So with SMT4: Apocalypse beat I decided to play another 3DS game, Super Mario 3D Land. I never actually finished this one back in the day. It's also way older than I expected so I guess it's retro.
If you are talking about RPGs most NES RPGs are kind of basic, it took until Dragon Quest 4 and FF4 for JRPGs to become modern. DQ4 is better played on DS. One I'd recommend is Lagrange Point. It's a fairly basic RPG but the cart had a FM chip built in and it's by Konami so the music is incredible.
Radia Senki is a good Action RPG
If you want something really unique I'd recommend Metal Max. Not only is it a tank based RPG but it's also an open world game. And I don't mean open world as in the modern sense. It really gives the player a massive amount of freedom to do anything, even if anything is take on a super boss before they've left the starting areas.
For action games can't go wrong with Konami.
Castlevania 3 is a much better game on Famicom as it's not as mean with enemy damage.
The Wai Wai World games are a great bit of Konami fan service.
I've also been meaning to get back Arumana no Kiseki (miracle of almana), a konami platformer with a tricky movement mechanic but is a lot of fun once you get used to it.
The white square items just labelled 'slide' were the peak of it for me. I thought they were actual slides you'd to sit on to slide into another area. Spent ages wandering around trying to figure out where you'd sit on them. At one point there's a train track in the basement and I was convinced it was something to do with that.
Don't want to give too much away for anyone else who wants to play the game but feel it is my civic duty to inform anyone I meet -these are actually projector slides!
How in god's name were you meant to know that.
Either way, great game. Trying to figure out what to play next now, any other good Japanese only fan translated NES games you can think of?
Actually I might go back to Rent a Hero on the Megadrive and finish it this time.
Yep some of those puzzles were a bit... 8bit in how esoteric they are. Still a really unique enjoyable game.
And that's Sweet Home done.
I can 100% say I would not have finished that without a guide. :eek:
Trying to kill Emporer Ing in Metroid Prime 2. Got through a few stages at lunch. Had much less success this evening.
It’s hard on thumbs in their 40s.
You can't really get away with that game design anymore but sometimes it can be interesting when a game has the threat of having the player end up in an unwinnable situation. Resident Evil carried it forward I feel with the limited amount of ammo.
I never thought of it that way but you're totally right, there's definitely that roguelike element where you have to die to figure some rooms out and then don't repeat the same mistake on the next playthrough.
That theory is really backed up by the save/reset game function being so available and easy to use in the menu.
I came across a few areas I knew would be game breaking if I ran out of certain items and I did have one character get irretrievably stuck when a plank broke at the wrong time. It would be nice if the game took these into account but the game is short enough and with some pseudo rogue like elements anyway that I think it's ok that the game lets you **** up so you will be better next time. Glad to see you sticking with it.
Never hard of that, actually looks like a bit of fun. Reminds me a bit of Micro Machines mixed with Propeller Arena.
I'm almost through Sweet Home. There were definitely a couple of obtuse puzzles I had to get a bit of guidance on.
It was mainly due to the random battles though as mentioned above, it doesn't work well in that regard with the exploration elements.
There is also a really REALLY annoying attack a lot of enemies have later in the game, where they send one of your characters off to a random part of the mansion.
So there you are, trying to wander around figuring out the puzzles and where to go next, random battle - the enemy uses this attack and a character is then sent off miles away.
The character is trying to make their way back to the rest of the team and they get stuck on something, they don't have the item to get unstuck, so you have to then get one of your other characters to find said item and go to fish them out... but no, that character is now in a random battle and the same enemy has used the same attack on them and they've been sent off somewhere random too.
Luckily within the menu there's a quit button and you can load your last save. Actually the whole save feature is really really good. Can save anywhere and reload at any time you want.
I actually came across a game breaking bug which had no way out of other than reloading the last save. Thought that was something interesting to find in a game from '89.
Things that make the bug possible:
When you walk into a new room, you cant just walk back out the door, you have to walk one square into the room and then you can walk back out.
You can't walk through your team mates.
Here's the bug for anyone that's interested: (excuse the below blurry photo, took it in a rage as I hadn't saved in ages)
The four guys in a line in the middle are my team.
I'd first walked the three guys in front of the door into the room and stopped them where they are now.
I then walked the guy in white standing in the door into the room - he is now stuck and can't go forward into the room because he's blocked by characters, he also can't go back out the door as he needs to step into the room first.
Usually what you'd do here is select the three guys ahead of the stuck guy, move them into the room, the stuck guy can now walk in.
Problem which arose:
The guy stuck in the door is now holding a key item that triggers a cut scene which makes the guy on the top appear.
In this cut scene, you have to follow the guy who has appeared. You can't select the menu, so have no way of switching to anyone else.
The only character you can move is the guy stuck in the door with the key item and he can't go backwards or forwards.
Only option is to reload your last save. In this case, I think I hadn't saved in about an hour. You can get a lot done in an hour playing this game so it was definitely rage inducing.
So if anyone is going to play this, save and save often!
Had a craving to play Toy Commander on the Dreamcast, not the best gameplay so I'm not sure if it was very popular or well received but I always liked the novelty of driving or flying around in toy sized vehicles.
When I bought the first gen of the Turbo Everdrive, first release too, I found a bug and reported it via the relevant forum.
I got a reply from the man himself and an update was subsequently sent out to everyone who owned one.
I felt all kinds of special!
Started noticing it getting much easier through a long playthrough last night. The nature of the game being a survival horror means exploration and backtracking - however when coupled with RPG style levelling and random battles, you get accidental over-levelling.
Fights are now basically just press attack over and over until the monster is dead.
Not the main draw of the game either way, but it means the challenges are more around the puzzles. I am determined to hold out and not use an FAQ, so far so good... I'm sure something crazy obtuse is soon to come along though!
I ran through it at Halloween. It's a great game, my two complaints are that it gets significantly easier as you progress and you might need a faq at someof the more obtuse puzzles. Highly recommend it though as it's a unique experience and really works well as a horror game.
I am really looking forward to getting around to that game man, it's obviously as good as it's made out to be. Didn't @Retr0gamer do a run through of it relatively recently?
This game is absolutely brilliant. You really can tell immediately that Resident Evil was originally going to be a Sweet Home remake.
I got shivers the first time I opened a door, was greeted with an animation of a door slowly opening, basically an 8 bit version of the Resident Evil loading screen between areas. Literally where it all started.
It has everything, resource management, limited slots to move your items into, wondering what items are actually used for, very Resident Evil-esque puzzles.
Couple that with turn based RPG battles and it's a really hard game to put down.
It almost feels like a modern retro 8 bit game, using 32 bit era game mechanics. Really hard to describe, such a shame it was never released in the west.
Fairly obvious reasons as to why :D - gore aplenty on the Famicom, would loved to have seen the faces on Nintendo of America when someone brought over a Famicom preview cartridge.
Back in business! Worked a treat
Oh the N8, I did remember reading somewhere that it was OK'd by Krikzz. Hard to find text but I found this;
"...there does exist an officially released Chinese Everdrive N8 build available only in China. This build is not designed for buyers outside of China and will not be repaired by Krikzz under his warranty policy"
Prob not for the other Everdrive type products
Absolutely, he's a class act. I was buying a few bits on Ali there just this morning, and the amount of bootleg Everdrive rubbish popping up was unreal.
Oh 100%, especially given it's a man trying to make a living in Ukraine! Was more just wondering about it from a technical standpoint.
I contacted Krikzz a little while ago about my broken Turbo Everdrive v1 (more to see if there was anything I could do to get it going myself) and he actually said I could return it for free to be fixed. This is a ten year old used product.
Once the postal address of Ukraine was sent along I decided to leave it, thought it would be taking the piss all things considered. Happy to just buy a Pro instead and see it as an upgrade.
I know they're cheaper and might seem the obvious solution, but I'd always advocate for giving Krikzz (and other actual hardware/software developers involved in other legit products) your hard earned money, rather than someone who just cloned his work and is selling it under their own name. Plus, you'd be getting a far higher standard of device, with continued support for years later.
Need to share that video with the other half :) so very true.
I believe the China versions have all the features of the 'legit' versions of the same F/W version - but they make it clear to not update'em, as I take it that Krikzz might have things in newer F/W which breaks the clones.
Do those Chinese N8 clones have many options on them? I see there's now an N8 Pro Everdrive with loads of bells and whistles, half tempted to save up a few eurons and pick one up along with the Turbo Everdrive Pro.
Haha yeah I feel your pain, it always reminds me of this scene from Malcom in the Middle
First thing I thought reading that was, is the N8 card a China version? Seemily those can't be upgraded, if they are they get bricked...I haven't dared to find out :D
But yes, I pop out to have a look at a game/machine for '5min' as I tell the boss and a hour or so later I arrive back f'ing and blinding that ever I was to look at as it doesn't work or needs fixing. Retrogaming is fun!
Ever sit down to play a game some evening, have it all go tits up and two hours later you're suddenly surrounded by screwdrivers and pieces of electronics?
Had a bit of time this evening to sit down and continue playing Sweet Home. It's a game I've been meaning to play for years, so finally decided to stick a translated rom image on my Everdrive N8 last night and had a crack at it. It's absolutely brilliant, got about 2 hours in, saved and left it there.
Thought I'd pick up this evening - save not there. Poo!
Fecked about with the N8 and it turns out the firmware I have on it is from 2013 and the newer ones had save state support, so whipped out the micro SD, updated the firmware and got it going again. Save stats were now working, hurrah!
Turned the console off and back on again to see if my saves were still there - I get an error saying the Everdrive had been reset to the default settings (with save states off)
Rather puzzled by this and with much messing about, it occurred to me that the N8 has a CR2032 battery inside. It's ten years old so it must have died and as a result, isn't saving my changes. No big deal, I've loads of them here, so would open it up, change the battery and start Sweet Home again.
I've never actually opened a Famicom cart case before. Did notice before that there were no screws, but thought it must have just popped open. Oh how wrong I was! They are an absolute pain in the TITS to open without breaking the internal tabs that hold both halves of the shell together. I actually had to look up a youtube video.
Finally got it open, no tabs broken but some cracks along the way...about to go and look for my stash of CR2032 batteries and I notice that the battery on the board is a bit smaller. What the absolute feck - it's a CR1220. A button cell battery I have never seen nor used before.
So off to ebay I went to order one. No Sweet Home for me this evening. Couldn't even close the N8 PCB back up into the cartridge shell as it was such a pain in the hoop to open in the first place.
Retrogaming, eh?? 😂
Those Ikea Kallax units can have their cubes split in half, so two consoles per cube (if the console fits.) Makes a reeeeaallly nice display. If you were able to consolidate your consoles into a much smaller space Cidey, it could leave a lot more space for games, shelves, etc etc. You could put the main consoles into action on display, and have the more obscure stuff semi-stored but easily accessible and easily put into use. Here's x13 consoles on a very simple 8x2 unit. You can buy these in bigger and smaller sizes, and combine them etc.
I don't know what might be possible, to be honest.
This will require some delicate negotiations with the venue manager (aka Mrs Ciderman) and see what can be done.
The spare room is supposed to be my art studio but, with one thing and another, I haven't quite got that mojo back yet.
Like the Wii U - for me there is too big a disconnect looking from TV down to device. Works with some stuff, but not where you need to see both screens "at once".
That's the one big downside of attic rooms alright, vertical space. I love games on shelves and it's almost impossible to do with that kind of shaped space.
Would it be possible to partition the room into two spaces with shelving maybe? I've seen some great uses of shelves to split a room in half.
Re the DS titles, I wonder could a compromise be met as you have a screen in your hands with the Switch and also a TV in front of you. Some games might work in a hybrid TV/Switch mode, with the TV being the top screen and the Switch screen being the bottom.
