Currently playing...

[Colonel Panic]

I'm playing a bit of Metroid Prime 2. I finished Prime last year so want to go through Prime 2 before I play the Switch Remaster of 1.

 

Excuse the toys, cba tidying this evening...

 

[spanky debrest]

Prime 2 is on my list - owned since release, but never played.

 

I took on the challenge recently of starting to play THREE games at once - albeit games which can dipped into with bite-sized sessions:

 

1. Wario Land 4 (GBA). It's high time I finished the series off. Another game that i never found the time for but suddenly got my arse in gear for when reading about the incredible musical stuff in it (including a subtle tempo shift when you duck). 

 

2. Policenauts (PSX). Once I'd soaked up the info in the initial scene and the story started rolling I was completely hooked. Definitely the most cinematic game of this type I've got stuck into, and probably the most aesthetically striking too.

 

3. Seaman (DC). I found a mic for cheap about 18 months ago because I wanted a freaky pet sim involving voice recognition and Leonard Nimoy narration in my life. After about a week of short daily visits of mainly fannying about, I got my four baby seamen 'hatched' and marvelled at their baby sounds. However I got a bit busy in real life and it's been over three weeks since I checked in, and I'm nervous about being told off by Spock for being so shit.

[Qazimod]

Half-Life 1's retro, isn't it?

 

I finished Blue Shift today. I had already played the main game and Opposing Force, but I kind of ignored this one, even after buying the Anthology. It's a nice bit of Half Life shooting and light puzzling, but it's very short (HLTB says 3hrs) and if you have a lazy evening (or afternoon) you could clear it in one sitting.

[Elginmcqueen]

Playing Batty on Spectrum and Puzzle Bobble Arcade version both for the Retroleague just now. 

 

Both games are addictive as hell, the clichéd "just one more go" was said with these types of game in mind. Can see me playing these even after we progress to different games in the league. 

[Yasawas]

Metroid Prime, via the remaster on Switch assuming that counts. Fucking hell it's amazing. Never fancied the Prime series before because Metroid would never work in 3D, would it? Waste of time. Kicking myself now - not least because I have owned the sequel at least twice (once "free" with Club Nintendo points on GC and also on the Trilgy on Wii U) and now have access to neither version. Gah! Still, I'll appreciate this all the more.

 

Now on Hoth by the look of it so only a couple of hours in but utterly smitten.

[LaveDisco]

Started playing Dead Cells on Switch, and Bloodstained on Deck, but I've drifted off both and back to the Analogue Pocket to play Castlevaina: AoS on GBA. It's just brilliant. Linear, and with rapid progress. I'm loving it. Never played it at the time either, so it's all new to me.

[Major Britten]

Wanted to go through a series play through of Metroid after the recent Metroid prime remaster. Currently playing through Metroid Zero Mission and it looks stunning on the analogue pocket, the colours really pop and  is still so much fun to play. 
 

Have also started Transformers War for Cybertron on the 360. Gameplay is a bit simple but its still a lot of fun and graphically still really holds up well to modern games

[AK Bell]

10 hours ago, Major Britten said:

Have also started Transformers War for Cybertron on the 360. Gameplay is a bit simple but its still a lot of fun and graphically still really holds up well to modern games

 

I'd love to play that again. It always felt nicely solid and chunky. 

[Goemon]

11 hours ago, Major Britten said:

Wanted to go through a series play through of Metroid after the recent Metroid prime remaster. Currently playing through Metroid Zero Mission and it looks stunning on the analogue pocket, the colours really pop and  is still so much fun to play. 
 

Have also started Transformers War for Cybertron on the 360. Gameplay is a bit simple but its still a lot of fun and graphically still really holds up well to modern games

If you enjoy War for Cybertron then you’ve got to play the sequel, Fall of Cybertron. It’s better in every way from what I remember. I was a big fan of both.

 

Edit: Thinking about the Fall of Cybertron I remembered how amazing the reveal trailer was, so cool!

 

 

[Yasawas]

I wouldn't usually do multiple posts on a game without having finished it but Metroid Prime is not a usual game. Staggeringly good. And I'm not a massive fan of the series, or first-person games with footery platform jumping bits but good grief what a time I'm having scanning and shooting and running away from wasps.

 

Anyway - do the (numbered) sequels stack up? I had intended to wait since they're almost certainly en route in similarly remastered form but then I thought the same about Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Switch. Nintendo can be frustrating patient.

[beakbeak]

Thought I’d have a quick dabble on super Metroid on my NT just for a quick nostalgia hit. I just wanted to play through that intro section on the station and land on SR388 (the rain and clouds always remind me of England in a weirdly nice way).

 

6 hours later I’m kicking mother brains face in with a gun that fires out pure rainbow metroid juice to the most iconic and triumphant tune ever! 
 

I should never kid myself that a quick go on link to the past or super Metroid will ever be anything less than a full play through. 

[Qazimod]

I've been hopping in and out of Chrono Trigger again - I wasn't really interested in getting all of the endings before, but I was really curious about what happened if you revisited a certain "unwinnable" battle that naturally occurs in the story...

 

Spoiler

...getting all the way through most of the game again, through the Ocean Palace, and to the Lavos encounter that you're "supposed" to lose.

 

Even with the luxury of NG+ it was no joke - it was taking turns very quickly and still causing lots of damage despite my stats and armour. I kept getting into a panic trying to keep everyone alive and manage my Revives and get rid of status ailments... but then I had a turning point when I decided to put the "best" gear on Crono (Rainbow for crits, Prism Helm to protect from status ailments, Moon armour for Mg Defence and (one of the more useful decisions) Rage Band for automatic counterattacks...basically meaning that I could manage healing whilst still getting hits in!) and purposely let the other party members die at the start. Yes, taking it on "solo" was somehow less stressful than attempting it with a party. 🙃 Although I brought them back for the later phases. I also arranged my items so that Full Tonics, Elixirs and HyperEthers were at the top, and I'd been collecting them over one-and-a-bit playthroughs, so I was just managing health while benefitting from the counterattacks (although I would sometimes manually attack if I didn't take too much damage...)

[Camel]

Rondo of Blood - PC Engine. Christ, it took me dozens and dozens of attempts to beat the stage 4 boss, slowly traversing my way back there each time. Stage 5 looks easy though.

 

[Goemon]

I’m playing Wario World on the GameCube.

 

Wow! The game is complete trash!

 

So imagine how absolutely shocked I was to read it was a collaboration between Treasure and Nintendo AND it was received positively apart from how short the game was!

 

WTF! They’ve made entire game around having an awkward camera angle!

 

On top of this the game is just a mass collect-a-thon. In every stage you have to collect like, 8 parts of a Wario Statue, 8 crystals, 8 random objects, 6 spritlings.

 

Oh and don’t even get me started on the parts of EVERY level where they lock you into an arena and force you to fight constantly spawning enemies for an entire minute.

 

There’s only 8 stages, in 4 worlds, beating stage 1 unlocks stage 2, which unlocks world 2/stage 1 etc., the worlds have no coherency, the hub is dull as dish water, it’s only supposed to be 6-8 hours long.

 

I’m sure if this didn’t have Wario, Treasure or Nintendo’s names attached it would have been shot to pieces. What a pile.

 

[spanky debrest]

26 minutes ago, Goemon said:

I’m playing Wario World on the GameCube.

 

Wow! The game is complete trash!

 

So imagine how absolutely shocked I was to read it was a collaboration between Treasure and Nintendo AND it was received positively apart from how short the game was!

 

WTF! They’ve made entire game around having an awkward camera angle!

 

On top of this the game is just a mass collect-a-thon. In every stage you have to collect like, 8 parts of a Wario Statue, 8 crystals, 8 random objects, 6 spritlings.

 

Oh and don’t even get me started on the parts of EVERY level where they lock you into an arena and force you to fight constantly spawning enemies for an entire minute.

 

There’s only 8 stages, in 4 worlds, beating stage 1 unlocks stage 2, which unlocks world 2/stage 1 etc., the worlds have no coherency, the hub is dull as dish water, it’s only supposed to be 6-8 hours long.

 

I’m sure if this didn’t have Wario, Treasure or Nintendo’s names attached it would have been shot to pieces. What a pile.

 

 

I bought this game on launch day, played it for a couple of days until I got to around the half way mark and never thought about it again.

 

I think it was around this time that I realised I didn't care for home console gaming anymore.

[Qazimod]

I've never played Wario World but I thought it always sounded good conceptually? Seeing the SPDs and suplexes and things, the arena battles should have been more spectacular. Nintendo could have had their own character action franchise before they ended up buying Bayonetta.  

[Yasawas]

Still Metroid Priming (for the first-timing) and despite almost immediately sighing and reaching for GameFAQs on first learning I needed all of a certain collectible to progress to the end it’s turned out to be one of my favourite parts! I did always enjoy the old Treasure Hunt TV show and Nintendo do it well too. There was a similar element to the Breath of the Wild DLC I also loved.

[beakbeak]

7 hours ago, Goemon said:

I’m playing Wario World on the GameCube.

 

Wow! The game is complete trash!

 

So imagine how absolutely shocked I was to read it was a collaboration between Treasure and Nintendo AND it was received positively apart from how short the game was!

 

WTF! They’ve made entire game around having an awkward camera angle!

 

On top of this the game is just a mass collect-a-thon. In every stage you have to collect like, 8 parts of a Wario Statue, 8 crystals, 8 random objects, 6 spritlings.

 

Oh and don’t even get me started on the parts of EVERY level where they lock you into an arena and force you to fight constantly spawning enemies for an entire minute.

 

There’s only 8 stages, in 4 worlds, beating stage 1 unlocks stage 2, which unlocks world 2/stage 1 etc., the worlds have no coherency, the hub is dull as dish water, it’s only supposed to be 6-8 hours long.

 

I’m sure if this didn’t have Wario, Treasure or Nintendo’s names attached it would have been shot to pieces. What a pile.

 

I agree. I’ve had it on my shelf for 20 years and finally got around to playing it a few months ago. It’s utterly shit. It feels so cheap and half arsed. Considering the pedigree of the franchise it’s impressive how badly they fucked it up.

[Goemon]

I’ve been playing a few PC Engine shooters.

 

Rayxanber 2 - This has been coined as one of the hardest games on the PC Engine, and having played for a few hours, it’s definitely right up there! TBH it’s workable with practice until stage 4 and then unfortunately poor balancing of the stage completely kills it. What’s an even bigger shame is that the stage would have been the highlight of the game if it was balanced better but instead it’s notorious as the 1CC killer.
 

The stage is a twist on levels where you have to shoot your way through an environment. In this case you can fly through the environment but you CAN’T shoot through it. What this means in practice is that enemies come on screen and you can’t shoot them, you instead need to make paths with your ship that you can shoot through in order to hit enemies. It’s such a cool idea! The problem is that the enemies take too many hits to die, you can literally have created a full screen path, which the enemy can come down and kill you before you can kill it. At this point strategy goes out the window and it becomes complete luck if your survive.

Like I say, real shame as the game would have been right up there as a top shooter but instead it falls into good but suffers unfairness and frustration.

 

 

Aldynes - This of the few Super Grafx games so I was keen to give this a go and see what some of the potential could have been. 
 

Graphics and sound wise I don’t feel it did much that couldn’t be done on the normal PC Engine. Gameplay wise the game doesn’t feel finished, there’s some nice ideas but also some poor execution, which all leads to frustration. I haven’t seen this game mentioned for notorious difficulty but having flashed saved my way through, I’m not sure anyone would have ever managed to finish this game legitimately!

 

One of the biggest problems is the weapon system. The main issue is that you have collectible pods that have 2 modes; a face forward and shoot mode and a ‘search’ mode where the pod looks for enemies itself and shoots them. The search mode doesn’t work! You have scenarios where enemies that come from the back of the screen shooting at you and the only way to hit them is by relying on your pod seeing it and shooting it…and half the time it doesn’t so you’re forced into a scramble.

 

I think this is what leads to biggest frustration as you can’t rely on the pods and survival comes down to luck as to wether the pod did what you needed. It’s also the reason I consider the game so hard as the level of RnG is so high.

 

Again it’s a shame as with some better balance it could have been great but instead falls into good but with doses of frustration and unfairness.

 

 

[simms]

On 23/03/2023 at 05:48, Major Britten said:

Wanted to go through a series play through of Metroid after the recent Metroid prime remaster. Currently playing through Metroid Zero Mission and it looks stunning on the analogue pocket, the colours really pop and  is still so much fun to play. 

 

I'm going through a slow run of the Metroid series.  Finished Metroid 1 on NES, that was painful (thank god for save states).  Just finished Metroid Zero Mission.  Is it worth playing Metroid II: Return of Samus on the original gameboy next?  I was thinking of skipping that and instead going to Fusion then AM2R then the Prime series

[Major Britten]

23 hours ago, simms said:

 

I'm going through a slow run of the Metroid series.  Finished Metroid 1 on NES, that was painful (thank god for save states).  Just finished Metroid Zero Mission.  Is it worth playing Metroid II: Return of Samus on the original gameboy next?  I was thinking of skipping that and instead going to Fusion then AM2R then the Prime series

Im playing through the 3DS remake myself, although if you prefer more traditional pixel graphics then AM2R would be the better option. If you found the NES version a painful experience you’re likely to feel the same way about the GB game

[Yasawas]

On 07/04/2023 at 12:34, simms said:

I'm going through a slow run of the Metroid series.  Finished Metroid 1 on NES, that was painful (thank god for save states).  Just finished Metroid Zero Mission.  Is it worth playing Metroid II: Return of Samus on the original gameboy next?  I was thinking of skipping that and instead going to Fusion then AM2R then the Prime series

 

I'm just starting AM2R myself - join me!

 

I used to play series like you seem to so I understand the completist tendency but why force yourself through something that isn't fun? I mean, try it and see, but if you're save-stating the hard bits you get to then you don't even get the smug glow from knowing you overcame an unfair challenge. It only dawned on me when I hit 40 that I was likely more than halfway to my own final boss and I'm probably not going to regret skipping the first four Dragon Quests to play DQV for example/

[Goemon]

Moved on to a couple more PC Engine games.

 

Neutopia - A Zelda clone for the PC Engine, I was always surprised how much people didn’t seem to care about this game, I mean it’s another Zelda type game to play! About a 1/3 of the way through now and from what I’ve seen it’s very ‘by the book’. Bombs to make holes in walls, fire wand to burn trees, a ‘rainbow drop’ to allow you to walk over water gaps, it’s all very familiar and unfortunately quite obvious. Nothing has remotely stumped me and I can’t tell if it’s just pretty basic or if I just know Zelda methodology too well.
 

Still it seems like a solid game, just don’t expect it to set your world on fire.

 

The Kung Fu - Always been interested to try this. I think it’s considered a real turkey by a lot of people and have seen some scathing comments about it but I always thought that people were writing it off before giving it a chance. Having played for a few hours I do think there has been some misunderstanding. Don’t get me wrong it’s no 10/10 but there’s definitely fun to be had with this game if you accept it for what it is.

 

It’s a game about positioning, timing and choosing the right options. Once you start thinking like this it hard not to find it compelling, in a ‘B movie’ kinda way. I also think there’s learning to be had from boss fights. Again, it can be easy to just button mash through them and this will work to a certain extent but it’s also very possible (from what I’ve seen) to learn them, find openings and perfect them. Again I think this can be compelling in a fighting style game.

 

Thinking about this game, I know they were trying to show off the power of the PCE with the huge detailed sprites but I also feel like it’s a direct representation to Kung Fu on the NES. I almost think they wanted people to look at each of them side by side and go ‘look how amazing the PCE is compared to the NES!’
 

 

[Qazimod]

I'm attempting Persona 3: The Answer, yet again. I've been passing time by dropping onto the Steam forums for P3P and reading the number of comments that think The Answer is a legitimate reason to play FES - but every time I've attempted to play the thing it's been a joyless experience. I threw out my PS2 years ago although I still have my FES disc... but for the sake of convenience I just set up PCSX2 and grabbed an image (NTSC-U, mind.) I've got the emulator's turbo mode available on a toggle to get through the battle animations, and at the moment the experience involves progressing normally, getting KO'd by the next boss, then grinding forever until you're more evenly matched. JRPG stuff then - although overlevelling also helps compensate for dumb party AI moments, because we didn't get full party control until P3 Portable. (I know you can do things like get modded ISOs with party control, but I want to try the vanilla experience...) I've also got the Narcissus persona on standby as it can roll dice to charm all enemies, which gives me a little bit of breathing room.

 

Incidentally the box for FES claims "30+ hours of new content" - which I interpret as a 39-hour game   - so we'll see. Given how bad I am it could end up being much longer.

 

EDIT: they really, really like the concept of "regular boss spawns in and doesn't seem too bad but then begins summoning additional enemies that are just there to irritate and slow you down". Also the "group boss where each one has a particular elemental weakness but also high evasion against that element". It's like they want to design the most tedious boss battles in the series.

[Qazimod]

On 10/04/2023 at 11:46, Qazimod said:

Incidentally the box for FES claims "30+ hours of new content" - which I interpret as a 39-hour game   - so we'll see. Given how bad I am it could end up being much longer.

 

Aaaand done. My save before the final encounter was 26:44. The protagonist was Lv81.

 

Honestly, it's a bit of a slog, and having no direct control is a pain, but emulator turbo modes help with rushing through battles. The story was fine but not amazing, and I still think I had more fun with P1 and 2.  

[Colonel Panic]

Trying out the new Mister M92 core. 
 

[Goemon]

Just finished Adventures of Lomax on the PS1.

For those that don’t know, Lomax is based on the Lemmings franchise and a very pretty 2d platformer.

 

There was an article in RG magazine where they interviewed one of the main (2) people who worked on the game and they basically said they dossed around for over a year before being forced onto head office’s site to finish the game in the remaining few months. At this point it turned into crazy 12 hour+ days to get it finished.

 

Having now finished the game I consider this a major factor in the quality of the final product.

 

For example, the area ending boss fights are all same for the 3 main areas of the game. The 4th area is stunted to 3 stages (other areas were 6). The biggest issue though is that the game just isn’t balanced well with all sorts of collision/hit box type issues.

 

I remember reading that when making a game you always ‘side with the player’ with regard to hit boxes. I feel like they could use this game as reference for how NOT to do it. You’re constantly missing things that looked like you hit, whether it be enemies, platforms, springs, collectibles etc. which makes the game feel unfairly difficult.

 

I guess what’s most frustrating is that if they hadn’t wasted that year they could have had something really special. The game does look gorgeous and does have some great ideas. They have multi-layer levels where you move into the background and foreground as part of moving forward, which works really well. They also use the idea of lemmings by having collectible skills that allow you to dig, climb, float etc. which again is really cool for varying the way you traverse through the level. It’s just all so limited though, which you put squarely down to time.

 

Ending is hilarious. It’s a 1 paragraph text box then the credits roll. At the end of the credits they say they will return, however afaik there was never a sequel to this game and I wonder if it was because they were chopped after the game came out.

 

Its worth playing, if only to imagine what could have been but you need to be prepared for a tough time.

 

[Yasawas]

I finally joined next (aka current) gen last week by dropping £500+ on a PS5 so I’ve been playing Symphony of the Night on that. It’s still really good! Also pleasantly surprised that the version of Everybody’s Golf 2 (PS1) that I picked up on PSN over ten years ago can not only be played on it but has had trophy support added.

 

 

 

 

[merman]

Zeta Wing 2 on C64 - Sarah Jane Avory’s sequel to her vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up.

[megamixer]

On 14/04/2023 at 19:57, Qazimod said:

 

Aaaand done. My save before the final encounter was 26:44. The protagonist was Lv81.

 

Honestly, it's a bit of a slog, and having no direct control is a pain, but emulator turbo modes help with rushing through battles. The story was fine but not amazing, and I still think I had more fun with P1 and 2.  

I played a lot of P3 back in the day! I'm the kind of takes a LOT longer than necessary to complete a game like this (messing around talking to NPCs all the time in case I miss secrets, spending ages fusing Personas to get the right abilities etc.) so the amount of hours I spent on the P3 "family" was quite shocking. I completed the vanilla P3 on release, did it all again with FES, and also a third time with Portable.

 

I remember enjoying The Answer but also not seeing it as entirely necessary to the main P3 story. But it was more time spent with the characters and game world that I enjoyed so it was worth it to me. The highlight was clearly

Spoiler

the battle against your own friends and the amazing music for that fight which is only in The Answer.

 

Regardless of opinion on The Answer, I really do think that more work should have been done on the recent re-release which uses P3P as the base and thus misses out all of the FES extras. It would have been nice to meld all of the versions into one "complete" edition. The only sticking point that I see is that The Answer wouldn't really flow on properly if you chose the female player character for the main game since The Answer heavily involves Aigis' humanisation and romantic feelings for the male character.