Games Beaten 2017

HLTB · Post by **Xeogred** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:04 am

Man are you sure? I can't recall a single track from Castlevania Rebirth in my head... when the music leaves a huge mark on me in the other games.

Maybe the sound effects or something else was distracting, in fact... weren't the sound effects super loud? I'll have to listen to the OST on its own.

Dat Mushi OST owns. Love level 4:

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:11 am

Games Beaten in 2017 So Far - 78
* denotes a replay

January (10 Games Beaten)

February (12 Games Beaten)

March (6 Games Beaten)

April (9 Games Beaten)

May (14 Games Beaten)

June (10 Games Beaten)

July (17 Game Beaten)

79. Heavy Fire: Special Operations - Wii - July 31

The low resolution WiiWare icon I used above is incredibly fitting for this game. There's a lot of shovelware on the Wii in general, and there's a LOT of shovelware on the WiiWare service, but Heavy Fire: Special Operation is an especially heinous type of shovelware; it's the kind of shovelware that looks and sounds like it could be moderately entertaining and then fills you with severe buyer's remorse. It's only 500 Wii points, but that's about 500 too many.

Special Operations is the first title in the bafflingly existent Heavy Fire Series, beginning as a WiiWare exclusive in 2010 before getting ported to the 3DS eShop in 2012. The game is a rail shooter that's kind of in the style of arcade shooters but without any of the fun. You start off with a semi automatic pistol and "rank up" based on how many points you score in each level, and each rank gets you a new weapon. The problem is that except for the move from semi auto to auto after the pistol, they're all pretty much identical. Each level has a bigger magazine, and some of the higher level weapons let you reload by pressing A instead of shaking the Wiimote, but that's it. Every weapon kills in one hit. Every weapon has roughly the same fire rate. It's a mess. You die after being shot three times, and while there are checkpoints, you've got a limited number of continues. While that, in general, isn't a problem, it seems totally arbitrary who's going to hit you and who isn't. Sometimes a guy will be on screen for a full 30 seconds before I get around to killing him without shooting me once; other times, a guy will hit me after three seconds of being on screen. They also throw an entire army at you. The game takes place in Somalia, and I think I killed the actual population of Mogadishu during my one playthrough. It gets silly and ridiculous fast.

Just about the only thing that this game has going for it is that performance stays pretty consistent, but given that the game looks like it could run on the Gamecube, that's not really saying much. I know the Wii isn't an HD system, but this game just looks terrible. Not quite as bad as Farcry Vengeance, granted, but it's not a whole lot better. The sound effects, as well, are truly abysmal. All of the guns sound the same - completely artificial and without any "oomph" whatsoever. Some games have gun sound effects that at least sound halfway like they're supposed to, but that's not the case here. Not in the slightest. The gun sounds are also almost completely treble. I turned off my subwoofer and heard almost no difference. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't high caliber guns supposed to have SOME kind of bass or "oomph" to them?

Heavy Arms: Special Operations is a WiiWare rail shooter in as much as Mehmet Oz is a doctor - yeah, technically, but it's literally the last place you should look if that's what you need. The visuals are atrocious, the sound design if horrid, and gameplay is as shallow as rich white boy in a college fraternity. Even at $5, this game is a complete waste of money, and that's coming from a guy who LOVES rail shooters. Not even 2 player cooperative multiplayer can redeem this wretched excuse for a game.

tl;dr - you'd have more fun drinking a bleach cocktail.

Post by **Sarge** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 12:53 pm

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:
58) Contra: The Alien Wars (GB) (3.5) (8/1) (~30 minutes)
59) Super Smash Bros. (N64) (8.0) (8/6) (~20 minutes)

Decided to pull out the N64 for a brief period. Had to sadly put it all back up pretty quickly; I'm having to clean the house up a bit for an appraisal.

Not before I got in a quick Super Smash Bros. round, though!

True story: I actually preferred the N64 game to Melee for a long time. The pace was slightly more sedate, so to me it felt like it could be a little bit more technical at times. I still wish I could use the d-pad instead, but oh well.

I generally mained Kirby in the original. It's quite sad that, despite Sakurai being at the helm, later entries have nerfed Kirby considerably. However, I decided to mix things up and use Samus this time! Specifically, my brother always mained Samus, and was always astoundingly good using her. He had the timing down on when to unload that charge shot, and he was spectacular at keeping you from recovering to the edge. Granted, neither of us were tournament level, but he generally was better than I was at the game.

Imagine my surprise, though, that I managed to hit the high score with Samus on our cart. This was solely because I was playing on Normal, and somehow managed to squeak through the game without losing a stock. And boy oh boy, is that upward flamethrower move effective on Master Hand. Talk about hitting the weak point for massive damage.

Anyway, SSB holds up remarkably well. The improvements in visual fidelity over the years obviously help things out, but the core here is in place and surprisingly strong, even after all these years.

Post by **Markies** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:06 pm

1. Phantasy Star II (GEN)
2. Guitar Hero (PS2)
3. Adventures of Lolo (NES)
4. Animal Crossing (GCN)
5. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse (NES)
6. Beyond The Beyond (PS1)
7. R.B.I. Baseball (NES)
8. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (PS1)
9. GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (GCN)
10. Project Gotham Racing (XBOX)
11. Ristar (GEN)
12. Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)
13. Crash Bandicoot (PS1)
14. Pikmin (GCN)
15. Syberia (XBOX)
16. Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht (PS2)
17. Tetris Plus (PS1)
18. Metropolis Street Racer (DC)
19. Darkwing Duck (NES)
20. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (PS2)
21. Ico (PS2)
22. Final Fantasy V (SNES)
23. Mega Man X (SNES)
24. Beyond Good & Evil (XBOX)
25. Beetle Adventure Racing! (N64)

I beat Beetle Adventure Racing! on the Nintendo 64 this afternoon!

I am not exactly a gear head. I cannot get under my hood and fix anything. However, I do enjoy cars for their looks. I like specific cars and have an interested in older cars.

With that in mind, I am not a big fan of Volkswagon or their Beetle car. But, I had heard this game was really amazing and so I did my best to my preconceived notions aside and buy the game as it was incredibly cheap.

Beetle Adventure Racing is one of the better racing games released on the N64. I wouldn't say it is Mario Kart 64 or Cruisn World good, but I would say it is up there. The game plays wonderfully with sharp turns and a good sense of speed. Each track is completely different and unique with laps taking over three minutes to complete. With some catchy songs as well and a good amount of draw distance for the N64, this is a surprisingly well put together game.

Apparently, the multiplayer 'Beetle Battle' mode is the best part, but I never got to experience it. If you can put aside the fact that you are racing Beetles and enjoy a good racing game, Beetle Adventure Racing comes highly recommended and one of the best racing games on the N64!

Post by **Forlorn Drifter** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 6:56 pm

Pikmin

My first time actually finishing the game, and I'm still very impressed with the game itself. I did find the "final boss" underwhelming and pretty boring to fight (get him to eat bomb, attack with reds, retreat & repeat), but managing to get all 30 parts my first run was nice.

There was also the flying enemy that snatches pikmin and plants them in the ground, which was a purely annoying enemy to deal with. My coordination isn't good enough to hit it right off the bat, so I end up with singular pikmin and planted pikmin all over the dang place.

Despite my complaints, an easy 8/10 for me, though that might be downgraded when I get pikmin 2. We shall see.

Post by **pierrot** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 12:00 am

Xeogred wrote:Dat Mushi OST owns. Love level 4:

The Mushi OSTs are great, but I kind of prefer Manabu on his own. Battle Garegga, Ketsui, and DDP: DOJ being prime examples.

Post by **Flake** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 8:40 am

Forlorn Drifter wrote:Pikmin

My first time actually finishing the game, and I'm still very impressed with the game itself. I did find the "final boss" underwhelming and pretty boring to fight (get him to eat bomb, attack with reds, retreat & repeat), but managing to get all 30 parts my first run was nice.

Pikmin is hard for me. Hearing the Pikmin cry out for a PikGod that doesn't exist when I accidentally drown half of them still terrifies me.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 11:23 am

Games Beaten in 2017 So Far - 80
* denotes a replay

January (10 Games Beaten)

February (12 Games Beaten)

March (6 Games Beaten)

April (9 Games Beaten)

May (14 Games Beaten)

June (10 Games Beaten)

July (18 Games Beaten)

80. Heavy Fire: Black Arms - Wii - July 31

Teyon's at it again with a sub-par WiiWare rail shooter with Heavy Fire: Black Arms, this time set in South America instead of east Africa. Fortunately, Teyon learned something, releasing a game that improves over its predecessor in a number of ways; unfortunately, that bar wasn't set very high, and Teyon only moves it up a little bit with Black Arms. It's like moving from getting 100 lashes to getting 90 lashes - yeah, it's better, but it still sucks.

The first improvement that Black Arms makes over Special Operations is with visuals. It still doesn't look amazing for the Wii, but the textures do seem to have had a little more care put into them this go around. The environments still aren't amazing or anything, but they're a definite improvement over the Gamecube-esque visuals in Special Operations. The enemies are also much better designed this time. They still have the accuracy of Imperial stormtroopers, the model detail of a mannequin, and the intelligence of the current president of the United States, but there are a reasonable amount of them in pretty appropriate placements rather than a million and a half of them literally everywhere. It makes for a much more durable suspension of disbelief. The sound design is also better, although it's still pretty terrible. There's still absolutely no "oomph" to the weapons' firing sound effects, but at least I could tell a difference when I turned off my subwoofer. Now it just sounds like a flute instead of a piccolo. All in all, the game makes a decent first impression, especially if you have Special Operations as a craptastic point of reference. Unfortunately, you quickly see that the first impression is about as good as it gets, and the honeymoon period ends about halfway through the first stage.

Despite these improvements, however, Black Arms is still with Special Operations as a bottom tier rail shooter. Granted, it's at the top of this bottom tier now instead of instead of the bottom of the bottom tier, but it's still not a good game, and while it's definitely worth one penny more, $5 might be a fair price for this one. Other than the improvements I mentioned above, it's basically the same as the original but in South America. A little more polish, a little more detail, a little more care, but minor improvements still won't fix a product of quality this low. There is, at the very least, SOME entertainment to be had here, and it might even be almost fun if you played with a friend (especially if you and that friend are drunk), so as I do with my students, I have to give the game some credit for at least improving over the series' past performance.

Post by **ElkinFencer10** » Wed Aug 09, 2017 8:38 am

Games Beaten in 2017 So Far - 81
* denotes a replay

January (10 Games Beaten)

February (12 Games Beaten)

March (6 Games Beaten)

April (9 Games Beaten)

May (14 Games Beaten)

June (10 Games Beaten)

July (20 Games Beaten)

81. Panzer Dragoon II Zwei - Saturn - July 31*

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei is everything a sequel should be...except rationally named. I mean, the title literally means "Panzer Dragoon Two Two." They should have picked "II" or "Zwei," but both is just silly, so I'm going to stick with Zwei because German makes everything better (well, except for those two world wars...). That, however, is irrelevant to the actual game which is truly fantastic. It takes (almost) everything about the original Panzer Dragoon and makes it better. Almost everything. Unfortunately my disc decided to freeze at one particular spot in level four consistently, so I had to finish my playthrough on an emulator, but at least that means I got to capture my own screenshots for this one.

In Panzer Dragoon Zwei, you play as Jean-luc Lundi, some random kid in a ridiculously superstitious village that has a strict policy of killing any mutated lizard beasts they see, believing the soft glow from the bioluminescence mutation is an omen of ill fortune. Jean-luc finds an even more unusual mutant one day, though; a specimen that not only displays bioluminescence but that also possesses wings. Unable to bring himself to kill this unique creature, Jean-luc hides it in his shed. Because being imprisoned in a small 5x5 wooden shack is definitely preferable to death or just being chased away. Anyway, he names the young wyvern Lagi and, once Lagi's wings develop, tries to teach him to fly. It's on his way back from one such flying exercise that a massive airship annihilates Jean-luc's village in an attempt to kill Lagi. At this point, Lagi goes super Saiyan or something and starts shooting lasers out of its mouth. Unfortunately these lasers don't even come close to hitting the airship, and thus beings the game with the sole objective of "Kill the airship that rekt my village."

Panzer Dragoon Zwei is a dramatic improvement over its predecessor in almost every way. The control is SIGNIFICANTLY more fluid and refined, and the visuals almost look like a different platform entirely. The game runs smoother, the textures are higher resolution, the video compression is of a much better quality, smoother animation, an almost complete lack of excessive pixilation even on detailed models, and the environments all look more detailed and immersive. Literally the only area in which I felt Zwei fell short of the original is the soundtrack. The first Panzer Dragoon's orchestral soundtrack is the stuff of legend, especially for the mid-1990s. That's not to say that Panzer Dragoon Zwei's soundtrack is garbage or anything. Zwei has a great soundtrack with some very fitting and well composed music. It just doesn't match the greatness of its predecessor's OST, and while that's a shame as it's the sole blemish on an otherwise universal improvement, those were some awfully big shoes to fill, so it's not too terribly surprising that it fell a little short.

With regards to gameplay, the game is a rail shooter that plays exactly the first one in terms of control, but there are a couple of key differences that make Zwei something different and make it apparent that Team Andromeda took player criticism of the first game into account when making the sequel. Despite my rather sarcastic synopsis of the story above, the writing and narrative were clearly given much more attention in Zwei than in the original. The cutscenes between levels offer more insight into the world and the plot unfolding, and the production values of the cutscenes are a marked improvement. Your dragon's form can also change depending on how you play. The biggest improvement to the experience, however, is the inclusion of branching paths. Depending on how you play each level, you will take different routes that while not affecting the story directly do affect your experience and the difficulty level. This one change added a lot of replayability to a game in a genre that usually lacks much at all in the way of replay value.

Panzer Dragoon II Zwei, despite having a repetitive name, is everything a sequel should be. It takes the formula of the original game and fixes control issues, improves visuals, adds in new gameplay mechanics, and fleshes out the narrative to give the player an all-around better experience than the first game could provide. It's worth noting that the music took a hit in Zwei, not even approaching the grandeur of the original game's soundtrack, but with that one exception, Zwei improves on Panzer Dragoon in every way. If the first game was worth playing, Zwei is a must have for Saturn collectors. The North American copy can be a bit pricey, going for $50 or so last I checked, but a Japanese copy can be had for $15 or $20, and while you might need to look up the story online, the actual gameplay wouldn't present any language barrier. Highly recommended.

Post by **pierrot** » Wed Aug 09, 2017 6:54 pm

I so very much love PD Zwei, for many of the improvements over the original you listed. It was impressively cinematic. It grabbed me, and forced me to become immersed in the scenario. The final boss is one of the most unforgettable experiences in video games, I feel.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Panzer Dragoon II Zwei is everything a sequel should be...except rationally named. I mean, the title literally means "Panzer Dragoon Two Two."

I thought this was interesting when I saw it, either in the Japanese manual, or in one of the Pandora's Box options' promotional videos: Whoever handled the naming for the game construed "Zwei" as 'Futari,' or something like "together"/"togetherness"--literally "two people." So, really, the "II" denotes the iteration within the series, and "Zwei" represents more of a subtitle. Perhaps that's not really official, though. Early promotional works aren't necessarily official statements, but that appears to be the initial reasoning for the name.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Because being imprisoned in a small 5x5 wooden shack is definitely preferable to death or just being chased away.

I understand your point, but my interpretation was that sending it out into the wilds still might be a death sentence if it encountered other people. Also, if memory serves, the town raises them as livestock, and for transportation. I might have to check on the veracity of that, but I recall it being the case.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:Literally the only area in which I felt Zwei fell short of the original is the soundtrack.

I completely disagree here. On it's own, I think Zwei's soundtrack is in the upper echelon of video game OSTs, and I think just about every track from Episode 2 Boss on supports that. Even in comparison to the original Panzer Dragoon's OST--which I enjoy immensely--I think Zwei is more fitting of the raw, and emotional visual components that it supports. I actually prefer Zwei's OST as a standalone album even, compared to the original's, though.

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