PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
NEC TG-16/TE/TurboDuo => TG-16/TE/TurboDuo Discussion => Topic started by: nat on May 28, 2007, 06:20:57 PM
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One site I enjoy reading reviews on is the "Defunct Games" site... They have a large selection of Turbo reviews that are occasionally entertaining to read. Most recently our port of Batman was the victim and the reviewer was NOT kind:
http://www.defunctgames.com/shows.php?id=review-884
Scroll down and observe how he berates the music which, ironically, for me is a high point of the game.
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Yee-ouch, his comments on the music were downright harsh! "Speaking of ruining the entire experience, the music in this game is absolutely ear piercing." Reading that makes my ears pierce personally! If they used Danny Elfman's tracks for the game, I don't think it would've set the mood as well as it did for the movie.
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I bet that the same reviewer absolutely loves the NES Batman music.
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I bet that the same reviewer absolutely loves the NES Batman music.
No shit. :P
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He is dead wrong about the music, but I have to agree with most of the rest of the review. Batman does feel less like a super hero and more like a rat in a maze, and what's the deal with the dumb crosswalks? The tunes and cut scenes are the only reason to play through this monotonous drivel.
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I really like that site. They have quite a lot of Turbo reviews there, and I tend to agree with the reviewer on a lot of his points. The reviews are often somewhat humorous as well...
It's kind of cool, you can select reviews by year. They also have some Master System, Neo Geo and Sega CD games reviewed among a handful of other systems.
Although in this particular case, I disagree wholeheartedly with the review. I really enjoy Batman.
But if it's any consolation at all, they give the Lynx port of Batman Returns a 2% score (out of 100).
EDIT: Keranu might want to skip this one, but here's their review of JJ & Jeff. This one is an example I happen to completely agree with: http://www.defunctgames.com/shows.php?id=review-709
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But if it's any consolation at all, they give the Lynx port of Batman Returns a 2% score (out of 100).
He also gave Strip Fighter 2 a score of 2% and Die Hard a score of 8%. Pretty harsh scoring, but it's better than giving every game a minimum of 75% like some reviewers do.
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That's part of the reason I enjoy the site so much... Their scores are usually very good and, like you said, don't bottom out at 75%.
Before Batman I was hardpressed to find anything I didn't agree with on some level.
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Read some of this other person's reviews.
Soldier Blade: ..."after the success of Super Star Soldier, Hudson Soft decided to give the 2D shooter genre another crack..." Um, it was 1992/3 what else was there?
Vigilante: No Shit. Good Job unearthing the real weaknesses of the game that no one else has!
World Sports Comp: Don't be a Hater...
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I actually enjoy Batman, that review seems particularly harsh. I like the Defunct games website, it's well designed and interesting, however I often find their reviews to be way off the mark, at least for my taste.
They give some of the best Pc-engine games really poor scores, for example: Jackie Chan's Action Kung fu and Neutopia 2 get 50%, yet Night Creatures gets a score of 60% and Ballistix 80 %!
I actually recently acquired Night Creatures, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised and found it somewhat enjoyable, a lot better than what I had heard about it, however it's definitely not in the same league as Jackie Chan.
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I agree 100% on Night Creatures (sorry steve, I know you had your eye on my copy).
I was really prepared for the worst, but it's actually a halfway decent game. The graphics are average to good (nothing spectacular) and there are some cool parallax scrolling backgrounds, especially in the graveyard. I also like the non-linear design of the game.
Control really isn't all that bad, I can think of a shitload of games with far worse control than Night Creatres. *cough*...Altered Beast...*cough* Actually it controls just fine after playing it, like, once.
There is a good variety in the gameplay in that there are lots of different types of items, in addition to the normal "weapon" arsenal, plus a cool metamorphosis dynamic.
Where Night Creatures really falls down is in the sound department. The music composition is fairly lame, and technically sounds primitive. The tunes are not unpleasant, and some are halfway decent, but they mostly really sound mediocre and haven't stood the test of time. At all.
If I had bought this game in 1991 or 1992 in the middle of my Turbo-gaming heydey I probably wouldn't have been disappointed with it. As it is, it's a halfway decent platformer to offer me some mid-afternoon distraction after work.
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He also gave Strip Fighter 2 a score of 2% and Die Hard a score of 8%. Pretty harsh scoring, but it's better than giving every game a minimum of 75% like some reviewers do.
Agreed...
... do you think that Strip Fighter 2 score was 2% new?
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just played it the first time till about stage 10 this week. wasn't IMO the real uberhammer, but the tunez rulez enormous.
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I beat the game a month or so ago. It took about a good hour and a half to beat and it was a slow, but enjoyable experience. The cinematics were really something to look forward to and the last boss fight was pretty neat.
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I don't think 2% is an unreasonable score for Strip Fighter II. If the novelty of seeing naked girls is totally lost on you, then that's probably the score I would give it as a complete rip-off of Street Fighter.
Personally, I would have given it more points just because I enjoy seeing naked chicks.
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I've always found Batman on the PCE to be solid enough. It is what it is and plays well. I didn't go in expecting an action game and I knew it played a bit like Bomerman. That being said I do enjoy the music and the game responds well and the challenge is at an even pace. Interesting final boss battle too. While not an A+ title it's still far better then this review gives it credit for. So yeah I like the game and for what the developers were trying to do they mostly pulled it off.
This is by far NOT the worst Batman game.
My .2 cents as it were.
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I don't think 2% is an unreasonable score for Strip Fighter II. If the novelty of seeing naked girls is totally lost on you, then that's probably the score I would give it as a complete rip-off of Street Fighter.
Personally, I would have given it more points just because I enjoy seeing naked chicks.
Naked ladies deserve a minimum of 8%. Unfortunately, I can't go much higher for this poorly controlled ripoff. Now if the battles were in strip clubs and involved mirrored walls, sniffer's row, brass poles, and mud (and/or jello) wrestling, it would go at least as high as 17%. Fix the stiff controls, and it would earn a perfect 69% rating.
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I don't think 2% is an unreasonable score for Strip Fighter II. If the novelty of seeing naked girls is totally lost on you, then that's probably the score I would give it as a complete rip-off of Street Fighter.
Personally, I would have given it more points just because I enjoy seeing naked chicks.
Naked ladies deserve a minimum of 8%. Unfortunately, I can't go much higher for this poorly controlled ripoff. Now if the battles were in strip clubs and involved mirrored walls, sniffer's row, brass poles, and mud (and/or jello) wrestling, it would go at least as high as 17%. Fix the stiff controls, and it would earn a perfect 69% rating.
Exactly.
2% for Strip Fighter isn't harsh-- it's the fact of the matter. :)
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**in my best Sean Connery voice**
Can you expect a game featuring naked women to have anything else but stiff controls?
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"Speaking of ruining the entire experience, the music in this game is absolutely ear piercing."
That's what you get when you play on a half-finished emulator like Hu-Go. I remember the harsh comments of a reviewer from a shooter fansite who was complaining that the Gunhed soundtrack was absolutely horrendous. Admittedly the guy had never played the game on a real system.
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Even finished emulators have weak-sounding audio reproduction. I can pick out an emulated Turbo tune any day. Can't stand 'em.
The real hardware just sounds so much "fuller".
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Emulators are like carnal self-gratification.
The real this is always better.
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I was a bit into roms 10 years ago (Is IHOR still around?)
It was pretty cool tracking down all these games I used to own, rented, never tried, etc. It was a nice method of trying a game before purchasing it used.
Though, it didn't take long for me to notice certain things sometiems weren't quite right.
Sounds may not sound quite the same, graphical glitches here and there weren't uncommon either. Plus the whole thing of having to get a special USB controller, and spitting the display out to a TV and some speakers/stereo... I drifted away from Nesticle and other emulation stuff soon after that, and stuck to actual systems.
I'm not against roms (though, for many it is theft), though from what I've seen it's chancy how the presentation will be.
I'd rather own the actual products. Tends to be less problems, even if it takes up more space.
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"Speaking of ruining the entire experience, the music in this game is absolutely ear piercing."
That's what you get when you play on a half-finished emulator like Hu-Go. I remember the harsh comments of a reviewer from a shooter fansite who was complaining that the Gunhed soundtrack was absolutely horrendous. Admittedly the guy had never played the game on a real system.
Man one terrible example of this is playing Photo Boy on Magic Engine which has this screeeeching sound that's just painful. I havne't played the real version, but I imagine it's not in the real game.
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Heh- I remember the tunes for Batman being pretty cool. Oh well...
I was a bit into roms 10 years ago (Is IHOR still around?)
It was pretty cool tracking down all these games I used to own, rented, never tried, etc. It was a nice method of trying a game before purchasing it used.
Though, it didn't take long for me to notice certain things sometiems weren't quite right.
Sounds may not sound quite the same, graphical glitches here and there weren't uncommon either. Plus the whole thing of having to get a special USB controller, and spitting the display out to a TV and some speakers/stereo... I drifted away from Nesticle and other emulation stuff soon after that, and stuck to actual systems.
I'm not against roms (though, for many it is theft), though from what I've seen it's chancy how the presentation will be.
I'd rather own the actual products. Tends to be less problems, even if it takes up more space.
If there were a poll about this, I think most would say about the same. Most PCE fans don't use emulation from what it seems. Sadly, this seems to keep the translation community away from the PCE scene - getting a emulator setup correctly or even enjoy using it. Well... that and getting people to correctly burn a working CD-R copy for PCE CD games.
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I stumbled on this site a while back chasing down some Lynx reviews - I generally like it but there are quite a few reviews I don't agree with... They don't give very good reviews to Devil's Crush on the TG16 or California Games on the Lynx, and these are two of my favorite games. I seem to recall that they criticize the audio in Devil's Crush as being particularly bad, which would tend to confirm speculation about reviewers playing the games in emulation, I think. Devil's Crush has great audio, imho... :wink: I've been humming the theme to myself on and off for 17 years now, so I should know! :-"
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"Speaking of ruining the entire experience, the music in this game is absolutely ear piercing."
That's what you get when you play on a half-finished emulator like Hu-Go. I remember the harsh comments of a reviewer from a shooter fansite who was complaining that the Gunhed soundtrack was absolutely horrendous. Admittedly the guy had never played the game on a real system.
Man one terrible example of this is playing Photo Boy on Magic Engine which has this screeeeching sound that's just painful. I havne't played the real version, but I imagine it's not in the real game.
The screeching sound in Photograph Boy is indeed in the original game! Just kidding, it's not. But on that note, I think that problem was fixed on ME.
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You scared me there for a second, PD!
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I'm currently at the end of Batman. I plan on having it in the bag by tonight, but I have an idle question.
If you die on the Final Cathedral stage, the game gives you a password. Yet this password is worthless, it doesn't work. Does anyone know why this is? Luckily I obtained a password from like one stage prior but it kind of bugs me that I have to re-play the final stage of Gotham City every time. Every other password I've been given in the game seems to work fine.
If they don't want you to continue from the Final stage, why give you a password at all?
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The best audio reproduction I've found in a PCE emulator is Ootake. I think it represents PCE audio most authentically of all the emus I've used.
To stay on topic, I really didn't enjoy Batman much on the PCE. It's an OK game, but it's a poor format for Batman.
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I'm currently at the end of Batman. I plan on having it in the bag by tonight, but I have an idle question.
If you die on the Final Cathedral stage, the game gives you a password. Yet this password is worthless, it doesn't work. Does anyone know why this is? Luckily I obtained a password from like one stage prior but it kind of bugs me that I have to re-play the final stage of Gotham City every time. Every other password I've been given in the game seems to work fine.
If they don't want you to continue from the Final stage, why give you a password at all?
Sorry, I don't know the problem with that. I played through the entire game in one sitting (well two since I paused it to eat dinner) and never dealt with the passwords. Are you sure you just aren't typing it in wrong like using an "l" instead of "1" or something like that? Maybe there is a password that works on GameFAQs or something.
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I'm currently at the end of Batman. I plan on having it in the bag by tonight, but I have an idle question.
If you die on the Final Cathedral stage, the game gives you a password. Yet this password is worthless, it doesn't work. Does anyone know why this is? Luckily I obtained a password from like one stage prior but it kind of bugs me that I have to re-play the final stage of Gotham City every time. Every other password I've been given in the game seems to work fine.
If they don't want you to continue from the Final stage, why give you a password at all?
Sorry, I don't know the problem with that. I played through the entire game in one sitting (well two since I paused it to eat dinner) and never dealt with the passwords.
Haha, yeah, the game is pretty easy. But it's so f*cking long I had to turn it off at one point, get a password, and play something else for a while.
Are you sure you just aren't typing it in wrong like using an "l" instead of "1" or something like that? Maybe there is a password that works on GameFAQs or something.
The "password" is actually iconic and not alphanumeric. It's a combination of Batman and Joker icons facing different directions. And yeah, I'm not entering it wrong. I haven't checked GameFAQs but I'm really too lazy. It's not that big a deal. I just can't understand why they are giving me a password to begin with if it's bogus.
To stay on topic, I really didn't enjoy Batman much on the PCE. It's an OK game, but it's a poor format for Batman.
It's different, that's for sure. I give them points for trying something new, but throw in the cinemas and stellar music and it's definitely a winner. The only thing I fault it for is being so long that it gets monotonous if you try to play through the whole thing in one sitting like Keranu.
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Haha, yeah, the game is pretty easy. But it's so f*cking long I had to turn it off at one point, get a password, and play something else for a while.
It's not too too long, but still extremely boring and too long for one sitting. I believe it took me about an hour and a half, maybe less. I was inspired to beat it in one sitting ever since Chris Covell posted on here how he recently beated it in one sitting.
The "password" is actually iconic and not alphanumeric. It's a combination of Batman and Joker icons facing different directions. And yeah, I'm not entering it wrong. I haven't checked GameFAQs but I'm really too lazy. It's not that big a deal. I just can't understand why they are giving me a password to begin with if it's bogus.
Ahh, those kind of passwords sorta suck. They're good because you don't have to deal with similar characters like you would with letters and numbers, but they suck because they can be annoying to write down.
It's different, that's for sure. I give them points for trying something new, but throw in the cinemas and stellar music and it's definitely a winner. The only thing I fault it for is being so long that it gets monotonous if you try to play through the whole thing in one sitting like Keranu.
Completely agreed! I don't mind the "Pac-Man" style gameplay and think it's a little fun, but I wish they would've expanded more on the gameplay and difficulty in the later levels. I remember that the last level was actually way easier than some of the levels before it. A few levels provided some decent challenge though.
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The game is decent enough but I much prefer Doraemon, which is very similar in style. I wouldn't try to complete either in one sitting, they would get very boring, but playing in bursts now and again is a lot of fun.
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I agree with Paul, I think Daraemon/Crater Maze did a better job with the Pac-Man-ish gameplay.
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Man, I love the Batman game on the PCE. I beat the Mega Drive/Genesis game in like an hour, whereas the PCE version is nice and long. Plus the visuals are excellent, and it's just a fun game.
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I like the nes batman :P
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Man, I love the Batman game on the PCE. I beat the Mega Drive/Genesis game in like an hour, whereas the PCE version is nice and long. Plus the visuals are excellent, and it's just a fun game.
It's nice to hear more Batman PCE love! :)
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I like all of the original Sunsoft Batman games (NES, MD, PCE). I also like how they're each different. I don't care for their "sequels" like Return of the Joker, though.
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I liked the Game Boy version, had some great music as you'd expect from Sunsoft.