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MattyP

By MattyP,
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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Ninja Doctor

Ninja Doctor

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So although I know most of the game I’ve never played through ocarina of time in its entirety. It came out whilst I was at uni and my housemate at the time played through it with us all taking turns. 
 

anyway, to celebrate buying a switch and botw I’m playing ocarina first. Currently up to the forest temple as a big boy. Definitely finding it more fun than oracle of ages. 

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Goemon

Goemon

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Just finished Mercs Arcade Mode on the Megadrive. I remember finding this one tough as a kid but as an adult I was able to see how to deal with situations pretty quickly, it probably only took me 3-4 hours. There’s an excellent original mode too which I tried afterwards and feel like there’s more scope for learning there.

 

The more I play old school games the more I feel they’re (or at least some) are not as bad as people think.

 

People say in Dark Souls to treat death as a learning experience like it’s something unique, but really that’s all you ever do in old school games. 
When I played Chiki Chiki boys a few weeks back, the first time I played it I didn’t even finish the first level before I died as you only get 2 lives before it’s game over. I remember thinking, that’s pretty ridiculous but after a few hours of learning I totally understood why it was 2 lives only.

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Alexlotl

Alexlotl

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On the toughness of 16-bit games, it’s worth noting that a lot of them had their difficulties jacked for western release in response to the rise of video stores renting out carts. They didn’t want people to finish the game on one rental, then never buy it. 

 

That was done to SoR3, some Contra games, all the Working Designs RPGs and quite a few others. These days I tend to check whether there’s a restoration patch on Romhacking.net before starting something new. 

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Yasawas

Yasawas

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Aye, this is hugely noticeable on the recent Konami collections. I've played through Castlevania, Castlevania 3, Bloodlines and Contra Hard Corps in their Japanese forms after doing a bit of research. The rental angle never actually occurred to me although it should've - that's pretty interesting.

 

This is more of a general retro point but it's infuriating to listen to podcasts or read forum posts now by (usually) Americans who have instinctive muscle memory for these games from their formative years refer to them as though they're easy, or at most nothing especially taxing, when coming to them fresh as an average gamer of some experience they can be really fucking hard! Yes, I've been try to get further in Mega Man X2 again.

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Qazimod

Qazimod

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9 hours ago, Yasawas said:

This is more of a general retro point but it's infuriating to listen to podcasts or read forum posts now by (usually) Americans who have instinctive muscle memory for these games from their formative years refer to them as though they're easy, or at most nothing especially taxing, when coming to them fresh as an average gamer of some experience they can be really fucking hard! Yes, I've been try to get further in Mega Man X2 again.

 

I have that issue with my past self - going from having enough spare time (and less disposable income) to stick with a single game and figure out nearly everything... to coming back 20-25 years later and not knowing how I was even able to get past the second level of the game... :blush:

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Yasawas

Yasawas

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5 hours ago, Qazimod said:

 

I have that issue with my past self - going from having enough spare time (and less disposable income) to stick with a single game and figure out nearly everything... to coming back 20-25 years later and not knowing how I was even able to get past the second level of the game... :blush:

 

Oh God yes, that too. The Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 is my big mystery - how on Earth did I have the patience never mind the skill at one point for that?

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Alexlotl

Alexlotl

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My Switch has died, so I'm playing Chrono Trigger on the Super NT - the US ROM with this bugfix patch applied.

 

It's obviously pretty great! Impact of the patch not too obvious so far (Toma drinks cider, humans refer to Magus as The Fiendlord and Mystics as Fiends), but it's just always a pleasure to play this game, and this is the first time I've done so outside of an emulator. Decided to actually use my perma-stat-boost tabs as I go along this time, instead of stockpiling them and never really getting around to using them out of fear of doing it wrong. +1 power in the early game is not to be sniffed at! Just cleared the cathedral and got Marle back - I will miss Frog's attack power.

 

I did try playing the Ted Woosley Uncensored version of FFVI instead, but it was a bit unstable - suspect my ROM wasn't good.

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RastanSaga

RastanSaga

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Kid Niki Radical Ninja - famicom.

I finished the 2nd a while back...still can't finish stage 8 on original game.

 

I love this port..

 

The plan is finish this, and pick up the arcade board (cash permitting)

 

The music is its biggest drawback, it's too repetitive, which is a shame because everything else is wonderful. 1987.

IMG_20191108_235145.jpg

IMG_20191108_235120.jpg

IMG_20191108_235107.jpg

IMG_20191108_235056.jpg

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nakamura

nakamura

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On 25/10/2019 at 12:41, Nathan Wind said:

Grandia 2 absolutely awful?  That's certainly an opinion.

 

 

It's full of obnoxious characters, mediocre music and uninspiring dialogue. It's crap. It felt childish and immature when I last played it on release. I can't imagine how bad it is now.

 

The first game is an utterly charming adventure. The complete opposite. 

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ScouserInExile

ScouserInExile

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Gran Turismo 3: A Spec (to give GT3 it's full, Sunday name).

 

To say this is a favourite of mine is an understatement. I'm fairly sure that this is, by far, the game I have played the most in my life. I really loved the first two games in the GT series, but this was a complete obsession for me. I got it on release (the day before, in fact. Someone who used to work for me went to Sony to be an assistant producer on it, so got me a copy early) and played it almost exclusively for years. And if I wasn't playing it, I was on various forums reading and talking about it or reading FAQs, finding new tunes or devising new strategies to get as far I'm with minimal effort...

 

I've recently played the first two in the series. The first one was a technical tour de force, but there actually wasn't a lot if game there and it wasn't a lot of fun to play - the handling was amazingly twitchy, there weren't many events which meant you had to grind to progress and the AI was just A.  GT2 improved on the game-ness with lots (and lots and lots) of events, with a decent competition structure that allowed a proper progression. Still a bit grindy, still crap AI, still stupidly twitchy.

 

So, to the first of the PS2 iterations: GT3. For me, this was the pinnacle of the series. I'm sure someone will tell me 4/5/6/Sport is better because reasons, but this was just spot on as far as I am concerned. It vastly improved the handling, though it leans much more towards understeer now. Fiddling with the car set up improves this a lot. The competition structure is a big, big improvement and hasn't really been bettered IMO: you get a lot of the same events, with stipulations like Mercedes / Audi / Mitsubishi Evo only, FWD only, Type-R only, across multiple race length and difficulties and a mix of single and league events. It's also quite generous with the prizes, so the grind is sufficiently lessened to the point where it vabishes, if you know what you're doing. It has a load of fantastic tracks that are a lot of fun the race on. The rally events could be a game on their own, they're that good. And the graphics, oh the graphics. I know "PS2 era" is an insult, but this still looks amazing. 

 

It's not without its faults. The AI is still dumb as dogshit. And it sometimes resorts to straight up cheating to ramp up the difficulty. There's also the problem that you can spend to win - there's no restrictions on things like horsepower in any of the races, so you can bring a metaphorical gun to a knife fight. The lack of car damage also means you can wall ride instead of actually going around corners or us AI cars as emergency brakes.

 

I find myself once more fully hooked. I picked up a save from a game I started a little while back (the early part of the game is where I find the most fun) and found myself planning my next steps while I was driving to work this morning.

 

I need to find the power supply for my wheel...

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ScouserInExile

ScouserInExile

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42 minutes ago, nakamura said:

GT3 has a good structure yes, but it's a shame it didn't have HP limits like the older games. 

The graphics, they are just incredible. It's the most vibrant one of the series and those replays are special. It's not my favourite, but it's damm good. 

Yep, Edge described it as needing to work for a good race, or words to that effect. You can definitely pay to win. I find a lot more fun in using something slightly less competitive. 

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nakamura

nakamura

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1 hour ago, ScouserInExile said:

Yep, Edge described it as needing to work for a good race, or words to that effect. You can definitely pay to win. I find a lot more fun in using something slightly less competitive. 

I remember being gutted about the loss of racing modifications. So many standard cars looking awesome!

I wish it had some form of rubber banding to keep it competitive. Or that HP thing. But, I still like it the most after the original. 

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RastanSaga

RastanSaga

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11 hours ago, spanky debrest said:

Out Zone is such a badass game. Nice find. 

 

Thank you man.

 

I had a friend over today, we played famicom.

I'm itching to get back to Outzone.

Pretty much have the first 2 stages down (without continuing)

 

Plan is to have a big session with it tomorrow....

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SeanR

SeanR

Posted
Posted

I was trying out game gear sonic games. The boy walks in.

 

”is that sonic?”

”yeah”

”got any Mario games?”

 

so I stuck SMW on for him, but I think he prefers SMB3, at least he expressed a preference when I showed him my smb3 cart...

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Riven

Riven

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Been playing Atari Lynx title, I've been impress with how good they and play, it's just a shame we got the model 1 version so it's a bit unwieldy, I finished Hydra on it, which is a decent arcade port. Also playing Switchblade II which is really well done on the system as a handheld game.

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