This topic is now closed
Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Galerians - AGGA - 75% (4)
Grinch, The - AABGAA - 50% (6)
International Moto X - AA - 50% (2)
Pikinya Excellent - GA - 75% (2)
Pu-Li-Ru-La - GBA - 50% {3}
Trick'N Snowboarder - BGB - 33% (3)
It warms my heart that the Grinch game isn't awful. Though I guess it would have been a great Grinchy trick if it was a complete dud.
Games for this topic:
3Xtreme
Critical Depth
Dance Dance Revolution Konamix
ISS Pro Evolution 2
Saber Marionette J: Battle Sabers
San Goku Shi: Eiketsuden
I'm actually kind of curious about San Goku Shi: Eiketsuden, which seems to be a very different take on RotK from the previous games.
3Xtreme - G
ReplyDeleteCritical Depth - A
Dance Dance Revolution Konamix - G
ISS Pro Evolution 2 - B
Saber Marionette J: Battle Sabers - B
San Goku Shi: Eiketsuden - B
When we covered 2Xtreme, I had a lot of complaints about how the game basically tossed out everything that was interesting about the first game, which annoyed me because the first game had potential. Well, it turns out for 3Xtreme, they went back to the general design of the first game but actually improved upon it this time, and the result is a drastically better product. Like the first game, this is a racing game where you choose from 3 types of vehicles (sadly, street luge is gone), and compete in extreme downhill races. The biggest improvement by far compared to the first game is the addition of a new, fully 3D engine. This allows for drastically increased track variety and complexity, whereas previously the tracks often felt generic and repetitive. It's actually quite a nice-looking game now, for example I quite like the aesthetic on lakeside park, the forest sections in particular look great. One somewhat regrettable change is that the stamina meter from the first game is gone, you can now freely hold accelerate the whole game (though you don't need to, you can release it when you reach top speed), but maybe they figured the game was already hard enough. Speaking of, that is by far the game's biggest issue, it's very hard and there's no difficulty settings. See, a key mechanic in this game is that you pick up speed on downhill sections, allowing you to reach much higher speeds than you can normally. As long as you don't hit anything, you can maintain this speed for a very long time (generally until you need to go uphill again), which is key to doing well. Surprisingly, the game isn't rubber banded at all, so if you race well you can build up a massive lead, but mistakes are very costly and a couple bad falls can easily make victory impossible. Returning from the first game is the money system, you need points to buy upgraded vehicles (which you absolutely will need), but you can only get points by doing tricks or going through gates, both of which risk causing you to wipe out and lose your precious speed. However, I actually think this risk / rewards mechanic is part of the fun. Sure, I feel like an idiot every time I slam into a gate and end up in last place, but that's what makes it so satisfying when I do nail the perfect trick or glide right through a gate at maximum speed. The controls, while definitely sensitive, do afford the necessary precision to handle the game's tracks (though some course memorization is effectively mandatory), and thankfully you can restart races infinitely with no penalty (the same AI racers also don't get the top spots every race, so you can take the occasional second or third and still come out on top). It is definitely a pretty fun game when played well, but you'll have to be pretty patient to make progress.
Critical Depth is all right. It's essentially a much more simplistic version of Twisted Metal involving subs. The basics remain largely the same, with the biggest difference being that since you control a sub, you have full movement in all directions. You'll still collect various weapons to blast your opponents with (nicely, unlike in the early Twisted Metal games they respawn, so you don't have to worry about running out of weapons) and each craft has a unique super move, though the special moves from Twisted Metal that required directional inputs are gone. It controls well and the basics are solid, and I think the deathmatch mode in generally pretty fun. Unfortunately, the deathmatch mode is not the main mode that the game uses, it instead uses a setup where the goal of the game is to obtain 5 pods and then reach the exit. The pods are spawned in various locations at the start, but after that to get the pods you have to hit whomever's carrying them so they drop them. One of the biggest issues is that when a pod is dropped, it's often hard to see where it goes, most of the time I only pick them up by accident. Since you need to have every pod in order to win, it's rarely possible for anyone to win until they're the only one left standing, which sort of makes it feel like deathmatch except that whomever finds the pods early gets a bit of an advantage since holding them gives you stat boosts. The biggest issue with this mode though is that you have limited lives and they're carried over between stages. Twisted Metal does this too and it's also a terrible mechanic there, since it makes the game far too heavily focused around self-preservation compared to combat. The optimal strategy is always just to get 1 pod and then run away and hide somewhere, which works really well because the stages are huge and the AI's tracking isn't very good. Then, just allow the AI ships to wipe each other out while you stockpile a ton of weapons and then mop up whomever's left. It works, but it's dull, unfortunately if you try to play the game properly by the third stage or so you'll have no lives left and you'll simply have to resort to this strategy because there are no continues. Another kind of annoying mechanic is that the surface of the water is opaque. There are powerups above the water that you can leap out of the water to grab, but since you can't see where they are this is a complete crapshoot. Overall it's an all right game, but I wish they had learned a bit more from their previous games (or just copied Vigilante 8) in terms of the story mode setup because it could be a lot more than it is.
DeleteDDR Konamix is still not quite as good as the series will become, but it's clearly getting there. Compared to the previous release, the most notable change is that the timing is now more lenient, I would guess the window to hit Perfect and Great is now 1 frame longer, so keeping combos going is somewhat easier. It's still a little more strict compared to the modern games (I would guess they're a further one more frame more lenient), getting a full combo in this game feels comparable to trying to get a full perfect in the more modern titles, but at least it's somewhat doable. Mechanically, there aren't many other changes, notably no hold arrows yet or any other gimmicks, but the basic gameplay holds up fine. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the songlist in this version, but obviously that's subjective. I still think the N64's DDR: Disney Dancing Museum is the best DDR release of this generation, but this is still a totally fine option.
ISS Pro Evolution 2 has changed so little from its predecessor, ESPN MLS Gamenight, that I had to go back to that game several times to see if ANYTHING had changed besides the license and very minor UI elements. I think the visuals are ever so slightly upgraded, but the commentary has actually seen a significant downgrade, so it's debatable as to what version you would even want to get. Beyond that though, my opinion on this game has significantly soured since we've played many drastically better soccer games in the meantime. As I mentioned when we covered ESPN MLS Gamenight, the biggest problem with this game is that the cross is atrocious. It simply never generates any meaningful scoring opportunities, which effectively robs both offense and defense of any depth because it means the sides of the pitch are irrelevant and you only have to guard the area immediately in front of the net. This same issue also makes corner kicks and free kicks almost totally nonthreatening and just generally causes games to feel slow and boring. However, this is only one of the game's many problems. Taking shots also feels bad, the game has a power meter for kicking, but it charges super fast and if it's even close to full your shot goes way over the net, making the mechanic feel pointless as you always just want to just tap. The game is also not particularly good at identifying the correct pass target or swapping players, which are other vital mechanics to get right. Honestly, I don't feel that there's really anything good about this game at all, World Cup 98, which is also 2 years older than this game, is better in every single respect. Konami really needed to do a bit more work on this one rather than just releasing the same game a second time.
DeleteSaber Marionette J does the impossible and makes me want to go back and play Tatsunoko Fight more. Remember how when we played Tatsunoko Fight I complained that the only combos were light into special / super? Well, what if we made it so lights were also uncancellable? That's basically this game. Special moves exist (and are done with a button rather than inputs), but can't be cancelled from anything and are super unsafe, so they're mostly useless except to punish stuff, or they would be if the AI knew how to block. About the closest thing to combos are light strings, for example the first character can do LP LK and that is an actual combo but that's about the extent of it. The game has a very weird mechanic where you can select some parts before the battle, like big hands or high jumps, which might be an interesting system if the game was even slightly mechanically competent. Supers apparently exist, but it seems like no one knows how they're performed, and the super mechanic is dumb anyway, the only way to get bar is to take damage. This is clearly one of the worst fighting games ever made, even most bad 16-bit fighters were better than this.
San Goku Shi: Eiketsuden is a huge swerve from the main series, instead of the traditional ROTK gameplay it's now a strategy RPG that somewhat resembles Fire Emblem. Unfortunately, Koei was new to making this type of game and it shows, they basically pivoted from making a game that was significantly too complex to making a game that's significantly too simple. About the only things you need to know about this game is that there's a weapon triangle between cavalry / infantry / archers, and that units have spells which are quite strong (in particular Lui Bei has a healing spell which will be the bread and butter of your gameplay for the majority of the game). There's basically nothing to the game apart from this, equipment exists but it barely matters and you get a zillion units but there's very little differences between them. It's a fairly long game, and apparently the story is a highlight, as it allows you to essentially rewrite history and have Liu Bei survive his historical defeat and go on to unite China, but the presentation is very dry so I can't really see it being a huge appeal either. This was originally a SNES game and the visuals haven't been updated much, it's certainly not pushing the PS1 hardware in any way, and there's also an annoying issue with the PS1 version where the cursor moves way too fast so selecting things and moving the battle cursor is annoying. It's a fairly easy game, in particular many bosses can be instakilled in a cutscene if attacked with the correct character, turn limits are very generous (so you can spend as much time as you need healing up in villages) and there's no permadeath, but it's kinda just too simple to be worth sticking with it for a long time. I kinda wish they had retained at least a smattering of ROTK mechanics, something similar to what Dragon Force does, as it would help to make this game feel somewhat more distinct. On the plus side, this is the start of the series and maybe Koei will be able to find a somewhat better balance with future titles.
Delete