Can you believe the SEGA Dreamcast got not one but two crappy exclusive Godzilla games that never released outside of Japan? That really grinds my gears. Of course, back then I wasn't even a Godzilla fan, but 20-years later I am and I'm mildly upset about it. For day 99 of Eric Vs. 365 we take a look at Godzilla Generations: Maximum Impact. Click to read and watch.
Before I actually played it I always assumed that Maximum Impact was just a re-release of the first Godzilla Generations with more stuff. It's actually a totally different game, though, in an entirely different genre. The first Godzilla Generations was a snoozefest where you just stomped around as Godzilla destroying stuff. Maximum Impact, on the other hand, is a snoozefest where Godzilla automatically walks through a city while you mark targets with a cursor and Godzilla shoots them with atomic breath. It's amazing that with so many flavors to choose from, they opted for boring. Twice.
Maximum Impact does have some things going for it, though. Mainly it has actual boss fights against other Godzilla movie monsters! The bosses are laid out in the same order as the Heisei movies, so you fight Biollante first, then King Ghidorah, then Mothra, etc. until you end up with Space Godzilla and Destroyah. The boss fights are different than the normal levels in that you can freely move around in an open arena rather than Godzilla just walking forward automatically. The boss fights are obviously a lot more interesting than the rest of the game, which is pretty mindless, but you're still just painting targets on each boss for Godzilla to shoot. So it's still pretty boring, even if the bosses themselves are cool and well done.
Unlike the first game, Godzilla is the only playable character in Maximum Impact. I'm not sure the other characters would have worked very well with this style of gameplay anyway, but it is a little disappointing there isn't more variety.
All in all, Godzilla Generations Maximum Impact is pretty crappy, but at least it's crappy in a different way from the first game. Just like the first game (and every Godzilla movie), though, it does still have something to offer for Godzilla fans and is worth checking out regardless of its objective quality. It's big G stomping through cities and fighting monsters, which is worth a look.
