I must say, despite my initial mistrust, I am really enjoying Metroid Fusion.
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panzer dragoon saga
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Yeah, Fusion sands off the rough edges of the formula and it doesnât lose nearly as much of the Metroid magic as that sounds. Well-paced, pretty challenging and explore-y, SA-X is a super cool antagonist, I always enjoyed it
(Meanwhile IMO the âtoo linear, too much plotâ criticism commonly directed at Fusion totally applies to Zero Mission, which does cross the line into so-âpolishedâ-itâs-depressingly-handholdy)
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Been playing Mushihimesama lately, picking it back up after years of other stuff. Crimzon Clover got me playing shmups again so Iâm going through the usual suspects (Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu, Gundeadligne, and now Mushihimesama).
Mushihimesama has I think my favorite arcade mode soundtrack of any of these games. Both stage and boss music is nearly perfectly timed for major enemies/phase changes, assuming youâre clearing everything on screen as effectively as possible. It feels like a music video. Stage 3 in particular is just perfect and gorgeous and wonderful.
But the mix is totally different on the OST! I noticed it first on the Boss track but now I hear it everywhere. The remixes - for 1.5 and Arrange - are the opposite; they donât fit the gameâs pace at all, but theyâre great for soundtrack listening.
I wish older Cave games would get modern PC ports because Iâd love to play DoDonPachi or Guwange or Progear with all the quality-of-life features of the Mushihimesama/Daifukkatsu ports, like section scoring and replays.
I have my Saturn ports of DP/DDP at least, and an arcade stick to play them on. Maybe itâs time to hook up the Saturn once againâŠ
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Itâs always time to hook up the Saturn!
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Also a bit off-topic but I know youâre always looking for recommendations of The Finest Games: while youâre exploring action platformers on the GBA donât miss out on Ninja Five-O. Itâs not one of those âobscure/underrated but also slightly for good reasonâ games. It has a pretty good claim on single best game for the GBA full stop.
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Yes, it has a very cool action pacing (also during boss fights) that was lacking in the former metroids.
AM2R is also a fine Metroid game (albeit unofficial), itâs somehow more epic and kind of creepy, I quite liked it.
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Thanks! I saw that among the most interesting games in the GBA, but I am afraid I didnât give it enough credit. I will add it to my Wii U âto play listâ.
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Thinking about this post days later made me remember the time when one of my brothers asked for âFF3â for his birthday (a game we had only ever rented), only for our parents to get him Final Fantasy Legend 3. He was rather disappointed, to say the least.
To be fair to my parents, that was the late 90s Sunsoft reprint of FFL3, so I can understand them thinking that my brother was asking for a game that was actually in print at the time, rather than some pricy Funcoland oddity. To the rest of us however, we thought Sunsoft was practically a bootleg label that swindled our parents into not buying a Squaresoft game.
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That was a fine time, I scored FFL and FFA thanks to Sunsoft
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I had the opposite childhood experience with FFL3. My parents wouldnât buy me a console but only a Gameboy, so I played snippets of FF4 at friendsâ houses when I visited and mused wistfully about Final Fantasy at a distance.
When I found (the first US release of) FFL3 for sale at the local Canadian Tire, I was under no illusions about the fact that it was a take on the series downgraded to fit a Gameboy, but I was still overjoyed. I begged my parents to fork out the $40 for it, then played it nonstop and beat the game.
As far as I was concerned it delivered the Final Fantasy goodness â walk back and forth to grind levels, turn into monsters and robots, time-travelling fighter jet, even a pretty catchy soundtrack one square wave at a time.
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Look, Iâm not the only one nostalgic for this:
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also ted woolseyâs first project!
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Theyâre totally SaGa games but something about the simplicity of the art made it all cohere like science fantasy. I respect but canât love the madness of SaGa Frontier but Final Fantasy Legend and my crews of robots and skeletons feels like home.
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And thereâs just something iconic about the way the enemies are packed into a grid
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N. Bomb, quick!
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A few months ago I tried this chill sub-two-hour JRPG made by the blogger who made the Dragon Quest 1 âmap of meaningâ. When I played it I was like⊠this really reminds me of FFL3 somehow even though there are no specific allusions⊠and sure enough I found some mentions of it on their twitter.
No spoilers but this little experiment has some interesting dramatic turns and a very particular sense of âpurityâ, worth your hour if that sounds intriguing.
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final fantasy legend 3 was i think the first videogame that i returned
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sraĂ«ka-lillian is a good friend and wonderful game designer, probably the best and most thoughtful in the contemporary rpg space. i recommend both this and its âsequel,â atom oi.
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Wow⊠Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana is a real JRPG endless summer. I dunno why I slept on this one for so long. I think maybe because itâs got a generic, budget anime game veneer to it. But itâs a total blast to play and has so much heart.
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