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So, what you playing at the mo? Retro Edition
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Contra 4's final stage is a vertical climb through gargantuan levels of bullshit. It goes on forever as well. I mean the final stages of Contra 1 and 2 in the arcade are the same but they never went on this long. I thought I got close to the end but turns out I only got about 3/2s of the way through.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Had a pretty mediocre run of contra 4 last night. Kept getting stupid deaths and losing weapons but it wasn't a disaster. Got to the two stages that preceded the last stage that are usually a nightmare for me and absolutely stormed them and picked up loads of lives from score. Went into the final stage with 15 lives. Sounds like a lot but very easy to screw it up. Got to the boss with 12 lives and decent weapons which I managed to lose with two cack handed jumps before the boss.
Boss is very tough, fantastic pixel art. I was without weapons but he drops weapons every so often so not too bad. Managed to kill him with 6 lives left.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Im really impressed by the pixel art. It looks incredible and the animation on everything seems over the top for a handheld game. Every sprite has so much personality. It's also more than twice as long as the original game. They packed so much into it.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Finished up Steamboat Chronicles and started Ace Combat 4. For an early PS2 game it's very graphically impressive. The gameplay still kicks ass but what I'm surprised by is the story which so far has really grabbed me.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Finished up Ace Combat 4. Fantastic game if a little short.
Managed to get Klonoa 2 working with the SSD. There's an option in OPL to defragment in 8bit chunks or something but this has sorted it out and I managed to play through the first stage. It's such a fantastic platformer.
I'm in the mood of a good jrpg so started up Digital Devil Saga. I tried playing this on PS3 but the version that was sold didn't work in the emulator and ran at 3/4 speed with audio sync issues. It's kind of insane they actually sold it on the store. Anyway it's a much better experience on real hardware!
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Hope you are playing with the advanced controls as well. The simple controls are actually a hindrance as it doesn't take long to get used to the advanced controls and it gives you a lot more maneuverability. And if your friend is using simple controls then wind him up as well.
Not sure how you can play the game in easy either. Normal is a nice challenge but easy is pretty toothless.
As for FF9 it's probably my favourite of all the PS1 FF games that aren't tactics. Load times are a pain but it's a lot of fun.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Advanced controls are a game changer. Makes the game a whole lot more fun and immersive. You can't just press left and right to turn, you have to roll and then pitch like a real fighter jet. Honestly think the game should have totally discouraged the basic control scheme as it's really detrimental to the game.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
I picked them for the first mission and they just felt so off and immediately changed. The rest of the series has the more realistic controls. I know why they added them for accessibility but they kind of make out that the simpler controls should be default. Anyway at least you are playing now like a true Ace 🤣
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
The 3D remake of Rondo of Blood looks crappy but it's actually a better game than the original. It adds some new stuff to the game. There's a new boss for the bad ending. Dracula was a bit of a push over in the original so he has a new phase that makes him a much better boss fight. Also Stage 5' was very much unfinished in the original so the one in the 3D remake is brand new with a new boss and it's a real challenge.
SotN PSP version is actually very good other than the 'improved' script and translation. You get to pick Richter from the start but also maria who was previously exclusive to the Saturn.
And Dracula x on the SNES.... Play on a platform with save states. The final boss is dick move central.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Was listening to Jeremy parish talk about Marathon Infinity so I decided to start Marathon 2 Durandal. It's a pretty decent shooter that in someways is better than shooters of its time and in others, not so much. The level design is great and a big improvement on the first game. The art has been tidied up as well although it still feels a big amateur compared to contemporaries. The story is really interesting with some great writing and it's interesting to see some of the new designs in this game and how they carried over to Halo.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Played a lot of Klonoa 2 last night. Fantastic game. The level design is exceptional and there's some amazing set pieces. There's a chase through a burning town which looked incredible and the last level I played last night was a stage that used mirror effects in really interesting ways. It looked insane for a PS2 game. Can't recommend it enough.
You do know that electosphere was completely bastardized for the Western release. The japanese version is a two disc game with a movie cutscenes and branching paths. They removed the story, branching paths and half the stages for the Western release. There's a fan translation of the japanese release that's worth playing.
I bounced off paper Mario 2 myself on GameCube. The battle system is fun but it can't sustain itself for the run time of the game, it worked better in the previous two games due to their brevity.
I'd highly recommend PS4. It's a lot of fun and looks and sounds incredible and I can't help thinking some people at squaresoft played it as it feels they ripped a lot of it off in FF7.
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Setting up a new hard disk for the Wii. You kind of get a good overview of a consoles library when you do this. When I did this for the PS2 I only put games I hadn't beaten yet and there was a massive amount of games I put on the hard disk. For the Wii I put every thing worth playing on it and there's definitely not as many games. There's quite a few exclusives but not a great variety of game types. Still think it's a great console but it feels like a better N64.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
I beat Klonoa 2 and I've got to say something that I'm finding really annoying about the PlayStation 2 hardware that it got lambasted for on release. The lack of any anti aliasing is really noticable and makes games on the system just look a lot rougher than the Dreamcast, especially since most only support interlaced modes. It's really jarring and jaggy city.
Post edited by Retr0gamer on
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Playing Ponies Poin on the PS2 and this is such a strange game. It's a 3D platformer that was a PS2 exclusive and never made its way out of Japan.
So first you can select if you want to play the game in Japanese or English and in English the entire game is in English. And by everything even the voice acting. There's some Engrish in the the level descriptors and some typos but otherwise it's kind of an exceptional English localisation. The voice acting is really high quality. It feels like it was set up for a western release but as you play the game you understand why it didn't make it over.
Firstly, it's quite a simple game that is obviously aimed at kids. However some of the content really isn't for kids. A lot of the characters are very horny for a girl that follows you around and there's a lot of vulgar language in the game. Your sidekick even sounds like Eric Cartman.
The game also looks a Plays very strangely. It's on the PS2, a system with dual analogue yet the control scheme feels like a PS1 or N64 game. You don't control the camera and instead press the shoulder button to move the camera behind the character. It's awkward and the camera can get stuck in scenery. Also the game uses a lot of untextured polygons. It means it runs at 69 fps but looks kind of like a 32 but platformer like ape escape or crash bandicoot. It really feels like a throw back to mid tier N64 platformers.
Anyway I'll stick with it. It's meant to be pretty short and it has some interesting ideas where you use different colour 'Poins' to change the mood of characters. The platforming is kind of frustrating though especially in vertical stages.
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Got back into Radiant Silvergun and finally saw the end after all these years. It's just an incredible game and one of the finest that Treasure has ever made. I really miss Treasure but I also miss non bullet hell shmups as well.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Been playing a lot of Digital Devil Saga 1 and while it's a triumph of a RPG I think it fails where Atlus wanted it to. I'll try and explain.
DDS1 seems to have been made as a simpler game in the SMT series, designed to be a lot simpler so as to attract the FF crowd. As a result there's no demon recruiting and you have a fixed party. The way you gain abilities also feels a lot like FFX although not awful as the sphere grid on that game.
So while it succeeds on being a lot more approachable in its mechanics it still has a lot of SMT that isn't approachable. Firstly it's very much a dungeon crawler. There's a decent story and characters here but it's still mostly about going through some large and complex dungeons. It took me two nights to get through a mid game dungeon and while it was fantastically designed it does ask a lot of the player to navigate. Secondly it has that trademark SMT bullshit. You have the tools to take out the enemy very quickly but even common encounters have enemies that can go wrong very quickly. I've had a few games overs.
My girlfriend did comment that a group of Jack Frosts I was fighting were "cute". They weren't cute to me as I had a party that lacked fire skills and they kept healing themselves and replacing their dead with reinforcements.
I also tried some Armored Core last night. Unlike Armored Core 6 it's not that approachable. Also the controls predate dual analogue so initially the controls are horrible (you do get used to them). Ive heard the series keeps these controls right into the PS2 era despite dual analogue being standard. So far it's a lot of fun despite being very difficult with you trying to keep your head above water as you end up constantly in debt. It's actually an interesting mechanic as it highlights how horrible a dystopian future it is, and as a secret the game will actually make the game easier on you if you end up horrendously in debt through a scene that feeds into the story.
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So armored Core went from an uncontrollable mess to being a game I can't stop thinking about. The Dystopian atmosphere it presents is fantastic. Some of the first missions have you being hired by faceless corporations to kill squatters or striking workers looking for better pay. They can't send the police in but they sure as hell can hire a mercenary in a mech is shift them with a dose of ultra violence. And yet the money you earn barely covers your own expenses to take on a mission which highlights how you yourself at a slave to these corporations.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
The very first Armored Core game on PS1. Just finished it there. Really got into it even though I never really felt like I mastered the controls. Think I might try the dual shock patches for subsequent entries.
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Join Date:Posts: 51373
Playong a bit of Michigan Report from Hell on the PS2 and it's not great. Feels more like a janky interactive movie. You play a camera man during an event in Chicago which apes Stephen kings the mist. There's not a lot you can do except find trigger points to engage scripted sequences with your sound guy and reporter.
There's a few interesting mechanics that aren't fully fleshed out. If your reporter is killed a new reporter will take over. But all this means is you skip a few levels and miss out on content rather than it being true branching paths. Annoyingly the triggers to keep your reporter alive are quite obtuse or you are told the solution after it's too late to save them.
The other mechanic is that you are judged on three metrics on your reporting suspense, immoral and erotica. Suspense you just get by filming people talking. Immoral you get if you keep filming people being killed in pre-rendered cutscenes but there's so few of these it's like the dev team forgot about them. And erotic you get by knocking the reporter over and film up her skirt which... Yeah. Apparently you could find pictures of a Thai S&M model who would join you as a reporter for some post game missions but they were removed from the English version, most likely due to likeness rights rather than it being censored. So basically you can only really get suspense points and they don't feed into anything.
There's some good ideas here but the game never really gels. I'd recommend a walkthrough so you don't miss any content.
I'm also playing Spirit Tracks and not loving it. The touch screen controls are fine if a bit imprecise at the wrong times. The actual dungeons are really good and I love the use of the touch screen to add notes to maps, something carried over from phantom hourglass. The big issue is the train. While not terrible it's just a bit boring and sedated making your way through points on a map. Even worse are that all the side quests involve ferrying people and goods between points so are just a big series of fetch quests. It's not a terrible game but the train is no replacement to actual exploration.
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