21st September 2009, 9:53 PM
Saturn (from Play-Asia)
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Action Replay 4-in-1 Plus cart -- yeah, finally got around to getting one of these. I had to get one eventually, and particularly before my save battery failed and I lost my saves... well, I've got it now, and two import games to use with it beyond the vital save backup feature (one is listed above, one other in this post).
Having to copy files back and forth all the time is annoying, but better than losing stuff... and even with the official cart, you'd still have to do that some because not all games support it. Also you'd have to remove it to use the 1 and 4 MB carts (assuming you have a modded system), and of course with Saturn that's not the best idea considering the cart port... but still, long-term that's what I'd prefer, but as it is this is awesome.
Saturn (from ebay)
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Steamgear Mash -- a Japanese isometric 2d action game. It was pretty cheap ($9 with free shipping) and is a good game, so why not. The game's evidently short and only moderately challenging, and that's too bad because the gameplay is great fun and the controls work quite well... it's definitely worth a try. (Oh, the front piece of the spinecard was missing. Bah. The side and back parts were there, and the spinecard is hardly important, but still, bah. :))
TurboGrafx-16 (also ebay, for $5.50 with free shipping)
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J.J. and Jeff -- I'd won this several weeks ago, but it took some time to get here. Well, it's here now. Decent game... it's a very simple, Adventure Island-style platformer but with the healthbar actually being health, and humor from a Japanese TV show. A lot of said humor revolves around toilet humor, and some was censored in this US version. Reviews are mixed because of the censorship and simplicity of the game, but oh well, it's not that bad, and at least you actually have a healthbar here, unlike, say, Adventure Island. The graphics are simple but clear, and the music is good early TG16 stuff. It's an early game on the system, and for that it looks reasonable. It definitely looks and plays somewhat 8-bit, but that was what the system was designed as: Something better than the NES, with WAY more colors and plenty of speed, and that's exactly what you get here. I played it about halfway through already, and despite mostly liking it have two major complaints: First, to continue you have to press and hold I and II and then also press Run and Select at the same time. That is, press all four buttons, but make sure to press I and II down first, because Run and Select together is the standard TG16 "reset the system" command, and if you press those two without the others the game will just reset and you start again from the beginning. You also start again from the beginning if you don't input that code in the time before the "Game Over" message dissapears from the screen... quite annoying to say the least! I messed it up which is why I stopped... well, that and one other thing: BACKWARDS WARPS! Okay, so the spring which sent me back just one stage wasn't so bad. But falling in a pit in stage 3-4 and being sent all the way back to 2-1? That's just evil! :( So yeah, very simple but fun game, but beware the traps and the continue function...
--
Action Replay 4-in-1 Plus cart -- yeah, finally got around to getting one of these. I had to get one eventually, and particularly before my save battery failed and I lost my saves... well, I've got it now, and two import games to use with it beyond the vital save backup feature (one is listed above, one other in this post).
Having to copy files back and forth all the time is annoying, but better than losing stuff... and even with the official cart, you'd still have to do that some because not all games support it. Also you'd have to remove it to use the 1 and 4 MB carts (assuming you have a modded system), and of course with Saturn that's not the best idea considering the cart port... but still, long-term that's what I'd prefer, but as it is this is awesome.
Saturn (from ebay)
--
Steamgear Mash -- a Japanese isometric 2d action game. It was pretty cheap ($9 with free shipping) and is a good game, so why not. The game's evidently short and only moderately challenging, and that's too bad because the gameplay is great fun and the controls work quite well... it's definitely worth a try. (Oh, the front piece of the spinecard was missing. Bah. The side and back parts were there, and the spinecard is hardly important, but still, bah. :))
TurboGrafx-16 (also ebay, for $5.50 with free shipping)
--
J.J. and Jeff -- I'd won this several weeks ago, but it took some time to get here. Well, it's here now. Decent game... it's a very simple, Adventure Island-style platformer but with the healthbar actually being health, and humor from a Japanese TV show. A lot of said humor revolves around toilet humor, and some was censored in this US version. Reviews are mixed because of the censorship and simplicity of the game, but oh well, it's not that bad, and at least you actually have a healthbar here, unlike, say, Adventure Island. The graphics are simple but clear, and the music is good early TG16 stuff. It's an early game on the system, and for that it looks reasonable. It definitely looks and plays somewhat 8-bit, but that was what the system was designed as: Something better than the NES, with WAY more colors and plenty of speed, and that's exactly what you get here. I played it about halfway through already, and despite mostly liking it have two major complaints: First, to continue you have to press and hold I and II and then also press Run and Select at the same time. That is, press all four buttons, but make sure to press I and II down first, because Run and Select together is the standard TG16 "reset the system" command, and if you press those two without the others the game will just reset and you start again from the beginning. You also start again from the beginning if you don't input that code in the time before the "Game Over" message dissapears from the screen... quite annoying to say the least! I messed it up which is why I stopped... well, that and one other thing: BACKWARDS WARPS! Okay, so the spring which sent me back just one stage wasn't so bad. But falling in a pit in stage 3-4 and being sent all the way back to 2-1? That's just evil! :( So yeah, very simple but fun game, but beware the traps and the continue function...