Retro Games Beaten

Finished Pulseman for Sega Genesis. This was the work of Game Freak, mostly known for the sublime Drill Dozer on GBA. Oh, and some games about monsters in your pocket or something.

Anyway, it outs itself as a Sonic-era game given the controls. You get a big burst of speed when you dash, and you move quite quickly. This gets you into a lot of trouble, though; without the rings system, you're much more vulnerable. But you have to dash (either run for a bit or double-tap forward) to "charge up", which lets Pulseman fling a burst of electricity, or turn into a ball of electricity that rebounds something like Rocket Knight's rocket pack. You keep rebounding, too, as long as there's something to bounce off of, but you can manually break out of it. You can also use it to flow through electrical wires. I should also mention that the way you accelerate makes it incredibly easy to lose control and fly down a bit. This isn't as gradual a speed-up as Sonic; you move at a fairly fixed rate and then "burst" with speed. It makes platforming quite challenging at times.

Solid action rules the day for the early stages, but the game tends to turn into trash toward the end. Stage 6 has a downward underwater section that has a lot of blind jumps - there's no way to look down effectively that I could find like some games of the era - and you can only take three hits. It sucks. The last stage consists of a whole bunch of auto-scrolling segments. It also sucks. The last boss is... not too bad by comparison.

Visually, the game sports some excellent spritework. It also has some really trippy backgrounds, some of which just make things much harder to parse, and some color choices are eye-searing and garish. The soundtrack isn't that memorable, and unfortunately a ton of tracks repeat, so that's disappointing.

The pieces are here for a great game. As it is, it doesn't deserve its spot on all those hidden gem lists. I'd say this tops out at a 6/10, maybe a 6.5 if I'm feeling generous. But I've always wanted to finally give it a fair shake, so I have.

I imagine that would mean that any hint given by NPCs as to the locations of dungeons or other towns would become lies, so you'd have to really make sure to explore every inch of the world map.

That's not necessarily true of every randomizer. For example, ALTTP and Final Fantasy have some NPCs give actual, relevant hints. The randomizer for the original Dragon Warrior actually makes the old man that gives the hint to find the Mark of Erdrick actually give you the hint for the same item slot (it may just end up being a torch or a copper sword, though).

Unfortunately, the randomizer for Dragon Warrior 3 is not that robust so, yes, I had to make sure to explore every inch of every map. And yes, all hints have essentially become lies now. I still ended up going back to old habits and talking to NPCs despite it being a waste of time. Rubiss still gave me the sacred amulet, haha.

Last night I tried playing Ultima 3 Remastered but I got my butt handed to me by a booby trapped chest. Also, ghouls are not undead in the Ultima 3 world I guess... That's not confusing at all...

Edit: So ghouls are susceptible to Undead, it’s just that it can fail. I also thought I was in the “now playing” thread! Whoops!

No, but I’ve watched videos on it and Ultima 2. Honestly... I don’t think I’d ever want to play it. Even the simplified and now modded to be even friendlier Ultima 3 feels player hostile. I get that you’re supposed to explore and sort of feel your way around the world but after playing modern interpretations like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, the Ultima series feels way too clunky (and ugly in the later ones) and provides too many NPCs whose only purposes is to exist. Sure, that’s kinda true to life but it doesn’t make for a fun game experience.