Been playing Delta Warp on NGPC lately. It’s a great puzzle game for travelling since each level can be cleared within a minute - once you get the solution. Because it’s an action-platformer hybrid puzzle game where you’ll have to pull off precise movements between triangles the stick is a lovely match.
Also been playing various games on the Switch: WRC8 (good port though the visuals have suffered a lot more compared with V-Rally 4), Groove Coaster Waiwai Party (nowhere near as satisfying as playing at the arcade but the closest a home version can get), Darius Cozmic Collection (the HD rumble is incredible, makes it feel like you’re there), Bubble Bobble 4 Friends…
I’ve taken a break from Apex Legends and retro to play through Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which is fantastic. If you’re looking for a mix of something like Uncharted and Dark Souls with all swordplay that is executed very well in the Star Wars universe, this is your game. It’s been a blast so far.
I got Nekketsu Oyako today! It’s a really Weird game and not “ahahahah you fight octopuses in a whales belly” kind of weird (though there’s plenty of that too).
-The engine (at least on the saturn version) has tons of cancelling and that results in super broken (and AWESOME) combos. Stuff like taking half of the first boss’s health by cancelling Rando’s dragon punch into another dragon punch and then in his up-down-forward attack (which can also cancel into itself).
-The difficulty balance is weird: enemies are passive and never pose too much of a threat (beside the “colonel” types) but your health doesn’t get replenished and extends are few and far in-between.
-Your default punch punch punch string is basically useless. there’s no reason to not default to rando’s dragon punch attack for example
-Sprites and general production values are uncharacteristically underwheling for a Technosoft game (the Saturn soundtrack is great tho).
It’s a lot of fun though! With the amount of shit you can do, it’s less of a struggle to survive like most beat em ups and more like a stage to show off. (shame about the price)
Now I’m about halfway through Pokemon Sword
I’m really loving it. I’m about 20 hours in
Might be the first pokemon game I actively try to complete the pokedex
I’m also playing Borderlands 3 with a buddy. Not really a fan of the main villains but I’m really enjoying the gameplay.
Got a real case of choice paralysis going on after getting back with dozens of games across about a dozen different systems…
After a couple of days of being distracted by trying out many, many games I’ve decided to focus on Chalvo 55 on Game Boy since I started Bound High from the same developer last month.
I thought it released before Bound High but it actually followed its release by a year! Would love to know the story behind its development, since, like Wario Land 2 and VB WL it’s an interesting departure from its Virtual Boy cousin.
Played The Touryst (Switch) at a friend’s the other day —really surprisingly great. Looks beautiful, the depth of field “bokeh” is really something. Game is a lightweight RPG more reminiscent of Golf Story than Zelda, IMHO. The mini-games and the meta-mini-games are really very well done.
Translation is a bit substandard, and some of the jokes are badly translated and in one case I saw make no sense at all. But I’m surprised how fun this is given that I have never found another Shin’en game much fun.
Saturday’s Virtual Boy marathon aside, I set some time aside to play Super Pang Collection and the two Taito Memories games I picked up from Japan:
Super Pang Collection I already had on PSP via PS1 Classics but I really wanted to not only own a boxed copy of the game, but play it with my Namco arcade stick. It’s great that way, though I’m pretty sure there’s a bit of input lag because it just doesn’t feel as crisp as playing Super Pang on Super Famicom, or the DS’s Pang 5. The audio is also clearly not emulated, since you can hear tracks fade in and out whenever they loop. Not good. Otherwise it’s a great package though, and I love the level design in Pang 3’s tour mode.
The Taito Memories collections are pretty good going, though I wish I were playing on a CRT sometimes. Elevator Action Returns looks phenomenal at the arcade yet via S-Video on a 12 year old Bravia the sprites have this noisy prerendered look to them which doesn’t do the animation work justice. It’s a bit of a bummer that there’s no paddle controller for the PS2 that Taito endorses for use with the game, there are quite a few games that would only feel ‘right’ with one.
I finished Fallen Order this weekend. It has a fantastic ending with a superb payoff for all that came before it. Totally worth playing through if you’re even the most casual of Star Wars fans.
After finishing Shenmue III, I have started the story mode of Super Mario Maker 2. I’m looking forward to the NES and SNES style levels (NSMB not so much).
I’m doing a video on the Erdrick Saga of Dragon Quest, aka the first 3 Dragon Quest games. I’m playing most variants of the games, starting with the NES versions while playing the GBC versions on the side. Right now I’m playing the third one on both consoles, after ending the first two. After that, I’ll finish the the snes versions and the Android ones.
These games just ooze “videogame”. Artwork is amazing (based Toriyama), the music fits like a glove (based Sugiyama), and the stories are so simple yet so fulfilling. Gameplay is like playing pokemon but in fantasy RPG form.
If anyone wants to try them, the switch versions will suffice, even if they look a bit ass (some people dont mind though). I dunno of they have the mobile ports stuttering issues bit a quick YouTube search will answer that question.
If you dont mind emulation of have a snes flashcart, go for the snes versions of the games (translation patches needed since those versions are JP only). These look amazing and also sound amazing and are considered by most to be the definitive versions.
GBC versions are based of the snes versions but have an official translation. They look good and even have a quick save function.
Also DQ III gets a lot of extra stuff that come from the later titles like tiny medals, personalities, and also a medal collecting quest and a boardgame.
If you guys decide to play these games and dont like griding, the newer the versions of the game, the better. If you want to play the NES versions… Well I advise weapon\spell\armor\item lists and maps, at least for the 2nd and 3rd entries. They make exploring way better and help with knowing what to (painfully) grind for. If you want to go blind, well go for it, I salute you. The first one is linear enough but god knows the second one and the third one throw some curve balls. Usually everytown as NPCs that will help you reach your next point of interest, but even with those Hints some stuff may be hard to find or traverse.
Started Saga Scarlet Grace Ambitions this week, played for about seven years already. I’m in love. This is exactly what I want from my RPGs - the development team are clearly not trying to tick any boxes here. The scope is rather narrow: All progression is handled on a pop-up-book style world, with combat and dialogue generally progressing minor and major events on that map. But because of this razor sharp focus I find the game to be incredibly well put together, with a fantastic fast-paced and challenging battle system as well as a world with lots of events to uncover. I haven’t been this impressed with an RPG since Legend of Legacy on 3DS, which I played in March.
Also picked up Star Ocean: First Departure R even if I already have it on PSP and it’s as expected: Square Enix have done the bare minimum with it. It’s basically the PSP game outputting in HD, ugly backgrounds and all, but with any bilinear filters removed on the graphics, and some sprites replaced by artificially sharpened ‘HD’ alternatives. I’d have preferred if M2 were contracted to stick the Super Famicom original in a bundle with this.
Now that I’m done with Fallen Order, I went back to Apex Legends and just redownloaded Titanfall 2, which is so freaking awesome. It’s free on PS Plus this month so jump in and join the now revitalized multiplayer component or just play through that awesome campaign. I’ve already done a bit o’ both!
I keep going back to Switch for arcade games. I bought In the Hunt and the Konami Arcade Collection as well as Sega Ages Space Harrier in the last week.
Been dabbling with Tetris Battle Gaiden this weekend, didn’t realise Alexey Pajitnov was still at Bullet Proof Software during its development.
It’s a pretty interesting take on the versus Tetris game. Both players take pieces from the same supply (this requires a new level of quick strategy thinking), and every character has their own repertoire of skills which can be activated using crystals gained from clearing lines that had crystal-blocks inside them.
I’m rubbish at the game, though. Maybe I shouldn’t be going into the options screen at bootup and changing the difficulty from Easy to Normal, but it sometimes feels like victory in this game comes down to exploiting the AI (which can be ruthless in grabbing I pieces and timing their attack) more than playing well at Tetris.
In short, then, for now I appreciate the game more than I enjoy it. I’m sure I’ll eventually find a character I can master and clear more than two stages in the story mode…
The inconsistency is the worst part of it; I’d prefer them to just have it all the way pixelated.
I wasn’t going to swap out my PSP original (and frankly there wasn’t anything wrong with that release that needed updating) but at least some new people can get access to these games.
