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

[wakka]

I've been digging into the fan translation of Pokémon Card GB 2: GR Dan Sanjou!, the Japan-only sequel to Pokémon Trading Card Game on the GBC.



Really enjoying it so far.

I played the original game back in the day when it was contemporary, and I really loved it. It's an interesting one, because it's an RPG, but it doesn't take place in the Pokémon world. Pokémon aren't real, physical animals, instead it's just this place where everyone is obsessed with playing and trading Pokémon cards for some reason.

In the original, the story is simple. The aim is to move around the island where the game is set, visiting different elemental gyms, and beating the gym leaders. Once you've done all of that, you go to a kind of Elite Four type place to fight the end bosses and become the champion.

The story of the second, interestingly, follows on directly from the first. You're on the same island, you're the same kid, but everything is in disarray. Team Great Rocket have shown up, taken over the gyms, and stolen everyone's cards, so no one can play the TCG any more. It falls to you to visit all of the gyms from the first game again, and get back the cards from the invading Team GR folks by (how else?) defeating them at TCG matches.

However as I understand it, this is only half the game - once you beat the Team GR members on the original island, you fly to Team GR's own island, where there's a whole new set of gyms to work through.

Both entries in the short series were developed by Hudson Soft, and the simple RPG story that wraps around the core gameplay of playing the TCG, collecting cards and building decks works really well. A lot of the fun is down to the enjoyable design of the TCG itself, of course. It's a really compulsive play.

I was concerned that I might be find this boring or too easy today, but actually it's fully gotten its hooks into me, just as it did back in ~2000. And it's not that easy, either! I've read this one is actually more challenging than the original. It certainly feels like it was designed for players who'd already beaten the first game, particularly in terms of how the story is a direct follow-on.

[wakka]

I'm still playing Pokémon Card GB 2. It's a little ROM of crack cocaine. I'm about 14 hours in and I've now travelled by airship to the second island, Team Great Rocket's home base.

It's actually much larger than the original island, and the difficulty is stepped up significantly on the bosses at each gym. I've read you can beat the game relatively easily by putting together particular types of deck, but I'm sticking to putting together my own combinations of cards for the mo. Even if they're suboptimal, it's part of the fun for me.

I might change my mind about that as the difficulty continues to ramp up, though!

It's a really engrossing play, just as I remember the first entry being back in 2000. I just spent the weekend in Spain and was glued to this game during all the travel there and back.

I've also been dipping into Mario Kart: Super Circuit. I'm much more mixed on this one than I expected to be. It's definitely fun but it hasn't totally grabbed me. I haven't fully gotten a handle on the controls again yet, so maybe my view will change once I do.

It's a pretty challenging game, though - even three starring the 50cc cups isn't easy. This uses the old three starring system of not simply requiring you to beat a cup by getting first in every race (as is the case in 8 and 8 Deluxe), but instead to totally dominate each race by winning with a massive lead. I'm not sure if the number of coins you collect might even come into it, too. Deffo tricky, in a good way.

[wakka]

Yeah I'm not really feeling Super Circuit. It's one I had been looking forward to replaying, but it's feeling like a bit of a chore to be honest. It's still a good game, but I'm just not feeling the motivation to get my skills to a level where I can three star everything, especially as I'm never going to have anyone I can play multiplayer with.

It's one I might still dip in and out of, but I'm likely going to park it.

[Colin]

Full run through of Zero Gunner 2 this morning. This has always been one of my favourite Dreamcast games, and one I've missed a lot. I bought the Psikyo collection for it on PS4 last year, and I don't know why but I hated it, it just seemed off. Anyway, played it today via DC emulation on my Mac and I'm pleased that it wasn't just rose tinted glasses of back in the DC days, and that I STILL love it. Not a difficult shooter by any measure, but I just find it really enjoyable to play and it's still lovely to look at in my opinion.

I've started downloading loads of other shooters and DC favourites. Any down time in the shop this weekend is going to be fun!

[wakka]

I'm so into Pokemon Card GB 2 that I started watching YouTube videos on the early history of the Pokémon TCG (contemporary to the game's release). The deck-building tips I picked up therein mean I am dominating the puny AI bosses, mwahaha.

[dataDave]

Our daughter will be tearing her way out of her mother soon, so I’m preparing to start Chrono Trigger at long last in an attempt to tie two sentimental experiences together. I was supposed to play Live A Live first, maybe I still will.

[Wools]

Thanks to the Anbernic, I've been playing so much retro recently.

Have fallen head over heels for Wave Race 64 and 1080. Wave Race still has such a nice feel to the game; Great control, unpredictable waves which liven up each course, some still impressive graphics and the whole game takes me back to the late 90's where gaming was just a little bit more special than it is now.

Typing this, has reminded me I don't give Excitebike 64 the time it deserves. I owned it back in the day but the frame rate was far more of a struggle than it was for Wave Race and 1080. However, I didn't play it much and would love to go back and see how it stacks up over 22 years after its release.

To the high seas I go!

[Colin]

Which Anbernic model are you running N64 on [MENTION=680]Wools[/MENTION]? Didn't have any joy with it on either my RG350M 0r RG351M.

[Wools]

Damn, sorry to hear that [MENTION=9865]Colin[/MENTION]

I've got an Anbernic RG351MP but then flashed it to the recently released AmberELEC, and after far too long researching online, it feels like that unlocked a lot potential from the device. Were you running the AmberELEC firmware but it just didn't stack up for you, or was it an older OS?

If you've not heard of it (Sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs!) here's a good intro.

[Wools]

Also I totally forgot this bit: Mario 64, Wave Race, 1080 all run beautifully but when I tried GodlenEye and Perfect Dark, you could tell the hardware and software were struggiling.

I did find it odd that Wave Race 64 ran as I remembered but GoldenEye really ran worse than what I remember. Perfect Dark? Sadly, it was a bit ropey.

[Colin]

I'll take a look in to it, thanks [MENTION=680]Wools[/MENTION]. I have different firmware on both my units, EmuELEC on the RG351M doesn't seem that great TBH so I never put it on the RG350M, I haven't kept up to speed with what's best to install though so I'll have a look at the video.

[Wools]

Nice, let us know how it goes!

I was kicking myself as Dave told me that the RG351MP had been updated since I last heard but as I asked for the RG351MP for Christmas and Mrs Wools had already commited, I decided not to ask for the update!

It still feels like N64 and Saturn emulation is an issue for mobile chipsets. My PC does emulate Saturn almost perfectly from a smoothness perspective, but I notice some jankiness. However, my PC still seems a bit off on Perfect Dark too. Oddly though, ReDream plays Dreamcast games perfectly!

[dataDave]

Perfect Dark will be an absolute jerk-fest (in terms of frame rate) no matter how you want to emulate it. You’re best off with the Xbox version if you’re not playing the original on a CRT.

[Colin]

Today, in between being frustrated to death by my Anbernic, I’ve had a cracking day of retro.

Dreamcast wise it’s been Jet Set Radio, The Record Of Lodoss War and Bordersdown. All three took me right back in to my days with the system, and I’ve enjoyed them as much today as I did on their original release.

I then also played PSP Ridge Racer via OpenEmu on my MacBook. Wow, it looks absolutely brilliant on a bigger screen. It was so enjoyable to play this way with a DS4 that I don’t think I could go back to playing it on the small PSP screen unless I really was playing it on the go somewhere.

[dataDave]

M-I-L brought me my MadCatz TE over from Malaysia. I've been waiting for this moment before putting the MiSTer on the new telly.





It's actually not too bad playing platformers with this. SMW and Sonic 2 feel great. I'm not sure there's any point wasting time installing a Daemonbite board or similar, just for an additional 0.6% same-frame probability or whatever. This is already at around 95%.

The 4 and 6kHz low-pass filters sound meaty AF through these speakers. Like when an old cab is cranked right up. Our neighbour is away for a few more days, so you know what that means.