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The vast sea of forgotten tales long buried in the sands of time can seem insurmountable to one looking for a place to dig. Sega's Saturn is a system that has been pushed to the wayside for the entirety of its existence in the West, while it enjoyed a brief success as the great black gaming box of the East. Some of its games made their way over to the West, but the overall ratio of those that came compared to those that never made it is sad to look at, especially if you put yourself in the mindset of a Western Saturn fan who sees the press talk about new Japanese games that only had a tiny chance of being brought over. Some of the ones brought over were excellent, like Dragon Force, GunGriffon and the arcade ports that I have previously discussed. Even the weaker titles brought over were at least something to whet the appetite. With all that in mind, which category of quality does Dark Savior manage to fall into, or is it just another futile voyage along a sea of the endless sands?
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Dark Savior
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Vapor Trail is a vertically scrolling shooter originally developed by Data East for the arcade in 1989. Kuuga: Operation Code "Vapor Trail" is the game's full Japanese name, with the title being changed to Vapor Trail: Hyper Offense Formation overseas. Telenet Japan secured the rights to port the game to Sega's Mega Drive, publishing through its RiOT label for release in 1991. At the time, Telenet also had a North American subsidiary named Renovation Products, who handled the overseas Genesis release in the same year.
This original game spawned an arcade trilogy from Data East. The second game in the Kuuga series is Wolf Fang: Kuuga 2001, and the third is Skull Fang: Kuuga Gaiden. Both of these sequels were ported to the followup of the Genesis, the Saturn. Wolf Fang expanded to Sony's PlayStation, and even took a modern leap to the PlayStation Network, for a PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable release. Wolf Fang switched genre completely when it changed into a run and gun and platforming hybrid; however, Skull Fang returned to the scrolling shooter mechanics of the original.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Vapor Trail
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Sega Rally Championship is one of the best arcade racing games of the mid-1990s. Since Sega's always got something in the pipeline for the arcade, it makes sense that a sequel would eventually follow. Sega Rally Championship was also one of the few bright spots for the company during their years supporting the Saturn. It's one of the most popular and common games for the system in all regions, mainly because Sega was pushing marketing behind their arcade ports. Most of these games were already hits in the arcade, so it's no surprise that they were also hits for home console owners.
Sega Rally Championship 2 was developed and released in the arcade by Sega AM5 in 1998. A year later, gamers received a home console port for the Saturn's follow up, the Sega Dreamcast. This Dreamcast port ended up being a launch title for the European release of the system. A PC version was also released later in the year, and just after the New Year for 2000 in North America.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Sega Rally 2
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One of the biggest reasons I got into role playing games on PC is because of how open they were. Many of them are so open, that you might never get around to playing the entirety of the main story. Having these games really come of age in the third dimension was one of the best things about having a decent PC in the early-mid 2000s. Now I can't help but feel they've stagnated nearly to the point of being the opposite of fun and rewarding. I believe one of the biggest reasons for this is the industry's total shift to fully-voiced scripts, especially in the AAA development scene. This staunches writing freedom and limits player options--effects that game designers should be against! I can only hope this is a AAA trend that dies out, and seeing all these conflicting opinions could lead to Fallout 4 being the landmark title that starts the reversal of this trend.
Continue reading The De-Emphasis of Role Playing
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When was the last time you had an impulse purchase completely surprise you? Our game today is one of those for me. Fairy Fencer F is a turn-based RPG developed for Sony's Playstation 3 and Microsoft Windows. I initially had some doubts, since I saw the game was developed by many of the same companies behind the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. To be fair, I've only played the first Neptunia game, and it was a real chore. You can check out my review of that game here: http://www.rfgeneration.c...mension-Neptunia-2957.php.
Once I started playing Fairy Fencer F, I noticed that some monster designs looked different from what I saw in Neptunia, but many looked quite familiar. In addition to Idea Factory's character designer, Tsunako, they managed to add an extremely familiar name to character design for classic RPG fans, Yoshitaka Amano. I'm sure he was brought in for the male characters and monsters, since the two leading ladies look like Neptunia rejects. Meanwhile, Fang looks like Squall and Sora's love child. He's not the only one who was added to Idea Factory's staff for this project, and he's not the only one from the series we all know him for. The original Final Fantasy composer also joined the team. That's right, Nobuo Uematsu composed some songs and had his band, the Earthbound Papas, record them and a few others for the soundtrack. Most of the music was done by the existing in house musicians, but its all good to listen to and fits with the game and characters quite well.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Fairy Fencer F
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The first Virtua Cop is a true light gun classic, and you can read why in my review of it here: http://www.rfgeneration.c...views-Virtua-Cop-3041.php. It reset the standard for excellence, and brought the genre into the 3rd dimension all at the same time. It was inevitable for there to be a follow up. Virtua Cop 2 was released for the arcade in 1995 by AM2 at Sega. A port to the Sega Saturn was released the following year, with another port for PC in 1997, and even a Japan exclusive individual Dreamcast release in 2000. This version was packaged with 11 other games on the Sega Smash Pack for North American release.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Virtua Cop 2
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This may be the first game that lets me truly use the name of this review series. Persona 4 is a turn based RPG that was originally released late in the life of the Playstation 2. This game was developed and published by Atlus, and was released in the West in 2008. The game's commercial success, especially internationally, has lead to Atlus releasing an updated version with extra content on Sony's Playstation Vita, Persona 4: Golden. Spinoffs of this Shin Megami Tensei spinoff are all over the place now. Arc System Works developed the fighting games Persona 4: Arena and Persona 4 Arena: Ultimax for Japanese arcades, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. The Vita recently saw the release of the newest spinoff, a rhythm game called Persona 4: Dancing All Night.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Persona 4
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Our day of darkness grows ever closer ghosts 'n goblins. Tonight we shall gather around a campfire in front of a dark castle and fight! Darkstalkers 3 is an tournament fighting game developed and published by Capcom during the company's Golden Age of two dimensional fighters. Darkstalkers 3 was first released in the arcade in 1997, with console ports to the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation released the following year. Only the Playstation port was released outside of Japan, and it made it to Europe in 1999.
Continue reading Spooky Fights: Darkstalkers 3
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Greetings for another year of RFGeneration's Spooktober Reviews. This year, I'm doing something a little different. I'm finally taking the time to start talking about one of the best series of role playing games that mixes quite perfectly with everybody's favorite cosplay holiday. Shin Megami Tensei is a long running series that is confusing to follow from start to finish, partially because so many games remain exclusive to Japan. Our game today was among the titles of games Western fans never thought they would play outside of a fan translation patch. Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, is originally a Saturn release, and later got a port to the Playstation. In 2012, Atlus released an upgraded port for Nintendo's 3DS, and this version was released internationally the following year.
Continue reading Spooky Plays: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers
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Posted on Sep 28th 2015 at 12:00:00 PM by ( SirPsycho) Posted under SNK, arcade, neo geo, psp, ps2, wii, playstation, playstation 2, playstation portable, shooter, run and gun |
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Metal Slug is an arcade run and gun shooter developed by Nazca Corporation. The team behind Nazca likely started in the early 1990s, when they were an internal team for Irem. In 1994, Irem imploded as a result of extremely weak sales. The wholesale division for arcades became Apies, and with the development group behind Nazca going independent, all Irem had left was a team of video game developers for consoles. In 1996, Nazca released two games for SNK's Neo Geo MVS arcade unit, Neo Turf Masters and Metal Slug. After a stellar sales performance, SNK bought Nazca outright.
SNK was in a precarious position at the time they acquired Nazca, they were busy at work on a fully 3D arcade board, which ended up being the Hyper Neo Geo 64. This upgrade was meant to help SNK produce high budget and top quality 3D arcade games. They were years behind their competitors in this market, and the system did not have any early hits. Their older series, the original Neo Geo MVS, remained the standard for the company, because of later released, fast-paced and fun 2D arcade games like Metal Slug.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Metal Slug
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If you remember my Shadowrun Returns review, you might be wondering why I've skipped reviewing Dragonfall to do the latest game in the series. That's a sad tale that goes back to when Dragonfall was just an expansion tied to the original Returns. Dragonfall received a Director's Cut update where it became its own title, and the ties between the original were severed. When this happened, I lost all of my saves. Putting these files in the cloud may have prevented this, but I was unaware this would be an issue before the event happened, and don't trust the cloud in general. I've started another play, and I'm a bit over halfway to where I was, but Hong Kong came out and was fresh. It was not content I've already blasted through before, so the allure to play it was much stronger.
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Shadowrun: Hong Kong
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Posted on Aug 27th 2015 at 12:00:00 PM by ( SirPsycho) Posted under music, tri ace, tri crescendo, monolith soft, star ocean, nintendo, mario, golf, tennis, golden sun, eternal sonata, valkyrie p |
Early in tri-Crescendo's existence, the company looked to expand its portfolio beyond audio work for tri-Ace games. These plans included Sakuraba being the main composer. The company struck a deal with another young development house called Monolith Soft, and the two worked to co-develop Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean for Nintendo's Gamecube in 2003. A prequel followed, Baten Kaitos Origins, in 2006. Eternal Sonata came the following year for the Xbox 360, and also to Playstation 3 a year later. tri-Ace also developed and released an all new game, Infinite Undiscovery for Xbox 360.
Continue reading Composer Compendium: Motoi Sakuraba Part 3: All Over Japan
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As a fan of story based games, I have to say that I love a game that takes you on a ride. Catherine is the kind of game that you can sit back with, relax, and watch an incredibly compelling social dilemma unfold before the protagonist's eyes. Lately, I've been thinking about companies from Japan. So many people have been crying out about the doom and gloom of the market and how Japanese development has been lagging behind while the Western world advances. This couldn't be further from the truth, as Atlus is one of Japanese gaming's oldest surviving names, but fastest risers in the global market. Persona 3 got the name out, Persona 4 kicked the door open, and Catherine broke the door's frame. Persona 5 is currently one of the most anticipated Japanese developed games since Atlus presented its masterfully crafted initial trailer.
Catherine was released in Japan and North American in 2011, with Europe and Australia getting a release in early 2012. The plot revolves around infidelity and is one that many of us have likely heard about, if not experienced first hand. Vincent, the games protagonist, gets caught up with a blonde-haired, blue-eyed young beauty named Catherine one night after all of his friends leave him alone at the bar. From here, the player chooses whether he wants to court her for the long run or remain faithful to his girlfriend, Katherine. The girls represent the ideologies of "Law" and "Chaos." Law is doing the right thing no matter how much it might hurt; Katherine is a structured being in complete charge of her life and represents Law. On the other hand, Catherine is more of a loose cannon that Vincent can't seem to get rid of no matter what decisions you make; she represents Chaos. Which one of these ladies will you choose, or will you choose the single life?
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Catherine
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In the mid-90s, it seemed that every company that had not already done so built a 3-D engine to enter the new world of gaming. With 3-D arcade games wowing audiences worldwide, it was natural that everyone was excited to see this new dimension ported to the next generation of home consoles. Gungriffon started off as one such project at Game Arts, and began its development with the vague working title 3-D Polygon. The game released exclusively on Sega's Saturn worldwide in 1996. The game's events take place in 2015 (what???); so when you play it, make sure the right side wins this mech war!
Continue reading Psychotic Reviews: Gungriffon
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**photo courtesy of portlandmercury.com**
I have recently returned from a much needed retreat. We trekked halfway across the continent of North America to visit the fabled land of Oregon. Its good to be home, but at the same time, I wish I did not have to leave so quickly. I got the chance to visit two arcades on my trip, some nice places to game that are severely lacking where I live. Close to where I stayed is a fairly big tourist town near the beach, and there's a pizza place that has a big arcade attached to it. Sounds just like the pizza place on the corner we all grew up with doesn't it? The difference is that this one had a lot of cabinets, with a lot of newer games! The second arcade I visited was the well-known downtown Portland locale called Ground Kontrol.
Continue reading Ground Kontrol: To Funland
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