Currently playing...

[Yasawas]

On 27/09/2022 at 13:25, Camel said:

Anyway, this is still a really focused, tight game and really fun to learn. I can make it to level 5 now so maybe I’ll even complete it. 

 

Yes! I really enjoyed that recently. If stage 5 is the top down one I'm thinking of that was a bit of a spike for me to be honest, never got confident with the boss.

 

Just finished Legend of Illusion which would be the other end of the difficulty scale you would think, but for the final boss requiring incredibly precise timing and accuracy far beyond anything seen previously. Pleasant way to spend an hour though, and good grief Sega's 8-bit Disney output was stunning looking. I'm tempted to play the Donald Duck ones now just to experience more of them but with a character I like this time.

 

Started Mother (NES) this morning via the 25th Anniversary Edition patch which reduces encounter rate/rebalances the EXP and a whole bunch of other things - from the research I did it seems to be the accepted way to play it these days. I love Earthbound, and Mother 3 is my favourite RPG so I've always been wary of playing Earthbound Beginnings due to its slightly too retro stylings but my first hour of this version has been charming and fairly straightforward.

[Goemon]

Just finished Gleylancer on the MD.

 

I feel like this game has quite a legend tied to it, which unfortunately is greater (for me anyways) than the game itself. It’s fabled as a classic, has a hefty price tag and has had reissues made for it (which also appear to be going up in price!) I think this slightly conflicts with reviews of the game back in the day, which were a bit of mixed bag. UK mags reviews ranged from 48% to 89% although I have to say, some of the negatives I’ve read are absolute nonsense…but that’s a whole other topic
 

The game boasts 11 stages, which is a lot of a shooter from back in the day. However, some stages are quite short and just a bit forgettable TBH. I’d sooner not have them and use the assets/ideas to flush out some of the better levels.

 

This also kinda ties to the game feeling a bit unbalanced. Stage 4 has some tricky sections, where you’ll likely die (I did multiple times in learning it) yet I consistently did stages 5 and 6 without even dying. Again this ties to 4 being a more flushed out level, with more going on.

 

Production wise, it’s great with a neat scene setting story at the start and also interspersed between levels with the penultimate one including a protect mission as the boss, which was very cool. 
 

Graphics and sound are generally very good, although again, I feel like some bits were afterthoughts. Stage 1 for example has multi-parallax meteor shower scrolling by with a huge plant scape, it all looks great! Yet, stage 8 has a single, flat backdrop of varying grades of orange and looks bland as hell.

 

 It’s definitely a good game, but having finished it, it’s not the dizzy heights of the top shooters on the system.

 

[Gabe]

On 04/09/2022 at 17:57, Gabe said:

I've picked Suikoden II back up, after starting it earlier in the year and drifting away from it. According to the stats on Launchbox, I've had 44 sessions on it  Demonstrates perfectly how much I can decide to play it, open it up and then think 'Nah, not really in the mood'. I think now that I've put some time into it this weekend, and things are opening up a bit (I believe I will be getting my base soon) I will more likely stick with it.

I'm still chipping away at this, playing via emulation (with Retroarch's fast-forward ability) makes it easy to dip in and out of. I'm probably about halfway through I think, and I'm still wondering why it is so fondly remembered. The story is pretty meh, the script is pretty bad and the war battles are worse than the more abstract approach in the first game.

 

I mean, it's okay I guess? There is something enticing about padding out the castle with recruits (although traversing the castle is both a chore and confusing), but it is pretty much the first game, just bigger. I don't even think it's a particularly good RPG (though in fairness, it may have been better back in the day - I don't know what its competition was at the time.)

 

I will finish it, because it's not terrible, but like I say, I have no idea why it gets such love.

[Yasawas]

Dug up a save on Chrono Trigger (DS) that I haven't played seriously in about five years and started probably five before that. I don't love it, clearly, but I do want to have an opinion on it as a JRPG fan and I think the cart is pretty dear now so that only adds to my guilt if I don't keep trying to force myself to have fun with it despite myself. It's a confusing thing to try to get back into though what with all the time travel and talking frog and etc.

 

I've had exactly the same experience with Radiant Historia now I think of it - I think I'm just attracted to the idea and inherent potential of a time-travelling RPG more than I like the reality.

[Goemon]

2 hours ago, Yasawas said:

Dug up a save on Chrono Trigger (DS) that I haven't played seriously in about five years and started probably five before that. I don't love it, clearly, but I do want to have an opinion on it as a JRPG fan and I think the cart is pretty dear now so that only adds to my guilt if I don't keep trying to force myself to have fun with it despite myself. It's a confusing thing to try to get back into though what with all the time travel and talking frog and etc.

 

I've had exactly the same experience with Radiant Historia now I think of it - I think I'm just attracted to the idea and inherent potential of a time-travelling RPG more than I like the reality.

This is a pretty interesting statement. That you’re a JRPG fan but you don’t love Chrono Trigger.

 

Chrono Trigger is considered the most revered RPGs ever (based on my VERY limited knowledge) so I wonder if it’s popularity transcended RPG fans, which is why it’s so recognised but in reality, as an RPG, it’s only middle of the road?

 

Interested to know why you don’t love it.

 

As a contrast I pretty much dislike all JRPGs but I’ve finished and enjoyed Chrono Trigger.

[Hamus]

I've been clearing out a load of stuff to sell and I managed to find Felony 11-79!

 

 

 

Such a crazy game, I popped it back on and I had forgotten how fun it was. Real old school feel, proper arcade game.

[Yasawas]

1 hour ago, Goemon said:

Interested to know why you don’t love it.

 

As a contrast I pretty much dislike all JRPGs but I’ve finished and enjoyed Chrono Trigger.

 

So would I - I genuinely find it difficult to articulate. Much as I don't want to consider it it might just be that I need linearity more than I want to believe, at least in an RPG. being a genre I play to switch off and expect to be able to unwind with in a sense. Although I do love (and prefer) Final Fantasy III/VI which isn't that linear itself from what I remember. I could be wrong there but it rewards exploration at any rate.

 

It's not middle of the road or anything - it has an interesting combat system, looks and sounds as flashy as a late SNES Squaresoft release should - but it is fair to say that its retrospective reputation seems a bit overdone. Like Earthbound, it's interesting to read reviews from the period where it was definitely appreciated but not quite as exalted to the sacred cow level both occupy now.

[Qazimod]

5 hours ago, Goemon said:

This is a pretty interesting statement. That you’re a JRPG fan but you don’t love Chrono Trigger.

I mean, this was me before I played through it last year. I really liked the setup with the Millenial Fair and everything, but it needs a little time to find it’s momentum and I dropped off before my options really opened up. I went back to it in 2021 and tried to be more patient, and it eventually became pretty compelling.  

[Qazimod]

Played through Kirby's Dream Land via emulation this evening, although I do have the cart somewhere.

 

I forgot how short it was! I knew that the Spring Breeze minigame in Super Star was kind of like a cut-down version of Dream Land so I didn't expect much more than what was in my playthrough of that - but even so, I didn't think I'd reach Dedede so soon. Another thing I forgot was how the game handled abilities; I thought that there weren't any abilities at all with the exception of things like the lollipop, but there are a number that can be collected as regular power-ups, and they activate automatically. So they're kind of like set-pieces?

 

I still like the game though, and it's a nice little distraction you can throw on if you want to waste some time without getting invested in anything huge.

[Goemon]

15 hours ago, Qazimod said:

I mean, this was me before I played through it last year. I really liked the setup with the Millenial Fair and everything, but it needs a little time to find it’s momentum and I dropped off before my options really opened up. I went back to it in 2021 and tried to be more patient, and it eventually became pretty compelling.  

So where does CT sit in your list of top JRPGs?

[Qazimod]

1 hour ago, Goemon said:

So where does CT sit in your list of top JRPGs?

When we did voting for the forum’s top 100 games in May, this was my list - P4 is still king, but I think CT is my favourite Squenix JRPG. There are some great classic FF games, but I really enjoyed CT’s pacing. Jumping between time periods makes it feel like a collection of smaller themed adventures, making it much less daunting than most epics. That, and the main characters are easily likeable.  On the other hand, I don’t think that the Technique system is as interesting as the amount of things you can do in some of the classic FFs, the game takes a bit of time to get going at the start, and I did hit one difficulty spike first time around (I was underprepared for Zeal). But it’s still a fun adventure overall.

[JamesC]

I finally got around to starting Dead Space 3 yesterday.

I started this with muted expectations as it's generally regarded as the weakest of the trilogy. So far though, I'm having a really good time with it.

It's immediately apparent that this is more action oriented than the previous games (though 2 had already started a shift in this direction) with, so far, less of the horror stuff.

It plays just as brilliantly as its predecessors though, with the same amazing sound design and lovely graphics.

I'm only a few hours in so I'll reserve final judgement but I'm so glad to be back in this horrific universe that's so well realised.

I think the current-gen remake of the first game is nearing completion and, while it doesn't really seem necessary to me, I hope it's a success so we get more Dead Space in the future.

Incidentally, these games are so ridiculously cheap at the moment. I've seen all three games in charity shops for about a quid recently. They're well worth picking up if you haven't played them yet.

[megamixer]

On 02/10/2022 at 15:40, Gabe said:

I'm still chipping away at this, playing via emulation (with Retroarch's fast-forward ability) makes it easy to dip in and out of. I'm probably about halfway through I think, and I'm still wondering why it is so fondly remembered. The story is pretty meh, the script is pretty bad and the war battles are worse than the more abstract approach in the first game.

 

I mean, it's okay I guess? There is something enticing about padding out the castle with recruits (although traversing the castle is both a chore and confusing), but it is pretty much the first game, just bigger. I don't even think it's a particularly good RPG (though in fairness, it may have been better back in the day - I don't know what its competition was at the time.)

 

I will finish it, because it's not terrible, but like I say, I have no idea why it gets such love.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the PS1 Suikoden games get a lot of love purely because of their legendary status as expensive games on the PS1. There are many games like this that aren't actually all that. The series as a whole fizzled out in the PS2 era and I've rarely seen much call for a resurrection (it's a Konami property anyway so LOL if anybody thinks it might come back).

[Yasawas]

12 hours ago, megamixer said:

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the PS1 Suikoden games get a lot of love purely because of their legendary status as expensive games on the PS1.

 

Were they early too though? It's easy to take RPGs for granted now but in the mid-90s we got very little by way of turn-based traditional JRPGage from my recollection. I agree that they're not up to much though, and I have played Final Fantasy Mystic Quest to completion.

[megamixer]

11 hours ago, Yasawas said:

 

Were they early too though? It's easy to take RPGs for granted now but in the mid-90s we got very little by way of turn-based traditional JRPGage from my recollection. I agree that they're not up to much though, and I have played Final Fantasy Mystic Quest to completion.

1997 and 2000 for the PAL/EU versions so mid-late PS1 life cycle. For comparison, we'd already had Final Fantasy VII and VIII before Suikoden II, let alone any others.

[Fuddle]

For the past week or so I’ve been putting a ton of time into Super G on the model 2 emulator. Was absolutely loving the pure time trial nature of it, but it’s starting to piss me off now as I can’t quite string together a perfect run where I win all three courses. 

It is great though, and doesn’t seem to get very much attention at all.

[yakumo]

Ishar 2 - I remember being stuck in the dungeon level when I was young, and I'm currently stuck in the same place. Problem is everything looks the same and its hard to navigate or find the next place to go. Assassinating you're own team mates is always fun to steal all their wares and money, that never gets old.

[Camel]

On 29/09/2022 at 12:14, Yasawas said:

 

Yes! I really enjoyed that recently. If stage 5 is the top down one I'm thinking of that was a bit of a spike for me to be honest, never got confident with the boss.

 

 

Stage 5 is the final level with the jumpy robot boss.

 

I finished this last night (Operation C - Game Boy) but I did resort to a save state on the final level because it's a pain in the arse. I think I can probably learn it well enough now to attempt it after the preceding four levels but I don't think I have the will to do it.

 

Really great game overall. I think it could do without the diagonal-down shooting animations as it's very rare you have to shoot in that direction and for me it sometimes meant that when aiming to lie down in a panic, I ended up running pointing the gun downwards instead and would meet a frustrating death. 

[acidbearboy]

I played through Nitro Ball (Data East, 1992) this morning after having it sat on my Switch for ages. Pretty fun little game! Really nice pixel art - very much of its era (loads of action movie influences). Sound was an assault on the senses - driving chip tunes and sampled speech and loud sound FX. The gameplay itself was a mix of Smash TV and pinball. All the themed  levels (Ghost level was my favourite) were set inside a pinball machine; you had to gun enemies down and push them towards holes in the floor, or knock down scenery for points and power ups. Occasionally you would pick up a power up that turned your character into a ball. 5 levels was all there was and it didn’t take long to finish but I enjoyed it. Used a lot of continues though!!

 

 

[Yasawas]

On 17/11/2021 at 08:51, Yasawas said:

Having finished Aladdin (yay) I now make my most hipster post in this thread - Zelda (Game & Watch ) 

 

I've gone back to this after getting stuck following the third dungeon. I've been avoiding GameFAQs and generic walkthroughs for old games recently and referring to magazines from the time for some bonus nostalgia, however in this case I found something even better - Hand Drawn Game Guides What a lovely thing. Anyway, I got my raft and I'm on my way afresh 

 

Also Saturn Bomberman for the first time. Adorable.

[pastry]

Saturn Bomberman is tops, I was playing it at a friends house at thew weekend (took the MiSTer setup). 

I've started Chrono Trigger with my daughter (7). She loves it so far, though is handing off to me for the battles. One I've owned (NTSC-U) but never got into. Looking forward to it, though expect it'll take a very very long time in the short windows we get to play!

 

[MikeBeaver]

32 minutes ago, pastry said:

Saturn Bomberman is tops, I was playing it at a friends house at thew weekend (took the MiSTer setup). 

I've started Chrono Trigger with my daughter (7). She loves it so far, though is handing off to me for the battles. One I've owned (NTSC-U) but never got into. Looking forward to it, though expect it'll take a very very long time in the short windows we get to play!

 

It’s not a huge game, 25-30 hours to clear it.

it’s my favourite game ever, currently have it installed on the analogue pocket, only playing it on short notes when I’m at home, so dragging it out, it’s been a while since I finished it, probably 7 years as seem to remember it being for the 20th anniversary, can’t believe it’s approaching it’s 30th birthday soon!!

she’ll love it, it’s such a charming game and fully deserves a 2DHD remake, anything else wouldn’t be cricket!

[amc]

A bunch of PS3 Move shooters. Bought a sharpshooter gun and a navigation puck and been doing my best Commando impression. Time Crisis Blazing Storm is a fantastic package, HOTD 4 is loads of fun and I've just been playing Dead Space Extraction, which is pretty good too, although playing so early in the morning and before my Cornies was a bit daft. Will get stuck in later after a good breakfast.

 

Really surprised how decent the move is for shooters, got it setup on the big bedroom telly and although I play sitting on the bed and not standing it's all tuned in nice.

 

Going to look into other gun games on the machine, hopefully find one that takes the Sharp Shooter and puck setup into consideration, only DSE has used it out of the above and it's fairly rudimentary/unnecessary.

[Qazimod]

11 hours ago, pastry said:

I've started Chrono Trigger with my daughter (7). She loves it so far, though is handing off to me for the battles. One I've owned (NTSC-U) but never got into. Looking forward to it, though expect it'll take a very very long time in the short windows we get to play!

 

10 hours ago, MikeBeaver said:

It’s not a huge game, 25-30 hours to clear it.

 

When I played it for the first time last year, the thing I liked was that it doesn't feel like a mammoth undertaking because there's so much variety. The save files divide the 30hr adventure into about 25 "chapters", and so there are these natural break points - and since the story goes to so many different locations and time periods, you get that thematic variety that prevents it from getting boring.  

[Colonel Panic]

[JoeK]

Slowly working my way through the Metal Slug series. I say slowly because all I seem to do is stare at the sheer majesty of the pixels and the animation. God, these are such beautiful things. Works of art is probably pushing it somewhat, but they are pretty much peerless in terms of their prowess as far as I'm concerned.

 

The ACA versions on Xbox are pretty great. The earlier ones on GOG and Steam are steaming piles of shite in comparison.

[megamixer]

Haven't been playing much at all, but I have almost completed another 100% playthrough of the original Spyro The Dragon. As mentioned elsewhere, I played these games when they were new releases as a kid, and have completed them 100% more times than I can remember in the years since. Obviously they are ridiculously easy once you've played them that many times but I find it relaxing to amble through an old friend, even if it is for the zillionth time. I've been playing on the Vita btw so it's even nicer to just kick back and chill with the game.

 

All that said about having completed the game(s) so many times? I still found something new on this playthrough. Anybody who has played the game will remember that there is a warthog hiding on the ledge behind a hut in the Beast Makers homeworld. This bastard made me jump as a kid on my first ever playthrough as I never expected an enemy to be placed there. This time, I wondered, "can you kill this warthog by flaming it through the wall from inside the hut?". Obviously you shouldn't be able to do such a thing, but it actually worked lol.

[Goemon]

I’ve just save stated my way through High Seas Havoc on the Megadrive.

 

Jeez, what a brokenly difficult game it is.

 

I started out playing it normally but after a few sessions I moved to save states because it just got so ridiculous. I have no idea how they expected kids to be able to do it. You’re constantly being set up and most of it in the later levels will lead to instant death. On top of this you’ve got bosses that have tough patterns and take loads of hits to die.

 

I read through the manual and they mentioned the game having limited continues, however the game definitely has infinite continues. I think towards the end of development, post package creation, someone turned around and went “Er, guys, do you realise this thing is bloody impossible, right?!” and they switched to unlimited continues. Even with unlimited continues though, I feel like you’d give up at some bits though. With the last 2 bosses I was at the point where I was literally saving after every hit because it was so difficult to consistently dodge stuff.

 

You can bounce off enemies heads to kill them but in some cases you have to use the character’s kick (which is done by pressing jump again in the air) and positioning to be able to land this is quite strict (the hit box is in front of you, not below you) and can get you into all sorts of trouble. I guess as a kid who could only afford one game, this  game would have been ideal as it would have taken months and months to gain the consistency to be able to finish it. I certainly don’t have the patience or inclination to do it properly though, so I’ll settle for this save state run.

 

 

[Yasawas]

Having bought a Mini last week I just finished Star Parodia (PC Engine) for my first beat on a format I've been interested in for 30 years when I saw Parodius in CVG! I have a rom²antic notion of completing all the games on it like I did the SNES Classic but then there are about three times as many here and loads of them seem really fucking hard so likely not. Anyway, this was solid fun. Easy until the final stage which has an annoying maze section at the start, and then should you die a few times the return to your default state becomes as big an issue as in a lot of shmups. It's not too hard as a game but as a piece of design the jump from the rest of it leaves a bit of a bad taste. Adorable though. Absolutely gorgeous 

 

 

Now poking about with the obligatory Rondo (first time) and Bomberman '93 on the PCE Mini, and Hameln no Violin Hiki (SNES) which I reminded myself of the other day. I've started the latter a few times over the years and I'm determined to actually finish it at some point.

[Gabe]

I'm still slowly chipping away at Link to the Past. I continue to dislike the general hit detection and slightly slippy movement, and the actual story - such that there is - is not how I remember it from the mid-90s. I've only got 3 dungeons to go so I'll finish it, but it certainly hasn't lived up to the memory I had of it, that's for sure.

 

I also went back to Suikoden 2 after a month or so away and this is another hailed classic that I'm just not 'getting'. I honestly struggle to understand why it is so beloved. I'm over halfway now and, like LttP I will finish it, but it does give me serious pause about whether I want to play any of the others in the series (especially as I gather they weren't all that well received.) I just find it really lacking as an RPG; even as some kind of castle sim there's no depth or much interactivity and so it just all feels quite empty. A lot of the characters you recruit don't even have any dialogue once you've collected them, making it feel even more superficial and empty.

I'll be interested to see how the spiritual successor mixes things up when it hits Game Pass.