Recent reviews by OMorty

As a huge Gargoyles fan, I cannot recommend this game. It looks and feels like something that needed more QA passes before it shipped. I say this because:

1.) The version number that appears when you pause the game is v0.6.5, not v1.0 or something similar.

2.) The remastered assets are a mess. Some character sprites are larger than their original counterparts, obfuscating the sizes of the hit/hurt boxes; some level sprites aren't tiled properly, showing visible seams where there shouldn't be any (most noticeable in the Rookery levels); some background sprites are missing detail compared to their original counterparts (most noticeable in the Forge levels); some sprites do not display properly despite the originals displaying perfectly fine (most noticeable in the Subterranean levels); and in one case the remastered asset is just a blurry, stretched version of its original counterpart (seen in the Subterranean levels). The art itself is fine, and overall more legible than what's in the original given the Sega Genesis's small color palette, but the presentation feels inconsistent and incomplete.

3.) While I did not encounter any crashes, I still experienced many strange bugs. One time the game stopped playing background music exclusively when using the remastered assets; sometimes music playing when using the remastered assets would not match what was playing when switching to the original assets; and like several others reported in the Discussions board, I could not get the "Variety Pack" achievement to trigger no matter how many robot enemies I defeated.

4.) Gamepad button mapping options are limited to swapping what the Xbox X, A, and B buttons do. I played through this game using Retro-Bit's 2.4 Ghz wireless Sega Saturn Pro Controller, so not being able to remap actions off of Xbox X, A, and B or change the Rewind and Mode Switch buttons made controlling the game more awkward than I would have liked.

All this has me wondering if this game should've received a remaster in the first place. What we got clearly needed more time in the oven, and even if it did receive all the time it needed, it would be tethered to the original's iffy collision detection, loose camera, and sluggish, stop-and-start movement. As such, I feel we would've been better off with a full-on remake that addresses those shortcomings. Given how little Disney seems to care for Gargoyles, though, I suppose we should be thankful we even got this.

I just beat this game on Casual mode, and I have a decent chunk of Normal mode completed. My impressions:

PROS (Game)
+Fast, fluid combat
+Smooth, responsive gamepad controls
+Great difficulty curve
+Short, sweet, and to-the-point

PROS (Port)
+Light system requirements*

MIXED (Game)
?Naga sections**

CONS (Game)
-Asset recycling limits enemy and environment variety
-Gameplay and story often conflict with each other***
-Limited replay value ****
-Music is forgettable

CONS (Port)
-Limited graphical options*****
-No option to rebind keys
-Mouse and keyboard controls weak overall

OVERALL, it's a fun, decent beat 'em up with an inconsequential story and problems typical of games with limited budgets (and a possibly short dev cycle). Fun for what it is. It CERTAINLY doesn't deserve all the hate it's gotten, since there are far worse games set in the Avatar universe. It does feel like the groundwork for something greater though, which is unfortunate considering there most likely won't be a sequel. :/

NOTES
*My PC was built in late-2011 with lower-end parts (i3-2120, GTX-550ti) and the game still ran at a near-constant 60 FPS.

**Naga sections are fun in bursts. However, since they're static endless runner-esque stages, they rely HEAVILY on trial-and-error. Sure, they're fun in bursts, but the Naga missions only get more frustrating as time goes on. Oh, and they introduce combat for these sections, BUT IT ONLY APPEARS IN ONE MISSION.

***The story in a nutshell: Korra's on a quest to regain her bending abilities so she can defeat an evil old man who blocked her chi so he could unleash an army of evil spirits to take over the world. While it's pretty barebones (and not much to write home about), the game lets you replay levels while retaining the bending abilities you already regained. Because of that you end up having to hear dialogue, watch cutscenes, and do things to regain bending abilities you already have! It makes things very incoherent, which can be pretty jarring.

****All you can really unlock after beating the game are more combos (which, in some ways, are Dyntasy Warriors levels of simple), a harder difficulty, a Pro Bending arena mode (which can be blasted through pretty quickly), and some extra costumes. Not much considering there are indie games that go for the same price that offer much more content.

*****The only options you can adjust in-game are the resolution (which maxes out at 1080p) and if graphics will be "smooth" or "normal." I'm assuming the latter refers to some anti-aliasing, but I have no idea given how vague that setting is worded in-game. I had to mess with the graphical settings in the nVidia control tab to apply some extra graphical effects.

HEY MISTER YOU WANNA WRESTLE??????

This is the most adrenaline-pumping game I've played in ages! With awesome music, crisp pixel art, and fast paced combat, Gunhound will set your hype thrusters to MAX! The only downsides are 1) the controls take some getting used to (but you control a hulking mech the entire time, so it's understandable), and 2) the translation's a little rough. More editing and punch-up writing on the part of the translator(s) would've defnitely smoothed things out, but since the story isn't a major part of the gameplay, it's forgiveable.

A very energetic, fast-paced action RPG. With great music, awesome pixel art, and a healthy dose of challenge, Ys I should keep you entertained if you're in the mood for an RPG, but you don't wanna dedicate 40+ hours to it. However, the "bump-based" combat takes some getting used to, and some of what you have to do is a little unclear near the end. It's nothing a quick glance at a guide doesn't clear up, though.

First, my specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium (x64)
Intel i3-2120 processor @ 3.30 GHz
8 GBs of RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX550Ti

Now let's compare that to the recommended set-up provided by Square-Enix:
Windows Vista/7/8
Intel Core 2 Quad (2.66 GHz)/AMD Phenom II X4 (2.8 GHz) processor
1 GB RAM
NVIDIA Geforce GTX 460/ATI Radeon HD 5870

Despite the fact that I exceed the recommended requirements by a wide margin, this game still struggles to maintain a consistent framerate with or without the Durante fix. The audio also skips every now and then, mostly during visually intense sequences. Further tweaking would be for naught, as the tweaks I've made had little to no influence on the game's performance. I'm not the only one experiencing such issues either--plenty of people with much more powerful hardware are experiencing similar problems. As such, I can confidently attribute this game's erratic performance to poor optimization on the part of Square-Enix.

In it's current state, I cannot recommend the PC version of Final Fantasy XIII. While it's perfectly playable (controls are decent on either joypad or keyboard and mouse, despite their respective lack of rumble and sensitivity settings; it's also more fun than the naysayers will have you believe), it's full of audio/visual stuttering, takes up a massive amount of hard drive space, and is locked to 720p by default. If you can put up with the poor performance of this port, do yourself a favor and wait to pick it up when it inevitably goes on sale.

Hopefully Square-Enix learns from the poor reception of this port and decides to put more effort into their XIII-2 and Lightning Returns ports.

Freedom Planet is what a Treasure-developed Sonic game for the Saturn would be like if Treasure lost permission to use the Sonic IP. If you're in the mood for a fast-paced action platformer (and you also happen to dig Saturn-era VGM and slick pixel art), this game is for you.