Necro's game clears and mindless musings

[Necromancer]

It sure makes life easier, allowing you to hack off half his life before it runs out, but it's not entirely necessary.  I used the ring (and the ring power potion for a little refill) and beat him with half my life remaining, and I still had the herb and necklace thingy in reserve.

[Necromancer]

Clear #47 - Ys IV



More Falcom awesomeness.  I played through the fully translated version, which is very well done and more professional than many 'real' games from back in the day (no cheesy jokes or horribad voice acting).

The Good: sweet cinemas and lovely character portraits; nicely tweaked visuals that feel very much like those in Ys I & II but with more detail and colors; good tunes; revisiting friends and locales from the first game; well varied cast of baddies and bosses to beat down; and the developers room at the end, which really shows how much they cared about the game.

The Bad: the jazzy tunes aren't really bad, but they're not as rockin' as the those in the last two outings; I don't know if it's from recording too loud, the limits of adpcm, or what, but some of the voice work is clipped; and the fire floor trap is for the birds (c'mon, Dogi, keep the f*ck up!).

The Ugly: NA

[Necromancer]

Tangential Clear #47a - Ys IV: Mask of the Sun



It wasn't horrible, but it pales in comparison to the Dawn of Ys.  The meh tunes, lack of cut scenes and character portraits, and the smaller, less varied, and often drab environments can be somewhat excused by the cart size limitations, but there's no good reason for the gimped battle system.  It's the familiar bump attack again, but this time a straight on collision means the enemy will take little to no damage and poor Adol gets his ass kicked; even worse is that the enemies are very good at adjusting their path to line up perfectly, and the touchy control make it difficult to nudge Adol off center at the last minute making you miss entirely.

[seieienbu]

Like, yeah, it's not on CD and the music in Dawn of Ys is clearly superior to Mask of the Sun.  That being said, I always thought it was a pretty good soundtrack for a SNES game.  I thought that about Ys 3 and went back to give it a listen and then realized that I'd been wrong.  Afterward, I listened to Ys 4 from SNES and thought "Well, at least my memory was tricking me about this one." 

Pretty good.

[Necromancer]

Its music isn't bad (way better than that in Ys III), it's just that it's not all that great even when compared to just SNES tunes.  Ys should be second to no one!


Clear #48 - Dynastic Hero



'Tis a fun action rpg platformer (or however you want to classify it), it's just too bad that the US version is so pricey.

The Good: jaunty tunes, colorful backgrounds, nice variety of enemies and big bosses, little helper friends, and it's cuter than a bug's ear (bad pun intended).

The Bad: the title screen song is awfully cheesy, the backgrounds are too flat and would benefit greatly from some simple line scrolls, the little helpers wander off and have to be retrieved every time you stay at an inn, and it's sometimes hard to figure out where you're supposed to be going.

The Ugly: it's probably not a big deal if you're more coordinated than me, but there's a platform jumping room near the end that makes me want to punch a dolphin.

[Necromancer]

Clear #49 - Magical Chase



Another dang good but lamentably overpriced game.

The Good: bouncy tunes, colorful backgrounds and enemies, lots of neat graphical tricks not seen in most games, a good variety of weapons to try, and it's cute as hell.

The Bad: it's rather short, and skilled shewty players will find it too easy.

The Ugly: the price!!!

[Necromancer]

Clear #50 - Travel Eple



Here's a surprisingly fun one.  Add it to the rotation for something somewhat different between bouts of Bomberman and Battle Lode Runner.

The Good:  it's super cute, there's lots and lots of short but humorous (if basic) cut scenes, it saves your progress as you play so you don't have to finish it in one go, and there's a good variety of enemies, environments, and bosses.  And did I say it's cute?  It's almost too cute.

The Bad (or maybe The Meh):  the tunes are rather forgettable, and the variety of different maps you play on is nice but none of 'em are particularly well detailed or pretty.

The Ugly: NA

[turboswimbz]

[esteban]

I don't think I ever beat Travel Epule. Hmmm....do I still have it? Did I give it away?

We shall see...

[Necromancer]

Play it, este.  PLAY IT!

Nobody can say no to such cute lil penguins.

[Necromancer]

Clear #51 - Nemurenu Yoru No Chiisana Ohanashi


(  Please excuse the unfortunate cursor placement.  I swear it wasn't intentional.  )

This super cute point-n-click adventure demonstrates just how well the genre works on the Turbob; it's too bad we didn't get more.  I highly recommend it to anyone that likes cute lil animals and wants to get some use out of their mouse.

The Good: nicely drawn art, very well animated scenes, great tunes, often funny sound effects (you're dead inside if you don't get a chuckle out of the snail), mouse support, minimal and unobtrusive load times, and plentiful humorous bits.

The Bad: there's not much challenge, but I can't complain much, seeing as it's meant for kids.

The Ugly: the aforementioned mouse support is much quicker and more responsive at moving the cursor around, but it makes the car mini-game nigh unplayable.

[esteban]

Clear #51 - Nemurenu Yoru No Chiisana Ohanashi

This super cute point-n-click adventure demonstrates just how well the genre works on the Turbob; it's too bad we didn't get more.  I highly recommend it to anyone that likes cute lil animals and wants to get some use out of their mouse.

The Good: nicely drawn art, very well animated scenes, great tunes, often funny sound effects (you're dead inside if you don't get a chuckle out of the snail), mouse support, minimal and unobtrusive load times, and plentiful humorous bits.

The Bad: there's not much challenge, but I can't complain much, seeing as it's meant for kids.

The Ugly: the aforementioned mouse support is much quicker and more responsive at moving the cursor around, but it makes the car mini-game nigh unplayable.

The cursor was the first thing I noticed. You damn pervert.

Folks who are curious can see a Japanese advert here (featuring Yuko Hara):



What is Nemurenu...?

I'll have to ask: Did you compare Mouse vs. No Mouse? Can you? Does mouse help? Did you need a flat surface (e.g. book) to use the mouse on? TELL ME MORE (the car mini-game...is it better with a controller, or does it suck with both mouse and pad, just less so with pad).

MORE IMPORTANT: Explain all the mini-games you encountered/remember. I'm going to use your info to improve that page I linked to, since I only played a few minutes of Nemurenu...

[Necromancer]

The mouse logo is just too cute. 

I started playing with a normal controller, then switched maybe a third the way through.  It's not at all hard to play with a normal controller, but the mouse is much quicker at moving the cursor around, and you do need a flat surface, just like you would for any mechanical (rubber ball) computer mouse.  As for the mini-games, there's one where you tap I to blow a whistle to direct the accident prone gray cat through some calisthenics, but it didn't seem to have any rules (just keep tapping 'til it's over); there's one where you had to tap I to keep a meter half filled to balance on a floating log; and there's the driving one that you can see in the ad.  You're always moving and must press the d-pad to change directions, which is pretty difficult to time when you're rolling a mouse; the first time I played with a normal controller and had no trouble beating all three stages, but I couldn't even beat the first stage when I went back and tried with the mouse.

P.S. - dig the bazzy table and stools. 

[esteban]

The mouse logo is just too cute. 

I started playing with a normal controller, then switched maybe a third the way through.  It's not at all hard to play with a normal controller, but the mouse is much quicker at moving the cursor around, and you do need a flat surface, just like you would for any mechanical (rubber ball) computer mouse.  As for the mini-games, there's one where you tap I to blow a whistle to direct the accident prone gray cat through some calisthenics, but it didn't seem to have any rules (just keep tapping 'til it's over); there's one where you had to tap I to keep a meter half filled to balance on a floating log; and there's the driving one that you can see in the ad.  You're always moving and must press the d-pad to change directions, which is pretty difficult to time when you're rolling a mouse; the first time I played with a normal controller and had no trouble beating all three stages, but I couldn't even beat the first stage when I went back and tried with the mouse.

P.S. - dig the bazzy table and stools. 

BAZZY STOOLS + TABLE = complete bazzy decor

Thanks for the additional info!

If you can remember anything else to add, however, trivial, please post more

[Mathius]

Clear #42 - 3x3 Eyes



This clear is sponsored by Bernie. 

'Tis an interesting comic with violent, gory action and some of the best looking cut scenes (when using the Arcade Card).  If you're a real baller, pay a bit more and get the version with the VHS pack in.... or just watch the short video on youtube.

The Good: fancy, animated intro and short cut scenes sprinkled throughout; colorful, detailed, and often changing backgrounds; tons of voice dialogue, which is presumably a good thing when you comprehend what they're saying; handy save file utility that lets you view (and delete) saved games and how much room each uses; and it's not entirely linear for better replayability.

The Bad: lengthy load at boot to fill the Arcade Card, which is understandable and expected, but there are other areas where it annoyingly loads every few seconds; mostly elevator music bgm, though the redbook versions played in the intro and credits are nice; as nice as the backgrounds look, they're sadly mostly static; and the maze portion looks good but there's not much to do.

The Ugly: Annoying pounding sound in intro animation and once again towards the end.  WTF is that shit?  It can't be intentional, but how did they miss it during play testing?!?

Necro quote here (no pun intended)

Does anyone know what the menus in this game translate to in English?