Now Playing: Le Mans 24 Hours

 Not.... not what I though it'd be.

The cover screams 'low budget', but it actually isn't.

 So... I thought that Le Mans was something more like... a country-wide race or somethin' like that. Turns out it means doing laps on the same track for a grand total of 24 hours. Definitely not what I expected. However.... the game is rather fun, and the soundtrack is bloody phenomenal, so I'm not too peeved.

 The game is more of a sim than an arcade racer, which kinda sucks, but it can accommodate to my tastes, with automatic braking and automatic transmission. IT made taking curves all that much easier, since a Sim is less about tight maneuvering and more about planning how to slow down for curves. Still, with these two options I'm able to enjoy the game and play it more casually, which helps when Racing isn't your favorite genre, particularly the Simulator kind.

Archile's Grab-bag: THREE FOR ONE Edition

 Not a new package... BUT THREE SMALL PACKAGES. SO NEW BLOG ENTRY!

  Three shiny new packages with games. GAMESSSSS

 CoolBoarders 2: I don't know how or why I wound up purchasing Cool Boarders. I've been meaning to play Trick 'n snowboarder, which I haven't found a complete copy yet!, yet wound up purchasing this.

 CoolBoarders 3: That's funny....

 CoolBoarders 4: ...almost as if I wanted to play the entire franchise...

 CoolBoarders 2001(PS & PS2(Not pictured, forgot to take a photo!)): CoolBoarders marathon confirmed.

 Project Snowblind: I don't know much about Project Snowblind except the fact that it was only 2 bucks. 2 bucks. How do you say no to that? You don't.

 Barbarian: Ah! I used to play this terrible fighting game back in the day, and I remember next to nothing about it... but since I kinda wanna get every game I used to play... here it is.

 Le Mans 24 Hours: Something about a 24-hour race piqued my curiosity, so here I am. I'll be playing it soon. Very soon.

 Auto Modellista: First of all, it looks amazing. Secondly, it's made by Capcom. 1+1 = 2, so here we are.

 The Mark of Kri: I played a bit of it when I was younger and I never got the hype for it. It received great reviews and everyone sings its praises all the time, yet... I don't remember it being that good.

 Tomb Raider Chronicles: Fact, when I was younger I played every single Tomb Raider game by Core Design. Even the crappy shareware cash-in 'Artifacts'. Fact, I never finished a single Tomb Raider game. But on the same token, I never spent much time with Chronicles, I gave it a try or two but it didn't click well with me. I think I had fallen out of love with Tomb Raider by then.

Review #525: Samurai Shodown - Warriors Rage

 A sequel to Samurai Shodown 64 Warriors Rage. I don't even...

The Kuki brothers are fantastic successors to the feud between Haohmaru and Genjuro.

 Samurai Shodown is a bit famous in no small part due to it being the first 2-D weapon based fighting game. It was so good that it spawned 6 direct sequels, not counting special re-releases, as well as a 3-D rendition in Samurai Shodown 64. Warriors Rage is a sequel to the sequel of Samurai Shodown 64, a couple of games that never made it outside Arcades... which makes it all the more baffling if you don't know that, since the game's intro starts with a '...20 years later'. 20 years from when? The plot only gets more senseless the more you get into it. And it's pure SNK translation brilliance.

 Booting up the game offers a few different modes: Story, in which you take any one character throughout a ton of battles in order to get an ending, Attack Mode, which is a trial mode which can be used to power up your favorite character, Battle(VS Cpu or player) and a practice mode. The game is made up of 23 characters, but more than half of them are clones or pseudo clones, four of them being useless filler characters that don't even get special moves. As for the characters... this game features some of the best character designs the franchise has ever seen, and most characters are newcomers, Haomaru making an appearance as an old man and Hattori Hanzo's successor being the only familiar faces. During the Story Mode you'll occasionally come across characters interacting via text boxes... and it's glorious, SNK is infamous for their horrible translations, and this is no exception.

Yuda will make no sense unless you've learnt about Samurai Shodown 64. And even then his existence isn't properly explained.

 Gameplay is a mix of old and new. While the game made the jump to 3-D, there's no sidestepping, although the circle button works as a dodge button, in case you don't want to parry or dodge. Attacks come in three varieties, Strong, Weak and Kick and inputting different directions on the D-Pad before pressing an attack button produces Special and Super moves. As per the franchise's standards, combos are not the focus of the game, but rather waiting for openings and profiting from them. This is a slow paced game, so be wary. Many reviewers at the time took issue with it, but I enjoyed the game's pace. The way the life bar works is also relatively interesting, being divided into three segments. Once you lose all your health, it completely recharges but only up to the second tier. Lose all your health and your life bar recharges up to a single tier, lose all your health now and you lose the battle. It's an interesting mechanic, I think.

 One of the game's biggest issues comes from unlocking characters, unlocking all 23 means going through the game with 22 different characters, including the lame filler characters, which are weaker and more limited, moveset wise, than the others. And the problem with Story Mode... is that it's rather lengthy, not helped by the fact that the game loves to pit you on a survival match against up to 5 of these filler characters, back to back, without restoring your health. These take a long time to complete, and there's about two of these on any playthrough. Playing the game was fun, unlocking characters was not.

You'll have grown tired of Oboro's Amazons by the time you're done with the game.

 I loved my time with Warriors Rage. The mechanics are fun, and most characters are fantastic designs, plus, I love it when fighting games get daring enough to ditch old characters and replace them with newer ones. And I can see why reviewers had issues with the game back in the day, Fighters were becoming niche, and they wanted the next flashy, fast paced thing with the ability to string together long combos being the norm.
  8.0 out of 10

Review #524: Digimon Battle Spirit

 Girls just want to have fun and Digimon just want to battle.

Sure, you lil' Guilmon, sure, you do stand a chance.

 There was this weird little handheld called the WonderSwan Color that happened to get a ton of Digimon games, the one in the picture as well, but, as luck would have it, the Battle Spirit series would find a home on the Gameboy Advance as well. These were fighting games of sorts, with the objective being collecting more pellets than the opponent, as opposed to beating the data out of them.

 The game has only two modes 1P and 2P. For obvious reasons I couldn't try 2P, but I got 1P and it's a simple series of one on one battles until you get to the boss. In this game there are no lives or life bars, instead, every time you hit an enemy blue orbs will be knocked out of it, which you must then collect before they disappear in order to score points. The same is true if you get hit, albeit red orbs will be dropped. Either combatant can also pick up the very same orbs they dropped in order prevent the enemy from getting them. It's a weird idea, and one that lends itself to needlessly long bouts, as matches can't be shorter than 90 seconds. Matches take places on relatively large areas, filled with enemy fodder Digimon that exists to try to hit either player, as well as various platforms to hide or escape to in order to get some breathing room.

The final boss is hard until you figure him out, after which he turns into a total pushover.

 The character roster is alright. On your first booting up of the game you'll have access to Guilmon, Terriermon and Renamon, representing Tamers, Veemon and Wormon standing up for 02 and Agumon alongside Gabu... nope, alongside Sukamon being the reps from 01. Yes, Sukamon. Why, I do not know. That said, you can eventually unlock Impmon, the only 'mon without a Digivolution, Lopmon and BlackAgumon from 02 and a third Agumon that gets unlocked alongside a Gabumon, both having the same Omnimon Digivolution. Considering it's a GBA cart, they did a good job of getting main characters to represent their series, although Sukamon's presence is questionable to say the least.

 A button jumps, R button is a taunt and B is used to attack. If you hold up or dash before pressing B you'll get different attacks, and you can used directions and the B button to perform different attacks while on the air. Honestly, it's not a very fun game since the gameplay is relatively limited. The real kicker is that about a minute into the match Culumon will appear on the screen. The CPU always knows where he is, although the camera is so zoomed in on your character that you won't know where he is, the thing is... touching Culumon is what makes you Digivolve for a few seconds time. Whoever gets to digivolve basically wins the match, except the CPU since it's dumb, as every single hit will make the opponent drop 4 orbs, as well as being faster, with better jumps and more range on your attacks, some even having homing properties, all the while becoming invulnerable. It does't matter how much of a lead the winning player's got, if the opponent gets to digivolve and is mildly competent, he'll close the gap and win the match.

Even final-stage 'mons look brilliant.

 The one area of the game that deserves praise is the graphics. Characters were faithfully rendered in this simplified, cartoony style, and they look fantastic. Animation is great too, and they really managed to make each character come to life.... although it would've been nice if characters could've gotten a larger repertoire of moves.

 Digimon Battle Spirit leaves a lot to be desired, but if you're a fan of the franchise it might be an interesting rental(because apparently 'rentals' are still a thing. Because apparently you can still rent GBA games. Sue me.) at least. If what you wanted was a fighting game with multi-leveled arenas, there're better games out there, like the Rave Master GBA game, so if you don't care for the Digimon franchise... then there's nothing here for you.
 4.0 out of 10

Now Playing: Samurai Shodown - Warriors Rage

 The most underrated fighter on the PS1?

As per SNK's standards, character design is top-notch.

 I buckled up and prepared for the worse. Reviews hadn't been kind, and I had played Fatal Fury Wild Ambition, I knew that SNK's early 3-D days hadn't been the best. And so I went into training mode and picked that Kuki guy. Strong slashed caused this weird pause on the game, geeze, it wasn't looking hot.

 And thus I went into Story mode and picked Jin-Emon, because I always like getting the characters I like the least out of the way first. And.... and I started having fun. The game is really good. People complained about the three tiered-life bar being a gimmick, but it's an interesting one! Landing hits feels nice, the action isn't as fast as, say Rival Schools, but it's not as slow as your average Samurai Shodown game either. It's good. It's REALLY good.

 My one complaint the is the length of the Story Mode. The fights drag on and on and on, you even have to face a few opponents twice and, sometimes, 5-man gauntlets. The story mode shouldn't have been so bland.

Review #523: Digimon Rumble Arena 2

 Super Smash Digimon.

Greymon wins every time. Every time!

 Do you remember Digimon Rumble Arena? You probably don't, it was this little 1 on 1 2-D fighting game starring Digimon on the PS1. Well, Bandai took a completely unrelated Digimon game and localized it as a sequel, which is rather fitting since it's sorta similar... even if it's more of a Smash Clone.

 As previously stated this is a Smash Bros. clone, meaning that battles include up to four different combatants, taking place on relatively large, 2-D environments, featuring stage hazards as well as a few power-ups to change the tide of battle in your favor. Although, to be fair, there aren't many different power ups in this game. There're only three different modes: Arcade, a 8-stage ladder where you'll unlock every character, stage and ruleset, VS, in which you can battle up to three other players, CPUs or a mix of both under a decent variety of rules(Basic Timed matches, KO matches, to more bizarre rules like collecting the most digi eggs or capturing Culumon for points.) and lastly a Practice mode.

Digimon on the Wild West. I guess that makes sense.

 There were a few short sights when it came to designing the game. For instance, you can't have mirror matches since no two player can play as the same Digimon, which is very lame. And for as many quirky rulests that you can play under, there's no way to play in teams, it's always a free for all in here. Your mileage may vary on the character roster, you get all 8 classic Digimon from Adventure 01, but only Veemon represents Adventure 02 and only Guilmon represents Tamers. There're a few Frontier Digimon, the series that was on TV at the time, as well as an unlockable Omnimon and Duskmon from the movie, lastly, we get Black versions of Guilmon, Agumon and Gabumon, each having at least a single different attack from their normal counterparts. Most characters get two Digievolutions, starting on their Rookie form, to their Champion form and then their Mega.. or Ultimate if they didn't have a Mega on their show. Character balance is a bit iffy, particularly since most unlockable characters stay on their Mega form, but you can tinker with handicaps to even the odds.

 First thing to take into account is that like most Smash Clones... it feels a bit cheap. Physics don't feel quite right, as if everything lacked weight. The game isn't the most beautiful thing either, featuring some rather ugly animations. Regardless, you get a normal attack button, with X, that can be couple with different directions to produce different attacks, and a special attack button, Square, that can produce three different special moves. You can also grab enemies with Circle, jump with X or block with R1. Landing hits makes enemies drop digi-eggs which, when collected, increase your digivolution gauge, fill it to the top and you can press R1 to digivolve and get an entirely different moveset. Once you get to your final Digivolution, filling the gauge is done to perform an Ultra attack. Be careful, if you lose a life you drop a digivolution stage back.

Your mileage may vary on the character roster. Hopefully you enjoyed season 01!

 It's not the best Smash clone around nor the best Digimon game out there, but if you enjoy the franchise you'll probably get a kick out of it. It's kinda sad that they decided to focus on adding quirky rulesets that nobody will ever play instead of giving us basics such as team battles or mirror matches, c'mon, everyone wants to have a Palmon VS Palmon VS Palmon VS Palmon! All in all, it's far from perfect, and it fails to get the physics just quite right, but most of the basic gameplay feels relatively well, if a bit low-budget-y.

 6.5 out of 10

Now Playing: Digimon Battle Spirit

 More Digimon!

Poor Guilmon doesn't stand a chance against Mega-level Wargreymon.

 Yeah... there's more Digimon coming up on this blog! Battle Spirit is a game that I played quite a bit on emulators back when I was younger. I don't remember liking it too much, but it was certainly memorable.

 I've already cleared the game with two 'mons, and the game is... alrightish. The character roster is great, the graphics are beautiful and the core game is decent... it's only that whoever gets the Digivolution basically wins the game. It's not even funny. There's also a single single player mode which is just ridiculous.

 Basically, it's got charm, it's got style but it's got no substance.