Amusingly bad reviews

[KAI]

[Hagane]

Alex Warren is at it again in the SFA3 review...

...this is the sort of game which should stay banished from the glorious realms of the Dreamcast. Street Fighter was a great game on the SNES but on the Dreamcast it's like a minnow swimming with the sharks of Soul Calibur and Ready 2 Rumble. Anyone foolish enough to spend money on this deserves to suffer for their stupidity.

There are similar comments in the Marvel vs Capcom review. Elsewhere in the mag, he declares Ready 2 Rumble his game of 1999.

Haha, Ready 2 Rumble. Such awful times.

I remember a local magazine named Next Level that was rather similar. Anything 2D (except Guilty Gear X, because it was HD and "didn't let you spam hadoukens from the other side of the screen") was not worth playing because it didn't make full use of the console's capabilities. The DC port of SSF2X was featured in a "worst games ever" article with a score of ~35% because LOL SNES graphics (nevermind it's the best console port of the game). Gigawing also got the mandatory "IT'S IMPOSSIBLE" review of the time (of course forgetting to even mention that you had a reflect mechanic), and Gunbird 2 was slammed for its 16 bit graphics and its lots of tiny, impossible to dodge bullets (and asking "what the hell were Capcom thinking porting this after Gigawing", wondering if it wasn't some sort of cruel joke). Mars Matrix also got such treatment, because well it's even more impossible than Gigawing.

Even in their favorable reviews it showed that they didn't even play many of the games they reviewed (like their Grandia review where they call Justin a 14 year old girl).

Fortunately, there were some decent Spanish gaming mags back there. One of the most notable was Super Juegos, which frequently gave info about the latest obscure Japanese imports and gave favorable and often well informed reviews on arcade / arcade like games. I remember when one of their reviewers got thrashed by some reader letters for giving R-Type Delta something like a 95% and calling it one of the absolute best on the console, because it was an outdated game for the 16 bit era, how can you score it so high when you have games like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy 7/8, etc...

[trap15]

I hate humanity.

[guigui]

I hate humanity.

I love you though.

[Ed Oscuro]

hey shumps whatchu doin
oh you're playing this? cool whut u think bout et

Unfortunately this game freezes a lot, and I only got to the boss of level six once. But rather than wait to try and finish the game, I figured it was about time for a review.

Recently I found an X68000 (Expert-2 model), but it was so damned expensive that I can't buy it.

Why oh why you left us sad westerners without the X68000, Sharp? I'm never going to buy any of your stuff because of that!

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Sine Mora: Quite possibly the best horizontal shmup of all time...

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussi ... f-all-time

(It's on the PA forum, but it links to a review as well.)

Oh my gawd the opinions of those shmup players are awefull. CAVE is boring, and are called memorisors while praising Ikaruga for doing the same thing. Obvious creditfeeder mentality.

I'm unsure if this has been posted in this thread already, but this is a pretty crummy review of Akia Katana, one that you wouldn't expect to see nowadays.http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/05/16/a ... ana-review

[hail good sir]

eyes

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm unsure if this has been posted in this thread already, but this is this is a pretty crummy review of Akia Katana, one that you wouldn't expect to see nowadays.http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/05/16/a ... ana-review

Classic review, remember seeing that a while ago. Not even an attempt to explain the scoring (the game manual explains it more in-depth than the review does, sad), complaints about its visual style not being distinct enough (wtf, every shmup needs to have lolis or mecha??? I mean jesus you have samurai summoning MOTHERFUCKING TANKS AND BATTLETRAINS out of MOTHERFUCKING PORTALS), namedropping Sine Mora as prettier (irrelevant considering its gameplay is utter shit, besides the music is a thousand times better in AK).

The most aggravating part is the complaint about it being a 'cheap thrill' - Akai Katana is well worth 40$ whereas Sine Mora isn't worth 5$, let alone 15$.

[Squire Grooktook]

The most aggravating part is the complaint about it being a 'cheap thrill' - Akai Katana is well worth 40$ whereas Sine Mora isn't worth 5$, let alone 15$.

Reminds me a while back when I stumbled upon a review of the Milestone Shooting Collection on IGN. Aside from the obvious Gradius/R-Type comparison name dropping at the beginning, the review wasn't terribly offensive...until the last few sentences when he says something along the lines of "Shmups never have much replay value anyway so oh well."

All I can say at that is lol.

[KAI]

Daemon is IGN's Senior Editor and host of the Game Scoop! podcast. He would very much like a sequel to Einhander.

HAHAHAHAH, what a fucker.

[Squire Grooktook]

To be fair, don't we all want a sequel to Einhander (assuming of course it doesn't suck).

[Formless God]

Sine Mora: Quite possibly the best horizontal shmup of all time...

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussi ... f-all-time

I got physical pain from reading this

[Nana]

Good lord that Akai Katana review is terrible. First he says Akai Katana offers nothing new, then he says the mechanics are so complex he can't understand them. And of all the CAVE games to namedrop, Donpachi, Espgaluda, and Deathsmiles are the most confounding possible combination. It's like he googled them and just chose three at random.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sine Mora: Quite possibly the best horizontal shmup of all time...

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussi ... f-all-time

I got physical pain from reading this

I love that little digression on page 1 (I wrote "stage" for some reason):

The problem with both Raiden Jet Fighters and Cave are similar. They both concern themselves with memorizing the levels.

[hail good sir]

made

[Squire Grooktook]

What game, or challenge at all, isn't helped by foreknowledge?

If I told you that the guy standing next to you was gonna sucker punch you sometime within the next 10 seconds, wouldn't that be an understandable advantage in blocking or evading it?

[TrevHead (TVR)]

The problem with both Raiden Jet Fighters and Cave are similar. They both concern themselves with memorizing the levels.

It's strange how Super Meat Boy, Mega Man, Ikaruga and 101 other games get lauded all the while STGs are critically panned for doing much the same thing.

[Squire Grooktook]

Don't forget Demon's/Dark Souls.

[ciox]

The problem with both Raiden Jet Fighters and Cave are similar. They both concern themselves with memorizing the levels.

It's strange how Super Meat Boy, Mega Man, Ikaruga and 101 other games get lauded all the while STGs are critically panned for doing much the same thing.

The average reviewer's enjoyment hinges on graphics and presentation, barring critical bugs. They have to review every side of the game though, so if those two suck for them then the stage design and mechanics are reviewed as sucky too, since they didn't enjoy those without the graphics and presentation being just right for them.

[Squire Grooktook]

Honestly, shmups are actually probably the least memorization focused "hard games". You have so much more space to move around, as opposed to platformers like Mega Man where a boss will utterly rob you of your personal space if you don't know how to manipulate the fight just right, or hack and slash like Dark Souls where you have to commit heavily to every attack.

Even though realistically most players will probably need to utilize memorization as a crutch, 90% of the threats in your average shmup leave you only blaming yourself when you die, and most of the worst hazards are probably in theory dodge-able blind.

[ciox]

Honestly, shmups are actually probably the least memorization focused "hard games". You have so much more space to move around, as opposed to platformers like Mega Man where a boss will utterly rob you of your personal space if you don't know how to manipulate the fight just right, or hack and slash like Dark Souls where you have to commit heavily to every attack.

Even though realistically most players will probably need to utilize memorization as a crutch, 90% of the threats in your average shmup leave you only blaming yourself when you die, and most of the worst hazards are probably in theory dodge-able blind.

Skill changes everything, if you don't know about tap-dodging for instance, the game becomes very different and you might really need to memorize everything in order to get through a level, of course if you play enough you will eventually discover the right techniques that make the early levels of a game a piece of cake, but that doesn't happen.

[zeroroute]

This is a good example of a well done shmup review:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSKPdyCdumI

[ancestral-knowledge]

lol omg ... you gotta love marc:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SER-PhztRl4

[DMC]

Imagine Marc with a super-geek sidekick who interjects his humerous remarks with fast-paced, dead-serious, in-depth gameplay comments showing no social skills whatsoever (like reading directly from a paper). The combination would be awesome!

Marc: Welcome to MUSHIHAMA ATARI FUTA-he he - ATARI. CAVE Shooter with ... purple dragons, princess, and insects he he he.

Geek Co-host:The overall counter increases from the start of the game until the end of the game with no reachable maximum.The overall counter changes color from green to blue.It is green when the 100 digit is from 0-4, and it is blue when the 100 digit is from 5-9.Each time you die, your counter decreases by 1/3 such as. if you have 900 gems, after 1 death you will have 600. When you bomb...

Marc: AND what about that NAME huh? MUSHIHAMA ATARI FATARI. This game is FUN!

Geek Co-host: ...his counter also decreases over the duration of the bomb on average 10-15%. In order to get large gold gems, you must kill enemies with the C button when the overall counter is green the A button when it is

Marc: EXPLOSIONS!

Geek Co-host: ...blue. Scoring is based on one multiplier, which is termed the overall counter. This counter is only triggered by killing enemies with the A shot when the chaining bar...

Marc: BUT what about that name huh!!! MUSHA-ATARI-FARI. What a great name! It's on XBOX, folks!

Geek Co-host:...is at zero. Each gem absorbed at this time has a blue-aura, and the value of the multiplier is added to the value of each of these gems, which increases your score once you.

Marc: DINOSAUR!

Geek Co-host: eh.

Marc: ...Atari...

Geek Co-host: uhm

Marc: ...Futari...

Geek Co-host: ...

Marc: See you folks again next week. Come again!

[Squire Grooktook]

I actually think that might make it better.

Marc is a solid reviewer, but sometimes he doesn't get in depth enough with the differences between these games. He's more the kind of reviewer I'll look up to see "Is it good/respectable?" rather then if it's something that's "for me".

[zeroroute]

I actually think that might make it better.

Marc is a solid reviewer, but sometimes he doesn't get in depth enough with the differences between these games. He's more the kind of reviewer I'll look up to see "Is it good/respectable?" rather then if it's something that's "for me".

I agree there, and that futari review just made my day.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Yeah CGR is great, he defo puts the fun into his shmupping.

BTW who is the other Mark who keeps on sending him all these CAVE STGs? Kudos to whoever you are.

[Friendly]

Seems like Marc didn't get Mushihime-sama Futari AT ALL. Had a good laugh! Classic Game Room rocks.

[Aleksei]

A friend sent me a copy of Sine Mora saying its like the games I play, I played it, and lied that I liked it, then I came here to see that amusingly bad review that gives this game an average of 9 out of 10.....whats wrong with these people/

Here is the biggest reason this game sucks though...ready? The name of your character is Durak...

That means stupid in Russian!

"hey stupid, shoot the core!.."
"/
well it was free for me.
As relief I played Progear on MAME and got my butt kicked on the last boss on normal on the first loop.
This made me feel better than playing on the hardest difficulty on Sine Mora,which I cleared, on the second try. Game gets a 4/10.

[Ed Oscuro]

" The game succeeds in spite of itself. It seems like the more pissed off I became, the more I wanted to play." Grade: C. What game could this be?
Twin Cobra (scroll down).

If you like this game, try: Twin Eagle (NES),
Raiden (Jaguar), Raiden Trad (Genesis),
Mission X (Intellivision), Sentinel (Atari 2600)

Right above, Truxton loses part of a point because enemies enter the screen, and right below, Two Crude dudes...not sure what the demerits are coming from, there.

Task Force Harrier: B+

Target: Earth: D-

Mangia: D+

yep, a game where you have four joystick inputs, two of them to throw pasta to the cat or dog, is better than Target: Earth, or so the letter grade suggests