Here are some thoughts about some games.
Ace Combat 3 JP - I was really into this game at first, but after a while like, in terms of videogame literature, there’s not much going on here. All the political stuff and human drama ultimately seem undeveloped like they are just there for flavor. There were a lot of missed opportunities with the story and tieing it into the mission design in a meaningful way. And the true ending premise is kind of dumb, maybe.
One thing that is kind of cool is the Keith route, which I otherwise don’t recommend, has a really weird final mission that seems to evoke the mass production eva scene from end of evangelion a little bit visually. All the other characters are dead or out of the picture at this point, and your character is mute, nothing is explained by your superiors who is attacking or why even after the mission is over, and the music is pretty scary–so it’s altogether existentially very strange. All of the other routes kind of tie into each other plot wise, but none of them mention anything about these mass produced monster planes. So it feels like you’ve finally broken out of the simulation and now the AI writing the story of ace combat 3 is hallucinating weird shit.
Addie no Okurimono - I thought this was an adventure game with puzzles. Turns out it is a puzzle game with cutscenes (I think?) The puzzles are too hard. It will give you the solution but you still have to memorize the steps so you can enter it yourself. What’s the Paper Moon connection here? I still gotta watch that movie
Dr. Slump - I like that instead of walking to the edge of an area to move to a different area like in most video games, you have to examine a door or a sign and pick which area you want to go to. Makes navigating a lot easier & less prone to mistakes and waiting for screen transitions. This game is for little kids I think. And the '97 Dr. Slump anime kind of bums me out so I don’t really want to play a game based on it.
Ganbare goemon '96 - I originally wanted to play the 2001 goemon game for playstation too, until I realized there were actually two that year, which made me want to play neither. I also realized those two are by Now Production which basically means you are getting a sequel that’s redundant at best. Goemon 96 is by Konami but it’s Konami Tokyo which is all wrong. Goemon is an Osaka team game all the way. I think the Tokyo team was newly formed around 96 too. This game is very ropey and amateurish. I probably would have been better off playing the futuristic NowPro one from 2001. Actually I have played a bit of that one when it was first translated and it seemed fine. It has Ebisumaru Girl-type so how bad could it be.
Germs - this game is absolutely unbelievable. surprisingly playable too, in its own way. I feel like I’ve heard even less people talk about it since becoming translated. People should totally try playing it blind. I def liked it better than mizzurna falls which I could not even figure out what to do in.
mega man legends 1 - so I’ve always repped 2 because that was the one I had growing up (and then replayed in my early 20’s and appreciated even more–the classic way to decide something is a masterpiece). and what I could see of 1 in gameplay videos, it seemed not as appealing. But now that I’ve given it a chance this game is absolutely better than 2. You’d think 1 would be at least mechanically worse but even the combat is more elegant–in 2 it’s super easy to just lock on & circle strafe everything, and you can repeatedly tap forward on the dpad to reset your walk cycle & shoot faster. I wonder how many other things in life I am wrong about!
tomba - so the way people always lump this in with other stuff like Klonoa nowadays, (don’t ask me what exactly I mean by lumping together) I assumed that like Klonoa, it would be a breezy Vibes game. But this game is actually pretty demanding–just moving around and landing jumps is tricky, figuring out where to go, keeping track of a bunch of different shit. So I respect it quite a bit, but wasn’t interested in finishing it. I’m never playing 2 which seems to have way too much talking.
Keroro gunsou dragon warriors -
there [are] 9 stages in world 1, 19 in world 2, 29 in world 3, 30 in world 4 and 7 in world 5
RIP my plan to complete keroro gunsou.
kekkaishi karasumori ayakashi kidan - this is an extremely underrated game. They really didn’t put in any effort all with the level design though, it just repeats different parts of the same level and moves some stuff around. It’s by raizing, which doesn’t really mean anything in the 2000’s, but who knows maybe some of the old heads worked on it. I’m not familar with the source material, but I was suprised when I learned the main ability you have wasn’t just invented for this game–it seems ready-made to adapt into a 2d action game mechanic. The whole premise is: you tap and hold the touchscreen to create magical boxes onscreen and capture/destroy enemies. While using the dpad to move and jump (and crouch). The possibilities start to percolate in the 2d action gamer’s mind right at the beginning (when will I need to crouch? what if I put myself in a box? can I reflect stuff) and the game delivers on all of those things. It also has one of the greatest soundtracks ever courtesy of yousuke yasui.
Magical vacation - I plan on trying to finish this. What an incredible work of art this game is…completely outsider vibes like it was made by aliens, or I guess brownies. A lot of the dungeons manage to avoid random encounters by having cool gimmicks. In one example, you have to talk to NPCs in the correct order–they all look exactly the same. Each NPC will give you a clue how the next one behaves so you can find them–“the next guy pauses after every step.” If you talk to the wrong guy, you have to fight a battle. Sometimes, you have to talk to random ones to even be able to verify the clue. and sometimes, when you talk to the wrong ones, they just have a joke text box and leave you alone. The whole game is just a string of stuff like that. And in between is a whole lot of banter between a large ensemble cast…the game just kind of throws you in the midst of all these characters and you’re supposed to figure out who likes who, who has a dark past, who gets bullied…it just keeps piling it on.
Rhythm tengoku - I thought going back to the original would totally obsolete the DS one because I know they recycle a lot of stuff in this series, and I’m just a big fan of arbitrarily liking one entry in a series and dismissing all the rest. But I was pining for a lot of the minigames from the DS one to be in this one. So I guess there’s room in life for 2 rhythm tengoku games at least.
Cave Noire - I know people love Cave Noire, I was always a little skeptical but damn it’s pretty nice isn’t it!
Otogirisou - I feel like people (youtubers?) who try to make things like this seem interesting to gamers in 2024 are a little bit delusional. I was definitely entertained, but literally 99% of why I play stuff like this is because it was super popular in 1992, that it sold a ton of copies for something so experimental and anti-videogame & at a time when roms were super expensive. that to me is inherently interesting. Nobody else needs to think that kind of stuff is interesting besides me! I mean, it’s not even the most interesting thing in the world to me but…it’s a visual novel so the barrier for entry is low. PS I haven’t finished all the routes so maybe it will eventually turn into an actual work of art, we’ll see
