Well… it happened again, as I knew it would. After completing Super Robot Wars V around this time last year, I said that I’d already ordered X and despite feeling burnt out I knew I’d be playing it sooner rather than later, and here we are! X had a very different feel to it due to focusing more on magic and fantasy than the more real robot-y feel of V, but it also included some fun new franchises like Gurren Lagann and Code Geass. How does it balance out? Let’s have a look!
I remember back in 2004 me and my friend were reading a list of naughty-naughty ROMs and saw Final Fight 2 and Final Fight 3 listed for the SNES. We were confused, how could there have been two sequels to Final Fight and we’d never heard of them? Well, it turns out, it’s probably because they’re not very good (or at least this one isn’t), and beyond Maki appearing the Capcom vs. SNK 2, this game is never referenced again. Want more details? Read on!
“What?! The Atari Jaguar version, why the F-“ well let me cut you off there, weirdly enough this was the first version of the game I played (yes I owned a Jaguar back in the day… Hello buyer’s remorse!) and frankly, it’s likely to be the only chance I have to review a Jaguar game. I had, like, six or seven other games on the system, and I can’t see myself reviewing the others, with the possible exception of Alien vs. Predator… So yeah! The original Doom, inspiration for so… so many games to come after it, as well as a not so good film. Let’s take a ruddy good look!
Now if we’re talking about the games I played and actually owned growing up, then Final Fight is first, release date chronologically (though I actually first played it on the Mega CD, meaning after I played the Streets of Rage games…) and it’s a great example of the genre. It may have been inspired by Double Dragon’s success, but it itself inspired many games after it, mostly from Capcom themselves. So let’s take a look at Final Fight, the first of a trilogy, making the title technically incorrect…
Any game that has an opening that reads “The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?” deserves respect for not giving a crap about any kind of serious plot and having a laugh with itself, but is the actual game good? This is one of the only completely side-on, 2D Scrolling Beat ‘Em Ups I’ll be covering, but it’s also possibly the earliest example of the genre I actually played. Let’s see if I’m a bad enough dude to give this game a fair shake in 2020, shall we?
I brought Double Dragon III quite cheap at some point in my childhood, thinking it would “be like Streets of Rage”, a series I loved to death. Sadly, I was wrong, as Double Dragon III is … not good, or at least not the Mega Drive port anyway. It’s slow, unresponsive and not very pretty to look at, and it didn’t take long for me and my friends to head straight back to SoR2. Did I not give it a fair shake, or was I bang on the money? Let’s find out…
Yay, another AKI Engine game! Man I played this game TO DEATH back in 98/99, and several times afterwards due to the great roster and never-gets-old gameplay. I don’t know what else to say about this entry in the Wrestling Game Rundown, so let’s just get on with it!
Scrolling Sundays moves into week two, and with it the second (and I’m pretty sure last) game on the list that I didn’t actually play back in the day. I’ve already reviewed the original, and DD III is up next week (which I actually owned on the Mega Drive…) so given I have access to it via Nintendo Online, I thought I may as well complete the original Double Dragon trilogy rather than leave this out. It’s safe to say “The Revenge” is a big improvement over the original, but by how much? Let’s find out!
Funnily enough I’ve never really been into the Tomb Raider series. I played the original quite a bit around various friends’ houses, and I THINK I played the second one, also around a friend’s house, but that’s it really. I know all about the series because, let’s face it, it was the first 3D series to actually become “Iconic”, with Lara Croft herself becoming a gaming icon in no time flat. Still, along with giving you a look at the game that inspired the film, how does Tomb Raider play in 2020? Well…
Time to finally kick of “Scrolling Sundays”! Oddly, the first two games in the weekly feature are ones I didn’t play back in the day, but since I have free access to them via Nintendo Online, I thought “why not?”. River City Ransom is a game I’ve been meaning to play for many years, so it was nice to finally sit down and play it a bunch. What’s this extremely early example of the genre like? Let’s find out!
Hogan Reviews 