Ack wrote:
Here is what happened with the sword orb glitch that frazzled my nerves and shook my faith in the game:
While exploring all the different locales after getting Flammie, I managed to land on a small island off the coast of the snow and ice country, where I found Neko sitting and selling his wares. I saved my game and got up to make a cup of tea. Coming back to my game, I discovered I could not load my save. So, annoyed, I started a new game, but to no avail: the beginning was glitched, spoken dialogue came in the wrong order, frames of animation were missing, and when I was supposed to take control of the boy, the game map started rotating in an odd direction which prevented me from being able to see anything. At this point, I was becoming extremely upset thinking that my cartridge was messed up. But I decided to load someone else's save to see what happened. Voila, it worked. I looked over their characters briefly to guess where they were, but after seeing some weapons I didn't recognize, I realized they were further along than I was. So I tried a new game again, and this time it worked! I ran through to the first boss and reset right as it began, thinking that maybe my save would work. It did! Only instead of on an island with Neko, I was fighting the first boss with a full party at my current level... Apparently this is a known bug used to get an extra sword orb in the game. I managed to summon Flammie and escape as soon as I had the chance, but after that harrowing experience, I began paying a lot more attention to glitches and only saved in places I trusted, such as towns that I knew I could load from.
There are many websites with step-by-step directions on how to trigger this glitch. I've never heard of somebody discovering it by accident!
I have similar feelings about SoM. If the AI was fixed and the combat was more Zelda-like (no weapon charging + spells you actually have to aim instead of spamming) it would be one of the best games on the SNES. As it is, it's still probably in my top 10.
SpaceBooger wrote:First Game of the Year:
01/27 Mass Effect - PS3
I have owned the game for a while on the PC and played it a couple times and each time I would play it I would just get the Normandy and then my computer would die. One time the HD went out and the other involved getting a whole new PC. When Mass Effect was released on the PS3, since I already own ME2 on the PS3, I decided to play it through there.
I love RPGs and only play one or so a year because of the time and I always try to play a WRPG and the side quests drive me away. I guess I'm a fan of the older more linear 16-bit RPGs.
In Mass Effect, I don't know if it was because of the story or because of the character building, I really got into choosing my dialog, or the story that kept me interested and motivated me to complete a lot of the extra stuff. I played through all the side quests I could and it made the game that much better. I am looking forward to playing thorough the sequel even though I heard it's more FPS, a genre I dislike.
It has a lot more FPS elements to it(like a cover system), but powers still play a large role, unless you go with something that is obviously more FPS oriented like a soldier class. Sentinel is a good class for ME 2 because they are hard to kill. So even if you're not that good at FPS gameplay you can survive. Even on the highest difficulty setting sentinels are very hard to take down if you have the right character build. Also, if you just play on normal difficulty, your AI sqad mates can usually handle themselves really well even without your help in most situations. If you can have a balanced party with a good mix of powers, you can do a lot of damage without even having to use your guns or get out of cover all that much. Mass Effect 2 has a lot of damage dealing powers available to you so you can take a more rpg-ish approach to fights, particularly if you get good at combining powers together. Have a squadmate use a power to rip apart someone's shields, then you toss an incinerate power at the same guy to kill him quickly for example. Power combos are very effective, even more so in ME 3
The most jarring change from ME 1 to ME 2 is that character customization and leveling is more streamlined, or "dumbed down" depending on your point of view. The mako jeep is gone too, which made most players happy. I missed it. I seem to be one of only a handful of people who actually knew how to use that thing effectively. I think the series kind of peaks in ME 2. It has an awesome final act. ME 3 has a lot of great, memorable, and epic moments, but the story nosedives towards the end of it. It's the only entry in the trilogy to have a crappy ending. So bizarre
one important little spoiler free tip, there's a pivotal moment in the story in ME 2 after which you HAVE to activate the final mission ASAP. It's important to have all side quests done BEFORE that moment as you're on a strict time limit that the game sneakily doesn't make you aware of. So doing them after that story event will bite you in the ass. It'd be in your best interest to keep multiple saves.
Also, the loyalty of your team mates is EXTREMELY important. Keep that in mind as you play. ME 2 is a game with major consequences if you make the wrong choices
RyaNtheSlayA wrote:
Seriously. Screw you Shao Kahn I'm gonna play Animal Crossing.
1. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions PSP
2. Pokémon: Dream Radar 3DS eShop *NEW*
3. New Super Mario Bros. U Wii U *NEW*
4. Paper Mario: Sticker Star 3DS *NEW*
5. New Super Mario Bros. 2 3DS *NEW*
6. Mario Tennis Open 3DS *NEW*
So, a few of you might have noticed (or not) that I haven't posted as often as I usually do on this topic. I've been saving these games over the past week or so for an event on the backloggery called Meimiday, where one of the users celebrates their birthday by encouraging everyone to beat as many games in their backlog as possible in one day. Here's my results - one Pokémon game and a quadruple Mario extravaganza!
WARNING - MASSIVE WALL OF TEXT FOLLOWING!
Pokémon Dream Radar is honestly a bit of a rip off imo. There's nothing wrong with it as such, but it's barely a game, and seems more like an excuse to make a drawn out DLC to unlock 3 exclusive pokémon for your copy of Black 2 or White 2. The main game involves shooting dream clouds, which explode into orbs, and then collecting as many of these orbs as possible to buy upgrades and unlock the ability to catch the 3 legendary beasts. The clouds are caught in an augmented reality style game, but honestly it feels kinda pointless, because all the 'reality' part does is serve as a background to shooting the clouds - there's no interaction. The clouds also respawn in real time, meaning you'll have to play it a few times a day to maximise your orb gathering. Overall, it's a little dull, but the true reason to get this game comes in the form of the 3 exclusive legends, plus the ability to catch additional copies of the cover legendaries of Gen IV if you have the cartridge, and a few dream world ability pokemon and items for your main game too. Decently priced DLC I guess, but a pretty boring 'game'.
New Super Mario Bros. U is Mario. Now, I could probably leave my description at that, but I should maybe expand a little more. Although the game is yet more of the same, it has to be said that this game is a pretty damn good edition in the series. The level design is well though out and fluid, the physics and controls feel perfect and the challenge mode that was added adds a whole ton of new replay value, and is really challenging to boot. Of course, there are flaws too - the music and graphics could really do with an upgrade, and the Wii U's HD isn't really shown off very well here, although the odd lighting effect, background or texture hints at the extra power underneath the hood. The Miiverse integration, whilst not adding a whole lot, is charming and I found myself often stopping between levels to read peoples thoughts. Some levels have a few cool gimmicks here and there make them stand out, but to be honest I think 2D mario is overdue for something refreshing and new. Either way, I recommend this game whole-heartedly - even someone like me, who's not the biggest 2D mario fan, managed to find a lot to love.
Paper Mario: Sticker Star for 3DS is an interesting entry in the franchise. Whilst mostly returning to the classic formula that made the original and it's gamecube sequel so fun, this does mix things up in little ways to make something new. Unfortunately, whilst these ways are interesting, to me they make this a lesser game. First of all, the game is split into levels instead of a continuous world, which whilst possibly better suited to handheld play often means the levels are more action orientated and contain a lot less hilarious dialogue than the previous games. Some puzzles require you to find real world objects called 'things' to progress - fill a pond with a tap thing, melt an ice flow with an oven thing - you get the gist. Mostly these are just annoying, making you backtrack to pick up the item which you've probably already used several levels prior. The biggest changes come in the games battles - whilst being turn based again, mario is alone in this game (no partners here) and uses stickers to fight (which are used up after using them to attack). Because of this, there are no badges anymore, nor any FP to limit your more pwoerful attacks. And therein is the source of the main issue of the game for me - without these stats, the only stat previous paper mario games had was HP. Rather than make levelling up only effect HP, the developers did away with levelling altogether, and made HP increases available through sidequests and hidden items. This makes battling utterly pointless - the only reward for battling is coins, the only use for coins is for extra turns in battle or to buy stickers, and stickers are used....for battling. It's a redundant cycle with no real benefit - if you never battle, you'll not miss out, because the rewards for battling are only used in battles. Whilst this is a big problem though, the game is as charming as ever, the battle system is fun enough to keep you fighting for at least a little while after you realise how pointless it is, and the aesthetics and music are great. They really went all out with the 'paper' theme this time, with tons of references to it and acknowledgement from the characters that they live in a paper and cardboard world aswell. Overall a worthwhile pick up, but a flawed one.
New Super Mario Bros. 2 was the other NSMB game out last year, and again, it's more of the same. However, there are a few differences between this and NSMB U that make me enjoy this game more. The first is the obvious coin gimmick - yes, it's utterly pointless, and yes, it makes you get a ridiculously stupid amount of extra lives (I finished with 321 altogether) but for some reason it's incredibly addictive, and the extra lives thing doesn't matter when any other New Super Mario game gives you 1ups every 10 seconds anyway (I had 99 lives by world 3 in U, and that's the cap). There are some minor gameplay differences that make them feel unique to each other too - no spin jump in 2 means you have to have more accuracy with your jumps, but on the other hand you can keep an item in reserve in this one, unlike U, to power yourself back up in a pinch. The powerups in 2 are all classic mario 3 fare for the most part - raccoon leaf, fire flower, mega mushroom, but they also throw in the gold flower which expires at the end of the level it's used on, and turns you into an unstoppable coin collecting machine, whilst U offers a bigger variety of more modern pwer ups. There are a few other subtle differences too, such as U's tendency to have secrets inside invisible paths whilst 2 likes to hide secret vines and pipes around the place, but it's just drawing it out really. Both games are pretty good, but I preferred 2 slightly.
Finally, Mario Tennis Open is a neat tennis game by Camelot. It honestly has very little to do with mario besides the obvious characters and locales and a couple of references in the mini games - it's just a fun arcade tennis game with some Nintendo window dressing. If you've played Mario Golf or Mario Tennis on the N64, you'll get the idea - this is far more like them than the slightly crazier, Mario Kart-ified games on the Gamecube. The game is pretty simple, but offers a nice range of shots and characters and a simple control scheme that might still take a while to remember - A is a fat straight shot, B is a spinning slice, Y delivers a very fast flat but with less control over direction. Finall A followed by B delivers a high, long distance lob to the back of the court, with B followed by A delivers a slow drop shot to the front. X will use the best shot for the situation, but with less power. Rings will often appear in the balls flight path, and using the matchign shot for the colour of the ring gives you a more powerful version of the shot. Against the computer you can win by just keeping up a rally until a Flat shot ring appears for a easy point, but against human players there can be some strategy in using the rings to feint a different type of shot. The characters have different stats to take into account - Mario is an allrounder, Peach is accurate but weak, Yoshi is fast but inaccurate, Boo hits curvy shots but has bad defence, Waluigi has good defence but is pretty average otherwise and Wario hits hard but cant move around very fast. It's all nicely balanced and works well. That's everything there is to say about the game pretty much - it's sadly a bit sparse. There are a few decent mini games where you can unlock some secret characters, and a ton of unlockable equipment for your mii, but it's all unlocked by just playing tournament over and over. It's fun, but not worth full price.
So, that's the end of that massive wall of text. Next up on my list to beat is a further selection of Nintendo portable games - Pokémon White 2 and Kirby Mass Attack for DS, Hana Samurai and The Denpa Men from the 3DS e-Shop and Wario Land 3 on GBC.
This is why I normally post every 2 or 3 games. My rambling, typo-filled paragraphs of thoughts look less intimidating then. Unfortunately, I actually beat all 5 of these today, so it all went up at once
BoneSnapDeez wrote:I have similar feelings about SoM. If the AI was fixed and the combat was more Zelda-like (no weapon charging + spells you actually have to aim instead of spamming) it would be one of the best games on the SNES. As it is, it's still probably in my top 10.
When I was a nerdy teenager - instead of just a nerd - I actually played all the way through this game with a multi-tap and two of my nerdy friends. It was great (and as a result, I probably hold the game in higher esteem than it actually deserves)!
Cosmic Fantasy 2 - Turbo CD (played on a Japanese PC Engine Duo)
Hard to express exactly how I feel about this one.
I liked it overall, but there's definitely some glaring flaws.
First, the good. The game is very, very charming. The anime character designs are adorable. The English dialogue is fantastic and the cutscenes are top-notch (this was localized by Working Designs, after all). The characters were fun and quirky enough to keep me playing - I was much more interested in seeing my individual party members interact than I was in the generic "save the world" plot. There was something "addictive" about this one, I kept coming back for more and finished the whole thing in just a few settings.
Now even though I liked the game, I have to admit there's a lot wrong with it. And these will be deal breakers for some folks.
First off, although the character portraits and cutscenes are gorgeous, the overworld, dungeon, and village designs are drab. Lots of muted greys, browns, and greens. The music is decent, but the game only contains about 8 songs total. I was disappointed to see that the regular boss music was used for the final boss.
Now let's talk about difficulty. No balancing whatsoever! Typically, the average 16-bit RPG begins with a single character battling 1-2 easy monsters at a time - and as you progress and gain more party members you'll fight larger groups of harder monsters. Not this one. Here you fight the same groups of enemies right at the game's beginning as you do once you have 2/3/4 party members hours later. You'll get absolutely slaughtered early on (healing constantly, and losing 1/3-1/2 of your hit points every battle), and you'll be a god once you have the maximum number of members in your party. In summation, the game's difficulty is completely dependent on how many characters are in your party! Oh, and party members constantly shuffle in and out - it's completely unpredictable and somewhat annoying if you spend hours leveling up and buying equipment for a character that just ends up dumping you.
This brings us to the battles. They're in the traditional turn-based Dragon Quest style. You see static enemies on the screen, you don't see your characters. You'll have the traditional options of fight, magic, item, defend, and run. The encounter rate is very high. Offensive magic is mostly useless, though it is helpful in a few of the final boss battles. And here I'll mention one of the game's odd quirks - every single enemy in the game (including every single boss, even the final boss) does nothing but physically attack you. That's it. Enemies don't heal, don't use magic, don't use items, don't run, don't cause status effects, nothing. What's hilarious is that there are (quite expensive) accessories that protect you from certain elemental spells as well as the traditional "heal poison" type antidotes. And they're all completely useless! I really wonder if this game was rushed to production.
Lastly, shopping is a bit of a pain. You can only purchase one item at a time and there's no indication whether or not a weapon/armor will improve your attack/defense until you've purchased it and equipped it. I wasted a lot of dough buying weapons and armor that ended up lowering my attack and defense - I had to turn around and sell them back for half-price.
The overworld, town, and dungeon designs aren't bad. The dungeons aren't terribly long and they're pretty easy to navigate. The game itself is rather linear. You may want a walkthrough for certain tough parts, but it certainly isn't mandatory.
I guess I sound a bit nitpicky, but I did ultimately enjoy playing the game. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't recommend it. If you really want to check out a little-know Working Designs title, give it a try - but those who are simply looking for an obscure 16-bit CD RPG are better off playing Lunar 1 & 2 or Ys Book I & II.
1. Thomas Was Alone - PC
2. Sam & Max Save the World - The whole season - PC, GOG versions
3. Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space - The whole season - PC, GOG versions
4. Sam & Max The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 1 - PC, GOG version
5. Sam & Max The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 2 - PC, GOG version
6. Sam & Max The Devil's Playhouse - Episode 3 - PC, GOG version
7. The Walking Dead Episode 1 - PC
8. The Walking Dead Episode 2 - PC
The Walking Dead Episode 3 - PC
Wow, this is a turning point right here. I thought the story was okay in the first two episodes, but it gets really, really good in episode 3. There's a lot more emotion in this chapter, and it starts to feel like a more mature story rather than one just built around cheap shocks,zombie scares, and all too familiar zombie genre tropes.
I feel like so much happened in this chapter too, more than the last two. The story gets a big thumbs up from me with this episode. In one chapter, Walking Dead went from okay to stellar. I still have issues with the gameplay though. I had two deaths that felt kind of cheap to me. One involved me getting killed by a zombie that I was only given a split second to aim and shoot at. Another involved me dying because the game reversed the movement controls on me without warning. There are a lot of cheap, you will die the first time moments in this series. Once you die once though it's unlikely to happen again in most cases as you know what to expect, but those first time deaths are still annoying. You can just hear the game designers laughing at you and saying, "Gotcha!"
Now moving on to spoilers:
GODDAMN YOU LILLY! You murdered Lee's girlfriend. I left that bitch on the side of the road. Hope she becomes zombie chow. Carlie was the ONLY appealing female character and now she's dead. I almost wanted to stop playing right there, but everything that comes after in the story is so strong it kept my interest. Plus, I still need to see what happens to Clementine, the only other character I really cared about besides Carlie
RyaNtheSlayA wrote:
Seriously. Screw you Shao Kahn I'm gonna play Animal Crossing.
1. Mega Man (NES)
2. Kirby's Adventure (NES)
3. Toejam & Earl (GEN)
4. Mortal Kombat (SCD)
5. Rockband (Hard) (360)
6. Mega Man 2 (NES)
7. Metal Storm (NES)
8. Little Samson (NES)
9. Castlevania (NES) 10. Super Mario Bros (NES)
Super Mario Bros: I'm sure most of you have never heard of this game, so I'll go over it a bit. The gameplay mechanics are simple. There is a run button, and a jump button, and you move to the right, jumping on anything you see. The story is where this game shines though. You start the game with no explanation, just a man standing around in the middle of nowhere. So, you start to explore, and find money laying around! Its satisfying enough just walking around getting rich, but you eventually learn that with enough money, you can buy the ability to arise from the dead! You get one revival per 100 coins paid; I am assuming to god, since no one else is around.
So, of course, you decide to pursue immortality. With enough money, you could live forever! You'll break whatever structures you need to, and kill any creature in your way if it means getting even one coin. After deciding to explore some sewers, you come across a castle. Now this place looks like it'll be full of coin, so you break in. Unfortunately, the owner must be down on their luck, as there are ten times as many coins in the sewer than there are in this castle. Still, you take him for every coin he has. He tries to defend himself, but is quickly dropped into a pit of lava. You unintentionally save some poor kid with a mushroom hat, and he tells you that there is a princess in another castle. Perfect! A princess would have plenty of money, and saving her will mean certain immortality. Thus begins your journey, full of theft, drug abuse, and murder, to pillage every castle in attempt to find and ransom this unknown princess.
