Retro Games

[Razilin]

poster child for being under appreciated

 

[Vanq]

Harvest Moon for N64.

I discovered the game as a college kid, and OHMYGOD did I lose time in trying to manage my farm, my social life, the town's social life, and train to win those games/competitions. All to win my absent father's approval.

I never did get it.

 

[Razilin]

harvest moon was like real life

took a lot of work and got jack shit for doing it

but i liked farming surprisingly!

 

[Vanq]

There was something so relaxing about trying to fit in everything that needed to be done for the day....all while ignoring the RL stuff that needed to be done for the day.

FFT is another favorite of mine, though I see it was covered earlier. I never actually used the calculator job and definitely not for Ramza. I liked keeping him as one of the earlier classes - Monk. Besides, once Orlando joins the party, you steamroll fucking everything.

 

[Razilin]

There was something so relaxing about trying to fit in everything that needed to be done for the day....all while ignoring the RL stuff that needed to be done for the day.

FFT is another favorite of mine, though I see it was covered earlier. I never actually used the calculator job and definitely not for Ramza. I liked keeping him as one of the earlier classes - Monk. Besides, once Orlando joins the party, you steamroll fucking everything.

Monk Ramza is best Ramza

 

[Yus of the Conquest]

Shantae. Shantae was one of those games released after the GBA came out. Except it was on the GBC. If you haven't played it, why haven't you played it.It had some really great animation and music. If I recall it was made by WayForward. It's not very well known because or its release on the GBC. But if you get the chance to play it

 

[Vanq]

For those who like FF, I'd also recommend Last Dream...yes, its made with rpgmaker, but I've sunk about 40 hours into it without completing it yet. Overall, its been a fun game, even with its limitations and hokey style.

 

[Razilin]

GUILTY GEAR SERIES

In the dying era of 2-D tournament fighters vacating the video game scene for 3-D fighters, there was one game that combined radical character designs, a complete disregard of balanced play, an even more flagrant disregard of storyline continuity, and fuckin' incredible music in just the right proportions to create a cult classic hit.

That game was Guilty Gear.

The Guilty Gear series is one part 2-D tournament fighter, three parts Queen homage, and five parts awesome for a variety of other reasons.

I mainly played this game for the soundtracks. Pretty much every installment in the series had metal and rock and roll up the wazoo and all of it fantastic. In terms of gameplay, the game definitely favored Ky Kiske and Sol Badguy (the mascot characters) in terms of power level as well as the unlocked characters like Justice. That being said, all of the characters were just a nonsensical hodgepodge of random - and all of them fun to play. One guy actually uses a cue ball and pool cue to fight!

Give this game a whirl, if for no other reason than to have something fun to listen to.

 

[Razilin]

Now here's a game that's starting to get on in years. Released in 2002, Eternal Darkness does an excellent job of telling a Lovecraftian tale. Horrific? Questionable. I found the scares to relatively benign. BUT THE ATMOSPHERE! Oh, the ATMOSPHERE! And the random glitching that intentionally occurs when your sanity goes down! The versatile magic system!

There is much to appreciate about this game if you are a fan of the Cthulhu Mythos, Lovecraftian Horror, or just want something different from your urban fantasy games.

Playing this, I truly felt I was playing a video game version of the Call of Cthulhu tabletop rpg. You even have a fucking sanity meter that is just as important as your mana and health meters. When sanity goes down, you start to hallucinate, manifesting as gameplay, controller, environmental, or even television glitches. That was very unique and a lot of fun.

You play as the anchoring heroine, but really, she is only truly important for about a quarter of the game. The rest of the time, you play a small cast of characters each exploring a portion of the greater cosmic tale unfolding over the centuries. You play as different people, with different play styles, with different magic styles, in different eras - each experience adding another piece to the growing puzzle that is an eldritch abomination's master plan over the millennia.

In fact, you have to play this game multiple times to fully understand the depth of the Cthulhuoid beings' plot.

Its actually quite a fun game. Give it a check out.

 

[Razilin]

the best ten minutes in a jrpg fan's life


suck it, sephiroth

 

[GhostJoker]

 

[Razilin]

STAR FOX

The primitive polygonal graphics of this game were considered UTLRA SEXY AND CUTTING EDGE back in the day! Now they're laughable. That being said, this game had a fun soundtrack, a fun concept, and was just plain fun to play.

You and your flight of anthropomorphic animal space fighter pilots must liberate your corner of the galaxy from a ruthless conqueror using your X-wing thingies. And barrel rolling. Because it deflects blaster fire. Somehow.

Before ACE COMBAT, we had Star Fox.

The game would later get retooled during the Nintendo 64 era, which I felt was all around a superior gaming experience, but hey, greatness had to start somewhere.

 

[Razilin]

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: TOWER OF DOOM

Back in the day, we had arcades.

As in, places with video games that ate up quarters.

And back in the day we had beat-em-up arcade games that ate up quarters.

Being a long time D&D player, I jumped at the chance to play this one. It was beat-em-up that surprisingly incorporated the D&D ruleset of the time (2nd edition) rather elegantly. It even had Vancian magic! It was a fun game.

Generally speaking, you had to either a) be a COMPLETE badass at this game or b) play with friends in order to survive this ridiculously tough game. The bosses were by far the most entertaining aspect of the game, as well as the final dungeon, which had a number of ways to navigate it to get to secret treasures in addition to the final boss. It actually felt like a dungeon crawl, just with 100% less roleplaying and 1000% more monster-killing and looting.

You know, like a typical dungeon crawl.

Pictured above: A typical party, beating the shit out of things and stealing its loot.

Pictured above: The Wizard. This guy looked awesome and was pretty much a boss-killer. He's really tough to play solo, as he's not a great fighter and you don't want to blow all of your magic early on in any level. When he's in a party, though, this guy can solo bosses because his magic is just that powerful.

Pictured above: One of the reasons to play the sequel, Shadows of Mystara.

The thief had some great combo attacks and was hot as well.

Otherwise, everyone just played the elf, because she was also pretty hot.





I wish they released these games again....

 

[GYARA]

Even though I'm only 14, I got myself hooked on retro games, but the one that I love, play often and completed a million times is Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I am so sad that NES, SNES, Genesis, Dreamcast and Gamecube were just a bit older than me, but seeing modern games and seeing where they're headed for... I just prefer classics. So, S3&K that is for me, Ice Cap being my favourite level.

 

[Razilin]

FATE STAY NIGHT

In honor of the remake ending its first season, here's the old school original visual novel.

Like all visual novels, its less a game and more an audiobook - only with reading. Meaning its a regular book. Only on the TV or computer screen.

So in other words, the worst gaming format I've ever seen.

There's a reason FS/N is the only VN I ever played. The whole idea is just silly. Just make it into a goddamn book, already!

That being said, the story (all 3 mutually exclusive ones) are fun to explore and the majority of the characters are quite likeable. The problem with the mutually exclusive storylines is that to really understand where everyone is coming from, you HAVE to have gone through the other routes. Once you get the full picture from each perspective, everyone's little quirks and seemingly odd decision making makes perfect sense.

Its kind of neat to replay the game after seeing all the routes and realizing just WHY some seemingly crazy plot twists occur in the greater context of things.

It does make for a very weird initial playthrough, though.

Add in the fact that Fate Zero's content contributes whole LAYERS of meaning, context, and complexity to all of the above, and you've got yourself quite the continuity archive.

I actually like things like that. For some, having to slug through what's basically four stories (Fate, UBW, HF, and Zero) to get the full experience may seem intimidating and unfocused. To which I agree - if this were a regular novel. But I enjoy going through the tale again and seeing things in a new light, now that I know more about what happened in the background.

Of the VN medium, FS/N is a stand out and definitely one of the more popular or at least one with the greatest exposure.

I recommend it for anime fans in general, to really get the most out of watching Fate Zero and FS/N animes.

I would NOT recommend it for someone just looking for a good story - it has all the quirky writing style of Kinoko Nasu, and if you love world building and in-depth canon, this is a perfect story for you, but if you'd rather go through something quicker I would say stay away from this one.

I guess another way of putting it is this:

If you play D&D and wanted to be a player character, you may not like this.

If you play D&D and wanted to be the Dungeon Master, you'll LOVE this.

Anyway, my last thought is this:

Saber x Shirou x Rin ftw ot3 op gg no re gl hf and many other internet acronyms.

I'd add RACKS to the above, only Saber and Rin aren't exactly RACKSy ladies.

 

[fatalrendezvous]

I have fond memories of watching my brother play Chrono Trigger on the SNES, and I played it a lot too. Lufia 2 is another one of my favorites.

From the PS2 era I was all about FF8 and Final Fantasy Tactics.

Though I also wasted away many an afternoon playing custom maps in StarCraft and WarCraft III.

 

[Razilin]

@starcraftisbestcraft

 

[Ser K+]

%Starfoxisbestfox

Super Contra, 4 years ago, beat it.
I was so proud of myself.
*proud tears*