PixlBit

Yes, I can't believe it, but I have finished going through all my physical NGC and GBA games this week. I spent the most time with Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon and Riviera: The Promised Land. Let's go!

The NGC

Army Men: Sarge's War 

Right at the end of my list to try on NGC and cheaply bought. Well, it's not great but not totally terrible either. I played pretty deep into this 3rd-person shooter before the ranged firing drove me a little nuts. There's no way to quickly snap off a sniper or rocket round. Once you aim, you go into the scope and have to manipulate the crosshair with wobbly controls. Meanwhile, you are being shot up like swiss cheese. I kind of enjoyed the rest of it though. You roam the real world as a tiny plastic soldier, shoot with a quick lock-on mechanc for regular weapons, and solve a few simple puzzles. Not terrible. I just need to find places where the enemy doesn't have a laser eye on me to get them from a distance. BTW, this game got a 44 for the Xbox version on Metacritic. Yikes. 

The Game Boy Player (all GBA)

Rebelstar Tactical Command 

This is a strategy game like XCOM with a cartoony look. It's not bad but I didn't stay with it past the tutorials and a level or two. I guess I wasn't in the mood. I'd trade it, but it is apparently a fake and I'm stuck with it. 

Mech Platoon 

A remnant from when I was looking for any RTS games on any system. This game works well, surprisingly. I stopped with this after a handful of missions too. I'm less of a tactics fan of late. I just like the resource collecting and base building. Can we skip the battles? 

Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon

Oh yeah, I got very deep into this before getting surprised and surrounded by a force of Golems in my first battle on Dragonia (chapter 5 or 6, I think). You really don't know what you're up against until you wack at it to find out. By then it could be too late.This is a SRPG like Fire Emblem and one I really liked. I found out my cart is a fake though. Darn you GameStop (or maybe some flea market years and years ago). Doesn't matter though, I ain't tradin' it, no how. 

Tales of Phantasia

The game over screen read, "No one ever saw them again." when I got mauled by a boar. Kind of a grim ending to these kids who were exploring a forest at the beginning of the game.This game has interesting real-time, but 2D, battles that I couldn't get the hang of. I'd trade it but it's yet another fake in my collection. I guess that means I'll keep it and try it again another time. 

Riviera: The Promised Land

I spent a good long time with this because I've always liked it. There's something about the graphics I really like. Those panes which slide into the screen from the side to show dialog is very appealing. I think Advance Wars does this too. The diagonal lines break up the screen nicely. I like the gameplay too, turn-based with some interesting twists. You choose a limited number of items to use before battles and anyone in your group can use them. By using them, you level them until they unlock a special move. Exploration is turn-based as well. You get points from successful battles to use to search the screen you are in. This, unfortuneately, led to my party wipe. I tampered with a skeleton which revealed an evil spirit that was invulnerable to regular weapons. Well, I didn't have any magic stuff equiped for that battle, and so my three-party team was killed by it. So that was it for this session. I saw there is a remake available on Switch. 

Phantasy Star Collection 

I love this opening screen at least.

Years ago I ran through the first four Phantasy Star games and only got anywhere in the fourth one. This collection is 1-3, and I was in no mood to figure them out. Good thing is, this cart is a fake, and so I'll have it forever. So maybe next time. 

Monter Rancher 2 Advance 

I guess a sort of Pokemon-like game but with kind of an odd battle system I didn't take to. Also, I couldn't explore right away, which is always a game breaker for me. Trading it. 

Sword of Mana

I got killed by bats in a cave on the way to the town of Wendel very early in the game. It looks great, but I don't like the real-time battle system much. Ah well, going to trade it. I'm much more interested the in Trials of Mana remake. 

And that's all I got from NGC and GBA this year. It's on to Xbox and I can't wait. I've had enough of clicking text boxes in GBA RPGs and struggling with rather strange contols for shooters on NGC. The Xbox was mostly the shooter box for me and MK. It's going to bring up a lot of memories.