Finally finished it
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I finally finished Sonic 3 & Knuckles.
I’m glad I saw it through to the end if only for the amazing visuals and music.
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I 1cc’ed World Heroes Perfect!
I really do think this is the hIdDeN gEmZ of the Neo Geo fighters. People usually dimiss it because the previous World Heroes weren’t that great (and those that did like those bash it for not having deathmatch mode) but such a fun and forward-thinking game.
(also before the credits, there wasthis weird 4koma . Is that something exclusive to the Neo Geo CD version?)
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It’s a great game that plays completely differently than the previous World Heroes. They made it as a last ditch effort to attract the street fighter audience, and it shows.
Easily one of my favorite fighting games. If you want to get fairly in-depth with the mechanics and strategy, this is a good starter article:
Finished Monkey Barrels, Good-Feel’s first self published game.
Was a pretty good top-down shooter with fun weapon design. Does a lot with a little even if some of the levels feel like they blend in with the rest.
The credits sequence had me smiling:
That looks really cool actually. I’ve been on a bit of a top down kick lately, so I might have to give this a try.
I finished a replay of Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete a couple of weeks ago to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It’s been a longtime favourite of mine, and holds up wonderfully today—outside of its dated sense of humour. I’m working on a longform retrospective that’ll be out sometime soon, where I really dive into what makes the game special, and what holds it back 20 years later, but everything I remembered loving, from the endearing cast, beautiful world, great battle system, amazing Iwadare soundtrack, and terrific script were just as good as I remember.
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I’ve also been replaying Silver Star Story with my sons and they fell in love with the characters and setting of the game.
What a classic, looking forward to your retrospective.
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Not exactly retro but it has its roots in retro.
Finished Bubble Bobble 4 Friends with the top rank on all normal stages levels. The unlockable 50 hard difficulty stages are a delight so far!
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So it’s good?
I love Bubaru Bobaru and was considering a physical copy.
I like it. The level design is pretty good, and it shows the air currents in the background so bunching up bubbles enemies has an element of strategy behind it
Shame the coin-op, which was handled by the team behind Namco Museum on Switch, isn’t 4:3 (so squashed sprites) though it may be in the future. The latest Japanese version screenshots show 4:3.
Having a look at reviews and most complaints are that it’s too hard or not enough content, but personally it feels like it took me a few hours to play every stage in normal mode and get the highest rank. Hard mode is going to be even longer.
The GameCentral review seems to be on the money, and they know their BB: https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/20/bubble-bobble-4-friends-review-nintendo-switch-11188899/
Such a shame that this game is stuck in music copyright hell. Sonic 3, sans S&K, is still one of my favorite games. This is part due to the music as well.
While S3&K is the original vision and very epic, I enjoyed the Sonic 3 on its own immensely. It’s the perfect length with those huge zones as well.
Would love a Taxman version like we got with Sonic 1,2, and CD.
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Beat Space Squash on Virtual Boy, did the bottom-most route in the branching path which I presume is the hardest. The final boss was certainly extremely challenging - my heart was pounding near the end! The developers know how to raise the stakes given a single “miss” fails you in boss fights.
I came away pretty impressed with Space Squash. The presentation is in some ways ahead of its time. Your enemy’s health bar is placed in the distance in 3D space while your own is in the foreground inside the display. While you’re pretty much playing these short, fast rounds of 3D-tennis throughout the game the level designs keep things fresh, and the boss fights and bonus stages challenge your accuracy and ability to avoid attacks while returning the ball.
Will definitely return to this one to try more routes!
I also planned to finish Bound High!! this evening but I’m stuck on 4-11. The second half of world 4 is pretty tough in general, actually. But replaying the game from world 1 made me appreciate it even more. There are many little touches in the level design that I hadn’t noticed the first time round. And the music remains as catchy as ever
Cleared Bound High on Normal difficulty this afternoon! What a superb platformer that’s as far from derivative as you could get in the mid-90s. Easily one of the VB’s best, as @Peltz alluded to.
The second half of World 4 was brutal, and it’s even harder on Hard mode. I can’t see myself ever clearing it on Hard going from how difficult a time I was having clearing just 4-7, but I’m happy to have finished it on Normal:
Every time I play Bound High I’m impressed by how much they get from the concept. All the little details - the variability of the bouncing physics, the enemy types, the tile types and arrangements, the wind…all come together to provide a firm but fair challenge. I think the wind is the toughest element to deal with in more precarious levels layouts. Fantastic catchy soundtrack as well: https://youtu.be/Ne2GjitXCNg
There’s a slot machine in some levels that can be activated if you push an enemy into the nearby hole - turns out if you match three Japan System Supply logos you get 20k points and a 1up.
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Congrats. I’ve enjoyed the game over the years but never managed to stick with it enough to beat it.
Glad you gave it a shot. There are so few people who have every had the opportunity to play in on real hardware. It’s a tad extra special for that reason.
It does make me feel very lucky when I load the game up.
It’s a real shame the second wave of VB software never got off the ground. I wonder whether Dragon Hopper and Zero Racers were as experimental as the rest of the library’s best.
I finished today’s emergency Virtual Boy marathon by trying out a bunch of games (I’ve still got a ways to go until I’m good at Mario Clash), but also in finishing a route of Insmouse no Yakata:
Now under any rational means the game wasn’t worth the money I paid for it in Fukuoka but it was a very interesting, and mildly fun, game to play through.
It’s a mix of labyrinth crawler and FPS, with movement on the left D-Pad and aiming on the right D-Pad.
Each floor of the mansion contains a few key items: a key (to escape) and two orbs. The key is mandatory and the orbs are optional. Collecting the light orb, I believe, will take you down one of two paths in the story flowchart, while the other reveals the location of the exit and remaining items.
Anyway, the game is at its best when scarce ammo and plentiful enemies are combined with plenty of twists and turns, and doorways to get lost in. You only get a minute or two to clear each floor, so the game is at its best when you feel rushed off your feet to locate the key items and get to the exit while also avoiding the monsters when you’re low on ammo.
While I’m not rushing to clear another ending of the game this is yet another highly unique and, for the time, experimental game for the Virtual Boy…
…and so I’ve played what I wanted to play while my unit shows its first sign of Glitchy Display Syndrome™. I’m hoping next time I dig out the system it hasn’t become progressively worse, I really like the Virtual Boy!
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I got a new unit from someone on eBay who soldered the displays so that they can’t glitch out anymore. He fixes old units too. I’ll look for his contact info in case you want to fix your unit.
That’s awesome. Time to finish Bound High! I can loan you some passwords if you want haha.
It might be a bit tough sending my Virtual Boy overseas without it getting damaged in the post - presumably the engineer is in North America? I guess if I pack it well it could work though?
I 1cc’ed Thunder Force IV!
I don’t like it as much as Thunder Force III: i find the level design weaker due to the focus on mostly flat vertically-scrolling levels and I think the arsenal is a big downgrade: free way is a great weapon and sever is a straight upgrade over its TFIII equivalent but Snake is completely useless and Blade is a mediocre improvement that actually makes some bosses harder to kill (like Gargoyle Diver). This isn’t to say it doesn’t reign supreme over basically every other console-exclusive 16-bits shmups of the era, because it doesn’t. But I don’t think it’s quite as perfect as people make it out to be.
Now to do it again…
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