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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Corpse Killer: Graveyard Edition - BBAB - 13% (4)
Farland Saga: Toki no Michishirube - GGG - 100% (3)
Pebble Beach Golf Links - BB - 0% (2)
Return Fire - GBB - 33% (3)
Sakura Wars 2 - GGGG - 100% (4)
Zero Divide: The Final Conflict - BBB - 0% (3)
Ey brah, ya gotta be kiddin me with dat score for Corpse Killa! It was da woman that put ya up ta dis, wasn't it? I told ya she was nothin' but trouble, mon!
...I'm now deleting all remaining information relating to Corpse Killer from my brain.
Games for this topic:
Code R
Dark Seed
Dungeon Master Nexus
Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter
SeaBass Fishing 2
Wachenroder
I mentioned last topic that there were some games I tried to stall as long as possible in the hopes that their fan translations would complete, Wachenroder is one of those games. Unfortunately, there are only a few topics left and the translation has seemingly not made any progress in years so I think you'll have to play this one in Japanese, which is too bad because it looks cool. On the plus side, there are translations for Dark Seed and Dungeon Master Nexus available.
Code R - B
ReplyDeleteDark Seed - A
Dungeon Master Nexus - B
Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter - G
SeaBass Fishing 2 - G
Wachenroder - G
Code R is a very ambitious title, but it fails to nail the basics so it ends up being bad. It's basically a super complex visual novel mixed with a racing game. The first thing to note is that this game has an utterly ludicrous amount of dialogue. Before you gain control of the game I would guess there's at least 200 textboxes to click through, to the point I was beginning to wonder if it had any gameplay at all. Once you do finally get control you have access to a massive map with like 30 destinations and multiple things you can do at each one. The characters you can meet at each location vary a lot, so there's undeniably a ton going on, though it's difficult to actually figure out where to go to progress the story. If you don't want to go to all that work, the game also provides a mode where you can just race without worrying about the VN part, but this part of the game is enormously less competent. Though the game has a decent number of courses (there's 6), the handling mechanics for the car are some of the worst ever put in any game, it feels extremely slow and your car handles atrociously, sloughing from side to side at the slightest provocation but still basically being unable to drift. These sections are not difficult to win because the AI also sucks, but they're also not any fun at all. I suppose if your only interest in the game was the VN part this might be ok because at least the driving system wouldn't get in the way, but for a game where the focus is supposed to be on racing it definitely feels like this part of the system needs to be good. This game is a huge ripoff of Initial D, too bad they didn't copy Initial D's driving mechanics because that might have actually made a solid product.
Dark Seed is an interesting but flawed game. It's a horror-themed point-and-click game which was based on the works of the guy who did the Alien movies. The first thing to note about this game is that it looks pretty great. Despite being an old game, this had very good visuals for its time and the art still holds up pretty well. The enemy designs are creepy and even the environments look pretty good. The sound is a bit more of a mixed bag, the music is quite tinny but there is still a lot of voice acting and it's of decent quality. The bigger issues have to do with the gameplay. For starters, this game is timed, and very brutally too. The game takes place over 3 days, and there are a number of things you have to do each day, and often at specific times of day. Miss any of these and you can't win the game. At least the game isn't really that long so it's not too horrible if you have to start again, and to be honest I actually feel like this time pressure sort of fits well with the game's theme and narrative, so I don't mind it too much. The bigger issue is that many of the puzzles are quite illogical, often requiring you to click a very specific (and nonindicative) part of the screen or interact with the same thing repeatedly to make something happen. There aren't really many "aha" moments here, as very few of the puzzles are clever in any way, it's kind of just a matter of trying a bunch of things and getting lucky. Still, maybe the kind of "try everything in desperation" gameplay isn't a bad match for the game's story and I feel like the game is still decently playable, for its story and art if nothing else.
Dungeon Master Nexus is a completely atrocious dungeon crawler. First off, we have to talk about this game's interface. To do almost anything at all, you first have to press Z to pull up a cursor, then press C to interact with things. Pressing C by itself does nothing, so why not just use C for this? And why make you use the cursor when you can only interact with things that are directly in front of you anyway? To open the menu you press B, but here C is cancel and to confirm you have to press A for some reason. Why isn't B cancel? You attack by pressing A, but you have to cycle through characters to attack with L and R. Since only your frontliners can attack, why not use the unused C button for the other attacker? X is strafe, which should be L and R, and Y opens the magic menu. Magic is even worse than attacking, to use magic you first have to select up to four magic symbols, then press C. There is no glossary as to what these stand for, save for a single plaque at the beginning of the game, and should you enter a combination that either doesn't exist or you can't cast for any number of a dozen different reasons, you lose all your mana. Mages have almost no mana anyway and are almost useless, you certainly want at least 2 frontline fighters and a ranged attacker. The combat in the game is slow as molasses as you have to wait for attacks to charge and enemies take tons of hits, which negates any excitement the real-time battle system might have had. Basically, the entire game seems to have been designed to be as clunky as humanly possible, even on PC this would have been a terrible interface. If you want to play a game like this on console, Swords and Serpents on NES does this a million times better, or just get Legend of Grimrock on PC, which is basically this idea done competently.
DeleteLike X-Men vs Street Fighter before it, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter is another arcade-perfect port of the VS series to Saturn. Unlike the PS1 version, the tag mechanic remains intact, and as an added plus, being a Japan-only release you also get Norimaru, the bonus character who was cut from the US version. That said, I think it's fairly inarguable that this is the weakest game in the Vs series. The only new mechanic is team super, and this has almost undeniably the weakest roster in the series. The loss of the highly mobile characters like Storm and Magneto, as well as interesting oddballs like Rogue and Juggernaut, makes this game feel far more basic and subdued compared to its predecessor and successors. The thing is, though, even the worst game in the VS series is probably still G, Capcom was just that solid in this era, and even if it is a lesser game compared to XMvSF it's still pretty impressive to see this running perfectly on Saturn. Plus, with Saturn not having Marvel vs Capcom, it sort of gives this game its time in the sun, whereas pretty much everywhere else it was quickly forgotten.
Coming back to it for this topic, I feel like I was too harsh on the PS1 version of Seabass Fishing 2. As I noted when we covered it on PS1, this is the immediate predecessor to Murakoshi Seikai no Bakuchou Nippon Rettou, and like I said back then, Murakoshi is a significantly better game in pretty much every way. Most particularly, Murakoshi has an amazing progression system that is far better than the one in this game. Still, pretty much everything else about this game is still good, even though we're stuck with the classic tournament format catching game fish is not difficult and fish fighting feels good. While I don't really disagree with any of the things I said about it before, this game just honestly feels somewhat too fun to be A. Maybe it's benefiting from the fact that we recently reviewed the enormously disappointing Murakoshi Seikai 2 (which has a different developer and is total slop), but at the same time your options for fishing games on Saturn are a little weaker so if there was any doubt that this deserves G on PS1 there's probably not here. In particular, Saturn lacks Murakoshi Seikai no Pakuchikou Seabass Fishing, which does have the original developer, so this is probably your second-best fishing option on the platform.
DeleteWachenroder is yet another turn-based SRPG (Saturn sure has a lot of them), but it sets itself apart with its story and tone. Right off the bat, this game reminds me a lot of FF7. This is not just because the main character kind of looks like Cloud, but it's also set in a very drab slum where poor people are suffering because of the hubris of the rich. It's actually even significantly darker than FF7 and I quite like the game's intro, which is very dramatic and has good use of colour for its story scenes, it really sells the despair. In terms of gameplay, it's a very linear game, but it has a fairly nuanced battle system. Unlike most other SRPGs where you just use the standard "move and attack" sequence, this is an AP-based game so you can do any combination and order of moving and attacking as long as you have AP. Something else you have to pay attention to is the heat gauge, when you attack you can choose how much power to put into it, but the more you use the more heat you accumulate, and if you max out your heat bar you can't attack at all for several turns. Heat slowly dissipates each turn (depending on how hot the surrounding is, which is an interesting touch), so as long as you don't go too nuts with it it's usually fine, but it's interesting to have the option to do a ton of damage at the expense of a lot of heat buildup if you need to kill something right now but know you're not going to need to attack for a little bit. Like most SRPGs, you'll recruit a diverse cast of characters with different abilities and attack ranges, though compared to most other SRPGs customization is light here. Still, I quite like this game's theme and setting. I hope the fan translation will get finished at some point.