Retro Thread for old gamers

[tiesto]

Murayama wrote, didn’t direct

Does it hand hold, treat you like a child, make it like babby’s first jrpg, have a twenty hour tutorial, an obscene focus on story to the point of detracting from the gameplay? Even story based jrpgs back in the day like suikoden has a gameplay first principle. Minimal handholding, risk (characters can die permanently), minimal cutscenes despite story being a big focus, lots of side quests, and hidden shit.

If it’s not that I have no interest.

Hand hold? It's pretty linear at first, then after a crucial part in the game it opens up a LOT (almost to the point of being detrimental, only giving you some vague clues what to do)
No 20 hour tutorial, it's pretty quick to get into and progress. Apparently the game itself is 30-40 hours depending on the number of sidequests you do
There's a few cutscenes but the majority of them are over pretty quickly, story isn't anything too terribly interesting tbh but it gets the job done, there's a bit of charm in the dialogue, and it's not really full of loli uguu
A ton of sidequests and hidden shit:

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basically, you play as several different parties who all meet up at one big fortress raid. After that, you unlock the power of the Ark, a giant ship. And then you can go around recruiting various NPCs to join these different guilds, like a tactics guild (that allows you to gain position based bonuses in battle), a smithing guild, a spellcasting guild, a library guild (that offers research on enemies and helps you unlock a really powerful spell), at this point it gets VERY Suikoden esque

[close]

[Himu]

Hand holding isn’t necessarily linearity. It’s a totally separate category. Like, FFIV is linear af right? But it doesn’t have constant commentary on how to play it right? Or telling you what to do. Or block off progress because it wants you to do things in its special order. Or restrict you at all really. You know how in Okami Issun will flat out reveal puzzle solutions and his input isn’t exactly optional? That’s handholding.

Sounds good. Sounds like the jrpg of old, which was a genre about choice and decision making rather than be spoon fed the developers story because they wish they were making VN’s instead.

[naff]

'NEW THINGS ARE BAD!
OLD THINGS ARE GOOD!
I'M BASIC AS FUCK!'

I'm only 12 but I LOVE the old stuff like Crazy Town and SMASH MOUTH. New music is TRASH.

[demi]

Gideon Zhi just released a translation for SMT If so you can play it on your retro platform

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/3951/

[Rufus]

Gideon Zhi just released a translation for SMT If so you can play it on your retro platform

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/3951/

It´s been a long road, but today AGTP releases a complete translation for Shin Megami Tensei if... on the Super Nintendo/Super Famicom. For me personally this journey has encompassed a second undergraduate degree, a cross-country move, a complete career change, multiple periods of both employment and unemployment, the licensure of one of our translation patches, and the beginnings of a family, in addition to having to deal with several project-related IRC and Discord raids, hate speech, and generalized harassment from the SMT community at large. It´s done, and I *will* maintain the patch should anyone find any bugs or typos. But that´s it.

I do this for the enjoyment of the process, to challenge myself to produce work of ever-higher caliber. if... hits a high enough bar at this point that I´m satisfied releasing it. I hope everyone who´s been clamoring for the patch gets some enjoyment out of it; I´ll let the game speak for itself.

With Majin Tensei 2 being mostly done elsewhere, don´t expect any further Megami Tensei work out of AGTP. No updated patch for SMT1, no back-porting of if...´s work into SMT2, no Majin Tensei 1. I´m done. To those who were looking forward to the aforementioned, I truly apologize. Maybe focus on cleaning up your community.

Whew. Anyone know more?

[demi]

Majin Tensei 2 is being worked on by DDS & Tom, and is very close to release.

The TLDR with that comment is that Gideon Zhi felt constantly harrased and bitched at by the SMT community on why he hasnt finished the translation. He went on a twitter tirade over it.

[Himu]

Damn. F-zero is fantastic. Little me was insane to not like this. Super Mario Kart is fantastic too.

[Tasty]

I always get a weird feeling when I look back on the original Mario Kart and how much fun I had with it, considering how simple and primitive it was compared to newer entries. But that just shows how solid the fundamentals were, and how correct the team was in prioritizing two-player multiplayer (splitscreen at all times) at the expense of a better single-player experience in this instance. My cousins and I spent hours in Balloon Battle (mostly because turning in that game during races is still somewhat challenging to me, lol), and probably because of that Battle Mode is still the primary way I play the series. Great little game. It also had the best music in the series until Mario Kart 8.

[Himu]

I’ve tried getting into Mario kart and it’s never stuck but I’ve never played it multiplayer besides double dash. I have mario kart 3ds and it’s just I think Super is much better from what I’ve played. Mario kart seems one of those series that’s pointless unless you play it multiplayer so I’ve always avoided these games and I wasn’t friends with too many Nintendo fans besides one person that had Mario kart.

I do have fond memories playing Mario kart with one childhood friend. We went to a baseball game and then played Super Mario kart and had a sleep over.

[Tasty]

I’ve never played it multiplayer besides double dash.

I haven't spent much time with MK7 but it always seemed like a really polished beta for MK8.

[Himu]

I’ve always want to get into Mario kart which is why I want to play Mario Kart 8 online.

[Tasty]

I’ve always want to get into Mario kart which is why I want to play Mario Kart 8 online.

Deluxe is so fricking good.

Best MK

Played it for over 150 hours already

Only way it'd be better is if it had more options in multiplayer, but the engine and amount of content is crazy stellar.

[Himu]

Can you do battle mode online

[Tasty]

Can you do battle mode online

Yup! You have a separate online score for it (in addition to a racing score) when you play randos online.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've gone from 1000 points to 6200.

[close]

[Himu]

I watched videos of battle mode. It looks amazing. Why do people hate it? I remember it being controversial.

[Tasty]

I watched videos of battle mode. It looks amazing. Why do people hate it? I remember it being controversial.

Some people think just because you're in a vehicle you have to use it to race.

Dunno if the same people also hated Twisted Metal.

[Himu]

I need to play battle mode

[bork]

I watched videos of battle mode. It looks amazing. Why do people hate it? I remember it being controversial.

People hate battle mode?    News to me.  MK8's battle mode did get shit on because it didn't have proper stages, but MK8 Deluxe fixed that and added stages just for this mode.

[Tasty]

I watched videos of battle mode. It looks amazing. Why do people hate it? I remember it being controversial.

People hate battle mode?    News to me.  MK8's battle mode did get shit on because it didn't have proper stages, but MK8 Deluxe fixed that and added stages just for this mode.

It also introduced one of the most fun and fresh-feeling battle modes in Renegade Roundup.

Cops and robbers combined with Mario Kart really shouldn't work as well as it does.

[Himu]

This looks too fun

[demi]

Still waiting for Mario Kart to get a singleplayer mode like Diddy Kong Racing. Battle Mode zzzz

[CatsCatsCats]

Diddy Kong racing was tight single player true

[Himu]

Getting close to end of Earthbound I think. Still great.

Got my computer back running and all my data was backed up. So I still have almost every cartridge game ever made on my hd. I decided to play Wave Race 64 tonight.

It may be weird but besides Zelda it was always my favorite Nintendo 64 game. For 1996 I thought it was the most impressive console game - in a technical sense - I had ever seen. Others were blown away by Mario 64 but what stole my heart was Wave Race. I hadn’t seen anything as impressive on the psx or Saturn or anything in arcades either. At the time a lot of racing games had primitive 3d graphics like Daytona. They looked good, but the visual spectacle of Wave Race 64 was beyond any of that for me. The water, the physics, the mists of Dake Lake, the stunts, the music, the entire aesthetic. It was such a gem at the time and this may be weird to say, but the primary reason I was jealous of Nintendo 64 owners.

And the gameplay is still so good to me. Nintendo 64 has other great racers but none really enchant me like Wave Race 64. The mix of avoiding obstacles and hitting the points of the buoys so you don’t lose power is simple but it WORKS. And it’s still the Nintendo 64 game I go to for casual play to this day.

I’d love a new Wave Race for Switch.

[bork]

Others were blown away by Mario 64 but what stole my heart was Wave Race. I hadn’t seen anything as impressive on the psx or Saturn or anything in arcades either. At the time a lot of racing games had primitive 3d graphics like Daytona. They looked good, but the visual spectacle of Wave Race 64 was beyond any of that for me. The water, the physics, the mists of Dake Lake, the stunts, the music, the entire aesthetic. It was such a gem at the time and this may be weird to say, but the primary reason I was jealous of Nintendo 64 owners.

In 1996?  There were games like Super GT in arcades running on Model 3 hardware that shat all over everything else.  Daytona was more than three years old by this point.  But yeah, I think Wave Race at the time was more-impressive looking than what was on the home consoles because of dat water.  Was still playing Rage Racer instead though.

Before a new Waverace I'd rather have a new F-Zero first. 

[Himu]

I guess I didn’t see the model 3 racers at the time. By that time arcades we’re dead in my area and the primary games we got were Metal Slug, HOTD, Area 51;etc. even my Tilt didn’t have much in the way of racers.

Doesn’t help that from 1995-1996 I didn’t really play video games (busy year) so..lol

[bork]

Local mall arcade had this right in the entrance area and it got a lot of attention.  Made everything else look like complete shit at the time although most people didn't play it because one play was $1!

If you didn't see this back then, it looked like it was two generations ahead of all the other games released and especially made the Saturn's 3D look that much worse.     Fighter's Megamix made up for not getting a port of it at least, but I remember thinking at the time how after the home consoles had finally caught up to arcades with the PS1 and Saturn...we were right back to being way behind again.

That same arcade had this kind of Super GT setup too:

[bork]

Oh snap, you can run it emulated at 16:9 now. 




Playing as a cat

[Himu]

I never saw VF3 or any of those games ever in an arcade.

But then I became a console brat by then and got tired of going to arcades only for them to close. Plus my local skating place where I went every Friday didn’t have any of these games.

[Tasty]

Lesser beings: "Mario Kart doesn't take strategy or skill"

Me, a scholar:

[Himu]

Good shit. Can you play Mario 64 online with me?

Checklist:

- Almost done with Earthbound



- Made a new game of Mario 64. Have 51 stars so almost done. Every level on the third and fourth floor is a classic to me. Game is fantastic and one of those games I've given multiple chances over the years and it's grown so much on me. The worst part of the game is easily the camera. It could use a full remake on Switch.



- decided to give OoT Master Quest a shot since it's in my romset. I have never played Master Quest and I decided to get all smug as a Zelda vet and just try the Deku Tree dungeon and damn, I died two (three?) times surprisingly. It was so different. Like, the moat puzzle. wtf! You usually just dive under the water to hit the button. But here...there's no button! And you've got to get a get a torch over to the side and light another torch. But there's a spike in the middle of the moat. I was completely baffled. After pacing my room for a few minutes I decided that the puzzle should be taken as is and I only needed a way to gun UNDER the spike. So one time I just tried using the shield to shrink Link into a crouching position to miss the spike and holy fuck it worked. I was orgasming from the thought of solving that great, great puzzle in such a creative manner that I almost let the torch fire blow out I immediately decided once I completely the dungeon that I NEEDED to play Master Quest immediately after beating Earthbound. NEED. Zelda OoT 3d was next on my play list anyways but that game forces you to unlock the game by beating it. NO. I NEED MASTER QUEST. I might scout the area for beaten OoT 3d carts to find a save file so I can get playing MQ that way. I haven't played OoT in nearly ten years. It is one of my all time favorite games. I know it like the back of my hand, and I've played it a billion times. But this game never ceases to give me chills. The intro? The charm of Navi flying around? That iconic harp when you boot it up. Holy fuck, I am PUMPED to play OoT 3d and MQ.



- Fire Emblem GBA after Master Quest, then Fire Emblem Awakening classic mode.



If you can't tell, I've gone full Ntard.

I've also played Samurai Shodown V Special on the side of my usual Super Turbo. Game is fantastic. I bought it a year ago on PS4 but could never find opponents. Playing it on Fightcade is incredible. It's pure fundamentals, no bullshit.



Going full on retro has made me enjoy games so much more. 

[Himu]

https://m.

[demi]

If youre interested in speedruns just hit up speedrun.com and masturbate to all your retro games DONE FAST

[MMaRsu]

I mean most games aint better than Streets of Rage that's for sure

[Purrp Skirrp]

[Sho Nuff]

I just finished reading this



JFC what a crazy series this is. It's basically 500 pages of unedited interviews with SUPER obscure dudes from the Japanese game industry during the 80s (even ran into some of my old bosses in there). Super fascinating but I feel like I'm like one of 10 people who this book is for. After reading it I'm going back and playing these nutso MSX2/PC98 games that get referenced in bulk.

Also there's an interview with a Diehard Gamefan Magazine artist and there is some REAL CRAZY SHIT about sharing hookers and playing Yoshi's Island.

[bork]

Also there's an interview with a Diehard Gamefan Magazine artist and there is some REAL CRAZY SHIT about sharing hookers and playing Yoshi's Island.

Is that with or without some acid-laced coffee?

[tiesto]

I just finished reading this

(Image removed from quote.)

JFC what a crazy series this is. It's basically 500 pages of unedited interviews with SUPER obscure dudes from the Japanese game industry during the 80s (even ran into some of my old bosses in there). Super fascinating but I feel like I'm like one of 10 people who this book is for. After reading it I'm going back and playing these nutso MSX2/PC98 games that get referenced in bulk.

Also there's an interview with a Diehard Gamefan Magazine artist and there is some REAL CRAZY SHIT about sharing hookers and playing Yoshi's Island.

I own the whole series and am making it through part 3 now... some really awesome stuff in there, including things I feel that I may be one of the few people who would be interested in. Like the answer to why Biometal got a 2 Unlimited soundtrack in the west.

I have access to an X68000, an FM Towns Marty, and am waiting on an MSX I bought in Japan that I shipped back to me.. so getting to learn about play some of the more obscure PC games thanks to this series is a treat.

[Himu]

How were volumes 1 and 2

[Positive Touch]

the problem with those books is that the author is a fucking nutjob and you're trying to read an old anecdote from a dev and here he goes trying to show off his knowledge about a game they fucking made or going into a stupid rant about how women having periods is a choice or some bullshit. great idea for a series and there's lots of great info in there but my god it can be hard to read sometimes.

there's also a post up somewhere from the woman who ran the translation service he used talking about what a fucking jackoff he was the whole time.

[tiesto]

I don't recall the women having periods be a choice, my main issue is how obsessed he seems to be with office layouts! If you could find the post from the translator I'd love to read that.

[Sho Nuff]

the problem with those books is that the author is a fucking nutjob and you're trying to read an old anecdote from a dev and here he goes trying to show off his knowledge about a game they fucking made or going into a stupid rant about how women having periods is a choice or some bullshit. great idea for a series and there's lots of great info in there but my god it can be hard to read sometimes.

there's also a post up somewhere from the woman who ran the translation service he used talking about what a fucking jackoff he was the whole time.

OH yeah. I tried watching some of the video content but it was pretty tough to get through. And the Kickstarter drama is indeed a hot mess (I didn't realize it was THIS bad):
https://cirsova.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/gamergate-interview-with-agness-kaku/

The thing about office layouts is weird, but I guess it's good for remembering people and little anecdotes.

On the plus side, there's finally confirmation of the LSD-in-the-coffee.

[Sho Nuff]

Whoa hold the phone, it looks like they're taking the best parts of all 3 books and editing it into a proper volume. This is probably what you should read:

https://vol.co/product/japansoft-oral-history/

[StealthFan]

This thread was made for meeee.

Only I still like games from last gen. This gen though? Yikes.

PS2/XBOX/GC will always be the GOAT gen. Not nostalgia talking, as I still play games from that era on a regular basis. Was the last great gen for JRPG's too.

[Himu]

what ps2 gen games you play stealth

[StealthFan]

what ps2 gen games you play stealth

I am going through Panzer Dragoon Orta and Mercenaries at the moment. Getting Echo Night and Fatal Frame 1 next week. Hulk: Ultimate Destruction still owns and I play it every couple of years. I need to replace my broken OG Xbox because I bought a ton of games last year but the Xbox I got with them was defective. Died right before the end of Otogi 2

I am going to do a PS2 JRPG binge soon, probably in December. Going to rent as many as I can from Gamefly. I never played through Digital Devil Saga 2 despite loving the first. I'll replay the first to have the plot fresh in my mind.

[tiesto]

DDS2 has one of the all time best battle themes. Loved that game!

What other PS2 rpgs will you be binging on? I feel one of these days I have to go through Metal Saga, Nocturne, Xenosaga 2 and 3, and the Growlanser games.

I do think this gen is a big improvement over last one when it comes to rpgs. Nier Automata, Octopath, Xenoblade 2, the first half of Bravely Default, Alliance Alive, and DQ11 are amazing.

[Himu]

DQ11 3ds you got from japan or ps4

[StealthFan]

DDS2 has one of the all time best battle themes. Loved that game!

What other PS2 rpgs will you be binging on? I feel one of these days I have to go through Metal Saga, Nocturne, Xenosaga 2 and 3, and the Growlanser games.

I do think this gen is a big improvement over last one when it comes to rpgs. Nier Automata, Octopath, Xenoblade 2, the first half of Bravely Default, Alliance Alive, and DQ11 are amazing.

Receiving Tales Of The Abyss in a couple days. Grownlanser Generations and Dragon Quarter are next. Metal Saga is definitely on the list. I have Unlimited Saga on it too but I am not sure if I can handle that shit.

[Tasty]

Neat article: https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry

[Tasty]

Another one: The DS GPU and its fun quirks

[Himu]

lots of good stuff <3

[tiesto]

How come I never heard of Kid Dracula? Looked it up and it looks VERY expensive, unless you want the shitty Chinese pirate.

[bork]

How come I never heard of Kid Dracula? Looked it up and it looks VERY expensive, unless you want the shitty Chinese pirate.

Wasn't popular at all and nobody cared about it until somebody proclaimed that it was "rare" and the price skyrocketed.  Didn't know that the Gameboy game was a sequel to the Famicom game though.  Thought they were the same!

[Himu]

Yeah there’s kid dracula on the fami

[Tasty]

How the Dreamcast copy protection was defeated

[porkbun]

have a Retrocade 60 in 1 cabinet arriving from UPS tonight and one of those AliExpress knockoff NeoGeo bartops with 1200 games arriving by Christmas. Good thing I bought the wife a new iPhone and diamond earrings.

[bork]

I got a Retropie kit last week and have it mostly set up and running now.  Probably could have gotten it cheaper, but the kit I purchased off Amazon included everything you need to just put it inside the included case, switch it on, install Retropie/Emulation Station, add ROMs, and go.  I set it up to read games off a 256 GB flash drive and am working on filling it up with everything it can handle. 

The Pie is really small -almost half the size of an NES Classic Mini- and the Emulation Station front end is really easy to navigate.  It runs all the 8 and 16-bit era stuff pretty much perfectly and can also handle PS1 games pretty much perfectly as far as I can tell.  You can also enable texture smoothing/filtering which I did not think it would be able to handle, but the Pi 3+ models have enough power to keep games running at their intended framerates with these enhancements on.  It can't run N64 games all that well, but that's OK- I have the GPD WIN 2 for more powerful console emulation.

At some point I'd like to get a bar top arcade unit and stick this thing inside it.  Really easy way to run old arcade games!

[benjipwns]

How the Dreamcast copy protection was defeated

I remember this as it happened and each revelation made it clear it was a matter of when, not how. The MIL-CD thing led to a bunch of groups saying basically that and Utopia got there first.

There was also a trick found with burning the content in reverse order (packing an iso then having it reversed at a hex level or something, then burn THAT) onto the discs would autoboot certain ones because of the OS used and because Sega was in general lazy about all of this. That latter point you can tell by as the article states, Sega's attempts to combat this were just to disable MIL-CD support, not you know, actually fix anything. Because by that point the groups already had moved onto making everything self-booting without the need for it. I think if you had the later revisions it just had to do an extra step.

All this stuff is actually why there's a big project that's been going on to re-rip the Dreamcast games and repackage them. Setting the Dreamcast into these different modes wears out the drive, you can actually physically hear it grinding worse than normal if you use an early rip. They figured out some way to have it stay in a single mode and keep the drive speed constant or something that makes it so the drive isn't constantly shifting. Also improved padding where it's the data cloned, which became standard eventually. It doesn't spin down to move the laserhead as often. I've seen some claims, but I can't confirm anything, that the latest project is supposed to actually be healthier for the Dreamcast than using a lot of the actual games because of the improved packaging. I know we all have at least one retail game that makes the Dreamcast sound like it's grinding up the disc and the drive and everything else inside, Metropolis Street Racer pretty infamously has copies that do this, and I thankfully have one of those copies versus the "Greatest Hits" one which I think fixes it a bit. I believe it's mostly earlier titles, especially ones that actually did fill up or nearly fill up the disc and then seek all over it.

The PS1 actually has this same problem with having to do re-seeks across the disc, and as the drive wears it becomes quite noticeable. PS2 Slim's also have it. (Regular PS2's probably do as well, but you can't hear it over everything else from one of those beasts. Same for Xboxes probably.)

Lazy devs not packing their data better using methods that came out years after their games.

[porkbun]

[The Sceneman]

Is Ecco the Dolphin worth playing