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+--- Thread: Games Bought Thread 3 (/showthread.php?tid=6388)
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 1st January 2012
Split the new part out for a new thread, that other one's getting old.
PC DD
--
(This next batch is from today. Didn't get anything in between; I was away some days, didn't want anything the other ones.) Note - Today is the final day of the sale, buy anything if you want it! Huge amounts of stuff is on sale...
Ion Assault - $2.50 (arena shmup, looks like it could be fun)
Dark Void - $3 (not a great game, but I'm interested enough to get it for that amount.)
Gundemonium Collection - $5 (for three dojin shmups)
Total War: Shogun 2 - ~$14 for the game, the addon campaign, and the other four DLC packs as well. I know I've bought but not really played Rome and Medieval II (and Emperor), but I might actually play this one... I did love the original Shogun. Shogun's got a narrower focus than those other ones too, much smaller map.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 2nd January 2012
GB
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Out of Gas - $2, cart in case. This is a topdown action/puzzle game. Decent fun.
Playstation
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Motocross Mania - $0.50, disc only - Generic motorcycle racing game.
Tecmo's Deception - $0.50, disc only - Not really a fan of this series, but they aren't cheap and I have a little interest, so why not.
Xbox
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Turok Evolution - $1, disc in generic case - apparently it isn't as good as the N64 games, which is too bad, but maybe it's okay if worse?
Spartan: Total Warrior - $1, disc in generic case - Creative Assembly's first action game Total War spinoff.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 4th January 2012
Wii
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The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - $46, but $20 of that was with a gift certificate I got for Christmas, so I only had to pay $26. Not bad, and it was the obvious choice to use the certificate on.
DS
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Mega Man ZX Advent - $8, card only - Got even though I'm still in the middle of the first one because it's rarely this cheap, and if it's as good as the first one it'll be a must play for sure!
PSP
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MediEvil Resurrection - $8, disc only. Not so sure this was worth it, we'll see...
PC
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Tetris Worlds - $1, jewelcase only - I do have the Xbox version of this.
Rage of Mages - $2, jewelcase only - topdown action game.
SNES
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Yoshi's Cookie - $5, cart only - I had this for GB but not SNES.
In addition, for $5 I got a complete in box "Power Joy" Famiclone. This is one of those N64-controller-clone ones, that uses the N64 controller as the system itself, with batteries in the controller pak port. I have another one I got a little while back, a Super Joy III, but this one's more complete, and maybe better too. It's cool to have the box, instructions (with complete game list with descriptions and controls), and accessories (second controller, AC adapter, 84-in-1 Famicom multicart...), too, for sure. This looked unused -- though it wasn't sealed, there were plastic baggies around the parts, and everything was wrapped in plastic ties. Huh.
Anyway, the thing is a pirate Famiclone, of course. The thing has an interesting design, though -- it looks like and N64 controller, but it's also a light gun at the same time. There's a clear plastic part sticking out of the center that you use as a gun for gun games. It also has a comfortable center handle with trigger, also for use with the gun. For normal games, you have your usual N64-controller-knockoff design, with Start and Select in the A and B button locations, the Famicom's A and B buttons on the C buttons (one pair for normal, the other pair for turbo; and no, they aren't any bigger than C buttons. Heck, the Power Joy even leaves the C button arrows on them, no other labels!).
As for the main controls, the Super Joy III has an "analog stick" in the middle, but it doesn't actually move or work, you use the d-pad. The Power Joy is better -- the stick does work, as does the (not analog as far as controls go of course, it's all digital as far as actual control goes) stick. This is good, because the d-pad isn't particularly good; I quickly found myself mostly using the stick, which worked okay. The buttons are small, but work. The center prong is pretty comfortable. When using it as a gun it works well, but I can't hit much of anything at any distance. Of course, that's true for me with almost any light gun for any system, so that's not saying anything about this gun in particular. :p I'm just terrible with light guns. The controller/gun hybrid design is cool, works well, and looks better than you'd think -- this doesn't look super cheap, and feels like it has better construction than, for instance, the Super Joy III.
The second controller has a different button orientation, design (looks like a modified Playstation controller), and d-pad, but works fine. It's nice to have it -- I got the Super Joy III with only the controller/system itself and gun, so I didn't get its second controller, which uses a 9-pin port just like this one does. Oh, both also have Famicom cartridge ports on the bottom as well, for playing games not built into the systems.
The battery compartment is far better designed in the Power Joy too -- you just open the flap and put batteries in. The Super Joy III has a stupid battery box you have to remove from that, pry open (this is not easy), and put batteries in. However, the Power Joy uses only AAA batteries, not AAs like the Super Joy III, so it gets worse battery life. Of course, the thing came with the AC adapter in the box, so I don't care much about that because I can just use AC power, which is great. I don't think the Super Joy III came with an AC adapter, even if I did have that complete...
As for games, the Power Joy has only ten built in games, far fewer than the Super Joy III's internal multicart, but at least they're all actually different games... well, sort of. See, two pairs of three are just three modes from Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley, split up into three parts so as to pad the game total I assume. The other four games, which don't use the light gun, are actually different, full titles. Interestingly, the ten built in games aren't just straight rom dumps -- they've got redone graphics or gameplay, all ten of them. The gameplay is the same in most cases (Tengen Tetris was significantly altered, but the others are the same), but the graphics are different, which is interesting. The 84-game multicart is not like that, though -- it's just straight roms. They don't even change the names of most of them, so stuff like Gradius, Challenger, The Goonies, Xevious, etc. is all here in its original form. Some of the games I recognize, but others I don't. I don't know if they're games which I just don't know about, or whether they changed names and title screens for some of the games on this multicart. I might want to look into that. Some titles are misspelled, but most are right, and the manual and game menu both have exactly the same spellings for the misspelled titles. All 84 games on the cart are entirely different, so there's none of the padding you often see in multicarts, which is great, but a couple of games are on both the system and multicart (though with different graphics on the system of course), which is kind of annoying when only ten (six, really) games are on the system. ALso, the only lightgun game on the multicart is the Duck Hunt skeet mode again, which is also redrawn on the system, so there are really only two games to use with the light gun, Duck Hunt and Hogan's Alley. If you want to do anything else with it, you'll need to import some Japanese lightgun games. American ones presumably wouldn't work even with a converter thanks to the different lightgun formats.
... Um, on the note of the Power Joy's internal variation on Tengen Tetris, the graphics are unaltered, except for one thing -- the pieces are all removed and replaced with completely different shapes. There's a single block, a two block line, the "three long with one sticking out in the middle" Tetris shape, a 5-block U, a 3-block diagonal shape (like the third one in this description but with the center block removed - and no, this is Tetris so they won't fall down once placed above a space.), a 3-block corner piece, and that piece with the center piece removed (leaving two pieces diagonal to eachother). Yeah, it makes for a seriously weird game of Tetris.
Oh, and yes, the multicart IS a normal Famicom cart, and worked on my NES once I plugged it into my Honey Bee converter. I've owned that thing for years, but had never actually owned a Famicom game to test it with... there are so many NES games out there to get I'd never bothered with importing. Well, I've finally got one, and the thing works fine. That's good.
As for the Super Joy III, it didn't come with a separate cartridge, just built-in stuff. It's one of those multicarts with lots and lots of "different" games that aren't any different at all... that is to say, lots of padding. The system's also flimsier and not built as well, and as I said that battery box is a pain, and required because I don't have the AC adapter for that one. Ugh. If I use one of these things much, it'll definitely be the Power Joy, it's easily the better of the two.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 5th January 2012
N64
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Destruction Derby 64 - $7, cart only. Good game, as expected. :) It can't match up to the Dreamcast version of Demolition Racer, but it's good.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 6th January 2012
32X
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Star Trek: Starfleet Academy: Starship Bridge Simulator - $10, cart only
Master System
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Ghostbusters - cart in case (no manual), $5 - supposedly the best version of the game, even if it's still not exactly great.
Games Bought Thread 3 - etoven - 8th January 2012
I'm starting to wonder if your collection rivals even the angry video game nerds collection. I would be a interesting experiment for you to see the fair market value of all the games in your collection over the years, I bet it would buy a small town.. :)
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 8th January 2012
I do have a pretty big game collection, yes, but he has every US NES release, right? I don't have anywhere remotely near that. I don't think own over about a third of the games for any system. I don't do stuff like buy stacks of sports games just to own them for instance, and don't buy everything I see just because I don't own it... but certainly I think I have a very good game collection, yeah.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 14th January 2012
Wii
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Soul Calibur Legends - $6, complete - The mediocre Soul Calibur third person hack and slash game. It was cheap enough I picked it up, expecting very little.
DS
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Meteos - $4.50, complete - popular DS puzzle game.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 14th January 2012
But, you DO buy stacks of games just to own them. I mean, Soul Calibur Legends?
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 15th January 2012
It's bad, yup. Just played a bit of it. I was kind of hoping it would be actually kind of okay despite its reputation, like Castlevania Judgment, but no, it's bad.
As for buying games just to own them... generally when I get a game it's because I have some kind of interest in playing it, even if I don't get to it anytime soon after buying it; I don't usually buy things I have no intention of actually playing at all.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 16th January 2012
Oh, and the other game I got, Meteos, is really good.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 16th January 2012
PC (stuff from goodwill - boxed games)
--
The Ultima Collection - $3, complete large box game (contains the disc in case, reference guide, and map book, which is all you got for this. It's too bad it didn't come with all of the original manuals on paper, but at least it's got printed maps and help pages for each game... oh, this collection includes Ultimas 1-8, plus Akalabeth, so ten titles. I've never played Ultimas 2 through 8 before.)
F.E.A.R. - $3, complete (oddly enough two copies of disc two were in the box, whatever)
Half-Life 2 - $2, no manual (yeah, I have it already, but digital only)
Gamecube
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Mario Party 6 - $3, disc in generic case (actually, it was in a One Piece case, but whatever... once I saw the price I got it for sure once I saw the contents.)
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 17th January 2012
PC
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NBA Jam T.E. - $2, jewelcase only (I'd forgotten there was a PC version...)
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers - $2, jewelcase release (pretty cool find, I have the second but not the first)
PSP
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Soul Calibur: Broken Destiny - $6, disc in case (no manual) - I'd been wanting this, but didn't want to spend the $20 it is in most stores around here. Finally found a cheaper copy! It's okay, but far, far from the quality of the first two or three games, sadly (not that this is surprising).
GBA
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Banjo-Pilot - $3, cart only
Gamecube (both disc only and free with the other stuff I got)
--
Metroid Prime 2 Bonus Disc (sadly the game itself wasn't there, just MP1 and this; I have 1 for GC and the Anthology for Wii, though.)
Serious Sam: Next Encounter - Not by, or as good as, Croteam's Serious Sam games, but maybe entertaining?
PSX
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Zoop - complete longbox game, $3 - a puzzle game I have for SNES. Oddly enough the only console version of the game with highscore save is the Jaguar version... that's annoying. Still, decent puzzle game.
Games Bought Thread 3 - alien space marine - 17th January 2012
The Elder scrolls V Skyrim for the Xbox360
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 19th January 2012
Wii
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Lost in Shadow - $10, complete. Hudson's 2011 shadow-character sidescrolling platformer. Yeah, there were several such games recently, but this was one of them, and it got good reviews too... pretty good find for this price! ( It's so, so sad that Hudson is now dead... this is probably one of their last console releases. Stupid Konami! :( )
PSP
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Darkstalkers Chronicles: The Chaos Tower - $5, complete. This is a port of the Japan-only Dreamcast game Vampire Chronicles, the previous Darkstalkers game released, and like that one compiles all of the characters and stuff from the original three titles into one game. This game adds one mode to the DC version, the eponymous Chaos Tower, but doesn't have the online play mode that that one did. It also has longer load times. Still, it's a game I'd wanted, so this was a pretty good find, particularly complete -- for a fighting game like this the manual is important.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 27th January 2012
Still not sure why you bother splitting the thread. So what if the other one was "old"?
Anyway, here's my latest catch:
Game & Watch: Ball (Brand new, not just "unopened" but actually manufactured in the past few months) Yep, they actually re-released the very first handheld game, predating Tiger Electronics. Actually, I had a few of those Tiger games as a kid (as gifts usually, I don't recall actually requesting one). I was aware of the Game & Watch systems but never had one myself, wanting NES games instead (and later the Gameboy).
It's a nearly perfect replica. The screen even has old style LCD "delay". The front is identical, but the branding etched into the back reveals that it is a re-release. It still functions as a "watch" too. It uses a newer sort of watch batter (the CR2032), but otherwise is the same internally as well.
It's probably the most "mint" retro thing I've yet received, and one of the better Nintendo Fun Club rewards I've seen over the years. I hope Nintendo does more of this style of reproduction. They could make limited quantities for the smaller base of people that would be after something like this, only selling it on their online store to take distribution costs out of the picture. I'd love to get a newly minted NES, for example. It could either be based on the Famicom with a "universal" cart plug or based on the original NES but altering the cartridge slot to be "true" ZIF, where pressing it down actually presses two sides of the contacts around the cartridge pins, instead of just shoving it into a spring slot. Imagine a reproduction SNES and Earthbound for sale. Not only would lawsuits not be a problem at that point (no way they could claim a format shift and thus a "new" work), but prices on eBay would be murdered in their sleep, so no more $4000 Earthbounds being sold (the prices on those things are getting ridiculous).
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 28th January 2012
Saturn
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Willy Wombat - $12, from ebay, complete (no spine card) - this is an import Japanese Saturn game from Hudson and Westone that was only released there. Oddly enough, though, even though the game was only released in Japan, all of the voice acting is in English. It's native English speakers too, though the acting is iffy. The story is generic, but it's great, though really weird, to be able to understand it fully in this import-only release. It's like Sin & Punishment in that regard. And also, the title -- "Willy Wombat" is pretty awesome, and the art is great cartoon-style stuff too. Yeah, this was just about a must have.
As for the gameplay, it's definitely fun as well. The game's an isometric-ish 3d platform-action game. You run around levels defeating enemies, jumping between things, collecting stuff, etc. There are some puzzles here and there, usually involving switches or obstacles to avoid, waves of enemies, and more You do need to rotate the camera a lot (this is done with the shoulder buttons), which is a little annoying, because the camera isn't very automatic and your view will often be obstructed if you don't rotate frequently. I guess in 1997 that concept was still somewhat new, but it's kind of annoying. Oh well, the game's quite fun anyway. This was well worth getting and is something worth looking into.
As for your post, huh, so the Ball Game & Watch remake uses a CR2032 instead of the two small buttoncells the old versions used? That's nice, I have my one old G&W (Octopus), but haven't had any batteries for it in years so I can't be certain that it works...
Quote:It's probably the most "mint" retro thing I've yet received, and one of the better Nintendo Fun Club rewards I've seen over the years. I hope Nintendo does more of this style of reproduction. They could make limited quantities for the smaller base of people that would be after something like this, only selling it on their online store to take distribution costs out of the picture. I'd love to get a newly minted NES, for example. It could either be based on the Famicom with a "universal" cart plug or based on the original NES but altering the cartridge slot to be "true" ZIF, where pressing it down actually presses two sides of the contacts around the cartridge pins, instead of just shoving it into a spring slot. Imagine a reproduction SNES and Earthbound for sale. Not only would lawsuits not be a problem at that point (no way they could claim a format shift and thus a "new" work), but prices on eBay would be murdered in their sleep, so no more $4000 Earthbounds being sold (the prices on those things are getting ridiculous).
While that is of course a cool idea, two issues: 1) I don't think Nintendo would do it. That's a much larger and tougher thing to make than a Game & Watch. 2) You want a new system model? Yeah right... seems quite unlikely (though really, a NES 2 with AV out is all that'd be needed...) 3) Earthbound? I don't expect NOA to ever release anything relating to Earthbound ever, pretty much.
And finally... can you imagine how many Club Nintendo points something like those ideas would require?
It'd be like "this is awesome, but you'll probably never have one", pretty much...
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 28th January 2012
They'd take more to make, but my idea is that they'd be sold on a "time limited" basis every few years (think Disney Vault) for actual cash monies instead of "coins". They'd certainly be cheaper to make now than back then. If they made an NES, it would have to resemble the original model. It's just not that "retro" if it was the later remodel. Yeah, the cartridge slot would need to be changed to fix the original's flaw, and it would probably have an updated a/v plug ("stereo" even though the NES is mono anyway). Other than that, it'd be doable. Again, the idea is making limited runs for a smaller market. I think there's money to be had there. I mean there's already a decent "reproduction" business out there (and that leads me to warn you to be careful shopping for certain rare games). The difference would be it would be made to the original specs, which Nintendo has, instead of a "close enough" reverse engineering like current reproduction systems and carts, which occasionally come back to bite you when some exotically coded game doesn't work right in the system.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 2nd February 2012
Sure they could, I'm just saying, it seems incredibly unlikely that they'd actually do it... it'd certainly be a much bigger project than making a new Game & Watch, though that is something I wouldn't have guessed they'd do either, I admit.
New games.
Xbox
--
Test Drive: Eve of Destruction - these first three and the PS2 game are all complete and were $10 for the four.
Gun
House of the Dead III
Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix - $1, disc in generic case
Black - $1, disc in generic case
PS2
--
God of War II (two disc ed.)
These last few are from a few days ago, I forgot to list them.
PC
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Tribes 2 - $2, jewelcase only
Demolition Racer - $2, jewelcase only
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 5th February 2012
I picked up Kirby's Return to Dreamland for Wii recently, as well as Kirby's Adventure 3D on the 3DS eShop. Kirby's Adventure is great fun. I played it as a kid but never owned it. Seems Dedede's role as "anti-hero" was in place even then. He stole the dream rod to prevent an evil nightmare from controlling it. Return to Dreamland is great fun, and yet another awesome display of multiplayer "cool" like Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Someone was selling these 4 games in one bundle for $10, so I picked it up even though I only had real interest in two.
All Gameboy games...
Kirby's Dreamland (Plus manual)
Kirby's Pinball Land (Plus manual)
Kirby's Block Ball (Plus manual
Kirby's Star Stacker (No manual)
Dreamland's the first in the series, so I always wanted to own it. It's actually pretty easy. It wasn't until the second game that Kirby got his "copy" abilities, so his chief ability is eating enemies and spitting them back out in this one. As such, it's really a sort of "casual" platformer. Kinda fun if that's what you're in the mood for, and great for kids just starting video games.
Kirby's Pinball Land is Nintendo's first foray into "let's take one of our beloved characters and turn them into a pinball". (Next one will be Zelda Pinball, or Master Shake's pinball.) Unlike all the others, with the possible exception of Metroid Pinball (the tone is just confusing with that one), this one actually makes sense since Kirby IS a ball. It's a very fun game I remember playing on a cool display case Nintendo used to have for their Gameboy games in stores (it had a custom "brick" style GB wired into a black and white TV display). It has a save feature, unlike Dreamland, but it's one of those "pause" saves that erases itself when you "continue" later on.
Block Ball is Arkanoid with Kirby. It's fun in it's own right, and has some interesting boss battles and mechanics like bounce panels on the "roof" and "walls". This one is also a Super Gameboy game, and the coloring is done fairly well.
Star Stacker is a Kirby based puzzle game (I get the impression that Nintendo was basically sticking Kirby in any genre they could come up with at the time). It's a standard block matching game, with the twist that you need to put "star" blocks between the shapes you're matching to eliminate them and progress. It's also a Super Gameboy game, and it REALLY does a great job using coloring. It's one of the best examples of good SGB design I've seen, up there with Gameboy Donkey Kong. It also uses the SNES for higher quality sound effects and music at certain parts (like a wind rushing sound during the opening). It's just a shame the gameplay is rather blah.
Hmm, I think I need more Kirby... I'm going to try finding Dreamlands 2 and 3 now. I understand Dreamland 3 for SNES is considered one of the best Kirby games, and Dreamland 2 is another great example of SGB design.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 8th February 2012
First the new stuff I got, then comments on your above post. :)
GB
--
The Incredible Crash Test Dummies - $1, cart only - it's sort of a minigame-esque thing, where each level has entirely different gameplay. The game's short but fun and varied, in my opinion. I'd actually been hoping to find a copy of this for a while, so it's kind of cool I did.
Cosmo Tank - $2, cart only. Topdown/first person tank action game. Part of the game is topdown exploration, but occasionally you go into first person dungeons. The dungeons have no map, only a compass, so they quickly get confusing. Fortunately the first few aren't too hard, but still... that could get difficult. The gameplay's okay though. Unfortunately it has no saving. Oh, this was an early Atlus release.
SNES
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Cannondale Cup - $3.50, cart only. This is a bike racing game, one of the few...
NES
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Shooting Range - $4 - Bandai lightgun game. I only had six Zapper games for the NES, so sure, it's nice to have another one. This game seems to sell for slightly more than that online. As the title suggests, it's a fairly simple shooting game.
Sega CD
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Cobra Command - $1, disc and manual in generic Sega CD case (ie, case with no back/side insert). I already have a disc only copy of this game, but thought it'd be worth spending a dollar for a copy with the manual and a case. I doubt this is its original case -- I think the game was one of those cardboard box Sega CD titles -- but still, it's nice to have. As for the game, it's a Dragon's Lair-esque title, except you're a helicopter in a city, not a guy walking around. It's all drawn stuff, not live action video. Not exactly one of the best games though.
To Kirby. I will post this here, but I'm thinking that maybe it should be its own thread, given everything... what do you think?
Ah the GB Kirby games, some of my favorites for sure... Kirby was one of my favorite series on the Game Boy back in the '90s, and I got Dream Land 1, Dream Land 2, Pinball, and Block Ball for the GB, as well as the N64 game and Tilt n Tumble for GBC, before not buying Kirby games for years.
So yeah, Star Stacker was the only one of the GB or GBC Kirby games I passed on then, mostly because I didn't think I liked puzzle games as much as those other genres. I have since gotten it too though, and it is a great game for sure... it's nice it has battery save, so many NES/SNES/GB-era puzzle games don't have it. Sure, it was a 1997 release, but 1996's Tetris Attack was passwords only...
The first Kirby (1992) is indeed easy its first time around, and EXTREMELY short, but if you waited through the credits and got the password for Extra Mode (or looked it up online) and played it in THAT mode... well, let's just say that Kirby 1 is actually considered one of the hardest platformers in the series for a reason. Of course, Kirby platformers are generally pretty easy, but still, Kirby 1 in the hard mode is a genuine challenge. And for an even greater challenge, beat that mode and you unlock a code for a secret options menu with a sound/music test and options to set your starting lives and maximum health level. Of course you can find extra lives to increase your lives, but if you set your max health to below the default, and max, of six, that will be both your starting, and maximum, health. So yeah... good luck in hard mode with one hit point. You'll need quite a bit of it. :) ... Now, those options are not a full replacement for a longer game, it still is very short, but still, they are great to have and definitely add some life to the game.
Kirby Pinball (1993) is one of my favorite videogame pinball games ever. It's right in the top tier of video/computer pinball games, in my opinion... absolutely LOVED it back in 1994 when we first got it (though to my frustration at the time my sister's high score is better than I've ever gotten), and I still do. I don't quite understand how the same people went on to make Pokemon Pinball, both tables in that game are so unbelievably boring... Kirby Pinball is a vastly, vastly superior game. Just exceptional. Oh, and the battery isn't just for that useful interrupt save option -- it also saves your four high scores, which, in my opinion, is the more important function. Saving scores in a game like this is essential. (For other GB or GBC pinball games, Nintendo's early GB title Revenge of the Gator is good, though it only has one table and no saving, and I like the GBC-only rumble cart title 3D Ultra Thrillride quite a bit, one table or no.)
After Kirby Pinball came the NES game, which is pretty great for sure, and then Kirby 2 for the GB (1995), which was my favorite Kirby game in the 1990s, and is still certainly among the best in the entire franchise in my opinion. Kirby 2's such an outstanding game... it's kind of too bad that, like Metroid 2, its GBC color remake was never released, but at least it does have some fantastic SGB support -- it's really a sight to see. From that post it's clear that you like SGB titles, so make sure to get Kirby 2! Also, if you haven't played it in SGB mode, Wario Land 2 (B&W or dual-mode releases) is a must-play. Sure, it's also got a full color mode, but they really went all out with that one on the SGB. It's even got separate borders for each world! The only negative is that with the dual-mode release, the two saves are incompatible so to play it on GB/SGB you need to delete your GBC save (or get another copy). Annoying, but... well, even as annoying as I find the game, I didn't regret coming back to it years later on the SGB and seeing that version of it too, it was good stuff. But yeah, back to the subject, Kirby 2 does a similarly outstanding job, though it has only one border. I love how they use a separate color area just for Kirby's current power box, so that part is colored appropriately no matter where you are. :)
Then of course game the SNES games, first Dream Course (which is a fantastic and quite difficult game, not sure offhand if you've played it), then the puzzle game (Puyo Puyo with Kirby skin, like Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine on Genesis), then Super Star (one of the most popular games in the franchise, and it is very good, but I don't like it more than KDL2 or Adventure, I think.).
Kirby Block Ball was the next one released, releasing in 1996. As I said above I got Block Ball back in late 1996, and thought it was a pretty good game. I've always liked Breakout-style games. I was slightly disappointed by it, because I didn't think that it was quite as brilliant a spinoff as Kirby Pinball was, and even now I would say it is maybe the weakest of the GB Kirby games. As far as Kirby non-platformers go overall it's a solid one though better than some and worse than others. I wasn't in love like I had been with Kirby Pinball or Kirby 2, but it' s a very good, and innovative, blockbreaker game. I can't say that I've seen that "four paddles on the four sides of the screen" concept anywhere else, and it was nice to see the powers in a Kirby spinoff title too. I played this one enough back in the '90s to completely beat it, getting scores above the borderlines on all levels.
Star Stacker - This early 1997 release is one I only got within the last year or so, as I said, but it is indeed a great game, and after playing it I kind of regretted never getting it back then; it's a great puzzle game. I actually picked up a second copy more recently, for it I ever have a chance to play it two player. :) The gameplay, where you use the matching pieces to destroy the things in between, reminds me slightly of Yoshi now that I think about it (and Yoshi I know because that was the only puzzle game we owned for the GB back in the '90s), but looking at both of them now, Star Stacker is a far better than than Yoshi no question, both in gameplay and in options. It's not the hardest puzzle game ever, sure, but the concept is well thought through and all of the modes are fun. And yeah, as I said above, battery save is great. That was one of the last genres Nintendo started having saving in, you know, only phasing it into their puzzle games gradually from 1994 on. Oh, as you probably know, there is also a Japan-only SNES version of Star Stacker (Kirby no Kirakira Kids, I believe), released in 1998. It's really too bad that we didn't get it, or alternately that they didn't release a basic N64 port too -- that'd have been nice. Apart from graphics, obviously two player modes are important in puzzle games, and that's much easier to do on the SNES than with link cables. (Star Stacker does have a great SGB mode, as you say, but that doesn't give you two player play on one system... apart from Hexcite, which is its own thing, none of the GB/GBC puzzle games have that, unlike fighting games which frequently did.)
After Star Stacker for GB, but before that Japan-only SNES release, came the second SNES platformer, Dream Land 3. YOu say it's one of the most popular ones, but i think you must be confusing it with Super Star... Super Star is considered one of the best Kirby games by many of its fans (though my favorite is probably Kirby 2, as I said above, and I wouldn't put Super Star above Pinball either, if we count the spinoffs, or Adventure, among the platformers; not sure about the rest of them though.), but KDL3 is considered ... just okay, I'd say. That's what I think too, really -- it is a good but not as good as it could have been Kirby platformer. Like Kirby 64 would after it, it has a very slow pace that I find frustrating in both titles. I found Kirby 64 disappointing compared to the Game Boy games, back when I got it in 2000. KDL3 is good, but gameplay-wise too much like Kirby 64, and not enough like the GB or NES gamess, for me to love it. I do like that the friend helpers from Kirby 2 return, though, and like Super Star (but, not counting minigames, unlike any other Kirby game until the Wii games), it does have a two player simultaneous mode.
After that was Tilt n Tumble, the tilt-controlled GBC game. It's fun but somewhat gimmicky as an early example of a console game with tilt controls. I liked it at the time, but found it kind of easy -- only the worse control you get with tilt versus buttons made it challenging mostly. And of course, now tilt is a lot less unique than it was back in 2000. I don't know how it holds up now, haven't replayed it. After that, and the cancellation of the color remake of KDL2, the series kind of went away for a while; the GBA only saw those two Kirby games of course, one a remake and the other the somewhat odd (but not bad) Metroidlike one, and the GC only the quite disappointing Air Ride.
Fortunately that changed after that and the DS and Wii have been great for Kirby, but there was a down period before that for sure, at least in my opinion. I didn't buy either GBA Kirby game during its life (though I have them now), and didn't buy the DS games initially either at their release (I now have two of the four; I have Canvass Curse and Super Star Ultra, but not the newest one or Squeek Squad.), and only have one of the Wii games too (Epic Yarn, which I just got a few months ago; I do very much want Dream Land Returns, though), so I have been somewhat getting back into Kirby over the past year or two, which was kind of nice. Kirby 1, Pinball, 2, and to a slightly lesser extent Block Ball and Tilt n Tumble are games I have a lot of good memories of, as the length of this post might suggest, so it's great to see new good Kirby games come out again. :)
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 9th February 2012
Oh I've got Super Star, and it's DS remaster, and yes, it's probably going down as my favorite.
I do like good SGB design. As an example of bad design, the color choices in Donkey Kong Land are just confusing. Sure they "fit" the levels, but good design is using a combination of colors that makes the characters stand out from the background, and yet still mix well enough to allow a good background. Ya know, the color limitations and design choices in SGB modes are rather unique. I don't think anything like it has been seen before or since.
I'll be getting Dreamland 2 soon enough (sadly without the manual), but my real catch today was a Super Gameboy 2. Yep, that. The two biggest changes on this thing are the link port and the fixed GB timing (the original SGB's timing was about a percentage point off). There's a whole host of new borders, but the old "activate screen saver" code will now swap between the two sets when on the "black box" border, so it's all there. Other than that, it's the same ol' same ol', but this thing was cheap and I wanted the additions.
Another good example of SGB design was Wario Blast. Here's a game I've had for a while. The coloring is mostly "bleh" but one nice feature they programmed into it was single cart multiplayer using the SNES's extra controllers. It even uses the multitap if you have one to play up to four players.
Oh and, Return to Dream Land has an "extra" mode when the game is beaten too. It's tough. You've got half health, the stages are harder, and the bosses have all-new moves (the "last" one, already looking like a Spyro the dragon recolor, only looks more so in this mode since he now turns purple).
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 10th February 2012
PC
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Warlords Battlecry - jewelcase only, $2 - the first of the three Warlords RTS games from the early 2000s.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 13th February 2012
Dreamland 2!
This game is another great example of SGB coloring, up there with Megaman V. I'd still rank it a bit behind Gameboy Donkey Kong though, for the singular reason that DK made a pallet choice to always keep two colors the same (or almost the same) across all maps to make sure Mario and DK kept the same colors no matter which level they were in. However, this game does have some really nice uses of color, such as how the level select "greys out" the islands you aren't on, so any one island gets a unique color pallet when selected. I'll add that this is probably the only game to actually make the border feel like an extension of the game screen rather than a border.
Oh, and the game itself is really fun too. I wish Kirby's animal friends would appear in more games. In the same way one could "combine" powers in Kirby 64, combining different powers with different animal friends results in unique abilities.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 14th February 2012
PC DD
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Knights & Merchants (complete) - $3, on sale - GOG weekend sale last weekend
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 14th February 2012
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Oh I've got Super Star, and it's DS remaster, and yes, it's probably going down as my favorite.It's also incredibly lazy that all three DKL games use such similar borders... still though, given how barely-playable they are on the original GB (how hard it is to see on an original GB has to be part of why I didn't buy DKL2 or 3 back when they were released, unlike the first one, despite the fact that I did like it (but not as much as DK94), when DKL was released in 1995 using it with an SGB would have been essential, given that the GBP wasn't out yet. Now... it's still a fine option for the series, but they aren't the SGB's most impressive works, no. Killer Instinct is mostly similar, but does have a two players on SGB mode, like some (but certainly not all) SGB-supporting fighting games. That's always a great feature to have, even if in KI's case if you're playing it on SNES you really should be playing the SNES version.
I do like good SGB design. As an example of bad design, the color choices in Donkey Kong Land are just confusing. Sure they "fit" the levels, but good design is using a combination of colors that makes the characters stand out from the background, and yet still mix well enough to allow a good background. Ya know, the color limitations and design choices in SGB modes are rather unique. I don't think anything like it has been seen before or since.
Quote:I'll be getting Dreamland 2 soon enough (sadly without the manual), but my real catch today was a Super Gameboy 2. Yep, that. The two biggest changes on this thing are the link port and the fixed GB timing (the original SGB's timing was about a percentage point off). There's a whole host of new borders, but the old "activate screen saver" code will now swap between the two sets when on the "black box" border, so it's all there. Other than that, it's the same ol' same ol', but this thing was cheap and I wanted the additions.That's pretty cool... apart from the link cable, Tetris DX has a special SGB2-only border, which I think (based on seeing it in emulation, I don't have a SGB2) looks nicer than the default one... I don't know if any other games have special SGB2 borders though, I haven't heard of it.
Quote:Another good example of SGB design was Wario Blast. Here's a game I've had for a while. The coloring is mostly "bleh" but one nice feature they programmed into it was single cart multiplayer using the SNES's extra controllers. It even uses the multitap if you have one to play up to four players.That game's sequel, Bomberman GB, has the same thing (a 4 player mode on SNES with SNES controllers and multitap), and yeah, it's pretty much awesome. In Japan, apparently Wario Blast was called Bomberman GB 1, and didn't have Wario in it; Bomberman GB (US) is Bomberman GB 2 there; and there is a third, Japan-only Bomberman GB 3. However, from looking at it a bit, it seems to have no multiplayer at all, bizarrely enough. Bomberman games are always lacking without multiplayer. Anyway, the US Bomberman GB is a great game for sure. I loved that game back when I got it in the late '90s and it's still a great Bomberman game. Wario Blast is a bit simpler and not quite as pretty, but is of course the same basic game. I have played Bomberman GB with 3 or 4 people several times, it's great fun. :)
Quote:Oh and, Return to Dream Land has an "extra" mode when the game is beaten too. It's tough. You've got half health, the stages are harder, and the bosses have all-new moves (the "last" one, already looking like a Spyro the dragon recolor, only looks more so in this mode since he now turns purple).That's pretty cool, not a common feature in Kirby platformers... have any of them since the first one had a full Extra mode? I mean, some bonus stuff for after you win is normal, but not a full harder difficulty. Given how easy most Kirby games are the first time through, it's nice to see it back.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Dreamland 2!The one issue with using two colors to keep the characters the same color is that because of how it does the colorization -- the four shades of grey turn into four colors -- it'd be pretty hard to do something like what they did in DK94 in a game like Kirby 2, I'd think... and I like how each stage has a separate color, keeping that was important. And they do have consistent colors in the status bar, including the special colorization for the "what power do you have now" box. :)
This game is another great example of SGB coloring, up there with Megaman V. I'd still rank it a bit behind Gameboy Donkey Kong though, for the singular reason that DK made a pallet choice to always keep two colors the same (or almost the same) across all maps to make sure Mario and DK kept the same colors no matter which level they were in. However, this game does have some really nice uses of color, such as how the level select "greys out" the islands you aren't on, so any one island gets a unique color pallet when selected. I'll add that this is probably the only game to actually make the border feel like an extension of the game screen rather than a border.
Quote:Oh, and the game itself is really fun too. I wish Kirby's animal friends would appear in more games. In the same way one could "combine" powers in Kirby 64, combining different powers with different animal friends results in unique abilities.Yeah, they didn't use the friends much for long... they're in Kirby 2, Star Stacker, and 3, and that's pretty much it, unfortunately. It's too bad they didn't really bring them back for the new Wii game, it'd have been nice. I would indeed say that Kirby 2 was the first showing of the "power combination" feature they also had in, yeah, Kirby 64. 64 has more combinations total, but still, KDL2's combinations allow for some cool stuff, and I like the friends for sure. :)
An as for the game, as I said already, it's my favorite game in the series. I'm sure that is partially nostalgia, but it is my favorite, and yeah, Pinball is #2. (Though I don't have Return to Dreamland yet, so I can't judge that one.)
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 16th February 2012
Mind you I'm thinking of GBDK style coloring being designed from the ground up.
Kirby's Pinball Land is a fun little game, though I've never been particularly good at pinball (too much stuff I can't control, like if the ball happens to bounce to the extreme left or right, it's just instant death and nothing I can do to stop it). I remember playing Ultra Pinball from Epic MegaGames as a kid a lot though. If they made a new Kirby Pinball game, I'd love to see Kirby in ball form getting powerups from enemies.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 17th February 2012
I managed to snag a copy of Lufia 2 Rise of the Sinistrals (I think those guys are sinister or something). Apparently this is very rare, but the person I got it from normally sells trading cards so they likely didn't know what they had and I got it for $20.
First impressions are that it seems like it'll be a very fun game, and as a later SNES title an amazing one to look at too. It's a shame that before I even got very far I already started noticing glitches. Like, big ones. At first I wondered if the game itself had been damaged in some way, but looking it up online it seems this game was rushed and so it didn't get the polish most really good SNES games tended to get. Yes, there are glitches in other SNES games, but theyr'e usually out of the way. In this case, just navigating the menu is a tricky exercise just to avoid a glitch goblin or two. Apparently one of the shrines later on is a glitchy mess as well.
All the same, I think I can move past the glitches to a good game. It still doesn't seem as glitchy as the typical Bethesda game :D.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 18th February 2012
Or maybe it IS as glitchy. I got the game stuck in a reset cycle just navigating the options screen! Well, gotta be careful there I guess.
Anyway, Kirby's Dreamland 2 is amazing. Kine the fish is the BEST THING EVER. I mean that wide eyed imbecilic expression is priceless. I also love how I ride around in it's mouth and how when I use abilities, they distort the fish's body in the process. Firing lightbulbs from the fish mouth Fester style is fun, and it's the most hilarious thing in the world to use "spike" and have a few showing up coming out of Kirby through the fish mouth, but all the rest are actually stabbing into spine shapes IN the poor fish's body, and the nerve dead fool is just completely unaffected! It's great! Honestly this fish and Kirby's interactions would feel right at home in Ren and Stimpy.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 19th February 2012
Genesis
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Greendog: The Beached Surfer Dude - $5.25, cart only. I remember seeing this as a kid and disliking it because of the art design (seriously, Greendog's art looks awful, I dislike the style), but the gameplay's a bit better than that I think... we'll see how I like it now.
PS1
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One - $1, disc in generic case - PS1 action game, maybe decent.
Dark Jaguar Wrote:Kirby's Pinball Land is a fun little game, though I've never been particularly good at pinball (too much stuff I can't control, like if the ball happens to bounce to the extreme left or right, it's just instant death and nothing I can do to stop it). I remember playing Ultra Pinball from Epic MegaGames as a kid a lot though. If they made a new Kirby Pinball game, I'd love to see Kirby in ball form getting powerups from enemies.Epic Pinball was a favorite of mine as well. I never owned the full game, but did absolutely love the shareware version's table, Cyborg, and got Epic's second pinball game, Extreme Pinball. It was good, but honestly I didn't like any of its four tables as much as Cyborg (and it also has fewer total tables, with only four instead of 16 like the first game). Cyborg, though... amazing work for its time.
But anyway, in addition to that, I also loved Kirby Pinball when I was younger. It's a pretty different kind of game, more videogamey and less like a real pinball table, but I thought it worked fine, and the variety, with three tables each with three screens, minigames, high score save, etc. was great.
You are right that pinball isn't as interactive as some games, but I always loved block-breaking games like Arkanoid, and like pinball too. Pinball isn't one of my favorite kinds of games -- it is really frustrating when the ball drains in ways you have no control over, for sure -- but it certainly can be fun.
Quote:Or maybe it IS as glitchy. I got the game stuck in a reset cycle just navigating the options screen! Well, gotta be careful there I guess.Huh, I didn't know Lufia 2 was that glitchy... that's too bad.
Anyway, Kirby's Dreamland 2 is amazing. Kine the fish is the BEST THING EVER. I mean that wide eyed imbecilic expression is priceless. I also love how I ride around in it's mouth and how when I use abilities, they distort the fish's body in the process. Firing lightbulbs from the fish mouth Fester style is fun, and it's the most hilarious thing in the world to use "spike" and have a few showing up coming out of Kirby through the fish mouth, but all the rest are actually stabbing into spine shapes IN the poor fish's body, and the nerve dead fool is just completely unaffected! It's great! Honestly this fish and Kirby's interactions would feel right at home in Ren and Stimpy.
As for Kirby 2, yeah, I said it was great, and you clearly agree. :) And yes, I always liked the lightbulb power as well, it's good stuff. As for the spikes power with Kine though, I thought that Kine himself grows the spines, instead of them being spines Kirby is piercing him with... Kirby 2 was the series' first use of combined powers, and they were off to a good start for sure.
I also like how while there is some collecting, it's not nearly as burdening as the amount in, say, Kirby 64 -- there is only one item to collect in each world, instead of two in every level. Makes 100% completing the game a whole lot less annoying than in that game. And do do that, as with some later games in the series you only fight the real final boss with all of the items. I remember the last two worlds' ones being the hardest to get, without a walkthrough that is.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 19th February 2012
I beat the game without all the rainbow drops, but I'm going to go back through to get those. From what the manual says, Dark Matter is the boss here, making this probably it's first appearance.
I don't think the spikes are piercing Kine so much as distorting Kine's skin into spikes. It seems Rick gains Kirby's powers directly, Coo helps Kirby use the abilities, and Kine just passively accepts whatever power Kirby ends up shooting out his mouth or through his body.
Yeah, Lufia 2 has some pretty nasty glitches... It's disappointing considering how fun the game otherwise is. To elaborate, this is a much more interactive RPG than most on the SNES. It's similar to Golden Sun in a lot of ways. There are numerous tools you collect throughout the game that can be used to solve puzzles, Zelda style. More RPGs of all stripes could use this. A bow can hit switches across a gap (or stun enemies, more on that in a bit), and a "hookshot" ripoff does what hook shots do.
The game is similar to Chrono Trigger or Super Mario RPG in that enemies are visible on the main screen. There's random encounters on the world map, but in dungeons, you can avoid them if you wish. Added to that is the chess-like mechanic of the enemies taking a move only for every step you take. It doesn't slow things down, they move as you move rather than you having to wait for them to make a choice. You can also push statues around and pick up objects like pots to set down on switches. This leads to two more great quality of life features. First, you can turn on a dime while holding something instead of walking a step (hold R to do so), which is great for setting something down right behind you without needing to walk around to position yourself. Secondly, each room "remembers" what you did in it so if you need to backtrack for some reason you don't need to solve the room's puzzle again. On the flip side, this means you can potentially get "stuck" by pushing a statue against a wall (you can't pull them). To fix this, the game gives you a convenient magic spell called "reset", which sets a room to the condition it was in when you first stepped in.
Also, so far I've noticed the NPCs have a LOT of dialog, with new things to say for each story event, a lot like Super Mario RPG. The translation is pretty solid too. All in all, aside from the glitches, this is shaping up to be a great game.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 20th February 2012
Dreamcast
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Alien Front Online - $5, complete - game jewelcase (still shrinkwrapped, but I'll open it) with outer cardboard box and now-pretty-much-useless microphone (for online voice chat). Um, unless it works with Seaman I guess? I don't have that game though. Part of a buy 2 get 1 free thing with two $3 games.
Fur Fighters - $10, complete (part of a buy 2 get 1 free with 2 other $10 games, so effectively $6.70 or so) - Third person action game. Not so sure if I'll like it, but the holo cover on the jewelcase is really cool.
Xbox
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Ninja Gaiden Black - $10, complete, part of the above buy 2 get 1 free.
N64
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Fighter Destiny 2 - $10, complete, part of the above buy 2 get 1 free. The first one's one of the N64's better 3d fighting games, and this one's supposed to be very similar but slightly improved. It is kind of stupid that they had to get rid of the 's from the name though, "Fighter Destiny 2" is kind of an odd name. :)
Saturn - both games are complete and were $3 each, part of the buy 2 get 1 with Alien Front Online.
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Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed - I have thisone for the PC, but didn't have any of the console ports. The Saturn port is pretty solid, though obviously the graphics aren't as quite as good as on PC. It does have Mission Stick and Arcade Racer support, though!
Hi Octane - Futuristic racing game. This is considered the weakest version graphically (it was also on PC and PSX), but I'm pretty happy to have it, I love futuristic racing games and was interested in this because it's on Saturn. :)
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 23rd February 2012
PC DD - D&D games are on sale on GOG this week, buy 1 get 1 free. For anyone who somehow doesn't have Baldur's Gate, BGII, Torment, IWD, etc, buy them now! I have those though, so I got two of the lesser ones. All are $10 for two, during the sale.
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Neverwinter Nights Diamond - I have the original NWN1 (boxed), but not any of the addons.
Demon Stone - the D&D hack and slash action game.
PC (boxed)
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X-Wing - complete floppy disk version, with all 5 disks. I know I have the complete CD edition, but this original floppy version was too cool a thing to have to pass up... I only have the CD version from the Lucasarts Archives collections, not as a stand-alone, and the graphics and sound did change between versions. It would be interesting to see the first version of the first game in this genre-defining classic, even if the later ones are better.
MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries - jewelcase only
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 1st March 2012
PSX
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Legend of Legaia - $9, complete. Well under ebay price.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 1st March 2012
Nice, that's a really good game. I haven't heard good things about the sequel, but that one's pretty good.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 1st March 2012
I saw it for that price once before and passed on it then, but I didn't this time... yeah, hopefully it's good. I am of course not exactly the biggest traditional-style JRPG fan around, and while I don't dislike them like I did in the '90s for sure, they still are repetitive and I get bored after a while, a lot of the time. Either that or I just stop playing anyway. There are exceptions to this, but a lot of the time it's true.
Of course, with how many games I have, I do that with lots of good games I am having fun with too, not just stuff I'm bored with or something...
On another note, of games I've gotten recently, Alien Front Online is fun. It reminds me slightly of BattleTanx, though maybe not quite as good, and with people as well as tanks (and better graphics). It's also got no multiplayer; the MP was online only, stupidly. That was dumb of you, Sega. At least it has a single player mode though... but yeah, it is fun.
Fur Fighters, though, is WAY better than I was expecting. I was kind of thinking it was mostly a third person shooter, but in fact the game's as much 3d platformer as it is third person shooter. The game's really great fun, definitely recommended if you haven't played it before (it's for DC and PS2)!
Quote:I beat the game without all the rainbow drops, but I'm going to go back through to get those. From what the manual says, Dark Matter is the boss here, making this probably it's first appearance.Was Dark Matter in Kirby's Adventure, or was that some other final boss? I forget. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that Kirby 2 was the first time that there was a special final boss you unlocked by getting all of the items, a formula of course the series would repeat again in games such as Kirby 64, except with many many times more items to collect in order to do it that time around. Yeah, I've never actually gotten around to getting all of them, so I guess I haven't really finished Kirby 64... some were a pain to get, requiring getting powers in one level for use in another and not getting hit, etc. Sure, Kirby 2 has that too, but only a few of them. It's different when you need to get so many items!
Anyway, if you haven't, do get the final bossfight in Kirby 2. It's good stuff. :)
Quote:I don't think the spikes are piercing Kine so much as distorting Kine's skin into spikes. It seems Rick gains Kirby's powers directly, Coo helps Kirby use the abilities, and Kine just passively accepts whatever power Kirby ends up shooting out his mouth or through his body.Yeah, that sounds about right. I always liked Kine and Coo more than Rick, sure he has powerful attacks but not being able to fly is frustrating in certain stages... (Kine, of course, is the water specialist. Lightbulb power is the best.)
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 1st March 2012
Kirby's Adventure ended with Nightmare, who invaded Dreamland and was after the star rod to spread nightmares through the universe, you know, typical stuff.
Kirby 64 had Dark Matter as the "final" boss, but if you got all the crystals you got to 0^2, which is, I think, 0. Either that or it's oxygen 2. All I really know is it's a one eyed angel with bloody tears. For kids!
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 6th March 2012
Oh, right, the special boss in Kirby 64 was a new one. I'd forgotten that, and as I said I never got to it. That was kind of a nice idea though, follow Kirby 2's prescedent by having another new secret boss that you get to after getting all the stuff... I just wish that the game was better, and that it hadn't copied KDL3's super-slow pace.
And yeah, I'd forgotten Adventures' final boss's name. All of those bosses -- Nightmare, Dark Matter, etc -- have some similarities though I think...
Also, new games.
Playstation - two of these gaems were $9, the third half off at $4.50.
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Wild Arms - complete
Parasite Eve II - discs in case (no manual)
Final Fantasy VII - discs in case (no manual, green label ver.) - I have this but am missing disc 1. Not sure if I'll keep or sell this though, the price has come down a bit but it's still worth $25-40, and I don't care about the game THAT much...
Wii
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Baroque - complete, $5 - challenging dungeon crawler. Not sure if I'll like it.
N64
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Top Gear Rally 2 - $7, cart only. Yeah, I finally have the last of the four N64 Top Gear games! It's a fantastic series on the SNES and N64, that's for sure, all seen Top Gear games on the platforms are great.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 6th March 2012
Dreamland 3 has 0 as the last boss, which is a lot like 0^2. I'm pretty sure 0^2 is supposed to be some sort of evolved form of 0 or something.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 13th March 2012
Ah, I didn't know that that was Dreamland 3's final boss, I've never gotten past world 2 of that game.
Game Gear
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Surf Ninjas - $2, cart only. Mediocre sidescrolling beat 'em up from Sega. Based on a movie license. You have a nice variety of moves, but the game's nothing special, that's for sure. It is funny that Sega got this movie license and then only released a GG game and not a Genesis one, though. (And no, it is not a movie I have ever seen)
Tempo Jr. - $7, cart only. A bit expensive, but I guess it was worth it... this is the second of the three Tempo games, and the last one with a US release. Tempo for 32X is a good but not great platformer, but this one has a more mixed result. The graphics are great, the audio good enough, and the controls are good. Level designs are fun, and there is password save (On-cart saving would be better, but oh well)... but... there's just one problem -- this is a Sega Club game, which means that it's both quite short, and insanely easy. The length isn't too bad -- four or five levels, each of two stages and a boss (followed by a bonus game), and then a boss rush and then final boss -- but it's all so ridiculously easy that I beat the game the first time I played it without dying a single time. Most enemies drop health powerups, other health ups and extra lives are everywhere... yeah, the game just is challenge-free. The bosses provide a slight challenge, until I figured out how to beat each one, but as I said, none enough so to kill me even once. Oh, and the game's pretty slow paced too. You can run, but still, the game's a bit slow (though in this respect it reflects the 32X game, which is similar.). Also, you only are given passwords on game over. Given how hard it is to die, that means that I'd have to kill myself on purpose over and over just to get one (and there aren't pits of death here, just pits that hurt you a bit). Argh. However, despite the significant problems, it was fun enough to be worth playing through, so I don't regret getting it.
DS
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Metroid Prime Hunters -$5, card only - replacement for my lost copy of this game. I've given up on ever finding it. I've been wanting a replacement for some time, but wasn't willing to spend as much as the game costs in most stores... this copy was cheap.
Game Boy
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Iron Man and X-O Manowar in Heavy Metal - $1, cart only - average licensed platformer from Acclaim.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 13th March 2012
Do you use a Gamegear in the Surf Ninjas game?
To get the reference, there is a character in the surf ninja movie who's ninja power is to tell the future... using a Game Gear...
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 13th March 2012
Huh, really? Sega must have made some Game Gear specific licensing deal for the game though, if the only game based on the film is on the GG and a GG appears in the movie... as I said, I haven't seen it.
You don't use a Game Gear, I don't think, but I do think there was a GG pickup that I got at some point, so it does appear in the game. Unless that powerup is used somewhere in the pause menu? There are various options there, not all of which I've figured out.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 14th March 2012
Yeah, "Surf Ninjas" was a movie that basically was a simultaneous ripoff of late 80's / early 90's kid's ninja movies and kid's surfer movies combined. Well, the name kinda implies that. The 3 main characters are told they are legendary heroes that'll save the world, or, more like, defeat some sort of drug lord or land developer or whatever. It was pretty forgettable. About the only thing I remember is that of the 3, the little kid had the "see the future" power using a Game Gear. Yay product placement! Yep, pretty sure that was a tie-in deal to promote the system. Too bad the movie was just plain terrible. I mean worse than the 3 Ninjas movies. THAT bad. About the only premise worse that surfing ninjas they could possible have done would be something like "Ninja Bud, Golden Shadow", because there are no rules that say a dog can't be a ninja.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 14th March 2012
Ah, I see. ... And yeah, I checked; the Game Gear is indeed a powerup in the game. In the pause menu, one of the options is to check hints on a Game Gear. Hints are limited but not very useful, so it's a fairly useless option, but it sounds like it works much like in the film.
... As for the game, I got to level 3, but got game over there. I haven't figured out how to use the special weapons yet...
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 15th March 2012
Fairly useless? Yep, that's exactly like in the movie film.
So tell me, is the game as bad as the movie?
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 15th March 2012
Its ... not very good, that's for sure, but it isn't the worst game I've ever played either, and at least it's not half an hour long (literally) and easy, like Tom & Jerry The Movie for GG or something...
But yeah, it's a poor game. Not the worst sidescrolling beat 'em up, but certainly far from the best.
New games.
GBA - $7 each, carts only. Hopefully decent prices for these. :)
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Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - now the only GBA Castlevania I don't have is HoD... started the game. Seems good.
Shining Soul - I have the second one, but eh, why not get the first one too? It's more straightforward and has fewer classes than the sequel, but seems fun enough.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 16th March 2012
PSP
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Valkyrie Profile Lenneth - disc in generic case, $9 - much cheaper than the PS1 version...
Gamecube
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Mega Man X Collection - $18, disc in generic case - Always meant to get this sometime, and I wanted it for GC and not PS2.
Dakar 2 - $1.80, complete - racing game from Acclaim. It's a rally racer from Acclaim Cheltenham, the same studio as the great XG series... I wonder if it's any good. At that price, it seemed worth taking the chance.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 16th March 2012
I'm surprised you wanted it for Gamecube. Not knowing anything about differences in content, I'd get the one with the better controls, which to me would be the PS2 version because the layout is just like the SNES games (and the PS1 games would have no controller issues at all for obvious reasons).
So I got a few games myself recently.
I found a complete (box and all) version of Tetris & Dr. Mario for SNES on the cheap. It's a fun game with a unique vs mode that sets up the possibility for one player to be playing one game and the other player to be playing the other, with "sent" blocks converted to match the other game world (though it would be interesting to see the sent blocks NOT converted in some future version, having to play with both rule sets in mind).
I also picked up three new Virtual Boy games, of all things. The system had few games and fewer I'd actually be interested in, but these were ones I had wanted for a while (well two of them, I picked them up as a set). I picked up Teleroboxer, which is a Punch Out clone with robots. It's got very nice controls on the VB. I've mentioned before how much I love the layout of the VB's controller, with the L and R buttons placed in the most natural positions I've ever seen them in, and a second d-pad before a second analog stick became a thing (the controller's left and right are mirror images of each other, a rarity that really lends itself to a boxing game of this sort). Teleroboxer isn't as good or even as long as Punch Out, but it's enjoyable and has very nice controls. The 3D is decent, with the enemy punches having the most "pop".
Then there's Galactic Pinball. This one is pinball with a space theme, so boring so far, but it's got some fun board designs. Personally I'm still waiting for a pinball game with a powerful board designer built into it, but this one's nice. Again, the L and R buttons are just so naturally fit, but it also shows my inferiority at pinball because I'm still just not very good at the genre. Neither was the original owner. The game saves high scores (no erase option either), but I noted that whoever owned it last never broke onto any of the score boards. It's saved my pitiful "just barely" score beating out the last place pre-set entry on "UFO", so I know the battery is working. The 3D here is a lot better than Teleroboxer, which is surprising considering what I'd expect. The boards really pop out with the use of perspective.
The last is the best of the bunch, Mario Clash. It's Mario Bros (original Mario Bros, not even "Super Mario Bros") but in 3D. Much like Wario Land, the "3D" really consists of two different "planes" of 2D action, with the added ability to throw shells back and force between planes. While that's fairly dissappointing, the 3D effect still looks very solid and well done in this game and the added layer does add a lot of fun to the original game design. It's pretty addictive.
The 3D effect, when programmed right, works well enough that I wish the system was capable of true filled polygons instead of just wire frames and sprites. The VB has a unique "feel" to it, with the "goggle" design making you feel like you're sucked into your own private little universe whenever you play it. Granted, I'd never rank that higher than the pure usability of a superior design like the no-glasses 3D screen of the 3DS, but it's certainly a notable trait. My own VB may be showing it's age. Earlier when I was playing it I noticed that the left display was badly aligned, with parts of the image "bounced" up. Oddly, this has corrected itself now, but I should keep an eye on it. The two displays (I hesitate to say screen) in the VB are very strange to begin with. They aren't LCD or CRT but a sort of oddly designed LED system. Extremely fast on/off speeds in an LED were a rather expensive thing when this system came out, and even then that sort of speed was only available in "red" variety. The cost and size of a full fledged LED screen, even limited to red, was too much so instead they set up two "rows" of LEDs. In order to produce a 2D "field" for each eye using these essentially "1D" lines, two mirrors were set up that vibrated with exact timing to bounce the light from any one individual LED light into position just at the right time. With this creating the illusion of two 2D images, the split with the visor did the rest to create the illusion of one 3D image. However, since the mirrors had to be exactly alligned and exactly timed, any deviation would screw up the image. That seemed to have happened with mine earlier, but it seems fixed now.
Other than that, I picked up two NES games. Ironsword was a fun game I remembered playing as a kid, so I picked it up only to discover that it was actually a Rare game. No wonder it was fun.
I also picked up Super Glove Ball (box and all). I don't have a Power Glove, yet, but the game does work with a normal controller and it's good to have the one game actually designed for that add on should I ever find one for cheap. Even though the box, manual, cart, and even the title screen are plastered with a big space hogging "Mattel" logo, in small print on the title screen there's a message that this game was ALSO made by Rare. That actually really surprised me, until I paused the game and heard some pumping "pause" music to confirm it was indeed an NES era Rare game. Further, the game is actually pretty fun. I honestly wasn't expecting it to be as addictive as it was. The control of the glove to grab and toss the ball in a 3D room is actually pretty well done, even on the standard controller. I'm pretty interested as to how well it works with the Power Glove proper. If it actually works WELL with the one game actually programmed to work with it, then I'll say it's a shame they didn't re-release Punch Out with proper support for the thing instead of just depending on a badly implemented controller mapping code.
Games Bought Thread 3 - A Black Falcon - 16th March 2012
I'll respond with more later, but the Power Glove actually has two games designed for it -- Super Glove Ball, and Bad Street Brawler. And I have seen at least one review of Super Glove Ball claiming that it actually does sort of work with the Power Glove (and better than it does with a gamepad), though I've never used the power glove myself.
Quote:I'm surprised you wanted it for Gamecube. Not knowing anything about differences in content, I'd get the one with the better controls, which to me would be the PS2 version because the layout is just like the SNES games (and the PS1 games would have no controller issues at all for obvious reasons).
But the GC controller is better than the regular PS2 controller... now, it is true that I have a 6-button gamepad for the PS1/2 that works great and would be better than the GC controller for this kind of thing, but... I don't know, I have the first MMAC for GC of course (because that's the only current console I had when it came out), so I kind of wanted both for the GC... for multiplatform games I don't like getting PS2 (or PS1) games over versions of the same games on other platforms unless there are good reasons to do so, and there usually aren't. One of the few cases where there is would be Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2, where the PS2 game was by a different developer from the GC/Xbox/PS2 game and is quite a bit better, but apart from that...
Yeah, anti-Sony bias, I know, but that's how I am.
And anyway, I beat all six of the NES games in the first MMAC, and Capcom vs SNK 2 was one of my most played GC games, so I certainly didn't mind playing stuff like this on the GC controller then... doubt it's too different now.
Games Bought Thread 3 - Dark Jaguar - 16th March 2012
Is Bad Street Brawler a good street brawler? Otherwise I'll skip it. Aside from Super Glove Ball I suppose I could use the Power Glove to play... actual ball.