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Post by Ex on Feb 9, 2019 2:11:09 GMT -5
I sampled a variety of fan trans games tonight, some brief thoughts... The 100 World Story: The Tales on a Watery WildernessThis is a Famicom title that represents a fantasy board game. It reminds me a lot of a more primitive Dokapon Kingdom. I think this would be legit fun to play with actual humans, but against bots it was kinda boring. Sugoro Quest: The Quest of Dice HeroesThis is another Famicom based fantasy board game. Except this time the experience is built around single player. I beat the first mission, and had a pretty decent time. I think this could be fun, although the combat system sucks. The presentation is very strong though, it seems like a polished product. I might come back to this one. This is a Mega Drive visual novel / golf simulator hybrid. Yeah you don't see that everyday. I don't know if this is based off a manga or anime, but the story is very wacky. I was impressed with the level of creativity on hand; there's some good ideas in this game. However right out the gate the enemy AI is just overkill. It's like playing against a golf Terminator. You have to shoot under par for every hole to even have a chance (a tie is a loss btw), and considering the golf engine isn't very advanced, that's all more luck than skill. I really wanted to like this game, but despite its creativity the underlying gameplay isn't too hot. This is a Super Famicom overhead shooter, based on Gundam and Ultraman and other Japanese action-hero shows I don't care about. This is the first of five games in this series on Super Famicom, although the successive games change up their format. Parts 2 and 3 are beat 'em ups, the 4th is a platformer (that I think Sarge and Xeogred would like), and the 5th is a blatant Wild Guns ripoff. Anyway despite how bland and simple SD The Great Battle: A New Challenge is, I somehow managed to reach the final stage (on my first run) before I ran out of lives/continues. That's because this game was clearly made for grade school kids. I think if you're a fan of the source materials however, you'd enjoy the cameo heavy Great Battle series. This PlayStation title is not the same thing as the "Ace Combat 3" that we got in the west. The western version had all of the plot neutered from its release (another Assault Suits Valken VS Cybernator situation). Thankfully a fan translation exists that makes all the anime cutscenes and dialogues of the Japanese original, now understandable in English. I'm actually a really big fan of Ace Combat, and have beaten nearly every game in this considerably large series. AC3 is one of the few I haven't yet, so it's high time to do something about that. I beat the first mission tonight at least, that's a start.
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Post by toei on Feb 9, 2019 9:39:17 GMT -5
Yeah, Battle Golfer Yui is crazy hard. I had the hardest time just beating one guy or two, so I just abandoned it.
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Post by Ex on Feb 9, 2019 10:51:13 GMT -5
Yeah, Battle Golfer Yui is crazy hard. I had the hardest time just beating one guy or two, so I just abandoned it. If the difficulty had been more reasonable, I likely would have finished Battle Golfer Yui. In my late night stupor post, I forgot the other two sports related games I tried last night: Pocket Billiard Fank: The 9 BallI'll just post the description from RHDN:
"At first I thought this game would be yet another boring Side Pocket ripoff. And it is, but it’s different enough that you don’t get bored with it. So basically you play against other people in this game, right? But to make things fun, you can put monsters inside the billiard balls so they have some sort of effect if you hit them. The problem, of course, comes when your opponent hits the balls you wanted to use and well, uses them to his or her advantage. But how do you win these monsters? By winning battles. It seems there are only twenty, but that’s not the only thing you can win. You can also win different music tracks (which ain’t that useful since you don’t hear music during play, only while you’re walking around the room), comics, shirts, and fake noses (the hell?). This game isn’t for everybody, but you’ll warm up to it eventually."
As someone who loves pool/billiards/snooker, I've played an awful lot of video game iterations of the concept. Funk the 9 Ball is not very good. It's just too limited in its presentation and depth (for instance you can only play 9 ball!). The whole "putting monsters in balls" thing isn't made apparent to the player at the start. Nor do you get a chance to put monsters in the balls in the beginning of the game, which was a dumb move by the developers. Honestly this is a half-assed attempt at a good idea; mixing Pokemon with Side Pocket. Oh well, the idea has merit, this game not so much.
And the other game was...
This game is based off a '70s anime. I imagine if you were two things; a fan of the anime and a tennis lover, this game would be a good time. I have not seen the anime, and I'm not a huge fan of tennis by any stretch. From the twenty minutes I put into this game, I could tell it was a quality production; I'm not saying this is a bad game at all. I was just out of my element, and lost interest quickly.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 9, 2019 16:32:20 GMT -5
Honestly, a lot of tennis games of that era aren't that good. It's also really hard to top Mario Tennis, which is really, really good.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 9, 2019 18:38:42 GMT -5
Gonna try to hit up Rudras this weekend.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 9, 2019 20:52:31 GMT -5
Startin' a trend, here, I see.
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Post by Ex on Feb 10, 2019 2:16:24 GMT -5
FtFtBT is a game that Sarge has been telling me to play for years now. After spending an hour and a half with it, I can understand why. This is definitely a fun and unique Game Boy title. Although not wholly unique, due to reminding me of its obvious spiritual successor Marvelous: Another Treasure Island. I'll put it like this; For the Frog the Bell Tolls is to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, as Marvelous: Another Treasure Island is to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Sarge I do believe you would enjoy Marvelous.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Feb 10, 2019 10:06:58 GMT -5
There's a cluster of "board game RPG" type things on the Famicom.
Sugoro Quest is legitimately cool, and I'm not a big Technos fan.
Hyaku no Sekai no Monogatari looks interesting, but typically goes for about $90. Ooof.
The first Itadaki Street is pretty entertaining and adorable. Not fully fan-translated from what I recall, though.
RPG Jinsei Game just had a fan translation drop 8 days ago. Looks intriguing.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 10, 2019 15:08:28 GMT -5
Went with something short to start, and that's my aborted playthrough of Radical Dreamers. The translation job on this one was actually very solid, although a lot like the "official" follow-up to Chrono Trigger, some of the plot feels a bit weird and incomprehensible. There are also apparently six other scenarios built into the game, so I may try to unlock those as well. I think they play a similar role to CT's multiple endings after finishing. If you're wondering what the game is all about, though, it's a simple and very short Japanese-style adventure game. There really aren't that many actions to take, either; even Snatcher or others of its ilk give you more actions to perform. In general, you navigate the mansion, and occasionally make a decision that is presented to you. Some of the backgrounds look pretty good, although again, the brevity means you won't see a whole lot. And you'll backtrack quite a bit, but at least the mansion is mostly small so unless you're a stickler for making maps, you should mostly be able to contain it in your head. All in all, if I had to make a verdict on my first run, I'd say that a 6.5 seems fair. I don't think the game is bad, but there are much better examples of this sort of adventure game out there. It's probably worth spending three hours of your time to see it to the end, though, just for the historical curiosity and to see where bits of Chrono Cross came from.
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Post by Xeogred on Feb 10, 2019 19:57:58 GMT -5
I still don't really get the whole connection... staff wise and all. Was this like a prototype for Cross? Same writers? It's such a weird offshoot. I don't think I can get into it despite my love for the Chrono games, text based stuff hasn't been my thing. But maybe someday.
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