This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Blue Breaker Burst - Hohoemi o Anata to - BA - 25% (2)
Hydro Thunder - GGGGBG - 83% (6)
Moon - AGG - 83% (3) (1 SR)
Shadow Master - ABB - 17% (3)
Trash It - BBB - 0% (3)
Waku Waku Bowling - GB - 50% (2)
I was quite an outlier in this topic, the only game where my rating matched anyone else was Trash It.
Games for this topic:
Herc's Adventures
Langrisser 1&2
Lost World: Jurassic Park
Michelin Rally Masters: Race of Champions
Nippon Golf Kyoukai Kanshuu: Double Eagle
Soukaigi
Langrisser in both topics this time. I think it'll be interesting to see the contrast between Langrisser 1&2 and 4. Also, Soukaigi looks very interesting.
Herc's Adventures - A
ReplyDeleteLangrisser 1&2 - G
Lost World: Jurassic Park - B
Michelin Rally Masters: Race of Champions - B
Nippon Golf Kyoukai Kanshuu: Double Eagle - B
Soukaigi - A
Herc's Adventures is pretty much the same game as on Saturn. As before, this is basically Zombies Ate My Neighbours in Ancient Greece, it's a funny game with great animations but the actual gameplay is kind of janky at times. It doesn't seem like there's any major differences between the platforms here, so the key is just to play it wherever you can convince someone else to play it with you, because this kind of stupidity needs to be shared with someone else.
I was curious if the PS1 version of Langrisser 1&2 would be a downgrade, given the series' close connection to Sega platforms, but thankfully it's really not. Like the Saturn version, this is Langrisser 1 and 2 (Der Langrisser) with a significant boost to production values and some minor QOL changes. The visuals between PS1 and Saturn have some very slight differences (like to the map screen, which I actually like better on PS1), but they are very similar and you'd have to compare them side by side to notice the changes. All of the upgraded portraits, cutscenes, and voice acting are still intact here, and it really helps with the storytelling, I do have to commend the amount of effort they went to with this remake. It's too bad PS1 didn't get Langrisser 3 (you'll have to wait for PS2 to play that one) but otherwise it seems like PS1 is also a fine place to play most of the series.
When we came to Jurassic Park, I was thinking "I wonder if this is any better than the one where you play as a Dinosaur", little did I realize this actually IS that game, we just previously covered it on Saturn, not PS1. As before, this is an ambitious but very deeply flawed game, and although there have been some small efforts to improve the PS1 version it isn't much better. Compared to Saturn, the game is a little easier (you get more lives and there are a few more powerups and there are more checkpoints) and it's a touch more zoomed out, but unfortunately the controls aren't really any better, so the platforming still totally sucks and it really isn't much better. It's too bad, this idea had potential, but the controls are just so vital to a platformer that nothing else matters if you can't get them down.
Michelin Rally Masters completely sucks, which is too bad because it does a few things well, but it has so many massive problems that it's just not fun to play in any capacity. The biggest problem is that the developers of this game knew nothing about rally racing beyond the vague idea that it doesn't handle well. Sure, the game has the slippery, loose controls that you'd expect from a rally game, but this is a game where you entirely race through tight corridors and can't go off-road! You really shouldn't have to say any more than this, as obviously this sucks, but the thing that makes everything so much worse is that you barely lose any time or speed for hitting walls, to the extent it is FAR faster to pinball off the walls than to try to brake and powerslide properly, and this is also how the AI plays the game so you can't drive properly even if you wanted to because you'd lose by a mile. Unfortunately, the controls are nowhere near tight enough for the way the courses are designed and sometimes your car just randomly flips when you touch a wall, which is very annoying (of course this never happens to the computer). Probably one of the least fun racing games on the system, which is a shame because the handling engine could be decent for a totally different game.
Nippon Golf is a fairly mediocre golf game which is only kinda borderline because there's so few tolerable golf games this gen. As with some other 3D golf games, the best thing about it is that it is properly 3D and does not use the static images of the earlier PGA golf games, though it also runs horribly so it's not really much better. There's not much else to say about this game, it doesn't really have much personality or anything, there are characters you can choose but they don't have hole out animations or anything, overall the entire game feels very dry. While the basic swing meter is kinda tolerable, putting completely sucks, the greens are almost unreadable, even with the lines turned on you often have to aim to the other side of how it seems to be angling the green, and there's no indication for how hard you have to putt. If you were feeling incredibly generous you could maybe give this a bit of a break for coming out in 1997, but I still can't really see anyone really wanting to play this either then or now.
DeleteSoukaiji is such a tragedy. Almost everything about this game is incredibly cool. It's a 3D action game with big, semi non-linear stages, it has multiple playable characters, there's a levelling system based on destroying crystals, and it has a cool aesthetic and a great OST. It sounds like the recipe for a masterpiece, and it would be, if not for the controls. For some reason, this game has terrible tank controls which make it almost impossible to do anything. Want to jump and hit a crystal in the air? Good luck. You have to carefully line up the jump, use the airdash and attack really early. Even basic platforming feels really clunky due to how long it takes to turn. Funny enough, the enemies seem to be fighting the controls too, they kinda just wander aimlessly a lot of the time and sometimes they get stuck, you can cheese out many of them by either spamming attacks from slightly beyond their range or getting behind them (I eventually figured out the game does have a quick turn button on R1 that sort of helps). Unfortunately, no matter how long you play it, the controls never get any better, and I actually played pretty far because many aspects of the game are cool, but the controls nearly ruin the experience. If you slapped Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (or any competent 3D action game)'s controls on this this would be the easiest of easy Gs. This desperately needs a remake.