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Last Topic's Ratings:
Fighting Vipers - AABBGG - 50% {6}
Kumitate Battle: Kuttu Ketto - GG - 100% (2) (1 SR)
Moujya - AGA - 67% (3)
Shienryu - AAG - 67% (3)
Slam Dunk - BBG - 33% (3)
Wangan Trial Love - BB - 0% (2)
Both topics had a 50% squiggle bracket game this week. I also still want more people to try Kumitate Battle, so I may be forced to either write a guide for it or put up a video or something.
Games for this topic:
Digital Pinball: Necronomicon
G-Vector
Jonah Lomu Rugby
Mass Destruction
Mortal Kombat Trilogy
SimCity 2000
I don't actually have too much to say about this set. Hopefully I still remember how to play Rugby from Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games.
Digital Pinball: Necronomicon - G
ReplyDeleteG-Vector - B
Jonah Lomu Rugby - B
Mass Destruction - G
Mortal Kombat Trilogy - B
SimCity 2000 - A
Digital Pinball: Necronomicon is a really interesting Pinball game. Before we get started, I have to give credit to this game's silly, metal-inspired intro. It's absurdly out of place for a pinball game, but I enjoy how seriously this game takes itself. This also extends to its campy yet kind of cool spoken word soundtrack, which helps give the game a unique feel. Back to the game itself, it's a pinball game with 3 tables. Something I appreciate is that the game has a "story mode" of sorts where you play all three tables, switching between them when you get enough points. There are more of the game's silly cutscenes between boards, and just in general this helps add a little more to the package. In terms of the tables themselves, they're pretty decent. Their layouts are simple, but they're crammed with events, in particular the game loves throwing multiballs at you, so if you enjoy multiball and racking up huge bonuses there's a ton of that here. Overall, this feels a bit easier compared to many Pinball games (clearly this machine would not make much money if it was real), but it's still a pretty neat experience.
G-Vector sucks. It plays very similarly to Raystorm, and also has almost all of the same problems, but arguably even worse. Just like Raystorm, this entire game revolves around locking on and shooting missiles, but instead of being a vertical shmup it's instead played from a depth perspective, similar to Starfox. The first few minutes seem reasonably promising, but that all goes out the window once you get to the first boss, who spams projectiles to a ludicrous degree and almost never has any periods where it can be hit. Once you get to the second stage, you discover the true nature of the game, which is for groups of enemies to pop up in front of you and instantly fire on you before you can possibly dodge, necessitating a "constantly circle the screen" strategy so you're never in any one place for more than a second. This of course makes it nearly impossible to lock onto and shoot any enemies. The next boss is even worse than the first one, besides firing so many projectiles that you can't possibly tell where they are on the screen, there's also a ton of slowdown as well. There are definitely much better games to be playing than this one.
When I review games, particularly when my opinion on a game is negative, I sometimes consult other reviews or videos of gameplay to see if I'm missing anything. It almost always turns out that I'm not, where the general consensus tends to be that the game isn't so great, but Jonah Lomu Rugby is one of those exceedingly rare cases where my initial impression after playing the game was terrible, and I was shocked to see that apparently the game is extremely beloved. Yet after reading some guides on the game and listening to what people have to say about it I still can't see the appeal to any degree. The issues with the game are many. For starters, the camera sucks. The default camera for the game is shown from the side at an extremely low angle and is basically unplayable. There is another camera available that shows the action from the bottom, and this is much better... as long as you're the team who needs to move upwards. If it's the second half and your goal is at the bottom, the game quickly becomes nearly unplayable again, and you don't have the option to flip the camera around. Beyond the general inability to see what you're doing, which is obviously a huge problem, the gameplay is also pretty lousy. Rugby is all about rucks and scrums, so obviously that's the most vital thing for a Rugby game to do well, but they're terrible here. You mainly do these by holding a single button to make your players push, then either press the bottom button to steal the ball if you didn't initially have it, or the shoulders to pass the ball (the choice of using shoulders to pass is also super awkward). It's very hard to tell who has the ball (this is probably related to the poor camera work) and rucks happen every few seconds, so you will mostly just be holding the C button to push and trying to steal for most of the game. Occasionally you get to kick, which pushes the ball a little bit down the field so you can do more rucks, but it's almost impossible for anyone to ever score. The presentation is also super basic, with all the players looking the game, and the commentary repeats itself quickly. I really have no idea what anyone sees in this game. At best I can only assume that the statement that it's one of the best rugby games ever is just very faint praise because there's barely been any, but that's still not enough to make it fun.
DeleteMass Destruction is a huge breath of fresh air after the last two games. I was slightly worried when I saw it was a tank game, as some tank games are pretty bad (mostly those based on Super Battletank), but I needn't have worried as this game is super solid. The big appeal here is the controls. Technically you do control a tank, but it's the fastest and most responsive tank ever, being able to move at a high rate of speed and yet also reverse directions on a dime. Coupled with the turret, which also spins really fast, this lets you do all kinds of cool things like quickly reverse back and to the side and also whip the turret around to shoot someone behind you while avoiding fire. Combined with a bunch of different weapons, tons of stuff to blow up, and a kicking soundtrack, this is just a very straightforward good time that kind of reminds me of some of the best arcade games from 90s. It's not a very complex game, most missions just involve blowing up a couple objectives (the most complex it ever gets is sometimes there's stuff you have to avoid blowing up), but the controls provide a ton of room for skillful play so it remains fun. I feel like this is a good example of how when a game is good you can generally tell instantly because the second I loaded into the game and started moving the tank it was clear that this game was fun.
Mortal Kombat Trilogy is pretty much the same as on N64 (ie, bad and terribly dated), but with hideous load time added. I don't know how much else I can really say about it, as it still plays the exact same as every other version of MK 1-3. Sure, there's tons of characters in this version, but they're all basically the same except for their specials. Even if you do want to play this game definitely don't play the Saturn version unless you like waiting for like 10 seconds before every match. I have no idea what this game could even be loading because the sprites have so few frames of animation to them.
DeleteLongtime readers of GAB will know that I'm not the biggest fan of Simcity 2000. I've always felt that Simcity Classic was the superior game, with 2000 mostly just bloating the formula in a way that adds redundancy but not depth. For example, two of the biggest additions to the game, height and dense vs light zoning, barely matter at all. Height differences mostly just impede your ability to build and the dense zoning is virtually always superior to light zoning. Arguably the most important addition is water, but apart from forcing you to lay pipes everywhere this also doesn't really contribute much to city planning since pipes are fairly inexpensive. If you compare, say, Cities Skylines, where you need to ensure the water doesn't get polluted, this becomes a more interesting mechanic, but no such nuance exists here. Something that hasn't seen any improvement since the original game is the scenarios system, which is still tedious and dull, so you'll be starting a new city pretty much every time, but there is some undeniable appeal to seeing your city grow from nothing even if I think the original game does it better. Anyway, when it comes to the Saturn port, it's not great. The biggest issue is the game doesn't run that well. The framerate and resolution instantly tank if you zoom out, so you have to play on the highest zoom all the time, and menus are quite sluggish, especially transitioning to and from the underground view. There's still something about seeing this game on a console that is a little impressive and the interface isn't actually adapted that poorly to the system, but you almost unquestionably want to be playing the PC port, or the SNES port of Simcity Classic if you want to play Simcity on a console.