GAB GBC #18 - Aerostar, Marble Madness (GB), Star Wars

Gamefaqs Link

Last Topic's Ratings:

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon - AB - 25% (2)
Black Bass: Lure Fishing - BBBAB - 10% (5)
Fastest Lap - GGG - 100% (3)
Fire Fighter - AAA - 50% (3)
Klax (Hudson) - AGA - 67% (3)
Xerd no Densetsu - AA - 50% (2)

Also a bit of a quiet week. Fastest Lap was kind of a nice surprise though.

Games for this topic:

Aerostar
Godzilla
Marble Madness (GB)
Q Billion
Sports Illustrated: Golf Classic
Star Wars

Once again, we've got another game which has a Gameboy Color version with the same name but it's a very different game, this time we're covering the original GB version. There's also a bunch of Godzilla games on the system, this is the one from 1990.

GAB PS1 #215 - Ball Breakers, NASCAR Rumble, Puchi Carat

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Last Topic's Ratings:

Alnam no Kiba - BB - 0% (2)
Bike Race: Kamen Rider - BB - 0% (2)
Eagle One: Harrier Attack - GAA - 67% (3)
Excalibur 2555 AD - GGAGA - 80% (5)
Pool Academy - BB - 0% (2)
Tokimeki Memorial - AG - 75% (2)

A pretty quiet topic, I was hoping to see a couple more ratings for Tokimeki Memorial, because I do feel that this is one of the more accessible games of its type out there. Maybe when the sequel comes along.

Games for this topic:

Ball Breakers
Burger Burger 2
Hyper Securities 2
NASCAR Rumble
Puchi Carat
Super Shot Soccer

For some reason, Puchi Carat always feels very familiar when I see the name, but I'm pretty sure I've never played it. We also have a couple sequels to Japanese strategy games here. Having played Tokimeki Memorial I can now see that the original Hyper Securities definitely borrowed a few things from its formula.

GAB GBC #17 - Black Bass, Klax (Hudson), Sailor Moon

This topic is now closed

Gamefaqs Link

Last Topic's Ratings:

Addams Family, The - GAAAA - 60% (5)
Daedalian Opus - GAGAA - 70% (5)
Double Dragon - GGGGGA - 92% (6)
Pachinko Saiyuuki - BB - 0% (2)
Skate or Die: Bad N Rad - BAB - 17% (3)
Tower of Druaga, The - ABBAAA - 33% (6) (1 SR)

A surprisingly solid start for the Addams Family. Spoiler alert, I owned a different Addams Family game when I was a kid that I'm quite looking forward to covering when we get to it, but that's a topic for another time. You might also be wondering if Tower of Druaga is the lowest-rated game to ever get an SR, but it's not even close, several games that scored only 20% have gotten SRs on past systems.

Games for this topic:

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
Black Bass: Lure Fishing
Fastest Lap
Fire Fighter
Klax (Hudson)
Xerd no Densetsu

Game Boy is at it again, there are not one, not two, but THREE separate games on the platform with the name "Klax". This is the JP-only release from Hudson, not the later Mindscape version or the GBC version. Speaking of GBC versions, there's also a GBC version of Black Bass, but unlike Klax, this is basically the exact same game except with color and minor graphical enhancements, so in this case we won't be rating the GBC version separately. I can already tell this is going to become a confusing mess. However, there's no reason to be confused by Sailor Moon because there's a fan translation available for it.

GAB PS1 #214 - Eagle One, Excalibur 2555 AD, Tokimeki Memorial

This topic is now closed

Gamefaqs Link

Last Topic's Ratings:

Dragon Knight 4 - GG - 100% (2)
Heart of Darkness - GGAGGAA - 79% (7) (1 SR)
K-1 Oujya ni Narou - GG - 100% (2) (1 SR)
Sled Storm - GGGGG - 100% (5)
Tsuukai: Slot Shooting - AB - 25% (2)
Weakest Link, The - AAB - 33% (3)

A pretty high-rated topic for having a fair number of games that weren't especially well-known. I feel like Sled Storm in particular kind of came out of nowhere.

Games for this topic:

Alnam no Kiba
Bike Race: Kamen Rider
Eagle One: Harrier Attack
Excalibur 2555 AD
Pool Academy
Tokimeki Memorial

To be honest, it was never my intention to cover Tokimeki Memorial. When it comes to Visual Novels and Dating Sims, it's generally my belief that although current translation tools make them somewhat playable, it's hard to evaluate them accurately for two reasons. First, the quality of the writing is critical to the quality of games like these and you simply can't gauge this accurately using translation software. Secondly, the sheer volume of text to translate also butchers their pacing and makes them feel overly slow even if this wouldn't have been the experience for a native speaker. As such, the game I was originally planning to cover for this topic was instead Mitsumete Knight, though while looking into it I found out that it is basically a spinoff of Tokimeki Memorial and shares almost the same gameplay. I also quickly found that I recognized a lot of its mechanics from various other games, both ones we've covered here and more recent games like Accel World Phoenix Festa, so I figured we probably needed to evaluate it after all. There's actually a fair number of english guides that can explain how to play the game, as well as a fan translation for the slightly downgraded but still largely similar SNES version, so it shouldn't be inordinately difficult to play for english speakers.