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So last night I officially completed my 10th and final game from my Summer Gaming Challenge list
1. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)
2. Vay (Sega CD)
3. Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
4. Wario Land (VB)
5. Battletoads/Double Dragon (SNES)
6. Panzer Dragoon (Sat)
7. Kung Fu (NES)
8. Gex (3DO)
9. Chrono Cross (PS)
10. FFXII (PS2)
11. Final Fantasy VIII (PS)*
It was great to get this many games crossed off my backlog, especially so many games that are well known and that I probably should have finished years ago.
My favorites were easily Vay and Sin & Punishment. Its hard to say which one I liked better since they are obviously so different its extremely hard to compare them. Vay was very simple and I just happened to be in the mood for simple while I was playing so that was very nice, but the parts I loved the most was the Working Designs humor spread throughout the game, and the major plot twist part way through. I liked the humor so much that I literally talked to every NPC in the game mulitple times to get every ounce of comedy I could squeeze out of them. Generally I dont spend a lot of time with NPC, but I felt compelled to this time around.
Sin & Punishment was just a non-stop actionfest. It looked fantastic, played flawlessly and was both fun and frantic at the same time. One of the best games I've played on the Wii and probably even on any current gen system.
The only really snoozers on the list for me were Super Mario Sunshine and Final Fantasy VIII.
The use of the jet pack nozzle on Mario took away all the platforming elements from the game almost entirely. The game had a very unique style, but felt borrowed from something else and not very "Mario" to me. The music, setting and characters all seemed very un-Mario.
FFVIII drove me nuts from the beginning. The Draw system seemed pointless, GF were not my cup of tea, levelling was pointless, the main characters was a douche from the get go and never got any better, the supporting characters were all very uninteresting. I didnt actually finish the game, but was saved at the last dungeon about 30 hours in. I feel I gave it more than a fair chance.
Both Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy XII surprised me.
I came in with very low expectations of FFXII. The story and characters kept me interested enough to keep plugging away with a battle and levelling system that I didnt particularily enjoy at the beginning. Luckily both grew on me over time and I'm glad I got to see how the story played out from start to end. Not a fantastic game, but decent.
Chrono Cross was similar. Slow start and akward battle/levelling. The story was kind of unusual, but not that intriguing at first. That changed drastically during the last several hours of the game. Not only did the story make much more sense and get a lot more interesting, but it made the plot from Chrono Trigger seem even more epic that it already was. It was pretty cool at first having so many different characters available for your party, but it became apparent fairly quickly that I'd never use 90% of them. Glad I stuck with this one to the end because the last few hours of plot were wonderful.
The rest of the list were solid entries into their respective genres. The blend of both series in Battletoads/Double Dragon was incredible. The pacing and boss fights in Panzer Dragoon were spot on. Kung Fu, while simple and short, had kind of a Super Mario Bros fun to its simplicity. Warioland was what you'd expect from a Wario platformer, it didnt blow me away, but it delivered what I thought it would. Gex was slightly less interesting than I thought it would be, but was average and worth keeping around for the novelty.
Definitely a fun way to clear a few games off my backlog and already have a few games in mind for next year!!
1. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)
2. Vay (Sega CD)
3. Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
4. Wario Land (VB)
5. Battletoads/Double Dragon (SNES)
6. Panzer Dragoon (Sat)
7. Kung Fu (NES)
8. Gex (3DO)
9. FFVIII (PS)
10. FFXII (PS2)
In the last week was I able to finish off both Gex and Battletoads/Double Dragon.
Gex was more of less forgettable. It was slow, wierd and occasionally annoying. The save system was horrendous, but being a short and fairly easy game it turned out not to be to big of a deal. I dont really know what to say about it other than "meh".
Battletoads/Double Dragon on the other hand was a wonderful experience. It was a great blend of the two series in everyway. The battletoads themed levels with DD bosses and vice versa was a fun way to mash them together. The music was really great all around, there was a nice variety of levels (even including an Asteroids style level), and a good deal of quirkyness involved in the combat. My only complaints are the last boss/level was very anticlimactic and a little pathetic and the hover bike area was ridiculously easy. It you can finish a hoverbike ride on your first attempt without losing any lives its not a very good representation of a Battletoads hoverbike stage. Overall I really enjoyed it and will definitely play it again in the future, hopefully co-op.
Now for the bad news. I'm officially giving up on FFVIII after painstakingly reaching the final dungeon. I've been playing lots but progressing so slowly that I've lost all desire to play the game any more. Its not often that I give up when I'm so incredibly close to the end, but its gonna make me very happy to move on from this game sooner rather than later. So to round out a list of 10 again I've decided to include Chrono Cross in place of FFVIII. I also played Chrono Cross a long time ago (around the same time I first played FFVIII), and didnt seem to enjoy it back then. But after spending so many hours on FFVIII I have a feeling Chrono Cross is really going to shine this time around.
I'm closing in on the halfway point of my summer challenge. 4 of 10 games have now fallen to my mighty thumbs!!
1. Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (Wii)
2. Vay (Sega CD)
3. Super Mario Sunshine (GCN)
4. Wario Land (VB)
5. Battletoads/Double Dragon (SNES)
6. Panzer Dragoon (Sat)
7. Kung Fu (NES)
8. Gex (3DO)
9. FFVIII (PS)
10. FFXII (PS2)
I dusted off my Virtual Boy which has been neglected for far to long and popped in some Wario Land. Started up my old save file to see where I was and after about 30 minutes of playtime I was finished. I cant quite remember why I stopped playing it in the past, but I was pretty close to the end. It was a little unsatifying since I had very few of the treasures and got a crappy ending. I would like to go through it again and hunt down all the treasures, but the left eye of the system was shorting out occasionally. Luckily it came back in time for the end boss. I'll unfortunately have to wait until I get a new visor or look into fixing it before I can attempt that. For the purpose of this list I'm calling it done though.
Booted up some Panzer Dragoon also this week. First episode was a little boring, second level was frusterating until I figured out you could look around your dragon a full 360. That made things completely different! Died at the end of episode 4, but I blame my poor performance on not understanding the gameplay until near the end of episode 2. Next attempt not only saw better results, but I also learned you could score extra credits by hitting a lot of targets in each level. Made it to the last boss with 1 extra credit and was soundly destroyed on my first attempt and got him to about 1/3 on my second try. 3rd try was the charm. Racked up 7 extra credits (which came in handy on both episode 5 and the last boss) this time. Still took me 3 tries to defeat the last boss and it was a real nail biter with me down to 1 or possibly 2 hits left.
After figuring out how to play I really loved the game. Each level was surprisingly varied for an on-rail shooter. Episode 4 was my favorite by far. Flying through a tight dark tunnel was a blast. Unfortunely that Episode also had the most annoying boss. Last fight was pretty epic though and made up for the lack of boss on the prior level.
Still plugging away at FFXII. Just shy of 28 hours in at the moment with my main characters all at level 42. Feels like I'm nearing a climax, but I really couldnt say for sure.
My wife and son are going to be away for the week so I'm going to use that extra time to log as many hours into Vay as I can.
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