Last Retro Game You Finished And Your Thoughts

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (Nightdive Studios remaster)

For a game that's as simple about collecting keys while shooting dinosaurs and other various baddies I really enjoyed my time with this. If I'm keeping it to stuff that's the same as the N64 original the level design is the clear standout with lot's of winding paths/secret tunnels/swimming & even platforming sections to keep you interested while you search for the levels keys. Not a surprise then that some would later go to work on Metroid Prime.

I did play this a little bit back the late 90s but never got on with it as I found the controls fiddly & just wasn't used to the first person perspective let alone being expected to do some platforming, thankfully this remaster brings in gyro aiming & while it isn't on the same level as you see in Splatoon (especially on the default settings) it's a massive step above those original N64 controls and actually gives the game a new lease of life. It all runs fairly smooth for the most part & the remaster also has a whole bunch of graphics settings to tinker with if you can understand what some of them actually mean, oh and you can even swap between the PC & N64 music but the drums of the latter are just too good to pass up.

So, does this 24 year game still hold up? Absolutely it does & is a true classic that I'm glad I finally got around to finishing.  

Consider me intrigued. I never played the original Turok but spent a lot of time with Turok 2 back on the N64. It was kinda janky at the time, even with the expansion pak in, but the sense of atmosphere and sheer size of the levels was always impressive. Did the original Turok have just the C-button controls? I remember faffing about trying to get the "Goldeneye controls" on Turok 2, but I'm guessing they have mapped it all to be a standard dual stick FPS now? Will keep an eye out for this one, as I've always heard the first Turok was a foggy, often clunky test-run for the overhyped sequel. True classic? I'm sold!

I've got the remastered sequel as well but I'm going to play through a few other games before I go onto that.

gjones wrote:

Did the original Turok have just the C-button controls? I remember faffing about trying to get the "Goldeneye controls" on Turok 2, but I'm guessing they have mapped it all to be a standard dual stick FPS now?

I had to look this up as I couldn't fully remember but yeah it was c-buttons for movement & the stick to look around as if you were controlling Turok's head.  And yep the remaster is a dual stick set up now.
Funnily enough though you can use the Switch N64 pad to play it but the c-buttons on that become the right stick which doesn't quite work & I never tried to see if you could fully remap it to the original style as I was all in on playing it with gyro aim.

Turok has been sitting on my eShop wishlist for a couple of years now, I'm definitely coloured intrigued too. It's good to know that the controls have been tightened up and the gameplay has been smoothed out for the remaster. I just hope that the platforming sections are more forgiving - in the first-person perspective in the late '90s, those were murder.

On a side note, I find it strange that many of the N64's first-person shooters (like Perfect Dark, DOOM 64, Duke Nukem, QUAKE, the first two Turok games and probably Goldeneye 007) have all been remastered. Yet the games the console was known for - namely it's platforming, sports and racing games - largely haven't.

Not sure if you use gyro controls much but that helped me a bunch with the platforming as I could quickly tilt down to see where I was landing & even if you don't I'm sure you could find analogue stick settings that could work.  

TCK wrote:

On a side note, I find it strange that many of the N64's first-person shooters (like Perfect Dark, DOOM 64, Duke Nukem, QUAKE, the first two Turok games and probably Goldeneye 007) have all been remastered. Yet the games the console was known for - namely it's platforming, sports and racing games - largely haven't.

Definitely odd but apart from Perfect dark, Duke & Goldeneye all those are by Nightdive studios who's expertise is mainly FPS, but they do seem to be branching out a bit more with Shadow man and the enhanced edition of the point & click Blade Runner game. So, hopefully they get the green light for other non fps N64 games.

Mario 64 gets released on everything. Banjo, DK and the other Rare stuff has been in a weird limbo. I hope now that Microsoft and Nintendo are getting their stuff rerelessed, it will do well enough to encourage other publishers to dig up their platforming back catalogue.

Speaking of DK64:

As it’s native handheld becomes a more distant memory year by year, conversely it appears that Rhythm Thief and The Emperor’s Treasure is destined to become one of those 3DS games that people won’t have necessarily appreciated in it’s natural lifetime, but will nevertheless eventually hear and read about online. I think we’re already seeing that. A commercial failure in its day, Rhythm Thief was under a fiver at CEX for years. But not anymore; it’s price has been going up and up for months, and word of mouth can be the only reason for that. Watch this: on this trend it’ll be a £500 game by the time you’re booting up Grand Theft Auto VI (a hundred years from now).

Rhythm Thief is one of these sorts of games that you wouldn’t necessarily position alongside a systems’ best, but it’s got that unique charisma and standout personality that makes you identify with and then fall in love with a system just a little bit more. It’s a very enthusiastic story-driven music game that that had me tapping my toes through its gameplay and humming it’s tunes when my 3DS was shut. Playing the role of a student called Raphael as he traipses around Paris with his dog Fondue, most of the gameplay takes place deep into the night as you search for your disappeared father. This is when Raphael transforms into Phantom R, his art thieving alter ego and the centre of attention in all of Paris’ nightlife. I really like this premise, it feels like quite an inventive and sophisticated scenario by 3DS standards.

Blending together many different rhythm minigames and musical puzzles and riddles, Rhythm Thief has that same kind of soul that SEGA used to display all the time twenty years ago. It’s independent sense of style and outright unusualness are strongly reminiscent of the stuff that you’d never see them take a punt on nowadays, like Space Channel 5 and Samba de Amigo. I think the forum’s SEGA fans would absolutely love Rhythm Thief’s flamboyance and flair.

Structurally however, Rhythm Thief badly lacks that same individuality. With how you explore the city, investigate it’s population and unravel it’s tale, Rhythm Thief couldn’t do much more to ape the Professor Layton games any more closely. Actually, calling it a Professor Layton rip-off would be much fairer comment – although it’s one with loads of colour, really high production values and even nicer animation. Unfortunately in the overworld, some of Rhythm Thief’s Layton-esque segments last way too long, and rarely feel as satisfying or consequential as they could and should. There’s just so much to go fetch and collect in Rhythm Thief but, really, it overdoes it. It obviously eeks out what would be a four hour game otherwise.

I said earlier that Rhythm Thief isn’t something I’d position alongside the best the 3DS has to offer. The collection and pacing aspects are part of that reason, yet it’s the wild inconsistencies between many minigames’ quality, controls and fairness that are really to blame for the game falling short of being brilliant. So often, you can quickly go from having a pleasant and enjoyable time to then suddenly smacking a proverbial brick wall with a minigame that’s 952/10 on the difficulty scale. That can either be because the sound cues aren’t clear enough to follow, or because the touchscreen and motion controls try to perform something overly ambitious that the 3DS is nowhere near technically advanced enough to pull off. There’s one minigame called Gone With The Wind that appears about two-thirds of the way through, that has you tilting the system to fly a hanglider in all directions while shooting down enemies with footballs: it’s honestly the most unfair, misjudged and altogether worst minigame I’ve ever played, anywhere. Most minigames don’t do a good job of explaining what you’re supposed to do either. It’s proper trial and error stuff (although thematically you soon start to see the same gameplay ideas and control mechanics get repeated).

It’s not perfect. However the gorgeous presentation, the imaginative situations it poses you with, the memorable music and the charming characters did a lot to win me over. It isn’t too hard to forgive its faults. Overall, Rhythm Thief: The Emperor’s Treasure is definitely something that’s worth experiencing – or at least worth hearing on YouTube. 7/10.

I wanted to like Rhythm Thief but I remember at the time just not being arsed to continue with it (maybe I was interested in other games more) & I think I eventually traded it in. Not a bad game but falls way below stuff like Elite beat agents & Rhythm Tengoku.

Nice write up as always.

That’s exactly what happened with me ten years ago. I anticipated Rhythm Thief highly, I enjoyed the pre-release demo and then I bought the game on launch day. I thought it was good, but there were better games of its type (like the two you’ve named) and I just think other stuff grabbed my attention more.

It's quite good in a modern light though. If anybody's ever thinking of revisiting the 3DS at some point in the future, I'd say Rhythm Thief is definitely worth getting.

I do wonder with the Laytonesque sections if they'd had plans for this to flourish into a franchise. I think I've got this as part of one of the only Nintendo Humble Bundle deals from years and years ago, so could be worth firing up one day if I've nothing else on my mind to play.

Rhythm Thief is quite long by retro game standards, but it might be a useful diversion for somebody who's prepared to stick in at something old for ten hours. It's not like anything else that's out today either.

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If you’re ever looking for a quick and playable arcade racer that isn’t OutRun or Ridge Racer, you could do a lot worse than Porsche Challenge on the PSone. I understand that early-day mid-90s PSone racers have limited appeal to say the least, but don’t dismiss it because of it’s age or license - it’s actually a well-polished and interesting little game.

It’s ideal for a spot of retro gaming, as it’s not stuffed with content and it’s all beatable in less than two hours. And while it won’t make you piss yourself with excitement at any point, everything that’s here has been very well designed. I’ve always thought that Porsche Challenge looked nice in screenshots, and in motion that’s surprisingly still the case. It’s quite a fast and attractive game considering that it’s from a time that predates the first Gran Turismo.

The tracks lend themselves well to the three styles of play - the Arcade mode has you chasing checkpoints against the clock, and the Sim and Interactive modes change the layout of the tracks on each lap. The way your car handles feels quite unique to Porsche Challenge, but it’s easy to get a grip of and your Porsche Boxster’s movement gives the racing a pleasant flow. Less easy is the AI, which puts up a decent challenge on all three difficulty levels. Porsche Challenge’s Prodigy-inspired soundtrack deserves a mention too, even if that Big Beat style of music isn’t really my thing.

Putting all this together makes Porsche Challenge a well-rounded first-party game that I - and probably you too - had undeservedly forgot. 8/10.

Oh!
I think I maybe played this! My uncle was pretty into racing games with real cars - the Christmas that Gran Turismo came out, that was all he and my dad talked about - and seeing that box brought a wave of nostalgia coming back.

I remember sod all about the game, although your write-up makes it sound like a good time - I'm even into the sound of that soundtrack.

There’s a decent chance a lot of folk our age have played this. It was on loads of demo discs, and it was showcased in a lot of highlight reels for the PlayStation, in it’s adverts and all that.

The PSOne is an absolutely stonking console for all sorts of racing games.

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Bloody Roar: Primal Fury is a game you’ve probably not thought about in years until I’ve mentioned it today.

This Hudson Soft fighter had a unique mechanic that let you transform into animal hybrids mid-fight, which drastically altered your characters’ strength, speed and moveset. They’re fairly imaginative, with beasts like rabbits, bats and chameleons to compete against wolves, tigers and leopards. Primal Fury is well-balanced in the sense that your metamorphosis into (what it calls) Beast Change drains your health quickly. That means that you’re susceptible to getting knocked out by your opponent if you’re not careful and clever with your use of these abilities. There’s powerful and cinematic attacks to go alongside Beast Change, pretty much exemplifying the notion of ‘risk versus reward’.

Primal Fury successfully captures that arcade feel that I particularly like in my fighting games, with tight and responsive controls, quickness, and a move list is uncomplicated and immediate. Nipping along at a fluid 60fps helps a ton too. If there’s any drawbacks, I think they come down to the game’s simplicity when compared to it’s generational counterparts like SoulCalibur II and Tekken 4, and the fact that I just don’t think that non-Smash fighting games work very well with the GameCube controller’s button layout.

All in all though, I quite like Bloody Roar: Primal Fury. Unlike with Bomberman and the TurboGrapx-16 library, Konami haven’t done anything with Bloody Roar since they absorbed Hudson Soft and took on it’s trademark almost ten years ago. It’s seemingly been forgotten about by Konami. As I said too, you probably didn’t remember about it either. I think it deserves your attention though, there’s not really a modern equivalent to it. 8/10.

Honestly simplicity compared to Soul Calibur II's probably a good thing, the number of moves every character had was bewildering.  I ended up just button mashing the same few cheap combos.  I hadn't thought of Bloody Roar, and vaguely recall it being in the 7/10 range, but that's a point in its favour in my book!

I did sorta think about it the other day as you'll see soon, I wanted to put more reviews in this thread myself and was looking at my GameCube games that are on the shorter side of things which Bloody Roar is.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Primal Fury successfully captures that arcade feel that I particularly like in my fighting games, with tight and responsive controls, quickness, and a move list is uncomplicated and immediate.

My take on an uncomplicated move list is that its appeal for me depends on how much time I'm planning to spend with a particular fighting game. If I'm only planning to whack through Arcade Mode a few times, then I do think having fewer or less complex moves to use is better as I won't really have the time to get stuck into the movelist. For fighting games where I end up spending hours playing online with mates and perhaps even more time offline with various modes, I do prefer having movelists with a bit more depth to them. There's a real thrill in learning a difficult combo and then landing it in a battle against a real player. I remember seeing a pro player pull off a combo in Injustice 2 with the character Brainiac, thinking "I could do that that", and then landing it against Andy in an online battle. Good times.

It's weird how few animals are on that Bloody Roar case. You could be forgiven for thinking that leopard was King and this was Tekken!

I guess from a marketing point of view, most people want to see human cleavage over animal cleavage.

Treesmurf wrote:

I guess from a marketing point of view, most people want to see human cleavage over animal cleavage.

The Jay Edition


or to keep to the GameCube

I don't know about you guys, but all of those covers look second-rate, borderline generic. Does it have a lead character? Like if Smash Bros announced a Bloody Roar character, who would it be? As an outsider looking in, it doesn't seem to have much identity.

Yeah the dude on the cover Yugo Ogami had to google his name but yeah part from 2 which I feel was decent on PS1 and Fury at/near launch of the Cube its not high on my fighting game list.

Still, the gimmick of human turning into animals is different.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

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Buskalilly wrote:

It's weird how few animals are on that Bloody Roar case. You could be forgiven for thinking that leopard was King and this was Tekken!

Treesmurf wrote:

I guess from a marketing point of view, most people want to see human cleavage over animal cleavage.

Also it looks like she is uncomfortably letting one rip rather than being in a kicking pose.

JayMoyles wrote:

I remember seeing a pro player pull off a combo in Injustice 2 with the character Brainiac, thinking "I could do that that", and then landing it against Andy in an online battle. Good times.

You sure you don't just like hammering Andy?

He always enjoys that, gotta mix it up sometimes and find new heights to ascend to.

The_Jaster wrote:

Also it looks like she is uncomfortably letting one rip rather than being in a kicking pose.

Never unseeing that . . .