Games Beaten 2014

[Violent By Design]

9. Kirby's Dreamland - GB (6/10)

So after beating To The Moon I decided to pop in something short. I've only played Kirby Superstar somewhat extensively, and didn't think too highly of the Kirby games.

Kirby's Dreamland should only be judged relative to the other Gameboy titles that came out around that time - the series changed so very much after the original that it is plainly unfair to hold it to the same standard.

Some stand-out titles in the Kirby series that you definitely want to visit: Kirby Dreamland II, Kirby's Adventure, and Kirby's Return to Dreamland.

Erm...why is it unfair to judge a game relative to other games? Also, I'm confused to why that part in my post was referenced in particular.

[Flake]

Oh, that was just in response to your critique in light of your plan to hit up more of the Kirby series. The first Kirby game lacks almost all of the staples that made the franchise what it is - and sometimes I think people come away with a bad impression of it.

[Violent By Design]

Oh, that was just in response to your critique in light of your plan to hit up more of the Kirby series. The first Kirby game lacks almost all of the staples that made the franchise what it is - and sometimes I think people come away with a bad impression of it.

I didn't think it was any worse than Kirby Superstar to be honest regardless of its lack of bells and whistles.

[Sload Soap]

Years later I finally got a North American copy. And guess what..... I've......

........

.........

wait for it.........

....... never played it.

I'm pretty sure this counts as a war crime.



More rail shooters!

Child of Eden(360)

This game had been sitting of my shelf unbeaten for far too long. I think I was initially put off by the realisation the game expects you to replay levels to acquire stars to unlock more levels. It's a bit of a lame way of forcing longevity, but whatever, you don't play games like these for their duration or storytelling. You play them to experience something like digital synaesthesia.

Child of Eden is directed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi who as a former Sega alumnus worked on Sega Rally and Rez, of which Child of Eden most closely resembles. That means trippy wire frame environments with low texture models, electronic music beats and super tight rail-shooter gameplay.

Of the two former aspects, Child of Eden delivers with aplomb: this is easily one of the most visually striking games of its generation. Rez tended to have a rather muted palette but Child bursts with colour. Equally the music fits the lighter tone of this game being more euphoria than electro but still excellent.

The player controls an aiming reticle here as apposed to the dinky spaceman from Rez. I guess this is to grant a greater sense of immersion for the Kinect enabled players, but I was using a controller which can kind of feel like you're playing a light-gun game without the light-gun. It still plays very well though (better without Kinect from what I hear) and you get a nice amount of feedback.

The main gameplay enhancement over Rez is the addition of a faster firing but weaker shot used for shooting down incoming fire, and certain colour coded enemies, as you can no longer lock onto missiles and whatnot. It's a great system but isn't really put to much use until later in the game which is a shame.

It's a short game and an easy one, but I feel that shouldn't count as a knock against it. This isn't Panzer Dragoon, Child of Eden wants everybody to experience it from casual gamers to the most hardcore. It's a trip and a beautiful one at that. Credit to Ubisoft for putting this out as well.

Rez(DC)

As an easter treat I hooked the Dreamcast up to the widescreen, set the sound system to bass and did my yearly play through of Rez. It's my midnight mass.

Rez stands alongside Wind Waker in a short line of sixth generation titles that do not age. They looked amazing on release and they will look amazing when I am a weary old man telepathically playing Final Fantasy 30 on my Playstation 10. It still sounds great as well, every gateway breached adding another layer until the OST throbs from your sound system. A bit like Wipeout 3, it's one of those games I find myself instinctively nodding along to.

Like Child of Eden there are five levels each distinguished by a theme. As I mentioned before, Rez leans more heavily on the wire-frame graphics than Child, I think because it is trying to better portray the abstract idea of travelling through information. You get an avatar who evolves as you gain power ups. It's pretty cool to see the transformation and gives further incentive to not take damage.

The game is much harsher than its follow up/prequel. It takes eight blue capsules for a single evolution, yet one hit will send you back to a previous form. It suffers from the problem the Panzer Dragoon games did insofar as you're most likely to be hit from something just on the periphery of your vision. And since you have to lock on to destroy oncoming fire...yeah can be annoying.

I still feel though that if you stripped it of its graphics and sound design you'd still have a very good rail-shooter. That all three of those aspects combine so well is what pushes this so high in my estimation.

[alienjesus]

1. Kirby's Epic Yarn Wii
2. To The Moon Christmas Special PC
3. Super Mario 3D World Wii U
4. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD Wii U
5. Chiki Chiki Boys Mega Drive
6. World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Mega Drive
7. Metal Gear PSVita
8. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake PSVita
9. Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy 3DS
10. Akai Katana 360
11. Metal Gear Solid GBC
12. Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer of Arland PSN
13. Tearaway PSN
14. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA ƒ PSN *NEW*
15. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd PSP *NEW*
16. Final Fantasy VII PS1 *NEW*

Be prepared guys, this is gonna be a long one I reckon...

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA ƒ

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA f is a game I'd been looking to try when I picked up my Vita. I didn't realise at the time that it was Japan exclusive and had only come out on PS3 in the west, so I just shrugged it off and figured I;d get to it later.

When it came out on PSN, I was a little uncertain. It seemed a little pricy for a digital only release, and even then there were 6 songs you had to pay extra for as DLC. I tried out the demo though, and I was immediately gripped. The three songs in the demo were crazy addictive to play and catchy to listen to. They were also generally rock-y and not all electronic style, which was another concern I had - surely digital singers couldn't work in other genres? Needless to say I was wrong about that - the soundtrack in this game is excellent, covers a mix of stuff, and in a few songs it was pretty hard to even tell it wasn't a real person singing.

The games presentation is stunning in my opinion too. Everything has a really clean look, and the videos that play behind the note charts are interesting and eye-catching - sometimes a little too eye-catching, as I can sometimes get too caught up watching them and miss the enxt note.

There is another mode outside of the main rhythm game where you give the Vocaloids give and rub their head. It's a bit odd, like a virtual pet, only human. I'm not a fan - it's boring and feels forced for the sake of something else.

It's a good thing the main game is so damn good then. The note charts are perfect. I'm glad I waited so long to update this thread for this game (I beat it in the middle of March) because since then I've put in a TON of time to this game, and can breeze most songs on the highest difficulty. The notes never feel out of place, totally unfair in difficulty or deliberately mean in their timing. The difficulty step up between Normal, Hard and Extreme is perfectly judged - each is a big enough step up from the former without feeling like it's too much to aspire to.

I absolutely adored my time with this game, and I'm still playing it all the time now. It's an easy contender for Game Of The Year for me. However, with both the sequel and Smash Bros coming out this year, we'll see if it holds the top spot.

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd

I enjoyed my time with Project DIVA ƒ so much in fact, that I rushed out to buy one of the older games in the series too.

This one was a lot of fun too, but it definitely feels like a step back. The removal of DIVA ƒ's chance time and technical zone elements where you would recieve a rank reward for hitting a specific section of notes perfectly or hitting the majority of notes in a long complex section is more fair, certainly, but it's also a lot more interesting. Whilst the touch screen notes on the VITA game aren't perfect and feel a little rough, they also split up the songs in a more interesting way than just hitting the buttons the whole way through.

The main issue I had though was the setlist. There were 49 songs here to DIVA ƒ's 38 (including DLC), but they're just not as good. A lot of them are shorter too. There are a few stand outs which are either fun to listen to or fiun to play (Po Pi Po <3) but overall there's a lot more filler here.

The exciting and colourful videos of DIVA ƒ aren't present either - most just feature Hatsune Miku or other vocaloids dancing in a single room. It's not as interesting, but it's not the biggest loss I guess, it doesn't detract from the fun gameplay. Whether it's a lack of ambition, a lack of power in the PSP or a lack of time or budget for the game though, it feels less polished because of it.

Lastly, the sound quality here is worse. Not sure what's at fault here - is it the earlier vocaloid software not sounding as good? Is it the PSPs awful speakers (it sounds better through headphones, but it's still not as good as the Vita game)? Is it that the songs are overly compressed to fit on the UMD? I'm not sure, but it's a noticeable dip going backwards in the series.

It sounds like I'm being very negativer towards the game, but it's more of a reflection of how good it's successor is, rather than how bad this one is. All the core things that make the VITA game fun are here, it's just lacking some of the polish, challenge and refinement that made that game so damn good. Definitely worth picking up, and I'll probably thry the other 2 PSP games in the series too.

Final Fantasy VII

This one has been a long time coming. I started it WAAAAAAAYYYY back in September, and after forcing myself through the stupidly long and slow paced intro in Midgar, I progress onwards. Over the course of 3 months, I only managed to convince myself to put about 1 hours into the game. Everything I experience with it seemed so unpolished, overly drawn out and frankly, just not very good compared to both the earlier and later games in the series.

Recently I returned to the game after a 3-4 month hiatus. It turns out I'd quite just before the game picked up speed. A lot of the problems are still there - the translation is lacking, the characters are overly simplified, likely due to said translation, the battle mechanics are too simple and the game is too easy. That said, I found myself getting drawn in and starting to enjoy myself whilst playing it.

The materia system this game uses for abilities is interesting but flawed. Early in the game it's boring - you don't have enough slots to do anything interesting, and materia levels so slowly that you wont get anything new for ages. In addition, all the early game materia becomes redundant before it ever becomes interesting - by the time fire and ice are doing respectable damage, you'll be stumbling across comet spells instead. By the time Shiva or Ifrit get to be used more than once a battle, the game has given you the far superior Bahamut. It's a persistent problem with magic and summon materia. Command materia on the other hand is often useful from the time you get it, but suffers similarly - the game gives you mostly crap ones early (sense, deathblow, throw) and saves the good stuff for late in the game when it's less of a big deal. The good ones it does give you (steal, enemy skill) take a lot of work to be of much help, and steal in particular doesn't become very useful until near the end of the game when you get mug. Generally, the game cobbles you with shit abilities and then suddenly gives you all the good stuff right at the end - it means the difficulty curve is backwards (the whole game is easy, but it's harder early on than in the final dungeon), it means the game has a desperately slow start and a whirlwind end section and it ruins a lot of the games pacing. It needs to make more available early on so that you can set yourself up in an interesting way sooner, like FFV does - so you can break the game - let people do that, they'll be breaking the game over their knee by the time they meet sephiroth either way.

The story takes a long time to get going too. It's not perfect, but it's compelling enough once it gets going - about 20 hours into a 40 hour game. People go on about the slow start of FFXIII, but this one seems just as bad to me.

For all the negativity I have towards this game (which is probably because it's so often sold as the greatest game ever), I had fun in the end. It has issues with pacing, with difficulty and with story, but it manages to create likeable characters, an interesting world and a limited but fun battle system despite that. It's certainly not the best game ever, it's not even the best Final Fantasy (actually, of the 5 I've beaten, it's my least favourite - 3,4,5 and 9 were better), but it is a good game.

Up next: I really need to get back to Zelda and then play through Layton vs Ace Attorney. After that, I'm considering jumping right into another FF game (probably X) although the summer marathon is coming up too...

[Violent By Design]

1. Kirby's Epic Yarn Wii
2. To The Moon Christmas Special PC
3. Super Mario 3D World Wii U
4. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD Wii U
5. Chiki Chiki Boys Mega Drive
6. World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck Mega Drive
7. Metal Gear PSVita
8. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake PSVita
9. Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy 3DS
10. Akai Katana 360
11. Metal Gear Solid GBC
12. Atelier Totori Plus: The Adventurer of Arland PSN
13. Tearaway PSN
14. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA ƒ PSN *NEW*
15. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd PSP *NEW*
16. Final Fantasy VII PS1 *NEW*

Be prepared guys, this is gonna be a long one I reckon...

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA ƒ

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA f is a game I'd been looking to try when I picked up my Vita. I didn't realise at the time that it was Japan exclusive and had only come out on PS3 in the west, so I just shrugged it off and figured I;d get to it later.

When it came out on PSN, I was a little uncertain. It seemed a little pricy for a digital only release, and even then there were 6 songs you had to pay extra for as DLC. I tried out the demo though, and I was immediately gripped. The three songs in the demo were crazy addictive to play and catchy to listen to. They were also generally rock-y and not all electronic style, which was another concern I had - surely digital singers couldn't work in other genres? Needless to say I was wrong about that - the soundtrack in this game is excellent, covers a mix of stuff, and in a few songs it was pretty hard to even tell it wasn't a real person singing.

The games presentation is stunning in my opinion too. Everything has a really clean look, and the videos that play behind the note charts are interesting and eye-catching - sometimes a little too eye-catching, as I can sometimes get too caught up watching them and miss the enxt note.

There is another mode outside of the main rhythm game where you give the Vocaloids give and rub their head. It's a bit odd, like a virtual pet, only human. I'm not a fan - it's boring and feels forced for the sake of something else.

It's a good thing the main game is so damn good then. The note charts are perfect. I'm glad I waited so long to update this thread for this game (I beat it in the middle of March) because since then I've put in a TON of time to this game, and can breeze most songs on the highest difficulty. The notes never feel out of place, totally unfair in difficulty or deliberately mean in their timing. The difficulty step up between Normal, Hard and Extreme is perfectly judged - each is a big enough step up from the former without feeling like it's too much to aspire to.

I absolutely adored my time with this game, and I'm still playing it all the time now. It's an easy contender for Game Of The Year for me. However, with both the sequel and Smash Bros coming out this year, we'll see if it holds the top spot.

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd

I enjoyed my time with Project DIVA ƒ so much in fact, that I rushed out to buy one of the older games in the series too.

This one was a lot of fun too, but it definitely feels like a step back. The removal of DIVA ƒ's chance time and technical zone elements where you would recieve a rank reward for hitting a specific section of notes perfectly or hitting the majority of notes in a long complex section is more fair, certainly, but it's also a lot more interesting. Whilst the touch screen notes on the VITA game aren't perfect and feel a little rough, they also split up the songs in a more interesting way than just hitting the buttons the whole way through.

The main issue I had though was the setlist. There were 49 songs here to DIVA ƒ's 38 (including DLC), but they're just not as good. A lot of them are shorter too. There are a few stand outs which are either fun to listen to or fiun to play (Po Pi Po <3) but overall there's a lot more filler here.

The exciting and colourful videos of DIVA ƒ aren't present either - most just feature Hatsune Miku or other vocaloids dancing in a single room. It's not as interesting, but it's not the biggest loss I guess, it doesn't detract from the fun gameplay. Whether it's a lack of ambition, a lack of power in the PSP or a lack of time or budget for the game though, it feels less polished because of it.

Lastly, the sound quality here is worse. Not sure what's at fault here - is it the earlier vocaloid software not sounding as good? Is it the PSPs awful speakers (it sounds better through headphones, but it's still not as good as the Vita game)? Is it that the songs are overly compressed to fit on the UMD? I'm not sure, but it's a noticeable dip going backwards in the series.

It sounds like I'm being very negativer towards the game, but it's more of a reflection of how good it's successor is, rather than how bad this one is. All the core things that make the VITA game fun are here, it's just lacking some of the polish, challenge and refinement that made that game so damn good. Definitely worth picking up, and I'll probably thry the other 2 PSP games in the series too.

Final Fantasy VII

This one has been a long time coming. I started it WAAAAAAAYYYY back in September, and after forcing myself through the stupidly long and slow paced intro in Midgar, I progress onwards. Over the course of 3 months, I only managed to convince myself to put about 1 hours into the game. Everything I experience with it seemed so unpolished, overly drawn out and frankly, just not very good compared to both the earlier and later games in the series.

Recently I returned to the game after a 3-4 hiatus. It turns out I'd quite just before the game picked up speed. A lot of the problems are still there - the translation is lacking, the characters are overly simplified, likely due to said translation, the battle mechanics are too simple and the game is too easy. That said, I found myself getting drawn in and starting to enjoy myself whilst playing it.

The materia system this game uses for abilities is interesting but flawed. Early in the game it's boring - you don't have enough slots to do anything interesting, and materia levels so slowly that you wont get anything new for ages. In addition, all the early game materia becomes redundant before it ever becomes interesting - by the time fire and ice are doing respectable damage, you'll be stumbling across comet spells instead. By the time Shiva or Ifrit get to be used more than once a battle, the game has given you the far superior Bahamut. It's a persistent problem with magic and summon materia. Command materia on the other hand is often useful from the time you get it, but suffers similarly - the game gives you mostly crap ones early (sense, deathblow, throw) and saves the good stuff for late in the game when it's less of a big deal. The good ones it does give you (steal, enemy skill) take a lot of work to be of much help, and steal in particular doesn't become very useful until near the end of the game when you get mug. Generally, the game cobbles you with shit abilities and then suddenly gives you all the good stuff right at the end - it means the difficulty curve is backwards (the whole game is easy, but it's harder early on than in the final dungeon), it means the game has a desperately slow start and a whirlwind end section and it ruins a lot of the games pacing. It needs to make more available early on so that you can set yourself up in an interesting way sooner, like FFV does - so you can break the game - let people do that, they'll be breaking the game over their knee by the time they meet sephiroth either way.

The story takes a long time to get going too. It's not perfect, but it's compelling enough once it gets going - about 20 hours into a 40 hour game. People go on about the slow start of FFXIII, but this one seems just as bad to me.

For all the negativity I have towards this game (which is probably because it's so often sold as the greatest game ever), I had fun in the end. It has issues with pacing, with difficulty and with story, but it manages to create likeable characters, an interesting world and a limited but fun battle system despite that. It's certainly not the best game ever, it's not even the best Final Fantasy (actually, of the 5 I've beaten, it's my least favourite - 3,4,5 and 9 were better), but it is a good game.

Up next: I really need to get back to Zelda and then play through Layton vs Ace Attorney. After that, I'm considering jumping right into another FF game (probably X) although the summer marathon is coming up too...

"Recently I returned to the game after a 3-4 hiatus. It turns out I'd quite just before the game picked up speed. A lot of the problems are still there - the translation is lacking, the characters are overly simplified, likely due to said translation, the battle mechanics are too simple and the game is too easy. That said, I found myself getting drawn in and starting to enjoy myself whilst playing it."


This describes every Final Fantasy ever.

[alienjesus]

"Recently I returned to the game after a 3-4 hiatus. It turns out I'd quite just before the game picked up speed. A lot of the problems are still there - the translation is lacking, the characters are overly simplified, likely due to said translation, the battle mechanics are too simple and the game is too easy. That said, I found myself getting drawn in and starting to enjoy myself whilst playing it."


This describes every Final Fantasy ever.

Well, consider this to that even more than usual then.

[Violent By Design]

"Recently I returned to the game after a 3-4 hiatus. It turns out I'd quite just before the game picked up speed. A lot of the problems are still there - the translation is lacking, the characters are overly simplified, likely due to said translation, the battle mechanics are too simple and the game is too easy. That said, I found myself getting drawn in and starting to enjoy myself whilst playing it."


This describes every Final Fantasy ever.

Well, consider this to that even more than usual then.

Does FF7 really have more simplified characters than FF3,4 and 5? Is the combat system in FF4 really more thought out than FF7?

[alienjesus]

"Recently I returned to the game after a 3-4 hiatus. It turns out I'd quite just before the game picked up speed. A lot of the problems are still there - the translation is lacking, the characters are overly simplified, likely due to said translation, the battle mechanics are too simple and the game is too easy. That said, I found myself getting drawn in and starting to enjoy myself whilst playing it."


This describes every Final Fantasy ever.

Well, consider this to that even more than usual then.

Does FF7 really have more simplified characters than FF3,4 and 5? Is the combat system in FF4 really more thought out than FF7?

Honestly to the first question, certainly not more simple than 3, but I would argue that the characters in 4 or 5 are just as developed as in 7 (and that none of them are particularly developed) In addition, FFIV and FFV have had remakes that expand the translation a bit. FFVII feels desperately in need of the same treatment.

Also, I would say that the battle system in 4 is more thought out - it's less complex certainly, but it actually forces you to plan your moves in boss battles, whereas I only found one major battle I couldnt win using my ' big guard, regen and attack' strategy - and that was literally only because they were immune to the attack command. FFVII feels like it doesnt explore it's battle system's potential properly, and that is bigger flaw in my eyes.

[Violent By Design]

Fair enough, I'm not a big fan of FF7's combat system either, I thought it was the worst part about the game.