So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition

Especially with all the moaning about Spiderman 2 being game of the year. Fine game and all but it's no links awakening. In fact I can't think of any year it would even be considered game of the year let alone 2023 which might be the strongest year for good games in 15 years.

I was also playing pilotwings last night while the analogue was updating and stuff.

I'm severely stuck on the 4th set of objectives, particularly the parachute one. The other 3 objectives are tough but doable but I've yet to land the parachute and there's no point continuing if you don't land it as you have to be near perfect in the other 3 to pass. The landing spot is pretty small and in the middle of a body of water and there's also a pretty strong wind as well to complicate things.

Thought it would be handy enough as Arino managed to finish it on a Game Centre CX episode but I guess I'm not even as good as a middle aged Japanese comedian.

I'm a dope. There's nothing wrong with the pilotwings parachute controls, I'd just forgotten how to play the game. Pressing back on the dpad slows your forward momentum making it much easier to find tune a landing.

Anyway I sat down to an evening of pilotwings and managed to beat. There was loads of frustration but it never felt like it was anything but my fault. The first four stages aren't too bad as long as you aren't a Muppet like me and remember the parachute controls. They end in a fun little shooter section with an Apache helicopter.

Beating this opens expert pilotwings, four more stages that are way more brutal. The challenges are slightly harder but made more difficult with weather effects like much stronger wind, ice and rain. The difficulty however isn't insane. If you mess up a stage you can go for the bonus stage on the parachute or rocket pack stage which gives you a chance at the extra points you need. If not then just play the level safe. Saying that I beat the final set of challenges by the skin of my teeth by getting the exact number of points I needed.

There's a final Apache stage at the end which is riddled with missile silos. I believe you are rescuing Mario's brother Luigi in this stage as I seem to remember it from game center cx but it looks like it was removed from the SNES version.

It's a real gem on the SNES, it might be a tech demo but they it's a game I could see myself replaying a lot with friends of I owned it back in the day.

I've played a good bit of it and got distracted. It's fantastic. Front mission 3 is an absolute gem on the ps1 but when front mission 4 came out it was a big disappointment and then never made it to the EU. FM5 went back to the gameplay of FM3 and was so much better. To me it feels like shining force with mecha, quite simple but loads of fun.

FM3 or FM5 would be the best place to start although I hear the FM1 remake is pretty great. They're pretty simple tactical RPGs, nothing as complicated as advance wars or FF Tactics but they are no less fun due to it.

Two things to note if you start with FM 3 as it's the one I'm most familiar with.

First, you get a choice to make at the start of the game (go with a character or not) which leads to two branching paths which are effectively two very different storylines and both are worth playing. The Emma storyline is way better fleshed out with multiple paths through and tonnes of characters you can recruit of make enemies of. The other path is still worth doing.

Secondly the mech parts system is a bit misleading. Your fully upgraded level 3 armour is always going to seem better than any other parts you collect on the way. Sticking with the same armour is a mistake though as the newer armour will be better if you upgrade it. As the abilities you can learn are from different armours so it's much better to change armour when you see a new one. There's loads of really fun broken abilities.

Finished links awakening DX. One of the best Zelda games and see how it's held in such high regard. The final two dungeons were so good and the final boss fight was great.

The colour dungeon added to DX though... Why did they bother.

Going to continue with Megaman V on the Gameboy and then finish off a few more of the Guild01 games on the 3DS.

I wish they followed it up but then again it wasn't like the ps1 era wasn't filled by quality square games.

Just to be pedantic, they made king's knight for msx and NES.

I heard it's pretty good for a VN with great art. What I can definitely vouch for is the soundtrack which is peak 90s videogame synth. Well the PC 98 version (which I think has a translated version available). I imagine PC engine soundtrack is weaker.

Finished up Megaman V on the Gameboy. Great game but I regret starting it before I found out about the colourised GBC rom Hack which makes some of the more samey early levels look way better and more distinct.

Back to the 3DS and finishing those Guild games off. I started and finished Liberation Maiden last night. Fun little project with a unique control scheme. It's only about an hour long but good fun for that hour. Feels like a vertical slice pitch for a bigger project but that's kind of what the guild games were about.

Started Starship Damrey but early days for that.

It's mostly shooters. I hear kaze Kiri is good. Ys 4 had a fan translation and worth checking out. It's the best of the ys4 games (the SNES had a ys 4 game but it's a totally different game from the PC engine one) it's non canonical but also way better than the SNES game, which got remade as the much better ys: celceta.

Loads of shooters. Air Zonk. The best versions of lords of thunder and gate of thunder. Spriggan. Gradius 2. Star parodied.

Tengai makyou also finally got a fan translation.

Heard good things about last alert.

I forgot about saphire as well. That's probably the pinnacle of PC engine CD shooters.