So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121882827#Comment_121882827

It's a genre that just totally disappeared in the west for a long time. There were a few Sega ones released, fatal labyrinth and that game gear one. There were attempts on the PS1 and two like the torneko game, Azure dreams and tower of duraga, which was again ruined by localisation choices. The genre only really caught back on with spelunky and indie games that followed. I do remember a few hardcore PC gamer boardsies talk about Nethack so it wasn't totally gone.

The genre becoming a much bigger deal in Japan wasn't a fluke either. The first chunsoft rogue like was a dragon quest spin off based of DQ4's most popular character. I guess the dragon quest pedigree had more people take a chance on the game and explore it more without immediately dismissing it when their first run ends with all their progress being wiped.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121525056#Comment_121525056

The final battle awaits. I'm dreading finishing it, it's been a ton of fun to play through again. It's everything that a video game should be, and more.

Quigs Snr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121669040#Comment_121669040

So Beetle Racing arrived today. Great shout. Marked improvement in terms of graphical fidelity, smoothness and playability over almost every other N64 racing game. Night and Day difference, almost looks like a generational leap over garbage like MRC: Multi-Racing Championship.

Sin and Punishment then and I think I have everything I am interested in for N64. I am going to get a Jap N64 just to play Sin and Punishment on the basis of the strength of the recommendations here. Whilst I am at it is there anything else worth importing for N64 ?

The Last Bandit

Totally sucked into Dark Force Remastered on the Steam Deck these days

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121890214#Comment_121890214

Glad you liked it. It was ciderman that got me interested in it.

Colonel Panic

i finished GBA LTTP this week so turned back to Drill Dozer. I’m on the 4th stage now and it’s still a lot of fun. They got a lot of mileage out of the drill gimmick and the bosses are good fun.

Also on the go is Dark Forces although I haven’t picked it up for a while.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884394#Comment_121884394

You inspired me with your Earthbound replay through to go back to one of my old Snes favourites, Chrono Trigger. I think it must be a decade at least since my last run through.

Playing it on the Analogue Pocket this time. Such a convenient way to play RPGs! Just leave it beside the bed and get in an hour or two before sleep.

Retr0gamer

So I'm up to chapter 16 of 20 I'm valkyria chronicles 3 and Ive enough playes to talk a bit more about it.

This one moves away from the civil war sequel story of 2 and goes back to the same war and setting of the first game. It tells a tale parallel to the original games where you play as a wrongfully accused officer leading a rag tag squad formed from a bunch of criminals in a dirty dozen style unit. You'll run into all the main characters from VC1 and 2.

It's an interesting premise for a story but it really fumbles it due to anime nonsense. In one way the story does mean you fight 3 different factions that feels very different from the other. It's all a little too silly though. The story can contradict what happened in VC1 and there's a lot of 'if it wasn't for the nameless then the guys from VC1 would never have succeeded' stuff.

The nameless are sent on a lot of suicide or dangerous missions but a lot of them involved committing war crimes, something the game addresses badly. They squad usually has a lot of misgivings about carrying them out and always manages to worm their way out of doing them. There's just something that feels off about it when they are flippantly discussing dressing as civilians or using chemical weapons when it's something the Israelis are doing right now in Gaza. The Gallians are meant to be the good guys.

There's also the issue with the Crimson Raven squad, a squad of darcsens that are the nameless main nemesis. The Darcsens are the series stand in for the Jews and it doesn't really work where a squad of darcsens are basically fighting for the Nazis for the promise of a homeland.

I expected a bit more from VC3 in the writing. I think VC1 was a fantastic piece of writing that managed to deal with the worst of WW2 and yet keep it to a pg13 sheen. VC3 is supposedly darker and a return to form for the series but in reality after playing it, it's really not.

So if I've so much issues with the story why do I keep playing? Well the VC combat has never been better. VC2 made some big changes to the systems to make it work better as a handheld games. Stages are split between multiple areas you have to move between by capturing enemy bases to allow you to deploy in other areas. The amount of units was greatly reduced. This might sound bad but it made the game a much more tactical experience and added a lot of depth. New units were also added.

VC3 builds on this again with units being rebalanced to be a lot more useful and others being a lot less broken. VC2 also felt like a purely multiplayer game with a singleplayer tacked on where as the levels feel a lot more authored in VC3. There's still the issue that you'll be fighting in the same locations as awful lot but it changes it up that each encounter feels unique rather than the random generation of VC2. It's just great fun.

One major issue though is that it's waaaaaay too long. I'm 65 hours in and it feels like it really could have been a leaner 30ish hour game like VC1.

As for the fan translation, it's fine but littered with errors. It's also not that well written. Seemingly it is based on a Russian fan translation. Theres a lot of spelling errors, text spilling out of text boxes and being cut off etc. It's not quite there but doesn't spoil the experience.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121884394#Comment_121884394

All done now 😞 The game is a 16bit masterpiece, up there with the very best of them. So many games get over hyped, but Earthbound deserves every bit of it.

I'll genuinely miss playing it, at least, for another decade anyway...at which point, I may pick it up again. Until then....

Mr.Saturn

Theatrhythm Dragon Quest just arrived from Japan and is just making time melt away.

Inviere

I'm putting right an old long standing retro sin of mine, by playing through Donkey Kong Country. Only early days, pretty lesiurley experience in the opening phase anyway, that was until I hit that pox of a mine cart level. Talk about a difficulty spike. Managed to get through it but lost so many lives it crippled me and I never made it to the next save point.

Quick glance online tells me there's essentially a level skip early on, so knowing that I at least did beat the level, next time I might use the skip and continue onwards

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121924729#Comment_121924729

The mine cart stages aren't so bad once you get used to them. One tip is if you unlock the guy that lets you fly to previous stages you can use him to go back to a save point. There's a few level gauntlets in the game but they are always at the start of a world until you unlock him or a save point.

I was surprised how short and easy the first game is. It's not the best platformer on the SNES but it's not bad either. The sequel is much better but be prepared for hair pullingly difficult stages in that.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121924809#Comment_121924809

Oh! The flying guy can bring me back to completed worlds?? That changes things...nice one retro

geotrig

the mine cart stages where the best thing about DKC , shamefully I've never played 2 or 3 myself !

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121926059#Comment_121926059

Except you can't seem to access him or go back to him once you've gone past him...

Not enjoying it at all I must say. The spike from the first world to the next was just too sudden, and I'm too old to be sitting at games that make me want to smash the controller against my head 😵 Loved the first few levels with the gradual curve, but it got silly fast.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121931313#Comment_121931313

You open him up again but theres usually a bit of a gauntlet when you go to a new world. I did feel it got easier as you play more.

Retr0gamer

Finished up VC3 so booted up the DS. Was going to start Castlevania Order of Ecclesia but had a quick game of Elite Beat Agents. Think I'll stick with it and try and finish it. It really is one of the best, probably the best, rhythm action game of all time. Well maybe Osu tatake Ouendan is but only because the soundtrack is that little bit better.

I do like that all the cheesy awful pop songs in the game have me bopping away. Never thought I'd enjoy Sk8ter Boi in any context but it's just me of awesome in elite beat agents.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933266#Comment_121933266

All of this is obviously in acknowledgement of the fact that middle age me still feels as competent a game player as 16 year old me....which is definitely not the case. Still though, at this stage in life, playing games has to be fun above all else. I'll go back to it in a day or two, tail between legs.

Mr.Saturn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933614#Comment_121933614

The DKC trilogy were pretty much my first foray into retrogaming and, for all my fondness, if I want a blast of DKC goodness these days, I'm much more likely to bang on Returns or Tropical Freeze. They're just as hard, if not harder, than the OG trilogy but are a bit more forgiving in terms of demands on your time between basic stuff like multiple checkpoints per level and whatnot.

Playing Sonic Advance 3 at the minute as I'm at the time of year where I forget everything outside of 2 and Colours is kinda ****.

Retr0gamer

I don't get the love for the sonic advance games. Never found them that good but they came out at a time when it was wall to wall garbage 3D games so they are lucked upon fondly.

Saying that I really enjoyed Sonic Rush. The soundtrack is incredible.

Retr0gamer

I've started Castlevania Order of Ecclesia in between being absolutely absorbed by Elite Beat Agents.

It's the only handheld Iga-vania I never beat. I was really excited for it but when I played it something was a bit off about it.

It's not a bad game but it has some issues, mainly that enemies and especially bosses take way too many hits to put down. The game also have a very different structure to the other Castlevania games. Its more a call back to Simon's Quest than SotN so stage layouts are a bit weird.

I'm going to stick with it and beat it. I might also replay the other two DS vanias as I never played the new game plus characters which apparently are very different experiences from the base game.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121933614#Comment_121933614

So, went back to this and did much better today. I was able to make it to the next save point, then farmed up a load more lives on an easier level, and saved again. Making progress...though that later half of that hilltop something level with all the barrel timing kicked my backside severely. Anyway, progress!

Mr.Saturn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121940217#Comment_121940217

I don't get the love for like 99% of stuff with Sonic branding. Even the much-lauded Sonic Mania bored the arse off me and, yet, I keep playing these games for reasons only known to a higher power.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942485#Comment_121942485

I was fecking about with some 32X games recently enough and decided to dedicate some time to Knuckles Chaotix. Spent a couple of hours with it, longer than I think I ever have to be honest.

Such a frustrating game. You get sightings of what a real Sonic game could have been like on the system with this absolutely horrendous (and most offensively, not fun) shoehorned in tether system. It literally sucks every bit of fun out of the game.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942523#Comment_121942523

Yeah that system always just meant I turned the game off before long. I imagine the level mechanics are built around it, or else there'd have been some romhacks to restore it back to single character gameplay...

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942739#Comment_121942739

It would need someone to care enough about the game to romhack it. Not even the sonic perverts will touch it, and they all seem hell bent on the historical revisionism that sonic heroes is good.

o1s1n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121942739#Comment_121942739

Check this out, it's actually possible to play it with the 'combi-link' disabled via an action replay code:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS8Z1Rs6QsY

I might be late to the party, but recently I found the Action Replay codes to play Knuckles' Chaotix Solo (without the Combi Link).

To use this you will need to use the Action Replay Code FFFCEA:00. The partner will still tag along, but you are free to move by yourself.

By playing alone I noticed that the physics are weird. Spin dash is pretty much useless, probably nerfed to put emphasis on the combi link instead. There is no speed cap when running and you can reach top speed in a few seconds, regardless of the terrain - even with slopes. Movement just doesn't feel as precise as it does in Sonic 3&K.

So far the Combi Link is only mandatory for the main boss in Botanic Base (the boss won't trigger without it) and the Final Boss (otherwise the Robotnik/Metal Sonic cutscene won't work). You can pretty much clear the entire game either by gliding or wall climbing.

If the partner gets hit by an enemy you will lose a life and you will be sent to the World Entrance. The easiest way to avoid this is starting a 2 player game and using the AR code to disable the ring link. Without it, the other player will just stand still at the beginning and you are free to go anywhere without risking losing a life due to the partner getting hit. Unlike the previous Sonic games the partner will never die if left behind and you can always recall it to start machines that require both characters.

Without the Combi Link I noticed Mighty is MUCH faster than all other characters, which to my knowledge is something that doesn't exist in other classic Sonic games - all run at the same speed.

I highly recommend playing like that. Feels like a completely different Sonic game.

Inviere

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121944777#Comment_121944777

Ooh interesting, must have a look

Retr0gamer

Up to the final mission on sweatin' difficulty in elite beat agents. It's making me hate the rolling stones after I just fell out with Bowie.

It's driving me mad but at least you can skip the song intros, ready steady go drove me insane in Osu Tatake Ouendan.

The worst thing is I have to play it again at the higher difficulty.

Mr.Saturn

Also giving a Castlevania a rip, namely Circle of the Moon. It's gotten a bit of a bad rap because of how dark it ran on a launch GBA, but it's a pretty decent Metroidvania so far, especially with the benefit of a backlit screen.