BoneSnapDeez wrote:lol "2" vs. "II" huh? Gotta love the consistency.
I assume it's like the Mega Man handheld versions.
Games Beaten 2021
Re: Games Beaten 2021
I assume it's like the Mega Man handheld versions.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
MrPopo wrote:BoneSnapDeez wrote:lol "2" vs. "II" huh? Gotta love the consistency.
I assume it's like the Mega Man handheld versions.
If not, it wouldn't be the first time a Master System port had a typo/inconsistency.
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prfsnl_gmr
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 12198
- Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:26 pm
- Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Re: Games Beaten 2021
BoneSnapDeez wrote:lol "2" vs. "II" huh? Gotta love the consistency.
Going down in the weeds here…
The Genesis version uses Roman numerals, on both the box, cart, and the title screen in JPN and PAL regions. In North America version, however, the Genesis version uses Arabic numerals on the box, cart, and title screen.
The Game Gear version is different. The North American box and cart use Arabic numerals, but the JPN and PAL versions have Roman numerals on the box and cart. In all regions, however, the title screen has Roman numerals.
Finally, the Master System port was released only in PAL regions, and it uses Roman numerals on the box, cart, and title screen.
Interestingly, Arabic numerals ultimately won out in western territories, but the series still uses Roman numerals in Japan. The most recent sequels are “Streets of Rage 3” and “Streets of Rage 4” in Europe and the US. In Japan, however, the most recent sequels are “Bare Knuckle III” and “Bare Knuckle IV”.
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BoneSnapDeez
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 20116
- Joined: Mon May 02, 2011 1:08 pm
- Location: Maine
Re: Games Beaten 2021
^ Extremely pertinent data. Based and numericpilled.
The Ys apostrophe situation is interesting, because you see the same thing on one of the Japanese releases. Once again on "the game itself" not the box/cover.
The Ys apostrophe situation is interesting, because you see the same thing on one of the Japanese releases. Once again on "the game itself" not the box/cover.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Y's: The Last Man confirmed to be the next Ys title.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
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elricorico
- 32-bit
- Posts: 224
- Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2012 11:02 pm
Re: Games Beaten 2021
1. Cosmic Star Heroine (NS)
2. Boom Blox (Wii)
3. Grandia (NS)
4. New Super Mario Bros. (NDS)
5. Moss (PSVR)
6. Portal 2 (PS3)
I beat the single player campaign in Portal 2 yesterday. First time in a long time that I've practically binged a game, the stars aligned this week to put much more gaming time in my hands, and once I started this game it was easy to keep coming back to.
I played the first game several years back and really enjoyed it. This game was sitting on my shelf just waiting for its turn. The first couple of hours really took me back to the first game and somehow bridged the gap of both being nostalgic and fresh. As the game progressed there was a bit of a different style - feeling a little more explorative, but just linear enough to keep the pace of the story fast. The dialogue is also entertaining and smartly written. The ending had a small surprise and was definitely funny - fitting for the overall tone of the game.
Few of the puzzles in this game gave me much trouble. I only once got to the point of looking up a solution(and then immediately felt like an idiot as I had basically showed myself how to do it in one of my failed attempts). In the few other times I started to feel stumped, the satisfaction was pretty great when I finally figured it out.
I did run into a couple of bugs, which I found very surprising considering the age of the game and its relatively linear areas. I once spawned inside a wall forcing me to replay a portion of one chapter, and one gate was closed that should have been open - leading me to believe I had missed something, but upon looking up a video it was clear that there was a glitch, and when I reloaded the gate was open.
Do people call this a puzzle platformer? I assume so, even though I always think of side scrollers when I hear that term. Anyway, much like I believe I said about the first game, this feels like something almost any gamer would find some joy in.
2. Boom Blox (Wii)
3. Grandia (NS)
4. New Super Mario Bros. (NDS)
5. Moss (PSVR)
6. Portal 2 (PS3)
I beat the single player campaign in Portal 2 yesterday. First time in a long time that I've practically binged a game, the stars aligned this week to put much more gaming time in my hands, and once I started this game it was easy to keep coming back to.
I played the first game several years back and really enjoyed it. This game was sitting on my shelf just waiting for its turn. The first couple of hours really took me back to the first game and somehow bridged the gap of both being nostalgic and fresh. As the game progressed there was a bit of a different style - feeling a little more explorative, but just linear enough to keep the pace of the story fast. The dialogue is also entertaining and smartly written. The ending had a small surprise and was definitely funny - fitting for the overall tone of the game.
Few of the puzzles in this game gave me much trouble. I only once got to the point of looking up a solution(and then immediately felt like an idiot as I had basically showed myself how to do it in one of my failed attempts). In the few other times I started to feel stumped, the satisfaction was pretty great when I finally figured it out.
I did run into a couple of bugs, which I found very surprising considering the age of the game and its relatively linear areas. I once spawned inside a wall forcing me to replay a portion of one chapter, and one gate was closed that should have been open - leading me to believe I had missed something, but upon looking up a video it was clear that there was a glitch, and when I reloaded the gate was open.
Do people call this a puzzle platformer? I assume so, even though I always think of side scrollers when I hear that term. Anyway, much like I believe I said about the first game, this feels like something almost any gamer would find some joy in.
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prfsnl_gmr
- Next-Gen
- Posts: 12198
- Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:26 pm
- Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Re: Games Beaten 2021
It’s a first-person puzzle platformer. I played it for the first time this year too, and I loved it. If you get the urge for that genre again, try QUBE or QUBE 2. Both are solid first-person puzzle platformers that, despite reviews, really aren’t that similar to Portal.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Some of my favorite first person puzzle games include Magrunner, Relicta, Superliminal, the QUBE series, the Portal games and ChromaGun. I'm a bit of a first person puzzle slut.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
First 50:
51. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling - Switch
52. Banner of the Maid - Switch
53. CrossCode - Switch
54. Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency - PC
55. Ultima Underworld - PC
56. Betrayal at Krondor - PC
57. Assassin's Creed: Origins - PC
58. Axiom Verge 2 - Switch
59. Elderborn - PC
60. Hellbound - PC
61. Wargroove - Switch
62. Eye of the Beholder - PC
63. Quake: Dimension of the Past - PC
64. Quake: Dimension of the Machine - PC
65. Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown - Switch
66. Anopek - PC
67. Baten Kaitos - Gamecube
68. No More Heroes 3 - Switch
69. Eye of the Beholder II - PC
The sequel to Eye of the Beholder was released at the end of the same year as the original came out. As a result there wasn't much room for updates to the engine; rather all the changes come through how they changed their level design. The game overall ends up being one step forward and one step back; some things are better but some things are worse.
Rather than diving into the sewers of Waterdeep, here your party is sent to investigate reports of people disappearing around the Temple of Darkmoon. You start off in the surrounding forest before going in and discovering the clerics are hostile. Now kicks off diving first into the catacombs (and discovering an undead army) before exploring the rest of the temple as you slowly get the key items you need to get into the various towers of the temple. This shift creates a more naturalistic dungeon that feels more like something a DM would have come up with, rather than the more video-gamey dungeon of the original. On the flip side the maps tend to be more linear than the original game.
Speaking of the maps, the maps tend to have far fewer open spaces, so it's harder to do the combat waltz. But the enemies now can strafe, so it's harder to do it anyway. For the most part if you imported a party you can just face tank everything (that -9 AC helps), but the final boss definitely requires you to be waltzing, but the high speed waltz lets you get in one attack per move. It's clear they wanted to make you have to handle combat the D&D way. Actual monster difficulty isn't too much more than the first game; there's a couple enemies with spells that actually cause problems, but otherwise it's just your sky high AC keeping you safe.
A couple of the downsides are the puzzles tend to be a bit more obtuse and the game has more "gotta move fast" puzzles. The game does throw in some assistance through your party members making observations, but there's a lot of "spot the tiny change in the wall" and "do something unintuitive" puzzles. Also, like many D&D sequels, the game has problems with its experience curve thanks to the base rules of the system which causes you to only gain a couple of levels through the entire game (compare with the first where you gain eight in the same amount of playtime).
Overall EotB II is just as worth playing as the first. It ends up serving mostly as an expansion pack sequel, but that isn't a bad thing when the base game is fun.
First 50:
51. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling - Switch
52. Banner of the Maid - Switch
53. CrossCode - Switch
54. Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency - PC
55. Ultima Underworld - PC
56. Betrayal at Krondor - PC
57. Assassin's Creed: Origins - PC
58. Axiom Verge 2 - Switch
59. Elderborn - PC
60. Hellbound - PC
61. Wargroove - Switch
62. Eye of the Beholder - PC
63. Quake: Dimension of the Past - PC
64. Quake: Dimension of the Machine - PC
65. Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown - Switch
66. Anopek - PC
67. Baten Kaitos - Gamecube
68. No More Heroes 3 - Switch
69. Eye of the Beholder II - PC
The sequel to Eye of the Beholder was released at the end of the same year as the original came out. As a result there wasn't much room for updates to the engine; rather all the changes come through how they changed their level design. The game overall ends up being one step forward and one step back; some things are better but some things are worse.
Rather than diving into the sewers of Waterdeep, here your party is sent to investigate reports of people disappearing around the Temple of Darkmoon. You start off in the surrounding forest before going in and discovering the clerics are hostile. Now kicks off diving first into the catacombs (and discovering an undead army) before exploring the rest of the temple as you slowly get the key items you need to get into the various towers of the temple. This shift creates a more naturalistic dungeon that feels more like something a DM would have come up with, rather than the more video-gamey dungeon of the original. On the flip side the maps tend to be more linear than the original game.
Speaking of the maps, the maps tend to have far fewer open spaces, so it's harder to do the combat waltz. But the enemies now can strafe, so it's harder to do it anyway. For the most part if you imported a party you can just face tank everything (that -9 AC helps), but the final boss definitely requires you to be waltzing, but the high speed waltz lets you get in one attack per move. It's clear they wanted to make you have to handle combat the D&D way. Actual monster difficulty isn't too much more than the first game; there's a couple enemies with spells that actually cause problems, but otherwise it's just your sky high AC keeping you safe.
A couple of the downsides are the puzzles tend to be a bit more obtuse and the game has more "gotta move fast" puzzles. The game does throw in some assistance through your party members making observations, but there's a lot of "spot the tiny change in the wall" and "do something unintuitive" puzzles. Also, like many D&D sequels, the game has problems with its experience curve thanks to the base rules of the system which causes you to only gain a couple of levels through the entire game (compare with the first where you gain eight in the same amount of playtime).
Overall EotB II is just as worth playing as the first. It ends up serving mostly as an expansion pack sequel, but that isn't a bad thing when the base game is fun.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Re: Games Beaten 2021
Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
First 50:
51. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling - Switch
52. Banner of the Maid - Switch
53. CrossCode - Switch
54. Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency - PC
55. Ultima Underworld - PC
56. Betrayal at Krondor - PC
57. Assassin's Creed: Origins - PC
58. Axiom Verge 2 - Switch
59. Elderborn - PC
60. Hellbound - PC
61. Wargroove - Switch
62. Eye of the Beholder - PC
63. Quake: Dimension of the Past - PC
64. Quake: Dimension of the Machine - PC
65. Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown - Switch
66. Anopek - PC
67. Baten Kaitos - Gamecube
68. No More Heroes 3 - Switch
69. Eye of the Beholder II - PC
70. Eye of the Beholder III - PC
Unlike the first two games, EotB III was not done by Westwood; instead SSI created it because they had a fallout with Westwood (who would go on to make Lands of Lore). It released a couple years after the second game and as a result had a few notable upgrades to the engine. It is generally considered to be a major disappointment compared to the first two and I think that's a bit unfair. While it has the problem that all high level D&D games has with progression the actual gameplay experience shows the overall improvement you would expect after two years.
The plot is that you've been hired to take out a lich in the ruined city of Myth Drannor. Killing him is the halfway point, but I won't spoil what comes after that. The salient point is that this game takes the "what if this was a real place" level design of the second game and goes even bigger. The first few maps are travelling through a forest to your destination, and there are two outdoor areas in Myth Drannor that lead to the two primary dungeons. The two dungeons are each four levels as you progress through a mage's guild and a temple. As a result you get pretty varied map styles. There's even a two level optional dungeon at the start, though the rewards aren't worth it unless you create a new party (and even then it's debatable; it's the one area with level drain monsters, though you get a cure at the end).
Let's talk engine upgrades. The first is a one-two punch on combat. Characters wielding polearms can strike from the second row, and there is now an "all attack" button where you can have every selected character attack with all their weapons at once. This means a full six person party finally becomes worthwhile; you can have two fighters in the mid tier with halberds and your primary fighters up front with short range weaponry. While you could use missile weapons in previous games managing ammo was a godawful pain (which gets fixed in Grimrock with autopickup of ammo) and going with four casters was mostly an experience drain due to how clumsy spellcasting is and the low spells per rest limit.
The other change you'll notice is they've taken a slightly different track with how doors work, and if you aren't aware of it it'll throw you. The first two games had doors come in three varieties: doors with a button on the frame, doors that were opened by something external (button, keyhole, trigger), and doors that you forced open. This game merges the first and third into "doors that can just be opened". The door animations are also more varied, as part of a general graphical upgrade.
In terms of level layouts and puzzles the game is a bit more straightforward than the second game and continues that general trend of "what if we made something a DM would come up with". Gone are the reflex puzzles of disappearing trap doors; there's a handful of trapped corridors you need to rush down but that's as simple as mashing forward a few times. There is one dickish segment in the mid game; an entire underwater level that has a required to pass through anti-magic zone of a decent size and mazelike quality. Since you drown every step you take (but weirdly not every action, so you can stand and swing weapons all day) this section is an exercise in making sure you have spells in reserve on your healer and mage, make it through, then heal up and recast water breathing. There are a couple of helmets of water breathing but not enough for a party, so you'll want to slap it on the healer for that segment.
While I can agree with the notion that EotB III is the weakest entry, I'd say that's mostly from the fact that you essentially never level (even though the game lets you theoretically get high enough to cast level 9 spells; I ended with level 6 spells). The engine plays better and the dungeon exploration has the least amount of "fuck you" nonsense. I think it would have been nice to see this design philosophy with a start from level 1 campaign. I think overall the game is unfairly maligned and is worth playing if you've played the other two.
First 50:
51. Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling - Switch
52. Banner of the Maid - Switch
53. CrossCode - Switch
54. Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency - PC
55. Ultima Underworld - PC
56. Betrayal at Krondor - PC
57. Assassin's Creed: Origins - PC
58. Axiom Verge 2 - Switch
59. Elderborn - PC
60. Hellbound - PC
61. Wargroove - Switch
62. Eye of the Beholder - PC
63. Quake: Dimension of the Past - PC
64. Quake: Dimension of the Machine - PC
65. Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown - Switch
66. Anopek - PC
67. Baten Kaitos - Gamecube
68. No More Heroes 3 - Switch
69. Eye of the Beholder II - PC
70. Eye of the Beholder III - PC
Unlike the first two games, EotB III was not done by Westwood; instead SSI created it because they had a fallout with Westwood (who would go on to make Lands of Lore). It released a couple years after the second game and as a result had a few notable upgrades to the engine. It is generally considered to be a major disappointment compared to the first two and I think that's a bit unfair. While it has the problem that all high level D&D games has with progression the actual gameplay experience shows the overall improvement you would expect after two years.
The plot is that you've been hired to take out a lich in the ruined city of Myth Drannor. Killing him is the halfway point, but I won't spoil what comes after that. The salient point is that this game takes the "what if this was a real place" level design of the second game and goes even bigger. The first few maps are travelling through a forest to your destination, and there are two outdoor areas in Myth Drannor that lead to the two primary dungeons. The two dungeons are each four levels as you progress through a mage's guild and a temple. As a result you get pretty varied map styles. There's even a two level optional dungeon at the start, though the rewards aren't worth it unless you create a new party (and even then it's debatable; it's the one area with level drain monsters, though you get a cure at the end).
Let's talk engine upgrades. The first is a one-two punch on combat. Characters wielding polearms can strike from the second row, and there is now an "all attack" button where you can have every selected character attack with all their weapons at once. This means a full six person party finally becomes worthwhile; you can have two fighters in the mid tier with halberds and your primary fighters up front with short range weaponry. While you could use missile weapons in previous games managing ammo was a godawful pain (which gets fixed in Grimrock with autopickup of ammo) and going with four casters was mostly an experience drain due to how clumsy spellcasting is and the low spells per rest limit.
The other change you'll notice is they've taken a slightly different track with how doors work, and if you aren't aware of it it'll throw you. The first two games had doors come in three varieties: doors with a button on the frame, doors that were opened by something external (button, keyhole, trigger), and doors that you forced open. This game merges the first and third into "doors that can just be opened". The door animations are also more varied, as part of a general graphical upgrade.
In terms of level layouts and puzzles the game is a bit more straightforward than the second game and continues that general trend of "what if we made something a DM would come up with". Gone are the reflex puzzles of disappearing trap doors; there's a handful of trapped corridors you need to rush down but that's as simple as mashing forward a few times. There is one dickish segment in the mid game; an entire underwater level that has a required to pass through anti-magic zone of a decent size and mazelike quality. Since you drown every step you take (but weirdly not every action, so you can stand and swing weapons all day) this section is an exercise in making sure you have spells in reserve on your healer and mage, make it through, then heal up and recast water breathing. There are a couple of helmets of water breathing but not enough for a party, so you'll want to slap it on the healer for that segment.
While I can agree with the notion that EotB III is the weakest entry, I'd say that's mostly from the fact that you essentially never level (even though the game lets you theoretically get high enough to cast level 9 spells; I ended with level 6 spells). The engine plays better and the dungeon exploration has the least amount of "fuck you" nonsense. I think it would have been nice to see this design philosophy with a start from level 1 campaign. I think overall the game is unfairly maligned and is worth playing if you've played the other two.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.