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

[Nu-Eclipse]

Currently revisiting the original GBA version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong (via the Ambassador Programme on 3DS).

Fun to play for the most part but surprisingly more frustrating than I remember it (or its predecessor Donkey Kong '94) being. I'd be very surprised if the upcoming Switch remake/remaster doesn't address elements like the difficulty curve and/or the controls to make it more accessible/approachable because it hasn't necessarily aged well in two decades.

That said, I'd also forgotten how much Mario actually speaks (relative to other Mario games) in this game.



Charles Martinet is hilarious and Nintendo won't easily replace the charm his vocals brought to their mascot. Kevin Afghani has huge shoes to fill IMO.

[Hirst]

I've been enjoying some Mass Destruction on the Saturn, a simple tank game that absolutely amazed me in 1997 with the VDP2 effects, super-smooth 60fps and beautiful golden explosions. I did some footage to try and show that off a bit.

Think of it as a simplified version of the Strike games but a tank instead of a helicopter and more of an emphasis on "score attack". It's more something you stick on for a 30 minute blast than an all-nighter, but I've been recommending it for years (specifically this version too).

[randombs]

I've been enjoying some Mass Destruction on the Saturn

That looks ADORABLE

I'm definitely going to try it

[CMcK]

I’m really enjoying the Psikyo curio that is Gunbarich. It’s like Arkanoid combined with a shooter. Weird but it really works. Looks lovely too. And another Psikyo title I’ve just discovered is Dragon Blaze. It’s kind of standard Psikyo shooter fair which is no bad thing. Has a kind of mecha-fantasy setting with lovely late 2d era visuals.

[endo]

I go through patches of playing Gunbarich a lot. Tends to get its hooks into you after playing for a while. I keep getting better, then go back to square one every time, as I play it in bursts. Weirdly tricky to put your finger on, but it's very playable and fun.

[speedlolita]

I've been working through The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask using this guide. I've finished all the objectives I need to do before heading to Snowhead so I'll start on that later today/this weekend. I'm having a proper good time and while I'd prefer not to use a guide I think a game of this nature really benefits from it, in addition to being more friendly in terms of time spent with the game. The last time I made a serious attempt at playing this game was on the GameCube TLoZ Collector's Edition promo disc nearly 2 decades ago now so its been a while.

[fallenangle]

LoZ: MM is an excellent game I enjoyed that even more than OTT. I played it myself for the first time only 6 or 7 years ago on the GC using the Collector's Edition I'd picked up at CEX for under £20. Bargain.

However using a guide to navigated you through the game, unless you're really stuck, is an anathema to me. Optional tasks or secret areas in games like that OK - sometimes a 'puzzle' is so random or obscure you'd never get it without having OCD. But that sort of issue is rare for those LoZ: OOT and MM era games onward.

The earlier LoZ games though had a number of random sub-dungeons; no clues you just had to click on everything 'just in case'. I hate non-puzzles like that and have no problem about referring to guide in those circumstances.

I'm playing Ultimate Doom and there are a few too many of those 'random' "Secrets" non-puzzles for my liking in that. When they're good they're great but when they're like that it is so frustrating. I had to refer to guide earlier this week in a small level. I just couldn't work out what I'd missed. It was really annoying me and worse when I found out the answer was I'd missed nothing. The game (on the original Xbox) is glitched and you can not trigger that particular puzzle.

Guides are invaluable for that sort of thing because, in such circumstances, you could have easily wasted a huge amount of time on replaying the level to no purpose.

[egparadigm]

I've been working through The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask using this guide. I've finished all the objectives I need to do before heading to Snowhead so I'll start on that later today/this weekend. I'm having a proper good time and while I'd prefer not to use a guide I think a game of this nature really benefits from it, in addition to being more friendly in terms of time spent with the game. The last time I made a serious attempt at playing this game was on the GameCube TLoZ Collector's Edition promo disc nearly 2 decades ago now so its been a while.

Looks like a good guide! I used the Zelda Dungeon one at points when I went through the 3DS version recently.

[speedlolita]

However using a guide to navigated you through the game, unless you're really stuck, is an anathema to me. Optional tasks or secret areas in games like that OK - sometimes a 'puzzle' is so random or obscure you'd never get it without having OCD. But that sort of issue is rare for those LoZ: OOT and MM era games onward.

While I understand what you're saying and have felt bad for taking this approach in the past I see it as a net win if it motivates me to play. I'm hoping to also finish EarthBound before the end of the year taking a similar approach.

Looks like a good guide! I used the Zelda Dungeon one at points when I went through the 3DS version recently.

I thought so. It gives just enough direction without being too spoiler-y IMO. They've made guides for other Zelda games that I haven't played that I may use to play along with too.

[fuse]

Been playing a few of the SFC games I picked up the other day, notably the ones I'd not played before but was curious about. Super SWIV, Parodius, 100% Cotton... quality.


The highlight though? The Firemen. Always heard good things about it, but still totally lived up to the hype. Only played the first couple of levels, but so so good - inventive and really fun take on the top-down shooter.

[dataDave]

I finally managed to upgrade the MiSTer with a 512GB SD card which didn't fail due to corruption, so decided to go crazy and add every single NTSC 8/10 and up for the PSX, Saturn, PCE CD and Mega CD. I also decided to copy across the entire NGCD library after enjoying myself with the CD versions of both AoF2 and FFS (4X load speed helps a lot).

It's a shame the loading breaks up the flow of the KoF games so badly. Even with a 4X load I'm finding them to be totally unplayable. Come to think of it as I type this I might use this as an opportunity to try out singles mode.

I wish someone could hack in the CD audio for the AES/MVS games.

[wakka]

It being Halloween, I decided to make a start on one of the few mainline Resi games I've not played - Zero. It helped that the HD version was down to £3.99 in a Halloween flash sale!

Traditional Resis are comfort games for me. There's something about the deliberate pacing and umami item puzzles that just feels right. I've made my way through the train section so far, and while I can see the problems that I've read about with this game already emerging - namely an overemphasis on inventory management and character switching - it's still a lot of fun to play.

I really like how they took the visuals forward in this one too. It looks like they devoted more polys to the environment than in REmake, enabling more interesting environmental effects like the rocking and tilting chandeliers on the train (although it does look like the character models might have taken a little bit of a hit versus REmake as a result). It remains remarkable how good these pre-rendered GameCube Resis look twenty years later.

Another thing that immediately strikes me is how the real time character switching is yet another crack at evolving the traditional Resi format of dual scenarios for the main story. 1 and 2 of course envisage that the player will play through the game twice. CV, I felt, took fundamentally the same approach in many ways but instead chose to merge the Chris and Claire's campaigns into one story - with, I think, mixed results.

This game tweaks the concept again, so that you're playing both characters simultaneously (even controlling them at the same time with both analogue sticks, which is kind of funky), and controlling when you switch between them, rather than it being dictated by the game's script.

It's an interesting concept, and a kind of final (if dead-end) evolution of traditional Resi before 4 came along and was amazingly brilliant and changed everything. But I can see it resulting in an awful lot of backtracking already.

Anyway those are my ramblings. Enjoying it. Had to put it into 4:3 and traditional controls, though

[samanosuke]

It’s Resi Evil meets Head Over Heels by the sound of it.

[fallenangle]

Still on Doom 3 Extras; finished Ultimate Doom and am now on to Doom II.

It is better, less of the random bits of unmarked wall Secret areas which has always annoyed me in games. There was clearly a design change, indeed improvement, in that respect. You'll find most of those in Doom II if you use a bit of common sense and your eyes and ears, it requires thought rather than just dumb, blind, dogged repetition - I like that.

[Goemon]

Been playing Earthbound on the SNES.

I’m pretty conflicted by it. There’s sooooo much stuff that I find awkward and annoying, but at the same time I’m still feeling compelled to play it.

Like Ness feeling homesick. This happened in a boss battle and pretty much cost me the fight, so I had to do the whole trudge to the boss and fight it again. I read up and it’s something that happens randomly and can only be cured by ringing your mom (after it starts).

It’s full of stuff like this. Stuff that sounded good on paper, but in practice not so much.

You have you ring your dad to save the game…which turns into a 20s monologue of dad chat (which is pretty much always the same)…Just to freakin save! I mean, why!?

And don’t even get me started on how much grinding is involved.

Like I say, I’m still finding it compelling, I think mainly because it’s outside of the norm in a lot of ways, but I’m not convinced it’s the masterpiece some people say it is.