Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

I was recently reminded of an old favorite, Torin's Passage:

http://www.allowe.com/Torin/

Anyone else play this game? There were a lot of point-and-click adventure games around this time, but this was one of the better ones, in my opinion. It's a little short, but I think that's acceptable considering it was meant to include younger gamers. The ending seems unfinished, but from what I understand, there were supposed to be more Torin games. I think that's what's most disappointing about the game: great concept that was never completed. A lot of games suffer that fate, huh?

And while I'm thinking of point-and-click games, who remembers the Gabriel Knight series? I never played the third game, but the first two were excellent. I especially liked the second one, "The Beast Within," because it takes place in Germany and involves a missing Wagner opera. And werewolves!

Rune_Walsh wrote:Most gamers I speak to don't know of or have played Lord of the Sword, which was a GREAT game played with the original SEGA master system. It was very mythological and had a fantasy element to it.

Yeah, I had the cartridge for that one back in the day, although I never beat it until I used cheat codes with an emulator. While it wasn't great per se, I have a lot of good memories with Golvellius, a failed Master System attempt to copy Zelda.

Yeah I totally love Gabriel Knight. I have played through Sins of the Fathers myself and watched my brother play Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned.
I have also read Jensens books on SotF and Beast Within. As for the Beast Within game, I tried it but the digitized video thing and really stiff acting just did not appeal to me.

War of the Monsters is a good, but unknown, giant monster brawler. In many ways, I consider it better than the Godzilla brawlers (and in turn, I find some things better about them), but everyone knows Godzilla so I can't consider them unknown. But I do consider them underrated, but anyway.

So WotM is a game for the PS2, came out very early in the PS2's life. It's got everything you might want from a giant monster brawler, down to a title screen on a drive in movie theater in a homage to the 1950s B-movies. Storyline is totally cheesy and the monsters all remind you of classic monsters from the 50s and 60s. Only thing that's lacking is a Gamera rip-off, but oh well. Monster roster is low, with only 10 total, but all the monsters are different enough despite similar controls. It really is find your own style and combos with at least one critter for everyone, and the fighting can actually get very strategic since the environments really matter.

The monsters are great, but in a game like this, the environments need to be good. And they are. Buildings collapse in varying ways, and when they do, a pile of rubble is left that you may have to run or jump over, and you can scour it for weapons. You can even get crushed and killed under a falling building. Cars, helicopters, tanks and even airplane terminals and many things around the environment can be picked up and thrown. I love grabbing a car and throwing it at a building to see it all explode in a wonderful shower of falling steel. There are even people running around, who can be squished into small pools of blood splattered on the ground. You can even rip up telephone wires and impale your opponent with them. When you throw or hit your opponent into a building, there's a good chance said building will take substantial damage, something lacking in the Wii Godzilla title (but in the Gamecube title, I think).

One of the best things about is that you can roam independently. In two player, there's split screen, so you and other critters can be on opposite sides of the city without zoom-out. When you come together, it merges into one screen more reminiscent of other fighters. This is one thing that I definitely prefer over the Godzilla brawlers, which is always one screen and zooms out, eventually limiting how far combatants can be from each other. It makes it a lot easier to totally ignore your opponent or be defensive if that's what you want to do. Also, the AI in this game is surprisingly smart. Can be a bit frustrating, but it's nice to see AI that fights back intelligently instead of just taking a beating.

It's not the most sophisticated game around, but it definitely understands what it's trying to be. Fun. Lots of fun. This is a fighter that I think is versatile enough for picking up and messing around late at night with friends, or it could be good for more 'serious' play, given the strategy that can arise from using (or abusing) your environment. If you like fighters and/or giant monsters, give this game a try.

That sounds like a good game to try. It sort of reminds me of King of the Monsters, an older series that used rip-off monsters. It's a shame that the best monster games are always the ones with only rip-off monsters.

The zoom in the Gamecube Godzilla is very annoying. When the camera zooms out too far, I can't see or properly control my monster even in single player. Split screen would have been such a nice feature there.

Thoul wrote:It's a shame that the best monster games are always the ones with only rip-off monsters.

It is, isn't it? There are many things I like about the Godzilla games not in WotM (like you can throw entire buildings, can't do that in WotM, and more monsters/recognizable monsters), but I think they do rely a bit on the strength of the Godzilla franchise itself to try and make up for some weaknesses as a game.

Yeah, that's pretty much how it always is with monster games. Even going back to the NES titles. The NES Godzilla relied way too much on the name recognition to sell it, resulting in lackluster gameplay. Rampage, with rip-offs, was a lot more fun because it focused on destroying cities (ya know, being a monster) and multiplayer.

I still have Golvellius... Man, what a lovely, little gem.

A favorite of mine is Koudelka on Playstation 1. It's the precursor to Shadow Hearts on the PS2. It's an RPG with a grid based combat systems and some elements of survival horror [very little but enough]. It's a fun little gem in of itself.

Thoul wrote:Rampage, with rip-offs, was a lot more fun because it focused on destroying cities (ya know, being a monster) and multiplayer.

Yeah, true. One review I read for WotM actually said it's more or less what would happen if Rampage was made with full 3-D. Don't remember what site had that review, though.