Recently I picked up a book called "Never Coming to a Theater Near You." It's a collection of movie reviews about good movies. Good, but not great. Basically middle of the road kind of movies that get decent reviews, but don't win awards nor do they develop any kind of cult following years later. And they're not awful movies that become punchlines and memorable for different ways. Sadly they are forgettable.
For example, one of the movies discussed is Ronin (1998), starring Robert de niro, Sean Bean, Jean Reno, and many others. It's a good spy/heist/action movie that is worth watching, but probably not twice. It's not making the best of Robert de niro's list, nor Best in the genre. It's just...good.
Film isn't the only medium to have such a level of product. God knows there are plenty of games that were good enough to play, but not good enough to ever play again or to even discusst. And starting with this blog I'm going to pay tribute to those games.
For example, one of the movies discussed is Ronin (1998), starring Robert de niro, Sean Bean, Jean Reno, and many others. It's a good spy/heist/action movie that is worth watching, but probably not twice. It's not making the best of Robert de niro's list, nor Best in the genre. It's just...good.
Film isn't the only medium to have such a level of product. God knows there are plenty of games that were good enough to play, but not good enough to ever play again or to even discusst. And starting with this blog I'm going to pay tribute to those games.
Recently Spotted:
travo (10m)
Yep, both of those. They did what they did well, yet forgettable.
You assaulted an island off new York at the end.
Set in the 19th century — “The Age of Adventure” — Nostalgia immerses gamers into a world filled with treacherous airship battles, elusive treasure hunts, and action-packed dungeon combat. Prepare to visit popular cities such as Tokyo, London, New York and Cairo as you embark on a quest in search of a world yet unknown...
Nostalgia is probably the game that most inspired this list. The game was made by developers who worked on the DS versions of Final Fantasy 3 and Final Fantasy 4. After they were done helping Square-Enix, clearly they felt they had learned everything they needed to in order to create their own jrpg. And in truth they probably did because Nostalgia is possibly the safest and most by-the-books jrpg ever created.
Do you want turn-based battles? You got them. Do you want a quest to find your missing father that spirals into a story with greater stakes? It's here. Do you want to explore dungeons with a variety of themes such as sewers, deserts, and jungles? Well then Nostalgia has what you're looking for.
The game unquestionably was meant to be a throwback to old school jrpgs. Even the name "Nostalgia" is a pretty unsubtle reminder of that. The main issue I think anyone would have with it, is that it didn't really need to exist. The DS was crawling with old school rpgs. So it ended up being a throwback to games that were released just a few months prior, as opposed to years earlier. It's definitely a great example of the old saying, "how can I miss you if you're never gone?"
All that said, the game does a good job of what it sets out to do. And to their credit, the developers even tried to add a couple novel ideas. They included airship battles which were kind of neat, although they were ultimately just a different take on the typical turn-based jrpg battle. And the alternative 19th century/steampunk setting things, though it would have been nicer if it were on a system that could handle 3D graphics instead of the DS.
Freedom Fighters.
I didn't play very much of Hybrid Heaven, so I just don't have enough of a frame of reference to right about it. But it did fall into that group of games that were always trying to incorporate just didn't really need them. And I've got two that are potentially going to make the list.
Although, one of them tends to be listed as a forgotten classic, pretty much because people incorrectly remember that steaming pile of crap as a good game.
Dr. Eggman (AKA Dr. Robotnik) is once again turning the animals of Mobius into robots using his monstrous contraption, the Veg-O-Fortress. Only Sonic can penetrate the Pinball Defense System to free the animals, retrieve the Chaos Emeralds, and put a stop to Dr. Eggman’s fiendish plans!
Sonic Spinball is quite literally a "filler" game. Sonic 3 wasn't going to be ready for the holiday season, and Sega needed something with the Sonic name on it for Sega kids to ask Santa for. The game exists because of a foreseen delay and good communication at Sega.
The idea certainly wasn't terrible and neither was the execution. But the fact is, even the very best console pinball games are rarely great. The Zen Pinball titles are mixed bag, but they certainly put out some good ones over the years. And if you want to go back to older games, Alien Crush is a notable exception that's worth checking out. But in an era without rumble/feedback pinball games couldn't emulate the experience, so they had to try bold or innovative ideas. And Sonic Spinball just didn't quite pull it off.
Collecting gems was kind of neat. However, none of the other ideas it brought to the table felt particularly interesting or novel. It was a very safe pinball game. Plus it's also very clunky. It doesn't quite have the smoothness that you'd expect from either a good pinball game or even a good Sonic game for that matter.
Gameplay aside, it actually does do a pretty good job of feeling like a Sonic game, so in that regards, the game is a success. And I suppose for Sonic fans of the time, they probably really enjoyed it. But Sega only returned to the concept one more time for the GBA, so it's a safe bet even they probably felt they had done as much as they could with the idea.
Great thread. May I suggest Dark Sector, started off as the first screen shot of a "next gen" game and ended up as a decent RE4 style game that came out and disappeared.
huh, I never heard of that game until now. Or I've completely forgotten about it.His name is Garcia Hotspur, hunter of demons, and his wrath will bring hell to its knees. From the creative genius of Suda 51 (No More Heroes) and Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil) comes an all-new psychologically twisted vision of hell unlike anything seen before. Shadows of the Damned combines visceral grindhouse-style action with dark, grotesque horror to create a mind-shattering adventure that has to been seen to be believed.
Hard to believe that a game made by Suda 51 and Mikami could be boring, but the result of their union, Shadows of the Damned, proved it could happen. There are a lot of cool elements and great ideas in the game. But for one reason or another the game was less than the sum of its parts.
The main character Garcia and his talking phallic gun (subtly named Johnson) are quite amusing, though after a while the crude one-liners kind of make him feel like Mexican Duke Nukem. The action is mostly good too. Mikami leaned on the RE4 controls. There wasn't anything real innovative with the combat, but when you're working with a set-up that good I guess why stray from it?
Maybe the thing that made Shadows of the Damned just "okay" is that everything felt too familiar. Very little felt new. And even if something did feel new, it wouldn't by the end. It's not a very long game, and by the half way mark the game starts to recycle everything and it makes for a very repetitive experience.
Both men ultimately went on to make better games. Suda's Lollipop Chainsaw would come out a year later and that feels like another attempt at the vibe that Shadows throws out, but is much more successful. And a few years Mikami gave us The Evil Within, and while not perfect, provides us with a concept that made for one of the best batshit crazy horror games of all time. Just a pity that when they intersected they couldn't do something just a bit better.
I had a lot fo fun with Sonic Spinball over the years. It should have been included in Sonic Origins with a smoother framerate. Oh, well.
I never played the Game Gear version.