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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Circuit Beat - BB - 0% (2)
Eternal Eyes - AGAB - 50% {4}
European Super League - AA - 50% (2)
PO'ed - BAAA - 38% (4)
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage - GGGGGGGGGGG - 100% (11) (4 SR)
Twinbee Taisen Puzzle-Dama - AG - 75% (2)
Spyro 2 becomes the second-highest rated game overall, behind only Klonoa (and it got more SRs than Klonoa). Nice to finally see a game that can draw out some SRs.
Games for this topic:
Ballblazer Champions
Bio Freaks
Denpa Shounenteki Game
Krazy Ivan
Need for Speed: V-Rally
Star Ixiom
A bit of a role reversal this time, we often find ourselves covering games we already covered on PS1 in the Saturn topics, but here we have a few games we already covered on Saturn. Of course, some games differ significantly between versions, so you should always make sure to try the specific version in question.
Ballblazer Champions - A
ReplyDeleteBio Freaks - A
Denpa Shounenteki Game - B
Krazy Ivan - G
Need for Speed: V-Rally - A
Star Ixiom - G
Ballblazer Champions is a super weird game but I feel it's clear it's not as good as it could be. It's a sports game of sorts, where you pilot a futuristic hovercar and have to shoot a ball into the opponent's goal. The ball magnetizes to the front of your car, and you can activate a "force push" to send it flying (you can also use this to steal the ball from the opponent), so in a certain sense it feels a bit like soccer, but there are also weapons like rockets you can fire at the opponent to stun them. Notice that I said "opponent", this is a purely 1 on 1 game, and I think that's one of its biggest weaknesses. Too often I found myself just driving alone to the opponent's goal with no resistance. Tense struggles for the ball were fairly rare. Another lame mechanic is that after someone scores, the ball is put back into play near the other person's net. You can move during the post goal animation to try to get down there, but if the other player is already there they basically get to score for free, which is dumb, it'd be much more interesting if they reset your position and launched the ball in a neutral location. Goals are extremely common in this game and I think the game knows it, each match takes place as 3 first to 5 sets, of which you need to win 2, which sort of shows that there's not really a lot of neutral play a lot of the time. Inbetween matches you can buy upgrades, which is cool, and the presentation is also pretty solid, so it's not all bad, but I feel like the core gameplay doesn't stay interesting for very long.
Bio Freaks is still pretty much the same game as on N64. As I noted when we covered it there, I think this is one of the better early 3D fighting games because it's fairly fast, you won't find the absurd floatiness of early Tekken or Toshinden here. If anything, it's probably a little too fast and nuts, in particular I really don't think the flight move needed to be a thing, it results in a fair bit of jank where moves can go through enemies and such, and at times it sort of just feels like chaos. Still, it's a decent game with fairly detailed movelists that moves at a good pace, so I imagine this could have been fairly fun if you got it right when it came out.
Something that strikes me as totally hilarious is that even though we hadn't yet covered the PS1 version of Denpa Shounenteki Game, I had apparently already deleted it after reviewing the Saturn version, which I feel pretty much tells you everything you need to know. Anyway, there are two versions of this game on the Saturn. The initial version has fewer games and some games work a tiny bit differently, like the coin cutting game is way slower. This was "improved" on the PS1 version, which adds slightly more games, which was then re-released on Saturn with the extra games because you know Saturn owners were just dying to have the definitive version of this game. It still has all of the same problems where most of the games have no depth and are way too short, while the only games that are even slightly interesting like the stencil game and whack a mole take way too long. Pretty much every other minigame compilation ever made is drastically better than this, even somewhat flawed ones like Tant-R are still vastly more fun than this.
When we covered Krazy Ivan on Saturn it felt like one of the worst games of all time, but it turns out that the Saturn port is just one of the worst ports of all time and the core game is decent. Krazy Ivan is a mech game where you control a giant mech in various arenas. In each arena there are 3 bosses you have to hunt down and kill, as well as an endlessly spawning supply of small enemies that you can kill for powerups. You can also rescue prisoners, who can help you get upgrades for the next stage. It's not particularly deep, but it runs vastly better on PS1, having both a much better framerate and better draw distance, which makes it quite playable. The controls are decent, the levels vary quite a bit, and it's a fairly satisfying game, there's certainly no shortage of things to blow up and upgrading your weapons after each stage is always fun. The only thing I don't like is that the strafe is something you have to mash rather than being something you hold down, but I got used to it. It's a pretty decent mech shooter overall, too bad about the Saturn port.
DeleteNeed for Speed V-Rally is all right. First thing's first, this is not a rally game. The tracks are all standard circuit tracks, there's almost no elevation changes, there's no car damage, and you can't go off-road, it plays exactly like a standard arcade racer but with more exotic locales. Still, the tracks do visually look quite nice, the game's presentation is quite good for its time, so this doesn't bother me especially much, just know that if you want a proper rally experience you need to look elsewhere. As a standard arcade racer, it's not too bad, it's biggest issue is in its handling and physics. This game controls like SF Rush on N64, turning only turns the car like 30 degrees, and it "snaps back" after you release the turn control. At least the courses here are kind of built around it, unlike in Rush, so it doesn't feel too awful, but it's the lowpoint of the game for sure. The game's physics are also kinda wack, if you so much as touch a bump you're going to go flying and usually spin out (which is nonsensical for a rally game), but the AI is super easy to beat so it probably won't matter too much. In terms of progression, there's not a ton, there's a couple circuits you can do, and the game does have a pretty decent number of tracks, but there aren't car classes or much to unlock or anything. One thing I do like is how the game handles tuning, it basically lets you select your suspension toughness and gear ratios from a few settings and that's about it, it feels like the correct amount for this type of game, and you can even change it mid-race. There's no question that Rally de Africa basically does this kind of idea much better, but it's not terrible.
Star Ixiom is a fairly basic but decent space dogfighter. The basic gist of the game is that you hyperjump across a simple space map, engaging enemy groups and defending bases and planets. Inbetween skirmishes, you can return to your base to replenish your energy and weapons and adjust your ship's configuration. It starts off incredibly simple, but it quickly becomes very hectic as the number of enemy groups gets large and they start attacking your territories non-stop, you have to be quick and prioritize various areas so you don't spend too much time hyperjumping around. The biggest issue with the game is that it's quite simple mechanically and the missions don't have much variety, the different ships and weapons play similarly and most of the enemies are also fairly simple to defeat, but at least the fast pace of the game keeps things from getting too repetitive. It definitely doesn't have the scope of something like Colony Wars, but it has very intuitive controls and quick pacing that might make it a good fit for newcomers to the genre.