18th April 2010, 6:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 18th April 2010, 8:59 AM by Great Rumbler.)
Quote:I don't really like Contra III, it's too hard... I don't really like the whole series for that reason, in fact. I've never even gotten halfway in any of the three Contra games I own, which are Contra (NES), Contra III (SNES), and Contra Hard Corps (Genesis). Of them I think Hard Corps is my favorite, but they're all inordinately hard games that are much more frustration than fun.
Hard Corps is the hardest Contra of all!! Contra III is a much more balance and enjoyable experience.
Quote:GR, I have to say I still can be floored when I play a game that does way more with a system than I would have expected. Sure they can't compare to today, but considering what they had to work with...
Let me put it this way. When I found out about a little fan made game called Skeleton Plus for the 2600, and then played it when a friend won a copy at some convention, I was shocked to find someone had managed to make an FPS on that dated system.
I can appreciate the effort and say "Hey, that's pretty cool", but it's not going to get me to run out and buy the system and/or game and then show if off to all of my friends. And the "that's cool" factor is more of a momentary thing, it's not going to keep my occupied for hours or days.
For example, Render Ranger looks pretty good for an SNES game and it's definitely a technical accomplishment, but it just feels kind of barren and repetitive in the gameplay. So why should I play it beyond ten or twenty minutes to appreciate the graphics and then turn it off to play a similar game that's more FUN?
Quote:SNES: Secret of Mana (not my favorite because of the grinding, but very popular), Seiken Densetsu 3 (has translation patch), Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma (EU version is in English), and Soul Blazer, perhaps also others like ActRaiser (maybe), The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (annoying grinding...), Ys III, Shadowrun, Ultima: Runes of Virtua II (note that it was originally on Game Boy), Brandish (can you get past the incredibly confusing way you turn? I can't, I think). There's also Brain Lord, which looks okay, but I haven't played that one myself. Lagoon I also haven't played but doesn't look too interesting. Lastly there's Dragon View, the sequel to Drakkhen, but with action-RPG combat and higher (that is not awful) ratings in reviews this time. I have Drakken, but that one's quite different from this I think, overworld aside. Ys IV: Mask of the Sun is another one I haven't played; it's a Japan only release but does have a translation patch. It plays a lot like Ys I or II, not III. Holy Umbrella also has a translation patch, but I haven't played that one either myself. If I was mentioning imports I'd have to mention Crystal Beans: From Dungeon Explorer, the SNES Dungeon Explorer game. They're not that complex games so it should be understandable, but I haven't spent that much time with it and there isn't a translation patch.
Genesis: Crusader of Centy (haven't played it myself...), Beyond Oasis, Exile, perhaps Cadash (okay sidescrolling arcade action/rpg, but this version only has two of the four characters, and they're the two less interesting characters of the four...), Gauntlet IV (good game with horrible, fun-killing 40 character passwords), Arcus Odyssey (good but sometimes confusing isometric Gauntlet style game), maybe Heimdall (Sega CD), Ys III, Dungeon Explorer (Sega CD, not a port of the TG16 games, but not as good as either of them either), maybe Sword of Vermillion (it's mediocre but unique), Light Crusader (good game), Shadowrun, Wonder Boy in Monster World (fantastic game... harder than the TGCD version though), Monster World IV (translated rom, and a really good game!)
Most of those will go into the action-RPG round. Zelda and Landstalker will go in this round though.
Sometimes you get the scorpion.