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Last Topic's Ratings:
Code R - BB - 0% (2)
Dark Seed - AG - 75% (2)
Dungeon Master Nexus - BB - 0% (2)
Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter - GGGGGGG - 100% (7) (2 SR)
SeaBass Fishing 2 - GA - 75% (2)
Wachenroder - GGGGG - 100% (5)
I was really surprised to see 5 ratings for Wachenroder, with it being an untranslated SRPG. They really need to finish up that fan translation!
Games for this topic:
Baroque
Black Dawn
J.League Jikkyou Honoo no Striker
Prisoner of Ice
Pu-Li-Ru-La
Tokimeki Memorial: Taisen Puzzle-Dama
A heads-up, this is the second-last topic, I have only enough games on my list for one more topic after this one (you can probably guess at least one of the games that's left). I have opened up the Mystery Prize topic, so you can use up your SRs (though you still have a bit of time to figure this out). Also, there's a fan translation for Prisoner of Ice
Baroque - G
ReplyDeleteBlack Dawn - B
J.League Jikkyou Honoo no Striker - B
Prisoner of Ice - B
Pu-Li-Ru-La - B
Tokimeki Memorial: Taisen Puzzle-Dama - A
There are some small differences between the Saturn and PS1 version of Baroque, though it's quite a good game on both platforms. As I mentioned with the PS1 version, this is a very dark and atmospheric dungeon crawler that has great ambience and also plays pretty well, and I would generally recommend it over the remakes, which lose most of the charm. When compared to the PS1 version, this version has somewhat better visuals, most particularly the somewhat different rendering engine makes it look much darker and moodier, compared to the somewhat cleaner look of the PS1 version. The PS1 version does have some additions though. For starters, the UI is a little better, items have icons and such on PS1, which they don't on Saturn. They've also added a few features, like the storage (it's very limited) and made some general adjustments to the gameplay, so I would say the PS1 version probably plays a little better. Overall, I think the PS1 version is a touch better, but if you're mainly here for the atmosphere (which is one of the main reasons to be here) you might prefer the Saturn version. It's well worth playing on either platform in any case.
The Saturn version of Black Dawn is quite a significant downgrade compared to the PS1 version, with both worse draw distance and much more slowdown. This is already a somewhat flawed game on PS1, with a little too much RNG with pickups and such, and having the game run poorly exascerbates all of these issues, so you likely won't want to bother with it here. Just stick to Soviet Strike on Saturn if you want a game that plays like this.
J.League Jikkyou Honoo no Striker is a bizarre game that is completely built around a strange mechanic that totally sucks. This entire game revolves around the fact that you do not have free control over your players, instead you can only move in 8 directions and every time you move you move a fixed distance, as though the entire game was played on a grid. This might kinda makes sense on attack because the players have to dribble the ball, but bizarrely it also applies to defense, and it results in this game having the worst defense in any soccer game ever made. The inability to properly position makes it super easy to get passes through and almost impossible to ever properly tackle someone, not helped by the fact that attackers frequently resist tackles anyway, so offense is completely free. Centering sucks in this game (hitting the kick / header is unreliable) so you'll just run down the field and kick it at the net and hope for a bad rebound, which is fairly common and guarantees a goal. Obviously, this has zero nuance as whether or not the goalie blocks is just luck, the fun of all sports games like this comes from defense and with it being as bad as it is here there's no way the game could be fun, which is a shame because some of the other parts of the package are decent.
Prisoner of Ice is clearly a somewhat interesting game, but the port quality here is among the worst I've ever seen. For starters, the game runs atrociously. It needs to load after pretty much every click, loading times between screens are very long, and there are ludicrously long autosaves after every couple puzzles. The interface is also awful. The first puzzle in the game is to use an extinguisher to put out a fire. I figured out the solution instantly, but it took me at least 5 minutes to actually figure out how to use the extinguisher, rather than press a button or something as a sane person would expect, you instead have to move the cursor to the top left, which causes your inventory to appear (this space is black the rest of the time so they could have simply displayed your items here all the time). As if this wasn't bad enough, this puzzle is also timed, if you don't solve it in like 10 seconds you die and have to reload again. It doesn't get any better. Your next task is to obtain items from a drawer. However, interacting with the drawer once opens it, as you'd expect, and interacting with it again just closes it. To actually get items out of it, I think I had to press a different button, but who knows, maybe it's about exactly where you interact with it instead. The next room is full of pixel hunts, and then it's more timed puzzles. Obviously, you have to use a guide for the whole game, and it never really gets any better. I assume the PC version is somewhat more playable, but who knows, with this kind of design it might be just as bad.
DeletePu-Li-Ru-La is a super strange game, but it's also not very good. It's often referred to as a beat-em-up, but to be honest I don't know if I'd agree with this classification. It does sort of control like it, but it lacks the combat mechanics you'd typically expect from a beat-em-up. You have only like 2 different attacks, and virtually all non-boss enemies die in a single hit. This sounds like a recipe for a decently fast moving game, but your attacks are also slow and stiff and this makes combat feel fairly lame. Bosses are also strange affairs, they can be stunned by your attacks, so timing your attacks properly can effectively stunlock some of them, but you have little health so you can't make many mistakes. Pretty much the only appeal of the game are its visuals, which start off with kind of a nice pastel style but get more and more weird as the game goes on, particularly stage 3 with its digitized faces that basically come out of nowhere. Beyond this, though, I don't feel like there's really a lot to like about it. You could maybe make the case for A based on the fact that it's fast-paced, viewing it as something like a way worse Golden Axe, but the attacks feel so bad to use I don't think I could really recommend it to anyone.
Taisen Puzzle-Dama has the exact same problem as Magical Drop, which is that they completely nailed the formula the first time and now they're not sure what to do with it. Both games opted to go the same route, which is to add a bunch of bad special pieces that ruin the game, but where Magical Drop quickly recognized its mistake and went back to its roots, just with a lot more content, Taisen Puzzle-Dama is still struggling. Sure, they do let you turn the special pieces off, which helps, but the game still feels quite low on content. Rather than adding new stuff, Taisen Puzzle-Dama basically just swaps out the anime license with each game, keeping the total number of characters and their patterns about the same, just with a fresh coat of paint. This might be okay if it actually did something interesting with the license, but for some reason none of the games brought back the story mode from Tsuyoshi Shikkari Shinasai Taisen Puzzle-Dama. I did give this game the lowest of low Gs on PS1 as it is your best Taisen Puzzle-Dama option on the system, but on Saturn you have access to the exclusive Chibi Maruko-Chan no Taisen Puzzle-Dama, which is much better in my opinion, it has tons more style and charm compared to this game, so that pushes this one down to A.
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