Monthly Retro Game Club

Reset_Tears · July 8, 2020, 1:13am

Okay, I have finished Onimusha so I’ll share some final thoughts on that now.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time with this game. I’ve already written about how I like the gameplay in general, and I think I only grew to like it more once I got the hang of targeting enemies and using projectile weapons more effectively. Being able to change swords on the fly was also extremely beneficial… I would have definitely hated not being able to do that quickly in the original version of the game.

One thing the remastered edition definitely needed though was the ability to skip cut scenes! I would die to bosses, and then have to sit through all the cut scenes again each time I gave it another go. I’m fine with save points and having to work my way back to the boss, but I just don’t like repeating the cut scenes multiple times. (This was by far my biggest encouragement to use up my medicines, lol.)

Endgame Story Spoilers

Overall the story was pretty by-the-numbers, hero defeats demons to save princess. But I did at least like how at the very end, Samanosuke gets to turn into a demon! And it was a cool monster design too. I assumed that meant he would be stuck down in the demon realm forever, which felt like a neat way to end the game – but after the credits he’s back somehow, so never mind lol. Guess we need some sequels.

But no final showdown with Nobunaga? That was something I was looking forward to the whole game, but nothing happened there. Probably in a sequel.

I did not attempt the Dark Realm gauntlet challenge in this playthrough, but I plan to give it a shot next time I play this game. I think part of the fun of games like this is that in subsequent playthroughs, you know where to go and what to do, so you’re better able to experiment more and explore areas more thoroughly. (I definitely didn’t find all the collectibles.)

Final batch of screenshots:

Summary

I mentioned it before, but the parts where you played as Kaede was nice for a change of pace. The gameplay didn’t change too drastically, but it made me approach enemies in a different way (i.e. don’t bother fighting them when I don’t have to).

Just as an aside… Samanosuke is hot, right? It’s not just me that thinks so?

The demon world was cool-looking… Too bad it was only three rooms!!!

All in all, a very good game! (And a good segue into Demon’s Crest for this month…) I am 100% for Capcom bringing back the other games in the Onimusha series. I will review this one some time soon, and share my final thoughts for SNK Gals Fighters.

Reset_Tears · July 8, 2020, 1:31am

I can now reply to your final thoughts on the game – and yes, my thoughts mirror yours for the final boss.

I did not have the powerful final sword though, so I found super snake more of a struggle. Not TOO difficult, but it took some time. I couldn’t let myself stay close to the enemy for long, because of that insta-kill grab that he does. (I didn’t have a revive talisman.)

I will have to give the dark realm a try for sure. The combat in this game is fun enough to warrant a gauntlet challenge.

Apparently collecting all of the fluorite crystals will grant you a bonus game. It is a 12-stage challenge called Oni Spirits, and winning that grants you an Ultimate Mode to play the game through with.

There is also a bonus costume for Kaede apparently. You have to complete the game with an S rank to unlock it.

A surprising number of unlockables for this game! I always like fun incentives to play through a game again, so long as the game isn’t too long. Onimusha is just the right length to warrant that IMO.

Reset_Tears · July 9, 2020, 3:43pm

Final thoughts on SNK Gals’ Fighters

Final videos to share: One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Had tons of fun with this one. I see myself going back to it regularly, and I plan to pick up any future Neo Geo Pocket Color games that get ported to the Switch in the future. (They recently announced Samurai Shodown 2 and King of Fighters R2 will be put on the eshop this summer.) These games control great, feel great, and just play great – their relative simplicity to most 2D fighters make them more approachable for me, especially for a quick pick-up-and-play handheld session.

What stands out most for Gals’ Fighters though is the humor, as I’ve mentioned before. With that in mind, I think I’ve decided my favorite character is the unlockable Yuki. From what I understand, she is a secondary side character in the King of Fighters series (i.e. not actually a fighter), so her inclusion here is just for fun.

And every move of hers is appropriately funny. Eyes closed, she either swings her schoolbag recklessly, or flails her arm about randomly while she hides her face behind her schoolbag. Or, perhaps oblivious to the fact this is a fight, she just gives her opponent a back-breaking bear hug. It all gives the cartooney impression that her victories are a wacky and bizarre fluke, the level of which would shock even Mr. Magoo. I love that Yuki’s special is eating a hamburger (for a health boost of course), and that one of her super moves is somehow causing a massive steel girder from a construction site’s crane to drop down on her opponent. (Or, hilariously, on herself if the opponent is too far away.) She even has a construction helmet on for that brief moment, going full Looney Tunes for us. This move is made all the funnier if it’s a finisher that defeats her opponent, whose life will dramatically flash before her eyes before death takes her. (At least, that’s how I always interpreted the sudden montage for the defeated character that passes by on-screen, lol.)

In other news, I’ve started Demon’s Crest and have even gotten the first demon’s crest (earth). I’m already digging this game’s aesthetic (any screenshot could make for a decent heavy metal album cover), but it’ll probably take some more time for me to get used to the controls. It’s definitely got a unique flow of movement, a difficulty that’s compounded by the fact your moveset apparently changes with each demon’s crest you equip. Looking forward to seeing how well the level design holds up over the course of the game.

Reset_Tears · July 15, 2020, 1:38pm

How’s everyone doing on Demon’s Crest? Nobody has said much of anything for that game yet. So far I’m digging its general aesthetic, but I’m finding it pretty damn tough. I’m sure there is an optimal order in which to tackle the levels and bosses. For now I’m just flying from one random place to the next and generally just getting stomped. This game would’ve been great for kids with lots of free time back in the day, since if you have trouble with one stage you can give others a try – and hopefully you’ll earn a skill that will prove more useful against the more difficult bosses.

On top of the crests, there are also items and potions etc to try using… And I’ve been having trouble figuring out the actual use of some of them. (Or I use them and they don’t seem that helpful at all.) Not a game that holds your hand, lol.

As for Uniracers, are people having fun with that? I’ve dabbled in it some more, and I don’t think my opinion’s going to change too much. I would like to spend some more time in the stunt levels to see if I can actually improve my tricks a little. These segments make me think of this game as a sort of surreal 2D Tony Hawk game.

killerstar · July 15, 2020, 1:57pm

I’ve been re-playing (again) the Mass Effect trilogy full-time, so I haven’t played Demon’s Crest yet!

BMO · July 15, 2020, 3:00pm

I find the movement in Demon’s Crest heavy and cumbersome. It’s a wonder because Capcom has produced plenty of examples of much nimbler characters and platformers during that era. It drains some of the fun out of it for me.

Uniracers falls squarely in the camp of games I loved as a kid/teen but only love now due to nostalgia. I think it was a wacky and fun concept at the time and I still enjoy it today, but I wonder if I would enjoy it if the game was a fresh experience.

John · July 17, 2020, 11:12am

I remember playing Uniraces with a friend 20 or so years ago. It took me many years to find it again, and I’ve been intending to try it again for a while now, but it somehow kept getting knocked down the priority ladder.

Playing it now, I feel it would be at most enjoyable if one were to memorise the individual levels to perfect one’s runs. This is of course an important component in all racing games, but in this case, as a result of the limited perspective and the fast-changing level design, you really can’t rely on twitch reactions at all. However for me, it’s not engaging enough to warrant the time-investment.

It’s a bit disappointing, as most games I revisit from that era I usually enjoy just as much now (if not more sometimes) as I did then.

Reset_Tears · July 27, 2020, 1:36am

Demon’s Crest is tough, and I think it’s in large part due to those “heavy” controls. You really have to commit to each movement and action you take, much like a classic Castlevania game. Firebrand is a tricky character to control, and his abilities are limited for each form he takes. His base form for example can not shoot more than one fireball at a time, which makes things difficult when there are multiple enemies and you happen to miss them. Then other demon’s crest forms take away his flight (er, hovering in place) and/or his climbing ability. (And by climbing ability, I really mean “latching onto a wall” ability.) Lots of limits to work with, and a TON of menu-hopping in order to swap forms every time the situation calls for it.

I’m kind of okay with most of this (with some exceptions*) – it just means getting used to the movement and controls and working with the tools available to you. But damn, these bosses. The bosses in this game are a real pain – not just because they’re difficult, but because some of them seem to take a million hits before they finally die. Meanwhile a single hit from one of them often means losing a third of your health instantly. (And get caught in a tight spot, and you’ll easily get hit twice.) I don’t want to jump on the Dark Souls comparison train too quickly, but…

I swear I spent at least a half-hour save-scumming against this damn wolf boss, and I still couldn’t beat it!!!

*one exception, for example: swimming between spikes in underwater segments – the hit box for those spikes is just too big, I’ve tried a hundred times to slip between them and Firebrand somehow gets hurt every damn time no matter what angle I attempt to pass through with. v_v

I’ll hopefully be able to get through the rest of this game by the end of the month, but we’ll see. Here’s some screenshots I’ve taken in the meantime:

Demon's Crest Screenshots

Reset_Tears · July 28, 2020, 4:44am

Demon’s Crest Final Thoughts

I’ve finished playing through Demon’s Crest, so I’ll go over some of the things I liked and disliked about it.

Liked:

The game looks rad. Love the spritework in this one. Firebrand’s different forms look cool, the monsters in general are great, and the backgrounds are pretty fantastic.
Unique setting and protagonist – play as a demon in hell, I am all for this. Firebrand has a different feel to how he controls, which takes some getting used to but I’m fine with that.
The open-world setup is pretty cool for a game of this era. It feels satisfying to enter new areas in past levels, once you have the appropriate power-ups.

Disliked:

Level design is quite bland for this game. Many sections you can just fly over. (Kirby games have this issue too, but at least those are intended to be lighter fare.) For the most part, I didn’t feel like Firebrand’s abilities were really utilized to their full potential, like in a good Wonder Boy game. And though the levels look cool, there weren’t really any particular parts that stick in my memory. Perhaps creativity could have been pushed more for this game. Kind of a small number of levels to begin with, tbh.
I didn’t hate the music, but none of it stuck with me either. I kept hoping for something a little more dynamic than just droning, moody pipe organs. (Given the atmosphere, perhaps I simply can’t help but think of Castlevania, one of the top game franchises of all time as far as music is concerned.)
Items – spells and potions were extremely underwhelming to me. Some things you’re not fully sure what they’ll do, or how well they’ll do it… and then you give it a try, and it seems nothing happens at all, so what was the point? Similarly, some abilities are not explained well in this game, which is par for the course for this era – but I found it more frustrating than usual in Demon’s Crest.
I hate the bosses in this game. While the platforming for the levels wasn’t all that difficult, I found the bosses to be an ungodly pain. For the most part I didn’t find them that interesting to fight, or challenging in a good way. They just would take a ridiculous number of hits before they finally died. If a Dr. Robotnik boss fight is a pain, we can at least rest assured he will die in eight hits – how much fun would he be to fight if he took 80-something hits? And with no health bar to reference? It would’ve been lovely to at least know if the abilities I was using were having much (if any) effect on the Demon’s Crest bosses.
Story is rather… meh? I get it, old games weren’t really trying hard to have an interesting plot. But I don’t know, I felt there was some potential in the rivalry between Firebrand and Phalanx, and their respective intentions for the demon world at large. I guess when you present me with an interesting premise, I have higher hopes for the story.

John · July 30, 2020, 12:41pm

I have a tendency to start too many projects, and not finishing them. Demon’s Crest was one of those, and thanks to this club, now it got its second chance.

Starting off, I see a lot of mentions of the movement of Firebrand himself, being described with adjectives such as “heavy” and “stiff”. Coming from a even “stiffer” background, namely its mother series Ghosts 'n Goblins, this isn’t super surprising. It seems Firebrand can only generate a lift as high as he can launch himself, and no further. This together with his fireball limitation leaves every movement to be very methodical, calculated, and precise. For some, this might not be as appealing as something more reaction driven and agile, but I find it has its charm. It’s no Megaman X, nor is it trying to be.

As far as the levels go, it seems more leaning towards exploration rather than elaborate platforming. Although a bit primitive in that regard, I do appreciate its intentions. I thoroughly enjoy the enviroments, the entire aesthetic of the game as well as enemy and boss designs. I doubt I’ll ever get satiated on dark fantasy and horror.

I haven't come very far, as of writing this text, with this being my current progress:

I do find the bosses challenging, some more than others, but luckily not yet to a degree where I start to find it unenjoyable. I’ve also managed to refrain from savescumming so far.

I think that’s probably it for now, we’ll see how it goes down the road.

John · July 31, 2020, 10:52pm

I’ve had some more fun exploring in Demon’s Crest. I’ve actually beaten it twice now, first time getting the bad ending with the entire demon world falling into anarchy. It seems I was too eager to go after Phalanx.

Seeing as I only had a couple of the titular crests in my inventory, I figured I had to find the rest to unlock a truer ending. After all, Phalanx couldn’t even activate his trump card, the Crest of Heavens.

And sure enough, after finding all of this:

…and then, the castle reappearing, the time seemed nigh. I gave him another smack, and this time he sealed himself in the crest, not finishing the fight with Firebrand. This too seemed a bit anticlimactic, so I googled to see if there was more, and sure enough an even truer ending existed. There was a mention of having to find every single item, including health upgrades, to unlock it, so I guess that’s what I’m doing next.

I enjoy the challenge Demon’s Crest provides, however when it comes to bosses, a better system to find out their weaknesses would be highly beneficial. After getting smacked by the first Flier, I must admit, I looked up what weapon to use against it. Turns out, I didn’t even have any of the ones that were strong against it, so I just had to step it up. Luckily, unlike Ghosts 'n Goblins, the arcade attitude is scrapped, and one is provided with unlimited continues with a fair amount of checkpoints.

Though, after beating Arma for the third time (sneakingly hidden up in the sky), and obtaining the Crest of Time, and gaining the Legandary Gargoyle form, together with the Armor talisman, the game became a breeze for me. As cool as that form was, perhaps too much of the challenge was lost.

I’ve yet to find any use for spells or items. It seems they aren’t necessary at all. Perhaps later, some new boss (Phalanx final form?) will warrant carrying around a health potion or two, but so far I’ve done without them.

I also agree with this:

Those hitboxes didn’t seem to correspond with their sprites at all. Holding the A button would make Firebrand swim in a straight line, so once you aligned yourself correctly, they could be avoided, but that brings me to my next point. The wonkyness of the controls themselves:

When swimming, A goes forward, B goes upwards, and sideways on the directional pad takes you forward on a downward arch. When flying (actually flying), the directional pad takes you back and forth, A goes up, and B goes down (by stopping flight altogether). Up and down on the D-pad does nothing.
Makes one wonder if there wasn’t a smarter way to go about things.

The music was nice, some pieces I enjoyed more than others (my favourite being the one that plays during the very first level). I did hope for some more variation though, and none of them managed to be quite as iconic as the ones from other Capcom games at the time.

In conclusion, I did like it a lot, the second time more than the first. It got better as I kept getting further into it. Though it was quite rough around the edges, I still wish they’d kept at it with future games. The concept is quite unique, and the potential was there for something really special. Something deeper perhaps, with more exploration. That one guy at the fountain that commented on your appearance and happenings in the demon world was a really nice touch. A fully immersive demon world to explore, with many inhabitants to interact with would be the dream. Sadly, the series ended right here with this third and final game.

Reset_Tears · July 31, 2020, 11:07pm

Uniracers Final Thoughts

So I didn’t play a ton of this the past month, but I did do a few races and stunt levels from time to time to refresh my memory on the game in general. Overall my opinion of the game hasn’t changed much since last year, when I gave it the full playthrough treatment. Uniracers works best as a goofy game to mess around in with a friend – but on your own, it’s a pretty meh game with a number of flaws that are hard to overlook.

Liked:

The whole premise of the game is delightfully silly. I love the surreal nonsense of it all.
The unicycles themselves have a lot of character to them for a game of that era. I could have seen this becoming a franchise with multiple games over the years, and even some short CG cartoons that just has the unicycles doing goofy Loony Tunes hijinks. (The Worms games sometimes had this sort of thing, something along those lines would be great.)
I think the devs handled the physics and controls for this one about as well as could be hoped. Spins and flips are fluid, and I generally feel the wipeouts are legitimate.

Disliked:

The general presentation of this game is not appealing, to put it lightly. Some sound effects are too loud and piercing, some visual effects (namely the countdown and the end of race flag) have extremely annoying flashing lights, and the menus and level backgrounds are varying degrees of gross and nauseating.
You just can’t see far enough ahead to react in time for anything. In most racing games you can see the turns coming up in the distance (and some even tell you outright). But not in Uniracers. You have no choice but to memorize the entire courses. This sort of thing could be easily remedied in a modern remake – just zoom out a bit (or really, zoom out a lot) so we can see more than a tenth of a second ahead. I think the game would be a lot more fun if I could plan for my tricks more fairly, particularly when against the computer (which can surely “see” the entire map).
The stunt courses are okay, but there just isn’t enough to do in them to make them feel worth spending a lot of time in. This sort of gameplay would not be perfected until Tony Hawk Pro Skater, I suppose. We need a lot of different kinds of tricks to do, and a lot of different kinds of environments (various sorts of ramps, pipes, slopes, and hazards) to play around in to keep from getting bored.

All in all it’s a rather wonky game with a pretty steep learning curve. Again, I think there are some good laughs to be had when playing against a friend, but on my own it’s just not that great. I’d rather be playing Super Mario Kart, or perhaps even Excite Bike.

Reset_Tears · July 31, 2020, 11:39pm

Thanks for commenting on Demon’s Crest, John! I think we got the same two endings – the bad ending for defeating Phalanx too soon (which was pretty clever and kind of amusing), and a good (but not best?) ending for defeating him and he seals himself in the crest. I saw that you have to collect basically everything and defeat an extra-hard final boss to get the true ending, which I decided to nope out of.

I’d agree with that – I’m fine with having a slower, more “methodical” character from time to time (i.e. you have to make each attack count, and commit to each jump). But perhaps the bulk of the “wonkiness” for the controls stems from how each form controls in dissimilar ways. You pointed out how the swimming works (which I now realize I was probably not doing correctly… since the correct way was not intuitive). The flying form is also pretty weird. You ascend with a button, but only to a certain small distance – but you can’t descend the same way, you just have to “drop out” of flight mode entirely. It’s all just feels off. (And as you also hint at, Firebrand’s regular flight makes light work of much of the game’s platforming to begin with, but it then becomes practically meaningless for many segments once you can ascend as far as you wish, and don’t have to cling to walls.)

I will note that much of my difficulty with bosses perhaps stems from the fact I never happened to stumble upon the armor talisman. This sort of thing happens to me in many old-school games of this sort (early Metroidvanias and the like)… The game will be expecting me to find McGuffin 11, but I never happened upon it so my experience becomes more frustrating as a result. It felt like the entire game though, any boss could kill me in 3-4 hits, regardless of how many health points I had accumulated. I have to wonder if the armor talisman would’ve made a big difference or not. (Perhaps I should’ve consulted a guide on it? But again, I had found most of the items and potions etc pretty pointless, so I had to assume talismans weren’t a huge deal either.)

I’ll agree with all of this. (I too liked the commentary from the few NPCs in this game, and wished there was a lot more of it to give me a better idea of what this world was like.) And really, there is no better time than now for Capcom to release a new Firebrand adventure in a Metroidvania demon world. The genre has never been more alive and kicking, and a more tongue-in-cheek take on the “dark-and-gritty” hellish-Gothic setting would almost certainly be well-received by fans of the genre.

It took Capcom quite a while to get back to making a new Megaman game. So perhaps they’ll eventually do the same for Firebrand? (Or hey, license it out to Inti Creates or something? Pretty sure they’d do a good job of it.)

Reset_Tears · August 1, 2020, 5:53am

For August 2020, the retro games of the month shall be:

Ape Escape – 1999 – 3D platformer
Big Tournament Golf – 1996 – sports

ape escape gotm

Ape Escape (AKA Saru Getchu [Monkey Get You] in Japan) was released for the original Playstation in 1999. It is notable for being the first Playstation game to require the DualShock controller – other games utilized it beforehand, but Ape Escape made it mandatory to have the two joysticks. I feel this is comparable to Night into Dreams releasing with the Saturn 3D controller in 1996, and how development of Super Mario 64 (also released in 1996) influenced the Nintendo 64’s controller.

Ape Escape was developed by SCE Japan and published by Sony. It is one of many 3D platformers for the Playstation, but is notable for having a unique control scheme. You use one joystick to move, and the other joystick to control whatever item or weapon you happen to be holding (attacking with it in the direction you push). The action buttons are for selecting the item your character is holding, and you jump with the right trigger. For camera adjustment, you use the left trigger or the D-pad.

The goal of the game is to catch all the monkeys (or apes I guess). It’s a pretty bizarre story premise for this one… Basically an ape acquires a helmet that grants him high intelligence, and so he proceeds to command an army of apes to use a time machine and change the past… Now you (AKA some anime kid) have to travel to past time periods and nab each of the apes with a net. You get lots of other little gadgets to use along the way though, most of which I imagine also implement the use of the controller’s joysticks.

Ape Escape was well-regarded back in the day, and the franchise had a couple sequels and a bunch of spinoffs. The last mainline game was released in 2005 (PS2), while the last spinoff (for the PS3’s Playstation Move) was in 2010. The series has pretty much been dormant since then, but there was hope for a new entry when a Japanese Twitter account was made for its 20th anniversary (2019). But maybe that was nothing.

There was a remake of the game released for the PSP in 2001, titled Ape Escape: On the Loose. The controls are reworked for that version, since the portable console only had one joystick. Also perhaps worth keeping in mind, the characters in Ape Escape have different names depending on the region. For example the professor’s assistant/granddaughter is named Natsumi in Japan, Katie in Europe, and Natalie in America. It seems this series also had different English voice acting for European and American regions. Howlongtobeat dot com says it takes about eight hours to play through Ape Escape.

neo turf masters gotm

Big Tournament Golf (AKA Neo Turf Masters) is a golf game that released in arcades in 1996, developed by Nazca and published by SNK (which would acquire Nazca soon thereafter). Nazca is best-known for creating the Metal Slug run-and-gun series (the first of which also released in 1996).

There have been a lot of video games made for golf over the years, but I think there’s something special about 'ol Neo Turf Masters. It’s a game I’ve played from time to time, but now I’d like to really dive in and see if I can ever stand a chance of making the top rankings for a course. The game is much more addicting than you might expect of a golf game, and I think a large part of why it works is because as an arcade game it requires you to take your turn fairly quickly. Choose your club, aim your shot, and swing (first deciding the power, then deciding the height). You’ll surely mess up a bunch of times, but with practice you’ll learn to gauge distances better, and learn to accommodate for wind, slopes, and trees more accurately. The controls are a bit simpler and less technical than most other golf video games, which makes sense for an arcade release.

If possible, I strongly recommend playing this game with a friend. It is a very fun multiplayer game, and there is a lot of mid-90s Japanese arcade game charm to its presentation in general. Neo Turf Masters was released for the Neo Geo home console, and had a simpler-looking version made for the Neo Geo Pocket Color as well (in 1999). It has since been released for the Wii’s Virtual Console, for iOS and Android, for PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, and for PC via Humble Bundle and GOG. Just keep in mind the title of the game is now Big Golf Tournament for all regions, presumably changed due to trademark issues.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on either (or both) of these games as you play them over the course of August. If you finish, you can give a mini-review if you’d like. Let us know if you think these games stand the test of time!

killerstar · August 3, 2020, 2:38pm

I’ve dabbled a bit with Ape Escape last night and the controls are truly something else. It seems to come from an era before the standardisation of 3rd person platforming. This video comes to mind:

BMO · August 3, 2020, 4:32pm

Are you playing it on PSX? Or through emulation? I see Ape Escape II on the PS Store.

killerstar · August 3, 2020, 5:11pm

I’m using RetroArch on my phone with a bluetooth controller.

Reset_Tears · August 3, 2020, 9:51pm

Nice video, and yeah I’m finding it’s taking some time to get used to Ape Escape’s control scheme. Feels very strange to not jump with the X button, and can’t help but keep trying to move the camera with the right joystick. I’m sure I’ll get used to it eventually though.

The fifth generation of console gaming was an interesting time for platformers – 2D titles had become more experimental, some using 3D graphics in various ways. And then for full 3D platformers, there were a few different approaches attempted. Mario 64 had more open terrain to explore compared to Crash Bandicoot’s challenge gauntlet hallways. And then Ape Escape tried to convince the world game controllers needed two joysticks, not just one. This turned out to be the case, but not for the sake of abilities and actions. As the video pointed out, it’s very rare these days for that second joystick to be used for anything other than camera movement (or aiming your gun in FPS).

I could not find the original Ape Escape on PSN either unfortunately, so I’m using ePSXe on my laptop, which I can use my PS4 controller on. I did buy Ape Escape 2 though, so if I finish the first quickly perhaps I will move on to the sequel to see how it compares. I rarely hear much talk about the sequels, compared to the first entry.

Reset_Tears · August 10, 2020, 4:09pm

Neo Turf Masters update

Yesterday I played through the Japan course against a friend, and my biggest takeaway from that was that it really does matter what golfer you choose to play as. I went with the one from Brazil, my friend the one from Britain.

My golfer had more power in his swings to take advantage of, so I could easily drive the ball further down the fairway. This helped me get past sand traps, and onto the green more feasibly. But the downside was that I had very little room in my height meter (high/low) to get my golf ball over trees or steep hills. A couple times I was basically stuck behind a wall, and just had to give up because no way I was getting over it. My friend could handle these situations much better with his golfer, and he ended up winning at the second-to-last hole of the course. It was quite neck-and-neck overall, lots of fun.

A couple funny moments:

The ball landed in some water, but it wasn’t too deep so the game gave the option to swing from there… but the power meter moves ridiculously fast, so it was really tough to time it just right. Very silly.
Sometimes you’re golfing in front of a massive cliff??? One time my golf ball bounced off the very top edge of it, which was a hoot.

GigaDeathNullGolem · August 10, 2020, 10:56pm

wow that is a nice pick for the Neo Geo MVS/AES platform!