Retro Gaming Thread

Szlia

Szlia

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Beat Faxanadu. This game is rough. The least satisfying thing about the game I would say is that everything reset once you leave a screen. So if you beat the boss of a dungeon, a reward spawns, you leave the screen, come back, the boss is there again. This gap between the story that the game is trying to tell and what is actually happening in the game is very lame. The most satisfying thing though is that equipment upgrades are visible and you get significantly stronger. Running around in the final armor with the final sword felt pretty badass. I also kinda like the ending.

When you start the game you get a little intro with the character walking toward a city under a dying giant tree and then you start naked and almost dead. When you beat the last boss, you are warped to the king of the first city, that does a little speech about how peace is now possible thanks to you, the curse of the land is lifted yadda yadda and how restless you are. Next screen is the reversal of the intro: the character walks away from the city, vegetation is now lush. And then bam! Back to the title screen! No credit, no The End, no nothing. Hero arrived, hero did his job, hero left. Bam! That elf is one cold mofo.


After that I played and beat the first Castlevania. I am not sure if I became a god gamer or if I sucked when I was a teenager, but I beat the game in less than 2 hours, while I never could finish it back then. I know the game better now than I did then by virtue of seeing speedruns of it, but the only speedrun strat I kinda used was killing death with holy water. Much of the time was spent on the Dracula fight and on the Death level (losing time trying to kill it with the cross after stupidly losing the holy water multiple times - there is no holy water between the last check point and the boss so you basically have one holy water kill attempt per continue). Anyway, still a pretty cool game with neat music.

EDIT: Oddly, this is also a game with no credits. Riffing on the 'B horror movie' theme that is there right from the start with the fake film stock perforations, the credits are the imaginary cast of the 'movie' that is just a long list of bad puns that alter the names of a number of famous actors (Christopher Bee as Dracula, etc). Not a line for the actual game creators though!
 
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yimmien

yimmien

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I was inspired to upgrade my pi to a bigger sd card and add video previews to the UI. This is pretty much the coolest thing ever.


I am using the Old Room theme from another video from the same user. It plays the video in a TV screen on a desk with the box of the game laying next to it.
 
Noodleface

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I need to redo my whole retropie from scratch. Need to find good rom collections for the 8/16 bit era. Blah
 
Szlia

Szlia

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Continuing in my NES backlog I played through Kickle Cubicle an action puzzle game by Irem. It's a pretty sweet and forgiving game since it has unlimited continues and it makes you restart right at the level you were. Should you decide to not continue, you can even get a password for the level you are at! The main game consists of four worlds with twenty-ish puzzles and a boss fight each. Once you finish the game you get another set of 30 puzzles that are significantly harder (some require 'advanced' techniques not used in the main game, some made me grab a note pad and the final one requires a quality of execution that reminded me of some of the levels of 1001 Spikes!). I am not sure if it was intended or not, but when you pause the game, nothing is hidden or obfuscated, so needless to say I made some generous abuse of pause strats to give me time to think about solutions and/or do deal with levels that have a lot of moving parts, bouncing enemies, firing canons, etc.

In each level you need to collect a number of treasure bags. Your character has a cold breath that turns enemies into ice blocs. You can slide these blocks. Blocs can fill gaps in the ground. You can make ice pillars that stop most enemies and sliding blocs. Add ground where you can't build pillars, springs, rotating hammers that knock blocs around and a dozen of different enemies and you get a lot of variety for 100+ levels. Only the boss fights are a bit meh.

Highly recommended for fans of action-puzzle games!
 
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Szlia

Szlia

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It seems sleep is for the weak... I thought I would play a little Rygar and ended up "beating" the game several hours later... Rygar is a 2D side scrolling action game with elements of rpg / exploration (levels are connected with each other through a hub map in top down view - a couple levels are also in top down view). It's not Faxanadu rough, but it's still pretty minimalist and more than a little janky (nothing like falling to your death because your pulley decided you were not perfectly aligned with the rope, or having to check gameFAQ to learn that the obvious thing to do was indeed what you had to do, it's just that it works on a specific pixel...). No save and no password in this game, but despite the ominous 'game over' screen that kicks you to the title screen, hitting 'start game' will send you to the entrance of the area you died in. You still have to beat the game in one sitting, but, as you can see, it's not very long.

I should say though that I "beat" the game, which, as far as I am concerned, means reaching the last boss. I played it on the PAL version of the game and in this version (and in this version only), the level cap of the hero is dramatically lower than in the Japanese and US versions. In PAL you max at 1023 atk/def and 8 hp, elsewhere it's 4095 atk/def and 12 hp... This nice adjustment transforms a relatively tame final boss into a giant pile of bullshit I am not willing to deal with. So I "beat" the game.

It's reasonably entertaining game with an original aesthetic some neat musics here and there and the minimalist design (like the super rudimentary boss fights with lame creatures that just creep toward you while shooting somewhat random and slow projectiles) gives in an eerie feel.

On a personal level, I am glad I played through it as I really got nowhere in it as a kid and it was one of the very first video game I owned. I remember my mother buying it for me during a trip in France back in '89 or '90.
 
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Tanoomba

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Szlia said:
Continuing in my NES backlog I played through Kickle Cubicle an action puzzle game by Irem. It's a pretty sweet and forgiving game since it has unlimited continues and it makes you restart right at the level you were. Should you decide to not continue, you can even get a password for the level you are at! The main game consists of four worlds with twenty-ish puzzles and a boss fight each. Once you finish the game you get another set of 30 puzzles that are significantly harder (some require 'advanced' techniques not used in the main game, some made me grab a note pad and the final one requires a quality of execution that reminded me of some of the levels of 1001 Spikes!). I am not sure if it was intended or not, but when you pause the game, nothing is hidden or obfuscated, so needless to say I made some generous abuse of pause strats to give me time to think about solutions and/or do deal with levels that have a lot of moving parts, bouncing enemies, firing canons, etc.

In each level you need to collect a number of treasure bags. Your character has a cold breath that turns enemies into ice blocs. You can slide these blocks. Blocs can fill gaps in the ground. You can make ice pillars that stop most enemies and sliding blocs. Add ground where you can't build pillars, springs, rotating hammers that knock blocs around and a dozen of different enemies and you get a lot of variety for 100+ levels. Only the boss fights are a bit meh.

Highly recommended for fans of action-puzzle games!
Click to expand...
Kickle Cubicle is one of my favorite puzzle games. I've come back to it many times over the years.
 
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Tanoomba

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Szlia said:
It seems sleep is for the weak... I thought I would play a little Rygar and ended up "beating" the game several hours later... Rygar is a 2D side scrolling action game with elements of rpg / exploration (levels are connected with each other through a hub map in top down view - a couple levels are also in top down view). It's not Faxanadu rough, but it's still pretty minimalist and more than a little janky (nothing like falling to your death because your pulley decided you were not perfectly aligned with the rope, or having to check gameFAQ to learn that the obvious thing to do was indeed what you had to do, it's just that it works on a specific pixel...). No save and no password in this game, but despite the ominous 'game over' screen that kicks you to the title screen, hitting 'start game' will send you to the entrance of the area you died in. You still have to beat the game in one sitting, but, as you can see, it's not very long.

I should say though that I "beat" the game, which, as far as I am concerned, means reaching the last boss. I played it on the PAL version of the game and in this version (and in this version only), the level cap of the hero is dramatically lower than in the Japanese and US versions. In PAL you max at 1023 atk/def and 8 hp, elsewhere it's 4095 atk/def and 12 hp... This nice adjustment transforms a relatively tame final boss into a giant pile of bullshit I am not willing to deal with. So I "beat" the game.

It's reasonably entertaining game with an original aesthetic some neat musics here and there and the minimalist design (like the super rudimentary boss fights with lame creatures that just creep toward you while shooting somewhat random and slow projectiles) gives in an eerie feel.

On a personal level, I am glad I played through it as I really got nowhere in it as a kid and it was one of the very first video game I owned. I remember my mother buying it for me during a trip in France back in '89 or '90.
Click to expand...
Rygar was also one of the first games I owned! My dad actually woke me and my brother up one night because he had reached the last boss and wanted us to watch him beat it. Wasn't until years later that I was able to beat the game myself. It's really not half bad as a Metroidvania lite, although it's certainly not always clear where you're supposed to go next. Fuck trying to latch your pulley on some of those cables, though.
 
Noodleface

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Szlia said:
It seems sleep is for the weak... I thought I would play a little Rygar and ended up "beating" the game several hours later... Rygar is a 2D side scrolling action game with elements of rpg / exploration (levels are connected with each other through a hub map in top down view - a couple levels are also in top down view). It's not Faxanadu rough, but it's still pretty minimalist and more than a little janky (nothing like falling to your death because your pulley decided you were not perfectly aligned with the rope, or having to check gameFAQ to learn that the obvious thing to do was indeed what you had to do, it's just that it works on a specific pixel...). No save and no password in this game, but despite the ominous 'game over' screen that kicks you to the title screen, hitting 'start game' will send you to the entrance of the area you died in. You still have to beat the game in one sitting, but, as you can see, it's not very long.

I should say though that I "beat" the game, which, as far as I am concerned, means reaching the last boss. I played it on the PAL version of the game and in this version (and in this version only), the level cap of the hero is dramatically lower than in the Japanese and US versions. In PAL you max at 1023 atk/def and 8 hp, elsewhere it's 4095 atk/def and 12 hp... This nice adjustment transforms a relatively tame final boss into a giant pile of bullshit I am not willing to deal with. So I "beat" the game.

It's reasonably entertaining game with an original aesthetic some neat musics here and there and the minimalist design (like the super rudimentary boss fights with lame creatures that just creep toward you while shooting somewhat random and slow projectiles) gives in an eerie feel.

On a personal level, I am glad I played through it as I really got nowhere in it as a kid and it was one of the very first video game I owned. I remember my mother buying it for me during a trip in France back in '89 or '90.
Click to expand...
That boss looks hard but that dude was executing perfectly then started rushing it and almost lost lol
 
yimmien

yimmien

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Rygar is great. Best soundtrack on the NES and cool items. I spent so much time figuring that game out as a kid.
 
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Szlia

Szlia

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yimmien said:
Rygar is great. Best soundtrack on the NES and cool items.
Click to expand...

I'ma let you finish, but Batman has the best soundtrack on the NES! There are some great tracks in Rygar (the cave music!), but there is also a number of questionable tunes!



Anyway, today to test my God Gamer theory I decided to get humbled by Trojan. It's an action game with a combat system that might be a little too refined for its own good. The hero can swing his sword while standing, crouching and jumping and he can also use a shield, crouching, jumping (!) and, while standing, he can hold it in front of him, diagonally or above his head. In some case you can even lose your weapons and end up using punches and kicks. The problem is that this system is a bit wasted as it is used to fight pretty limited enemies that come in random waves while you try to go through the level. Since it is ridiculously easy to get cluster-fucked and invulnerability frames are non-existent (you get a little stagger for good measure though), things spiral out of control remarkably quickly.

Finding myself unable to beat the first stage after several honest attempts, I checked some speedruns of the game (which ended up being more an inspiration that something of practical use) and documented myself a bit. The most critical finding was that Up + Start on the title screen works as a continue. Beating the game in one credit is nigh impossible - or at the very least requires a time investment I am not ready to put into a not so stellar game - beating stages in one credit though? Doable (especially since there are check points at the mini and bosses). And done it was after insisting a little. It's all about being somewhat systematic in the levels and figuring out a way to cheese the very predictable bosses and mini-bosses (except one that I just spammed with jumps and attacks for great success!). So yeah, Achilles's tyranny is over: I split his skull! God Gamer status though? Maybe if I did not use the infinite continues!

NB: With 6 levels and a seventh that is just the final boss, the game is pretty damn short. In fact the world record speedrun, that uses no particular glitches, deals with it in a little under seven minutes!
 
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moonarchia

moonarchia

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pharmakos said:
just beat Exdeath on my replay of Final Fantasy V Advance. i super sperged the game this time and pretty early in the game did enough grinding to get just about every relevant job to master. been taking the time to get most of good rare steals too. next time i play through it (which i'm sure i will, it is by far my favorite Final Fantasy now) i am going to do some sort of straight job class challenge to make the game harder. face rolling everything up til the end was nice this time around, taking everything i learned from the first time and min/maxing the hell out of everything, but more of a challenge would be great.

still gotta do all the bonus content that was added for GBA. my first time through i didn't make it through all the bonus content... but i wasn't very prepared for the two super bosses that got added, and fizzled out when i realized the amount of grinding i still had to do. front loaded all my grinding this time, tho!

my first time around, i finished the Exdeath fight at the end of the main portion with everyone still alive. turns out, the ending changes if anyone is dead. i only saw what happens with a dead Lenna at the end, but there are unique endings for every possible combination of alive/dead. same general motif, but great attention to detail to do something like that. the game came out in 1992, i think its one of the earliest examples of multiple endings?
Click to expand...

All the jobs are needed to be best at FF V. Gotta master them all to open up Best Job Master Traveller. Then all your stats are maxed out and you can use all the gear and cast all the spells.
 
Szlia

Szlia

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moonarchia moonarchia In the US version, if you max your level, you have 12 hp, his hits only do 1 damage and you need to hit him less than 10 times, so you can just dps race him without even having to heal. In PAL you have 8 hp, his hits do 3 damage and you need to hit him 30+ times....
 
Siliconemelons

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I never finished FF-V, I had the PS1 disc version I think, got stuck at the end of the burning tree section- I also generally dislike job systems, I also didn't finish FF3-DS version-- yet I completed FF2 :-D
 
Noodleface

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Depends on the FF for me. For strategy RPGs like FFT I loved the job system. For regular RPGs I prefer defined roles.
 
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