Monday 9 February 2009

Crow and Crows.

Ahh... February. The month of Saturn.

This month I have gotten a few new Saturn Games and have been going over some favorites.

Using my shiny new 4-1 card I was able to play Marvel Superheros at a much faster pace with the mighty 3 Meg Ram boost! Juggernaut's ending was a bit sad. I wanted to see the big guy destroy all his enemies including that egg headed goody-two-shoes brother of his.

I also played around with Discworld a bit. I highly suggest reading "Guards! Guards!" by Terry Pratchett before you mess around with this game. Fun Times.

OK here is the main review of Two games that I have played recently. Separated only by a plural "s" it has never been more clear how much a single letter can matter.

First off The Crow city of Angels.


Not. A. Good. Game.

Not even a decent game.

It looks like they didn't finish *making* the game. It's very sad since you can *almost* make out a good 3D brawler in there. I mean everyone seemed to complain about the RE camera angles but they weren't too bad. It was the other problems.

Awful collision detection. Horrible looking Graphics. It's just so clunky and awful slow. It's hard to move around the screen and hit the enemies.

It's a damn shame. A bit more work and it could have been nice. I actually liked the enemy taunts.

Here is a video of the PS version. I could not find video of the Saturn version.


This is the only video game based on "The Crow" and I am saddened that such a horrible game was released before it was finished.

I suppose it has some value as a collectors item. And perhaps if you are a huge fan of the movie you might *have* to own the one game inspired by it.

And of course there is the "so bad you just have to check it out" status...I mean that's why I bought my copy.

But add an "s" to that and you get this:

Crows "The Battle Action For Sega Saturn"

This is a lovely little 2D beat-em-up. It features super deformed chibi street punks beating everyone up! It's a Japanese only release.

Not the best game mechanics I have seen in this sort of game but the style of it is great!

This is the sort of game you can sit down and kill 20 minutes with. It's got the traditional "run around and mash buttons" Final Fight gameplay with some decent additions such as the ability for some characters to stomp enemies when they are down (something I always wanted in a beat-em-up but only available in a few titles such as Clover's God Hand). It's also got a decent weapon system and special move system that really changes between characters. Also you don't automattically drop your weapon after one hit (something that always annoyed the hell out of me in other games). To select some of the characters you first have to beat them in combat. Scattered around the levels is mispelled English graffiti which was amusing.

Take a look what 2D on the Saturn can be!



And the music is pretty nice too.



All in all this game is a fun little game that won't make your top 10 for the Saturn but will probably make it to #11 easily (if you enjoy 2D beat-em-ups as much as me).

Video and Images totally ripped off from http://www.satakore.com


6 comments:

Caleb said...

The name ain't Martin Gov.

Is your health effecting your memory?

fatherkrishna said...

An excellent couple of reviews there Caleb! And in essence, this is what I'd hoped Saturn February would be about - getting back to the games...

I'll be on the look out for Crows, especially since I have got my Japanese Saturn. The Crow, on the other hand will be getting a wide birth! Good work fella!

(This is an edited comment, where I wrongly confused this excellent post by Caleb, with one made by my fellow Mancunian contributor Martin - I therefore apologise unreservedly to Caleb, Martin, The Queen, God, Segata Sanshiro, The Pope and anyone else who may have been offended by my senile dementia...

Jeez! I can't even blame it on the booze any more, although I am on a lot of medication...)

Sorry Caleb!!!

マーティン said...

I'm pleased to see that the quality of my posts can be compared to Caleb! No offence taken here!
Great post.

The Plushiest said...

The crow should have been made akin to something like Devil May Cry. I think that's the only game play style that would do Brandon Lee any justice. As for Crows, it looks like mighty final fight with better graphics. I'm a huge fan of streets of rage, so I might have to pick this up if I can find it on the cheap.

Animated AF said...

Isn't that latter Crows game one of those Saturn games that always goes for crazy amounts of money?

NebachadnezzaR said...

That Crows game definitely looks interesting. Nice find, Caleb!