52 Games Challenge 2020

[koemo1]

1. Bayonetta 2 [WiiU]
2. Super Mario 3D World [WiiU]
3. Seek and Destroy [PS2}
4. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag [360]
5. Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway [360]
6. Medal of Honor: Warfighter [360]
7. Call of Duty 2: Big Red One [PS2]
8. Call of Duty 3 [PS2]
9. Star Wars the Force Unleashed [360]
10. Uncharted: Nathan Drake's Collection [PS4]
11. Uncharted 4 [PS4]
12. Dex [PS4]
13. Assassin's Creed: Origins [PS4] PLATINUM
14. Battle Garrega.rev.2016 PLATiNUM
15. Yakuza Kiwami [PS4]
16. Caladrius Blaze [PS4]
17. Battlefield 1 [PS4]
18. Call of Duty WWII [PS4]
19. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey [PS4] PLATINUM
20. Bloodborne [PS4]
21. Smuggler's Run Warzones [GC] [IN PROGRESS]
22. Red Dead Redemption 2 [IN PROGRESS]
23. Tomb Raider [IN PROGRESS]
24. Red Faction  [UPCOMMING]
25. Secret Agent Clank [UPCOMING]
26. Transformers Devastation [UPCOMING]

[bikingjahuty]

26. Final Fantasy VII: Remake (PS4)

To say my expectations of FF7:Remake were high would be an understatement. The original FF7 was my first RPG and not only initiated a deep love I had for the genre during the 2000s, but also made FF7 one of my favorite games of all time up until recently. When the remake was finally announced during Sony's 2015 E3 Press conference I totally lost it. Even with FF7:Remake being personally overshadowed by Shenmue 3 that evening, my hype and anticipation for FF7:Remake was huge, and remained so up until its release last week. Having played through and beat FF7:Remake I can say that it certainly met those high expectations I had for it, and also surprised me in many ways I did not expect, mostly in a good way too.


Final Fantasy VII Remake is not a beat for beat remake of the original. It certainly follows the general plot and story of the original FF7, to a point, but is a significantly more developed, fleshed out, and detailed experience, so much so that it at times feels like an entirely different game. There are enough new elements, both in terms of story, characters, gameplay, and plot to where FF7:Remake feels like a fresh new experience. This manifests itself in obvious ways like the switch from turn based to an ATB (Active Time Battle) system and graphically, but also is heavily present in the story as well. I feel like the best place to start is with the story and characters of FF7:Remake.


While FF7:Remake's plot and general story is mostly the same as the original, it gets to each new plot point in a different way, sometimes very different. Part of this is because of the advances in technology, game design, and video game story telling that has developed over the past 20-years, but also has to do with FF7:Remake wanting to tell its own story as well. You will find yourself in familiar areas and scenarios from the original, but in terms of how you got to them, how you get through them, and what happens after can look very different than what you remembered from the 1997 game. This is by far the most pronounced in the final few chapters of the game, which take a very, very different series of events than what you remembered in the final part of the Midgar portion of the original game. Without spoiling anything I am very, very interested to see where the story goes in part 2 of the remake, and I imagine that at the very least half of that game will be an entirely new story.


The story of FF7 was not the only thing to benefit from decades of advances in video games. The characters in FF7:Remake, both major and minor characters are way more developed and fleshed out then they ever were in the original. This greatly contributed to my enjoyment of the remake as it made these characters I'd known for years and gave them more depth to their personalities, as well as enriched the interactions they had with one another. Another thing I really appreciated it how many minor characters were given way more development and time in the main story to develop. By far the best examples of this were Biggs, Wedge and Jessie with Avalanche. In fact, all three of them have become among my favorite characters in FF7 after getting to know them way better in the Remake.


Probably the most obvious difference from the remake compared to the original (other than the graphics) is the gameplay. While the original used a traditional turn based battle system, the new game uses an ATB system or Active Battle System. What that means is instead of waiting your turn and selecting an action, you are now able to run about freely and attack, however your special attacks, magic use, limit breaks, summons, and item use are restricted by an ATB gauge which takes time to fill up. As soon as one half of the ATB gauge is filled you are allowed to use one of these special commands. Certain special abilities or summons require a completely full ATB gauge which adds to the level of strategy required to beat various enemies. Unfortunately the level of depth this system has doesn't go far beyond that.


Things like weaknesses, resistance, and status effects return and correspond with various types of magic and abilities, all of which are granted via materia, just like in the original. In addition to materia, using various different weapons or armlets grants you various changes to your character stats, again just like he original. Where the weapons differ from the original is you ability to upgrade them through gaining more experience, granting them better stats like increased MP or HP, debuffs, and even new materia slots, just to name a few. Unfortunately I found the need to manually upgrade my weapons a bit tedious and almost would have preferred to an auto upgrade system that scaled with the amount you used the weapon.


What all this adds up to is a serviceable, yet someone unremarkable battle system that works, but often not very well at times. Perhaps the battle systems biggest shortfall is the lock on system, which is stupidly mapped to the camera. What will often happen is you'll want to target a specific enemy or part of an enemy, but moving the camera will have you attacking another enemy or part of an enemy. Luckily the game gives you the ability to slow things down while you select an item or ability to use once your ATB gauge allows it, which also means you can target a specific enemy or enemy part in battle via a menu. But this still doesn't help you when trying to use basic attacks.


Outside of combat you're essentially navigating various areas throughout Midgar. This system is very simple and basic for the most part. You are allowed to run jog or walk, and areas where you need to use a latter, jump over a gap, or duck under an object are clearly marked in blue and simply require hitting the analogue stick in that direction. You are also given a variety of other tools to use outside of combat such as Barrett's gun and a grappling hook gun to get through certain parts of the game. Like the combat system it's serviceable and it mostly works, but unlike the battle system it's not made overly complicated or doesn't allow you to accurately execute actions at all times.


Graphically FF7:Remake looks incredible. While there are some pretty plain looking textures here and there, the game mostly is very impressive. The biggest standouts are the details character models and environments. The enemy models are also nice, but noticeably less detailed for the most part. There are many cool bosses in FF7:Remake, many of them returning from the original, and all are realized in excellent detail overall. Visually FF7:Remake is hard to fault on any level and the amount of polish this game has is nothing short of amazing.


The soundtrack and audio in FF7:Remake are also huge standouts. Like the original there are so many excellent tracks that you hear throughout your experience. Some of them are remixed versions of songs from the original, but others are original tracks made for the remake. What really surprised me is how the original tracks stand toe to toe with the original tracks, remixed or now, which really complements the level of quality put into this game's soundtrack. The voice acting in this game is stellar across the board as well, with each character portrayed very well by their respective voice actors. Sound Effects were awesome with enemies, weapons, environmental effects, and the various other objects and events in the world sounding impactful.


While FF7:Remake is definitely not a perfect game, it is certainly an amazing game that delivered on nearly every level it needed to as a remake to one of the most beloved video games ever made. I'd even go as far as to say this game is more than just a very well made remake, but is destined to become a classic in its own right. It was seriously that good. If not for slightly above average gameplay and some pacing issues at certain parts of the game, this might be one of my all time favorite games of all time. While it didn't quite hit that mark, it is certainly one of the best RPGs I've ever played, and at least so far a game I enjoy more than the original. (4/19/20)

Graphics: 5/5
Sound: 5/5
Story: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Fun: 16/20
Overall: 42/50

[kamikazekeeg]

4 - Pokemon Sword (PC 2019) - BEAT - I had been wanting a console Pokemon game for a very long time as someone that hasn't wanted to really play portable games since like the GBA days.  Until Let's Go Pikachu, I hadn't played a Pokemon game since Yellow.  I had seen the series off and on through people playing Nuzlockes, so I have a grasp on how the series has went since then and I feel like what we got here with Sword is just really underwhelming.

The core Pokemon element of catching and fighting is fine.  It's certainly not a bad game and kids who don't know any better won't care, but for the first mainline release console, for a series in its 8th generation, after so many releases, after over 20 years, and this being one of the biggest game franchises in the world, you can see almost none of that in this game.  It comes across like a budget game, like this is what I would expect from like lower/mid end Japanese RPG games where you can forgive some of the clunk and basic stuff because it isn't a super big budget release from a major company.  It all functions fine, but the game is so lackluster.  It takes no advantage of the hardware as I feel like you could make this game on 3DS no problem toning down parts of the visuals and such.  The pokemon pop in is like 30 feet away or something, so areas look completely empty until you are right on top of them, there's a lot of weak animation stuff, visually there's nothing that looks good beyond this just being an HD release...

It's not all terrible, like I said, the core Pokemon capturing is fine, I will always sorta like that part as someone who collects stuff.  I also love the gimmick of Dynamax, because it gave me the opportunity to craft a team with giant kaiju and robots as the theme.  It's just hard to deny that this is not a very good game, when the story is absolutely terrible, the final boss is terrible fight-wise, most of the characters aren't very good outside of some good designs, and when you look at some of the stuff they are making people pay for in the expansion, it feels like content was cut so they could make release and it comes off as sleazy.

I know the game sold a lot, so this will never change, and I only really got it so that I could let family play it and I got it cheap enough to justify the expansion as a single full price game, rather than having paid 60 for this, and then had to pay more for the expansion.  I had hoped this would revive Pokemon for me and Let's Go Pikachu actually sort of did for me a little, it was an enjoyable nostalgic romp, but after Sword, I just got no interest in continuing on unless they drastically overhaul the next game.

[Cartagia]

Watch Dogs 2 is much better than the first game, primarily because the story line and tone aren't so insufferably self-serious.  That isn't to say it doesn't have its share of issues - I saw a review that said it is at its worst when it is trying to be Grand Theft Auto, which is 100% true.  There's still a few rough edges when it comes to AI behavior, etc.  It's also one of those games that greatly encourages stealth - until it suddenly doesn't which can be jarring and tough to adjust to.  Overall, though, a pretty enjoyable experience, especially all the main characters who are fun.  I'd give the first game about a 7 and this game an 8 or 8.5.

[telly]

Game 10 - Shenmue III (PS4) - 48 hours

Finally finished this game after taking a pretty leisurely pace. Overall, I felt like this game is the best in the Shenmue series so far. But like Shenmue II, with every improvement the game makes, there are still areas that never seem to improve. At any rate, it feels like every time I beat a Shenmue game I have like a million thoughts so here we go.

+

Graphically, I feel like the game looks exactly like it should be. This game provides an incredibly authentic look that retains the spirit of the original game with the art design and assets, with just a touch of modern tech and polish under the hood. It was definitely a tough line to walk, but I feel like they nailed it. It helps build the wonderful atmosphere that makes these games so much fun to play.

Alongside the graphics, there’s a lot of throwbacks to the old games. I loved being able to call up old characters from the previous games, for example. There are tons of little touches that you will appreciate if you know and love this series.

On that note, I really liked all the recognition towards fans of the series who helped bring Shenmue III to life. Even though I only have my name in the credits, it’s a wonderful feeling know that I have my own mark in this game, along with everyone else who supported this project.

Outside of the graphics, I LOVED all the improvements that they made to the gameplay. Here are a list of all of them

• The jobs are way more enjoyable (In Shenmue II at least, moving crates sucked, manning the lucky hit stand sucked, selling items at the pawn shop sucked, arm wrestling/gambling was not worth it unless you save scum). Chopping wood, fishing, and herb collecting were all really fun in this game. It was cool that moving crates made a return from the first game as well.
• There are more games for gambling (I didn’t see arm wrestling from Shenmue II). There were more arcade games too, which was nice. The only one I missed from previous games was the darts, and the classic SEGA arcade games.
• I thought the training hall was a brilliant addition. In this game you have endurance and attack stats you can increase, so it incentivizes you to practice every day so you can get better for the fights that crop up in the story. I felt like leveling up your kung fu was essential to beating the game, so I liked the structure they added here. I thought the combat was more fluid as well.
• I really liked the use of the skill books as the only way you can raise your attack power. You can spend money on them in shops, but if you don’t want to spend your money, you can also obtain them through collecting items and capsule sets and prizes. So I was actually motivated to collect them and play the arcade games because I knew it would help me beat the game. Makes you want to explore and find as many as possible, and I thought it integrated the two together brilliantly.
• In addition, I liked how the pawn shops buy items and herb sets now instead of only capsule toys. The token system allows you to obtain items at the prize exchange which can then be sold or used to acquire books at the pawn shop, which was brilliant. It also gives all the stores reason to exist, because you need their items to complete sets.
• I think the stamina mechanic was a nice touch that wasn’t too overbearing but it was something you were required to think about and plan for. You don’t just buy a bag of chips to have it in your inventory for the whole game like the first game.
• There are some sidequests that are not super in-depth to complete, but were a nice addition.
• The music is the best in the series so far. It was nice to hear some of the throwbacks too (I only heard stuff from Shenmue II, but could have missed it).
• The puzzle solving and investigating for clues is so great, one of my favorite and most memorable moments of the game (and the series as a whole). Relatedly, I absolutely adored the Chobu Chan Easter egg hunt. Was a total blast, and ties beautifully into both the shops all being fully modeled, and gives you another method of acquiring more skill books.
• The voice acting is greatly improved. There are only a few bad apples (I think the worst case is Shenhua). But compared to the first game, it’s a quantum leap in quality.
  

-

I’ve split the elements of the story that I didn’t like out from everything else for spoilers.

~~ STORY SPOILERS ~~

The one thing that just never seems to do it for me in these games is the story. It goes through the same motions as the first two games, and at this point we’ve dragged out this searching for Lan Di for hours and hours and taken so many detours and distractions, I just don’t care anymore. For some, I’m sure that finishing this saga will feel rewarding, but for me, the simple revenge story just does not have enough gravitas to feel worth what has now been a 96 hour experience. Not helping my enjoyment in the story is the writing, which was horrendous. It’s a little tough to explain, but plot elements will be discussed and re-hashed between Ryo and Shenhua that will have already been conveyed ages ago. I felt like I was being treated like a 10 year old, and overall it feels like you’re watching a really badly written kids movie.

Once I got into Niaowu, the game started becoming more polarizing for me. The game play expands and opens up even more, which is great. You get more jobs, more things to collect, more games, and a bigger city to explore. I loved every second of that. But the story (which I was already struggling to enjoy) begins to slip even more. I loved that you learn about the past relationship between your father and Lan Di in Bailu Village. It gives the plot some much needed backstory and development. But no less that 3 hours into the city, though, does the story fall back into that wild goose chase bullshit that I despised in the first game. It’s such a waste of time and feels like padding out the game length. The relationship between Ryo and Shenhua also doesn’t feel the same once you get to the city. I loved those little interactions they have in Bailu and they just don’t transfer once you leave because Shenhua doesn’t… do anything in Niaowu.

And after all that screwing around and running around in circles, the story barely moves forward at all. All the training that you go through in Shenmue II was made obsolete in this game, and then the training you undertake in this game is made for nothing during the ending. The overall lack of development both story- and character-wise felt frustrating and incredibly unfulfilling. Thankfully, Shenmue III adds more to the story than Shenmue II (which in retrospect feels almost worthless story-wise other than meeting Ren and Shenhua, since the nature of the mirrors and the hidden treasure is described again, in far more detail, in this game).

Lastly, I’m really, REALLY not a fan of the decision to not end the series with this installment. And this is coming from someone who only played the games last year, so it’s not even that I’ve had to wait a long time to play Shenmue III. It’s mainly because I don’t feel like this story is worth playing through another 30+ hour game that will take who knows how many years to finally materialize. To be frank, it feels mismanaged and manipulative. That said, I don’t really like Shenmue’s story to begin with. So if it’s just more of the same gameplay, I’d probably still enjoy it.

EDIT 8.30.20: I've recently learned that the original intent has been to lead the player into a very grounded experience that becomes much, much larger in scope later on. While that doesn't diminish my lack of enjoyment with the series so far, and I think it's ultimately really bad storytelling, it has made me more excited for the 4th installment.

~~Game play stuff~~

Quick time events are back baby, and they suck. You have but a nanosecond to react, and I almost never get them the first time. So it becomes more about just memorizing which button you need to press. I especially didn’t like it when the QTE’s replaced what should have been an actual fight.

It’s in Niaowu that the game really starts showing its limitations graphically. I had very little issues in Bailu other than the occasional framerate dip. But in the bigger city, there were loads of graphical glitches (especially with the water), slowdown and motion blur, bad pop-in with people walking in the street, and really poorly placed music that loves to change seemingly at random. It’s certainly not a dealbreaker, but it is noticeable. I feel like just putting in some loading screens when moving from area to area like the first two games could have really helped with some of these issues.

[wolfen]

6. Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm(PS4)

I decided to play through the Naruto Storm games recently. This first one is pretty barebones, but fun. You get to run around a pre-Shippuden Hidden Leaf Village which is really cool as a big Naruto fan. My only gripes are the highly repetitive filler side missions and the difficulty of the QTE's during boss fights. Even with foreknowledge of the button combos I had a hard time getting them within the timing window. Lots of fun and nostalgia was had

Time: 60+ hours

[wolfen]

7. Sonic Forces(PS4)

I decided to play this because I had a craving for a Sonic game and got it for free from PS+. It's really not very good. Not terrible, but definitely not good. It's like they looked at Sonic Generations and thought, "how can we make a Sonic Generations sequel but worse?". The only enjoyable parts of this game were the Classic Sonic levels and even then the physics were very funky.

Time 10 hours

[telly]

Game 11 - Mega Man Zero (PS4) - 9 Hours

While I liked this game, it definitely felt like an inferior experience to other Mega Man Games. However, I can see the elements that started the foundation for the ZX games with the mission select, multiple weapons, etc.

+

The game is still fun to play though even if it's less of an experience than other Mega Man X games on the SNES, Playstation and others. Gameplay is excellent as always, and for an early GBA game it looks quite nice as well. I enjoyed the story, while it was told on a relatively small scale, had some decent moments. I really liked the Cyber Elves (in concept anyway), it adds some RPG elements that allow you to customize a loadout for each mission. The optional weapons you could find and level up was a neat addition. The music was overall great, classic Mega Man Tunes.

-
 
There were several aspects of the game that felt insubstantial. Four reploid bosses instead of eight, only a paltry elemental change to your buster and Z-saber when you kill bosses, and overall it was a pretty short experience without a lot of stages. The rating system felt really stupid because playing this for the first time, I certainly was not good enough to speedrun through such a tough game like this, so I consistently E and D ranked every stage.

Almost immediately when I started the game I despised the controls. I don't know how much freedom you had with the remapping controls in the original GBA version, but thank goodness you can in this collection. I switched it to my prefered control scheme and never looked back (main - square, sub - triangle, dash - R1)

Those who have played the game probably know how hard Mega Man Zero is. Design-wise it didn't feel any different than other games in the series. The issue is that the lives system is totally borked. You don't get new lives when you get a game over; instead you have to reload an old save game. So you may be stuck with zero lives on a save file in perpetuity until you can collect new ones without dying in a stage. I had to find a level that could give you two lives and die to keep resetting them all. Then once I stockpiled them I had to make sure I could beat the stage without dying. Was really poorly designed and there's no reason the game had to be that way. Lastly, even though the Cyber Elves were cool, they took like a million crystals to power them up so you could actually use them, which led to some grinding.

[kamikazekeeg]

16 - Predator: Hunting Grounds (PC 2020) - ENDLESS - While I kinda got more games than I need right now to play, I had a coupon, which made the game slightly more appealing, as it's really not a 40 dollar game at all.  I haven't played as the Predator yet, but I've been enjoying the Fireteam gameplay as it's a simple shooter setup with objectives for you to do.  I don't usually like the asymmetrical games, because the non-killer role is generally not fun, like Dead by Daylight's gameplay loop for the survivors is kinda terrible, running around to just turn on generators, while being at a severe disadvantage with the killer, so making it that you fight AI soldiers while dodging Predator attacks and working to take him down is nice.

That said the game is super sloppy.  Illfonics previously made Friday the 13th, which was a pretty sloppy game for a long time, and this is much the same.  It feels and looks like a 360 era game, though it's pretty reasonably playable.  It also doesn't have much content.  Some customization items for your soldier and Predator, but not a ton, and there's only two maps that I've seen, but they are the same jungle location, so you'll never really know the difference other than one has old Aztec temples.  It at least has crossplay, so there's more likely to keep being players for awhile while I'm on PC, but this game could die pretty quick if they don't offer up some pretty regular content updates.

I'm hoping we see a Predator 2 styled city location and rural America location and I really want to see them do an Alien crossover.  Colonial Marine weapons, some xenomorph enemies to fight, etc...

[kamikazekeeg]

11 - Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch 2020) - BEAT - Wrote about this before when I had it early on, but I didn't realize it had a basic "ending" to reach, which is just to get KK Slider to show up to your your island, which is the last thing Nook wants you to do and you get the credits screen, and finally lets you start modifying the island...sorta...have to spend 12k Nook miles to modify terrain and water which is annoying, but oh well.

I have generally enjoyed myself, I've done a little time travel to skip past some of the waits for business opening and such, and been trying to find the stuff I want for my house along with doing some of the event stuff.  It's not a bad game at all, but I think it needs a lot of QoL type improvements to speed up menus, interaction, dealing with your storage and crafting, and just things that make the game snappier.  I know it's a game that is meant to be played casually and with patience, but like there's no good reason I can only buy seeds at 5 a piece, just let me buy in bigger bulks.  Let me plant them easier too.  Let my crafting table access my storage if its in my home.  Give me an easy overview for island construction like I have inside my house for easily moving things around.  There's other things too that can easily improve the game if they update it, which they should since it sounds like they plan to support it for awhile.

While the game does have its charm, I think something like Stardew Valley is the better experience, though AC is nicer with the visuals and customization in terms of like houses and your character and having more options for who lives in your town and such, compared to the set stories and characters of Stardew, but Stardew is great for everything you can do gameplay wise with your farm and there's the whole underground combat stuff that is pretty good.

[ignition365]

11 - Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Switch 2020) - BEAT - Wrote about this before when I had it early on, but I didn't realize it had a basic "ending" to reach, which is just to get KK Slider to show up to your your island, which is the last thing Nook wants you to do and you get the credits screen, and finally lets you start modifying the island...sorta...have to spend 12k Nook miles to modify terrain and water which is annoying, but oh well.

I have generally enjoyed myself, I've done a little time travel to skip past some of the waits for business opening and such, and been trying to find the stuff I want for my house along with doing some of the event stuff.  It's not a bad game at all, but I think it needs a lot of QoL type improvements to speed up menus, interaction, dealing with your storage and crafting, and just things that make the game snappier.  I know it's a game that is meant to be played casually and with patience, but like there's no good reason I can only buy seeds at 5 a piece, just let me buy in bigger bulks.  Let me plant them easier too.  Let my crafting table access my storage if its in my home.  Give me an easy overview for island construction like I have inside my house for easily moving things around.  There's other things too that can easily improve the game if they update it, which they should since it sounds like they plan to support it for awhile.

While the game does have its charm, I think something like Stardew Valley is the better experience, though AC is nicer with the visuals and customization in terms of like houses and your character and having more options for who lives in your town and such, compared to the set stories and characters of Stardew, but Stardew is great for everything you can do gameplay wise with your farm and there's the whole underground combat stuff that is pretty good.

Ak.  I guess I need to go back to it at some point then.  I didn't think it had any form of an ending and abandoned it after about a week.

[kamikazekeeg]

Ak.  I guess I need to go back to it at some point then.  I didn't think it had any form of an ending and abandoned it after about a week.

It's probably not worth the time if you've already dropped the game just to see a KK Slider performance over some credits unless you just want to say you "beat" it lol  Could probably time travel enough to speed through everything you need though.

[wolfen]

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons(Switch)

I got KK on my island and saw credits so I guess I technically "beat" the "story"
This is the most fun I've ever had with a simulation game and I hate sim games. It does a good job of obscuring/making fun out of the menial tasks you are given. The crafting gives the player a lot more control over getting items compared to previous games. There are also less repercussions for skipping days because flowers don't wilt and weeds won't grow as wildly as in past games. It just feels much more relaxing and inviting

Time: 200+ hours

[telly]

Game 12 - Journey (PS4) - 3 Hours

+ Such a beautiful, captivating game. Even though it was really short, it was still incredibly memorable. Breathtaking visuals, fantastic music and score, and a lots of mysteries to uncover. Jumping and flying felt so exhilarating, and meeting and interacting with other players always put a big smile on my face (I met 8 on my first journey). This is the kind of game I would show to someone that had never played games before. It's not very difficult to control, but still has some challenge and mystery to it. And the player-to-player interactions are always nothing but positive. I really enjoyed it and will probably play through it a few more times to try and find all the secrets.

- The only thing I didn't like was the ending. Granted I got a phone call right as the credits started playing so I could have missed something, but it felt relatively unceremonious and just kind of drops you back off at the beginning of the game. Maybe there are elements to the overall story that I missed, but overall it didn't fit super well in my opinion.

[bikingjahuty]

27. Street Fighter EX+ Alpha (PS1)

While I wait for Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition to come out at the end of the month I figured it was a good time to play some shorter games in order to gear me up for playing a longer one at the end of the month. This makes fighting games a good choice, and there are several that I've been wanting to try out for some time, but for whatever reason haven't got around to. One of those games was Street Fighter EX Alpha+ on the PS1.


There are few games that I feel epitomize the strange phenomenon during the mid to late 90s of game companies seeming almost required by law to make 3D versions of their successful 2D games than Street Fighter EX Alpha+. By 1996 when this game originally was released in arcades, the Street Fighter franchise was a very successful, well established 2D fighting game franchise that never needed to try and jump on the 3D graphics bandwagon. But Capcom did just that and the results are failry disappointing overall. Technically Street Fighter EX is a 2.5D game in that the gameplay is on a 2D plain, however the character models are a few background objects are 3D polygon figures. Sadly, not even the gameplay was spared by the jump to 3D in terms of its lack of quality compared to the franchise's 2D predecessors.


While the gameplay in Street Fighter EX technically works and functions, it's not particularly refined and at times can even feel clunky and unresponsive. Even though I played this game on a CRT, there was still a noticeable input lag, and also I felt like the hit detection was slightly off. There were also times when moves should have connected, but didn't, or they did and I was somewhat surprised as a result. I think part of this was probably due to transitioning a 2D fighting game engine into a 3D game, which at least for Street Fighter I don't think had ever been done prior to Street Fighter EX. But even when the game does seem to function as it should, the AI in this game is among the most spammy of any fighting game I've played in recent memory. I literally played matches where my opponent repeated the same move over and over again, which beyond being irritating, just showed how subpar the programming was compared to games like Street Fighter Alpha 2 or even Street Fighter 2. Without needing to be said, this greatly diminished my enjoyment while playing this game.


As I mentioned before the graphics are mostly all in 3D. I say mostly because while the character models and certain background objects like fountains are 3D polygons, the backgrounds are fixed, low quality images that rotate with the 3D stages and perspective. This give the look your character fighting in front of a backdrop picture rather than in the setting the game is trying to immerse you in. By far this is the worst visual blemish this game has, but it's not the only one. I am admittedly a fan of early 3D games, including several games that made the transition from 2D to 3D in the mid 90s. However, the 3D models in Street Fighter EX, while not terrible, aren't that great either. The facial expressions of the characters are fixed in place given them a very action figure look to them. Obviously the polygonal shapes that make them up are also big and bulky, but judging by the 3D standards of the time they aren't too bad. Still, this game's visuals would be enough to make a diehard Street Fighter 2 Turbo fan cry.


Luckily I saved Street Fighter EX Alpha +'s best quality for last which is its soundtrack. Funny enough I was actually aware of this game's soundtrack before I'd ever actually played it because of how good it is. It's actually not too far off from Street Fighter 2's soundtrack which is in itself about as iconic and amazing as you can get for a video game OST. The other sounds including the impact noises and the character voice acting are all good as well. I'll definitely give this game credit where it's due with the audio, they really nailed it here.


Street Fighter EX feels more like some experiment that Capcom wanted to try back in the 90s to see if Street Fighter had a viable future as a 3D game. Obviously doing this bared some fruit in the form of 3 more sequels, and as of Street Fighter 4 the series taking on a full 2.5D perspective. I guess like any early stage of an experiment you're bound to run into a lot of issues and what you've created is going to lack a lot of refinement, which certainly describes EX. In a way, it feels like a very, very rough draft of what Street Fighter would inevitably become in later games, which I can say certainly paid off by the time Street Fighter 4 came out given how awesome that game is. However, unless you're very curious about where 3D Street Fighter all began, or just have a fetish for early 3D games from the mid-90s, I'd probably just skip this one. (5/2/20)

Presentation: 5/10
Sound: 8/10
Graphics: 5/10
Fun: 8/20
Overall: 26/50