24th June 2014, 9:20 PM
Dreamcast
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Get!! Colonies (Japan only release) - beat the main game. This is actually an Ataxx clone, or, as I know the game better, Hexxagon, except with a square grid instead of Hexxagon's hex grid. Basically think Reversi, except you flip the other tiles just by touching them, instead of surrounding them. Ie, after a move any enemy within one space (including diagonals) flips to your color. Also if you move one space you can 'spawn' another tile while leaving the original in its place, while if you move two spaces (the maximum) you jump and abandon the old spot. Hexxagon is a game I loved back in the early to mid '90s, so it was pretty awesome to find this; there are strangely few console Ataxx (/Hexxagon) clones! This game has very low production values, with no voice acting or speech, no character animation, and something like one song that loops endlessly during play, but it's great fun anyway. The main game has six rounds, as you play as this schoolgirl character and try to beat the other six opponents. Each opponent has five boards to clear, so there are 30 levels total. Each one has a different layout, and they get pretty interesting. More levels would have been nice, but what's here is great. The game does save your progress after beating an opponent, thankfully. It also saves your high scores for each round. There's also a single-round mode where you can redo any match you've beaten. Unfortunately, the main game has no difficulty options, and the default is too easy. This is another of the games' faults -- the AI is seriously lacking and makes stupid moves far too often. Hexxagon released a good seven years before this game, and it has three or four AI difficulty options... why does this have none, in story mode anyway? Unfortunate, choices would have added some longevity to this short game, for people who don't have others to play against. And on that note, in addition to the 1v1-only main game, Get!! Colonies also has a 4-player single-match mode. This mode has 10 boards to choose from, so only a third of the levels are available; many of the others would be too small for four players, surely. For another sign of the low budget, this mode is four player only -- all players must be human or AI-controlled. There seem to be two AI options here. Why in the world is there a harder difficulty choice here, but no choice in the main 1v1 game? How bizarre! Also here you can play as all seven characters, which is nice. The boards are crowded with four players on them, but still it's a lot of fun. Hexxagon... that is, Ataxx... uh, I mean Get!! Colonies is a great boardgame-style game, addictive and well-designed. It's entirely unoriginal, of course, as the ruleset is 100% standard Ataxx with no variation apart from the 4 player mode, but it does it well. So yeah, I like this game quite a bit. I don't know how often I'll replay the main mode, but I'm sure I'll play the 4-player battles sometimes! 4 player Hexxagon... pretty great. So yeah, I finished story mode quickly --started yesterday, finished today -- but this game is pretty good and is well worth looking up.
Oh yeah, at the end, when you win, it says "Congraturation". Yup. :)
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Get!! Colonies (Japan only release) - beat the main game. This is actually an Ataxx clone, or, as I know the game better, Hexxagon, except with a square grid instead of Hexxagon's hex grid. Basically think Reversi, except you flip the other tiles just by touching them, instead of surrounding them. Ie, after a move any enemy within one space (including diagonals) flips to your color. Also if you move one space you can 'spawn' another tile while leaving the original in its place, while if you move two spaces (the maximum) you jump and abandon the old spot. Hexxagon is a game I loved back in the early to mid '90s, so it was pretty awesome to find this; there are strangely few console Ataxx (/Hexxagon) clones! This game has very low production values, with no voice acting or speech, no character animation, and something like one song that loops endlessly during play, but it's great fun anyway. The main game has six rounds, as you play as this schoolgirl character and try to beat the other six opponents. Each opponent has five boards to clear, so there are 30 levels total. Each one has a different layout, and they get pretty interesting. More levels would have been nice, but what's here is great. The game does save your progress after beating an opponent, thankfully. It also saves your high scores for each round. There's also a single-round mode where you can redo any match you've beaten. Unfortunately, the main game has no difficulty options, and the default is too easy. This is another of the games' faults -- the AI is seriously lacking and makes stupid moves far too often. Hexxagon released a good seven years before this game, and it has three or four AI difficulty options... why does this have none, in story mode anyway? Unfortunate, choices would have added some longevity to this short game, for people who don't have others to play against. And on that note, in addition to the 1v1-only main game, Get!! Colonies also has a 4-player single-match mode. This mode has 10 boards to choose from, so only a third of the levels are available; many of the others would be too small for four players, surely. For another sign of the low budget, this mode is four player only -- all players must be human or AI-controlled. There seem to be two AI options here. Why in the world is there a harder difficulty choice here, but no choice in the main 1v1 game? How bizarre! Also here you can play as all seven characters, which is nice. The boards are crowded with four players on them, but still it's a lot of fun. Hexxagon... that is, Ataxx... uh, I mean Get!! Colonies is a great boardgame-style game, addictive and well-designed. It's entirely unoriginal, of course, as the ruleset is 100% standard Ataxx with no variation apart from the 4 player mode, but it does it well. So yeah, I like this game quite a bit. I don't know how often I'll replay the main mode, but I'm sure I'll play the 4-player battles sometimes! 4 player Hexxagon... pretty great. So yeah, I finished story mode quickly --started yesterday, finished today -- but this game is pretty good and is well worth looking up.
Oh yeah, at the end, when you win, it says "Congraturation". Yup. :)