Ostatnie recenzje napisane przez użytkownika The Scaletipper

ABSOLUTE PEAK

(Note: The above review applies to Shadow Generations. Sonic Generations is a turd and nobody should play it.)

I have to leave a positive review already cuz this game is metal as hell

- Is a shmup
- Title is a Celtic Frost reference
- You have a sword named Bathory(n) who is also your brother?
- There's a shotgun. In a shmup. And it's meaty as hell. Its name, I ♥♥♥♥ you not, is Hellhammer
- The soundtrack is metal and packed with meaty riffs. Stylistically I can't put my finger on it, but 90s-ish, pretty heavy doomy guitars (it is not doom metal) with some almost breakdown-like licks. Like if groove metal had balls, and a church on the album cover?
- The visual presentation is utterly incredible. The game looks gorgeous, and not in the quaint indie game sort of way. The textures are quite pixellated so you might think it's going for that sort of thing ("Hey, you guys remember playing the PS1 on your flatscreen razor-sharp 1440p monitor right? Pixels! Nostalgia!"), but in motion (and from the gameplay camera perspective) it looks lush. Particle and lighting effects along with the general use of colour makes the whole presentation pop.
- To actually talk about the gameplay for a bit, this doesn't really play like a traditional shmup (and of course it's nothing like a danmaku). You move faster than most of the projectiles and you're able to destroy most of them too. It's obviously horizontal, and there's a turning mechanic you can set to manual or auto (think Deathsmiles or G-Darius). You take two hits as standard, your hitbox is large-ish and there's lots of homing bullets, so the moment-to-moment gameplay revolves (even more than usual) around managing the screen space and killing as much as you can to avoid yourself getting caught out. And there's no stocks, bombs or credits; If you die, you go back to the latest checkpoint and try again. There's a weapon upgrade/loadout system that can be accessed at said checkpoints. So it's structured much like any old platformer or action game. You won't be seeing people 1CC this one I imagine! It's not that sort of game. Just to make you aware.

Your movement is mostly 1:1 and instantaneous but there seems to be a slight recoil on sword hits which is weird. There's no death-collision with walls or floors which makes sense for a mech, but can also lead to more non-1:1 movement situations. Something else to mention is that the actual screen has quite a substantial range of movement beyond its general auto scrolling. This can lead to neat moments like hidden secrets or rooms, but the problem arises with the fact that it sometimes only reacts substantially to your movement when you're quite close to the edge. And because off-screen enemies are nonetheless active, this can lead to you scrolling the screen straight into a projectile that hits you without much warning. Only other thing I can think to mention is that your standard sword has a very short range and low attack speed, so you have to be careful with timing it to destroy projectiles defensively. It's quite possible to mentally enter "defensive mode" for a second, start swinging your sword, and just take two hits anyway. Possibly a skill issue.

That's not a major issue really, and the fact remains that the game is phenomenally presented, immersive and overall extremely entertaining so far. The weapons are satisfying and kinetic, the mechanics have nice interplay and the structure makes it very forgiving without compromising on actual difficulty. It avoids most if not all the trappings of the dreaded Euroshmup and in many ways transcends the genre entirely. I'd recommend this game to a fair chunk of people.

The CPS3 audio on 3rd Strike is unlistenably poor. It sounds like I'm listening through a band pass filter, a styrofoam cup and a piece of string. Even if the original really was this bad (I find that hard to believe), why couldn't the vastly superior CD-quality audio from literally every home port have been implemented??? The visual filters on offer aren't great either; the "TV" filter isn't soft enough and the "Arcade" filter is missing scanlines and looks terrible. Third Strike is clearly the main selling point of the collection and it's presented miserably. There's also one extra frame of lag compared to Online Edition, presumably because it's CPS3 emulation rather than a port (although lag is still pretty reasonably low across the collection).

Alpha 3 seems to have a weird issue where every difficulty level (selected in an external menu) is the same. I'm using the Japanese Dreamcast and Saturn versions as reference, and both are substantially easier than what I get when I select Difficulty 1 here. Maybe all the arcade difficulties are just too hard for me and I'm being a baby?

Alpha 2 is fine. Lack of a training mode is pretty stinky given the game had/has(?) a marginally bigger scene than Alpha 3 in the west.

Wish Alpha 1 had the option for the Saturn soundtrack as there's some bops in there.

As for SF2, I've only ever played Special Champion Edition on Mega Drive, but I didn't find any glaringly obvious issues with Super Turbo.

Is this collection alright for a few quid? Yeah. Is it the best way of playing the games on offer? Potentially not, due to the poor audio on Third Strike, mediocre visual filters and the fact that all the menu systems are external to the games. Previous home ports involved actual *porting* because the hardware wasn't powerful enough to emulate the arcade (in most cases, it was outright less powerful), and of course there are compromises in that process, but one of the upsides is that you get the game in a package properly adapted for home play. Keeping all the options and modes behind external menus is the equivalent of dip switches. If you want arcade accuracy then obviously these versions will beat out previous ports as they're entirely emulating the arcade versions, but I'm told competitive players find issues with this collection too when compared to Fightcade.

I feel like with a bit more budget it would have been possible to actually port all these games and preserve the arcade frame data & behaviour. Hey, maybe even include options for board revisions while you're at it... And then make them actually functional & feature-complete without having to leave the game whenever you want to play a different mode or change a setting. Dude, you could release them seperately! But then you probably couldn't get people to pay for 5 versions of Street Fighter 2... So perhaps that's bad business.

EDIT: The issue disappears if I unplug my Xbox 360 arcade stick. Utterly bizarre. Just the mere loading of Xbox 360 Controller for Windows drivers (or maybe XInput?) causes this game to grind to a halt. Still spaghetti code, but since I can now play the game, I have not refunded and will keep playing. Will update my review as I experience more of the game; I'm not quite ready to recommend it yet.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Game stutters at a constant rate of about 4 stutters per second, regardless of graphics settings. Frametime graph looks like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ atomic emission spectrum. I tried everything I can think of in my graphics driver settings (including changing drivers entirely) and the game video settings, and was unable to find any advice online, because this game has so many stuttering issues that I couldn't narrow them down with a search query. CPU utilisation is under 20% on every core (yes, I'm aware that the game's universe simulation is single threaded, and yes, I checked for a single core running higher, and no, there wasn't one), and GPU utilisation jumps between 0 and 100%.

I have a 7800X3D, a 6900XT, and 32GB of Corsair Dom Plat. The framerate in between stutters is sky high. I was really looking forward to experiencing this game as it appears in screenshots and videos, and I was sure my machine would be capable. I would hesitate to leave a negative review because it might not be the game's fault, but a) the game is such a technical turd that it has prevented me from narrowing down possible causes & fixes despite me being willing & technically able, and b) I have very few issues with the other 400 games in my library, while thousands upon thousands of people have issues in this game. If the cross section between my machine and the game causes technical issues, one is clearly statistically more likely to be at fault.

Maybe I'm being unfair. I dunno. I was just really in the mood to play something like this.

Played the hell out of this on PS4. A truly phenomenal action game that rewards tactical engagement with the level design with an awesome chaining system, and flashy combat feats with Art Score. If you're just playing for completion, to "experience" the game, you're going to miss the point. It flashes the scoring and ranking systems in your face for a reason, you're supposed to play it like an arcade game. To actually engage with the game's mechanics and be rewarded for improving as a player, rather than just have its world and story presented to you. You know? To have fun playing a game? Remember that?

The PC port suffers from some of the usual UE4 gremlins, which do improve after first boot, but the game looks great on PC and has a good options menu. Not played beyond the first level but can't imagine it gets any worse (or indeed better).
Frame rate is good (even with RT and no FSR on a 6900 XT), which is the important thing. Just remember to disable the Steam overlay, which causes massive hitches whenever it pops up. You need to focus on the game anyway :) Oh, and the game crashes on startup if it doesn't have access to the audio stream, so you can't listen to bit-perfect CD quality music while playing, which is a mild shame for all 3 of us who give a ♥♥♥♥. The sound design is great anyway so it's worth playing with all the sliders up.

If you like playing games, buy the hell out of this, especially for £9. If you like talking about/critiquing games, and their "immersive worlds", and call anything that constitutes actual game design or mechanics "dated", I hear there's a new Assassin's Creed out.

I've just finished it in one sitting. One of the most enjoyable, action-packed sittings I've had playing a 3D action game in recent memory.

Last week I made a comment on a Reddit thread lamenting how 3D action games haven't really progressed in fluidity, mechanics and outright quality since Ninja Gaiden released in 2004. Little did I know that comment was false as soon as I wrote it, and had been for the better part of 2 years, because Bright Memory: Infinite was released in November 2021. It's not as tight or unforgiving as Ninja Gaiden, but it provides just as many well-balanced options for tackling combat encounters, and every single one of them is ludicrously fun to use. It perfectly treads the line between "you can spam whatever you want" and "Simon says parry". The game is incredibly well-paced, jam-packed with all sorts of sequences that play completely differently without feeling forced. Boss encounters are incredibly fun and force you to use every tool at your disposal (except the EMP which is generally useless on big guys), and their HP is perfectly tuned to stop you brute-forcing the fight without being so bullet-spongey as to make the fights drag.

On the subject of the game's story: who the everloving ♥♥♥♥ cares, it's an action game

On the subject of the game's length and vAlUE pRoPOsITioN: I can understand where some people are coming from, but I have a secret I'd like to share. Almost every game has this hidden feature, call it an easter egg if you will. If you go to the main menu, there's a button that says "new game". It seems most gamers have never tried this button before, but if you press it, it lets you play the game again! Even if you already finished it! Hope this helps.

Yep, I just bought and beat it in 3 hours. Next week I'll do the same again, in a cyber rabbit suit. GOTY

First of all, about the port. The scaling is hideous and doesn't offer any options besides "smoothing on/off", I had to muck around in my graphics drivers to eliminate some nasty screen tearing, and there's no scanlines which makes parts of the colour palette look pretty off. But it has a couple of things going for it:

- It's better than the PS2 port.

- It'll inevitably be more responsive than on Switch.

- It's... Here, I guess. You don't need a JTAGged 360.

Which is handy, because Mushi might be the best entry into Cave shmups, or for the right kind of player, shmups full stop. It's certainly a much easier (and better) sell than Ikaruga. It boils down to two fire modes (one which makes you move slower) and a bomb, a scoring system that (as far as any mortal understands it) boils down to "kill more and die less and you'll get a better score", and bullet+enemy patterns that reward good & confident positioning. It's got everything a beginner needs to get what the genre is about, and start building the requisite skill set, while being fed some eye candy.

The one downside is... Some parts of the game are better than others. You'll find yourself playing Stage 3 and thinking "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, why doesn't the whole game flow like this?! If only there was a sequel that applied this lesson..." And that game does exist, and you should play it instead.

Except, chances are you can't if you're reading this, because the Futari home port remains exclusive to the 360, and (exceptional port though it is) it is not cheap to import - yes, import. I don't think anyone looking to dip their toes into the genre is in the market to spend £70 and then dust off their Xbox 360 arcade stick while they wait for it to be cleared by customs. Except me, I did that, but I'm not representative. The obvious question is, why haven't Cave had that one ported too? And the answer is, lord ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ knows. Any day now...

So many "retro-inspired" indie titles (and you don't need me to tell you that there exist a lot of retro-inspired indie titles) succeed in capturing the workings of an old style of game, but fail miserably to capture the feel. They come off like hollow imitations, like royalty-free reskins made by someone who nominally likes the same things you do (!!!), but doesn't really understand what makes it special.

Pseudoregalia is the first exception I've played in a long time. It's not structured like Mario 64, it's not styled like Mario 64, it's not artificially limited in level design like Mario 64, and yet when vaulting around the Empty Bailey I felt a sense of eerie wonder I haven't experienced since navigating Wet Dry World as a kid. Alongside the feeling of looking up at a ledge and thinking, "I wonder if there's a way to get up there?" and then trying for multiple minutes, using every movement tool at your disposal until you arrive at the often unanswerable follow-up question, "was I meant to get up here?"...

Actually, I'm really not sure how to articulate what I feel when I play Pseudoregalia, really I'm not sure if I'm making any sense at all even to myself. But if you too are wondering if it captures that 'something', I can answer ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ resoundingly that it does. Give it a chance for a fiver. It may very well be the only game you play this year that makes you feel something.

Picture this if you will: A world in which Soul Nomad & the World Eaters wasn't made by Nippon Ichi and is actually capable of taking itself seriously for more than 2 seconds.

HAHA WOW okay

I'll admit to not being the target audience. AMD graciously gifted me this, apparently because they thought it might be a useful utility for stress-testing my 7800X3D.

So far the game has shown me:

Mining intro sequence: It's Gravity Rush 2 but worse.

Cutscenes & dialog: It's Cyberpunk but worse. Different options don't make sense following on from each other and the camera is locked on to the person you're talking to and cuts abruptly between characters.

Gunplay: They somehow messed up hit detection and feedback in 2023, and breathing will interrupt the reload animation, and the pistol is the worst feeling pistol I've ever experienced

Input lag: hooooooolyyyyyyy

Space combat: It's Strike Suit Zero but clunkier.

Interactive objects: It's System Shock or Shenmue, in 2023.

NPCs who walk at half your speed and stop if you get too far ahead: ♥♥♥♥ off (literally the first interactivity you get when you boot up the game having sat through the Skyrim intro and they immediately pull this ♥♥♥♥)

A narrative hook: haha just kidding (there's a macguffin and some guy shows up asking after it right before you "shoot" some "space pirates" who face the wrong way and stand still)

I've never been so quickly and thoroughly convinced that absolutely no aspect of a game shows any promise. And I went in actually semi-optimistic. It could very well be that everything I've just talked about improves (except the input lag which would frankly be half a deal breaker on its own) but I have little interest in finding out if the game has no interest in hooking me. I'll update this if that changes.