This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Andretti Racing - BA - 25% (2)
DragonHeart: Fire & Steel - BBB - 0% (3)
J League Victory Goal 97 - AG - 75% (2)
Sega Ages: Shukudai ga Tant-R - BA - 25% (2)
Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner - GGB - 67% (3)
Sokko Seitokai: Sonic Council - AGG - 83% (3)
This one definitely couldn't quite measure up to the star power that Spyro brings to the table, though I feel like the Saturn topics tend to contain more big names in general due to the smaller library size, similar to what we saw with the N64 topics.
Games for this topic:
Grid Runner
Iron Storm
Metal Black
Super Adventure Rockman
Virtual Open Tennis
WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game
I've always kind of wanted to play Super Adventure Rockman, though the fact that it was fully in Japanese put me off. I probably should have checked it out earlier because it's actually pretty easy to understand even if you don't speak the language and you can't ever get stuck by choosing wrong, so it's actually quite import-friendly.
Grid Runner - A
ReplyDeleteIron Storm - A
Metal Black - G
Super Adventure Rockman - G
Virtual Open Tennis - G
WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game - G
It was kind of interesting coming back to Grid Runner because I think some people felt my review of the game on PS1 was too harsh. For starters, the port quality here is fine, this is pretty much the exact same as the PS1 version, and as on PS1, this remains an extremely unique game which has basically never been done before or since. When we covered the game initially, I noted that the concept was very unique but the execution wasn't quite there, and to be honest, that's still kind of how I feel about it. Playing the game again, I immediately came to the same conclusion, which is that the Speed spell is vastly too powerful, to the extent that it makes most of your other magic (and thus the process of hunting down the other player) trivial. This generally allows you to have a lot of impunity while running away (especially if you've been doing well on the bonus stages and thus increasing your speed), letting you generally collect the bonus hourglasses with relative impunity, which robs the game of much of the intensity it was likely intended to have. It makes an interesting comparison with Ballblazer Champions, because with both games I feel like you can kinda tell that something feels missing / off when playing them, which prevents them from achieving greatness. It's too bad neither ever got further sequels because I think with more refinement both could have been great.
Iron Storm essentially plays like a vastly more complex version of Advance Wars. The core gameplay is similar enough that people who are familiar with that franchise will be mostly fine here, but the added complexity generally hinders the game by making it play too slow. As anyone who has played Advance Wars can tell you, the battles that take place on huge maps are always a slog because taking turns takes way too long, and even the first maps in Iron Storm are bigger than any Advance Wars maps. Actually taking your actions takes much longer, as well, as there are zillions of units, each of which carry multiple weapons, and getting an overview of which units can attack which other units takes a long time. The opponent also takes their turn completely in secret, even units who are within your field of view are not shown, which is kind of a weird mechanic that makes tracking which targets they're actually attacking needlessly tough. Overall, the comparatively more simplistic gameplay compared to some similar titles is appreciated, but it still doesn't feel all that well polished. At the very least, the early missions should have taken place in smaller skirmishes where the size of the map and the number of units was kept low to help introduce the units and mechanics. Compared to Nectaris, which is also similar to Advance Wars, I feel like that game is vastly more approachable and fun.
Metal Black is a super weird game that I'm not sure how to rate. It's a shmup, but it's actually one of the most bizarre ones I've ever played. This entire game is based around a single mechanic, which is that particles periodically appear from the edges of the screen. Collecting them gradually powers up your weapon, from a very wimpy laser to a powerful one, but your current weapon power is also your bomb, you can unleash your accumulated power to release a massive amount of energy and demolish everything around you, at the expense of losing all of your weapon power. You can continue to collect particles to keep it going, and the levels often feel like they're designed around encouraging you to use the bomb at various points, as the craft is slow and the game will sometimes basically flood the screen with enemies. The most unique part about the game though is the boss fights, because they can also collect the particles and use them against you. The first boss, for example, has exactly the same bomb mechanic you do, and if you let it collect too many particles it'll use the bomb to wipe you out unless you use your own bomb, creating a DBZ-style beam clash that feels cool but also weirdly out of place in this type of game. Still, the emphasis on collecting the particles before the boss does adds an interesting layer of tension to the fights, as well as making them significantly more difficult since obviously you also have to avoid the boss's attacks. Later bosses use the particles in different ways, though I think it's clear that the boss fights are the highlight of the experience, with the levels themselves being kind of routine. The game also has some extremely strange visuals, for example the second boss is a dragon that hatches out of a moon-shaped egg, and generally I feel like the game feels quite trippy, which matches well with its unique gameplay I suppose. Overall, I don't know if this game is that mechanically competent, but it definitely does feel like something I haven't played before even though we've covered a million shmups, so I guess that is a major point in its favour.
DeleteSuper Adventure Rockman is way better than I thought it would be. I was initially under the impression that it was basically like a Megaman version of Dragon's Lair, but it's really not, it's basically just a Megaman anime with some playable sections every now and then. For starters, one thing that really makes a big difference is that compared to many similar Laserdisc style games we've covered so far, the anime is actually very entertaining. Comparing it to something like Thunder Storm LX-3, it's massively superior in virtually every regard. For starters, there's way more of a plot compared to most of the laserdisc games. It helps that for starters, it has a ton of characters with voiced dialogue, and both the quality of the animation and the voice acting is quite good. There's a long interlude for example showing Dr Wily's adventures in the Rainforest and these are very entertaining, even though they're totally noninteractive. It's true that you spend a lot of time basically just watching a movie, but it helps a lot that it's a good movie that I would probably be willing to watch on its own. When it comes to the playable portions, these too are pretty solid. When I first found out about the game I figured it would be full of places where you have to make a decision and if you choose the wrong one you die, but thankfully it does not do this at all. There are some points throughout the story where you have to make decision, but these simply cause the story to branch. There's never a "wrong" option, but in some cases you might fight a different boss or see a different scene depending on what you choose. In many cases, Megaman will come under attack from something, and you have to press a quicktime event to dodge. These are pretty easy and the penalty for failing them is just a very tiny amount of damage, so they don't really feel too bad. When you actually get into a battle, it plays like a light gun game, where you control a cursor and have to shoot the enemies. Enemies have health and you can do charge shots and also use copy weapons, and generally these sections feel surprisingly varied and competent, even if there aren't actually too many of them. Overall, this game is just a fun time, and it's also actually surprisingly long for a game of this type. I was grinning pretty much all the way through thanks to the lively animation and voice acting and the fun characters from the classic series. Keiji Inafune is honestly kinda nuts for thinking this game sucks. The notion that it's "too dark" seems very silly when compared to the Megaman X and Zero series, which are far darker than this. I'd definitely recommend checking this out if you're a fan of the series.
DeleteVirtual Open Tennis is definitely a bit better than I was expecting. For starters, this is another Tennis game with "proper" controls, where holding left while on the left side of the court hits it up the line rather than out, thank goodness developers are finally starting to get this right. Still, you shouldn't assume this plays like Mario Tennis, because it definitely doesn't. Virtual Open Tennis is basically the fastest Tennis game of all time. The speed at which the ball travels in this game is frankly kind of absurd compared to almost every other Tennis game ever made, even the power characters on the composite court in Mario Tennis don't have anywhere near the level of power that every character does here, which changes the way the game plays drastically. Serving is now actually a massive advantage because a perfectly timed and placed serve is nearly impossible to return without a lucky guess, and back court play is actually very viable because a well placed shot can easily be impossible to return depending on your positioning. This is compounded by the fact that players have acceleration, so if someone hits a ball towards you, but you started running in the other direction, you're not going to be able to get back for it, which forces you to try to confirm the location of the shot before you move (though of course, this could result in it being too far away to reach). Something I like that this game does is it places an indicator showing exactly where the ball will go the second it's hit, which does help you react, as otherwise reacting to shots would be 100% impossible with how fast this game moves, once you train yourself to start looking for the indicator it is decently playable, but long rallies are just not a thing in this game. Still, this is a pretty solid game where all styles of Tennis feel viable, which is kind of rare, even Mario Tennis has struggled to make baseline play feel threatening the way it does here, though net play is also super deadly if you can pull it off, and it's one of the only Tennis games where playing a 6-game set doesn't feel arduous.
DeleteWe've covered WWF Wrestlemania: The Arcade Game like a thousand times now, but I think this will actually be the last time. Anyway, as you probably know by now, I enjoy this game. It's definitely not a conventional wrestling game but it's very fast and crazy and there's a surprising amount of depth to it. I think the game's biggest flaw is that the AI is extremely cheesy. A mechanic in the game I'm not super fond of is that virtually everything in the game can be instant blocked if you block the instant before it hits you, which includes all grapples and tosses. A player will virtually never be able to do this, but the AI can do it extremely reliably, which makes grabs not nearly as useful as them, in fact, it's often better to let them grab you and then do a reversal rather than trying to grab yourself. The handicap matches where you have to face multiple opponents are also pretty bad, you need to use extremely cheesy strategies to win these, though if you play co-op with another person or versus the game plays much better. Compared to the PS1 version, the Saturn version seems identical, it has the extra Wreslters that the 16-bit versions are missing and everything else feels the same as the PS1 version, I imagine people might even feel that the Saturn controller works better for this game since you need all 6 buttons. I don't have too much else to say about it other than that no matter how many times we've had to rate it I always have fun with it.