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Reviews (7)
May 29, 2009
Action-packed and challenging
2 of 5 found this helpful I've played Super Metroid back when you could rent it, but I was unable to figure out what you were supposed to do, getting stuck in Norfair (needing to get the Varia Suit). With much more skill with games now, I decided to buy it so I could try again.
Yet, I got stuck in the same spot again. Thankfully, GameFAQs came to my rescue, but only used to get "unstuck". I got stuck again when it came to finding the grapple, but that was the last time. This made me begin to lose interest in the game.
Super Metroid is a fairly challenging game, especially the bosses. The case of having to find the dozens of secret passages adds considerably to the challenge (and is what caused me to get stuck twice). The bosses are interesting in their design and behaviors. Only 2 bosses in this game were a real pain. While I don't know their names, there's this 4-eyed thing that seems immune to damage except the lava it falls into (nice death effects!). I ended up getting game over twice because of it. The hardest boss was the main boss of Maridia, a lobster-like enemy. It's both powerful, hard to hit, and fast. Get hit by the gray goo and you're in real trouble. I got game over 6 times from this thing, even with 1299 in energy available (1099 plus 200 in reserve).
Throughout the game, you, as Samus Aran, go around shooting alien enemies on the planet Zebes (which is also the setting of the first Metroid). Along the way are various power ups such as missiles, bombs, super missiles, power bombs, energy tanks, and reserve energy tanks. Other powerups like suits (the varia suit), enhancers (the grapple), boots (hi-jump boots), beams (the weapon, wave beam), and various other things (morph ball) which are often required, though some are not required. Energy is like HP or health. You start with a maximum of 99 units of energy, but can be extended to up to 1499 with 400 in reserve (giving a sense of 1899 as a total). Each energy tank or reserve tank adds 100 to the maximum. Each pack of missles, super missiles, or power bombs adds 5 to the maximum, and you start with 0 of each. You have an unlimited supply of regular bombs.
My favorite element of Metroid is being able to access things you normally shouldn't have access to early. For example, having 599 in energy and 15 or so power bombs before first visiting Norfair is quite unusual. You'll have to figure out how you can do this but it can be done.
Aside from getting stuck and those two very difficult bosses, I enjoyed this game and I'm already wanting to play it again.
Overall (on a 1 to 5 scale, based on the time this game was made):
Difficulty: 2 - hard
Graphics: 4.5 - very good
Music: 3.5 - somewhat good (it fits the theme, but seems a bit dull (it isn't my type))
Sound: 5 - superior (very fitting and sounds quite realistic)
Game play: 4.5 - very good (it's fun getting access to things earlier than you're supposed to; it's the somewhat awkward controls that ruins it a little (especially the last half of the game)).
Story: 4 - good (although lacking story elements, what few there are, the story is still good (lower rating because the lack of depth))
Overall: 4 - good
Apr 05, 2007
Great, but a few flaws
5 of 9 found this helpful Final Fantasy Anthology has 2 games in one, FF5 and FF6. They are both about a 4.3 out of 5 rating as each has their own unique pros and cons.
I first saw FF6 11 years ago at a friend's house and I since wanted to play it. I got Final Fantasy Anthology since it had FF6 and the first thing I noticed was a sudden loss in the frame rate, especially during battles (usually dropping to 30 fps, even 20 under rare conditions). It happens when scrolling through lists, while effects occur (such as from casting a spell or numbers popping out of things) and it makes things a bit difficult. Fortunately the battles were easy enough that this isn't much of a problem. The lag also occurs in towns where there are many objects visible, but rarely. Although the game was originally for the SNES, I was surprised that the faster PS1 couldn't even keep up with it.
Outside the lag, there are some other downsides. The most annoying is the fact you can't do more than 9999 damage. I could very well be doing beyond even 80,000 damage at the best possible. The battles are also unchallenging, even bosses, as I'm able to go through caves and things without having to restore anyone's HP. The sound effects are quite limited in variety and Kefka's laugh sounds very distorted. Lastly, figuring out what you're supposed to do next in order to proceed further was the most challenging part. The case where Locke escapes from a town surrounded by soldiers was the worst, taking me 6 hours to figure it out. It was much easier for me to defeat all the soldiers without curing Locke than it was to figure this out. During the second half of the story, it's even more difficult since you have almost no hints on what to do next, especially where to go next.
FF6 does have some strong upsides as well. The music is the obvious strong point in the audio (especially the world map music early in the game and the battle music). Some of the looks on the characters are also quite funny and like in one of the early boss battles, some of the comments made are humorous. The story is about a 4.1 out of 5 rating.
FF5, however, is a lot different. It's music isn't as well-liked music, but the battle music doesn't even sound like there was a battle (as FF6 does very well with). The design is a bit awkward, but it's the fact you can only equip one single ability and cannot use spells on multiple targets is the game's major downside. The biggest annoyance (flaw?) is the fact that it takes so long to level up (50+ battles) and without doing all that, bosses are very difficult to defeat (and with the case of not being able to use spells on multiple targets, made even worse). On top of that, even when it does take 50+ battles to level up, regular enemies can take as much as 15% of your character's HP in a regular hit (30% if critical), bosses doing 50% more. At first, this isn't a problem, but by the time you get out of the central area that you start in, it gets really bad. Even though it was taking 40 battles just to level up, I could barely manage to defeat a fire-based boss enemy. By 12 hours' play time, I lost interest in the game. Even though battles are my top favorite thing, and that the series lacks difficulty with battles, this is rather ridiculous. The story, from what I've seen, is only about a 2.8 out of 5 rating, but without playing through the full game, it's hard to give an accurate rating.
Jul 28, 2009
Fun, but way too easy
0 of 7 found this helpful Back in 1995, I watched 2 friends struggling with this game during the Lete River and and house fire events. I first played FF6 (since this is actually the sixth in the series) under "Final Fantasy Anthology" but there were frame rate problems making it hard for me to experience the true speed of my top favorite spell effect: meteor. Wanting to see the true speed of the game, and find out what changes were made from the true original, I got this game.
Graphics (5/5):
The 3D effect while on the world map is what amazed me the most about this game. I didn't think 3D existed in games for the SNES, except isometric. The character graphics are also well-done and impressive.
Sound (4.5/5):
Sound effects are kind of weak but the music is excellent. I especially love the music for the world map during the first half of the game - it holds the record for the longest continuous play of 52 1/4 days. The battle music is also very well-done and easily fits the theme. The music is also very well-done during story events, setting the mood very well. The sound effects are also good, but they are only weak during battles. Kefka's laugh is well-done and... meteor. The meteor spell's sound effects are what made me prefer it over any other spell, even cure and life.
Game play (4/5):
At first, magic usage is limited to a select few, but after this, I love the fact that you can change espers right before a level up to boost the stats however you want. For the most part, I find strength and magic attack of greatest use (depending on the role that character will have) and speed (to strike first with meteor). The others don't seem to have any noticeable effect and HP and MP have such tiny increases that they are essentially useless. Level 99, as is, already means nearly maximum HP and MP and you can't have more than 9999 HP and 999 MP. This is where the major downside to the game play comes in - the damage limit is so easy to reach that its annoying. Fire3 on a single mantodea could very well do nearly 50,000 damage and I'd love to see a white "50000" popping out of it. The worst thing about this game's game play is that it is way too easy. It's the easiest of all the FF games and this makes the game quite boring. Normally, I'm a heavy grinder (grinding: reaching and maintaining an abnormally high level throughout the game by fighting a lot of battles; think: level 99 on disk 1 on FF7 or having meteor and ultima in the first world (from level 98 Celes and 99 Terra)), but this game is so easy that I don't even need to grind. I was surprised as to just how easy it was and why those two friends even struggled with it. The only challenge spot I ever had was figuring out how to get out of South Figaro with Locke alone. This took me 8 hours to figure out when I first played the game. This game also has the fastest leveling I've ever seen - gain 2 levels in one battle at level 45 and get level 99 from 40 in just 2 hours all without taking any damage).
Controls (5/5):
The contrains are easy to work with. For the most part, just the directional buttons, A, and B are all you really need, rarely L or R (for casting a spell on all targets of a type). Other controls are rarely used. The hardest of all is Sabin's blitz's - the right column. I have about a 1 in 20 chance of getting aura bolt (top right corner) to work and with 70 tries, I have yet to get the one below to work at all.