So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

Inviere · 29-01-2021 08:27AM

^^ that's exactly where I begin today

Gamer Bhoy 89 · 29-01-2021 11:37AM

Inviere wrote: »

^^ that's exactly where I begin today

Well it's been 3 hours. You still there? You lost? :pac:

o1s1n · 29-01-2021 12:14PM

Wow :eek: I'm amazed they managed to fit all of that onto a Megadrive cart.

Gamer Bhoy 89 · 29-01-2021 12:27PM

o1s1n wrote: »

Wow :eek: I'm amazed they managed to fit all of that onto a Megadrive cart.

Wasn't Sonic 3 on a larger-sized cartridge (32-meg) or am I mixing it up with something else?

Inviere · 29-01-2021 12:32PM

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

Well it's been 3 hours. You still there? You lost? :pac:

Not started yet

I got through to near the end of the game during my last attempt, so I know the crap-fest ahead of me

Inviere · 29-01-2021 01:31PM

Gamer Bhoy 89 wrote: »

Well it's been 3 hours. You still there? You lost? :pac:

Done. Act 2 of Carnival Night is a total piss take. I died once by hitting the 10 minute mark! Onto Ice Cap zone....

I can't help but notice Flying Battery is before Ice Cap zone in the level select menu though, is it out of order?

o1s1n · 29-01-2021 01:54PM

Inviere wrote: »

Done. Act 2 of Carnival Night is a total piss take. I died once by hitting the 10 minute mark! Onto Ice Cap zone....

I can't help but notice Flying Battery is before Ice Cap zone in the level select menu though, is it out of order?

10 minutes for a Sonic level???

Ah here, I'm going to fire Sonic 3 up this weekend and have a crack at it, that sounds beyond insane.

DaveyDave · 29-01-2021 02:02PM

Yeah that stupid cylinder thing is what made me die at the 10 minute mark. I think I've only finished Sonic 3 once because it pissed me off...

Retr0gamer · 29-01-2021 03:21PM

I never had issues with the barrel, first I heard about it was when it was memified. Then again I never had issues with the Lion King either or the water temple.

Inviere wrote: »

Done. Act 2 of Carnival Night is a total piss take. I died once by hitting the 10 minute mark! Onto Ice Cap zone....

I can't help but notice Flying Battery is before Ice Cap zone in the level select menu though, is it out of order?

It was meant to be that way when it was meant to be one game.

Retr0gamer · 29-01-2021 03:25PM

At the second stage of the final levels in Megaman and Bass.... I was warned about this but it's insane. It's pretty much 4 levels strung together with 3 bosses and the last one has 3 phases. It's ridiculous.

I'd like to say I'll be finished once it's done but:

1. The challenge is through the roof and being sent back is infuriating
2. I'll have to do it again with Bass

Inviere · 29-01-2021 03:34PM

o1s1n wrote: »

10 minutes for a Sonic level???

Ah here, I'm going to fire Sonic 3 up this weekend and have a crack at it, that sounds beyond insane.

Now I am being cautious going through it (the notion of Sonic being a "GO FAST" game outside of the first few levels I just feel is wrong). The barrels I'm ok with, up down, up down...timing, not too bad at all...it's just the level in particular (carnival 2) is quite expansive, and I think twice in it I ended up backtracking unknowingly, costing some time.

Inviere · 29-01-2021 04:22PM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It was meant to be that way when it was meant to be one game.

So Flying Battery, Mushroom Valley, & Sandopolis, are all listed in Sonic 3 but won't start (via the level select screen). So these WERE meant to be in the game, but were split to make Sonic & Knuckles? Interesting....looking at the level select screen you think it'll take hours to get through it all, but with them gone, it's not actually too bad.

Icecap 1 & 2 beaten there. Icecap 1 has an infuriating section where you need to chain together a few spring/lift jumps via the spin dash, & one slip up means redoing the whole section. I ran out of time again on that level (Icecap 1), but redoing it on the next life I got through it pretty handy in just over 3 mins.

Launch Base next...

CiDeRmAn · 29-01-2021 04:31PM

I suppose I appreciated the size of Sonic 3s levels as it meant you had several paths through the level, meaning more variety, but I never found the sizes arbitrary.

How do folk feel about Sonic 3 compared to the NGPC/GBA/DS titles, specifically the 2d platformers?

Inviere · 29-01-2021 04:41PM

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I suppose I appreciated the size of Sonic 3s levels as it meant you had several paths through the level, meaning more variety, but I never found the sizes arbitrary.

Sonic 1 & 2 also had multiple paths, but the levels felt more cohesive. Maybe it's just because I'm less familiar with Sonic 3 than the others, but I never really ever took to this game. That said, I'm enjoying it this time around, some of the music is great in it.

How do folk feel about Sonic 3 compared to the NGPC/GBA/DS titles, specifically the 2d platformers?

There are Sonic games beyond 1, 2, 3, Knuckles, & CD??

Retr0gamer · 29-01-2021 05:01PM

Inviere wrote: »

So Flying Battery, Mushroom Valley, & Sandopolis, are all listed in Sonic 3 but won't start (via the level select screen). So these WERE meant to be in the game, but were split to make Sonic & Knuckles? Interesting....looking at the level select screen you think it'll take hours to get through it all, but with them gone, it's not actually too bad.

Icecap 1 & 2 beaten there. Icecap 1 has an infuriating section where you need to chain together a few spring/lift jumps via the spin dash, & one slip up means redoing the whole section. I ran out of time again on that level (Icecap 1), but redoing it on the next life I got through it pretty handy in just over 3 mins.

Launch Base next...

Yeah it's weird they kept them in the level select but could have been good marketing to keep people wondering what they were. Put it was meant to be released as one giant game. I heard it was split as Sega had a happy meal deal with McDonalds they couldn't afford to miss.

I never get lost in Sonic levels anymore and never had that trouble with Sonic 3.

However it was because I was having a nightmare with Metropolis Zone in Sonic 2 that my brain worked out how to follow Sonic level design.

Basically, always go right. If you can't go right, go up. If you can't go up, go down. And if you can't go done then go left.

You'll be surprised how you never get lost using this.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I suppose I appreciated the size of Sonic 3s levels as it meant you had several paths through the level, meaning more variety, but I never found the sizes arbitrary.

How do folk feel about Sonic 3 compared to the NGPC/GBA/DS titles, specifically the 2d platformers?

The only good handheld Sonic is Sonic Rush and it's very different from most Sonic games as it's actually all about speed. Feels more like Tony Hawks than Sonic. And then they ruined it for Rush Adventure by adding boring story sections. Awesome, Awesome soundtracks by the Jet Set Radio Composer.

Sonic NGPC is a rush job. It's playable but the level design is ho-hum and if you are going for all chaos emeralds it's a nightmare as you have one chance only to get each one.

Never liked the Dimps developed GBA games. Level Design felt like western Airplane Hanger design where they just tried to fill them with as much **** as possible but there was no flow to the game. Felt more like Sonic CD but without the exploration element that that game had. Also had chronic level design blunders like sending you careening off bottomless pits with no warning to the player. Became known as unsignposted pits. And the same developer tried to combat it by not designing levels better for Sonic Generations but by literally signposting the pits ...:mad:

Inviere · 29-01-2021 06:23PM

Inviere wrote: »

Launch Base next...

Annnd done....that wasn't actually too difficult at all. Launch Base 2 is quite tight on time, given Robotnic has three forms....I was into the 9 minute and somethings by the time I nuked him.

Now, to do it as a single run!

Gamer Bhoy 89 · 31-01-2021 03:43AM

I've been playing a hell of a lot of SNK fighting games lately, mainly King of Fighters. I have zero clue what drove me to play those games, as I have never garnered much interest in them at all, but I tried out King of Fighters 94 yesterday and I got fairly addicted to it, despite being utterly garbage at it.

I decided to try and beat each one of them, doing one arcade run per game. So far I've beaten 94 - 98 (and abusing the hell out of that poor Completed Games thread), and I switched over to Neo Geo Battle Coliseum earlier on tonight, simply because I took one look at a screenshot of the visuals and thought it looked really appealing. That, and I forgot I owned it on both PS2 and Xbox 360.

Overall I think they're done really well, the fighting mechanics feel very satisfying - I dare say more satisfying than any Capcom fighters I've played. I'm after buying a lot of these games and I plan on grabbing a few more next week -- my aim is to eventually get up as far as the first 'numbered' KOF title then going back and playing the Fatal Fury series, running my way up to Garou: Mark of the Wolves. I also have Art of Fighting as well but I haven't touched it yet. That Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection looks handy as well.

Inviere · 31-01-2021 12:35PM

Inviere wrote: »

Now, to do it as a single run!

Done. Sonic 3, finito.

I got through it quite handily after the initial bit of practice. Quite enjoyable in the end, but again, just didn't feel as 'tight' as Sonic 1 or 2 in terms of overall subjective 'feel' of the game. A few things to note:

1) The first 3/4 of the game flow together quite nicely, but you can definitely tell there's something fractured about it toward the end. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's clear enough the game was meant to be bigger. The change from Ice Cap to Launch Base is just too stark, with no real flow in it...again, hard to describe, but noticeable.

2) The music all the way up to the final zone is the usual high standard. The final zone though, jesus....awful awful repetitive crap. The music for me in Sonic games is a huge part of what makes them great, so it's a shame this one couldn't end on a high note. The Michael Jackson connection does seem evident in places when you listen to comparison videos.

3) There's some slight disparity in difficulty, sometimes even within the same Act. Ice Cap 1 is a bit of a monster compared to Ice Cap 2, which you can breeze through quite easily. Carnival Zone Act 2 is just a sprawling maze-like endurance test. Launch Base 2 can be very tight on time, particularly with the clock ticking away away during 'cut scenes' too. I beat Robotnik with less than a minute to go on the timer.

All in all, glad to have beaten it in a single sitting (no continues or saves), and can now tick it off the list. Onto Sonic & Knuckles next - another game I've only played about with & never gave proper time to.

johnny_ultimate · 31-01-2021 01:04PM

Starting a play through of FF6, having previously played the dodgy PS1 version way back in the day (think I only got to the second half of the game after the big mid-game climax). Am I correct in saying all versions have their issues? I’m playing the SNES mini version, which seems fine. Not a fan of the PC sprites, but hear it has extra content, although not too pushed about a bonus dungeon or two.

Retr0gamer · 31-01-2021 01:13PM

I think I prefer the snk fighters to capcom. Capcom ones seem a bit samey while snk ones really have their own feel between each series. I think kof is my favourite the only issue is that the you need to be insanely good to pull off a lot of the fundamentals so it can be hard to get really good at them. It's a pity it's not more popular because any time it's at evo it's far and away the best fighting game to watch. It's so much fun and easy to read but also easy to appreciate what the players are doing and how much strategy is involved.

There's so many characters and character variety that you always getting someone bringing out a so called junk character and showing people how to actually play them.

The new samurai shodown is one I'd recommend to everyone. It's a really fun game for experts and beginners. If you are just mashing buttons it's easy, there's very few combos and input timing is very lenient. However the best change is that all the complex supers and other mechanics share the same input between all characters so if you know it for one you can do it for them all. It's means anyone can start messing with the complex mechanics straight out the gate and just makes it a lot of fun.

Retr0gamer · 31-01-2021 01:16PM

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Starting a play through of FF6, having previously played the dodgy PS1 version way back in the day (think I only got to the second half of the game after the big mid-game climax). Am I correct in saying all versions have their issues? I’m playing the SNES mini version, which seems fine. Not a fan of the PC sprites, but hear it has extra content, although not too pushed about a bonus dungeon or two.

Snes or snes mini version is the way to go. Others will say the gba version has it has no censorship and a better translation but you will have to get a fan hack to fix the colours and restore the music.

Honestly the translation in the snes version is fine and the censorship is very very minor.

The extra content in the gba and steam versions is pretty worthless so you aren't missing anything and the steam port not only looks terrible but runs at around 20 fps which feels horrible.

Stick to the snes.

CiDeRmAn · 31-01-2021 07:05PM

I was playing some Vector Pilot, Vector Patrol and YASI on the Vectrex today, just brilliant.
Also, did well on Vectorblade, further than ever before, and the overlay makes a huge difference in the already great visuals.

o1s1n · 31-01-2021 10:36PM

Inviere wrote: »

Done. Sonic 3, finito.

.

Had a bit of a bash of it this evening, played it up to Carnival Night zone and will continue from there tomorrow.

I'd forgotten how good the music was, absolutely fantastic as you said, some very catchy tunes. Visually it's also a lot nicer looking that I remember too.

Is it just me or does it really likes to punish you for taking chances though? there were a lot of times I'd take a chance and jump in a direction only to land in a spike trap or get caught out by an enemy, recover and then have it happen way too soon again.

I'm sure it's much better once you're familiar with the levels and I might just know the first two Sonic games a bit too much by heart at this point while comparing them..it just seemed a bit badly done at times.

And yep, levels are far too big and long. Really noticed a lot of 'this way!' Type direction arrows which always just scream bad level design to me.

Hitting six to seven minutes on the clock counter plus is crazy for a Sonic game really start to lose interest at that point.

Still, all that aside it's a much better game than I remember, looking forward to playing the rest tomorrow.

MrVestek · 31-01-2021 11:25PM

Inviere wrote: »

Done. Sonic 3, finito.

I got through it quite handily after the initial bit of practice. Quite enjoyable in the end, but again, just didn't feel as 'tight' as Sonic 1 or 2 in terms of overall subjective 'feel' of the game. A few things to note:

1) The first 3/4 of the game flow together quite nicely, but you can definitely tell there's something fractured about it toward the end. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's clear enough the game was meant to be bigger. The change from Ice Cap to Launch Base is just too stark, with no real flow in it...again, hard to describe, but noticeable.

2) The music all the way up to the final zone is the usual high standard. The final zone though, jesus....awful awful repetitive crap. The music for me in Sonic games is a huge part of what makes them great, so it's a shame this one couldn't end on a high note. The Michael Jackson connection does seem evident in places when you listen to comparison videos.

3) There's some slight disparity in difficulty, sometimes even within the same Act. Ice Cap 1 is a bit of a monster compared to Ice Cap 2, which you can breeze through quite easily. Carnival Zone Act 2 is just a sprawling maze-like endurance test. Launch Base 2 can be very tight on time, particularly with the clock ticking away away during 'cut scenes' too. I beat Robotnik with less than a minute to go on the timer.

All in all, glad to have beaten it in a single sitting (no continues or saves), and can now tick it off the list. Onto Sonic & Knuckles next - another game I've only played about with & never gave proper time to.

Give Sonic 3 Complete a go. It's Sonic 3&K married back together the way it was originally meant to be.

Inviere · 01-02-2021 08:49AM

o1s1n wrote: »

Is it just me or does it really likes to punish you for taking chances though? there were a lot of times I'd take a chance and jump in a direction only to land in a spike trap or get caught out by an enemy, recover and then have it happen way too soon again.

I'm sure it's much better once you're familiar with the levels and I might just know the first two Sonic games a bit too much by heart at this point while comparing them..it just seemed a bit badly done at times.

I'd the EXACT same thoughts. I can't tell you how many times I said the word "CHEAP!" out loud playing through it....there definitely seems to be enemies placed exactly where a player happens to be when jumping, or falling from a jump. I know this happened in the previous games too, but this just seems worse for it. I was wondering them if it was just my familiarity with the previous games that stops me noticing it...

And yep, levels are far too big and long. Really noticed a lot of 'this way!' Type direction arrows which always just scream bad level design to me.

Hitting six to seven minutes on the clock counter plus is crazy for a Sonic game really start to lose interest at that point..

It really is. Sonic works best with short, well designed levels (three of them, with ascending difficulty). These ~8 minute mazes definitely make me more inclined to quit & save, as opposed to giving me the "just one more go" feeling.

All that said, I quite enjoyed it, final level with its godawful music loop notwithstanding.

MrVestek wrote: »

Give Sonic 3 Complete a go. It's Sonic 3&K married back together the way it was originally meant to be.

Aye I have it here. My OCD kicks in at the thought of not completing vanilla Sonic 3 & Sonic & Knuckles first. I only read yesterday that Sonic & Knuckles played with Knuckles isn't actually the same game as playing it with Sonic....always thought they were the same, just with different characters....so that'll have to go onto the list:

Sonic 1 - DONE
Sonic 2 - DONE
Sonic CD
Sonic 3 - DONE
Sonic & Knuckles (Sonic) - STARTING TODAY
Sonic & Knuckles (Knuckles)
Sonic 2 & Knuckles
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic 3 Complete

This is obviously an ongoing project

I'm switching to The Last of US 2 after I beat Sonic & Knuckles with Sonic

Retr0gamer · 01-02-2021 10:02AM

Last of Us 2 is disappointment in digital form.

Inviere · 01-02-2021 11:45AM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Last of Us 2 is disappointment in digital form.

I really missed dungeons in Breath of the Wild, so I'm no stranger to that concept

Retr0gamer · 01-02-2021 11:55AM

Inviere wrote: »

I really missed dungeons in Breath of the Wild, so I'm no stranger to that concept

Yeah, but breath of the wild is awesome.

Last of Us 2 is worth playing as it's kind of an interesting game, but at the end I had the feeling that it wasn't worth playing

I wouldn't have minded it so much if it wasn't so fecking long. It kind of verges into feeling like the game wastes your time.

Inviere · 01-02-2021 12:01PM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yeah, but breath of the wild is awesome.

I enjoyed it, and the open world is an achievement in itself (they really did create a living place)....but strictly as a Zelda game....I dunno, the lack of dungeons kinda killed it for me

Last of Us 2 is worth playing as it's kind of an interesting game, but at the end I had the feeling that it wasn't worth playing I wouldn't have minded it so much if it wasn't so fecking long. It kind of verges into feeling like the game wastes your time.

Hmm, hopefully I come back here to disagree with that....

Retr0gamer · 01-02-2021 12:04PM

Sure play it and find out for yourself. I just found that took way too long to say absolutely nothing and the characters were all one dimensional compared to the nuance character study that the first was.

So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

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