Games Beaten 2019

Post by **BoneSnapDeez** » Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:05 pm

1. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Famicom)
2. Dragon Scroll: Yomigaerishi Maryuu (Famicom)
3. Ninja-kun: Majou no Bouken (Famicom)
4. Hello Kitty World (Famicom)
5. Galaxian (Famicom)
6. Esper Dream 2: Aratanaru Tatakai (Famicom)
7. Ninja Jajamaru-kun (Famicom)
8. Jajamaru no Daibouken (Famicom)
9. Front Line (Famicom)

Ah yes, Front Line. That classic Taito arcade run and gun. So influential. So janky. In America the game was ported to the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision. In its native Japan Front Line appeared on a bunch of computers. And the Famicom.

This is the very epitome of a weaksauce low-effort port, rushed out the door while the arcade version was still semi-relevant. The graphics are unacceptable. Everything is awash in ashen gray and puke green. Nary a musical note is to be found, but the shrillest of sound effects never cease. The game itself is a top-down run and gun, a precursor to the likes of Commando and Ikari Warriors, featuring one lengthy (looping) stage. Our protagonist, a pistol-wielding nameless soldier, is perhaps the wimpiest game character to grace the Famicom (Jim from Hydlide notwithstanding). Just look at this dude. His helmet is unbuckled and he possesses the gait of a man who gambled with a fart, and lost.

Core gameplay is actually pretty fun though. Movement and shooting are eight-directional, with a small twist. In an attempt to add "realism" to the game Taito made the soldier right-handed, so all fired shots are a bit off-center to the right. Sort of. Walk diagonally up-left and down-left and the gun suddenly switches to his left hand. Amazing. Grenades can be tossed as well, through they're tough to aim and travel in a strange arc. Enemies are idiotic chuds, blundering about aimlessly, firing the occasional shot. There are hostile human soldiers, which later give way to an assortment of tanks. The game culminates with a fight against a big stationary turret gun (actually just a tank sprite mounted on a geometric shape). Front Line should be laughably easy given the sparse enemy placement and their braindead AI. Unfortunately, the screen doesn't get scrolling until the soldier starts dry-humping the top, which can lead to some cheap deaths.

Lemme tell you about the tanks. The "good" ones scattered about for the soldier to utilize. First, there's the green one. It sucks. It's actually a power-down, as it strips away grenade capabilities in favor of nothing but a standard pea shooter. Perhaps it moves slightly faster than the soldier does on foot, but the difference is negligible. In contrast, the blue tank is immortal! If hit, it goes up in flames, but simply hopping out and back in causes the tank to regenerate. One odd quirk about Front Line, which was retained for this Famicom variant, is that the final boss can only be harmed by hand-tossed grenades. So ditch the tank at the end.

Ultimately, I think the "second gen" versions of Front Line available in the U.S. play a bit better than this one. On the other hand, Fami Front Line is downright hilarious. Pick your poison.

Post by **MrPopo** » Fri Feb 01, 2019 3:16 am

1. Octopath Traveler - Switch
2. Dusk - PC
3. Forsaken Remastered - PC
4. Tales of Eternia - PS1

The second PS1 Tales game, Eternia was localized as Tales of Destiny II because Mattel owned the trademark to "Eternia" thanks to He-Man. Which made things confusing when Namco made an actual Tales of Destiny 2. Their solution was to not localize it. But in order to keep people from getting confused I'll continue to refer to it as Eternia.

Tales of Eternia serves as an evolution of the 2D Tales games. While Destiny was mostly just Phantasia with a slightly higher resolution, Eternia changes the art style to have characters that aren't super deformed. They also fixed the AI so that you can have two melee characters that actually understand how to attack. It still feels like you would have been better off with another caster, though, as the AI doesn't understand how to combo; that won't happen until Symphonia. Still, the combat feels pretty good. There's only a handful of really bullshit elements (the Rem fight comes to mind).

The game provides a lot of customization for your casters. Each of them only has a base set of magic, and then more is learned as you contract with the summon spirits. However, each spirit can only be assigned to one of your casters. This will give them a more powerful spell of that element, so you'll always have them spread across your casters. But where things get really interesting is that if you have two specific spirts across your two casters it will unlock additional magic and passives. For example, Undine on one character and Sylph on the other will give the Undine character the Heal spell. There's no way to have every piece of magic unlocked at once, so you'll need to make tradeoffs. But you can swap things up at any time between fights, so shifting things up to really nail enemy weaknesses can be worthwhile.

The game has two optional characters you can unlock midway through disk two. They are the two most superfluous characters ever in a Tales game. While they have some story significance at a couple points, in general they are completely forgotten by the game's narrative. What makes things worse is that you need to do some optional sidequests in order to get all but their most basic skills, and only by doing so do then even become potentially worth doing. They also arrive right after you stop really getting equipment from shops, so you don't feel like they get growth through equipment either. It's pretty disappointing.

The game's story is fairly straightforward; the trademark Tales twist is mostly just discovering the final boss is more linked to the party than you thought, but there aren't really any shades of grey in the enemies like other Tales games like to use. The game's ending is also quite short given the consequences implied by the events; it cuts off right before you would find out the implications of the game's story.

My biggest complaint is once you get closer to the end game you run into some bad environment design. There's a bunch of sidequests that you wouldn't know to look for, and finding them is hard due to most of them being caves not marked on the map that can only be seen if you're looking from a specific angle. And one of the sidequests can't even be done until you do half of the final dungeon (which is shockingly short for a Tales final dungeon as well; the fake final dungeon is much longer). It sort of feels like the devs ran out of steam as the game was ending. It's not nearly as bad as Xenogears, but you definitely notice a difference between disk 1 and disk 3.

Still, it's a solid enough Tales game. I'd say it's the weakest of the first three, but still worth playing.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Fri Feb 01, 2019 3:33 pm

Games Beaten in 2019 So Far - 11
* denotes a replay

January (11 Games Beaten)

11. Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight - Vita - January 27

I was a HUGE fan of Persona 5 when it hit the PS4 a while back, and I was a HUGE fan of Persona 4: Dancing All Night when I finally joined the #VitaMasterRace. While I enjoyed it, however, I found myself a slightly disappointed with Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight when it hit the Vita alongside Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight. It was good, for sure, but it felt underwhelming next to Dancing All Night. How does Dancing in Starlight stack up?

Fortunately for me, while it doesn't quite stand up as Dancing All Night's equal, Dancing in Starlight left me feeling much more satisfied than Dancing in Moonlight did. I largely attribute that to the fact that Persona 5 had a much better soundtrack than Person 3 in my opinion, but truthfully, it's probably also partly because I knew what I could reasonably expect going in. The relatively minimal content compared to Dancing All Night, rendering it a fairly standard rhythm game just with Persona music, caught me off guard with Dancing in Moonlight. I knew to expect that going into this game, though, so there was less of a risk of disappointment.

As far as actual gameplay goes, it's exactly what you'd expect - standard Vita rhythm game affair. You use the Triangle, Circle, X, Up, Right (or is it Left? I forget), and Down buttons along with and analogue stick (or the touch screen, that works for the scratch as well) to match prompts in time with the song. The responsiveness is great, the tracklist is fantastic, and it's overall a great time for fans of rhythm games. They don't really do much to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, but it's definitely a fun game and a must play for Vita (or PS4) gamers who enjoy rhythm games.

Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight doesn't really do much to set itself apart from the average rhythm game aside from the use of Persona 5's FANTASTIC soundtrack, but it really doesn't have to. It may be a largely standard rhythm game in design, but the execution is absolutely brilliant. I can't speak for how different or similar the PS4 version is, but the Vita version is fantastic and a definite must play.

Post by **elricorico** » Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:09 pm

1. Ni No Kuni 2 (PS4)

2. Mario Kart 64 (N64)

Super Mario Kart is still my all time favourite game. When MK64 came out I didnt have an N64 and didnt really spend any time with anyone that did. I also disliked the look, as I was accustomed to the details of 16 bit sprites. I just felt early 3D was ugly(part of the reason I also disliked Final Fantasy 7, when I loved the 16 bit Final Fantasy games).

I've since beat every other Mario Kart game(console and handheld, not the arcade games), but I never committed to beating this one. Last week my Retro Fighter 64 controller arrived so I thought I'd test it with MK64.

I found this game to be on the easier end of the Mario Kart titles, as I dove right in to 150 cc and didnt really have any sticking points. I enjoyed it, but I still think that it is my least favourite in the series. I still find it unappealing visually, largely due to the limits of the console. The tracks seem empty, with far too little to look at. I also find a number of the tracks are too long, though if they were more interesting I might not feel that way. I also find the controls on the slippery side for a Mario Kart game.

All that being said, this is still a good game, and i can definitely understand why some might love it. It is fun, the challenge is fair, and I'm sure with time I would grow more accustomed to the controls.

If you are still reading because you wonder about the Retro Fighter 64, I would say it is very nearly as good as the original n64 controller. It is more comfortable to hold and has good feeling buttons. I like the analogue stick, but I suspect that it has a little less precision than the original. I played most of my MK64 time with the Retro Fighter, but went at the Special Cup using an original controller. I felt like I played just a bit better with the original controller, and figure it is likely due to the analogue stick. In the end I think the difference is very small, and many may still prefer the Retro Fighter due to its overall feel. I will certainly continue to try it out on other games and suspect I'll use it as a way to lengthen the life of my original controllers.

Post by **Flake** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 9:34 am

January Games:

February Games:
Megaman Legends (PSTV)
The Misadventures of Tron Bonne (PSTV)

Megaman Legends:

Megaman Legends gave me a lot to talk about in the slack channel - mostly it comes down to a huge wave of nostalgia.

Nostalgia for the setting - with the whimsy, fun world building, and tantalizing hints on connections to the Megaman Classic and X series. Nostalgia for the characters: The Caskett family, the Bonnes, and everyone on Kattelox island bring what amounts to an early open-world gameplay experience to life. Nostalgia for everything! The music, the gameplay, the silly missions and side quests.

It's a game that may be a hard sell for gamers who are not gamers 'of a certain age'. It's a game that came out after Mario 64 so there is some influence but it was released so soon after that it's still clear that the development team was making some stuff up as they went along. That feels like a good thing after spending last week playing MML, though.

This game is a wonderful reminder of how 'wild wild west' the early 32 bit generation was. There were no set conventions on this type of game design yet. It's not like Ocarina of Time where it was clear that there were X numbers of dungeons accessed via Y method. There are parts of the game where you have to stop following the story and instead do Megaman Volnutt's actual job of 'digging' through ruins to proceed - which leads to finding out that the entire ruin complex beneath Kattelox City is interconnected, Metroid Style. Where you then are able to find items for a rudimentary crafting system and proceed through the game. All these things would eventually come to be standard and separate gimmicks in future generations of games but in MML, they are presented as a big swimming pool. It's all deep end and you just need to dive in.

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne:

A sort-of Prequel to Megaman Legends that also introduced many of the concepts and characters that would show up in Megaman Legends 2. I absolutely love when games let me play the villain. It doesn't happen very often and when it does, there are usually some mitigating circumstances or quirks of the plot that make you out to be the hero after all. Not Misadventures of Tron Bonne. You are a freaking pirate and the game makes no bones about it.

But you're not a MEAN pirate. You play Tron Bonne, out to collect millions of Zenny. Your brothers have been taken hostage by a loan shark and it's up to you and your 40 lovable, Lego-esque Servbots to pay off their debt. You do this by robbing banks, looting historical sites, stealing cargo containers off a dock, stealing live stock (the Servbots especially adore the piggies), and pillaging whole towns. In between mission, you help your servbots realize their potential, improve themselves, and save your family.

Misadventures of Tron Bonne is a kind of thing that doesn't get made anymore. From what I understand, it was a side project reutilizing resources from Megaman Legends while Megaman Legends 2 was in development hell. Some of the levels play similarly to Megaman Legends but there are a variety of other gameplay styles like puzzle solving, a first person exploration map, and visual novel.

The only downside to Misadventures of Tron Bonne is that it is short. The game would have benefited from more content - many of the characters introduced are interesting enough to warrant a bigger place in the Capcom universe but they are never seen again. It is a similar feeling that I had to Time Spinner last month: These characters pop into existence, I begin to become attached to them, and then their stories just end.

Post by **Ack** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:27 am

1. Dusk (PC)(FPS)
2. Project: Snowblind (PC)(FPS)
3. Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition (PC)(FPS)
4. Ziggurat (PC)(FPS)
5. Wolfenstein 3D: Ultimate Challenge (PC)(FPS)
6. Destiny 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)
7. Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris (PC)(FPS/RPG)
8. Destiny 2: Warmind (PC)(FPS/RPG)

Destiny 2 is Bungie's continuation of their hybrid MMORPG/FPS Destiny. It's very much a Bungie game, so you'll find a lot that feels like Halo, except I can hold three guns instead of two. I'm not a big fan of Halo, but the open world and MMO approach drew me in, and while the plot comes off as ridiculous, there were enough interesting set pieces and ideas to keep me interested.

Basically I play some kind of unkillable super soldier who's been blessed by a massive alien object and given a little robot that makes me immortal. Now I get to go kill stuff. But no, a big nasty group of aliens show up, take control of the massive alien object, and strip immortality from folks. I manage to get mine back, so now I jetset around the solar system, solving problems and kicking butt until I finally get to return and deliver a big ol' beat down, Earth-style. Once that's done, it's off to the expansions and doing sidequests for better gear and additional content that's been put into the game, including PvP, PvPvE, and raid dungeon type things.

How does it feel? Well, you pick one of three classes, then earn elemental archtypes for each class which are further subdivided into specialties with some variations for grenade types, character abilities, jumping style, and how some of your abilities work together or what benefit they provide. Some are definitely more PvP focused, which is a little annoying since you can enjoy most of the content without bothering, but hey, I suppose I should be glad it's in the game. Jumping feels like Halo, grenades feel like Halo, gunplay feels like Halo, melee feels like Halo...you get the idea. Bungie doesn't stray far from what brought them success, and even the enemies feel like something that could be in the Halo universe. For example, there is an enemy group called the Hive that is more than a little reminiscent of the Flood, while the main enemies of the base game, Cabal, feel like Covenant. Not that these enemies don't get some interesting ideas thrown in, (Hive have a weird fantasy-hero naming convention, while another group, the Vex, have fantasy-villain names). The locations also vary in size and appearance, some of which I like, some of which doesn't work as well, but it provides variety.

There are a few things that annoy me. For one, grenades regen very slowly at the start, which is frustrating. The most annoying thing is that some guns rely on special ammo and are always equipped without any at the start, so you're stuck hoping you get ammo drops for it. This means shotguns and sniper rifles, thus limiting their usefulness a bit. The bigger sin is that shotguns have a range of next to nothing, so they're mainly relegated to PvP and that's it; using one in the PvE setting means you're probably not going to use it since very rarely will you be so close that simply stabbing the enemy to death isn't a better choice. Sure, you could use it to spike damage on bosses, but nearly every boss has some means to keep you away or will devastate you in close range, so it's not really worth the risk. Oh, and there is a speeder you unlock to held you fly around large areas quickly, but you won't get it until you finish the storyline, so...expect to do a lot of walking at first.

That said, there is a lot of variety and a lot to do in most locations. Things are also spread out on a daily or weekly basis, and some events can't be performed until you reach the highest tiers of gear. There are also near constant special public events going on, so you can easily hop into these for loot and for a quick firefight. End result, I like the game.

Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris is the weakest part of the game, mainly because it takes so much of the best stuff and chucks it out the window. Curse of Osiris takes place in a tiny area on Mercury with only one public event. Most of the missions it offers are in a VR world engine that requires you run through extremely samey pathways and bogs down quickly. It also spends a lot of time in loading screens as you leave Mercury, come back to Mercury, leave Mercury, come back, etc. This has made Mercury into the black sheep of the Destiny 2 series. It's bland and boring, and as much as I like the idea of a planet-sized computer constantly running VR simulations of various timelines, it just doesn't work out in execution.

Thankfully, Destiny 2: Warmind showed Bungie can learn from their missteps. Warmind takes place on Mars and involves a super powerful AI weapon system and a tunneling worm god straight outta Dune. You're moving between Martian polar landscape and industrial facilities, the area is much bigger than the Osiris section, and there is a ton more to do. Warmind is really refreshing after Osiris, and the plot for this expansion ends on a worrying "What have we done" note that isn't necessarily bad...but isn't necessarily good either. Basically the super powerful AI launches a satellite array to protect humanity in the solar system, but it's no longer taking any orders as to how it should go about doing this, so who knows what kinds of things it might get up to. Plus it's called Rasputin. That never bodes well.

Warmind offers ongoing fights with Hive in an escalating string of waves, a bunch of new quests and boss fight set pieces that are really cool, and a planet that's fun to explore. It's probably my third favorite locale up to this point, after the oil rigs on Titan and the EDZ, an overrun set of ruins on Earth. I say up to this point, because now I'm exploring Destiny 2: Forsaken, and that starts with a fight in an intergalactic prison and then takes me to an asteroid belt with all kinds of skeezy characters. I got to get in a gun fight in an alien bar while techno music played. More, please.

Post by **noiseredux** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:52 am

it's almost surreal to see you playing Destiny. That's great. I loved Destiny 2 - even more than the first game, though I haven't gotten around to the D2 expansions yet.

Post by **Ack** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 11:54 am

Yeah, the expansions are...well, Osiris is the worst of it. Rush through that, and you'll be much better off.

And I still complain about Battle.net. But hey, Destiny 2 was being offered for free last year, and all the DLC went on heavy discount a month ago, so Fastbilly, Xen, and I grabbed it. It's another game in our pile of stuff to play on Thursday nights.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 1:35 pm

Games Beaten in 2019 So Far - 12
* denotes a replay

January (12 Games Beaten)

12. Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space - PlayStation 2 - January 27

I love Gundam. I loved the Encounters in Space compilation movie. I've loved every Gundam game I've play (except New Gundam Breaker; that game was trash). This game, however, is just...not good. I tried to like it. I really did. There's even some potential for a good game here. Unfortunately, it's just not that much fun, and they find a way to take an awesome story and make it super boring.

The game basically follows the last third of the original Mobile Suit Gundam storyline with the Federation's push to take Solomon and A Boa Qu to end the One Year War, but it doesn't do a very good job of telling that part of the story in any interesting way. That in itself was a bit of a shock to me considering that, with the exception of maybe Operation British and the Battle of Odessa, the endgame of Mobile Suit Gundam was the most exciting part of the series. Maybe it would be more interesting to someone who hasn't seen Gundam, but since I've actually seen these battles and whatnot, it just felt like a bad imitation of something incredible.

The gameplay is a really awkward 3D space combat set-up. It feels, in a lot of ways, like they had a solid plan for what they wanted to do, but then Bandai was like "Hey, by the way, you have half an hour to finish the game before we start pressing discs," and it got rushed. The whole control scheme just feels a bit unrefined to me. The lock-on controls feel cumbersome, movement feels rather sluggish, and as for weapons, your vulcan is useless whereas the beam rifle is basically a noob-tube. The melee attack feels more like a short ranged attack because to a certain extent, your mobile suit will just rocket towards the enemy even if they're a fair distance away (in the context of melee), but it's hard to tell exactly how far is too far. The entire control scheme just feels extremely rushed to me.

Visually, the game looks pretty good for the most part. The mobile suits themselves lacked some detail that I think could have been a big boon for the game, but overall, it's a good looking game given how abysmal the PS2's video quality tends to be (at least in my opinion). The sound design is fine, but it would have benefited a lot from the inclusion of more music, sound effects, and voice clips from the show. It certainly would have made it feel a lot more "Gundam."

Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space is okay I guess, but it just does not hold up well against either other Gundam games that I've played or the compilation film on which it's based. The controls feel rushed and unpolished, and while the visuals are pretty nice, that doesn't make up for the disappointing gameplay and lackluster storytelling. If you find this for $5 or less, then sure, it's worth it for a Gundam fan, but honestly, I really just can't recommend this one. It was mostly just boring to me.

Post by **BoneSnapDeez** » Mon Feb 04, 2019 6:24 pm

1. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Famicom)
2. Dragon Scroll: Yomigaerishi Maryuu (Famicom)
3. Ninja-kun: Majou no Bouken (Famicom)
4. Hello Kitty World (Famicom)
5. Galaxian (Famicom)
6. Esper Dream 2: Aratanaru Tatakai (Famicom)
7. Ninja Jajamaru-kun (Famicom)
8. Jajamaru no Daibouken (Famicom)
9. Front Line (Famicom)
10. Field Combat (Famicom)

Field Combat originated in the arcades in 1985. This here Famicom port appeared mere months later, courtesy of the (un)holy TOSE/Jaleco alliance. The game then had the gall to show up on the Virtual Console, twenty-two years after the fact.

Field Combat is a clunker, an unsteady janky slab of a game. Admittedly, there are some good ideas to be found herein. This is indeed an early example of a real-time strategy game (RTS), or at least a precursor to the genre. The player takes control of the Genesis (I'll spare you any jokes about Blast Processing), a futuristic spaceship tasked with clearing a series of battlefields. Stages, of which there are six, are presented in a top-down format, with each environment only consisting of a couple screen stacked vertically. Attempting to thwart the Genesis are a series of bright red combatants: infantrymen, tanks, and helicopters. These belligerents can be dealt with in two ways. Pressing A will launch a missile that can either stun or outright destroy foes. Pressing B will emit a space ray that can capture enemies, who then subsequently become (blue) AI allies of the Genesis. The Genesis itself unfortunately moves like a snail, and both attacks are pitifully short-ranged. A cursor (straight outta Xevious) aids in aiming.

Stages conclude with a boss battle: a cluttered skirmish against a series of mounted turrets aided by the Reds. This is where the Genesis needs to call in the collected reinforcements. It's also where the game's adherence to arcade controls becomes a hindrance. There are no menus in Field Combat, no proper way of selecting what allies are to charge the enemy. The Blues are called in by pressing A and B simultaneously. There player is only given a modicum of control regarding who shows up: a small box in the screen's bottom-right corner displays reinforcements. It rotates every few seconds, and the featured allies are the ones who come rolling in when A and B are pressed. That said, I don't even know if it makes any difference. Friends and foes all seem pretty evenly matched in terms of speed and strength.

Ultimately, each stage of Field Combat progresses in the same way. Begin at the bottom of a stage, slowly gather blue buddies, then progress a small bit upward, call out the Blues and blast away at the turrets. Mercifully, bullets are color-coded to match those who fire them, so while the screen does inevitably morph into a chaotic mess avoiding enemy fire is still somewhat feasible. This isn't a pretty game. Stage backgrounds are incredibly garish, and stage designs themselves are only distinguished by the varying haphazardly-placed "obstacles." There's little music to be found, save for an overly-chipper and quickly-looping rendition of "Ride of the Valkyries."

Field Combat offers up little in the way of a compelling experience. Any positive attributes it possesses are marred by a clunky interface, sub-Atari controls, and ghastly aesthetics. Best to leave this one to be unearthed only by the most intrepid and masochistic Famicom spelunkers.

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