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Mega Drive. Yeah!

strider

By strider,
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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Yasawas

Yasawas

Posted
Posted

Looks like a Mean Bean Machine rip-off to me.

 

Speaking of which - what is the general perception of Sonic Spinball? I rented it at the time, enjoyed it for a couple of days but I get the impression it's a bit of a joke in a series that has a surplus of them unfortunately. I had quite an enjoyable half hour with it just now (SFX aside) and am keen to put a bit more time in though.

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electricmastro

electricmastro

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Yasawas said:

Looks like a Mean Bean Machine rip-off to me.

 

Speaking of which - what is the general perception of Sonic Spinball? I rented it at the time, enjoyed it for a couple of days but I get the impression it's a bit of a joke in a series that has a surplus of them unfortunately. I had quite an enjoyable half hour with it just now (SFX aside) and am keen to put a bit more time in though.


Really though, Puyo is a spin-off of an RPG series and first released on MSX and NES. Has made it all the way to Switch too, so I’d say it has developed quite a fanfare in recent years.

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Phantoon

Phantoon

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, Yasawas said:

Looks like a Mean Bean Machine rip-off to me.

 

Speaking of which - what is the general perception of Sonic Spinball? I rented it at the time, enjoyed it for a couple of days but I get the impression it's a bit of a joke in a series that has a surplus of them unfortunately. I had quite an enjoyable half hour with it just now (SFX aside) and am keen to put a bit more time in though.

It's a brilliant idea but unfortunately they hurried it out in six months or so when it became clear Sonic 3 wasn't going to make Christmas, and it shows.

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JamesC

JamesC

Posted
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15 minutes ago, electricmastro said:

Pinball games from best to worst:

 

Dragon's Fury

 

Virtual Pinball

 

Dragon's Revenge

 

Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball

 

Crue Ball

 

Dino Land

No mention of the brilliant Psycho Pinball! 

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spanky debrest

spanky debrest

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, electricmastro said:


Really though, Puyo is a spin-off of an RPG series and first released on MSX and NES. Has made it all the way to Switch too, so I’d say it has developed quite a fanfare in recent years.

 

The RPGs being the incredibly good fun and original dungeon crawlers known as Madou Monogatari series.

 

The Mega Drive got a brilliant remake of a remake of a remake of a Madou Monogatari which was the final official Japanese release. I recommend it highly (pro grade fan translation is available).

 

Every version of the games across every format is wildly different and aside from super polished aesthetics and design all of your attacks are performed fighting game style for this particular one.

 

Like Lord Monarch MD, i rate it as the best game of its kind that remains inexplicably slept on.

 

Regarding Sonic Spinball, yeah, it's not great. BUT that tune 'Toxic Caves' is amazing. One of the cheekiest basslines ever. And I'm too lazy to set my MiSTer up but I understand if you play this on an overclocked system (CPU set at 10+ MHz) then it plays pretty smooth and with allegedly excellent physics. The game seemingly just didn't get optimised.

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Yasawas

Yasawas

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Camel said:

Mean Bean Machine is just a re-skinned Puyo Puyo.

 

Puyo Puyo is the absolute best puzzle game series.

 


I was fishing for that, sorry.

 

I have literally never met anyone who likes Puyo Puyo (or Columns for that matter) that much, I wasn’t sure they existed. I have tried to like it numerous times but I can’t grasp doing the setups although I understand them when explained to me. It did give u s a great moment in Sonic Mania though.

 

 

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Wonderm

Wonderm

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, spanky debrest said:

Regarding Sonic Spinball, yeah, it's not great. BUT that tune 'Toxic Caves' is amazing. One of the cheekiest basslines ever. And I'm too lazy to set my MiSTer up but I understand if you play this on an overclocked system (CPU set at 10+ MHz) then it plays pretty smooth and with allegedly excellent physics. The game seemingly just didn't get optimised.

 

Would e.g. a Megadrive retroarch core on my pi4 be able to do this as well? 

 

I'd love to be able to play an optimised version of this game

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Alexlotl

Alexlotl

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, Yasawas said:

I have literally never met anyone who likes Puyo Puyo (or Columns for that matter) that much, I wasn’t sure they existed. I have tried to like it numerous times but I can’t grasp doing the setups although I understand them when explained to me. It did give u s a great moment in Sonic Mania though.

 

I picked up Puyo Puyo Tetris for Switch, and my daughter loves Puyo Puyo and doesn't get on that well with Tetris. I'm the opposite. Great game, though.

 

Columns, I'm afraid, is a lesser puzzler. It's just too straightforward and easy. When I bought my Japanese Mega Drive to use with the Framemeister, I picked up the cheapest JP cart I could find to test it worked OK (prior to buying a Mega Everdrive) - Columns. I plugged it in and started it up for a quick go. 30 minutes later I was still playing on that first go, despite not having played the game for twenty years. I turned it off eventually because I got bored. Presumably Sega could easily make Puyo Puyo Columns Tetris if they wanted, but they know Columns is a bit of a dud.

 

Puzzle Fighter on the other hand... but that's another thread.

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Down by Law

Down by Law

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, spanky debrest said:

 

 

Regarding Sonic Spinball, yeah, it's not great. BUT that tune 'Toxic Caves' is amazing. One of the cheekiest basslines ever. And I'm too lazy to set my MiSTer up but I understand if you play this on an overclocked system (CPU set at 10+ MHz) then it plays pretty smooth and with allegedly excellent physics. The game seemingly just didn't get optimised.

 

Interesting stuff !

 

 

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Yasawas

Yasawas

Posted
Posted

For all of the fun to be had in wallowing in nostalgia and revisiting a game you loved, or hated sometimes, or remember from magazines but never played, I think my favourite retro experience is discovering something unplayed that is still so good it eclipses the desire to play anything else over it until completion. I’ve just finished Shining Force and totally adored it, occasional clunkiness and all. Outstanding. 

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beakbeak

beakbeak

Posted
Posted
On 16/07/2022 at 14:12, Yasawas said:

For all of the fun to be had in wallowing in nostalgia and revisiting a game you loved, or hated sometimes, or remember from magazines but never played, I think my favourite retro experience is discovering something unplayed that is still so good it eclipses the desire to play anything else over it until completion. I’ve just finished Shining Force and totally adored it, occasional clunkiness and all. Outstanding. 

You’ve convinced me. I’ve had the pang for a good SRPG ever since advance wars remake ended up being put on permanent hold. It was either shining force or tactics ogre or FF tactics but I’ve played TO and FFT to death and never really got too far on shining force. The question is: 1,2 or CD? 

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strawdonkey

strawdonkey

Posted
Posted

I loved the Shining Force games. I think I preferred 2, but start with the first one as it's a tiny bit simpler. I still have my Shining Force 3 complete set in the loft from when I visited Japan in 2008 that I've been meaning to get round to playing for 14 years now.

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Yasawas

Yasawas

Posted
Posted

JOIN ME

 

I've gone straight onto the sequel and set up Saturn emulation for the first time in my life to prepare for the next phase so I'm all in at this point. SF2 is so pleasant after the first - basically the same, carrie over all the positives, but just with the rougher edges smoothed a bit. I also like the characters a fair bit more. There's a comically turkey-looking phoenix called Peter, a wolf man who punches most enemies to death in one blow and the main dude is called Bowie by default ffs.

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  • 2 weeks later...
geldra

geldra

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Mr Monday said:

aMaru’s work on improving the MD port of Ghouls’n’Ghosts has got halfway through Level 2

 

 


Absolutely incredible stuff. Love that there are people with the skills and passion to go back and make “impossible” ports possible on OG hardware. 

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Goemon

Goemon

Posted
Posted

Some guys are doing a proper remake of Sunset Riders too. The difference is insane! Back in the day you just assumed that devs did what needed to be done to fit into the system but these remakes show that’s actually not true.

 

 

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JamesC

JamesC

Posted
Posted

That Sunset Riders remake is certainly impressive but I have to say, the Mega Drive version is actually my favourite and I prefer it to the arcade and SNES versions (though I do like them all).

While the Megadrive version isn't the prettiest, they concentrated on the most fun parts of the arcade game - those being the run+gun sections. While there are only 4 environments in the MD version, they're split into 2 sections, which make 8 levels. The SNES and Arcade version have more variety, with the shooting gallery and horseback levels, but they just aren't as fun as the main parts of the game. There are more environments but the levels are shorter and some of the extra bosses (particularly those guys in the theatre) are just there to make you punt more money in. The boss fights on the MD version are actually all doable without taking a hit if you're skilled enough.
Also, the MD version is the only one to have the damsels in distress (Thank you, nice boys!) and, IIRC, the only one where you can throw the dynamite.

I know it's not a common opinion but I just wish the MD game would get a bit more recognition. It's not a close arcade port like the SNES version but, IMHO, it's all the better for it. 

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Gabe

Gabe

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On 21/07/2022 at 16:15, Yasawas said:

JOIN ME

 

I've gone straight onto the sequel and set up Saturn emulation for the first time in my life to prepare for the next phase so I'm all in at this point. SF2 is so pleasant after the first - basically the same, carrie over all the positives, but just with the rougher edges smoothed a bit. I also like the characters a fair bit more. There's a comically turkey-looking phoenix called Peter, a wolf man who punches most enemies to death in one blow and the main dude is called Bowie by default ffs.

How is this going? I've been trying to get Saturn emulation working properly - by which I mean up scaling so it doesn't look like ass - but nothing seems to work. Are you running upscaled and, if so, what emulator are you using and what settings? It's surprisingly hard to find any help for this via Google. 

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