Review The Last Game You Beat

[OL]

Megaman ZX (DS) - 7/10

I was always a huge fan of the Megaman Zero series on the GBA (it remains my favorite on the platform), so when I bought my DS, some of the first games I went after were the MM ZX games (as they're essentially a continuation of the storyline found in the Zero series).
For whatever reason, though, it's taken me this long to actually play through them.
Just finished the first today, and though I actually liked it a lot, it feels like a bit of a step down from the Zero series. Whereas the Zero games were, to an extent, kind of dark and post-apocalyptic, the ZX games feel much more kiddy, more like a saturday morning cartoon. Unfortunate, since the atmosphere from Zero was one of the things I liked best about it.
The ability to switch "biometal" is cool (allowing you to use the abilities of some of the main bosses from the Zero series), though certain forms will inevitably end up as favorites, leaving some of them in the dust (I barely even used the Phantom form). It's a bit unbalanced in that way I suppose.
And as a detractor, the map system in the game is many times useless in finding your way around.
However, the game essentially plays just as well as the Zero games ever did, which means the score can't drop too far. It's a good, solid, fun little Megaman adventure. Not quite of the "must play" status I give to the Zero series, but still good if you were a fan before.

[Martin]

Bare Knuckle III - 8/10.

This is the Japanese version of Streets of Rage 3. Normally this wouldn't matter at all, but they completely butchered the Western version of this game. Cut out a bunch of content, and the difficulty was made ridiculous. Pretty much everyone agrees that SOR3 isn't nearly as good as SOR2. Bare Knuckle III comes much closer to it's predecessor, though still probably not quite as good, overall.

^^:lol:
Yeah, if you absolutely can't stand JRPGs, you might have a problem with it. Maybe. I mean, the gameplay is completely different from, say, a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. It's more of a tactical action game. The actual "RPG" elements just come in the form of leveling up, really.
But if it's the general anime-style settings and characters that you don't like then, yeah, you might not like it so much.

I also fucking hate JRPGs, generally speaking.

[Henry Spencer]

^^:lol:
Yeah, if you absolutely can't stand JRPGs, you might have a problem with it. Maybe. I mean, the gameplay is completely different from, say, a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. It's more of a tactical action game. The actual "RPG" elements just come in the form of leveling up, really.
But if it's the general anime-style settings and characters that you don't like then, yeah, you might not like it so much.

I also fucking hate JRPGs, generally speaking.

Oh, burn!

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 off Xbox Live.
Haven't played this one in years (was the only Sonic game I didn't acquire with my Mega Drive after I re-bought all the childhood gems). Have to say, it simply doesn't stand up to the other Sonic games and out of the classic range ("Sonic 1", "Sonic 2", "Sonic 3", "Sonic CD", "Sonic & Knuckles") it is the weakest game, but that isn't to say it's mediocre or anything, it's still classic Sonic. I think they put a real emphasis on speed in this one that they didn't with the previous Sonic titles, and that be both a good thing and a bad thing to do. Maybe it's just after Sonic 2, it doesn't feel as rewarding, since we all know "Sonic & Knuckles" continues on the adventure, hence why it doesn't feel complete. I like the music too, especially the final boss and end credits music. Overall it felt like a little bit of a let down after not playing it for many years, Sonic 2 and Sonic & Knuckles stood up to what I remembered of them, this game, not so much. Still good fun though, and well worth what? £4? Cheaper than buying it for my Mega Drive anywho.

8/10

[Tomato Convenience Store]

FFVII - 9/10

PDZ - 7.5/10 (maybe 8/10)

[Riku Rose]

Blue Dragon 7/10

'Meh' The story was crap and so were the people in it. But man do I love the battle system it was the only thing that kept me going.

[Riku Rose]

Shenmue 9/10

[Jokatech19]

Star Wars: The force unleashed. - 8.9/10

It sucks because if it weren't for the slightly too easy difficulty of the game and the inability to tweak that, I would give it a 10

[Kenny]

I haven't beat it, but Syberia really sucks.

[Tomato Convenience Store]

Chrono Trigger 10/10

[Riku Rose]

Shenmue II 9/10

[Henry Spencer]

^Look, it's a heretic! Get him! 10/10, or else you get lynched! :x

Sonic Unleashed (PS3) - 6.5/10
Okay, it wasn't as bad I thought it was going to be, but hey, it's still a real mess of a game and hardly a "return to form" as some Sonic fans were dubbing it. I hardly think it's underrated either, the actual Sonic bits are very good, but it still also suffers from the same problems as Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 did back, what, some seven to eight years ago? Sonic Team still cannot correct these mistakes that were made so long ago, and the werehog stages are just abysmal, well and truly. The concept is bad enough as it is, let alone the sluggishly slow gameplay and abusive checkpoints (if you die, you back a long way). The loading ain't too keen to hurry along either. Alas, it's an acceptable title, and sort of a return to form, they're getting there slowly but surely, maybe in the next Sonic game, the developers can make a 3D Sonic game that can actually offer a wide variety of gameplay options, whilst also retaining the classic feel? That would be nice...very, very nice indeed.

[OL]

I'll just post what I posted at HD.

Flower, Sun, and Rain (DS) - I posted a lot of my thoughts as I played it over at SD, but that was only up to about the halfway point in the game. After that? The game goes entirely batshit insane. Yeah, it was crazy and a little off-its-rocker for the first half, but after that... it's like Killer 7 crazy, but without the gratuitous violence. I seriously had no fucking clue what was going on. And yet, somehow, I absolutely loved it. It was obvious that almost everything that was happening was symbolic or metaphorical in its implementation. But what was everything symbolizing? I couldn't tell ya. But despite my utter confusion, the game kept me enthralled and entirely interested. I've read that Suda51's earlier "Silver Case" games are required to fully understand FSR, and I would hope that's true. Apparently, the Silver Case should be coming to the DS in due time, which I look forward to immensely. Maybe then I'll be able to sort all this out.
FSR hasn't gotten the greatest of reviews, from what I've seen. It's understandable, I suppose. I can't imagine most people would be able to muster up the patience to wade through such an art house game as this (just as most people aren't willing to sit through art house films), which would result in a lot of people slamming it for not being more "normal". Pft. Imagine that. A game getting slammed purely because it's different. That's certainly the case here, just as it was with Killer 7.
I, on the other hand, loved it.

8/10

[DocJiraya]

The Last Remnant 8.5 /10, loved the characters, the battle system, the quests... Reminds me a lot of FFX but without Blitzball at least (so that's +0.5)

[Nordic Fortune]

Toy Commander 8/10

Very simple game, but I was hooked and didn't stop playing until I beat it.

[OL]

Cybernator/Assault Suits Valkan for SNES.
Fucking amazing giant robot action game. Has some truly awesome action scenes that I've never really seen properly implemented in 16-bit games before, such as a fight with other robots as you're falling through the earth's atmosphere, and a scene where you have to chase a launching spaceship and attempt to destroy it before it enters orbit. Very cool gameplay, definitely one of the best flat-out action games I've played on the Snes.
Screwattack did a video on it in their "Videogame Vault" segments, and kind of bashed it for not playing as smoothly as something like Contra (they seemed to expect the 360 degree shooting to function more like that series), but I think they were way too harsh. It's very different than Contra, and has much more methodical gameplay. The controls are excellent once you learn to properly utilize them.

9/10

It's also the first game I bought for my shiny new SNES, which I will surely blather on about later.