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Last Topic's Ratings:
Hugo: The Quest for the Sunstones - AAB - 33% (3)
Monster Racer - BB - 0% (0)
RC Stunt Copter - GAA - 67% (3)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms 6: Awakening of the Dragon - AA - 50% (2)
Space Jam - AGAB - 50% {4}
Umihara Kawase Shun - GG - 100% (2)
I was kinda surprised by the reaction to Space Jam, I thought that game was pretty popular. I also thought more people would have played Umihara Kawase since it's pretty well loved on SNES.
Games for this topic:
Baby Felix Tennis
Command and Conquer: Red Alert
Midnight Run
ODT: Escape Or Die Trying
Pinobee
Twin Goddesses
I originally intended for Twin Goddesses to appear in an earlier topic, but I thought it was interesting so I subbed it out for something else and wrote a guide for it. I also have some hopes for Baby Felix Tennis, since the aesthetic reminds me a little bit of Mario Tennis. And I'll finally get to play Red Alert, which I never played before.
Baby Felix Tennis - B
ReplyDeleteCommand and Conquer: Red Alert - G
Midnight Run - B
ODT: Escape Or Die Trying - B
Pinobee - G
Twin Goddesses - G
Baby Felix Tennis is a little better than most other non-Mario Tennis games of the era, but it's still not good enough for A. Like many other bad Tennis games, its biggest flaw is the fact that swinging the racket takes a long time and it only actually contacts the ball near the end of the animation. Coupled with the fact that hit detection is not great, this results in most rallies ending with the ball basically going through a player when it looks like they clearly hit it. It also features somewhat strange controls where the characters accelerate very slowly, which makes the game feel somewhat stiff, and the combination of these two factors make net play unviable, which is what truly sinks the game. Once you get the basics down, you just have long back-court rallies where neither player has any capacity to force a mistake out of the other player, and it feels very dull. It's too bad because this game does at least kind of have a progression system and the hitting control is fine, but it still gets enough things wrong not to be fun.
The original Command and Conquer was a very solid port to PS1 and that continues with the sequel, Red Alert. Command and Conquer features a simplistic build interface that adapts well to console, easily allowing you to construct buildings and order new units even in the middle of combat. Compared to the first one, the engine is almost completely unchanged, which unfortunately means there are no real QOL upgrades, in particular you're still forced to use the same button to select and command units and you can't queue units or anything, but it still plays decently. Compared to the previous game, one of the biggest additions is the addition of multiplayer, which requires a link cable, but at least it's now an option. There's not really a ton more to say about it, it's a pretty great game with a ton of missions, if you liked Dune 2 or the original Command and Conquer it's kind of a no-brainer.
Midnight Run is one of the worst racing games of the generation. While this is another racing game that has only 3 tracks and no progression, which would almost be enough for B by itself, it also features absolutely atrocious controls. The game's only standout feature is that it has traffic, but its stiff, terrible driving control could not be any more poorly suited to weaving in and out through traffic. It also for some reason copies Virtua Racing in that it has no real music and just plays a short ditty at every checkpoint, and also features one of the worst announcers I've ever heard in this type of game (it sounds like a 5-year old boy is doing the commentary). Essentially unplayable.
I alluded to this when we covered the N64 version, but the unreleased N64 version of ODT is a pretty cool game. It sort of plays like a sci-fi take on Tomb Raider with some interesting RPG-lite mechanics. Unfortunately, the N64 version also features a ton of enhancements over the PS1 version and it plays much worse without them. Almost every aspect of the game is improved on N64 - the control is greatly improved, both combat and platforming feel significantly better, the level design has seen some tweaks, and the camera is also better, with the only downgrade being the loss of FMV and voice acting, which barely matters, and a slight downgrade to atmospheric lighting. The PS1 version is very frequently frustrating to play, as the inferior controls cause a lot of cheap hits and deaths, and generally when I'm playing it I'm always thinking that I could be playing a much better version of the game. I tried to consider whether or not I would have given this game an A if the N64 version didn't exist, but I kind of suspect I wouldn't have, combat and platforming just doesn't feel very good in this version and those represent most of the game. Certainly, this version is vastly inferior to Tomb Raider, so I probably would have just unfavourably compared it to that game instead. It's a real shame the N64 version wasn't officially released because they did a pretty good job of polishing this game up into something of a gem.
DeletePinobee reminds me a lot of Sparkster. Like in Sparkster, this entire game revolves around air dashes, in fact, it's actually a one-button game, you can only jump and air dash, with airdashes being both your primary means of attack and mobility. This is fine though because air dashes are fun, as you progress through the game you get more dashes (they refresh when you touch the ground), allowing you to explore new areas in old stages, and once you get access to multiple air dashes the game becomes pretty fun. This game is a GBA port, and it clearly looks the part, the visuals aren't really quite up to par for PS1, but compared to the GBA version you can see farther and it has better sound and music quality so this version is a bit of an upgrade, but it still plays completely fine on GBA if you prefer the portability. There's not really a ton more to say about it than this, there's an item system where you can find items by exploring the stages that can power you up, which gives you an incentive to explore, though the game is not too hard so you don't especially need them if you'd prefer to play fast. Just a pretty solid platformer overall.
Twin Goddesses is way better than I expected when I first saw it, so much so that when I first tested it for a previous GAB topic and saw that it didn't have a guide, I decided to write one. The game was apparently the first 2D fighting game released for PS1, but despite its age it's actually pretty solid mechanically. Probably the first thing anyone would notice about the game is that it combines digitized actresses with animated characters, giving the game a visual style somewhat akin to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I thought this would be ridiculous, but surprisingly it kind of works, and the animated characters actually look pretty good. In terms of gameplay, it plays a lot like an SNK fighter. It's a 3 button game, you have light attack, heavy attack, and magic. The game has "traditional" special moves on the regular attack buttons, but each character also has magic special moves that are powered by a separate magic meter. Magic does not refill (without items) so the number of magic attacks you can use in a round is limited. Further complicating things is the fact that although magic attacks can be blocked, they do an absolute ton of chip, almost as much as if they had hit. You can negate the chip using Magic Block (block + Magic), but this drains your magic bar, and if you have no magic left, you have no choice but to eat the chip unless you can get out of the way. Managing your magic resources gives the game an interesting layer of strategy and helps it feel unique. There are also items you can buy with money that you earn during fights. Some of these are consumables that let you heal health or use unique special moves, while others are permanent increases to your health or magic bars. It reminds me a bit of Flying Dragon and it adds a fun twist to the standard arcade mode experience. The game is also pretty decently well-polished. The motion detection in the game is top notch, and the characters generally feel pretty diverse and fun to use. The one flaw in the game is that by default, you can only play the arcade mode as the two protagonists, but this annoyed me so I created Gameshark codes that let you play it as anyone. I suppose purists would say that this probably shouldn't count, but either way I had a lot of fun with it. Pretty solid for a game that most people would probably expect to be a joke.
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