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

[chopemon]

Well, that' it for Shinobido. Did a couple of enjoyable standard missions and had fun but then tried another general assassination mission and it looks like you can't get more than a few metres without being spotted. I think you are supposed to do that level when you have the ability to use disguises or something but I only know about that feature by glancing over a guide to work out some control stuff early on.

So after a few attempts at that I tried another mission that was populated by the Savage enemies. They seem to have a random chance to turn around and choose patrol routes which means through no fault of your own you can be spotted and a whole group of enemies swarm you and force you into the terrible combat.

The worst part is that there's no retry in the pause menu. You have to quit the mission (with a small cutscene), then in the hub menu move over one menu, go to end game, confirm, choose not to save, return to the main menu then load your game. You have to do this because missions may or may not disappear when you quit or fail them.

Too frustrating to persevere with.

Anyway, my favourite game I played at Christmas a few years ago was SOS Final Escape (Disaster Report (Zettai Zetsumei Toshi)) but I played it through a terrible PS2 to HDMI converter. So I'm downloading and burning the undubs of that and Raw Danger that removes the dub and replaces it with Japanese voices and in Raw Danger, switches the main menu art and in game art (newspapers, shop signs etc) with the original Japanese art, reinstates some missing content and gives people and places their original Japanese names to play soon.

[wakka]

Liking the sound of those undubs. I still haven’t played a ZZT. Should really get into one soon. Better to start with the first or dive straight into the second chopemon?

[chopemon]

I'd start with the first as they're both fantastic and worth playing. ZZT2 is a much bigger, more ambitious and interesting game but the first is really nice and focused.

[fallenangle]

Well, that' it for Shinobido. Did a couple of enjoyable standard missions and had fun but then tried another general assassination mission and it looks like you can't get more than a few metres without being spotted. I think you are supposed to do that level when you have the ability to use disguises or something but I only know about that feature by glancing over a guide to work out some control stuff early on.

Too frustrating to persevere with.
.

It is a long time since I played Shinobido but what I remember of it is that it's very much like any Tenchu game in terms of gameplay, AI and pretty horrible combat. No save points either - make a mess and either sort it out by hiding, retreating or, worst idea, try to fight your way through. Always better to restart.

It is pure stealth most of the time so it takes patience, critical timing of stealth attacks, retreat plans etc. What I do remember is that unlike Tenchu patrol paths of enemies may change if they're disturbed ie. spot you or see something suspicious. They don't just go back to their original, predetermined patrol pattern thirty seconds after finding a dead guard's body.

That does make it harder than even when trying to achieve Tenchu Master Assassin rating in certain levels.

I redid Tenchu: Return From Darkness about 18 months ago and despite the frustration that comes with this type of game (and its, never corrected, failing) the multiple solutions you can string together make it hugely satisfying when it all works.

[chopemon]

Yeah, the problem with Shinobido compared to Tenchu is that the levels are basically wide fields that can accommodate lots of different enemy layouts instead of the more rigidly planned and designed levels of Tenchu.

The trial and error of Shinobido becomes frustrating because the levels can be approached in different orders and are wide open so they lack the massaged direction of Tenchu and Splinter Cell. It would be not solved but eased of there was just a restart mission in the pause menu.

Tenchu Z managed to solve the wide open repeatable levels by just making it super easy. Which sure did allow me to play it for hours and hours but the missions weren't as meaningful. I love a good hard linear stealth game where you're solving prescribed problems like Tenchu and Splinter Cell.

Tenchu Fatal Shadows is on my soon to play list. I loved Tenchu 1 and Wrath of Heaven but never gave Fatal Shadows and Tenchu 2 a fair shake.

[speedlolita]

I have finally finished my Pokédex in both Gold and Red... May be jumping on to Emerald next!

[Neon Ignition]

A few worlds now into DKC2. 27 years hasn't dulled it in the slightest. Still looks gorgeous, still plays great and still the best of the franchise.

[fuse]

Dabbled a bit with Muscle Bomber and Final Fight 2 on the SFC. Even though I only ever played Saturday Night Slam Masters a few times in the arcade, I'm weirdly nostalgic for it and still like a lot of the art. In contrast this is the first time I've ever played FF2, and although I should really see it all the way through, it was about what I was expecting, and by that I mean not as good as the original.

Final Fantasy V Advance - it's the only 16 bit FF I've never finished; I've played the opening 1/3 or so a few times now on various versions of it in the past, but this time I'm darn well going to beat it. I always said that I would once the Pocket arrived, so I'm holding myself to it! Character portraits are pretty bad, but otherwise it feels like a pretty nice way to play it.

[phillv85]

Been playing absolutely loads of Attack on Titan for Vita (playing on my PS TV though). Not even sure if it counts as retro yet, either way I am loving it, even if it is all in Japanese.

[Sketcz]

Grandia 2 - Dreamcast
I never liked this back in the day. Skies of Arcadia was my choice of RPG. I quit Grandia 2 at some early-ish section. Decided to re-attempt it this past weekend, 20 years later. I didn't even make it as far as I did back in 2001. The camera is at a funny angle, there's no dungeon map, the fights are long-winded unless you set them to auto, then they're just pointless, attack animations take too long, and the story is awful. Just awful. The script is too Americanised, the actors all are terrible. It feels generic and hokey. I replayed SoA last year and it still felt fresh - too many battles maybe, but I just loved all the pirate characters. Grandia 2 feels like the worst anime cliches rolled into one package. Also I dislike how NPCs have three tiers of dialogue, forcing you to speak to them three times to exhaust all options. It's too verbose and no one says anything interesting. Skipping all NPC dialogues did not improve things much.

I am quitting it a second time and will not be returning.

[importaku]

This evening playing a really creepy horror game on Ps1 called Kyoufu Shinbun, spotted it randomly on ebay and the cover totally caught my eye. It's sort of a sound novel type game about a cursed newspaper that tells of disasters before they happen however if you read it it shortens your lifespan to 100 days. Decided to emulate to see if i could manage it, the language requirement is harsh so i'm using good old google word lens to help out as i REALLY wanna play it. Sucks that some games are totally out of my ability to understand them, the stories so far are really good & the voicework is extra creepy too i'm really enjoying it.

Not much game so far just reading along and selecting options when you get to junction points in the story. Probably gonna try & get a decent copy of this but once again there's not many online on ebay or amazon jp

The box art though is something else it's proper unsettling, simple yet effective.

[wakka]

That sounds really cool. A proper vintage J-horror concept.

Got nothing but respect for how you've taught yourself Japanese so you can play more games (I know you say this game is a bit beyond your abilities but ANY Japanese is beyond most!).

[chopemon]

I’ve been playing Samurai Western on the PS2. It was made by Acquire and (let me shock you) you play a samurai in the wild west.


The levels are all sub 5 minutes and are very compact. They just get flooded with waves of enemies that need dying. Most of the enemies have guns but you only have a sword so the game consists of avoiding enemy gunfire then doing a short combo to kill them. The best way to play is spamming the evade button. There’s almost no cooldown or penalty for doing it so you just traverse levels spamming the circle button until you meet an enemy, slice them up and hope the camera doesn’t go nuts trying to track an enemy and repeat.


There are huge difficulty spikes where they just flood areas with enemies and the advice on gamefaqs is just replay old levels to level up and dump all your upgrade points into your life bar. NO THANKS. It’s a cool little game that borders on being interesting but it ruined by difficulty spikes. The game hasn’t got enough in it to make me want to persevere with the spikes so it’s going back on the shelf.

Last night I put in Marvel vs Capcom 2 on DC. It's been years since I last played it on PS2 and I loved going back to it. Wonderful game. My favourite SF games are Alpha 3, CvSNK 2 and this. I like these big, messy, fighters with balancing all over the place and wider than usual input windows. I know we don't generally like unlocking characters in fighters but since I don't have any friends that can come round to play, having a reason to repeatedly go through the arcade mode to unlock characters in the shop is actually a lot of fun. At some point I'm going to have to download and burn the DC disk that unlocks them all on your VMU because a bunch of characters are locked behind taking your VMU to the arcade and online play though.

[Hirst]

Anyway, my favourite game I played at Christmas a few years ago was SOS Final Escape (Disaster Report (Zettai Zetsumei Toshi)) but I played it through a terrible PS2 to HDMI converter. So I'm downloading and burning the undubs of that and Raw Danger that removes the dub and replaces it with Japanese voices and in Raw Danger, switches the main menu art and in game art (newspapers, shop signs etc) with the original Japanese art, reinstates some missing content and gives people and places their original Japanese names to play soon.

That's great, I didn't know such a thing existed! The localization of these games was awful - randomly making it so some characters had bleached blonde hair and what-not, then trying to make out it was some kind of American city (a special American city where everything looks like Japan and people drive on the left).

[QualityChimp]

Thought my OG Xbox emulator was borked but delighted to find it was fine.

Celebrated with a bit of Vendetta after we were chatting about it elsewhere.
I was really enjoying playing it until my daughter ambled in and I decided the character punching the downed man in the nuts wasn't age-appropriate.

Swapped to Rainbow Islands, which is more her style, but yikes it's tough.
Couldn't get passed that first spider boss!