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Last Topic's Ratings:
Grind Session - AAG - 67% (3)
Kowloon Jou - GG - 100% (2)
Persona 2: Innocent Sin - GGGGAG - 92% (6)
Power Move Pro Wrestling - AGBG - 63% (4)
Pro Pinball: Timeshock - BB - 0% (2)
Votoms: Woodo Kummen - BB - 0% (2)
I was surprised there weren't more votes for Grind Session. Even though I'd never heard of it previously, it seemed like something that probably would have been more well-known.
Games for this topic:
Brian Lara Cricket
Choro Q Marine
Momotarou Dentetsu 7
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus
Starborders
Visiteurs, Les: La Relique de Sainte Rolande
An interesting topic here. First of all, we have Choro Q Marine, which I wrote a guide for a long time ago but haven't played since, so I'm curious to revisit that one. We have one of the Momotarou Dentetsu games, which we didn't cover in previous GABs but one of them was recently localized on Switch and I spent some time playing it so I now generally know how it plays (if you want to learn how to play it, look up the Switch game, they explain the rules on the website). I'm also kind of intrigued by Les Visiteurs, this is the first French-exclusive game we've ever covered. I'm curious to see if what little french I remember will be enough to play this game without using a translation app (it probably won't be). Oh, and there's also Oddworld. It's been almost 7 years since we covered the first one!
Brian Lara Cricket - G
ReplyDeleteChoro Q Marine - G
Momotarou Dentetsu 7 - A
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus - A
Starborders - B
Visiteurs, Les: La Relique de Sainte Rolande - B
I knew we had played Brian Lara Cricket before, but I had to go back to the GAB Archives to find out it was actually on Genesis, not any of the Gen 5 consoles. As you might expect, this is a completely different game from the Genesis version and they share almost nothing in common beyond the name. If you're a North American, you probably know nothing about Cricket, but the main thing to know about the sport is that Cricket matches are really long. Traditional matches last 5 days, but there are other types of Cricket that are designed to be played in one day by limiting the number of times that each team can bat, referred to as "limited overs". The reason that matches go on so long is because it's very hard to actually get a batter out, it's not uncommon for a batter to be able to hit 10 or more times before being retired. As such, when an out occurs, it's a big deal, (compare it to something like a goal in hockey or soccer) and I appreciate that the game's presentation appropriately highlights this. Actually, in general, the game's presentation is quite good. Commentary in the game is very solid, I particularly like that they have fairly detailed intros for the teams where they talk about their strategies and such, it helps add a bit of context to the game for potential newcomers to the sport. Gameplay also works pretty decently. There are three things you have to do in this game, Bowl (akin to pitching in Baseball), Bat, and Field. Bowling control is a little similar to the Genesis version, but with more detail. You can now aim further down or up the pitch to control the height of your shot, and also add spin after setting the initial position. It's still generally easy for the batter to hit the ball (as it is in the real sport since the pitches are not very fast) but it does help give a bit more nuance to it. Batting is pretty simple, you just hold a direction to aim and press X to swing. There is some strategy here, shots hit up have a better chance to go out of the park and score 6 runs, but such balls can also be caught, which is the easiest way to get out, whereas grounders are safe, reliable offense that can basically never be caught out but often score fewer runs. Fielding is interesting. This is easily the worst part of the Genesis game, but the 3D camera makes it easier to see where the ball is and where it's going. The game provides an arrow showing where the ball will go and also shows a colored highlight, which makes it reasonably easy to follow, but the interesting thing about Fielding is you actually don't have to do it at all, by default the game will handle fielding automatically. This certainly makes the game more relaxing to play, though I feel like with optimal fielding I can outplay the AI, I can frequently hold balls that would score 2 runs when played by the AI to only 1 run, so you might want to do it, especially because it does help add a bit more to do to a game that can otherwise go on a long time. In any case, the presentation and mechanics are both solidly implemented. There's also quite a lot of variety in modes, besides being able to play either limited overs or Test Cricket there's also the option to play classic scenario games as in some other sporting titles. I do think this game still somewhat suffers from the fact that games take forever and 10 overs Cricket isn't that interesting (outs basically don't matter with only 10 overs, as the chance of retiring 10 batters before 10 overs are played is virtually nil, notably they never play anything less than 20 overs in real life), but it's still a pretty good representation of the sport.
It was interesting to come back to Choro Q Marine after all this time because there was actually quite a bit I didn't remember about it, thank goodness I made that guide. As the name implies, it is a boat racing game, but there's actually a ton of varied content here. Besides standard boat races, there are also submarine races as well as a mission mode that has a lot of complex objectives, varying from things like picking up people from a shipwreck to sinking a battlecruiser or solving an underwater puzzle in the sub. Even when it comes to the races, besides winning each race, each stage also has 3 hidden chests and two time trial records to beat, all of which unlock additional boats. Speaking of, we should probably talk about the boats. Unlike most Choro Q games, there's no vehicle customization here, you cannot unlock new parts to customize your boats with, instead, there's just a ton of boats (143 to be exact) and each boat has its own set of stats. This still generally works fine, unlocking the boats does give a fun sense of progression and I like that you can use any boat in any race. Like in many Choro Q games, it often won't be possible to win a race on the first try, you may have to settle for third, unlock some better boats via chests or what not, then come back and try again. Generally the game controls pretty well, it's essential to master the power turn mechanic, but once you get it down it feels pretty good to play, and blasting people with your cannon is always satisfying. You could probably argue that the missions are the low point of the game, they're not bad certainly, but I probably would have been willing to give them up to get more race courses as I do think the racing gameplay is a little stronger, but they don't significantly detract from the experience. Also, like most Choro Q games, the presentation is pretty good, in particular it has a nice soundtrack with a couple really good tunes (Beach Cave especially rocks). Overall, it's certainly a very unique game with a ton of stuff to do and I'd definitely put it among the better games in the series.
DeleteI was curious to see how much of my knowledge from the Switch Momotaro Dentetsu would carry over, and apparently the answer is "almost everything" as the games are shockingly similar despite the 30 year time difference. Since most people from North America may not be too familiar with the game I'll go over the basics. Momotaro Dentetsu is a Japanese board game that bares some resemblance to Monopoly, albeit with an enormous board (it's a map of Japan) with many different routes to take. At the beginning of the game, a certain town is chosen as the goal, and you start rolling dice to try to be the first one to get there, as the first person to arrive gains a large amount of money. After this, a new square is chosen as the goal, and players start trying to get there instead. Whenever anyone reaches the goal, the person who is the farthest away gets followed by Bonby, a nuisance god who causes problems for you like wasting your money, selling your properties against your will, and other things. Bonby is very harmful so you want to get rid of him ASAP, which you can do by passing another player on the board (though of course they can pass him back) or simply not being the farthest away the next time someone reaches the goal. When moving throughout the board, you can land on property spaces which let you spend your money to buy local businesses. Unlike in Monopoly, rivals landing on this space don't have to pay you money, instead these investments generate money every year in April for whomever owns them. If you buy all properties at a given station, you acquire a monopoly and they produce double money. You can also obtain cards from card spaces and other events, which you can use before your turn for various effects. Some let you roll more dice, warp to certain squares, play minigames to earn money, mess with your rivals, and tons of other effects. The game continues for a certain number of years (which you can choose at the beginning) and whomever has the most total assets (money on hand + value of owned properties) is the winner. There's definitely a lot of luck involved, but skillful management of your money and cards definitely matters too. Anyway, all of this also applies to most of the games in the series, and certainly most of the fundamentals are well-established by now. I was actually quite surprised at how much this resembles the Switch game, even most of the music is the same (and a lot of it is quite catchy). There are some key differences though. Pass cards (cards that can be used a certain number of times) don't exist yet, there are no copy spaces or heliports, and the UI definitely isn't quite as nice as the switch version, in particular there's no icons to indicate the type of a property when shopping, which actually matters quite a bit because agricultural properties are special. An interesting feature that is in this game but not on Switch is that you can buy robots to defend you if you get stuck with King Bonby, Bonby's transformed state that causes vastly more harm, this triggers an RPG-style battle that is definitely kind of hilarious and I sort of wish that was still in the game, particularly because it gives you some defense against King Bonby who is otherwise very problematic. (cont'd)
Delete(Momotarou Dentetsu continues)
DeleteThat said, something I noticed immediately about this version is that it seems like getting off to an early lead is extremely powerful. Properties are cheaper compared to the Switch version, so after hitting the first goal I was able to instantly monopolize quite a few stations, giving me a huge financial advantage. There are quite a lot of strong defensive options in this game, like the Block Card (which prevents basically all attacks) and the aforementioned robots to fight King Bonby, which basically gives you a lot of tools to stay ahead once you get the lead, which was seemingly a fairly common complaint about the series in the early days and probably something they tried to address on Switch. With no pass cards you also have much less control over your movement, so it felt like I was significantly more at the mercy of getting good dice rolls compared to the Switch version. I would probably rate the Switch version as somewhat of a low G (among other things, I wish it had the ability to randomize the profitability of the various properties and that the focus on rushing the goal constantly was a little less) and with this version feeling quite a bit more limited in a number of key areas I lean more towards A. Still, there's undeniably quite a bit of charm and I think this would have been a pretty good party game for its time.
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus is very similar to the original game, but with a handful of small improvements that make it a fair bit more playable even though I'm still not a fan. The basic gist of the game is the same as the original, it's a cinematic platformer involving a lot of sneaky around and controlling idiotic ally characters to follow you while trying not to get them or yourselves killed. There hasn't really been much innovation in the gameplay department since the first game, it still plays very much the same, the ally characters are still annoying (actually, they're even MORE annoying this time around thanks to the new emotion system), but the engine has seen some solid refinements. By far the biggest improvement is the new quick save system. In the first game, your progress was only saved at infrequently placed checkpoints which frequently meant having to do sections over if you got cheesed out by something. The new Quicksave system lets you save at any time and resume that save whenever, effectively acting like a save state. As long as you don't use it stupidly in a spot where you aren't safe (and it's usually fairly easy to tell when you're safe), this helps ensure that you never lose progress so after solving an annoying puzzle at least you won't ever have to do it again. This sort of feels like a bandaid fix to a fundamental problem with the game, as there's still a ton of trial and error and cheap deaths, but it still does its job and it definitely makes it less annoying to play than the original. You can also now command multiple ally characters at once, and even though trying to get them to do things collectively is a pain (ie, commanding them to operate valves at the same time), it's still an improvement over only being able to control one at a time. Besides that, this is still kind of fundamentally the same game and I feel like the visuals are actually a bit less impressive this time as the environments feel less atmospheric and more utilitarian. Like in the first game, there's also a ton of hidden areas, which I actually don't like at all as I feel this kind of thing has little place in what is fundamentally a puzzle game, as it basically forces you to use a walkthrough if you want to have any hope of saving the majority of the allies. It's definitely more playable than the original, but I still don't find it particularly compelling and it's not hard to see why the series kinda died after this game. It was just sort of a tedious idea that wore out its welcome.
Starborders is a pretty terrible Starfox clone. The biggest issue here is that the game's controls are atrocious. The cursor is insanely twitchy and constantly seeks towards the middle of the screen, which makes lining up shoots on any target a huge pain, not helped by the fact that many enemies move extremely fast. A lock-on laser is available, but locks on to most things way too slow to be useful much of the time, and its use is also quite limited. It's easy enough to avoid most shots by circling, but later areas put you in tight tunnels where the game's poor controls exascerbate its control issues even more. Even beyond this, the game's presentation is extremely boring and basic, with none of the charm that makes the Starfox series what it is. We've seen a couple games attempt something like this somewhat successfully on PS1, most particularly Gamera 2000, which doesn't leave much reason to bother with a lousy title like this. It's kind of telling that this game is pretty much fully in english already and published by Acclaim and they still didn't bother to release it in the US.
DeleteI thought Les Visiteurs was going to be a graphic adventure game from the box, but it turns out it's actually a bad action-adventure game instead. It's apparently based on a series of french movies and the most interesting part of it is that half the stages take place in the present, but the gameplay is very poor, with tank controls and extremely clunky combat. The combat is actually really easy, you can block to take no damage so you just wait for enemies to attack and then swing on them, but it's extremely unengaging. The rest of the game consists of awful illogical puzzles, which are some of the worst on the platform. For example, after passing the first loading zone, there's a strange wall ahead of you. To open it, you have to jump on 3 nondescript panels in a certain order, even though nothing indicates this and I had to consult a video to figure it out. Later on there's a puzzle where you have to arrange shields in a certain order and once again absolutely no hints are provided as to what the order might be. There's also a lot of weirdness where you get items long before you need them and see things that look like you need them long before you actually get them, for example on the first stage you encounter a few doors that need Key 3, so you'd think you'd need to find that, but you actually don't get Key 3 until the third stage, at which point you have to return to this area. At any rate, you'll basically have to use a guide the entire time, which is pointless because the game isn't particularly fun to begin with. At least it's short and there's some of (what I assume) are clips from the films, but it's basically just a classic bad licensed game.