Oof 30hrs.  Part of the reason why I liked MYZ was because it was done in 12-15.

This is like Journey bullshit all over again

acemuzzy wrote:

10 for Humanity?!? JFC ridic shout.

I'll share what I wrote, if only to irritate you more.
https://whynowgaming.com/humanity-review-people-are-lemmings/

Lemmings > The Humans.

acemuzzy wrote:

Had to skip bits cos it was hinting at things still ahead. But yeah, let's agree to disagree. It doesn't make it a better game cos they're "humans" not "lemmings", for starters - narrative pish.

Yes, it's a narrative puzzle game, using puzzles and bits of other genres to tell stories, introduce ideas, and so on. That's a big, obvious part of the game that simply doesn't exist in Lemmings, and it alters the context of what you're doing and how you're doing it.

But I guess we're just back to Journey again here, so it is a bit pointless trying to discuss it.

Talos actually interweaves the two, and is far better as a puzzler and on narrative. I'd take people giving that a 10. @jonb please play it and report back.

I guess I can't really argue with any of that, and should probably hold further judgement till I've completed it if done holistic magic ties it all together nicely.

I think I'll still argue that good game design does not necessarily a good game make. Some of it in this case may be individual to me: I like my puzzlers as pure as pure can be and here the design choices dilute that in a way that just doesn't resonate with me enough to justify that compromise. I'll try to bite my tongue further till I'm finished though.

98. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Mega Drive (80mins)

Stellar sequel that launched just over a week after I got my MD in '92.  I was in a Sonic hype frenzy at the time anyway, because I'd already played the original loads at a mate's house and owned the excellent 8-bit shrinkification on my Master System.  All this happened in less than 18mths too; what a time to be alive.  Without hanging my hat on a final answer, I can definitively say that the best 2D Sonic game is either this, Sonic 3 popped into the top of Sonic & Knuckles, or Sonic Mania.  I could happily nod along to a case made for any of those.  Iconic as it is, and despite its numerous charms (such as the Starlight Zone music) I don't think the first Sonic game is in with a shot at top spot because it has too many pace breaking layouts and a limp bonus stage.  Sure, it was the coolest thing since Rude Dog & the Dweebs (YMMV), but it was roundly trounced by its 16-bit sequels imo.

Almost every level in Sonic 2 gets the Sonic special sauce right.  Metropolis Zone goes on a bit maybe, given that it reverts to a three stage approach rather than the slimline two you see elsewhere, but that might be down to the fact that it's trying to eat into your extra lives rather than it being a bad stage per se.  It also has probably the best music of any game in the series overall - pretty much all the tunes are top tier 16-bit.  Most bosses can be absolutely wrecked, which feels a bit odd at times, but they're not a bad bunch on the whole.  The Death Egg Zone is an actual test though, due to the surprising omission of any rings whatsoever.  Robo-botnik is an easy enough boss if you take your time, but it's a tricky boss to take your time with due to the extra openings for bolder players - it's a good balance.  Bonus stages are legit, as long as you remove Tails in the options screen (the CPU lag is Miles behind and ruins any chance of getting a full set of emeralds imo), and everything just feels that little bit more refined.  Even the two player modes were a nice addition, either controlling Tails in the main game or in the split screen competitive races (which got played a lot in my house and also had some top tunes exclusive to that mode).  

It's all been said before really.  It's a sequel by numbers for the most part, but all the relevant numbers are bigger and it's an excellent evolution of the foundations laid in 1991.  94% for 1992.





Only tangentially related, but I was moaning about Dan's Crap Corner in Sega Power recently.  



However!  It seems like the man himself has apologised since.  So that's OK then.

“Naturally I thought I was being hilarious and thankfully someone with more sense than me told me I was being insensitive,” Smith said. “The name was dropped and simply called 'The Sega Power Gallery' after a few issues, but it still haunts me and I'm deeply sorry for my callous actions and unintentional pain I may of caused to anyone who ever had a picture of theirs feature in Dan's Crap Corner.”

99. Planet of Lana - Xbox Series S (4hrs)

Gorgeous side scrolling platform puzzle game that desperately wants to be as good as Inside but simply isn't.  The similarities are striking in places, which perhaps worked against it for me at times (from the weight of the character to the jumping/block pulling/climbing - even down to rolling after a sizeable drop).  If you come at the king you best not miss, as they say, and this makes very little effort to disguise its major influence.  I liked it on the whole, but I thought I'd get the Inside comparisons out of the way early - the GOAT would eat it alive.

Visually this Ghiblifies things, with a touch of Ori here and there to its partly hand drawn visuals.  It's a strong look, and easily one of the nicest looking indies I've played for a while.  Trees rustle like a Fight Night head wobble, which never gets old, and reflections ripple in pastel hued water.  The whole thing looks pretty much glorious every step of the way.  Which makes it even more surprising that the real star of the show is the audio design.  The music is consistently excellent, with one recurring piece in particular being absolutely fully tremendous.  Genuine top marks for sound, brilliant stuff. 

Unfortunately the core mechanics and overall puzzle design can't quite get away with hiding behind the audiovisual splendor.  There are some very good puzzles here, and very few that struck me as genuinely bad, but on the whole it lacks the seamless interactive perfection of Inside.  Early spoiler alert: having a companion tag along for the journey both adds to and detracts from the puzzling.  For the most part it works, but it occasionally feels clunky to direct it with stay/come here commands and a shoulder button/analogue stick combo for positioning, and as a result it lacks the purity of the very best.  Plus the 'do this precisely' nature of the progression can get a little tedious while you wait for NPCs to go through their patrol motions, for example.  It's happy to chuck QTE's at the player now and then too - especially towards the end - which is something Inside never had to stoop to.  IIRC that game told its story with the player in control at all times, whereas the dreaded letterbox encroaches on the gameplay repeatedly throughout Lana and relegates the player to either bystander status, or button masher.  This is what makes the whopping Edge [9] totally baffling to me - I get that it's a very Edge game on paper, but it didn't feel like a [9] to me at any point with the pad in my hand.  It's a low [8] I reckon, but I was considering a [7] at the beginning of this review. 

It's immeasurably superior to Somerville, probably a smidge better than both Little Nightmares, a few steps behind Gris, but three or four football pitches away from MO: Astray (I'm trying not to mention Inside again, see).  It's in the Far: Lone Sails/Changing Tides zone basically, bobbing along at a 7.5, which is fine.  Lower A tier, definitely worth playing.  Be sure to pop some headphones on or crank the volume up if you do though.  It's a decent day one addition to Game Pass and probably the tastiest looking pub grub I've ever seen. 

That's not a bad idea, actually. They might go for that.

Don't think so. It's not on the big list I've got.

16. Aero Fighters 3 (Neo-Geo) - 35mins 

More of the same as 2, which I played last month.

It's fine.

6/10

My list

I think one of the acts in Metropolis Zone was intended to be a one-act Zone but it ended up getting axed and folded into Metropolis due to time constraints or something.

18. Let's Go! Goemon 2: Very Strange General McGuinness (SNES) - 3hr 10mins 

Japanese only sequel to The Legend of the Mystical Ninja. I played a fan translated hack, and God bless the people doing this work, as this is a true treasure of the 16-Bit era.

This sequel adds an overworld map where you can replay levels and unlock alternative routes, it's not quite Super Mario World but it adds to the replay value and is a marked improvement over the first game.

Also new to this game are the boss fights that involve fighting giant robots in a first person view. I struggled with these initially, but once I got to grips with the controls they were OK, and add some welcomed variety to the gameplay.

I know I bang on about co-op, but it was quite a rarity for a platformer back in the 90s, so it needs a mention.

Only negative is that it's quite easy, but it's so much fun I didn't care. Every bit as good as the first SNES game, if you enjoyed that you definitely need to play this.

8/10

My list

EvilRedEye wrote:

EvilRedEye wrote:

I think one of the acts in Metropolis Zone was intended to be a one-act Zone but it ended up getting axed and folded into Metropolis due to time constraints or something.

Found it, Act 3 was originally going to be Genocide City Zone (would probably have been renamed to Cyber City Zone if it had made it to the final game), which would have been a 1-act Zone leading into the other climactic 1-act Zones of the game. Due to time constraints, the level graphics had to be axed but the layout was able to be reused using the Metropolis Zone graphics so they made it a third Act for that. Genocide City Zone would have been a similarly mechanical zone but with a purple colour scheme. Its level graphics were later recycled into The Machine level of Sonic Spinball. Source: https://info.sonicretro.org/Genocide_City_Zone

Nice. I see one of the other chopped stages made it into Mania then (screenshots at the bottom - desert style).