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3D Thunder Blade (3DS): COMPLETED!

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It was never the best of Sega’s arcade games. Impressive as it was, with the hydraulic cabinet and fancy (at the time) scaling sprites, I never really found it very much fun. I bought the Mega Drive “Super” version, which had neither of those selling points and it was dire. I wasn’t expecting much from the 3D update.

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And I was right. It’s pretty poor. The 3D works well, and it has all the nice touches other games in the 3D Classics series have, like tilting display and “cabinet noises”, but it’s short, easy, and boring.

Much easier than Super Thunder Blade was, in fact. Not sure why that might be, but I’m sure that was a lot longer. I certainly never completed it, anyway. I don’t think I’ll be playing this again – the into the screen levels are fun but very short, and the vertically scrolling bits aren’t a patch on other shoot ’em ups.

It’s no Afterburner.

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The post 3D Thunder Blade (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

3D Fantasy Zone (3DS): COMPLETED!

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No, not 3D Fantasy Zone for the 3DS, 3D Fantasy Zone. For the 3DS. This one is one of the ten games on the Sega 3D Classics Compilation, just like the other one is, but this one is a 3D port of the Master System version of Fantasy Zone, whereas the other was the arcade version.

Still with me?

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Thankfully, the Master System version was much, much easier and instead of taking eight hours to complete, it took just one. It’s almost the same as the arcade version, only with a couple of boss changes and seemingly a lot more money to collect – which made stocking up on lives and heavy bombs simple to do.

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All of the bosses seemed easier as well, especially the final one which took me $hlmun tries before, but just two here. It’s much slower, I think, so easier to avoid and attack.

Now to finish the other nine games! Even though I have half of them already.

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The post 3D Fantasy Zone (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Gargoyle’s Quest (3DS): COMPLETED!

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Along with some other games (like Year Walk), Gargoyle’s Quest was cheap on the eShop. I don’t know what prompted me to buy it, but this Game Boy classic has always interested me, at least a little due to the plot.

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Well, what I knew of the plot – Firebrand, the bad guy gargoyle from Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins, is the protagonist in this part RPG, part platformer set in the demon realm Firebrand comes from. You quest is to defeat the even-more-evil-than-every-other-demon, the King Breager who is going to destroy Firebrand’s world.

How this plays out is surprisingly reminiscent of Zelda II on the NES, with overland travel – where random battles take the form of very short platforming sections – villages to visit, and “dungeons” which are side-scrolling platforming bits of substantial length. Firebrand upgrades his abilities to enable him to hover for longer, jump higher, or allow him to temporarily cling to spiked walls.

Unlike Zelda II, though, it’s actually possible to complete Gargoyle’s Quest, as I proved today when I did so. It is a bit janky (with lots of slowdown in sections), a couple of areas are incredibly frustrating (timing drops past spikes, in particular) and bosses that don’t get harder (the end boss is the easiest in the entire game). It also suffers from terrible dialogue, complete with spelling mistakes.

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All that said, it’s a fun little title that was probably excellent when it was released, but hasn’t really aged well. I’m glad I played it though.

The post Gargoyle’s Quest (3DS): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.

Ranma 1/2 (SNES): COMPLETED!

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Another retro game chosen pretty much at random today, but Ranma 1/2 is leagues ahead of Running Battle, despite not being all that fantastic itself.

It’s a one-on-one fighting game, and clearly doesn’t have the depth of anything like Street Fighter II, or even Fatal Fury. You’ve four buttons, light and heavy attacks, jump, and block. Pressing both attack buttons together performs a special move, which for Ranma himself (who I played as) is some sort of whirlwind thing which rarely did anything useful.

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Since I know a little of the original Ranma 1/2 story, having characters I knew elevated it a bit higher than other similar games from the same era. Each foe required different tactics to beat as well, which made it more interesting but looking at it now it seems this was to replace proper reactive AI. I can see it being a lot more fun in two player mode.

In single player though, it was far too easy (I didn’t lose a single round) and so over too quickly. A lack of moves is a minus as well, although since I had no instructions it’s possible there were a load I just didn’t figure out, despite trying Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat style control acrobatics.

Click to view slideshow.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the game is that it came out in the west, as it’s just about the most Japanese thing ever. Mind you, Goeman did too, so who knows.

The post Ranma 1/2 (SNES): COMPLETED! appeared first on deKay's Gaming Diary.