(Retro) What have you been playing this week? Vol.2

[dataDave]

Today been playing a famicom game called yume penguin monogatari a rather fun if a little short platformer, has really nice graphics and a fun game system where you have to avoid all food on a stage as it will make you fat and when you are a porky penguin it's harder to jump and you can't attack but as you slim down you get more powers.

Isn't that the same penguin from Parodius? Always wondered where he came from.

[importaku]

Isn't that the same penguin from Parodius? Always wondered where he came from.

Hmm you could be correct, never thought of that but it all fits. He went on a space rampage to get that memory of dating that penguin bitch out of his head

[CMcK]

Gleylancer and Streets of Rage 2 this week. Both games are at the pinnacle of their respective genres.

[Tobal]

Today been playing a famicom game called yume penguin monogatari a rather fun if a little short platformer, has really nice graphics and a fun game system where you have to avoid all food on a stage as it will make you fat and when you are a porky penguin it's harder to jump and you can't attack but as you slim down you get more powers. Dotted around the levels are diet pills that are dropped by a rival penguin the same rival that your whore penguin girlfriend runs off with because she hates fat penguins so you have to diet to supposedly win her back she then gives you a time limit to get to a certain point of the level if you don't get there in time and below the weight limit she dumps your ass. Quite frankly she's a bitch and not worth the effort you go through to win her fickle affections.

The trick is not only do you have to make it in time but you also have to be slim enough before you get there it's the same with the bosses as it's very easy to hit all the food bullets they fire and totally pork up. Falling into the water instantly bloats you right up, you would have thought penguins loved the water but not this one. Shame it's only 6 stages but it's great while it lasts, a fun afternoon on the famicom mini although i had to make it work with the nestopia core as the built in emulator had graphical problems.

there is a fun Gamecenter GX episode where Arino plays this, translated

->Open Spoiler<-

https://nyaa.si/view/1003415

[Cepp]

Finished Tomb Raider. They lost me with the story towards the end, no clue what was going on The levels were chill and relaxing to play through.

I beat one of the later stages without any guns. The game takes them from you and expects you to recover three key items to get them back. I thought they would be returned to me later in the stage and ended up beating the level without them heh. I had them back in my inventory when the next stage started.

It's still fun, way better than Anniversary.

[dataDave]

1080.



Mmmm... Pixels.

[samanosuke]

I’ve been dedicating my time recently to some of the Japanese Mega CD imports:

Shadowrun - I started this a few months back and have picked it up again. Google Translate through my iPhone is a bit hit and miss but understandable as this is very text heavy. Nonetheless I can understand plenty enough to follow the storylines of each chapter and it’s really satisfying to finally appreciate the story of a game for which I’ve longed for a translation.

The linear Snatcher-esque sections are great if you don’t mind constantly holding your phone up to the screen (or better still, understand Japanese), and the SRPG battles I’ve never had a problem with as these are pretty straighfoward once you learn the commands.

I’d say the main issue for me with this game is not knowing which of the weapons will work well with each character. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that it’s in Japanese, but there doesn’t seem to be any indication that X weapon will increase a character’s attribute by Y, and I find myself buying weapons or augmentations only to discover they’re useless. The real problem is there is only one way to make money, and that’s by completing missions, so your funds are most certainly finite. When it comes to Cyberware this issue is compounded further by the high cost of many of the items, and not knowing what each one does to begin with makes me err on the side of caution and not buy any at all.

I guess when it comes down to it this limitation is probably a cynical way for the developers to add longevity to the game as you cannot buy everything during a single playthrough. If the player wants to try each piece of Cynerware then they’ll need to play through multiple times.

It’s definitely a good game with top-notch presentation as we have come to expect from Compile, and worth playing through if you don’t mind using Google Translate. Knowledge of Katakana will certainly help when it comes to buying weapons/armour/Cyberware as Google really seems to trip up with Kana.

I’m half way through Scenario 6 at present so I think I’m quite near the end... I’ve finished it once before and IIRC there were ~8 scenarios.

Record of Lodoss War - played this game on and off over the years but giving it some proper time and just started the second map in the game (about 10hrs in).

This is one I certainly don’t need Google Translate to play as the storyline follows the OVA exactly, even down to the cut scenes which are just FMV ripped straight from the original source, and pretty much all the items in the shops etc are weapons of Western origin (light mace, chainmail, round shield etc) and are therefore all in Katakana. The battle commands are straightforward once you’ve memorised what does what, and magic is very simple; basically it’s just attack spells which are obvious to use and buffs which provide a helpful letters next to each character’s stats: “E” for attack buff and “D” for defence.

What do I like about this game? The intro... it’s an absolutely gorgeous real time animated recreation of the OVA intro with the stunning Adesso e Fortuna song accompanying it. It might suffer from the typical MD muddy palette, but it has so much more detail and animation that that of the PCE game.

Secondly the presentation is top notch; the characters themselves might not look or animate nearly as well in battle as, say, Shining Force CD, but the still graphics in towns, the world map etc all look pleasing to the eye. The soundtrack is stirring orchestral pieces which, although they sound great, do irritate a little after a while as there simply aren’t enough of them. The addition of cut scenes direct from the OVA. which are of an okay quality for the MCD, also add to the overall package.

The main problems I have with the game are firstly the levelling up. It’s one of those annoying systems whereby it’s the character who makes the killing blow that benefits from all the experience, making it very hard to get the support characters up to a decent level. There is a section in one of the villages where you can enter a combat arena to level up, but it’s still annoying to have to grind certain characters only in these areas just to bring them up to the melee characters in the party. There doesn’t seem to be any “level up” exp target on the character stats page either to keep you motivated.

Secondly, and again this is like Shadowrun earlier, there is no indication of which items in the shop will boost which stats if any. To make things worse it doesn’t even tell you whether a character can equip a certain item so I often find myself buying a weapon of piece of armour for Parn (the first character in the list), and then equipping it on him to see the stat increase, before giving it to the next character, equipping, ad nauseum, just to see which characters can equip such items. Often I will find myself having to sell an item straight back at half the cost I paid for it due to it not adding any value to the party.

In spite of all this I am very much enjoying the game and get a real sense of satisfaction by playing through a Japanese RPG and actually understanding it without any need for translations. For SRPG fans it’s well worth a try.

[Ghost]

Been playing through Gran Turismo 3. I have to say its held up really well and graphically its pretty incredible what Polyphony managed to achieve and what a huge step up it was compared to GT2. In fact, resolution aside, it still looks better than some racing games that were released on the PS3/360 and even the switch. It also felt that Polyphony were really showing off a bit with all the different effects that were in the game, some of them you dont see much nowadays like the heat haze at the starting lines or the break pads glowing red when you are braking hard. Also after playing Sport its kind of strange seeing how the majority of the cars are consumer cars that are available and can be modding rather than nearly all of them being professional sports cars or luxury super cars.

[Leon Retro]

Been playing through Gran Turismo 3. I have to say its held up really well and graphically its pretty incredible what It also felt that Polyphony were really showing off a bit with all the different effects that were in the game, some of them you dont see much nowadays like the heat haze at the starting lines or the break pads glowing red when you are braking hard.

I also went back to it recently and was really impressed. There's something nicely atmospheric about the graphics that gives it a distinct look next to a lot of the sterile looking modern racers. The game has character -- and you can tell it was designed in Japan.

As you say -- Polyphony managed to deliver 'heat haze' and other nice effects that show how much effort went into the engine. GT3 is easily my favourite entry in the series.

[Ghost]

I also went back to it recently and was really impressed. There's something nicely atmospheric about the graphics that gives it a distinct look next to a lot of the sterile looking modern racers. The game has character -- and you can tell it was designed in Japan.

As you say -- Polyphony managed to deliver 'heat haze' and other nice effects that show how much effort went into the engine. GT3 is easily my favourite entry in the series.

One thing that really threw me is the soundtrack, Im playing the us version of the game now and the soundtrack is completely different to the UK one, which is the one I remember. Instead of Feeder and Muse the US one has Lenny Kravitz and Snoop dog.

[Leon Retro]

One thing that really threw me is the soundtrack, Im playing the us version of the game now and the soundtrack is completely different to the UK one

I always turn the music off when it's your typical mainstream chart stuff. I don't think it's a good idea to put chart music in games, because everyone has different taste. At least music designed for a game is original and might suit the game's vibe more.

[Atticus]

1080.



Mmmm... Pixels.

That screenshot brings back some great memories. What a class game.

[dvdx2]

1080.



Mmmm... Pixels.

CRT or emulation dave?

[Ghost]

I always turn the music off when it's your typical mainstream chart stuff. I don't think it's a good idea to put chart music in games, because everyone has different taste. At least music designed for a game is original and might suit the game's vibe more.

I dont know, sometimes it can enhance a game, games like Crazy Taxi, Tony Hawks and Jet Set Radio for example simply wouldn’t be the same without the licensed music that they have. Generally I do agree though that they should concentrate on using original music as most gaming companies are so short sighted and only license music for a short period of time and music licensing is one of the biggest reasons for games being delisted or never getting a port or remake. Its kind of crazy really as you would never have a movie being removed or no longer released because of licensed music expiring.

[samanosuke]

That’s a really good point re: films. The gaming industry really needs to look at how licensing works in the film industry and adopt it (although possibly there is a significant cost differential when paying for, say, 5yr rights and perpetual rights).