End Of The Year Round Up - Early Edition - http://www.mmcafe.com/ Forums


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neo0r0chiaku
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"End Of The Year Round Up - Early Edition" , posted Sat 14 Dec 11:58:post reply

Is it to early for this? I wanted to get these reviews out of my mind before I forget or go nuts storing more data in my functional brain.

As you may recall, the last list of games I did a quick review on where mainly platformers similar to Megaman. This time, its a Shmup fest with a little extra genres.

Megaman 11 - 7 out of ten. I wanted to love this game and I fully support it. However, I am not a fan of jumping platforms over a huge instant death pit with flying medusa type enemies buzzing all over the place. I do not have the patience for it. It was present in Wily castle, and unfortunately, I gave up. That has never happened to me in a Mega man game. Ever. Not finishing. I guess its the old timer kicking in.

Battle Garegga PS4 - 8 out of ten. This is one really cool shmup. Very difficult indeed to an extent but amazingly fun. I love it. Its pretty cool and enjoyable. Only if you can see this farm food pellet of bullets that are not common in other shmups. I wish we can get more Saturn Shmups like this that were not released in America and hard to find(expensive of course). There were many that we did not get to play.

Tetris Effect PS4 - 8 out of 10. It everything you want with some Luminous style OST. Upbeat and funky. But, I just stopped playing. Not sure if there was enough umph for me. But it was good nevertheless.

I promised myself this year that I was going to play all these exciting 2.D fighting games that came out for the PS4. I was all in for it. Sadly, it did not come into frutition. Two reasons why. 1st is paying for online service. I was playing games online before but now it has spread into every game. I just cant see myself paying for a full year when I will use it for maybe 3 days out of the month. One day service charge perhaps? 2nd is portability. I just cant sit on a TV as much as I want to. Even so, I only have time for an hour. In any case, I played most of the games and will give a quick rundown of a score.

Cross Tag Battle - 6 out of ten. Just couldn't get into it.
Soul Calibur - 6 out of ten. Too much interruption during a match(ex. supers).
Under Night - 7 out of ten. I tried to get into it but to much to remember to perfect.
Dragon Ball Z Fighter - 6 out of ten. To insane for me. Will the new Guilty Gear do the same for me?
Samurai Shodown - 9 out of ten. I love it and tried to play the heck out of it, but AI just get boring. Cant play online which sucks even more.
Blade Stranger - 6 out of ten. Just couldn't get into it.

Non fighters
Okami HD - 8 out of ten. Fun game but need some voice acting.
Berserk and the band of the hawk - 6 out of ten. Repetitive but I am a fan of the series.

Still need to play Senko no Ronde 2.

Now for Switch. Safe to say this is now my console of choice. I can use it anywhere in the house and outside. It just more accessible. Here is what I got,
Psikyo Collection 1
Gunbird - 2/5. It was alright.
Samurai Aces - 5/5. This is awesome!
Strikers 1945 - 2/5. Not a fan of the WW2 environment.
Sol Divide 2/5. Could have been beautiful but enemy AI sucks.

Psikyo collection 2
Gunbird 2 - 3/5. Much better than the first.
Strikers 1945 2 - 5/5. Awesome and much better than the first.
Dragon Blaze - 4/5. This is pretty cool but need more characters.
Sengoku Blade - 4/5. Fun and enjoyable. I still love the first.

Psikyo Collection 3
Strikers 3 - 5/5. Another great game.
Sengoku Cannon - 1/5. It was dull.
Zero Gunner 2 - 4/5. I love this game. So many memories from the Dreamcast days. Wish there were more shooters like this concept.

Darius Cozmic Collection - 8/10
Darius Gaiden, Darius Gaiden, Darius Gaiden, Darius Gaiden, and Darius Gaiden. One of the greatest games ever. I spent the majority of my time with this collection to that game. I played the first darius for a while as well. I was trying to finish the game without dying. That was a tough task but got it done. The game is impossible if you die and lose your ammo. Plus, the lasers weapon SUCKS. I stayed with the multiple bullets. Darius 2 was just insanely hard. I will try to play it again in the future. I would have gave it a 10/10 if G Darius was included. Why is G Darius so locked away? I never played it before.

Bloodstained Ritual of the night - 8/10. I will go to say this is just another Castlevania game. Like a sequel to Order of Eclesia. This game came with high expectation so I could not make it perfect. I played the same way I did in previous CV games. Although the system in place have some fresh new ideas, i think its only beneficial for the purest to prefect a clean playthrough. Nothing really amazed me for fascination. The bosses were not that memorable either. The one boss I really enjoyed fighting was the twin head dragons. It kept me on my toes and in fear. That is what I want to see. The last boss was absolute garbage. I was about to give up. Finally decided to finish. I expected more from the music as the producer is one of my favorites. But tracks did not felt like current generation. Sound the same like in the DS(Not quality per say but the tone).

This is fan opinion. By no means its negative. Its just expectation was high. Nevertheless, its a very good game and awesome to tackle. After first clearance, there is really no replay value. If there was something I would have like to see to make the game score a 10/10, is also playing as the other two protagonists. That would have made it cooler.

Well that about wraps it up. Here is the list of games, for now, I plan to tackle with my new switch lite, whoot whoot.
Hollow Knight
The Messenger
Rival Megagun
Super Robot Wars T
Timespinner
Blazing Chrome
Blasphemous
Luminous Avenger X

Shumps
Jamestown+
Ghost Blade HD
Super Hydorah
Astebreed
Stardust Galaxy Warriors


River City Girls (after a good discount)

Coming Soon, most games are that 16bit type era games
Bushiden
Streets of Rage 4
198X
Cyber Shadow
MoonRider
Xenocrisis

Cafe member opinions on the following game below if they are worth buying,
Katana Zero
Invisigun Reloaded
Viviette
Aegis defenders





Long Live I AM!

[this message was edited by neo0r0chiaku on Sat 14 Dec 12:00]

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"Re(1):End Of The Year Round Up - Early Editio" , posted Sun 15 Dec 00:02post reply

quote:
Is it to early for this? I wanted to get these reviews out of my mind before I forget or go nuts storing more data in my functional brain.


Nice list! I won't have nearly as much to say as you do but I should add a few scattered thoughts.

Samurai Shodown 2019: I never expected SS to come back and to come back so well. The DLC practice for the game has been beyond generous, plus it's great to see that SNK remembered how to make a fighting game that isn't KoF.

Dead or Alive 6: Lei-Fang's leather jacket outfit was recently added to the game for free -which is great- but her ponytail hairdo is stuck on a DLC outfit -which is beyond frustrating. This is the perfect encapsulation of the one step forward two steps back world of DoA6.

Sekiro: Stealth sections that didn't feel particularly stealthy, a battle with a giant snake that felt like it was out of Dragon's Lair and frustrating boss battles abound. When I came across a boss and my only thought was "What's this overpowered asshole going to do?" I realized I wasn't having much fun with the game.

Death Stranding: It's a Kojima game through and through that is finally freed from having to be stuck in the framework of MGS. One of my friends who is into hiking adores the game because of its attention to detail when traversing terrain. As for me, I expect the game is really going to open up once I unlock fast-travel.

My favorite ridiculous thing I bought this year was a Blu-ray collection of the Sonny Chiba Street Fighter 激突!殺人拳 films. It's a lovingly restored head crushing bonanza of films that I'm pretty certain are in the public domain. They even brought in a slightly sheepish Chiba to discuss his work on the movies. I always enjoy seeing actors who are horrified that some cheap genre film they made decades ago is still being enjoyed the world over. I don't know why this collection exists but I'm glad to have it.







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"Continuous Integration Round up" , posted Wed 18 Dec 05:13:post reply

I don't have time to make one mega-post, so I'll just put things in here bit by bit and possibly even into the new year hahaha

Unexpected Gems
Your Turn to Die:
This is a point and click adventure that is free and translated into English and still not yet finished! I had zero expectations going in, and I've LOVED it, even with all its amateur roughness, occasionally annoying sequences, and whatnot else. It's obviously heavily inspired by Zero Escape and Danganronpa, but once I got into it, I got INTO it.

Unexpected Time Sinks
Jake Hunter everything:
I don't actually think Jake Hunter games are altogether that well-plotted in general, and the game aspects of them (e.g. where do you need to go, what deduction you ought to be making at this moment, etc.) are NOT always all that good. The English localization makes a hearty effort to be noirish, and sets the games in the city of Aspicio, somewhere in the not-USA... except if you are at all familiar with Japan, in some of them it becomes painfully obvious that the setting is Japan because they couldn't change the BG art. However, as a sort of bedtime game, it is very serviceable and the 3DS ports are effectively a collection of short stories. The Switch/Steam/whateverelse game has an interesting aesthetic and really good music/menu sounds, in addition to being a much more expensive and much longer single story. The aforementioned flaws of the previous games are somewhat magnified as a result, but if you're willing to just roll with it it's ok. More interestingly, it is sold with the localized moniker ("Alternate Jake Hunter"), but they've decided to not localize any of the names (so "Jake Hunter" is "Saburo Jinguji"), which in the writing of this story is somewhat necessary because they'd have to change a good chunk of dialogue to write out all of the different explicitly Japanese connections that some of the key characters share that are plot and/or character significant.

Fine I Guess I'll Play More Dark Souls
Code Vein
Neither as mechanically complex as God Eater nor Dark Souls, you are encouraged to bring along AI companions that make the proceedings much much easier, but with a character creator so robust that it blows away everything Dark Souls has ever had, Code Vein is the streamlined anime Dark Souls that you can actually play in a relaxed fashion. Nothing about this game is revolutionary, it is shallower than both of the games it is descended from, and yet it fits my life and my needs well. It is not yet the Dynasty Warriors of Dark Souls games, though.

I Need to Play RS2 But I Can't Stop Playing Scarlet Grace
SaGa: Scarlet Grace - Ambitions
The world map feels alive! I am drawn into the intrigue! I am trying to defeat every combat encounter I run across without ever repeating any combat events on the map! I didn't know LP would restore if you pulled teammates out of your active party for awhile! It's terrific!

Nobody Needs a Game As Big as Etrian Odyssey Nexus
Etrian Odyssey Nexus
Imagine an Etrian Odyssey game so comically large the the combined size of the forest stratum is the size of previous entire Etrian Odyssey games. It's just a colossal buffet of Etrian Odyssey that unfortunately discards some of the clever ideas from EOV but gives you more EO than you can eat. Does this look like a man who has had ALL HE CAN EAT EO? EON answers the question of "just how much dungeon RPG is too much dungeon RPG" with itself. If you wanted any more dungeon RPG than EON, you may as well play a procedurally generated game because the only thing that can sate your appetite is literally infinite dungeons.


Entirely Live Up To Its Hype
Untitled Goose Game
There's really very little else to be said about this game that hasn't already been said. In both concept and execution it's terrific, it captures the imagination, and it even has a lot of very creative ideas when it comes to to interaction design with AI: I think the least mentioned thing about the game's design is that the thought balloon's let you know what the intentions of any given human in the game is, but by honking you can "startle" them and make them "lose their train of thought". It's a combination of mechanic and UI design which is very easy to grasp just through playing, is very natural in the setting of the game, and allows for all sorts of gooseyness.


Most Ambitious Game
Gunma's Ambition
To be released internationally on Boxing Day on the Switch, is there anything that can stop Maou's ambition?!





[this message was edited by Spoon on Wed 25 Dec 12:13]



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"Re(1):Continuous Integration Round up" , posted Tue 24 Dec 07:34post reply

Great lists! I'm particularly pleased to see the shooter emphasis as a prelude to the M2 re-release of Toaplan games, hopefully soon. And holy cow, Switch has Sengoku Blade now!?

Mini of the Year: MD Mini
As you already know from the MD Mini thread (which I've been meaning to update once I get a TV in this new apartment), this is the greatest mini console ever, though only in its Japan and Asia regions. Such insanely elaborate attention to detail, right down to the mock expansion port slot that one day simply must connect to my most cherished retro dream, the Mega CD Mini.

Square Enix port of the Year: FFVIII Remastered
Believe me, I'm as shocked to see a non-horrible Final Fantasy port as anyone! Let alone one with truly excellent new character models, perfect music (after I literally wrote the Tokyo office to let them know about a missing music file for the patch, but still!), and other nice options. Better still that it was accounced just in time for me to derail the (anti-)FFVII thread forever. I almost wrote "port of the decade" until I remembered Romancing SaGa 2. Anyway, people are so primed to hate Square ports that some complainers were griping about some character model redesigns as having been censored like the FFVII remake Tifa, but it turns out that sometimes, past experience blinds us to the bright-white truth, or at least improvements over the original.

Street Fighter V of the Year: SFV pre-Champion Edition
Since every year seems to produce at least one new version of SFV that is mostly unrecognizeable from the previous patches tier- and stage-wise, this is surely the best SFV that came out in 2019. Despite the clever strategy of launching with Evil Dan and then making no announcement for half a year, this season was ultimately so confident that it managed the impossible feat of not only making me glad to see Honda (!), but of making him cool (!!!) with his bafflingly good music and delightfully hilarious story mode. Hooray for Lucia and Poison, too, I guess.

Vomitous Fun of the Year: Tetris Effect
This one counts because the VR version came out this year, and I've never been this excited to throw up in 3D as I have with this lovely experience. I never knew that what Lumines and its amazing composer was missing was the element of terror inflicted on my inner ear. I love it.





人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は...
neo0r0chiaku
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"Re(2):Continuous Integration Round up EX" , posted Mon 6 Jan 01:17:post reply

quote:
Great lists! I'm particularly pleased to see the shooter emphasis as a prelude to the M2 re-release of Toaplan games, hopefully soon. And holy cow, Switch has Sengoku Blade now!?

Mini of the Year: MD Mini
As you already know from the MD Mini thread (which I've been meaning to update once I get a TV in this new apartment), this is the greatest mini console ever, though only in its Japan and Asia regions. Such insanely elaborate attention to detail, right down to the mock expansion port slot that one day simply must connect to my most cherished retro dream, the Mega CD Mini.

Square Enix port of the Year: FFVIII Remastered
Believe me, I'm as shocked to see a non-horrible Final Fantasy port as anyone! Let alone one with truly excellent new character models, perfect music (after I literally wrote the Tokyo office to let them know about a missing music file for the patch, but still!), and other nice options. Better still that it was accounced just in time for me to derail the (anti-)FFVII thread forever. I almost wrote "port of the decade" until I remembered Romancing SaGa 2. Anyway, people are so primed to hate Square ports that some complainers were griping about some character model redesigns as having been censored like the FFVII remake Tifa, but it turns out that sometimes, past experience blinds us to the bright-white truth, or at least improvements over the original.

Street Fighter V

-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --


I think this will be my last post for this thread as a finished a couple of games before the new year.

Hollow Knight - 6/10
This may come to a shock or disappointing for most of you here in the cafe but unfortunately, I did not like this game. The cafe showed much love for the game and main reason why I decided to download the game. But, after multiple attempts of giving up on the game, I really gave up this time. There is so much little tedious things that I did not like and felt unnecessary, it built up and just frustrated me. What is the deal with the map system? I could not be wrong to say this is one of the worst ever. You need to save to view on the map the new areas you visited? Why am I bouncing back in there air, even in the ground, when I slash a soft skinned flesh enemy? I understand the armored ones. I wont go any further. I just couldn't continue with the game.

The Messenger - 9/10
I love this game and love what they did. Everyone should play it. My only gripe and reason why I didn't give it a perfect score is, well, instant death pits. Only, after, you have the abilities to travel to all areas. Its understandable in the beginning, and even for a platform game, to have it. But in a Metroidvania game, or exploring back and forth, this is totally unnecessary. It really killed the mood of this beautiful game.

Rival Megagun - 7/10
A decent performer for a game who is under a genre which consist of only one other game made over 20 years ago. Its a good step for now and hope they can deliver something far more exciting to bring back this type of game. I like the setup at the end of the arcade mode that turns into a full blown shmup.

Super Robot Wars T - 7/10
To be reviewed at the SRW Thread.

TimeSpinner - 8/10
Not TimeSplitters folks. Its another Metriodvania game that looks has the graphical presentation of an SNES SquareSoft game. Its a good game, great music, and even an amazing story. The details and work inputted in the script of the story involving the future, technology, and biotechnology research was excellent. The only thing is it seemed a bit short and maybe a bit easy? Out of all the games here, this one would be one I would replay again. In a harder mode.

Other games I forgot to mention that I look forward to this year is,
Panzer Dragoon Remake
Megaman Zero/ZX collection.





Long Live I AM!

[this message was edited by neo0r0chiaku on Mon 6 Jan 01:18]



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"Re(3):Continuous Integration Round up EX" , posted Mon 6 Jan 23:55post reply

quote:
Hollow Knight - 6/10
This may come to a shock or disappointing for most of you here in the cafe but unfortunately, I did not like this game. The cafe showed much love for the game and main reason why I decided to download the game. But, after multiple attempts of giving up on the game, I really gave up this time. There is so much little tedious things that I did not like and felt unnecessary, it built up and just frustrated me. What is the deal with the map system? I could not be wrong to say this is one of the worst ever. You need to save to view on the map the new areas you visited? Why am I bouncing back in there air, even in the ground, when I slash a soft skinned flesh enemy? I understand the armored ones. I wont go any further. I just couldn't continue with the game.


Sadly, I agree with you. I wanted to love the game since it's so adorable but I hated playing the fool thing. What is the point of that horrible Dark Souls-esque death mechanic? Why is the map system so fiddly and difficult? Why does everything feel like a slog? You're right, "tedious" is the best description of my feelings while playing.







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"Re(4):Continuous Integration Round up EX" , posted Tue 7 Jan 02:41post reply

I really liked Hollow Knight!

I think I can agree that some of its design decisions would come across as peculiar and awkward. I really liked the map system, but it's certainly deliberately intended to just give you a general idea of the layout of the place rather than a continuous highly precise indication of where exactly you are. I think the Dark Souls death mechanic really doesn't add much to the game, and even though it gives an interesting connection to the setting, it doesn't really make the game more interesting in the way that it does in Dark Souls.

I greatly enjoyed exploring the world of it, but if everything else there is constantly making you feel annoyed, it definitely makes the overall sensation of groping around much less pleasant.