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+--- Thread: Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) (/showthread.php?tid=4511)
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - Dark Jaguar - 21st February 2015
I'll go with TWINE then for a blue cart. I've got no particular interest in Hydro Thunder's lesser version. Battletanx sound pretty good, I'll stick with that.
I've heard that Rage Wars isn't all that good and doesn't really connect well with the other anyway. I'm also not exactly keen on searching high and low for a glitch free version of it. I'll go with Turok 2 then (and maybe Turok 3 if I enjoy 2). I'll just keep Rocket. It's got my "red" quota met quite well.
I'm also looking into other color carts for other systems. For the SNES, I've already got Killer Instinct (black). I know that Doom and Maximum Carnage are both red. However, I already own Doom. Hmm, was Maximum Carnage any good? I mean, it's by LJN... On Gameboy, I think I've got it all covered. I've got Donkey Kong Land, and every original GB version of Pokemon, so that's Yellow (twice), Red, Blue, Silver, Gold, and translucent blue (okay Crystal is actually a GBC exclusive game). I doubt I'll bother importing Pokemon Green (our blue) just for a green cart. (Check) Okay, turns out Japan never had color cart releases for the 1st gen pokemon games. Gold and Silver had colored carts, but they weren't even the right colors. Crystal was the same as our's though. Come to think of it, I think the only color cart for the Genesis was, again, a red Maximum Carnage. That complicates matters.
NES, outside of unlicensed carts, had Zelda and only Zelda as gold carts. (This may just be nostalgia, but the gold paint on those NES games is my favorite gold, extremely shiny compared to the duller gold used in later Zelda hardware.) Actually, there's also that gold championship cart, but I'm NOT going to bother with that, and I've got gold covered. The Famicom, on the other hand, that one's got a color for every season. I'm not even sure Famicom carts HAVE a default color. Just about every game had some sort of color, resulting in a LOT of overlap. Let's see, I've got "Robot Block" (stack up), which is white, Devil World (blue) and Mother (red). The Famicom carts were so unique that practically every single third party company had their own shell design on top of that (much like Atari, actually). Part of this comes from the simple fact that the Famicom (unlike the first design of the NES) had no lockout at all. Again, like the Atari. To that end, it's pretty easy to get the whole rainbow and make it up entirely of good games. However, my Famicom collecting is very limited by the simple fact that I stick with games I can understand (aside from Mother, which I bought to keep my translated ROM legal). I actually slapped together a famicom to NES converter using a converter board inside an older NES games and plastic parts from both a broken NES game and a Game Genie. It works, but not if the Famicom game has custom sound chips built in (none of mine do).
These days, instead of color carts we get color boxes. At some point, I should get Super Luigi U, as it's got a nice green case and sets a difficulty curve at Lost Levels... level.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 22nd February 2015
Shouldn't this be in the 'bought' thread, or some new thread, and not the 'games finished' thread? :p
Quote:I'll go with TWINE then for a blue cart. I've got no particular interest in Hydro Thunder's lesser version. Battletanx sound pretty good, I'll stick with that.I bought Hydro Thunder for the N64 back in 2001. $50 for a used copy, I believe. Never regretted it for a second; of course I didn't have a Dreamcast at the time, but it is a good version of the game (not the worst version, it's better than the PS1 version for sure...). It's got good graphics, all the content, and plays well. The main drawbacks are that the graphics aren't quite as good as DC -- it doesn't have those nice reflections, for instance -- and the game feels a bit slower. Otherwise it's good, and I do like that it's the only home version of the game with 3-4 player support. But yeah, it's not essential if you have it for DC.
Army Men: Air Combat is a simple overhead helicopter game, like a Strike game but easier. Ever played them? The N64 game is a version of the first PS1 game, and the GC game is a version of the second PS1/PS2 game. They're easy but somewhat fun games. They are probably the best Army Men games, overall, though I do also kind of like the original Army Men for PC, which is a top-down action/shooting game with some bits of strategy.
Quote:I've heard that Rage Wars isn't all that good and doesn't really connect well with the other anyway. I'm also not exactly keen on searching high and low for a glitch free version of it. I'll go with Turok 2 then (and maybe Turok 3 if I enjoy 2). I'll just keep Rocket. It's got my "red" quota met quite well.Turok 2 is a huge game. Do you like Turok 1? Turok 2 is kind of like that, but with a larger world, even longer gaps between save points, a persistent world which, for instance, saves which enemies you have defeated and leaves their bodies around pretty much forever (cost: massive save file), and a frustratingly high difficulty level. Oh, and an iffy framerate, made worse by Hi Res mode if you turn it on. Turok 2's definitely the most popular Turok game, but I got frustrated by how far apart the save points are and by how hard it is. The nonlinear elements can be frustrating too.
Turok Rage Wars is the arena-shooter of the series. It's the best multiplayer Turok game for sure, but in single player isn't as good -- it's arenas only, no full levels here. The game is definitely no match for Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament, but for the N64 it's pretty decent, probably one of the N64's better multiplayer shooters really. It's no Perfect Dark multiplayer, but it can be fun. The bug is that in multiplayer you can't finish the game 100% because of some level that doesn't work right; I forget the details.
Turok 3 is quite different from the first two; as I said in my N64 summary thread, it feels kind of like Turok mixed with Half-Life. The levels are smaller and more linear, though there is still exploration within each area. You'll need to explore each area to find the way forward, but areas aren't as huge as before; the game makes up for this by having more areas along the way. You can save anytime (it saves at the beginning of the area, which are now frequent), the draw distance isn't as close (but graphics overall might not be better, I'm not sure), there are events that happen as you go around levels (hence the Half-Life comparison), and such. It's quite unlike any of Acclaim's other N64 FPSes. There are also two playable characters, each with some areas only they can go do.
Acclaim's other N64 FPSes are South Park, which I have not played and isn't in a black cart anyway but have heard is quite average and bland, and Armorines. Armorines is a more straightforward game than any of the Half-Life games. It's pretty much completely linear. One or two people walk forward shooting aliens. There are some basic puzzles here and there, but it's mostly about the shooting. It has two player co-op, though, which is cool and isn't something in any of the Turok games (though PD of course has it.) There's also an awful Playstation version, which shows one reason why the PS1 never got Turok games... Armorines is another black-cart game, and it's amusing enough to maybe be worth a few bucks if you like the genre; otherwise pass.
As for those other black-cart games, Battlezone, Fighter Destiny 2, Scooby-Doo, Road Rash 64, and Nuclear Strike 64 are for genre/series fans. I guess you aren't, for any of those, though having at least one of the Fighter's Destiny games is worth it if you like 3d fighting games -- they're unique in some interesting ways. Rally Challenge 2000 is a decent arcade racer, fun stuff. It's not as good as Top Gear Rally, but is better than I was expecting from the same developer as the thoroughly mediocre (at best) games GT64 and MRC.
Aidyn Chronicles... I really need to play that again and write some much more comprehensive thoughts on the game. It's a REALLY interesting game, but also really flawed. It's a huge Western RPG with a good battle system, a large world to explore, companions to find, and more... but it's also kind of hard to navigate, buggy (keep backups of your save files, save into multiple slots, save often, and load if someone dies because you cannot resurrect dead characters, period), and quite slow paced. It's very much love or hate; some people really hate it, and I can easily see why, but I'm on the 'likes it' side.
Last, I think that Tony Hawk 2 is actually red, instead of green; Rocket's still the only one that color definitely worth having, though, I think. I never have cared for Tony Hawk, and Jeremy McGrath is such a bland game, stick to the all-time classic (in my opinion at least!) Excitebike 64 and the surprisingly good Top Gear Hyper-Bike for N64 motorcycle games.
Quote:I'm also looking into other color carts for other systems. For the SNES, I've already got Killer Instinct (black). I know that Doom and Maximum Carnage are both red. However, I already own Doom. Hmm, was Maximum Carnage any good? I mean, it's by LJN... On Gameboy, I think I've got it all covered. I've got Donkey Kong Land, and every original GB version of Pokemon, so that's Yellow (twice), Red, Blue, Silver, Gold, and translucent blue (okay Crystal is actually a GBC exclusive game). I doubt I'll bother importing Pokemon Green (our blue) just for a green cart. (Check) Okay, turns out Japan never had color cart releases for the 1st gen pokemon games. Gold and Silver had colored carts, but they weren't even the right colors. Crystal was the same as our's though. Come to think of it, I think the only color cart for the Genesis was, again, a red Maximum Carnage. That complicates matters.I've got the red Maximum Carnage for Genesis, and the red Doom and black KI for SNES, so that covers those... apart for SNES Maximum Carnage, but I definitely don't want both versions. I really like SNES Doom, it's so much better than I thought it would be. Maximum Carnage is a pretty bland game, though; I can't stay interested in it at all. It's not terrible, but I don't like it too much. Don't blame that on LJN, though; LJN was just an Acclaim label at that point, and they only put that on the SNES version -- Acclaim's Sega-focused Flying Edge label published the Genesis version.
NES, outside of unlicensed carts, had Zelda and only Zelda as gold carts. (This may just be nostalgia, but the gold paint on those NES games is my favorite gold, extremely shiny compared to the duller gold used in later Zelda hardware.) Actually, there's also that gold championship cart, but I'm NOT going to bother with that, and I've got gold covered.
As for the Game Boy, I have all three Donkey Kong Land games (they're all good!), Pokemon Red, and a Japanese Pokemon, uh, Gold or Silver, I forget which (never used it, probably never will; it's from a lot I got for other stuff). I don't have the other Pokemon games, and am quite fine with that. I don't need the color variations enough to buy games I don't want for them. (This is one reason I don't have any of the Pokemon N64 games other than Puzzle League, of course.)
As for the NES, remember unlicensed games; they come in various colors. There are some gold ones, blue, etc. I've got one gold unlicensed game... Quattro Sports, horrible game that. Also I have some black unlicensed carts in several styles, both Tengen of course and American Video Entertainment.
Quote:The Famicom, on the other hand, that one's got a color for every season. I'm not even sure Famicom carts HAVE a default color. Just about every game had some sort of color, resulting in a LOT of overlap. Let's see, I've got "Robot Block" (stack up), which is white, Devil World (blue) and Mother (red). The Famicom carts were so unique that practically every single third party company had their own shell design on top of that (much like Atari, actually). Part of this comes from the simple fact that the Famicom (unlike the first design of the NES) had no lockout at all. Again, like the Atari. To that end, it's pretty easy to get the whole rainbow and make it up entirely of good games. However, my Famicom collecting is very limited by the simple fact that I stick with games I can understand (aside from Mother, which I bought to keep my translated ROM legal). I actually slapped together a famicom to NES converter using a converter board inside an older NES games and plastic parts from both a broken NES game and a Game Genie. It works, but not if the Famicom game has custom sound chips built in (none of mine do).Nintendo allowed third parties to make Famicom carts, and many of them make them in many colors. And even Nintendo mixed up their colors in games, too, from game to game. So did third parties; I think all six FC Mega Man games are each in a different color cart, yes? It definitely makes things more interesting looking than the US, but it makes collecting all the colors very difficult except for people who are going to build up LARGE Famicom collections. :p
As for custom sound chips, thankfully (for us) only a relative few games have them... Castlevania III (JP), Lagrange Point (a JRPG), and not many others. Of course though, the Famicom Disk System has such a chip in it too, meaning FDS game audio would be missing that channel for anyone just using a FDS normally on a US NES. There are some workarounds for this, for modders... but considering how failure-prone the FDS is, and how awful floppy disks are in retrospect (stupid things die so quickly), I'm not too tempted to get one.
As for Famicom games, I also don't have any with language barriers, but there are a fair number that aren't a problem -- the FC has plenty of platformers we didn't get, after all. Shooters, too.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - Dark Jaguar - 22nd February 2015
Lagrange Point?! That better be a space based RPG! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point
I do enjoy how so very many early Famicom games were just straight up brought to the US early on, with not a single byte altered, because the game was already in English. This would include all those early "arcade style" Nintendo games like Ice Climbers, the earliest accessory games like Duck Hunt and Gyromite (which goes a long way to explaining why the title screens of the two ROB games don't match the box title), and even Super Mario Bros. It's why Devil World's no issue. It's also why I had not a single problem playing Stack Up (Robot Block) with an import. It's certainly FAR cheaper than buying a US cartridge. Better yet, the import I got was "complete" with everything in it. The only issue? The colors of the plastic bits and bops for ROB (Robot) didn't quite match, since Japan's version of the robot was a different color.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 22nd February 2015
Yeah, Lagrange Point is a sci-fi RPG. As for ROB, I hadn't realized it even got a Japanese release... interesting.
Also, here's a game I beat a few weeks ago. One of a few I forgot to mention when I beat them.
Playstation
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Star Sweep - Beat Story mode on normal. This is a challenging, but fun, block-dropping puzzle game. Good fun stuff, apart from the quite high difficulty level.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - Dark Jaguar - 23rd February 2015
Yeah, ROB was made in Japan, by Nintendo. Definitely a 1st party accessory, like the Zapper (though it looked a LOT different in Japan), but unlike the Power Glove. Heck, look at Smash Bros. It wouldn't be in the game as a playable character if it was US-only, and one of the costumes is ROB's Japanese color scheme (red and white, like the Famicom).
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 24th February 2015
Well, I know the story of how ROB was designed to sell NESes in America, you know, VCR-style console design, include a robot, etc. to make it seem different from those other consoles which stores didn't want anymore post-crash... and with only two games ever released for the system, I hadn't looked up if they bothered to release it in Japan too. So they did. Huh. Looks like they didn't have any games for it there we didn't get, though. Still only two. I guess once they'd convinced stores to stock the NES, partially thanks to that robot, they didn't need it anymore since by all reports it's not very good as an actual videogame accessory...
Another one from either last month or early this month.
PSP
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Fortix - This is a short Qix clone in PS Minis. It's like $1, so the short length is forgivable. I wish it was a bit more challenging, but otherwise it's decent fun stuff, Qix is a good classic.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - Dark Jaguar - 24th February 2015
ROB (or should I say "Robot", which is what he was called in Japan) was designed by Gunpei Yokoi, by Nintendo of Japan. It's history did have something to do with trying to reignite a western interest in video games after the crash, but it wasn't designed by NOA the way the "VCR" style NES was. However, I should note it wasn't actually very successful. The NES did reignite interest, but ROB played basically no part in that. Not a single kid I know actually owned one. It only was included with the most expensive NES sets, and most kids only got the less expensive ones. That is, it still came with two controllers and the Zapper (plus Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt), but not ROB. I got very lucky in that I got a used NES from a garage sale back in the mid 90's. Mind you, I already had an NES as a kid, but that one at the garage sale was being sold by an elderly couple for $15 and included EVERYTHING that came with that special "ROB" edition. A very nice set indeed, and it actually became my "go to" NES. (It was missing a gyro, but I eventually bought a second one off eBay years later, for the same cost as the entire rest of the set.)
For most of us, ROB was more of a weird icon than something we actually owned. We knew it existed from things like Nintendo Power, but it's status was more like a legend, something you'd hear about now and again. Word quickly spread that it wasn't very fun though, probably another factor into why the more expensive NES bundle didn't sell very well. It also goes a long way towards explaning why Gyromite (the ROB Pack in) is so much easier to find than Stack Up (which you had to make a conscious choice to buy separately after having tried ROB out, and hence why no one actually bothered to buy it). Gunpei Yokoi got a lot of well deserved fame from both Metroid and the Gameboy, but he's had a pile of stinkers in his wake as well, and ROB is just another among them. To be fair, at least Nintendo has fun with that failure. I'd love to see them stick Virtual Boy into a few of their games as a character, just for funsies.
Anyway, yeah, ROB actually got released in Japan before it came out in the US, in spite of the intent. It always did have a very "Japanese" thing going for it, probably because, well, it is a robot after all.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 11th March 2015
TurboGrafx CD
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Road Spirits (J) - I got around to playing this game again, and finished it easily; this is one of the easiest racing games I have ever played. This is an Outrun-style point-to-point racer, but it's linear instead of branching. There are 17 races, which sounds like quite a few, but you'll never lose. The game has nice graphics for the system, good music, okay controls... but there is no challenge here at all. You rarely need to brake, I never actually ran out of time in a race except for one where I intentionally ran out of time just so I could see the game over screen. The game actually has a neat little Game Over animation, so it was worth it. Otherwise, though... this game is playable, but they forgot to include any challenge at all! Everything is here except for a game that's challenging in even the slightest way, and that makes it not that much fun to play. There are no difficulty settings, either. There are four cars and three transmissions (Automatic, 2-speed manual, 5-speed manual), but even in 5-speed mode this game is super easy, you will rarely if ever need to shift down. And the game doesn't really get harder as you go along, either. Just hold down the accelerator, shift up if using manual, and turn when the road does and you should finish every race with plenty of time to spare.
Still, this game is maybe the only behind-the-car linescroll racing game on the Turbo (PC Engine) CD, so I'm happy to have it even if it's absurdly simplistic. It does look and sound good, and it's fun for a few minutes at least. I like the varied settings, you go around the world... though oddly, this Japan-only release has no tracks in Japan, but a full seven in the US, out of 17 total! Yeah. There are as many races in Alaska as there are in Europe -- two each. Heh. Not sure if I've ever seen that before in a racing game. :p
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 21st March 2015
Game Boy
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Maru's Mission - This is a fun, but easy and somewhat buggy, platformer. This game is in the Ninja Jajamaru series of games from Jaleco, though it doesn't play much like the other Jajamaru games I have, a Famicom platformer and a Famicom RPG. This is one of the only games in the series to get a US release. It's okay, but yeah, WAY too short and easy. You have a sizable healthbar in this game, can get refills from most enemies, can shoot across the screen, and can jump higher than the screen as well. This game has decently nice graphics, but it's short -- there are only six levels, each made up of two somewhat short sections followed by a boss. Levels are very easy; only the bosses present any challenge, and even there it's only some of them that do. I had the hardest time with Medusa, the boss of the third or fourth level. I probably should have died there, and you get only one life and no continues in this game so that would mean start over, but instead my health started turning into letters -- 0S1, 0HI, things like that. I eventually won with 080 health left, but I don't know what happened there... I've died a few times in the first level and get game over when health hits zero, as you should. I should play again to that bossfight and see if it happens again. Medusa was tricky because the fight is in a small cave and you've got to use a shield to bounce back her shots, instead of just shooting the boss to death like normal.
Otherwise the game was easy. It is reasonably fun, though. It's probably worth getting for a couple of bucks if you like platformers. The game does have some nice visual effects, there's a bit of variety, and more. There are a couple of sections in between levels where you fight sharks underwater, for example. Interestingly, your spears go upwards slower than down, as if there's really gravity! It's kind of cool. Also, you can walk on the ceiling in some cave areas. This consistently happens in many levels, so I have to think it's intentional, but with that other bug I can't be sure. Either way, I like it! Metal Storm is awesome.
Oh, and the dot for the Romania stage looked like it was in Russia, or something. Wasn't even close to Romania. It clearly was supposed to be Romania, though, as you fight Dracula. On that note, the story has you having to rescue your kidnapped girlfriend, of course. Zero points for plot here. There are short conversations with each boss before and after you fight them, though, which adds a bit to the game. You start in Japan, travel to four places elsewhere around the world, and then go back to Japan for the last level because that's where she was all along. Heh. Those bosses telling Maru where to go next (where she's supposedly being hidden) after you beat them were such trolls... :p
So yeah, okay but easy and possibly buggy game. It was fun stuff anyway.
Xbox 360
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Dead or Alive 4 - I'd beaten story mode some time back, but went back to the game recently and now got all the costumes too. Great game! I really like the DoA series, the fighting is better than most 3d fighting games.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 4th April 2015
NES
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Rolling Thunder - Beat Normal mode. I'm going to write a full review of this, so I'll only say a bit here, but I'm kind of amazed and thrilled that I finally beat one of my favorite games of the '80s! Yes, despite its often nearly unfair difficulty I love Rolling Thunder, it's an incredible game and a bit of an under-rated classic. I actually already got halfway through Hard mode, which I didn't know existed until I finished this game on Normal yesterday; you get the password for it after beating the game on normal. Of course I have to challenge it. In hard all enemies shoot at you, which makes things harder. This is a super-frustrating game and you must memorize every inch of it to survive, and pull off those button presses PERFECTLY to not die, but I love it!
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 17th April 2015
Turbo CD
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Shubibinman 3: Ikai no Princess - I finished this quite short and easy game on Normal in notime. This game has good graphics, decently good controls, lots of variety, fun encounters... and almost no content or challenge. It's really too bad, they almost had something great here, but it's just far too short and easy. This game is actually the shortest of the four Shubibinman games, despite being the only one on a CD, which is kind of sad. You'd think a game would get longer, not shorter, when it moves from HuCard to CD! The challenge of the first two games just isn't here at all, either. There is a Hard mode, and I will play the game again on that, but it doesn't add as much challenge as it should. This reminds me a bit of Download 2 or that Bakuretsu Yoshimoto Shingeki game, in being Turbo CD games which are fun, but are very short (you'll beat them day one no problem) and have limited replay value. This game has infinite continues, too, making it even easier.
Level designs are a disappointment as well. Most stages are just a path to the right. A few do have jumping puzzle elements, but as in Valis you don't die when you fall, you just lose some health. Levels aren't nearly varied enough, and there are few obstacles apart from a few segments. A good example of this games' wasted potential is that your characters have a cool wall-kick move, to jump off walls... but there is only ONE place in the entire game you'll ever need it, because the rest of the game has almost no walls! It's crazy, why put that in and then fail to use it at all? The other Shubibinman games have better, more interesting level designs. This game has better graphics and music for sure, and fun sword-slashing gameplay, but the levels are too bland in design underneath their often quite nice looks.
Another issue is that you have a gun -- hold down the attack button to charge, let go and you'll shoot -- and can even control your shot (tap fire again, dpad will move it around). That's pretty cool... but it's massively overpowered. Most bosses go down in just a few hits with the gun, it's kind of pathetic how easy it makes most of the game. They didn't balance the gun well at all.
So yeah, this game disappointed me a bit. I WAS expecting it to be easy, because that's its reputation, but the short length and bland levels are unfortunate. Shubibinman 1 may have bland and very repetitive graphics and be unfair (it's easy to moderate in challenge... until you die, at which point it becomes impossible and you should just start the game over), but I like its level-design variety and controls; I like that game a lot more than most, I think. In comparison, this one looks far nicer and the controls are better (apart from your overpowered gun), but the super-short design isn't something I'll probably go back to nearly as often as I have the first game. So yeah, this is an okay game. It's fun though, but is it worth the $20-plus it costs? Maybe not... though being a sidescrolling action game on a system with far too few of them does make it more interesting than it otherwise would be.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 18th April 2015
Think of this as a preview of a review I might write once I've played the game more. :)
Bomberman 64 (Japan, 2001) - I beat the short and not-too-hard Bomberman mode in this game today. This entirely 2d, sprite-based 2001 N64 Bomberman 64 game has four modes: Bomberman, Panic Bomber, Samegame, and Bomber Park [aka Bomberman Land]. It's got variety, then, but not depth -- none of the modes have the full variety of modes and options that they do as stand-alone games, unfortunately.
First, Bomberman, The Bomberman game is very short and lacking in challenge. It does have reasonably good replay value, though -- the game uses a branching level tree, Outrun-style. At the end of each stage you can choose to go up or down, depending on which exit you take. So, each game is only half an hour long, but at least when you replay it you can see different stages. Still, there isn't as much here as in many other Bomberman games, and it's not as hard either. I've never beaten a traditional Bomberman game, but I beat this one in an in-game time of 32 minutes, playing it today, and it's only the second time I've played the game. I like the visual variety, as each vertical slice of stages has a new tileset, and there is a nice variety of enemies, but with only 10 stages per play, even with a handful of routes this won't have the length of play of even one of the shorter, later Super Bomberman games, I don't think. At least it looks nice and plays well, though, which makes it quite fun! I like the '00s-style Bomberman here, he's cute without the annoying cutesey sound effects of, say, Bomberman Generation (Gamecube). I like the look better than Super Bomberman 1 or 4. But... there are few bosses, you keep your bomb range and drop number powerups after you die, and there are only 10 stages per game, so it really is short and relatively easy. Still though, I had fun and will definitely play it again to try to improve my time and see another route.
Of course, it's also got fantastic classic 2d Bomberman multiplayer, that would be great here I'm sure!
As for the other modes, I haven't beaten them yet (or in one case you can't), but I can say something. Panic Bomber has only vs. human (1-4 player) or endless, no vs. CPU story mode. It's a solid match-three puzzler with some twists, but visually is a bit bland, and if you want the full experience you need to get the Turbo CD and/or SNES Panic Bomber games (or the Virtual Boy version, for the only release with English-language story text, but get another one to play multiplayer because of course the VB doesn't have that). This is a good game and I can definitely see it getting addictive, but I wish it was the full game as seen before. There are two tilesets for the blocks available. Samegame is similar -- it's a stripped-down version of Samegame, with many fewer options than Hudson's feature-rich Super Nintendo Samegame title (Japan-only release). You've only got one mode, 'clear all the blocks', and only one tileset. The only option is field size; there are four available, small to large. Samegame is a deceptively simple game. It looks really easy at first, but actually clearing a board is tough! I rarely manage it. Samegame has only one graphical tileset, and it's barely Bomberman-themed. And last, Bomber Park is a Bomberman Land-style single player minigame collection, where you wander around a theme park as Bomberman and challenge the various minigames. There are maybe 15 minigames here, and most have two difficulties to challenge, so there is some variety but not nearly as much as in the full Bomberman Land games on PS1, PS2, GC, Wii, DS, and PSP. (The US only saw the DS and Wii games, and not the rest). Some of the minigames are better than others of course, but it's a fun mode to have. I like some of these, and the theme-park theme works. Of course I wish the people were talking English instead of Japanese, but ah well. This is the only mode with any language barrier, but thankfully most minigames are easy enough to understand, though you do lose out on understanding what the people you can talk to around the park are saying.
The game has no options beyond changing the tileset for Panic Bomber mode, either -- no difficulty settings, nothing. There is a high-scores screen, though, thankfully. The game keeps track of your five best times in Bomberman mode (with name entry), the five best scores in Panic Bomber (with name entry), the one best score in each of the four Samegame map sizes (with just the scores, no name entry), and the best score on each minigame in Bomber Park (with just the scores, no name entry). I would have liked to see name entry for all modes, but what's there is good.
So overall, how is Bomberman 64 (2001)? Well, it's okay. The main draw here is just playing these games on the N64, because there are no other N64 Samegame, Panic Bomber, Bomberman Land, or classic 2d Bomberman games, while this has all four of those games in one. However, the stripped-down nature of each game, with few modes and options, does hurt it. In single player, unless you really get into getting better scores, I don't think this game will hold most peoples' interest for long. Of course though, as a multiplayer game it is surely fantastic. 2d Bomberman is a great party game, and this has a great version of it! And 4-player Panic Bomber is great to see as well; the N64 has only a few 4-player puzzle games like this. The other two modes are single player, but the two multiplayer modes both could easily take up lots of time, no problem. But as a single player game, I would have liked to see more.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 4th May 2015
Nintendo DS
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Zookeeper - I beat the main arcade-style mode on Normal. I didn't know that this mode ended and wasn't your usual endless mode, but it ends. Huh. This is a solid, but very generic (outside of the nice graphics) match-3 puzzle game. Good stuff, the DS stylus is absolutely perfect for this kind of game, no dpad or finger (or large, soft capacitive-touch stylus) matches up to hard plastic DS styluses for touch-control games.
Turbografx CD
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Splash Lake - I finally beat this pretty good puzzle-action game today! This is a pretty good game, and was the first TCD game I got back in mid 2013. I'd gotten well into the game, and picked it up again a few days ago from late in world 5, of the 6 in the game. Well, I finished it today. It's a good game for sure, though I wish it had a higher difficulty level or something, I want more! You play as an ostritch on floating bridges, and crack the bridges to drown all the enemies, without falling into the sea yourself. It starts out easy, but quickly becomes a tricky puzzle game. There are normal bridge pieces and pillars, and you crack normal pieces with one button, and jump 2 spaces forward with the other button. Pillars cannot be broken, but normal bridges will fall when only cracked and normal pieces are in an area, and no pillars -- so crack all the bridge connections to pillars to drop an area of bridge. The enemies get tougher as you go along, though, and the last five levels were quite tough, levels 6-6, 6-7, and 6-10, the final stage, particularly. The game has tile-based movement, which led to some frustration when I wanted precise control which you do not have here, you can only move when not doing an action and can't interrupt one to do something else. Still, it's a pretty good game I definitely recommend. I'll play it again in 2 player co-op sometime; yes, the game supports that. :)
The only real negative other than not having a harder setting is that this is a CD game which really uses the disc only for music; otherwise, this game probably could have fit on a HuCard, I think. The graphics are nice but not too varied, and cutscenes between levels have no voice acting and aren't animated scenes, they're mostly in-engine. There is a nice screen at the end showing your ostriches, but a card game could do that. At least the music is good, though, so I like their choice to make this game a CD. The soundtrack is bouncy fun stuff.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 12th May 2015
TurboGrafx-16
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Doraemon Nobita no Dorabian Nights - This is a game I got in my most recent box of import stuff. At first it seemed simple and average, but it actually gets pretty good. Dorabian Nights is a fairly standard Hudson platformer, so it's not one of the greats of the genre -- Hudson platformers never were -- but it is a good, solid game that's fun to play. The game has a good difficulty curve, starting out easy and getting much more difficult by the end. The game has four worlds of four levels each and a final level at the end. The first world is very easy, the second fairly easy, the third pretty tough, the fourth about on par with the third or maybe slightly easier, and the last level is hard. Overall I had the hardest time with level 3-3, I died more in that level than any other, and it had me stuck some time -- I've been playing this game on and off for a few days now. Yes, I left the system on that long; you can't save in this game, sadly, though you do have infinite continues... from the beginning of the world. Die in a level and you start it over, lose all your lives and it's back to level 1 of the world. This may be a kids' game, but it's not as easy as you might think. The first SNES Doraemon game is a lot easier than this game, for sure. That's good, though, I like some challenge in a platformer.
In the game, you have 4 hits per life. Green things you can dig up give you a hitpoint back, if you've been hit, and these do respawn... but so do the enemies. Doraemon has five different weapons, one of which you only use during the final boss fight. The other four have some nice variety. The starting gun stuns enemies, the second is the best all-purpose gun, the third is a homing gun which fires slowly but the shots will curve to hit a target, and the last is a cape which sends enemies flying back to damage other enemies, which can be fun. You also can collect some other items which give you a shield, invincibility, and more. You get these from doors; hit Up at a door to go in. Doors either have a powerup, a bonus minigame (for an extra life or health), or in a few cases some other scene in them. Never enemies, though. The bonus rooms are amusing and add more variety to this already varied game. This is a slow-paced game, though -- Doraemon moves slowly and there is no run. I don't mind, though some people do.
One odd thing about this game is that even though it's a licensed game based on a movie, from what I've read about the movies' plot, almost none of that happens in the game. The movie is almost entirely set in the fantasy Arabian setting of the title; Doraemon and his child friends go on an adventure there. The girl character gets kidnapped and the others have to rescue her, etc. But in this game? The four children went into storybooks, and Doraemon has to rescue them. Each book is set in a different time period. The first is dinosaur-themed, the second ancient Japan themed, the third creepy/horror themed, and the last Arabian themed. On the title screen Doraemon has a turban on, fitting the setting, but ingame he only wears this in world 4 and the final level. The children only have their Arabian outfits on on the title-screen image and in the second part of the end cutscene, too. So yeah, don't expect much of the movie here. Of course, games that try something different often end up better than movie games that strictly follow the plot, so it's okay. Plus, I like the variety of the four worlds. Every level has a different setting, and they're interesting to see as you progress.
Graphically, the game is a standard Hudson platformer, with Doraemon in it. It's cute and cartoony and looks nice, though of course there isn't much parallax -- only two stages have any, the rest are flat. The music is good, but not hugely memorable. Still, it's catchy, fun stuff. The graphics are better than I thought they'd be; I was expecting something maybe more like the mediocrity of Bakusho Yoshimoto Shingeki, but this game looks better than that one for sure, and it's a lot longer and harder as well. The game also has some nice gameplay and enemy variety. Almost every level in this game is unique! Every single level has multiple enemy types you will only see in that level, no enemies return when you go from one world to the next so the game is always mixing it up with new enemy types, and several levels have a gimmick you won't see again. There is one underwater level for instance, one level where you ride a dinosaur for part of the level, one level where you shuffle along platform edges where one hit knocks you back down (this is 3-3, the hardest level), one level is loaded with these pots you can break and pots that keep spitting out enemies at you, etc. I kind of wish some of the better ideas appeared more than once -- more later levels with platforming as hard as 3-3 might have been a good idea, for instance, or an animal or vehicle to ride on after the first stage other than those flying-carpet bits in the last level -- but still, it works, and the game is challenging even without more levels like that. The final boss is definitely a good challenge, for instance. I finally beat the game with 1 hit point left on my last life. Pretty tense! I thought that a death would send me back to 4-1, but I think that actually you might be able to start from the last level, since it has its own screen on the level-select map, though fortunately I didn't test it. That was close, though... I had to survive for quite a while with only that 1 hit point left! Tense stuff, it was pretty fun.
So yeah, overall, Dorabian Nights is a simple but fun platformer, and I like it a lot more than I thought I would. I didn't think this would be all that great, but it's a fun game for sure. It's not as good as the Bonk games, but after them it's better than some of Hudson's other platformers for the system. The game has decently nice graphics, lots of variety (every single level has a unique look and feel to it; that's not common in a game like this!), and good level design. It's a good game. The main flaws are that the game should have had saving (having to leave the system on for this long is annoying), I'd have liked to see parallax in a lot more levels than just two, and the difficulty is uneven -- why is 3-3 the hardest level (other than maybe the final boss), for instance? And why is the desert stage, 4-3, super easy, while the other levels in world 4 are a reasonable challenge? Ah well. The game is pretty good, these issues aren't too bad. The game is also slow paced, something some people really dislike, but I don't mind this; as with, say, the Bonk or Tempo games, the slow pace fits the design well.
Oh, and the other issue is that the CD version of the game, which released a year after this 1991 HuCard version, is INCREDIBLY lazy -- they just redid the intro and ending with voice acting and more animation, redrew some graphics to make them look a little better, put in vocal songs on the title screen and (new) end-credits sequence, and added some voiced sound effects. That's it, no other changes. It even still has chiptune music ingame. That's not an issue with this version, though, just with Hudson failing to improve the later CD port much at all. Anyway, this game is fun, try it out if you like platformers.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 15th May 2015
Nintendo 64
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San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing - This is another special one! The first SF Rush is one of my favorite racing games ever, but I'd never actually finished the game, until now. It took a week or two of frequent play, but I learned all of the tracks well enough to win on Easy difficulty (difficulty level 2 of 6). "Easy" is still quite hard, and the higher settings don't seem THAT much tougher; the AI is tough at any setting, and the timer is often your toughest opponent. SF Rush is one hard, hard game! The AI usually stays in one tight pack, and that timer gives you almost no time for mistakes. If you want to finish the race, you really can't mess up; in many tracks, even two spin-outs means you have no chance of finishing. Yeah, this game takes a lot of practice and memorization. Fortunately it saves your progress after each race and you can restart a race when you fail, so long as you don't wait too long -- the race will go final if you don't pause and restart immediately after blowing up or running out of time.
So yeah, I've always really, really loved the game, but hadn't managed to finish the championship in first place because of the challenge level. It's awesome that I finally managed it! I started the game over, I didn't have my old save file anymore, but that's okay, I needed to re-learn the tracks anyway. Track 3 is the hardest, 6 next, 2, 4, and 5 in the middle, and 1 the easiest. The super-secret track 7 is another middle-difficulty track. On the note of track 7, you need to beat the game and then do a very complex cheatcode in order to unlock it -- that the Alcatraz track is actually on the cart was secret at launch, not revealed for months afterwards. I think it's really cool that they snuck the track on the cart like that, it's a great story. It's got to be one of the best cheatcodes ever! And indeed, it's a great track, almost as good as the arcade version. This version is a bit stripped-down, with less environment detail and the big curly-loop removed, but they had almost no cart space left, and had to make cuts to this track to squeeze it in the last bits of space they had. Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA has a complete version of the track; it's fun to compare the two versions. Even though that version is better though, its still REALLY awesome to be able to play it in this game too; as great as Rush 2 is, I like the first game more and it's awesome to have all of the tracks in it.
Rush, the series, might be my favorite racing game series. Rush 2049 for N64 is of course my favorite racing game ever, and SF Rush the Rock: Alcatraz Edition, the arcade version of this N64 game here, is my favorite arcade racing game ever. I love the tough controls, the great track designs, the awesome air you get, the challenge, the music (esp. in 2049, but this games' soundtrack is good as well), and almost everything else! They're such incredible games... and this N64 version really is fantastic. Yeah, the graphics aren't nearly as good as the arcade version, and there is fog, but it's a great, great game once you get used to it.
I remember Rush 2 having much more boring tracks than the first game, but I think I'll have to play it some now. I haven't finished that game in first place either. :)
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 24th May 2015
PC
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Gunman Clive - Beat the game in Normal with Clive. This is a pretty fun, but short, Mega Man-style run & gun . Sadly it doesn't support any non-X360 controllers, even with a xinput emulator, so I have to use the keyboard; this surely makes the game harder, and a bit less fun. Otherwise this is a pretty good game, though. I love the wild west music, it's great! And the gameplay and level designs are good too. I just wish there was more to the game, it's over too soon -- the first time through the game will take an hour, maybe two at most. There is a harder mode, but it just gives you half health. Otherwise there's just Duck mode, which is amusing but doesn't add too much.
Dreamcast
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Plasma Sword -- This is an okay, but not great, 3d fighting game. If it was from someone else it'd be good, but for Capcom, this is a bit disappointing; Rival Schools looks and plays far better than this! The time between the two games sure was used well, that game looks a LOT better than this, and plays even better than that. Still, this is an amusing little game. It's too easy on the default setting though -- once I figured out the controls (ie, found the super-attack command, which is L or A+X), I didn't lose any matches; even beat the boss first try. Yeah. Also, this game is a sequel to Star Gladiator (PS1, I believe), a game I don't have and have never played, so the story doesn't make a lot of sense. Still, it's simple and fun enough that I'll certainly play the game some more. It's an average at best game, though.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 13th June 2015
Xbox 360
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The King of Fighters XIII - Finished Story mode (beat the boss). KOF XIII is an amazing game, but it cost too much to make versus revenues, so the game is one of the last AAA 2d games ever and so far SNK's last hardcore game. That is horribly sad, because this game is incredibly beautiful and really, really good. I like SNK fighting games of course, but this is a great one. The story mode is good too, and has quite a bit to it, with multiple routes and everything. Great stuff.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 28th June 2015
Game Gear
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Fray: Shugyouhen - So I decided to play this game again, and... beat it about an hour later. Huh. I hadn't finished it before, but this time didn't have too much trouble except for the second-to-last boss. I'm not sure how far I'd gotten before, but I could easily see running out of lives there -- that boss is quite annoying. I managed to get past the thing this time, though, if just barely - I had one hit point left and was going to be hit by a rock and die, but the boss died first, level won with that rock pixels from Fray! :). This is a fun little game, even if it's not nearly as good as the Turbo CD Fray game, for sure. The massive, constant, insane slowdown is annoying as well. Seriously, this game runs is slow motion most of the time, even if you're not firing! Why does the GG have such serious framerate problems in far too many games? The GG makes the SNES look fast, sometimes... still though, I liked this game even if it's slow, mostly not that hard, and kind of short. It has charm, nice graphics, and some good variety. Decent little game, it was well worth getting.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 15th July 2015
Turbografx-16
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Space Invaders Plus (in Space Invaders: Fukkatsu no Hi (J)) - This is a pretty good ~1990 title in the popular Space Invaders franchise. The basic gameplay is Space Invaders, but with multiple hit points instead of many shield blocks to hide behind. Every four levels the game has a new setting. Space Invaders '91 on the Genesis took some ideas from this game and added to them, but Space Invaders Plus is also a very fun game. It's short but really hard (diagonal shots are particularly hard to avoid!), has branching paths, and has good, addictive, and simple gameplay. Unfortunately, the game is also very frustrating thanks to that high difficulty level and a heavy reliance on random luck -- UFOs only occasionally drop powerups, and which they drop is random, but success relies on getting good powerup drops. It's not a very well-designed system, Activision's "shoot four enemies of the same kind/color for a powerup" system from Space Invaders (late '90s remake) really was a great concept. Taito clearly thought so too, because their subsequent Space Invaders games -- Revolution, etc. -- all use it as well. This game was from long before that, unfortunately. The other random element here is the issue of the branching paths -- which stages you go to feels somewhat random. I honestly have no idea why I went to the stages I did. Is it just random? Is it based on score? Or is it based on how many shields you have? Or how many hits you've taken? I don't know, and can't figure it out. The game would be better if the progression made more sense. So yeah, I beat the game, but haven't beaten all the stages, for sure -- the time I won I didn't have to face that really hard level where the aliens jitter in place back and forth. Still though, despite the issues, I do like the game. Fire up, take out rows, move over... it's a simple, classic design, and it works.
Oh, Space Invaders: Fukkatsu no Hi consists of this game and a port of the color version of the original Space Invaders.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 17th July 2015
Saturn
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Goiken Muyou: Anarchy in the Nippon - beat once on default settings. This is a nice-looking but somewhat weird 3d fighting game. The controls are similar to the Virtua Fighter style, but are a bit different -- there's no jumping for example, or ducking either. The game looks great, but the game is a bit annoying, I don't like the inability to jump or duck. Yeah, you can aim attacks high or low, but still, that would be better. At least it does have 3d movement, but it's by pressing L/R for into-screen or Down+L/R for towards-screen instead of Up or Down. The AI is also iffy -- as usual in fighting games it varies between easy and hard, but on the default setting it's too easy to exploit, at times. Yeah, losing over and over and over is a pain, but should I really be able to win that match by figuring out that that opponent has no answer for repeated down+kick attacks? :p And for the final boss, 'hold block, let go and try to get in a few hits' is key. This game took inspiration from stuff like Tekken, clearly, because matches are very short, shorter than they are in VF games. You can lose in only a handful of hits, particularly with combos which of course the AI knows. The game is a bit slow-paced, too, like a lot of 3d fighters that generation. Still, for a Saturn 3d fighting game this game is okay; 5th-gen 3d fighting games have aged pretty badly for the most part. I'll have to play the game more to figure out how to play it better, I'm not very good so far. The game does have a bunch of options, including some interesting customizable AI character stuff that's somewhat impenetrable if you don't know Japanese.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 23rd July 2015
Xbox 360
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Otomedius Excellent - Beat on Easy and Normal. This mediocre shmup has to be one of Konami's worst ever, so it's sad that it'll probably be their last console shmup, considering where Konami is going now. This is a Gradius-styled game (or Parodius-styled, maybe more appropriately), but with anime girls. That alone isn't the problem; if it sells copies, whatever. I mean, I'd rather have a real Gradius game, but any Konami shooter is better than none, the Gradius series is my favorite shmup series ever. No, the problem is that this just isn't a very good game. The level designs just don't have that Gradius charm, or level design styles. This is a 2.5d game, with polygonal graphics and side-scrolling gameplay, and it looks mediocre at best. The presentation is also hurt by the constant talking, because it's all voiced in Japanese and the subtitles, when they bother to provide them (which is only maybe two-thirds of the time), are in a tiny little box in the lower lefthand corner that you can't look at if you want to stay alive, because the talking happens during missions and not in cutscenes. The script in the Ultimate Shooting Collection set for Wii worked the same way, or rather didn't work. The level designs are the worst thing here, though. This is a Gradius-style game, but it mixes in some elements of bullet-hell... but doesn't go all the way. The result is a somewhat confused mix of styles. The game is obnoxiously difficult on Normal (I only finished it because of the infinite at-point continues), but a cakewalk on Easy. I'm sure bullet-hell fans won't find Normal all that hard, but I'm terrible at that kind of game. Easy gives you a full shield to start on each life, and the game almost feels like it was balanced for this, but then the short length becomes obvious; shmups are often short, but this could have used some more levels. The game has the usual Gradius issue where if you die the game punishes you HARD, but it feels less balanced here than usual. Usually, in Gradius games, even at minimum power you can get through the game if you're good and avoid damage. Here that really is not the case, there are points where you MUST have powerups in order to not die, or in order to actually kill the boss. It's bad stuff compared to its predecessors in the franchise. I don't think this game has the replay value of a great shooter, either, it's just not fun enough. There are some familiar enemies, enemy patterns, and such to fight, and that's fun, but it's all so much worse than the real Gradius games that it's disappointing. Another disappointment are the bosses -- you see, if you take too long to kiill a boss, it'll just leave. And the amount of time you have for some bossfights is fairly short; I beat the game a few times, but there are some bosses I haven't managed to defeat yet. No other Gradius-franchise titles have bosses that just ... leave. Dying a lot isn't fun either of course, but that feels unsatisfying. Of course, as I said the also always did a much better job of balancing how much damage you need to do to beat bosses with different power levels. Annoying.
So yeah, this game has a lot of problems. It's also the second or third, and last, game in the Otomedius series, but is the only one with a Western release so what IS translated in the story doesn't entirely make sense, there are references to the other games. At least the enemies are still called the Bacterions though, so there is that connection to the series. Oddly there isn't the expected easy giant brain final boss, though... too bad. Still, this is a decent, if below-average game and it was worth playing at least a bit of.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 26th July 2015
Turbografx-16 CD (TCD)
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Zero Wing (J) - A great version of this infamous classic! CATS isn't in this version, but additional content and awesome CD audio are. I just finished writing a full review of this game which I will probably post later today.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 2nd August 2015
Turbografx-16
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Final Soldier - beat on Normal. This is actually the second of the three TG16 Soldier games. It's a good game with a solid difficulty curve -- easy at the start, tough later on. It's a MUCH easier game than the super-hard Super Star Soldier, the first TG16 Soldier game, but that's a good thing, that game's maybe a bit too hard. Still, this one took me a while to finish -- I've had it since last year. The graphics and sound aren't much better than SSS, so it looks good but the music is only okay. The addition of saving for your best score in regular, 2-minute, and 5-minute modes is great. I also like the added weapons to choose from, and that you continue where you died (as long as it's not game over, game over means back to the start of the level), that's one thing that makes this game so much easier than SSS; SSS uses a Blazing Lazers-like continue system. So yeah, it's a good but not great game. (I don't have the third TG16 Soldier game, Soldier Blade, yet, or the TCD title, Star Parodier.)
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 5th August 2015
I beat the game on Normal some time back, but recently I was playing W-Ring: The Double Rings for Turbografx-16 (well, PC Engine, since it's an import-only title) recently... and while Normal difficulty was easy, so easy that in fact I beat it without getting a game over on my first try when I picked the game up a few days ago, impressive stuff for me -- Expert is an entirely different story! As easy as the game is on Normal, it's BRUTALLY hard on Expert. The last level, level 6 plus level X (because game over in level X sends you all the way back to the start of level 6, so it's not a "full" level even though it really is), is super, super hard. I did beat it, but I ended up having to use a cheatcode to do so because it was just impossible for me otherwise. I spent more hours trying to beat that level than I did level 9 of TCD Zero Wing, to less avail. Level 6 is so narrow and confined, and there are SO many enemies on screen all shooting at you! Not getting hit is near-impossible at times, even with the best weapon for the stage, the Red + ? weapon that sends bouncy spheres around the screen forwards and back.
In all my tries, I defeated the final boss once, once without hte cheatcode and once quite a few hours later with it. See, theat first time, I beat the final boss, but somehow died moments later. I don't know how, I should have been safe with the boss dead. Killing me after beating the game was incredibly cheap, and I never managed to get that far again, frustratingly -- that time I got to Level X with four lives left, only to waste all of them and reach the boss on my last life since Level X is really hard unless you have weapon powerups when you reach it, which I didn't because I'd messed up at the Level 6 boss and got hit. Eventually I gave up and turned off the game... then looked on PC Engine FX and found a cheatcode. If you go into the sound test and start playing music tracks 7, 9, 3, and 10 (in that order), you get an additional pair of sphere-shields rotating around your ship. You're not invincible, but this help was enough to get me through on this second attempt, though it did take more than a few tries to get past level 6+X even with the help. I'll count it as a win. :p
Overall I do love W-Ring, more than many people seem to, but the difficulty level is so unbalanced! It's a very easy game on Normal, even EASIER on Easy... and a near-impossible nightmare of frustration on Hard ("Expert"). And in Expert, the last level (6 and X combined) is exponentially harder than any other stage. A smoother difficulty curve would be much better than what you see in this game. Also, I never really felt like I could just get through with pure memorization -- there is a random element to this, more so than an R-Type or Zero Wing. It's very hard to tell when a bullet was going to hit my ship, and when it was going to bounce off the shields, and the bullets are fast, small, and SERIOUSLY blend in to the background too, particularly in level 6. So, I often just had to take my chances, and this often resulted in getting hit. And in a level where taking even one hit is doom (because you lose your weapon when you get hit and weapon powerups in lv. 6 are far apart, so you'll get hit again and die), that is a problem. I still like this game, but I wish the bullets were easier to see, and it was more clear about when it was going to hit the ship or the shield ring. The game has great graphics and music, with impressively animating backgrounds and lots of color and variety, but the hard-to-see bullets are its one visual flaw.
Finally... why is the title "The Double Rings" when that shield around your ship is a single ring? There are some things constructed out of two rings, such as the red-weapon balls or that twin rotating shield from the cheat, but I don't know if it's meant to refer to any of those things, the single ring around your ship is the most obvious thing. It's a weird title. I wonder if the manual explains it... but I don't have the manual, just a loose card for this game, and it'd be in Japanese anyway of course.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 19th September 2015
NES
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Darkwing Duck - Yes, I finished the game already. It's a great game, one of those great NES platformers for sure, but with only 7 levels and infinite continues, it wasn't too hard to finish after a couple days of practice -- that is, of leaving the system on because the game doesn't have passwords for some dumb reason. So yeah, this game is good but a bit short. Was it worth the money? Probably, but more levels would be nice -- this game released the same year as Mega Mans 3 and 4, and uses the MM engine, but has a lot less content than those games so though each level is just as challenging as MM3 or 4 levels (that is, it's an approachable challenge, not super hard but not really easy either), it won't take as long to finish this game as those. Ah well. At least the levels it does have are varied and well-designed, and the game has some new game mechanics such as hanging off of things and using your cape as a shield. Pretty good game. I really like it -- the graphics, music, and gameplay are all great. All I wish it had were health bars for the bosses, passwords, and more levels; otherwise it's great. Seeing the Mega Man engine repurposed into something somewhat different is pretty interesting. Ducktales is of course Capcom's top NES Disney classic, but Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck are also fantastic.
One thing, though -- people call this game "hard", but DuckTales and Rescue Rangers "easy", but I've beaten this game quickly but not those (well, I may have seen DuckTales' ending sometime when i was a kid, I don't remember but friends did have the game, but if so I doubt I was playing!). Why? Because of the infinite continues, of course! Those two first Capcom NES Disney games have no continues at all, making them in some ways harder than this one. Each level in this game is a lot harder than levels in those, but you can just keep trying...
Saturn
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Detana! Twinbee Yahho Deluxe Pack - I beat both games on this disc, Detana!! Twinbee and Twinbee Yahho!. They are ports of Konami's two Twinbee arcade games, the first from '91 and the second from '95. I have at least one version of most of the Twinbee shmups (I have the three NES/FC games (Twinbee, Stinger, and Twinbee 3), the SNES game (Pop'n Twinbee), and this collection), and both of these games are pretty fun stuff. These two games and the SNES game all play and look VERY similarly, so Detana was obviously successful considering that it got two sequels done in the same style. The NES games have some side-scrolling levels, but the three later titles are entirely vertical-scrolling. The graphics are very bright and colorful and look great, though the second game has better graphics than the first one, as you would expect. There is a bit of sensory overload at times though, as enemies come from above and below and you have to dodge them and their fire, remember to target and bomb enemies on the ground because this series has Xevious-style bombing in it, and try to juggle those bells at the same time. It can be tricky, and it's easy to die and/or miss a bell -- and when you do you won't score as much. Yahho has a meter on the side for consecutive bells gotten for instance, so if you miss one it empties and you won't score as much.
Returning to the bomb system though, I've never liked games with this Xevious-like fire-and-bomb system, either in Xevious, Dragon Spirit, Twinbee, Soukyugurentai, or Galactic Attack/RayForce. Bomb/missile-target systems work in 3d games like Star Fox 64 and After Burner, but in top-down games I don't like how restrictive the targeting systems in most of these games are. Of the games I mentioned above though this series is one of the most playable -- there is more forgiveness in how accurate you need to be, and you can get stuff like homing attacks too, in these two games anyway. So yeah, I don't like this (if you must have separate attacks for air and ground, do it like Raptor and just have different weapons which fire ahead, instead of using these annoying bomb-target cursors!), but I don't find the system as annoying here as in, say, Dragon Spirit.
The other main issue with these games is length, if you don't restrict yourself artificially. These two games are both somewhat short and give you infinite continues right from where you died, so if you just keep hitting continue you'll beat them quickly, as I did. I did die quite a few times, particularly in Detana (which I think is a bit harder than Yahho, probably -- the second to last boss killed me quite a few times), but these games are a whole lot easier than Konami's main shmup series, Gradius, that's for sure. Both of these games have Gradius-like easy final bosses, and there is some amusing comedy, but I do wish Yahho had a better last boss, even if that ending bit was pretty amusing. Ah well, it's a fun game anyway, with mostly good gameplay and some silly comedy. Both of these games have two player co-op too, as do the NES games as well, which is nice. Overall I like Gradius a lot more than Twinbee, but these games are fun things to play once in a while. I'll definitely play them again and try to get better -- I may have beaten the games, but with the number of game overs I got, I didn't get anywhere near the high score table, and that does matter in this kind of game.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 10th October 2015
3DS
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Mighty Gunvolt - Beat with all 3 characters. I didn't buy the $3 "four more stages" DLC pack, yet at least, but I did finish the main game, and with all 3 to see how they were different and because this game is extremely short. Each run through the game is only four stages plus a final boss fight, pretty much... and the levels aren't exactly challenging. A few of the bosses are tricky, with some characters, but still this is a far too short and far too easy game. I like the concept of making an 8-bit-style sprite-art game, but there just isn't enough content, or good level design, here. Too much of each stage is bland and forgettable, and the levels aren't that long either. The bosses are better, but only a few actually had me stuck for long at all. So yeah, this game is average at best overall, unfortunately. Decent fun stuff, but it has flaws.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 23rd October 2015
Genesis
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Rolling Thunder 2 - Normal difficulty (first loop). Yes, I finally beat Rolling Thunder 2! I really love this series, of course, and this is the only one of the three I hadn't finished. I started the game some time back, and picked it up again earlier this year, but then stopped in the last level in favor of playing Rolling Thunder 1 instead. Well, after beating that whole game, I wanted to take a break from Rolling Thunder for a while... but I started playing the game a bit again a few days ago, and got lucky once today and beat the quite hard final boss. It's such a great game, I love it. I do still like Rolling Thunder 1 even more (I love that game!), but they are both outstanding, A-grade games for certain. I got kind of lucky there, and somehow managed to dodge all of the lasers the final boss's second form shoots at you. I thought I'd mess up again and one would hit me, but this time I got through! The ending was nice, too.
Now, there is still a second loop that I haven't beaten, but in Rolling Thunders 2 and 3, the second loop is the same thing as the first one, just a bit harder. It's basically just a higher difficulty option. In Rolling Thunder 1, in contrast, the "second loop" has some new very hard level segments, altered level layouts, new enemy setups, and more... and the boss of the game is only at the end of loop 2, Geldra doesn't appear in loop 1. So, I think you need to beat both loops to have actually beatend the first game, since that's the only way to fight Geldra, while in the second and third games, it's just an optional harder setting you unlock via a password the game gives you at the end.
Anyway though, even if it's "just" on Normal, beating Rolling Thunder 2 was pretty great, that took a lot of retries. I'd actually started the game months ago, but put it on hold te play Rolling Thunder 1, then after finishing that game I didn't want to play Rolling Thunder games for a while... but I picked the second game up again recently, and now I beat it! I'll have to work on loop two now, I want to get a least partway through it. I wonder if it makes those bosses even harder...
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 1st December 2015
SNES
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Cosmo Police Galivan II (Japan only game) - Finished the game on default difficulty, with 9 lives and 9 continues. I didn't need all the continues; I still had 4 or 5 left at the end, and I beat the game on my first try too. Yeah, this game isn't that hard, it's just annoying -- some of the bosses are a real pain, with how they constantly jump off of the screen. The game is, for the most part, bad, but there are a few good things about it, such as some of the stage backgrounds, some of them are interesting looking. The gameplay is extremely simple and repetitive though, the enemy selection limited, the music awful, and more. Fight two enemies, screen scrolls forward slightly, repeat until end of level; yes, it's that repetitive. This game is kind of annoying to play, with how the enemies shoot at you, you don't have a running attack so you have to use this charge shot or try to get in close to guys shooting at you from a distance, and such. The third and fourth level bosses, of five in the game, were the hardest; oddly the last level was easier, though maybe that I chose to max out damage before lv. 5 helped. Yes, you can set points to stats after each level, which is nice. And beating up the baddies was amusing sometimes. There are also three playable characters, though I think the game is single player only, with only a 2p versus mode for multiplayer. So yeah, this game isn't good, and don't buy it, but it was interesting to try and I liked a few things about it.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 22nd December 2015
Nintendo 3DS
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Outrun 3D - I managed to reach the end on the middle route. Outrun is a pretty hard game, mostly, though this version is quite easy on the Easy difficulty setting. Above that, though... lots of practice is required. This is a fantastic version of Outrun, though! It runs at a smooth 60fps, and the 3d effect is great for a game like this, too. It's too bad that more Sega Super Scaler games don't have 3DS re-releases, I'd buy more of them. 3D is perfect for a scaler game like this.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 6th January 2016
TurboGrafx-16
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Outrun - Beat on Easy. While I was playing Outrun games, I played this one too, along with the 3DS and Genesis games, and finished it... on Easy. Outrun is hard on Normal! Good game, though. Comparing it ot the Genesis version is interesting;' the Genesis version has a lot more sprites on screen, bigger sprites, and has no sprite flicker, but runs MUCH more choppily than the TG16 (PCE) version. So, the TG16 version doesn't look at nice in still shots, but it is more fun to play because it plays smoothly.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 15th January 2016
Genesis
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Sonic the Hedgehog (normal ending, I only got five Chaos Emeralds) - So, I beat Sonic the Hedgehog today for the first time. I got the normal ending, I only got five Chaos Emeralds. Yes, crazily enough, even though I beat Sonics 2, 2 & Knuckles, and 3 & Knuckles all many years ago, I'd never beaten the original Sonic the Hedgehog... until today. It's a fantastic classic and I've always really loved it, but it's not easy and has limited continues, of course. I've gotten to the final boss several times before only to get Game Over there, but hadn't beaten it. But I played Ristar recently (got maybe halfway when I ran out of continues) and then Sonic 3 & Knuckles (got to the final boss, got Game Over there... argh!), and decided today to play Sonic 1. I was hoping that maybe I could beat it this time, but didn't really expect it... but then an hour-something later, I beat the game! Pretty awesome stuff. I did use two or three continues, but still had several more. The final boss is hard, and it's really obnoxious that you have no rings for the tough final fight, but this time I managed to beat it. Of course S3&K also has no rings in the final battle, annoyingly, that's why I didn't beat it. That final boss is harder than this one, too. Whoever decided that those final boss fights don't give you any rings didn't like the people playing the games, that's not right. Yes, it'd make the games easier, but it'd make them more fun too. These are great games, but they'd be slightly better with less cruel final bosses.
Anyway, I really love Sonic 1. Yes, after the first world the game is slower-paced than the later Sonic games, but I don't mind that; I love the second world in this game, slow-paced or no it's a lot of fun! Only the water levels are bad, the rest are really good. Honestly today Sonic 1 is probably a bit under-rated (it gets criticism for sure...), but it really is an exceptional game. It's not hard to see why the game was such a big hit back in the early '90s, it's one of the best platformers of the time, only beaten by stuff like its sequels and the probably-best-2d-platformer-ever Super Mario World. I'll have more to say about this one in not too long though, once I get to Sonic in my Genesis summaries thread.
It was kind of frustrating to not get all 6 emeralds, though. I had five (plus five continues) after the first five levels you can get them in... and then failed to get any more in the remaining five, even though I only needed one more. Argh! I'll give myself the failure to get to the bonus stage in either of the water-world levels, those are really tough. But I DID get to it twice in the other three levels of those five, only to somehow manage to similarly mess up both times, go flying, and end up in one of the exit zones in the corners. That 6th one isn't even that tough, I shouldn't have messed up twice like that. Ah well. I've never gotten all the chaos emeralds in a Sonic game in one run (the only time I did was in the PC version of S3&K, where I did it via saving and loading to go back and get them all that way, after you beat it and unlock level select), it'd have been cool to do it once. It was really awesome to actually beat the game though, so I don't mind too much.
Nintendo 3DS (eshop)
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BoxBoy - I finished the main game and saw the credits, but haven't played the postgame content yet, as you unlock some more levels after you get the ending. This game is a pretty good, though short. This game isn't super hard like the other 3DS platform-puzzle game from Nintendo I got recently, Crashmo (that game is almost too hard...), but it isn't easy; it's balanced just right. This is a simple game with B&W graphics, no 3D support, and puzzle-heavy platforming. You're a living box, and can create a snakelike chain of copies of yourself in order to solve puzzles and try to navigate stages. It starts easy, but gets pretty interesting as you progress. Each world introduces a new mechanic, and the levels in that world all use it, but you may or may not see it after that world, so the game is a bit gimmicky in a way. It feels like an endless tutorial, as you keep seeing new things to avoid all the way to the end. It's fun, though, and I like the many different obstacles you run into. I don't mind the concept of 'lots of different obstacles, with a set of levels for each one'. I'll definitely play through the postgame stages too. There's also a sequel, which recently released in Japan. It hasn't been announced for US release yet of course, but here's hoping that it actually gets localized (and Picross 3D too!). I'll get the sequel if we get it here, this is a good game.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 14th February 2016
Genesis
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Streets of Rage 2 (Easy difficulty) - Yes, I used Easy mode, but still.... I beat the game! I don't think I've done that before... awesome game of course, one of the best in the genre.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 22nd February 2016
I played Test Drive 6 for the GB/C again recently, tried a new car (the most expensive one), and this time, when I beat the final circuit with first place in all tracks (again, but with a new car), it let me see the ending. The trophies section of that game is so glitchy, I have no idea what's going on there... but it worked this time, at least, so I've seen the credits now. It's a very simple little game, but I do find it fun to play, particularly while playing something on the TV to listen to while playing this game -- it has no music (just car sounds ) and is not exactly the most exciting game, so it's nice to play with something else.
Of course, it also helps that the game has battery save and still holds a save. :)
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 24th March 2016
Genesis
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Viewpoint - I got totally hooked to this while playing it for the summary, and beat it today on Normal difficulty! Awesome game, I love Viewpoint. This is an A-grade classic for sure.
WeaponLord - I beat this in story mode on Easy once as well. I've beaten the game before, I'm sure, but it wasn't actually recorded as such here in this thread, so I'm listing it.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 2nd April 2016
Genesis
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Zoom! - Finished this fun little arcade action game. Summary coming soon.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 7th April 2016
Almost forgot about this one, maybe it was while the site was down...
Genesis
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Truxton - I beat the first loop of this awesome, and difficult, classic! Yes, I took advantage of the infinite continues this version gives you, and set lives per continue to max, but I got through it this time, and that took a lot of effort and memorization. No matter how many continues you have, a game this hard will beat you down and make you want to give up, after a while... but this time I did better and got through loop 1. Yes, I didn't keep going through the other four loops of this Genesis version, but that's more than enough to call this one defeated; only the Genesis version has so many loops, after all, it wasn't like that in the arcade. But yeah, Truxton is fantastic, and if you want a more 'approachable' version the Genesis i the way to go -- as tough as it is, the other versions of the game are even harder.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 16th April 2016
So I don't know if this should count as 'finished' or not, but I beat the first main 50-level single player mode in Geometry Wars 3 for the X360 recently. The game is frustrating and I kind of hate the developers' obsession with one-life-only stages, that is NOT how Geometry Wars should play, but other than that this is a great game. There are two more single player modes, of 40 and 20 levels respectively, and I will continue through those now. I'll call it beaten once I beat all three I guess? You don't really get anything for it beyond satisfaction and putting your score into the high-scores table, but still, the game is great fun and I'm really liking playing it. It's one I've been playing on and off ever since I got it.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 20th July 2016
Odyssey 2 - Cosmic Conflict
So, as expected, Cosmic Conflict for the Odyssey 2 is a two-minute-long game with low replay value. That's unfortunate though, because the gameplay is fun! You move the camera around, shooting at alien ships as they approach, and need to kill a set number before your time/health meter runs out. The shooting feels fun, and while some enemies just fly back and forth, one type does come at you and attack, and it requires good aim to hit too. It's good... and then it ends two minutes later, game over, there is no second level or harder difficulty, and it would require a GREAT deal of terrible play to actually die. I haven't died once yet, and doubt I will. I know the pre-crash era was an experimental time, but this is frustrating because it's so close to being something, but it isn't because of lacking options. All the game needed was some difficulty options -- have options or additional levels that increase the number of aliens you have to take out, increase how fast they move, and decrease how much energy you get per stage, and this game would be pretty good. As it is though, there's almost nothing here.
Turbografx-16 (PCE) - Dragon's Egg
I got some import games again recently, for the first time since last year, and this one was among them... and it's a bit pricey (over $20) and is a short and easy game. I expected that, though, so I'm not surprised by that. But despite the limited amounts of content and lacking challenge, I don't regret getting this because it has very good graphics, controls, and gameplay. What's here is great, they just needed to finish the game. And that really is what it feels like -- the first three levels have 2-4 stage sections each, and the only one with two has a long maze as the second part... and then you get to level 4, and see that the last 3 levels of this 6-level game have only ONE stage section each, and they are all very straightforward, not too long levels! I have no explanation for this beyond that the game must have been badly rushed, so they didn't have time to actually make the whole second half of the game. It'd be very short regardless, but it's too bad to see something this fun be held back by what has to be not enough dev time. Also, you can upgrade in this game, including pickups which make your dragon stronger, and powerups you can buy to upgrade damage and range. If you max out your power you're extremely powerful. If you do manage to die the game suddenly actually challenges you a bit as you reset to zero powerup-wise, but for some odd reason the only instant-death pits in this game are in the first two levels, so survive that and you should be good. I beat the game by restarting each time I died, until I got full power and stayed alive to the end, so I one-life-cleared this game in under a day. Yeah. I might review this though, so I'll stop now...
3DO - Super Street Fighter II Turbo
I got this the same day as Cosmic Conflict, and beat it that day as well, on difficulty 4 that is. Is SFII getting easier, or do I just know enough about this game to get through it... I presume it's the latter. Compared to the SNES, Genesis, and TG16 versions of SFII I have, this one does look better, and of course it's the Super Turbo version so it has a new super meter that none of the 4th-gen ports have and Akuma, but it doesn't feel like quite as much of an upgrade graphically as Samurai Shodown does, comparing the Genesis/GB versions to the 3DO. I wish there had been more SNK games on the 3DO than that one! Too bad... but anyway, this is a great version of SFII, and controls great with the 6-button controller I have. That Capcom 6-button pad is really weird looking, but it's actually very comfortable and works great.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 19th September 2016
PC DD
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MURI - I'll have more to say about this game in my soon-to-be-finished, long-delayed next update of my PC Platformers Game Opinion Summaries list (which I did no work on for weeks, this is why it took so long), but I played some MURI today, and beat the game in barely over an hour. It's a short but okay game, best for people with Apogee nostalgia for sure.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 8th October 2016
Game Boy
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Nemesis - Aka the first Gradius game for the GB. I beat this on Normal. This game is quite easy on the default difficulty, that didn't take much effort at all. the GB Gradius games are great, but they sure don't match the console games in challenge. The harder difficulty is tougher and I haven't beaten it yet. That you get zero continues makes it a little tougher, but you can choose anything from zero to 99 lives in the start screen, and start from any level too, so the difficulty is entirely optional. I can understand what they were thinking, as this is a handheld game so people may want to not play it all in one sitting, but having those options unlocked from the start is perhaps making things too simple, what's the incentive to play the game without those options? The much improved second game, Gradius: The Interstellar Assault, is of course one of my all-time favorite Game Boy games. It's still easy, at least for me, but increases the length and challenge from this game. There are multiple weapon type options too, connecting bits between levels, some of the more inventive bosses in the series, etc etc. But I've said before about how amazing that game is. Seeing this one, its predecessor, is interesting because I see things heading towards the sequel's greatness, but it isn't quite there yet. The game is fun but kind of plain compared to its sequel. Still, Nemesis is a good game and it's great to finally play it.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 18th October 2016
Xbox 360
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Geometry Wars 3: Retro Evolved - I finally beat every level in this amazing game! I finally beat all the stages in Hardcore mode, the third single player mode. This mode doesn't give you a Drone ally, making things much tougher than the other two were. It's only a 20-level mode, versus 30 for the second mode and 50 for the original main one, but it's the hardest one for sure. And yeah, it was great fun. It's awesome to finally beat this game, I've been playing a lot of it all year. (Yes, this is one of my favorite 360 games for sure. The whole series is incredible, and the original is the best, but this one is fantastic too!)
You don't get anything for doing this, for whatever reason; there is no reward for beating all the levels in all three of the main single player campaigns, you just return to the menu after each one. What you do get is the satisfaction of knowing you've beaten all the levels in this game, though, and that is significant. There isn't even an Achievement for beating all of them, they're for other things. I have half of the achievements in this game now, and many of the remaining ones look pretty tough. I don't care that much, but I was wondering what they were...
Beyond just winning, I also set myself a goal of trying to get two stars on all of the levels. This game has a 3-star system for each stage, as is a modern trend, based on how well you did. So far I've gotten two stars on all levels except for the second to last level in Hardcore, and I will be back for sure to try to get two there. There is an Achievement for getting 3 stars on all levels in the game, but I doubt I can manage that one... but yeah, getting two on all of them's going to be nice, and I'm sure I can get that last one.
So the only question left is, will I keep playing this game regularly or not? It is really awesome and has lots of replay value thanks to the score tables for every stage, but I've beaten all the stages now...
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 11th December 2016
Xbox 360
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Need for Speed: The Run - I beat this game on Normal today. I picked it up again recently because it really is pretty fun, and decided to finish it because it's a pretty short game and, on Normal at least, is only moderately challenging too. So yeah, some hours later, I beat it! NFS The Run is a good game with a great sense of speed, fun gameplay, okay if skiddy controls, and nice graphics. There is some mission variety, and four QTE sequences scattered around the game as well, controversially. I dislike QTEs, but didn't mind them too much here because there are just so few of them; there really are only four cutscenes with QTEs in them in the whole (again, not too long) game. The game also has a story, though your character is an annoyingly cocky young guy who I don't like much at all and the story is quite basic ('try to win the race' pretty much sums it up), so there's not much to say there. The gameplay is why you'd want to play this game, and it's good, with varied environments as you drive across the country and several race types, including passing other racers in a normal stage race in The Run, 1-on-1 races against a specific opponent, timed races where you have to get through checkpoints without running out of time, timed elimination races against an opponent where you have to pass them and then be ahead of them when time runs out, and more. In some races you have to deal with police or Mafia attacks as well. The game does get predictable, but there's enough variety to keep it interesting beginning to end. The last race is pretty decent too. It's gimmicky, and the ending is a bit weak, but it works. I like the subway section.
However, the game definitely has issues. One important one is that the game has paid DLC. There are some cars you can only unlock by now-impossible ingame requirements -- a bunch of the better cars say 'you need to beat X number of online races in playlist Y to unlock this car for single race mode, even if you were racing with that car in the later stages of the main champoinship', and good luck finding anyone racing online because you wont. But don't worry, you can get around this problem by paying real money to buy that car as DLC! Ugh...
Beyond that, the other major problem this game has is that at times it feels kind of unfinished -- why isn't there a QTE sequence at the end, like there are four the four other major city scenes earlier in the game? Why does the story feel so thin and basic? In this supposedly story-based point-to-point driving game, there's barely any story most of the time and it gets thinner as you go along. Characters are introduced and then never mentioned again after very short cutscenes; rivals have their only character-building info (their background, name, etc.) in text boxes on loading screens, because the game itself never mentions these things; and more. It's very weird, unless the game was rushed for release or something. Why does the game have a moderate-length cutscene introducing your first named opponents, but no more than a couple of seconds of intro, or nothing at all other than that loading screen info, for your other named rivals? And why is the collision detection so weird, whenever I crash or go off the road I have no idea if it's going to reset me onto the track or use up a reset because it seems kind of random. And the short length is worth mentioning, too. Still, when the rest of the game is fun, fast arcade driving action, I don't mind the issues too much. This game isn't one of the more popular NFS games, but I like it for sure, and it was well worth finishing and I did like it.
On another note, I haven't finished the game yet, but playing this also has gotten me to get back into the Wii version of this game, which is an entirely different game -- one version of NFS The Run is on PC, PS3, and 360, while the other is on Wii and 3DS. The Wii version has pretty bad graphics with very low polygon counts, so it clearly was designed for the 3DS first and would not have challenged the Gamecube much never mind the Wii, but it does have a high and smooth framerate, just as good a sense of speed as the 360 game has, and better, tighter controls than that game. I like that these cars stick to the road better than the 360 cars, it's great. This game has a much better story than that version too, with a comic book-style cutscene page before every race stage. Your character in the Wii game is a bit older and much more bearable than the 360 guy, and the rest of the plot is more interesting and fully realized than that version as well -- there are continuing characters including some who travel with you sometimes (the 360 guy is always alone in his car), the game introduces your rivals in cutscenes, there is a continuing plot beyond just "win the race" involving some characters' backstories, and more. It's hardly great writing, but it is a lot more than the 360 version has. The Wii game is shorter than the 360 game for sure, with fewer races in the game as far as I can tell (remember, haven't finished it yet) and fewer total opponents to drive against (150 on Wii, ~210 on 360), but because of the better story and story presentation it feels more complete. There isn't any paid DLC either, or online multiplayer but at this point five years later who's playing anyway? It does have four-player splitscreen, which is nice.
There is one gameplay-related thing I need to mention about the Wii version though. While there are no out-of-the-car QTE sequences in this version, there are in-car QTEs -- sometimes you need to hit buttons on the Wiimote d-pad in a specific order, with a tight time limit, to get past certain points. It's not great. Additionally, there are some gimmicky challenge sections in many races where you can only move left and right and have to avoid obstacles, helicopter fire, or more. These bits can be fun, I don't mind them. If you fail at either of these types of challenges though, you lose a life, and you only get three by default per race before you have to start it over. You have a health bar in this version too, and if it runs out you lose a life that way too. So some replay is required, but I find the game fun anyway, and it's much more consistent than the 360 version where I never know if I'm going to have a reset burned or just be dropped back on the track when I crash... here you know, provided that you didn't run out of health, you'll be reset but lose some health. And those challenge bits can mix things up nicely. So yeah, this game is fun despite a few problems, and I'll probably beat it fairly soon.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 14th December 2016
So, I beat the Wii version of NFS The Run, or at least I finished the main game. It was pretty fun, though definitely shorter than the other one. Also that version has five difficulty levels, while apparently the Wii game only has Normal and Casual... too bad, a Hard mode would have been nice. At least it does have Challenge mode, something that is in both versions of the game (PS360 and Wii/3DS), and that's got lots more races of varying difficulties to unlock. I played a few races of that and it's good and adds a lot to the game, so fortunately there is more to do after you win. Still though, fun little games if you find them cheap.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 27th December 2016
3DS
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Liberation Maiden - Playing on the default difficulty, I beat this game in a bit over an hour the first time I played it. I did get one game over at the final boss (you get five continues in this five-level game), but you can continue from the beginning of the last level you reached, so I beat the final boss on my second try. So yeah, this is a really short game, and it's mostly pretty easy too... but it's a lot of fun while it lasts! This game is an overhead-ish shooter, a bit like a Desert Strike or something, so you can move around on a flat plane but have no height control, but a lot faster-paced and more fun. You move with the circle pad (or strafe, if you hold R), and aim on the touchscreen. The controls work great and feel natural. You have two weapons, one of which fires when you let go of the touchscreen for a moment (lock-on missiles, fire on release), and the other which fires while you press on the touchscreen (a laser beam), so both weapons work great without any added buttons being needed. The touchscreen moves a cursor around the screen and it does adjust your view as well, so it's a fairly conventional control scheme. The game's great fun to play, and the story stuff is ridiculous anime nonsense in a good way. The game is paced well too, and there is a decent difficulty spike at the end; most of the game is fairly easy, but the last boss is definitely tougher. So yeah, this game is good, I just wish there was more of it! It ends very quickly... and the ending is a blatant sequel-hook non-ending, too, and the game doesn't have a sequel, so that's a bit disappointing as well. Still, this game is fun, so it probably was worth the discounted price. There is also a Hard mode and some achievements to try to get, if you want to get more out of it beyond the first playthrough. Each achievement unlocks something on a grid of backstory-information things, so you learn more about the surprisingly detailed backstory each time you get one. I doubt I'll try for many more, but that is nice. But yeah, this is a fun little game that uses 3d and the touchscreen well. Get it while it 's on sale if interested.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 6th January 2017
3DS
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Legend of the Dark Witch - beat on Easy. This somewhat annoying game really isn't all that good, at least in my opinion, but it as just decent (and short) enough to play through on Easy. But Normal, where there are no health pickups and the bosses are tougher? Forget it, I don't think it's worth it. I'm not sure if I want to get the sequel either... probably not, unless it goes on sale sometime for less than the current sale is for.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 12th March 2017
Saturn
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Game Tengoku: The Game Paradise - Beat on the default difficulty... using many credits, because the game is tough. This is a pretty decent shmup. As with most Saturn games, it's an arcade port, and is also on PS1, both Japan only of course. This version is great, as expected for a 2d shmup on the Saturn. It's hard, as the screen will fill with bullets, but this isn't a bullet-hell game, fortunately. It has a lot of fire coming your way, but this is a traditional shmup. The game has a cute-and-silly anime theme, as you play as one of several anime characters. The game goes through an arcade and then into a videogame as you progress through the levels, which is neat. The game is mostly 2d, but it does have some parts with visual effects that show that this game couldn't have run on 4th-gen consoles. So yeah, the game is fun stuff, but I am glad that it has infinite at-point continues, I doubt I'd ever finish it on Normal otherwise! :p
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 26th April 2017
3DS
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Fire Emblem Awakening - finished on Hard mode. Now this one has been a long time coming, but I finally decided to finish this game. I still haven't completed one optional mission, mission 25 where you have to beat a very large and strong enemy force with way more units than you reasonably might have at a level able to fight them, but my forces had leveled up enough by doing the other (free) optional missions and some random battles that it was a lot easier than when I last tried to beat the final battle some weeks back. FE Awakening is a great game, and I can see why it was such a hit! It's a return to form for this series after the missteps of the DS remakes, and while Awakening does have some flaws and doesn't look quite as great as the GBA games did (and the footless 3d models are weird...) it's a great and decently good-looking game that is easily among the better games on the 3DS. On Hard it's a classically tough challenge as you expect from a Fire Emblem game, and even if it took a while I had fun with the game throughout. There is some paid DLC I have not looked into, and that one more mission, and I'll try that I'm sure, but... well, the third 3DS FE game (the FE: Gaiden remake) releases soon and I still haven't gotten around to playing much of the last one, Fates, since I was still focused on Awakening, so maybe I'll try that next? I've heard it's not as good as Awakening, but I do want to play it regardless. But yeah, FE Awakening is a great game.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 8th May 2017
DS
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Color Cross - I recently finished every single puzzle in this pretty good multicolor Picross-style game. I like Picross, and this game is great too! It has a lot of puzzles so it took some time to finish, but it was a lot of fun. The game doesn't have a puzzle editor like Nintendo's DS Picross games do, unfortunately, but there is a lot to solve. As for the gameplay, making it a bit easier than Nintendo's games, you can't actually fail puzzles; it just keeps track of time, and if you place a color in the wrong square the game adds time and auto-marks that square wrong. Many Picross games let you disable this kind of auto-error-detection (or don't have it at all, such as Picture Puzzle for the NGPC), to make the game harder, but this one doesn't. I don't mind though, it's alright this way... I would be tempted to play without it, which would make this game much more frustrating! :p
As for the game, it's pretty much Picross, but there are a bunch of colors in the picture instead of only two. This is an interesting twist on the genre that works well, mostly... except for that some colors are too similar and can be very hard to tell apart. Are those blocks black, dark grey, dark blue, or dark green? I'm not sure, so... well, at least the game doesn't let you make errors, so the worst that can happen is you finish the puzzle with a bad time? And as I don't really care about time in this game, that's okay sometimes. But yeah, good game apart from this. This is a quite unknown title but I like it.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 3rd June 2017
Wii U
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Mario Kart 8 - I haven't done everything in this game yet, or bought the DLC, but I did beat all of the cups up to 150cc, unlock all of the characters, and see the credits, so I think that's enough to list it here. I will continue to play the game.
Games I Have Finished (as far as I can remember) - A Black Falcon - 29th June 2017
3DS
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Witch & Hero - So, when you start the second game, if you have the first one but haven't finished it, (as was the case for me, I'd given up at the final boss) it asks if you want to complete that game now. I said 'yes', so it went into a new version of the last fight. It mostly worked the same, though it does mention one hidden mechanic that is key to beating that boss that the original game doesn't tell you. More importantly though, if you run out of health you just get healed up and can keep trying, so I beat this boss and moved on to starting the sequel. This made me want to finish the first game for real, though, so I did. Well, it took a while, a couple of hours perhaps; the final boss is quite frustrating, and is a huge difficulty spike above the rest of the game. I had to play over and over, slowly grinding the money needed to level up my abilities enough to be just strong enough to win. I didn't manage it until I was level 41 and I'd purchased up to max Attack (20), and 19 each in Speed and Defense. Finally I managed to beat the game though, with only the tiniest amount of health left, and it was pretty satisfying. This is a simple game with Ys-inspired run-into-enemies combat and single-screen action, but it is fun.