I’ve been playing a lot of Cinco Paus. I began the game as a child begins an ant farm. Over time he strains to send the ants telepathic signals so they could work for his amusement; only problem being, the signals would have to be in their insect language. He focuses intently on a section of soil and, with each push the ants make toward it, believes he has discovered the proper words. However, this is mere illusion.
Anyways, it’s really good and the goofy drawing of o Bruxo makes me happy. The musical sound effects are great too. Meu melhor: 134 em 7 jogos.
I played the demo of Valkyria Chronicles 4, it is pretty much exactly the same as the first game. It looks like they literally used the same engine from 10 years ago and just modified the existing character models a bit. Even the same janky ragdoll animations are back.
I’m not really sold on the story in this one so far. I know the first one was a parade of anime tropes, but I feel like at least Welkin and Alicia were more likeable than the two new main characters, and Raz is just an obnoxious stock brash loudmouth. On the upside, the Moink Moink Pig has been replaced with a Heckin’ Shibe.
I’ve also been playing a lot of the Sega Mega Drive Collection on PS4. For some reason, I felt compelled to try to finish all 53 games on there. I think I am up to 44/53, although I guess Columns doesn’t really count since it doesn’t really have an end state.
Thanks to the rewind/fast forward feature, I finally managed to complete a playthrough of Phantasy Star II for the first time. That game has always felt weird tonally to me. It has this super bleak story, and yet everything feels like a really chill walk through the park.
The dungeons are hellishly overcomplicated mazes, but the music and visuals make it feel more like you are exploring a disused shopping mall. Then some mutant locusts show up and its time to disco.
Compare it to Phantasy Star III, and it is like the complete opposite experience. Everything feels so depressing and bleak in tone. Towns have barely anyone living there. Houses are full of tables and chairs but there are no people.
Dungeons and battles have this really nightmarish grindy music that reminds me of a Svankmajer short film for some reason. But the dungeons are mostly pretty short and the battles are a cakewalk.
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle just makes me angry. Miracle World wasn’t exactly the Mario beater is was intended to be, but it at least had some charm to it, and thanks to the map and NPC interactions, it had a feeling of being on an adventure.
In comparison, this one is just a random assortment of bland platform levels. Everything that was good about Miracle World has been made significantly worse (vehicles control like shit, and the hit detection is sloppy) and things that were bad about the original have been amplified (janken matches are now also the shops). The final boss looking like an anti-drug mascot, and the ending doing the “Alex’s deadbeat dad was fine the whole time, he was just chilling out on another planet” thing just rubs salt into the wounds.
I played through the entirety of Super Thunder Blade. What a turd of a game. I can’t understand why they keep including this on every collection. Ditto for Altered Beast.
Yeah, despite how it looks from my post above, I didn’t exactly hate the Phantasy Stars, although they definitely made me appreciate the design of Dragon Quest much more.
I didn’t mention the ones I already knew I liked (The Sonics, Shining series, PSIV, SoR, Landstalker, Dynamite Headdy plus more) because I have played most of those so many times in the past that I don’t really have any knew thoughts on them.
I think I made a post a while back about Gain Ground, it’s an under-appreciated gem with a kind of hilariously non-sequitur end sequence.
Bio Hazard Battle is surprisingly good, and has great music.
Beyond Oasis is one I previously had tried and failed to get into, but this time I found it pretty easy to get into the groove for some reason.
Alien Soldier seemed pretty much impossible for me to get to grips with at first, but I stuck with it and now I think it’s maybe almost as good as Gunstar Heroes? I cheated like hell though, thanks to the rewind feature.
I like how completely batshit insane the story in opening text crawl is.
I will probably love Alien Soldier once the stars align and I have the opportunity to play it in an hermetically sealed environment, free from all earthly distractions. Have you ever played Light Crusader? I’m fascinated by how it juts out from the Treasure oeuvre and isometric graphics look cool.
I have tried Light Crusader, and I believe I got to the second level of the dungeon? But I am finding the puzzles too finicky, like you have to push boxes ever so carefully or they will fall off the ledge and you will have to exit the room and try again (or just rewind, but it is still frustrating). The combat is a bit fiddly too, like I think you have to be right up next to the enemy to hit them, and so you mostly just end up taking damage instead.
Also, re-reading my first post, I don’t think I was being negative about Phantasy Star III. I actually kinda like that game’s depressing atmosphere, even if it may have been unintentional in some respects. The overworld and title screen tunes are really evocative. It’s a shame the actual game is a bit tedious due to being a bit unfinished.
I like your take on the Phantasy Stars. For some reason I owned 3 when I was a kid and the most that I can remember was that every time I picked it up it left me feeling extremely depressed. I was really shocked to rent 4 and see that the series could actually have fun energy.
Oh yeah the enemy designs are completely bonkers, and the animations are even stranger. Like the giant stone face that wiggles its ears at you to attack.
Using the rewind/FF feature extensively like I did completely changes the dynamic of a lot of the more action-oriented games into some kind of weird battle against fate, trying to force a timeline where everything turns out in your favour
I recently discovered that Housemarque had a twin-stick shooter that I’d never heard of–Dead Nation. I’d perhaps heard the name, but there are a lot of similar-sounding zombie-themed games out there and I have not investigated most of them. The week after I discovered this game existed, it was heavily discounted on PS4.
To me, this game feels even more like Smash TV than Nex Machina. There is an extra mode that even looks like the Smash TV arena. I completed the game and had a lot of fun doing so. I will have to try the co-op mode one day.
The other night, my gf and I went to a bar that turned out to have a cool little arcade table with multiple games loaded onto it. We played Bosconian and Mappy for the first time. I remembered someone making a very cool and detailed thread about Bosconian on here quite a while ago, so my interest was piqued. We both sucked at it, but I can see why it would have stood out from its contemporaries.
I was godawful at Mappy (I lost every single life instantly because guys ran right into me before I could even move). My gf was a natural at it though! Out of all the games in the cabinet, that was the one she was able to pick up instantly.
I don’t genuinely enjoy many classic games for more than a few minutes, but I could play Bosconian for hours, even though I’m not particularly good at it. You heard right: Bosconian > Pacman, Space Invaders.
Actually, you know what? I think I’ve literally never played Space Invaders which is pretty bonkers. Should…probably remedy that. But I think I probably would like it.
Here’s the original post. Man, it is really detailed–Jesus!
My family had one of those arcade devices that was basically a joystick you hooked up to the TV that had a few games programmed into it. One of them was Bosconian and i remember finding the name funny and being surprised i had never heard of the game. It’s pretty cool and underrated
OSB, let’s go to Bit Bar
Everybody, come to Bit Bar and kick my ass at Street Fighter