Guess I’ll have to give Life is Strange a try at some point, then. I’ve been reluctant as the teenie drama aspect felt like something I wouldn’t really relate to.
In the meantime I finished TOHU. Another game I thought it wouldn’t really be my thing. But since I was absolutely mesmerized by the art and animation, I had to gave it a try. It’s more of a puzzle game with the tiniest bit of story to it, but the way it looks and sounds is pure delight. Some of the puzzles were familiar ones, and two required moderately quick reflexes, but the majority was fun to figure out.
Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised that there are so many non digitised and even fully orchestrated versions of CH’s tracks out there!
However what is obviously missing everywhere are the tracks there were originally from the Transformers Movie, although some sources seem to suggest Chris Huelsback actually worked with Vince DaCola at some point in recent years?!
There is a CD with a Transformers track, but I don’t know which one at the moment (but I’ll have a look). Is the Transformers track from Chris?
The Transformers track is on the CD 1 of the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology.
btw: Manfred Trenz said in an interview that the C64 versions of Turrican are the “original” ones. The more popular Amiga versions are “only” conversions.
I wonder what the story behind that is. At least Vince DiCola is given proper credit for being the original composer of the tune.
To me most of the C64 music and the Amiga music don´t sound that much alike though. But I´d have to listen to them back to back. And of course the Transformers music was not used again for the Amiga versions it is exclusive to the original C64 version.
Yeah, he may have credited it as a cover version to get around any troubles and still have it featured on there. Which is good because it was a prominent track on the C64 version.
I liked the C64 music during the flight stages (and after all the years I can still hum it! ). No one tried to remix that tune too. I don’t know why they all focus on the Amiga music. Same with the R-Type C64 intro, btw.
The Amiga music is very good in its own right. Also for the sequel. I also never played it on the C64 back in the day (but I remember the awesome cover art on one of the game mags we had, either 64er or Golden Disk 64) but a few years later on the Amiga 500. That and North & South are two games that were popular on the C64 I played on Amiga only.
But of course it would be nice if the C64 version was on this new collection too. I heard there is another one that has even more games and versions on it though.
Not from Chris. He released/remixed mostly his Amiga music on CD. But there are indeed some C64 tracks, like Giana Sisters or “To be on Top”.
The most complete (official) Turrican collection is the “Turrican Soundtrack Anthology”. It consists of 4 CDs. The Turrican Soundtrack CD from the mid-1990s covers mostly Turrican 3. Then there are several Turrican Soundtracks played by an orchestra (or on a piano). But they focus on the popular Amiga soundtracks too.
(seriously though, repeatedly dying from running out the timer because you got no idea where to go or spent way too much time going in the wrong direction and reaching a dead is just bullshit, great music though!)
Finally completed Haven, and that cost me some effort. It’s been advertised as more of a laid back experience (and that’s how I usually like my games), but there needs to be something to keep interest and motivation going, whether it’s the plot or some game mechanic, and sadly Haven felt a bit underwhelming in both areas.
The story doesn’t really provide a clear and worthy goal to achieve. It’s more a sequence of necessities, all forced by events outside the player’s control, and it’s all not very compelling. And I won’t even mention the ending …
As for gameplay, there’s lots of exploration going on, which sounds good in theory. Sadly, none of it feels very rewarding. Environments are all pretty same-y, the stuff you find is mostly crafting materials and traversing the fractured landscape become tedious whenever there’s the need to return to camp. And on top of that, all the interesting looking structures scattered over the world are just there to be admired; none can be entered. So this makes it an RPG with dragons and no dungeons.
Its one saving grace is the pair of main characters and their interactions. There’s a lot to relate to here, and at least that aspect of the game lives more than up to its promise. However, at least for me, it did not really outweigh its shortcomings.
In retrospect, getting the thing to run on Linux at all was probably the most rewarding bit of the whole ordeal . Although some of the banter also made me laugh.
Started playing Ara Fell, and it has impressed me quite a bit so far. It reminds me a lot of my own (abandoned) attempt at making an RPG, so I probably regard it a bit more favorable than would be the case otherwise. But even without that connection, I think it has a lot going for it, if 16bit JRPGs are your thing.
For one there is the incredibly rich and bustling world, although it remains to be seen how this develops over the course of the game. A lot of RPGs tend to have plenty of content in the starting area, and it gets thinner and thinner as the game wears on. The two dungeons I’ve cleared so far were designed quite well, too, with some hidden secrets and light puzzle solving.
Then there’s the nicely done turn based combat, with fairly simple mechanics, but plenty of opportunity to upgrade stats, skills and equipment, and probably plenty of chances to mess up along the way. Enemies are usually visible on the map and avoidable, but since they’re the only source of XP, it’s certainly not advisable to bypass each and every encounter.
Plot and worldbuilding are a bit bare-bones, and there are no dialogue choices, but I guess that’s typical for the format. It starts out with the search for a valuable artifact in an abandoned ruin and progresses from there, in a quite natural fashion and with decent writing.
So I think I’ll be spending a bit more time with this in the days and weeks to come. Certainly better than playing Chrono Trigger for the 3rd time .
Never heard of that, but in general I’m in the same boat. I adore a lot of these games for their appearance and the artistry of doing so much with so little, but I can’t really get behind the gameplay. And I expected the same here, TBH.
But at least so far its enjoyable. Exploring the open world is rewarding with all the stuff scattered around (same as with Paradise Killer). Combat (on default difficulty) is usually over in two rounds, so it doesn’t get too tedious, though it’s also hardly challenging. But that means the story progresses smoothly and keeps you invested. I think I passed a few points of “no return” a bit early, just because I was eager to find out what would happen next. I do hope I can return at some later point, however.
Just finished Inside from Playdead (maker of Limbo). Very good game with great atmosphere and interesting story (although you kind of build the story in your head, as nothing is explained and there is no dialog). Puzzles were fair and mostly quite easy. The ending was something I’ve never seen before.
). No one tried to remix that tune too. I don’t know why they all focus on the Amiga music. Same with the R-Type C64 intro, btw.
. Although some of the banter also made me laugh.
.