Jan 8, 2024 0:23:54 GMT Emperor said:

Jan 8, 2024 0:00:03 GMT Emperor said:

There was definitely no cliffhanger here. I presume there's a Sly 4?

Yes, Thieves in Time.

Love how it's like Emp is really going down a tunnel with no instructions or directions, flying totally blind. It's like the games are brand new again.

Jan 8, 2024 0:23:54 GMT Emperor said:

Jan 8, 2024 0:00:03 GMT Emperor said:

But the game didn't accept that I had completed the mission. "7/5" read the screen. Presumably it expects exactly "5/5". So I have to do it again.

Jan 7, 2024 23:09:14 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Always disappointed the last Sky ends on a cliffhanger and then the series disappears, wish we could get just one more for a definitive end.

There was definitely no cliffhanger here. I presume there's a Sly 4?

Yep Sly: Thieves in Time is a PS3 exclusive made by Sanzaru games, not Sucker Punch. 

Jan 8, 2024 1:20:30 GMT @ness said:

Love how it's like Emp is really going down a tunnel with no instructions or directions, flying totally blind. It's like the games are brand new again.

That's exactly why I am loving the writeups. 

My 9 year old niece and 6 year old nephew stayed the night with us last night and got down on some Sega Genesis. They got a pretty good kick out of Beavis and Butthead game farting and burping on the bad guys was a pretty good time last night. Then it hit me that I remember renting this game as a brand spanking new release from Blockbuster when I was 9, 30 years ago in 1994. Moments like these you start wondering if it's time to start going to get prostate exams and colorectal screenings, doctor checkups, fucking OLD school buddy 

I wanted that B&B game so bad. Could never rent it because my parents were against the "stupid show" - they were really militant about ratings, we literally could not watch anything unless our ages aligned. How they allowed Mortal Kombat is beyond me. The AVGN episode makes it look really bad though.

The Retro Video Game market came to my city today. 10 minute walk from my house. Of course I attended.

The shortlist of games to buy is getting increasingly shorter and increasingly rarer. The only game I found was Legend of Dragoon (PS1) for £100 which I consider to be a reasonable deal. I also decided to purchase the PS1 console. It's been on my bucket list for a while. It can play all regions and comes with all the peripherals for £50. Not bad.

One stand that caught my eye is the array of modernised Game Boy consoles with USB charging and backlighting. I'm not going to get one because I know I will never play it but cool to see.

Feb 3, 2024 16:01:51 GMT @ness said:

I wanted that B&B game so bad. Could never rent it because my parents were against the "stupid show" 

lol Ness' parents would have loved me because I too was against that "stupid show." Thought it was degenerate. Refused to watch it. One of the few times I didn't regret having cable. Rolled my eyes when my friends would quote it. I could be a weird kid. Its fans really did push it too hard though. It was like he early 90s version of The Wire & Breaking Bad Guy. I'd have been a millionaire before reading my first PWI if I had a dollar for every time I heard "shut up Beavis," only it usually came out more like "shut up Paevis." Didn't even know there was a B&B video game. Wouldn't have played it anyway! 

A phrase like "shut up beavis" either means nothing or it touches your very soul.

The Beavis and Butthead game for Sega was just not what you would think a Beavis and Butthead game would be. To me it feels like a PC game that you would play with a mouse and keyboard. It was more about finding items and solving problems. I really didn't like it back in the day when it was a new game but over the years grew to appreciate that style of gameplay they went with, the nostalgia hits pretty hard for it just for the music and they nailed the look and feel of the show. I'd say it's a solid 7/10 Genesis game if not an 8/10. Also one of those games that was also released for the SNES but just feels way too much at home on that Genesis. I can't remember much about the SNES version other than it was totally different style game(more of the platformer style that you would expect from a game like this?).

I fired up my newly acquired Playstation 1 yesterday and started on Legend of Dragoon. I haven't played an old school JRPG in a while and immediately it made me think about the enormous influence Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy had. It's all right there in front of me: spiky haired characters, text boxes with blue backgrounds, the standard turn-based combat.

A couple of hours in and the first point of itnerest is that Legend of Dragoon has some timing-based battle mechanics. Tap a button at the right time to do double damage, basically Squall's Gunblade gimmick from FF8. I think Super Mario RPG also had something similar. Apart from that it's standard JRPG.

Dragoon and Crono Cross are probably the 2 biggest jrpgs from the ps1 era I never got around to.

Feb 4, 2024 23:30:30 GMT Emperor said:

I fired up my newly acquired Playstation 1 yesterday and started on Legend of Dragoon. I haven't played an old school JRPG in a while and immediately it made me think about the enormous influence Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy had. It's all right there in front of me: spiky haired characters, text boxes with blue backgrounds, the standard turn-based combat.

A couple of hours in and the first point of itnerest is that Legend of Dragoon has some timing-based battle mechanics. Tap a button at the right time to do double damage, basically Squall's Gunblade gimmick from FF8. I think Super Mario RPG also had something similar. Apart from that it's standard JRPG.

I never got around to Dragoon, but this was one of the most heavily pushed titles when I eventually got my PS1. Which makes sense considering it's a bonafide first party title, but had the misfortune of coming out around the same time as FFIX and was never going to win that fight. I'm curious to see what you make of it, because the reviews made it sound good, but not great.

I was going to ask, you said earlier that your list of desired titles is diminishing. What else is left? Symphony of the Night? Is it even worth buying at this point or has it become a full blown collector's item?

And yeah you're spot on about Mario RPG. Something tells me that the mechanic may have even pre-dated that, but that was the basis. From what I've seen, Dragoon's system seems very similar to Shadow Hearts, or at least Shadow Heart 2 from the brief time I played it.

Feb 4, 2024 23:39:54 GMT @ness said:

Dragoon and Crono Cross are probably the 2 biggest jrpgs from the ps1 era I never got around to.

Wait, you played other JRPGs on the PS1 outside of the FF trio? Which ones?

Us poor PAL gamers were like the leppers of that era.

Emperor, allow me to make you a list.

Check off which ones you have already:

Alundra
Alundra 2
Azure Dreams
Battle Hunter
Blaze & Blade: Eternal Quest
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Breath of Fire III
Breath of Fire IV
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Digimon World
Digimon World 3
Dragon Valor
Eternal Eyes
Final Fantasy Anthology
Final Fantasy Origins
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IX
Front Mission 3
Grandia
Guardian's Crusade
Jade Cocoon: The Story of Tamamayu
King's Field (aka King's Field II)
King's Field II (aka King's Field III)
Legend of Legaia
Master of Monsters: Disciple of Gaia
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man Legends 2
Monkey Hero
Monster Seed
Parasite Eve 2
Shadow Madness
Star Ocean: The Second Story
Suikoden
Suikoden II
Tecmo's Deception
The Granstream Saga
The Legend of Dragoon
Vagrant Story
Vandal Hearts
Vandal Hearts II
Wild Arms

Then when you're finished collecting those, it's onto the NTSC exclusives! Ness will help you track down good deals.

I just came hear to share that Konami is releasing another game compilation.

This time they're re-releasing all the old school YuGiOh games, with Duel Monsters 4 for the GBC and Yu-Gi-Oh Expert 2 (aka World Wide Edition) specifically being referenced.

I wonder if they're release Forbidden Memories and fix the Pocketstation features that were cut from the west?

<_< So maybe I exaggerated a bit. At least at the time it seemed like those were the big ones, but seeing that LIST has me thinking otherwise. I think being able to play all the old FFs on PS1 via Anthology and Origins made me think I had played more than I did. Never played FF8 btw. I've been patiently waiting for a remaster cuz the whole "grinding don't work bruh" is intimidating.

An impressive list of which I have impressively few games:

Feb 6, 2024 19:01:05 GMT Big Pete said:

Final Fantasy Origins
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
The Legend of Dragoon
Vagrant Story

FFVIII I have no intention of playing again, I have a large collection but these are all games I have played or intend to play. Whether I'll get round to it in my lifetime is a different question.

I recently took off Castlevania, it's formidably expensive and I'm not really into Metroidvania games all that much, I would play it but I'm not convinced I'd enjoy it too much.

Wild Arms and Suikoden II are on my list. Not sure about the first Suikoden. The consensus is that II is by far the best. Would you recommend it?

Digimon World I played as a kid but I have no desire to return to it.

Most of the rest of your list I don't know, I already have so many unplayed JRPGs that I'm going to be extremely selective about future purchases. I have a stack of PS2 RPGs to play including Disgaea, four of the Shadow Hearts games and Valkyrie Profile 2

Do you have any PS1 puzzle/platformer recommendations?

Feb 6, 2024 20:42:55 GMT Emperor said:

An impressive list of which I have impressively few games:

Feb 6, 2024 19:01:05 GMT Big Pete said:

Final Fantasy Origins
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy IX
The Legend of Dragoon
Vagrant Story

FFVIII I have no intention of playing again, I have a large collection but these are all games I have played or intend to play. Whether I'll get round to it in my lifetime is a different question.

I recently took off Castlevania, it's formidably expensive and I'm not really into Metroidvania games all that much, I would play it but I'm not convinced I'd enjoy it too much.

Wild Arms and Suikoden II are on my list. Not sure about the first Suikoden. The consensus is that II is by far the best. Would you recommend it?

Digimon World I played as a kid but I have no desire to return to it.

Most of the rest of your list I don't know, I already have so many unplayed JRPGs that I'm going to be extremely selective about future purchases. I have a stack of PS2 RPGs to play including Disgaea, four of the Shadow Hearts games and Valkyrie Profile 2

Do you have any PS1 puzzle/platformer recommendations?

The first one is a classic, but those games are so insanely grindy.

Have you played Ape Escape? That's one of the first to use the dual shock analogs and it's great. I'm very sad it never took off as a franchise in the way other games did.

Klonoa is another good one, but it's more of a side scroller if you're seeking a more 3d game. Maybe 2.5d type.

I assume you're not seeking recommends for the usual suspects.

I have not played Ape Escape. Speaking of the controllers, playing a Playstation without the thumb pads for movement is so bizarre. I don't mind playing with the D-Pad but it looks like a person with no legs or something. Just odd.

I'm happy with 2D or 3D platformers. Not heard of Klonoa, thanks for the recommendation. I also have Rayman to play.

Legend of Dragoon (Part 1)

I'm partway through the first dungeon of Legend of Dragoon and...I'm not impressed.

I understand why people reject turn-based combat. We ain't going back. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s this is mostly what we had, and it wasn't a problem, because we didn't know what was possible. Games are now capable of amazing real time action, turn-based is extremely slow and sluggish in comparison.

That said, I still enjoy turn-based combat and the strategy associated with it, and games such as the original FF7 and FFX prove that turn-based combat can be (relatively) fast and exciting. But then you have the genuinely sluggish turn-based battles, FF9 being the most notorious. Add Legend of Dragoon to that list. The combat is slow, largely due to the attack animations.

That wouldn't be so bad but the first dungeon, a prison, is pretty monotonous. I was instantly reminded of FF8's more tedious dungeons, like the sewer and the desert prison. Every screen looks similar, lots of running around and dull encounters. Legend of Dragoon is worse because (1) every encounter is literally the same (2) the map design makes it hard to figure out where you're supposed to go, where you can exit to the next screen, and what objects you can interact with.

The writing is childish at best. I probably wouldn't have noticed had I played this in the late 90s, but I'm an adult now, and can easily recognise a primitive script. I won't go into details but the most cringe is an early villain. He's a knight who is four times the size of the prison guards. There are two separate cutscenes where the prison guards give him bad news and he hurls them off a bridge. Super freakin' evil. Dialogue is extremely basic, and the poor translation doesn't help.

Getting back to the combat, there's only two things I can do at the moment: attack, and use magic items. Magic items are a limited resource so I'm just attacking every battle. I've already mastered the art of hitting buttons at the right time to activate the special moves, which the characters amusingly say out loud like an amateur pro-wrestler. "VOLCANO!" "HARPOON!" I assume more abilities will come later. Magic has been hinted at.

Feb 6, 2024 21:39:45 GMT Emperor said:

I have not played Ape Escape. Speaking of the controllers, playing a Playstation without the thumb pads for movement is so bizarre. I don't mind playing with the D-Pad but it looks like a person with no legs or something. Just odd.

I'm happy with 2D or 3D platformers. Not heard of Klonoa, thanks for the recommendation. I also have Rayman to play.

Keep in mind, Klonoa goes for around the same price as Castlevania.

Fortunately it also received a re-release on Steam that you can buy alongside it's sequel. It's a little pricey but I'd imagine it won't be long until it goes on sale.

Of course you can always just emulate the games.

However, Ness has steered you well. Keep in mind, it's been well over 20 years since I played it and I have no idea how well it holds up, but I remember Ape Escape being in the same calibre as Crash and Spyro. When I dig through titles I wouldn't mind playing through, it's games like Mega Man 8, Mega Man X3-X6, Strider 2, Silhoette Mirage I wouldn't mind looking into, although I've heard mixed reports on those games.

I didn't own any puzzle games when I was younger. I don't think you can go wrong that were on the PS1 classic. Sony obviously thought highly of them to include them all those years later on their classic and publish them for their western audience. I'm talking about games like Intelligent Qube and Devil Dice. Mr Driller from Namco was another arcade puzzler type that looked enjoyable as well.

I've barely played Suikoden and never touched the sequel. II is far more revered, but I'm of the understanding that the original is still good enough in it's own right. If I was collecting, I'd certainly grab both. I thought Konami released some awesome games for the system and would want them represented in my collection. Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Suikoden, Silent Hill etc.

I must say, your knowledge of PS1 games is incredibly deep.

Feb 6, 2024 18:24:18 GMT @ness said:

<_< So maybe I exaggerated a bit. At least at the time it seemed like those were the big ones, but seeing that LIST has me thinking otherwise. I think being able to play all the old FFs on PS1 via Anthology and Origins made me think I had played more than I did. Never played FF8 btw. I've been patiently waiting for a remaster cuz the whole "grinding don't work bruh" is intimidating.

There is a remaster of FF VIII which allows you to speed it up, have unlimited limit breaks and other some feature I don’t recall which makes you damn near invincible.

Feb 7, 2024 23:12:06 GMT Emperor said:

I must say, your knowledge of PS1 games is incredibly deep.

I've barely scratched the surface. The console's library is so deep and received so much support from so many legendary studios I find myself learning something new regularly.

If you're ever after some quality background noise/PS1 content, I'd recommend Sean Seanson's YouTube channel. He covers that era really well and is clearly passionate about the system.

Legend of Dragoon (Part 2)

In the previous episode I observed how Legend of Dragoon has slow repetitive combat, a basic story and immature/poorly translated writing. What I didn't mention is that the music is also pretty poor, decent at first but tiresome when you're listening to it for minutes on end. This has made me admire Nobuo Uematsu's genius even more.

Several hours, locations and boss fights later, not much of these aspects have changed, yet I am starting to enjoy the game. A lot. What's changed?

Not long after my last writeup. I defeated a boss. There quickly followed a second dungeon and a second boss. The boss battles were not challenging because they didn't do much damage relative to my max health, but it took a long time to take them down. The second dungeon had slightly more enemy types and boss had some interesting mechanics which at least forced me to think a little during the combat.

These first two dungeons are essentially the tutorial, a fairly long-winded one. After that the world opens up and our ragtag crew of war-weary warriors the world building begins and the character backstories are fleshed out more - this is interesting but limited by the primitive poorly translated text. The first city is surprisingly big, quite a daunting location, but there are treasures to unearth and goods to purchase. I am well-trained in running around the perimeter of every room and mashing X on every object in search for secrets. It's particularly important in Legend of Dragoon because chests don't stand out too much from the rest of the environment. My tenacious mashing was rewarded as I picked up several "Stardust" from random bits of scenery. The Stardust Genius Tetsuya Naito must have paid a visit to this world. The purpose of Stardust is not yet known, but it occupies its own space in the inventory menu so it must be important.

As the story progresses it's a short trip across the world map to city number two. A smaller city where big things happen. The difficulty suddenly spikes, the game throws two boss battles without any time to heal in between. This was a problem because the first boss battle took me down to pretty low health. Fortunately the game is generous with the quantity and potency of healing items so on my first turn I used an item that heals 50% of all party members.

Kongol is the boss' name and he has earned the right to a paragraph. Not only is he by far the most interesting and challenging boss so far, but he's a pro-wrestler. Before I go on I must explain the combat mechanic "Addition". When you attack, you have the option of executing timed button presses to do other damage. Dart's Addition takes three inputs to execute, while Lavitz has two inputs. Kongol's gimmick is that if you fail any of the inputs in the sequence, he picks you up and slams you. Kongol stars the fight with an axe but he quickly puts it away, instead preferring clotheslines and this incredible combo attack, which deal a lot more damage than the attacks. These animations are both awesome and devastating. For the first time I had to start intelligently using the "Guard" command which heals a small amount of health and reduces damage by half on the next attack. By doing this I was able to minimise using health potions. An extremely tense and fun fight.

Immediately after this fight the core of the game is revealed: Dragoons! The main character Dart unlocks the ability to turn into a Dragoon, a super-human race. There's a short (optional) tutorial to explain the mechanics and away we go.

Before I go, one part of the writing has not aged well, perhaps was not that great to begin with. I have been playing with two male characters (Dart, Lavitz) and one female character (Shana). Shana and Dart are love interests, and Dart wants to protect Shana. The following exchange has happened at least five times.

"Shana, stay here, we will go and fight."
"No, I can fight, I want to help!"
"OK."

:suspic:

After all that excitement I am fully immersed and eager to continue the quest.

Had my 2 nephews 4 and 6 stay the night last night with my 3 year old, we are playing 30 year old Sega games this morning, they are having an all time blast with Primal Rage. I always thought this game sucked back when it came out but man, the sheer joy these kids fighting and farting on each other with claymation dinosaurs is pretty great.

Mar 2, 2024 14:46:57 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Had my 2 nephews 4 and 6 stay the night last night with my 3 year old, we are playing 30 year old Sega games this morning, they are having an all time blast with Primal Rage. I always thought this game sucked back when it came out but man, the sheer joy these kids fighting and farting on each other with claymation dinosaurs is pretty great.

I wouldn't be able to help myself and I'd be busting out Earthworm Jim, Clayfighter, Zombies Ate My Neighbours etc.

Then bust out Streets of Rage 2...

'Uncle Pete, can we have a turn?'

'Can't you see I'm in the zone?!'

Speaking of nephews mine had Sonic 2 on his ipad. He couldn't beat the 2nd Chemical Plant level. I'm sure you know the spot. His mind was blown away when I showed him the spin dash.

Often on PW I have brought up my time playing Intellivision, NES, Genesis, and the PS2 Smackdown games, but until now have never mentioned my short-lived Computer Gaming phase. Honestly forgot all about it until Ness' Oregon Trail thread. Let's talk about it...

We got our first home computer in 1997 iirc and the games came not long after that. We only had 5 that I remember, and I honestly have no idea where any of them came from. Did they come with the computer? Did they come from a friend of my father who no longer had any use for them? One my brother may have bought, but what about the rest? I certainly don't recall buying any computer games. But the point is we somehow ended up with 5 computer games in 97-98. They were, in order from most played to least...

The aforementioned Oregon Trail 2, Seven Kingdoms, some golf game that was sadly not Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge, the original(?) Grand Theft Auto (this is the one my brother may have bought), and something called Leisure Suit Larry.

OT2 I already discussed in the other thread and the Golf game was...golf. Nothing more needs to be said.

Seven Kingdoms was pretty sweet. It was like a super souped-up version of Intellivision's Utopia. You picked from one of seven (duh) ancient kingdoms and fought the other 6 for Old World supremacy. Vikings & Normans are the ones I remember. You could build up your empire through war or trade. You had to build housing and plant crops and all that sweet Utopia stuff. I started out as a pacifist, but would always end up getting wrecked when those other jerk kingdoms attacked me. So it became like Uncharted Waters on the Sega where nice guys finished last and becoming a warmonger/pirate was your only way of surviving. You also had to keep your people happy through low taxes or building temples or what have you, but the bigger your kingdom got, the more prone the people were to rebel. So it was basically just like real life. Then there was this non-human rogue faction called Frytans who indiscriminately attacked all kingdoms with no rhyme or reason. And the Gods were real! Like if you were playing as the Vikings, you could call down Thor to wreak havoc on your enemies if you got enough points or built enough temples or whatever.  And the Indian kingdom (Mayans? Aztecs? Incas? I forget) had a random guy named Yax Pac. You know, like X-Pac. When playing as that group I'd always reward Yax Pac by making him a general or giving him a castle or whatever one did to reward one's people in Seven Kingdoms. Another weird little quirk is it sounded like the characters were forever saying "Alec Baldwin." Though my brother admittedly never heard it like I did. Anyway, 9/10. Great game!

Grand Theft Auto & Leisure Suit Larry I never really played because I thought they were degenerate. Literally the only thing I remember about GTA is The Ballad of Chapped Lips Calhoun. It was a country song that would play if you got a certain kind of automobile or drove to a certain part of town or something like that. Pretty sure I would just lallygag in the background while my brother was playing, shaking my head at how degenerate that awful game was, just to hear The Ballad of Chapped Lips Calhoun. Popped every time. EDIT: Can confirm this was indeed the original GTA. 

But one song is still better than nothing at all, which is what I remember about the awesomely named Leisure Suit Larry. OK, I just looked it up and they released 6 LSL games from 87-96. No idea which one we had, though logic would dictate the '96 one. Oh, it gets worse. From Wikipedia: "Leisure Suit Larry is an adult-themed sex comedy video game series created by Al Lowe. Drawing inspiration from Softporn Adventure..." Good grief. No wonder I thought it was degenerate. Guessing it was the next step up from the infamous Custer's Revenge. Now I have questions...

As best I can remember, my dad rage quit video games for eternity when Intellivision's Nightstalker broke him back in the 80s. Can't really picture his 97-98 incarnation sneaking down late at night to get off on some video game porn. Plus I was up all hours in those days. I'd have known if he was sneaking down late at night to play computer games. Slightly better chance for my brother, but, again, I was up all hours in those days AND had no life beyond wrestling and the local lads, so I was usually home, and I don't recall him sneaking down in the wee small hours for some video game porn, either.

Final Verdict: Leisure Suit Larry just sat around collecting dust.