2003
scott cawthon best amateur 3d artist ever this game just looks too good no matter how busted it is.
very short very fun stages, not hard at all in the grand scheme of twin-stick bullet hells but decently challenging to me as a newcomer, mostly just that damn true final boss tho
my only criticism would be how long it takes to get points to buy ammo but the c key will just give you 500 points whenever you want so it invalidates itself
good :D
very short very fun stages, not hard at all in the grand scheme of twin-stick bullet hells but decently challenging to me as a newcomer, mostly just that damn true final boss tho
my only criticism would be how long it takes to get points to buy ammo but the c key will just give you 500 points whenever you want so it invalidates itself
good :D
2007
it's like the original but only the levels with bad gimmicks
2016
who could have guessed that if you took out the fun part of lovely planet the game wouldn't be fun anymore
a wholly passable arcade racer like its progenitor. delivers on "burnout 1 but better" in the most average way it can honestly, just more tracks, cars, and events with some minor aesthetic and gameplay overhauls.
the main issues here are
A: why are these races so long. you get a few in that acceptable 3-4 minute window and then anything on a decently long track starts creeping up to a gruelling 6-8 minutes. that'd be on the longer side for an average simcade, but in this kind of modern arcade racer? really wears you down over those long ass grands prix especially seeing as there aren't that many environments (still a leg up on burnout 3 in track variety though)
B: difficulty. you either pick the new fastest car you just unlocked and breeze past everyone with a consistent 5-15s gap or you pick something suboptimal and have to fight tooth and nail the whole race, which i can only really find fun in games that don't make me do it for 5+ minutes straight. again, this is still a leg up on burnout 3 because at least that difficulty feels earned and not because the leading AI is tied to your car by a length of rope.
the driving really is fun and those crash physics have so, so much more impact than in 3, but it really feels like it's missing some important element that i can't quite place...
i trudged through the first series and called it quits for now, i'll come back to do the custom series one day and i'll probably be able to place what that je ne sais quoi is
the main issues here are
A: why are these races so long. you get a few in that acceptable 3-4 minute window and then anything on a decently long track starts creeping up to a gruelling 6-8 minutes. that'd be on the longer side for an average simcade, but in this kind of modern arcade racer? really wears you down over those long ass grands prix especially seeing as there aren't that many environments (still a leg up on burnout 3 in track variety though)
B: difficulty. you either pick the new fastest car you just unlocked and breeze past everyone with a consistent 5-15s gap or you pick something suboptimal and have to fight tooth and nail the whole race, which i can only really find fun in games that don't make me do it for 5+ minutes straight. again, this is still a leg up on burnout 3 because at least that difficulty feels earned and not because the leading AI is tied to your car by a length of rope.
the driving really is fun and those crash physics have so, so much more impact than in 3, but it really feels like it's missing some important element that i can't quite place...
i trudged through the first series and called it quits for now, i'll come back to do the custom series one day and i'll probably be able to place what that je ne sais quoi is
2004
should be up there with the likes of kurushi and lumines as a shining example of puzzle games of this era that aren't tetris. presentation to rival q? (made by an art director who made 2 ps2 pinball games before this and disappeared) and some incredibly composed music by yusuke takahama make me wonder how this ever got published by Midas of all publishers in europe.
in terms of the puzzle gameplay, it's extremely solid too. slow, methodical and algorithmic more akin to sokoban and games from the computer game scene than the action puzzlers coming out in this era of the ps2 and the ensuing flood of them onto XBLA in a few years.
KAZe shut down a year after making this so I'm guessing going against the grain made people not care and the budget was too high for something so niche but this is their only non-pinball home console game since an f-zero knock-off on the super famicom almost a decade prior. so how and why does something like this happen?
also it's really funny how disinterested the english narrator is, i thought that had to be midas' fault but the japanese doesn't sound much better lol
in terms of the puzzle gameplay, it's extremely solid too. slow, methodical and algorithmic more akin to sokoban and games from the computer game scene than the action puzzlers coming out in this era of the ps2 and the ensuing flood of them onto XBLA in a few years.
KAZe shut down a year after making this so I'm guessing going against the grain made people not care and the budget was too high for something so niche but this is their only non-pinball home console game since an f-zero knock-off on the super famicom almost a decade prior. so how and why does something like this happen?
also it's really funny how disinterested the english narrator is, i thought that had to be midas' fault but the japanese doesn't sound much better lol
i thought i forgot the name of this, but it just wasn't on flashpoint for some reason. it's like the pinnacle of bad "deep" writing from the then-burgeoning flash art movement rolled up into one arduous text adventure. if you know the ending to 2darray's other game that got big at the time, The Company of Myself, then you know exactly how this is written and you know how lame it's going to be. he makes an attempt at symbolism every few tasks and it somehow doesn't work a single time
2001
this was the best game of all time until about 2 minutes in when i remembered that i don't really like columns
2005
As with most doujinsoft, a cute exterior (i LOVE the way EGS does 2.5D) reveals the most evil game possible. the shmup boss is a very cute idea that has a monstrosity of a final phase.. i can't beat it even as a person who's spent too much time playing danmaku LOL it's a real shame cuz i want to find out what the secret content alluded to in the manual is and it's not like anyone else is playing this in 2024
the main gameplay is very serviceable though, the floor-attacking robots are disgusting but they don't show up enough to be a real gripe. fluid attacking and movement, and obviously in a game based on R.O.D the paper attack animations have a lot of care put into them. as a fan, it's all i could realistically wish for.
however, this game's real crime is making yomiko the hard mode. why would i want to play as the paper sisters? Let me play as yomiko in peace!!!
i'm not finishing the game out of protest.
the main gameplay is very serviceable though, the floor-attacking robots are disgusting but they don't show up enough to be a real gripe. fluid attacking and movement, and obviously in a game based on R.O.D the paper attack animations have a lot of care put into them. as a fan, it's all i could realistically wish for.
however, this game's real crime is making yomiko the hard mode. why would i want to play as the paper sisters? Let me play as yomiko in peace!!!
i'm not finishing the game out of protest.
2005
don't play this one, play the expanded 2007 version. still fire on account of it being moai no su, but there's no point
a game with "no right answers" that gets mad at you for choosing the wrong answer
an amazing concept that currently has the most broken chinese mobile game-style "first project in unreal engine" UI </3 will still probably buy on release
2007
this is literally the EXACT same game as Offroad eXtreme but with different models what the fuck was their problem
2021
The groundwork of a good game with half of FH4's progression (that I'd already gotten sick of a year before this came out) slapped onto it. At least the map isn't as boring as 4's was
2007
The game has <10 tracks and tries to stretch the runtime out to like 20 hours and that's almost all that needs to be said.
Everything here is a marked improvement from 3 (because, really, this is a sequel to 3, not revenge) and the challenge events do so much to break up the more immediate monotony, but they all last so long due to the timer reset mechanic and offer zero challenge until you're maybe 10 hours into the game. They also kinda blend into each other when you realise they're all predicated on chaining burnouts for multiplier no matter what you're getting scored on. The races are even more blatantly rubberbanded than ever, your speed doesn't matter, the AI boosts whenever you boost and eventually it just lets you pass. There really isn't anything more than "just don't crash near the finish line" left and it's really, really sad to me. Road rage is still really fun though :D
My recommendation would be to play the first two championships and pretend that that's where the game ends just to avoid the realisation that you will be doing the exact same thing again 5 more times with minimal differences, and that feels like a heartbreaking conclusion to come to with how much I enjoyed those first couple hours.
Maybe if the game's visual direction didn't look like an unplanned collision of Revenge's grunginess and the ps2 realism of 3, I'd cut it more slack? there's really only one track that pulls anything appealing off but I feel like even some basic post-processing could've saved the rest visually. The track design is at least way more distinctive than 3 but seemingly every track has at least one terrible corner where you cross oncoming traffic or get blindsided by traffic below you on an elevation change... which breaks your burnout chain
Everything here is a marked improvement from 3 (because, really, this is a sequel to 3, not revenge) and the challenge events do so much to break up the more immediate monotony, but they all last so long due to the timer reset mechanic and offer zero challenge until you're maybe 10 hours into the game. They also kinda blend into each other when you realise they're all predicated on chaining burnouts for multiplier no matter what you're getting scored on. The races are even more blatantly rubberbanded than ever, your speed doesn't matter, the AI boosts whenever you boost and eventually it just lets you pass. There really isn't anything more than "just don't crash near the finish line" left and it's really, really sad to me. Road rage is still really fun though :D
My recommendation would be to play the first two championships and pretend that that's where the game ends just to avoid the realisation that you will be doing the exact same thing again 5 more times with minimal differences, and that feels like a heartbreaking conclusion to come to with how much I enjoyed those first couple hours.
Maybe if the game's visual direction didn't look like an unplanned collision of Revenge's grunginess and the ps2 realism of 3, I'd cut it more slack? there's really only one track that pulls anything appealing off but I feel like even some basic post-processing could've saved the rest visually. The track design is at least way more distinctive than 3 but seemingly every track has at least one terrible corner where you cross oncoming traffic or get blindsided by traffic below you on an elevation change... which breaks your burnout chain
2018
extra half star for cultural importance