Summer Games Challenge 2025 - GET EQUIPPED

[Ack]

Hey Syndicate, I'm gonna request you try Hotel Dusk. I remember it being popular at the time of release but don't know much about it personally. I'm interested in getting your take on the game.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

Your core is just a little harder than when you started.

This is correct. Although beating Alien Soldier made the core a lot harder, the quest for a truly - and completely - hard core endures forever.

Yeah, I've been trying to become a hardcore gamer for years now, but I'm still nowhere close. At least the journey has me playing a lot of awesome games!

[Syndicate]

Hey Syndicate, I'm gonna request you try Hotel Dusk. I remember it being popular at the time of release but don't know much about it personally. I'm interested in getting your take on the game.

...sure thing Ack, I dusted off my save from '09 and have been working on getting through the game. I'm on the third chapter and think I'll get through it before the end of summer.

[prfsnl_gmr]

JET SET RADIOOOOOOOOOO!

I LOVED that game. Despite having bounced off it a few times before, this play through just clicked, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.

For those of you not familiar with the game…in it, you play as a gang of rollerblading vandals using graffiti to resist an authoritarian regime in 2000s-era Tokyo. The game uses cell-shades graphics, and the soundtrack is mostly (insanely cool) Japanese hip hop and electronica. The whole thing is just too cool, and it’s just so much fun tagging walls, grinding rails through the game’s varied levels, chasing down rival gangs, and running from the police.

I have a few complaints…the difficulty ebbed and flowed randomly; the camera is frequently pretty bad (and you don’t have much control over it because the DC controller has only one analog stick); and the momentum-based platforming was sometimes a bit too imprecise. Still, the good more than made up for that, and the game was so consistently thrilling (and cool), I was able to overlook its flaws easily.

The game also reminded me of a very different time in the video game industry. Specifically, it is from a time when big developers and publishers were more willing to experiment with new ideas and games that didn’t require violence. We still see games like this from indie developers (and, randomly, Nintendo, which just released a futuristic wheelchair basketball game), but so many big releases now involve guns and swords. It was really refreshing to play a game that didn’t require me to kill anything, and I miss the days when so much more of the industry was so much more exciting. (I’m probably just blinded by nostalgia, though…)

1. F-Zero X (N64) - inspired by @bmoc
2. Gate of Thunder (TG16 CD) - inspired by @marurun
3. Jet Grind Radio (Dreamcast) - inspired by @Racketboy
4. Perfect Dark (N64) - inspired by @Key-Glyph
5. Resident Evil: Code Veronica X (PS2) - inspired by @Key-Glyph
6. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (Dreamcast) - inspired by @alienjesus
7. Terranigma (SNES) - inspired by @SpaceBooger
8. Ys Book I & II (TG16 CD) - inspired by @pierrot
9. TBD
10. TBD

Perfect Dark, anyone?

[prfsnl_gmr]

Yeah, I've been trying to become a hardcore gamer for years now, but I'm still nowhere close. At least the journey has me playing a lot of awesome games!

Now, young one, you begin to understand…The hardcore gamer’s path is the hardcore gamer’s goal…

[pierrot]

Well, the roll-outs for the anniversary event milestones this year didn't really favor going after drops from anything that doesn't start with a 100% drop anything rate to begin with because the only one that was unlocked for quite a while was an extra boost to exp. Because of that, after spending a bit of time in blue Forest with my RAcast, I decided it might actually be better to get the remaining level 1 characters I had (mainly Forces) up to Ultimate farming levels, and blasted my red FOnewm up to cave farming level (for Lavis Cannon from red slimes). Then I got kind of into slime hunting, even though only one of the rare enemy rate milestones was unlocked, and now my FOnewm is lv 134 after putting away 11 red slimes. No Lavis Cannon yet, but I did get a 25 hit Demolition Comet off a Mil Lily, which isn't amazing, but it's a nice little toy. Also got a 20 hit Red Sword with slightly better attributes on it than the 20 hit Red Sword I already had-- Oh, wait. I guess this isn't really my thread anymore.

Fine-- I'll keep on topic.

JET SET RADIOOOOOOOOOO!

I LOVED that game. Despite having bounced off it a few times before, this play through just clicked, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.

Sweet! Did you play Cube when you unlocked her? I hope so.



I managed to work up the gumption to plug in the ol' HSS-0136 Virtua Stick and go to town on the 1p mode in Fighters Megamix over the last couple nights. I started out by setting the mode to Virtua Fighter, and went through Course A as Pai to get started, but it took me a couple continues in stage 6 and 7 to get my wits about me. I was a little disoriented on a couple levels because I remember hearing that AM2 kind of used Fighers Megamix to push out some stuff from VF3 into a home release for the Saturn, and when I had played around with versus mode for a little bit in the past I recall it being kind of an overtuned combat with practically zero start-up delay, and just a wildly frenetic rumble style. I must have constructed those memories, because it was basically just Virtua Fighter (I know the Fighting Vipers mode setting makes the juggling and knockback more like that game's, though), and while it's been a really long time since I've played any VF other than 5, I don't think Pai really had anything in her moveset that wasn't in VF2 outside of maybe the reversals. Can't remember if those were added in VF3 or not.

Anyway, I ploughed through the VF characters in Course B with Pai, and from Course A I found that fighting against FV characters as a VF character was a little more difficult, so Course C I went with Honey and mopped up the FV characters. Course D I spiced things up and mauled the girls with Kuma-tyan. That was night 1. Night 2, I came back with Pai Chan on vs the muscle in Course E for another 1cc. Bark seemed kind of tough, so I went with him on Course F, and while he absolutely sucks, I was able to 1cc that one also because his basic kick is fairly broken, and the computer rarely blocks on wakeup. This is where things got a little lopsided, because I had unlocked my mans Rent A Hero (Rent A Hero!!). A fair number of his moves are strait up Pai's, and his flying kick and jump attack on downed characters were already enough for me to easily 1cc Course G (probably the only game where I can get a perfect on Dural). A couple rounds into Course H, I figure out that Rent A Hero has a floor wave attack and is actually absurdly busted. It does pretty decent damage for this game, and hits knocked down opponents. It was so over. From that point until the end of Course I, I would start the round by knocking them down, and just constant floor waves that didn't allow them to even get back up (outside of the rare occasion where they actually ukemi, but even then, they just get knocked down by the next one).

To finish up, I took my floor wave specialist into the 3min survival mode, and cleared 15 rounds. By round 15, the computer was actually getting kind of fed up, and starting to do some stuff. It didn't matter because it still had no hope of beating me, it just slowed me down from getting to something stupid like 20 wins. I was very narrowly kept out of 16 wins.

So Fighters Megamix is interesting. I don't actually like it, because it's a shit fighting game; It's too tremendously broken. For just some dumb fun with a handful of unheralded AM2 characters squaring off against VF characters, it's an interesting curio. I love that Rent A Hero is a character in the game, because Rent A Hero is a boss ass game, but there's just not a lot of staying power with the whole package, for me.


Fighters Megamix is now out of the way, and I've collected the four idol statues in Ys Oath in Felghana. So I'm closing in on the end of that game before long, too. Oath in Felghana is a nice game. It's kind of like a combination of the things I've most enjoyed out of my Ys playing to this point: Story of Ys III (not that it's incredible, just solid), combat and graphics of Ys Origin. Plus, while it can't replace the TurboCD Soundtrack for Ys III, it still has an incredible soundtrack. This piano rendition of A Premonition =Styx= is amazing, but nothing beats the instrumentation of the TurboCD version.

The graphical style is also really appealing to me. It's just a nicely detailed, colorful 3D rendered PC sort of game that reminds me of a fair amount of Dreamcast games (eg. Skies of Arcadia) and a some other 6th gen stuff. It's nice in the higher resolutions and post processing with the steam release, also.

I was also seeing when I was playing through Origin that Falcom apparently toned down the difficulty from Oath in Felghana, and Origin Hard mode is supposed to be about the same difficulty as Felghana Normal, but I haven't found Felghana to be any more difficult, really. A number of the bosses are really heinously designed, particularly early on, but other than that it's been pretty smooth for me. I also have this memory of a bunch of people on these forums suddenly playing Oath in Felghana together (maybe a Together Retro or something), and a number of people talking about the game getting really difficult at the mountain I just finished. There is definitely a ramp up, but I remember it sounding kind of like it was hitting people like a wall, which I didn't experience.

At any rate, I like Felghana. It's good people. It also kind of really makes me want to replay the CD-ROMRom version, though.

Most of this week I've been feeling like getting back to Dragon Quest VII, but it has not been able to compete with my desire to dig up legendary rares in PSO.

[prfsnl_gmr]

JET SET RADIOOOOOOOOOO!

I LOVED that game. Despite having bounced off it a few times before, this play through just clicked, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.

Sweet! Did you play Cube when you unlocked her? I hope so.

Of course! She was probably my favorite character. Solid stats all around coupled with the ability to hold more paint cans got me through some of the last few levels.

[pierrot]

Of course! She was probably my favorite character. Solid stats all around coupled with the ability to hold more paint cans got me through some of the last few levels.

After coming to terms with the game being stupid about my party, I spent a bit of time over the weekend on Dragon Quest VII, and am able to head off to the final dungeon now. (Managed to get a Lavis Cannon drop in PSOBB around it, even.) I would kind of like to finish mastering Monster Hunter on my main character, and get him onto Hero to unlock Gigaslash, which I already have on Gabo, but he doesn't have a lot of MP to use it as much. I also want to get Melvin mastered on Spellsword to see if that unlocks Tenchi-Raimeishi. (I have no idea how this would be translated; Maybe, 'elementalist'?) I'm really curious about it, because in Dragon Quest X it's kind of like a summoner.


I'm at the top of the clock tower in Oath in Felghana now, also. The bosses in the castle suuuuuuuuuuucked, but I've got the battle armor set now which actually changes the appearance of Adol's equipment like in the original, so that's pretty neat. I'm realizing that I really don't remember what the end of the game was like, because I kind of thought I remembered the clock tower being the end of the game in the PCE-CD version, but I also remember having to go back to the mountain for stuff, and I just generally couldn't be at the end of Felghana, for a few reasons, unless there was a post-game added or something.

[pierrot]

All right, then. Last night I actually finished up both Dragon Quest VII (at least to the final boss; still some 'post-game' stuff left) and Ys: The Oath in Felghana. Bringing me to this:

Cleared
Ys Origin (PC-deck)
Ys Chronicles 1 (PC-deck)
Ys Chronicles 2 (PC-deck)
Ys: The Oath in Felghana (PC-deck)
Fighters Megamix (Saturn)
Dragon Quest VII (PS1)

Not Cleared
Ys VI (PC)
The Longest Journey (PC)
SMT: Devil Summoner (Saturn)
Vagrant Story (PS1)

I'm calling it here, since (for me) it's feeling like summer is over, and the next couple weeks I'll be pretty hardcore on PSOBB and FFXI, anyway. All in all, I feel like my progress this summer was decent. Better than most years, especially because I didn't end up doing a bunch of substitutions to fill out ten games.

I'll finish up with some final thoughts on DQVII and Felghana here:


Finishing Dragon Quest VII means I have now finished every mainline entry of Dragon Quest and every mainline entry of Final Fantasy (up through XIV) in some form--except I just found out the other day that DQX expanded their free trial plan to include Versions 3 and 4 now, so I have two new (to me) expansions to play through there.

In my expert opinion, Dragon Quest is a series where it's hard to go wrong, but you'll always be best served with III, IV, V, VIII, IX, X and the original is simply a classic. (We don't talk about XI in this household. )
For Final Fantasy, there are really only a few good choices: III, V, XI, XII, XIII. Again, the original is classic, and IX is very charming. (We don't talk about II, IV, VI, VII, VIII, X, or XIV in this household. )

Dragon Quest VII, in a few words: It was the best of games, it was the worst of games. Truly it was a tale of two games. I think it's probably the most dense Dragon Quest, even though it doesn't have even close to the same amount of post-game 'content' that Dragon Quest IX does. There's just so much story in VII, it's almost ridiculous. The amount of party chat dialogue in this game has to be obscene. It's kind of really an epic in the sense of the classics. I'm not really someone who likes epics all that much, but there is a whole lot of stuff going on underneath the surface in VII, and most of it is left up to player interpretation. I remember early on being pretty drawn in by the people on the little island at the start of the game giving a sense similar to the original Shenmue, and one of the things I think the writers did really well in VII was drawing out emotional responses from me without really telegraphing it. There are few things that I hate more than the sort of contrived scenes in a lot of video games where I feel like the writer is just going, 'Hey asshole, this is where you cry!' Dragon Quest as a series is pretty good at avoiding that (prior to XI, but the cracks were forming by X, anyway). VII's story I think really effortlessly portrays sort of the 'facts of life' throughout its runtime. The one main downside to the story for me, is that there isn't a really strongly unifying theme that arcs over all of the numerous small stories that comprise it. Also, there are just all sorts of little scenes everywhere that are easily missed. I mean, I feel like there must be hundreds, because I'm sure there a ton that I never saw.

Which brings me to one of the main issues I have with VII: This game was made, seemingly explicitly, to sell guidebooks. I reject the notion that people would have finished this game without some form of guide outside of some random dumb luck, because there are two tablet pieces that there is just no signposting for that gate progression (I also had one in a chest outside the frame inside a shop tent that I just forgot to use the thief's spell in order to notice, which held me up a little). There are a number of other hidden things (and I'm sure events) that if you really wanted to plumb the depths of the game for, you would kind of need a guide for if you don't want to just spend hundreds of hours going back and forth from tablet map to present day area, and making several hundred trips around the world in order to stumble across everything. I also feel like there must have been some optional events that happen in Mezare after getting the magic carpet, because all of a sudden at the end of the game I'm introduced to this dude, LaGray, in the crystal palace, and he shows up in the ending with all of this substory like I'm supposed to know who the hell he is. I also do not enjoy the end sequences where you're taken around the world to talk with all sorts of people, that happens in a couple of Dragon Quests. This is one of those, and it's quite annoying.

The other main issue I have with VII, which I've mentioned in previous posts, is that the gameplay mechanics and systems just aren't designed very well, which is kind of weird for Dragon Quest. Part of it stems from how the endgame level is around lv 35-40, which is pretty typical for Dragon Quests to this point, but in VII, there's just so much story, and it makes level progression through the game painfully slow. I think it's this way in order to 'balance' the fact that you can keep all the abilities you get from grinding professions, which can make for some kind of busted results, similar to Dragon Quest IX. Along with this, though, you get really very little of interest out of treasure chests and things outside of just a flood of Tiny Medals, and healthy doses of stat seeds. It makes finding treasure feel really not special, and even makes finding Tiny Medals feel droll. Ultimately the game balance ends up being very spotty, especially if you're like me and just spend periods of time grinding professions.

On the balance side of things, the final area/boss is pretty nuts. I went in with my main character on Hero (lv 38), Melvin on Hero (lv 35; mastered Sage, Paladin, Spellsword), Eila on Sailor (lv 35; mastered Battle Master and Super Star), and Gabo on Bard (lv 36; mastered Hero), which should have been fairly overtuned, but it was not easy. The final boss was up there with the Emperor in Legend of Heroes II and Cloud of Darkness in FFIII as just bonkers final bosses that had me white-knuckled, holding on for dear life to will that bastard into the grave. Absolutely absurd boss, and if Melvin hadn't known the summon ability, I probably would not have made it. I used so many Gigaslashes on it, and it would not die.

Anyway, in short, while it's still Dragon Quest (ie. music is exceptional, graphics and art style are wildly charming, and gameplay is generally still fun), there are a few things about the package that make the entire experience feel kind of painful.



I have a lot less to say about Felghana. It's good. I enjoy it. I think I might kind of like the PCE-CD version of Ys III a little better, just from my memory of it (which is admittedly very faded). It's still a pretty great package, but I think I've sort of gotten a bead on Falcom's range in this period where they tried to have a renaissance with Ys and Legend of Heroes in the absence of Kiya and Hashimoto/Miyazaki.

My main knocks on it are that while the combat system is basically the same as Origin, they obviously used what they learned in Felghana to brush some things up, because there are just some little things that weren't as good, like how most of the magic just flat sucks (all hail the one true magic, wind). Also most of the bosses' attacks and general designs are fucking abhorrent. Especially the final boss. The final boss was like they sat around in a room and went, 'Hey, how do we make the most absolutely infuriating boss of all time in an ARPG?' Although, having said that, once I actually figured out how to damage it in its first form, it wasn't all that difficult to beat.

[Note]

Just a quick update on my Summer Games Challenge. I beat Yoshi's Story last week. It's decent and I had fun with it, but overall I think it's a bit of a letdown in comparison to Yoshi's Island on the SNES. I'll eventually play through the game a few times to get through all the levels for completion. Curious about others takes on this one.

Also, I started up Crusader of Centy on Friday. Really enjoying it so far. I came across the Sonic cameo already, which was a fun scene. I was wondering when I'd come across the blue blur. I just beat the octopus boss and reached the Burn Daisy area.