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

[wakka]

Leaving a Resi for a while is lethal. So much of proceeding quickly is dependent on your memory of what item might go where.

It's a pretty chunky entry this one, too. By the time you get to the end of disc 1 it feels like most other Resis of this era would have wrapped up already.

Last night on the game I hit one of those moments that people tend to complain about when it comes to CV - a boss battle which I was unprepared for and therefore where I basically need to reload an earlier save and play a good chunk again. It's a bit of crappy design you wouldn't get away with these days, but it's not a showstopper.

I would say in general that so far there have been two boss battles and they've been my least favourite part of the game. I just want to go around combining items, opening secret doors and dodging Zs!

EDIT: Oh yes and the cutscenes are completely hilarious as always in a Resi of this vintage. Steve is such a weird, annoying and yet amusing character. At one point he accidentally floods a whole room with poison gas because he's trying to check out Claire's bum. Amazing stuff.

[randombs]

First time I played CV, I got to the aeroplane boss with a few bullets and a knife. I still tried to fight him more times than I’d like to admit. It would’ve been even more but the annoying heartbeat door opening animation drove me mad and I ended up loading a save game from looong before that fight.

The furthest(farthest?) I’ve got in CV was as Chris fighting huge moths in a freezer, and I think I reached the remade RE mansion but can’t remember.

[wakka]

I didn't actually use any weapons for the aeroplane boss. I got a little pattern of movement round the room that mostly avoided his attacks, and just used the switch on the wall that chucks the crate at him. If you hit him with it four times he's a goner. Took me a fair few goes though.

It's an annoying boss battle. I kind of hate these old school boss battles where the next actual enjoyable part of the game is gated behind what is essentially an irritatingly difficult minigame that doesn't work that well.

I haven't got quite as far as you did yet as haven't reached playing as Chris, so no spoilers!

[monel]

First time I played CV, I got to the aeroplane boss with a few bullets and a knife. I still tried to fight him more times than I’d like to admit. It would’ve been even more but the annoying heartbeat door opening animation drove me mad and I ended up loading a save game from looong before that fight.

The furthest(farthest?) I’ve got in CV was as Chris fighting huge moths in a freezer, and I think I reached the remade RE mansion but can’t remember.

I did almost the same, just saw wakka post, too... I had no flame rounds or is it gas rounds... I kept trying and trying, panicking that I'd have to restart from the beginning. I eventually killed him but I really did struggle. Not this game but my pet hate from when I actually played games was being allowed to get stuck with no chance of survival. Also auto saves wiping your save at a bad time.

Also I think I was a bit stressed at the time anyway which didnt help.

Edit... For some reason I had only one save file...

[wakka]

Yeah with this kind of game I always maintain a few save files and cycle through them. It’s not great design but it is what it is. Playing as Chris now and still enjoying the hell out of it, it’s a great entry

[monel]

It's a class game. I wish it got remade. There's hardly anything I play much. I would play CV. No spoilers but a couple of the characters...

[wakka]

Yeah, it’s a prime candidate for the REmake treatment. Sadly it looks like it’s been passed over in favour of 4 as the next game.

It’s a real shame we got Nemesis and not CV. CV is far superior.

[samanosuke]

Had a couple of days off due to my birthday so figured I’d take advantage by plugging my PC Engine Mini up to the new OLED we bought in the Black Friday sales.

Started off by continuing Neutopia which I started playing a couple of months back but kind of left for a bit. I never really played LoZ back in the day but did enjoy Golvellius on the Master System, and I think Neutopia is the much better game. The labyrinths are sprawling enough without being too big, and their visual diversity helps the player to find their way around. The whole get a new piece of equipment to access a new area keeps things interesting, and there is enough variety in the new terrains, dungeons and monsters to make you want to see the next area. My only gripe - and this is the same with its peers of the day - is that your character can’t move diagonally making it often cumbersome to dodge projectiles. At first even combat is limited to four directions, although thankfully a new weapon introduced not far in does allow diagonal attacks. In spite of this I highly recommend anyone with a PCE Mini to give it a go.

Having got a bit fatigued by Neutopia I moved over to Galaga ‘88. Now a bit of context here: the original Galaga for me was and still is one of my favourite games ever. Furthermore there was a period in my life during the early noughties that I was big into the PC Engine and had quite a decent collection. Yet, in spite of both these facts, Galaga ‘88 had somehow alluded me.

Well was I in for a surprise… firsty, what is that gorgeous nebula? Is that transparency on the PCE?! And the enemies… really creative attack patterns, like the original on steroids. I’m really loving the game and it just gets better and better! I love the classical music during the bonus stages, the warp bonuses, the ways you can rack up additional points. Wait… is that scrolling?!?! In a Galaga? MIND BLOWN. I spent about four hours playing it solid and have to say I absolutely love it!!! Why oh why has it taken me so long to play it?

I think - no, I am sure - the PCE Mini is by far my favourite of the Mini consoles. Maybe it’s because I’ve played the Megadrive and SNES to death, maybe it’s the whacky collection of games, both import and domestic (okay, US), the obscurity, the novelty… can’t quite put my finger on it but as a package I think it is exceptional. Even turd on there like Victory Run I find myself playing. Also there’s something about the colourful graphics that appeal, much like the ZX Spectrum looks great today. The Megadrive and SNES might’ve been more powerful but in today’s retro world where power doesn’t matter, the PCE arguably shines brighter just like the Spectrum does against the C64. Pixel art is king - who needs parallax scrolling?

The only thing that bothers me about it is how the blooming pad gives me arthritis. I mean who thought sticking the d-pad off centre horizontally was a good idea?!? It’s way too close to the bottom edge of the pad. But oh well, can’t wait until tomorrow when I have another day of and another eight hour sesh on it.

[eastyy]

Not sure if this counts but fan game TMNT x Justice League Turbo

[ZipZap]

I didn't actually use any weapons for the aeroplane boss. I got a little pattern of movement round the room that mostly avoided his attacks, and just used the switch on the wall that chucks the crate at him. If you hit him with it four times he's a goner. Took me a fair few goes though.

This is one of those very vivid gaming memories I have from 20+ years ago.

I was late to Resident Evil, this was my first game in the series. I didn't know that oh-so-important Resident Evil rule of saving your best ammo for the bosses, so I was running around killing zombies with what at the time seemed like a plentiful variety of explosive rounds. I eventually got to this part with virtually no ammo and no back up save file. After struggling for a while I looked at some guides and they all seemed recommended hitting him with everything you have and then launching the crate once knock him out of the back of the plane. What I had was virtually nothing. Thankfully after a bit of practice, like you, I figured out how to dodge most of his attacks and beat him by using the crate alone. An Important lesson learned about ammo conservation!

[chopemon]

I finished The World Ends With You last night. I could never manage two screens of combat at once so just left the AI to it. Also had real trouble getting the correct pin combination. I'd get a great new pin and I could either never trigger it or it was stop.my others from triggering. I assume this is because it was misreading my touch screen motions. Eventually found a good combo and managed to rampage through a lot of the combat. Looking forward to playing the sequel now.

To test my RetroTink I popped in my recent Outrun 2006 to see what the colours are like since Sega games have a lot of them. Really enjoying the mission mode and trying to impress Clarissa. Lovely game and amazed it runs so well on the PS2.

[Sketcz]

Continuing my recent retro action, I spent some of the weekend playing Resi Code Veronica.

And...it's great!

Really? I loved it back in the day and spent the next 20 years praising it as the best entry in the series. Decided to finish it again a few months back, and disliked it immensely.

But that was from about 40% into it. There's a super annoying puzzle with a music box, which they stuck in the game twice, despite it being the most tedious puzzle in the Resi series. I'm curious how you'll feel after being forced to do it a second time. If you still love it, more power to you.

I'd actually completed Resi 3 a little before it, for the first time, and enjoyed that. I just think CV has tedious puzzles, and a nasty way of leaving key items with your other character who you can't access. And you have no way of knowing when the swap will come. I don't think I was ever even able to fire a single grenade round, ever, because I kept getting them stuck on someone then the game would swap characters,.

Playing through Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine currently. A bit overlong, but one of the best games on the N64. Lots of depth.

[wakka]

[MENTION=2415]Sketcz[/MENTION]

I can definitely see why you felt that way and can also see why you feel the way you do today, although I'm surprise fatigue set in so early. The music box is not the most engaging puzzle in the game, but I didn't find it as bad as you. It does feel like a very unnecessary bit of filler before you unlock the next chunk of story though, considering how packed this game is in general.

For myself I'm now at the end of the game pretty much - I think I'm about to fight the final boss as Claire. And my view on it has cooled slightly since my earlier post. I do think it's a really good Resi, and that it's a game that sets out to be as maximalist as possible, turning up all the stuff in the prior games to 11. It's Resi 1, 2 and 3 but MORE, more of everything, more mansions, more secret labs, more puzzles where you get an item and combine it with another item to get an item which unlocks an item.

That's a good and a bad thing. Early on I was loving it - it was exactly what I wanted in an old school Resi, and felt chunky enough that I could really sink my teeth into it. I was in hog heaven jogging about with the d-pad, slotting jewels into the eyeholes of statues and dodging zombies.

But the game comes a cropper for me in the second disc. The problem, I think, lies in the way they've structured it. In previous games you had two scenarios - an easier initial version then a tougher, lightly arranged version with another couple of areas that you could do as a replay. With this game it seems they set out to merge the two, meaning much of disc 2 is spent playing as Chris and revisiting areas you previously explored as Claire.

The main issue with this is that it kills the pacing. I was racing along as Claire, escaping the island, heading to Antarctica, uncovering the secrets of the Ashford family. Then the game slams the brakes on, and it feels like the story effectively takes a pause when you switch to Chris, right up till the point where Chris finds Claire (which probably takes at least five hours of gameplay time, if not longer, maybe seven). You spend that time exploring tweaked versions of previous areas, and it would've been more than fine as a second scenario, but packed into the main quest it feels like sucks the air out of proceedings somewhat.

I've still enjoyed it greatly, but it's a little bit too maximalist for its own good. I'm definitely at a point where I'm ready for it to be over now.

Regarding Resi 3, I do prefer this one. Resi 3 is just too slight of an experience. It's kind of the opposite problem to Code Veronica, where there's too much of everything. Nemesis is over almost before it feels like it's properly gotten started, and I don't appreciate the areas of RE2's map that it reuses, either. The Nemesis himself is a bit of a damp squib for me, too, since I felt they had already done a better version of the same idea with Mr X in RE2. It's not a bad game by any means, and I still enjoyed it, but it's the weakest of the old school Resis for me (NB I haven't played Zero).

[chopemon]

I'm not a huge fan of CV compared to the others but I do love how weird it looks and feels. It's got a really bleak and bizarre vibe that I love. You really feel like you are stuck out on that island.

[wakka]

Yeah, the island has got a strong sense of identity. Antarctica is weird though. It starts off with a good sense of place - it's snowy, and cold, and so on. But then you're six floors down in the basement in another mansion and it's like, wait, where am I? Am I still in Antarctica?

I was not as close to the end as I thought, and am on the second round of the music box puzzle Sketcz mentioned. And it's annoying