Retro gaming

This is where you can deliberate anything relating to videogames - past, present and future
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Michiel K »

^^^^
Very cool.

You might have seen this come by if we follow each other on Twitter.

2 months ago I came across someone retweeting something about the Japanese branch of Piko Interactive re-issuing a 1995 belt scrolling brawler for the Super Famicom, called Gurume Sentai Barayarō (Gourmet Squad Rose Rascals) that I had never heard of before. And I immediately knew I had to have it, looking at the wild, yet beautiful screenshots. So I contacted a good friend who's living in Japan and asked him to source me a copy, which he did:

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Got the game in about 2 weeks ago and have been wanting to share it on here:

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It's such a joy to play a beautifully crafted Super Famicom game I had never even heard of. Think a high quality arcade style beat 'em up like Denjin Makai 2 with large and interesting move sets, be it with the usual SNES trappings of never having more than 3 large sprite enemies on screen. Oh yeah, and apparently, some of the team that did the graphics of the early Chō Aniki games and Gynoug for Masaya worked on this, under contract by original developer Winds (?), so that should give you some indication as to just how off the wall this whole thing is.

Pick from 3 cybernetically enhanced characters: body building grappler Bonjour, voloptuous ass kicker Mademoiselle or metal blade extending ninja dude Tres Bien and kick ingredients out of a bizarre selection of goons in a post apocalyptic world where food has indeed become scarce. After defeating one of the Rose Rascal bosses, you (and your possible 2P partner) pick from the ingredients you've gathered and have your robot chef prepare you a meal for a fancy dress dinner, in order to refill health and get buffs. And oh yeah, since the word Sentai is in the title, it's perfectly logical that one button on your pad is dedicated to performing a variety of poses, just for the hell of it.

I played this with my daughter already and we had some good laughs, but she did complain that her thumb started hurting after a while!
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Suits
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Re: Retro gaming

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Michiel K wrote: February 15th, 2018, 10:05 am Pick from 3 cybernetically enhanced characters: body building grappler Bonjour, voloptuous ass kicker Mademoiselle or metal blade extending ninja dude Tres Bien and kick ingredients out of a bizarre selection of goons in a post apocalyptic world where food has indeed become scarce.
In.


Great story dude, sounds like a bizarre little game, with some wicked art. Sweet crystal blue SFC cart as well.

I'll get hold of copy and give it a go :) .
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Michiel K »

Yeah, the whole package is quite the sensation. Highly recommended.

Original carts are in the hundreds of dollars/euros/pounds, so this high quality re-release is something to cherish.

To get the most out of the game, you need to up the difficulty, so the enemies become more proactive and then learn the high damaging special grapples, otherwise the fights can get a bit long in the tooth.

What I've learned so far is that with Mademoiselle you can mash the attack button in the air to perform multiple jump kicks before you land. Bonjour can only do a second attack while airborne.

All characters have a more damaging combo finisher if you press up after the fourth hit of your regular standing combo.

The super grapples are performed by pressing either L, L, L or R, L, R. Press R, L. R as soon as you grab an enemy and you'll perform an even more powerful super grapple move.

Another interesting touch is when you play solo, you can get an item that creates a shadow clone of yourself who fights autonomously besides you and is actually quite useful.
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

I kinda want this game now... man, I need a higher paying job!
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Michiel K »

The price wasn't too crazy. The equivalent of 49 euro or thereabouts.
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Alex79
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Alex79 »

That sounds brilliant! Thanks for the info. I shall also be seeking out a copy, although I'm afraid I'll be using more illegitimate methods of playing it.
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Michiel K
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Michiel K »

Welcome dude! I’m happy I’m not talking to a wall about weird-yet-wonderful games on here.
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Retro gaming

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Mini-documentary from VICE about a subject I'm becoming increasingly interested in: video game conservation.
Well worth a watch.
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Alex79
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Alex79 »

Looks good, thanks!
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Flabyo
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Flabyo »

If you want to read about the subject too, there’s a very academically heavy book called Game After on the subject,
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Suits
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Suits »

So my Analogue Super NT arrived yesterday.

Amazingly, it left LA on Monday early evening and arrived at my house in Chelmsford, Thursday lunchtime – boggling.

Anyway, it arrived and is a superior piece of kit, it feels very premium and is packaged extremely sharply. It even came with a flatpack replication of the Super Turican box, so that you can build it and put it on your shelf, if you like that sort of thing.

The actually box simply contains the console, USB power cable, a US style two prong plug and a HDMI cable.

Built into the console are two games, Super Turrican: Directors Cut and Super Turrican 2.

I didn’t go for additional 8BItDo controllers as I already have two 8BitDo Super Famicom ones and seeing as though I went for the Super Famicom aesthetic, they already matched.

Handily, the console also accepts all original peripheral hardware, so my original SNES and SFC pads, just slip right in, as well as my Scoremasters. However, this console will be my answer to finally being able to accurately play my carts on my 50” Plasma in the front room, so the wire-less-ness of the 8BitDo pads is perfect for sofa sprawling and will be used constantly.

The performance (as is as being already reported) is very good, too good for me to notice any issues anyway. Zero Lag and simple plug and play.

I spent a good hour last night after updating the firmware, setting up the console in the set-up screen and fiddling with the video settings. I’ve come up with something that I’m happy with I think, which fills the height of my screen and sort of stays to 1:1 pixels. I’ve set the resolution to 1080/60 and it looks fresh, crisp and sharp. You can go really mad and mess with interpolation and while I understand what it does and can see the difference, I don’t have the ability to set it to a figure that I’m happy with in all applications, so I’m keen to go with the recommended settings regards that.

Fake scanlines look rubbish. The only good scanlines are real scanlines, so I’ve had a quick look and decided that I’ll just forget that that setting is even in there, I agree that with the interpolation and other stretching and tweaking you can get a good replication, although I’m just going to accept that If I want to run my SFC on a modern display, I’m not going to have scanlines. I have a PVM for that.

What I will say and I tested two games last night to find my ideal settings (SMW & Z:LttP) Zelda, looks bloody fantastic, like wonderful. For some reason, the style and artwork really lends itself to the flat square-edged image you get form a modern display without scanlines. I’m not saying it looks better than the original display method but it’s certainly it’s own thing and looks great. SMW looks odd :lol: , I like my scanlines but it does look nice, odd but nice.

The console is set up to be able to play ALL Super Nintendo cartridges, regardless of region, so all my carts work, simply. Even Game Genie and other similar things like the SD2SNES or Everdrive carts.

One thing that I’m still a little unsure about and haven’t yet tested, is the ability to run PAL carts, at the NTSC speed. The scenario is such that if you plug a PAL cartridge into the system you have the ability to run that PAL game at the correct NTSC speed (about 17% faster). I feel a little unsure about this really but I’m yet to try it and generally I have the ability to run the games at the correct speed anyway but it’s an interesting option if you only have a Super Mario All-Stars PAL cart but want the correct speed.

This is very good means to an end for me. When the Wife wants to play some Mario 3 or Mario Paint I can now slip the cartridge in, hand her a wireless SFC controller and lounge on the sofa in the front room, with a very good display and almost identical experience gameplay wise.

Very Good.

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Sinclair Gregstrum
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Sinclair Gregstrum »

These do look really nice and I've heard largely nothing but great things.

I never had a SNES as a kid therefore have no collection of carts whatsoever, so it's not something I'll likely ever be picking up, but it's so nice to see a company taking such care and attention to produce a high quality piece of kit like this in 2018.

If they ever did a similar thing for the Megadrive/Genesis I'd be all over it!
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Suits
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Suits »

Sinclair Gregstrum wrote: March 9th, 2018, 3:52 pm If they ever did a similar thing for the Megadrive/Genesis I'd be all over it!
Well Chris Taber the CEO of Analgue is a big Sega fan deep down, so you may not have to wait too long !!!
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Even though I still own my original SNES (PAL version I'm afraid), along with all the games I had at the time, I still kinda want a Analogue Super NT.

It has less to do with playing older games, and more because I like when people build something with love and care, and clearly a lot of work went into the design and construction.
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Craig
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Craig »

That SNES looks awesome. It’s been too long since I’ve jumped into a SNES game. I’ve been waiting for Virtual Console, but this has just made me want to dive right in.
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Sinclair Gregstrum
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Sinclair Gregstrum »

So 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of The Greatest Game Of All Time (according to me) - Panzer Dragoon Saga on the Sega Saturn.

There have been some really cool things going on the last couple of months to mark the occasion, and I just wanted to highlight a couple of them in case there are any other fans out there such as myself that have missed them, or simply any folks interested in this fascinating and elusive game and it's history that would like to find out more.

New Retrospective

There's a lovely piece of proper long form journalism written by Ben Lindbergh over at The Ringer that I really encourage everyone to devote some time to reading. It gives a great overview of the complex, turbulent history of the game's development. A compelling story of how great art can emerge from great struggle that most people probably aren't aware of, and I think adds even more mystique to the history and context of this unique game.

You can read it here: https://www.theringer.com/2018/1/29/169 ... asterpiece

Ben also appeared on USGamer's RPG podcast Axe Of The Blood God to talk about the game and his research for the piece, and it makes for a really good listen. The episode is dated 2nd Feb and the interview with Ben begins 26 mins in, and it's certainly available on iTunes as well many other Podcast outlets I'm sure.

Soundtrack Re-release

The beautiful soundtrack to the game has been re-released in two forms.

Firstly, the original pieces present in the game spanning over 50 tracks are now available on iTunes and Amazon for the first time. There's some truly wonderful stuff in there, particularly the first track Ecce Valde Generous Ale which just gives me chills every time.

Secondly, and quite wonderfully, the game's original composer Saori Kobayashi has created an album of completely new rearrangements of some of the soundtrack's most iconic pieces. She's joined by one of the game's original vocalists Eri Ito, producing some pretty stunning reimaginings that are simply a real gift to fans. The album is called Resurrection: Panzer Dragoon Saga 20th Anniversary Arrangement, and as well as being available to download on iTunes and Amazon (and stream on Spotify unlike the originals), there's also been a limited edition double vinyl release (which looks gorgeous) as well as a CD version.

You can check them out here: https://www.fangamer.com/products/panze ... soundtrack

The vinyl edition is long gone but you can back-order the CD if you like you media physical!

Digital Foundry

Slightly off the topic of Saga, Digital Foundry has released an analysis of the first and second games in the series, which for anyone interested in them and the uniquely bonkers and brilliant tech behind the Saturn is a really interesting watch.

You can check it out here: https://youtu.be/4GQTv4jdUdo

We're also promised a 'Part 2' featuring Saga and Orta so keep your eyes peeled for those! I know I will be!
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Flabyo
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Flabyo »

1998 was a ridiculously strong year for games.

One of my all time favourite has it’s 20th anniversary this year too, Xenogears, and there may be action figures to celebrate. Which I shall buy.
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Sinclair Gregstrum
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Sinclair Gregstrum »

It was!

And if you check out the article on The Ringer you'll see they agree too - the Panzer Dragoon Saga piece is the first in a series that they're doing on all the legendary games of 1998. On the USGamer podcast Lindbergh also confirms they're doing Xenogears as part of it so definitely keep an eye out for that!
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by ratsoalbion »

I absolutely loved PDS too. I bought it day one and played it constantly to completion over a couple of weeks.

I later sold my copy for £80 or so. I also found another copy in a local Cash Converters for £10 and sold that for decent money as well.
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Re: Retro gaming

Post by Sinclair Gregstrum »

ratsoalbion wrote: March 12th, 2018, 2:09 pm I absolutely loved PDS too. I bought it day one and played it constantly to completion over a couple of weeks.

I later sold my copy for £80 or so. I also found another copy in a local Cash Converters for £10 and sold that for decent money as well.
PDS in Cash Converters for a tenner is the kind of find all bargain-hunters dream of! I bet you made your money back a few times over on that one!

I also bought at release - I was 15 at the time and can't remember if it was day one but it was certainly bloody close if not. I do remember everything else about that day very clearly though - I was out shopping with my Mum and was browsing the game section of Woolworths in Chippenham while I waited for her to get whatever bits and bobs she was in for, and there it was - Panzer Dragoon Saga! One copy sat on the shelf in one of those big hard plastic security cases that they unlock at the checkout when you go to pay.

It was £49.99 and I immediately grabbed my Mum and told her I had to buy this game right this minute. We had the usual obligatory back and forth about it being a lot of money, followed by an agonising 5 minutes where I had to put the game back on shelf (Mum wouldn't wait in the shop with it for me!), go two doors down to Lloyds Bank and get my money out of the cash point, then leg it back to the shop to buy the game, convinced that someone would have swooped in during my absence.

Thankfully - there it was - still locked in it's case like some sort of rare, valuable treasure (which of course it's turned out to be!), and I've had it ever since. Just the pure memory of those probably no more than 15 minutes, makes me so painfully full of joyful nostalgia.

Video games and childhood - a heady combination!
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