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Post by toei on Oct 13, 2018 22:35:45 GMT -5
It seems like Nintendo lost almost all its 3rd-party support with the N64 and decided it was okay*. From then on, they'd be making MarioZelda Machines, and that's it. And from all I've heard, they found a way to make that work financially, except maybe with the Wii U which was just an outright flop. *although its portables continued getting plenty And it seems insane to me to buy a full-price game for a measly demo and never play the actual game, but I guess some people must have done that (I probably did get the demo, too, now that I think about it, but I cared so little that I never threw it in). I know several people who played DQ8 at the time in real life, and remember it taking over discussion for a while in RPG forums. The DQ8 site was quite active, too. Something was happening, and I think with a few more releases in that vein it could have done like Yakuza did recently and started to finally break through in the West. - Back to NEC. For me, the most impressive aspect of the PC Engine is its colors. In the cutesy platformer genre, I find the Bonk games to be especially charming, visually. Way more than Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, or any Sonic. I know Sarge and Ex don't like them much, and while I agree that the first Bonk was pretty rough, I've been playing Bonk's Revenge lately and it's really good for what it is. I'd say it's the only "pure" platformer I've played that approaches the 2D Mario games in terms of game design and playability (well, maybe with DKC). I dig everything you can do with your head to hurt enemies - hit them from underneath, jump over them then drop headfirst and bounce back, or headbutt them - and the physics of it. You can use the attack repeatedly mid-jump to jump further and slower, almost like diving; climb certain poles and turn from one side to the next to avoid obstacles; bite into rockwalls and climb with the force of your teeth; move jumping flowers around to find bonus stages, etc. Some of the music is pretty goofy, but that boss theme is great. And King Drool is just a cool villain. I mean, look at this sprite:
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Post by Sarge on Oct 13, 2018 23:58:12 GMT -5
I don't hate Bonk; I think I gave them around a 7/10? They're good, solid games, but at least for me don't hold a candle to Mario or even Sonic, another series I find to be good, but not amazing.
As far as Dragon Quest VIII, I completely agree. I knew it wasn't going to work out well when they put Dragon Quest IX on DS. I'm sure it was great for its home territory, but all that good will, the potential breakthrough that Dragon Quest VIII was, they squandered it. First with the entry on DS (which I think was decent-to-good, but not great) and then an MMO that didn't even cross the pond... I mean, c'mon, Square Enix!
Back on topic, I also agree about the colors on the TG-16. That graphics chip had some nice capabilities. It certainly bests the Genesis in a lot of areas from what I've seen. I'm not sure I'd put it above Yoshi's Island, though, which may rank in my top ten games of all time, but I do think the Bonk games look quite nice indeed.
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Post by Ex on Oct 13, 2018 23:59:45 GMT -5
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Post by toei on Oct 14, 2018 2:27:14 GMT -5
To my surprise, DQIX sold well in North America - 630,000 units according to VGChartz (it did similar numbers in Europe). That's a lot more than the FF Crystal Chronicle games, Radiant Historia, or whatever other DS RPGs I can think of, and nearly as many as DQVIII (650,000), so it might be the long delay between then and DQXI that killed the momentum that still existed at the time (being that we didn't get DQX), and the general loss of popularity of the genre. To be clear(er), the reference to Yoshi's Island was strictly visual; I haven't played it much, and I'm not too interested. But to me, in terms of the richness of its colors, the PCE/TG-16 is more impressive than either GEN or SNES. It clearly doesn't have the power of either, and it can't do proper parallax scrolling (the attempt in the Ninja Gaiden port is especially ugly), but it's really an hybrid console, not just in its architecture (8-bit CPU, 16-bit bit GPU) but in the time frame it covered - it came out at the very end of '87, 4 years after the Famicom but 3 years before the Super Famicom; two years after the Mark III, a year before the Mega Drive. So it straddles the 8-bit and 16-bit generations in every way. The 6 million sales figures is more impressive that way, too - there were years where it sold almost as much as the Famicom, it's just the Famicom was around for so long that its total sales were way up there. The base model has a better-rounded library than the CD versions. It's actually got two solid side-scrollers - Splatterhouse and Legendary Axe -, the latter of which is one of the best games in the genre, and some decent ones (Legendary Axe 2, Samurai Ghost). It's got a nice platformer series (Bonk), a decent amount of turn-based RPGs that seemed a step up from the NES' (none of them were translated, though). It's got decent racing games, arcade ports (Ninja Warriors), and of course, plenty of shmups. The PCE-CD was a shmup and RPG powerhouse, but was completely lacking in other genres. I can't think of one good side-scroller of platformer, and arcade-style action games in general are mostly absent. The good: Double Dragon 2 (best version of the game) Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes (very underrated turn-based RPG) Exile (I love Exile) Xak 3 (fan-translated) Ys I & II Ys IV (fan-translated) I can't wait for the Legend of Xanadu fan-translation (is anybody working on the second one?), they look fantastic, and I love games that mix top-down RPG towns and side-scroller levels (plus it's got Ys-style bumping combat in the overworld, I think?) I also gotta play Exile 2 now that it's been de-WD'd, and maybe try Lords of Thunder.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Oct 14, 2018 9:47:06 GMT -5
The Legend of Xanadu, and its sequel, are both phenomenal. Two 10/10 games for sure.
The Legend of Heroes is a weird one. I think it's pretty bland design-wise, honestly. Typical JRPG combat and town-dungeon structure. None of the environments are particularly thrilling. Its saving grace is its overall brevity and how (literally) fast every element of the game is -- walking speed, menus, battles themselves. I've always considered Vay to be its Sega compatriot. That's another one that wraps up fairly quickly, but doesn't do anything mind-blowing along the way.
Y'all need to try Xak I & II sometime. Just stunning.
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Post by toei on Oct 14, 2018 17:52:08 GMT -5
Pace is a major thing to me, which is why a big part of why I enjoyed Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes so much. I've never seen an old-school turn-based RPG move so fast. The closest thing to it in that regard is the first Suikoden. It's true that it's pretty bland visually - the PC-88/MSX roots are obvious - but it's also ahead of its time in a few ways.
1. It completely eschews the town/dungeon/town/dungeon formula. I think it has something like 15 or 16 towns for maybe 5 proper dungeons.
2. It has visible enemies in dungeons (the encounters are mostly random on the field, but you can get an item that makes them visible). That was so rare at the time.
3. The story is actually pretty developed, and there's even some ambiguity to the villain, whose motivations make sense from its point of view. Again, that's exceptional for a 1991 RPG that originally came out in 1989.
I honestly think the game helped push RPG narrative forward. I always wished the sequel had gotten translated, either on PCE-CD or Genesis (there's a port that removes the menus and borders and just zooms in on the playing field.)
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Oct 14, 2018 19:37:52 GMT -5
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Post by toei on Oct 14, 2018 21:07:00 GMT -5
I kinda lika how manly Giles sounds. He sounds like a tough guy in a '70s gangster or cop movie. It's a far cry from the high-pitched teenage boy voices in modern RPGs. The acting itself is amateurish, but at least the voices themselves aren't obnoxious (I hate 99% of voice acting in RPGs, and mostly play those that have little or none). Even Logan sounds like a grown man.
The one part I remember being funny was a convo with the last boss, I think, who starts a sentence with "Know you not that I be" or something to that effect, but he says it like a random American off the street in a casual conversation circa '91 rather than with any kind of Old English inflection.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 14, 2018 21:27:38 GMT -5
"A fine marnin' to ya, milard." Gonna be honest, I don't like the TG-CD version of Double Dragon II all that much. I think I've already mentioned that before, so I won't belabor the point. Exile is a good game, and Xak III was great for the time I played it... right up until Shape Shifter wiped out my save memory. Bad game! Bad!
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