Currently playing...

[Qazimod]

I've spent the past few days playing Soulcalibur 1 and going through the character unlocks, the missions, the art cards - I unlocked Inferno today. I didn't really get into the Soul series after SC1 (the only one I've really put time into), but it's still enjoyable and the mission mode can be quite inventive with its objectives. It would be awesome if Street Fighter VI's World Tour thing had fun with its challenges in this way.

 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1546559037

[pastry]

God, I love Ridge Racer. What an achievement it is as a first gen PS1 game, but forgetting that - it’s just so fun, so balanced, so satisfying. Every time I play I feel like I improve, and not by any luck or brute force, but by really understanding the design and incrementally improving my techniques. 

 

I adore it. It stands alongside Sega Rally as home conversions of the day that have a level depth and refinement in their handling model that will always bring me back - and it’s not ever at the expense of enjoyment. 
 

 

While Ridge Racer Turbo is a hell of an achievement, the full field of cars and day-night effect in the launch game is something else. Yeah it’s 30fps and the overall look doesn’t match Turbo, but the game is what matters. If only Turbo could’ve been the full game! 

 

 

[Soulstar]

Can’t say it’s Retro but I’m playing Dragon Age 1 for the first time after fairly recently buying up the trilogy for my PS3. Wasn’t sure if I’d get into it properly but I’ve got quite sucked in. 
 

BioWare’s ME Trilogy ranks as my favourite series of games that fit so well together and blew me away. This is nothing on that for me personally and it does have a jankyness about it, with far too much reading I simply have to keep up with, but it’s definitely  good. It’s felt like I’ve progressed at a snails pace and took me tens of hours before I felt I got the hang of things. The world is deep with its lore and engaging and the systems are rather deep when tinkering within the menus. It’s been about patience but I’ve kept at it and feel it’s making for an enjoyable experience. 
 

Eventually I want to write up the games I’ve finished this year in the Discussion thread as I’ve really not touched it at all yet, but I’ve now got RE4 to add to that list as a first time play through. Very interesting as it’s the first time I’ve played what I’d describe as the “new” or “modern” style of RE and feels entirely like a different beast that I don’t associate as RE, but still I can see why people really resonate with it. 

[megamixer]

Pokemon Red Version.

 

Grabbed this from the 3DS eshop before it shuts next year and have been thoroughly sucked back in by the original sprites and music. Chose Squirtle this time (I'm always choosing Charmander usually) and have already bossed the first gym and almost through Mt. Moon with a very different team than I would traditionally assemble.

 

It's interesting going back to the start though as Dark and Steel weren't a thing, so it's actually a lot easier to take out Magnemites for example since they are just electric types. But some moves have different types (Gust is normal instead of Flying for example) and there are a few instances of one type being super-effective against another that don't exist in post-Red/Blue (Bug is super-effective vs Poison for example).

[luth714]

On 29/07/2022 at 21:44, Qazimod said:

I've spent the past few days playing Soulcalibur 1 and going through the character unlocks, the missions, the art cards - I unlocked Inferno today. I didn't really get into the Soul series after SC1 (the only one I've really put time into), but it's still enjoyable and the mission mode can be quite inventive with its objectives. It would be awesome if Street Fighter VI's World Tour thing had fun with its challenges in this way.

 

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1546559037

Still believe SC1 is one of the greatest games of all time. SC2 has some nice things - shaped arenas etc - but the first was so pure, so gorgeous, a game that was as much fun to watch as play and even a button masher could pull off some wild moves. Amazing memorable characters, soundtrack, visuals…all time great.

[luth714]

Having owned for years and never played I fired up the Prince Of Persia “reboot” or whatever you’d call the cell shaded one. So far…not sure…the smart assedness of the main character is kinda grating, the cel shading seems a bit odd, a bit neither one style nor another…the fighting seems odd, I don’t really know what I’m doing and whereas the Sands Of Time felt like each room/ area was a puzzle, so far the areas feel more like trial and error areas to get past more through attrition rather than solving. Controls also a bit a bit twitchy too…it’s one of the those games I spend a lot of time tutting at

 

 

Will stick with it a bit longer but getting the feeling there are better things I could be spending my time with

 

 

[Yasawas]

Utterly besotted with GG Aleste II on the Game Gear. Yes, I’m surprised too. Playing through the collection on Switch and while even fumble fingered old me found the first quite easy this is much more testing - stage 5 boss has been booting ma baws all day but it’s somehow fun. The music is glorious which goes a long way. Glad I’m not playing this on an OG GG screen though…

 

I’ve only dabbled with GG Aleste 3 very briefly to see it and it looks immense. Although not retro enough for this forum I suppose!

[Elginmcqueen]

Only really playing stuff on my phone at the moment. Typically Chess or nipping in and out of Clash Royale. 

 

Proper games though I'm playing both current Retroleague Forum games: Blueprint on MAME, nice little maze puzzler I've never played before that's currently going back and forth between loads of fun and "damn you I wanna smash my phone up you cheating piece of crap" annoying. Great game for just having a few more goes though. 

The other league game is Rex on Spectrum, playing it on Spectaculator is proving ok but I'm still kinda undecided on the game. It actually looks quite impressive and is surprising just how much seems to be going on at once. But on the other hand it's hard and I'm not entirely sure what I'm meant to be doing. Will give it a few more goes before the next game replaces it on Sunday though. 

[Darwock]

Not a regular in this part of the forum by any means, but I had a bit of a retro day with the kids today after my son came down with a fever putting us all into stay-at-home lockdown until we got tested for COVID.

 

I set up the GameCube and introduced them to Super Monkey Ball first - which was great until my 5yo son beat my 10yo daughter at Monkey Billiards and she started to cry. I also fired up the GBA player and showed them a bit of Bubble Bobble and Warioware, but the most fun was had with Pac-Man VS - I bought this back in the day with the link cable and everything but never had any opportunity to play it at the time - I actually opened my GAME branded link cable for the first time today with the kids. The GBA took a little encouragement to start up after the batteries went in, but amazingly the GBA SP still had a charge and turned on first time. That’s insane, I don’t think I have even looked at it since upgrading to a PSP in… 2005?!

 

Not sure why the commentator for the game sounded like Mario, is that how Pac-man is supposed to talk too? It’s a pity it forces you to take turns being Pac-man because my kids only wanted to be the ghosts, but that wasn’t an option that I could find.

 

It was so nice to finally get to enjoy the experience I hoped for back in the early 00s, but didn’t have the right circumstances at the time. Just had to grow my own 2P and 3P to enjoy it twenty years later.

 

They are eyeing up Four Swords+ next, but with only two GBAs we won’t be able to get the most out of it unfortunately.

[Qazimod]

Somehow I've ended up restarting FFVII again. I think I wanted to play through the whole game in between Remake being announced and being released, but I kept putting it off and playing other things. I kind of made a compromise by replaying it up until where Remake reportedly ended, but now I've started over with a plan to replay the whole thing.

 

I'm somewhere around the start of disc two (god, that snowboard minigame didn't age well) at Gaea's Cliff, grinding just outside of a HP/MP restoration pool, itself outside a boss room. I've already recruited Yuffie, but I haven't gone looking for Vincent yet, and I haven't done the Wutai sidequest. Or a bunch of other optional things.

[spanky debrest]

On 31/07/2022 at 20:22, Yasawas said:

Utterly besotted with GG Aleste II on the Game Gear. Yes, I’m surprised too. Playing through the collection on Switch and while even fumble fingered old me found the first quite easy this is much more testing - stage 5 boss has been booting ma baws all day but it’s somehow fun. The music is glorious which goes a long way. Glad I’m not playing this on an OG GG screen though…

 

I’ve only dabbled with GG Aleste 3 very briefly to see it and it looks immense. Although not retro enough for this forum I suppose!

 

I was in adoration of GG Aleste II for a good while myself - especially the music which is loaded with jams.

 

GG Aleste 3 is absolutely applicable here IMO, as it's 100% a legit Game Gear game despite it being locked to modern platforms. 

[Qazimod]

Wrapped up FFVII. Having a turbo mode on an emulator certainly makes the hours fly by.  I don't know my final stats but my main party's levels were 59-60 after the

 

Spoiler

Jenova

 

battle, and my last save had just under 29 "hours" on the clock - although that save was pretty far back and I skipped a lot of optional things. The final battle took a few attempts, but I'd been hoarding support items so it wasn't too bad.

[beakbeak]

On 30/07/2022 at 00:26, pastry said:

God, I love Ridge Racer. What an achievement it is as a first gen PS1 game, but forgetting that - it’s just so fun, so balanced, so satisfying. Every time I play I feel like I improve, and not by any luck or brute force, but by really understanding the design and incrementally improving my techniques. 

 

I adore it. It stands alongside Sega Rally as home conversions of the day that have a level depth and refinement in their handling model that will always bring me back - and it’s not ever at the expense of enjoyment. 
 

 

While Ridge Racer Turbo is a hell of an achievement, the full field of cars and day-night effect in the launch game is something else. Yeah it’s 30fps and the overall look doesn’t match Turbo, but the game is what matters. If only Turbo could’ve been the full game! 

 

 

No fucking way.

 

i had no idea there was a bonus disc that included that stuff. I decided to dig my PSOne out and fire it up. It’s the Japanese version so I wasn’t too sure which was which and loaded up the second option that just seemed to be the original version without any car or track select running at 30fps so tried the other version and it looked brilliant. So smooth.

 

Sm I wrong, or is this the same as ridge racer revolution??

[pastry]

No, the Hi-Spec / Turbo edition is its own thing, a complete overhaul of the engine that powered RR and RRR and which informed R4.

 

There’s some extra detail (especially road textures), higher resolution, goraud shading, and of course 60fps - but it’s at the expense of the full 8 cars, much of the “living” environment, and the day-night cycle. 

[dataDave]

@pastry That slot mask filter is looking fine!  What resolution is that TV? It’s making Ridge Racer look incredibly rustic, in a mid-nineties elitist home AV sense.
 

I suddenly woke up with a craving for some Real Bout: Fatal Fury 2 this morning, which after almost 25 years is slowly beating out Fatal Fury Special as my favourite in the series. I’m going to get my work underway first before jumping in.

[pastry]

14 hours ago, dataDave said:

@pastry That slot mask filter is looking fine!  What resolution is that TV? It’s making Ridge Racer look incredibly rustic, in a mid-nineties elitist home AV sense.

 

That's the RetroTink slot mask in MiSTer, running on a budget (Aldi) 4K HDR tele*. Looks great in motion, the settings I'm using really suit the PSX.

* to be honest I've been totally satisfied with the TV, turned off all the image processing features and set up the colours "properly" – including colour balance – and it's fantastic for the price!

[Colonel Panic]

My wife is WFH using the office today, so I’m in my magic shed with this to keep me company. Terrible. 
 

[megamixer]

Pokemon Red finished last week. Did something I'd never bothered with before and spent the time grinding out EXP to get Dragonite before taking on the E4. It is very tough in Gen 1 when there are no rematches with trainers, and the best wild Pokemon you can farm are those in Victory Road, with only one (Golbat) shedding 1000EXP. Dragonair needs to hit Lv.55 to evolve as well which is nuts.

 

Also took the time to get Growlithe to Lv.50 so it would learn Flamethrower, before evolving to Arcanine.

 

Wasn't particularly highly-levelled for the Elite 4 but I breezed through on my first go with Blastoise, Arcanine, Rhydon, Dragonite, Kadabra, and Zapdos.

 

Caught Mewtwo afterwards but there's pretty much no use for it's ridiculous power level as there's no post-game.

 

Will likely download the Trading Card Game next as that was another favourite from when I was younger. And probably Yellow Version too as that is different enough to Red/Blue to warrant another play-through.

[Goemon]

Currently playing Eliminate Down on the Megadrive. As suspected it has instantly jumped into one of my top games on the system.

 

The game is full, and I mean FULL, of intense action, set pieces, varying pace and quality touches that all come together to give an experience that just gets you completely enthralled. Level 1 for example has starting in a multi-paralaxed space war before taking you down to a planet surface through a hail of missiles and finally whipping you along the planet’s surface before squaring off against the boss.

 

It keeps the weapons simple with a forward shot, a vertical shot and a backwards shot as standard (which all get powered up as you collect Ps) but what makes it interesting is how you need to switch between them constantly as you move through a level. Each one is an essential requirement based on what’s happening.

 

The game itself is super tough, there’s plenty of learning to be had and 8 chunky stages to power through. You get plenty on lives and continues but you really need to keep yourself at max level otherwise you can pretty much forget it. You’ll only use these live/continues to get yourself versed where you died for when you return on you’re next run.

 

And what’s crazy is that this game came out of no where, from a team that no one ever heard of and was never seen again! Yet it’s easily one of the top shooters on the system IMO.

 

If you love shooters you have to give the game a shot. It’s really great.

[pastry]

Fab, I'll be trying that @Goemon – no relation to Border Down, then?

 

I've been taking part in some Twitter (spit, snarl) retro time trial challenges, hammering around the Mythical Coast in Rage Racer. And just like the original game I was raving about a week ago, this is, of course, also still amazing  

[Protocol Penguin]

Currently playing Doraemon Meikyu Daisakusen on the PC Engine. It’s great fun. I recommend.

[Wonderm]

7 hours ago, pastry said:

Fab, I'll be trying that @Goemon – no relation to Border Down, then?

 

I've been taking part in some Twitter (spit, snarl) retro time trial challenges, hammering around the Mythical Coast in Rage Racer. And just like the original game I was raving about a week ago, this is, of course, also still amazing  

 

Can i ask what those speakers are? Very nice

[pastry]

12 hours ago, Wonderm said:

 

Can i ask what those speakers are? Very nice

Course – they're Edifier R1280DB - not sure if they're discontinued, but seem to be available via Amazon etc. 

They were quite cheap but do have optical and bluetooth, and the sound is clean and clear provided you don't go too loud.

I have an even cheaper set of their speakers for my desk, but they definitely aren't as good.

[Yasawas]

I have those too! Great speakers for the price but the lack of any visual representation of the volume level has led to some accidents…

[PikaStu]

I love Shadow Dancer on the Megadrive, one of my favourite games from back then and my favourite Shinobi title.

I’ve been messing about with the 3HP hack which does exactly as it says - you get 3 hit points, which makes it easy for old farts like me to still make decent progress. I don’t have the reactions I had when I was 11yo!

 

Also, as I’m getting into Retroarch on my Xbox, I decided to load up the Saturn Shinobi game (with digitised sprites like Mortal Kombat, and some amazing live action cut scenes)! 
It’s a game I’ve never owned, and it’s quite pricey these days in as much as I can’t justify paying £60+ for a JPN copy. 

 

 

[Goemon]

On 24/08/2022 at 06:17, pastry said:

Fab, I'll be trying that @Goemon – no relation to Border Down, then?

 

I've been taking part in some Twitter (spit, snarl) retro time trial challenges, hammering around the Mythical Coast in Rage Racer. And just like the original game I was raving about a week ago, this is, of course, also still amazing  

Ah that’s an interesting link but no, I don’t think they’re related.

 

I’d actually say Eliminate Down is a bit more like R-Type, mainly because of the set pieces but it’s much faster paced and very much it’s own game.

 

[strider]

I'm going through all the God Of War games. So far I've completed God Of War 1 and 2 via the PS3 HD collection, God Of War III, Chains Of Olympus and I'm halfway through Ghost Of Sparta.

[Yasawas]

I just beat the first Klonoa. It was alright - definitely suffers from some of the era's platformer problems of unclear perspective, slippery controls and poor checkpointing but never got quite annoying enough to force me to bin it. Is the second substantially better or more of the same?

[Alexlotl]

Did you beat the three bonus levels? They were my favourite part of the game.

 

I haven’t tried Klonoa 2, but the GBA (and I think Wonder Swan) titles focus on puzzles and dexterity rather than trying to provide any sense of exploration, and they’re much the better for it. I think the bonus levels of Klonoa reminded me of the GBA games, as they’re similarly focused.

[Yasawas]

27 minutes ago, Alexlotl said:

Did you beat the three bonus levels? They were my favourite part of the game.

 

I did not - I was in a bit of a huff after I beat the last boss  I think you unlock those by saving all six wee guys during each level and there are a few of those near the end I didn't fancy doing again to be honest. Some of those later levels were a bit tricky and the idea of having to save them all and then beat a boss for it to count is giving me the fear a bit, bearing in mind how easy it can be to fall off a ledge or misjudge an attack.