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Last Topic's Ratings:
Alexi Lalas International Soccer - BBB - 0% (3)
Asuncia: Majou no Jubaku - AA - 50% (2)
Enen Angel - AA - 50% (2)
Ford Truck Mania - GA - 75% (2)
Return Fire - GBBBG - 40% (5)
Rise 2: Resurrection - BBB - 0% (3)
It bothers me that Ford Truck Racing rated (slightly) above Ford Racing, as it is clearly nowhere near as good. I realize it basically just scraped by because it's not well-known and got few ratings, but that's probably going to be stuck in my craw for a while.
Games for this topic:
Chiisana Kyojin Microman
G-Police
Kagero: Deception 2
My Garden
NASCAR 2000
One on One
I'm kind of curious about My Garden. Realistically it'll probably be fairly similar to Harvest Moon, but a gardening-focused spinoff of that game feels like it has potential.
Chiisana Kyojin Microman - G
ReplyDeleteG-Police - G
Kagero: Deception 2 - A
My Garden - B
NASCAR 2000 - G
One on One - A
Chiisana Kyojin Microman is a pretty fun game. It's a shooter of sorts with some unique mechanics. The core concept of the game is to defend the microman base against various invaders. To do so, you dispatch the various micromen to various parts of the base that are under attack to subdue the enemies there. Things carry over between battles, for example if you find a good new weapon you'll keep it, but if you get beat up and forced to use all your special weapons you won't have them for next time, so that gives the game a bit of nuance, though you have quite a lot of Micromen to use so it's not too taxing (on normal at least). The actual gameplay takes place on prerendered backgrounds where the player and enemies are 3D, which sort of reminds me of Parasite Eve, though it's a real-time game. You have quite a fair number of aiming options, you normally shoot in the direction you're facing, but you can adjust your aim with the triggers or hold the button down to strafe shoot. You can also lock onto enemies within a certain range with triangle, which is pretty powerful, but if you or the enemy does a dodge your lock will be broken and you'll have to reacquire it. There's a bunch of weapons to use and quite a number of enemies and bosses, so this action is pretty varied and fun. Some of the maps have points you need to defend, or things you can use for cover, so there's also decent variety there. The biggest criticism of the game is that it's fairly short, only lasting about an hour, but there's a scoring system and multiple difficulty levels so it has some replay value. Overall, it's quite well-polished and I could definitely see myself playing it again at some point.
Psygnosis has been inconsistent this gen, but G-Police is definitely one of their better efforts. In many ways, this game kind of reminds me of Colony Wars, it's a story-heavy dogfighter with varied mission objectives (albeit set in a futuristic city rather than space), but I think it's actually a fair bit better than Colony Wars. This game generally does pretty much everything right, missions are very varied but aren't too long, the radar and objective markers are good so it's not hard to find your targets, there's a fair amount of combat but enemies aren't too bullet spongey, you have a decent amount of health and ammo and your weapons feel good to use, and your craft generally controls well. It's also a very long game and the presentation is pretty solid throughout. The game's biggest issue is probably the draw distance, but it's not actually too bad by PS1 standards and the well-designed radar keeps it from significantly hampering gameplay, and it also helps that the game's framerate is generally quite solid. I don't really have too much more to say about this one other than that it's clearly a good game, it's probably right up there with the likes of Ace Combat as far as flight games on PS1 are concerned.
I'm still not a huge fan of Deception 2, but there's no question that it's a massive improvement over the first game. In many ways, the game plays so differently that comparisons to the first game are nearly pointless, you can now set up multiple traps inside each room and vastly more control over their placement and location. Much of the game involves creating "trap combos", for example, you could drop a vase of oil on someone, then catch them in a bear trap, and shoot a flaming arrow to set them on fire, which does a lot of damage and earns you a lot of points that you can later use to upgrade your traps. You can also move your traps at almost any time, theoretically allowing you to set up chains of more than 3 hits if using traps that reset quickly. This is certainly way more nuanced than the first game's system and there is some fun to be had here, though it's also kind of finnicky since you have to activate the traps manually and enemies may refuse to walk where you want them to, so there's a fair bit of trial and error and I wish you could set up more than 3 traps at a time. Enemies will also try to attack you, of course, which I feel is probably the weakest part of the game, your only response is to run away and set up more traps, which makes the main character feel kind of unnecessary, I feel like you could just be sitting on a throne in the final room and the game would work mostly the same except that you'd probably have access to better camera angles. In terms of the game's plot, it remains its weakest link. Unlike the first game, you do sometimes get the option to let people live this time, but it almost never makes any significant difference. A single choice on one mission determines the ending you get, so you can freely murder everyone you see until that point and then just take that option and still get the good ending, and in fact this is recommended since it earns more money and anyone you let live usually just comes back to try to kill you later anyway. Actually, the story is generally pretty brief either way, and you can skip it entirely if you wish, so I guess they knew the gameplay was the main appeal, but I still don't find it too compelling as a full package yet.
DeleteMy Garden is a shallow Harvest Moon copy that clearly doesn't understand any of the features that make that game good and thus it fails on almost every level. The core idea behind the game is fine, you play as a girl who has gone to visit her aging grandmother and help revitalize her garden. It seems very Harvest Moony at first glance. You'll spend a lot of time planting seeds and watering and weeding crops, to eventually harvest and sell to make money to buy more seeds and other upgrades. The game moves in real time, and you have a limited amount of energy, with the day ending if you run out. The problem is, this is almost all there is to the game. Crucially, there's absolutely no relationship system of any kind, nor can you go anywhere else other than your own home. You can talk to people who walk by, but this accomplishes nothing and time continues to pass while you talk, which can cause other people to leave or simply waste time you need to be doing other things. The bigger issue though is there's just almost nothing to do most days, you'll usually just water your crops and weed them and then go right back to bed. Energy is also never a factor because there's always a snack in the house you can eat, and you'll probably rarely need it after the first day in the game anyway. The key to Harvest Moon's success is there's usually more things to do then there's time in the day, which is never the case here, so managing your energy and time is of no consequence. It results in a game that gets boring long before your first crops will even grow.
NASCAR 2000 has many similarities to 99, but a number of key upgrades make it the superior package. As with 99, the highlight of the package is the racing engine, which is one of the best on the console. It takes a lot to make driving basic oval courses feel interesting, but the handling in this game is so precise that precisely balancing your speed and position to maintain grip through the corners is actually interesting, which is an impressive feat. Of course, NASCAR 99 did this too, and the core driving engine seems to be identical from what I can tell. Where this package has the edge is largely in terms of the tracks. There are a couple more official NASCAR tracks, but more significantly the game has added 6 additional "fantasy tracks" which feature more intricate layouts similar to Sears Point and Watkins Glenn. The addition of these tracks greatly helps to mix up the action and also works well to show off just how good this driving engine actually is. One of these tracks is unlockable, through the new "beat the king" mode, which is a neat idea but IMO it's a little on the easy side, and I wish they had also included a method to unlock the legend drivers rather than just using push button codes. The interface has also seen an upgrade, with the menus generally being a bit slicker compared to last year and also offering significantly more options for setting up season races (in particular, something that is very appreciated is the choice of whether or not you want to include the fantasy tracks). Overall, this is just a really solid package that earns its place among PS1's top racing games.
DeleteOne on One is a very unique game, there probably hasn't really ever been anything like it before. It's essentially a cross between a basketball game and a fighting game. Although the game is 3D, it's effectively played on a 2D plane where you start off with the defender inbetween the attacker and the basket. You can simply attempt to shoot a 3 pointer, but this is easily blocked and blocks always succeed if aimed properly, so typically you'll want to try to get past them. You can simply run past if they're not doing anything, but they can press a button to block. They can also attack you to try to steal the ball, though you can feint back to dodge the attack which gives an opportunity to get past them. There are also different characters who have different properties, for example one guy has a squirrel helper whom he can dispatch to the top of the basket to sometimes block layup attempts, though he's otherwise kinda slow on some of his attacks. It's an interesting setup, but it's also kind of basic and many parts of it feel a little random, for example if a shot attempt misses, who gets the rebound feels like it's mostly luck as the players will position themselves automatically to try to grab it, and blocking attempts to dash past you generally feels kind of like a guessing game as well, so going for a swipe on the opponent with good timing is almost always the way to go. It's certainly an interesting idea, but it's also pretty sparse on content and in many ways also kind of feels a bit more like a prototype than a full game (it is a simple 1500 series title after all).