Retro Club - 8 & 16-bit puzzlers - The Bear and Badger

retroking1981

Elevator Action Returns S-Tribute (Saturn)

Sequel to the 80s arcade classic that I picked up on a whim for Switch in a sale.

The graphics are excellent, lovely detailed sprite work from an era when we were all obsessed with polygons.

You can choose from three characters who have slightly different variations on the moveset, which has been expanded from the first game and now includes melee and grenades.

There are only 6 levels compared to the 30 in the original, but they're quite long at least, so the length of the game overall in similar.

It's decent, but it lacks the simplicity and charm of the original, which is a bit of an underrated classic imo. This does have co-op though, so again... decent enough stuff.

3/5

My reviews

retroking1981

Strider (Mega Drive)

I know this was a big deal in its day and it has its fans, but I did not get on with this.

The controls just feel a bit off to me and the sprites are to big, giving you little room to manoeuvre. It all feels a little cluttered.

You can get a bit of momentum going and I did get into a decent flow sometimes, but overall the bad outweighed the good. An early MD release that feels right at home alongside Altered Beast imo, I don't think it's aged very well.

2/5

My reviews

Moot_Geeza

Any suggestions for a specific game to focus on? Not in a shmup mood.

Time_on_my_hands

Funny, I just discovered Elevator Action 2 (arcade) for the first time last weekend. Was surprised by how good it looked using the art style it has, and how well it played - for a coin-op I got a long way on one credit.

Definitely going on my list of regular cabinet plays.

Time_on_my_hands

My thing at the moment is going through every genre and building a 'must have' list of ROMs. I started with Vs fighters and discovered Time Killers (arcade).

Felt very janky. Looks janky, but in an edgy cartoon way. I've no idea how this was originally received but these days it looks on par with Itchy and Scratchy. I'm keeping it on my list because it seems to be the only weapons based fighter where the weapons actually remove limbs and the game accounts for this by removing player moves.
Basically it's the fight with the 'its just a flesh wound' knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

AI is surprisingly tricky (not as bad as Mortal Kombat), butI can imagine this is a laugh in 2-player.

Moot_Geeza

We could do random vs fighters? So many on the rom sets I've never heard of that seem pretty good when you load them up. Not a genre I'm keen on getting good at these days but I still enjoy looking at the forgotten ones.

davyK

Prob know about them but Vampire Saviour and Darkstalkers have wonderful character design. Capcom built so solid. Got great Saturn ports too.

Moot_Geeza

Played some Red Earth/War-zord this morning, which is a ridiculously good looking game. At entry level most of these games play pretty much the same but I had some button mashy fun. Those visuals helped, of course.

Tried a Vampire Savior afterwards (VS2, I think it was). Not as lush looking but lovely nonetheless. Early impressions were that this plays a little better but that could be down to the character I chose suiting me more than the big beast I picked in Red Earth.

hylian_elf

davyK wrote:

Prob know about them but Vampire Saviour and Darkstalkers have wonderful character design. Capcom built so solid. Got great Saturn ports too.

Not easy games to play. Very tight timing windows on combos and links and very fast paced!

Time_on_my_hands

hylian_elf wrote:

davyK wrote:

Prob know about them but Vampire Saviour and Darkstalkers have wonderful character design. Capcom built so solid. Got great Saturn ports too.

Not easy games to play. Very tight timing windows on combos and links and very fast paced!

I do love these. Vampire has the largest range of characters. I recall it in an arcade in Croydon in the 90s, we'd be playing House of the Dead and every time we were there, a group of teens would be playing Vampire Saviour with fistfulls of notepaper with all of the combos. Absolute obsessives.

Time_on_my_hands

I started working through all of the King of Fighters series - I prefer the later ones, but they still don't have quite the interesting variety of character designs that other series have. Discovered it became big in South America and China because the cabs were cheaper than the Street Fighter ones.
Need to put more time in to them, though.

retroking1981

Aero Fighters 3 (Neo-Geo)

More of the same as 2, which I played last month.

It's fine.

3/5

My reviews

retroking1981

Eco Fighters (Arcade)

After playing through so many 19XX style shoot 'em ups recently, this made for a refreshing change.

It's a side scroller and the gimmick is your ship has a rotating gun, its like Forgotten Worlds but much better imo.

Decent selection of weapons, top notch pixel graphics, and as always good mindless co-op gaming.

3/5

My reviews

retroking1981

Let's Go! Goemon 2: Very Strange General McGuinness (SNES)

Japanese only sequel to The Legend of the Mystical Ninja. I played a fan translated hack, and God bless the people doing this work, as this is a true treasure of the 16-Bit era.

This sequel adds an overworld map where you can replay levels and unlock alternative routes, it's not quite Super Mario World but it adds to the replay value and is a marked improvement over the first game.

Also new to this game are the boss fights that involve fighting giant robots in a first person view. I struggled with these initially, but once I got to grips with the controls they were OK, and add some welcomed variety to the gameplay.

I know I bang on about co-op, but it was quite a rarity for a platformer back in the 90s, so it needs a mention.

Only negative is that it's quite easy, but it's so much fun I didn't care. Every bit as good as the first SNES game, if you enjoyed that you definitely need to play this.

4/5

My reviews

retroking1981

Super Mario World (SNES)

Not a lot to say that people don't already know. Still one of, if not the best 2D platformer ever.

Only real negative for me is that the graphics in places can be quite bland. You can tell Nintendo were cutting their teeth on the new hardware, and the fact that development began as a 16-Bit port of SMB3 shows a little.

Being the first time I've played this in a good 15 years or so, I gotta say the Star Road and Special Stages have a Mario Maker vibe about them. You can tell that the shackles were taken off and the designers were allowed a bit more freedom.

Like I said in my SMB3 write up last year, I constantly go between that and this as my all time platform game, and today its most definitely SMW.

Masterpiece.

5/5

My reviews

Moot_Geeza

I might have another run at that before Nintendo finally trump it in October. /Optimism.

Moot_Geeza

While this is bumped, can we do something as a little retro club again? I'll make badges.

ChopperByrne

Garou: Mark of the Wolves is my favourite SNK fighting game.

It's beautiful, quick, has great system mechanics, fantastic soundtrack, and great character variety.

So happy that it's getting a sequel.

TMNT: Tournament Fighters on SNES (not Mega Drive) is damn good too.

Modders have made an MvC style game using it as the base, adding in characters from a Justice League game, and even some brand new characters to make TMNTxJL:Turbo which is actually really good.

https://kamekaze.world/xjlt/

https://youtu.be/MeK8LRTe8KA?si=QO4X-THI5dg1X57N

ChopperByrne

Here's a vid from yesterday of a tournament using tag mode.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1913858341

davyK

LoMN1 on SNES blew me away at the time. Got it in a 2 for £40 deal in Virgin with Smash Tennis. Still rate it as among the finest tier 2 platformers on the SNES; tier 1 consisting of SMW and YI.

Still own it CIB.

Time_on_my_hands

ChopperByrne wrote:

Garou: Mark of the Wolves is my favourite SNK fighting game.

It's beautiful, quick, has great system mechanics, fantastic soundtrack, and great character variety.

So happy that it's getting a sequel.

TMNT: Tournament Fighters on SNES (not Mega Drive) is damn good too.

Modders have made an MvC style game using it as the base, adding in characters from a Justice League game, and even some brand new characters to make TMNTxJL:Turbo which is actually really good.

https://kamekaze.world/xjlt/

https://youtu.be/MeK8LRTe8KA?si=QO4X-THI5dg1X57N

For ages I thought that TmnT fighter was an arcade game (I saw it on Games Master and later when I got into emulation tried to find it on MAME lists!)

Redeye mentioned Rad Racer in the retro thread - anyone want to look at racing/ driving games?
It's a genre I've never really got into aside from Lotus challenge or Overlander on the ST and I don't think I've played any modern racers aside from Wipeout. Be interesting to get suggestions for fun titles to try.

davyK

Retro racers I enjoyed:

Turbo Racing (UK name) NES
Super Monaco GP on Megadrive
F-Zero (SNES)

Moot_Geeza

I'm up for racers.

stellavista

How about top down racers. Super Cars II on Amiga ftw. Rock and Roll Racing on SNES also.

Unlikely

I played Super Skidmarks (Amiga) on acid. Cow cars. That was a thing.

ChopperByrne

Not played it since I was a child, but I know I put a lot of time into Lotus Turbo on the Mega Drive. Fairly similar to Outrun.

stellavista

Unlikely wrote:

I played Super Skidmarks (Amiga) on acid. Cow cars. That was a thing.

I read this as if it was being spoken by Roy Batty, the replicant in Bladerunner. “All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die. Cow cars. That was a thing.”

davyK

Micro Machines '96 on MD is the definitive top down racer.

stellavista

That’s a fair shout tbh.

Moot_Geeza

It's a shame some sort of deal can't be made to put the MD version on the Switch sub service. It's one of the few games I'd actually bother playing online these days.

GET OFF MY SPONGE.gif

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