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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Baroque - GGGG - 100% (4) (1 SR)
Gran Turismo - GGGGAGGGGGGGA - 92% (13) (2 SR)
MDK - GGGGBGAA - 75% (8)
Snowboarding - AAB - 33% (3)
Street Fighter The Movie - GAGAAA - 67% (6)
World Destruction League: Thunder Tanks - AAB - 33% (3)
A really strong showing for Gran Turismo, which wasn't totally unexpected. It's still good to see the big vote totals from time to time.
Games for this topic:
Fighter Maker
Hakai Ou: King of Crusher
Puma Street Soccer
Road Rash 3D
Terracon
X2
I remember playing Fighter Maker back in the old days and thinking it was way too complex, I wonder if it'll seem different now. There's also a translation available for Hakai Ou: King of Crusher, apparently.
Fighter Maker - B
ReplyDeleteHakai Ou: King of Crusher - A
Puma Street Soccer - B
Road Rash 3D - A
Terracon - G
X2 - B
I remember when my friend and I first tried Fighter Maker a long time ago, our opinion was basically "this is an extremely cool concept which is completely unusable" and that's basically still how I feel about it. I think a lot of the issue is that the game is actually much too powerful. The game lets you edit the character's frame data frame by frame, but it's an impossibly cumbersome process to set up even a single move. Even making a slight edit to an existing move takes forever. Even if you're willing to dedicate dozens of hours to it, the game is also very limited. There are no supers or projectiles available, which limits all characters to basic punches and kicks and throws, there's no voice acting, and the game features extremely basic gameplay which for some reason also uses a button to block. Even playing the game by itself without fooling around with the edit mode feels extremely dry because of this, so I wouldn't recommend the base game either even though it does have a lot of characters.
Hakai Ou: King of Crusher is an extremely weird game that I actually completed in its entirety. In a certain sense, it kind of reminds me of Katamari, but without the nuance. The basic gist of the game is that there are a certain number of destructible objects on each stage, and you have to destroy a certain percentage of them (indicated by a red bar) and reach the end to proceed to the next stage. You have a yellow bar that represents your health, and it drains constantly, only replenishing when you destroy things, so you have to destroy things constantly to survive. Every few stages, there's a "boss" stage where you have to destroy some large object in addition to everything else in order to win. You start the game as an ordinary salaryman, but gradually morph into larger and larger demons until the point where you eventually become godzilla, which is kind of satisfying, though the game never controls particularly well and on the later stages you face more and more enemies (which respawn endlessly) which can be frustrating, especially because the later stages are long and there's tons of stuff to destroy. Something that's kind of interesting is that the game actually has multiple endings, depending on what you choose to do in the final battle (after the baby appears, stop attacking for the second ending). Even though the game's gameplay isn't really great, there's something sort of weirdly artistic about this game. The plot is that the main character feels trapped by all the pressures in his life, and then a demon encourages him to find freedom by destroying everything that holds him back. The first few stages are pretty fun (and most resemble the life the character already had), but the game tends to get more and more tedious as you go along, probably intentionally if the game's good ending is anything to go by. Though the game got somewhat annoying about halfway through, I was sort of compelled to see the journey of destruction to its end, and the ending is actually kind of a satisfying conclusion to it. I'm not sure I'd really recommend it, but it is an interesting title.
Puma Street Soccer has some promise but unfortunately doesn't work well enough to really be playable. The game is essentially a Soccer-themed version of NBA Jam, featuring 3-on-3 gameplay in an extremely short pitch with almost no rules. The concept is an interesting one and the game almost works, but has a lot of control issues that hold it back. By far the biggest one is shooting. Like in most soccer games, the direction you hold when shooting determines your aim, which is fine, but if you're holding any direction on the stick, you shoot way wide, in order to actually hit the net you must only tilt the stick the tiniest amount, which both doesn't work well on the PS1 joystick and also forces you to come to a stop if you're trying to take a shot while moving, which you almost always will be. The button to shoot is also weirdly unresponsive, and a quick tap will sometimes not register at all, which, when combined with the fact that you have to come to a stop to shoot means that you'll get picked off before you can get a shot off frustratingly often. Defense is also unreliable, as players will sometimes automatically hop slide tackles, which when combined with the unreliable nature of the goalies and the lousy shot controls means that who scores mostly just feels like luck. I tried playing this one for a while to see if I could overcome the controls but it really just never works well. Either stick with Dolucky's A-League Soccer on SNES or wait for Sega Soccer Slam if you want a game like this, as both are vastly better.
DeleteRoad Rash 3D is extremely similar to Road Rash 64 in most ways, serving as kind of a beta for that game. First thing's first, Road Rash 64 is better in every way. Compared to Road Rash 64, Road Rash 3D controls worse, has a worse framerate, and there's almost no exploration. The second you go off the intended route your bike basically comes to a dead stop, which means there's no shortcuts or hidden powerups, and you can't even wheelie off cars yet. Despite that, being fairly similar to one of the best games ever made ensures that this game is still at least pretty fun. The soundtrack is still good (it's actually the same as RR64), the track design is cool, and is totally different from Road Rash 64 (the two games do not share the same map), and it was still clearly the right direction for the franchise, it just needed a little bit more work to polish it into a masterpiece. The real question is whether the game is G or A. I tried to consider how good the game would be considered if Road Rash 64 had never existed (even though I do think the existence of a significantly better sequel or port is always relevant), and I think even without Road Rash 64 some of its flaws, particularly with control, would still be an issue. A lot of the problem is that you can't choose not to use the stick for gas if you're using analog controls, which basically forces you to turn analog off and that's a big issue. The fact that you basically come to a dead stop the second you go off the course is also pretty lame. It's still a decent title, but you really should be playing Road Rash 64 instead.
Terracon is extremely cool. It's essentially a PS1 version of Ratchet and Clank, the 3D platforming / run and gun hybrid gameplay will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played that series. Compared to Ratchet and Clank, the level designs are significantly more simple and there's less exploration, but the concept is still pulled off surprisingly well on PS1. The controls are tight, the camera work is decent, and despite the size of the levels and the amount of shots going off it also holds its framerate pretty well. What's impressive is that not only does it play like R&C, it also looks and sounds the part too, as the game features very solid presentation. Not only are the visuals top notch for the system, the game also features a lot of pretty well-made in-engine cutscenes, complete with voice acting. You can tell immediately that a lot of work went into this one (it's actually published by Sony, which probably helps), so it's quite surprising they didn't release it in the US, as this seems like it would have been a big hit. Even if you've already played Ratchet and Clank to death, there's still enough unique concepts in this game to make it interesting, one of the central concepts of the game is that you use a certain type of energy for both creation and destruction, sometimes you have to create various platforms or structures or what not using your main gun, but this weakens your attack power until you find more energy, which does a decent job of making you want to explore the levels and destroy everything, finding a secret cache of energy gives you a nice power boost for the rest of the stage. This one is definitely worth a look.
DeleteX2 is bad. Everything about this game just feels sloppy. It's one of those shmups where you can take a lot of hits, which typically indicates that the game's bullet patterns aren't tested properly and they just give you a lot of health to make up for it, which is definitely the case here. Your ship's hitbox is massive (it seems to even extend beyond the ship itself, and enemy projectiles often blend in with the background. Beyond these sorts of issues, the game also kind of doesn't feel like it has any "flow". Enemies tend to attack in groups, so you'll fight a bunch of enemies, then a pause, then a different type of enemy, which makes it feel like it's almost a set of mini-boss rushes than an actual shmups. Powerups are present, but have very boring effects, you can swap between weapons but they're so similar it barely matters. The game even looks very drab visually. There's pretty much nothing good to say about this one. It's pretty clear that western developers hadn't quite figured out shmups yet.