Last Retro Game You Finished And Your Thoughts

Rum wrote:

Sounds like maybe you're just not a bad enough dude.

What's the opposite of Bad Dudes? Good Girls? That's me all right, a suburban American Mum.

masofdas wrote:

I really should play my Evercade but you're not selling it to me Cappa, you're doing the opposite and making me think hmm I could get Dirt 5 for PS5 by flogging my Evercade.

Also surprised not to see some Super Mario 64 in here yet

The Evercade itself isn't without it's charms, and I think the idea is good enough that'll it maintain a committed albeit small audience. Selling you on it though, I think that would depend on how often you complete retro games right the way through, and to what extent you've exhausted what's been available on the usual SEGA/Atari/Namco compilations, as well as what's on NES/SNES Switch Online. 

Truth is, you've already got access to dozens upon dozens of better games from the 8/16 bit era if you've got that newest Mega Drive collection and an active Nintendo Switch Online subscription. The thing for me is that I've already played most of those games to buggery. Have you? And indeed, would you?

Well I did decide to list on eBay and got what I paid for the Evercade, feel the delay between when it came out and when I got didn't help as I lost enthusiasm for it, I see this about KickStarter stuff often.

And you're right I've got NES/SNES games on Switch I could play or use my SNES Classic or something that I have so many better options of retro games then Adventure from the 2600.

You've done well to get your money back, there's been loads of Evercade bundles on eBay since it launched. I think they've only got themselves to blame for so many folk losing enthusiasm for it, they've done so little to keep people interested.

Last of my Evercade reviews for now. Here's my thoughts on all twenty games on the Piko Interactive Collection 1.



To address the elephant in the room, there's four RPGs here: Battle Brave Saga, Canon: Legend of the New Gods, Drakkhen and Dragon View. I've not touched any of them, bollocks to that. 

Iron Commando was a Super Famicom exclusive, and is one of the games that Blaze Entertainment seemed to make a big deal of in the promotion for the Evercade. It's pretty decent and varied as far as mid '90s side-scrolling beat 'em ups go - think a more sloppily made but weaponised Streets of Rage and you're almost there. 

Jim Power: The Lost Dimension In 3D is a really strange Europlatformer that melds together side-scrolling platforming, horizontal shooting, eye-buggering parralax scrolling and arse-buggering difficulty. It's too ambitious for it's own good. 

Dorke & Ymp is an unreleased 16-bit platformer that was made in Sweden at some point during the 1990s. The country of it's origin is just about the only thing that's distinctive about it (that and the fact that it's got some of the worst button-mapping of any Evercade game I've played yet). 

Interestingly, Power Punch II was developed under the supervision of Nintendo, potentially as a sequel to Punch-Out!! on the NES. However, Nintendo disowned it sharpish, presumably as they could see how badly it was shaping up. Some other dick picked it up for a 1992 release, abandoned it at some point in the last twenty-odd years, before Piko Interactive snapped up the rights for it themselves. Anyway, it's just awful, with none of the character, personality or strategy of the game it's obviously ripping off. It's the worst thing here. 

Here's something you don't see everyday: Magic Girl is an anime vertical shooter that came out on the Mega Drive's Chinese black market in 1993. Sadly, it's yet another case of Piko Interactive hoovering up any old shite they can. It runs dreadfully, and in a world where Twinbee exists, this is as rubbish as it is pointless.   

Next up is Nightshade, which is half-action/adventure, half point-and-click. It's a smart idea that I don't think was done often on NES, but it's complicated to work out. 

It's hard to believe that Power Piggs of the Dark Age actually exists. It tries hard to be Earthworm Jim, but with pigs in a medieval fantasy setting. It's not actually terrible - in fact, it would have made for an okay weekend rental (if, you know, everything else was unavailable). It would make a mockery of the service if it ever made it's way to SNES Online though.   

Radical Rex is about as 1990s as it gets, with a talking dinosaur who cuts about on a skateboard. For the most part, it's a competent albeit uninspiring 2D platformer, but it majorly lets itself down with some utterly ridiculous difficulty spikes in the boss battles.   

Switchblade actually has a good pedigree behind it, as it was developed by Core Design and published by Gremlin Interactive. It's undoubtedly aged in the thirty years since it first emerged though, and it was hard for me to get into on this collection. 

Bloody hell! An actual, proper, legitimate good game! Yep, Piko Interactive's Top Racer is what is better known as Kemco's Top Gear on the SNES. As well as being the direct inspiration for Horizon Chase Turbo, Top Racer is a really accomplished and challenging racer with a belting soundtrack. 

The Humans draws close inspiration from Lemmings. It's not too different, it's just got a tribal theme and bolder, chunkier graphics. I've never got into Lemmings to be honest, but I think this would be decent entertainment for somebody who likes that sort of strategy/puzzler. 

The Immortal is a boring isometric RPG that was originally published by Electronic Arts and for some reason has popped up on NES Online. 

Similar to Jim Power, Tinhead is an ambitious Europlatformer that's set in space. I think this is quite good - it's a decent example of the genre, and worth looking at on Steam if you're a fan of stuff like James Pond and Super Troll Island. 

I'd never heard of Water Margin before I played it, but it's as close to a 'hidden gem' as you're getting on this collection. It's essentially a faster-paced Golden Axe with roots in Chinese mythology. It's perhaps a bit long for a side-scrolling beat 'em up, but it's overall good stuff. 

1985's Exploding Fist is an absolute bastard to control. It's far too technical for it's age and for the hardware it ran on. 

Lastly is 8 Eyes, which is uncannily similar to Castlevania II in it's looks, gameplay and sheer obtuseness. It plays fine enough, but I'd rather be playing Castlevania I or III ta. 

~

The variety on this cartridge should be applauded, and twenty whole games is mightily good value for £15. However, it's quantity over quality here, with several of the games being legitimately awful and there only being one genuine bright spark in Top Racer. 4/10.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

You've done well to get your money back, there's been loads of Evercade bundles on eBay since it launched. I think they've only got themselves to blame for so many folk losing enthusiasm for it, they've done so little to keep people interested.

I've always felt like the idea feels a bit limited, since they don't have access to some of the big retro titles that platform holders (especially Nintendo) own, and retro games of a certain era or before was always going to have slightly niche market appeal. Then again, I come at this from the biased perspective of somebody who's not a retro gamer, so your opinion's worth much more than mine on this Cappa.

What do you think they should've done? For sure they could have done more (just skimming the above: yikes), but how do they make/could they have made it a success?

They've clearly got Atari on board but as a Brit, don't think nostalgia is there for them. Where likes of Dizzy might be, that maybe should have looked at the old computer games as a start.

Then the biggest one is if you can't get Nintendo, get SEGA on board, easily could have Master System, Game Gear and Mega Drive stuff on it.

I'd be all over a Sonic collection or all the Shining games together.

Better licenses is the big thing. They've released firmware updates and smaller cartridges in response to some of the bigger complaints, and they've suggested that fuller and flexible button remapping and multiplayer options will be added in the future. But without better licenses, I don't think the Evercade has much of a future.

It's different and alluring enough to have captured a small and dedicated audience, but I don't see how it'll grow that audience without the likes of SEGA, Capcom and SNK on board. I don't know the economics of it at all, but surely a deal where Blaze Entertainment license four good-calibre Capcom games is altogether more worthwhile than one where they license twenty fairly pish Piko Interactive games?

It's definitely something that'd be more likely to catch my eye (for all that I'd probably still not buy it), yep.

Some games I beat recently.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer

This is the Switch version I got, but it is pretty much the original game except it's upres'd and runs at what I think is 60fps.

Pretty nostalgic game for me and one I enjoyed a lot as a kid. It's just so atmospheric and there's a lot of great detail in the environments and racers to nerd out over. Beat the whole tournament mode in a sitting and a half though it's not like the game is very difficult. In fact it's very easy. Didn't have a problem in nearly all of the races even with buying too many upgrades.

The massive FPS bump over the laggy PAL N64 version I played probably helped too.

It's just a shame there's no online mode because then I could maybe get some competition from somewhere, and have something to do beyond time trials. As it stands it's a very barebones upres job with HD fonts.

I'm tempted to check out the PS2 sequel to this game which I can get relatively cheap on PS4 but I've heard it's not as good.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn

It's okay. There's a lot of cool stuff about this game but it starts to drag later on because it's so long and there are so many characters that are barely developed. And I didn't really care about where the story was going.

It's at least a pretty unique entry in the series, with mechanics like ledges you climb and attack up/down from and the way the narrative develops from three different points of view. It also fixes a few problems Path of Radiance had, has much better character portraits and improved animations.

Also royal laguz are kind of lame. They are so crazily overpowered that it makes a joke of the game's difficulty. You can't always rely on lean on them though so the game feels pretty uneven as a result. Path of Radiance was a bit easy even on Difficult mode but at least it had a steady difficultly curve and it felt more satisfying in some ways because I did it mostly with units I developed myself.

I probably will revisit the game again at some point, skipping the boring the Info chats, so will see how I feel about it on a later playthrough on hard mode, but yeah I rank a fair few FE games above this one.

Shit, I totally forgot about Star Wars Racer! I really fancy getting a bit of that up me!

Recently beat the GBA Metroids again. Fusion a few weeks ago, and Zero Mission which I mostly polished off tonight. I forgot quite how short it was, though it helped that I had only played through it a couple of years ago so it was more fresh in my mind than Fusion which took me a lot longer to beat. Also a lot of Fusion's playtime is just text.

First some thoughts about Zero Mission while it's fresh in my mind. The game is so linear. Most of the way through you are pretty much told where to go. Not just the area but the exact spot. I bring this up mainly because Fusion gets so much flak for being linear when Zero has a pretty similar feel. And I feel like there were even more instances in Fusion where you're not shown the exact spot to go to.

I beat Ridley in like under a minute which shocked me. It only dawned on me during a later boss battle how much more powerful super missiles were compared to regulars. Beat the final boss with only a handful of supers. I always look forward to the Ridley battles but it was kinda funny seeing him die so quickly.

I would say this game felt a bit more even and consistent than Fusion, but super missiles - at least on Normal, don't know about Hard - kind of break the late game boss battles. Apart from that I thought the game was a reasonable challenge, like Fusion also was for the most part.

Love these games. I feel like replaying Super Metroid again now. And maybe giving Metroid I + II a go since they're the only Metroids I haven't beaten yet.

Edit:

Beat Zero Mission on Hard mode. Super Missiles are still OP since they take out the same proportion of health, but power up expansions are much smaller so you'll get a lot less of them - on top of enemies doing double damage and some areas having more powerful enemies swapped in.

So it does a good job of making some of the easier bosses tougher and it was a lot of fun overall.

I'm prepared to give Pod Racer another go when it's cheaper on Switch, but I've always thought that the N64 version is one of the most overrated games on the console. Don't have much to say about those Metroid games - I've got both the cartridges, but I've maybe put a total of five minutes into both of them. 

~



With the latest COVID restrictions in Scotland meaning that I can’t spend my annual leave doing much, I've decided to work through some of the GameCube games I've been wanting to replay or give a proper chance. First up was spending last night playing through Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. More specifically, I played through the sixteen-track All Cup Tour that you get for beating the Special Cup on 150CC. 

I didn’t really like Double Dash back when it came out to be honest - I thought it was gimmicky, annoying and punishing, and I hated that you couldn’t hop around corners like in the other three Mario Karts. I soon enough saw the error of my ways though, and through many multiplayer get-togethers I came to appreciate Double Dash for the absolute stoater that it was.

And it still is. Here are sixteen of the best tracks in Mario Kart history, contained within one of the bounciest and cheeriest Nintendo games ever. It’s still gimmicky, annoying and punishing, true, but you can’t hate how outrageously chaotic and downright fun it all is. You can adapt to the handling, but the graphics, tunes and weapons hit you straight away with how good they are. Finely balanced between great expertise and just-for-fun casual laughs, Double Dash is consistently excellent, and adds up to be the third best Mario Kart of all time (behind 8 Deluxe and 64). How I wish I could get multiplayer sessions of this on the go again, 9/10.

I believe people do play MKDD (the best Mario Kart) online but is a pain as you the broadband adapter, along with a PC which you can setup it up via XLink.

It's a classic and no mistake. My big worry about going back to DD!! would be the relative paucity of tracks. Most of them are very good, but going back to the smallest number the series has ever had would feel like a kick in the teeth after the 48 in MK8D.

I definitely felt that sixteen was too few a number of tracks back in 2003, and that's what stopped me from buying a copy myself until much later on.

~



I decided to try out that copy of WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Game$ that’s been sitting in my collection unplayed for about a decade now. I’d heard that Nintendo had taken 2003’s WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! on GBA and spruced it up with loads of extras for a 2004 GameCube release. They sort of did: unlike on GBA, there’s a massive emphasis on multiplayer here, which is unsurprising seeing as the back of the box urges you to “grab your friends and have a blast, Wario-style!” and, you know, because it’s got ‘Party’ in the title. 

I’m of course not in a position to play this in multiplayer right now, but even back in the day, I remember this not really hooking us when one of my pals rented it for a load of us to play one weekend. All I really remember is that none of us liked the game where you had to share the one controller and take turns, and that it definitely wasn’t accessible for the folk who hadn’t played it before. Because to the skill gap between me (the returning player) and everybody else (who had no clue what was going on), I’m assuming that we quickly consigned it back to it’s box, probably before loading up Pro Evo 3, listening to The Ordinary Boys and reciting our favourite quotes from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.

So, this playthrough was all about the single player, which is all good when the back of the box exclaims that you can also “play single player to unlock over 200 microgames and loads of extra features, including bonus games, music videos and more!”. Yet the way the single player is presented was a little disappointing to me. That’s all because it removes every one of the story-themed stages and individual plotlines that gave so much personality to the original. Instead, Mega Party Game$ replaces them with, well, nothing. It’s lesser than the Game Boy Advance game in this regard. Happily, Mega Party Game$ is at least on par with Mega Microgame$ in every other way, but that’s only because it recycles about 95% of it. I’m unsure if they added any new Microgames to Mega Party Game$, or if there were simply a handful I’d forgotten about from Mega Microgame$, but either way, there were precious few surprises for me on this playthrough. Likewise, the bonuses were pretty much to be expected.

It’s hard to rate WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Game$. On one hand, it’s not as entertaining a single player game as it was on GBA, and I think it needed a bit more love and attention. Yet on the other, it’s still a version of one of my favourite games of all time. Even today, it remains massively unique, highly exciting and totally mental. I'd say there’s better ways to experience the first WarioWare, but all the same, make sure you do. This is a proper Nintendo classic. 9/10.

I have to vouch for the multiplayer here, it's easily up there with the best of them for me, I may not have had the issue of the skill gap to deal with though. I 100% agree with single player being better on GBA though.

I tried to find an Ordinary Boys song to play here and just ended up watching that time Preston walked off The Buzzcocks.

Me and my pals all got stuck into the multiplayer without having played the GBA game so it was a favourite of ours back in the day.

---

I finished Super Mario World last night.

I'd always held this up as my favourite of the 2D Marios but I hadn't actually played it past the first world or two in like 20 years.

It looks the business, Mario controls amazingly and the levels are playful and inventive. That said, it doesn't feel nearly as impressive after playing Super Mario Bros 3. Apart from Yoshi, everything World did, 3 kind of already did on the NES. Plus, the sense of adventure was better in 3. The king who needed rescuing in each world, the airship battle and then the drop back down to the castle was cool stuff, whereas beating each castle in World is a little underwhelming.

That all being said, I only finished the final boss. I'm aware that there is loads of content I haven't played yet. Maybe World is the origin of that feeling you get from some Mario games where they underwhelm in the main campaign but blow your mind with the extra stuff.

I still hold Super Mario World up as my favourite 2D Mario, and I still think it impresses. I've always thought this advert did a good job of showing off the jump between 1988's Super Mario Bros. 3 and 1990's Super Mario World:



The big question we're all dying to ask though is this: how does Super Mario World compare to the first Sonic The Hedgehog, which is also a classic game?

I never got far enough into SMB3 for it to contend properly with SMW. I agree that it's probably my favourite 2D Mario, but honestly I see that as more indicative of the relative weakness of the NSMB games than anything else. (Also there's a decent argument for calling 3D World my favourite 2D Mario...)

I completed the GameCube version of SpyHunter, the 2001 remake of the 1983 coin-op classic. From when I had it on the PS2 back in the day, I remembered it as being genuinely excellent. I thought Midway did an amazing job of bringing all the elements that made the arcade original sound so legendary in the magazines, while smartly modernising it. It’s faithful to the original in that you’re still chasing down enemy vehicles and other targets, but on PS2/GameCube/XBox you’re doing so with a behind-the-car view, all sorts of mid-mission objectives and an in-depth, Bond-like storyline about espionage and world destruction. 

Disappointingly, time hasn’t been too kind to this SpyHunter revival, and what I played through this week was some way short of the belter I’d remembered. I think that’s because SpyHunter relied a lot on it’s graphics and speed when it appeared on the sixth generation of consoles. For obvious reasons, neither impress anymore. Taking those away, what you’re left with is a game that’s got a drab plot, some messy level layouts, twitchy handling and a dull colour palate. These problems didn’t really seem to matter when I was thirteen, but they’re badly emphasised now.

Still, it’s not without merit. When SpyHunter sticks to what made the original game so appealing, it verges on being quite good. It’s got moments of fleeting excitement, especially when you’ve mastered a level and you’re handling the pressure from enemy vehicles; batting them off and then seamlessly switching between driving a car, a motorbike, a jetski or a boat on the fly makes you feel like a don. Furthermore, it can get a bit challenging and most of the missions took a couple of tries, but it’s not so long a game that it gets annoying. It’s good retro game length. 

So that’s SpyHunter. All in all, it’s an adequate enough game that’s never bad, but it’s hard to be enthusiastic about it these days. 5/10.

Been on a Metroid binge. After replaying Fusion and Zero Mission, the latter which I beat on normal and hard (and I did start doing a hard playthrough of Fusion but just stopped for some reason), I moved onto Super Metroid. I had only played the PAL version of SM before so it was nice playing a non-gimped version of it on Switch.

When I first played through Super Metroid I wasn't exactly blown away. As well as the aforementioned factor, I was getting lost occasionally which I found frustrating. The game was also missing some quality of life features the GBA games had and which I missed.

I liked it more this time, and I appreciate how open it is and less hand holdy compared to Zero Mission, which told you where to go most of the time. There were a couple of moments of getting lost, but I was bit more patient this time, enjoying the exploration and collecting more items - which to be honest I was glad to have to tackle some of the later bosses with. Not that they were a huge challenge really - I'd say Super Metroid isn't as hard as Zero Mission hard mode - but Ridley did kill me a few times. Eventually I found it pretty worthwhile just to stand in the acid a lot of the time and shoot missiles upwards.

Honestly I don't really know what I prefer between Super, Zero and Fusion. I've loved replaying them all. I think Samus Returns and AM2R are up there as well. And Other M (lol not really). This series is just incredible.

Now I'm replaying Prime 2 and AM2R. At this rate I'm probably going to end up replaying the whole series - even Other M - and then tackling Metroid 1 and 2 which I've not beaten yet.

I've got no Metroid thoughts, sorry.



FIFA 21 was baws, so instead I went and won the European cup with Scotland in Virtua Striker 3 Ver.2002 on the GameCube. I can’t say that it’s an especially great game, and the reviews from the time of it’s release echo that. A quick look on Metacritic shows that it got a load of scores around the 50% mark, which in games journalism means that it's the videogaming equivalent of shiteing yourself with your trousers on. I’d played versions of this in various arcades a very long time ago, but on GameCube and next to contemporaries like Pro Evo, This Is Football and FIFA, I felt that Virtua Striker is too dumbed down to be worthwhile.

Here’s the thing though: they really don’t make them like this anymore. It’s definitely an acquired taste, with gameplay that's limited to eight directions of movement, three types of tactics, two ways of passing and just one sort of shooting. But that’s the charm. That simplicity belies what’s actually a solidly made game, one that’s rich with content and options. It’s elevated furthermore by it’s presentation. Virtua Striker was always an attractive-looking arcade game, and that’s still the case here. As it should, it looks, sounds, feels and plays like an arcade game, and I’ve always got time for that. They've added new modes to justify it's GameCube port, adding value where it was needed.

It’s refreshingly different from the other football games that you can get nowadays, or even on your GameCube and that. Just as was the case in the arcades, Virtua Striker is worth chucking a few quid into, and happily Ver.2002 is one of the cheapest GameCube games going. For how much it costs these days, it’s got enough going for it that I think it’s worth a place in anybody’s GameCube collection. 7/10.

I miss those 8 directional, two types of shooting, football games. Perhaps things have changed now, but when I first tried Fifa on the PS3 I couldn't believe how stodgy it felt to dribble with the ball. There was all this supposed directional freedom and yet my dudes moved about with the grace of a caravan on ice. Big fan of the crisp, ankle-breaking movement you had in the old arcade football games.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I'm prepared to give Pod Racer another go when it's cheaper on Switch, but I've always thought that the N64 version is one of the most overrated games on the console.

I only had the change to play that Pod Racing game a couple of times, but I do remember it being one of those game that you were really jealous about not being able to play because you had a PS1.



I actually bought Star Wars Racer Revenge, the PS2 pod racing game while it was on sale on the PS4 estore a few months back. That's a game I played a lot and digging into it again was fun. It doesn't have the aura of the N64 game, and its difficulty curve is absolutely bananas. Most of the game is a walk in the park, but unlocking the bonus characters like Darth Vader is excruciatingly difficult - and I've finished F-zero GX! It handled adequately enough for its time but some of the twisty tracks are a bit of a dogs dinner compared to F-zero because the pods just aren't responsive enough. It's a game I can see the faults in ever more clearly the more I play it, but I can't help feeling attached to it. Maybe that's because pod racing was the best thing about the Phantom Menace, or because it's been too long since I played a great futuristic racing game (and no, Fast RMX doesn't count!).

It's clear that a lot of heart has been poured into this one, with a wide array of characters and a good selection of tracks. Some of the tracks are quite inventive, particularly the one set on a weird planet that doesn't spin, so there's a strange night time corral reef-esque track. There are also a few tracks which send you through tubes that you can race through upside down like Rollcage if you want. And there's something particularly satisfying about ramming a star wars chap into the shadow realm and hearing a weird alien noise. 7/10

Kriken wrote:

When I first played through Super Metroid I wasn't exactly blown away. As well as the aforementioned factor, I was getting lost occasionally which I found frustrating. The game was also missing some quality of life features the GBA games had and which I missed.

I liked it more this time, and I appreciate how open it is and less hand holdy compared to Zero Mission, which told you where to go most of the time. There were a couple of moments of getting lost, but I was bit more patient this time, enjoying the exploration and collecting more items - which to be honest I was glad to have to tackle some of the later bosses with.

That's interesting - I came to the GBA games after Super Metroid and I thought they were hand-holdy as well - Super Metroid is sometimes vague, but with the map showing you where you haven't been yet, and which doors open with your next gadget, it's designed in a way that pretty much any choice you make then is a good one.




Also, I can't believe a GameCube football game still had rigid 8-direction controls. If you're gonna do that, bring back Sensible Soccer!

Muss wrote:

I miss those 8 directional, two types of shooting, football games. Perhaps things have changed now, but when I first tried Fifa on the PS3 I couldn't believe how stodgy it felt to dribble with the ball. There was all this supposed directional freedom and yet my dudes moved about with the grace of a caravan on ice. Big fan of the crisp, ankle-breaking movement you had in the old arcade football games.

The last PES has probably the best 1v1 dribbling I've seen in a while but even that's not perfect considering you need to remember some complex inputs at times.