Retro Gaming - The Bear and Badger

Blue Swirl

I absolutely rinsed 7 and 8. Would recommend both. I haven't bought Deluxe yet as I thought it'd be too similar to vanilla 8 to warrant the RRP. But I'm getting the Mario Kart itch.

Smang

i believe its the same game + all the dlc.

Eric

Plus a better battlemode I think...

SpaceGazelle

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46951152

Blue Swirl

Smang wrote:

i believe its the same game + all the dlc.

Eric wrote:

Plus a better battlemode I think...

Indeed. Which is why I haven't bought it yet, as I had all the DLC and never really took to battle mode. Plus Deluxe unlocks all the karts and such from the get go, which is cheating.

Blue Swirl

SpaceGazelle wrote:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-46951152

Nice!

davyK

Yah - saw that Galaga shark item. I posted in game news.

I'm surprised and pleased that Galaga is still very much in the mind of many - enough to end up as part of a creature's name. I know it's a big game name ; but wouldn't have it to be still mainstream.

The use of a videogame name in this way is actually quite significant.

retroking1981

Any Mega Man fans on here?

Eric

JonB has just completed one I see. Too hardcore for me.

davyK

Too bloody hard. I tried the WiiWare one - heart breakingly difficult. I'd have loved them to have been around when I was a teen and had the bloody mindedness to keep at them.

retroking1981

I've been playing 7 recently, its tough!

I've got to the end of the game but as far as I can tell the last level is next to impossible without finding the hidden items/weapons in the game. I've resorted to a guide to find them because to be quite honest I can't be arsed wasting unnecessary time finding them. I done all that last night so will go back to the last level at some point this weekend.

I'm not a Mega Man veteran by any means, I've only ever completed the original and X. The original obviously being fairly straight forward, but this seems even more cryptic than X with the hidden items and artificial length, at least as far as I can remember.

I can't decide if that's a good or bad thing tbh. According to the Switch clock I've played it for 4-5hours, that's a decent length for a game like this imo, and without using the guide I'm sure that would be closer to 8hrs.

I remember this game getting a bit of a bad rep back in the day for being a backwards step as it came out after X2, also a bit of series fatigue might have been setting in as X was 93, X2 94 and 7 95. In the face of the 3D revolution that happened back then a game like this must have looked awfully tired and dated.

I'm really torn between this being anywhere between a 6-8/10. I think I'll play X2 after to see how that compares.

I also want to find some contemporary reviews for it.

Blue Swirl

Reg McFly is our resident blue bomber fanatic. He recommended Mega Man 2 to me, which I have on 3DS via Virtual Console. As others have said, fun, but the archetype of old school 8bit brutality.

davyK

Megaman 2 is supposed to be the best. Not sure how it compares to the later relaunch games. The WiiWare one I played (think it was 9) looked and controlled great. I really like that NES-with-no-flicker look but I just didn't have the time to commit learning the levels and patterns. There's an easy mode but it barely takes the edge off it - it fills in some gaps/jumps to make certain sections a mite easier.

I keep going back to it once in a while as I like the premise but then get my arse handed to me and I crawl away again.

There was a challenge mode that was very enjoyable - completed a fair bit of that. It presented a series of micro levels to complete - doubled up as a training mode but it was replayable as it graded your performance on each challenge.

That reminds me that I never completed Cave Story. Annoyed at that.

Eric

JonB played 11

JonB wrote:

Mega Man 11

Completed on Normal difficulty. Same old Mega Man really, but with plenty more polish. Visually it's lovely, especially some of the bigger characters (special mention to inflatable frog mini-boss). Gameplay wise there's some tight level design that's mostly testing without being too vicious.

But there are leftovers of old design sensibilities and a generally odd approach to difficulty that don't quite work. It seems outdated now to make pits and especially spikes instant death hazards when everything else isn't. It makes certain screens difficult to pass at all while the rest are only likely to cause moderate damage if you mess things up. On the other hand you end up carrying a whole range of cheap useable items and equippable parts that can make many challenges insignificant. The big temptation is not to just stockpile a load of energy tanks for a boss encounter and then mindlessly blast through it, especially when a Game Over means repeating the whole stage again.

The best moments, as ever with MM, are when you do things properly, especially making the breakthrough against the first boss and then working out the weaknesses of the others using the new weapons you get from each victory. In fact, one of the highlights in the end was probably the boss rush, which I made myself do in one life without items.

Not sure I'm bothered about the extra challenges or difficulty levels now, but I've had a decent enough time with it.

retroking1981

Blue Swirl wrote:

Reg McFly is our resident blue bomber fanatic. He recommended Mega Man 2 to me.

davyK wrote:

Megaman 2 is supposed to be the best.

Yeah that's the popular opinion, only one I had as a kid was the original. I intend to play 2 and X2, they'll justify the purchases of each of those Legacy Collections for me. There doesn't seem to be anything on X Legacy Collection 2 worth playing of note, but the completest in me will buy it anyway.

@Eric thanks for sharing the 11 write up. I do intend to get that at some point too, I enjoyed the demo. Can't play too many at once though, need to spread out 2, X2 and 11 a bit.

Fair play to Capcom with these collections though, I know they've been about since the PS2 era but its good that they haven't forgot about them. I only wish Konami showed the same enthusiasm with Castlevania, they could make a sweet collection of both types of 2D games quite easily I would imagine.

ChopperByrne

MMX Legacy Collection has (may have been patched, but doubtful) bad input lag.

retroking1981

I haven't got that one yet, just the original games collections. I'm lucky enough to have X2 boxed on SNES for now. I'm thinking of selling that and my boxed X and getting the X Legacy Collections on Switch though. Will look into the lag issues.

Moot_Geeza

Database of changes made between regions to retro games:

https://tcrf.net/The_Cutting_Room_Floor

retroking1981

Finished Mega Man 7, think I'll settle on a CVG 3/5. Good but a little underwhelming and by the numbers.

Had a quick for of 8 after, looks really odd. 7 looks like X and 9 & 10 look exactly like the 6 NES games.

When I go back to the blue bomber it'll be for either X2 or 11.

regmcfly

I've not gone near 11 yet, despite clearing the rest of them. X2 is good and the last solid X game.

retroking1981

How would you rank them roughly @regmcfly ?

I know 2 is meant to be the high mark of the originals so it's also a high one on my list.

ChopperByrne

2 and 3 are the best of the first 6 for sure, though 9 and 10 are equally as good. Not played 11 yet.

X1 is for the me the best of the X series. They never bettered it.

Moot_Geeza

I played 2 on an emulator a few years ago. Other than X which I played through with retroking it's my only Megamans. It was clearly primo 8-bit gaming but I wouldn't fancy a cold run without save states.

I'll play 11 at some point, it's neck and neck with Monster Boy on the sales wishlist.

SpaceGazelle

Dunno if this has been posted anywhere but there's a load of old games magazines archived here, including Zzap64 and Crash (and Edge!).

https://archive.org/details/gamemagazines

SpaceGazelle

Jesus, some of this takes me back.

tigersgogrrr

Crash.

SpaceGazelle

tigerswiftly wrote:

Crash.

The artwork was superb.

https://archive.org/details/crash-magazine?sort=titleSorter

davyK

Great archive that. I can remember buying that 1st edition of Crash.

Having the Super Play archive is great too.

Any 2600 folk?

Have been speaking with one of the top homebrew devs at atariage forums and he's putting together a deluxe version of Kaboom! after I dropped some hints at someone to do it in the forums.

He's adding a 2 player version in which player 2 controls the bomber!

He needs to up the game size from 2K to 4K to do it so with the extra ROM he's adding in the Activision sunset and rainbow logo.

Kind of a deluxe version. You need a Harmony cart to play it on original hardware of course.

Blue Swirl

Harmony cart...? To the Google machine!

Edit: Ahh, SD card adapter for ROMs. Neat.

retroking1981

SpaceGazelle wrote:

Dunno if this has been posted anywhere but there's a load of old games magazines archived here, including Zzap64 and Crash (and Edge!). https://archive.org/details/gamemagazines

Few more here for those interested:

http://www.outofprintarchive.com/magazine_catalogue_UK.html
https://www.emuparadise.me/magazine-comic-guide-scans/all

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