2002
Welcome back as I once again drop a little bit of knowledge about every game I still own. Which mostly means I’ll just talk about the intro level and how the game plays. Going through the entire game before talking about it would be cool but if you’ve kept up with this blog I have way too many games to do that. Anyway at this point in time anime started to infect me. Up to this point I was all about watching Dragonball Z on Toonami so it isn’t too surprising that you’ll start to see a bunch of DBZ games. Over time I’ve come to appreciate the animated style of anime transformed into a video game. At least when it is done well.
Meanwhile the console makers are all in the same boat as last year. Microsoft continued to try to break into the console making business. Although they tried to make it a worldwide success by partnering with Japanese developers like Sega they never managed to convince Japan that the device was worthwhile. Sony is still the maker of the number one video game console for now. I’m sure as the years go on they became more arrogant which lead to the insane reveal of the PS3. At this point Nintendo must have been trying to gain back the popularity they had lost. Console wise at least since the GBA was still an overwhelming success.
Round 2 another original James Bond adventure. I like how this goes directly into the first mission once you hit start. Getting things started quick is always a plus. Not sure I like how the first mission is just a QTE tutorial with a little bit of driving. At least it allowed them to do a bunch of cool stunts. My modern sensibilities makes the fact that they don’t refill Bonds life between levels a little odd. Oh well revisiting these PS2 bond games again made me want to do a complete playthrough again one day. They may not have added anything new with the gunplay yet I really appreciated that this had more of narrative than most of FPS that were coming out around this time.
When I see this introduction of Animal Crossing again I think it is one big setup by Tom Nook. By pure chance the player character runs into Rover who just so happens to know Nook. Sure your avatar doesn’t seem to have had the best life lessons if he/she was moving to town with only 1000 bells in his/her pockets. Yet is soon set up in with a a debt that just continues to grow as time goes on. Eventually you’ll pay it off by fishing and catching bugs. Going around collecting everything is where a lot of people really enjoy this game. Others most likely enjoy building a neat looking house although I just put whatever I find in it. This is also the only time Nintendo included playable NES games in Animal Crossing and they’ll never do that again. Must have took more work to do that than we might assume. Sadly it looks like I deleted my old save at some point to make room for other save games so I can’t check out my old town full of weeds.
I completely forgot about this game. 3DO really liked pumping these army men games out huh? This time Pandemic studios got to try their hand at making a RTS. Since this was primary for the consoles I thought they would have simplified it a bit. But no this is pretty much a Command And Conquer clone. Not sure if it is just a button combo that I couldn’t figure out but uh being able to select all my units at once would be really useful. Having to select unit one at a time till they are all in one big group is not a good design decision. Not being able to rotate the camera is another in a line of odd choices. With one of my rally points being behind I building I can’t actually select any of those soldiers without demolishing the building. Once the fighting starts this is a run of the mill RTS. Bunch a large army together and smash your way through to the tan army base in each level.
Well this is the last time we’ll be seeing Bomberman in this retrospective. (Unless I count 360 games I no longer have access to.) We find out hero Bomberman polishing his bombs until he is given a mission to save the day.. Other than the nice looking cel shaded graphics this has a lot in common with the previous Bomberman on GBA. Pommy and his Charabom pals are back to play Pokemon like battles again and give Bomberman new skills. Elemental bombs are back too. Really this is just what the Bomberman games evolved into. Less about the multiplayer and more about a journey through adventure mode. It still has the usual multiplayer modes to play through too. This is a fitting end to Bomberman from my point of view but Hudson Soft kept going till he ran out of steam.
Other than renting BoF Dragon Quarter this is the only Breath Of Fire game I own. Ha the flashback intro scene is in black and white huh. So the set up is that Ryu’s family mysteriously dissapears when he was a boy and then no one remembers him. Truly a mystery worth looking into. Then he gets attacked by a monster but he doesn’t die. A very strange opening that leaves a lot of room to explore what really happened later on in the story since it picks up 10 years later after that event. Ryu and Bow are now rangers. Their first real job leads to his friend getting framed and it just keeps getting crazier as the game keeps going. As for the combat it is a standard JRPG. Take turns and beat down monsters with a variety of skills and items. Seeing the story again makes me want to see more although that isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
A bleak future awaits us according to C-12 Final Resistance. Lt Riley decides to augment his power with cybernetics to fight the alien threat. It is up to him to save humanity from impending doom. The context of this coming out at the end of the life of the PS1 shows that the PS1 didn’t improve that much over time graphicly. Usually by the end developers manage to pull every last bit out of a console but it kinda seems like everyone knew the limits of the Ps1 at this point. As for the game it is a third person shooter. With heavy use of lock on and running around enemies. This seems like it had a reasonable budget with a lot of voice over throughout each mission. The lock on camera can hinder the player somewhat since it can make it hard to dodge attacks. Overall a middling action adventure game to top off the end of the PS1’s life cycle.
Cubivore is all about natural selection of a race of cube shaped animals. In the rich backstory a race of metallic robot animals has taken over the world and a new piggy has been born. He has a dream to be the king of all Cubivores. To do this he will need to mutate a lot. Along with relying on future generations to finish what he couldn’t do. The different meats transform the playable Cubivore into different shapes that have their unique strengths and weaknesses. Killing everything is the name the game even if you will be bringing wilderness back to a bleak world at the same time. I know eventually the animal you play as can’t grow anymore and somehow its soul gets reborn as a new animal. That doesn’t matter too much since it is just a reason to keep playing this really weird game.
Oh someone must have decreased the budget by a lot. No longer a fully 3D game Digimon World 3 is mostly 2D except for battles. Even the battle system and how the story is set up is different. It is the 21 century and a online VR game called Digimon World is the hottest thing around. Junior and his two friends enter the world and their adventure begins. The overworld is set up like a MMO. While the battles now how more in common with Pokemon. With each battle being 1v1 with the ability to swap out your digimon. Going by my one attempt at switching Digimon it seems like I was better off only swapping when my first fighter faints. Since Renamon got instantly KOed by a bug after swapping to her. I just want to note here that Japan is really in love with VR MMO worlds.
I finally get to play a good DBZ fighting game. This is also the closest DBZ has gotten to a traditional fighting game too. Mandatory combos are required to pull of special moves like a kamehameha. None of them are super complex letting anyone pull off most of the attacks with ease. I don’t know this but at least for me this was the first game that did a great job retelling the story of DBZ. From Goku getting lasered through the chest to take out Raditz all the way to Gohan blowing Cell away this covers a reasonable portion of the DBZ story. It is also presented well with the voice actors from the show reprising their roles. Graphically this looks nice too with everyone looking like they should other than Gohan looking a bit too big in some of the early scenes.
This is a by the numbers card game. They didn’t do anything fancy to make this look more than your are playing the DBZ card game. Other than one line quotes from your chosen character and the opponent. For a digital card game the longer it goes on the more bored I become. So the fact that one match is about 30 minutes is a bit too long for me. Must be why I never collected the physical cards at the time. At least for this game watching the tutorial seems useful. Anger levels mixed with power levels made me wonder what was going on. The fact that I need to go into another menu to see what the card I have does is one step too far in my opinion. I should be able to read what it does just by looking at my hand. Overall not my favorite TCG and probably a game I regret purchasing after I glanced at it again for this blog post.
So I was all about Dragon Ball Z at this point. To bad I was willing to buy just about any game with that name on it. This isn’t a bad game but I much preferred action in DBZ games instead of turn based card battles. The tutorial of this game does a pretty good job of telling you what you need to do. Didn’t quite prepare me for the fact that I could be one shotted if I didn’t dodge correctly. For the time this was impressive that this game covered every story arc in the anime. I never saw any of the later battles though. With this being the last GBC game I ever bought it is easy to see why I must have prefered to play the GBA releases over this one. It isn’t like the TCG aspect scared me away as will be evident later on this year.
Picking up dirty magazines for Master Roshi has to be the dumbest intro quest to a DBZ rpg ever. This may not be the most complicated action RPG ever yet it is pretty cool for what it does do. Which is let you play as Goku as he blasts his way through a bunch of animals to level up and eventually take on Raditz. Other enemies come up as the story continues up to the Frieza Saga. Punching stuff and throwing ki blasts is your main offensive skills. Not keeping up with all of the quests and continuing to level up is required. As noted by the fact that I tried to rush to the first boss only to get murdered by a pack of wolfs because I was underleveled. Although I do remember getting enemies stuck on rocks being my main tactic at beating most of the bosses. Getting up close was usually a good way to die.
Early Dynasty Warriors is no joke in the difficulty department. This might actually be the height of the aggressiveness of the AI troops. They have no problem swinging a spear around to beat up one of the playable characters. Especially the arrow troops which were always a nightmare to fight since it isn’t possible to defend from their attacks. Lu Bu’s might was also established here only to get neutered over time. He will swipe at you 3 times and you will die in this game. Making him something you really want to avoid. Until they finally put it back in much later this was one of the few times each character had a unique ending. Which I did miss in the many sequels to come. At its core the Dynasty Warriors series is a beat em up and other than the addition of introducing me to the now overused Three Kingdoms period that was the main reason I enjoyed it. Sending foes flying after a big attack is still fun now as it was then.
This seems to be a expansion to the previous Gauntlet game made by Midway. Other than now looking better than the N64 release this added a lot of collectibles. Going by how many icons were on the screen after finishing the first level you could spend a sizeable amount of time looking for everything. Especially since you need to collect runestones to unlock the final battle. 4 new worlds to bash your way through along with 4 new playable characters. Throwing an endless barrage of weapons at enemies is still fun. That doesn’t mean I don’t think having to go back into a level if you missed a key item isn’t kinda annoying. Huh something I noticed over time is that games used to have idle screens that popped up if you left them sitting for a while. In the case of this one flaming axes fly across the screen till you pick up the controller again.
Gundam Battle Assault 2 is the perfect cross section of every Gundam show that I really enjoyed. SInce this is a fighting game it also let me play out dream matches that’ll never happen. Like Amuro in his Rx-78 Gundam facing off against Domon in the Burning Gundam. I also appreciated the effort they put into including giant mobile armors that are bigger than the screen as boss battles. Once you know how to beat them they aren’t that tough but at the time I was certainly intimidated by the Big Zam when I first played through Street Mode. Battle damage as the fight continues is cool tool. Once the fighting starts it becomes apparent they just wanted to make a simple fighting game. I think all of the special moves are either quarter circle forward or back. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a fun fighting game to play though.
I never really thought about it but JSRF is an alternate retelling of the first game huh. Beat is no longer the scrappy newcomer and instead Yoyo gets to fill the role. Professor K is once again the energetic pirate radio host who gives the low down on what is going on in Tokyoto. While also blasting some smooth beats over the radio to keep you pumped up to skate around painting the town red. Once again the Rokaku group is the big corporation that stands in your way by trying to crack down on letting anyone express themselves via graffi. Graphically this looks slightly better than before. Spraying graffiti has been simplified since all you have to do is spray close to an icon to compete it. Putting more an emphasis on getting to the graffity point by going across buildings or skating up the side of a telephone phone to reach places you wouldn’t be able to get to otherwise. Still a great game although I don’t like it as much as the first one.
Ah here we go Kingdom Hearts. Mixing Final Fantasy with Disney had to be unexpected combo. Yet the amazing thing is that they go together quite well. After all fantastical adventures is Square Enix’s bread and butter. Didn’t hurt that I grew up on Disney movies so I had plenty of reasons to check this game out when it first released.I almost never go with defence over offence but I think I’ll go that way for this intro section. As a tutorial the start of KH is really good since it has some nice artwork to look at while you face increasingly harder enemies. Once Sora wakes up and has to explore the island it does a fine job introducing the important characters right off the bat too. The action based combat is much more interesting to me since it requires some skill at dodging attacks. Seeing a lot of the Disney worlds in a good game was also something I appreciated at the time. Really hard to cover everything here since I have plenty of things to say about this series but I’ll keep it short. In the end I enjoy this game because of how much I like everything in it more than the actual plot.
This is a remake of Kirby’s Adventure on the NES. After seeing the original game it was most likely a good idea to remake it since it has quite a few technical issues. Kirby still controls the same with his copy ability being his main offensive tool. The neatest thing about this remake is the ability to play a Meta Knight. The sword power up is kinda the best power up anyway. Although his mode is supposed to be harder because he only has 3 hits the range of his sword swipe makes it a walk in the park. Oh I need to add this on the list of games I thought were worth 100%.Jumping into the very end of the game as Kirby made me notice that they rebalanced the bosses. King Dedede is actually kinda tough most because his sprite seems a lot larger than it should be.
So I’ve never gotten to play the 4 sword multiplayer adventure in this release. At the time multiplayer Zelda seemed kinda cool but these days I have very little interest in it. I was the only one that liked Zelda enough to buy the same game again. Having what could be considered the best Zelda game of all time on the go isn’t a bad thing after all. Other than a few minor tweaks this is a near perfect port of A Link To The Past. Yeah uh it's great you should play it if you’ve never tried to play it before.
Huh I really didn’t expect to see the From Software logo when I booted up this game. So I did remember that this was a card game but the fact it it focused on real time combat also surprised me. As Katia who is from a line of monster summoners must travel on a journey to save the land doomed to be shrouded in fog forever without her intervention. Early on constructing a deck to counter the type of elemental monsters you’ll see in each stage isn’t possible. Although the game quickly lets me know that that is what I’ll need to do later on. Not sure if I like expendable cards are during combat since most can only be used once. At least it looks like if your willing the explore each stage you’ll have plenty of cards to fill up your deck. Getting to the end without using them all is certainly an issue. Most likely the reason I never finished this game.
At first you might think this is just a port of Lunar A Silver Star Story but you would be wrong. This is actually more of a remake. The story even starts differently with Alex and his crew getting Nash a lot sooner than the original game. I can see why Lunar fans might not be happy with this release if they really liked the systems and Working Designs translation. At the time I didn’t have any issues with it going by the fact I have a 20 hour save on my cartridge. Looking at it now I actually think the redone sprites look really good compared to the original. Not sure how much I like them adding true random battles in the game instead of running into enemies in the overworld. Still a ok version of Lunar in my opinion if you can’t get your hands on the original release.
Capcom decided to create a spiritual sequel to Ghost N Goblins in the form of Maximo: Ghost To Glory. The obvious difference is that this is a 3D action platformer instead of 2D. Not much has changed though with the tough nature of the previous series coming over to this one. Maximo may be able to take more hits yet the level itself is made to kill you. In a tough but fair kinda way. The combat isn’t more than simple combos augmented with the ability to throw your shield around. I don’t think it gets more complicated although you do gain new abilities as the game continues. I’m curious to see more of this later since I don’t remember ever getting a ending.
The endless barrage of WWII games starts here. Well it really started back on the PS1 but it didn’t truly hit its height till around this time. I’m surprised it took a developer this long to do a omaha beach level similar to what happened in Saving Private Ryan. Since it really makes a awesome intro level. Until I looked up some info about this game I didn’t know it was sorta a remake of MoH or at least it follows the continual adventures of Lt patterson. As he almost single handedly stops a bunch of Nazi plots throughout all of Europe. Going back to a FPS that doesn’t have lock on or iron sites is tough. Doesn’t mean it isn’t playable and some of the set piece moments are still impressive to look at.
I remember very little about MiB II the movie but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t start off with a raid on a dock to bust a weapons merchant. I guess the developer decided to tell their own silly story about a bunch of aliens escaping from a prison that must then be brought in by agents K & J. This is a very simple third person shoot em up. Keep pressing the fire button while sidestepping laser bolts is what you’ll be doing the entire time. Nothing to crazy although this is a tough game. I didn’t even make it to the end of the first level before I ran out of lives. Kinda odd to see lives again at this point since most games gave up that mechanic around this time.
Metroid Fusion is a worthy follow up to Super Metroid. I was impressed by how much they decided to change with this sequel. Sure the gameplay is the same and the focus on collecting new items to open up new areas to explore is still a key element of the Metroid series. Yet they decided to go with a new power suit and give the game more of a story. Learning more about Samus while you explore a dangerous space station is just the right amount of story mixed with gameplay. Wish I memorized this game enough that I could beat it under 2 hours with 100% of the items uncovered but going by my saves the best I could do was a little bit over 3 hours.
The intro space station level in Metroid Prime might just be the best use of introducing how you’ll end up using every upgrade later in the game. Before an explosion causes Samus’s suit to malfunction and she loses them all except for her trusty arm cannon. Now I mentioned how impressed I was by how Fusion told a story well this one fogos overt storytelling in lieu of a bunch of text logs. Not really my favorite way to tell a story but it gets the job done. The real part I should talk about is that this game is now a FPS exploration game. This could have easily gone so very wrong yet Retro Studios did a excellent job of keeping the spirit of the Metroid series. Exploring new areas and finding power ups to open up new ones is still the goal of the game. At the time this was a good one shot game for me so I never really had much interest in checking out the sequels until Trilogy came out.
One of the very few games that I rented and afterward wanted to buy it later. Plus it is based on a movie so that fact might be a little crazy to some people. Yet this game does one thing so amazingly that I just had to play it again. Like the movie John Anderton gets framed for a crime that he didn’t commit and must prove his innocence. In video game form that means he needs to beat up a bunch of people. Once you pick up a stunned or downed enemy is where the magic happens. Throw that guy out windows or into shelfs. Watch as the environment crumbles and the amazing power of ragdoll physics to make any situation silly. Truly this is a video game since its mechanics go against the plot where the goal is to not kill anyone yet I threw quite a few people outside windows. Kinda wish this didn’t introduce shooting since that part kinda sucks.
This game is only possible because it was made in Japan. Who else would think of creating a game all about being a mosquito. Although the story is all about Yamoto family issues and how they deal with the best mosquito ever. The game itself is rather straightforward with the main challenge of knowing when you should pull out before our brave mosquito gets KOed by getting smashed. Which has you figuring out where the weak point is and sucking enough blood to finish each level via a mini game. Rotating the right stick to keep a dot within a blue line. If you go beyond that line the person gets more irritated till they 1 hit KO the player. A fun game that is worth playing because of how weird it is.
Welcome to the start of the Gundam VS series. During this time period Gundam was quite hot in the US leading to us getting most of the games as evident by me owning most of them. This could be the best overall Gundam game that I’ve ever played. The one year war setting is easily my favorite so a game about it always caught my eye at the time. Letting me play both sides in a campaign was cool even if the goal was usually the same. Depleting the opponent's life bar by blowing up enough mobile suits is usually the victory condition. Escorting something or stopping the enemy from crossing the battlefield are other objectives you might see. The 2v2 format works really well and timing is everything here. Good use of the dodge is the key to winning every battle. After all if they can’t hit you then half the match is already in your favor. Overall the fast pace of each match will keep you wanting to play more till you end up seeing the credits.
One of the more weirder Gundam games. For one this plays entirely from the perspective of the bad guys. Yet the gameplay is where it really stands out. This is a tactical squad based action game. Yup this is a Tom Clancy game with mechs.That also carries over to the gameplay too. Either surprise the enemy or be quick on the draw because Zaku’s aren’t that durable. One head on shot by a tank can still take down one. I wish the gameplay wasn’t so basic.. With so little maneuverability until much later most of the time the only thing you can do to get an edge in combat is to flank enemies by running around them. The idea for this game was a good one they just didn’t implement it very well.
After seeing Motocross Maniacs this sequel does new stuff but nothing they added trumps what Konami did with the original release. Adding in other racers to race against doesn’t add any fun and instead adds some randomness since they can use items to hinder your progress. Spinning in the air every 5 seconds is also no longer encouraged since ramps don’t send the motorbike flying like before. So the main thing they added was an almost limitless amount of nitro pick ups so you will constantly be hitting the turbot button to go fast. A little easter egg makes me think Konami was throwing some shade at Sega. No clue why but during the crystal level you’ll need to run over a Knuckles look a like to finish the level.
My only motocross game I ever bought because it seemed like it had a similar trick system to Tony Hawk. It really isn’t anything like TH but it has its own unique take on it. Really the best thing about this game is that it really lets the player get high into the air. Which then allows you to do a superman while spining 360 degrees in the air. Which is pretty cool. The racing part of the game is fun too since it is easy to pull off drifts around corners to save some speed while preloading the suspension is required to get over some tricky jumps. Every mechanic this game is done well while the game itself is just fun to play.
This skews more toward what I like about Dynasty Warriors today compared to what they were around this time. Mostly because this has a dodge roll in lieu of a block. I just seem to enjoy timing dodges more than blocking in action games. This even adds magic which is used to give each playable character more range than they would have otherwise. Along with the mandatory musou like special attack. At the same time I don’t quite like how the first level is full of water that slows down characters to a crawl. Not every level is like that but it seems like a horrible way to start off a game. As for the story this takes a page out of another fictional chinese story about some mystics that imprison some evil guy and his minions. Yeah I didn’t really pay attention to the intro at all...
A satirical take on 70’spy movies wasn’t something seen in video games till this release. As Kate Archer a female spy who is out to prove that she is just as good as the boys gets put on her first real mission. Since most of the start of this game is just introducing the player to the world most of it is spent monologuing a bit about what you’ll need to do next. Which is defend a bumbling ambassador that has been put on a hit list by H.A.R.M. Who apparently is willing to throw over 50 agents away to try to kill him. The first gunplay other than the tutorial is like shooting targets but it does get more interesting later on. The serious yet very silly story was the main thing I remember from this game anyway.
More Pac Man World now with more of a focus on 3D platforming since they took out the 3D pac man mazes from the campaign. They are still in the game just put in the arcade which also includes a few other classic Pac Man games. Control wise everything is the exactly same as the last game. Using the power of the butt bounce to kill enemies while you platform through different levels till Pac Man eventually reclaims the lost golden fruit is the goal of the game. Other than normal platforming levels at the very end Namco decided to add in a annoying shooter level at the very end of the game. Overall the upgrade in the graphics helped me still enjoy this game again when I played through it recently.
Ending the life of the N64 on a high note. Mario returns to his RPG ways while also introducing a new artstyle. With every character looking like they were ripped out of a artbook it has a unique style. Mario is once again on his way to a party that Peach has invited him too. Then Bowser shows up to mess things up and beat up Mario. After getting thrown out of the now floating castle Mario must travel across the mushroom kingdom to reclaim the power stars. With their power he will be able to counter the power of Bowser’s star rod. Along the way he gains a party of side characters that’ll aid him with different out and in battle skills. For example Suchi the cheep cheep will let Mario swim and Bombette can blow up cracked walls. Battles are turn based but they have a timing element that allow the player to do more damage and negate damage. Badges are a new element that give Mario new ways to attack like a ice hammer or they can upgrade his stats like boosting his attack power by 1. Overall a good follow up to Super Mario RPG that is worth playing if you’ve never played it before.
This might as well be the game of the year edition of Phantasy Star Online. It includes extra missions that were added in later and were only playable online in the original game. It also includes a new episode that tries to act like it is brand new but it is mostly just a rehash of old enemies till you get to Ragol near the end of the episode. Episode II isn’t balanced that well either on normal since it seems like you would want to take your character after finishing the first episode yet then you’ll overpower everything other than the bosses. Then and now I’m pretty bummed out about the 2nd episode while the first one is near perfection in every way. Graphically this looks like it could be running at a higher resolution but is still pretty comparable to what this was like on Dreamcast. This is another game on my list of games I replayed and even thought about writing a review on GB. Didn’t end up doing that since I think everyone here knows how good this game is.
Even now it is still impressive how good this looks on the gamecube. It really shows how much passion Capcom put into a project that recreated the good parts of RE while taking out the campy nature of the previous release. Although I’m sure that original game still has some charm even today I just never played it. Gameplay wise this is exactly the same as the original game. Wander around a mansion while collecting items to solve puzzles. Occasionally shoot zombies but most of the time you are better off just running past them. Even on easy they take way too many shots and you’ll need to save your ammo for dire situations. Lucky Capcom did include defence items to ward off any zombie that managed to latch onto one of the protagonists. Oh yeah the story is about a team of police officers that end up raiding a mansion that turns out to be more than they bargained for. Truly Jill and Chris have entered into the realm of survival horror.
I wasn’t expecting to start playing a 3D collectible platformer when I started up this game made by THQ. I must say they did a bang up job of recreating the atmosphere of the TV show. They even included the laugh track that actually almost made me laugh just because they included it. Scooby Doo is the main playable character and he must collect scooby snacks to unlock more areas to find gadgets that give him powers like a double jump. Along the way he will also need to avoid villains and other minor enemies to succeed. Maybe they show up later but it doesn’t look like this has any boss fights instead exploring the 12 areas seems to be what you’ll be doing. Honestly this game seems kinda neat. Much better than the previous few Scooby Doo games I played.
Pretty silly that someone took the time to make a 1 hour movie of the first Shenmue game to include with this release. I understand why they did it since having no context of the first game before playing this one would be pretty silly. Ryo has made his way to China while still chasing after Lan Di. He must collect more capsule toys and play arcade games. Oh I guess he can beat up people using Virtual Fighter mechanics again along with some QTE’s too. With it just being more of the same I didn’t actually like this very much. The world of Shenmue was very impressive back when the first game launched but in the company of the type of games that were coming out now it just doesn’t hold up.
SKygunner has the player follow the exploits of a group of Gunners who have been hired to protect the Eternal Engine. A villain named Ventre has his sights on the engine and he will go to any lengths to obtain it. Including using his fleet of sky battleships and army of soldiers. From the start this game lets you play as either Femme or Ciel. Depending on who you choose the parts of the story will be told from a different perspective. You won’t see the entire picture until you unlock every character and finish their storyline. Which was more than enough reason for me to play through this game multiple times. Having the plane always focus on what you are targeting is quite unique for a fighter jet game. It works well for the type of vehicles you can control here since they are very maneuverable and allow you to dodge incoming attacks easier. Since it controls well and the whimsical story is worth seeing I think this game is worth checking out if you’ve never heard about it before.
Gotta go fast! That motto is the most relevant now with the Sonic Advance series. More so than before it feel like the developer wanted the player to constantly go max speed. At some point if you go to fast Sonic or one of his friends will go off the screen. Probably a bad thing once the game starts including bottomless pits. Yes this has 4 playable characters although they are just small variations on standard Sonic gameplay. These games also continued the Chao garden from adventure but I must have put my Chao into one of the gamecube games because he is MIA. So I just have a empty chao garden. I checked out the first and last level and they seemed ok. The normal final boss was kinda weak though.
Sega was able to quickly turn around this port of SA2 to the gamecube barely a year after they left the console business. The only real addition with this release is the extended battle mode. I don’t have anyone around to check it out but it is mostly just more options and characters to pick. The Chao garden was also upgraded with the ability to raise your Chao in many different ways including transferring him to one of the GBA Sonic games. As for the rest of the game it is totally a port of Sonic Adventure 2. I must have really been a fairly big Sega fanboy to buy it so soon after the Dreamcast release.
Well this is a collection of 2D sonic games. The emulation seems to be well done and most of the games you would want are in this package. Sadly it is missing Sonic CD but as a consolation prize it does include the intro and ending for some reason. Along with over 100 covers to every Archie comic issue up to the release of this game. Not sure why they included that but it is neat to see how the style changed over time. The only game that I haven’t covered before was Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. Which is just Puyo Puyo but you have beans so it is obviously a completely different game. Matching 3 colored beans together is the goal but if you truly want to master the way of the bean then setting up combos will be required. I usually just go for broke and don’t really take time to set up multi layered combo so the CPU usually beats me.
I do wonder why no one ever tried to exploit the popularity of Boba Fett. Instead we just got a game starring his father Jango. A loose story is told of how Jango got to be the chosen bounty hunter for the clone army. Not sure who thought it was a great idea to get rid of the jet pack for the first level. I do think they give it back at the end of it yet not having it seems odd. Along with the obtuse way you will have to bring out a visor to find hidden bounties makes them entirely pointless. After all you will be completely vulnerable while trying to see if anyone has a bounty on their head while they constantly shoot at you. Not having to switch to a FPS viewpoint to scan could have made this feature useful. Meanwhile the gameplay is fine with heavy use of a lock on mechanic to blast your way through each level.
I don’t know why this game is so finicky. It is my only gamecube game that constantly has disc read issues. It has no scratches and it will work most of the time after I clean off the disc. Once I actually got into the game this is basically a ground focused Rogue Squadron game. Really it is like going back to the very first game with every level being on a different planet. With naught a space battle to be seen other than in cutscenes. Most of the levels feature a tank although it does let you get out of it and battle on foot. Kinda wish it didn’t since those sections feel rough and half the time all you do is swing a lightsaber around for a minute before jumping back into another vehicle. In the end I remember this game being okay. That still holds up today even if it is annoying to try to get it to work.
Suikoden III has the Trinity Sight system lets you see the story from 3 protagonists which all had different experiences that lead up to a critical story point. At the time I was really impressed by this since it felt like 3 games in one. Anyway if a game lets me play as a dude with a eyepatch I’m always going to choose that one first. So I’ve always started off by playing as Geddoe whenever I start a playthrough of this game. Man what is with me having crazy good luck early on in RPG’s? Or in this case bad luck since I got a random battle with a rare tree boss in the first map of the game. Almost killed my entire party since I didn’t know it wasn’t just a normal enemy. Once the gameplay starts this is a normal JRPG but you have control of 6 characters at once. Hard to judge the story from this point since I’m only seeing it from one viewpoint. It is nice to see Lizardmen as a non hostile race for once. I know this adds has some type of turn based tactical war battles as well but I didn’t see any of those moments in the first chapter.
The deep lore of Super Mario World has been explained with this remake. The Mario bros and Princess Peach have decided to take a vacation in dinosaur land. Mario and Luigi decide to leave the princess by herself as they go have fun by flying around the different environments. When they get back she has gone missing and so they start their adventure. Luigi being a playable character with his floaty jump is the main new addition. I’m used to how Mario controls so I don’t actually like playing as him. Still a good remake of SMW though.
Super Mario Sunshine is the black sheep of the Mario series. All over one device that the player picks up a few seconds into the adventure. The FLUDD allows Mario to spray water around to clean up Isle Defino. Which he is forced to do since an evil doppelganger has been messing up the town with a bunch of goo and the inhabitants blame him. Thus giving him the task of cleaning up everything. Looking at the game this follows closely to the blueprint of SM64. Go around to different levels that have a tropical theme and collect shines till you have enough to unlock the next one. The FLUDD is used to clear a path and as a jetpack to give Mario some leeway when he is platforming Some of the best moments in this game is when the game takes away the jetpack for a platforming challenges in space.
We have gotten to the point that I really started to care about turn based strategy games. Advance wars must have kickstarted my interest in the genre. Similar to Final Fantasy Tactics not sure I like just controlling one unit in first few battles. Noted by the fact I don’t own any other Tactics Ogre game I don’t know much about the lore. This looks like it is just a side story about the knights of lodis. Depending on what you choose in the questionnaire from the fortune teller at the start it seems the hero will have different starting stats/class depending on your choices. With the first few battles being just a long winded tutorial I didn’t get to see much of the game. Far as I can tell this is set up in a way you need to use your units wisely and don’t rush into battles without some type of strategy. Not sure if that fact every rubbed off on me leading me towards liking the games that let me grind out levels. Which you will start to see with the release of Disgaea.
More Tony Hawk with slightly less memorable level design compared to the last game. Unlike 3 where I can remember every level this one didn’t leave much of an impact on me. The one thing they added which was the ability to spine transfer any ramp doesn’t really add that much combo potential. Doesn’t mean it isn’t still a fun game to play I just didn’t see much of a reason to keep returning to this series after this point.
Yeah this just looks like Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island. I’m sure the audio and visuals might be slightly different but without a side by side comparison this looks like a pretty good port to me. As these advance titles keep going along it feels like Nintendo kept getting lazier. Without looking it up I would have thought that this didn’t add anything new at all. But it does have 6 exclusive levels that weren’t in the original game. Out of the advance titles so far this one seems like the worst one even if I do like Yoshi.
Yu-Gi-Oh is a fun to play card game. Especially when in a format the makes more sense for the type of game it is. Playing this on the go on my GBA is the main reason I like this more than the next game in this list. Unlike the previous card game this one also tells me most of what I need to know without looking closer at the card. Even when I do have to look closer it goes directly into what the card does without me having to go through 2 menus. The pace of the game is more my liking as well. Most matches can be completed in about 10 minutes especially with how my old deck was set up. Which seems to be all about getting the Blue Eyes White Dragon out quickly so he can quickly wipe out my opponent's life bar. If he does get KOed I have multiple ways to resurrect him too.
Some of my PS1 games make me wonder why certain games have dual jewel cases when the game is only on one disc. Yu Gi Oh: Forbidden Memories is one of those games. Oh well this is a card game. I’m pretty sure this should have 3D animations when playing cards but nothing is happening. Maybe that happens later on in the story cause I’m not seeing any 3D animations at the start. The card game of this game is fine but whew the AI is not easy to beat. Especially without me knowing how to put together a good deck. At the time of this game's release I thought it was neat to see the backstory of the pharaoh spirit that helps Yugi out during games of chance. Unfortunately playing the same opponent over and over again just to get some new cards in my deck didn’t seem like a good use of my time.
A episodic RPG is a odd thing to see around this time. Although this isn’t the modern kind of episodic game. Instead of being a short adventure this is still a 40 hour behemoth of a RPG. This wasn’t the only episodic game to come around around this time as we’ll see next year with .Hack Infection. Anyway back to this spiritual sequel to Xenogears. After seeing KOS-MOS introductory chapter I didn’t have any urge to check out the two follow up games. She may be a cool android lady but apparently a galaxy wide conspiracy wasn’t a good enough reason for me to keep up with the story. The gameplay is similar to the previous game with it being a RPG with a combo system. So if you have enough movement points you can chain one attack into another. Not much really happens in the introductory mission since it is just meant as a tutorial for the player. You do get access to a mech that you can call in whenever which is nice. If this kept my interest I'm sure it could have been a fun series to play through back when it was first released. Pretty crazy to think this was going to be a six part series at one point too.
Above all else the one thing robot related anime and games have taught me is that if we ever colonize space we will eventually be at war with the space colonists one day. Either it’ll be their fault or the fact the humans on earth think they are better than the colonists like in this game. Zone Of The Enders: TFOM follows a boy named Cage who gets put into a bad situation as his ship he was working on was attacked by a mysterious L.E.V. He then barely escapes with the help of Myona and her LEV mech that just happened to be stored in the cargo hold. Because this is anime she loses her memory after they crash land and they both get thrown into jail. Find out more next time on ZOE. As for the game it is a turn based strategy with mechs similar to Super Robot Wars. After moving units around the battlefield you can attack enemies that then require the player to lock on to the enemy to hit them. The reverse also happens so it is possible to dodge every enemy attack. Between each level the LEV’s can be upgraded to prepared them for the next mission. I honestly don’t remember playing this game much but it seems cool.
Conclusion
I’m low on time this week to get this out at my regularly scheduled time. So instead of trying to put together the big picture this week I’m just going to say that every year has a good amount of awesome games to play. No matter which year you look at I’m sure you can point out at least 1 awesome game that you really enjoyed. That is the great thing about me going back to these games since it is great to see the best our industry put out while still pointing out some of the lesser known games as well. I see some merit in seeing some of the bad games again too. In the end this blog series has been about showing you all a big variety of games from each year I’ve enjoyed playing video games. I’ve hope I managed to do that and make this series somewhat readable as well. Maybe I’ve failed with that last point but I’m just glad other game fans enjoy looking back on our industry like me. Tune in next time to enter the matrix and to experience the end of the world shin megami tensei style.
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