So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

With Spirit Tracks out of the way I've the analogue pocket out again and playing two games.

First is Warioware Twisted which might be the best take on the Warioware formula. For a simple gyro they managed to come up with some really inventive uses of the tech. There's some real crazy stuff like a shortened version of super Mario Bros that rotates around a circle.

My cart seems to be a bit busted as it's not holding save data at all. Pretty sure all GBA games use nram so no need for a battery. At least the pocket has save states although the gyro goes a bit funky after loading and needs about 2 minutes lying down to recalibrate.

The other game is Dragon Warrior Monsters. This was very obviously put into production to ride the pokemon bandwagon but it's thankfully its own thing and quite different to pokemon. Dungeons are small but randomized and it's mostly about collecting monsters to take part in tournaments held in a central hub area. You can't really control your monsters, more just tell them what personality you want them to act as and they will grow differently depending on what personality you favour. It's a fun little game with lots of dragon quest whimsy and charm.

Playing some Batman Gameboy stuff. Forgot how good that 1990 Batman game is. So simple but still a blast with a cracking soundtrack.

Also played some return of the joker. What a ball buster of a game. Plays great, has that sun soft NES Batman controls but they only give you 1 life and the constant blind jumps due to the smaller screen real estate is annoying. Ive gotten to the last boss when I played this back in the day but never beat it. It plays great but it's just so mean.

Im addicted to breeding new monsters in Dragon Quest Monsters. If it gets any worse I might be in danger of a massive grant from the Irish government.

It's kind of mental going back to games like Quake which I didn't think too much of back in the day and being blown away because they have some gods honest level design. We really lost something when every game went to corridor shooters. The only place you get good level design now are boomer shooters and immersive sims and it's insane to me how immersive sims still haven't found the audience they deserve.

Decided to take a break from dragon warrior monsters to play Batman Return of the Joker on the Gameboy. This was a bit of a white whale as I remember I got to the last boss but never finished it.

Now I know why, the last boss is a bastard. The first phase is tough enough but he has a pattern you can exploit. The second phase he just throws so much garbage at you that it seems that you just have to out DPS him. Which I've not managed to do.

It's a fun game but really short. There's only 4 stages with the first 3 selectable from the start. The third stage is incredibly short compared to the others and feels more like a tech demo. I've seen long plays that beat the game in about 15 minutes. However it makes up for it with a very high difficulty. Stage 2 is very difficult and I've already mentioned the joker boss.

It's a sun soft Batman game and plays like a follow up to the NES Batman. The wall jump is here and feels great. It's a little too zoomed in though leading to a few unfair blind leaps until you know the stages. It's a gorgeous game as well. There's a great looking water effect in the first stage and the parallax on stage 3 is impressive. It sounds amazing as well with an excellent soundtrack by the same composer as Shovel Knight.

The NES game is amazing. It's the only western. Released game that used a non Nintendo mapper, it's the same mapper as Gimmick. The game really shouldn't be running on a NES.