So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

megaten

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Yeah it got a great critical reception but poor sales. Must play it myself, got it for a fiver in a Gamestop and it's Level 5 which is usually a mark of quality.

Did it? I know it didn't do as well as the first dark cloud but I thought it did close enough to a million?

Such a shame rouge galaxy was so mediocre.

Retr0gamer

Rogue Galaxy was good but just too drawn out for it's own good. It should have been shorter with shorter dungeons.

o1s1n

megaten wrote: »

Is Dark Chronicle considered obscure? That's one fantastic game.

That's one game I saw a lot in game shops, always meant to pick up but never did. Cheers, I'll try and get my hands on that too.

Retr0gamer

If there's one Level 5 game you have to play it's Dragon Quest 8. It's fantastic. But play Persona 3 first :P

o1s1n

So which is better, Persona 3 or 4? I am hoping 3, as that means I get to play them in order! Or does order really matter?

Retr0gamer

Both are absolutely amazing games but persona 4 is the better game. However I'd advise playing Persona 3 first because I know a few people who find it hard to go back to Persona 3 after the improvements to P4 and it would be a shame to miss out of P3 because of this. So definitely start with Persona 3.

johnny_ultimate

Yup agree 100% with retr0 on that one.

Persona 4 is pretty much perfect IMO. It made the small improvements that sometimes stood out in 3. But 3 has a totally unique story too, so definitely worth a playthrough. And as soon as you're finished, there's the joy of realising there's an even better game waiting for you!

Plus Persona 3 has Junpei / Stupei, who's hilarious. Plus a final boss with a quite frankly absurd amount of phases. I've never had a battle as intense as my first hour and a half attempt! (I almost cried when I was killed right at the end)

Retr0gamer

I didn't have much trouble with the final boss but then I did cheesily beat the reaper and opened Monad which let me level up really quickly. Also did a lot of the subquests for your wan in the velvet room and used a faq for some of the later fusions. I've no shame :P. Have heard horror stories about that boss fight though and how tense and long it is. The ending is so worth it though.

megaten

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Rogue Galaxy was good but just too drawn out for it's own good. It should have been shorter with shorter dungeons.

True, it didn't really have enough hooks like Dark Chronicle to justify it's length.

o1s1n wrote: »

That's one game I saw a lot in game shops, always meant to pick up but never did. Cheers, I'll try and get my hands on that too.

You definitely should. Just set aside like half a memory card for it. It has a photo taking feature that takes up a ton of space.

johnny_ultimate

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I didn't have much trouble with the final boss but then I did cheesily beat the reaper and opened Monad which let me level up really quickly. Also did a lot of the subquests for your wan in the velvet room and used a faq for some of the later fusions. I've no shame :P. Have heard horror stories about that boss fight though and how tense and long it is. The ending is so worth it though.

I didn't fly through the game my any means, did quite a few side quests too. But clearly not enough to easily tackle that dastard. I remember reaching it, checking the time and wondering if I'd give it a go before bed. Think it was like half one, so I said **** it. With the pre-fight cutscenes I think next time I checked the time (after I died) it was something like half three :pac: Got it easily next time though, once I knew what superpowered move I had to look out for. Think I might have done some last minute grinding on the top floors too.

But yes, this is all leading to me re-emphasising that those who haven't played it should most definitely play it. Who'd have thought Japanese school dating sims could be so brilliant?

Retr0gamer

Japanese school dating and randomly generated dungeons. It sounds like one of the worst games ever and yet it's on of the best ever made

Retr0gamer

Made myself a bit sick of Valkyria Chronicles 2 so started playing Castlevania Dracula X chronicles. It's a great game but I don't see the point in having the original and SotN as unlockables. I might just stick to playing the original version because the 2D art in that version looks absolutely gorgeous, one of the best looking games ever while the 3D version is very drab and lacking in colour.

CrinkElite

I've gone and rekindled my obsession with Nethack.
It's a cruel f*cking game. :mad:

o1s1n

CrinkElite wrote: »

I've gone and rekindled my obsession with Nethack.
It's a cruel f*cking game. :mad:

Cruel and highly underappreciated. One of the best games ever made. It's insanely detailed.

Have you ever read stories by people who have ascended? Some of them are really epic and worth a read.

Retr0gamer

I used to have a screensaver for my laptop of an angband bot playing through the game. Never mad it to the top but everyone kept asking what the hell it was and it garnered a lot of attention. Me and my lab mate became quite fascinated whenever the main character started doing well. I really must set it up again.

o1s1n

That sounds pretty cool, would love to get a look at it.

I seriously doubt a bot could make a full ascension though. A lot of thought needs to go in to moves and it can take months. Guys get to a point where they've spent weeks on a game and spend a very long time mulling over each and every decision. One wrong move and you're dead. And that's it. No second try - all the way back to the start.

Look at the length of this guide. -

http://homepage.mac.com/mhjohnson/mag-r343.html

You should have a read of this ascension story. It's fantastic -

http://garote.bdmonkeys.net/nethack/index.html

da gamer

playing vectorman 2 on the mega drive at the moment. decent game, can be quite a challenge at times too

o1s1n

I always found the Vectorman games quite hard. Can't get very far in them at all!

I tried playing Deathsmiles this morning with that Hori EX2 I picked up yesterday and jesus christ, that ball top seam was driving me insane! It was like when you put on a pair of socks and there's a seam on the inside annoying you. Just had to stop playing.

Luckily I'd picked up a large lot of arcade parts a few years ago and happened to have some extra proper ball tops lying about.

Switched it out and it instantly feels a million times better. The buttons are going to have to be replaced next, they're not the best at all. Cant see them lasting very long.

Retr0gamer

Shouldn't have gotten the Hori then, it's a pain to replace buttons with decent ones.

o1s1n

It doesn't seem too difficult. From what I've read it's just a matter of desoldering the old buttons from the PCB and soldering on the new ones. I think there might be a bit of fiddling to get the new buttons to fit.

In fact, I probably don't even need to put 6 new buttons in as I'll only be using it for shooters.

o1s1n

Spent this afternoon playing We Love Katamari. And I have to say, the title is right. It's so much fun. Only problem, you don't notice how quickly time flies by while playing it!

Also made a start on Persona 4. Have Persona 3 too, but for some reason the master patch won't work on it. I spent ages trying to fix it but no joy. So I just gave in and started 4 instead.

OwaynOTT

ust been playing street fighter 2 turbo. Gone are the days when I could pass it without continues.
All I have to say is, I hated fighting Ryu when was small and I f**kin' hate him more now. I guess I just dont have the skills.

Waiting on Super street fighter 2 in post. Can't remember that but I use to own it. Any good?
Also is Alpha good? Never heard of that before or if I did I blocked it out because of Ryu being so prominent on the cover.

F**kinG Ryu.

mondeo

I was playing street fighter II special champion edition on the megadrive this morning. Ye Ryu is abit if a f*cker, sometimes I can get him no probs and others I just can't.


Turbo Outrun on my spectrum is my afternoon task. 16 levels on it and last night I got to 12 before storming out of the room! It's slow and I can hardly see the bends on the road:(.

CiDeRmAn

Was playing a spot of Ridge Racer 6 last night and it struck me how little the game has evolved since it's release.
In a few years we went from Ridge Racer, through Rage Racer to RRtype4, quite an advance while in the last 7 years we have had pretty much the same game, RR6, RR7, RR on the PSP, all basically the same with the only difference being slight alterations to the league system and the track available.
I wonder if the new Ridge Racer game on the way will up the ante a bit?

7sr2z3fely84g5

mondeo wrote: »

Turbo Outrun on my spectrum is my afternoon task. 16 levels on it and last night I got to 12 before storming out of the room! It's slow and I can hardly see the bends on the road:(.

Was too slow for it,look at the first one *tries not to laugh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN8Va4oMvxg

unky chop chop

OwaynOTT wrote: »

ust been playing street fighter 2 turbo. Gone are the days when I could pass it without continues.
All I have to say is, I hated fighting Ryu when was small and I f**kin' hate him more now. I guess I just dont have the skills.

Waiting on Super street fighter 2 in post. Can't remember that but I use to own it. Any good?
Also is Alpha good? Never heard of that before or if I did I blocked it out because of Ryu being so prominent on the cover.

F**kinG Ryu.

Super street fighter 4 is the best remake ever.Check over on fighting games forum for its fan base and regular tournaments.

If you hate ryu in 2 your not gonna be in a happy place in 4.:pac:

mondeo

Might have something to do with crappy coding from ocean. Surely turbo outrun could have been alot better on the spectrum. C64 version is very good though.

7sr2z3fely84g5

Posted some fave 128 games here- http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=72199707&postcount=25

unky chop chop

street fighter on the speccy is shocking.
The graphics are actually are marvel though. Unbelievable for their time
Check out the c64 release,an absolute mess:eek:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0YVz9MaHGM

Retr0gamer

mondeo wrote: »

Might have something to do with crappy coding from ocean. Surely turbo outrun could have been alot better on the spectrum. C64 version is very good though.

I saw Probe software in the title and instantly knew it was a stinker.

7sr2z3fely84g5

Forgot to mention this great port,c64/mig/sega port probably be well known,this was done quiet well on speccy-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY8yHMFNftA

OwaynOTT

Everyone will be happy to know Ive defeated Ryu on first attempt on four separate occasions last night.
Finally came across his weakness, repeated kicks to the face.
Surprisingly, that is also Eddie Honda's, Blanka's and Ken's weakness.

Got as far as Vega with no continues last night and bam! Got beat stupid. So gave up and flicked on the Fraiser box set for comfort.
Would of beat him but girlfriend started knitting and it threw my focus, thats my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Have to say Balrog is a useless character. Low kick, low kick, low kick, low kick and perfect.

Playing Turtles in Time later today. Used to love that game.

Retr0gamer

For CPU characters just bait them into doing a special and then punish. I found guile the toughest on harder difficulties due to the fact that the CPU can pull charge moves out of its ass without the need to charge for 2 seconds. Sagat is another tough customer but it's all about getting close enough through his tiger shot barrage to bait him into a tiger uppercut and punish. The difficulty being that if you get too close that tiger uppercut will take close to 25% of your health.

Mr.Saturn

OwaynOTT wrote: »

ust been playing street fighter 2 turbo. Gone are the days when I could pass it without continues.
All I have to say is, I hated fighting Ryu when was small and I f**kin' hate him more now. I guess I just dont have the skills.

Waiting on Super street fighter 2 in post. Can't remember that but I use to own it. Any good?
Also is Alpha good? Never heard of that before or if I did I blocked it out because of Ryu being so prominent on the cover.

F**kinG Ryu.

Alpha plays almost more like an SNK fighter, whatwith the slightly more methodical movement and the emphasis on defending. If you've a Dreamcast, I cannot recommend Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike enough. Actually, the majority of Capcom fighters on the Dreamcast are near perfect ways of wasting your life.

Cots1

Finally tracked down a copy of silent hill 2 should be good having just played the first one.

o1s1n

Cots1 wrote: »

Finally tracked down a copy of silent hill 2 should be good having just played the first one.

I had to stop playing Silent Hill 2 as I found it so bleak and oppressive it was putting me in a downer.

I'll have to get back to it. It's hard to though when you have things like Katamari to play

CiDeRmAn

I had to stop playing Silent Hill 2 at one time as well, as I had to change my pants...
That is one scary game, and I insisted on playing it at 2 in the morning...

Retr0gamer

Didn't find silent hill 2 thatscarybut my god is it depressing and oppressive. Also the ending I got was just horrible. If anyone that has beaten the game wants to look it up search youtube for the 'in water' silent hill 2 ending. I think it's by far and away the best ending in the game and very appropriate but god... it's not nice. Also, not much of a spoiler for the ending but I'll spoilerise it anyway

the actress that reads the letter at the end was fantastic. Jeremy Blaustein said that while they were recording it some people broke into tears and the actress really did break into tears while reading it.

Only two other games that have effected me more emotionally than silent hill 2 were the endings to earthbound and mother 3.

*sniff*

Cots1

Yeah i got a great deal on adverts for silent hill and a bunch of other games, just popped in Project ZERO really freaky game that one.

johnny_ultimate

I can't fault the atmosphere of either Silent Hill 2 or Project Zero - truly disturbing stuff.

It's the darn survival horror mechanics and game design that means I usually give up

NeoKubrick

Silent Hill 2 was a beautiful experience, but the "intentionally" clunky mechanics retard the playthrough; I gave up on Silent Hill 3. If you want the best Silent Hill experience, play it with headphones - every toilet break is welcome respite.

Strictly not retro, but virtually retro, I'm finally playing Crysis. The designers encourage boring turtle tactics but once you break free of that idiocy, the combat is good. The complexity of the options are a weak point.

I'm attempting to play Final Fantasy XII on the PCSX emulator but the framerate crawls. Anyone with any experience of getting the best out of this emulator? May pick up Jak 3 and play it.

Retr0gamer

A friend of mine has used it for Persona 3 and 4 and Ar Tonelico. He's got a ropey framerate as well which I'm sure is worse to deal with on the more real time FF12.

Retr0gamer

You are probably better off getting a PS2 to play PS2 games rather than emulators. I'm very pedantic with my emulation but still once you hit the 32-bit era and accelerated 3D you end up with inaccurate emulation that at worst can make games unplayable and usually end up with some graphical glitches. Also PCSX2 uses plugins which can be a mess to deal with and usually ends up with people trying to improve the graphics or other features further removing it from the original vision. Personally don't like them myself. This is just based of personal experience with the old epscxe and well, I am pedantic about emulation.

As for Project Zero, I own all the games but only ever played about 2 hours of the first one. Really should play more of that series.

CiDeRmAn

The scariest game I have ever played was FFVII, scary because after the 20th f'ing random battle I realised there would be another 20 hours of this line dancing, unavoidable crap.
This is simply my opinion, let the trolls/fanboys attack away.

Retr0gamer

The scariest game I ever played was Firewarrior. Scary because it actually existed :P

NeoKubrick

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You are probably better off getting a PS2 to play PS2 games rather than emulators. I'm very pedantic with my emulation but still once you hit the 32-bit era and accelerated 3D you end up with inaccurate emulation that at worst can make games unplayable and usually end up with some graphical glitches. Also PCSX2 uses plugins which can be a mess to deal with and usually ends up with people trying to improve the graphics or other features further removing it from the original vision. Personally don't like them myself. This is just based of personal experience with the old epscxe and well, I am pedantic about emulation.

As for Project Zero, I own all the games but only ever played about 2 hours of the first one. Really should play more of that series.

I'm not partial to the constant fucking about with them myself, but I spend half my time away from home. So, it's sometimes just practical.

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

The scariest game I have ever played was FFVII, scary because after the 20th f'ing random battle I realised there would be another 20 hours of this line dancing, unavoidable crap.
This is simply my opinion, let the trolls/fanboys attack away.

On a serious note, scariest games I have played were Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and IV: Oblivion. The games were so immersive and complemented by the first-person perspective, you were lulled into believing that you were at risk. I remember one night at three in the morning playing Morrowind and going to sleep (in-game) at an Inn and waking up and turning to see a Corspus attacking me. I was stuck between scared ****less and impressed that a game could achieve such genuine fear.

Cots1

Haven't really ever been scared from a game,thus my recent urge to play such games,saying that about 7 years ago played a bit too much theme park and had nightmares of running a theme park, too much pressure for my liking haven't gone back to it since.

tribesman78

Just got back out my copy of Birth of the federation. Man i loved this game.

CiDeRmAn

Thinking of Elder scrolls games, I may have jumped at times when rounding a corner, middle of reloading and bang, a super mutant stranding over me, a great game though, haven't made the jump to new Vegas at all, looks like more of the same.

Retr0gamer

Haha, couldn't get into Elder Scrolls myself. The bang of generic fantasy off it was over powering and I just got bored. When they added guns, gore and an interesting setting though I was hooked