Moot_Geeza wrote:47. The Punisher - Arcade (40 mins)
Competent effort that looks the business, plays well and adds occasional firearm sections. I'm not familiar with the Punisher character, but given the evidence on display here I assume he only wastes perps with his sidearm if they draw on him first - which would explain why he only whips his piece out if enemies are packing (fnar), then pops the old boy away again to tackle unarmed foes mano a mano. I'm pretty sure anyone who likes the genre would enjoy this one, especially the type of player who tends to gravitate toward any weaponry strewn across the floor in these things - it plays a strong bat/broom/assault rifle game. The specials are worthwhile too, especially the grenade drop, so it avoids one of the pitfalls of the genre (where health draining specials are best avoided if you're looking to make your coins go further). Not too long, not too annoying, deep enough to sustain interest and lovely to look at. Capcom were at the peak of their genre powers between 1993 and 1994 imo - you cant go wrong with either this, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs or Alien Vs Predator. 4 out of 6
48. Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder - Arcade (50 mins)
A big one. This has remained arcade exclusive since launch (unless you count its inclusion on one of those tabletop arcade cabs riding the NES Mini bandwagon). In order of release this is Golden Axe III in all but name - Sega rejigged the engine of the original GA port for a console exclusive first sequel (which arrived on the Mega Drive just after Christmas '91 in Japan), released this in arcades in 1992, then developed the (unfairly) derided GAIII as another 16-bit exclusive in 1993, presumably as porting this would've made the MD wheeze (it runs on the same board as Rad Mobile; so just as Sega were preparing to go nuclear with their arcade efforts). This has been in coin-operated no-man's-land ever since. It would've made a decent 32X game imo, but even if I had a gaming time machine I'd put it to better use so this opinion doesn't do anyone any good.
None of the familiar characters return in playable form, which was disappointing at first. Not that I would have known that the main chap wasn't Axe Battler unless I'd read it elsewhere; 'Stern' is basically a redrawn version of the original dude.
Gillius is back admittedly, or to be more specific, on someone's back - if you select the gigantic heavy hitter everyone's favourite dwarf is directing the action from its shoulders. Which is a bit like releasing a new version of Friends with a different cast but having Aubrey Plaza give a returning Jennifer Aniston a piggyback, but once you start playing it doesn't matter much. After felling a couple of foes it's immediately apparent that this is very much Golden Axe at heart - a marginally refined version for sure, but not one that adds a bundle of extra moves to significantly spruce up the battle core - it's closer to a reskinned GA than a 'now get a load of this' style sequel (Streets of Rage 2, for example). Existing tactics will work for the most part, evading is as important as attacking, and magic is still a bit limp (one character does have a healing magic though, which is a first for the series I believe, and clearly handy in mp). Skeletons still wreck you given half a chance, progress is mapped out on a literal map between stages and there are still a few holes to fall down/knock people into. Overall I thought this was very good, but you'd have to appreciate the simplicity Golden Axe offers otherwise your mileage will vary.
The array of arcade emulators on my Super Console X3 Plus didn't seem to like this all that much, which meant I had to put up with weird shadow effects and collectible artifact oddities (everything seemed to appear in the foreground due to a lack of shadows on collectibles). I muddled through, but I would like to play this at its proper fighting weight at some point. Graphics are chunky and kinda stylish (leaning on some neat sprite scaling effects in places) but not mind blowing, and unfortunately the music isn't show stopping either. Which is something I've started to notice with most of these classic era belt scrollers - maybe the emulation settings are at fault as the music is too low in the mix, but the tunes don't seem high on the list of priorities for either Capcom or Sega really; serviceable seems to be the ballpark everyone was aiming for. It doesn't help that the iconic fireside dwarf (elves?) thieves beatdown tune sounds like it's being played on a recorder here.
Anyway, it's not quite the amazing forgotten gem I was hoping for, but it's probably my second favourite in a solid series (I'm not counting the PS2 game because I didn't even bother playing it). Would play again. 4 out of 6.
49. Sengoku 3 - Arcade (1hr 36mins)
Supposedly one of the greats, if you listen to the loudest typers. It looks great, sounds good and has a quality combo system, but there are far too many regular annoyances for this to be up there for me. Certain recurring enemy types are particularly tedious - this game's equivalent of Knife Galsia being the worst culprit as he saunters around the screen armed with a samurai sword for extra-irritating knockdown reach. Food and projectile pick-ups seem to start disappearing as soon as you kick a bin over, so getting stuck in a cycle of hits while positioning yourself to grab a hotdog usually means it's gone by the time you're up again, which is infuriating. There's a cool-looking sword clash that happens when you attack in the same few frames as an opponent, but it didn't seem to serve any practical use and ends up in the annoyances column too. Off-screen enemies will batter you while resisting hits themselves, which is a genre standard, and yet it's handled better elsewhere. One more moan: the last boss eats about £5s worth of coins because it keeps flexing a special that's either tricky to dodge, or just unfair. I just remembered a couple more gripes, bear with me: smaller frog enemies towards the end can fuck off, and the blonde male playable character is crap.
The combo system really does give this a massive boost though. Without it I'd be scratching my head over the love this receives, but the flow of your attacks elevates this from mundanity to genre relevance. I can see why it's lauded to a certain degree, although it still falls a long way short of the best in class imo - there's more to these streets than fluid combat, y'know. Most definitely worth playing (just look at that gif, you know you want to), it's just not the worldie internet word of mouth suggested with its capslock on. 3 out of 6
nick_md wrote:Loving these reviews, got a whole year of gradually more obscure arcade oddities ahead of us.
I doubt many 6yr olds bothered tracing Ray if he ever appeared in Sonic The Comic.
Wariospeedwagon wrote:I'm reading along with envy, eyeing off AVP, pretending to be more into the hundreds of shithouse unplayed games in my steam back catalogue lol
EvilRedEye wrote:Can confirm Ray never appeared in Sonic the Comic and Mighty the Armadillo only showed up in the context of the adaption of Knuckles' Chaotix for the 32X.I doubt many 6yr olds bothered tracing Ray if he ever appeared in Sonic The Comic.
afgavinstan wrote:I'm very excited but also cautious because I don't want full rom sets, I don't need twelve copies of Pojemon Sapphire, you know? Would prefer something more curated but can't be arsed doing the curating.
Anyway, just spotted a thread success in ElecHead now has a release on Xbox for £7.09. I've added it to my wishlist.
afgavinstan wrote:I'm very excited but also cautious because I don't want full rom sets, I don't need twelve copies of Pojemon Sapphire, you know? Would prefer something more curated but can't be arsed doing the curating.
Moot_Geeza wrote:Ah yeah, the retroking approach.
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