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Post by Xeogred on Mar 17, 2021 17:00:54 GMT -5
Soulcalibur IV might be one of the best looking 2008 games I've seen. Pretty shocking how good this one looks, first PS3/360 era entry.
It was cool to dip in a bit and check this cool character out, who later appears in the Star Wars series. Finally got to see where he came from:
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Post by Sarge on Mar 17, 2021 21:03:19 GMT -5
Finished a quick run of Soul Blade. Fun game, but not as smooth as Soulcalibur. To be expected, of course, but I think Tobal 2 opened my eyes to how smooth a 3D fighter from that generation could be. The weapons-based combat punches it up a notch, though; I generally like weapon-based 3D fighters. I think... it's probably a 7.5/10. With some adjustment to how Mitsurugi plays in this (I was trying to do too much of my Soulcalibur strategies), it could move up a notch.
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Post by Ex on Mar 18, 2021 0:23:36 GMT -5
All-Star Fighters is a PS2 single plane 3D graphics fighter, developed by Digital Zero, and published by D3 Publisher (Japan) and Essential Games (Europe) in 2007. This is a niche title starring characters from various games in the Simple Series. This fighter uses very basic mechanics with simple controls. The only special attack of note being, when low on health a character can use a "Super Impact Attack" to potentially turn the tide of battle. There is no story mode, the primary single player mode is an arcade style tournament, where the player must defeat every character in the roster (including their clone), then a final boss.
+Fast responsive controls with accurate hit boxes.
+Character models are animated well.
+Good sense of humor.
+You can play as the pumpkin kid from Splatter Master. +Lots of cute ladies.
-No depth to the fighting system.
-Low replayability.
-No story mode.
-Enemy AI is easy to cheese.
-Unremarkable OST.
There are niche games, and there are niche games. This obscure budget release starring characters from obscure budget releases, is about as niche as it gets. Despite being a low budget simplistic affair, All-Star Fighters is surprisingly not terrible. It's not great either. It's a simple, competent fighting game, that you'll beat quickly and never think of again. That is, if you were to play it to begin with, which you probably wouldn't. But I did, and I don't regret it. Beating down an EDF soldier via a clipboard as a bikini clad teacher? Yep, that's one off the bucket list.
Ex's time to beat: 25 minutes Ex's rating: 6/10
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Post by toei on Mar 18, 2021 6:09:06 GMT -5
Ex I agree with your assessment this time. I messed with that one a bit, but unfortunately my computer doesn't run it at full speed. There's something really cool to me about the Simple series celebrating its low-budget universe in a low-budget fighter. I think it was probably better that they stuck to simple, SF 2-style mechanics from the early '9 0s, even in the ' 00s - by then, every professional developer ought to be able to produce a competent game in that style*. And this one has a nice snappy feel to it. It's just too basic to play it for long. I was just glad to see my boys from Yakuza Fury and Splatter Master represented. I think the latter would have had actually had some real commercial potential. A pumpkin-head scarecrow child who fights with chainsaws? He could be in Smash if he came from a higher-profile franchise. It's probably the best of the Simple 2000 fighters. There's an-female one with Tamsoft that seems pretty terrible ( Fighting Angels), there's Opus's Hard Knock High, a 3D fighter with decent graphics, decent (but basic) mechanics and a somewhat cool single-player mode held back by unresponsive controls (and the PAL-slowdown of the English version, but that's not their fault), there's one called The Bushido, possibly released in Europe as Katana Action, that I can't find anywhere - seems like a Bushido Blade clone, except, disappointingly, without fatal hits - and there's a couple more sport-oriented ones - MMA, boxing - that I didn't bother with. *Funny thing, though - who is Digital Zero? This is their only game listed anywhere. --Well, I couldn't help but dig a bit. Seems like they were a company that contributed to the graphics of a few major games, like Xenosaga 2 and Killer 7. All-Star's main game designer later joined Arc System Works and worked on Dragon Ball FighterZ and Arcane Hearts 3 recently as a game designer/producer, while the other main guy did graphics on Suikoden, Guilty Gear and Professor Layton games, as well as The Last Remnant. So it seems like they did pretty good for themselves.
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Post by Ex on Mar 18, 2021 10:01:41 GMT -5
toei - I played Hard Knock High yesterday, I didn't care for its mechanics, but it seemed to have an involved story mode (that you can play in English due to the PAL release). I have played Fighting Angels before as well, back in 2007, I plan to revisit it for this theme soonish. I also played Fight Club and Shinkon Gattai Godannar!! for PS2 yesterday. Fight Club was absolutely awful. Goddannar seemed fun, but it didn't have an arcade mode, just a Japanese-only story mode, so I didn't get far in that one.
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Post by anayo on Mar 18, 2021 20:31:46 GMT -5
Detailed thoughts and impressions of the Tekken trilogy on Playstation coming soon. I lied and did an arcade mode playthrough of Tekken 4 first.
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Post by Xeogred on Mar 19, 2021 17:56:15 GMT -5
Tekken 4 looks super legit. Shame I slept on that one!
I beat an arcade run with Darth Vader in Soulcalibur 4 and jumped into Virtua Fighter 5. VF5 feels a little slower than VF4 so I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. But it still seems pretty awesome all around.
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Post by Sarge on Mar 19, 2021 21:13:51 GMT -5
I remember Tekken Tag being a big deal around the PS2 launch. It sounds like they did with it the same thing as Soulcalibur, amping it up for the PS2 release. I never gave it a shot, though. I assume it was a spinoff, in that case, and Tekken 4 was the "proper" sequel?
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Post by anayo on Mar 20, 2021 10:30:41 GMT -5
I remember Tekken Tag being a big deal around the PS2 launch. It sounds like they did with it the same thing as Soulcalibur, amping it up for the PS2 release. I never gave it a shot, though. I assume it was a spinoff, in that case, and Tekken 4 was the "proper" sequel? I'm not sure. For some reason I remember reading the words of an online game critic in the early to mid 2000s saying that Tekken Tag Tournament was no good and everyone disliked it. It must have made me prejudiced against that version of Tekken, because I've seen dozens of copies at thrift stores, but I don't have it anywhere in my PS2 collection. So I must not have picked it up. I can personally vouch for Tekken 4, though. It's really good.
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Post by toei on Mar 20, 2021 11:08:09 GMT -5
Yeah, Tekken 4 is great. I never tried Tekken Tag, but sometimes fighting game fans can hate a game for the most minor reason, especially when it's an entry in a long-running series. But it might really be bad, I don't know.
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