As soon as I played arcade Ridge Racer/Daytona and saw the screens for the upcoming 32-bit generation I immediately lost interest in my poor old SNES, it just seemed completely under-powered and pathetic in comparison - so I didn't even realise Yoshi's Island had been released until a few years later. I stopped buying Super Play and just focused on getting in some preemptive pestering on my Dad in anticipation of the Playstation release. I was a horribly materialistic little shit when I was a kid/teen. Anyway, because of all that my first experience of Yoshi's Island was through ZSNES. 

I loved it, but couldn't help thinking throughout how much more awesome it would've seemed in 1995. It's a great game, even for someone who isn't that into Mario and platformer's in general like myself. Far more enjoyable than Super Mario World.

On pricing - I once spent £60 on Kevin Keegan's Player Manager for the SNES, which was truly and utterly shit. I think I saved up for a whole year or something and then blew on it on a terrible, terrible game. 

Nintendo got away with murder with their pricing strategy in those days.

I remember Turok being £70.

Also remember going out to buy Sonic and Knuckles with £40 of birthday money. On the way we stopped off at a car boot sale. A lad was selling it (within a month of release) I asked him "how much?" He said "I won it on Live and Kicking and already have it, just want someone to enjoy it. A tenner". I went nuts!!!! Bought it, saved the money and eventually bought Ristar, the forgotten gem of the MD.

Pretty sure it was that game. Certainly was that era.
He probably should have rinsed another 20 quid but Im not complaining.

I also got Blades of Steel on the gameboy for £1.50 that day. Loved that game too.

retroking1981 wrote:

And Blades of Steel... amazing game...

Haha! Yes! Easy as fuck, sure. But dem fights...
EA's NHL series was also very good.

I wonder why ice hockey works so well as a videogame?
I hate watching the sport...

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Just wanting someone else to enjoy it is heartwarming stuff, but he should have shaken (shook?) you down for £30, he can't have owned all the games.  I wonder if he won it on one of those stupid phone-in games where you could hear the kids desperately pressing the buttons but the caterpillar continued to amble in a straight line.

At the age of about 7 I would sit there listening to 10 year olds shouting "up" or "left left left", when it should've been "down, right right right". It annoyed me so much I can't even describe. 

Up there with stupid cunts on fun house who couldn't drive a go-kart and also grab a magnetic token at the same time. 


So i've been playing some YI. Got to the third level. Nothing that inspiring at the moment. I think it would benefit from being on the big screen. Aside from that i've noticed that the music is pretty good and I actually like that there is no timer. Extra lives seem much harder to come by than in SMW. Thats probably a good thing.

dynamiteReady wrote:

EA's NHL series was also very good.

I wonder why ice hockey works so well as a videogame?
I hate watching the sport...

Indeed, the 16Bit ones were pretty special.

I guess it's quite easy to understand as a sport and not to dissimilar from Football for us Brits. I was also a massive fan of Activision Ice Hockey on the 2600.

Liveinadive wrote:

Wow, I thought Blades was a bit of a curio.

I think as far as 8Bit Nintendo consoles go Blades was the only option. I seem to remember a Nintendo (early black box) one but I never played it.

Did anyone play the PS/N64 Blades of Steel? That one passed me by unfortunately.

Liveinadive wrote:

Out of S&K and Ristar I would go Ristar.

Cool, reason I asked is that it's funny when sometimes it's the bonus game of a purchase that turns out being the better one. I really wanna play Ristar, I missed out when it was being played eariler in this thread unfortunately.

regmcfly wrote:

A lot of my n64 games have the original receipts in so I can let yous know what they'd have cost!

DO IT! I'm intrigued now. I'll have a look through my SNES/N64 collection tonight and post them up later.

mk64 wrote:

So i've been playing some YI. Got to the third level. Nothing that inspiring at the moment. I think it would benefit from being on the big screen. Aside from that i've noticed that the music is pretty good and I actually like that there is no timer. Extra lives seem much harder to come by than in SMW. Thats probably a good thing.

I played the GBA (via 3DS) and SNES versions yesterday and the SNES one is much better all round, graphics, sounds and controls being much better.

The fact that there isn't a timer is a real indication of what style of platformer this is. Much like the NSMB series it really opens up when you try and get a perfect score for finding all the red coins, flowers and maximum health.

I've never understoond people worrying about lives in these games. They've been pretty pointless since save options became available in SMW. 3 was that last one where lives mattered in the old school way.

Liveinadive wrote:

I got it and got 1080 snowboarding too. 1080 was easily my favourite out of the two.

1080 was ahead of it's time, and underrated (even as an Edge "8"). Wish Nintendo kept Giles Goddard on staff...
Certainly the physics system was largely his work (him and Colin Reed, who I know less about).

I heard yoshi's story is actually fucking immense...

a new waverace would be banging.

mk64 wrote:

a new waverace would be banging.

MAXIMUM POWER!!!

I didn't realise YS played in the way you listed above davy. I played through it a couple of times but with a gap of about a decade inbetween so didn't notice that the levels changed.

From what I can remember it's perception also struggled with it being a side scrolling plat former, something that was deeply un-popular in that era.

Oh yeah, I remember reading about him now. Pretty sure he said the Wii was a toy and not a gaming console.

Interesting that he/they worked on the 64 remake for 3DS though.

Liveinadive wrote:

I didn't realise YS played in the way you listed above davy. I played through it a couple of times but with a gap of about a decade inbetween so didn't notice that the levels changed.

From what I can remember it's perception also struggled with it being a side scrolling plat former, something that was deeply un-popular in that era.

Yeah - the number of large hearts you find in a level unlocks other levels - so you can select which path you take through the 6 stages. There are 4 different levels per stage - 1 being the easiest. For example, if the player collects two hearts during a level, they will be allowed to choose from level 1, 2 and 3 on the next stage.

I guess your're right - at that time a 2D platformer would not have been de rigeur - it wasn't a Miyomoto directed game either which some people jumped on.

The super-cute presentation was another strike against it - sadly in my opinion - I'm a sucker for stuff like that.

Sonic 3 & Knuckles

Excellent game overall,  has by far the best graphics in the series technically, although personally I still prefer the style and colour palette of the original. Music is also top notch but it doesn’t quite hit the very high standard set by 2, which for me would easily make a best of 16Bit soundtrack.

Some of the boss battles are quite memorable; a few standouts include Marble Garden, Mushroom Hill (amazing graphics here), Flying Battery and Lava Reef. They just have a bit more imagination into beating them than Sonics 1 or 2.

I wasn't too keen on the Special stages being hidden as oppose to being available at the end of levels/check points with XX rings. It gives you less chances of obtaining the emeralds and less of an incentive to collect rings/not get hit.

The power ups didn't seem that great to me either, or the standard double jump force field ability. If you get the timing down you can destroy some of the bosses pretty easy. Just takes away some of the purity of what makes Sonic imo. What's the point of the under water levels if you can just breath in a bubble? It takes away the whole tension of getting to the next set of air bubbles. This is a very minor gripe and it doesn’t really make the game worse but I just thought I'd throw it out there. I'm sure the abilities have their uses which aren't too obvious after one play through.

Breaking these games into its two parts I do think 3 on its own is quite weak. It's not only short but fairly easy imo. Knuckles for me is definitely the stronger of the two. The levels are better all round in design and features. I thought Sandopolis was excellent and Lava Reef zone reminded me of Marble zone from the original.

I know the whole lock-on thing in 1994 seemed like a technical miracle but let’s be honest the kids got a bit ripped off, both these games came out in the same year. I've read that time constraints and the manufacturing costs made Sega split the game in half and I think that's exactly what they did.

As it is they're literally £40 each for two halves of the one (amazing) game. Had they been double in content individually and released at least a year apart I think they could have gone down as the best Sonic games making the ultimate Sonic together.

As it turned out they're two games that don't quite live up to the prior games in the series but together do. Fuck me I am waffling on...

Sonic 3
4/5
Only just, I was thinking 3/5 but that would be harsh

Knuckles
4/5
Very close to a 5/5

Sonic 3 & Knuckles
5/5
Easy decision overall. Probably the best Sonic game ever.

Fuck me - I'm finding YI hard - trying to 100pt level 2-5 and I'm making a right pig's arse of it. It's a tricky task and requires a fair amount of finesse.

It's one of those levels with destructible floors are you are pestered by Lakitu as well - not so much of a challenge to get to the end - but it's a royal pain in the arse trying to collect everything.

It looks great - I have the PAL version but I've switched my SNES to 60Hz and it looks great on my 32" LCD with an s-video connection. Glorious looking and sounding game.