Tuesday, July 4, 2023

What Am I Playing Next? #05 | Final Fantasy V, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 + more

 Hello readers,

in record time, we're about to get through an entire year of notable video games, as we are getting into the final 4 games on the 1992 playlist. 1992 has so far been solid, but some heavy-hitters have released near the end of the year, and we will go over them in this edition of "What Am I Playing Next", along with the first title of 1993!

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2

BASIC INFO
  • Initial Release Date: November 21, 1992
  • Platforms: Sega Genesis
  • Genre: Platformer
  • Developer / Publisher: Sega Technical Institute / Sega
  • Series/Franchise: Sonic the Hedgehog
  • HowLongToBeat: 3 hours
  • MOBY RATING: 8.3
Sonic the Hedgehog returns to the Sega Genesis and to this challenge with the 16-bit version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, the sequel to Sega's 'answer' to Nintendo's Mario, back to prove once again that 'Sega does what Nintendon't'.

MY HISTORY WITH THE SERIES

I gave the first ever Sonic game a 65 rating, which means it's a good game in my opinion but not one that impressed me beyond its 'speed'. That speed is of course the main deal with Sonic and what makes him special, the novelty just did not connect with me after I got used to it, at least not in a way Sonic's biggest fans will have felt. I still enjoyed my time with it.

MY THOUGHTS BEFORE STARTING THE GAME

I'm not sure how confident Sega were in Sonic when the first game released, but knowing how popular that game ended up being, I'm thinking a lot more resources were put into the sequel, right? At least that's my thinking without having researched it further yet. I'm looking forward to seeing how much more creative the devs get with Sonic and his speed, but I can't say I have any specific expectations and I have no idea what to expect here. My prediction would be that it's just more of the same considering this released a bit over a year after the original and for the same system.

REVIEWS OF OTHER GAMES IN THE SERIES
Spider-Man / X-Men in Arcade's Revenge

BASIC INFO
  • Initial Release Date: November 1992
  • Platforms: SNES, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Game Boy
  • Genre: Action, Platformer
  • Developer / Publisher: Software Creations / Acclaim Entertainment
  • Series/Franchise: Spider-Man
  • HowLongToBeat: 2 hours
  • MOBY RATING: 6.3
Sweating intensifies. Oh god, another Spider-Man game. The last iteration of the "What Am I Playing Next" blog posts had a Spider-Man included as well, and that one ended up being the worst-rated game of the challenge yet, surpassing a Spider-Man game and a Spider-Man game, which means the Top 3 consists of Spider-Man, Spider-Man and Spider-Man. My god. Spider-Man is my favorite superhero, and the only one I ever really watched movies of, so it pains me to see what Acclaim Entertainment (and others, though mainly Acclaim Entertainment) have done with him. The Moby Rating for this game indicates that this game is equally garbage.

MY HISTORY WITH THE SERIES

Read the above part. I've played 5 Spider-Man games so far. None of them reached 40 points. 9 games haven't reached 40 points so far, 5 of them Spider-Man games! 3 didn't even reach 30 points and are the only games to not be able to do so. This franchise has just been put through the wringer and I don't know when the first Spidey game will come out that actually is going to be OK. Seems like Acclaim's got a strangehold on the license and is telling their development studios to come up with the worst Spider-Man game in, likely, 3 weeks of development time.

MY THOUGHTS BEFORE STARTING THE GAME

6.3 tells me this will be another stinker. The question before I get into this isn't if I will enjoy it, it's whether it will be the 4th Spider-Man game to reach my Top 5 Worst Games list. Will it surpass 30 points? My prediction is that No, it won't.

REVIEWS OF OTHER GAMES IN THE SERIES
FINAL FANTASY V

BASIC INFO
  • Initial Release Date: December 6, 1992
  • Platforms: SNES, PlayStation
  • Genre: RPG
  • Developer / Publisher: Square / Square
  • Series/Franchise: Final Fantasy
  • HowLongToBeat: 37 hours
  • MOBY RATING: 7.7
It will have been nearly 1 1/2 years since the release of Final Fantasy IV or 'Final Fantasy II' as its been called in the West, and we're already getting the fifth mainline Final Fantasy game in just as many years. This is the third one that didn't get a release in the West originally either, at least until 1999 on the PlayStation. 

Final Fantasy V has expanded upon the job system introduced in Final Fantasy III and had sold over 2 million copies within 2 months. On its first day, it sold about 4.5 times as many copies as Final Fantasy IV.

MY HISTORY WITH THE SERIES

After having had very little experience with the Final Fantasy series before this challenge, I've played 3 and 4 as part of it so far. I've had mixed feelings about the job system in Final Fantasy 3 and thought it was an OK game overall. I had slightly more positive feelings about Final Fantasy 4, but found the storytelling to be overly dramatic for nothing in the end (keyword: deaths) and the ATB-system to be 1) unnecessarily stressful, if you need a second to figure out what to do and 2) enemies having the ability to one-hit kill you regardless of your health to be a dumb addition to the game. I appreciated its comparatively high production values compared to most games and while it fell flat at parts, the storytelling was a big improvement over previous entries in the series as well. 

MY THOUGHTS BEFORE STARTING THE GAME

While I wasn't too impressed with Final Fantasy III and IV, it's always exciting to play a Final Fantasy game and I am well aware that the critical reception is quite stronger for V to IX compared to previous entries, so I am looking forward to what these games bring forth starting with V. The return of the job system has me a bit worried, because I didn't really enjoy it in FF III, but it's a system Final Fantasy fans really like, so I am hoping it can win me over here. I'm also excited to see what the story will look like. Shin Megami Tensei was the only other RPG I played in 1992 and was very good, so I'm looking forward to seeing if FFV can follow suit.

REVIEWS OF OTHER GAMES IN THE SERIES
STREETS OF RAGE 2

BASIC INFO
  • Initial Release Date: December 20, 1992
  • Platforms: Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Master System
  • Genre: Beat 'em up
  • Developer / Publisher: Sega / Sega
  • Series/Franchise: Streets of Rage
  • HowLongToBeat: 3 hours
  • MOBY RATING: 8.0
Streets of Rage 2 is the sequel to the beat 'em up classic Streets of Rage from 1991 and the one that is regarded as the best entry in the series. It was the third-best selling game between 1992 and early 1993 in Europe behind Super Mario Kart and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, so it was both a commercial as well as critical success.

MY HISTORY WITH THE SERIES

The first Streets of Rage was fun and I gave it the 4th best 'Gameplay' score in 1991. It had one big issue that made quit it before beating it however, which was the incredibly annoying boss fights that reminded me of the one's on Arcade machines rather than console games. Very hard to hit, incredibly easy to get hit by, seemingly no rhyme or reason to how dodge them (I'm sure there is, but I wasn't going to try for hours to figure it out, and it surely would have taken many hours) and overall simply annoying than a fun challenge. 

MY THOUGHTS BEFORE STARTING THE GAME

As explained, I had some issues with the first Streets of Rage. I'm hoping Streets of Rage 2 leans away from the Arcade style in that regard. It doesn't really have to do much else, as I enjoyed the first game otherwise. With some additions to this game like the addition of character-specific special attacks, I think I could have a few pretty fun hours with this.

REVIEWS OF OTHER GAMES IN THE SERIES
STAR FOX

BASIC INFO
  • Initial Release Date: February 21, 1993
  • Platforms: SNES
  • Genre: Rail shooter
  • Developer / Publisher: Nintendo EAD, Argonaut Software / Nintendo
  • Series/Franchise: Star Fox
  • HowLongToBeat: 2.5 hours
  • MOBY RATING: 7.9
The first game on the 1993 playlist is Star Fox, another one of many very popular Nintendo franchises. This one is a 'rail shooter' in which you control Fox's starcraft through 3D levels. This makes Star Fox the second ever Nintendo game to use 3D technology and the first to use polygonal graphics. It led to a lot of success, as the gold sold more than 4 million copies. Interestingly enough, the sequel would not release because by that time, 32-bit technology had already captured the gaming landscape and Nintendo focused on Star Fox 64 instead. Star Fox 2 would release in 2017 (!) along with the SNES Classic console. 

MY HISTORY WITH THE SERIES

None.

MY THOUGHTS BEFORE STARTING THE GAME

Star Fox is a series I've heard of plenty of times but never really knew what it's about. Glad to get the chance now, though as someone who isn't into games where you pilot some sort of aircraft, I'm hoping Star Fox can change my mind.

REVIEWS OF OTHER GAMES IN THE SERIES
  • None
on

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)