New stuff from last week:
15. Fire Emblem Fates (3DS)- Birthright Completed/Chp. 13 Conquest- So the Birthright side was finally completed, the endgame chapters weren't too bad in my opinion. I made a little bit more progress in Conquest as well, thanks to some reworking of strategy for Chp.10.
19. Bayonetta 1 ( Wii U) Completed- Damn, this was a great experience from start to finish. It's a very good port of the xbox 360 port, ( considered to be the best), and every single aspect of the game comes together very well, especially the music and gameplay. My only compliant is some of the quicktime events don't give you much time to react, and then you can die and screw up your entire stage score. But this was really well done; one of the best hack n slashes and games of the last generation. 8.5/10
20. Bayonetta 2 ( Wii U)- Completed This one feels like a incremental sequel but with some better changes, they got rid of the quicktime events, difficulty feels a bit more balanced in the earlier stages, new ways to get more life/magic, not too many reused assets, you are able to fight infernal demons now in some chapters. The graphics are really good for the Wii U, its got a much brighter color palette than the first game, only a few minor slowdowns and a bit of extra time for loading screens. I was a bit dissapointed about the final boss compared to the first game, but I still had a great time. I'm looking forward to see what happens in its sequel. 9/10
21. House of the Dead: Overkill (Wii)- Completed This a light gun shooter that happens to be the prequel to the original House of the Dead. Its got a 70's horror B-movie vibe to it, and a money system that allows you to upgrade weapons. For the most part, it was graphically alright, but there were some slowdowns here and there due to the fact that there is a physics system for the zombie parts after you shoot them up. It's especially bad in level 5, where the game comes to a standstill with too much going on, and putting it in 480p makes it even worse. There are also missing parts to the story that can only be done in the director's cut mode, requiring a second playthrough. Overall, it was okay, but the upgradable system made the later stages a pain in the ass to not lose health and be forced to continue; I dunno if the PS3 port fixes any of this. 6/10.
22. Dragon Spirit( Namco System I Arcade/ Namco Museum 50 Annv. GC)- Completed A pure fantasy shmup from Namco that was originally released in 1987. It's the first game where Shinji Hosoe composed for, and its a pretty good first showing from him. The graphics are decent for there time, and there a quite a bit of powerups/ terrain/enemy patterns to deal with. The biggest problem with this game is your hugeass hitbox, and that having multiple heads only increases it, which leads to too many places where you'll get stuck, especially since many of the popcorn enemies home into your position. 6.5/10
23. Dragon Saber ( Namco System II Arcade/ PS1-JP Namco Museum Encore)- Stage 5 on 1c- Wow, the three year jump between Dragon Spirit and this game has a taken a huge leap in graphics and sound, many due to the vast increase of power in the arcade board. The soundtrack is even better this time; composed by Hosoe, and even includes a hidden soundtest to play remixed tracks from Dragon Spirit in the main game! Most of the old powerups are back, along with some new ones for different stages. Your hitbox is a little bit smaller this time, however you only have one bar of health, opposed to two in the original game. This makes many situations in the game extremely frustrating, especially since most of the bosses are beefed up compared to Spirit. This is even worse in the World version, requiring 2 credits for 3 lives, vs 1 for 3. Scoring is also more important here for end game bonuses, but I'm not gonna worry about it since I can only get halfway through the game on 1c right now. Quite a good improvement over Spirit. 7.8/10
24. Crimzon Clover: World Ignition ( Steam-PC)- Novice Arcade Complete- Got this for a buck, so I decided to check it out. It's a very well made bullethell shmup, with multiple ships/modes to test your skills. The main compliant is the lack of difficulty between novice and arcade; novice feels too easy while arcade will curb stomp you if you are trying to clear on one credit. There should have been a difficulty in between the two; everything else is pretty solid for the most part. 7.5/10
