Goemon

My physical version of this just turned up and after a couple of hours play I have to say I agree with everyone that this is indeed a tremendous game. Learnt missions 1 and 3 and have 1 lifed both although I doubt I’m anywhere near consistent enough yet. Only problem I have right now is the audio is IMO knackered. It’s on max and it’s sooooo quiet I can barely hear it. I’d actually consider it a bug it’s so low. Apart from that it’s all great stuff!

Found out about this, this morning. It is indeed most excellent work. Goemon 2 is actually very playable in Japanese but in 3 it’s pretty tough to navigate so it’s amazing to have a version of this for people to play. I was literally thinking just last week that these games needed a translation. Goemon 4 needs to be done too, it’s not as hard to navigate as 3 but it definitely has some bits where you need to know what’s going on in order to progress. They’re all excellent games, all very original from each other and deserve a playthrough if you love quality Super Famicom games.

/Jealous Did you get hit with duties on this?

Axelay finally finished. Within the first few goes I managed to get to the final level, yet it’s taken a week to get to the end. I put this down to a level of RnG that the game has. Even on the go I finished it, I was still getting caught by things I’d never seen before. I think the weapon loss system was designed around the RnG as well as the number of lives the game throws at you. When I finished it I had 5 lives. Did I suddenly get loads better from literally the go before where I somehow managed to lose all my lives on level 3? I think I was more likely just stiffed on that go TBH. It is a good game though, and I know some people love games that have that level of RnG factor. At the end it said to “challenge hard mode”, so I read up on what happens if you play hard mode and apparently the line is “see you in Axelay 2”. I wonder if there ever was an Axelay 2 on the cards.

Just in case you didn’t know you can pick it up from Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Holy-Diver-Collectors-Edition-NES/dp/B07G2D7Q7Y/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=Holy+diver&qid=1579890122&sr=8-6

One has been done for Holy Diver too. http://retro-bit.com/holy-diver

Oh man, that AVS is tempting. I was just looking at the Analogue NT version at the weekend and it’s price on eBay is ludicrous.

Started playing Axelay after finishing off Prince of Persia. Again, I remember loving this as a kid, but unfortunately so far I’m finding it a bit of a mixed bag. My main gripe is that when the level is larger than a screen wide the game constantly tries to auto centre you. So you move to dodge something and then you have the also fight the game trying to pull you back to the middle while you’re doing it. It doesn’t happen all the time but when it does, it’s VERY annoying. The weapon unlock system seems a bit pointless. You unlock a new weapon, which just happens to be the best weapon for the level you’re about to tackle. I’d sooner have everything open from the beginning, as it gives you more choice and it lets you figure that stuff out for yourself. It does come across as a technical masterpiece though. There’s a lot of lovely touches in there that give it a super high level of polish. I loved the fact that on level 3 for example you’re flying over a city-scape and when you destroy the metal structure you’re flying through you see it break up and fall to the ground. It’s a good game but it’s no where near as good as the amazing Area 88, yet it commands twice the price to pick up. This (again) to me just cements that fact that a lot of retro prices are completely broken. It’s not down to how good the game is or even how rare it is, it just seems to ended up on some arbitrary price that people are prepared to pay.

I read that the PAL version of Duck Tales is a bit bust... Apparently they sped Scrooge up to compensate for the slower speed, which lead to Scrooge being able to jump further than normal. You're not allowed to use the PAL version for speed running (officially) as for example you can just completely jump the gap on the Amazon level and don’t need to use Launchpad’s helicopter.

Jonamok will disagree but I actually think the fight should be harder! Well, not just this fight TBH... One thing I found was the more I played the less I worried about my own stance meter. The game pushes an aggressive nature and you can actually bully your way through quite a lot. I would have preferred a slower pace with more maintenance on both health AND stance. You have to back off to fill your health regularly but how many times do you back off just to bring your stance meter under control? Maybe I’m just a sadist...

@Stanshall great vids! Quick question... How long do you think it takes to get to this level of skill? I always start bullet hell shooters but give up due to just not feeling like I’m progressing. I rarely make it past stage 2 in credit in a cave shooter (normal difficulty) and that’s after hours of trying. I do wonder if I’m not cut out to play these types of games, as I really struggle to see what’s going on.

Did I post this already? I know it’s SF but I know it will resonate with a lot of people. Just playing the original this morning, the God Mode is ridiculous. You literally press a button and the AI is like “nope”. One thing that annoys me about this is that as a kid I accepted it (mostly). So for years I wouldn’t touch characters outside of Ken and Ryu for no other reason than playing other characters quickly lead to an untimely death (in single player). Ken and Ryu on the other hand had tools (fireball and invincible DP) to manipulate the AI and let me get further. You play a character like Chun Li, where her specials are mostly useless, and all you have is normals which the AI just blows right through! Playing Chun Li this morning I couldn’t beat Guile because he’d relentlessly performed a mix of these cheats. I mean I’m playing on the hardest difficulty but still, most of the time I can’t jump in as he non-charge flash kicks and when I do a normal in neutral he god modes through it. Looking at it now I actually think it’s REALLY bad.

Currently on level 14 of Prince of Persia on the Super Famicom. I remember loving this game as a kid. So much so it was one of the few games I wanted to pick up again for my small Super Famicom collection. I am enjoying it but I’m finding it a lot more trying than I remembered. Even when you’ve figured out a level it’s multiple attempts to string everything together to get you through. The worst part being having to reset the system and re-watch the intro to get back to your next attempt otherwise you’d lose too much time. So yea, it’s that mix of brutal difficulty coupled with liberal check pointing, which I technically knew but had somewhat forgotten.

Ahhh TT-ing Desert course on Sega Rally, that’s a classic gaming memory for sure. I can remember regularly being at a friends house and a few of us all taking turns at that. I can remember when Sega Rally 2 landed. I wonder how many people who bought that game, the first thing they did was load TT Desert. I know I did. Unfortunately I can also remember turning into the first corner and seeing the FPS take a nose dive. Still loved playing it on DC, but it wasn’t as polished as it should have been.

That why it’s on it in the middle of the night, (US time). What do you do when you’re on WR pace and choke at the end of a 9 hour session? Top yourself most likely.