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nullPointer
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by nullPointer Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:56 pm

Xeogred wrote:Nowadays I lean more towards SMW being the better game, the levels are bigger and the ideas constantly interesting, but SMB3 has the best vibes, all the cool power ups, and more variety between the worlds.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:I'm part of what seems to be a minority who thinks that, while Super Mario World is amazing, Super Mario Bros 3 is the absolute pinnacle of 2D platforming.

I'm so wishy-washy on this that if I was forced to pick between the two, my answer would likely change depending on when I was asked, lol. Super Mario World offers a deeper experience, but SMB3 conversely has that 'pick up & play' allure in spades.
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by Xeogred Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:04 pm

It always amuses me how evil world 8 is on the NES as well. It's straight up Hell. :lol:
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by Xeogred Wed Jan 10, 2018 10:57 pm

1. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Genesis)
2. Darkwing Duck (NES)
3. Batman* (NES)
4. Journey to Silius (NES)
5. Aladdin* (SNES)
6. Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse* (SNES)
7. Run Saber (SNES)

* = replay

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WHY DID I THINK THIS GAME WAS BAD?

Wish I knew, but I'm glad I gave it another shot. The curiosity of mixing this up with Skyblazer over the years got to me. I even own the cart of Run Saber and never gave it much love. But it's great! A mix of Strider meets Shinobi basically. Enemies drop the Special power up everywhere so it was easy to spam that during bosses. There's 5 levels and most have a handful of bosses. This is about as simple as it gets and only took me 36 minutes on a second run after a game over, but I got to the 4th level on my first run so it was easy to memorize the levels. Fun times. Some tracks were cool and I really dug the graphics. I played the female since she looked way cooler. Their blade attacks are different and hers is shorter but with an upward swing, when upgraded you can easily spam it for a wide attack while jumping.

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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by prfsnl_gmr Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:16 am

nullPointer wrote:
Xeogred wrote:Nowadays I lean more towards SMW being the better game, the levels are bigger and the ideas constantly interesting, but SMB3 has the best vibes, all the cool power ups, and more variety between the worlds.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:I'm part of what seems to be a minority who thinks that, while Super Mario World is amazing, Super Mario Bros 3 is the absolute pinnacle of 2D platforming.

I'm so wishy-washy on this that if I was forced to pick between the two, my answer would likely change depending on when I was asked, lol. Super Mario World offers a deeper experience, but SMB3 conversely has that 'pick up & play' allure in spades.


This is well put. I don’t think one is better than the other. They are just different. Neither is the pinnacle of 2D platforming, however.
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by MrPopo Thu Jan 11, 2018 1:44 am

1. Ultima V - PC
2. Ultima VI - PC

I noticed that Ultima VI was one of the games for AGDQ this year, so I decided to try and knock it out before they got to it tomorrow night. Ultima VI is the most advanced of the Age of Enlightenment trilogy, and yet somehow I feel like it is the least of the three games. It ends up being like early 3D platformers; crazy awesome advanced when it first came out, but in hindsight it hasn't aged as well as the older games.

So first off, you will notice that this game got an insane graphical update. You're now rocking VGA graphics (whereas the previous two were EGA), and the sprites are huge compared to Ultima V's. It's still an overhead view so you have this weird perspective to give you just enough of a 3D effect like you'd see in an isometric. I'd call it an 85 degree isometric aesthetic. Characters now have portraits, and the dialog system is much richer. People have more to say, they have unique dialog for their "I don't respond to that word" response, and keywords are highlighted so you don't have to try every word (though they frequently respond to more than just the keywords). Characters now have a paper doll, compared to the implicit one in Ultima V, and there is individual inventories for characters and a weight limit system; you can wear gear equal to your strength and can carry a total of twice your strength (where you carry what you wear).

The game also gets back to the emphasis on morals that Ultima IV had. I don't want to go into more detail than that for spoilers, but the end game involves solving a conundrum and the solution doesn't involve swords. There is a karma system like Ultima V, with the same level of impact; you need to have enough to do the final quest, but it's mostly just don't steal, don't murder people, do the main quest. You don't have the full virtue system. Still, it's much better story-wise than Ultima V was, which was basically just beat the big bad guys and rescue the princess (king).

Now where the game falls down: first, the graphics. Like Metroid II, everything is too big compared to the viewport, so it's incredibly easy to get lost in towns without a map. The towns are also massive compared to the size of the world, without actually being larger compared to Ultima V in terms of buildings and residents. As an example, Lord British's castle and Britain takes up the entire area under that crescent shaped mountain range that is the nothern border of the land it's in in the previous two games. This makes the whole game seem a ton smaller. It's really a step backwards; zooming out the view would help a ton. Combat is also now done on the map, which means the already clusterfuck combat gets even worse, as most of the time you're in areas that aren't designed for fighting like in the previous games. This makes party sizes greater than three a mess in combat, but you definitely want a party that size to carry all the shit you need to beat the game.

I mentioned the story is better than V's (though the idea of turning virtues into laws being bad was an interesting one). But there's a big piece in the middle that just sucks. You know how much everyone hates the the Triforce treasure map part of Wind Waker? Well, Ultima VI did it first and did it worse. It's a huge busy work quest that isn't even necessary if you know the piece of information it reveals. It doesn't do a quest trigger, and it's possible for you to stumble past it if you just explore the world and do some dungeon diving. It's basically a super long quest chain to tell you to visit a particular dungeon. So if you visit it on your own you'll end up doing the sequence past this asinine quest chain, making it completely useless.

For it's narrative faults, Ultima V had a good engine and was considerate with a player's time and energy. So I'd say the trilogy ends up being IV > V > VI, when approached in hindsight. Of course, at the time you'd definitely rank them IV < V < VI, because the technical advancements will utterly blow you away.
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by ESauced Thu Jan 11, 2018 2:20 am

prfsnl_gmr wrote:
nullPointer wrote:
Xeogred wrote:Nowadays I lean more towards SMW being the better game, the levels are bigger and the ideas constantly interesting, but SMB3 has the best vibes, all the cool power ups, and more variety between the worlds.

ElkinFencer10 wrote:I'm part of what seems to be a minority who thinks that, while Super Mario World is amazing, Super Mario Bros 3 is the absolute pinnacle of 2D platforming.

I'm so wishy-washy on this that if I was forced to pick between the two, my answer would likely change depending on when I was asked, lol. Super Mario World offers a deeper experience, but SMB3 conversely has that 'pick up & play' allure in spades.


This is well put. I don’t think one is better than the other. They are just different. Neither is the pinnacle of 2D platforming, however.


Nah, the answer is Mario 3 :wink:
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by marurun Thu Jan 11, 2018 1:17 pm

Xeogred wrote:7. Run Saber (SNES)

WHY DID I THINK THIS GAME WAS BAD?


No idea! It's not like the best game ever, but it's pretty decent. I actually like it a bit better than the original Strider. I think it's a slightly more accessible take on the style.
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by nullPointer Thu Jan 11, 2018 2:05 pm

MrPopo wrote:2. Ultima VI - PC

Great review Popo, thanks! Ultima is a series that I always feel like I'm 2-5 games out before finally diving into. I'm not sure the whole emphasis on virtues & morality is something that really excites me as a gamer though, and that seems like a major theme throughout the whole series. Just out of curiosity, what sort of time investment is typically required from this era of Ultima games (IV - VI)?
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by MrPopo Thu Jan 11, 2018 2:32 pm

nullPointer wrote:
MrPopo wrote:2. Ultima VI - PC

Great review Popo, thanks! Ultima is a series that I always feel like I'm 2-5 games out before finally diving into. I'm not sure the whole emphasis on virtues & morality is something that really excites me as a gamer though, and that seems like a major theme throughout the whole series. Just out of curiosity, what sort of time investment is typically required from this era of Ultima games (IV - VI)?

So the first three Ultima games are just straight up murder things RPGs. In that in the first game you need to murder a jester and escape guards in order to progress the plot. So go in, grind some, do a couple of events, beat game. Ultima 1 and 2 are pretty short if you know what you're doing, but Ultima 2 can take a while if you try to do it completely blind, as there is a ton of content that doesn't actually do anything for you (and that's assuming you have the community patch, otherwise that content is actually jacked up and they don't even give you the unnecessary hints). Ultima 3 is longer because it takes a lot longer to grind to the appropriate levels and gold you need to beat it.

Ultima IV is the one that introduces the virtue system, and that's the one where you have to really pay attention to it. Ultima V and VI go back to a Bioware style morality meter; it goes up when you expect and goes down when you expect and it generally means that you can short cut a few quests because you have enough karma built up to take the hit. But in IV it's pretty integrated into things, and you have to do a lot of activities you wouldn't necessarily think of if you are in video game mode.

In terms of time commitment, I'd say IV is somewhere between 20 and 40 hours, whereas V is 10-20 and VI is 15-20. Some of that time save comes from not having to grind virtue and some comes from being able to utilize a lot of knowledge from IV in the later games. If you skip IV and go to V or VI then those games add in several hours as you orient yourself and pick up information you learn in IV.
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Re: Games Beaten 2018

by Ack Thu Jan 11, 2018 3:13 pm

Hey Popo, how long do Ultima IV, V, and VI compare to III in terms of length? I've only beaten I and II, but since the series operates in sets of trilogies, I figure I could hop around to either IV or VII without an issue. VII has always intrigued me, even if I'm not a big fan of the camera angle, and I admit I've always been curious to see just how bad IX really is.
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