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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Black Matrix - GAG - 83% (3)
Hyper 3-D Pinball - GG - 100% (2)
PD Ultraman Link - GG - 100% (2)
Star Bowling Vol 2, The - GG - 100% (2)
Steamgear Mash - GGG - 100% (3)
Three Dirty Dwarves - BAA - 33% (3)
It's hilarious that every game in the last topic rated highly except for the one I was really hoping would be good. That seems to always happen. Also, Saturn has now reached the milestone that N64 never could - the 64th ratings topic.
Games for this topic:
Chase HQ Plus SCI
Mechwarrior 2
Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen: Kingdom Grandprix
Super Casino Special
Waialae no Kiseki: Extra 36 Holes
X-Men vs. Street Fighter
Hopefully you're not tired of the X-Men yet, because we have the Saturn version of X-Men vs Street Fighter here. I always mention that it's best to make sure you played the game on the platform in question, but it's specifically relevant here as the PS1 and Saturn versions of this game are very different. I also think Kingdom Grandprix looks interesting.
Chase HQ Plus SCI - G
ReplyDeleteMechWarrior 2 - A
Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen: Kingdom Grandprix - G
Super Casino Special - G
Waialae no Kiseki: Extra 36 Holes - B
X-Men vs. Street Fighter - G
When I first saw Chase HQ + SCI, I didn't even realize that it was a compilation, since although we've played many home console ports of Chase HQ, this is the first time we've seen the sequel (interestingly, it DOES have a console port, but only to Master System and that version has a ton of changes). You probably mostly know the gist of Chase HQ by now. It plays a lot like Outrun, except that the goal isn't to finish the course, but rather to catch up with an enemy vehicle, which then must be rammed a bunch of times in order to complete the stage. As I've mentioned previously, I actually don't think this is all that exciting. The driving gameplay is actually pretty solid, but the time limits are somewhat overly tight and the "boss battles" of repeatedly ramming the enemy car are kind of dull. There's a strange mechanic where sometimes when you ram the car it hits twice which is really crucial to winning these segments. However, SCI is a heck of a lot better, thanks to one simple change, which is that you now have a gun. This drastically changes the game, there are now enemies who actually fire back at you that you can take out with your pistol, and it also makes the battles against the other cars much more exciting since instead of ramming them over and over, you can now shoot at them, though they will also respond in kind to try to wipe you out. You even get a rocket launcher which does a lot of damage, but has limited shots. This generally makes SCI a lot more fun, and the time limits are more reasonable as well. It's still a bit of a short game, but it's still worthwhile to have access to it on a home console. Too bad they didn't include Super Chase HQ as well.
Mechwarrior 2 is a decent game, but it's massively outclassed by the PS1 version. Unlike the last time we saw Mechwarrior (on SNES), this game now very closely resembles what the franchise will become. You can group your weapons and have to worry about heat generation while attacking various enemy fortifications and mechs on a wide variety of missions and planets. Unlike in the PC version, you can't customize your mechs directly here, which is kind of lame, but at least there are a lot of configurations to choose from so you can probably find a decent one. Once you group your weapons appropriately (almost all of the default groupings are terrible), the game actually plays decently well and is fairly fun. I wish you could strafe, but making good use of cover to peek fire at enemy mechs is still a good time. The issue here is that the Saturn port of this game is nowhere near the quality of the incredible PS1 port. On PS1, this game seemingly runs at double the resolution and framerate compared to Saturn, while also having significantly better effects. The crazy thing is, the Saturn version doesn't even look or run badly, the PS1 version is just kind of a technical marvel for the system and when I first looked it up on youtube before playing it myself I actually couldn't believe the footage was legitimate. Besides looking way better, the PS1 version definitely also plays better, for example on Saturn, one of the biggest issues is that it's hard to tell if your shots are hitting distant targets, because there's no real hit indicator. On PS1, thanks to the increased resolution and effects, you can see the little explosion your shots make when they hit even on things that are far away, which completely fixes this issue and thus makes the game feel much more responsive, and the fact that the game also runs at a better framerate makes tracking targets easier too. The Saturn version isn't a bad game by any means, but I can't really recommend it too highly when you could be playing a vastly better version of the game instead.
Shippuu Mahou Daisakusen: Kingdom Grandprix is a rare game where there's never been anything like it before or since. The basic gist of it is that it's a cross between a shmup and a racing game. The main gameplay plays like a shmup, where you have to shoot down waves of enemies and bosses in a fairly traditional vertical shmup style, but there are also rival ships and you ideally want to cross the finish line first. Winning the race requires you to go fast, and your speed is determined by two things. First, the closer you are to the top of the screen, the faster you go. This is a very interesting risk / reward mechanic because obviously at the top of the screen you have less time to react, which is why you usually want to be at the bottom in almost all other games, but here you'll try to stay at the top as much as possible despite it being very risky. You also have access to a boost move, which is done by holding down the shoot button (and not the rapid shot button). This makes you go really fast, but you cannot shoot while doing it, which also obviously confers a lot of risk. You also have a bomb, and your bomb can usually pretty much clear the screen and do a ton of damage to bosses, but if a rival is onscreen when you use it, it also slows them down a ton, so you may want to save the bomb for when you can hit rivals, which is a good way to get killed while still having bombs left. Another unique mechanic is that this game lacks contact damage for enemies, in fact, you actually do contact damage to them, so you actually CAN fight while boosting, though it's quite unsafe. Oh, and in case you hadn't guessed by now, dying loses a lot of speed, so you don't want to do that if you can help it, though at least it does replenish your bombs. The entire thing is exactly as crazy as it sounds, and while I think it's probably actually a little bit too brutal for its own good, you can't deny that it's a very unique concept that puts an interesting twist on almost every aspect of how shmups work.
DeleteSuper Casino Special is decent. In some ways, it actually reminds me a little bit of Vegas Stakes. You start the game by choosing your portrait and setting a target threshold for how much money you want to make, and the game ends when that amount is achieved. The game has a strong focus on multiplayer, with all games allowing 4 players to play at once and showing all 4 players even if there's only one human player (the others will be bots). The characters also talk (through text only) when they win or lose hands, and interestingly all of the dialogue is in english even though this is a Japanese release (the only text in Japanese are the rules for each game). The game selection here is decent, though not quite as strong as Caesar's Palace 2000. Something I thought was interesting is that while playing blackjack, every few hands the hostess will ask if you want to play Keno, which sort of serves as a bonus game, and it helps to add some extra variety to the game, but strangely she only seems to appear during Blackjack and not any other game. I also appreciate that the tables have different betting limits, so you don't end up in a situation where you have tons of money but can only bet 1000 or something. Overall, it's just a pretty solid title and I could see it being a fun party game.
Waialae no Kiseki: Extra 36 Holes is another game using the same engine as Valora Valley Golf and Junclassic CC and Rope Club. This game seems to come in the middle of the two, as some of the revisions from Junclassic CC are here, but not all of them. As always, the swing bar in these games is pretty crap, it helps to turn on the one-click swing, but it still feels imprecise, and although you can see a 3D shot of the ball being hit, it doesn't work as well here as it does in Junclassic. There's also a weird system where it seems like it's not possible to play without CPU players (if there is an option to get rid of them I never found it, which makes the game even slower and more tedious. The only thing this version has over Junclassic is that it has 3 courses instead of two, though the fact that it plays worse is a big issue, and really, none of these games play well enough to really be worth caring about. I sure hope there's not a fourth game in this series.
DeleteThough I didn't intend it, it's interesting to have Mechwarrior 2 and X-Men vs Street Fighter in the same topic, as this is another game where the comparison between the PS1 and Saturn versions is a big deal. For those who aren't familiar with the VS series, X-Men vs Street Fighter introduced the concept of 2 on 2 gameplay. Each player picks 2 fighters, whom they can switch between at any time, including by the use of some special moves, such as Team Super and Alpha Counter. Playstation simply couldn't handle this mechanic, so the game was heavily reworked to feature 1 on 1 battles instead, but on Saturn you get the full 2 vs 2 experience. Those who have been here a long time might recall that I mentioned when we covered this game on PS1 that I like the PS1 version better, not specifically because I dislike the tag mechanic, but rather because the PS1 version adds the concept of super cancelling to make up for the removal of the tag mechanic. On PS1, you can cancel special moves into super moves, and super moves into other super moves, which would both become series staples in later games, and in my opinion the extra depth this gives to the combo routes in the game is more than enough to make up for the loss of the tag mechanic. For example, Cyclops can perform cLK, cLK, LK Cyclone Kick, Hyper Optic Blast on PS1, which is a very solid hit confirmable string, but on Saturn you cannot cancel out of Cyclone Kick, which makes this string largely useless (in fact, Cyclone Kick is an almost totally worthless move on Saturn). That's not to say the Saturn version isn't also a good game by any means, I just feel like the offense in this version tends to be more straightforward, generally you only spend meter to tag in your partner in this version, as air combos tend to do about the same damage as the limited ground combos into supers that are possible (unless you're one of the lucky few with an air super or Juggernaut, not coincidentally those characters tend to be the best). I don't doubt that the Saturn version was quite an impressive technical achievement in its day, and the tag mechanic was probably a huge selling point back then (it's become pretty commonplace now, but this was one of the very first games to do it), and the Saturn version also has somewhat cleaner animation compared to the PS1 version too, but I still generally find the PS1 version to be more fun to play.