Retro Game of the Week, Week 1

CiDeRmAn

I know this has been run before but it's been a while so lets give it a go again.

We'll see a game chosen each week, everyone can chime in with memories of playing back in the day, how it compares to now and, even more interesting, how n00bs to the game find it to play in 2016!

I would ask that people give the games discussed a good lash, via whatever method you have to hand, original/emulated/spirit animal, and post up whatever comes to mind.

We might include a poll to see what games people want to talk about, discussing scoring, tricks and general joy joy feelings.

So I'll get the ball rolling with a game, I'll suggest it and let you shower of unwashed plebs tell me why it's so outstanding, though I won't believe a word of it!

CiDeRmAn

Glob help me, it's Streets of Rage 2!!!

o1s1n

2016, the year Ciderman is forced to appreciate Streets of Rage 2.

Also, the year of the apocalypse. :pac:

I suggest you download the 3DS version, it's brilliant.

CiDeRmAn

o1s1n wrote: »

2016, the year Ciderman is forced to appreciate Streets of Rage 2.

Also, the year of the apocalypse. :pac:

I suggest you download the 3DS version, it's brilliant.

I already have, but not played it......

Myrddin

I've very fond memories of SoR II (and indeed the first one). The graphics (for the time), the gameplay, the music...retro gaming heaven I really must buy the re-releases for 3DS, but I keep hoping Ninty will release them here in physical form

Retr0gamer

I played through it again not too long ago. It's a fantastic brawler, by far the best available on 16 bit consoles at the time and only really beaten by late Capcom arcade brawlers like avp. Stunning graphics, soundtrack and a superb co op mode. It might lack in complexity but as a game to throw on every now and then for a quick blast or if a mate is over it can't really be beat.

Also it's one of those few games on the Megadrive along with Gunstar heroes that gave Megadrive owners one of those rare occasions to gloat to their SNES owning friends because the SNES really has nothing that comes close to it in the genre.

RedXIV

For a pair of young brothers, this game and it's predecessor were a godsend. We played through them countless times and used to love the relatively simple gameplay. Didn't know it was on the 3DS but as I never played the games solo, I don't know if I'd enjoy them without my brother egging me on at parts...

CiDeRmAn

What happened then with SoR3?
SoR2 was a successful development from the original, into Final Fight beating territory, but didn't the third one jump the shark?

Also, did SoR2 "inspire" the Capcom people to better things with the genre?

Retr0gamer

Streets of Rage 3 in the western versions was pretty crappy. Sega were afraid of the rental market so made some changes that ruined the game. They changed the story to a much crappier one and made the enemies have twice as much health and do near four times more damage. Makes the game nearly impossible especially when you have to play in hard mode to see all the content. It turns a really fun beat em up into a really frustrating experience.

The Japanese version is miles better but still I feel it's not quite as good as the second game.

I don't think SoR2 inspired Capcom to be better, SoR2 was pretty much Sega trying to out do Nintendo by creating a game comparable to capcoms arcade beat em ups but with two player as well. They pretty much succeeded with SoR2 looking and feeling just like a Capcom arcade beat em up with massive sprites, the same array of move sets, including Max who plays just like Haggar in FF and is so much fun to use, and similar gameplay. It takes a massive dump on SNES efforts including the later Final Fight games which might have looked the part and had two player but just didn't have the array of enemies or as many enemies on screen as SoR2.

Corholio

I enjoyed playing SOR2 back in the day but it never gave me the feeling of wanting to accomplish things in it. I much preferred the dread that Batman Returns has and the build up to bosses in levels is better. It was a fun scroller but I enjoyed playing Batman Returns a fair bit more.

CiDeRmAn

Foul!
I won't be drawn into any Batman Returns love here, because I'll just be treated to reasons why I'm wrong
Were the multiplayer stylings of Xmen and The Simpsons the ultimate of the genre or was it the likes of AvP?

smurf492

Corholio wrote:

I enjoyed playing SOR2 back in the day but it never gave me the feeling of wanting to accomplish things in it. I much preferred the dread that Batman Returns has and the build up to bosses in levels is better. It was a fun scroller but I enjoyed playing Batman Returns a fair bit more.

Thumbs up from me. Magnificent game.

CiDeRmAn

smurf492 wrote: »

Thumbs up from me. Magnificent game.

Why though?
When did you first play it?
What does it so much better than everything else?

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Streets of Rage 3 in the western versions was pretty crappy. Sega were afraid of the rental market so made some changes that ruined the game. They changed the story to a much crappier one and made the enemies have twice as much health and do near four times more damage. Makes the game nearly impossible especially when you have to play in hard mode to see all the content. It turns a really fun beat em up into a really frustrating experience.

The Japanese version is miles better but still I feel it's not quite as good as the second game.

I don't think SoR2 inspired Capcom to be better, SoR2 was pretty much Sega trying to out do Nintendo by creating a game comparable to capcoms arcade beat em ups but with two player as well. They pretty much succeeded with SoR2 looking and feeling just like a Capcom arcade beat em up with massive sprites, the same array of move sets, including Max who plays just like Haggar in FF and is so much fun to use, and similar gameplay. It takes a massive dump on SNES efforts including the later Final Fight games which might have looked the part and had two player but just didn't have the array of enemies or as many enemies on screen as SoR2.

Poor Streets of Rage 3. If it wasn't censorship it was content just being left out. If it wasn't that, it was the 'Automatic Composing System' which ruined the soundtrack.

The stuff of nightmares.

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

Just compare that **** to this multi layered creepy genius from the Alien section.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coPfvOiR-0s

It's super frustrating as with the expanded move set and new ideas it should have been fantastic. There's actually a 'Bare Knuckle III DX: The Director's Cut' romhack I've been meaning to give a go for ages.

I could go on and on about SOR2's incredibly drawn and animated massive sprites, the large amounts of enemies of screen at once, or just the sheer character of the game, but I think the biggest thing it gave me was a love for electronic music.

I always kind of wonder how many electronic music fans were influenced by such soundtracks booming out of their TV's little mono speakers in their childhood and probably don't really realize.

CiDeRmAn

Given how rushed and poor the initial Final Fight conversion was for the Snes, Streets of Rage 2 was a great demonstration of what could be done by a team working on a Megadrive, a more limited machine that the Snes, but with a team with the time to develop and bug hunt to perfection.

Retr0gamer

It's kind of wrong to say the Megadrive was a more limited machine than the SNES. In some ways it wiped the floor with the SNES.

SoR2 was a perfect utilisation of the Megadrive to show its strengths over the SNES. The beefier processor was used to fill the screen with massive sprites and loads of them and in the right hands the Megadrive could sound fantastic. Since the soundtrack was chip generated it was pumped out at super high quality, far better than the samples used by the SNES which were compressed to an inch of their life.

The Megadrive had a much more limited colour palette than the SNES but good choice of colours used meant you could have mistaken the game for a SNES game.

SoR2 is a game that would be pretty much impossible to replicate on the SNES.

smurf492

CiDeRmAn wrote:

Why though? When did you first play it? What does it so much better than everything else?

Played it upon release when a friend got it. Being a fan of the film i enjoyed the hell out of it. Simple side scrolling beat em up but i like it...

eddhorse

smurf492 wrote: »

Played it upon release when a friend got it. Being a fan of the film i enjoyed the hell out of it. Simple side scrolling beat em up but i like it...

Go right and fight !

briany

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's kind of wrong to say the Megadrive was a more limited machine than the SNES. In some ways it wiped the floor with the SNES.

SoR2 was a perfect utilisation of the Megadrive to show its strengths over the SNES. The beefier processor was used to fill the screen with massive sprites and loads of them and in the right hands the Megadrive could sound fantastic. Since the soundtrack was chip generated it was pumped out at super high quality, far better than the samples used by the SNES which were compressed to an inch of their life.

The Megadrive had a much more limited colour palette than the SNES but good choice of colours used meant you could have mistaken the game for a SNES game.

SoR2 is a game that would be pretty much impossible to replicate on the SNES.

I appreciate the sounds of both consoles - back in the days when there was still a tangible difference in sound and art style to be found on consoles. The Megadrive 'skronk' is very recognisable. That metallic, brash sound is a real trademark of the console, and games like NHL Hockey '91 are forever burned into our memories because of it.

But, as the Angry Video Game Nerd points out in his Genesis vs Super Nintendo video, the SNES was the first home console that really sounded like 'real' music. At the time, that was a big deal, and I remember it being a factor in deciding which console to get.

Retr0gamer

Both consoles excel in different areas when it comes to sound. I wouldn't go basing any opinion on AVGN who isn't really that well informed when it comes to games at all. Yuzo Koshiro who created the soundtrack to the SoR games actually totally defined the SNES style of music with Actraiser (Nobuo Uematsu famously said he threw out the entire soundtrack to FF4 when he heard Actraiser and how to use the SNES properly) said the SNES was a nightmare to work with and much preferred the SNES.

I find there's a lot of misinformation about the Megadrive soundchip. The Megadrive soundchip is actually very advanced for the time being an actually Yamaha synthesizer and the same synth chip used in most games at the time. In the right hands it could produce amazing soundtracks that were much higher quality than SNES soundtracks (as in bit rate not necessarily better). Japanese composers were the best at this since they had experience with FM synth chips on the arcade machines but also mostly from the PC-88 home computer that had the same sound chip as the Megadrive. The best soundtracks at the time were from veteran sound composers from the PC-88 scene, often times composing on the PC-88. Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yuzo Koshiro and Michiru Yamane produced some of the best soundtracks on the system for the likes of Verytex, Gauntlet 4, SoR, Rocket Knight and Castlevania that in ways were better than anything on the SNES. Since it was generated by the chip it also meant it took less memory than the SNES soundtracks.

The main problem with the false preception that the Megadrive sounded worse than the SNES is a program created by the US branch of Sega called Gems. It was a sound composing tool for the megadrive and a lot of american games used it. Those soundtracks with harsh guitar riffs and dodgy drum samples were all Gems and while some games sounded good, the likes of Comix Zone had a decent soundtrack and used Gems, they still sounded a bit rough compared to the soundtracks of the better japanese games.

There were some good American composers though, some EA composers did wonders with Gems and Tommy Tellerico did some amazing stuff.

As for the SNES sounding like real music I kind of have to disagree. It kind of emulated the orchestra sound but poorly due to the low bit rate and compression used on the samples. The megadrive on the other hand sounded like a real synthesiser because... well it had an actual synthesiser in it.

CiDeRmAn

There's a book in you Retr0, and not in a way that requires lube

Retr0gamer

Ah I'm mostly full of crap.

Also I'm not saying the SNES sounds crap but I also wouldn't say it's better than the megadrive, both have different sounds but the Megadrive gets a bad rep because of that Gems arse. Both are capable of amazing soundtracks, just for the best ones I couldn't compare them because they are both so different. The Megadrive excels at electronica that the SNES could never produce but for that orchestrated sound the SNES is the superior sound.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Ah I'm mostly full of crap.

Also I'm not saying the SNES sounds crap but I also wouldn't say it's better than the megadrive, both have different sounds but the Megadrive gets a bad rep because of that Gems arse. Both are capable of amazing soundtracks, just for the best ones I couldn't compare them because they are both so different. The Megadrive excels at electronica that the SNES could never produce but for that orchestrated sound the SNES is the superior sound.

We can simply be happy we live in a time when we don't have to choose which console to own, we can have them all!

Jack burton

SOR2 is probably one of my top 5 games of all. I rented it so much when I was young and too this day I'd still play it every couple of months

As good as the first SOR was and how amazing the soundtrack was SOR2 was really the perfect sequal. Such a shame the turd (whaey) game was such a disappointment. Anyone looking for a SOR fix though should check out the PC game SOR Remake

http://soronline.net/sorr.htm

CiDeRmAn

I'm going to close this one and open another, what game should the next one be?

Myrddin

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I'm going to close this one and open another, what game should the next one be?

SF2

Retr0gamer

Cho Aniki

Steve X2

"Myth" on the 8bits :0)

Los Lobos

Aw yea Myth, remember gettin a copy from someone back in primary school for the 64, ur one comes on the screen, "welcome to myth", cool!
Ultra hard but twas great fun

This game taught me how to spell

Steve X2

Los Lobos wrote: »

Aw yea Myth, remember gettin a copy from someone back in primary school for the 64, ur one comes on the screen, "welcome to myth", cool!
Ultra hard but twas great fun

It's the first game I remember beating on the Amstrad CPC 464(no colour, just that green screen that melted your eyes).
Good times

Retr0gamer

It's no Conan on the NES...

smurf492

Chaos Engine on Amiga... From getting the demo on a mag to finally saving the money to buy the full game I was obsessed with this back in the day. Great game...