations. It's probably worth a look for fans of the series, or Shonen anime in general.
DeleteJumping Flash 2 is nearly identical to Jumping Flash 1. Pretty much all of the basics are the same, it's a first person platformer with a well-designed triple jump mechanic where you have to collect 4 things on each level and then find the exit. This it not a bad thing because the original is fun, but the level design and presentation have changed so little between games that it almost feels like it's just more levels to the first game rather than a true sequel, somewhat akin to Clockwork Knight (like that game, the turnaround time between the two games was very short). About the only real difference is that Jumping Flash 2 runs faster, which I think is actually to its detriment as gravity is stronger this time around, and I think the floatiness of the first game feels a little better to control. This is not a major gripe however and you can quickly get used to it. There's something kind of oddly relaxing or "zen-like" about these games, just endlessly lining up one jump after the next, it's a welcome change of pace from other action games and nothing else really feels like it. I just wish they had eliminated the indoor stages for the sequel, if there was one thing to improve from the first game it would have been that, but sadly they return in the sequel as well.
My taste in games is pretty broad, but Player Manager 2000 is a game that's simply not for me. When we covered FA Premier League Manager 2000, the game's general interface and gameplay was so clunky it was really hard to tell who it was intended for, but with Player Mananger 2000 I can at least see what it is they're trying to achieve much better. So for starters, compared to FA Premier League Manager 2000, the design of this game is vastly more competent. I spent a lot of time complaining about how awkward that game is to navigate and how hard it is to try to make any kind of strategic decisions, and those things aren't really a problem here. Getting a good overview of your team is easy, you can even multi-sort them on various attributes to see who's good at what in a real hurry. Generally speaking, the player manager's job is primarily to manage the player contracts. This mainly comes down to making offers with rival clubs for various players, which are always done in cash. Clubs are not going to give up their star players for anything less than like triple market value, which is not viable, so these trades will typically involve your middle of the road players, you'll want to identify some of your weakest positions and see if you can slightly improve them, while also seeing if you can get some decent money for players you don't need. Typically you'll want to try to buy low and sell high and most offers will be rejected, which is just the name of the game as you're really looking for bargains and to fleece people who are desperate. Overall, you probably won't actually do many trades and if you're happy with your team just flatly rejecting pretty much all offers is a fine strategy, unlike FA Premier League at least the orders don't come in ridiculously often so if you just want to skip ahead to the next match it's pretty fast. The thing is, though, I don't think the target audience for this game is people who are interested in the meticulous evaluation of every player and the nickle and diming of various contracts for marginal team improvement. The real appeal of the game is making a couple trades and then just watching your team play, so you can say "see I did that" when they win even though it's mostly just RNG. This is what I meant when I said that this game wasn't for me, I have little to no interest in watching sports, I would much rather play a sports game than just watch a sporting event, but this game was definitely made for people who would rather watch sports than play a game. Still, it's not too hard to evaluate the game on these grounds, and unfortunately this is where the game falters, as watching the games here simply isn't very interesting. EA's game has a huge advantage here, featuring vastly better presentation from every angle. Player Manager 2000 has okay player models, but the camera work is super basic and there's no commentary, so the matches really aren't very exciting to watch, EA's game had full commentary and dynamic camera angles that looked much more like an actual TV broadcast. Sure, you can pause the action to give some very limited strategic advice during the games, but the impact is fairly minimal and the team really doesn't need your help very much, so you'll probably just end up speeding through the games and that leaves the game with little appeal. Apparently later games in the series will feature more analysis and improved production values, which actually might improve the game a fair bit, I feel like if you could basically take this game's interface and fuse it with Premier League's presentation the result might be A, but we'll see where they take it with the next installment.
DeleteVermin Kids is a pretty dull puzzle game. It's a game where you have to match various types of coloured minions that feels kind of similar to Wario's Woods, but with a vastly less interesting mechanic to move the pieces around, or change them in this case. You move at the bottom of the screen and can shoot coloured shots into the stack, which changes the colour of the enemies and potentially makes combos. The problem is that generally you can only shoot the front row, which only allows for horizontal matches in most cases. It is possible to make vertical matches, the aliens gradually scoot over a little and this allows you to shoot the ones behind, but it's very slow, which results in a lot of waiting any time you want to hit anything other than the front row, which really just makes the game feel slow and makes combos very tedious to set up. This is also another game that has a severe shortage of modes for a single player, with the standard line clear mode being the only one that can be played alone, though the game's core mechanics are so dull that I don't think anything other than a total rework really could have saved it.
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