So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120435733#Comment_120435733

100% re Earthbound 64. Imagine a world now where folks spoke about Earthbound 64 in the same way they speak about OOT. Could very much have been the case if it had been released.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120435695#Comment_120435695

I did, I finished that a good few years back. Wonderful game alright.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120435755#Comment_120435755

It's one of those games that I completely forget about, someone mentions Earthbound and then it pops back into my head.

A crime that it hasn't seen an official release in English.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120435733#Comment_120435733

Those old pokemon games always seemed really badly programmed. The first game was obviously made by a tiny team that was developing an overly ambitious game, it's like the engine is held together by programmer optimism alone. Gen 2 is pretty much asking the GB hardware to do way too much.

Mr.Saturn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120435835#Comment_120435835

Love the story of Iwata coming in at the 11th hour from nowhere to get the Gen 2 games out the door. Game Freak staffers still talk about him like he performed a miracle. He generally never gets his dues when it comes to getting Pokémon off the ground.

Retr0gamer

**** Battletoads has so much bullshit. Finally got past the poxy snakes with 1 life left then found out the next stage is the turbo tunnel on steroids. So much rote learning.

Retr0gamer

So I can now do the two turbo tunnels pretty handily but I get to the next stage after the fire level with so few lives that I die before I get anywhere in it. There's two sections that are giving me awful grief.

The first is the ice level. This is a pretty handy stage and I have it fairly down but near the end there is one jump that requires you to jump at the end of a slope at the very last second and it keeps catching me off. It's absolutely infuriating. The next area is the poxy snakes. I can beat this but theres so much waiting around on the snakes that it's easy to lose concentration and miss an easy jump.

tonyotonyo

Shadow dancer for the arcade, at first I thought it was a breeze, then I realised its actually pretty tough. Timing the magic attacks is key to get out of tough spots, those #$#@$$ ninjas that can block your attacks drive you mad. Can get to level 2-3 so far before rage quitting.

tonyotonyo

Shadow Dancer beaten. Frustrating later levels, and the last boss I must have tried 20+ times to beat without even knowing how to damage her. Gave in and had to look at a video. Yeah, I wouldn't say this was beaten much back when it was released.

I'll go on to shinobi next, which I remember being better, but I'll see.

The one shinobi game I never played and was supposed to be very good was the version on ps2. Will have to try that some time.

Hard to beat the cutscenes on Saturn's shinobi X though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6kvOdXRNOQ

But probably the best of the franchise I've played is revenge of shinobi on the good old megadrive.

Another series left to rot by sega!

Retr0gamer

The PS2 shinobi game is pretty good, just felt a bit outdated next to Devil May Cry. It's balls hard though and has a nasty camera. It got a sequel called Nightshade.

The 3DS game often gets ignored but it's actually a lot of fun.

o1s1n

I completely forgot about that 3DS Shinobi game. Bought it on release and thought it was great.

Speaking of handheld ninja action, anyone remember Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword? I loved that when it came out. Making such a fluid ninja action game using stylus controls really was quite something.

Retr0gamer

Yep, Dragon Sword was a little gem.

Quigs Snr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120464352#Comment_120464352

Another one for my DS collection then. Luckily it was only 12 euro in CEX just there.

o1s1n

Excellent, yeah when I remembered it I decided to look it up on ebay expecting it to go for a pretty penny but it looks to be nice and cheap.

Quigs Snr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120465338#Comment_120465338

Shame the same can't be said about 3DS - Shinobi. Anytime I see recommendations from the folks on here, I make a point of trying to pick them up. That one was about 15-20 last summer.. now up to 35ish.

Mr.Saturn

Pocket Card Jockey on the 3DS might be the thing that finally costs me my sanity. Its addictiveness is one thing, but having to re-do and re-raise an entire run for the 1 race you're missing is a diabolical bit of game design. And that's before we get into the absolute can of worms that is the breeding mechanic. I guess I should've known Game Freak would fart out something this unexpectedly complex.

tonyotonyo

Less horses and more biplane, been playing flying shark by taito. Reminds you a lot of the raiden games. Difficulty really ramps up in the last couple of levels and you need to use the smart bombs to cancel out enemy shots. Fun game!

A nice little detail I noticed, if you clip the wings of enemy planes they end up crashing, and can end up taking out other enemies on the ground.

One more go this evening to beat it and then shinobi and the evil neo-zeed empire.

https://ibb.co/Mnf0D7J

tonyotonyo

Got another vertical screen orientation game instead of shinobi because laziness. Strange one here, sega's angel kids. It's quite good but what's making it very difficult is that the joysticks are swapped (twin stick game), confusing! Left is right and right is left.

I had a look at the dipswitchs on the board and they still have the original seal over them, and besides that there's no dipswitch info online, no manual that I could find either. There are 4 soundpots on the pcb, 1 for music, 1 for sound effects, and the other two are a mystery.

Balloons are the worst enemy so far but I'll stick at it until I can beat it or lose my mind. Blasting through these games now

The Last Bandit

You need to clean up the Jamma edge before if wrecks your harness connector - its nasty..

tonyotonyo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120490600#Comment_120490600

Yeah it's something special, I'll see about getting some desoldering braid

CiDeRmAn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120484167#Comment_120484167

Love that game, I imported the Megadrive port from Japan and it is fantastic.

I know I could just run it from an Everdrive, but there's something very nice about having the original cart.

o1s1n

Always find it interesting how many shmups of that era have Raiden vibes, it really did influence a lot of titles at the time.

I spent a couple of hours last night playing through IREM M92 games on MiSTer. I can never get over the level of detail in Gunforce 2/Geostorm and In The Hunt. So many little things you wouldn't even notice unless you looked closely. It's actually horrendously distracting if you're actually trying to play the games properly! (maybe that was a credit feeding ploy to make more money, distract them with detail!)

Picture on both looks absolutely gorgeous.

tonyotonyo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494160#Comment_120494160

Yeah it's very good, looped the game at area 121 and packed it in, that last part is ridiculous but I suppose that's why its the last part!

Actually I think you mean fire shark and not flying shark, also not to be confused with the cooking simulator frying shark

Retr0gamer

Dolphins

o1s1n

Part of me always hoped that mistranslation was half on purpose.

tonyotonyo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494451#Comment_120494451

Looks good! Irem really pumped out a lot of great games, it's very easy to tell them apart from the art style like undercover cops, metal slug, in the hunt.

I was looking into getting that irem m72 multi board but it seems to be only available in the states. 225 dollars as an add on, it's not the worst, but the potential customs and all that puts me off.

tonyotonyo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494597#Comment_120494597

Grorious engrish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZPTYpTKOI0

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494688#Comment_120494688

225 dollars isn't bad at all but yeah you'd then be murdered on shipping and import duties :(

Just looking through the M72 games list, Armed Police Unit Gallop (what a name!) is one I haven't heard of before, looks to have that 'dirty detailed' sprite look that a lot of the other Irem games have.

Retr0gamer

Armed Police Unit Gallop is *chefs kiss* good.

CiDeRmAn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120494477#Comment_120494477

You are absolutely right.

I have just learned it's included in the M2 Shotriggers port of Fire Shark for the PS4, which I have somewhere.

I'll be playing it later!