So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

TechnoFreek

Does Shadow of the Colossus HD count as retro? Anyway that's what I'm playing.

Retr0gamer

I took a break from Nocturne to play some Metal Gear games, the talk about them on saturday kind of wanted me to try them as well and play the HD versions, especially since I've put maybe an hour into Peace Walker and want to finish it.

I started with MGS2. I had fun with it but time has not been kind to the game. The Big Shell area really is tiny and there's not a whole lot of variety to the game. The story has some great ideas but it's all a complete load of nonsense in the end. And the most damning thing is that it's not really that much fun. Avoiding enemies is fun but the problems come when you trigger an alarm. Taking on or hiding from the attack teams is a real pain in the ass because with the improved AI in the game it's a lot harder to escape. You can make the excuse that it's because I'm crap at the game but it just isn't as much fun to mess around with the guards when they are cleverer. It's also annoying that the alarm follows you even when you change room and gaurds will storm in from where you came leading to a series of ambushes you can't get out of. It's much easier to just suicide in those situations.

Boss battles are fun though and the game does make clever use of the better 3D space the game is afforded.

I started playing the original MSX Metal Gear as well that is on the disk. It holds up really well even if you are sent back a long way when you die. I'll definitely play it to completion.

Myrddin

^^ what are you playing them on?

Retr0gamer

Myrddin wrote: »

^^ what are you playing them on?

Playing them on the HD collection on PS3. It's a great HD update by Bluepoint games who are probably the best in the business at doing said ports.

The MSX games are ok, the translation is much better than the original for MG1 but they are a MSX game ported to mobile which was then ported to PS2 then ported to PS3. I really should get a flashcart for the MSX and play the fan translations

CosmicSmash

I'm playing through Secret of Mana at the moment, just landed in the Ice Country. There's been some nice touches so far, and I'm looking forward to see what else awaits me on my travels.

Yffisch

I'm playing Battletoads at the moment for the NES. Trying to complete this

Gamer Bhoy 89

Can Banjo-Kazooie count? Even though it's being played via Rare Replay? :P

eddhorse

Watching Panga design and play levels on Mario Maker on Twitch, he is amazing.

http://twitch.tv/pangaeapanga

Yffisch

Just started playing Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition. These games...I will never ever get bored of them. I always discover something new every time I play those games and it's awesome to try different new classes every time I play the game. At the moment I'm a "Pries of Talos" which I've never played before. I also love the concept that you can use the books from BG1 to boost your skills with one point and then export the character to BG2 where you would never been able to have that high skill level without playing BG1 first

Tchoin

Golden Sun (GBA) on the WiiU VC, and probably some Starcraft Brood War on Bnet this evening

TotallyEpic

I've been playing some 7th Guest which I recently grabbed on GOG.com. Going through a bit of an FMV kick at the moment.

Ordered a copy of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for Vita that just arrived yesterday, so I'll probably jump into that before bed tonight. Might start with the original MSX games.

Retr0gamer

Speaking of MGS I finished MGS3 last night. It seems an awful lot more rushed than the last time I played it. After a certain point boss battles become very frequent and normal stages aren't few and far between. It's still an absolute classic though and feels no where near as rushed as MGS2. It's also a delight that the game actually lets you enjoy the game without interrupting you unlike MGS2 and 4. Any info bombs aren't overly long and actually interesting. You can really tell that Kojima had 2 other writers working on this one because it's not absolute gash like MGS4.

One complaint is that normal difficulty is too easy!

Retr0gamer

Played a few retrogames at the weekend. Had a good go at Gimmick on the famicom. It's such an amazing game on the system, the coders were really showing off. It's so full of little incidental details that you'd swear the developers just weren't worried about ROM space on the cart. It's really well coded and has a really great physics system for all objects in the fame. It's also bastard hard as well. I keep trying to go for the secret items and losing all my lives.

I played some more Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne. It's one of the best RPGs I've played. It also looks stunning to with Kaneko's art translated really well to the game engine. It's great to finally play a SMT game that has an actual budget.

CiDeRmAn

I just can't get past the controls in MGS3, I've tried to play it on the PS2, the Subsistence version, but find the controls impenetrable, same on the 3DS version.
I should have played it sooner, back on release, perhaps modern games have me spoiled with controls that make sense!

airmax87

Virtua Fighter 3tb has a great soundtrack !

Andrew76

airmax87 wrote: »

Virtua Fighter 3tb has a great soundtrack !

That might be true. But no scanline pic?? 1/10 for that post. :P

airmax87

Andrew76 wrote: »

That might be true. But no scanline pic?? 1/10 for that post. :P

I'm on a jap dreamcast with no scart cables atm, so I'm playing a blurry mess on my HDTV (VGA coming in the post though)

johnny_ultimate

Have played through the first few hours of Mega Man Legends. Not sure what to think yet. On one hand it still plays surprisingly well - a steady frame rate and crude but very colourful aesthetic help. On the other hand it can be pretty frustrating - the lack of analogue stick control and a dodgy camera make it all seem reasonably clunky.

As for the design, again some of it has aged badly while other bits remain interesting. The combat so far has been fairly one-note, and can seem like you're fighting against the controls as much as the enemies. But it also boasts some imaginative boss and mission design, and while the technology is obviously not sufficiently up to the task, it's interesting to see the world is actually damaged by what happens during battles.

The voice acting, meanwhile, is half awful, half surprisingly great.

Will stick with it - I'm sure its impact would have been significantly greater at the time, but for the most part it's still playable and engaging.

Retr0gamer

The controls are a bit clunky alright and the circle strafe is all you really need but once you get it down it's fun. Megaman Legends 2 has dual analogue controls which make things a lot better but I found the setting a lot less engaging. The big part of Megaman Legends that makes me love it is the setting and people in it, it feels very much like Majora's Mask and I love how it changes as you progress through the game and the side quests are engaging and fun. Legends 2 loses that when it goes for a much grander vision.

I really like all the voice acting. It's one of the first games where they actually put some effort into casting decent voice actors and they all have an extensive history in kids animation VA. It can be cheesy but all the main characters I find sound great, particularly the Bonne family. One other thing to note is the mouth movement that accompanies the vocal work. Most PS1 games never bothered with this, even high budget games like Metal Gear Solid. MML goes all out with this, there's mouth textures used for single scenes and they have been corrected as well to look correct from all the crazy camera angles. It's a incredible amount of work that went into something that most games didn't bother with at the time.

I do agree that the tech at the time held it back, especially in the controls but the charm of the adventure and island is what I love about. The legends games for me are the closest any game has gotten to a Miyazaki film and the first really does borrow an awful lot from Laputa. It puts Ni No Kuni to shame in that regard imo.

Duggy747

Got myself a Wii (1st gen for the Gamecube ports) and have been on a buzz with that. Playing Kirby Return To Dreamland at the moment, a nice easy-going game to relax to, and replaying Donkey Kong Country Returns.

Waiting on a Gamecube controller so I can get going with those, too. Like a pleb, when I was carrying over my saves from Dolphin to the memory card data for the Wii I wiped my Wind Waker save...................oh well, good excuse as any to replay it :pac:

CiDeRmAn

Nice, Kirby Return to Dreamland is fantastic, and if you love it it's worth checking out Kirby Triple Trouble on the 3DS as they are very similar in style.
A component cable for the Wii is a must as well, if you TV supports it, as you'll get a great picture quality and lots of games support 480p as well.
Mod it too, if a Kirby fan, so you can play imports, and get the anniversary game for the Wii, link

It's a solid collection of Kirby's platforming adventures so far, if you aren't in a position to collect them singly, which I have

Shapey Fiend

Been playing a bit of NES. I never owned one as a child being a Mega Drive fanboy and I must say there are some particularly incredible platformers. Been mostly playing Sunsoft games. Mr. Gimmick is my current favourite which just looks, controls and feels so lovely I can't be bothered by the difficulty.

CosmicSmash

Finished off Secret of Mana tonight. I have to say, I really enjoyed it. The Sprite character reminded me of Salsa from Eternal Sonata for some reason. I'm going to take a break before playing the sequel, but I hope it's as good as the first. Time for the ps1 to take over.

Retr0gamer

I hope you mean Seiken Densetsu 3 which is great. Any Mana game after that is a load of old arse, although Legend looks gorgeous and has lovely music. The first Secret of Mana game is worth checking out, it's on the gameboy as Final Fantasy Adventure and it's a fantastic little action RPG. Just don't play the remake Sword of Mana on the GBA, they ruined it by adding unneeded dialogue. Really the game is much better without 15 minut philosophising whether the villian called 'Dark Lord' is really evil or not.

CosmicSmash

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I hope you mean Seiken Densetsu 3 which is great. Any Mana game after that is a load of old arse, although Legend looks gorgeous and has lovely music. The first Secret of Mana game is worth checking out, it's on the gameboy as Final Fantasy Adventure and it's a fantastic little action RPG. Just don't play the remake Sword of Mana on the GBA, they ruined it by adding unneeded dialogue. Really the game is much better without 15 minut philosophising whether the villian called 'Dark Lord' is really evil or not.

Yes, that's the one. I have it on SFC but I'll use the translated rom with a clear conscience. I never played either of the other two you mentioned but I'll steer clear of the GBA one.

Tchoin

Finally completed the setup of Emulationstation + Retroarch on my PC (hooked up to the TV), after weeks of being on and off on it for 15 min sessions lol.

Nice and simple emulation front-end, wanted something I could set up quick without much trouble, where I could play some retro goodness as all my consoles are sitting in a dark room an ocean across from here

On the other hand, playing Mario Maker and Skyrim (after having it installed for 4 years without starting it).

CiDeRmAn

I've had an pleasant evening of Nier and Geometry Wars.
Fired up the 360 for the first time in a while and realised that I had yet to try Nier out.
Popped it in and was unpleasantly surprised by a lousy first 40 mins of bland textures and boring combat.
Things hotted up a little after that, gaining the book, and I can see this being a lot of fun.
Felt, at times, like a Shmup during the battles!

Geometry Wars 2 I've put some time into over the years, but the original I had kinda neglected, and as for the original PGR minigame that's embedded in there, I haven't played that in 8 years or more, what a delight though, quite tough too!

Retr0gamer

Stick with Nier, it gets far more interesting as you get further into it and the gameplay starts to change dynamically. Also by the end it's anything but fun, the story is a big downer but well worth sticking with. Also make sure you play New Game plus at least once since it changes everything you thought about the story and it pretty much why people think the game is so good.

One last thing, it's got the best soundtrack of the last decade.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Stick with Nier, it gets far more interesting as you get further into it and the gameplay starts to change dynamically. Also by the end it's anything but fun, the story is a big downer but well worth sticking with. Also make sure you play New Game plus at least once since it changes everything you thought about the story and it pretty much why people think the game is so good.

One last thing, it's got the best soundtrack of the last decade.

I was going to say, the music is quite striking, just when you're expecting the usual kind of pap it's feels live and glorious.
How long is Nier, I remember you saying it's relatively brief.

Retr0gamer

20 hours, or 25 with one new game plus play through which is kind of essential to the experience.