July 2023
“So our first witness is… a cardboard box?” - Dual Destinies
Ah! Finally got around to revising my non-steam game templates though I am now borrowing an incredible lot from the BLAO generator. Still want to work on that some more, but another time. Kind of shocked at my current progress, but with FFXIV and Dead by Daylight events I haven’t had a lot of my free time to dedicate to progress. SF: Anniversary collection has also taken up a considerable amount of time considering it’s multiple entries, so I am starting to review each game within the collection. Most importantly, Fall is right around the corner and I can’t wait to be justified for more spooky games.
This direct sequel takes place several years after the last game and splits up it’s stories into a bunch of different episodes across a plethora of characters. Most episodes save for the first few and last few can be done in any order and will have you take control of a different protag (save for the last) with their own team, though there is some crossover. I found this to be quite unappealing. It was like starting a new RPG over and over again while most of the stories don’t really tie in much and sometimes feel pointless. Part of this is due to the original 3DS release having purchasable episodes so you potentially didn’t have to go through all of them like here. This is why, in the final episode, you get to choose which episodes you want to bring towards the final chapter. This carries over items and levels. There really isn’t any point in not choosing all of them unless you just want less items and characters. Speaking of, a lot of the newly introduced don’t get enough time to really make any interest and found myself using a team of some of the classics. All being said the final chapter does get kind of interesting and has the most weight.
This game does not use much of the mechanics of the 3D remake of FFIV, but instead adhere to a more classic FF approach both in mechanics and UI. No longer can you choose your character’s abilities or set them for auto-battle. It feels a bit weird going more retro for a sequel of a remake that kind of gave a lot of QoL and new mechanics. They did, however, double down on the secret items you can find and made them much more grindy by not only keeping them at a low drop rate, but scattering them between episodes (most of which can be found in the final chapter) and requiring multiple of them.
There are several bugs with this one that I could not find a fix for. Sounds files would sometimes not load so some areas or even victories were just silence. I did have a crash once. By far the biggest one is that inputs would get stuck. This meant pressing left once could make your character constantly go left or opening the menu causing the menu to open and close constantly. There was no noticeable trigger it would just happen and the only way to fix it was to re-enter that exact same input. Though it doesn’t affect too much it does mean you may not make as clean as a journey and sometimes cause battles to last a bit longer as you have to readjust your cursor due to scrolling all the way through your items or selections.
Recommend: Not really
Rating: 4/10
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
An attempt to bring a new protagonist forth on a new generation of handhelds the game dawns a younger attorney who, much like Phoenix, was just starting his Defense Attorney gig. Personally, I didn't mind the change. Genuinely I liked all of the new characters. In fact, it wasn't the new characters that were the problem... it was the recurring ones. Phoenix. This may take seven years ahead of when we last see him but he's done more than have off screen character growth to the point where it feels like a whole new character. Had they kept some of his quirks it would not have been as bad but there really isn't a shred of similarity. It doesn't help they add a bunch of details to trick the player into thinking something that gets revealed later for little reason than plot. Being the 3DS we get more animated scenes. They generally look fine in most contexts, but one scene without filters looks incredibly rough.
This game probably has the most linked and cohesive story yet where every case is linked. It even wraps up with a nice theme about the judicial system. This game does have a good and bad ending, but goes about it in a super weird way that makes it super obvious which ending you get to the point where it feels like it defeats the message of the ending. There is a much bigger focus on forensics which I super appreciate. Getting to use all sorts of tools to get evidence and details feels right at home. Though it sometimes hand feeds you a bit, the game doesn't require nearly as much beating around the bush in these cases save for a couple of moments. We also get a "Perceive" mechanic where looking for lies/secrets lies in a person's impulses when they say certain things. Though I somewhat doubt the validity of pointing out such things in a real court, it is a decent replacement for the magatama system. I only wish they didn't take multiple moments to explain a relatively easy concept.
Worst Characters: Brushell, Meekins
Best Characters: Trucy, Mr. Hat, Vera
Recommend: Yes
Rating: 7/10
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies
Though the previous game had some very scarce 3D cinematics, we instead get 3D models throughout the game. Though the 3D looks much better than that of the previous I think that a lot of the characters look much more dopey and plasticy. To say the least, I much prefer the drawn variations. It's not all bad as there were some interesting 3D effects and decent use of animations... but it doesn't quite compare. We also get full on anime cinematics that prelude the start of the episode and various intermission. Though I didn't mind the animated cinematics, I do feel they got really into the various anime tropes throughout the game. One in particular was a bit over the top and damaged my opinion on Athena. Speaking of we get another character introduced though she doesn't quite take the main protagonist role as she usually acts more as an assistant and a segway into the new mechanic. She's kind of just a basic single trope character throughout most of the game, so I didn't think much of her until near the end. I also think it's really dumb that she wears a gadget that says what's on her mind. It seems disadvantageous, especially as a lawyer. The story, once again, has a general theme though it feels a bit repetitive with the previous game's. It also jumps around time wise which can be a little jarring all for a lead up that makes me question a past case in particular.
Gameplay is pretty standard, but with a new mechanic and a whole slew of quality of life changes. These changes include indicators of what is examinable, what you already have examined, and auto progression once you examined all key items. This makes the investigation process a lot more streamlined and a whole lot more enjoyable. No more re-examine the same thing three times because something was actual considered a part of a whole or missing a small note entirely. No longer do we have to go through a maze of locations to get to specific places but can select all places within the same menu. A quality of life that reduces loading in and out of areas so very much. Though we do still see splashes of previous mechanics (perceive and magatama) we now get one based on psychoanalytic analysis which is neat idea but the actual execution I feel is a bit hard to believe to be used during court. Much like a testimony you will go through a series of statements, but instead of simply pressing or presenting you must target an emotion or an object that is causing one of the four emotions. More than a few times I felt that some of the answers could be kind of vague and open to interpretation as one person's reaction to a feeling may not agree with another's.
All in all, another decent game and much better than I was expecting but definitely feels messy and lacking consistency between trials. Though this game is more about proving innonce or guilty, it does often spoil the true culprit in the opening cinematic of each case which is kind of a bummer.
Worst Characters: Florent L'Belle, Aristotle Means
Best Characters: Simon Blackquill, Jinxie
DLC Completed?: No
Recommend: Kinda?
Rating: 5/10
Street Fighter
Fightstick
What a rough start to the series. A psuedo fighter where you only play as Ryu (and maybe Ken?) against a series of fighters that are absolutely programmed to wreck your shit. Sure, old arcade games are going to do that, but the controls are so inconsistent and the difference in speed and power is a little insane. The only chance you have is by utilizing your specials. However, getting your specials to actually work is a mess as the actual inputs often fail to follow through. In fact, I ended up having to do an extra dragon punch just to get out a simple hadouken. To make matters worse, you deal with the exact same losing dialogue and winning dialogue with each opponent. It gets old fast to say the least. It feels like almost a miracle the series got another chance, but it’s a good thing it did. As for this, well it really isn’t much of a game at all and offers very little for a fighting game experience.
Rating:1/10
You’ve Got A Lot To Learn Before You Beat Me Become A Mainstay Franchise.
Try Again, Kiddo Capcom~
Street Fighter II
Fightstick
Holy crap this is some whiplash compared to the first. A mere 4 years and this game far exceeds the original. An actual fighting roster that is fairly diverse though small, solid BGMs, good sprite work and scenery, and a fair bit of surprises. The portraits for each character can seem a little rough nowadays but they have their charm, especially since they have differences between victory and defeat. This game had yet reached the age where combos were really a thing so it mostly relied on specials and footsies, a term I’d reckon was created from the game itself and it was best in the business. It was this game where we start getting flooded with re-releases, turbo editions, etc. that almost oversaturates the fighting game and arcade scene.
Rating: 7/10
Fighter of Choice: Ken Masters
Street Fighter 2’: Championship Edition
Fightstick
More of a “definitive” edition to SF2 as all the characters are now playable along with some additions. Overall it plays pretty much the same except it does feel like the AI was turned up a bit in difficulty and cheats just as much.
Rating:7.5/10
Fighter of Choice: Sagat
Street Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting
Fightstick
All around the same but now at a higher speed and everyone’s default costume is an alternate palette. The faster speed feels incredibly great and how SF2 (and maybe all SF) should be played. That being said, the Hyper gives the AI way more room to cheat. For instance, Guile AI doesn’t charge at all which makes him an incredible threat and Zangief has some super sonic ora ora punches that shouldn’t even be possible. Speaking of charge, I decided to give a charge character a try. The back forward was simple enough but the down up seemed to only ever work half the time due to either missed input, timing, or CPU being able to interrupt it (before and after). I don’t understand how you really would use a charge attack in a combo which makes it weird that most of the characters have charge specials.
Rating: 8/10
Fighter of Choice: Blanka
Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers
Fightstick
It’s a little weird that this title was not titled as a sequel rather than another variation. We get entirely new sprite work, a plethora of new characters, new maps, improved and new music, updated UI, additional moves, and a genuine combo system. Though this does stop the series from having gotten to something like SF16, I’m not sure having several different versions per game is any better. Still, the game overall is great. The sprite work is great and how it utilizes soft pixel transitions to make seamless animations is nothing short of amazing. Speaking of animation, the new opening cinematic is probably one of the best the series has. Ryu facing the camera (as if he’s facing you in combat) bouncing back and forth before firing a hadouken. Simply perfect. Music has been improved, especially the loading match screen which fixes the tumbling piano sound by adding some guitar riffs. The new characters introduced is fairly incredible ranging from some originating from the first game to new characters who would become iconic mainstays (including my girl Cammy White).
The game is back at normal speed compared to the previous turbo edition. Difficulty overall is much more tame as it builds up per match. However, there are some absolute sufferable fights where even AI cheating aside, some characters have some abusable moves. For example, Vega may no longer have his cheating and unique wall climb ability but his air grab is damn near unavoidable as anti-airs will cause you to get sucked into it and most of the arena is unsafe to try and dodge it. I also found that there were quite a few questionable hit boxes and enemy speed depending on the phase of the match, but this gets into the AI cheating which is nothing new for early fighting games. Generally, it feels a lot like SF2: Championship Edition. This is not a bad thing, but would have liked a more equal ground with the AI and faster paced combat similar to Turbo. We’ll get that in the “final” ver. of SF2.
Rating:8/10
Character of Choice: Cammy <3
Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Gamepad
Again, a faster paced SSF2 but it does have a fair bit of new additions. New moves have been introduced for each character including the now staple super moves which require a full meter to be built. Interestingly enough, meter is built upon hits upon the enemy (including blocked) and using your special movies even if they don’t hit though buildup does not carry over between rounds. We get much of the same opening cinematic, which is great, but between thunder flashes we get weirdly drawn animations of Cammy and Chun-Li which I could have done without. This was the first game in this collection I had to move from the fight stick to a gamepad.
At first glance I thought I lost all my ability and training when going through the opening matches because my butt was getting KICKED. Only to find out that in the original release of the game on arcade (for America) there was a bug that made the game always at it’s hardest difficulty. This bug is in this copy of the game as well. I cannot stress how incredibly difficult it is to get even through one round let alone the whole roster of characters, especially if you wanted to fight Akuma. This difficulty essentially meant that enemies hit at least twice as hard, took half as much damage, rarely had any flinch, and could do moves at speeds not capable by humans. You simply cannot play the game in a way you would normally play fighting games. Thankfully, save states are a thing and not only helped me get through the game but also face Akuma (for better or for worse). At it’s core, this is one of the greatest entries, unfortunately the bug makes the single player experience miserable.
Akuma Defeated? Yes
Rating: 7.5/10
Fighter of Choice: Cammy
I have the Dark Reader extension, which flips certain colors to give all sites a dark mode, and with it enabled, the Apollo Justice banner has white text against a yellow background. With it disabled, Dual Destinies has dark text against a dark background, so either way, we end up with hard-to-read banner text. Neat idea, but might wanna stick to solid colors next time.
Yeah… I noticed the dark mode issue too but not until after I had finished up everything. I’ll likely do that though I still want to test some other ideas out first.
Thank you for the feedback. ^_^
Interesting. I’ve never heard anyone praise The After Years. Speaking of FF4 have you played Interlude that was included with the Complete Collection released for PSP?
Admittedly, it’s not a very great entry even as a sort of spin off. Though I was able to find some enjoyment out of it as much of a mess as it is. I have not but I will have to look into this. Thank you for letting me know. ^_^