it290 wrote:And one more...can I make a humble request that we add the developer name to the title tagline? I feel like the devs aren't getting their day in court here...
my problem with this is that it starts to get a little complicated. e.g. in the review you just posted for metal stoker, face is not the developer. it's
sankindo, who only developed 3 games. one of them is cross wiber, which i've brought up somewhere on the forum once before as a tidbit. i also mention in the review of the game i did in the youtube description box on my nomiss replay that they notably did not make cyber cross, which cross wiber is probably a sequel to and shares a lot of elements with.
there's a lot of instances where the publisher and developer don't match in a weird way, and even when you have the same developer, it's sometimes a substantially different internal studio or staff, anyway.
here's a weird one: makyo densetsu and ankoku densetsu only have two staff in common despite both games being 10+ teams, but they feel surprisingly similar. the line where publisher and developer actually means anything sometimes obscures a bit, to me, especially when you wind up with atlus
and red collaborating on ankoku densetsu, but makyo densetsu is credited to victor musical (
edit: looking at GDRI, it's apparently actually aicom, which later folded into sammy - did a couple staff leave for red or atlus or something??). i usually bring a name up when it has an associated bar of quality with it, but as far as the reviews actually needing them - i don't know, i feel it sometimes actually obscures information.
also, here's a question: did face make
anything? despite a couple of games credited to them as such on mobygames, i don't know if that's actually the truth or just a lack of proper information. hany in the sky is credited to them on mobygames, but hany on the road, which
doesn't even have a mobygames entry, was done by arc system works, at least according to
GDRI. they apparently also did part, maybe all of hany in the sky? who knows! i've looked this stuff up before and it boggles my mind a bit.
if a couple others want known developer/publisher added to these reviews, i'll think about it, but it's 1. a lot of work, as i'll have to frequently cross reference both GDRI and mobygames and 2. honestly not very useful information (without further explanation and examination of common staffers or commentary on studio/publisher history, which can be discussed in extended reviews or even in indexed mini-reviews if meaningful enough) a pretty substantial amount of the time. it was something i thought about before making the thread at all, but i settled that reviews and individual games should usually speak for themselves. this is a thread i'm making for everyone's convenience, though, so if enough people are interested, i'll go for it.
- - -
i played a whole bunch more PCE
forgotten worlds today. i quite like it a lot and managed to capture a nomiss with perikles' advice on that final boss safe spot. my final score is 4,966,600 - which could have been substantially higher if i'd kept napalm the whole game instead of upgrading to the 80k laser, which i really do think is quite doable. i went to compare it to the arcade version, but i can only play that via capcom classics collection, which has *ominous thunderclap* INPUT DELAAAAYYY. feels like i'm playing the whole damn game in molasses :[ i just couldn't stand it and put it down without too much play. difficulty on the PCE version seems a little more subdued, but i noticed a few parts are actually slightly easier on the arcade version (comparing both on default settings) due to occasionally lower enemy or boss hp and more maneuvering room, even with the arcade version's extra enemies and projectiles.
seems like a really good conversion, tbh! some sub-weapons seem to perform a little better, i really prefer how option/satellite handling works in this version, and i like the audio more. it lacks the parallax, but that frankly doesn't bother me too much. hard mode meaningfully increases enemy projectiles, which sounds cool, but also ups the health on a lot of various enemies. as much as i came to like this game, i feel that pushes shit into euroshmup-ish territory. it really just does not feel good to not be able to smoke popcorn enemies, especially when you're rapidly switching targets and two-button rotation frankly isn't the most fluid or precise thing in the world to begin with. i think i'm gonna give that a pass and be happy with default setting nomiss. i look forward to tackling the arcade game whenever i either get over myself enough to get a good MAME set-up on a CRT or become a pcb tycoon.
will add a review to the index once i've converted my nomiss.