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Post by Ex on Dec 31, 2017 21:49:47 GMT -5
Ninja Spirit might be my last finished game this year. We'll see! Strangely enough Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams... ended up being mine. I intended to do more gaming before the end of 2017, but I became overwhelmed with real life obligations and spending holiday time with family/friends. I plan to start 2018 up and running though! I might even hit up an X68000 late tonight (maybe). Not a bad way to spend some time, but like most arcade ports, the experience is short-lived. Glad to see you getting some more fun out of that Duo. I really am stoked to see what you beat on it in 2018.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 1, 2018 1:15:31 GMT -5
Ugh, Legendary Axe II is some cheap, cheap BS. Gonna have to go into my next year's list since I finished it late.
Really, things aren't so bad until you hit the last two stages. There, you run into some really, really trolly stuff. Stuff like a jump where a shield guy will get in your way and bounce you down to a floor. That floor falls away, and deposits you at the very beginning of the stage. And this is near the end of the stage when it happens. Not cool. The last stage also reaches peak troll, with some confusing layouts and some really tough enemies. I got tired of going at it over and over, and ended up save stating at the very end after I almost killed the last boss in a good run on-system. Basically, it was either that or I was (metaphorically) going to throw the controller across the room.
It gets a lot of guff for not being the original game, but I didn't find it awful. On the contrary, it was pretty good until it wasn't... probably a 6.0 experience overall.
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Post by Ex on Jan 2, 2018 12:27:21 GMT -5
I've beaten my first retro game for 2018! 1. Air Gallet | Arcade | 1996 | 8/10Air Gallet is a 1996 arcade shmup developed by Gazelle and published by Banpresto in Japan, USA, and Europe. Air Gallet plays like a standard verticle shmup. You can move around to avoid fire, shoot back at the bad guys, and use limited screen clearing special weapons. You gain power ups by defeating enemies, supplying various weaponry, which you'll need for the bosses at the end of the stages. Don't forget to go for the high score! Yes you know the drill. Despite being generic in design, Air Gallet excels in presentation. There's a lot of English voice acting that plays over the radio, in tandem with a high energy OST. Graphically, Air Gallet is very competent. For the most part its graphical design is clean, with occasionally stunning background art. However, what sets Air Gallet a notch higher, are all its tiny graphical effects. Shadows, debris rotation, parallax scrolling, multiple explosions types, water ripples, and many other delightful attentions to detail. With all this window dressing eye candy, when you destroy bosses, you really feel like you utterly annihilated them. But at only six stages, Air Gallet starts to become a credit muncher about halfway through though. I'm not the world's greatest shmup player by any means, and my first time through Air Gallet took around 10 credits. Like any standard shmup, once you start learning where the hard bits are, and thus remember to avoid them, Air Gallet would become much easier. While Air Gallet hardly attempts to reinvent the shmup wheel, it's still a very competently made shmup that any fan of the genre should give a shot.
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Post by anayo on Jan 2, 2018 18:37:08 GMT -5
Air Gallet's graphics look gorgeous. Is the music any good?
Just minutes ago I beat Ristar on the Sega Genesis. It was pretty languid until I got to the last boss, who munched through half of my continues.
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Post by Ex on Jan 2, 2018 21:50:10 GMT -5
Air Gallet's graphics look gorgeous. They are! The graphic design was by Junya Inoue (AKA Joker Jun), who became well known for his stuff in later Cave works. It's decent, a bit "bright" for my taste. I thought this track was decent. However, between all the explosions and radio chatter, it's a bit hard to really pay attention to the music while you're playing. It kinda fades into the background too much. Just minutes ago I beat Ristar on the Sega Genesis. It was pretty languid until I got to the last boss, who munched through half of my continues. If you're still in the mood for more Ristar, give the Game Gear version a try. It's level designs are very different, including some unique levels unto itself. There are some power-ups in the Game Gear version that are unique as well.
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Post by anayo on Jan 3, 2018 8:36:00 GMT -5
Ex,
I love Genesis/SNES era games, but for some reason it's hard for me to get back into handheld gaming from that time. Maybe the limitations of handhelds from back then aren't as endearing to me. It sounds promising that they added power-ups to the GG version of Ristar, though. I kinda felt as though Ristar's lack of power-ups held it back from being as fun as it could have been.
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Post by Ex on Jan 3, 2018 11:00:48 GMT -5
it's hard for me to get back into handheld gaming from that time. Maybe the limitations of handhelds from back then aren't as endearing to me If you're speaking from a screen quality perspective, I understand where you are coming from. Even during their respective heydays, I was never a big fan of the Game Boy or Game Gear's LCD displays (or many other vintage handhelds'). However these days I play retro handheld games on my Android phone, which has an OLED display, making the hardware presentation far more inviting. I use a Bluetooth controller that clips the phone to itself, making the resulting setup very much a handheld in and of itself. Truthfully, I have a fondness for vintage handhelds by default. I got a Game Boy in 1989, and was hooked ever since. It blew my mind that I could be anywhere, yet still play games. That feeling of awe never left.
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Post by anayo on Jan 3, 2018 13:08:41 GMT -5
Ex,
You bring up an interesting point. There's a few categories of retro gaming I have hard time getting back into. Handhelds are just one of them for some reason. I tried the Game Gear versions of Gunstar Heroes, Musha, and Streets of Rage II before. I thought they were neat 8-bit adaptations but mostly I wished I was playing the Genesis versions. I even owned a Sega Nomad but sold it cause the battery life and screen fell so short of my homebrew-enabled PSP (I bought a TG-16 with the money, though.) I'm aware there are mods available today to install better screens and batteries, but for the money and trouble I'd rather just emulate the 16-bit version on an android device or something.
I think there was definitely a different mindset back then, cause I remember when kids at school were enthralled with those vapid Tiger LCD games, and there were some Gameboy games (like movie adaptations or miniature versions of console games that had no business running on a Gameboy) that captivated me then but would bore me to tears now. My main exceptions today would probably be my two Coleco Tabletop Arcades (Ms. Pac Man & Frogger) and a few 8-bit Gameboy games (mostly Pokemon Pinball, which entertains me now almost as much as it did in the year 2000).
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Post by Sarge on Jan 3, 2018 13:21:38 GMT -5
The quality level of most portable games was definitely lower than consoles for the most part, but there were a few gems here and there. For the original Game Boy, for instance, Mega Man IV and V are both splendid. The version of Bionic Commando on Game Boy might actually be better than the NES game in some ways! Gargoyle's Quest is still a blast today. I certainly wouldn't take a Game Boy (or Game Gear) over the NES, but the system surprises despite its limitations, and modern screens have helped tremendously in that regard. Also, if you haven't played Link's Awakening, then you're missing out on the best Zelda game in my opinion.
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Post by Ex on Jan 3, 2018 13:31:20 GMT -5
I would say generally speaking, handheld down-ports of console titles were inferior. I agree with that. But as Sarge said, there are plenty of exclusives that only appeared on handhelds, never on consoles. A lot of those exclusives remain excellent to this day. Now I'm not trying to say "you're wrong" about not wanting to play handhelds, mind. Perhaps if I hadn't grown up playing 8-bit handhelds I might not harbor the same affinity as I do now. those vapid Tiger LCD games Oh man, ugh. Even as a kid I hated those. I think the only half decent one I had was Double Dragon. Perhaps the original Game & Watch units might have been worth playing. But I literally knew no one who had any of those growing up.
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