1. Devil's Attorney (Android) (strategy) (good game) 2. Resident Evil 5 (360) (action adventure) (good game) 3. Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (360) (kart racer) (good game) 4. Dragon Quest VIII (PS2) (JRPG) (amazing game) 5. Gears of War (360) (cover shooter) (decent game) 6. Uncharted: Golden Abyss (Vita) (action adventure) (decent game) 7. Orcs & Elves (DS) (dungeon crawler) (good game) 8. From The Abyss (DS) (action-RPG) (decent game) 9. Army of Two (360) (cover shooter) (decent game) 10. Psychic World (Master System) (platformer) (subpar game) 11. Endless Ocean: Blue World (Wii) (adventure / simulation) (amazing game) 12. Journey to Silius (NES) (platformer) (decent game) 13. Sword Master (NES) (platformer) (subpar game) 14. Project: Snowblind (PC) (FPS) (good game) 15. Yakyuuken Part II - Gal's Dungeon (Famicom) (maze / puzzle) (decent game) 16. Bishoujo Sexy Derby (Famicom) (horse racing) (terrible game) 17. SiN Episodes: Emergence (PC) (FPS) (subpar game) 18. Seirei Gari (AKA Ghost Hunter) (NES) (puzzle / adventure) (subpar game) 19. The Guardian Legend (NES) (action-RPG / shmup) (amazing game) 20. Prey (PC) (FPS) (good game) 21. Ys IV (SFC) (action-RPG) (subpar game)
1993's Ys IV: Mask of the Sun for the Super Famicom was a bit of a departure for the series up to that point. With this game Falcom chose to cede publishing rights to Tonkin House, I assume with royalty payments as compensation. In turn Tonkin House farmed out the development of Mask of The Sun to a company called Advance Communication. Well I can tell you without question Advance Communication as a developer did not live up to the abilities of Falcom themselves. But before I get into what's wrong with Mask of the Sun, I will talk about what's at least okay with it.
Firstly the plot in Mask of the Sun is far expanded beyond the games that came before in the series. Its beginning and ending are shown in nicely animated cinematics. Characters are much more verbose, and even Adol himself has plenty to say. Although the story is not amazing by any means, it is more complex than what had been seen before in the Ys franchise. Graphically Mask of the Sun does not push the Super Famicom's capabilities in the least. However the pixel work is at least clean and vibrant, and certainly consistent in its art direction. Mask of the Sun's music is above average for a Super Famicom game. While Ys IV on SFC certainly can't touch the TGCD Ys games' OSTs, what's there is not half bad and obviously much effort was put into the music. (Sound effects on the other hand are pretty bland and substandard.)
And that's about all the positive things I can say. Mask of the Sun overall is a rather bad game. The biggest problem is definitely its combat system. Ys IV on SFC uses the "bump combat" of older Ys games. That would be fine, except the programmers did a very sloppy job implementing it here. Adol has to be pixel perfect in bumping the enemies to hurt them, but the vast majority of enemies in this game make that exceedingly difficult. Most baddies in Ys IV SFC move far too quickly and erratically for the precision needed to hit them. Not only that, but enemies respawn constantly and will quickly surround Adol and kill him in about two seconds without any warning. These factors mean fighting in Ys IV SFC is always a chore and never much fun. Worst of all the developers fully expect the player to be at a very, very high level in order to beat the last few bosses of this game. To reach these levels the player will have to literally grind for hours. Ys IV SFC is by far the most grindy Ys game I've personally beaten, and I've beaten many games in this series.
Beyond the horrid combat and horrendous enemy balancing, Ys IV harbors other issues. Another big one is its level designs. They are often maze like with little payoff for exploratory expenditure, feeling very bland overall. In the last third of Ys IV SFC, the game suddenly decides it no longer cares to help the player understand where to go. This makes a walkthrough practically mandatory. (Probably done to sell strategy guides.) Weapons and armor in Mask of the Sun are extraordinarily expensive, and you will also have to grind for gold far too much. If I haven't made it clear yet, if you don't care for constant grinding stay far away from Ys IV on SFC. I won't even bother explaining how bad the pacing is in this game, but let's just say it's lacking.
Damn right Adol's leaving. He's had enough of this amateur hour game and he has nothing nice to say about it.
Ultimately Ys IV: Mask of the Sun is a massive disappointment compared to the Ys games that came before and after it. Despite having an expanded plot, the graphics hardly improved, the OST was held back by hardware limitations, and its actual game design was far too punishing towards the player. The developers show zero regard for their player's free time or actual enjoyment. It would seem Falcom learned their lesson though, because after Ys IV the studio never again farmed out another mainline Ys entry. (And thankfully it would seem Advance Communication never made another "game".) Some people say that Ys III is the black sheep for this series. But to those people I say until they've finished Ys IV: Mask of the Sun, they just don't know how bad Ys truly got during its nadir. Thankfully this series fully recovered, and eventually attained greatness again in subsequent sequels.
Thankfully Falcom themselves actually told the rest of them.
1. Painkiller - PC 2. Front Mission 4 - PS2 3. Wasteland 2 - PC 4. Arcanum - PC 5. X-COM Terror from the Deep - PC 6. Military Madness - TurboGrafx-16 7. Unreal - PC 8. Shadowrun - SNES 9. Warcraft III - PC 10. Dungeon Keeper - PC 11. Final Fantasy X-2 HD - PS3 12. Descent - PC 13. Quake Mission Pack 2 - Dissolution of Eternity - PC 14. Quake 2 Mission Pack 2 - Ground Zero - PC 15. Sokobond - PC 16. Hybrid Heaven - N64 17. Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis 18. Castlevania - NES 19. Super Castlevania IV - SNES
Well, I finished this today once Ziggy helped me figure out the best way to deal with the collapsing stairs in the last level. Overall I have some weird feelings about this game. It feels like the bosses are much easier than the original bosses (assuming you don't lock the original bosses with holy water), but several of the levels feel harder due to some of the new mechanics that weren't fully fleshed out. There's also an odd flow to things, as not every level has a boss, and some levels have their boss midway through. The original gets you in that groove of level, then boss, get the orb, pose, lose all your hearts. And the checkpoints feel really arbitrary, while Castlevania it's when you step through a door.
The sprites are nice looking, and the ability to whip in diagonals and up/down is really nice. The music is overall good, though the cover of Vampire Killer is a travesty. It starts off like a good SNES rendition, and then someone tumbles down the stairs into the instrument closet and decides to use all of them at the same time.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
1- Heavenly Sword (Ps3) 2- Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3) 3- Sonic Generations (Ps3) 4- Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance (3DS) 5- Legend of Zelda: Link between worlds (3DS) 6- Castlevania: Mirror of Fate (3DS)
7- Pokémon Crystal (GBC)* 8- Pokémon Fire Red (GBA)* 9- Pokémon Y (3DS)*
*=Replay
Might as well try to keep this list up to date. Like i said before i been obsessed with pokemon lately and run a maraton to prepare myself for online play on gen VI and also replayed the story mode on pokemon Y. Raising a team for online battles is a bit more time consuming than i expected.
noiseredux wrote:I don't lend shit and I don't borrow shit.
1. Renegade Ops (PC)(Multidirectional Shooter) 2. Borderlands 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG) 3. Gunpoint (PC)(Puzzle Platformer) 4. Robotrek (SNES)(RPG) 5. The Tick (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up) 6. Alien vs Predator (SNES)(Beat 'Em Up) 7. X-Kaliber 2097 (SNES)(Action Platformer) 8. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun) 9. Shadowrun (SNES)(RPG) 10. Quake II (PC)(FPS) 11. The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (SNES)(RPG) 12. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (PC)(Action) 13. A Story About My Uncle (PC)(Platformer)
This is a first person platformer from the guys who brought us Goat Simulator. It has some issues, but it certainly wasn't a bad way to spend a few hours(just a few. I beat the game in under 4 hours and had found all secrets within 6). But it nails that sense of speed and free falling that it needed.
The premise of the game is a man is telling his daughter a bedtime story about his uncle, Fred. Uncle Fred was an explorer and inventor, but he vanished one day when the man was still a boy of about 12 years old. So the boy checks his house and finds a special suit and a machine that Fred was dumping garbage in, which promptly sends the boy to another place...it's never established where that other place is, be it another planet, universe, dimension, etc. But the boy ends up there with the suit, which allows him to jump higher, fall long distances, and even grab hold of distant objects to pull himself forward. Which is great, because the world he has to traverse is full of floating rocks and inhabited by frog people and at least one monster that you see.
There aren't many controls, but they have to be combined in certain ways at certain times. There is a normal jump and a pulse blast to launch you higher. Both of these jumps change a bit when running, particularly the pulse blast, which launches you forward a bit instead with no control. The boy also gets the ability to eventually fire up to three grappling shots without hitting the ground and short-burst rocket boots. The rocket boots are possibly the coolest part of the game, once you have them mastered, as they become necessary for both exploration and saving your ass when you fuck up. The game is also generally forgiving with its checkpoint placement, which gets farther and farther apart over the course of the game but is never so far that you rage quit.
That said, the path is not always obvious, and you will fall to your doom a lot, particularly as you get the hang of your various equipment, the combination of controls(sometimes one type of jump is absolutely necessary while the other gets you killed). Even when you know exactly what you are doing, the game steadily ramps up the challenge. The final level is a nightmare at times, particularly in a sequence near the beginning where you have to race across falling blocks. The falling block sequence is the hardest part of the game, but even once it's over, the final level is no cakewalk.
The only other real issues with the game are the often unskippable story sequences where you can move around but can't use your abilities, and the problematic voice acting. Certain actors and actresses are great(the lady playing your daughter did a wonderful job), but others fall flat. Unfortunately the lead male happens to be one of the worst ones of the bunch, which sucks since he's also the one you hear the most from.
Bottom line: A Story About My Uncle is a short but entertaining romp with some excellent first person platforming(those of you who like puzzle-based FPS may get a kick out of this), and there is a sense of freedom to the movement that I think most folks would enjoy, even though it has some issues with presentation. I liked it. I wouldn't spend full price on it, but it's perfect sale material on GOG or Steam. And the unlockables are actually pretty entertaining, especially Goat Mode.
Key-Glyph wrote:But now I've finally gone and done it. I'm almost thirty... and I have closure.
I love nostalgic gaming anecdotes like your story. Congrats on slaying your own white whale.
Thanks, Exhuminator! It might sound silly, but I'm realizing how much this game really did weigh on my mind. Not in a negative way -- just in a "every time I look at my Game Boy case or play a Game Boy game, I think about how I need to go back to that one" kind of way. I almost feel as if the particular shade of purple on the cartridge label might have been enough to subconsciously trigger that thought too, it got so burned into my mind.
BoneSnapDeez wrote:SaGa games
I only realized that the Final Fantasy Legend series also went by the SaGa name a few nights ago, when I discovered there was a re-release of Legends III for the DS under that latter title. I don't know anything about the SaGa games except some of the music, and the fact that there's one called "Romancing SaGa," which I call "Romancing Sagat" (a joke I lifted from elsewhere). Are you saying they are originally SaGa games, then renamed for marketing power in the west? Or something else?
BogusMeatFactory wrote:If I could powder my copies of shenmue and snort them I would
Key-Glyph wrote:Are you saying they are originally SaGa games, then renamed for marketing power in the west? Or something else?
The DS SaGa games were remakes that unfortunately did not get domestic English releases. However two were fan translated, and are playable in English via flashcart or emulation:
Speaking of Game Boy FF games, Final Fantasy Adventure in Japan was called Seiken Densetsu: Final Fantasy Gaiden, thus making it the first Seiken Densetsu game and the precursor to Secret of Mana (which was Seiken Densetsu 2 in Japan). But you probably know that.
