Burning Rangers OR Croc OR Tomb Raider?

[sych]

It's the battle of the pure 3D Platformers. Very different games that are celebrated for many different reasons but also share similar questionable issues i.e camera and controls. Which is it gonna be for you: Burning Rangers, Tomb Raider or Croc? As always pick one and list your reasons below.

CROC



TOMB RAIDER



BURNING RANGER

[mattius]

If the controls for Croc on Saturn are as dodgy as they are on PS1, then easily the other 2.

[xDerekRx]

Damn Im starting to hate these polls! They just tug at me so much!

TOMB RAIDER is excellent and I oddly enjoy it as much today if not more.

CROC is the best mascot Spyro/Mario/family style 3D platformers on the system. Its really one of the only ones we got but it was absolutely a great one. I asked for this game back when it came out but didn't get it until a couple years ago. Very colorful and plays excellent on the system.

BURNING RANGERS is a crazy game. My opinion has been all over the place. I was fascinated by the game upon release despite not playing it until 15 years later. I absolutely love the graphics in the game despite some of the glitches. Love the way it looks, love the little tricks they pulled off. The look of the bosses and polygon explosions are top notch. Very colorful.

The engine is great. The flying is actually much deeper than most people give it credit for. Full movement with different "combo" moves you can do mid air.

The story actually isnt that bad its just never fully fleshed out. The small amount of levels is frustrating because you simply want to play more. However the randomly generated levels idea almost saves the omission of more maps. The first time I replayed the game and I found a new room I was pretty excited.

Ive probably played through BR 10+ times now. The game has grown on me each time. Rescuing all of the people is now my new goal. Its certainly a game that you wish had a full development cycle but taken for what it is, its a unique cool Sonic Team game that is worth playing.

Very hard but I actually will vote Burning Rangers despite my liking for the other 2 titles.

[mattius]

Jun 5, 2017 20:16:51 GMT xDerekRx said:

Damn Im starting to hate these polls! They just tug at me so much!

TOMB RAIDER is excellent and I oddly enjoy it as much today if not more.

CROC is the best mascot Spyro/Mario/family style 3D platformers on the system. Its really one of the only ones we got but it was absolutely a great one. I asked for this game back when it came out but didn't get it until a couple years ago. Very colorful and plays excellent on the system.

BURNING RANGERS is a crazy game. My opinion has been all over the place. I was fascinated by the game upon release despite not playing it until 15 years later. I absolutely love the graphics in the game despite some of the glitches. Love the way it looks, love the little tricks they pulled off. The look of the bosses and polygon explosions are top notch. Very colorful.

The engine is great. The flying is actually much deeper than most people give it credit for. Full movement with different "combo" moves you can do mid air.

The story actually isnt that bad its just never fully fleshed out. The small amount of levels is frustrating because you simply want to play more. However the randomly generated levels idea almost saves the omission of more maps. The first time I replayed the game and I found a new room I was pretty excited.

Ive probably played through BR 10+ times now. The game has grown on me each time. Rescuing all of the people is now my new goal. Its certainly a game that you wish had a full development cycle but taken for what it is, its a unique cool Sonic Team game that is worth playing.

Very hard but I actually will vote Burning Rangers despite my liking for the other 2 titles.

But what about the graphics bug in Croc unless it's booted from the CD player?

[bultje112]

I like tomb raider mostly for nostalgic values I can still play it and love it. burning rangers however is sega in your face! doing stuff with hardware that was never supposed to do that. kick ass music! excellent controls (with 3d controller) style over substance and quality over quantity. a short game but one you can constantly go back to.

never played croc. is the 3do version the best version, like with almost all 3do ports?

[xDerekRx]

Jun 5, 2017 20:20:15 GMT mattius said:

Jun 5, 2017 20:16:51 GMT xDerekRx said:

Damn Im starting to hate these polls! They just tug at me so much!

TOMB RAIDER is excellent and I oddly enjoy it as much today if not more.

CROC is the best mascot Spyro/Mario/family style 3D platformers on the system. Its really one of the only ones we got but it was absolutely a great one. I asked for this game back when it came out but didn't get it until a couple years ago. Very colorful and plays excellent on the system.

BURNING RANGERS is a crazy game. My opinion has been all over the place. I was fascinated by the game upon release despite not playing it until 15 years later. I absolutely love the graphics in the game despite some of the glitches. Love the way it looks, love the little tricks they pulled off. The look of the bosses and polygon explosions are top notch. Very colorful.

The engine is great. The flying is actually much deeper than most people give it credit for. Full movement with different "combo" moves you can do mid air.

The story actually isnt that bad its just never fully fleshed out. The small amount of levels is frustrating because you simply want to play more. However the randomly generated levels idea almost saves the omission of more maps. The first time I replayed the game and I found a new room I was pretty excited.

Ive probably played through BR 10+ times now. The game has grown on me each time. Rescuing all of the people is now my new goal. Its certainly a game that you wish had a full development cycle but taken for what it is, its a unique cool Sonic Team game that is worth playing.

Very hard but I actually will vote Burning Rangers despite my liking for the other 2 titles.

But what about the graphics bug in Croc unless it's booted from the CD player?

Never experienced that on my version and not sure Id care in my voting anyway even if there was one.

[xDerekRx]

Jun 5, 2017 20:22:13 GMT bultje112 said:

 a short game but one you can constantly go back to.

Very well put. 

[mattius]

Jun 5, 2017 20:22:13 GMT bultje112 said:

I like tomb raider mostly for nostalgic values I can still play it and love it. burning rangers however is sega in your face! doing stuff with hardware that was never supposed to do that. kick ass music! excellent controls (with 3d controller) style over substance and quality over quantity. a short game but one you can constantly go back to.

never played croc. is the 3do version the best version, like with almost all 3do ports?

AFAIK Croc isn't on 3DO. Are you thinking of Gex?

[bultje112]

ah yes. silly me.

[mattius]

Jun 5, 2017 21:03:06 GMT bultje112 said:

ah yes. silly me.

You got me curious now wondering it the 3DO could handle Croc. After seeing Need for Speed on 3DO it has some decent 3D muscle.

[barryburton]

Easily Burning Rangers. I was delighted with it at the time of release, a true 3D action platformer for the Saturn. Innovative and fun. I still play it now and then. A bit short, but I don't have time for long games these days anyway
It's one of those games with controls that fit like a glove, with decades old muscle memory still in place- like Resident Evil and Gran Turismo 1.

I really like the graphics, pushing the Saturn to its limit. the glitching while it does exist, doesn't bother me at all.

I really respect Tomb Raider and was very impressed with it at the time. However for me the awkward controls and speed of it really show its age this days. Tomb Raider 2 stands up a lot better.

Haven't played Croc but it's not my cup of tea really.

[Anthaemia.]

Croc is one of those later period third party Saturn games that impressed me from a technical perspective, but it plays terribly compared to something like the Sonic World portion of Sonic Jam. In many ways, I always seem to put it in the same category as Ninpen Manmaru or Pandemonium, since it's visually promising yet a little stiff to control and far too cutesy for my sensibilities. Ironically, my youngest sister loved this and the Spyro series for that very reason.

As for Tomb Raider, this is one of those games I've always been able to appreciate for its graphical achievements, though I also remember the whole series quickly becoming a major hype machine associated more with the PlayStation, and in retrospect the actual content is lacking substance along with any real style. Also, I've not often found myself wanting to play the entire game from start to finish - for some reason, it always quickly feels too much like hard work!

Based on these comments, it probably comes as little surprise that I rate Burning Rangers the highest of the three games being pitched against each other in this thread, despite its regular polygonal glitching. Even with a few extra months of polish (following large parts of its development cycle being restarted after the first test builds were shown to the public), Sonic Team were pushing the Saturn too hard, though I still love their effort's overall style and ambition.

[pocketpocket]

It's between Croc and Burning Rangers for me, although I have only played Croc on PS1. I have no issue with Croc's controls personally. They take some getting used to for sure, but compared to Tomb Raider it's easily the more fluid and responsive game. The levels are small and the game's short if you just rush through them, but 100% completion is far more interesting with the constant hidden rooms and secrets that every level is full of. The music is also great and the presentation is adorable (which will either be a positive or negative depending on who you ask, but I appreciate it). On the PS1 it hardly compares to the likes of Crash Bandicoot Warped or Ape Escape, but since the Saturn is more lacking in 3D platformers I feel like Croc can stand up as a respectable 3D platformer effort, though not a mindblowing one.

Burning Rangers is cool, that's the best word I can think of for it. Playing as a futuristic firefighter rescuing civilians in a building that's slowly turning to ashes and falling apart, it's such an awesome setup for a game and leaves me wishing that there were more firefighting games like this out there. I do however think it's very much a style over substance kind of game. It's a VERY simple and short game. Enter a room, use your water pistol from a safe distance to clear out the fire, check for any civilians to rescue, enter the next room and repeat the process. Thankfully it's got a good amount of replay value and the style is strong enough that it's still a pretty great game, but it definitely could of been fleshed out more. I didn't have an issue with the camera in Burning Rangers personally, though the controls felt very floaty and imprecise when it came to jumping. Thankfully due to the jet pack allowing you to correct yourself mid-air I didn't think it was too much of an issue.

Tomb Raider is a game I WANT to love, but could never really get into myself. A 3D action platforming game with a focus on exploration and puzzles really sounds like my kind of thing, but the controls make it a bit of a slog for me. Even when you get used to it and can control Lara well, it doesn't change the fact that she just isn't a fun character to control. Everything feels sluggish and moves far too slow. Even when solving puzzles which don't require quick reaction times it's not satisfying when you have to perfectly line yourself up with a switch to pull it or slowly push a block square by square. I plan to give it another shot down the line (partially due to it having a bit more novelty on the Saturn where 3D action adventure games are such a rarity), but personally I feel like I got what I wanted out of Tomb Raider by playing Soul Reaver on the Dreamcast.

[Sonnington]

Tomb Raider handles like a dump truck. Try as I might, I can't force myself to play that one for very long due to the controls.

Burning Rangers is another one I want to like, but can't. Technically it's impressive, but even with its short length, I can't force myself to plow through it.

Croc it is for me. While it's not on my best of Saturn lists, and if I had to, I'd name drop the former two games as highlights to the system before mentioning Croc, Croc was just a decent game. IIRC, it did nothing new, it played it safe and even more conservative than needed be, but it was fine. It had bright colors, a steady difficulty curve, and the controls were alright, nothing to write home about, but they didn't completely suck.

[thewhitefalcon]

Same. Croc is the...least offensive?