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Post by Sarge on Jan 10, 2018 13:33:27 GMT -5
A lot of that was me just being flat-out lost, looking for a particular upgrade as mentioned in the guide. In general, you want to be as thorough as possible; some of those gate machines are insidiously hidden. Even with guides, it can be unclear where you're supposed to be going, so I pretty much just defaulted to "there is an item here, hunt around until I find it" mode.
I was really surprised it took that long. With a longplay clocking in around two hours, I was thinking four tops. And I'm sure if you have your routes memorized and where the necessary powerups are, then you could blast right through. But a first run is gonna take a while.
I actually hear the Genesis version is a bit harder. Apparently ammo drain is much more significant there. If you find the ammo quarter in the SNES game, you pretty much can play the game almost Contra-style. The game probably would have been better without an ammo meter, regardless, at least for the default shot.
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Post by Ex on Jan 10, 2018 13:51:46 GMT -5
With a longplay clocking in around two hours Yeah you have to be careful comparing your plays to those. Most of the time the person playing is an expert at the game, so they fly through it uninhibited. And also those videos are often "tool assisted", meaning they play the tricky parts in slow motion (via emulator trickery), so it's very easy for the LP players to dodge and attack like apparent ninjas.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 10, 2018 19:09:13 GMT -5
1. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Genesis) 2. Darkwing Duck (NES) 3. Batman* (NES) 4. Journey to Silius (NES) 5. Aladdin* (SNES) 6. Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse* (SNES) * = replay Knocked out Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse. Probably been 20 some years since I played this one at a friends. There's a reason I remember the fireman powerup the most, you use it for like half the game haha. My biggest pet peeve when I go back to old games is the lack of a dedicated run button/function. Here Mickey will eventually run with enough momentum and holding down Y did seem to help... however you quickly get a few power ups along the way and how do you use them? The Y button. The second world was kind of annoying because of the platforming with a bunch of pits and these bouncing branches you had to be pixel perfect on to get the boosted jump. I only found two heart power ups (for a total of five health) and found the secret shop once... haha. Secrets must be hidden pretty good in this. The bosses were fun and the one boss in the ice level that skated on a ramp cracked me up because he looked like such an obvious sprite redesign of the later Ghouls n Ghousts boss at the end. Overall a fun quick run. Not nearly as good as Aladdin, for me though.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 10, 2018 21:59:17 GMT -5
1. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Genesis) 2. Darkwing Duck (NES) 3. Batman* (NES) 4. Journey to Silius (NES) 5. Aladdin* (SNES) 6. Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse* (SNES) 7. Run Saber (SNES)* = replay WHY DID I THINK THIS GAME WAS BAD? Wish I knew, but I'm glad I gave it another shot. The curiosity of mixing this up with Skyblazer over the years got to me. I even own the cart of Run Saber and never gave it much love. But it's great! A mix of Strider meets Shinobi basically. Enemies drop the Special power up everywhere so it was easy to spam that during bosses. There's 5 levels and most have a handful of bosses. This is about as simple as it gets and only took me 36 minutes on a second run after a game over, but I got to the 4th level on my first run so it was easy to memorize the levels. Fun times. Some tracks were cool and I really dug the graphics. I played the female since she looked way cooler. Their blade attacks are different and hers is shorter but with an upward swing, when upgraded you can easily spam it for a wide attack while jumping.
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Post by Ex on Jan 10, 2018 23:24:22 GMT -5
I'm glad you changed your mind about Run Saber! Super sweet game, especially co-op. I played it on a whim many years ago, and was very pleasantly surprised. --- 5. Appleseed: Oracle of Prometheus | Super Famicom | 1994 | 3/10
Appleseed: Oracle of Prometheus is a Japan-only licensed platformer for the Super Famicom, developed by Kan's and published by Visit. Appleseed's source material is based on a popular anime and manga series created by Masamune Shirow. The plot takes place in the future, starring two ESWAT characters; Deunan Knute (a blonde female human with impeccable marksmanship) and Briareos Hecatonchires (a towering male cyborg with an enormous amount of strength). Together they must protect the city of Olympus, one of the last sanctuaries of humanity, after earth has been ravaged by an apocalyptic World War III. There's more to the game's plot than this, of course. But the cutscenes are written in Japanese, and I don't read Japanese, so I don't know much else. Unfortunately Appleseed never received an English translation, officially or unofficially. Although after beating Appleseed, I don't wonder why. The plot matters little here, just know these two cops are going to shoot crime in the face until it's dead.
Appleseed's gameplay is standard shoot 'n jump action-platformer fare. Before every mission, you choose to play as either Deunan or Briareos. Deunan is smaller so her hitbox is smaller too, and she has the ability to shoot diagonally. Briareos is larger, so his hitbox is larger, and he has a LOT more health than Deunan, yet can't shoot diagonally. You're honestly better off with Deunan, as she doesn't get shot as easily, and can actually fight back against aerial enemies effectively. Deunan's small size also makes traversing tight environment spaces more efficient. Both characters can run, jump, and shoot using a primary weapon, a sub weapon, and grenades. The sub weapon is changeable per mission, but that hardly matters honestly. Enemies aren't as much of a danger as falling into bottomless pits is, or touching electrical hazards for that matter. But Appleseed's truest difficulty aspect will be explained in just a moment.
Really folks, I don't have a lot of positive things to say about Appleseed on SFC. So I'll tell you the best thing first; the OST. Appleseed has an incredibly unique, very eclectic musical score. I could imagine a lot of people not liking this game's music (there's an option to disable it in game). But for my tastes, I can always appreciate the unusual, so kudos for the idiosyncratic music which captures Appleseed's cybernetic dystopian theme well. Next, the cutscene graphics are nicely rendered, invoking their manga roots. The backgrounds and sprites are workmanlike, but they get the job done. Well, by "done", I mean completely uninspired and barely passable. Anything else... eh, the controls are simple and work well enough. I'm running out of nice things to say. Um, the boss fights are alright I guess.
Here's what ruins Appleseed SFC for me; the level designs. There are only five stages in Appleseed, and the first stage is OK. After that, the developers decided to make each successive level labyrinthine, and full of inane backtracking. We're talking about switch hunting galore here folks. Like reaching the end of a stage, triggering a fuse (by shooting it), then backtracking to the stage beginning, and flipping a newly accessible switch, and then having to go all the way back to the end again. Couple this with confusing elevators, level elements that all look identical, and constantly respawning enemies... and you're having a bad time. Appleseed's level design is not just atrociously bad, it's viciously bad. Purposefully bad even. This inexcusable crap was designed to artificially extend the completion time, via overtly byzantine stage layouts. What could have been a bland, but decent piece of fan service, instead devolves into an exercise in philosophical musing. You may find yourself questioning how anyone, anywhere, could have ever thought these stage designs were acceptable. They are the opposite of acceptable.
People often avoid licensed games, especially retro licensed games, for good reason. All too often developers relied on the source material to sell their game, and as such barely tried to produce decent entertainment. This is further compounded by the IP holders who sold to the lowest bidder, which was usually flighty game publishers, who in turn hired equally lowest bidding development houses. These cheap development houses often employ inexperienced game developers, because they were cheap to keep on staff. Anyway! Despite having exceptionally strong source material to work with, Appleseed on Super Famicom is another example of a terrible licensed game. I can't recommend this experience to anyone, not even huge fans of the Appleseed manga or anime. A platformer lives and dies by its stage design, and in that regard, I'm sad to say this apple is rotten to its core.
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Post by toei on Jan 11, 2018 15:15:55 GMT -5
Samurai Sword
Famicom Disk System Capcom, 1988 Fan translated by Mute Since we were discussing old-school Japanese adventure games and I was in a samurai mood, I thought this might do. As it turns out, it's actually a standard fantasy story with no links to feudal Japan besides the fact that the holy weapon in this game is a katana. The evil sorcerer you're fighting's even named Soron. The game is only about 2 hours long; rather than an epic tale, it's more of a short story that tries to be epic but doesn't have the room to build up to it. It's a decent little thing nonetheless, flawed in the same way as most of its contemporaries: on several occasions, the only way forward is to fumble around with the menu options for a while until you trigger something. If the game were more developed, or didn't try to jam a vast adventure in such a short length of time, it would certainly stand more of a chance to be memorable; as it is, I spent a decent moment with it, but it's all over before it could really leave an impression. And I can't blame the game for not being about samurai, but I still wish it had been; it's not like there's any shortage of fantasy games on the NES...
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Post by Ex on Jan 12, 2018 0:14:45 GMT -5
6. Hyper Speed GranDoll | PlayStation | 1997 | 7/10
Hyper Speed GranDoll is a Japan-only action-platformer developed by Kid and published by Bandai in 1997. This is a licensed game based on an anime of the same name. Unlike the video game, the Hyper Speed GranDoll anime was officially English localized, and published in the USA, by Central Park Media in 1997. The video game follows the plot of the anime extremely closely. The plot concerns a high school girl name Hikaru, who discovers that she is descended from a royal lineage of aliens from a distant planet. Enemies of her lineage come to earth to destroy her, but Hikaru gains the use of alien magical armor called GranDoll to fight back with. The plot isn't exactly deep as the anime only consisted of three thirty minute OVAs. (If you've seen other magical girl anime like Sailor Moon or Galaxy Fraulein Yuna you know what this stuff is like.) As the player makes their way through the game, clips from the anime are played to portray plot progression. Static talking head cutscenes are also present (usually only between Hikaru and bosses). Unfortunately all of the text and voice acting in Hyper Speed GranDoll remains Japanese only. Yet the plot is easy to follow regardless. However, if the player truly wanted to know every little detail, they could simply watch the localized anime.
Hyper Speed GranDoll's gameplay is mostly a basic run n' gun 'n jump format. Platforming is a constant element, and so is destroying enemies with gunfire. However, Hikaru's moveset is more complex than typical games of this genre. Actually, the overall gameplay reminded this reviewer of a hybrid of Turrican and Mega Man ZX. Like Turrican, enemies are constantly appearing, meaning the player must always be attacking. And like Mega Man ZX's Bio Metal system, Hikaru's GranDoll suit can change forms giving Hikaru various powers. New powers are gained every time she defeats a boss. She starts with a Bionic Commando swinging ability, but later GranDoll forms allow her to scale walls, dash extremely fast, or even fly. Each GranDoll form has its own type of gun attack, as well as screen clearing special attacks (of limited use). Controls are a tad complex at first, but configurable in the menu. Hikaru has quite a range of abilities, especially once she gains all five forms of her GranDoll suit. Hikaru will need all of these moves to get past tricky stages and fierce bosses. Presentation wise, Hyper Speed GranDoll is above par. The backgrounds and sprites are well rendered, colorful, and nicely detailed. The graphics use a lot of clever transparency and stretching effects. Hikaru herself has dozens upon dozens of frames of animation, so watching her leap and dart about never gets old. The OST is a bit uninspired, but it gets the job done as boilerplate electro. Thus far Hyper Speed GranDoll sounds like quite the winner, but alas, there's two large issues I have with it.
Firstly, the developers took the name "Hyper Speed" a bit too literally. Hikaru moves like she's ice skating in low gravity, and jumps like she just got shot out of a cannon. Her acceleration and inertia are far too fast, and controlling Hikaru's massive leaping is difficult, due to sheer velocity and a lack of correcting ability. Still, with the right kind of stage design, this sort of avatar movement could work. Alas, this game's level designers didn't take Hikaru's movement abilities into account. Stages are quite large, often maze-like, yet the corridors within them are usually small. This cramped atmosphere isn't very conducive to Hikaru's manic speed and wild jumping. Eventually the player will get a grip on Hikaru, but then the player must deal with stage design that isn't ideal in a different way. As mentioned earlier, stage designs can be labyrinthine, and further convoluted by locked doors. The player must search these huge areas for key cards, in order to unlock said doors. This means a lot of backtracking, which is something this player does not enjoy. Especially since stages are chock full of regenerating enemies, fire and electrical hazards, and spikes galore. Not to mention very tricky platforming in general. I suppose now is a good time to mention Hyper Speed GranDoll is super HARD. This game may play similarly to Mega Man, but it's far harder than any Mega Man I can remember playing. Especially the final stage with its ridiculous time limit and multiple bosses.
Now the above paragraph may make Hyper Speed GranDoll sound less than appealing. But that was not my intent. I just wanted to offset Hyper Speed Grandoll's positives with some negatives. The overall takeaway is that Hyper Speed GranDoll is better than to be expected. This is the rare licensed video game that transcends its source material. By that, I'm saying the video game itself is better than its anime inspiration. I would easily recommend Hyper Speed GranDoll to any player who enjoys Mega Man X or ZX, as well as Turrican. We're talking about an above average action-platformer here folks. As long the player is ready for the difficulty level anyway. Hyper Speed GranDoll is very challenging, but mostly fair (with practice). Thankfully the player can save their progress in between levels, and there are continues for boss battles (you'll need them). It's a shame Hyper Speed GranDoll wasn't localized in 1997, had it been, I believe Hyper Speed GranDoll would be considered a cult classic these days. Unfortunately, Hyper Speed GranDoll remains an obscure hidden gem. Albeit a gem with a few blemishes.
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Post by toei on Jan 12, 2018 0:19:01 GMT -5
I'd never heard of it, but Kid was an underrated developer with a lot of experience in side-scrollers, so I'm not surprised to hear it's decent.
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Post by Ex on Jan 12, 2018 0:38:59 GMT -5
It's a decent little thing nonetheless, flawed in the same way as most of its contemporaries: on several occasions, the only way forward is to fumble around with the menu options for a while until you trigger something. That artificial longevity contrivance has been the bane of my enjoyment of classic Japanese adventure games many a time. The most recent Japanese adventure I beat of that nature was in 2016, when I finished Famicom Detective Club Part II: The Girl who Stands Behind. That said, there's still a lot of unique intrinsic qualities that only traditional Japanese adventure games seem to harbor. I enjoyed reading your review, and it made me think about trying some other classic Japanese adventure games this year. Surely there are some jams out there.
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Post by toei on Jan 12, 2018 11:14:06 GMT -5
It's a decent little thing nonetheless, flawed in the same way as most of its contemporaries: on several occasions, the only way forward is to fumble around with the menu options for a while until you trigger something. That artificial longevity contrivance has been the bane of my enjoyment of classic Japanese adventure games many a time. The most recent Japanese adventure I beat of that nature was in 2016, when I finished Famicom Detective Club Part II: The Girl who Stands Behind. That said, there's still a lot of unique intrinsic qualities that only traditional Japanese adventure games seem to harbor. I enjoyed reading your review, and it made me think about trying some other classic Japanese adventure games this year. Surely there are some jams out there. Famicom Detective Club 2 (the fan translated SFC remake, right?) is one of the best, I'd say. The genre's biggest liability is that it thrived mostly during the '80s, when console cartridges just didn't have enough room to store a lot of content. Snatcher was developed for computers originally, where it was customary to have a bunch of floppies for one game, and wasn't ported to consoles until the PCE-CD came out 4 years later. Even on consoles, the platform that got the most was the FDS, most likely for the same reason. I like the *idea* of a short and sweet adventure, but in practice an hour and a half to two hours doesn't give you enough time to get into it. I find that the best are those that understand these limitations and go for a more focused story. Murder investigation is a pretty common theme that works well within the genre. One game I do recommend you play as a Phantasy Star fan is Story of Mio, which shared some team members. The art is similar, the setting sci-fi, and there are even a few explicit references to Phantasy Star. In fact, the Mio of the game was certainly inspired by Myau. It's more light-hearted in tone and the story is on a much smaller scale, but it's a fun little game, and it's one of the few to showcase the Master System's potential for large, colorful illustrations.
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