Congrats man, I’m going to play the arcade version soon!
Ditto, I’ve got it all set up in MAME, ready to go!
Ha, yeah. It’s on the Arcade Archives so I’m going for that version like I did with Salamander(which I also loved).
I can’t believe it! Managed to clear the arcade version of Sega Rally Championship 1995 after a lot of careful driving practice. Thanks again to director Sasaki Kenji for his work on this and Ridge Racer - two landmark games that will always entertain me.
Finishing the arcade version is something I never came close to at the arcades. Driving up the finishing stretch on the mountain course with just milliseconds on the clock was a heart-in-mouth experience.
It is still one of the best racers out there, thanks to its testing and memorable course and visual design to convincing and nuanced handling.
It’s amazing how much innovation there was in the genre in the mid to late 90s, from this to Ridge Racer to Wave Race 64 to Steep Slope Sliders to 1080 Snowboarding and Thrill Drive. It’s even more impressive how these games nailed the handling and mechanics on their first go - again going against the popular opinion that early 3D games are primitive and have aged badly.
If you’ve previously been playing the Saturn version for your home fix this version is essential. The arcade game looks and plays like a dream (with well programmed analogue stick controls) while also being better balanced for challenge compared with the excellent Saturn port. I noticed you get penalised more for drifting on arcade - encouraging you to think more when cornering. It’s easier to score better times with sloppier driving on Saturn.
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I finished NiGHTS with Claris and Elliot today. The final level - where you have 180 seconds to run through all 4 mares, is fantastic. Even the boss fight was intense the first time round - I cleared it with just 1 second left on the clock playing as Claris (first photo), but fared better with Elliot). Went back to A rank it with Claris though.
As written in the other thread I really adore the game. If I had to make a top 50 games list it’d make it in. Going to try and hunt down the soundtrack CD now…
So far I’ve got A ranks on all levels except Elliot’s first and third - I’m not defeating bosses fast enough to earn an A on Splash Garden I think.
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Finally got a 1CC on R-Type III for the SNES. What a difficult game… Crazy.
I think my first playthrough took me probably 100 continues, then it dropped drastically from there. I think I finished the game maybe 5-6 time before being able to 1CC it.
Its got a great mix of easy sections, hard sections, and sections that you have to memorize to progress.
Highly recommended… Amazing game.
And my final score after getting to level 3 in NG+.
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Major congrats on the 1CC, that’s great to hear!
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(At first I was rather unsure if I should post this here or in the Modern gaming thread but I mean this is more than 11 years old, what the hell)
Frontlines: Fuel of War is a 2008 FPS developed by Kaos Studio, a team formed by the core people behind the very popular Battlefield 1942 mod Desert Combat, and who actually assisted DICE on the development of Battlefield 2. As such, the game obviously mirrors Battlefield in a lot of ways and its main attraction was the multiplayer which, with the GameSpy shutdown, is no longer available on PC without LAN tunneling. But there’s still a single player campaign and to my surprise, I really enjoyed it!
The flat shooting mechanics, average (for the time) production values and cliché story about a fuel war between NATO and a Sino-Russian coalition won’t win awards, but what made Frontlines for me is the mission structure: basically you have a big open map with multiple objectives (usually taking over command posts or planting explosives on something), which you can approach any way you’d like, and you can get in or out of vehicles as you please. You can switch between the four character classes with their own weapon loadout and exploring is rewarded with extra gear like airstrike markers and drones (which are actually real fun and useful to use). There are some interesting set pieces in there (my favourite is the pitched tank battle after a nuclear detonation) and though the AI isn’t that clever, it does a good job at making you feel like you’re part of a big battle. It’s a clever way to make the single player train you in the skills and mechanics needed for the multiplayer without just being a series of bot matches.
Plus it ends with a cheesy sung theme song! We need more western games with those
There’s some jank (explosive barrels don’t kill shit, the helipcoter controls are WOEFUL) but Kaos studio was onto something potentially special here. So of course their next game was a poopy call of duty clone groan
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Frontlines is excellent. I adored the multiplayer in that game and the solo campaign is great! That tank battle post nuke is fantastic. I thought the story was pretty good tbh because it’s rather believable and uncomfortable.
Also, one of the things I really like that’s a “gamey” touch that is perfect is when you kill dudes their helmets fly off. That way you know they’re dead! Also, I loved that in multiplayer you weren’t locked into being a medic, or assault, etc. All the kits could be adapted into whatever you needed. As far as I’m concerned it’s as good as any Battlefield game. The “frontlines” concept with linked capture points is fantastic. It really focused the online play in a way no game has really done since.
I reviewed it for Crispy Gamer IIRC.
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Also… that song was an awesome credits closer.
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You got me interested in that song and who wrote and performed it…
http://www.cresswellcreative.com/index_2.html
Successful guys!
Finished Castlevania Portrait of Ruin on the way home. The game exceeded my expectations and it’s my favourite post-SotN Igavania. The variety in environments (thanks to the painting worlds), and play styles (thanks to the dual character setup) make for a very entertaining exploratory action game. Fantastic soundtrack as well, and the telegraphing in boss fights is expertly handled. The optional fight against Richter was superb - every time I lost I knew it was my fault for playing too riskily.
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Nice one.
I’m glad to hear that the DS Igavanias are not just hype.
I recently came back to Shovel Knight for 3DS. I’d left the game after getting frustrated at the boss rush in the penultimate level, but persevered for a bit the other morning, and then beat the final boss with not too much trouble.
Fewer lives required than ‘VVVVVV’!
The 3D effect in this game is very well done, but can sometimes strain my eyes. The native resolution of the 3DS, with appropriate scan-lines, displays the art perfectly in 2D anyway. I would love to get this playing at 15Hz on my PVM, but I haven’t had success with CRT_Emudriver at all.
The music from the game is truly wonderful. Jake Kaufman, who has also composed the soundtracks to most Shantae games, used Famitracker to make the music for Shovel Knight. He used the Konami’s VRC-6 instruments, which has extra channels to work with.
I’m now playing the Specter Knight campaign, and it’s fantastic. The levels are familiar, but not stale, and he has a completely different set of moves and abilities.
I’ll give Plague Knight a go after that, and then probably run through the main quest again.
At 6-8 hours for the main game, it’s the perfect length for a hand-held. If you quit in the middle of a level, you lose all progress though, so you have to plow through to save your progress. The level checkpoints are thankfully plentiful.
And according to GOG, there is a King Knight expansion coming, at no extra expense. Thumbs up for indie developers who just keep on giving.
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The perfect way to test drive my new KVAR25M31 was to finish Soul Blazer. I did not expect to adore this game the way I did, the mechanics while simple are addictive and I always found myself wanting to round the next corner to see what woodland creature or mermaid I could rescue.
I think I’m going to jump straight into Actraiser now but I’m also considering just rolling on with Illusion of Gaia.
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Congrats - I remember the boss rush taking its toll on me too. I actually had trouble with the final boss as well, though if only because it required some pattern learning from what I remember.
Never tried Specter Knight but Plague Knight’s campaign was a wonderful remix. I really should get back to it as I haven’t touched it in at least three years now. 3DS really is the perfect format for it (funnily enough the 16:9 versions cut off a bit off the top of the screen so they designed it for 15:9)
Those of you who hang out in the discord are probably tired of this by now but I finally got my DC back from having DCHDMI installed recently. Not very much can interrupt me playing Shining Force but I immediately had to stop and play through Skies of Arcadia, which is a life-changing game for me. I just finished and am amazed at how emotional I still get every time I play. What a fantastic experience.
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Actraiser, japanese version translate by Aeon Genesis running with a Super UFO Pro 8 on SFC and CRT.
A real pleasure to play the game again (did it for the lunch, without translation…).
Very beautifull in RCA, the rhythm is perfect, the action stages are so moving, thanks to the map part who help to build the atmosphere, kind of like the map of Super Mario World do but more developed.
Inspired level design with precise gameplay who teach you quickly.
No comment on the gorgeous music by Yuzo Kushiro.
My only complaint is the lack of a real last stage.
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Castlevania Order of Ecclesia, like @Danexmurder mentioned, really is a gem. I found myself appreciating it a lot more today than I did in 2009, partly because I didn’t suck at it this time around (experimenting with the flexible Glyph system is a must), and also because of how surprisingly varied in spite of it structurally being a bit of a best-of in how it builds upon elements from both the classic and IGA Castlevania. And because they don’t make them like they used to - Bloodstained included.
As mentioned in the other threads, I loved the variety in level design and themes (though it isn’t as whacky as Portrait of Ruin), the Glyph system provides an impressively flexible way to tackle tricky situations, and the difficulty outside of boss fights was very challenging. Travelling to the next save point is rarely trivial, thereby encouraging you to experiment with equipment and glyphs a lot.
The presentation is also the culmination of everything IGA’s team has made since going portable with Harmony of Dissonance. The sprite work is the clearest and best animated yet, the soundtrack is excellent as you’d expect, and backgrounds are oozing with little details. From curtains blowing in the wind, to real-time shadows and water distortion, to six layers of parallax and the beckoning smoke that comes out of boss doors after they open, the artists and programmers clearly put their all behind this one. It’s a beautiful game.
The only things which let it down are a few cheap boss battles (the giant horse near the end of the game was more of a boring exercise in memorisation) and dull villager quests, but the latter can be sidestepped given the rewards will only make the game easier - as will grinding enemies for drops to get said rewards.
I also wasn’t expecting such a sad ending. A poignant note to end the trilogy of DS games with.
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Played through Contra Hard Corps jp version on my 20m2mdu pvm. I plan to play through it a few more times to really learn it before tackling the US version. Parts of the game feel more like Gunstar Heroes than Contra, but I don’t necessarily consider that a bad thing at all.
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I played through quite a bit this weekend.
Turtles in Time – I normally play Hyperstone Heist so I figured I should try this version. I think I prefer Hyperstone Heist.
Bare Knuckle 3 (Bad ending – I got lost on the elevator stage)
I’m not sure if I’ve finished this one before
First time ever beating Castlevania
Super Castlevania - I play this one all the time. I’m down to just around an hour.
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