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Exhuminator
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by Exhuminator Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:28 pm

alienjesus wrote:this game is still fucking awesome and I love it to bits.

Ghost Trick is excellent, agreed.

If afterwards you'd still like to play a DS adventure game that has time travel elements, but you don't want to play Time Hollow, consider this:
It flew under many radars. I have played through it, and mostly enjoyed it.

Edit: I dug up my thoughts from 2013:
If you're into DS adventure games, "Again" is worth a look. After all, it's a CiNG game, the same studio who were behind such DS treasures as "Hotel Dusk" and "Trace Memory" (AKA "Another Code"). However, don't get your hopes too high as "Again"'s budget was fairly constrained in comparison to CiNG's other works. Despite the low key production though, "Again" pulls off strong atmosphere thanks to a consistent noir motif and a moody OST. "Again" also utilizes digitized live actors in a way that's more convincing than corny. Lastly, "Again"'s plot is a captivating whodunnit that will keep you guessing till the end. However, the puzzles in "Again" are brain dead easy despite a unique "find the difference" approach, so don't expect to be challenged cerebrally here. At the end of the day though, you'll feel like an FBI agent trying to figure out a mystery straight outta "Twin Peaks" land, and that was worth the time investment for this player.

Ex's rating: 7.5/10 / Ex's time to beat: 12 hours
Last edited by Exhuminator on Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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marurun
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by marurun Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:28 pm

Why is nobody playing Daikatana! I hear the GBC version is quite fun.
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by Ack Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:33 pm

marurun wrote:Why is nobody playing Daikatana! I hear the GBC version is quite fun.


Because I've beaten multiple versions of it.
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by marurun Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:44 pm

Ack wrote:
marurun wrote:Why is nobody playing Daikatana! I hear the GBC version is quite fun.


Because I've beaten multiple versions of it.


I'm so sorry. I hope you played them during October.
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Ack
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by Ack Tue Nov 13, 2018 3:49 pm

The N64 port isn't so bad, but it is generic. A lot of the biggest problems were cut, but unfortunately the result is extremely bland. It's still a remarkably better play experience than the PC release though.
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by BoneSnapDeez Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:25 pm

alienjesus wrote:
BoneSnapDeez wrote:
alienjesus wrote:If you're looking for a more interesting top down run and gun with a time travelling motif, give Ninja Commando on Neo Geo a go. It's pretty decent.


That has time travel? Damn. I just remember ninjas.


Yep, each level is in a different time period - ancient egypt, fuedal japan, etc.


My man. I'll be hitting this up. Got it on the Wii VC before it dumped. Heh, looks like it's on Switch now too.
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by MrPopo Tue Nov 13, 2018 5:28 pm

Sarge wrote:
MrPopo wrote:I'm on a mission this month; I need to get through Soul Reaver so I can get to Soul Reaver 2, which involves time travel. But man, this pre-analog stick 3D platforming is rough.

Are you playing on PC or console? I thought the PSX version supported the analogs. Sounds like pad support for the PC version's a mess, though.

PC, on a keyboard. With a game this old there was no way I'd even try to use a modern controller on it; I'd only frustrate myself trying to get it working. It's mostly the camera that's been getting me. It's using a rotate left/right button system and mostly relies on the camera being smart at following you, but it meant that the level I did with lots of narrow platforms was much harder than it should be (no clip through the wall camera that maintains distance).
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by Sarge Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:08 pm

Ah, gotcha. Well, I've got both versions of Soul Reaver, or at least I think I do, for console. Probably the way I'd choose to play. If you've got a Dreamcast laying around, that is indeed the way I'd roll.

As for Ghost Trick, yes, it's fantastic. I kept putting off buying the game, but enough prompts from Ex saw me finally get it, and man. Why did I not buy this game earlier? One of my favorite adventure games of all time.

I actually played through Daikatana GBC not long ago. It's a surprisingly decent affair.

Anyway, another contribution for my part comes in the form of Time Diver: Eon Man, a game that was slated to be published here, and even got a spread in Nintendo Power. Never happened, but there was a prototype that got dumped. The game is highly decent. It won't blow you away, but it's not a bad way to spend about half an hour. The controls can be a little doofy at times, but the game is forgiving enough that it won't matter. No need for save states on this one, mainly because the game gives you an extra life for every 10,000 points, which means it gave me 10 extra lives over the course of the game. I finished with eight.

I'll give this one a 6.0/10.
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by Exhuminator Wed Nov 14, 2018 3:14 am

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77. Shadow of Destiny | PSP | 2010

"Shadow of Destiny" was originally a PS2 title released worldwide back in 2001. It was soon ported to PC and Xbox, and many years later PSP as well. (Apparently Konami really believed in this game.) The PSP port had a few improvements, the most important being an entirely new English dub. "Shadow of Destiny" is an adventure game about a man named Eike, who travels through time trying to prevent his own death. He is able to do so via a device called the Z-pad, which a mysterious "person" gave him when Eike first died. That's how Junko Kawano chose to write this tale alright.

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+The base concept is interesting, and implemented uniquely.
+Well directed cinematics.
+The town of Lebensbaum is convincingly rendered.
+The overall experience has a somber, mature tone.
+Many different possible endings. (I got ending B2.)

-The player is given zero background information on the protagonist.
-Easy puzzles are mitigated by forcing the player to wander around town for plot triggers.
-The town of Lebensbaum is usually empty and boring.
-The crux of the tale centers on a massively illogical paradox.
-The writing is overall amateurish and terrible.

While I can respect "Shadow of Destiny"'s ambition, I found its writing to be so bad I could hardly enjoy the game. There are so many examples of dumb it would take me twenty paragraphs to capture it all. I'll just give you two examples; one of Eike's deaths centers on him being poisoned in a restaurant. Illogically Eike goes on an eon-spanning jaunt involving complex puzzle interactions, in order to secure an antidote, so that when he is poisoned in the future, he can take the antidote. The logical thing would have been to go back in time, and simply not eat at the restaurant.

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Another death focuses on Eike getting pushed off a tower, and falling to his death, because the only rope he could grab was rotten. Illogically Eike goes back in time to when the rope was originally made, so he can bring it with him to the present, and use that newer rope to secure his fall. The logical thing would have been not to go to the top of the tower again. Have a laugh when Eike goes to the 16th century, and the people there still talk in modern English. Also it's very hard to care about the well being of a protagonist who is given zero character development. Ugh. This game's writing is amateur hour to say the least folks.

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I can understand how in its day, "Shadow of Destiny" may have been impressive. I mean impressive from a graphics standpoint (set designs are ace), and from a cinematic standpoint. Back in 2001 people were still impressed by games pretending to be movies. Well this game is full of long verbose cutscenes, usually doused in melodrama. But even in 2001, I'd have been hard pressed to enjoy this game's bland gameplay, dirt simple puzzles, and agonizing writing. Well at least the controls are simple, and the camera is fairly agreeable, impressive given this is an ancient third person experience.

Thankfully a playthrough of "Shadow of Destiny" is mercifully short, hence the variety of endings to encourage replays. The developers did attempt to artificially inflate the initial playthrough, by occasionally giving the player zero direction. Instead they expected the player to wander a large empty town, that exists in multiple time periods, hoping to trigger the next plot point. Don't worry, if you go the wrong way, large angry dogs will wall you off. Numerous times! No really, that's the best idea Junko Kawano could come up with. If the player fails to solve the current chapter's death by a particular time, Eike just dies. Again. Despite the time travel... eh, don't even think about it, the lack of logic will hurt your brain.

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"Shadow of Destiny" has its fans. I'm not one of them. If I could go back in time, I would warn myself not to bother playing this mess.

Ex's time to beat: 1 hour 59 minutes 14 seconds
Ex's rating: 4/10
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alienjesus
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by alienjesus Wed Nov 14, 2018 5:43 am

Exhuminator wrote:Stuff about 'Again'


I fully intend to pick this up one day, but I'll need to import as it never came out over here.
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