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Post by pocketpocket on Oct 8, 2017 7:42:56 GMT
I'd love to get Capcom Generation 2 some time. I actually genuinely really enjoy the Ghosts n Goblins games, I replayed Ghouls n Ghosts on the Megadrive so many times and always had a blast with it. Mickey and Donald is a good pair of games as well. I'm not AS fond of them as GnG or Sonic, but they are high quality and polished platformers regardless, especially Castle of Illusion. If it wasn't pretty expensive I'd consider getting it as well, but right now I'm more interested in Capcom Generation 2 since it has more games that I enjoy more anyway for a cheaper price.
Sonic Jam is the only one I've actually played on Saturn, but regardless I know that there's no way it could be topped by the other compilations and I have no issue with voting for it. Sonic 3 & Knuckles is the best game out of all the games in all these compilations by far, the Saturn ports went the extra mile with new features not present in the Megadrive originals, introducing the spindash to Sonic 1 and redone sound effects for 3&K. That would of already been enough to put it leagues above the rest, but then they included Sonic World as well. Even if it's just a compilation as opposed to the Saturn exclusive Sonic game everyone wanted, the sheer amount of content and refinements here easily make this a must have for the console if you ask me, and one of the best games available for the system. Best games, best ports, best extra content.
Everything Sonic Team put out on the Saturn was such a gem, they were really on their A-game here even without Sonic Xtreme.
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Post by pocketpocket on Oct 6, 2017 6:39:58 GMT
Ouch, if you have to replay that whole level as a result of this glitch I feel sorry for you. That's one of the longest levels in the game!
What version are you playing out of curiosity? I know that the PAL version is a lot glitchier. I've been playing the Japanese version and had no issues when I reached this section. If I recall correctly I used all the keys at once at the end.
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Post by pocketpocket on Oct 1, 2017 6:25:24 GMT
in that case its the Japanese version, I don't even think there was a PAL version (X3 got a PAL release, but X4?) , and the US version is ridiculously expensive I always thought it was odd X3 came out in PAL but X4 and 8 came out in North America. Capcom I guess didn't have a Europe office like they did in the US. But X3, while a decent game, is very previous gen. X4 is an all around true Saturn style upgrade and to me night and day compared to X3. MM8 is also vastly underrated IMO, has a unique style. Saturn version also has a lot of extra features over the PS1 version. All of the Saturn Mega Man games are pretty good, honestly, I'd agree that 8 is a bit underappreciated, although I haven't played the Saturn port yet, only played it on PS2 in the Anniversary Collection. Worst thing it has going against it is the dub in the US version, but X4's dub was dire as well and honestly I think I actually like 8's dub a lot more just because it's a lot funnier, with stuff like Dr Light being voiced by Elmer Fudd and that one scene where Mega Man screams for nearly a solid minute putting it far into the so bad it's good category. X4 is just leagues above the rest. The rest aren't bad, X4 is just that good. X3 is great too, not the best of the SNES-era Mega Man X games (100% completion is much more of a pain in the neck in this one and renders Zero almost useless since you're too scared to use him in case you lose him forever) but still got the great fast-paced action and tight controls in spades. I prefer the SNES version for the soundtrack and no loading times, but the Saturn version still does the game justice. I think it's kind of a shame that we couldn't have gotten something along the lines of the Makaimura/Ghosts n Goblins Capcom Generation compilation for all the SNES Mega Man X games as opposed to just one fairly direct port. If they were going to take the easy route and keep things near identical, including the SNES game's resolution resulting in those borders, it would of been nice to have the rest of the X games up until that point in one place to make up for the low effort porting. Could of been the Saturn equivalent of The Wily Wars.
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Post by pocketpocket on Sept 29, 2017 10:52:31 GMT
Yay! Another vote for Megaman X 4. Great having you back bradcap1 I've missed seeing that Six Million Dollar Man avatar. seriously I need to get myself a copy of Megaman X4 , Im assuming Rockman X4 is fairly import friendly? (MM8 certainly is) Yeah, no less import friendly than Mega Man 8. You miss out on the story but X4's story is pretty light really (pretty much non-existant except for in the opening stage and the endgame), and the gameplay and interface are all very straightforward. Well worth tracking down!
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Post by pocketpocket on Sept 26, 2017 4:29:27 GMT
I haven't played any of these on Saturn, but I've played Elevator Action Returns on Taito Legends and Crusader on PC. Honestly I don't particularly like either of them, but I can still easily say that Elevator Action Returns is the better game. It's good, just better suited to arcades due to it being simplistic and very repetitive with every level being built around the same elevator stage gimmick with the exact same sized corridors. Crusader is just a cumbersome pain in the neck with bad controls, UI and collision detection where even pressing a switch is a struggle.
I haven't played Scud but it actually looks pretty decent at first glance at the Youtube video, although I'm not sure if it's just because the person playing is struggling with the game a bit but it looks like Scud is too big a target and not quite quick and nimble enough to deal with the massive amounts of fast enemies the game throws at you. Specifically there was one point where three enemies suddenly dropped down on Scud at once and it looked like there was no way to avoid taking damage from that unless you knew it was coming in advance. I could imagine it being a bit repetitive and overly simplistic like Elevator Action Returns but I feel like using the light gun would help liven things up.
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Post by pocketpocket on Sept 15, 2017 1:33:31 GMT
Neat to see another New Zealander here, welcome to the site!
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Post by pocketpocket on Sept 14, 2017 20:56:19 GMT
WHAT! You completed Rayman? Dude that's awesome. First of all I was shocked that you completed Bug Too! as I know how hard that game is but to complete Rayman as well is truly awesome. Props to you. I gave up on Rayman years ago. The difficulty wasnt really an issue for me, I just found myself slightly bored by it after awhile so I sold it. Funnily enough, I'm also slugging through Tomb Raider recently for the first time as I didn't play it back in the day and finding the game really interesting. You're right, once you master the controls the game is alot of fun to play. I think I'm on the same level you are on. Btw Out of Bug Too! and Rayman which did you find more challenging? Thanks! It's been a while since I played Bug Too, but I think I'd lean towards Rayman being the harder game. Bug Too restocks your lives and continues every time you reload your save whereas in Rayman your continues are gone for good, and Rayman's bosses get much more difficult than Bug Too's as well. There's also the fact that Bug Too doesn't require you to 100% the game and find all the collectables in order to beat the final boss. You do generally have to go a lot longer in Bug Too without being able to save though with levels being much longer, Antennae Day being the worst example of that. Rayman and the Bug games actually ARE very similar in terms of difficulty I noticed. They're similar in the sense that they're very trial and error in figuring out the specific timing and approach that the game expects from you and have lots of untelegraphed sudden beginner's traps and instant kills so losing lives feels inevitable, but are surprisingly easy to breeze through once you know what to expect and know the exact timing, most of the time anyway. That's less of an issue with Bug since as I mentioned that game's more forgiving with the continue system (and heck, Bug 1 even lets you earn extra continues, as far as I remember that wasn't possible in Bug Too though), but it's a big problem with Rayman since it seems to be designed to suddenly drain your lives as quickly as possible until you're stuck with a useless save where you have 1 life and no continues at an even harder sequence of the game. In retrospect, judging by how many lives I still had by the time I beat it I didn't need to be as paranoid about losing lives and resetting the console as much as I did. I also feel that the game never tops Picture City in terms of difficulty, once you manage that then you're good for the rest of the game, even though the following levels aren't easy either.
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Post by pocketpocket on Sept 14, 2017 3:08:02 GMT
The Japanese version of this game seems to be ludicrously rare, as in impossible to even find a copy of let alone afford. It's also the only game on Satakore I've seen without any photos of the game complete, leaving me to wonder if it even existed. Segaretro confirms that it exists as it has a photo of the game complete in box, but has no further details about the Japanese release in particular. Does anyone know any further details on how the game ended up so rare and near impossible to find? Almost feels like it never got a proper release.
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Post by pocketpocket on Sept 13, 2017 7:31:10 GMT
Been playing Tomb Raider and Rayman recently, wanting to finish both of them. Tomb Raider is one that I've only gotten into recently, Rayman is a childhood favourite but one that I never beat without cheats, so I'm attempting to beat that legitimately for the first time. Honestly, I don't think I can overstate how ludicrously hard Rayman is. I'm pretty confident in my platforming skills too, I'm not the best but have beaten plenty of difficult games in the genre like the Mega Man games, Ghouls n Ghosts, Maximo: Ghosts to Glory, Bug and Bug Too, Dynamite Headdy, Super Meat Boy and so on, yet I can honestly say I struggle with Rayman much more than any of those games. The mix of the limited continues with level design that seems deliberately designed to catch you off guard and instantly kill you until you figure out the exact timing and pattern the game wants you to follow through trial and error honestly makes it hard to recommend or even consider a particularly good game by the time you reach Picture City, but I still enjoy it, probably mostly due to nostalgia. I'm not even sure I get why Rayman was made so hard. The limited continues make me think that it was done to elongate the game as lots of old 8-bit platformers do, but Rayman is already a decently lengthy game without accounting for the constant reloading of old saves in an attempt to complete levels with less lives wasted, especially given that getting all the cages is required. Either way I'm currently at 76% completion with 38 lives and all five continues remaining. The next level I need to beat is Space Mama's Crater which I had been dreading ever since I picked the game up again and was the primary reason I wanted to save as many lives as possible. Tomb Raider I'm currently at level 10, City of Khamoon. I've got the controls nailed now and am enjoying it more and more, though the camera is still a pain. The learning curve for Tomb Raider is steep due to the outdated controls and how little direction you're given on how to approach combat, but it's been a pretty smooth difficulty curve once I properly got the hang of it, and in the NTSC-J version of the game I'm playing at least it's had just the right amount of save points and medkits to be challenging and consistently tense, but not infuriating. EDIT: Just beat Space Mama's Crater in Rayman. It's REALLY hard, drained all of my lives on my first attempt, but like all of Rayman it's all about memorization and recognizing patterns, and once you've got that down muscle memory can carry you through the stuff you've already beaten. On my second attempt I did it with 32 lives remaining, so I'm feeling a lot more confident that this will be a successful run now. EDIT again: Rayman has been completed!
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Post by pocketpocket on Sept 6, 2017 1:23:40 GMT
X4 is my favourite Mega Man game and second favourite game on the Saturn, only topped by NiGHTS. I adore it, the super tight controls and fast-paced action make it a joy, and the addition of Zero as a fully playable character is fantastic, it's just as fun to play a second time as Zero since he plays so differently. The beautiful pixelart and soundtrack are just the icing on the cake.
Symphony of the Night is a classic, but the slowdown on the Saturn port prevents me from saying it's one of the best on the system. Never played the Saturn port of Sonic 3D unfortunately but I never thought much of the Megadrive version. It's not bad but it's pretty dull and gets draining super fast which is a big issue since the game is pretty long and has no save feature.
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Post by pocketpocket on Aug 23, 2017 8:32:54 GMT
I've started playing Tomb Raider again and I'm a lot more into it this time around (currently at the colosseum). I think the Saturn d-pad is actually helping a bit (previously played it on PS1), it's much more comfortable to use for this game. I'm still not too fond of the controls though. Platforming's fine, I actually found myself kinda liking how precise and methodical it can be, it's kind of satisfying in it's own unique weird way. I love the pacing of the game, the way you're constantly encouraged to take it slow and carefully, never letting you guard down, it's not a fast-paced action game like later Tomb Raiders, it's all about investigating every room carefully and being ready at any second to spring into action if an enemy jumps at you. Even just hitting a switch can mean instant death, but if you take your time to look at what's around you before hitting that switch you can see the trap telegraphed, preventing it from being too cheap. I find the level design especially memorable because of this, I can vividly remember puzzle rooms and setpieces from every level I've been to so far, impressive when the game is made up nearly entirely by brown and gray caves. It's definitely a one of a kind kinda game, other than the sequels I don't think anything else really quite nails the same kind of feel and atmosphere as Tomb Raider, not even Soul Reaver which I mentioned in my first post, which while also being a puzzle driven action adventure game had a very different kind of mood with Raziel being an unstoppable supernatural badass, whereas Lara can kick arse as well but is just as vulnerable as any other human if you slip up.
Combat is fine against animals as long as you have the space to jump around, but the second humans with guns get involved these controls are the worst and I swear not tanking damage is a crapshoot. I appreciate the tense atmosphere and sense of danger the combat helps create as mentioned before since it means you constantly have your guard up, but the combat itself is pretty rubbish really, and while you can get into a good rhythm with it where you're smoothly dodging every attack with grace and kicking arse, all it takes is one attack and then you'll be either stunlocked, cornered somewhere without any escape, or the camera will just throw a fit and completely disorientate you. It also seems to be a bit buggy, even though I'm playing the patched Japanese release. I had one instance in Sir Francis' Folly where for whatever reason even though I was making the jump perfectly there was this ledge that Lara refused to grab onto, it wasn't until I killed myself by accidentally swan diving and breaking my neck (which was at least hilarious if also horrific) and reloaded the level that she was able to grab it, even though I was doing the exact same thing I was last time.
Regardless, I am enjoying the game a lot more now, but it's definitely the most frustrating out of the three games in the poll, as well as the most draining due to how limited saving is and how quickly you can die if you're careless. So far I definitely feel like it's worth the time and energy I'm pouring into it, but since this game is so long I am wondering if I'm going to get burnt out before reaching the end. Either way I'm having fun for the time being.
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Post by pocketpocket on Aug 21, 2017 0:16:25 GMT
Spot is the only one I've played and I haven't played it in years. Ridiculous as it is to say about a game that exists basically just to market 7Up, I actually kinda like it. Even if it's not really a masterpiece I still get the vibe that the developers wanted to make a genuinely good game that could stand on it's own with this IP, partially from the game not actually really having anything to do with soda and also the fact that they still released it in PAL format even without the 7Up branding. Controls work well enough as far as isometric gameplay goes, there's a nice amount of variety in the levels, lots of secrets to find and pretty great music. It's not going to be winning any awards, but hey, I liked it.
Whizz looks incredibly awkward from the Youtube video, the lack of diagonal movement looks incredibly restrictive and it looks like you run way too fast for this style of gameplay. Sonic 3D had a similar issue with the speed but at least the controls were smooth.
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Post by pocketpocket on Aug 19, 2017 13:52:56 GMT
I've played all of these but I don't remember any of them really leaving an impact. F1 Challenge immediately turned me off with the ridiculous amount of laps you had to do, the last thing the racing game genre needs is even more repetition. Virtua Racing was fun as a little bit of SEGA history but for a Saturn port of one of the earliest 3D games ever with the same early low-poly graphics, why does it not run smoother with an actual consistent frame-rate? SEGA Rally looks amazing and it runs miles smoother than Virtua Racing. As for Andretti Racing, I owned it, but by that point I was oversaturated by the amount of racing games I had already played on Saturn so I never gave it as much of a chance. I remember it actually being fairly decent, but wasn't enough to grab me at the time.
I think I'm leaning towards Virtua Racing though. Yeah, the technical issues hold it back a lot and are pretty inexcusable for the Saturn, but it has it's own unique identity that I can remember it by and it used this port to really flesh itself out with way more tracks.
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Post by pocketpocket on Aug 19, 2017 0:36:25 GMT
It's shocking to see so many vote for Shinobi Legions. It must be a lack of experience with Mr. Bones. Can we all agree Shinobi Legions was probably the weakest Shinobi title up until that date? Even though I haven't played Shinobi Legions yet I find it hard to imagine it could top Cyber Shinobi in awfulness (or Master System Shadow Dancer, but that's a bit of a cheat since it's just a bad port)
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Post by pocketpocket on Aug 14, 2017 1:21:21 GMT
I also prefer Layer Section by far. I love the branching path structure of Darius Gaiden but I just can't enjoy the actual game nearly as much, but most of that just comes down to me not being very good at it. I'm much better at vertical shmups (bullet hells are my favourite) and Darius Gaiden is particularly unforgiving, it's so hard to recover once you lose a life since you lose all your powerups and it immediately throws you right back into the chaos without a chance to get some more power-ups to make it more manageable. At least in something like Parodius the game will send you back to a checkpoint when you die which, while frustrating, gives you a chance to recover and get some power-ups before going straight back into the chaos. I also hate the weird erratic movements of the powerups in Gaiden, I frequently find myself losing lives trying to chase after them. I don't think any of this makes Gaiden BAD mind you, it just means I'm garbage at the game and it's why I can't get into it as much, alongside my preference for vertical shmups anyway.
Layer Section's a pretty simple shmup really, but it's well executed and polished for what it is. Smooth controls, lovely 2D visuals, great music and a smooth difficulty curve that still gets hard but eases you in.
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