MetalFRO
- 16 comments
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- 4 likes received
Bio not provided
As I was scrolling through your list, I was thinking, "2 or 3 obscure games and no SotN?" But I was impatient, and of course a smile crossed my face when I read the #1 choice. Bravo. Dracula's Castle is such a joy to explore, and one of the most well-designed areas in any exploration-based platformer. I salute you sir, for a fine choice.
I don't come back to this one that often, usually due to my belief that the NES conversion of Twin Cobra isn't nearly as bad as some say - I've spent far more time on that game than this. But Tiger Heli is a good game, good conversion, and one that I remember fondly because I had a friend that owned a copy, and we spent enough time on it as kids to have cemented the first level in memory, and I would agree that it's worth a fair shake as well.
Good little article. I appreciate that you were able to share your humiliation and learn a life lesson from it all. It's only when you become an adult that you can look at those situations objectively and know that you've met your match. Bravo to you for having the presence of mind to know when you were out of your depth and leave with your dignity intact instead of pushing a rope.
@NintendoLegend Congrats on the score, but you earn a demerit for your flagrant use of a CG Jabba the Hutt versus the original, CLEARLY superior giant prosthetic animatronic version. For shame.
I am quite interested/excited about this. I'd be interested to see if they can pull off Castlevania 3 (US) working. That might just be worth the price of admission, but if they can get FX chip games working as well, PLUS it plays imports? I'm sold. I have my NES and SNES on the living room CRT TV, but with HDMI that would look real nice on my bedroom LCD :D
@actblazer I was thinking the same thing watching that trailer. Looks like wretched AI. Plus the "...beautiful style that amaze you and feel never been experienced world before." line rivals "All your base" for worst Engrish ever. That level where they're riding on the logging truck looks ultra CHEAP in terms of cheap, unavoidable hits.
I would put excessive combos in the same breath as the danmaku or 'Bullet Curtain' shoot-em-ups that came out of the mid-late 90's splintering of deacvelopers interested in the genre. I grew up with the Gradius and R-Type games, along with other non-arcade titles, so when I first encountered the 'bullet hell' shmups, I balked. After some time playing them, I see the appeal and enjoy some of them, but I generally still prefer the simpler, more frenzied shmups where I have to dodge a few fast bullets versus a hundred (or a thousand) slow ones.
By the same token, fighters like Street Fighter 2 are preferred to the Marvel vs. Capcom variety, because the emphasis is on a handful of special moves (what you call combos) versus the actual combos that chain together multiple special attacks or punch/kick combinations into insane numbers of successive hits. Any player who walked up to a machine to challenge a pro would go down within seconds, and consider their quarter wasted. The only way to really get good at a game like that is practice, and in order to properly combo in the traditional sense, you really have to memorize the special moves and combinations to the point of near 'muscle memory' in order to be among the elite. That's the point where I check out with fighting games. If I can pick up a fighter and win a few matches simply by timing my attacks well, anticipating my opponents strategy (countering an air attack with a high kick/punch, etc) and perhaps pulling off a special move if I use one of the more common 'tropes' of special move combinations.
I guess what I'm saying is, I get where you're coming from, but would hope you'd recognize your own low threshold of tolerance for a genre convention that, while not for everyone, has become a staple and a major attraction for hardcore fans of the genre.
I think you're spot on with your observations, and I would concur that a person's memory is where the retro gaming consciousness lies, and for those that aren't as active in continually keeping that flame alive, the embers that still burn in 'resident memory' will naturally gravitate thoughts of this type to the titles that they have a great fondness for, or games they spent a lot of good times playing. Hence the smattering of less well known titles and games seen more through the fondness lens versus the strictly 'classic' one.
The Saturn version takes a lot of flack, but I think it plays pretty well with the 3D controller, and is still a blast.
Love this game! If this had been released on the SNES, it could have been huge. I would have loved to see this on the Jaguar alongside Zool 2, because I think it's a superior platformer. Either way, sweet game.
@NintendoLegend Yeah, I loved how you could see eyeballs flying toward you onscreen when you wasted dudes with the bazooka. Attention to detail! Not to mention guys down on their knees begging you not to hurt them, which was one of the earliest examples (that I'm aware of, anyway) where you could make the moral choice to spare their lives, or ignore that and blow them away. Pretty sweet game, even today. I'm curious as to what the remake will be like...
Fantastic game, and one of the TG16 exclusives I wanted to make sure I got once I bought mine - got lucky and found a seller who hooked me up with a reasonably priced unit and a complete copy, even including the HuCard sleeve! It's a shame this game isn't more well-known, but the shmup faithful know how great it is.
Another classic I spent a lot of time on as a kid. Great to see there are others who still remember these titles!
I played this game endlessly on my PCjr. Love it!
Absolutely awesome to see Commander Keen love all these years later! After cutting my teeth on PC gaming years earlier, Commander Keen was what I spent hours playing on my family's 386, along with the original Duke Nukem (before he ran out of bubble gum), and other Apogee & Megagames titles. Love that series, it will always have a place in my gaming heart.
@jasonlamb Makes me glad I still own my old IBM PCjr. and all my original boxed cartridge games and disk games (though no boxes on the disk stuff).