Re: Games Beaten 2016
Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 11:30 am
1. Metal Slug (MVS)(Run and Gun)
2. Puzzle Link (NGPC)(Puzzle)
3. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)(RPG)
4. Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (PC)(Strategy)
5. Shadowrun: Dragonfall (PC)(RPG)
6. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC)(RPG)
7. Drakkhen (SNES)(RPG)
8. Flight of the Amazon Queen (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
I beat two games over the weekend.
=================================================================================
Drakkhen
I will start this by saying I do not recommend Drakkhen to you. In fact, I would only recommend Drakkhen to the most fervent of RPG fans looking to face a challenge. It is an infuriatingly obtuse game, with limited player involvement or control, and a messy translation that only further obfuscates whatever it is the game seems to be trying to do. The story is nearly incomprehensible, combat is handled entirely by the AI, and mechanics are intentionally designed to confuse and hinder the player. Fight rules are never explained, the character leveling and experience system is frustrating, and the game is riddled with super monsters which on a whim could easily wipe the party. These super monsters are accessible almost from the very start, and little explanation as to why they are in the game ever appears. You can find them by bumping into tombstones, randomly encountering them in certain areas, or simply turning at night. And this is a review of the SNES version. The original computer releases are much, much harder.
Despite these problems(or perhaps because of them), I found myself impressed by other aspects of the game. Much of what Drakkhen attempts may be maddening in its limitations and muddled in its presentation, but it was doing it far ahead of its time. One of the most brilliant aspects of the game is the open world, which allows players to navigate in first person view. While many other games attempted this through a grid approach(such as the Might & Magic series), Drakkhen does this without such limitations and enables player freedom to simply wander. The SNES port is the oldest SNES RPG in just about all regions, coming in around mid-1991. But the original game was a 1989 release for the Amiga. Put it this way, the Elder Scrolls series became famous for this kind of approach...in 1994. For a game from 1989 to do this is incredible, particularly when you consider that RPGs mainly consisted of wireframes less than a decade before. The size of this leap is staggering.
Drakkhen also uses a rudimentary AI system to handle combat, allowing the player to set general guidelines to behavior for each of the four characters and to move one around the field. Beyond that though, the game largely plays itself during fights. Since the party can experience random encounters even while standing still, this means that the player hardly needs to be present for grinding purposes, and I set the game down and let my party build up on its own for the last few days I "played." This is not a perfect system however, as there is a merchant encounter which requires the player interact with the controller to get through, and if things go south, party wipe can easily occur. This is particularly true at the start of the game, where even the first encounters can result in the death of party members. Resurrecting a party member also requires travel to specific places for revives, thus increasing the likelihood of more combat, more deaths, and a party wipe. But gain a level, and your character becomes noticeably more capable.
Adding to this issue is the armor durability problem. Enemies can break your gear, depending on your armor's defense as well as some sort of player character stat that I never understood. This means you need to upgrade your gear, and you may also need to replace your gear, an expensive proposition at the game's outset. As you play, armor types change in the local shop too, meaning only the latest and greatest is available. This is great for the Fighter and Scout characters, since they can equip everything. But your casters? Some of their best gear vanishes by midway through the game, and if it gets broken, it's likely to never be replaced. Ever. This sucks, but at least early on you can buy Bows and Arrows to keep your folks out of melee. Believe me, buy four of these as soon as you can and keep them until the end of the game. The Bow is an extremely weak weapon, but it's the only ranged weapon in the game, and it kept my casters out of direct combat up until the very end.
Leveling is also a pain, because characters gain experience separately from hitting and killing enemies, and each new level is a leap from the last. Inevitably some character is likely to be left behind; in my case, it was my sorcerer, who by the end of the game was about 35,000 experience points behind my highest character, and he only reached about 100,000 total. This means my sorcerer only grabbed about 2/3 of the experience and was two levels behind. This discrepancy hurt because some enemies can only be hit by ranged weapons or spells, meaning my other guys would have to sit tight and wait for the sorcerer to eventually get lucky and hit the stronger enemies.
I don't want to end this on a down note, so let me praise something that I find wonderful about Drakkhen: its music and sound work. Despite the frustrations of the rest of the game, the music is incredibly soothing, which really helps counter the tension that can build from the rest of the game. Sure, my team just got slaughtered, and half of their equipment is now broken, but man these themes really help me relax. This is backed by audio which really works in tandem with the unusual enemy designs. They gibber, grunt, roar, and mumble. It's a nice touch that enhances the "realistic" feel of fighting a giant wireframe knight, or a rapidly moving crocodile, or a dragon that slowly descends from the sky to lay waste to your party.
As I mentioned, I don't recommend you play Drakkhen. It's a flawed game, incredible in what it tries to do but severely hampered by its limitations and problematic design. There are only a couple of members on this forum that I would suggest it to, and to my knowledge they have already beaten Drakkhen. The rest of you are probably fine to skip it. But it certainly feels like an accomplishment to beat. I hear the sequel, Dragon View, improves on the formula immensely. I look forward to tracking it down in the future.
=================================================================================
Flight of the Amazon Queen
In many ways, this game reminds me as a poor man's LucasArts adventure. It has a similar approach and visual aesthetic, it cribs heavily on LucasArts' style, and it even directly references their games, properties, and characters at specific points. It also has a plot that could be lifted directly from something George Lucas is involved in. There's the Amazon, a group of evil Europeans seeking an artifact to be used for world domination, a wisecracking hero in a leather jacket and hat, snakes, a crystal skull and ancient technology that grants access to a valley...nah, you know what? George Lucas would never do something like that.
Anyway, it's a pretty simple premise: Joe King, pilot for hire, gets contracted to fly movie star Faye Russel to the Amazon, but his plane gets struck by lightning and crashes. Now stranded, Joe discovers a plot by evil Dr. Ironstein to turn the Amazonians into an army of dinosaur women so he can conquer the world. To do this, he'll have to find and use a variety of items to solve all manner of puzzles in the hopes of eventually defeating the mad doctor...and if you pick up the free GOG version, all of this is done will glorious full voice acting. Glorious, at least, if you don't mind some absolutely atrocious delivery at times. It really is hit or miss, though Penelope Keith and William Hootkins both do excellent jobs. You might remember Hootkins from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He played Porkins.
I say this is a poor man's LucasArts because it's not quite up to snuff. The story feels just a bit more crude than your typical LA adventure, and while the puzzles are every bit as wacky as something found in a Monkey Island game, they don't always make as much sense...which I suppose is saying something. But there are more than a few references to Lucas properties sprinkled throughout, so the inspiration is clear. In fact the numerous references serve as both jokes but also remind me that this is ultimately a wannabe of games that I have absolutely adored over the years. Still, FotAQ is pretty capable in its own right, and it does offer a few conventions of its own, such as a central Pinnacle area linking many of the game's sections. I liked it. Not as much as I've enjoyed actual LucasArts titles, but enough that I don't mind recommending it to fans of LA point-and-clicks after that particular well has run dry.
Plus it's free on GOG. Meaning you should all own it.
2. Puzzle Link (NGPC)(Puzzle)
3. Illusion of Gaia (SNES)(RPG)
4. Warhammer 40,000: Rites of War (PC)(Strategy)
5. Shadowrun: Dragonfall (PC)(RPG)
6. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC)(RPG)
7. Drakkhen (SNES)(RPG)
8. Flight of the Amazon Queen (PC)(Point and Click Adventure)
I beat two games over the weekend.
=================================================================================
Drakkhen
I will start this by saying I do not recommend Drakkhen to you. In fact, I would only recommend Drakkhen to the most fervent of RPG fans looking to face a challenge. It is an infuriatingly obtuse game, with limited player involvement or control, and a messy translation that only further obfuscates whatever it is the game seems to be trying to do. The story is nearly incomprehensible, combat is handled entirely by the AI, and mechanics are intentionally designed to confuse and hinder the player. Fight rules are never explained, the character leveling and experience system is frustrating, and the game is riddled with super monsters which on a whim could easily wipe the party. These super monsters are accessible almost from the very start, and little explanation as to why they are in the game ever appears. You can find them by bumping into tombstones, randomly encountering them in certain areas, or simply turning at night. And this is a review of the SNES version. The original computer releases are much, much harder.
Despite these problems(or perhaps because of them), I found myself impressed by other aspects of the game. Much of what Drakkhen attempts may be maddening in its limitations and muddled in its presentation, but it was doing it far ahead of its time. One of the most brilliant aspects of the game is the open world, which allows players to navigate in first person view. While many other games attempted this through a grid approach(such as the Might & Magic series), Drakkhen does this without such limitations and enables player freedom to simply wander. The SNES port is the oldest SNES RPG in just about all regions, coming in around mid-1991. But the original game was a 1989 release for the Amiga. Put it this way, the Elder Scrolls series became famous for this kind of approach...in 1994. For a game from 1989 to do this is incredible, particularly when you consider that RPGs mainly consisted of wireframes less than a decade before. The size of this leap is staggering.
Drakkhen also uses a rudimentary AI system to handle combat, allowing the player to set general guidelines to behavior for each of the four characters and to move one around the field. Beyond that though, the game largely plays itself during fights. Since the party can experience random encounters even while standing still, this means that the player hardly needs to be present for grinding purposes, and I set the game down and let my party build up on its own for the last few days I "played." This is not a perfect system however, as there is a merchant encounter which requires the player interact with the controller to get through, and if things go south, party wipe can easily occur. This is particularly true at the start of the game, where even the first encounters can result in the death of party members. Resurrecting a party member also requires travel to specific places for revives, thus increasing the likelihood of more combat, more deaths, and a party wipe. But gain a level, and your character becomes noticeably more capable.
Adding to this issue is the armor durability problem. Enemies can break your gear, depending on your armor's defense as well as some sort of player character stat that I never understood. This means you need to upgrade your gear, and you may also need to replace your gear, an expensive proposition at the game's outset. As you play, armor types change in the local shop too, meaning only the latest and greatest is available. This is great for the Fighter and Scout characters, since they can equip everything. But your casters? Some of their best gear vanishes by midway through the game, and if it gets broken, it's likely to never be replaced. Ever. This sucks, but at least early on you can buy Bows and Arrows to keep your folks out of melee. Believe me, buy four of these as soon as you can and keep them until the end of the game. The Bow is an extremely weak weapon, but it's the only ranged weapon in the game, and it kept my casters out of direct combat up until the very end.
Leveling is also a pain, because characters gain experience separately from hitting and killing enemies, and each new level is a leap from the last. Inevitably some character is likely to be left behind; in my case, it was my sorcerer, who by the end of the game was about 35,000 experience points behind my highest character, and he only reached about 100,000 total. This means my sorcerer only grabbed about 2/3 of the experience and was two levels behind. This discrepancy hurt because some enemies can only be hit by ranged weapons or spells, meaning my other guys would have to sit tight and wait for the sorcerer to eventually get lucky and hit the stronger enemies.
I don't want to end this on a down note, so let me praise something that I find wonderful about Drakkhen: its music and sound work. Despite the frustrations of the rest of the game, the music is incredibly soothing, which really helps counter the tension that can build from the rest of the game. Sure, my team just got slaughtered, and half of their equipment is now broken, but man these themes really help me relax. This is backed by audio which really works in tandem with the unusual enemy designs. They gibber, grunt, roar, and mumble. It's a nice touch that enhances the "realistic" feel of fighting a giant wireframe knight, or a rapidly moving crocodile, or a dragon that slowly descends from the sky to lay waste to your party.
As I mentioned, I don't recommend you play Drakkhen. It's a flawed game, incredible in what it tries to do but severely hampered by its limitations and problematic design. There are only a couple of members on this forum that I would suggest it to, and to my knowledge they have already beaten Drakkhen. The rest of you are probably fine to skip it. But it certainly feels like an accomplishment to beat. I hear the sequel, Dragon View, improves on the formula immensely. I look forward to tracking it down in the future.
=================================================================================
Flight of the Amazon Queen
In many ways, this game reminds me as a poor man's LucasArts adventure. It has a similar approach and visual aesthetic, it cribs heavily on LucasArts' style, and it even directly references their games, properties, and characters at specific points. It also has a plot that could be lifted directly from something George Lucas is involved in. There's the Amazon, a group of evil Europeans seeking an artifact to be used for world domination, a wisecracking hero in a leather jacket and hat, snakes, a crystal skull and ancient technology that grants access to a valley...nah, you know what? George Lucas would never do something like that.
Anyway, it's a pretty simple premise: Joe King, pilot for hire, gets contracted to fly movie star Faye Russel to the Amazon, but his plane gets struck by lightning and crashes. Now stranded, Joe discovers a plot by evil Dr. Ironstein to turn the Amazonians into an army of dinosaur women so he can conquer the world. To do this, he'll have to find and use a variety of items to solve all manner of puzzles in the hopes of eventually defeating the mad doctor...and if you pick up the free GOG version, all of this is done will glorious full voice acting. Glorious, at least, if you don't mind some absolutely atrocious delivery at times. It really is hit or miss, though Penelope Keith and William Hootkins both do excellent jobs. You might remember Hootkins from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He played Porkins.
I say this is a poor man's LucasArts because it's not quite up to snuff. The story feels just a bit more crude than your typical LA adventure, and while the puzzles are every bit as wacky as something found in a Monkey Island game, they don't always make as much sense...which I suppose is saying something. But there are more than a few references to Lucas properties sprinkled throughout, so the inspiration is clear. In fact the numerous references serve as both jokes but also remind me that this is ultimately a wannabe of games that I have absolutely adored over the years. Still, FotAQ is pretty capable in its own right, and it does offer a few conventions of its own, such as a central Pinnacle area linking many of the game's sections. I liked it. Not as much as I've enjoyed actual LucasArts titles, but enough that I don't mind recommending it to fans of LA point-and-clicks after that particular well has run dry.
Plus it's free on GOG. Meaning you should all own it.