Month Overview: June 2017

Tally:
Shadow Hearts - Covenant 9.0
Suikoden II 9.0
Gungrave 6.5
Tony Hawk's Underground 7.5
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 7.5
Jersey Devil 6.0
Hidden Invasion 2.0
Spider-man(PS1) 7.5
Spider-man 2 - Enter Electro 7.5
Spider-man - Mysterio's Menace 7.0
Spider-man(PS2) 3.0
Spider-man(GBA) 4.5
Spider-man 2(GBA) 4.5
Spider-man 2(DS) 4.0


 Spider-manathon began this Month! And we're off to a rather mediocre start. The PS1 games were pretty good, but as soon as we jumped ship to the PS2, it sunk, it sunk deeeeeep. The first gameboy advance was pretty good for what it was, it's funny because it's pseudo 3-D sprites are downright hideous, but it is a good game! And then came both movie games, which look league and bounds better... but made levels even more mazelike, added time constraints and turned the gameplay into a scavenger hunt rather than a traditional side-scroller, much to the games' detriment. Spider-man 2 on the DS is particularly bad about it, but it felt even more tedious that time around, tacked-on touchscreen controls didn't help its case. The good news is that now we've got Spider-man 2 and Ultimate Spider-man, both on the PS2, which I remember being particularly good, Ultimate being the last Spider-man game I had played, and my favorite.


Game of June 2017:

 A game deserving of every bit of praise it gets, Suikoden 2 features a rather deep storyline, with interesting characters and twists. So much so that Suikoden V, which borrows from almost every game in the franchise, borrowed the most from Suikoden II and, in my opinion, pulled it off even better. That said, Suikoden II did it first, and what a treat it was.

Runner-up:

 Shadow Hearts Covenant is easily one of the PS2's finest JRPGs ever made. The story is interesting, characters are endearing and the combat is a blast. I feel about this game kinda like how I feel about No More Heroes. No More Heroes/Shadow Hearts had made up in personality and style what No More Heroes 2/Shadow Hearts Covenant polished up in the gameplay department. So while the gameplay is much better, it's also missing a bit of the personality that made the first entry so fantastic. So long horror elements, you'll be missed.

Review #412: Spider-man 2(DS)

 Yet another subpar entry in the ever growing library of handheld Spider-man games....

 We've danced this dance before, Spider-man 2 on the DS is everything that has come before on the Gameboy Advance but under a new coat of paint. A pretty coat of paint, but it's the same ol', same ol'.

 Once again, this is a very loose retelling of the second game based on the second movie, it even uses still of the game instead of the movie itself. Which means that the game isn't very faithful at all, and you'll see a few faces that didn't make it into the movie. The game should take you about an hour and a half to finish, more if you want to torture yourself and unlock everything.

 The worst part about previous games was the fact that they were 2-D scavenger hunts on mazelike level while under time constraints, well, hope you like'em because this game is exactly the same. I mean, only a few levels have a 'real' time limit, but if you want to get an A rank you will need to be fast. And believe you me, there's no chance in hell you'll get an A on your first time through, and probably, not even on your second run. And you'll want an A rank if you want to unlock special moves, but frankly, 7 of them are useless, the only one worth using is the impact web, and you start the game with it. Alternatively, you can put a Mysterio's Menace cartridge on the GBA slot of the Nintendo DS and gain access to all eight moves, that's what I did.

 Spidey can punch and kick with the A and Y buttons, X slings web towards whichever direction you are holding, which will propel you towards whichever object it hit, if it hit any. L is used to engage in 'Spider-Sense', when an enemy is about to hit you markers will pop up on Spidey's head, pressing L at that moment will slow down time, which is pretty neat and useful. This being an early Nintendo DS game means that there're forced touch-screen minigames. Every single boss has an attack which will have you pop that stylus out of its socket in order to hit objects, and then clumsily put it back before the boss sucker punches you. Fun.

 Every single issue this game has comes together in the last level. It's long, filled to the brim with bottomless pits and obstacles and enemies which will throw you helplessly into the pits. You have to web-swing through gaps in the floor, but be careful not to get hit by a flying enemy that there was no way you knew was coming. Oh, and you have to find 12 computers to deactivate. And if you die you have to start from scratch. And each computer involves a touchscreen mini-game. Which you must repeat if you die. Because it's very easy to die in this level. But there're no checkpoints. And you have to find everything in the friggin' maze again. Because the game sucks.

 Yeah... Spider-man's debut on the DS is pretty sad. It's sad, because controlling Spider-man is pretty smooth, and if the game design was any fun, it could've been a really good game. It also looks very pretty, so it's a shame to see it flop so hard.
 4.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man 2(DS)

 What's with Spider-man and mazes?

 Why? Why can't I have a single portable Spider-man game that isn't designed around finding needles in haystacks? It isn't much fun having to go round and round and round again searching for the single thug that's outta my sight. Worse, if I want to unlock the special moves I have to finish the stage as quickly as possible. Poor game design is poor.

 At least the game is rather pretty, swinging around is fun and the combat is serviceable. But I've had my feel of half-assed scavenger hunts on mazes while under time constraints. It's not fun, it wasn't fun then and it won't be fun ever. Ever.

 At least it's better than both movie Spider-man games on the GBA.

Review #411: Spider-man 2(GBA)

 Not Spider-man's finest.

 Spider-man got another movie, and thus a new onslaught of tie-in videogames was unleashed upon the gaming world. While the home console iteration was a franchise-defining entry that set the bar for future games to come, the second entry on the Gameboy Advance is... troubling.

 It's not worth discussing the game's premise because it does a very poor job of translating the story of the game based on the plot of the movie, which means it's all kinds of terrible. What you need to know is that you'll be facing many foes that didn't make it into the movie while Doc Ock is left as the big cheese. There're about 21 different levels, but the game is fairly short overall, clocking it little over two hours.

 As far as basic gameplay goes, the game plays pretty much like the previous one: Spidey can jump, swing on web, punch and kick. Instead of having to find power ups to use special web shots, you now earn experience points after each mission which you can then use to power up Spider-man, making him tougher or learning new moves. It's a fantastic addition, but some of the new moves can mess a bit with the player, for instance, tapping forwards twice, even if by accident, will have Spider-man perform a sliding kick which may throw you off. There're new mechanics, like picking up stuff by pressing down and HOLDING punch which doesn't work very well, and is needed for a boss fight, and you'll need to get used to swinging since you must also hold Jump if you don't want to perform one of the useless new acrobatics.

 Level design is still kinda lame, featuring maze-like levels and scavenger-hunt type levels, at least most levels don't run on a timer now and most levels feature a compass to guide you, but not every level, which is a bit baffling. Every now and then you'll enter a '3-D hub level' in which you can either partake in one or two side missions or advance to the next story level. It's a neat idea, but the 3-D hub runs very poorly, it's nigh unplayable, and they had the gall to have a story mission taking place in said buggy hub. What were they thinking?

 They redesigned a few of Spider-man's animations. A few, which means that Spider-man's proportions will switch between the old ones and the new ones depending on what action you perform, which is all kinds of silly. There're other design flaws, like moving platforms that instead of moving in smooth cycles kinda stutter their way through it, and it's very easy to just go through them when you try to land on them. All in all, some levels are worse than the worst Spider-man had to offer, but a few are better than its best, make of that what you will.

 Spider-man 2 makes a bunch of small tweaks that really work in the game's favor, but they also kept most of what was bad about the previous game and added worse things on top. The end result is yet another mixed bag of elements that don't really work well together. It's hard to say which game is better, because while this game was more fun than the previous game at times, it was also more annoying than the previous game ever was, and that's saying something. So, pick your poison, me? I'd stick with Mysterio's Menace.

 4.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man 2(GBA)

 More of the same?

 I start the first stage, first thing I see? A time. And it's yet another maze-like level. BOY AM I GONNA HAVE FUN. But then I notice it... a compass! Telling me where stuff is, THANK YOU, it looks like they figured out the previous game's shortcomin.... Wait, it only tells you where the pizza place is, the customers? Find them yourself. OH BOY.

 Luckily, this time around not all stages are timed, which is a plus. The 3D bonus segments are the absolute pits though, they lag SO badly, they'd be unplayable if only they weren't just means to an end. Controls have been tweaked a bit, for the better I think, but it's hard to get rid of my muscle memory from the previous game.

 Spider-man 2 on the GBA seems to be just more of the same, but maybe, just maybe it'll prove itself to be a tiny bit better. Maybe, I'm not that hopeful.

Review #410: Spider-man(GBA)

 At least it's better than it's home console counterpart, right?

 I miss the days of olde, when handheld consoles would get vastly different games, albeit under the same title, as home console games. In this case, Spider-man on the GBA is a 2-D platform game that could've been as great as it looked.

 As is to be expected, the game follows the plot from the movie, however, as is to be expected, it's a very, very loose retelling of said story, omitting even more plot points than the console counterpart and adding even more minor plots, such as Norman Osborn hiring Kraven the Hunter to take down Spider-man. There're about 11 levels total, and about 8 bosses, and the game should last you a while. for all the wrong reasons.

 A can be used to jump, and you can press it twice two web-swing, B performs your punches and kicks(With a quarter-circle forward special attack!), the R button is used to throw a web line in order to stick to surfaces and L button uses your special web types. Web types are swapped by grabbing the power ups peppered throughout stages, which is interesting to say the least. Spider-man can cling to almost any surface, and is, in fact, too clingy. It's easy to get Spider-man haunch into a crawl accidentally, and getting him out of it can be a hassle, particularly if there're any openings nearby, wherein pressing up or down(Depending on where you're crawling!) will make Spider-man crawl towards said opening instead of getting out of the crawl! This will get pretty annoying eventually.

 Stage design was particularly lackluster, stages are very maze-like in nature, which was probably a good idea in order to get the most out of the web-slinger's abilities, but every single mission in the game is time, which is always fun, and too add salt to injury, about 60% of the stages are of the 'Find X amount of Y' variety, which are EVEN more fun. I lost a couple of lives due to the stupid timer and because I couldn't find the 18th friggin' bomb, or maybe because I hadn't found the blue key I needed to open a door, etc. Not only are scavenger hunts on 2-D action games not fun, adding a timer on top of it isn't doing it any favors, just ask Superman 64 or Hidden Invasion about it.

 Levels have a fair amount of collectibles, be it pictures that Peter can take to unlock movie stills, golden spiders that unlock other bonuses if you collect them all and secrets that usually house life ups or extra health. There's the occasional bonus stage in which you must swing throughout buildings and find all the balloon bombs before the time is up, which are alright albeit nothing special.

 The best thing you can say about Spider-man on the GBA is that it's better than it's console counterpart... but that's not saying much, now is it? For what it's worth, the game basics work well, playing as Spider-man is fun, the moveset was well thought out, which shows on the simpler levels(The ones that don't have you finding a ridiculous amount of bombs!), but sadly means that at its worst it's not much fun to play.
 4.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Spider-man(GBA)

 Itsy Bitsy Spider...

 I remember how I always adored this game's artstyle and how much I liked it over Mysterio's Menace... I remembered wrong.

 I mean, so far it's not too bad, but the mission structure is a bit... annoying? Each level seems like a scavenger hunt of sorts while under a timer inside a labyrinthine stage, it's not much fun. The game is pretty neat to look at though!