Blaster Master Zero:
Pretty solid 2D metroidvania, I didn't get the true ending and from what I did manage to beat, I do think the game is solid enough. Level design is decent if a bit too segmented for my liking with it being seperated to "areas" rather than being a seemless world but I was fine with it, until you have to backtrack several areas to unlock the next level since it feels like it's stuck in an awkward crossroads of having linear level progression and metroidvania.
I also like how the tank parts are broken up with on foot sections that does a decent job at spicing up gameplay. Since tank combat would be a bit one note if it was the whole game since all you do is just fire blasts and double jump. Another issue is that the on foot sections during the pseudo 2D sections could be better since it feels like you can shoot in all 8 directions but move in those said directions. Outside of that, they are decent but I didn't like the heavy emphasis on stealth later in the game even if it's not the worst example of stealth segments in a game, it just feels at odds with the fast paced nature of the game. One final thing I didn't like that I wished hover and special weapons had their own meter since some enemies in the game need you to use homing missiles in order for you to kill them and partner that with jumps where you might need the hover and there might be excessive waiting for your special meter to recharge since there might not be pickups, it didn't get in the way of my experience too much until later in the game like that level with the heavy emphasis on stealth.
Bosses can also be beaten pretty quickly which is surprising for a game like this, but I didn't mind all that much since I came to this game because I heard it was short and easy.
Overall, not a bad game and a pretty enjoyable time, I don't like how you need to go out of your way and look for items in order to get the "true ending" but I found the default ending satisfying enough and I didn't care about the story to want to get the "true ending". If you want a mostly easy, short and enjoyable metroidvania game, you can't go wrong with this.
Saints Row: The Third:
Playing this game again feels weird after playing SR2, while I do like that game and I do like this one too. This feels like a point where the series got it's whole, "GTA but batshit insane" mantra that it's known for now. SR2 while can be silly at times, felt far more grounded compared to this game. In SR3, you will be going through crazy set piece after crazy setpiece, fighting pro wrestlers, falling out of airplanes more than once, using predator missiles, and even going to airships and fighting hi tech mercenrary armies and so much more. People who liked SR2's grounded approach will probably find this to be offputting, and I don't blame them but at the same time, I like how silly this game is and how committed it is to being that. The game just throws something crazy and over the top at you almost every few missions and as a result, it's a game I can't say I can call "forgettable".
The gunplay is okay, but it can be one note since the silenced assault rifle and rocket launcher were my go to weapons for much of the game. While I kind of liked that the respect system is gone, it also feels like it falls under the trap so many open world games do where you just need to play main missions and the whole open world feels like an over glorified hub world, I will give the game credit for having the world be quick and easy to get around in so it's not an open world where you spend most your time driving or running to the next mission. Vehicles also control pretty decently too.
Issues with this remaster include some freezes on the convoy decoy mission where it happened twice and Cryrus' face being messed up.
Overall, I do like this game even if it feels very different from 2, but I think it does the wacky over the top crime sandbox idea pretty well even if the game at times, the game teter into the realm of too silly for it's good, if you never played SR2 this might be a non issue for you.
Spark the Electric Jester 2:
I am not really familar with 3D Sonic or the Sonic franchise as a whole but this game I enjoyed but I can't help but feel like it's not 100% my kind of game while I get the appeal, the game just moves at such a fast pace that it's hard for me to keep up. The fact that the player character moves at such a fast speed while you have to anticipate every movement on the analog stick while he is moving so fast can lead to rather stressful and challenging gameplay especially on your first time through the levels. The last few levels in particular were some of the most challenging 3D platforming gameplay I recall playing in a long while. I remember just feeling sigh of relief every time I got to a checkpoint. I was barely making it through the levels. If this game had limited continues, even furthur spaced out checkpoints, and was longer than than the 2-3 hours that it lasts, I don't think I'd be able to beat the game at all.
From the 3D Sonics I have played, I can say that those games are kids games compared to this. Where 3D Sonic can have plenty of 2D sections and can feel on rails and automated for their own good, Spark 2 is just pure 3D movement and jumping at super fast speeds the whole way through. It's surprising that the bosses are a lot easier than the stages by comparison. The bosses aren't a complete calkwalk and you might die a few times before beating them but it's mostly just block and dodge while building up your combo meter to do more damage, it takes a little time, but once you get the rhythmn down, they are generally easy unless you have that weird glitch where the camera goes into first person and it's hard to get a view of your surrondings, but I eventually got past this.
The story is just there, I barely paid attention since the dialogue wasn't voiced and I sort of had some clue but it was hard for me to care since I came for the gameplay.
Overall, if you wished 3D Sonic was less automated and didn't shove in 2D sections, then this game is for you. It's not my kind of platformer but it's enjoyable for the 2-3 hours that it lasts probably even shorter if you didn't die as many times as I did.
Deliver Us The Moon:
Okay game overall, I was expecting it to be a walking sim of some kind and it ended up being more than that. I will admit, I didn't like the puzzles that much and the game to me was at it's best during the platforming and avoiding obsticles parts game or the timed parts, but it has a solid and interesting atmosphere focused on isolation and I liked the space adventure feel of the game with you needing to go up into space first then needing to get down to the moon, and then exploring the moon space station for the rest of the game, it felt like an adventure even if the loading screens that cut from the player character got in the way of that to some degree. The first person space station exploration sequnce was kind of tedious due to the awkward controls of constantly realigning the character to see properly and knowing what to do before you got a game over with the limited oxygen but once you play from the 3rd person perspective everything became more manageable and interesting since I got a better sense of where to look. The game also knowns when to shake things up to remain interesting. It has platforming, puzzles, vehicle sections, timed sections, and even a stealth section towards the end. It's not amazing but I do like that the game keeps things varied enough for the duration that it lasts.
I don't think the game is amazing but I had a decent time with it. If you want a Dead Space or System Shock style game without the aliens or overly stressful gameplay or combat, then might be worth checking into.
Pac-Man World: Re-Pac:
Playing this game just reminds me of why I am not a big fan of playing late 90s 3D plaformers. Limited camera control making it hard to have a better view of where and where not to jump. There are times where I keep wishing I can turn the camera due to how limited the view is, it feels like it is stuck between being a 3D game and being a 2D side scrolling platformer, having the lives system just makes the game feel antiquated since lives is nothing more than just padding to make you plow through the easy parts over and over just so you can get back to that hard part you were stuck on. There are also other issues I have like how you can't have seperate buttons for double jumping and ground pounding which makes the controls feel like it is stuck on an awkward middle ground before games discovered you can have them be seperate button presses. The level design isn't that great since it can randomly change from being simple platforming to being a puzzle section out of nowhere, and I could've sworn you just need to go forward but nope you need to a do a puzzle. That and for the life of me I can't figure out what makes Pac Man's super charge jump move fast enough to reach certain platforms. I keep going furthur back and I still fail to reach the platforms.
Overall, I really wish this remake added more refinements instead of being the same game with better graphics.
Splatoon 2:
Not a bad game and I can get some fun out of it but playing the single player really makes me feel like it was a tutorial for multiplayer. The hub worlds for the levels are a pain to explore and I just wished it was a level select menu instead of it being a series of puzzles to get to the next level. I wished the hub world design was more like World 1.
Another issue I have is the limited continues on the levels while I like you get them back, I don't really like how continues are connected to your life bar, it just feels like padding to me to get over halfway through a level and just to lose your life bar and start from the begginning.
Now, my biggest issue with the game: the loadout system. To me, this system is a red herring, the game says you can carry any weapon you want to a level just for the level to make you play with a specific gun instead this really tells me that this game is basically a tutorial for multiplayer and I don't like the low fire rate of the basic hero shot gun and the game makes me use it so much, this isn't a bad sp by any means and there is fun to be had, but the game always finds a way to shoot itself in the foot and be a dull experience.
I am glad I got this game at a discount or as little of a discount a Nintendo game can go for and I might play the 3rd game but only at a discount like I did with this game. I am hoping the 3rd game improves on the sp.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time:
Solid old school beat em up, not much to say that it's enjoyable and it can be challenging at times but the rewinds help it from being too frustrating. Some enemies do high damage and they are usually the non foot ninja enemies and the robot enemies in general are pretty annoying since they have hard to avoid attacks and can do high damage to you. I also don't like how special attacks drain your life bar, I get why they did this but at the same time, I can't help but feel like limits options during combat. This was par for the course with Konami beat em ups.
Overall, I say it's about on par with Konami's X-Men beat em up game.
Starhawk:
Pretty enjoyable and well made single player campaign for a game with a heavy mp focus, I was expecting it to be pretty bad considering how games like Battlefield 4 has one of the worst single player shooter campaigns I ever played but this game is not like that.
What I liked about the game is that the game always knew when to break things up. You'll be engaging in tower defense levels one minute and then dogfighting in space the next while also having jet packs. The game throws enough different scenarios at you for it's short campaign that it never gets dull. I am not even big on tower defense games but I do like how the tower defense mechanics gives the gameplay more depth by having choose the various between turrets, beam turrets, supply bunkers and so on, it helps makes it stand out from hitscan regen health shooters at the time and the fact that there is no cover system only adds to it because you aren't sticking to a wall and waiting for health to regen, here you are out in the open and shooting your enemies. The dogfights are decent but I found the enemies and the various things you had to takedown to be way too spongey even on easy mode. They do a decent enough job at breaking up the on foot combat. The game basically reuses multiplayer maps into single player but the game does a good job at hiding by decent situational depth and repurposing it's mechanics for single player. The voice acting, and setting are also really good if the latter underexplored. The music also fits the setting and gameplay really well.
The only major gripes is that the story is underdeveloped and the dogfighting can have enemies and targets that are spongey but it's a solid campaign and is worth checking out if you like shooters and are looking for a "hidden gem" of sorts.
Guns, Gore and Cannoli 2:
Pretty good sequel overall, reminds me of Max Payne 2 in how it changes the style of shooting and the difficulty drop compared to it's predecessor despite it being a 2D game all though this game gets pretty challenging on easy towards the end with some intense enemy waves and a final boss with way more than 3 phases but other than that, I still really like this game, I prefer the aiming and control in this one mainly because it's easier to aim at specific targets and it's a lot snappier making the game less frustrating as a result.
The combat is still as satisfying as ever and the game does a good job at shaking this up too. Only major gripe is that the bigger enemies don't react to getting hit by the rocket launcher and weapons aren't as wacky since there is no lighting gun and there is too many interchangeable machine guns but the game is still as good and as fun to play as ever before. The short length is fitting for the kind of Metal Slug style arcade experience that it is.
Afro Samurai the Game(2009):
This game just isn't very good at all. At first, it didn't feel that great but I enjoyed it for how mindless it was. I liked the dismemberment system, the visuals were pretty solid and nice to look at, and the voice acting was pretty solid. I thought this was going to be a "style over substance" kind of game with not much challenge to it but provides a decent and enjoyable power fantasy but the more I played the game the less apparent this became.
My first big issue is that I dislike the health system, I am not sure if health regenerates or you need to find healing items because the game goes away with a traditional health system of it being shown on the HUD and instead just has damage be shown through how "red" and covered in blood you, this sounds immersive at first but when the challenge starts to ramp up later in the game, it starts to get extremely grating in that it was hard to tell if I was close to death or if I still had some health left to take more damage.
My second issue is how during the half way point of the game it starts to spike in difficulty to the point, where the other issues like the lack third person camera getting in the way of where enemies are attacking, getting blind sided constantly, and the game having so many enemies that block your attacks and the aforementioned issues being so prevelant that you start relying on dominant strategies like abusing the focus slash. Every fight later in the game is, "combo, combo, focus slash", it's basically this for so much of the game. The game also throws an enemy gaunlet so big that I am surprised I was patient enough to get past, it takes way too long to get past, and then it throws in a super buggy platforming section later which the platforming wasn't that great to begin with since it's mostly contextual with finicky controlling since you can wall run and it won't work and then you can jump and Afro will jump to places you don't want to. Enemies also lack any kind of variety too and are just the same groups of people you were fighting at the beggining, regular goons, agile goons, monster goons, and big goons, its that for the whole game.
Third, and the big reason why I haven't beaten this game is that the game forces you to know bullet deflect by the end of the game which the game does a terrible job at teaching you and is just a chore to pull off since the timing is so strict and unclear. The fact that I had to use a mechanic so late in the game even though I hardly used it up untill that point is already enough of a bad sign.
Finally, the checkpointing of the game is so far off combined with the aforementioned issues and the game is very frustrating and is no longer the decent power fantasy the early parts of the game was.
I can't reccomend this game even to those who just looking for a random melee combat game to play or an anime game that isn't your usual fighting game or musou game fare.
The combat isn't very good at all. The camera is bad and you can't turn it, and it doesn't give you a very good angle on the action. You have no combo attacks you can chain, on top of that combat mainly consist of mashing kicks and hoping it connects to the enemies while not doing much to get in your way. You got no evade command and blocking you will only do on occasion during the game's more occasionally challenging fights. You never need to manage health, there is no exploration, and the fights themselves last less than 3 minutes most of the time.
Yet after saying all this, why I do I even somewhat enjoy it at all? To put it simpily, I haven't played a game that felt so "bad it's good" since Rogue Warrior. And coincidentally this game is also as short as Rogue Warrior too. The beat em up gameplay while not good, is at least easy enough to make the a somewhat relaxing experience while I view the super stupid story, there's little if not any difficulty spikes, the levels are short and you get health refills in between. If anything, this game feels like a dumb anime movie with interactive beat em up sections. That and I can make the argument that the short gameplay sections while an issue, never last long enough to the point where the awkward combat becomes infuriating.
No comments:
Post a Comment