General and Gaming > General

52 Games Challenge 2025!!!

<< < (15/118) > >>

marvelvscapcom2:
7. Snoopy's Grand Adventure [PS4]  - Finished - Jan 23rd, 2025




Review - Snoopy's Grand Adventure is many things. At it's core it's a nostalgic little tribute to not only NES cartoon based games like Chip N Dale but also peanuts as a franchise. It's cute. Colorful and has enough heart to carry it.  However it has deep gaping flaws that prevent it from greatness.



Not much of a spoiler. But the final boss is possibly the most ridiculous ive faced. Literally it can hit you with each attack and you still win. It's about as uneventual as jaywalking on a windy day simulator. It's not just easy but dull. Makes no sense. And is a giant step down from the other bosses. Which while easy. Are still cute and fun. 


The game also is repetitive and has lack of level development.


But now that the cons are out of the way. 

It is overall ambitious. I dare to call it a metroidvania because it allows the player to aquire powers that open new areas and move backwards through web like levels. It's got cute design and some fun with the collecting all the jelly beans. Overall its a neat short fun play. And I enjoy it heavily.


Rating - 70/100

dhaabi:
07. Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights || GameCube || 01.21.25



Ordinarily, Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights isn't a game I'd go out of my way to play, but it's one of those odd titles within my shared collection that I own for some reason or another, and I was curious to know if it'd have any sort of redeemable quality.

As a platformer, Night of 100 Frights presents elementary level design while being considerably flawed in how player action and movement perform. Often, actual platforms are difficult to make contact with for a variety of reasons, though two specific ones reasons most regularly. The first is that pitfalls require tight jumps to clear and seemingly need to be executed perfectly from the edge of one platform to another, and it's made worse by plenty of instances of poor camera positioning which influence field of depth. At the same time, the second reason lies in moments when the player is disrupted by invisible level geometry which prematurely bars them from completing their action. While this isn't a regularly occurring issue, it's more present than just a rare glitch.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of backtracking involved across the game's three major areas. While exploring through an area for the first time, players will naturally collect the thousands of Scooby Snacks littered everywhere which serve as the game's currency, and the reason for doing so is to unlock access to new areas and various paths. So, it's in the player's best interest to go out of their way to get the more inconvenient ones. If not, there will come a time when you're required to unnecessarily backtrack. And, at times, players will reach a roadblock that requires having a tool upgrade to progress further. However, the large room-based map neither indicates where these roadblocks are nor what kind of roadblock they are, so players will either be forced to backtrack needlessly all over the place when their natural path is interrupted or make note of it. Not knowing where the roadblocks are isn't necessarily that much of a design flaw since the map does clearly mark which rooms have and haven't been accessed, but there are all sorts of tools to be gained to reach the game's end that remembering where and when to use them becomes a challenge. Fortunately, a warp travel system is accessible which transports the player to specific rooms.

Concerning narrative, players assume the role of titular Scooby-Doo himself, and the premise is one that easily could have been from the cartoon the game's based upon. Also to be expected, classic Hanna-Barbera era villains serve as minor antagonists and basic enemies to overcome. For reasons not understood until the game's conclusion, these past villains are by the hundreds, and there are boundless numbers of the same enemy even within the same room. For many of them, they merely patrol back-and-forth and are easy to avoid, though few are unique with targeted attacks and behaviors. So, understandably, these enemies can be ignored to some degree without the need to defeat them. And throughout it all, what seems like the obligatory laugh track responding to in-game cutscenes and player actions is ever pervasive.

Unfortunately, Night of 100 Frights is dominated by an array of problems which on their own could be tolerable, but together become irritating. For platforms, a sufficient camera system is necessary for the game to be successful, though there are numerous instances where player movement randomly initiates a 90° map rotation which can result in player mistakes. Also related to the game's camera is its practice of obscuring on-screen environmental information. For several rooms, it seemed like I was at a dead end even when viewing the map which indicated otherwise, but since there are so many roadblocks, this is to be expected at times. However, what instead was happening was that the camera hides from view other pathways you're to follow. The direction players will be needing to move toward is down in the direction of the player themselves, off-screen where the foreground would be. Aside from camera problems, being able to perform certain player actions is commonly troublesome though is mostly in regards to specific tools which require two buttons to be pressed simultaneously.

For a variety of reasons, Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights is far more difficult than it has any right to be, both in players knowing where to go and being able to accomplish certain immediate tasks. Beneath these problems, though, is a fine enough game, but it's still not one I'd recommend.

telly:

--- Quote from: dhaabi on January 23, 2025, 11:39:23 am ---Due to a variety of reasons, Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights is far more difficult than it has any right to be, both in players knowing where to go and being able to accomplish certain immediate tasks. Beneath these problems, though, is a fine enough game, though it's still not one I'd recommend.[/font]

--- End quote ---

Shame you didn't like it, this was one of the very first games I ever played on the PS2 and I have very fond memories of it. I remember a friend had to have me help her with bouncing on all the sails in the sunken ship level. I'm sure if I went back to it, it wouldn't be as good as I recollect.

dhaabi:

--- Quote from: telly on January 23, 2025, 02:59:30 pm ---
--- Quote from: dhaabi on January 23, 2025, 11:39:23 am ---Due to a variety of reasons, Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights is far more difficult than it has any right to be, both in players knowing where to go and being able to accomplish certain immediate tasks. Beneath these problems, though, is a fine enough game, though it's still not one I'd recommend.

--- End quote ---

Shame you didn't like it, this was one of the very first games I ever played on the PS2 and I have very fond memories of it. I remember a friend had to have me help her with bouncing on all the sails in the sunken ship level. I'm sure if I went back to it, it wouldn't be as good as I recollect.

--- End quote ---

I think that if more time was spent on refining its core platforming mechanics, the game would be much better and perfectly fine. I know exactly which area you're talking about too—it may have been the second or third platforming trial that was overly aggravating and is toward the end of the playthrough. Without a doubt, it wouldn't be so bad if the game spawned you back at the player's last standing point, but it instead spawns players to the beginning of the room unless some rare checkpoint is implemented. For these less forgiving platforming challenges, that's another major issue.

This was the first time I'd ever played Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights, so I don't have any memories to look back upon. But another licensed platforming game from this era that I played around the time of its release and again a few years ago is SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, and it's held up quite well, so it's not as if all of these types of games were designed poorly. I have a feeling that if you revisited Night of 100 Frights, you may not feel the same as you first did like you're presuming. Maybe one day you'll want to try it once more.

I also failed to mention above that there was a time or two where I actually had to consult a GameFAQs walkthrough, so thankfully those still exist.

telekill:
I'm a little better than halfway through Tomb Raider II (Remaster Collection - PS5). It was my favorite in the series until probably TR Anniversary (PS2). Let me tell ya... even with the new control scheme... it did not age well. I'm finding I'm having to save after every 2-3 actions to avoid too much replay. I think I would dare all the masochists that play the Souls games to play these older Tomb Raider games and compare the two series on how many times they die. Still, having just gotten to the snow levels, I plan to push through it without using the cheats.

Started up AC3 Remastered (PS4). So far, I'm enjoying it, but I'm only a couple hours in. Not even Connor yet.

Also started up Sonic x Shadow (Switch). I had forgotten just how bad the stories are in some of these Sonic games. Might drop this one, but not just yet.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page