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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Blazing Dragons - AAAGG - 70% (5)
Bomberman Wars - AAA - 50% (3)
Bulk Slash - GGGGGGG - 100% (7) (4 SR)
Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers - AAG - 67% (3)
King of Fighters 97 - GGGAA - 80% (5)
World Series Baseball 98 - GGGAB - 70% {5} (1 SR)
Wow at Bulk Slash, 4 SRs out of only 7 ratings is pretty crazy. Easily the most acclaimed Saturn game so far.
Games for this topic:
Body Special 264: Girls in Motion Puzzle
Capcom Generation 5
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius: Forever with Me
Manx TT Super Bike
Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon
I feel like this must be the longest-named topic ever. It was almost impossible to fit three games in the topic title with these monsters. Also, this is the first time I've ever played the Saturn version of SotN after hearing about it forever.
Body Special 264: Girls in Motion Puzzle - G (SR)
ReplyDeleteCapcom Generation 5 - A
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - G
Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius: Forever with Me - G
Manx TT Super Bike - A
Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon - A
The original Girls in Motion Puzzle was a nice surprise, having surprisingly solid gameplay for a fanservice game, but the sequel makes enough improvements to the formula to legitimately stand among Saturn's best exclusives. Something I didn't talk about too much with the first game is the amount of variety and content it has. Besides the video puzzles, there's also a ton of standard picture puzzles, as well as a versus mode that strongly resembles Pieces on Super Nintendo, complete with the charge bar and special attacks you can use against the opponent. Although you can't play the movie puzzles in this mode, there's still a ton of photo puzzles available, the game has at least 150 of them, and you can also play this mode against the AI. The main difference from Pieces is that you work on the same puzzle (rather than each having your own puzzle), but in many ways I feel this feels more like a Pieces sequel then the actual sequels the game received. In any case, though, we haven't yet talked about the improvements over the first game, which are minor, but they add up. The most significant change is that the movie puzzles have better colour balance. It's somewhat less obvious on an emulator, but on a real TV the puzzles from the first game can sometimes appear somewhat dark, for the sequel they either brightened the videos up a bit or were more careful with their filming locations but either way the difference is fairly noticeable. The mode where you play the photo puzzles also has a nice QOL change, which is that in the first game, the puzzles are tied to the date on the internal Saturn clock. While this does technically mean the first game has significantly more of them (as there's one for every day of the year), it does make playing multiple puzzles successively more annoying as you'll need to either wait a day or change the clock. The second game simply gives you a random puzzle every time you play it. Finally, the second game also has more attacks for the VS mode, with you getting to choose the attacks you want before each battle. It all comes together to make a very solid puzzle package that is clearly significantly stronger than even the best Dejig has to offer. Almost certainly the best of Saturn's fanservice games, and a game that's worthy of being in pretty much anyone's Saturn library for the multiplayer mode.
Capcom Generation 5 is another solid Capcom collection with a single flaw. As with the other Capcom Generation titles, I can't fault the production values on this collection or the port quality, both are solid. The issue is the game list. This is a collection consisting of Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition, and Street Fighter 2 Turbo. You might be wondering "where's Super Turbo?" but it was already in another collection (which also had Super Street Fighter 2), and therein lies the problem. The previous collection not only had clearly the best version of SF2, it also had Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold, and this collection just isn't of the same quality. Street Fighter 2 Turbo is still a fun game, but this still feels like a one game collection and I wish they had at least tossed in Street Fighter 1 or something (it sucks, but it'd be interesting to have it on console). The art galleries and stuff are still cool, but this is clearly kind of a mediocre collection to end things off with.
Much has been made of the Saturn version of Symphony of the Night being a downgrade from the PS1 version, but don't be fooled, this is still Symphony of the Night. Sure, this version may have some added load times when entering a new area or a boss room and a little bit of slowdown that isn't present in the PS1 version, but the gameplay is still totally intact and this is still a masterpiece-level game. If you're somehow not familiar with it, this is the first of the metroidvania-style Castlevania games, and still generally considered the best or at least close to it, it's an absolutely massive game that's completely jam packed with stuff, backed by excellent gameplay and level design. It's actually kind of stunning just how much they got right on the first try here, compare Metroid for example which didn't really nail it until Super Metroid, but this game still remains the gold standard for metroidvanias even decades later. The Saturn version, as noted, is slightly less good than the PS1 version, it has some diminished effects here and there, but honestly unless you know the PS1 version super well you probably won't even notice, and it does have some small additions too, like a couple new areas and weapons and a playable version of Maria, so if this is your primary option or your preferred platform this is still a totally fine way to play the game, and it's definitely a game you should play on some platform.
DeleteIt's no secret that Parodius is an excellent series, it basically just takes Gradius and adds a ton more characters and wacky stage designs, but Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius: Forever with Me might be the best game in the series. This is an upgrade to the original Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, which was a SNES game (and maybe SNES's best shmup), now boasting a handful of significant enhancements. By far the most major one is that it now supports 2P-S instead of 2P-A. This is a huge upgrade of course, and it's an advantage that you don't get via Parodius Portable since as a PSP game it lacks multiplayer. There's also a new character and some bonus stages, plus the entire thing also looks and runs better. Still, much of this is the same as the other Parodius games, but what I feel puts this game on top is that it maintains a good balance between wackiness and playability. Some later games in the series go a little too far off the deep end and it hurts their gameplay a little, but this one strikes that perfect balance where it's clearly insane but it's also just an excellent shmup. I also think this game has the most characters in the series, so between the excellent gameplay and the zillions of characters you really can't go wrong in terms of replay value. Even with it being such a crowded field this is still easily one of the top shmups of the generation.
Manx TT Superbike is another classic Sega arcade game, by which I mean it's a very technically promising game held back by a ridiculous shortage of content. This game kind of takes the cake as far as lacking content is concerned, having only 2 courses. Is this a record? I can't think of a single other racing game initially released in Gen 3 or later that has 2 or fewer tracks. Those two tracks are pretty decent, in particular the TT track looks quite nice, but 2 is just not enough, even given the ability to race them in reverse in the Saturn mode. It's a shame, too, because this is a competent engine that runs quite well on Saturn and the game controls decently, if they had just created like maybe 3 more tracks or something it would easily have been G.
DeleteWaku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon is a Puyo take on Mystery Dungeon. Pretty much all the basics are the same, you'll still traipse through randomly generated dungeon floors, picking up unidentified items, fighting monsters that move only when you move, and looking everywhere for the stairs to the next floor, so if you've ever played a game like this before you'll be right at home. Probably the most notable mechanic of the game is that there's 3 playable characters, who are all decently different from each other, and there are magic spells, which once acquired are permanently known and can be cast at any time, mp permitting. Coupled with the fact that you level up and your level is retained across dungeons, this feels a little more progression-focused compared to some other early mystery dungeon titles like Shiren. At the same time though, I feel like in many ways the game feels quite basic, while the basic mechanics of the genre are all here, it doesn't really have any specific hook like the castle from Shiren 2 for example, at least, not beyond the inclusion of the Puyo license and its colourful cast of characters. It would probably be kind of borderline between A and G if not for the existence of the Playstation version, which adds an absolute boatload of stuff to it, new dungeons, new bosses, new spells, improved dungeon visuals, new dungeon events, and tons more, which clearly makes that version the version to get if you're going to seek it out.