Retro Club - 8 & 16-bit puzzlers
  • I can do the dropbox thing if you like.
  • OK thanks, if it's no hassle. I should get round to another session on it soon.
  • I've tried all available levels of Chakan, and it doesn't strike me as a very good game at all - certainly not now, and in my opinion it's doubtful it was much cop at the time.  There's far more of a jump between this and Demon's Crest than the '92 to '94 release dates suggest, even though that was a pretty huge time for leaps and bounds in console gaming.  The multi direction sword swing is unusual, but the enemies are all over the place, especially in my least favourite stage (which I'll call Water Torture), and death comes too quickly after mistakes for a game where the character controls like a brick.  

    Demon's Crest is genuinely good.  It looks excellent, and even though I can't quite come to terms with the fact that a sprite that size can't duck, it's very playable - the permanent hover move is neat.  Will continue later in the week.  The mode 7 bits are naff and fantastic at the same time.  Gotta love the early-mid 90s.
  • I played both for about an hour each last night. Soaked up the intro for Chakan and liked the narrative and setting. Graphically it's not bad, it's a bit murky looking but Chakans animation and character sprite are decent. Unfortunately that is about it, the rest is terrible. Platforming is awful, it seems to require pixel perfect jumping but control is so wooly you have no chance, I fell to my death an awful lot. It also requires knowledge of the level as many times you will drop down a level into a fire breathing statue or pit. Enemies look nice but there is no way to dodge getting damage of a lot of them because the hit detection is so bad. Shoddy.

    Edit: I also tried combining some potions too. Chakan sort of looked at the screen whilst balancing them and then...nothing. It was probably the highlight of the game looking back.
    Live, PSN & WiiU: Yippeekiyey
  • Moot_Geeza wrote:
    Demon's Crest is genuinely good.  It looks excellent, and even though I can't quite come to terms with the fact that a sprite that size can't duck, it's very playable - the permanent hover move is neat.  Will continue later in the week.  The mode 7 bits are naff and fantastic at the same time.  Gotta love the early-mid 90s.

    Moot_Geeza continues to generate more lols per chars per post than anyone else. I don't know why this para tickled me so, but it did.
  • Cheers Nick, I've always considered myself fairly annoying.
  • It's a cow's opinion mate.
  • Chakan is pretty shite going by my fuzzy memory; 2/10 imho. Decent gfx, shit controls and mechanics.

    Demon's crest is a decent platform adventure game. There's nothing quite like it, game reminded me a bit of actraiser and even that is a stretch.
    Steam: Ruffnekk
    Windows Live: mr of unlocking
    Fightcade2: mrofunlocking
  • I'm not sure what to think of Demon's Crest, because the lack of handholding/guidance is something that I've always disliked in games.  I don't like gradually working things out, it kinda gets in the way of the playing, which is probably why I can't click with Super Metroid - or perhaps as a result of being brought up on the more straightforward left to right Sega games.  Obviously this is far simpler than SM, and it's pretty good to play with a guide, which is how I managed to enjoy Megaman X as a retro title.  I can appreciate that DC is an excellent game, it's just not quite for me.  The backtracking added extra VFM for gamers at the time, so I'll go for a high 90%, it doesn't seem to deserve less.  

    Chakakhan can done one though.  I'm glad I've finally come to terms with how awful it is.  As mentioned, it strikes me as a genuinely bad game, so I'll go for a meaningless old school 52%, which absolutely never meant just above average.
  • I'm going to play DC this week. Was all set for some retro gaming when SotC arrived, but that will be done soon.
  • Should we start thinking about the next set over the next few days?  Questor and myself pick a platformer each?
  • So I did finally play Demon's Crest today. I got to the end of level 3 and then gave up. It started out well, but by that point I was getting proper annoyed with it.

    It really should be good - it looks nice, the levels reward exploration and the infinite restarts are surprisingly forward thinking for the time, but the level design stops it being much fun to play. Mostly, the main sprite is big with fairly slow movement, while the enemy and scenery placement tends to box you in to tight spaces. There's also that irritating feature some old games have where enemies you've killed respawn if you back track, so retreating to find space isn't an option. But go too far forward and you can get surrounded to death. Then the bosses started to get on my tits - no platforms or scenery to use for getting round their attacks and their movements too unpredictable.

    Was interested to see where it went but didn't think it was worth the bother when I'd have had to spam save states.
  • Chakan didn't seem very good from the few minutes I gave it.

    I was in water moving very slowly against the current killing frogs and not being able to make a jump to a higher platform. I lost interest fast.

    Everyone's comments killed any motivation I had to play more of this. Will be one to delete off my retropie I think.

    Demons Crest I've owned for years. It's ok, I would enjoy it more without the open world structure. Again, other comments here seem to echo my feelings so I doubt I'll get anything out of it by putting more time in.

    I should probably sell it and put it towards something better for my SNES collection.
    オレノナハ エラー ダ
  • I think there's something about the fairly basic nature Demon's Crest that appeals.  It's fairly outdated for 1994 in terms of moveset and as Jon mentions, enemy placement, but I suppose that's keeping the Ghosts 'n Goblins thing alive.  I would've finished it if it had been standard level after level to credits stuff.
  • Moot_Geeza wrote:
    Should we start thinking about the next set over the next few days?  Questor and myself pick a platformer each?

    Yes.
    オレノナハ エラー ダ
  • I haven't had a chance to play yet but I can always go back to them.
    Happy for the next round to be picked.
  • Your not missing too much tbh mate.
    オレノナハ エラー ダ
  • Ha.
    I find the shitness of some games just as intriguing.
  • Yeah fair play, I get that.

    Maybe the shittest boxing games on each would be a good one.

    There's not much worse than a bad 16Bit boxing game.
    オレノナハ エラー ダ
  • Can't remember the name of it but one I played the other day had the option to create your own fighter.
    Changing the race just changed the head sprite leaving the body white.
  • Boxing Legends of the Ring I think.

    Shite!
    オレノナハ エラー ダ
  • Rings a bell
    (pun fully intended)

    Yeah was garbage.
  • Ha that character select screen.  I get some of the worst ones confused, but there was definitely a boxing game on SNES that felt truly unplayable when retro first got his pi.
  • @Questor - fancy picking a Nintendo platformer?

    Davy, do you mind warming up a bit just in case Questor doesn't see this?

    I'd like to get Oli's take on Chakan - was it something you enjoyed at the time?
  • davyK
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    I'll think of some platformers - might be tricky though as we have played quite a few already.....is there a list of what has been played?

    edit: found a list in an earlier post
    Holding the wrong end of the stick since 2009.
  • Evening all. Without even trying to read five years of posts, does anyone have a cracked Vita for emulator purposes? Or good advice for anyone (me) that may wish to?

    Cheers x
  • You might have more luck in here, it gets more traffic than this one.  I've not tried it but I'm getting pretty close to the point where I'm done with the available Vita software, so would probably dabble myself if it looks easy...
  • Chakan
    Good lord, that is a stinker.
    Lots of promise as the game starts but terrible from the second control is handed to the player.

    I attempted the Dragon Fly level, that description at the start had me chuckling a bit. Died about ten times attempting basic platforming.

    Then the water level, or treacle level as it should be. Again just very dull, uninspired gameplay.

    Pretty much unplayable. Even as a kid I don't think I would have given this much time.
    [2]

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