Game Opinion Summaries: Super Nintendo (SNES)

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

Atmosphere how so? Just because you can play as DK?

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No, atmosphere as in the music and level environments. As a little kid I liked the setting of the game and I wanted to go there. It seemed like a place DK would live. I like the outdoors and it puts me in the mood to go outside. The music was really fitting to what you were looking at. The other two games got away from that. The main reason I don't like the second game is I find the whole environment unappealing. It's too bleak and unpleasant. The third game seems to take place in Canada. It also helps that the first game has the most likable characters. I don't like the girl and I hate the baby.

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Originally Posted by zetastrike

No, atmosphere as in the music and level environments. As a little kid I liked the setting of the game and I wanted to go there. It seemed like a place DK would live. I like the outdoors and it puts me in the mood to go outside. The music was really fitting to what you were looking at. The other two games got away from that. The main reason I don't like the second game is I find the whole environment unappealing. It's too bleak and unpleasant. The third game seems to take place in Canada. It also helps that the first game has the most likable characters. I don't like the girl and I hate the baby.

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Totally agree, though I still somewhat enjoy the 2nd game, but the lack of Donkey Kong in his own titled games is really disappointing.
I remember hoping as a kid that there was some special way to unlock Donkey Kong in #2, but other then the cameo at the end he never showed up.
And yeah #3 was really strange to look at, you're right about the Canada thing, it certainly wasn't DKC Jungle land.

I do recall DKC2 having some Jungle stages at one point, but I never really played it that much, I remember something about a secret map if you collected all the special coins.

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Originally Posted by KitsuneNight

my god is this an forum post or an essay ?

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Why don't you take some lessons about capitalization, punctuation and text formatting prior to come here and thrash the OP?
Like it or not, the guy puts some serious efforts in his threads and posts; can't say the same about your piss poor "stuff".



@ABF
Arkanoid: Doh It Again
You may want to have a look in some PS1 titles, like Blockids, Arkanoid Returns, Puchi Carat and Tempest X3. Your Performance's Dual Impact controller is probably compatible with most of them, if not all (despite any cover or manual info, believe me).


Doom
I'm pretty sure you never played PS1's Doom, considering some comments you made. Not all its levels are Jaguar ports, the game has proper lighting (actually, superior to the PC version IIRC), superb sfx, very good framerate for the most part, enemies which were lacking on the Jaguar and 32X versions, etc...
SNES version isn't nowhere as good as you say IMO.


Newmann Haas' Indy Car
Wrong title, I think... Feels like you're talking about Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing, which is an extremely overrated game. People compare it to itself and say it's better than everything else. Some earlier games had much better controls and realism. The game looks and sounds great when compared to poor stuff like Genesis version of Super Monaco GP (or its greedy mediocre sequel), but that's about it.


Phantom 2040
Overlooked but very good game. Good call!


Raiden Trad
Again, I'm pretty sure you never played the arcade game, neither any other console ports for more than 5 minutes.
Raiden Trad on the SNES is not Raiden actually. It was so butchered and the AI is so dumbed down that you're deadly wrong if you think it feels like Raiden at all. Also, you totally dismissed the Jaguar version, which is far better than the SNES one and also has the 2P mode. The soft spot of the Jag version is the music, it sounds so generic...
Common sense in any serious talking about this game is that SNES version is actually worse than PS1, Jaguar, Genesis, PCE and PCE CD versions, mind you. To not talk about the FM Towns (Marty compatible) version.


Rock 'n Roll Racing
Countless hours of fun, SNES at its best IMO.

Street Racer
SNES version is better than the 32-bit ones IMO. There's something really lacking in terms of atmosphere in those ones...

Whizz
There's also a CD32 version (very very rare and mostly the Amiga 1200 version on a CD).
PS1 and Saturn versions do have a password system and improved graphics (PS1 has the edge here). The game doesn't seem to have been properly optimized for 60 Hz, so I would stay with the PS1 European version.
Isometric games usually hurt controls and this one is no exception (in comparison, Sonic 3D Blast controls much better IMO, since there are no diagonal movement in Whizz; which makes everything even harder).
I like the art style of this game, I need to try to beat it some day.

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Originally Posted by Barone

Doom
I'm pretty sure you never played PS1's Doom, considering some comments you made. Not all its levels are Jaguar ports, the game has proper lighting (actually, superior to the PC version IIRC), superb sfx, very good framerate for the most part, enemies which were lacking on the Jaguar and 32X versions, etc...
SNES version isn't nowhere as good as you say IMO.

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DOOM on the Playstation is bad-ass. It has excellent frame-rates, superior lighting effects and sounds pretty cool when you hook it up to a Pro-Logic receiver.

Apparently asking if a post is an essay is "thrashing the op".

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

I start each game's listing with mentions of how many players the game supports, whether it supports saving (password or battery), and whether it supports any special controllers (mouse, Super Scope lightgun). Games are SNES exclusive unless noted (at the end of the review). I wrote something for every game, whether or not I've played it much. The following games are games I've barely played, so the below summary should not be considered to be anything other than very early impressions: FIFA '97, HAL's Hole in One Golf, Populous, NHL '96, Utopia: The Creation of a Nation. I also decided to italicize game names for titles I've finished in some way -- that is to say, gotten to the end and presumably seen the credits. I know that this is unfair, because a fighting game can be "finished" in half an hour while RPGs can take dozens of hours, but I'm going to do it anyway.

Reviews...

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http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/4/..._Text_Wall.gif

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Originally Posted by Barone

Arkanoid: Doh It Again
You may want to have a look in some PS1 titles, like Blockids, Arkanoid Returns, Puchi Carat and Tempest X3. Your Performance's Dual Impact controller is probably compatible with most of them, if not all (despite any cover or manual info, believe me).

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I love Tempest X3 and PuchiCarat. Didn't I review Tempest X3 in my PS1 game reviews thread? I posted that thread here, didn't I? It's probably one of my favorite PS1 games.

But also, so some PS1 games support the wheel as a paddle? Well, it does work that way in that Atari Anniversary collection I have, so it's not too surprising that some other game support that as well. It'd be great to know which ones do. :)

As for PuchiCarat, I have the US arcade version in Taito Legends 2. Great game! Sadly the entire story was cut out of the game, which hurts it a lot, but it's a really fun game. I'd really love to have that European PS1 version sometime, it's got the whole story in it... but it probably requires a PAL television, wouldn't it. :( And the Japanese version wouldn't be in English. Easier to play would be the GBC version (also Japan/Europe only). Not as good graphics, but the text seems to be all there.

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Doom
I'm pretty sure you never played PS1's Doom, considering some comments you made. Not all its levels are Jaguar ports, the game has proper lighting (actually, superior to the PC version IIRC), superb sfx, very good framerate for the most part, enemies which were lacking on the Jaguar and 32X versions, etc...
SNES version isn't nowhere as good as you say IMO.

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From what I've read, the PS1 version uses the Jaguar level maps through the original three episodes of Doom. It does use more PC-like maps for the new content on that disc, including the fourth episode, etc.,. but the original three are the Jaguar versions of stages... but no, I don't have the PS1 version. It does sound like one of the better versions though.

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Newmann Haas' Indy Car
Wrong title, I think... Feels like you're talking about Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing, which is an extremely overrated game. People compare it to itself and say it's better than everything else. Some earlier games had much better controls and realism. The game looks and sounds great when compared to poor stuff like Genesis version of Super Monaco GP (or its greedy mediocre sequel), but that's about it.

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No, I'm talking about Newman-Haas IndyCar Racing featuring Nigel Mansell, which is the sequel to Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing. There are two games in the series. They are quite similar in quality, though, from what I've seen... which doesn't say much about either one.

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Phantom 2040
Overlooked but very good game. Good call!

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It is an interesting game, yeah. I should watch the movie sometime.

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Raiden Trad
Again, I'm pretty sure you never played the arcade game, neither any other console ports for more than 5 minutes.
Raiden Trad on the SNES is not Raiden actually. It was so butchered and the AI is so dumbed down that you're deadly wrong if you think it feels like Raiden at all. Also, you totally dismissed the Jaguar version, which is far better than the SNES one and also has the 2P mode. The soft spot of the Jag version is the music, it sounds so generic...
Common sense in any serious talking about this game is that SNES version is actually worse than PS1, Jaguar, Genesis, PCE and PCE CD versions, mind you. To not talk about the FM Towns (Marty compatible) version.

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I haven't played the arcade version, but I have played Raiden Project for the Playstation, and a bit of the TG16 version as well. The SNES version is certainly a version of the same game. Sure it has a few changes, but so do the other 4th gen ports -- the other fourth gen versions are all one player only, while the SNES has two player simultaneous, first. Win for the SNES there. Also, the Lynx version is ridiculously hard, the Turbografx version has no second background layer (so the city is just water and such), etc. Versus next-gen versions like the PS1 of course the SNES doesn't hold up, but still, it's a very fun game that I definitely like. And as I said, it's definitely better than Raiden III for the PS2... that game's just boring.

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Rock 'n Roll Racing
Countless hours of fun, SNES at its best IMO.

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Eh, I played it some, but I didn't stick with it... I'm sure I'll play it again sometime, but my favorite console-first game from Blizzard is definitely The Lost Vikings. I mean, yeah, Rock n Roll Racing is a good game, but it didn't grab me and keep me coming back.

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Street Racer
SNES version is better than the 32-bit ones IMO. There's something really lacking in terms of atmosphere in those ones...

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Yeah, I agree. Though the Saturn version does look quite a bit better than the US PS1 release.

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Whizz
There's also a CD32 version (very very rare and mostly the Amiga 1200 version on a CD).
PS1 and Saturn versions do have a password system and improved graphics (PS1 has the edge here). The game doesn't seem to have been properly optimized for 60 Hz, so I would stay with the PS1 European version.
Isometric games usually hurt controls and this one is no exception (in comparison, Sonic 3D Blast controls much better IMO, since there are no diagonal movement in Whizz; which makes everything even harder).
I like the art style of this game, I need to try to beat it some day.

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I want to import the PS1 or Saturn version sometime so that I can play a version with saving... the game's decent, but without saving and with limited continues, it's too hard to be worth playing. I'd need to dedicate weeks to memorizing everything, I think, to get through the SNES version, and no way am I doing that.

Also, yeah, I agree that Sonic 3D Blast controls better. It's also more fun to play. But I do like that game.

Final Fight 2 doesn't have more moves then Final Fight 1. In fact the weapons in FF2 are terrible and in FF1 they are actually useful. The sequel actually has less variety of attacks if you take into account it's weapons being pure useless crap.

Final Fight 3 definitely the best of the Snes trio. I think Dean and Lucia are lame characters. It would have been nice to see Cody with a bunch of new attacks because FF3 went all out with the move selection.

Totally agree with your views about TMNT III being the best Turtles beat em up.

ActRaiser is one of my favorite SNES games. My only gripe about it is that it is so incredibly easy. The sim segments are nice for zoning out and relaxing in my opinion, I enjoy them just like a good game of Populous. The Action scenes are straight forward and probably inferior to Legendary Axe overall. I think the music is probably the best the SNES ever put out thanks to Yuzo Koshiro and his custom (commissioned) engine.

I remember a Nintendo fanboy friend of mine in grade school comparing a waterfall in one of the cave levels to that of Revenge of Shinobi's second level. He thought Act Raiser's waterfall was the best video game waterfall ever and Revenge of Shinobi was just sort of okay.

I'm going to have to look up Carrier Aces, I don't think I have seen it mentioned before. I wasn't aware of any 3D flight combat games on the SNES, meaning polygonal 3D like the Genesis flight sims. I've always wanted one to compare, along with one for the PCE/TG16.

I was really excited about The Combatribes and picked it up as soon as I picked up my SNES. Unfortunately it doesn't hold a candle to the Arcade game. That is mostly due to typical three enemy limit of SNES games and tons of other lacking animations and object interaction.

Cybernator, Assault Suits Valkyn, and Assault Suits Leynos 2 on Saturn both fail to capture my attention like Target Earth does. Both later games are superior in every way technically, but they are just missing something in the action department. It's not like they are more difficult either, most people can't beat Target Earth without invincibility. I love the art design of Cybernator, but can't remember any of the music or levels. They just don't stand out to me. One day I hope to warm up to it and Assault Suits Leynos 2.

I picked up D-Force for being a "Mode 7" early SNES game that actually uses the effect in game. I hoped there would be something interesting about the effect or the game itself. I don't hate it, I just don't want to play it. D-Force isn't the only vertically scrolling shooter I don't want to play though, 90% of the most popular ones bore me as well.

Doom SFX-2 is its own game, its own engine, it is not a port of the PC game. SNES fans need to realize that it is the ugliest, slowest, worst playing version of Doom on any game console and the music really isn't good either. The only positive points for Doom SFX-2 is the adaptations of textures missing from the other console ports and the presence of more of Doom PC's levels. I played all the way through it back in the day just to see the extra bits and pieces that the 32X game was lacking. It is about as playable as Zero Tolerance and Zero Tolerance might be a better game.

Faceball is good fun on any platform. Hard to ignore, I like it on the PCE as well. It's too bad more people didn't give T-Mek on 32X the same chance they gave Faceball 2000, they are practically the same game.

F-Zero I have always wanted to like but just couldn't find much substance to it. When the SNES launched and all of my Nintendo fan friends were ogling over it I ended up walking home to get my Genesis and Super Monaco GP just to see how they'd react. They spent the rest of the night playing Super Monaco GP and one buddy and I screwed around with Super Mario World alone in another room. That's just an anecdote, but I really don't think F-Zero is very good at all. If it was a proper Stun Runner clone things would be much different.

Gradius III is simply too slow to be called a space shooter. I honestly cannot believe that any Gradius fan can stand it. Put simply, Gradius III is an embarrassment even for the SNES.

Hal's Hole in One Golf is a decent Golf game. I enjoy it about as much as any other Golf game I've played from the time. Hyper Zone is probably the most simplistic and boring rail shooter I have ever played. The narrow play field doesn't help and Mode 7 does nothing for it whatsoever.

Joe & Mac was a game I really was wanting to be good on the SNES, but it had to be close to the Arcade. Unfortunately that didn't happen. I suppose it gets points for being one of the few two player SNES games, but the level cuts and generic levels compared to the Arcade and Genesis versions just doesn't do it any favors.

Killer Instinct wasn't even a good fighting game in the Arcades, the SNES game is low res garbled nonsense. I have no idea why anybody plays this.

Knights of the Round is another disappointing SNES beat-em up for me. Not much in the way of moves, unmemorable muffled music and very little to speak of in general. The Arcade game isn't much better in my opinion.

I recall Magic Sword being touted as the SNES' first "perfect" Arcade port by magazines back in the day. As a result I picked it up at one point and tried to get into it. The slowdown, single layer background and cheap shots failed to impress me enough to want to keep progressing. I suppose it is better than Cadash on Genesis if I was going to compare it to something. I wish the hits felt more solid and the enemy attacks were more avoidable.

Pilotwings is good fun, I have always enjoyed it. One of my first cell phones had a perfect clone of it built in and I played it whenever I was stranded somewhere. Rumor is that the DSP in Pilotwings was intended to be built into the SNES originally but was stripped at the proverbial last minute. I wonder how other Mode 7 games would have turned out if that DSP was standard.

SNES Populous is the best US console version simply because it has more options, actual music (Genesis version has a constant heartbeat/drum and that's it). Only the PCE CD version can rival it. Great game. My only gripe is the resolution and framerate while trying to move around the map quickly. The Genesis and PCE-CD versions are better at both.

I own Road Runner complete and always wanted to give it a real shot but never did. I have most frequently seen it compared to a SNES version of Sonic. SNES fans really shouldn't do that from what I have seen of the game. Two backgrounds only and not much going on hardly rivals the tech demo levels of the Sonic games.

Rock 'n Roll Racing is great no doubt about that. The comparison to RC Pro-Am is very apt and I'd say both games have the same level of quality and "fun". I picked up the Genesis version on rental as soon as it came out and was surprised that the rock tunes just didn't translate well and I think it actually had more slowdown than the SNES game. I expected to at least not have any slowdown.

Star Fox is a very good rail shooter and the wow factor of the polygon graphics at the time can't be understated. I didn't notice the framerate issues until well into the 3D era. The soundtrack makes the game in my opinion though. If the original had the N64 version's soundtrack I wouldn't like the game nearly as much.

Stunt Race FX is interesting mainly because Argonaught rocked and it has interesting physics. But it is slow as hell and hardly any competition for Virtua Racing SVP. That doesn't really matter to me though, I enjoy it for the oddity that it is and I am convinced that the way the trucks control had some influence on Red Dog for the Dreamcast.

Sunset Riders is a great game and much closer to the Arcade than the much smaller rom sized Genesis game for sure. A more apt comparison would be with Rolling Thunder 2 cross platform. Still, Sunset Riders is one of the few true Action games with no severe slowdown or cuts from the Arcade version to make the game disappointing. The censorship is notable though.

I'm going to quit here for tonight, the "Super" games will take most of a day to write even a few comments about.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

I love Tempest X3 and PuchiCarat. Didn't I review Tempest X3 in my PS1 game reviews thread? I posted that thread here, didn't I? It's probably one of my favorite PS1 games.

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Cool stuff, I'll have a look on that.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

But also, so some PS1 games support the wheel as a paddle?

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Yes, but let me explain it a bit...
The volume controller
http://www.genkivideogames.com/image...00015front.jpg
and the Puchi Carat paddle controller (there's a second player version which has button in blue and case in green)
http://www.consolemad.co.uk//compone...035f71a3bd.jpg
are *exactly* the same internally (I have 2 x Namco Volume controllers and both 1P and 2P versions of the Puchi Carat one), so if you find a JP game with the SLPH-00015 compatibility label on the back cover, you can use either to play without any problem.


But, what the heck is the volume controller?
AFAIK, it is 100% inspired on the NES/Famicom Arkanoid paddle controller:
http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/...5-arkanoid.jpg

Thing is that Namco reused the neGcon protocol for it, but stripped down (since it only has two digital buttons (A and B on the neGcon) and the analog mechanism is the equivalent to the negCon twist). So, even if a game has only the SLPH-00015 compatibility label on the back cover you can use the neGcon (or any neGcon-compatible controller) to play it.
Also, some (very few) supposed neGcon-only games can be played using the volume controllers (it's hard to find games which use just A and B; some people navigate through menus with the neGcon or a regular pad and then swap controllers on the fly to be able to use the volume/neGcon one with some games; yeah, it's crazy, but some people claim it's possible to play Tempest X3 that way, I still didn't check it though...).

I'll answer the other parts later...

Sheath - Carrier Aces isn't polygonal, it's sprite-based. I said that it was 3d as in it's in 3d space, not as in that it uses polygons. The planes and carriers are sprites. Maybe I should be more clear in the review.

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Originally Posted by A Black Falcon

As for PuchiCarat, I have the US arcade version in Taito Legends 2. Great game! Sadly the entire story was cut out of the game, which hurts it a lot, but it's a really fun game. I'd really love to have that European PS1 version sometime, it's got the whole story in it... but it probably requires a PAL television, wouldn't it. :( And the Japanese version wouldn't be in English. Easier to play would be the GBC version (also Japan/Europe only). Not as good graphics, but the text seems to be all there.

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Actually half the endings are cut out of every characters ending in the PAL PS1 version, the Japanese version while you must know Japanese to read them, has the endings in their entirety. My way of playing the Japanese version with the endings intact is via Taito Memories on PS2.

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Originally Posted by Barone

Why don't you take some lessons about capitalization, punctuation and text formatting prior to come here and thrash the OP?
Like it or not, the guy puts some serious efforts in his threads and posts; can't say the same about your piss poor "stuff".

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sooo care to tell me where exactly i thrashed the op ?
im keen to know keen as mustard in fact

unless you find the idea of the question if its an essay or a forum post so offensive you feel the need to insult me

@OP:

'A' for effort.

But I must admit, I only read 1.2% of your post.

I thought you Robots could read an entire book in less than 5 seconds :p
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbkbU32X5dI