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Sega Saturn thread

Quagmire

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I finally got around to setting up my Saturn in my new apartment and tried playing some Nights. I have no idea what the fuck was going on. I get that you have to gather orbs to kill the jellyfish robot thing, and then bring back its power orb to the initial pedestal within a time limit, but other than that ???? Rings increase your score, hitting enemies lowers your time. Got it. But it's not really intuitive how movement works. Sometimes it's 2-D, other times you move into and/or circle around the background elements at predetermined spots. There's no real rhyme or reason to it -- it kind of just happens whenever the game designers want it to.

I timed out on the first boss because I didn't know wtf to do. I kept hitting it and it kept collapsing and reforming. What looked like its health bar slowly chipped away, but it took way too long. There was definitely a correct way of doing it. Anyway, the game kicked me back to the title screen after that, and after all that progress. That sucked major dongus.

I didn't read the manual, but I like games to be intuitive or to have a simple tutorial.

Holy fuck is the 3D controller every comfy though, damn.

Yeah I dont remember of what to do, I just know I did do it. Wonder if the manual helps here

Yeah the 3d controller is great, as is the standard Saturn controller. Shame they didnt improve upon the 3d controller for the dreamcast and gave us what ever the hell that thing was
 

Fool's Requiem

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Nights takes a bit of time to get used to. I was able to beat the first boss, but can't recall how to do it off the top of my head. Couldn't make it to the second boss because I kept running out of time.

Also, I too really like the 3D controller. Controller should also never have "stick" drift because of how it's designed.
 

Smacktard

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Nights takes a bit of time to get used to. I was able to beat the first boss, but can't recall how to do it off the top of my head. Couldn't make it to the second boss because I kept running out of time.

Also, I too really like the 3D controller. Controller should also never have "stick" drift because of how it's designed.
Here I was thinking you had said you loved Nights, and you didn't even beat the second boss 🄓
 

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Come to think about it, I don't know if I've given my base opinions on Nights.

IMO, Nights is unique, relatively pretty for the era, makes great usage of the controller that made for it (I would certainly hope so), the music is catchhy, and once you get used to how awkward it plays, you can definitely feel how well it flows. It definitely requires spending more time than I have to truly get used to how the game plays.
I dislike on foot stuff. The ground level layout was DEFINITELY not designed to handle what to do when you're forced to play at the dreaming child after sucking as Nights. If you get knocked out of Nights in a bad spot, it can be impossible to get to the location where you retransform into Nights again, especially with that thing that follows you around trying to end your run. Might as well just restart the level.

Also, the time limit might be a bit tight. One thing I really like about the Sonic games is that there isn't a countdown clock. There's a timer, but its to tell you how long you've taken for speed run and socring purposes. I think its weird that the same team put a time limit on its levels in Nights like some arcade game with checkpoint timers.
 

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I just finished playing Elevator Action! Returns. It's a very quick completion. I think I got through the first 3 levels on 3 credits, then had to start over again from the beginning. I used a title screen code to get 7 credits, and then completed the game on my very last life. It was an intense finish! Altogether, I probably put about 1h20 into the game?

It's an excellent game. The controls and premise are pretty simple. There are three characters, each with differences in speed, power, and tankiness. You have to move horizontally and vertically through levels, and you have to move vertically by taking elevators that move back and forth between levels on a timed basis, though once you are on an elevator, you are able to control it.

You have two buttons: jump and shoot. Pressing them both at the same time throws a grenade. Why there couldn't be a third button for grenade, I don't know. You can also press down to duck incoming bullets. The aim is to enter every red door in each of the 6 levels, and then to reach the end. You can get special weapons with limited ammo from drops. There aren't boss fights as such (except for the last level), but there are some pretty frantic enemy spam sections.

It's an excellent arcade game: easy to pick-up and play, and hard to master. Mistakes and deaths largely feel like they're your fault. Some sections do feel impossible to get through without getting hit, but apparently there's a longplay of the game without taking any hits. Impressive! Still, there are some sections that feel less like reaction or skill-based than memorizing exactly what to do and where to position yourself in certain areas.

The pixel art in the game is absolutely lovely. Excellent effects like smoke trails wisping away from the wall after you fire a bullet. It's a really gorgeous 2D game. And did I mention totally badass? In the second level, you crash a helicopter through a giant glass window, and it explodes, killing everyone nearby (except you). This is probably the most hell yeah moment in the whole game, but the rest of the game is plenty heck-yeah. The music is nice and arcade-y, too. It suits the game perfectly.

I find it strange that the game was a Japan-only release, considering that almost all of the text in-game is English. There's some fast, horizontal-scrolling Japanese text between levels, but I honestly didn't even recognize it at first. I'm not sure, but I think it's just translating the English text that's on the screen.

I figure that one of my favorite games of all time, Huntdown, took some heavy inspiration from this game.

9/10
 
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