Currently playing...

[RastanSaga]

Gun.Smoke. Japanese ps1 game book collection.

 

[gunrock]

Just finished FFT:War Of The Lions after 150-200 hours. The endgame was a breeze due to my obsessive grinding on and off for 7 years or so. Still, a class act.

 

Can't decide whether to play Jeanne D'Arc next or something a bit different...

[deKay]

Up to the final dungeon on Phantasy Star III. Seems so much easier than back in the day, with far less grinding! Mind you, I've just come from Phantasy Star II which had a LOT of grinding so maybe it's just relative.

[deKay]

And done! Awesome game.

 

I'd forgotten about the quality of the arses later on though:

 

[deKay]

And started PSIV today. Yesssss

[Camel]

Kirby's Dream Course

[RastanSaga]

Double Dragon.

Just got it today....

[gunrock]

@RastanSagaNever played the GB version of it. Is it any good?

[RastanSaga]

4 minutes ago, gunrock said:

@RastanSagaNever played the GB version of it. Is it any good?

 

I'm really enjoying it..Yes..

Up to stage 4 now.

Enjoyable little gb title

[Alexlotl]

Closing in on the end of FFIV, and I’ve got to be honest, I’ll be quite glad when it’s over. The Giant of Babil was a total letdown - I was expecting something huge, the Tower itself to turn into a robot or something. Back to the moon now, and the final dungeon. Which is another ducking cave. 

 

I remember feeling a similar way about Phantasy Star 2 when I finally clocked that, and like PS2, this is a game I’d bounced off many times in the past finally made bearable through modern patches. This isn’t an unfinished hot mess like PS2 was, but it has less character, hasn’t aged that well (inventory management yay) and the random encounter rate is similarly fatiguing. It’s starting to feel like work at times. 

 

Hoping to have it done and dusted by the time my Mega SG arrives, or it’ll probably get lost in the wash.

[Ninja Doctor]

Are you playing it on ds? 

[DeDeDe]

Playing Symphony of the Night for the first time, on the Vita. I've actually been on a Metroidvania kick over the past three months or so, and after listening to a few podcasts about the history of the sub-genre, I thought I'd go back to its non-Super Metroid origins.

 

A few thoughts: 

• I'm surprised at how open and non-linear the game world is. Super Metroid creates the wonderful illusion that you're exploring an open world, but, unless you know what you're doing, it can be quite linear. This is not really the case with SOTN where, after the initial two hours, you're left to your own devices.
• The non-linear nature, along with the clunky menus, might have worked against the game, though; I can see a case where someone would have flown up towards the final boss and finished the game without knowing about the second half of the game.
• I had actually bought the soundtrack to this game about ten years ago, and, although the element of surprise is gone, the music itself hasn't aged at all. Metroidvania games usually go for an atmospheric approach, but SOTN is defiantly different.
• ... Except for the song over the credits. I wonder if it was put there as a joke by the composer.
• More than other Metroidvania games I've played, SOTN makes almost physical the sense of progression in the game. By the time you get the bat transformation ability, your approach to the castle has changed completely, and the sense of freedom you get by how smoothly you traipse through the castle surprised me.

I haven't played any Castlevania game post-SOTN, so I didn't know what to expect. Playing the game twenty-two years after its initial release, I've been spoiled on a few things, but it's been an amazing experience so far.

 

The only thing that annoyed me in the beginning was the aspect ratio of the game. I suspect the PSN (PSX) version has the wrong display ratio set as default. It squashes the frame into sort-of widescreen when it should be closer to 4:3. Changing the ratio is trivial, but it's something to keep in mind.

[Vimster]

10 hours ago, Alexlotl said:

Closing in on the end of FFIV, and I’ve got to be honest, I’ll be quite glad when it’s over. The Giant of Babil was a total letdown - I was expecting something huge, the Tower itself to turn into a robot or something. Back to the moon now, and the final dungeon. Which is another ducking cave. 

 

I remember feeling a similar way about Phantasy Star 2 when I finally clocked that, and like PS2, this is a game I’d bounced off many times in the past finally made bearable through modern patches. This isn’t an unfinished hot mess like PS2 was, but it has less character, hasn’t aged that well (inventory management yay) and the random encounter rate is similarly fatiguing. It’s starting to feel like work at times. 

 

Hoping to have it done and dusted by the time my Mega SG arrives, or it’ll probably get lost in the wash.

Hats off to you. I tried the PSP remake a while back and the random battles made me want to punch things.

[Alexlotl]

3 hours ago, Ninja Doctor said:

Are you playing it on ds? 

 

Thankfully no, or I understand there would be even more dungeons. This is FF4 Namingway Edition for the SNES (essentially restoration of all FF4j features to FF2US, with a decent script), which I'm playing on Super NT / SD2SNES.

[Sprite Machine]

Micro Machines V3 (PS1). Challenge, battle and time trial modes (1-player).

Harder than I remember! Was I always so shit at this?

[RastanSaga]

Shinobi Sega master system.

[Alexlotl]

Great adaptation of the arcade game, and adding a life meter makes it the proper ancestor of the Mega Drive Shinobi games (the series peak, IMO). I find it damned hard, though!

[RastanSaga]

6 minutes ago, Alexlotl said:

Great adaptation of the arcade game, and adding a life meter makes it the proper ancestor of the Mega Drive Shinobi games (the series peak, IMO). I find it damned hard, though!

 

I still haven't finished it.....I'm trying though!

 

 

[RastanSaga]

Iirc last time I had the sms set up, I couldn't work out the final boss.

I'm just about getting to stage 4 after a bit of a session.

Mandara is harder if you've died before, I can't remember the right points, but I think you need a power up with gun...otherwise is just a nightmare!

 

Maybe I'll beat it this time, I have about 5 retro games on the go, which I'm falling at the final hurdle....!

[Alexlotl]

Clogging through the final dungeon in FFIV. It’s a bit of a romp, TBH - my crew are hard as nails at this point, and if I get in any serious pickle I can just summon Bahamut, which feels kind of like a cheat mode.

 

There’s some fun equipment strategy in this game, rather than just always equip the latest and greatest. Edge is using a boomerang which isn’t hugely powerful, but does let him do full damage from the back row with both his weapons, even if the other one isn’t ranged. His other weapon is a dagger which again isn’t great shakes, except it does 4x damage to mages, which his dungeon is full of. Cecil and Kane each have Ice Armor, Diamond Helmets and Flame Shields - fairly old gear, but that combo makes them immune to ice, fire and lightning attacks. 

 

Anyway, got to get it finished by Tuesday, when the Mega SG arrives!

[RastanSaga]

Famicom in session. Love Saturday's.

I'm going to add to my famicom collection next week (with a couple of sms and md games too)

 

 

[RastanSaga]

Addictive!

DK Jr 1982.

 

Going back to it after the snooker.

[Sprite Machine]

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (PS1). I've never played this before (or any of the Oddworld series) but it's one of those early PS1 games I used to hear people raving about at school. "Hurr-hurr, you can make fart noises."

 

It's a 'precision' 2D platformer in the vein of Another World and Flashback... and although not as conventionally pretty, the use of prerendered 3D art and FMV transitions between screens is actually quite impressive.

Bloody hard, though. And surprisingly labyrinthine - I'm giving up routes to go to other routes and I'm sure I'm missing lots of things along the way.

[DeDeDe]

After about 13 hours of playtime, I finally finished Symphony of the Night. It's an odd feeling. I've been living in the world of SOTN for the past month, so to see it come to an end is somewhat sad. After I completed the game for the first time with something like 191% clear percentage, I went back to it for a few more times to get more items (Crissaegrim!) and to get that percentage up to get the true ending, but after all of that, it feels like the end of an amazing journey.

 

Despite what how it has been portrayed, I felt like the inverted section chapter of the game was, due to Alucard's abilities, the last quarter of the game. It masterfully hides it in the beginning with a sense of dread and the fear of the known unknown when you first teleport to the inverted castle, which in turn made it longer than I'd expected to get used to the new-but-familiar castle. But the game really opens when I beat the second boss and I realized that the whole castle was open to me.

 

Comparing notes with a few walkthroughs after I beat the game, I now realize that I unwittingly chose one of the harder routes to go through the castle. I also made a mistake in the first castle, making some bosses much more difficult than they should have been, but this was exacerbated in the boss fight with Galamoth, which I faced with basically nothing to shield me from electricity attacks.

 

That's the appeal of SOTN, however: there are a lot of rough edges and places that are unbalanced, and some of them, such as Crissaegrim or the Shield Rod+Alucard Shield can legitimately spoil the game. But it's all because of the open nature of the game, and it feels like everyone who plays through the game plays their own unique experience.

 

What an amazing, amazing game.

[Fry Crayola]

On 26/03/2019 at 16:46, Sprite Machine said:

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (PS1). I've never played this before (or any of the Oddworld series) but it's one of those early PS1 games I used to hear people raving about at school. "Hurr-hurr, you can make fart noises."

 

It's a 'precision' 2D platformer in the vein of Another World and Flashback... and although not as conventionally pretty, the use of prerendered 3D art and FMV transitions between screens is actually quite impressive.

Bloody hard, though. And surprisingly labyrinthine - I'm giving up routes to go to other routes and I'm sure I'm missing lots of things along the way.

 

If I remember right, most other routes lead to hidden Mudokons to save. There's a straight linear path through the game and then branches for secrets, but not much in the way of genuine multiple paths.

[Sprite Machine]

4 hours ago, Fry Crayola said:

 

If I remember right, most other routes lead to hidden Mudokons to save. There's a straight linear path through the game and then branches for secrets, but not much in the way of genuine multiple paths.

Yes, this seems to be the case. I've found a few portals back to the factory, although I can't seem to rescue any of the Mudokons or get back out again without dying.

I doubt I'll get the 'good' ending at this rate.
EDIT: Solved one room, saved three Mudokons, but it took an hour and countless save state reloads. Absolutely bastard hard!

I've nearly cleared the Scrabania section. That's sort of non-linear at the end, with the hub area. It's pretty good! Damned hard, it's just death-death-death-death-success! But at least there's infinite lives.

[Alexlotl]

I've been playing Outrun on the Mega SG, using Pyron's arcade colour fix romhack via Everdrive. It's pretty good! I've never really managed to get into Outrun before, but something has finally clicked. It's a decent port, once the colours are fixed - fast, and sounds great (although why anyone listens to anything other than Magical Sound Shower, I don't know). I understand it has the Japanese layout rather than the Western one, but as someone unfamiliar with the series this isn't bothering me. Managed to get to Stage 5 once or twice, but yet to make it over the finish line - I still haven't quite worked out how to do chicanes without screwing up.

 

Also gave the SMS port a pop, and it's pretty incredible for the system, implementing the hills and everything. The FM synthesis isn't great, though, and your car is prone to swing all over the track after coming out of a corner.

[RastanSaga]

[Alexlotl]

Finally got my Sega Paddle working with the Mega SG, and spent the evening playing Megumi Rescue and Alex Kidd BMX Challenge with my wife. She's not much of a gamer, but the novelty and immediacy of the paddle drew her in. She was laughing like a drain at Alex Kidd in particular - it's pretty basic gameplay wise, but looks and sounds great, with some fantastic animation and one of the best bits of Master System FM.

 

A bit worried she was going to rage chuck the paddle at one point though, and I didn't dare tell her what it cost

[Sprite Machine]

On 28/03/2019 at 10:41, Sprite Machine said:

Yes, this seems to be the case. I've found a few portals back to the factory, although I can't seem to rescue any of the Mudokons or get back out again without dying.

I doubt I'll get the 'good' ending at this rate.

Completed Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee but, as expect, got the "bad ending". I have no desire to run through it again looking for more mudokons, so it's done. It's very much a game of trial and error (or "death-death-death-death-advance"), and eking slow progress out of exploiting every quirk of the game's mechanics. I don't think I've ever died so many times playing anything!