More walls of text to enjoy! Jesus guys, I truly am sorry for the length of this post. I've spoilered my games beaten list to try and save space, but it doesn't help much...
Super Street Fighter IV: 3D EditionOK, so I'm not going to talk much about this one. I've made clear elsewhere on the forums that I just don't like Street Fighter. I don't know all the nuances, I don't know all the moves, I certainly am not very good at it. But I also don't have much fun despite lots of attempts.
Anyhow, I beat this game twice - once as Sakura, and once as E.Honda. I used continues. It was sure Street Fighter. Objectively, I can't say I find fault with anything much, it was fine. I just didn't like any of the time I spent with it, so I decided to stop spending time with it and move on. But hey, it sure is pretty for a launch title for the system.
Super Puyo Puyo Tsuu RemixSo, following on from beating my third version of Puyo Puyo (I've beaten Mean Bean Machine, Kirby's Ghost Trap and Puyo Puyo CD over the years), I decided I would finally move onto the sequel and see how things have improved. And the answer to that is 'it depends on your perspective'.
Puyo Puyo Tsuu's big change to the Puyo Puyo formula is the ability to counter garbage blocks before they land on your side. If you make a combo before the garbage hits you, it will be reduced until eventually there's none left and garbage will start piling up on your opponents side. This is certainly a nice feature, although I feel it's a little underpowered - maybe it's better for high level play, but the game only gives you a single turn to activate a counter combo, so if you don't have one waiting in the wings right then, it doesn't make much odds. This means that this feature doesn't change the gameplay as much as you might hope overall, except it one crucial way - it means the computer will wipe the floor with you harder than ever.
Unlike the first major Puyo game, where you fight 13 stages in a row, Puyo Puyo Tsuu features 20 stages over 8 levels. Your opponents on each level are randomly selected until you've beaten enough to progress to the next tier. Each opponent has different AI, and some will tear you apart. Despite starting off WAY easier than Puyo Puyo 1, Puyo Puyo Tsuu ramps up in difficulty very quickly, and by stage 6 you're fighting AI opponents who are comparable to the hardest opponents in the first game, with 14 stages still to go. They fire off combos every other turn, countering your own attacks whilst decimating you with theres. It's brutal. In my run of Puyo Puyo Tsuu, I used at least 99 continues. I say 'at least' because I suspect the game stopped counting at that point and there are only 2 display digits. The difficulty is also wildly inconsistent. The 2 stages I struggled with the most were stage 6 and stage 18. 19 probably represents 3/4 of my continues, easily. 19 took me 3 attempts, and I beat the final boss first time.
Puyo Puyo Tsuu's single player campaign was absolute torture. It was hellishly unfun and almost put me off the series. But it's multiplayer modes are compelling and interesting, and lets face it, probably how the game should be played anyway. The 'Remix' version I have has some extra features apparently, but being it's all in Japanese and untranslated, I don't have many ideas what they are. My understanding is it adds a 'super hard' difficulty (Fuck. That.) and some extra multiplayer modes.
Puyo Puyo Tsuu is hard to rate. In multiplayer, I would say it's objectively better than the first game. In single player its just too cruel to be fun. The most hilarious thing for me? There's a secret boss if you beat the game with no continues.
I was only 99 off!
Super AlesteSuper Aleste is a game I beat for the Summer Games Challenge. It's my first game beaten for the challenge this year, and it is a game which has been long overdue - it was on my challenge list in 2014 and 2015 as well, and got played on neither occasion.
And how foolish I was! Super Aleste is an absolute treat. In America, you might know the game better as Space MegaForce, but whichever name it goes by it represents one of the best shmups on the system and of it's generation, despite arriving so early in the life of the console and on the infamously 'slower' Nintendo console which isn't as well regarded on the shooter front.
I've played Blazing Lazers before (also by Compile), and they're very similar. The game features the traditional Compile weapon system - multiple numbered weapons with different effects who can be powered up by collecting more icons to bigger better versions. Unlike Blazing Lazers, which features 4 weapons and 4 sub weapons, Super Aleste features a whopping 8 weapons, all of which have alternate firing modes. These can very from minor switches (like being able to tilt your fire when moving, or change firing patterns on spread bullets) to major functionality changes, like adding homing abilities or freezing options into a wall of shooting cannons that fundamentally change how the weapon plays. The diversity here is incredible - even the basic weapon at max power has SIX different firing patterns. It's also better balanced than Blazing Lazers. In that game, the shield subweapon was so good that it was almost essential, relegating the other 3 subweapons to uselessness.
With the system here (you lose 4 weapon levels if hit) all weapon choices are equal defensively, meaning your choices are down to preference on their firing pattern, not thei utility. They're not perfectly balanced, but I'm sure everyone will have a favourite (even if it's probably weapon 2, because weapon 2 is awesome.)
Stage design differs too. Super Aleste does 2 major things differently to Blazing Lazers - it's generally more oppresive - levels tend to feature lots of tight spaces (thankfully, colliding with walls doesn't hurt you at all unless you get crushed by screen scroll) compared to Lazers' more open fields (besides the bubble level). Secondly, it likes to make use of this fancy 'Mode 7' thing, and likes to make things move and spin a lot. Stage 2 takes place over a battleship fortress thign which constantly moves in and out and turns around to show off the effect.
Difficulty wise, I'd have to imagine this game is on the lower end of the spectrum for the genre. It didn't take me long to beat it, that's for sure. I'd say it's probably a bit easier than Blazing Lazers, mostly due to infinite continues, but both are fairly comparable in difficulty.
Super Aleste is a fantastic little shooter though, and a must-own for the system if you like the genre I'd say. I've only played 2 of their shmups (I've played some other games they made too, hint hint, read the last entry if you didn't) but they're amongst my favourite of the era, and they're certainly very special feeling. The only thing I've found thats like them is other shmups by Compile. I just wish those other shmups were generally a bit cheaper
Sega Rally ChampionshipAnd here is my second finished game from the Summer Challenge.
Sega Rally Championship is a game I've own for a few years. It's a game I always thought was 'fine' when I gave it a go, enough to keep hold of it at least, especially considering it's worth almost nothing to sell, but one which I've never really devoted much time to. Now I have, and again, I wish I had done so sooner - its a lot of fun.
Sega Rally is a very short game. There are 4 courses, one of which you unlock by beating the game, which requires you to finish in 1st on your 3rd course. Positions carry over, and you need to work up the ranks over the 3 races. You start in 15th at the beginning of race 1, and need to advanced to 1st by the end of race 3. This is no mean feat, as it requires some pretty great times on course 1 and 2, but thankfully is more lenient on the tougher course 3. Opponents always appear in the same spots on each course, so if you finish the 1st track in 10th, then 9th place will be just in front of you on the next course, but if you finish in 11th, 10th place will be where 9th was. Because of this, it's crucial to pass enough people each course to be able to see 1st place ahead of you on the third track.
Speaking of the tracks, they're fairly varied and interesting to drive, if a little unremarkable graphically. The first is a long desert course with wide, gentle corners, but very slippery track service making it easy to skid if you turn too sharply. It finishes with a quick left and right turn followed by a long corner that requires you to break in order to gain traction and stop sliding sideways. You'll need to learn to break in Sega Rally - pelting into sharper corners tends to result in your car pinballing around for a while and will cost you your chances of 1st.
The 2nd course is a forest course which starts with some sweeping gentle curves, followed by some harsher corners to ease you in. Then it turns nasty half way through with a brutal u-turn followed by some fairly tight corners on muddy ground (the rest of the course is tarmac) to finish. The 3rd stage is on the mountain and features lots of terrain changes, with some narrow roads and some nasty corners, especially an absolutely abohrrent u-turn early on where other cars tend to ram into the side of you while turning. The 4th and final course is exclusive to the Saturn game and franly sucks. It's all muddy, very narrow and full of sharp turns. It's also boring to drive and boring to look at. A let down after the other 3 great tracks.
Sega Rally lets you choose between 2 cars, with a third unlockable. Generally the faster the car, the slidier it's steering is. I beat the game with the basic Celica, which is the slowest but easiest to handle. And that's all there is to the game - Sega Rally Championship is fun, controls well and is compelling - a real 'one more try' kind of game. Thats also because it is 3 and a half minutes long. No joke. If you play all 4 courses, your time will be a good way under 5 minutes in total. If you played all 4 courses with all 3 cars, you could beat the game in less time than it would take to drink a cup of tea (super British time scale go!). Sega Rally is great and everyone should own it. It's also very cheap, which is uncommon for Saturn.
Thats good, because I'm very glad I got this amount of content for £1 and not £60, like the sticker on the box of my copy says.
Knuckles' ChaotixSo, I recently passed 1000 video games on my backloggery. It's not an exact figure - it counts compilations as seperate games, and includes all my download games as well as physical. Either way, I wanted to treat myself to a game to celebrate - something I wouldn't normall splash out on.
I eventually decided on a 32X with Knuckles' Chaotix. As a kid I used to read a comic book on occasion called Sonic the Comic. They had a whole story arc about Chaotix when the game came out, as well as loads of adverts for the game. At the time, I was really into Knuckles the Echidna, who I thought was super cool (I would have been, what, 7 years old at the time?). But obviously I never got the game, and over time I kinda forgot it existed.
Skip forward about 13 years though, to when I started university, was into virtual console games, and decided to start buying games for my old consoles again. I trawled the interner looking for stuff about old games, discover racketboy, buy old consoles I never owned before, and rediscover Chaotix. And also see the price. The 32X and the game aren't nearly as crazy as the likes of Panzer Dragoon Saga to buy, but they're not cheap, especially as an investment into both - and frankly, there's not much other reasons to own a 32X.
Skip forward another 8 years. Now I'm an adult, I own Knuckles' Chaotix and a 32X and I can finally play the game, 21 years on. I'm not a kid anymore, and the unbridled joy of it being a game where I can be Knuckles has gone. I'm not just getting into retro collecting, so I don't have quite the same joy I had then of just playing strange stuff I don't know much about, just because someone told me it was good. Instead, I have a couple dozen years of good old-fashioned British cynicism, knowledge from reviews that the game is generally considered mediocre and experience of several hundred games beaten to compare it to. It's not looking good for Chaotix.
And you know what? I had a blast!
Chaotix is not a great game. It's not a bad one, that's for sure, but it's flawed for sure. The elastic mechanic the game has causes you to flail around hopelessly more than it should. Basic Sonic features like springs can be a hassle to co-ordinate with your AI partner. The 5 zones feature 5 acts each, which is way too many frankly, and they needed more variety. The levels are sparse and don't feature many enemies. The game is buggy - I've fallen through floors multiple times on both 2S and 3D levels. These are all issues the game has. But the game is just fun.
The elastic mechanic is a handful, but it shoots you and your partner around - this is one of the faster games in the series, helped tremendously by the lower number of enemies and the absence of bottomless pits. It's also probably the easiest - there are unlimited lives, save points, and several ways to keep your rings secure. But the game is like being in a pinball machine. It's frenetic, it's chaotic (lol, I typoed chaotix by mistake here and was tempted to leave it) and it's a joy to fling myself about in.
I also love the style. Vector the Crocodile is a character I never cared for in recent Sonic games. Here, in 2D? Vector is fucking awesome. I love all of his animations. I love how he moves. I love his air dash ability, which is one of the most useful in sonic history, even though it's so basic. I love Charmy Bee. I love how his sprite barely reaches Vector's knee. I love how he can fly about the whole level freely exploiting the shit out of the game's engine, and the game doesn't punish you for that. ....The other guys are OK, but y'know, it's hard to top the Vector & Charmy combo. Poor old Mighty - forgotten from this point on, and he wasn't even good in this game to begin with.
Anyway, there's not a lot to Chaotix really. It's 3 hours or so of springy, floucy, bouncy, trouncey, pouncy fun fun fun fun fun. It turns out Tigger's are not the only one! I don't adore it by any means, and it's never gonna hit my top games of all time list. But it's just such a nice thing to be able to say "here's that thing I always wanted to try, and 2 decades and £150 or so later, I'm glad I did".