by alienjesus Sat Jun 05, 2021 7:09 pm
1. Probotector (NES)
2. Tetris Attack (SNES)
3. Mario Party 2 (N64)
4. Mario Golf (GBC)
5. Mother 3 (GBA)
6. Ape Escape (PS1)
7. Command & Conquer: Red Alert (PS1)
8. Gate of Thunder (PCE)
9. Shinobi (SMS)
10. Herzog Zwei (MD)
11. Shining Force III (Saturn)
Been making progress on my games!
Today I finished up Red Alert. The difficulty certainly ramped up in the last few levels - I even had to restart the final level because I ran out of money in a bad position and didn't see myself recovering whilst under constant Allied attacks. The second time round I located my base a little further east and focused my development of my base different - more sub pens and war factories early on, as well as Ore Silos, with Tesla coils to follow. More tanks and subs was the trick because I did much better second time round. The ending of the game was... interesting. I'm glad I've played the original Command & Conquer before so I could understand it!
I've also started 2 other games on my list. First up, I've got stuck into Mario Party 2. I'm fairly certain to finish this one I just need to play each board in the game, so I've convinced my wife to work through them all with me. We started up with 'Pirate Land'. I love the costumes and theatre asethetic of this game. Instead of just winning the board, I ended up finding the treasure by swordfighting Cap'n Bowser. Thats much more fun. The mini games we played were fun enough, similar to the first game but more refined, and the rewards for playing them are fortunately much more consistent too. Fun so far!
After finishing up Command & Conquer, I also decided to carry on with the other PS1 game on my list - Ape Escape. I've only played a few levels so far - I did all the stages in the first world (the dinosaur one) and the first stage of world 2 aswell. The controls certainly take some getting used to - I'm fighting against 20 years of experience using the right stick for camera, plus another 4 years of the c-buttons on N64, so it's hard getting used to the camera here with such limited controls - especially as this is a very exploratory, open platformer so you need to rotate the camera a lot. The only way to do so is by pressing L to center it behind you though unfortunately.
That's not the only wonky controls though. The game decides to map a variety of tools to the face buttons - pressing X, Circle, Square or Triangle equips the item, and then the right analogue stick uses them. Nothing about this feels right or couldn't be done better another way - it's an excuse to justify the right analogue stick that doesn't hit the mark for me. Neither does the swimming controls - clicking the left stick down to dive just feels wrong. I actually didn't realise the PS1 dual analogue had clicky sticks though, so I guess thats cool?
Despite the control hurdles, and they are big hurdles, I am having fun with the game. The levels so far have been very simple, but the game has a lot of quirky charm. The voice acting is hilarious too and sounds like it's from a show for toddlers. I believe the localisation here in the UK is quite different to the US too - some character names are different (Buzz instead of Jake, Katie instead of Natalie) so I imagine the voices are different too. They sounded quite familiar to me, I'll have to look them up.
Feeling good about my progress so far!