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Post by Ex on Feb 1, 2020 22:02:25 GMT -5
SargeToo bad Master of Darkness isn't much different than the SMS version. I too have beaten Griffin, back in 2017. It was probably the cover that caught my attention. These were my thoughts at the time: "Griffin 's a Japan-only Game Gear shmup developed by Telenet Japan, and published by Nippon Telenet, in 1991. The gameplay reminded me of a mix of Granada (Genesis) and Divine Sealing (Mega Drive), but not as good as either of those. In each level you drive a tank around and shoot enemies, kill a mid-boss, shoot more enemies, then kill a boss. The graphics are fairly decent, but the music's nothing memorable. Griffin is a very short game, but Griffin 's also a tough game. I'm guessing Griffin 's tough to prolong the brevity of its content. The developers do "reward" the player with some ecchi art after each level, if you're into that." 6/10 Well I liked the game more than you did, but you found the experience easier than I did. - I'm gonna hit up something on GG tonight in a bit.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 1, 2020 22:45:14 GMT -5
I may have been being a little too harsh on it, but I think I rated Castlevania: The Adventure a 3.5 a while back, and I don't think I liked this as much as that. It's a 4/10 tops for me. Honestly, I have you to thank for my at least attempting to use the entire scale for rating! It's really not that offensive a game, it's just really sloppily coded. You mentioned the music is no great shakes, and that's absolutely true. Man, those loops are some of the shortest I've heard in a game like this. As regarding difficulty, I have a sneaking suspicion that my time with Jackal uniquely prepared me for this game. I'm serious in that it wouldn't surprise me at all if it were inspired in part by that game.
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Post by Ex on Feb 1, 2020 23:09:54 GMT -5
I have you to thank for my at least attempting to use the entire scale for rating! Too bad most people see anything below a 7/10 as "bad". I think the ecchi slant gave Griffin a little bit of a boost for me. I'm a sucker for ecchi (and hentai) art. As much as you like Jackal and grokked Griffin so fast, you might enjoy Granada on Genesis.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 1, 2020 23:58:55 GMT -5
Interesting! Not sure why I haven't played that one before. That music is pretty rockin', too.
Anyway, leaning in a little more into this month's theme, I finished up The Lucky Dime Caper Starring Donald Duck. It's a pretty solid, although surprisingly tough, platformer. Thankfully, continues are infinite, but you really need to be careful so you get through a stage with enough lives. The bosses can be cheesed once you figure out the patterns.
I couldn't honestly remember if I'd beaten this one, but then I remembered I tried to play it for SMS month, and had some sort of bug kick me into an unwinnable state, so I left it behind for something else. This plays like a standard hop-and-bop for the most part, with jumping on enemies working, although Donald also gets an alternate attack of either a hammer (quicker attack, shorter range) or a frisbee (long range, but only one on screen so a lot of recovery time). You'll want to do the ol' "inch forward and be careful" strategy most of the time, but there are points where the game puts the screws to you and makes you book it.
Donald can't take many hits (two kills on a new life), but picking up stars can give you two more health, and if you find a place where enemies continually spawn, it's a good idea to stock up there. A cheap-hit buffer is definitely useful... but you'll probably die more to pits. Donald has a bit of momentum, but is also surprisingly squirrelly to control. It takes a bit to get used to, and I never felt like I could get his motions as precise as I'd like.
In the end, I probably spent just shy of an hour with the game, and it wasn't too bad at all. I'd say it's a 6.5/10; a decent time if you're looking for a platformer on the system. But there are better games on there, even in the platforming genre, for sure. I liked Deep Duck Trouble more, for instance, and Castle of Illusion is also on the GG, although I don't know how good it is compared to the SMS version.
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Post by Ex on Feb 2, 2020 2:40:47 GMT -5
Sarge is leading the charge hard! Gotta catch up a bit... - Well I've got quite a few ROMs in my Game Gear directory for this theme. Tonight I decided to just sample a variety of the ones I wasn't all that interested in. "Test the waters" so to speak. This bunch were not prime candidate picks (meaning I didn't plan to finish them anyway). So quick thoughts: Sonic Drift 1 & 2 - I was hoping these would be more like Mario Kart, but not at all. These are more like Hang-On or Pole Position... if the roads were made of grease. The first Drift is infuriatingly difficult to stay on the track. The second Drift has much improved production values (very good looking for GG!), but is again, infuriatingly difficult to stay on the track. Both games offer a variety of cups with unique tracks (that all feel the same), and myriad racers to choose from. I'd read before that these two GG racers are aggravating as hell, that turned out to be true. No thanks! Chicago Syndicate is a 2D side-scrolling beat 'em up. No Z-axis, it's more like Bad Dudes than Double Dragon. Very serious tone, noir 1920s atmosphere. The game's got detailed level designs that sell the theme well. But the "music" is just AWFUL. The protagonist has an impressive range of moves (with unintuitive controls), but the enemies take forever to kill. I appreciate what this beater was going for, but you'd need a lot of patience to finish it. More than I had!
CJ Elephant Fugitive is a Euro-platformer, I think it's based on a European comic book character. I don't know. Well this one has quality graphics, but strangely its OST is almost mute. Being a traditional Euro-platformer, it's hard as balls right out the gate. Enemies pop up out of nowhere, there are unexpected hidden pitfalls galore. Euro-platformers are often troll-hard, not legit-hard. I don't have the patience (or rather value my limited lifespan too much) for this kind of design. But the production is not bad, and if you want a challenging platformer, well have at it. Super Return of the Jedi on GG is not the same as the SNES game. I mean the design is not, the theme is. So this is an action-platformer all the same. Jump and slash or shoot. Well this one has very nice cutscenes, above average graphics, a choice of heroes (Luke, Chewie, Princess Leia). Oh man but is lightsaber weak! Enemies take way too many hits to kill. On Brave difficulty anyway, which is Normal difficulty. This game starts you on Easy by default, you have to change it in the options. I did, maybe I shouldn't have. But anyway, this wasn't terrible... it could be decent for a big fan of the source material. I didn't like the damage sponge enemies, and the level designs got trollish kinda fast. Who knows, you might like it.
Kenyuu Densetsu Yaiba is an action-platformer. Be a samurai and jump around and slash stuff, you know. Well this one has nice graphics, decent music, very tight controls, and it seems like a solid game! I think that Sarge or toei would like this one. Seriously! Definitely had way above average controls, and "smoothness" insofar as physics go. Check it out dudes. Maybe too cutesy for toei though, I dunno. BusterFight is known as Masters of Combat on Master System. This is a 1 VS 1 fighter. Good clean graphics, lots of moves to pull off, but this game's pretty hard, and quite limited on fighter variety. It's not awful by Game Gear fighter standards, but certainly didn't make me want to stick around. Needs better balanced difficulty, and twice or thrice as many fighters.
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie. These are no z-axis beat 'em ups mixed with 1 VS 1 fighting as well. Both have surprisingly good graphics, competent controls, lots of combat moves, and each one has a full blown story mode. Honestly, it's like you're playing through an episode of the show (or movie). I was surprised at how solid both of these games were! I think if you are a fan of the source material, you would legitimately enjoy these. They both use the same engine, so if you like one, you'll like the other. Definitely above average for licensed GG titles.
- Well that was all I messed with tonight! Plenty more stuff to try on my list. And hopefully a few will be good enough that I'll actually finish them.
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Post by toei on Feb 2, 2020 6:54:09 GMT -5
Ex I don't know how I'd never come across Yaiba before. I'm definitely checking it out. And yeah, a lot of licensed Power Rangers games from that era are surprisingly decent. They tend to blend together, though, so I'm not sure whether I've played the GG games, whether they're ports of the Genesis or SNES games (which also use that single-plane beat-'em-up/mecha VS boss fights formula) or originals, etc. I'll have to take a look. Also, I never liked Sonic Drift either, but I love the cover art to both games. It's nice to be reminded that Sonic & friends actually looked cool, once upon a time.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 2, 2020 15:00:20 GMT -5
I am absolutely going to check some of those out. Also, I pulled my Game Gear out, but haven't turned it on yet. I'm looking for that old school flash cart I got from Anapan on Racketboy for one of the charity auctions; I was hoping to get Shining Force III: Final Conflict working correctly on there. But I'll be darned if I can remember where I stashed the thing. EDIT: Ah, screw it. I can't find it, and it's not worth me digging around anymore for it. I will stumble across it when I do a big cleanup/organizing run in here, which will hopefully be soon.
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Post by Sarge on Feb 3, 2020 0:17:10 GMT -5
I did pull out the ol' Game Gear for a bit, and... yeesh, I can't do that screen. I'm not even sure I'd say it's much better than the ol' gray brick; both have major issues, but the Game Boy is pretty clear in the right lighting conditions, whereas finding the right brightness settings on the Game Gear is a pain and the video still exhibits issues if you have the system tilted just wrong. I will move forward through emulation.
I did, however, discover something interesting. Some Game Gear games actually engage the SMS compatibility mode for their display. I actually own one of them, Castle of Illusion. Unfortunately, that means the pixel resolution doesn't match and the screen looks really blurry. Granted, that also means that the version on GG is virtually identical to the SMS game, but I'm not sure that's a good tradeoff with the iffy scaling.
I will recommend Castle of Illusion to folks; I enjoyed it for SMS month. And if you emulate, it's actually going to kick it off in SMS mode, at least in Kega Fusion.
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Post by Ex on Feb 3, 2020 0:52:05 GMT -5
I did pull out the ol' Game Gear for a bit, and... yeesh, I can't do that screen. IIRC it's very blurry when stuff moves. Just like the Game Boy was. The original Game Boy anyway, was incredibly blurry when stuff moved. Later revisions may have cleaned up the refresh rate some. But still, back in its day, the GG having a COLOR screen on a portable was still a big deal.
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Post by toei on Feb 3, 2020 8:03:10 GMT -5
True. Weirdly, the blurriness never bothered me as a young kid. The first time I remember having issues with a screen was the GBA's lack of backlight. I just couldn't see anything.
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