Super Fantasy Zone for the Mega Drive. This game is vastly different than the Arcade version and it’s subsequent ports, and probably the most difficult one yet. It’s bosses can be a little unfair, and some of the enemy patterns are brutal! I managed to get my 1cc after probably 20- 30 attempts.
There are lots of new items though, and it’s just a really good time. The graphics, music, and gameplay are all top of the heap stuff!
Amazing game, you really have to play it if you enjoy the Fantasy Zone series. I think I have to agree with what @Yakumo said in his battle of the ports video. It’s the best Fantasy Zone. Coming from me, who’s been playing and enjoying the originals on SMS since I was a kid, it would be really easy to claim that the Arcade is the best, but this game just kicks so much ass.
The credits were great in that they hint and reveal some post game secrets - hidden levels (I suspected this run-down bus stop in one level was meant for something), a four player mode(!) and alternative customs. I finished the game missing 9 entry passes.
Wow, so I finished Super Metroid, and coming off painfully mediocre Samus Returns on 3ds - I am still absolutely astonished at how well Super Metroid holds up.
The atmosphere, the exploration - the way you think you’re carving your own path but the game is subtly guiding you. Playing all of these titles back to back has really impressed upon me what a masterpiece Super Metroid is - as much as I like Zero Mission it doesn’t hold a candle to the real deal.
I was tempted to play this on my Switch via SNES Online - but oh man I’m glad I took the time to do it properly in the soft emissive warmth of my 20L2. Playing Super Metroid on real hardware on a CRT really is a special experience.
This isn’t technically retro but it is a remake of a retro game. Ninja Warriors Again on PS4. Mine is the Asian version so it has a strange name.
May I add that I hate the way Atari has their name on it. This is a Natsume product. Yet another wank company riding on the talent of a great company. Natsume are legends and rarely put out junk if ever.
This has no relation to Atari. “Natsume-Atari” is the name the “good” Natsume (the one that made all those cool NES and SNES action games) took on in 2013 following a restructure.
Simple 2000 Vol. 78: The Great Space War as it’s called in the original Nihon is one of the more interesting experiment in the Simple 2000 series, mostly because it actually stands up as a competent game. Coming from BIT-TOWN, the developers of the cult Sidewinder/Lethal Skies series of flight combat games, Space War Attack take that series engine and graphics with a twist - you’re still flying a modern fighter jet (represented in this game through frakensteinized stand-ins of real world planes) but instead of fighting other jets and assorted millitary hardware, you’ll be firing missiles at alien hang gliders, giant shrimps, scorpions, sandworms and many such outer space fellows! All this might bring to mind the Simple 2000 breakout Earth Defense Force and I’m sure the ressemblance wasn’t accidental.
This plays much like other flight combat released around that time. You pick a jet, you outfit with 3 weapons (two main guns and one bomb - the last unlocked plane cannot cary bombs and is no worse for it) , do likewise for your terminally braindead partner and start the mission. Most missions boil down to killing a boss monster while protecting a location or killing things that aren’t boss monsters while protecting a location, but the variety in locales and setpieces is good enough it doesn’t feel too repetitive. As you progress, you’ll unlock new planes, weapons and random tuning options for your plane and weapons, allowing you to improve one aspect of performance to the detriment of another. You start with fairly weak short/long range missiles and a laser gun but your arsenal will soon expend with funner and more effective weapons like the “divide missile” that splits in multiple warheads (one of the many things recycled from Lethal Skies) and swirling homing lasers.
It’s a pretty fun game. They already had a solid engine to work off so the game runs pretty well (manage to keep up at 60 FPS most of the time) and doesn’t look too shitty. The b-movie premise helps make the rogue gallery more varied and interesting to fight than most games in this genre. It does inherit one problem from the Sidewinder games though, and it’s that bosses need to be destroyed by destroying their bits and pieces in a specific sequence. The strict hitboxes of the weak points and that bosses can move out of the way surprisingly quickly can make this annoying, although some of the fast-firing laser weapons you unlock later somewhat mitigate that. Another thing they did that wasn’t a problem in their previous games is that the most common enemy type moves very quickly and flies all over the place, while the range of your cannon is quite limited, so dogfighting is neither fun or all that viable.
While the opening tells of such grim events as the destruction of worldwide landmarks and the depletion of the ozone layer, the game itself is very goofy and lighthearted. All of your battles are televised so you’ll be treated to the commentary of an hammy announcer and the studio audience cheering or poo-poohing you depending on wheter you’re destroying enemies or letting defense targets being destroyed.
The game’s low budget roots shine in the lack of cinematic niceties and the fairly short length of the missions. Had Space War Attack being given a sequel like EDF did that seriously expanded on the quantity of content and stakes, I’m sure it could’ve started a decent companion series to its boots-on-the-ground brother. Alas it wasn’t meant to be, but what’s there is pretty good.
I thought this was really interesting because I was looking into Simple 2000 titles again after seeing them all on sale on the Japanese 3DS eShop a few weeks ago for 100 yen. Tamsoft’s taxi driver one looked like a direct port of the one they did on PS2.
Would you consider doing a Simple 2000/SuperLite 1500 etc. thread?
I’ve beaten Zero Mission, Samus Returns, Super Metroid, and now Fusion over the past 2-3 months.
I love how robust these games feel. They are each full fledged adventure games packed with action, yet each is still short enough to beat in just a few hours. That is one thing they do so right compared to other games in the genre.
It’s kind of nuts that I only found under 60% of the secrets in this one though. Crazy how much you can miss. The density of the level design is some of the best in any side scrolling series I’ve seen.
I also just finished it! What a fantastic game. I played 90% of it on the Game Boy Player, which was the correct choice. The game feels amazing with an SFC controller rather than the cramped ergonomics of the original console (in any of its iterations).
At the time I didn’t like the more linear nature of the game coming off Super Metroid, but now many years later I feel I can appreciate the game on its own terms, a fun action adventure title with incredible vibrant visuals that is dripping with atmosphere.
With all of the games out the way and a month until Dread I guess I’ll finally give AM2R a crack!
Thunder Spirits is a SNES port of Thunder Force AC, itself a port of Thunder Force III. It’s a mostly faithful transition, except it swaps out the battleship and final stage with new ones exclusive to this version, which are quite different in aesthetic from the rest of the game, though not in a bad way.
If it wasn’t for the crippling slowdown, it would be a very commendable port. The graphics are nearly 1:1 to the arcade version and the new stages are neat curious. I think I like the new final boss battle better and the new tune that goes with the battleship stage’s boss is kickin’. But, the slowdown. The option to enable rapid-fire is buried into the semi-hidden option menu and while it may have been because the arcade version didn’t have it either, they did that because enabling it slows the game to a crawl. It will slow down as you fire and that’s not a joke. Gradius III and Super R-Type have nothing on this.
But it’s not a bad little game. Would definitely benefit from those external CPU hacks that have started circulating.
I’m so tempted to play Prime. I’ve never played the GC version so I think it would be an interesting experience for me coming off of the pointer controls on Wii.
