Summer Game Challenge 2013 - Begin when ready!

[noiseredux]

Now you can play Final Fantasy II. It's on the same cartridge! garbage!

FTFY.

[alienjesus]

1. Bubble Bobble (SMS)
2. Pulseman (Wii VC - MD)
3. Diddy Kong Racing (N64)
4. Metroid Prime 3 (Wii)
5. Loco Roco (PSP)
6. Tomb Raider (PS1)
7. Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
8. Cybernator (SNES)
9. Earthbound (Wii U VC - SNES)
10. Shantae (3DS VC - GBC)

7 down. It's gonna be tricky describing my feelings on this one...

Tomb Raider is an odd game to play nowadays. There's a lot it obviously does right, a lot that would once have been impressive but now is awfully dated, and a lot I didn't like at all.

The controls are the first big hurdle for most, and I have to say - they really aren't THAT bad. They certainly take some getting used to, they're a bit fiddly and they can sometimes cause unwarranted deaths - but this ISNT because they're imprecise, it's exactly the opposite. They're VERY precise. Tapping forward will move you the exact same distance forward no matter how heavy the press. Obviously holding it allows you to run as far as you want, but knowing the distance you'll move when you run is important to beating the game. Tapping back with make Lara hop back EXACTLY the distance to perform a running jump off of the edge of a ledge, causing her to jump at the last possible moment and get the furthest distance. Holding R allows for smaller walking and backstepping movements, and whilst being held down, Lara will NEVER walk off the end of a ledge. The tank controls can cause issues with running off the edge on thin ledges, but you can normally take things pretty carefully - there is really anything to hurry you. The jumping can be frustrating too, as to jump in a direction you have to press jump BEFORE the direction you want to move. Whilst it takes some getting used to, this helps to stop you running off the edge when pressing forward whilst trying to perform a standing jump.

These very precise controls make the pace of the game pretty slow. Most levels don't have many enemies, and combat is normally really simple (hold shoot whilst hopping backwards away from enemies - it auto targets). Instead there are LONG stretches of levels dealing with finding keys, moving blocks, jumping platforms and avoiding the occassional trap such as instant death spikes, boulders, swinging blades and similar. The game rarely has music either, and this works for and against it - it gives the game a real feeling os isolation, with echoey sound effects and no music 99% of the time, and gives some real atmosphere when you find a cool relic and the games theme song kicks in, or when a tough enemy attacks and the battle theme kicks in (most enemies dont trigger this at all). It also avoids the music getting repetitive when looping for the entirety of the 30-60 minute long levels. On the other hand, it can become a bit boring when doing long jumping trials to the sound of silence, and it often seems lazy - even during the final escape on the last level, there is no music, and it kind of left me feeling a bit underwhelmed by the ending.

Speaking of which, the ending in general was awful. The last level was dire, and for a while really ruined any positivity I had for the game. It starts with a lengthy boss fight where the main concern is falling off the ledge due the bad camera focusing on the enemy (you can control the camera, the game was made before the PS1 had analogue controls), followed by a ludicrous number of instant death trap gauntlets with almost no save points, requiring lots of trial and error to get past. After all that, the final boss is an incredibly easy and underwhelming fight, and the final escape another boring and actually pretty easy jumping section and then it was done. The ending was a 10 second long FMV and a picture of Lara with THE END wrote by it (OMG Spoilers) and really didn't seem worth it.

I still don't know how I would rate Tomb Raider. I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, but I didn't dislike it either. It had a lot of atmosphere, but it could also be a bit dull or frustrating for the wrong reasons. It still reminds me of 2D rotoscope games like Prince of Persia or Flashback in 3D, which isn't necessarily a good thing as I hate those games. I suppose I'm glad I experienced it though.

I doubt I'll be finishing any more of these by my deadline of the end of this month, but I plan to play all 3 before the year is out (not necessarily next though) and I'll probably post my thoughts in this thread for those games too, for completeness sake. As it stands, this year has been my least favourite summer challenge so far.

My general thoughts on each game, rated best to worst:-
Earthbound - Absolutely amazing, the highlight of this years list
Diddy Kong Racing - Good fun, not as good as Mario Kart
Metroid Prime 3 - A good game, but I didn't feel much incentive to keep playing
Pulseman - Fun enough, but cheap and uneven difficulty
Bubble Bobble - An OK little arcade game, but unfairly hard and frustrating
Loco Roco - Overly easy and repetitive
Tomb Raider - Interesting historically, but not sure it was that enjoyable.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Now you can play Final Fantasy II. It's on the same cartridge! garbage!

FTFY.

Hahaha I do find the first hour or so to be frustrating, but it's not that bad overall.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Now you can play Final Fantasy II. It's on the same cartridge! garbage!

FTFY.

Hahaha I do find the first hour or so to be frustrating, but it's not that bad overall.

Once I figured out the leveling mechanics, I really liked it...I think the original, 8-bit version would be infuriating, but the GBA port is a lot of fun. (At some point, I need to go back and play through the bonus dungeon.)

Also, I have decided to drop Ecco the Dolphin from my summer gaming challenge list and replace it with Wario Land 4. Since I have played through the other games in the series as part of the challenge - and since I just do not see myself getting back into Ecco any time soon - I think its inclusion is warranted. (I also think that, in the coming years, I will use the Summer Gaming Challenge as a motivation to play through other series with which I have little to no experience.)

In any event, I have been distracted by some other games recently, but I am making progress on my list::

1. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS)
2. Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land (GB)
3. Wario Land 4 (GBA)
4. Wario Land 2 (GBC)
5. Wario Land 3 (GBC)
6. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GC)
7. Nectaris: Military Madness (PS1)
8. Return Fire (PS1 port)
9. Decathlete (SS)
10 Guardian Heroes (SS)

I am about half way through both Nectaris and Return Fire, but I have not started the Saturn games. Hopefully, I can make time for a Saturn gaming marathon next month, and power through both of them.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I think I'm actually gonna get the Famicom Final Fantasy II.... Maybe part III as well...

Anyone ever try the Ys games on Famicom?

[pierrot]

I know I've said this before, but I actually kind of prefer the original Famicom version of FF II. The updated versions look about 1500 times better, but there's something I find really charming about the FC version of FF II.

[Violent By Design]

I'm on disc 2 of Lunar: Silverstar Story Complete.

I think I'm on the last dungeon, I went to the floating castle in the air after Ghaeleon beat my ass in the prior dungeon.

The dungeon had a lot of gear in it, so I back tracked to see if I missed anything and I accidentally left the dungeon. When I came back in all the enemies had spawned, so it kinda stalled me from beating the game last night. Had to use a lot of mana items too since these guys are not easy to kill.

[alienjesus]

So although for me the summer challenge is basically over, I thought I'd post my thoughts here on one of my unfinished summer games that I just started: Metal Gear Solid.


First impressions were pretty good: I watched the briefing, did the training missions and found it to be fun enough. Then it got a bit rough when I started the actual game - I beat the first room fairly easily, but the 2nd area (outside with the helipad) caused me to die about 4 times - all of which I maintain weren't my fault. You see, the area is full of security cameras that turn back and forth as well as the usual roaming guards. Knowing from the tutorial that they have a blind spot underneath, I'd wait for them to turn away, run up to the camera and... get stopped right in front of the damn thign whilst Snake points out 'Huh, a security camera...'. The only problem is that whilst snake stops and the camera angle changes to tell and show me this, the enemies and the cameras dont - causing me to come out of the short scene right in an enemy or the cameras vision several times.


After that though, it's all been pretty smooth. I spoke to the DARPA chief, fought my first boss battle against Revolver Ocelot (and lost a couple time...) and spoke to Meryl via codec for the first time before saving. Next I'm off to find Dr. Emmerich.


Overall it's been pretty enjoyable. The controls were quick to grasp, unlike tomb raider. The graphics, whilst a bit fuzzy, havent caused too many issues like some PS1 games I've played - although there is one moment where I was meant to find a vent where I found it difficult to spot, so I used the radar instead). The story is keeping me fairly interested too, and the game has been challenging but not too difficult so far aswell. I'm looking forward to playing more.

[pierrot]

1. Aladdin (GEN)
2. Rockman (MD)
3. Rockman 2 (MD)
4. Rockman 3 (MD)
5. Dragon Quest (SFC)
6. Dragon Quest II (SFC)
7. Grandia (SS)
8. Biohazard (SS)
9. Dynamite Deka (SS)
10. Phantasy Star II (MD)


Finished.

Oh, Grandia. I will give it two things: It is grand (in scope) and it is technically impressive on the Saturn. (Aside from the frame rate, at least, which is atrocious.)

90 hours— 90 dig-dang-doggity hours it took me to finish this thing. I can fairly confidently say that I'll not be playing it again. Especially since I can load a bunch of different saves from the Digital Museum disc. I just didn't find it to be good enough. If it weren't for this summer challenge, having beaten Grandia II many years ago, and the fact that I doubt I've ever heard the original talked about in any context other than it being exceptional, I would have stopped playing after jumping over The World's End. I was very interested in where the story was going up to that point. I genuinely liked the characters (particularly Fina) and the writing seemed to actually be a cut above many other RPGs of this style. That seemed to change fairly drastically, though. The story has its moments throughout, but it started to feel like a drag, and I hate what they did with Fina's character by the latter half of the game. At the point that the game reaches the crescendo up to the climax, the story gets run over by a mack truck. I would have liked what it did when I was in middle school, but these days, I feel physically sick when a story relies on such ham-handed tropes.

It's a good game; I won't argue that point. I felt really betrayed by Fina's 'character development,' and I really hated the ending. Also, the game is babytown frolics, in terms of difficulty. I spent no time grinding in this game (though I did focus a bit on leveling skills during battle, and scoured every area for items, killing every enemy in sight along the way) and I literally killed the final boss (technically 1 1/2 times, since the game locked up on me when it was shifting from its first form to its second) without it even getting an attack off. I felt well enough equipped to deal with the final boss by the game's mid-way point, and I really may have been.

The Magician Tower was a bit difficult, in that it was excruciatingly long, anyway. It was more annoying than anything, though, as all they really did was boosted the defense on all of the enemies; gave them some spells that could instantly kill my party; and made them all give me pittance for exp and skill exp.

Also, I can count on one hand the number of times I had to use a revival potion or spell, and those deaths were almost exclusively from getting cocky and refusing to heal myself.

Anyway, whatever. Challenge completed, even though Grandia has taken a lot of the fun out of things for me right now.

[Violent By Design]

90 hours? Did you do all the side missions and go to max level or something? Grandia should only be half that length.