/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.2293492]

ITT: mediocre\shit\incomplete games; awesome concepts

[Anonymous No.2293494]

Wouldn't say it's shit, but Yoshi's Story has some serious design flaws (having to replay the story mode over and over to unlock all levels, for example), but some really nice concepts, especially the scoring system, it's a lot deeper than that of Yoshi's Island, including Yoshi's mood, different kind of shuguy color gives more points depending on the Yoshi you're using, etc.

Playing story mode for the first time leaves a very "unifinished/short/too easy" flavor.
After having unlocked all levels and playing trial mode for score, the game is actually pretty good. But the flaw is still there.

[Anonymous No.2293636]

>>2293494

At the end of the day the platforming is still slow and still feels like shit and the levels are uneventful mazes where finding all the things is the only challenging objective, and find all the things platformers have always been the absolute bottom of the barrel.

[Anonymous No.2293640]

>>2293636
>find all things
referring to melon runs I guess
fair enough

[Anonymous No.2293691]

Any Lucky Luke game.
I don't know about the second GBC game, but the first (also on normal GB) is probably one of the better ideas and executions, though they're all pretty bad, going as far as awful in some cases.
I do like how, despite the limited gun ammo, you can just get new bullets and you never have to reload, almost a gag on the comic, where Luke says that he reloads when the current story is done, even if he shoots more than 6 bullets in the current story. Also, the multiple hidden areas with bonuses found by using dynamite is neat as well, even if it is nothing new. The punching sucks though and enemies are far too damage spongy.

[Anonymous No.2293715]

Really neat concept, actually meh gameplay. Grindy for what's really a mediocre platform game. No real reason to play more than once.

I was psyched when I got that horn the first time.

[Anonymous No.2293752]

>>2293715
now its worth lots of money

[Anonymous No.2293767]

>>2293636
I sort of disagree. Collectathon platformers work well in 3d, but not in cases like Yoshi's story.

[Anonymous No.2293773]

>>2293494
I'd go further and say that the original Super Mario World was a massive step down from the tightly designed games that preceded it.
Sure, a large Super Nintendo Mario game with a save system, more power ups and something like Yoshi was what we all were expecting/wanted, but even back then I felt it was kind of dull, and I was a huge Mario fan.
I blame the combination of uninspired level design and a soundtrack that needed more variation to go along with all of those levels, and though it has that Nintendo polish, I can't escape the feeling that it was rushed somehow.

[Anonymous No.2293782]

>>2293691
I've played a bit of the gameboy color version of the game, and I think it has really great graphics, some of the best for gbc.It gets tough in certain levels (that fucking gulch level with the wind that keeps pushing you into bear traps), but I think its better than any of the asterix games on gameboy

[Anonymous No.2293790]

>>2293773
I hear you.
SMW was a good game, there's no denying it, but... Something was amiss.
I've always loved all Mario 2D games (except New SMB, but that's another story), yet Super Mario World always felt a bit off to me. Something never felt right, but I still can't figure out what it is.

[Anonymous No.2294078]

>>2293636

The platforming is only slow if you play it slow. YS allows momentum for the player, and some things I really liked about Story over Island (for example, being able to use the tongue in 8 directions, or throw eggs in all directions, not limited to a small ratio anymore).
But yeah, Story is more of a collecthaton/puzzle game with platforming elements, rather than the other way around like YI.

>>2293773

Eh, I understand some people prefer the shorter/more "cohesive" design on SMB3 instead of SMW's larger but somewhat more free level design. I still think it's not a "massive step down", that's an exaggeration. SMW is still my favorite Mario game, even though I also love SMB3 and was in fact my first Mario game, so mind you I have a lot of nostalgia for SMB3, but World is amazing.

>>2293715

>No real reason to play more than once.

How about trying out different species? I only finished it once (with a wyvern creature) but I'm curious to see how it plays if I decided to go the mammal/human route. I will play it again for sure.

[Anonymous No.2294103]

>>2293773
>I can't escape the feeling that it was rushed somehow.
Miyamoto confirmed once that SMW was indeed rushed.

[Anonymous No.2294108]

>>2294103

Not sure if he said it was "rushed", just that they wanted to add more things but they couldn't... which I think is the case for most games produced by Shiggy since he's a total control freak and obsessive person.

However, he also said SMW is his favorite title in the Mario series, so there's that.

Anyway, regardless of what some people might think of SMW, I don't think it's mediocre, shit or incomplete.

[Anonymous No.2294175]

Generations Lost. Feels like a cinematic platformer but with less trial and error, neat setting and visual style, but generally unpolished and seems to be missing at least two stages.

[Anonymous No.2294235]

>>2293492
Ok I know we're on /vr/ but Pokemon is very guilty of this shit

[Anonymous No.2294243]

>worst controls of any fighting game ever
>movement and hitboxes feel "off" due to the animation
>small\samey character roster

[Anonymous No.2294251]

>>2294243

Same with Rise of the Robots 1 and 2.

I wish capcom or SNK would have handled the gameplay of these games, or even Rare, because the art direction of Primal Rage and Rise of the Robots was pretty cool.
Especially Primal Rage with the whole concept of the dinosaurs looking like claydolls from old movies using claymation/stopmotion, such a shame about the gameplay.

[Anonymous No.2294254]

>>2294235
>Pokemon is very guilty of this shit

Do not even get me started on that steaming pile of wasted potential.

>here's a big, wide world full of awesome monsters to catch, raise, train, and fight!
>enjoy using, at most, two or three of them!
>oh, but, before we get to that, here- have a nice warm bowl of anime writing with a side order of anime characters!

[Anonymous No.2294257]

Drakkhen has fascinated me for a long time. There's something so alien about its take on a fantasy setting. Weird creatures, grunting and moaning, appearing out of the ground and thin air of the night sky. Cryptic messages on coffins, strange monuments and patterns scattered around the world.

It's garbage, though. It's glitchy and ugly and confusing, how combat works is a total mystery (everyone just seems to wander around until the monster just... dies), and you can accidentally just walk into water and die.

http://www.flyingomelette.com/drakkhen/oddities.html

[Anonymous No.2294260]

>>2294254
>a nice warm bowl of anime writing with a side order of anime characters!

What?

[Anonymous No.2294265]

>>2294235
>Grinding
>Collecting
>Grinding to collect things
>Very basic, dull RPG combat
Pokemon is garbage. The idea is really cool -- meet, tame, and train strange mutant animals -- but the execution is just awful.

[Anonymous No.2294281]

>>2294260
>What?

[Anonymous No.2294287]

>>2294281

Were you expecting a japanese game to have western designs?

No idea who those on the picture are, though.

[Anonymous No.2294294]

>>2293492
Tell me more about the concept of this game

[Anonymous No.2294308]

>>2294294

It's an unreleased shmup where you control an ever-eating, ever-growing alien monstrosity.

You start out on the microscopic level and work your way up, killing and eating other alien lifeforms and growing ever larger and more powerful; by the second-to-last stage, you're a motherfucking kaiju laying waste to a futuristic city.

http://www.bogleech.com/arcade-chimerabeast.html

[Anonymous No.2294321]

>>2294308
Man that sounds so fucking awesome. Shame it wasn't released. Any idea why it was canceled? What platform was it developed for?

[Anonymous No.2294326]

>>2294321
>What platform was it developed for?
>Insert coin

[Anonymous No.2294339]

>>2294326
Oh I'm stupid, I didn't saw the "arcade" in the link. I fucked up.

[Anonymous No.2294409]

Not a bad game, not lacking substance, but it was missing a league mode.

[Anonymous No.2295110]

Never before or since has any videogame been so desperately in need of dual stick controls and a weapons\inventory screen.

[Anonymous No.2295225]

>>2295110
>Hating on Zombies Ate My Neighbors
I'll fucking fight you

[Anonymous No.2295236]

>>2293773
agreed. Lost levels is the best mario game, yoshi's island the worst. based on gameplay

[Anonymous No.2295242]

>>2294175
Wow, that really reminds me of the GBA Pitfall game.

[Anonymous No.2295640]

>>2294265
I really how SMT handled this.
Being able to talk to demons and what not in order to bring them into your team.
Sure the games aren't perfect, but they certainly had something going when it came to building your team and fusing demons into stronger ones and continuing forth to find and fuse more demons, too bad fights kinda share the whole buff/debuff pattern that some fights aren't too hard, unless you're really low leveled and barely make it through a fight which is a great and shitty feeling knowing that you beat whatever enemy was blocking progress but the demons that died in battle won't receive XP.
Are there any other monster collecting games I should play?

[Anonymous No.2295648]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2oZJ_0YkQw

[Anonymous No.2295671]

>>2294257
I love drakkhen, it's worth playing through it with cheats just for the goofiness.

[Anonymous No.2295690]

Xenogears. I love the game and know about budget problems but seriously, it looks like it just gives up and decides to tell you what your character did.

[Anonymous No.2295708]

>>2294103
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMm1RLF32ig

[Anonymous No.2295723]

>>2294287
The problem isn't their design.
The problem is that they are completely obsolete and bring nothing at all to the game and its story.

The fat guy goes on and on about dancing but never actually does it, nor do we get to see him become famous or something like that. He's just a fat guy who tells you about how he loves to dance.
The small nerd is a small nerd. He talks about his Pokedex, which you always beat by far.
The chick... Is a chick. That's all.

I wouldn't hate them if they were part of the plot, but the game would be exactly the same without these 3 characters.

They releat the generic phrases over and over ("Can Pokemon in this region dance? / Check out my Pokedex / HI I'M AN UPBEAT GIRL").
They're just extra text that you have to mash the A button to get through.

[Anonymous No.2295725]

>>2295723
the brown loli is hot as fuck
she serves the important role of being hot
I have no idea what you're talking about

[Anonymous No.2295727]

>>2295723

But what game are you talking about? I don't remember these characters in either Pokemon games.

[Anonymous No.2295729]

>>2295727
har har har

[Anonymous No.2295730]

>>2295723

o...kay... for some reason my post was deleted, so I'll post again.

I don't remember these characters being in the Pokemon games. Are they from the remakes? If so, not /vr/

[Anonymous No.2295731]

>>2295730

and now my post is there. 4chan is acting funny as of late, whatever.

[Anonymous No.2295745]

>>2294254
>oh, but, before we get to that, here- have a nice warm bowl of anime writing with a side order of anime characters!

What do you mean by anime writing? The plot as least (at least the retro games) have always been simplistic, the character don't really have that much personality like early console RPGs

[Anonymous No.2296148]

>>2295110
>Never before or since has any videogame been so desperately in need of dual stick controls
Yeah, as a Smash TV like game, this would have helped greatly.
>and a weapons\inventory screen.
No. You want to switch weapons/items, you find a safe place to hide like everyone else.

I nominate Shadowrun for the Genesis. I love the game and all, it's one of the best Shadowrun games I've played(Including that recent shit). That being said, the entire game is horribly flawed and unbalanced. The whole thing feels like they never play-tested it. Magic is effectively worthless, and you need to grind for ages to do anything in the game. It's one of the few games I've played where cheat codes actually enhance the experience and make the game fun. Namely using the money cheat non-stop to remove most of the grinding.

[Anonymous No.2296210]

>>2295745

Well, the writing at least wasn't so bad in the first couple of games. It wasn't epic stuff, but it did a decent job of setting you off on your adventure and then keeping out of your way. You didn't have insufferable NPCs interrupting you every five minutes to dump steaming loads of cringeworthy dialogue in your lap, or dragging you off by the hand to do awful-yet-mandatory sidequests and minigames, at least.

[Anonymous No.2296391]

[Anonymous No.2296434]

>>2296148
You did it backwards

I think being able to run away and shoot would be too strong and change the feel of the game, but weapon switch needs a back button or something

[Anonymous No.2296948]

>>2295727
>>2295730
Oh right.
Sorry, I meant to say "Gee, those characters look loveable and interesting, are they from the upcoming Pokemon Silver and Gold? I can't wait!"

[Anonymous No.2297276]

>>2295727
>>2295730

X&Y, meaning that they're even less /vr/ than this discussion in general.

[Anonymous No.2299569]

>first game had clunky controls and repetitive\tedious level design
>second game just sucked
>third game was tedious\repetitive in it's own way and lacked the original's gory flare
>wanpaku graffiti was cute but nothing special

[Anonymous No.2299707]

>>2299569
Speaking of arcade stuff, I feel like a -lot- of SEGA's console games suffered in the execution due to the demand for the games to be very arcade-y, by which I mean they needed you to be able to pick up the game and immediately be moving and doing things with no lead-in time.

Nintendo never really had the continuous arcade background SEGA did so they were more comfortable with slower, more well-paced games that eased the player in.

This is really noticeable to me in Genesis games, everything is really spastic and poorly polished and it really hurts first impressions for a lot of games.

[Anonymous No.2299731]

>>2299569
I can't say there's no room for improvement but I love them just the same

[Anonymous No.2299738]

>>2299707
I kinda feel the opposite. Sometimes nintendo games just take entirely too fucking long to get started. Of course, this problem really only started slightly during the N64 days and really skyrocketed exponentially during the GC/Wii

Let's take zelda for example. The 2D games did a good job of basically throwing you into the world and you went ahead and started questing and dungeon crawling. Then Ocarina had a bit of forced tutorial stuff going on during the lead up to the deku tree. Then windwaker had tons of filler on the way to the first actual dungeon at fireroost. And it probably hit its peak with twilight princess, which had an ungodly amount of forced tutorial bullshit and padding you had to wade through before you could finally start doing some actual adventuring.

But getting back to your post, I don't think there was much difference in pick-up-and-playability between action games on genesis vs SNES. It's just that genesis had a lot more pure action games and they were a larger proportion of its library, whereas the SNES had more RPG and adventure-style games. The difference between the two companies is what genres they chose to focus on.

[Anonymous No.2299739]

SaGa Frontier
>Just about the most linear JRPG ever created outside of MMOs
>Fun as hell battle system
>Varied scenarios that interact with another character's scenario
>Obviously incomplete, whole scenario didn't even make it to tie together all the characters
>Translation is kinda wonky

>>2295745
They tried to be complex in B/W. Didn't work, many plotholes you could drive a truck through.

[Anonymous No.2299742]

>>2293715
Still a relatively enjoyable game, but yeah. Grindy as fuck, very linear evolutionary paths. You just ran around eating animals until you got max power, and then went to the next stage and got de-evolved to something weak and did it all over again.

[Anonymous No.2299745]

>>2299739
*least linear
I suck dicks.

[Anonymous No.2299748]

>>2299738
I'm pretty much only referring to retro stuff, as by the time 3D started coming out full force arcade influence was dying off - and SEGA along with it.

Compare two 'run and gun' games from the Genesis and SNES - say, Mega Man X and Contra Hard Corps.
MMX has a lead-in cinematic and an intro stage designed to teach you the controls. The gameplay is slower, with you and enemies both doing less immediate damage to give you time to learn the game. You become stronger through a slow progression, and your powerups are permanent and effect the game.

Contra Hard Corps on the other hand jumps you right in the middle of shooting shit up, with one-hit deaths - or a tiny lifebar in the JP version. Your powerups are immediate and very easy to lose, and the game does not at all try to explain the differences between characters or really teach you the game. You pick up the controller, turn it on and are immediately shooting shit.

You see the same thing even in first party games: Super Mario World's early tutorial stages and gradual difficulty curve compared to Sonic's nigh instant gameplay with no attempt to teach the player in the game itself.

I'm not faulting SEGA for this, since the games came with instruction manuals and weren't impossible to learn by any means, but it does hurt new players trying to get into a new series. As someone who grew up never touching a SEGA console, even touching most SEGA games is a hassle because it throws itself at you so early on. I think a lot of games on the Genesis and Saturn would have been better off if they tried to convey what you were supposed to do more coherently.

[Anonymous No.2299757]

>>2299748
First of all, those games are made by capcom and konami, not nintendo and sega.

Secondly, you're just cherrypicking two games and throwing them up against each other apples to oranges. You could at least compare 1:1 and do bloodlines vs castlevania 4 or hard corps vs contra 3.

[Anonymous No.2299760]

>>2299748

Sonic has a difficulty curve and green hill is a nice open area with intuitive level design that teaches you pretty much everything you need to know to understand sonic. The only mechanic it doesn't teach you is to push blocks occassionally, which you instead do in the second zone.

[Anonymous No.2299762]

>>2296148
It's my favorite shadowrun game, but I wish there was just... more? There's only a couple mission types, half of which are "go from place A to place B". Also decking is unbalanced, it's the only way to get any amount of money really. Even the hard-tier corp raids don't pay as much as a quick look through a random network accessed from a public computer.

I disagree about magic being worthless, healing spells are good, and stoneskin was the only way I managed to beat the final boss. Playing as a shaman is arguably better than playing as a samurai.

It's still a hell of a lot better than the snes game or the linear shit that the new shadowrun game offers though. Megadrive Shadowrun actually makes an attempt to play and feel like the tabletop, and it doesn't do a terrible job of it.

[Anonymous No.2299798]

>>2299757
>You could at least compare 1:1 and do bloodlines vs castlevania 4 or hard corps vs contra 3

Thing is, the parallels he's talking about hold up there, too.

Just look at Contra III's first stage and compare it to the opening of Hard Corps, to say nothing of how slow CIV is compared to Bloodlines.

[Anonymous No.2300076]

>>2299762
>and stoneskin was the only way I managed to beat the final boss
Well I feel lame, all I did was go at him with two other runners, all of us armed with the best shotguns. He died fast.

[Anonymous No.2300278]

>>2299748
>Sonic's nigh instant gameplay with no attempt to teach the player in the game itself

You're kidding, right? Every single one of the Genesis Sonic games makes sure to give you an entire world of two fairly large stages (three in the original!) to learn the basics of the basics, and then gradually steps things up over the next few worlds until you're prepared for the more involved shit.

[Anonymous No.2300346]

Street fighter 2010

>cool setting
>cool concept
>RAD music
>shooting shit with your fists and feet

But the controls are pretty fucking stiff man, being able to only shoot once in the air kinda sucks. Backflipping is great though

[Anonymous No.2302215]

>>2296148
>it's one of the best Shadowrun games I've played
>>2299762
> It's my favorite shadowrun game

Pointless thing to say considering nobody talks about the Mega CD game, the Xbox game is almost unrelated and SRR is an iOS port.

[Anonymous No.2302248]

>>2300278
Sonic teaches you the general flow of the game very well, but the nuances of most stages aren't "taught" cohesively by the game. Your first time in each stage, you're going to stumble over every hurdle until you've learned the Zone.

SMW, and most Mario platformers, ease you into the gimmicks of each world far more naturally.

As much as I hate to say it, Egoraptor's analysis of how MMX handles it's conveyance is really on-point, and the way SEGA games throw it out the window in favor of immediate gameplay is one of the most noticeable differences in their retro game lineup

[Anonymous No.2302313]

This game features a very cool and unique concept; you play as a ghost trying to scare the people who just moved in away. They could have done much, much more with the concept but sadly they didn't and there never was a sequel either.

[Anonymous No.2302351]

>>2302215
You do know there is a popular SNES Shadowrun game, right?

[Anonymous No.2302376]

>>2294254
underage confirmed

[Anonymous No.2303042]

>>2296391

[Anonymous No.2303065]

>>2302313
>This game features a very cool and unique concept; you play as a ghost trying to scare the people who just moved in away

Pity that the actual haunting mechanics were so limited and repetitive, though.

>They could have done much, much more with the concept but sadly they didn't and there never was a sequel either

In all fairness, they probably didn't do themselves any favors by making the titular ghost a dead teenager.

[Anonymous No.2303074]

>put a first person dungeon crawler on the Game Boy
>make the crafting system hard as balls to figure out

[Anonymous No.2303096]

>>2302313
That was a neat game. I remember it being really short, though. And there wasn't any reason to replay it, either. Apparently EA released it for PSP a while back.

The nearest thing I can think of would be Ghost Trick, but it's not really similar.

[Anonymous No.2303124]

>>2294409
>>2294409
>but it was missing a league mode.
This. Holy hell, I played this a lot. Controls were tight, sfx were great, violence was on point; game was just fun to play. It's a shame no one ever does "weird futuristic sport" games anymore.

>winning bc you killed everyone on the opposing team
>using a head as puck/ball
Good times.

[Anonymous No.2303175]

>>2303074
I'm still trying to figure out what the hell they were thinking with this game. Like Swords and Serpents on the NES, it's existence makes no sense.

[Anonymous No.2304103]

>>2299739
>tfw Fuse
It's not that bad if you regard it as just a bunch of little stories that happen to intersect though.

Wish there were more sandboxy RPGs from Japan like this series and Legend of Mana.

[Anonymous No.2304109]

>>2303175
How do you mean

[Anonymous No.2304127]

>>2304109
Well, they both came out back before RPG's really started being popular on consoles. As if some publisher said "You know what console gamers really want? First person perspective dungeon crawlers!"

I mean, I can understand Might and Magic and Wizardry, since they were just ports. But these two games were developed FOR the NES when no one was really buying RPGs for consoles. Just doesn't make much sense.

[Anonymous No.2304457]

I think FFVIII definitely qualifies here as just about every single concept in the game is great but most of them aren't realized as well as they could have been. A good example of this is how the game handles limits breaks in battles, clearly the idea here was that you could either play it safe by keeping your hp up and keep attacking your foes normally or take a glass cannon approach of keeping your hp low enabling you to fight with more powerful limit breaks but risking you getting easily beaten up by enemies. However in practice this led to a system where you can easily abuse the limit breaks and this is without even taking things like aura status or the invincibility items into account.

Some other examples include the easily breakable junction system, level scaling that tries to reduce level grinding but in practice makes fighting battles at all pointless and collecting magazines that once again is pointless as you can craft better weapons and do Zell's moves at any time provided you have the items for the former and know the input combinations for the latter.

[Anonymous No.2304458]

Oh how do I count the ways?

[Anonymous No.2304464]

>>2299569
What about the western-developed reboot?

[Anonymous No.2304556]

>>2304457
VIII was mostly how Square figured out the later titles before they tried to make another VII over and over again. Makes me wonder how more innovative the games would have been if they didn't merge.

Some ideas were really good like the Guardian Forces, which was kind of revisited in X's summon management with far less of an impact in normal battles. Some ideas were really terrible, like how unbalanced junctioning was, docking your pay for exploring, and the card game being as OP as it was (it was nerfed in IX at least).

[Anonymous No.2304707]

>>2303096
Ghost Master for the Pc.

Same concept, but different ghosts to choose from and multiple locations. Plus the haunting styles were varied for each ghost.