|
Post by Sarge on Mar 28, 2020 17:46:40 GMT -5
That's pretty beefy for the era, honestly. I was running the following back when I played Descent II:
CPU: 166 MHz Pentium GPU: 1MB S3 Trio 64V+ (no 3D acceleration, just as yours doesn't) RAM: 80 MB (used to be 24 MB) HDD: 2 GB IDE drive Sound: I don't remember the exact manufacturer, but it was an ISA card that was the equivalent of a Sound Blaster Pro and an MPU-401.
|
|
|
Post by anayo on Mar 28, 2020 17:55:26 GMT -5
That's pretty beefy for the era, honestly. I was running the following back when I played Descent II: CPU: 166 MHz Pentium GPU: 1MB S3 Trio 64V+ (no 3D acceleration, just as yours doesn't) RAM: 80 MB (used to be 24 MB) HDD: 2 GB IDE drive Sound: I don't remember the exact manufacturer, but it was an ISA card that was the equivalent of a Sound Blaster Pro and an MPU-401. Hmmmmmmmmm that's really weird. I wonder if A) you're remembering the frame rate with nostalgia beer goggles, or B) if there is some underlying weirdness with my computer causing it to underperform. In all fairness Descent II was playable until I reached a room containing 6 enemies all shooting at me. Then it entered single digit land. I think if I had been playing it in the 90's I'd have put up with it, but modern me said, "Nah."
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 28, 2020 18:01:13 GMT -5
Alisa | Platinum: 22 | Gold: 16 | Silver: 16 | Bronze: 5
33:29
Loading up my final save starts the game over. So I wonder if there's any extra features when you do this and go through the other campaign?
Anyways, some of the last battles were tougher but still very doable. I was rocking my main early party with Kazuki, Ryogo, Alisa, and Liu through this whole batch. Ryogo was my MVP with his Burst skills and high combos for machine guns and shredded things. What was hilarious was how the final boss was kind of easy, but the game had an evil secret low level MVP as well. This one random four legged enemy unit with a shield had ALL the luck in the world and took me forever to take down. It was funny how near the end, Ryogo was ejected from his mech as well and unfortunately died. Kazuki was right next to this unit and I was out of heals with his mech falling apart, so I had him eject over to the MVP mech that Ryogo was rocking to save the day. The only issue is that I think weapon proficiency/usage per pilot does all the damage scaling. Kazuki never used machine guns, so he wasn't doing much. But my Ryogo unit had the biggest backpack in the game with tons of items and I was able to finally chip away the last few enemies.
The main characters were pretty bratty like some mecha anime, but everyone grew on me as the story got better and more focused in the second half. Great stuff. Though it's kind of funny, I still think Gun Hazard might be my favorite scenario wise. I guess I'm biased since that one kind of goes into space near the end and just felt really epic as things escalated. FM3 was a monstrous step up from how robotic FM1's story was though. I dig them all in this department either way so it's all good.
Probably my favorite retro game of 2020 so far and will be very hard to beat.
I've also been on a freaking awesome roll with PSX games these last few months.
The Misadventures of Tron Bonne Tomb Raider Vagrant Story Front Mission 3
I plan to play Valkyrie Profile sometime this year and hope that keeps the train going.
|
|
|
Post by Sarge on Mar 28, 2020 18:07:06 GMT -5
That's pretty beefy for the era, honestly. I was running the following back when I played Descent II: CPU: 166 MHz Pentium GPU: 1MB S3 Trio 64V+ (no 3D acceleration, just as yours doesn't) RAM: 80 MB (used to be 24 MB) HDD: 2 GB IDE drive Sound: I don't remember the exact manufacturer, but it was an ISA card that was the equivalent of a Sound Blaster Pro and an MPU-401. Hmmmmmmmmm that's really weird. I wonder if A) you're remembering the frame rate with nostalgia beer goggles, or B) if there is some underlying weirdness with my computer causing it to underperform. In all fairness Descent II was playable until I reached a room containing 6 enemies all shooting at me. Then it entered single digit land. I think if I had been playing it in the 90's I'd have put up with it, but modern me said, "Nah." Well, that can definitely happen if things get too crazy. It's not terribly unlike some console games straining when things get bonkers. Yeah, maybe give it a shot when you've got your beefier rig back up and running.
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Mar 28, 2020 21:53:42 GMT -5
I plan to play Valkyrie Profile sometime this year and hope that keeps the train going. I think you'll enjoy that one. The OST if nothing else. Glad to see you finished FM3, and that it stayed a consistent good time for you. 33 hours on Alisa's campaign is a nice time-frame, considering I plan to give it a shot sooner rather than later.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 28, 2020 22:32:17 GMT -5
Looks like on HLTB most people beat Emma's campaign around the same time frame, despite her scenario having 10 more missions. It supposedly being even easier must make it a breeze in spots. I'd like to ponder some questions about the story differences but don't want any spoilers either haha. Since you mentioned earlier that some characters I was talking about weren't in her story, that gives me hope that it's a fairly elaborate difference and not just like character swaps in the same roles. And there were a few points in the story where the teams crossed paths, so it'll be cool to see how those moments are from the other perspective.
But yeah I'm not playing 60-70 hours of an SRPG straight, no matter how much I loved it. But I'll get back to it someday!
|
|
|
Post by Ex on Mar 28, 2020 22:47:29 GMT -5
yeah I'm not playing 60-70 hours of an SRPG straight, no matter how much I loved it. But I'll get back to it someday! Exactly what I said to myself after finishing Emma's campaign back in 2008.
|
|
|
Post by Xeogred on Mar 28, 2020 22:56:50 GMT -5
lol, yeah I don't want to repeat that. I may consider turning off battle animations next time. Though I thought it was really cool to see all that in action, the mecha aiming around corners, all the little details and movements were cool. I hated how weird the camera tracking was with missiles though, you would watch it awkwardly snake its way square by square following some weird path. I could do without that heh.
|
|
|
Post by anayo on Mar 29, 2020 12:49:08 GMT -5
Hmmmmmmmmm that's really weird. I wonder if A) you're remembering the frame rate with nostalgia beer goggles, or B) if there is some underlying weirdness with my computer causing it to underperform. In all fairness Descent II was playable until I reached a room containing 6 enemies all shooting at me. Then it entered single digit land. I think if I had been playing it in the 90's I'd have put up with it, but modern me said, "Nah." Well, that can definitely happen if things get too crazy. It's not terribly unlike some console games straining when things get bonkers. Yeah, maybe give it a shot when you've got your beefier rig back up and running. Good news: I can get MW: Mercenaries to run at about 20 fps if I lower the resolution to 320x240. (It defaults to 640x480 for some reason.) I feel like a dummy for not checking that first, but now I can at least play it without resorting to a more powerful computer.
|
|
|
Post by Sarge on Mar 29, 2020 13:07:10 GMT -5
Still not optimal, of course. But at least it's passable. Are you running on the Windows side or DOS? DOS is much friendlier on the requirements.
|
|