2. Cybernator - SNES
3. Super Aleste - SNES
4. Diddy Kong Racing - N64
5. Metroid Prime 3 - Wii
6. Loco Roco - PSP
7. Final Fantasy VII - PS1
8. Metal Gear Solid - PS1
9. Tomb Raider - PS1
10. Pulseman - Wii VC (MD)
11. Bubble Bobble - SMS
Pulseman is a fairly fun, but definitely flawed game. The mechanics of the game are solid, using the Volteccer to fly around and bounce about is a lot of fun, and being able to charge your attacks (particularly with the uber convenient forward dash) is handy. The level design is quirky and the cyberspace segments of each level are trippy and seizure inducing, full of bright flashing colours. Being able to choose between 3 levels most of the time was nice too. The game pulls of some impressive graphic distortion tricks with the Mega Drive hardware, and its obvious that Game Freak knew what they were doing with the system.
It's not all good though. The viewpoint of the game is FAR too zoomed in, and makes blind jumps an all too common occurence - you can see any platform that is more than one square below you, and there's not even a way too look down using the controller. Stage 6 of the game is literally one of the worst designed levels I've seen in the game, comprising of one VERY long drop down a corridor full of water and spikeballs. Dodging the spike balls is sheer luck and memorisation as it's impossible to see most of them whilst still having time to move out of their way. Enemies also patrol left and right at some points, and these literally require luck to dodge as there is no way to know where they are to safely manouvre around them. I lost about 25 lives throughout Pulseman, roughly 18 of which were on that one section. The other big flaw for me was the acceleration mechanics - move in one direction for a little bit and you'd accelerate to pretty fast speeds, but combined with the zoomed in viewpoint, it just makes it so you run into enemies to easily. I deliberately stopped and walked most places. It's impossible to attack whilst move (except with the volteccer hich launches you into the air) and jumping whilst running launches you forward with no ability to turn your jump backwards if you'd otherwise hit something dangerous.
The final level deserves a mention. It takes place in an arcade machine and the level graphics were very 8 bit. Weird to see the 8 bit style in a 16 bit game, it kinda reminded me of a lot of modern indie stuff. After playing through 4 levels of this auto-scrolling space run n gun arcade machine you fight a boss straight out of gradius, before a slightly more convention trip through the lasdt part of the level to the real boss. I found that several bosses would be made an absolute joke using the Up + B jump attack which left pulseman invulnerable not only for the duration of the jump, but for just long enough after it to do it again, making it ultra spammable. I got to the final boss with 1 hit left on my current life and beat him first go by doing this. Its kinda sad as the bosses are really quite challenging otherwise.
Overall, its a good polished game with lots of style, but some design flaws let it down.
And with that, 2/11 are taken down from my list. Next up: I dunno, probably Metroid Prime 3. I might try to work through some Bubble Bobble or Cybernator whilst I'm at it though.
How!?
