Games Beaten 2018

[prfsnl_gmr]

@nullpointer

Your review of F1 BTW is really, really solid. I have owned that game for years and never been interested in it. You have shown me the error of my ways!

[nullPointer]

@nullpointer

Your review of F1 BTW is really, really solid. I have owned that game for years and never been interested in it. You have shown me the error of my ways!

Thanks so much man! It's definitely worth a shot, even if just to take it for a spin. I was a bit of a 'car nerd' as a kid, and was (somewhat counter-intuitively) rather thrilled at the notion that you started the game racing in a relatively un-glamorous Mini Cooper, as opposed to an overwrought super car (as seen in other racing games during this time). Sort of like, "Wow, I could actually own this car in real life!"

[ESauced]

@nullPointer

I similarly am awful at shmups but I love the Salamander and Gradius series. One of my favorites shmups is Hellfire, despite the fact that I will probably never beat the game due to my lack of skill.

[Sarge]

I am going to keep my eyes open for that F1 game from here on out. Awesome stuff.

[nullPointer]

For the most part, I prefer the NES version of Salamander/Life Force. It's better balanced.
...
34. Nemesis 3 (MSX) (click for full review)

Totally agreed on the NES version of Life Force. Among other things the lack of power-up bar in Salamander robs the game of its unique 'Gradius-feel' which in turn makes it feel disconnected from the main series. That said, Salamander sure has a convoluted family of ports and enhanced versions! This Salamander Deluxe compilation also contains the Japanese arcade release of Life Force which re-incorporates some of the changes seen in the NES port and then tweaks them even further. I've never played that version, so I'm pretty curious to see how it stacks up.

Speaking of which I had almost completely forgotten about that MSX release! Thanks for the reminder, it's definitely a title I've always been interested in. Does it suffer at all from any jittery scrolling issues? (And apologies if you mention it in your full review; the link is blocked at my current location) I know that MSX titles can occasionally struggle with that when the action is fast & furious.

One of my favorites shmups is Hellfire, despite the fact that I will probably never beat the game due to my lack of skill.

Great call on Hellfire! I've only played snippets, but it definitely does seem great. One of these days I really need to devote some time to those Toaplan developed shmups. There's definitely some real quality in that catalog.

[laurenhiya21]

4/13: Ys Origin (Vita)
I don’t really have that much experience with the Ys games (or Falcom’s games in general), but after I beat Ys I & II about four years ago, I’ve been wanting to try out more in the series. Now that I’ve finally given another Ys game a shot, how did I like it?

Well to start off with, for my playthrough, I chose to play as Hugo (the grumpy magician). You can also choose Yunica, who beats things up with an axe, but I started with Hugo as I’ve heard that he was a bit easier to play as (later you can play as an additional character once you beat the main story). From what I understand, each character plays very differently and have their own stories, although their paths will cross at certain points in the story.

Playing as Hugo was a lot of fun, with his main attack being these magic balls that follow him around to shoot laser beams everywhere. Often times I would just be running around, frantically just shooting at everything. You probably would need to think a little more about the combat on higher difficulties, but on Easy it was the perfect difficulty for me. The thing that I thought was odd about the combat is that there is one particular boss in the game that was super difficult and took a very long time to beat (even on Easy), but all the bosses afterwards were a lot easier. Even the final boss was easier! That’s only a minor issue for me though.

As for a few other positives, it looks super good! There are a few framerate issues on the Vita version when there are a lot of flashy effects on the screen, but that didn’t happen too often so it didn’t bother me much. The OST of the game is also pretty good too, with a lot of remixes from older games, although I kind of like the tracks Ys I & II a little better.

It’s not often that I really enjoy a game from start to finish, but Ys Origin takes the cake and was an enjoyable romp for nearly the entire game. Hopefully it won’t be another four years to play the next Ys game though!

-----

As a side note, this is my 1000th post! I tried to make it a good review, but I'm still not particularly great at writing them so it may have not turned out so well ha. Still, I've also been here for over four years (which, funny enough, is the same year I beat Ys I & II)! I can't believe I've been sticking around here for so long! Hopefully I'll stick around for a lot longer

[Segata]

If you liked origin you will enjoy Oath of Felghana.

[pook99]

I recently discovered openbor, I don't know if anyone is familiar with this, but it is one of the coolest things I have ever stumbled on. For those of you who don't know openbor is an open source program that allows people to make their own games, although any kind of game is possible, the vast majority of the games on this platform are beat em ups. If you are a fan of beat em ups and have never heard of this google it right now and start downloading games, it is all freeware and the majority of games I have played on it so far are pretty amazing.

The list of games on this thing are way to huge to list here but just to give you some examples of the games I played:

final fight gold plus: based off of final fight 1, it has the same storyline as the first game with mostly new levels, and enemies taken mostly from the first final fight game. What makes this game so cool is the roster of playable characters, all the characters from all 3 final fight games are present(guy, cody, haggar, maki, dean, lucia) as well as the entire cast of street fighter 2. Every character has all of their special moves, and the final fight cast has been given a bunch of new moves to make them as viable as their street fighter counterparts. As a kid I was a huge fan of one on one fighters and beat em ups, so walking the streets as ryu throwing hadokens, hurricane kicks, and shoryukens as I beat through hordes of enemies is insanely cool and is quite literally a 12 year old version of me dream come true.

TMNT and Battletoads: thats right, imagine turtles in time that also gives you the option of playing as the 3 battletoads, and having to fight battletoad enemies and bosses in addition to the usual assortment of foot clan, mousers and the like. The story is told through cutscenes, and although the english in the game is terrible, it is still cool seeing this team up. The game itself is a ton of fun, plays a lot like the turtles game with a slightly expanded combo system(you can juggle enemies) and a grab system for foot soldiers.

World Heroes supreme justice: For those of you who don't know, world heroes was a street fighter 2 clone released by snk, it was hands down my favorite snk game growing up and now the characters in this game have been brought to the beat em up genre, complete with all of their moves, and stage hazards that the series was renowned for.

There are tons more that I haven't played yet that include things such as:

double dragon remixes, battletoads/double dragon sequels, resident evil beat em ups, avp sequels, beat em ups featuring characters from just about every snk figther you can think of(art of fighting, king of fighters, fatat fury, garou mark of the wolves), beat em ups with obscure fighting game characters (like fighters history), mortal kombat beat em ups, new tmnt games, marvel/dc crossovers and so much more, there is even a ghouls n ghosts beat em up.

There is just a ton of awesome stuff to uncover here, I bought god of war for ps4 and haven't even played it yet because of how enamored I am with this. There are some stinkers of course (streets of rage 4 looked cool but was trash), but overall the quality of these titles are just amazing.

If you havent heard of it yet, just google it and find something that interests you, all games that I have tried have full controller support, multiplayer capabilities, save functions, and are quick and are quick and easy to boot up.

[prfsnl_gmr]

1. Bastion (iOS)
2. LaserCat (360)
3. Zombie Incident (3DS)
4. Bye-Bye BoxBoy! (3DS)
5. Monument Valley 2 (iOS)
6. Zenge (iOS)
7. Master of Darkness (Game Gear/3DS)
8. Wonder Boy (SMS)
9. Full Throttle Remastered (iOS)
10. Adventure Island (NES)
11. Adventure Island II (NES)
12. Adventure Island (GB)
13. Super Adventure Island (SNES)
14. New Adventure Island (TG16)
15. Adventure Island III (NES)
16. The Legend of the Ghost Lion (NES)
17. Part Time UFO (iOS)
18. Adventure Island II: Aliens in Paradise (GB)
19. Adventure Island IV (NES)
20. Super Adventure Island II (SNES)
21. Adventure Island: The Beginning (WII)
22. Quell Memento (3DS)
23. Wonder Boy in Monster Land (ARCADE)
24. Saiyuuki World (FAMICOM)
25. Whomp ‘Em (NES)
26. Bikkuriman World (TG16)
27. Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair (TG16)

Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair Is part run ‘n gun platformer, part shmup, and all trash. It starts out OK, and the sprites have a lot of personality. It also ties Wonder Boy in Monster Land back to Wonder Boy pretty well. It is way, way too long, however, and the gameplay gets really repetitive really quickly. Moreover, the controls are sluggish, and the game is chock full of cheap, almost completely unavaoidabke deaths. This is OK, if nonetheless annoying, in a fun arcade game meant to consume credits; it is unforgivable, however, in a home port of a not-that-much-fun-to-begin-with arcade game that permits only a paltry four credits before sending you back to the very beginning of the game. I hate to admit that I ultimately ended up resorting to an unlimited continues code to get through this game, but it was completely necessary to see the end. (Even with unlimited continues , the game is still a frustrating drag.) It is not recommended, obviously, and I am happy to have it behind me so that I can move on to the OTHER Wonder Boy III, which I’ve read is pretty good...

[Sarge]

Yep, you'll enjoy the other one a lot more.