MrPopo wrote:I see you've also taken advantage of the promotion items. You missed the one for Jaha to become a Baron, and I'm guessing you aren't far enough yet for the one for Pegasus Knight. If you were going for full absurdity you could have kept Karna a Priest and gotten a second Shining Ball late game to make her a MMNK; since she's got Boost she can always have a steady stream of levels.
Oh no! <Checks GameFAQS> I may try walking back to New Granseal to see if I can find it since I think Jaha needs an upgrade. I also kind of wish I had saved the Vigor Ball for Karna since she is levelling up really fast. If I ever give the game a second playthrough, I might do that.
Also, this game is really fun, and I am considering a run at the original Shining Force. How does it compare? I have read it is much more streamlined, but howlongtobeat.com still says it is a 20+ hour game...
I personally thing the Vigor Ball is best used on Sarah because she has to do more work to level up. Getting the level reset and a strong physical attack means she can keep pace with the rest of the army. Karna, meanwhile, can just Boost and Aura her way around even as a Priest and be super valuable, then get the other Vigor Ball to turn her into a Master Monk and go to town. And if it's not too much trouble it will be worthwhile to have a Baron; they get an additional movement point, which is huge.
The original Shining Force removes most of the map exploration; it's mostly restricted to towns (to pick up story bits) and to add a bit of continuity instead of warping between battle scenes. It's also a bit more punishing, difficulty wise, as there's no grinding and promoting at the first opportunity is almost always a bad idea because you lose some stats when you promote. It's sort of like comparing FFIV to FFVI; you can clearly see that the later game built on lessons learned in the earlier game.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
So I'm dropping Clock Tower (Super Famicom) from my Summer Games Challenge list and replacing it with Mega Man X4.
My revised Summer Games Challenge:
Castlevania Bloodlines | Genesis | 1994 Echo Night | PS1 | 1998 King's Field (AKA King's Field II in Japan) | PS1 | 1995 Mega Man X4 | PS1 | 1997 Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers | Saturn (3DS) | 1997
PS1 centric but 'ey that platform's got a gargantuan library.
Review of why I dropped the 1995 SFC version of Clock Tower:
A young girl and her orphanage acquaintances become trapped in a mansion being stalked by a deranged 9 year old boy. Can they survive his giant scissor onslaught and escape alive? Maybe, but it doesn't mean you'll have fun getting them to that point.
Now, I'm not saying Clock Tower is a bad game. I actually like a few things about it. It's got fantastic art direction, extremely detailed backgrounds, and above average animation. The sprite work is top tier. The game's got a strong plot. Very well directed audio usage and excellent music and sound effects. The base concept is unique and stands strongly as an innovative survival horror concept. There's plenty of effective jump scares. Also there's a strong replay factor in play here thanks to random elements swapping around for each playthrough, with multiple endings in tow.
But the actual gameplay itself is terrible.
And in my book, that's the most important thing, the play of the thing. The user interface although pleasingly minimal, is clunky and not as responsive as it should be. (Why this game doesn't support the SNES mouse I really can't understand.) The pacing is horribly slow due to the protagonist's walking speed being deliberately sloth-like. Yes, you can run, but that depletes her energy meter and then you have to let her sit on the floor for five minutes to rest. As in five literal minutes. Meanwhile enjoy being lost. Why in the world can't I push the select button and see a map of the mansion? Oh because getting lost aids artificial longevity, gotcha devs. Clock Tower's moment to moment pacing is just awful, due to its tediously slow interface, lack of an in-game map, and the languid character movement design.
So yeah, I can understand why people think Clock Tower is great. Visually and aurally, it definitely is. It's a nice game in theory. But after two hours of messing with it, I believe the gameplay itself is the scariest thing going on here.
1. Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
2. Metroid (NES) 3. Super Mario Bros. (NES) 4. Phantasy Star III (GEN) 5. Earthworm Jim (GEN)
I beat Super Mario Bros. Finally, it taunts me no more.
I'll relate all my Mario baggage later. In the meantime, I admire all you folks who truly enjoy this game. You accomplished long ago what has been nagging at me for years!
BogusMeatFactory wrote:If I could powder my copies of shenmue and snort them I would
Exhum, that sucks, but I am not surprised. The only Clock Tower I have ever beaten is 3 because the gameplay bugs the crap out of me. I even own the PS1 port of The First Fear, but...nope. Not gonna do it.
I decided I would start up Klonoa: Door to Phantomille the other night, and it's awesome so far! (plus it's freaking adorable) It's a little difficult, but I'm at Vision 5-1 and it's been pretty fair so far which is nice. Not sure how many "Visions" there are but apparently this game is only 4 or 5 hours, so it might be possible for me to finish it tonight...
wclem wrote:Wait I am lost here. Not to slam anyone but when did Super Mario Bros. become a hard game? We are talking the original 8 bit version here right?
It's not "easy."
And I imagine it could be quite jarring for anyone who didn't play it until 2015.
wclem wrote:Wait I am lost here. Not to slam anyone but when did Super Mario Bros. become a hard game? We are talking the original 8 bit version here right?
It's not "easy."
And I imagine it could be quite jarring for anyone who didn't play it until 2015.
I find the original Super Mario Bros significantly harder than many other games people consider to be challenging, such as Mega Man and Super Ghouls n' Ghosts. The NES Mario games certainly aren't easy games imo.
Well I gotta disagree a bit there. I find SMB waaaaaay easier than Mega Man or GnG. The controls in Mario are so much more fluid. Mario does lack continues though, which I suppose is a factor.
I also think the original SMB is the only difficult one of the original NES trilogy. Part 2 is totally broken by Toadstool's floating. 3 has about a billion opportunities to gain extra lives.
(I guess technically The Lost Levels is the hardest - but only on the FDS. It's totally manageable on the SNES.)
EDIT: Realized you said Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, not Ghosts 'n Goblins... My point still stands though.
