"Retro" Video Game Thread

If you know Japanese you will know Disgaea series is awesome!

 

I used to hook my Colecovision up to the ADAM computer so I could play Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom...

 

psx for me too. that's when i really got into games really. yea i gamed since pacman and nes/snes era but, didn't really become a super geek of video gaming till the psx. it's also when i got more into jrpgs's and my favorite being the lunar series besides ff. i loved lunar silver story and eternal blue just as much as ff7..lunar was such an underppreciated and fantastic jrpg with cool characters,good story and good fluid gameplay.

stopped with nintendo pretty much after n64. only had an n64 for legend of zelda and couple pokemon games. never liked game cube but, only had it for metroid prime and while i liked it i still like the old metroids more and even liked metroid other M lot more than the prime series since it brought along nostalgia feeling back and thought it was lot better game then those weird frinkin fps nutcases claiming to be true metroid fans that bitched and bashed nintendo for metroid other m and wanted another fps metroid...

i still play lot of older school games when i actually play games. kinda bored as shit with new crap. seems same recycled garbage really and nothing new really to the table with complete lack of creativity and skill. that's why i stopped when 360 and ps3 came out, yea i own them but, it became gay over time and ending up sucking monkey dunk after couple years into the systems life times. ps4 and xbox one are pretty much same and while i see few interesting titles it still doesn't persuade me enough to go buy them now....

 

I love my SEGA Genesis. I have a flash cart for it so I can play rom hacks with real hardware. I also have a commodore monitor that I made a cable for that does true RGB out from the Genny. It's a model 1 with the High Definition Graphics and the awesome sound chip.

 

Atari 2600, Apple II, Commodore 64. Them the nutz!

 

Gotta love the Atari from my childhood and NHL series from Sega Genesis is probably my favorites game(s) ever. But overall sweet spot for me is probably the PS2.

 

I hate the use the word "Retro." It makes me feel like a hipster and I hate it. Also, if this should be in the regular Video Game Thread then I wouldn't mind moving this there. Also, I was sick of bombarding @neogeosnk comment section and talking this stuff with @Melvillian.

I used to be a big video game collector over ten years ago. Mostly I was importing stuff from Japan Left/Right before people started to overpaid for stuff. I remember the days of paying $100 for HyperDuel for the Saturn (before it became a $300+ title), $60 for Elevator Action Returns for the Saturn (before that became a $200+ title). I went all nuts with collection arcade ports on PS1/Saturn/PS2/Dreamcast. Ran RGB from my older consoles via the legacy XRGB2 Upscaler, and even had a Taito Egret 2 arcade cab in my dorm room with tons of PCBs (mostly vertical shooting games).

I sold my collection + arcade cab to pay for college. No regrets on that. Not getting the legit stuff again due to I have to sell one of my arms to afford some of the games that I care about.

Even today I turn 31 I mostly play stuff from the 80s/90s. This is mostly due to I grew up with them and I prefer the pick up and play concept from the games back in the day. Also, I'm a heavy arcade gamer and 80s/90s was the golden age for arcade titles.

I dunno how this thread goes, but I want to talk about this very special game that I like:



Osman / Cannon Dancer

This arcade only release from 1996 was directed by the guy who created/directed Strider for the Capcom CPS1 arcade hardware. In a way, this is the spiritual sequel to the original Strider game (and is leagues better than Strider 2). Sound effects and music is on poor side (due to this was designed for the arcades and Mitchell the company was using older Data East boards after they gotten a deal from them, or so they say...), but pixel artwork and gameplay is fantastic. It fixes the controlling character issues I had with Strider (Strider feels stiff and hard to control in the first game). The character in Osman / Cannon Dancer moves fast and controlling the character is easy with no stiffness.

On top of the excellent pixel art, the level designs are out of this world and feels right at room in the Strider universe. This was a 1996 arcade release so this was during the time where 3D graphics were in the rage. The levels are challenging and don't feel cheep to eat your monies if playing on a reach arcade machine. During this time the arcade platformer was no longer a money maker, so having an arcade platformer coming out in 1996 was pretty strange. No home ports of this game ever, so you have to resort to arcade emulation or pay serious $$$ for the PCB board of this time.

If you like arcade platformers, this should be on your list to try out. Most who play it love it.

 

I am a huge retro game enthusiast, particularly the NES. I'm thrilled to see the scene is thriving and modern solutions being applied to retro games (FPGA, PVM's, cables, upscaling 240p, near-lagless control, streams that take the .03 extra frames into account, etc). 10 years ago, I was stuck in gaming purgatory...still viewing older systems as "toys" but not feeling any connection to most newer game systems or popular games like Halo, CoD, etc. Started binge watching Angry Video Game Nerd and stuff like Games Done Quick to kind of "refresh" myself to how great these games are and I really haven't looked back. I love showing kids that were brought up thinking oldschool Castlevania, Contra and Ninja Gaiden are impossible that they can be beaten with some practice. It's like that perfect combination of relaxing yet needing near-perfect reflexes..."in the zone" if you will. There's also the element of playing on a CRT vs playing on a flatscreen and even the emulation of the Switch NES games vs the original...You FEEL when something is off almost immediately. Original hardware (or FPGA) on CRT (although newer TV's are seriously good with lag, probably 1 frame or so off) are the way to go.

With Romsets and translations, I'm more interested in exploring games I missed the first time around. I'm thrilled the SNES Goemon/Mystical Ninja games have FINALLY been translated. I'm also trying to build a proper stream to capture this (waiting on the next gen AMD processors before investing in a proper streaming computer).

I'm still in the process of getting settled in Seattle with both my games and audio gear coming from the east coast, but I'll post some pics of what I have in a bit. I'm limited in what I can contribute in terms of audio discussion here, but this is definitely my comfort zone.

 

I'm starting to get into shooters lately. I never got into them because they can be difficult but I'm very slowly improving and if you're into pixel art goodness and music, shooters usually deliver. I'll post some of the games I've been playing lately with some CRT photos.

Gley Lancer - I never could get into this because the first level is so busy visually but it's not that bad once you get used to it. This game has one of my favorite OSTs on the Genesis.



Pulstar - Using the MiSTer for NeoGeo. Not sure if I like this game. It's similar to R-Type but feels a bit more claustrophobic.The music hasn't really grabbed me either.



Vanilla Level Design Contest - Super Mario World ROM Hack. They took all of the entries for the level design content and made a game out of it with a huge over world. Can be pretty fun with good music.



I'd appreciate some 8, 16, or 32-bit game recommendations. Thanks @YMO for creating this thread. I noticed recently there seems to be a lot of retro gaming fans on this forum so I'm hoping people share.

btw @YMO i'll check out Osman Cannon Dancer this weekend.

 

I know it should go in the Anime/Manga thread, but for gamers from the 80's and 90's, Hi Score Girl is a wonderful blast of nostalgia, especially if you played fighting games. Character art is a bit Rugrats, but some of the video game sequences rang so true for me.

 

I had a big ass PVM monitor years ago from Sony. Since I keep moving around too much at the time due to college, I got rid of it quick. Great if you have the correct cable for it so you can do RGB gaming on it.

It was funny to watch the AVGN videos because I know just about everything he is talking about, which makes it funny to watch because I know what stuff he didn't say on some of his videos. As much as I'm not a fan of flat screens with input lag issues, it is what it is. With upscaling on top of FPGA and affordable hardware we can get as close to no lag as we can.

Gley Lancer is a great hori STG for those who are newer to STGs. Personally for someone who played STGs for two decades Gley Lancer doesn't pose a challenge to players like us. However, the music in Gley Lancer is good and there are some great plallex scrolling effects that NCS did a great job on. This guy recently received a small MD reprint about a year ago from Columbus Circle that sold out quick.

Pulstar and its music: The CD music was heavily down sampled on the Neo-Geo AES/MVS due to cart space issues (and the limitations of the sound chip). When I had a Neo-Geo CD, I had the CD release of Pulstar. Since it was on a CD format the developers were able to have the music in its native 16/44 format. In order words, it sounds soooo much better than the AES/MVS versions. Of course you may still not like the music even with the improvements, but it won't sound muffle like on the carts.

If trying other STGs on the Gen/MD, you might already know MUSHA Aleste and Thunder Force III/IV. However, I would recommend trying out Elimiate Down. The game had a small print run in Japan and it is at least a $600+ game nowadays. However, the gameplay is stop notch and graphics and music are excellent as well. However, it is more challenging than Gley Lancer.

I read some of it, I get most of the references but the art style isn't for me.

 

Agree on the art style, but at least with the anime, they used in game footage of all the bullshittery etc. Inner Guile Voice was also hilarious.

 

I never understood the VA Voice change for Guile from the first three versions of SFII that was on Capcom CPS1 Hardware to The New Challenges that started on the CPS2 hardware.

 

I tried Osman Cannon Dancer, it’s really good. It’s like Strider, Hunter S Thompson, and Treasure had a game baby. I had forgotten how good MAME can be.

Gley Lancer isn’t that hard, but it was difficult for my eyes to adjust. It’s generally been my issue with shooters or STGs. Musha and Thunderforce are both great. Amazing OSTs as well.

Something always felt off about the CPS2 SF II game. I never liked the character faces and the color palette.

 

MAME is my favorite emulator, since I'm pretty much an arcade gamer. So much stuff that was never ported to the consoles, so we have to use MAME or Final Burn Alpha to play them.

The more you play STGs, the better you become. Took me years before I can do the later Cave STGs and survive near the end. Then again, bullet-hell STGs nowadays is boring to me.

I have another hidden gem/classic to have people try out:



Blood Bros - TAD Corp - 1990

Blood Bros is the spiritual sequel to Cabal, which TAD release it a few years back. Cabal was a minor hit in the arcades due to being a third-person single-screen shooting game where not only you can shoot soldiers, but the scenery (destroyed for points and to prevent certain enemies from coming on the screen), airplanes and helis, bullets, and so much more. Depending on the stage you can shoot from behind certain things that helps you dodging. You are forced to dodge bullets and bombs by rolling on the single plane your character is in. The rolling concept is super important because that's how you don't get kill while you are on that single plane. However, you need to know how far the rolling goes because you can die if your rolling animation ends at a bullet/bomb (remember, you don't get hit while you are doing your rolling animation).

Other games similar to Cabal came out during this time (some added moving screen but you are still on a single plane for movement): Spinal Breakers from Video System, NAM-1975 from SNK, Rambo III Arcade from Taito, Riot from NMK, Dynamite Duke from Seibu, and others I forgot (I know Konami did something similar on two games, which one is the GI Joe arcade game). However, the concept sadly didn't last long since you can only do so much with the concept.

While Cabal was a military shooting theme game, Blood Bros is a wild west theme shooting game. Cowboys and Native Americans with steampunk concepts and tons of sand and mines. While Cabal have plenty of bullets and stuff to blow up, the action went up a notch in Blood Bros. Enemies are more dangerous with close snipping action, more bomb throwing at you, and even more faster paced bullets. The game does have a minor "rank-system" where the better you are, the enemies get more nasty at you. On the concept it hasn't changed as much from Cabal. However, as a spiritual sequel it makes the game more faster paced and frantic action with tons of crap on the screen at once. Like plenty of arcade titles, Blood Bros never received a home port, so Final Burn Alpha/MAME is the wayt to go here. I was able to pick up a Blood Bros PCB board many years ago, and I enjoy one-credit clear the game.

A few years later Natsume took the concept of Blood Bros, made it SNES friendly (less action on the screen due to SNES limitations), add a few things to help the player, and released the game as Wild Guns. Wild Guns is more friendly to those who are newer to arcade style action games, but Blood Bros with less things than Wild Guns is the more challenging and funnier game IMO.

 

I have a nice collection of NES games and I really want to get one of those modern FPGA systems. For whatever reason, Analogue is unable to make one in plastic like their Super Nt console with wider availability.

 

https://www.retrousb.com/product_in...id=78&osCsid=aff7b568f3647c5794c90008d4c15901

retroUSB AVS is supposed to be pretty good. Not as feature rich as the Nt Mini but is pretty accurate. I think it goes up to 720p, which should be fine.

 

Or how about save money and do a MISTer setup at this point?

 

MiSTer is great but @Cspirou has a collection of carts so I assumed they’d want to use them.

 

Who here came out guns blazing?