2. 3D Streets of Rage 2 3DS eShop
3. 3D Gunstar Heroes 3DS eShop
4. 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 3DS eShop
5. 3D OutRun 3DS eShop
6. Mugen Senshi Valis II: The Fantasm Soldier PCE CD
7. Mugen Senshi Valis III: The Fantasm Soldier PCE CD
8. Bomberman PCE CD
9. Rocket Knight Adventures Mega Drive
10. Trax Game Boy
11. Panic Bomber Virtual Boy
12. Arcana Heart 3: Love MAX!!!!! Vita
13. Super Monkey Ball Gamecube
14. Lost Kingdoms Gamecube
15. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle Gamecube
16. 1080° Avalanche Gamecube
17. Bubble Ghost Game Boy
18. Catrap Game Boy
19. 3D Thunder Blade 3DS eShop
20. 3D AfterBurner II 3DS eShop
21. 3D Fantasy Zone II W: The Tears of Opa-Opa 3DS eShop
22. Ikaruga Gamecube
23. Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & The Monster Seal Vita
24. New Adventure Island PCE
25. WarioWare Twisted! GBA
26. Dragon Warrior NES
27. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D 3DS eShop
28. Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors DS
29. Gargoyle's Quest Game Boy
30. Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee PS1
31. Puyo Puyo CD PCE CD
32. Retro City Rampage DX 3DS eShop
33. Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition 3DS eShop
34. Super Puyo Puyo Tsuu Remix SFC
35. Super Aleste SNES
36. Sega Rally Championship Saturn
37. Knuckles' Chaotix 32X
38. Mystic Quest Game Boy
39. Nano Assault EX 3DS eShop
40. BOXBOY! 3DS eShop
41. Gunman Clive 3DS eShop
42. Persona 4 Golden Vita *NEW*
43. IA/VT Colorful Vita *NEW*
44. Persona 4: Dancing All Night Vita *NEW*
45. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards N64 *NEW*
46. Quartet Master System *NEW*
47. Die Hard Arcade Saturn *NEW*
48. Metal Slug: 1st Mission NGPC *NEW*
Aaaaannnd here's the other half of my long overdue updates:
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Kirby 64 is a game I picked up pretty recently. I've been after it for a little while as it's one of my N64 holy grails - I've mostly got all the major games I want for the system, besides a few relatively pricy games - Paper Mario, Rocket: Robot on Wheels, Goemon 2, all 3 Mario Party games, Pokémon Stadium 2 and Kirby 64.
Kirby 64 was actually the first Kirby game I ever played. I rented it from a Choice video back when it was fairly new, maybe a year old? I had no idea what it was, but I wasn't hugely captivated by it. I remember playing the 3 mini games more than the main game, which is odd, because in retrospect they're not amazing
Anyway, this game is a 2.5D platformer which plays similarly to many of the other Kirby titles. Run forward, breath in enemies, claim powers, kill stuff. There are a few twists to the formula. Kirby can't fly indefinitely anymore, although this rarely matters as there isn't much actually platforming to worry about here - most stages are pretty flat with little to no pits. This is good, because Kirby flies VERY slowly and that would get tedious. You also have to find 3 crystals in each stage, which can be pretty well hidden, in order to get the boss. At least one of these per stage requires a specific power or power combination to obtain too, meaning lots of backtracking with the right powers. That leads on to the last new mechanic - power combinations.
Unlike most of the later Kirby games, there aren't many different powers enemies can grant you, with only 7 - Fire, Ice, Spark, Cutter, Needle, Bomb and Stone. However, you can combine 2 of these powers to create new ones, allowing for dozens of power combinations in total. This is a cool feature at first, but in practice it's flawed - some of the powers are so shit as to not be worth using (like ice and fire, which is a short range steam burst), and most of them have such over the top animations that they take forever to finish animating and are tedious to use (ice and needle makes you turn into a snowflake which grows outwards for like 5 seconds). In fact, this is an issue even with basic powers - cutter now throws your face as a blade, during which you can't jump, fly or attack again until it boomerangs back.
Thus, I tended to stick to a few powers which I preferred as they were quick and efficient - such as fire & bomb, which made kirby explode surrounded by fireworks. This could combo 3 times and could be done whilst running, so you lost no momentum. Other good options included fire + cutter (a firey sword which swung fairly fast and could be thrown), needle + cutter (an attack where kirby would create pincer blades which swung to both sides, then above) and ice on it's own (which does a quick twirl which freezes enemies and turns them into projectiles when kicked). Some other combos are powerful (ice & electric is stupidly broken, turning kirby into a fridge which throws food to attack, which can then be eaten to restore health), but they're tedious to use in practice.
This game is fairly easy, but it's main issue is just that it's so slow. Kirby moves much slower than in the NES, SNES, GBA, DS and Wii games, he flies incredibly slowly, and most attack animations stop you moving and take a while to complete. That said, the game is still fun, and at about 3-4 hours long start to finish without worrying about all the crystals to find, it's over surprisingly quickly for a slow game. I enjoyed my time with it, and don't regret the purchase, but it's far from being a must-own for most on the N64, and it's also probably one of the weakest titles in the Kirby series. My understanding is the US copies are way cheaper than the PAL ones, so in that case it's likely more worth the expense over the pond.
Quartet
Quartet is game Q for my ultra-drawn out alphabet marathon, and was the only game I purchased especially for the marathon - I had a game for the other 25 letters, but no Q.
Now, I may have said that Kirby 64 was a short game, but this one is something else. Once you get your route memorised and understand what you have to do, a completer run of Quartet should take about 9 minutes from start to finish. A decent amount of the learning curve comes from learning the layout of the 6 levels and finding the hidden stars, and also dealing with the controls, which as is not uncommon on SMS games, have the button the wrong way around by popular standards - the left one jumps and the right one shoots.
Quartet is a run and gun of sorts for Master System where you hop and blast through 6 different levels trying to find hidden items, grab a key and open the door ro the next level. In stages 1-5 there is a star hidden which you must find if you want to go to stage 6. Each stage ends with a boss fight, with stage 6 having multiple mini bosses which must be defeated to get the key to the final boss.
Although Quartet was originally an arcade game, very little of the Arcade mechanics made it to the SMS version. You still collect keys to proceed, and there is still a jetpack power up to find which is almost mandatory to explore some of the levels - it allows you to fly freely around the stage. However, the 4 player mode is gone (although 2 player co-op is here - more of a Duet than a Quartet!) and the games levels are all new.
It took me about 2 hours in total to beat this game - learning the levels can be frustrating because enemies are aggresive and there are lots of them, and they respawn almost isntantly, leading to lots of deaths before you learn your route. Once you know your path though, you can breeze through earlier levels, meaning you make progress consistently every time you play. The game has a set number of lives though, with no way to obtain more, so once you're out it's game over. The final stage could be a bit of a git, but I got it eventually.
Quartet is a fun little game for Master System, but for the prices it goes for (not crazy, but not cheap either) it's probably not worth your time. It doesn't do anything amazing and it's super short and insubstantial overall. There just isn't enough of Quartet to justify the price. In fact, there isn't even a whole Quartet
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Die Hard Arcade
Slight spoilers for this review: Die Hard Arcade definitely joins the prior 2 games on the list of super short games that struggle to justify their going rates
Die Hard Arcade is a 3D (sorta) beat-em-up for Saturn, which was ported from Arcade (hence the name). In Japan it was called Dynamite Deka, but it was rebranded for the west, which is fine as the license works wellenough for the game. It has a Dreamcast sequel which had no license attached anywhere, called Dynamite Cop. Although the game use Polygonal graphics, the fighting engine is really 2D - you can walk into the foreground and background, but your attacks always goes directly left or right - just like beat em ups of old.
Unlike those beat-em-ups though, there is no stage scrolling in Die Hard Arcade. Instead, the game is broken up into a series of smaller bouts, kind of like an arena fighter, with lots of weapons and scenery you can pick up and wallop people with, and sometimes stage hazards to avoid too. The weapons range from melee weapons like golf clubs, chairs and pipes to firearms like pistols, rocket launchers and tank guns. In fact, guns are pretty common in game, and enemies will use them on you too. There are also some quirky oddball weapons such as deoderant you can spray in peoples eyes to stun them, pepper to make them sneeze, or a lighter, which in conjunction with the deoderant spray can allows you to make a makeshift flamethrower.
The story works well enough with the Die Hard license, and it seems likely it was probably inspired by the first movie anyway. An evil group takes over a giant building and takes hostages. The presidents daughter is in there. You're dropped in and have to run around the building killing off thugs and trying to save the day. The fighting mechanics are solid, with a healthy list of combos you can pull off with your two button fighting system. After finishing up a fight in one of the smaller arenas, you'll normally get to see a cutscene showing what the big baddie and the Prez's daughter are up to, followed by a scene showing you moving to the next fight, which normally contains a quick time event. If you pull it off successfully, you'll carry on, but if you fail you'll either take damage or be forced to fight another enemy, normally ina situation where you start in a disadvantaged position.
Speaking of the cutscenes, the game is pretty bad with them. It's really odd. You'll get 4 seconds of loading to se a 3 second clip of someone going 'the safe is open', then it'll load again for 4 seconds before showing a 1 second clip of the big baddie laughing anf going 'yes!, yes!' then 5 seconds of loading again before showing the president's daughter looking worried. It's really stupid and the fact that the music cuts off with each load and there is terrible voice recording quality doesnt help either. I'm not talking about the terrible voice acting either, that's enjoyable enough, just that it's stupidly quiet and muffled and hard to hear a lot of the time.
As an Arcade port, Die Hard Arcade is not very long. It's about 30 minutes start to finish, and theres little to do other than replay it after finishing. The game is fairly tricky and only gives you 3 continues, but you can increase that by playing the bizarrely included game Deep Scan. This is a SUPER old Sega arcade game where you drop depth charges on submarines. Get enough points in this and you'll earn a bunch of extra credits for your next attemp of Die Hard Arcade. On my successful attempt I went in with 12 credits and used 10.
Die Hard Arcade is great fun, and as a cheap pickup I'd highly recommend it. Unfortunately, at least in the UK, it's not a cheap pick-up. Sure, it's not up there with the Saturns priciest at about £20-30, but it's a bit much for what's on offer when so many cheaper, longer and better games are available for less. Good, but don't go out of your way for it unless it really appeals.
Metal Slug 1st Mission
Unlike the other 3 games on this list, Metal Slug 1st Mission isn't especially pricy - it's actually a pretty affordable game for the system. And that's great, because it's also fantastic.
The NGPC Metal Slugs have some key differences to their arcade big brothers. Besides a chibified art style, they feature a health bar system, restart you from checkpoints upon death, and have a variety of levels with multiple paths through the game, meaning success or failure in one mission can cause you to play a totally different level to last time you played.
For example, on stage puts you in a plane. If you finish the level without dying, you'll continue on as usual. Get shot down however, and your pilot will eject from the stricken fighter and freefall towards the ground, whereupon you play a pretty tough minigame to open your parachut at the right time - too early and you'll be shot down, too late and you'll go splat. After you land, you'll take a different exit to the level and go to a different stage than if you'd succeeded. This adds some nice replay value to try and find how to access all the stages.
The addition of a health bar makes the game feel more balanced and less after your money than the arcade games, but the game isn't made super easy because of it. Continues are still limited, although you can obtain more by finding coins scattered in levels - 10 grant 1 extra credit. The game does feature some paltformign and instant death sections though, which can tear through that stock quickly, as there's only 1 life per credit. The difficulty can sometimes feel pretty unbalanced too - the aforementioned parachute section is super difficult, as is the final boss, whereas some later stages are a breeze.
As with the arcade big brothers, the game features vehicles you can pilot. I encountered both the classic Metal Slug and a plane too. The plane levels where generally design around the flight mechanic, with no way to abandon ship or take a land route. Metal Slugs too, didn't let you eject - if your tank went boom, so did you. Enemies tend to drop lots of healing items whilst in a tank though, so your bigger size isn't too detrimental.
The games biggest issue is that it has a sequel, 2nd mission, that did it all better. 2nd mission had more stages, more diverging paths, 2 playable characters, better controls (in 1st mission, Option toggles between bombs and guns, whereas in 2nd mission it just throws bombs straight away) and just feels more refined overall. Both are must owns for the NGPC and can be found for good prices cartridge only, but if you're going to pick one, make it the 2nd.
. Though they ARE just conversions of other games into rail-shooters, so plot-wise, they're nothing new and I can see the legitimacy in skipping them.
I still love Quartet to this day though. It's such a great co-op game. I love the music and all the weird little aliens. Honestly I think the SMS version trumps the arcade version.