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

[wakka]

I have been spending some time in the last few days tinkering with RetroArch shader presets, something I'm new to.

I've found one I'm quite happy with now, and I christened it with a couple of play-throughs of Harmful Park.

I know it's a fave on here and it's one I've dabbled with before myself, but it really clicked for me last night. It's such a lovely little game. The overall look of the art and humorous details throughout are great, but I love how well-tuned the gameplay is, too. There's something really quite addictive about trying to build up and hang onto your individual power-ups, and then deploy the right one at the right moment for maximum destruction.

I like the fact that it's pretty easy, too. I find I just don't have the energy a lot of the time to give other shmups the focus they need not to get killed constantly and just end up credit-feeding. On 'Easy' mode, this feels very well balanced and paced to me. I enjoy the breaks in between intense bullet dodging sections.

Really excellent. And it's great that we can understand the cutscenes now thanks to the fan translation - it's a fun, silly story!

[Cepp]

Putting some time into Crazy Taxi again and still love it. The Steam version is decent with mods, music restoration and setting the game to a 4:3 resolution.

I also tried Sonic Adventure 2 for the first time in years. I wasn't the biggest fan of the DC original, but I enjoyed it enough. I can't finish it today, it's a miserable experience. I don't know how I managed to wring any enjoyment out of it at release. It's genuinely awful. I still enjoyed Sonic Adventure when I went back to it last year as well.

I'm thinking of putting some more time into PSO as well. Might hop back on to Ephinea. I guess I'm in a DC kind of mood right now.

[randombs]

Super Mario 3 (NSO)

I finished it last week and it was great fun. It got super frustrating towards the end and I made ample use of the rewind feature. It pushed my Bluetooth 8bitdo M30 to the limits so I had to ”switch” over to my Retro-bit Saturn 2.4GHz pad.

I’m starting Super Mario World which will be fun and equally frustrating, I’m sure

[Atticus]

I've been enjoying some NSO action too.

Mario Kart 64 holds a special place in my heart. Going back to it feels odd initially after playing Mario Kart 8 but after a few laps of Wario Stadium I start to get into a groove again. It takes more skill to cut through the circuits and even hit the power-ups compared to 8 where it's almost impossible to miss a power-up. It's still amazing and Bowser's Castle is an all-time fave circuit

I started Super Mario World too and found I couldn't leave it alone. Been a while since I played it.

[CMcK]

Been enjoying my 3DODE with some Total Eclipse and Road Rash. The 90s style presentation is cheesy but nostalgic. Can't believe how hard Total Eclipse seems these days. I suppose it was the only 3DO game I had for a while after launch so I certainly got plenty of practice back then.

[Cepp]

Played through Mario 3 on the All Stars Collection. I still prefer the NES version but I've really come round to the graphical look of the All Stars release.

I did struggle a bit in some levels, which I'm putting down to age and input lag from the SNES Mini.

I always underestimate how meaty the game is. A full run through missing no levels took me 3 hours 45 minutes

[Protocol Penguin]

Playing Soul Blazer on the MiSTer.* It’s a bit simplistic, and hasn’t much depth, but still very satisfying. Thinking of playing the whole trilogy afterwards, to be honest.

Tried a bit of Act Raiser as well; it has tremendous presentation for a console game from 1991, but it’s rather brutally difficult to the point of needless frustration at times.

* also own a legit cart, but my console needs recapping.

[fuse]

Plugged in a recently-bought PS2 Slim, which was also the first outing for the RetroTink 5X I bought over a year ago and has sat in its box until now. Embarrassing. My first game was "try to navigate to where I can enable YPbPr in the system menu using only sound prompts". I had to cheat and use a YouTube guide for this, but was very pleased to complete it.

After that though it was a quick session with OutRun2 SP. Any OutRun 2 is a good time, but there's a loooot of extra stuff in this that I'd either forgotten about (it's been a long time since I played Coast to Coast) or just hadn't seen before. Then put on Castlevania Chronicles for a bit, which although I didn't play far into, was nice to poke about between the original and arrange versions - the differences being immediately visible.

Actually getting some of my retro stuff set up is a good reminder to make time to set up the rest of it - I probably need to buy some new leads here and there for some systems, but I've got enough SCART sockets and power points to make it all work at least. Next retro game is "do I have sufficient permissions on my work laptop to update the RetroTink firmware", fingers crossed that one goes well.

[wakka]

If don't have permissions, and you just need to run a basic bit of firmware updating software, you could also try virtualising Windows on your Mac with UTM:

https://mac.getutm.app/

It's free and pretty lightweight unlike bulkier, more powerful virtualisation software like Parallels and VMware

[Cepp]

Two Worlds is the best kind of jank. So much of it makes no sense. You start off in a cave you almost immediately run out of. Then you get killed by wildlife on the road back to the first village. Your horse doesn't obey you, weapons/armour/effects can be stacked with seemingly no limit, certain shrines heal your health automatically allowing you to kite an army of foes you can then demolish in one go, killed enemies become ghosts you can fight again, including zombies and skeletons! I just, I love it. Some faction areas are guarded by NPCs. I think you're supposed to gain favour with them elsewhere to gain access, but you can just kill the NPC and walk in without issue.

It's giving me the same feeling Risen did, although that was a far more polished game. The voice acting is fantastically bad, it's got that mid 2000s PC look I love, and the loot system is really, really fun and quite addictive.

[fallenangle]

Went to my original Xbox homebrew game collection I hadn't been back to for ages and I forgotten I was halfway into Duke Nukem 3D - Megaton Edition, one of the episodes/expansion packs; there is a lot included in the port.

Really enjoyed working my way through a couple of levels taking place on an alien spaceship orbiting Earth. Tough enough enemies, good level design and far from linear. I found it quite refreshing.

[Cepp]

Can't go wrong with some Duke. I hope the 2001 restoration project works out.

[Baseley09]

Set Galaxy Force II up on PS2 for 480p / 16:9 on a 50" Pioneer Plasma and life couldn't get any better really, unless I had the Hori Flight stick for this!! Immense living.

[Brad]

Kabuki Klash:

Quite enjoying this. Not heard of it before but seems a pretty competent fighter. Will try out some more characters this week to see if it offers anythign over the usueal Neo fighters.

Ms Pac-Man:
Sadly, this is unplayable with a D Pad. Wrong inputs ruining the experience. I'm assuming this isn't just me? Would a stick help or is the issue that I need a 4 way gate rather than an 8 way, have I even got that terminology right?

[fallenangle]

Being doing PC Tomb Raider 1 'Gold' PC exclusive add on levels "Unfinished Business".

Great value for money at the time: four additional levels to the original game and a very decent challenge.

I've not played them for years so, unlike the main old school Core Design Tomb Raider games I've replayed dozens of times I'd forgotten much about this particular game's expansion pack. As with the main game they judged the level design perfectly for my taste, not to be entirely free roaming but complex and big enough to force the player to explore and experiment, no hand holding.

Good stuff.