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Post by Ex on Oct 27, 2020 18:10:51 GMT -5
I've put 5 hours into this muddled thing, and I'm done with it. Think I understand why Sarge stalled out on it. This game has a very melancholy atmosphere, convincing dystopian environments, and an unusual plot. It also has lame boring gameplay, a lackluster combat system, and terrible scenario design. The unusual premise is simply not enough for me, to put up with another 7 or 8 hours of such crap game design. I'd give Fragile Dreams a 6/10 at most. I think its 67 Metacritic score is warranted. To eBay it goes. I'll try something else.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 27, 2020 19:02:00 GMT -5
Ha, yeah, the combat wasn't great, and I didn't like how your weapons broke, or how random it was when they broke. I was put in quite the predicament a few times just in my first two hours of play.
EDIT: Took about 20 minutes to play through Flying Dragon. It's probably not fair to judge it solely on the 2D fighting mode - it's a Culture Brain game, and part of the Hiryu no Ken series, so it's really the RPG-ish SD Hiryu mode that's the main attraction. It's a pretty clunky fighter in the bits I played, though - nothing resembling the fluidity of other 3D fighters at the time. I was able to mostly fireball spam to victory in spots, though. It also seems that the game expects you to guard a bit better, or string together longer combos, but I clearly didn't put in the time to learn how to play properly, so... eh. Which is what I rate this experience. 5/10 (for this part of it).
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Post by Ex on Oct 28, 2020 0:38:11 GMT -5
I put an hour and a half into The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge for Xbox tonight. This was a 2005 release for Xbox and PS2, developed by TOSE and published by Capcom. The strongest aspect is this game serves as a canon sequel to the original The Nightmare Before Christmas. Original voice actors were used, new songs written, the atmosphere and graphics are spot-on with the source material. From an aesthetic and spiritual-sequel point of view, TOSE nailed it. The problem is the gameplay is extremely repetitive and bland. This is basically a (even more) boring God of War clone in that regard. Excruciatingly tedious beat 'em up combat, using a spectral whip to kill hundreds of skeletons over and over. It boggles my mind that the graphic/audio/atmosphere design is so strong, and yet the gameplay itself is utterly paper thin and seems like a complete afterthought. Trying to implant God of War style combat into TNBC's world is just a dumb idea right out the gate. Still, if this game were just three or four hours long, I'd bother to finish it as I'm a fan of the source material. The trouble is, in 1.5 hours of play I only finished the first 3 chapters, and there's 21 chapters in total! Nah, no thanks. To eBay this goes. Still, it was nice to finally play this after it has sat on my Xbox shelf since 2007.
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Post by toei on Oct 28, 2020 1:03:38 GMT -5
Ha, yeah, the combat wasn't great, and I didn't like how your weapons broke, or how random it was when they broke. I was put in quite the predicament a few times just in my first two hours of play. EDIT: Took about 20 minutes to play through Flying Dragon. It's probably not fair to judge it solely on the 2D fighting mode - it's a Culture Brain game, and part of the Hiryu no Ken series, so it's really the RPG-ish SD Hiryu mode that's the main attraction. It's a pretty clunky fighter in the bits I played, though - nothing resembling the fluidity of other 3D fighters at the time. I was able to mostly fireball spam to victory in spots, though. It also seems that the game expects you to guard a bit better, or string together longer combos, but I clearly didn't put in the time to learn how to play properly, so... eh. Which is what I rate this experience. 5/10 (for this part of it). The N64 has no good 3D fighter that I recall. It's striking how bad its library in this compared to the Saturn and PSX. I remember Deadly Arts and Dual Heroes being terrible too.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 28, 2020 14:04:00 GMT -5
toei : Yeah, it certainly seems that way. Unfortunate, too, because it's a system that feels like it was primed to deliver a good one! I've played a bit of Beetle Adventure Racing, and while I haven't hit the really crazy tracks yet (other than the erupting volcanic isle, woo!), I'm willing to say that it's still a worthwhile game. Lots of alternate routes in this one, too - I keep running through laps and seeing things and wondering either how to get to them, or kicking myself for missing them as I pass by. For a "licensed" game, it had a surprising amount of love poured into it. Handling feels a little heavy, like the game is splitting the difference between pure arcade racer and sim, but it's good enough. It also starts you with a crummy set of vehicles, so things get a bit quicker once you start unlocking the new sets. And you're always driving a Bug, so the only real difference is color and stats. Really, this is one of those games that would make for a fantastic remake. Course design makes or breaks racing games, and this one nailed it from what I've seen.
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Post by Xeogred on Oct 28, 2020 16:08:24 GMT -5
Ha, yeah, the combat wasn't great, and I didn't like how your weapons broke, or how random it was when they broke. I was put in quite the predicament a few times just in my first two hours of play. EDIT: Took about 20 minutes to play through Flying Dragon. It's probably not fair to judge it solely on the 2D fighting mode - it's a Culture Brain game, and part of the Hiryu no Ken series, so it's really the RPG-ish SD Hiryu mode that's the main attraction. It's a pretty clunky fighter in the bits I played, though - nothing resembling the fluidity of other 3D fighters at the time. I was able to mostly fireball spam to victory in spots, though. It also seems that the game expects you to guard a bit better, or string together longer combos, but I clearly didn't put in the time to learn how to play properly, so... eh. Which is what I rate this experience. 5/10 (for this part of it). The N64 has no good 3D fighter that I recall. It's striking how bad its library in this compared to the Saturn and PSX. I remember Deadly Arts and Dual Heroes being terrible too.
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Post by Chema on Oct 28, 2020 16:48:06 GMT -5
I dropped Hybrid Heaven. As much as I liked the craziness of it, the combat system and level design is not for me. Props to Konami for funding this game, though.
I switched to Winback: Covert Operations. I've seen some people mention it as the first 3rd person shooter with a cover system, so I thought "why not?" So far I've played the tutorial, and I'm very impressed by the controls. They are very advanced for a game published in '99 for the Nintendo 64. I'm eager to try the story mode.
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Post by Xeogred on Oct 28, 2020 16:59:08 GMT -5
I dropped Hybrid Heaven. As much as I liked the craziness of it, the combat system and level design is not for me. Props to Konami for funding this game, though. I switched to Winback: Covert Operations. I've seen some people mention it as the first 3rd person shooter with a cover system, so I thought "why not?" So far I've played the tutorial, and I'm very impressed by the controls. They are very advanced for a game published in '99 for the Nintendo 64. I'm eager to try the story mode. I loved Winback. One of the real originators of cover shooting and the third person aiming style that RE4 really popularized. Granted Winback had a lockon, but you can manually aim as well I believe.
Admittedly never beat it though. I recall it went a little long as the difficulty curve really spikes too. The game has a lot of laser based traps that I think are instant deaths, so there was a lot of trial and error in the later levels.
Weirdly enough it got a PS2 port.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 28, 2020 17:20:12 GMT -5
It also got a PS2 sequel, developed by Cavia (of the original NieR fame).
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Post by Xeogred on Oct 28, 2020 17:45:01 GMT -5
Yeah, I think Tsumuri liked that one.
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