VideoGame_Discussion

Nicely done @BleedingViolet and @Slickriven for earning more badges. I'll update your cakes this evening.


Reposting this, in case it got buried by cake updates.

I’m nominating Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (both the original and 2023 remake).

I’ll nominate the original

The Legend of Zelda

On Nes, Nes Classic … and almost every other console made by Nintendo at this point.
I saw the preview one day in between Mega Man sessions and really wanted to play
it again.

Oh and also the

The X-Files

On the original Playstation and I think PC as well.

I also really gotta get on the Shining Force games too. The year is almost over
and I barely started SF2 on the genesis mini 2.

BleedingViolet wrote:

I'm happy to hear this is on someone else's radar. I've taken a big bite out of Shining in the Darkness, but I think I still have a bit of grinding to do before I get close to finishing it.

Well I do love Shining Force and I did nominate it so I need to play through at least one or two games.
Its a great series. I don’t know if I've ever played Shining in the Darkness so let us all know if you
like it and I will try to play it too if I have some access to a copy. I prolly do but I’m just responding before
I go out so before I forgot I wanted to say something about it too.

I like it a whole lot more than I expected it to, but I'm using maps, which bypasses a lot of the tomfoolery that the game throws at you to waste time.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Okay I will try to play it too then, also I effed up on the days, Happy Belated Birthday Good Sir!

I thought today was like maybe the 21st or something, but I’m just a slowpoke I guess. D’oh!

Renaissance2K wrote:

Any other nominations?

November is a HUGE month in the game industry, so if we pad our list with big anniversary games, there's going to be some heavy hitters up for play.

F.E.A.R.

We had four nominees for the November 2023 Game of the Month. As we did for July, I picked two heavy-hitting games that are having an anniversary next month. There were a ton of great choices, but I tried to pick games that were a bit different from what was already nominated so we have a variety.

Nominees
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
The Legend of Zelda
The X-Files
F.E.A.R.
Beyond Good & Evil (released for PlayStation 2 and PC in November 2003)
Mario Kart: Double Dash (released for GameCube in November 2003)

Either publicly in this thread or privately in a PM to me, give each nominee 0-5 points. Omitting a nominee is equivalent to giving it a vote of 0. The game with the highest score by the end of the month will be the November 2023 GOTM.

Here are my votes:

Super Mario RPG - 3 The Legend of Zelda - 5 The X-Files - 4 F.E.A.R. - 3 Beyond Good & Evil - 4 Mario Kart: Double Dash - 5

Go vote!

Mario RPG 5
Zelda 5

Fear - 5
Gut und Bose - 4

Kommie wrote:

Wha...?

*goes to Google*

Ohhhhh...

Renaissance2K wrote:

You didn't know?

Jenseits von Gut und Böse - 4

Of course Mario Kart Double Dash gets nominated right after I sell my copy.
But then again I’m not sure if I even have a working Gamecube to play it on.
Its not playable on Switch or anything is it?

Super Mario RPG: 5
Zelda: 1
Mario Kart: 2

Should SMRPG win, I suggest using a gif of Geno nodding.

BleedingViolet wrote:

Not currently, no.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Yeah I did a little research after. Apparently its considered by lots of people
to be the best entry in the series. I’ve only played it a little but for me it is much better
Than MK64 and the original. I think my favorite was the one they had at Disneyland.
I dont know if they had more than one Arcade game out but that one was pretty amazing.
I also loved the original Wii game. I used to really want to get the exercise bike that
worked with that version. Im sure that bike is way too expensive now though.

Okay I looked on eBay, someone is selling one for 100 missing a brake handle.
And theres a new (other) one for 2000. Nope.

Okay so I tried Twisted Metal 3 again today.
Idk maybe Flower Power is the worst character/car I can pick
or maybe if you dont have an “Ally” you cannot win with her.
I do not care, I’m not trying to play it anymore.
Thats it, I’m done and I officially do NOT like this game.
If I cannot have fun with her and eventually win then
I'm over it.

Not trying to be a jerk or a quitter but games are supposed
to be fun, which this game with this character (or hell maybe all of them)
is at least for me not fun.

I know I should have played a different Twisted Metal
game but I already have and own this game so I tried to play it. (TWICE!!!)
The computer gangs up on me and I feel like
not only can I never win but I can not get one of them off my ass.
WTAF is this BS?
Anyways I tried but this game is literal garbage.
Or maybe I cannot win with this character, either way
it was a literal waste of my time. Sorry but also not Sorry.

I will vote like this

Super Mario RPG - 2
The Legend of Zelda - 4
The X-Files - 5
Beyond Good & Evil - 1
Mario Kart: Double Dash - 3

I know I can’t play Mario Kart but its prolly the best game nominated,
So I had to give it some points.
If it wins at least other people will have a fun month with it.

Last day to deck our your cakes, and last day to vote. It's another close one, as they tend to be these days. You folks love nailbiters and photo finishes.

Zelda 5

Time to put away the Halloween decorations, the birthday cake, and the rest of the mess left behind by R2K's Birthday Extravaganza and all six franchises we covered. Here's a look at everyone who built a cake this month:

BleedingViolet image Renaissance2K image sailorneorune image Slickriven image SupremeSarna image

I said it in the main thread, and I'll say it again here: many, many thanks for indulging me on a milestone birthday by diving into a number of special games from my past. I know for a fact that some of the playthroughs were more enjoyable than others (Jinkies!), but I appreciate everyone who gave it a try, from those who just dipped their toes in the pool to those who grinded out a whole adventure.

Everyone who participated will have a cake icon next to their name moving forward.

Here's the final tally for November's Game of the Month:

1. The Legend of Zelda - 20 points
2. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 15 points
3. Mario Kart: Double Dash - 10 points
4. The X-Files - 9 points
4. Beyond Good & Evil - 9 points
6. F.E.A.R. - 8 points

Introducing The Legend of Zelda is almost a silly proposition. The humble top-down adventure game, which began life as a Famicom Disk System launch title before porting to the Nintendo NES as the first ever cartridge with a battery save - introduced the world to the silent protagonist link, the eponymous Princess Zelda, the mysterious Triforce, and the land of Hyrule, all of which are now synonymous with Nintendo's legendary (no pun intended) tentpole franchise. Many series tropes - the treasure chest chime, life-refilling fairies, a gauntlet of eight hidden dungeons - began here, and the game's very first line of dialogue is iconic enough to deserve it's own Wikipedia page. Unsurprisingly, while the original The Legend of Zelda has never been remade or remastered, it has been ported to nearly every iteration of Nintendo's classic games library, got its own cartridge re-release for the Game Boy Advance, and even its own Game & Watch-styled modern handheld.

Play The Legend of Zelda on
Nintendo NES
Game Boy Advance (Classic NES Series)
GameCube (via The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition)
Wii (Virtual Console)
Wii U (Virtual Console)
3DS (Virtual Console)
Switch (Nintendo Switch Online)
NES Classic Edition
The Legend of Zelda Game & Watch

Personally, I will be playing through a native port of The Legend of Zelda for the Super Nintendo by Infidelity. I played through his Mega Man 2 port last month and appreciated the performance and audio changes, so I'll give this one a shot as well.

Finish any version or port of The Legend of Zelda to earn the 8-Bit Link badge: image

It's dangerous to go alone. Take a #BeatIt screenshot.

Guess I'll take this opportunity to finally use my Zelda Game & Watch.

Haven't checked this thread in a while. I missed out on the voting, but I probably would have voted for Zelda anyway. Maybe I'll finally get around to doing either a 3-heart run or a swordless run.

Scott wrote:

Is a 3-heart run possible? I remember starting one myself, and I recall at least 1 boss heart container appeared in a narrow 1-square path to the triforce room…

dunno001 wrote:


Get behind it and kill it from there maybe?

I played through this for the first time a few years back when the NES Mini came out. Having a much easier time so far - I don't know if it's because of the better setup or having done this before - and made it through the third dungeon last night.

I think it's wild that, if you take the scenic route, you can get a ton of really awesome equipment before you even enter the first dungeon.

dunno001 wrote:

The level 1 boss starts in a 1 square path, but he'll move out if you don't kill him right away. That's the only one I can think of that could be an issue. The Gleeock hearts spawn down in the bottom corner of the room, not where it's standing.

"Hey, this is going swimmingly. I had some trouble the first time I played, but I guess I've learned a lot and am having no trouble this time around."

*encounters Wizzrobes*

"OH GOD THE PAIN"

Renaissance2K wrote:

You think they're bad now, wait til you try the no sword run.

Can they be killed without a sword?

I got to play yesterday. I forgot how much fun this game was.
Only passed the first dungeon (I think it was the first), so
far but even just wandering around and collecting items and rupees
is really fun. I found the fifth dungeon and couldnt get anywhere since I hadnt
gotten whatever I needed first to progress. But yeah this game is really
good after all these years.

I don't know if it's a bug with the Infidelity port, with the MiSTer core, or what, but a bug corrupted the graphics in a few of the dungeons yesterday. Among other things, it replaced all the non-boss enemies in the dungeon with colored old ladies.

image

I'm going to call this one a win.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Yup. Only with bombs though if I remember right

Had trouble sleeping overnight on Friday, so I took that as an opportunity to raid Death Mountain and finish The Legend of Zelda.

I really had a blast with this. When I played on the NES Mini a few years back, I remember being happy that I was finally playing such a classic, but I was really frustrated with the controls and some of the enemy behaviors. This time around, I enjoyed myself a whole lot more. I don't know if it was because I had a better idea of what to expect, or if the SNES port was working its magic, but it was just awesome old school fun.

About that Infidelity port... It has a very light touch against the original gain, and the goal was simply performance improvements, which it achieves splendidly. However, being able to save without plugging in a second controller is great, and being able to rotate through special weapons with the L and R buttons is amazing. Such a minor little feature that makes gameplay so much more smooth.

And then, finally, late last night, I finished Shining in the Darkness.

This was my first Shining game, and another entry into a very small pile of non-Square JRPGs that I've played. The game didn't sell itself on me well - a first-person dungeon crawler for the Genesis with a steep learning curve - but I wanted to start with the beginning of the series. I decided to just muscle through it.

It was a lot better than I expected. The dungeon crawling was less janky than I expected. Battle moves more crisply. And for a game that supposedly takes place entirely underground, the character portraits and NPCs are really well drawn and have a lot of personality. I genuinely enjoyed working my way through new dungeon levels, as long as I had a map.

I also never want to play this again, unless it's like the Sega Ages re-release of Phantasy Star which integrates a map and some simple quality of life features. After half my game sessions, I felt like I was wasting half of my progress because I had to warp back to town for some reason - out of resources, left nearly dead after opening a trapped chest, or my personal favorite, the only character with Revive got killed - and that's the only place to save your progress. The game finally throws you a bone near the final boss fight and gives you an easy way to grind to power your team up, but if you want ot save that progress, you have to warp back to town, warp back to the start of the level, and then worm your way back to where you left off, fighting a whole bunch of unskippable, annoying monsters along the way.

I had access to save states, which let me pick up the game on my Nomad, save my progress, and pick up again later on. I don't know how people managed back when this was first released on Genesis. I imagine a bunch of consoles were left on overnight because of it.

But that all said, with a map and save states, this can be a fun one once the ball gets rolling. I'd really love to see what my actual playtime was; I feel like I was playing it forever.

That satisfies the Annual Franchise Challenge, so I've earned a Max icon next to my name. If you want one of your own, you still have almost two months to play through a Shining game.

It's been pretty quiet here, but hope everybody's got a good game or two to keep them warm as the weather starts to cool off. Who else is still working their way through The Legend of Zelda?

I'm about to start travelling for Thanksgiving, so I wanted to kick off our plans for next month a little early. As we talked about before, in the spirit of holiday redemption, end of the year crunches, and other time-honored traditions, December will be a redemption month where we give games that finished in second place throughout the year another chance to be in the spotlight. That list is below.

Nominees
Duke Nukem 3D
Pikmin 2
Shadow Hearts
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Blaster Master: Enemy Below
Cold Fear
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Either publicly in this thread or privately in a PM to me, give each nominee 0-5 points. Omitting a nominee is equivalent to giving it a vote of 0. The game with the highest score by the end of the month will be the December 2023 GOTM.

Here are my votes:

Duke Nukem 3D - 4 Pikmin 2 - 3 Shadow Hearts - 2 Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - 5 Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards - 5 Blaster Master: Enemy Below - 4 Cold Fear - 2 Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 3

Submit your votes, and let's see who gets a second (or third) chance.

Blaster Master 5
Super Mario RPG 5

Super Mario RPG: 5
Kirby 64: 5
Zelda II: 4

Had a great trip to the game store here for their annual small business Saturday sale.

image

Gypsy wrote:

Dang, how much did you spend in one weekend? Those price stickers don't lie.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Was like $360 on store credit. Definitely discounted from the sticker price. Overall pretty decent. Especially since most of the N64 carts are in good shape and not having to deal with shipping.

Gypsy wrote:

Awesome haul. In the hey day of game stores, nothing beat coming home with a big stack of new stuff to mess around with.

So I finally defeated Ganon in Zelda 1 tonight.

I wanted to finsh it faster but I couldnt remember stuff and I was only playing
Sporadically this month.

Also I wanted to vote for these games for next month.

Zelda - 5
Pikmin - 4

We have a few days left in November. Anybody want to vote on what second place games they want to redeem for December?

Last day for votes! It's been a quiet month. Anybody up for some last second election interference?

Renaissance2K wrote:

Can I give SMRPG a 6?

Idk about all that but I did start on Shining Force 2 again so even if I have no way
to play the December game of the Month I have three different Shining games
I can play.

I'm sorry, I've just been too busy playing the best single retro-themed game I've played in years.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2575900/Corn_Ki...

The Legend of Zelda has blown the whistle and ridden a whirlwind to parts unknown. Here's a look at everyone who saved Hyrule this month:

BleedingViolet image image Renaissance2K image

Many thanks to everyone that dipped their toes into this classic Nintendo title this month. If you started your journey but didn't manage to finish before the end of November, feel free to let me know when the credits roll so you can receive your badge.

It was a quiet month, but here's the final tally for December's Game of the Month:

1. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - 14 points
2. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - 13 points
3. Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards - 10 points
4. Blaster Master: Enemy Below - 9 points
5. Pikmin 2 - 7 points
6. Duke Nukem 3D - 4 points
7. Shadow Hearts - 2 points
7. Cold Fear - 2 points

Remembered often as the "black sheep" of the Zelda franchise, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link continues the story of Link's first NES adventure and frames it with more RPG-leaning features. Link traverses Hyrule via a sparse overworld map, visits towns to speak to Hylian townsfolk and gather resources, and explores wilderness and temples via new side-scrolling action segments. Like its predecessor, Zelda II has been ported to nearly every iteration of Nintendo's classic games library, got its own cartridge re-release for the Game Boy Advance, and even its own Game & Watch-styled modern handheld.

Play Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on
Nintendo NES
Game Boy Advance (Classic NES Series)
GameCube (via The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition)
Wii (Virtual Console)
Wii U (Virtual Console)
3DS (Virtual Console)
Switch (Nintendo Switch Online)
NES Classic Edition
The Legend of Zelda Game & Watch

Finish any version or port of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link to earn the Zelda II Link badge: Badge coming soon...

Don't be Error. Share a #BeatIt screenshot.

December is also the last month to complete the Annual Franchise Challenge and complete a game in the Shining franchise to get an icon next to your name. Between bursts of holiday shopping, there's a lot of gaming to do. Have fun!

Might I suggest using the “full-figured woman” NPC as the badge? She’s friggin’ adorable, and she knows the behaviors of the River Devil. If not, sleeping Zelda would be a more fitting second option.

Also, which version should I play? I’ve got most of the ports listed, and they’re all on the table.

I'm the first to clear Zelda II: The Adventure of Link , beaten on Wii U. I got 14 game overs, so I'm rusty.
[imgt w=2048 h=1536]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GAm31xPXQAAINLG?format...[/imgt]

SARNU saved Zelda the First from her 100-year slumber. He killed a River Devil with a flute, chopped down trees with a hammer, and cheerfully held aloft weird dolls of himself some anonymous figure spread across Hyrule. He recovered a guy's idol, found a lady's handmirror, and gave a thirsty woman a handful of stagnant fountain water to drink. He is a hero to all.

If anyone needs tips to get through the game, just ask! I might be able to help with strategies and general advice.

Nicely done, @SupremeSarna

I started the game and made it through the first dungeon, but not without a lot of death, trial, and error. The combat in this game has definitely earned its reputation.

As an aside, it sounds like December 2023 is the 35th anniversary of Zelda II's release, so have a cupcake, everyone!

Renaissance2K wrote:

Having trouble with Iron Knuckles?

SupremeSarna wrote:

Yeah, among other things.

It seems like some combination of hopping and slashing helps, but I can't seem to kill them consistently. Sometimes, they're down in a few hits. Sometimes, they kill me from full health.

Renaissance2K wrote:

If an enemy has a shield, always go for forehead stabs. Down thrusts won't work, so stick with the forehead technique.

Did you collect any Heart Containers or Magic Containers? There's one of each before Parapa Palace (dungeon 1).

Zelda II is growing on me. I got the hang of the jumping slash, and I've leveled up enough now that I don't feel like I'm dying instantly. Still feels like the odds are stacked against me, though....

...which is actually pretty similar to how the latest Zelda games make me feel.

Wait, the latest Zelda games are as hard to you as Zelda 2?
I have the first one on Switch but after booting it up once
I saw the graphics of the intro and was like nah ….
But if its difficult then maybe I should try it again?

I havent even started on Zelda 2 this month and have not gotten too
far into Shining Force 2 ….. I’ll have more time after this season of MK1
is over on Thursday I think though.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Ooh, you're at the Maze Island? I trust you've been getting all the spells and the Down Thrust?
And of course, if you manage to finish before the end of the week, message me.

oh man, been waiting a long time for this release.

Taito LD Collection

image

I've had the special edition ordered since it came up, and I can't wait to get it! It should be shipping any day now.

I used to own the Time Gal & Ninja Hayate set when I owned a Saturn, and I really enjoyed these games.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Down Thrust is when things started to really click. Being able to Scrooge McDuck some of the more persistent buggers instead of poking them to death made things a lot easier.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Down Thrust is what makes the game, really. It also makes Bubble grinding easier, if you want to go that route. (They're worth 50 points each, so they're useful before your EXP requirements skyrocket.)

I did the thing and poked some guys.

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/173553521...

Man, that was one heck of a difficulty jump in the last temple.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Did you fight Link's shadow like a man? Or did you do the knee-stabbing trick?

One of my proudest gaming accomplishments is beating Zelda II when I was 7 years old. My dad recorded a short video of me sitting in front of the tv as the credits roll. I have the video, but it's not great quality, sadly. Oh, and I beat Dark Link like a man, didn't know about the trick until years later.

SupremeSarna wrote:

I took off three of Dark Link's health bars before he (it?) backed me into the corner and I just started smashing the attack button.

You also asked me about death count... I honestly don't know. I died a ton at a first because I simply didn't know how to kill anything, so I shamefully just started from scratch and did much better the second time around. Once I learned the Life spell, I didn't die much at all until I started heading to the last temple.

I also used a patch that lets you save/quit at any time without having to kill yourself or swap controllers. If I hadn't, I'd probably have a pretty high total just from cutting my sessions short. No save states, though!

I'm a day late from my usual "20th of the Month" update, but in any case, here's a look at the tired and the few who managed to brave Zelda II this month:

SupremeSarna image image Renaissance2K image

There's still another ten(ish) days until the ball drops on 2024, so see if you can... ahem... take a stab at it before then. Otherwise, the badge will remain available for perpetuity.

Don't forget about the Annual Franchise Challenge! Can you finish a Shining game before the end of December?

Let's start taking nominations for 2024's first Game of the Month.

We'll start voting on December 26 and call the winners in January. What does everyone want to play?

I'll nominate Ikaruga.

I nominate two:
Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade (AKA Fire Emblem GBA)
Super Smash Bros. Brawl's The Subspace Emissary mode

Hey, everyone. For those of you that celebrate, Merry Christmas! And for everyone else, Happy Monday!

As 2023 wraps up and I put together our usual "year in review" post, I have a couple of todos for you folks to think about over the next few days.

What are we playing in January?

Starting with the easy one. We have a couple of (awesome) nominations already, but we've got room for plenty more. I normally pad a short list with games that are experiencing a milestone anniversary that month, but the list is surprisingly small for January 2024. The post-holiday lull is probably partially to blame for this, but it was still unexpected.

What should we do differently in 2024?

We didn't make any big changes this year. We removed the cap on number of nominations - both per person and during voting - at some point in 2022. We had quite a few theme months this year - FPS February, a music month in June, Arcade August, and of course, the Birthday Extravaganza in October - with varying degrees of awesomeness (DAYYY-TO-NAAAAAAA) and participation. Does anybody else have anything else they want to try this year to keep people involved, or any new ideas to keep things interesting?

Does anybody else want to take a shot at running things?

As I said at the end of last year, I'm happy to keep this thread running until the wheels fall off, but I also don't want anyone to feel like I'm having all the fun, especially if they think they could do better. I'll also admit that I've done a terrible job stirring up engagement on retro topics that aren't Game of the Month related. You can blame that on a radically different work dynamic this year that ran my dad-ass into the ground. If somebody wants to try driving next year, I'm happy to hand over the keys. Otherwise, I'll do my best to keep things on the road.

Thanks to everyone for playing along, and for giving me reasons to dive into other gaming hot tubs that I would have otherwise ignored. It's been a blast, and I'm sure it will continue to be a blast as well.

I have no idea how to get more people involved, but when it comes to having someone else
“Take over”, fudge that. I think youre doing a great job, you’re super fair and listen to everyones input.

When Lunar first wanted to step aside and you took over I wasnt happy because I had no
idea how it was going to go but I think its been way better than expected and you always
have great ideas and badges and now I think no one else could host it better.
If its a hassle or you dont have the time then no worries but if it still makes
you happy I hope you keep running it.

There arent a ton of people on this site anymore, and many people who are here,
I don’t feel like they are as invested in the site the way people used to be.
Alot of people seem to only want to take advantage of how kind people on this site
can be like with the Gametz discount and whatnot. Not that we don't all have some selfish
reasons for being here but I feel like many older members of the site pay it forward
more and most of the older bad traders have been removed, though now there are still
some newer members that took their places. That being said, for the most part
this site is still one of the best places on the internet for people looking to feel
like they are part of a better place where people aren’t just looking
to take advantage all the time. I also dont see a lot of trolling or bullying anymore
which is also great. (I mean the site overall, this thread never has had bullying
or trolling).

This is also literally the only thread I actively participate in on this site,
so maybe I’m missing other cool threads or conversations but I don’t care.
This is a positive and kind thread, I’m happy to be a part of it.

Oh and also before I forget, Merry Christmas Y’all 😃🌲

BleedingViolet wrote:

If you beat a lot of games, might I recommend joining the Beat a Game thread? I’m looking for more participants in 2024, and I’m happy to welcome dedicated gamers.

BleedingViolet wrote:

Not going to lie... This both made me LOL and felt super good. I appreciate the feedback.

I'm sure everyone have been pleasantly distracted over the past few days, so let's give nominations another day. Anybody have anything else they want to add to our list?

You all nominated three games for our next Game of the Month round. Normally, to bring us to our five game minimum, I'd hit up Wikipedia and look for big games that are celebrating milestone anniversaries.

With one notable exception*, January 2024 is a dead zone for big retro games with such anniversaries, probably because most titles squeaked in before the end-of-year rush so they didn't have to languish in the aftermath of the holiday shopping season. To remedy that, I took a step back and looked at December 2023 instead, which I didn't get to research because of Redemption Month. And yeah, that dossier of releases is packed to the brim.

Here are next month's picks:

Nominees
Ikaruga
Fire Emblem / The Blazing Blade
Super Smash Bros. franchise*
Sonic Adventure
Doom (I'm not even going to try to list all the platforms here)
Mega Man X

* The original Super Smash Bros. was released in January 1999, making next month its 25th anniversary. @SupremeSarna nominated Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Rather than nominate two games from the same franchise, which just felt icky for no particular reason, I made the franchise itself the nominee, which throws Melee into the mix as well.

Either publicly in this thread or privately in a PM to me, give each nominee 0-5 points. Omitting a nominee is equivalent to giving it a vote of 0. The game with the highest score by the end of the month will be the January 2023 GOTM.

Here are my votes:

Ikaruga - 5 Fire Emblem / The Blazing Blade - 3 Super Smash Bros. franchise - 5 Sonic Adventure - 5 Doom - 5 Mega Man X - 5

Vote!

Ikaruga 5
Fire Emblem 3

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade - 5
Super Smash Bros. series - 3
Mega Man X - 3

Sonic Adventure - 5

I've either recently beat (Doom, MMX), suck at (Ikaruga, Smash) or just aren't 'into' the other choices.

Ikaruga 5
Doom 5

Doom - 5
Sonic Adventure - 5

Looks like it might be another close month.

Sonic Adv - 5

Should we nominate a theme for the year as a whole?

SupremeSarna wrote:

Let's hear some ideas, and then we can decide if we want to stick with a theme or keep doing a free-for-all.

I meant the annual franchise challenge, pardon me. My suggestions are Fire Emblem and Shantae—the former has a lot of games to pick from but is fairly difficult and lengthy, while the latter is smaller and easier. FE is only available on Nintendo systems and mobile, while Shantae has been ported to a bunch of current and last-gen systems.

No matter what, I’m playing them both.

SupremeSarna wrote:

Oh...

I'm happy to hold another nomination/vote for them, but since I was the only person who finished a Shining game this year, I figured people weren't that into it. What does everyone think?

Happy New Year, retroheads!

Let's give everyone one more day of votes for January because of all the holiday distractions. If you want to do an Annual Challenge next year, start thinking of a franchise or two you want to highlight.

Cheers!

I'll also nominate the Paper Mario series, though I'm kinda Paper'd out after my grueling Dbl Pain run through the Pit of 100 Trials in TTYD.

Renaissance2K wrote:

I really wanted to finish Shining Force 2 but December was not my best month of maybe the
worst year ever. I played it again on Friday and Saturday but was feeling kinda awful yesterday.
I did pass the Kraken battle and I still had lots of fun when I felt well enough
to play it though. And I don’t believe people arent into the idea of playing one game series
Throughout the year its prolly just the Shining series.

Its a very drawn out battle scenario every battle which I guess puts people off of it.
For me thats not the issue, I havent been playing games as much this last year
and I mostly just played four different games outside of this group.
Well I guess five if you count Mortal Kombat 1 and Mortal Kombat 11 as different games.
And even though I play these games alot, I went almost two months without
playing much of anything.

So I’m all for an annual franchise thats easier to jump in and out of.
I was thinking of nominating Disney Movie and Show games.
Stuff like Fantasia on Genesis and DuckTales on Nes.
Plus I’ve nominated Belles Quest on Genesis before knowing it never
had any chance at winning. I figure since theres tons of games
like that some people adore (Everyone knows I love Princess sh1#)
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a favorite like that where it
Couldnt win on its own. But as a group of random Disney games? Maybe.
Theres just too many underappreciated classics.
I also know people in this group have kids that they love gaming with.
I dont but I did used to love playing Toy Story and Lego games with
My nephews so I totally get it.

I liked the 'option' of an annual focus and I did consider playing a Shining Force title a few different times during the year. I ultimately never got started on one, but having that out there did at least garner my interest.

Zelda II has walked through a magical door that it manifested from a spell with no name. Here are the folks that jumped and slashed their way to victory in December:

SupremeSarna image image Renaissance2K image

Many thanks to everyone who picked up Zelda II, as well as everyone that played along this year through all the festivities. We played through a record 26 games/franchises - 27 if you count the Shining franchise that we picked as our annual challenge - largely thanks to the mayhem of the Arcade August and October Birthday Extravaganza months, which features nine games and six franchises, respectively.

In addition to those special event months, we also picked FPS games in February, nominated some of our favorite game soundtracks in June, and continued our tradition of redeeming a second place game in December. For some months, we also played for high scores, awarding special badges to those who finished the month on top.

For probably the first time since this thread was created, 2023 was a banger year for JRPGs with us playing through Final Fantasy VI, Golden Sun, and games in the Shining franchise. An epic tale of turn-based combat is good for the soul.

And, of course, we earned a buttload of badges.

BleedingViolet - 13
BloodPuppetX - 11
Kommie - 3
Lunar - 5
image Renaissance2K - 66
sailorneorune - 1
Slickriven - 16
SupremeSarna - 6
Yoshi - 3

For those of you keeping score at home, that's 124 badges for finishing games, placing in high score challenges, and completing birthday objectives.

Thanks again to everyone who stopped by, who played along, and who shared interesting retro news with the crew. I'm looking forward to another fun, pixel-filled year of gaming.

Here's the final tally for January's Game of the Month:

1. Sonic Adventure - 20 points
2. Fire Emblem / The Blazing Blade - 11 points
3. Ikaruga - 10 points
3. Doom - 10 points
5. Super Smash Bros. series- 8 points
5. Mega Man X - 8 points

After a whole console generation without a mainline Sonic game, Sonic Adventure arrived on the Dreamcast, ready to satiate a ravenous fanbase. The game, which launched in North America on 9/9/99 alongside the Dreamcast, catapulted the Blue Blur into the third dimension with a large, story-driven narrative that spanned many locales, challenges, and playable characters. After the release of a sequel and the failure of Sega's final console, the game was ported to Windows and GameCube as Sonic Adventure DX with adjustments to suit the new platforms, and to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as a rushed HD remaster. While Sonic Adventure's legacy is somewhat mixed, it is fondly remembered among Sonic superfans as the first time Sonic dropped on hardware that could match his attitude.

Play Sonic Adventure on
Dreamcast
Xbox 360
PlayStation 3

Play Sonic Adventure DX on
GameCube
Windows
Xbox 360
PlayStation 3

Finish any release of Sonic Adventure to earn the "This is happenin'" badge: image

While you won't be beating Sonic in any footraces, feel free to post a #BeatIt screenshot here.

Behind all the monthly shenanigans, another Annual Franchise Challenge will be active for 2024. Until January 10, post series or franchises that you want featured in this year's Annual Franchise Challenge. While the franchise was borne to highlight games that are longer or more involved than the usual monthly fare, feel free to nominate anything with a storied history that you want to explore. We'll vote on your choices until January 10.

As stated, I nominate Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, and Shantae for annual challenge.

I want to nominate Wipeout for the annual challenge. Or really, any Psygnosis game.

benstylus wrote:

I would be all over this. I feel like half of my backlog is Psygnosis games.

Saturn gamers finally have a "no compromises" patch for Symphony of the Night.

https://twitter.com/Manic_Socratic/status/17420326...

I like that Wipeout or even Psygnosis suggestion/nomination.

Renaissance2K wrote:

What was this? The original post isn’t available…

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2024/01/saturn-...

"Using the PSP version as its template, this patch for Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight (the game's Japanese title) reduces load times, fixes bugs and even allows you to use the Saturn's 4MB RAM cartridge. Transparency effects which were missing from the original port are restored as much as possible, while certain sprites have been resized so they more accurately match those in the PlayStation version."

Here's a full list of the changes:

Full translation into English
Restoring the translucency of many objects
Direct access to the global map
Finalization of the global map
Restoring the original proportions of some sprites
Removing horizontal blacks
Skip videos and dialogues
Access to Richter's alternate costume
Reduced loading time
Supports 4MB expansion card
Bug fixes
Hard mode

There's been a lot of buzz in the past few months about creating a version of the unreleased Sega Neptune, which would combine a Genesis and 32X in a single shell.

A designer recreated the shell that was originally teased in Sega's marketing, and a few modders figured out a way to squeeze a real Genesis 2 motherboard and 32X inside of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz_8-sqxLjs

It looks like someone else is taking things a step further and creating a mainboard. You solder in the chips from a real Genesis and a real 32X, and it works like the real things.

https://twitter.com/cosam_the_great/status/1743060...

The 32X is obviously a very niche console, but I think it's neat that people are still playing around with it so many years later. This is a much more svelte way of adding one to your setup without having to stare at a mushroom.

Macho Nacho's Tito does some truly awesome videos/builds, I've watched far too many and not done any of those builds - he makes things look too dang easy and I fear my effectively non-existent soldier skills would ruin things.

That does seem very cool. One thing I have really come to appreciate lately is no load
times. I have a series S as my main console and really like my mini Nes Snes and
Genesis mini 2 systems as well. Seeing a 32X genesis combo all in one is really cool.
I did NOT watch that whole veedjo though,

I’ve always wondered if they could or would
do something similar for two of my favorite systems with decent homebrew libraries
too. Namely the Dreamcast and the Jaguar/CD.
Now I know some of y’all hate pirating and whatever but just having
all these games in one place would be awesome. If Sega ever made a Series S
style Console where you could legit buy digital copies of their
entire backlog and pay reasonable prices for them I would be
ALL OVER THAT.

Speaking of which I did just download and start playing
Sonic Adventure on Xbox the other day. It still looks
great but I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing ….
just like when I first had it on the DC what seems like a million years ago.
Its fun though which is really all that matters 😃

Does it have Sega CD compatibility? Doubtful. But still, very cool

It should. It still has the expansion connector. I think that's the only way to play CD games, though, since the 32x blocks CD functionality on flash carts.

You either have to use a real Sega CD or the MSDEXP adapter.

I'm working on Sonic Adventure. I've started the OG Dreamcast version of the game probably a dozen times, but I never made it past the Windy Valley stage because I couldn't figure out how to unlock Casinopolis and was too lazy/apathetic to look up how.

Is it just me, or is it really hard to figure out what to do next? I know there are sprites floating around that give you hints, but they'll usually just tell you which adventure zone to go to, and then you're running around hunting for an action pixel that may or may not exist. The camera makes it really difficult to find your bearings, too.

Even the official strategy guides are missing a clear step-by-step walkthrough. They have maps of every zone, details on how to unlock special moves, and which keys go where, but nothing about when you'd actually need to use those items or what order they should be completed in.

Am I just an idiot?

We're coming up on the 10th. Does anyone else have any other franchises (or developers, I guess, in the case of Psygnosis) that they want to nominate for the Annual Franchise Challenge?

I nominate Psikyo

Okay, folks. Here are the nominees for the Annual Challenge, along with links to their Wikipedia pages so you can check out a list of applicable games:

Nominees
Fire Emblem
Shantae
Paper Mario
Psygnosis
Psikyo

Either publicly in this thread or privately in a PM to me, give each nominee 0-5 points. Omitting a nominee is equivalent to giving it a vote of 0. The game with the highest score by January 20 will be the 2024 Annual Challenge.

Here are my votes:

Fire Emblem - 2 Shantae - 2 Paper Mario - 3 Psygnosis - 5 Psikyo - 2

Time to vote!

Fire Emblem - 0
Based solely on its current aesthetic and the fact that nearly 83% of the characters in smash are from fire emblem, I just have zero desire to play any of them

Shantae - 2
I have all of them, so this one is certainly doable, but I'm just not feeling it.

Paper Mario - 3
Once again I have all of these, and have save files probably halfway through any given game, but they just haven't kept me hooked until the end.

Psygnosis - 5
Wipeout. Rollcage. Assault Rigs. Shipwreckers. Blast Radius. Colony Wars. Lemmings. Discworld. Shadow of the Beast. The list of all time classics they made or had a hand in runs deep. And then they also published Spice World.

Psikyo - 1
This one would be pretty easy at least with how short most shooters are.

Paper Mario - 2
Psygnosis - 5
Psikyo - 3

I’ll vote like this

Psygnosis - 5
Shantae - 4
Psikyo - 3
Paper Mario - 2
Fire Emblem - 1

This is pretty wild. You can now connect MAME, RetroArch, and a handful of other emulators to a MiSTer over the network and use it as video output to a CRT.

image

Getting a downscaled output from MAME has been a nightmare of connections, devices, and configurations, to the point that I don't really bother any more. This worked on the first try after downloading two files.

Man, I wish this was a thing during Arcade August.

MIND BLOWN!

Link me to the source when you get a chance

https://github.com/psakhis/Groovy_MiSTer

Instructions are kind of sparse, but this is what I needed to do to make it work with MAME.

1. Download and install GroovyMAME on your PC. Configure it as you would your standard MAME installation (point it to your ROMs directory, etc.).
2. Download the Groovy MiSTer core, and copy it to the "Utility" directory on your MiSTer's SD card.
3. Download the patched MiSTer binary to the root of your MiSTer's SD card.
4. Start your MiSTer. Wait for the network to initialize, and then start the Groovy core from the "Utilities" directory. If everything is set up properly on the MiSTer side, you'll see a GroovyMAME screensaver.
5. Start GroovyMAME with this command line argument. It will take a minute, but you'll eventually see a tiny MAME window on your screen.
6. Select a game from the MAME window, and get cracking.

First #BeatIt of 2024 is Sonic!

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/174598663...

Man, not to sound scrubby or whiney or whatever, but I demand a refund on at least 80% of my deaths in that game. Lots of "the camera is facing the wrong way but I have to jump" moments, falling through the floor bugs, "oh that wall is actualy deadly" surprises, etc. Gotta love those early 3D platformers.

When Sonic is actually allowed to be Sonic - go fast, kill things, go fast again, etc. - it's pretty fun. Wandering around the overworld, fighting the camera, and falling to an unearned death... less so. Oh well.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Still 100x better than the sequel.

I would play a "Big the Cat only" version of Sonic Adventure before attempting to play through SA2 ever again.

And just like that, I beat the Steam version as Tails.

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/174636114...

I didn't realize going into this that each character was going to have their own arc. Maybe I should create a badge for each one...

When I read that Tails' action stages are all him trying to beat Sonic in a race, I wasn't sure how that was going to work, seeing as Sonic is supposed to be, you know, fast. But then you use Tails' flying ability to skip half the level, and yeah, makes more sense now. Pretty breezy playthrough, too.

FYI: This game is marked as "Non Playable" on the Steam Deck, but I didn't have any problems whatsoever, other than needing to use the analog sticks to navigate the menu.

I'm just going to leave this here.

https://youtu.be/859zCaxJrrI?si=TRxLN_ZTlzMDJ_Si

It's the 19th on the East Coast. Get your votes in for the Annual Challenge, and I'll announce the winner on Saturday.

Fire Emblem: 5
Shantae: 4
Paper Mario: 5

Okay, we have a couple orders of business.

Annual Challenge

Here's the final tally for 2024's Annual Challenge:

1. Psygnosis - 20 points 2. Paper Mario - 15 points 3. Shantae - 13 points 4. Psikyo - 10 points 5. Fire Emblem - 9 points

Psygnosis was a British developer and publisher founded nearly 40 years ago. While they made a name for themselves developing distinct titles for computer platforms like the Amiga and Atari ST, they achieved worldwide fame in 1991 with the release of Lemmings, which sold incredibly well and received tons of accolades from the gaming press. Over time, they developed a reputation for original titles with advanced graphics, which caught the attention of Sony as they prepared for the launch of the PlayStation. Many of the PlayStation's early standout titles were developed by Psygnosis, and they continued to develop new ideas and flesh out franchises on the platform - and others - for nearly two decades afterwards.

The Psygnosis portfolio is massive and diverse, even excluding the games they developed after rebranding as Studio Liverpool. Wikipedia has a comprehensive list that can be sorted and filtered to your tastes, but I've done my best to highlight some standout franchises in the OP.

Beat any game developed and/or published by Psygnosis in 2024 to earn the image Owl icon which will appear next to your username everywhere in the Retro Talkshop Thread.

I'm not going to lie... I'm going to have a lot of fun with this one. Just like with Shining, Castlevania, and the other franchises we've done deep dives into, everyone can still nominate a specific Psygnosis title as an upcoming Game of the Month and get both a bespoke badge and the Owl icon.

Current Game of the Month

I'd normally post a leaderboard update at this point, but after playing through Sonic Adventure a little more, I think I'm going to make a badge for each characters. They all have their own arc, their own play style, and their own credits sequence.

Is anyone else besides me playing it this month?

Next Game of the Month

And as if you haven't had your fill of voting already, it's time to talk about February.

Early last year, we did a first-person shooter month that got a pile of interesting nominees, so I thought we'd do that again since it's February. February... F... FPS... You get the idea. But then I realized that Fighting Game begins with F, too, another retro-centric genre that doesn't win votes all that often. Hmm, decisions decisions.

image

Let's nominate First-person shooters and Fighting games for the February Game of the Month.

We'll start voting on January 26 and call a winner at the start of the month. What are y'all thinking?

Renaissance2K wrote:

The Rumble Fish 2 (or #1, either would be fine)

The Wipeout games are awesome! I hope to play both PSP releases for sure.

I have played Sonic Adventure through the windy level just last night I think.
You weren’t kidding! Those deaths are some of the most unfair in any games we have played
in any game of the month that I have played in. Its frustrating but I don’t dislike the game or
anything. Its just not a walk in the park or an easy day at the office even though
you sometimes feel you are playing on autopilot.

Fighting games? And FPS games?

I’ll nominate

Fighting games ….

Mortal Kombat 9 2011

Primal Rage

FPS ….

Alien VS Predator (either on Atari Jaguar or any AVP FPS games from later systems)

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
SoulCalibur II
Shaq Fu

Power Stone

SupremeSarna wrote:

I'm voting for this now.

It's an important piece of gaming history.

Renaissance2K wrote:

And also way more playable than people give it credit for.

benstylus wrote:

It's like, one step above Street Fighter.

The ZX Spectrum port.

So wait are we having one FPS and one Fighting game each win? After all this Shaq Fu stuff (dont get me wrong I love MDE)
but as much as I am not into conventional FPS games I may have to play one of those instead.

Quake

BleedingViolet wrote:

I was just going to go with whichever single game wins, but why not? We've had double months before.

We'll pick the top (or bottom, in the case of Shaq Fu) fighter and top FPS, and they'll both be Games of the Month.

That sounds perfect! Thank you! 😃

Scratch Smash Ultimate, I'm nominating ARMS in its place.

SupremeSarna wrote:

I'm okay with stretching (no pun intended) the definition of retro, but there's no way ARMS is or is related to a retro game.

Mortal Kombat 9 is pushing it, too, but more and more people are considering the 360/PS3 as "retro" and the game is retelling the story of the first eight games.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Oops, I missed the retro part. Never mind, then--replace both with Super Smash Bros. 64.

We'll start voting tomorrow. We've got a bunch of fighters on the docket, but does anybody want to nominate any more FPS games? So far, the only two on the block are Alien vs. Predator and Quake.

I guess Ill also nominate Doom and Hexen and Star Wars Dark Forces again then too. Maybe that will get people
posting other options.

Also I played some Sonic Adventure this evening. I passed two more levels and am
only at 30% with Sonic and haven’t even tried Tails. Its a frustrating game because of the
cameras and lack of obvious direction. Its still beautiful and if I was able to just sit and play
it at my leisure it wouldnt feel like its a chore but there isnt much time left this month
and the wandering around aimlessly feels hopeless.Im guessing this is why I didnt finish
it on my first Dreamcast over 20 years ago.

The Catacomb 3d series
(Available for 6 bucks on gog)

Where else are you going to get killer bunnies and undead with miniguns?

image

image

We found our flock of fighters and FPSs, so let's all F ourselves for F February and get our votes in.

Fighter Nominees The Rumble Fish 2 Mortal Kombat (2011) Primal Rage Super Smash Bros. SoulCalibur II Shaq Fu Power Stone

FPS Nominees Alien vs. Predator Quake Doom Hexen Star Wars: Dark Forces The Catacomb series

Either publicly in this thread or privately in a PM to me, give each nominee 0-5 points. Omitting a nominee is equivalent to giving it a vote of 0. The highest-scoring fighting game and highest-scoring FPS will each be a February Game of the Month.

Here are my votes:

The Rumble Fish 2 - 4 Mortal Kombat (2011) - 3 Primal Rage - 4 Super Smash Bros. - 5 SoulCalibur II - 5 Shaq Fu - 3 Power Stone - 5 Alien vs. Predator - 3 Quake - 5 Doom - 5 Hexen - 4 Star Wars: Dark Forces - 4 The Catacomb series - 3

fVote!

Shaq Fu - 5
Super Smash Bros. - 2
SoulCalibur II - 2
Star Wars: Dark Forces - 4
Quake - 2

We're gotta stop Sett Ra and get back to that charity basketball game, yo.

Alien vs. Predator - 4
Quake - 5
Doom - 4
Hexen - 3
Star Wars: Dark Forces - 5

Rumble Fish 2 5
Quake 5

So many choices...

Fighter Nominees 0 - The Rumble Fish 2 3 - Mortal Kombat (2011) 2 - Primal Rage 0 - Super Smash Bros. 3 - SoulCalibur II 2 - Shaq Fu 3 - Power Stone

FPS Nominees 1 - Alien vs. Predator 0 - Quake 0 - Doom 2 - Hexen 0 - Star Wars: Dark Forces 0 - The Catacomb series

Pretty low scores here, but I either don't have access to most of the FPS titles or beat them recently (Doom, Quake). The fighters is more of a mixed bag.

Slickriven wrote:

Yeah, there are a lot this month. Hopefully, everyone was okay with having a lot of options.

One more day of votes! Anybody else want to chime in?

Quake - 5
Doom - 5
Hexen - 5
AVP - 5

Mortal Kombat 9 - 5
Primal Rage - 5
Powerstone - 3

Sonic Adventure is gonna play with us some other time. Here are the results from this month:

image Renaissance2K image image

image

Jokes aside, thanks to everyone that revisited this Dreamcast classic this month. It hasn't aged as elegantly as some other timeless platformers, but it's an important piece of Sega history nonetheless. If you complete the game with any of its six characters in the future, feel free to share your progress in the thread for your badge.

I'm not sure if double the votes meant double the fun, but here are the final tallies for February's bi-genre Game of the Month:

F is for Fighting Games

1. Shaq Fu - 15 points
2. The Rumble Fish 2 - 14 points
3. SoulCalibur II - 13 points
4. Power Stone - 11 points
5. Mortal Kombat (2011) - 11 points
5. Primal Rage - 11 points
7. Super Smash Bros. - 7 points

My God... what have we done?

At the peak of his presence in the zeitgeist, Shaquille O'Neal could do no wrong. Except free throws. And acting. It was only a matter of time before he would appear in a video game. Shaq Fu is the result of that odyssey, a 2D fighting game released for the Genesis, Super Nintendo, and Amiga - as well as some portables - that pits Shaq Daddy against a bunch of interdimensional weirdos to save a young boy. The game received a middling reception at launch, a sentiment that comically seems to have deteriorated over time. Today, the game is - some would argue, unfairly - remembered as one of the worst games of all time, not because of its objective gameplay quality but because of its blatant absurdity as a cash-in.

Play Shaq Fu on
Sega Genesis
Super Nintendo
Game Boy
Game Gear
Amiga

Complete Story Mode or Duel Mode in any version Shaq Fu to earn the a badge for the character you used: Badges coming soon

And on a completely different end of the gaming spectrum...

F is for First-Person Shooters

1. Quake - 22 points
2. Star Wars: Dark Forces - 16 points
3. Doom - 14 points
3. Hexen - 14 points
5. Alien vs. Predator - 13 points
5. The Catacomb series - 8 points

Quake's impact on its genre is arguably matched only by its older cousin Doom. While not the first fully-3D first-person shooter, its revolutionary engine set the new standard for competing games moving forward. Quake was one of the first killer apps for the PC's nascent 3D accelerator market, came with its own robust scripting language, and launched a multiplayer community and culture that still exists today. While not as omni-ported as Doom, it was later officially ported to the Saturn and Nintendo 64, unofficially ported to numerous other platforms by the homebrew community, and recently remastered by Bethesda for modern platforms.

Play Quake on
DOS & Windows
MacOS
Amiga
Saturn
Nintendo 64
Xbox One
PlayStation 4
Switch

Complete any port or version of Quake to earn the Quad Damage badge: image

Whether it's the boom from a shaka-laka or a rocket launcher, don't be shy about sharing any #BeatIt screenshots.

I have been wanting to play Quake on DC for a LONG time,
Will I play the fighting game …… I do not know.
I may even have a copy but if not then no worries.
At least we have Quake 😃

This month will be fun 😃

I've nominated Shaq Fu multiple times. And now it wins.

Fanatical has Quake in a bundle:

https://www.fanatical.com/en/pick-and-mix/build-yo...

I'd also recommend getting Dusk, it's a modern style Quake/Doom.

And

Amid Evil. It's like a mix of Doom/Quake with being level based but uses weapons like Heretic/Hexen.

Now I need to buy a shaq fu.

Kommie wrote:

Well, I hope you're pleased with yourself.

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/175294645...

I tried this on everything but the Amiga last night but finished it on the Super Nintendo. It's as bad as, say, the original Street Fighter game, but it doesn't appear to be blatantly broken or buggy like a lot of other games more deserving of the "worst game ever" moniker. The Shaq integration is eye-rollingly bad. His special moves are Shaq puns, his sprite doesn't look like he does, and the story is exactly what you'd expect. But it's short. And other than the fact that the special moves are nearly impossible to pull off, it's not painfully difficult.

Genesis has more characters (which I'm actually considering a minus, because it makes the Story and Duel modes twice as long), appears to be more difficult, and has that horrible mechanic where you press Start to switch between punch and kick attacks because of the lack of buttons. The AI also seems to be a bit less forgiving in that one. Game Gear is about the same with worse controls.

Game Boy, oddly enough, plays surprisingly well, and it's the only platform on which I could do special moves consistently.

benstylus wrote:

You’d better get one before the Shaq-Fu Liberation Front destroys every copy. https://shaqfu.com/ourmission

I'm tempted to look for the game gear version but I think SNES will probably be easiest to find.

Not sure when I am going to Owensboro next, so I went ahead and bought a copy or two of Shaq Fu online

benstylus wrote:

You madman.

SupremeSarna wrote:

If I was really a madman I would buy the Gameboy version

Hey, my brief experience with the Game Boy version wasn't that bad. It's a lot better than some other more prominent 1-vs-1 fighters the system.

Mortal Kombat on the Gameboy was pretty awful actually. Better than the GameGear version though.
Eh maybe not but they are both really bad.
And I used to be so obsessed with Street Fighter 2
and other fighting games I actually owned another terrible
Fighting game on Gameboy called Raging Fighter I think.

Quake is apparently Free on Xboxlive so I got through the first stage on that already.
I also mistakenly thought that the original Quake was also on Dreamcast.
But there is Quake 3 Arena. So technically I can still play that there.

BleedingViolet wrote:

It's a homebrew port, but it is available for DC.
https://quakedev.dcemulation.org/downloads/quakedc...

Quake's engine was made open source in 1999, so it's been ported to a lot of platforms unofficially. There's even a GBA prototype floating around!

Starting up Quake since I nominated it and bought it recently. Steam Deck is great for fps

Renaissance2K wrote:

Yeah I was seeing that too. I’ll check out that link.

Now I’ve just gotta see a youtube veedjo of it on GBA.
I really like it when people remake games for older systems like that.

My praise for the handheld versions may have been a tad premature, but at least they're in the history books.

I maintain that the Game Boy version is pretty smooth compared to some of the other ports, but the game is still "don't bother with special moves, mash those attack buttons, hope you get lucky." Like rock paper scissors between two meth addicts.

Renaissance2K wrote:

I was referring to the price, not the quality of the gb port.

Ain't no way I'm dropping triple digits on shaq fu.

OP is updated with the first of the Shaq Fu badges.

I did the leg work to get the Amiga core working on the MiSTer last night and tried out that version. It plays similarly to the two handheld ports because of the two-button controls, but the AI is much more unforgiving. Nezu is downright brutal. He has some sort of a green electric attack that puts you in a cage and makes it impossible to move. Fun.

Couldn't beat it for that reason, and ran out of continues.

I couldnt imagine putting that kind of effort into that game and not being able
to get it done because of not having infinite continues like most fighting games
seemed to have. That sucks. 😔

I'll give it one more shot, but yeah, if I lose everything to that damn kid again, I'll just stick to Genesis and SNES for the rest of the characters.

It's nice to have an Amiga environment running, though. I had no idea their library was so expansive.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Yeah, if you weren't part of the scene at the time it's pretty mind blowing how many games got released on amiga and c64.

Even more mindblowing how many people are still making games for them

Having beat Quake just last year, I won't be replaying it this soon... but I've got Quake 2 installed and looking to play it, so could I play it for the Badge instead?

Slickriven wrote:

image

I'm in a good mood. I booted up the Genesis port of Shaq Fu and blew through Duel Mode with Leotsu and Diesel. Diesel got chewed up pretty badly by the final boss, but Leotsu is a friggin' beast. Something about the game's crazy controls cause his special attacks to stack on top of regular ones, so he blows through the enemy health bar really quickly. That's three characters down.

I then stared at my MiSTer and decided if I wanted to take another shot at the Amiga port. I loaded the game up, chose Auroch, and lost four times in a row against the first fighter. Half the time it was Leotsu; the other half the time, I had no excuse. Even in two button mode, I just couldn't get the game to do what I wanted, despite tearing opponents apart with Ball & Pain the night before.

I gave myself one last shot. Other than the occasional special move, I tried to do anything fancy. While any sane fighting game would let you hold a direction to modify an attack, the Amiga port seems to do anything but. Holding down and attacking activates a shield. Holding forward makes you dash. Pure lunacy, but the counter is just to stand there like a fool and kick until a foot meets face. Repeat until squishy.

And a half-hour later...

https://twitter.com/Renaissance2K/status/175367730...

My first Amiga game in the books. I guess I need to find the mustard to do it again with another character, though, for Sarna's thread.

I got a shipping confirmation for shaq fu. So I will be able to join you within a few days, Dejoy permitting

Took another shot at the Amiga port using the kid, but couldn't manage to do anything. Switched to the Colonel and got halfway through the game just by spamming his machine gun move, which has no distance limit. I didn't win - Leotsu got me, of course - but I witnessed such trash talk brilliance as this:

image

Also... this is Shantae, right? I mean, look at her.

image

Renaissance2K wrote:

C'mon, Shantae would never wear a skull on her hea--
[imgt w=600 h=600]https://images.nintendolife.com/abe5a11a20d16/shan...[/imgt]
Oh. You may be onto something.

Victory is mine! All it cost me was my soul.

I'd been trying to play with a new character to fulfill my Amiga quota, but if Leotsu is such a badass on Genesis, why not use him on Amiga as well? Efficiency be damned!

Sure enough, his weird unintentional double combos and long reach from his bo staff made shredded chicken from the game's twelve opponents.

Okay, back to relative sanity on the Super Nintendo and Genesis to finish the game with the remaining characters...

Almost there...

I've finished Shaq Fu with Shaq, Kaori, Beast, Mephis, and Rajah on SNES; Diesel, Colonel, and Nezu on Genesis; and Leotsu and Auroch on Amiga.

I've been using a move list on Gamefaqs for my SNES playthroughs, and performing special moves was nearly impossible at first. After some headbanging, the problem seems to be that the movelist is calling for smooth Street Fighter-style quarter and half circles, but inserting the diagonals between the cardinal directions actually break things. Once I made that adjustment, I was pulling off moves more consistently. For better or worse.

Two more characters to go. I'm really gonna need some Quake after this...

Edit: The nightmare is over. I finished Duel with Voodoo and Sett Ra. Sett Ra is a beast and seems to be much more forgiving with special move commands, resulting in my fastest and highest scoring playthrough of this entire fiasco.

In collecting some Game Boy and Game Gear footage for a rainy day, I discovered that Duel Mode on Game Gear functions as a de facto Arcade Mode like the home console versions, so you can play that for a badge as well, if you hate playing as Shaq that much. And you will.

Tomorrow, we Quake.

Shaq Fu badges are all updated. Sorry about the clipping on some of them; it's hard to separate a sprite from black elements from the black background of the Character Select screen.

So... who else is gonna play this monstrosity?

I beat the story on SNES with Shaq twice. This game stinks.
[imgt w=900 h=1200]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFq3QV_W0AAhUqX?format...[/imgt]

Sett Ra is terribly unbalanced. He’s got a midair spin move that cuts through a quarter of your health and can’t be blocked or countered. Combine that with the limited continues and you’ve got a recipe for aggravating final boss.

This is not the worst game I own, for the record. That dishonor goes to Men in Black: The Series (GBC). It’s a dreadful platformer you have to see to believe.

Renaissance2K wrote:

Just waiting on the post office

I gave the Fu a go, SNES version and tried the story mode, faced the first 3 fights as Shaq and.... failed all 3, yeah he sucks, especially against the fast cat-like lady. I then went to tournament mode and that was 2-player? So I've stuck with Quake 2 instead and I am making decent progress. I forgot how long and 'looping back over themselves' those levels could be. I never played the Quake series as a kid, but did play Doom so it feels familiar in some regards. I'm fairly certain that I'll get Quake 2 done before the end of the month, based on my pace thus far. Not sure about going back to Fu, suppose I will, just need to get the right version and mode to try with a better character vs. too tall Shaq.

Slickriven wrote:

Duel Mode is more like a traditional Arcade Mode. You pick a fighter and fight against all seven fighters (including yourself) once.

Special moves are a pain in the ass, but Sett Ra's Cosmic Missile (Down, Back, Kick) is much more forgiving than literally every other move I attempted. You can use it like a machine gun. Just connect with the first one, and the opponent will just stand there and take it until you stop firing or they die.

I cornered and crotch punched my way to victory in the Story mode.

image

And here are some of the people you can blame this game on.

We coulda had Rumble Fish 2...

It was really close. I looked into getting Rumble Fish on my Dreamcast and started to type a blurb and look for sprites... and then Shaq won. We got dunked on.

I beat Quake 2, didn't think to get a #Beat-It snip, so I got one of the Achievement since it's dated which helps. Was decent, better than Quake 1, but Doom 1/2 are better still. Might give the Fu a little more time now with this done.

proof:
image

I've been working my way through the original Quake.

I played the shareware episode a million times when I was younger. My family got its first real computer right at Quake's peak of popularity, and getting it to start up for the first time is one of a handful of gaming memories that will be burned into my brain forever. Playing through it again today, I'm still surprised at how much of the levels I still remember, like the path to unlock Nightmare mode or the six secrets in the first level.

I'm getting rocked pretty hard by the second episode, though. Ignoring the fact that I forgot Quick Save doesn't stick between sessions - you have to turn your Quick Save into a real save before you quit - the neverending onslaught of Ogres is making a mess of me. Still having a blast, though, and it was great to bump into Mr. Dopefish again.

So I finally played a copy of Shaq Fu on the Snes on the FC Combo (thanks again @Lunar for this system)

But I gotta tell yall …. We have been trolled …. Rickrolled ….. whatever the fudge yall
wanna call it.

I went from playing MK1 laggy af on xbsS to playing Shaq Fu.
Its not playable AT ALL wtaf people?!?

This is maybe one of the worst games I’ve ever even tried to play.
People have talked crap about games that other people have nominated
in the past including me but this is just disrespecting our little corner of gametz.
If you dont like our group or the games we collectively choose you are free to troll
Elsewhere. I thought a few games werent very good for reasons even last month
but they were still okay and had redeeming qualities.

Shaq Fu is the literal worst game we have ever played and if you voted highly
For it you are a troll and an butt-hole and feel free to leave.
Even a wrestling game that would be divisive is better than
the straight up trolling that this game is. Im sick of people fudging with other people
on the internet. Maybe you are too, but!, This is not the place to push peoples buttons.
If you wanna vote for a game just to piss people off, go the fudge away.
There are plenty of corners of the internet where your bs is welcomed.

When R2k said “what have we done?” I thought he was being funny and sarcastic …..
Unfortunately, he was not.

For the most part this group is welcoming but this proves that some of the
regulars dont care about this group or respect it. If you feel that way why are you
even still here?

And oh btw, I can’t wait for the backlash.

I had no issues with it. But I also played the remastered Nightdive Studios version

BleedingViolet wrote:

1. It's an infamous part of gaming history, like E.T. for the Atari 2600, Duke Nukem Forever, etc.

2. We're also playing Quake, which is both a really solid game and one of the most important shooters ever.

3. Having played all five ports, the SNES version is tied with the Game Gear as the one with the least enjoyable fight mechanics. It also happens to have the shortest campaign, though, so up to the player to do the calculus if they want to swallow a pill that's smaller or less bitter.

Is this game really worse than the arcade version of Bionic Commando? I'm a huge BC fan, and even I'd say that's the worst game we've ever played. I'm with @benstylus - Shaq Fu is bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as its reputation would suggest.

Thanks for your feedback. I hope you still stick around, and that you enjoy whatever gets voted in for March.

Kommie wrote:

So megadrive/genesis or an even better more cleaned up and modern version?

To be fair, I only played the Snes version but it is literal garbage.
I still plan to (finish or pass it) but it is maybe the WORST fighting game
Ive EVER played. Possibly the WORST GAME I’ve ever played.

I’m not exaggerating this game is terrible. Maybe worst ever.

BleedingViolet wrote:

My comment was in regards to the Quake Quick Save issue @Renaissance2K mentioned. Shaq Fu is trash