I review things.

Remembering the games of yesteryear.

I review things.

Postby Hukos » Tue Jun 21, '16, 5:23 am

I posted my Phantasy Star reviews here a while back ago, but since I've done some other stuff since then (namely Castlevania 1/2) I figured I might as well post them.

My reviews are long and full of pointless rants, so fair warning. I liken my style to something akin to a written Matthewmatosis, though I make no claims as to the quality of my stuff (English: I'm not claiming to be as good as he is at doing hyper analytical type of reviews)

https://thehukosexperience.wordpress.co ... nami-1987/

The CV1 review is in the entry just before that, and I see no reason to be redundant in posting another link.
I assume there's no problems with the mods if I bump this whenever I make another review, right?
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Re: I review things.

Postby Wolf Bird » Tue Jun 21, '16, 7:47 pm

Hukos wrote:I assume there's no problems with the mods if I bump this whenever I make another review, right?


Nope, no issue there. We have a few other threads of similar nature, so whenever there's an update to be had, go ahead and post.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Hukos » Wed Jun 22, '16, 10:01 am

Fair enough.

On a personal tangent, CV2 is the kind of game that gets a lot of really polarized opinions from all over the internet, but for me, its just a really dull game with a translation that suffers from being too literal (There's a few mangled lines, but not as many as you expect. Most of the nonsensical lines are just as crazy in the original text) and not being actually transliterated so its become somewhat memetic in retro gaming culture. The main reason I covered it is, I want to eventually cover all the Castlevania games since its one of my favorite gaming franchises, and I figure I'd have to do Castlevania II at some point, so I'd get it out of the way. I've never hated CV2, there's nothing in the game interesting enough to warrant any kind of vitriol. I just don't find anything fun or amusing about it. A lot of times I even forget that CV2 still exists. Its reputation as the worst game in the series is unfounded, especially if you're not familiar with some of the more obscure CV games like the original game boy trilogy. Those are bad. Not even hilariously bad, just, kind of wimpy and pathetic bad.

I guess what I'm saying in this day and age I still don't get the major polarization it has in gaming culture. Its just too dull to bring out the reactions it does. Like, I can understand why people go nuts on how bad Sonic 06 is, but having that reaction to say... Sonic 3D Blast would be "what?!" to me.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Wolf Bird » Thu Jun 23, '16, 4:12 pm

When I think of bad CV games, the first thing I think of is CV 64. CV seems to have a similar problem to Sonic in that when you introduce it to fully 3D environments, they just don't get along very well. But it's also a franchise that never really grabbed me to begin with for some reason.

As for Sonic, I think that 2014's Sonic Boom might have managed to take Sonic '06's place as the most maligned in that series.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Hukos » Thu Jun 23, '16, 8:08 pm

I think in regards to Sonic, I feel like it should be noted that Sega's had awful issues regarding management (read: Sega of Japan is run by a group of monkeys with extremely fragile egos) since the 2000's and that's probably had an effect on the quality of their games.

I think Sonic's issue in 3D is more there isn't a coherent focus on what the series wants to do in 3D. Some people like the adventure style, some people like the boost gameplay from Unleashed - Generations, some people want something completely different and satisfying all of those camps is going to be really hard. This becomes a problem because it's much harder to pinpoint and fix any issues you have with a particular style when you're changing it all the time. I much prefer to leave the mainline games in a franchise in a fairly conservative manner, only making small changes here or there when necessary. Leave the experiments to spinoffs, and if those spinoffs prove successful, then continue those mechanics but in that respective spinoff. Think classic Megaman versus Megaman X. X's mechanics are different enough to differentiate itself from classic Megaman, but if you tried including the things X did well into classic Megaman, it'd just get kind of awkward.

Also Sega releasing a Sonic game every year for god knows how many is a factor in their quality, I imagine. If Sega had a release cycle of one major game every 3 years or so, with spinoff games filling the blanks I think that would be better for the individual level of quality for each title. But really, that series just needs to pick a style and try to hone in on perfecting it as much as possible. It doesn't really know what it wants to do.

Which is a shame, because how I feel about 3D Sonic is that it has moments of sheer brilliance which make you appreciate how a focused effort on those things would be, but then Sega realizes they can't be possibly be consistent and makes everything else surrounding those good points unbearable. Like, I legitimately enjoy Sonic's stages in Adventure 1, that's a pretty good building block. Its just... everything else surrounding Adventure 1 (voice direction, animations, technical issues, fluff) is pretty hard to swallow. But I personally have no issues going back to my Adventure 1 save file and replaying Sonic's levels whenever I feel like it and ignoring the bad parts of the game. That's something you could take, build upon in a future equal and just fix the rest of the game's numerous technical issues. The weird thing is the franchise just kind of switches gears with almost every single 3D iteration past that point. Adventure 2 goes for a more streamlined type of game but ultimately just kind of falls flat for me, Heroes changes again to a system of controlling 3 people at once, Shadow is infamous for its gameplay, 06 is just 06, etc. There's no consistency in terms of establishing a particular style. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned I think it can work in 3D, but Sega needs to have a consistent focus on what its going to do in 3D, and then work on making incremental gains on having it function properly.

I will legitimately defend Unleashed/Colors/Generations, but those games have their share of 2D platforming in them as well.

I've actually never played any of the 3D Castlevanias before, that's a bit of a blind spot for me. I have access to CV64/Legacy of Darkness, but I haven't gotten to even starting them yet. They're buried deep in the good old backlog.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Wolf Bird » Thu Jun 23, '16, 11:40 pm

Jim Sterling has a great video on Sonic games and why their quality has been all over the place. Seeing as it's Jim Sterling I can't provide a direct link, but search youtube for "How invention killed the hedgehog" and it'll come up. You mentioned quite a few of his points. You may have even seen it already. He released it around the time Sonic Boom came out.

But yeah, I agree with you. They need to find something with Sonic that starts out at least decent, and stick with it so they can refine it and iron out issues over time.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Hukos » Mon Jun 27, '16, 2:07 am

I don't really follow Jim Sterling, but thanks for that, I'll look at it eventually.

I'll take solace in that at least the series still gets attention, unlike Castlevania which is basically dead at this point.

If Sonic wanted to just do strictly 2D games, I'd be okay with that (I prefer 2D over 3D in general), but at the same time, if Sega wanted to do a specific style of 3D games, I'd be okay with that too. Just make it high-quality.
Last edited by Hukos on Mon Jun 27, '16, 2:07 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Schala Zeal » Tue Jul 5, '16, 3:38 am

Too lazy to read right at this moment, but I followed you, Hukos! I'll definitely give your blog a read when I get some more energy.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Hukos » Mon Jul 11, '16, 9:16 pm

Thanks, I really appreciate it! I don't expect to ever get a large following, especially since I don't update it very often (its a hobby, not a job, etc.), but I do appreciate what little I can get.
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Re: I review things.

Postby Silver_Surfer1 » Sun Aug 13, '17, 12:08 am

Hukos, are you still doing the reviews? I haven't had a chance to get to read them yet, but will as soon as I can find the time.
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