This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness - AGAAA - 60% (5)
Ginga Ojousama Densetsu Yuna 3: Lightning Angel - AA - 50% (2)
Midway Presents Arcade's Greatest Hits - AAA - 50% (3)
Nekketsu Oyako - ABAGA - 50% {5}
Nights Into Dreams - GGGGGGGG - 100% (8)
Pastel Muse - BB - 0% (2)
While I expected it to rate high, I was a little surprised Nights got a perfect score given how eclectic it is. Though perhaps Saturn itself is kind of an eclectic system as well.
Games for this topic:
Battle Stations
Gex
Gunbird
Himekuri: Girls in Motion Puzzle Vol 1
NBA Action 98
Sega Ages: Memorial Collection Vol 1
Here we have one of the first of Saturn's notorious pervy games with Girls in Motion Puzzle, though it looks fairly tame. We also have another title in the Sega Ages series, and everyone's favourite wisecracking Gecko.
Battle Stations - B
ReplyDeleteGex - G
Gunbird - G
Himekuri: Girls in Motion Puzzle Vol 1 - G
NBA Action 98 - G
Sega Ages: Memorial Collection Vol 1 - B
Battle Stations was already a bad game on PS1, but it's approaching "worst of all time" status on Saturn, as in addition to all of the game's previous problems, it now runs at like 10FPS. I guess they might have already recognized that the game was lousy on Playstation and put zero effort into this port, but in any case, stay as far away as possible from this one.
Gex is still really solid, easily the best game in the series. As I mentioned when we covered the game on Playstation, I really enjoy Gex's wall cling ability, it legitimately makes the game feel unique among platformers and makes for some pretty interesting level design. I also like the mechanic where you can either tail whip or eat powerups, depending on whether you want a powerup or a health boost, it adds a little more nuance to what could otherwise be a very simple mechanic. Gex is also probably at his least annoying here, possibly due to the faster pacing of the game meaning you have to hear from him less times, but he actually kind of feels funny in this one rather than simply being obnoxious. Overall, this is just a pretty solid game, I wish they had stuck to the 2D formula for the sequels. Maybe it's time for a Rayman Legends-style comeback for Gex?
Gunbird is another really solid shmup. It reminds me a lot of Sonic Wings Special, featuring generally similar vertically scrolling gameplay with short levels and a diverse group of characters to choose from. Both titles also feature similar random stage progression and aesthetics (particularly the idea that anything can be a giant mecha). Compared to Sonic Wings Special, it doesn't have the boatload of characters to unlock, but it's still a super solid title with great personality (I particularly enjoy the characters and voice acting). As is often the case, the Saturn version has a slight edge on the PS1 version. The PS1 version seems to have some very minor frameskipping and also has noticeable load time before the bosses appear, while the Saturn version has no issues whatsoever, so this version is preferred if you have the option. I miss this style of shmups.
Girls in Motion Puzzle is an interesting game. It's a jigsaw game, not entirely dissimilar from Dejig, but the vast majority of the puzzles are movie puzzles, where the image is actually a repeating movie. This actually works quite well to solve one of the biggest problems that many similar games have, where large sections of the image have little detail and thus the pieces are nearly impossible to distinguish from one another. With the movie puzzles, even if a part of the puzzle might not be showing much of anything at one time, as the movie progresses you can of objects passing through those areas that can help you identify the location of the piece. The game also does a good job of addressing another issue that many jigsaw games have, which is what to do with mistakes. Girls in Motion Puzzle gives you a certain number of lives, which you lose by putting a piece in the wrong place, but can gain back by placing several pieces in a row in the right location. There's also a time limit, though it's quite generous, but when combined with the later stages that introduce rotation, it feels decently challenging, but in a way that never feels unfair, and it's actually pretty satisfying when you get that "aha" moment and recognize a body part that lets you place a piece. Of course, the elephant in the room is the game's subject matter. As the title implies, the puzzles are based on a group of girls having a vacation on a tropical beach. It's actually quite tame, most of the puzzles consist of the girls either posing on the beach or swimming, and a surprising amount of care has been put into optimizing the videos to work well with the game (ie, the scenes are a reasonable length and there's enough motion to help you identify parts of the puzzle). I actually feel like if you're playing this just for the fanservice you might be a bit disappointed, but the core jigsaw puzzle mechanics are solid enough to carry the game on their own.
DeleteNBA Action 98 is actually the same game as NBA Fastbreak 98 on Playstation, though it's published by Sega here. As with the Playstation version, it's a pretty competent 5 on 5 basketball game with good controls and camera work. When we reviewed the PS1 version, I noted that while it was good for its time, later basketball games on the system significantly improved upon it, but on Saturn, there aren't really any later Basketball games for it to compete against, so it's almost certainly your best option as far as sim-style Basketball games are concerned (in particular, it's a fair bit better than NBA Live 98, but we'll deal with that game when we come to it). I don't generally think the system that a particular game is on changes the equation all that much, but this was already a pretty decent game on Playstation and I was actually kind of surprised I gave it an A upon revisiting it, it's certainly pretty close to G material even on PS1.
Sega Ages: Memorial Collection Vol 1 is a collection of 4 games, all of which predate the NES - Head On, Pengo, Up and Down, and Flicky. This is an extremely barebones collection with no extras whatsoever, and given the age of the games, it's also a very small number of games (compare the Midway Collections, which tend to have 6 games of this vintage and also have interviews and bonus features). Of the four games, Head On and Up and Down are both almost unplayable, not even being particularly notable titles when they were new, which basically only leaves Pengo and Flicky, which are tolerable but don't stay fun for very long. It's too bad we couldn't have gotten, say, Pepenga Pengo in this collection as well, considering Pengo seems to be the headliner here, as that would have helped this collection out immensely.