Xbone BC is coming this fall
When coming up with this week’s question, I had a thought. Looking back over the past Destructoid Discusses, I never centered one around the Xbox. Now, part of that reason is I’ve never owned an Xbox. I have been able to play all three generations, however, because most of my roommates over the years have been hardcore fans of the brand. So I’ve playedHalo,Halo 2,Project Gotham Racing,Dead or Alive 3,Fableand more. And I’ve enjoyed those games immensely.
So when it was announced the Xbox One family of consoles would be getting backward compatibility at E3, a moment I hope didn’t discourage indie developers for the console when it received a more thunderous applause than any of their games did, I immediately thought about what game from the 128-bit era I wanted to play the most. It took me a while to find my answer because most of the games I played have much better sequels more readily available.
That’s why I settled onGodzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee. I love Godzilla. I loveShin Godzilla. Everything I have seen ofCity Shrouded in Shadowmakes me think it’s theGodzillagame I’ve always wanted. Because, let’s be frank,Godzillagames have been on a steady downward trend.Meleewas such dumb fun when it came out I played it for a month straight cough on the GameCube cough.Save the Earthdidn’t have the same impact on me andUnleashedis genuinely bad. Then came 2014’sGodzilla, a title Destructoid staff members talked me out of buying when it went on sale.
So yeah, I want to playDestroy All Monsters Meleebecause if we’re not going to be given good, new games starring the world’s baddest bitch, then at least let me play the last great game she starred in.
Chris Carter
Every so often I get a chance to bring upGunvalkyrieand it makes me really happy.
This forgotten Smilebit gem dropped in 2002 and was quickly forgotten. It’s basically “what ifStarship Trooperswas an anime?” but with fun jetpack mechanics and a flashy action system. Buried underneath the ending is a New Game+ of sorts with a new samurai character that also functions as a hard mode.
It was a blast, and didn’t overextend itself — it did one thing, it went all out for it, and it did it for a reasonable amount of time before it started to grate.
Rich Meister
I got an original Xbox pretty late to the party, but one of the exclusive titles that got the most love from me wasThe Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.
This game shines in a way few games ever do, it was genuinely better than its movie counterpart. FPS, RPG, and stealth game mechanics all rolled into a neat little package inRiddick’sawesome universe. You bet your ass I went back to get all those cigarette packs.
Peter Glagowski
Sega made a lot of great games for the Xbox (just look at Chris’ entry onGunvalkyrie), but the biggest standout of the entire library, to me, isJet Set Radio Future. Not only does it retell the story from the original game, but it improves on the structure of the missions by removing the outdated time limit and giving you a much larger play space to explore.
I love how relaxed the setting of this game is compared to its erratic predecessor. That the controls actually work is a plus, but having camera control with the second joystick is a huge plus. The graphics are also beautifully realized beyond the capabilities of the Dreamcast and look stunning to this day.
Then you have the utterly fantastic soundtrack, which includes remixes of a few tunes from the Dreamcast original and a whole bunch of instant favorites on the list. I’m not sure if I could pick one song as the absolute best (“Concept of Love” is close), but my friend and I had a love affair with “Aisle 10” for a long time. It is such a funky, laid back song with a killer bassline and surprisinglyawesome music video.
I also have fond memories of pimping this game out to my friends in high school. I was a bit weird with my game selection even back then (i.e.Gunvalkyriefrom above), so no one had any clue what I was talking about. I also remember some kid looking at the box art and saying, “Juh-surf,” since he clearly didn’t see the words underneath. I got a lot of people hooked on oddball Japanese titles, though, and I’m happy that Sega took a chance on this franchise with Microsoft’s beast of a box. If we can’t get an HD remaster of this title, at least let us experience it on Xbox One.
Jonathan Holmes
The main reason I got an OG Xbox was it was the only place to get a few essential Sega exclusives. Chris and Peter already named a couple of them.Shenmue IIandPanzer Dragoon Ortaare a couple more. If the Dreamcast 2 ever happened, these are the types of games that would have been headliners on the console. Sadly, they were related to Tier B status on the Xbox, but they were still enough to convince me to pick one up late in the system’s life. That turned out to be a smart decision. To this day, those discs are the only access I have to those games.
The original Xbox was also home toSNK Vs. Capcom Chaos, the goofy stepchild of Capcom’s Vs. series. It’s broken, but it’s special in ways that make me love it. As far as I know, it’s the only fighter to feature Demitri fromDarkstalkers, Mars People fromMetal Slug 3, Zero from theMega Man Zero, and Violent Ken all under the same roof. You truly haven’t lived until you’d seenDemitri hit Mars People with the Midnight Bliss. It’s video game logic at it’s finest.
After looking atKing of Fighters XIVandMarvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite‘s character models up close, I’ve never been more hungry for both of those companies to return to the traditional sprite-based graphics that put them on the map in the first place. ReleasingSNK Vs. Capcom Chaoson the Xbox One would be a great way for them to start gettingback on the right track.
Josh Tolentino
Being a Nintendo, then PlayStation partisan in my idiot youth, I never owned an original Xbox or an Xbox 360, so a good few games passed me by while I tried to pretend the loss ofDead or Alive 3to “the enemy” wasn’t a blow that shook me to my very core, or that Master Chief did not look totally rad.
When a cousin finally picked up an OG Xbox just into the PS3 era, I finally got a look at what I was missing, and if we’re being honest, I didn’t miss all that much. The Xbox and 360’s PC-like architecture ensured a good many titles were multiplatform, meaning even landmark releases likeHaloandFableweren’t unknown to me.
That said,Metal Wolf Chaoswasn’t multiplatform, and as a person who pretended to likeArmored Core, I felt its absence keenly. Can we get another sequel? I want to make people roast chicken again….for America!
Chris Moyse
The Warriorsis a superbly realized and constructed labor of love that took an 80-minute movie narrative and extended it into a great game-playing experience. As characters from Walter Hill’s classic tale of gang warfare, one or two players journey through the events of the film, extended with scenes showing the events that lead up to that fateful night.
The game crams in a lot of activity, with various modes, mini-games and hidden rewards to discover. The brawling mechanics are sound and it’s real down and dirty stuff. Almost everything in the world can be picked up, thrown through, slammed against or shattered in the name of unleashing exquisite mayhem on anyone foolish enough to come out to play.The gameplay is good enough, but it is in the presentation thatThe Warriorssteps up to the plate. The game features many of the original actors performing machinima versions of the movie’s events, scripted and shot with accuracy and backed by the film’s cool-as-fuck soundtrack and sultry voiced D.J.
Rockstar took a huge chance withThe Warriors —a movie tie-in? a70smovie tie-in? — but it paid off handsomely as the resulting game broke two cliches; it managed to be a brawler with depth and styleanda film adaptation that didn’t suck. In fact, I’m convinced thatThe Warriorsis the most faithful film-to-game adaptation ever.
Pixie The Fairy
I’ll continue the Sega Smilebit lovefest withPanzer Dragoon Orta. Smilebit was the studio at Sega always trying out new things, but with a weirdness and atmosphere I’d more commonly associate with Nintendo games.
Panzer Dragoon Ortais a rail shooter where you are a mysterious girl that rides a dragon that breathes homing lasers. You fly over and right on through beautiful and desolate landscapes in an alien world one might imagine Samus Aran would be exploring beneath before inevitability blowing it all up. On Xbox, only From Software’sOtogigames had that sort of loneliness and whimsy outside ofOrta.
These days, rail shooters of its like are very rare and whileKid Icarus Uprising, Sin and PunishmentandStar Foxhelp keep the genre out there, it’s not quite the same tonally.
Then again, Smilebit’s run on Xbox feels like the last time Sega was really Sega.
I guess I’m going to have to try thisGunvalkyriething out because everyone seems to agree on that game.
