1 Year Anniversary

It's been a year since my first post on here, so I thought I'd do a retrospective post.

Game #34 Complete - Rayman 3

Rayman 3 is the GBA adaptation of (unsurprisingly) the 3rd game in the Rayman series. The Rayman series hasn't had that many games but the one it has have been ported to every platform imaginable. Also on the GBA is Rayman Advance, a port of the original Rayman. Note there's no Rayman 2 on GBA.

One theory I've seen online (unsourced) is that Rayman 3 GBA was originally intended to be Rayman 2, but had a thin skin of 3 slapped on for marketing reasons. Having played the game, I believe this whole heartedly. The plot and gameplay are that of Rayman 2, with the only noticable R3 elements being the hoodlums in a few levels (but less than R2's robot pirates, which are the most common enemies). But anyway, on to the review.

Game #33 Almost Complete - Street Fighter Alpha 3

Street Fighter Alpha 3 is a GBA port of this entry in the Street Fighter series. Unlike some other "ports" on the GBA, as far as I can tell this is a pretty faithful port. The Street Fighter sequel naming scheme is very confusing so I'm not sure where exactly this fits in.

As a disclaimer, I'm not a big fighting game fan. I'm fairly bad at them. I know little about Street Fighter apart from the pop culturally well known elements (Ryu, Ken, M.Bison, Hadouken etc.).

Game #32 Complete - Turok Evolution

Turok Evolution is an instalment of the GBA entry in the Turok series, most well known as a dinosaur hunting FPS series. There also have been handheld ports of the games on the Gameboy, GBC, and now the GBA.

Turok Evolution is a side scrolling run'n'gun style platformer, a lot like Metal Slug or Contra. This entry got decent reviews but seems to be very obscure, there's not a lot of information out there on the internet.

Game #31 Abandoned after >2 hours - Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 is a proper golf simulator in the long running Tiger Woods series of golf simulators.

I played enough to get an idea of how the game played. It does have a career mode with an ending but I ended up being a bit put off and didn't want to put in effort to master the game (see below for criticism). So I moved on.

Game #30 Complete - Lufia: The Ruins of Lore

Lufia:Ruins of Lore is a JRPG in the relatively obscure (at least I hadn't heard much about it) Lufia series. The series seems to have been at its height in the SNES era, with 2 games there. Ruins of Lore is a sequel/side story to Lufia 2.

The game is fine, but a excessively long and slow. That's about the theme of this review.

Game #29 Almost Complete - Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories is an action RPG in the popular Kingdom Hearts series which blends Disney and Square-Enix properties into a surreal and surprisingly serious-at-times universe. It sits between KH1 and KH2 (both originally on the PS2) in the series continuity, and has been remade as Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories for home consoles.

To avoid burying the lede: I got up to the final boss, after significant difficulties, at which point I realised actually beating her would take a lot more effort and grinding when I was already fed up. So I rage quit and moved on.

Game #28 Complete - Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament

Klonoa 2 is a platformer, in the not-particularly-big-or-successful Klonoa series*. The 2 refers to this game being the second in the GBA sub-series, but the first one didn't make the list (for some reason, possible an oversight in metacritic as it seems to have been decently reviewed).

I'd describe it as a puzzle platformer, which revolves around your ability to pick up enemies and throw them using a "wind bullet".

Game #27 Complete - Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Games

Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Games is a track-and-field style sports game, based on the Manga/generally cute franchise of Hamtaro, a cute hamster who has cute adventures, with his cute hamster pals.

There's another Hamtaro game on the GBA which is quite different which we'll get on to at some point.

Game #26 Complete - Super Monkey Ball Jr.

Super Monkey Ball Jr is a port of the monkey rolling game that started in arcades, and then moved on to consoles starting with the Gamecube. It's a classic marble rolling style game, where the "marbles" are monkeys in hamster balls.

Yes, it's a weird concept, but well executed.

Game #25 Complete - Final Fantasy VI Advance

Final Fantasy VI Advance is the GBA port of the 6th Final Fantasy game (no surprises there). It's the next game after FFV which I played previously, but the Final Fantasy titles are unrelated (aside from some shared elements/themes/gameplay).

The game is pretty similar to FFV in a lot of respects, so I'll be discussing what's different in the gameplay and story.