So, I'm curious. It seems like Spawnbroker is just whipping through all these games. On average, how long did it take you guys to play these games? Super Mario bros took me for fucking ever, cause I kept dying.... and also because I was like 6.
Well, save states make things a lot easier, even if you don't resort to save scumming. It's the same reason LPs are usually a lot shorter than they might be.
As a child it took me forfuckingever to beat games because, well, I was a child. I'd imagine now it wouldn't take more than a few hours per game (depending on how hard I find the game) except for games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior.
So, I'm curious. It seems like Spawnbroker is just whipping through all these games. On average, how long did it take you guys to play these games? Super Mario bros took me for fucking ever, cause I kept dying.... and also because I was like 6.
Super Mario Bros. was a pretty epic game for the time. Not only was it pretty long, but you had to complete the whole thing with the lives you had; no saving and coming back later unless you were willing to just leave your console on (which I'm guilty of).
Many games of that era were not quite so epic, however. Since there was no internet, it was nearly impossible to tell if a game totally sucked unless you had a friend who had played it... even magazines were pretty useless for this, as I found out from being a Nintendo Power subscriber; that rag existed obviously only to hype the good stuff, not give warnings about a poor game on their own system.
Thus, some games were ball-breaking hard, and nearly impossible to beat. Others were cakewalks and could be completed in a single afternoon. It was tough to find the real gems in those days, and yet I have so many fond memories. :P
But U-Four-Ia is a crazy metroid-vania of insanity and whimsy.
You play as Bop-Louie, a man whose head literally explodes from his body in order to smite his foes, having crazy landed on a strange planet you must find your friends who were lost in the crash
You must find Gil, a Bomb-Vomiting Fish-man.
Shades, a sungalsses wearing ghost whose eyes, fall out of his head when he bashes himself with a hammer, only to seek and eliminate his enemies.
And some dinosaur guy who I can't recall, I think he has freezing breath.
Seriously, I am filled with a smouldering rage.
What..?
Is this a real thing? Some company needs to do a remake pronto.
But it's not a bad game either! It's ahead of its time, plays a lot like Super Metroid mixed with Knytt, cutesy and exploration-based.
Well, it is a NES game, afterall. It was a lot of fun, and still is, but now you can really appreciate how far game design has come these days. There are obvious places where greater depth could be applied.
An intelligent modern remake in a cool new engine would be epically great though. Especially with a really good, quirky dev team.
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NocrenLt Futz, Back in ActionNorth CarolinaRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
I started reading this thread and I remembered just about every game mentioned so far (Shatterhands, Power Blade, etc) mainly because I was subscribed to Nintendo Power since like issue 8 and they had these awesome maps of all these awesome games THAT I COULD NEVER FUCKING FIND AND PLAY.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited December 2009
Yay, I've been subscribed to Nintendo Power since issue 1, then I lapsed around the N64 era, and just picked a new subscription up the past year.
There was nothing like the full game maps they used to put in that magazine. They helped me navagate so many games back in the day.
Also, how many here remember Dino Rikki? I used to love that game.
So, I'm curious. It seems like Spawnbroker is just whipping through all these games. On average, how long did it take you guys to play these games? Super Mario bros took me for fucking ever, cause I kept dying.... and also because I was like 6.
Super Mario Bros. was a pretty epic game for the time. Not only was it pretty long, but you had to complete the whole thing with the lives you had; no saving and coming back later unless you were willing to just leave your console on (which I'm guilty of).
Many games of that era were not quite so epic, however. Since there was no internet, it was nearly impossible to tell if a game totally sucked unless you had a friend who had played it... even magazines were pretty useless for this, as I found out from being a Nintendo Power subscriber; that rag existed obviously only to hype the good stuff, not give warnings about a poor game on their own system.
Thus, some games were ball-breaking hard, and nearly impossible to beat. Others were cakewalks and could be completed in a single afternoon. It was tough to find the real gems in those days, and yet I have so many fond memories. :P
A lot of the better games were ball breaking hard. See the castlevania, megaman, and ninja gaiden series.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
So, I'm curious. It seems like Spawnbroker is just whipping through all these games. On average, how long did it take you guys to play these games? Super Mario bros took me for fucking ever, cause I kept dying.... and also because I was like 6.
A lot of times it's hard to me to think about how long it took me to beat a game when I was a kid. I remember the Zelda games taking me forever, but my concept of time back then was a lot different for me too. I think that 2 weeks felt like an eternity when I was 13, but these days that feels like barely any time at all.
Super Mario Bros. 2 probably took me a week to complete. I remember convincing my parents to drive all over the place to find a copy, and all of these failed before I beat the game. A neighborhood friend had managed to buy it, and somehow I managed to convince him to lend it to me. I finally beat Wart on the morning I was supposed to give it back, right before I left for school. I dragged my grandmother over to see the amazing ending with a cartoonish Mario sleeping in bed. She played along as if she was impressed.
Just a quick update on Scheherazade. I don't know how this game is so far down on this list, because this is one of the better video games I've ever played on the NES, period. Quick update over. Game will be complete in a few hours, I'd wager
The Megaman games weren't terribly bad as far as difficulty went. Hooray for the password feature back then, which was a lot better than the shitty save battery in the Zelda games. I remember buying the first Zelda game at least a year or two after the game was originally released, and the battery didn't save any files for longer than a few hours. I HAD to leave the console running overnight if I wanted to resume play later on.
Very few games were beat back in the day without a game genie, and more recently without save states. Legit games I beat were all the Mega Mans, all the Mario Bros, all the Dragon Warriors, Final Fantasy 1, and a few others.
Games I beat by cheating were Battletoads (fuck you speedbike stages!) Ninja Gaidens, Blaster Master, TMNT 1...
1 you don't need a game genie for, but can be frustrating in two levels. 2 is rather easy. You can roll any of the boss characters if you have two clones and the ability to call up wheels for 15 power is abusive. 3, now that one is a bitch.
Just a quick update on Scheherazade. I don't know how this game is so far down on this list, because this is one of the better video games I've ever played on the NES, period. Quick update over. Game will be complete in a few hours, I'd wager
Just a quick update on Scheherazade. I don't know how this game is so far down on this list, because this is one of the better video games I've ever played on the NES, period. Quick update over. Game will be complete in a few hours, I'd wager
How did you even make the list?
I didnt make the list, I stole it from another video game blogger. That's why I disagree with many of the choices. I decided to play through it anyways, because I realized I would never agree with any list unless I personally made it.
Considering how every 5 posts or so we get someone complaining about why X game isn't on the list, I'd say it's a common problem.
Genre: Role-Playing Game
Developer: Culture Brain
Publisher: Culture Brain
The title of this game says it all: this game is magical. This is one of the better games I have had the privilege to play on the NES, and despite never having played it before this week, has become one of my all-time favorites. I honestly can't say enough good things about this game, so I'll just start with the basic storyline.
The main character is the reincarnation of the legendary magician Isfa. The evil magician Sabaron one day summons a powerful demon in an attempt to control it for his own ends. The main character attempts to stop him, and gets his memory erased and teleported to a different time period. The story consists of the main character travelling through the lands and learning back his old magic spells, while gaining allies and fucking evil things up.
This game takes a lot of Zelda mechanics and puts them to use here. First, about 3/4 of the game is played in Zelda Action-RPG mode, where the monsters run around on the screen and you use your weapons and spells to kill them. This is done very well, with a few minor exceptions. If an enemy spawns close to you, and hits you, the enemy becomes invulnerable for a little bit and he'll just hang out whacking you until you move away. This was the only real issue I had with the gameplay, but it added a layer of difficulty to the game, which is cool.
The other 1/4 of the game is spent in Dragon Warrior-esque RPG combat. This is where your allies come in to play. You can bring 2 of your allies to battle with you, and up to 4 Troopers (I'll get to these in a minute) to help. Battle is then played out in typical RPG fare, turn based, etc. It seems like a really weird way to do it, have both action and traditional RPG elements, but this game makes it work. There are also certain magic spells you can only use if you have the proper allies in battle with you, making who you pick to bring into battle important.
Troopers are an interesting mechanic in this game. You can buy 4 of them for 100 gold at nearly every town. Earlier in the game you can't really afford them, but later you're rolling in gold so you can get as many as you want. Each one gets an action, and they do quite a bit of damage later in the game. They can also act as meat shields and take hits instead of your party. I liked them a lot.
The game is also very silly in some ways. For example, one of the characters is named 'Rainy the Rain Shrimp.' How awesome is that? We need more rain shrimp in our video games. Also, the plot is fairly interesting and has some twists that I certainly wasn't expecting. I recommend you play the game to figure these out, just make sure you pay attention to the major hints that are given to you. If you guess the wrong names or make the wrong choices at certain points, it's instant game-over for you.
Another thing that really endeared me to this game: it came up with the Light / Dark world mechanic before Link to the Past did it. That's impressive. Through the entire game, you have to switch between 50 years / 300 years / 3,000 years in the past and the present time in order to continue the story. At one point, you have to travel into the future of a land where a fire demon is sucking all the warmth away from the area. You travel into the future before killing him, and the entire place is a frozen tundra. Once you defeat him, the final world is that same land except without the fire demon's influence. That's really neat, and I was impressed with the storytelling.
The last thing I'll mention is a little bit of an easter egg. One of the fairies in the fairy town tells you "Hey! Listen!" and then tells you an important piece of information. Sound familiar?
Death Count: 6
Game Over Count: 1
The Good:
-Light / Dark world mechanic way ahead of its time
-Great story, with surprising twists
-Fantastic combat system
-Traditional RPG elements
-Difficult, without being TOO hard
The Bad:
-Enemies will sometimes hit you and you can't do anything about it
Holee shit! That's a game I always wanted to play! I remember seeing it in Nintendo Power and telling all my friends about a game where you play as a dragon and get a bunch of heads, only I never actually got to play it! Or see it, or even remember the name until now. Hooray for dormant memories!
Holee shit! That's a game I always wanted to play! I remember seeing it in Nintendo Power and telling all my friends about a game where you play as a dragon and get a bunch of heads, only I never actually got to play it! Or see it, or even remember the name until now. Hooray for dormant memories!
The best way to get ahold of it is on the xbox 360 Namco Museum Virtual Arcade. The sequel is called Dragon Saber and was not released over here and has not been ported outside of Japan so it's a little hard to find a copy of it.
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SteevLWhat can I do for you?Registered Userregular
edited December 2009
The Magic of Scheherazade was a game I always saw at my local video rental store but never chose to rent for one reason or another.
Can I just say that Dragon Spirit is probably in my top ten favorite games of all time?
The squeals of pain your dragon made when you were hit sounded like someone was getting silly with a turntable.
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Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
Needs more Princess Tomato. That was probably my favorite NES game. I've always loved adventure games, the music was incredible all the way through, and it has a quirky sort of charm to it.
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Brainiac 8Don't call me Shirley...Registered Userregular
edited December 2009
Princess Tomato and the Salad Kingdom was an awesome game.
I got to the very last level and could never figure out how to beat it. I still have the cart...I really should attempt to beat it again since it's been years since I've tried.
Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
edited December 2009
I called the Nintendo help line so many times for Princess Tomato. I even usually got transferred to the same guy because he was their resident expert on that game.
I was just wondering OP, what are your thoughts on the A320 that you are using? I've been considering picking one up, but I've never spoken to anyone that has actually had some hands-on time with it. Recommended purchase or imperfect solution?
I was just wondering OP, what are your thoughts on the A320 that you are using? I've been considering picking one up, but I've never spoken to anyone that has actually had some hands-on time with it. Recommended purchase or imperfect solution?
Well, it's kind of a mixed bag right now. When it works, it's awesome. But since I'm using Windows Vista SP2, there is a hotfix that you kind of have to know about or go on the homebrew community website for the A320 to find out about.
I had to put the USBSTOR.SYS file from Windows XP in my system32 directory, replacing the newer version, in order to get my computer to recognize the device. Otherwise, it just sat there and said it couldn't install the driver.
Excellent work with The Magic of Scheherazade - as I grew older and found out about this game after the NES's lifespan, I wished I had the chance to play it. Definitely hope it makes it to the VC sometime soon.
I say you just skip 93-84. Get right into Ninja Gaiden 2. A bunch of games in that tier that I'm unfamiliar with, or just familiar enough with that I can easily say "Don't waste your time". Yes, even Rampage. I played that game with a friend with Game Genie and I think it didn't really end. We got to stage 100+. While repetition in Rampage is half of the fun, it does lose some effect after the 30th or so same stage layout.
I say you just skip 93-84. Get right into Ninja Gaiden 2. A bunch of games in that tier that I'm unfamiliar with, or just familiar enough with that I can easily say "Don't waste your time". Yes, even Rampage. I played that game with a friend with Game Genie and I think it didn't really end. We got to stage 100+. While repetition in Rampage is half of the fun, it does lose some effect after the 30th or so same stage layout.
It has 128 levels, I believe. (Half of one byte, it shows up a lot in old games.)
I remember marathonning Rampage on the NES with my dad. I'm pretty sure you could just keep continuing, or jumping in on whatever controller was dead, so you didn't need a game genie. After you beat everything (I think there's a map that shows up from time to time, showing you how much of the U.S. you have punched), the game shows you a big map of the U.S., your creature comes onscreen and punches the map, and it says "Congratulations" (maybe with an exclamation mark?)...
Two exclamation marks!! There's a credit roll, but I really think the game starts over after the credits. Blank map, no weirdness like a second quest. Huge let down.
one of my all time favorites was Ghosts and Goblins. I played this game when I was a kid and only made it past the first level once. I usually could only get to the first check point. a buddy and I bought it again in college and played it every Thursday for a year and could finally get to the last guy, only to realize you had to pick up some power up from a level earlier to get the real ending haha
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Shoulda been Archon instead.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2FGStARSys
Check out my art! Buy some prints!
Super Mario Bros. was a pretty epic game for the time. Not only was it pretty long, but you had to complete the whole thing with the lives you had; no saving and coming back later unless you were willing to just leave your console on (which I'm guilty of).
Many games of that era were not quite so epic, however. Since there was no internet, it was nearly impossible to tell if a game totally sucked unless you had a friend who had played it... even magazines were pretty useless for this, as I found out from being a Nintendo Power subscriber; that rag existed obviously only to hype the good stuff, not give warnings about a poor game on their own system.
Thus, some games were ball-breaking hard, and nearly impossible to beat. Others were cakewalks and could be completed in a single afternoon. It was tough to find the real gems in those days, and yet I have so many fond memories. :P
Well, it is a NES game, afterall. It was a lot of fun, and still is, but now you can really appreciate how far game design has come these days. There are obvious places where greater depth could be applied.
An intelligent modern remake in a cool new engine would be epically great though. Especially with a really good, quirky dev team.
There was nothing like the full game maps they used to put in that magazine. They helped me navagate so many games back in the day.
Also, how many here remember Dino Rikki? I used to love that game.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
A lot of the better games were ball breaking hard. See the castlevania, megaman, and ninja gaiden series.
A lot of times it's hard to me to think about how long it took me to beat a game when I was a kid. I remember the Zelda games taking me forever, but my concept of time back then was a lot different for me too. I think that 2 weeks felt like an eternity when I was 13, but these days that feels like barely any time at all.
Super Mario Bros. 2 probably took me a week to complete. I remember convincing my parents to drive all over the place to find a copy, and all of these failed before I beat the game. A neighborhood friend had managed to buy it, and somehow I managed to convince him to lend it to me. I finally beat Wart on the morning I was supposed to give it back, right before I left for school. I dragged my grandmother over to see the amazing ending with a cartoonish Mario sleeping in bed. She played along as if she was impressed.
My Backloggery
Very few games were beat back in the day without a game genie, and more recently without save states. Legit games I beat were all the Mega Mans, all the Mario Bros, all the Dragon Warriors, Final Fantasy 1, and a few others.
Games I beat by cheating were Battletoads (fuck you speedbike stages!) Ninja Gaidens, Blaster Master, TMNT 1...
Steam: TheArcadeBear
o_O
1 you don't need a game genie for, but can be frustrating in two levels. 2 is rather easy. You can roll any of the boss characters if you have two clones and the ability to call up wheels for 15 power is abusive. 3, now that one is a bitch.
How did you even make the list?
I didnt make the list, I stole it from another video game blogger. That's why I disagree with many of the choices. I decided to play through it anyways, because I realized I would never agree with any list unless I personally made it.
Considering how every 5 posts or so we get someone complaining about why X game isn't on the list, I'd say it's a common problem.
This is an awesome idea tho, I applaud you.
The Magic of Scheherazade
Genre: Role-Playing Game
Developer: Culture Brain
Publisher: Culture Brain
The title of this game says it all: this game is magical. This is one of the better games I have had the privilege to play on the NES, and despite never having played it before this week, has become one of my all-time favorites. I honestly can't say enough good things about this game, so I'll just start with the basic storyline.
The main character is the reincarnation of the legendary magician Isfa. The evil magician Sabaron one day summons a powerful demon in an attempt to control it for his own ends. The main character attempts to stop him, and gets his memory erased and teleported to a different time period. The story consists of the main character travelling through the lands and learning back his old magic spells, while gaining allies and fucking evil things up.
This game takes a lot of Zelda mechanics and puts them to use here. First, about 3/4 of the game is played in Zelda Action-RPG mode, where the monsters run around on the screen and you use your weapons and spells to kill them. This is done very well, with a few minor exceptions. If an enemy spawns close to you, and hits you, the enemy becomes invulnerable for a little bit and he'll just hang out whacking you until you move away. This was the only real issue I had with the gameplay, but it added a layer of difficulty to the game, which is cool.
The other 1/4 of the game is spent in Dragon Warrior-esque RPG combat. This is where your allies come in to play. You can bring 2 of your allies to battle with you, and up to 4 Troopers (I'll get to these in a minute) to help. Battle is then played out in typical RPG fare, turn based, etc. It seems like a really weird way to do it, have both action and traditional RPG elements, but this game makes it work. There are also certain magic spells you can only use if you have the proper allies in battle with you, making who you pick to bring into battle important.
Troopers are an interesting mechanic in this game. You can buy 4 of them for 100 gold at nearly every town. Earlier in the game you can't really afford them, but later you're rolling in gold so you can get as many as you want. Each one gets an action, and they do quite a bit of damage later in the game. They can also act as meat shields and take hits instead of your party. I liked them a lot.
The game is also very silly in some ways. For example, one of the characters is named 'Rainy the Rain Shrimp.' How awesome is that? We need more rain shrimp in our video games. Also, the plot is fairly interesting and has some twists that I certainly wasn't expecting. I recommend you play the game to figure these out, just make sure you pay attention to the major hints that are given to you. If you guess the wrong names or make the wrong choices at certain points, it's instant game-over for you.
Another thing that really endeared me to this game: it came up with the Light / Dark world mechanic before Link to the Past did it. That's impressive. Through the entire game, you have to switch between 50 years / 300 years / 3,000 years in the past and the present time in order to continue the story. At one point, you have to travel into the future of a land where a fire demon is sucking all the warmth away from the area. You travel into the future before killing him, and the entire place is a frozen tundra. Once you defeat him, the final world is that same land except without the fire demon's influence. That's really neat, and I was impressed with the storytelling.
The last thing I'll mention is a little bit of an easter egg. One of the fairies in the fairy town tells you "Hey! Listen!" and then tells you an important piece of information. Sound familiar?
Death Count: 6
Game Over Count: 1
The Good:
-Light / Dark world mechanic way ahead of its time
-Great story, with surprising twists
-Fantastic combat system
-Traditional RPG elements
-Difficult, without being TOO hard
The Bad:
-Enemies will sometimes hit you and you can't do anything about it
Rating: 5/5
And, hey, I like Zelda and Chrono Trigger. Maybe I should try to see if I can check this one out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTgyWHxqg7c&feature=related
I wish more lists had this on it.
Awesome job going through all these NES games though. You're making me nostalgic as hell.
Is it out on the Virtual Console?
edit: re: The Magic of Scheherazade
The best way to get ahold of it is on the xbox 360 Namco Museum Virtual Arcade. The sequel is called Dragon Saber and was not released over here and has not been ported outside of Japan so it's a little hard to find a copy of it.
My Backloggery
My grandma had that game. It was pretty badass.
Your grandma is pretty badass.
The squeals of pain your dragon made when you were hit sounded like someone was getting silly with a turntable.
I got to the very last level and could never figure out how to beat it. I still have the cart...I really should attempt to beat it again since it's been years since I've tried.
Nintendo Network ID - Brainiac_8
PSN - Brainiac_8
Steam - http://steamcommunity.com/id/BRAINIAC8/
Add me!
Well, it's kind of a mixed bag right now. When it works, it's awesome. But since I'm using Windows Vista SP2, there is a hotfix that you kind of have to know about or go on the homebrew community website for the A320 to find out about.
I had to put the USBSTOR.SYS file from Windows XP in my system32 directory, replacing the newer version, in order to get my computer to recognize the device. Otherwise, it just sat there and said it couldn't install the driver.
I bought ninja gaiden 2 in 1991. December 25th 2009 was a monumental day in my life because I finally beat the demon.
I think it's the best of the trilogy as well, they refined a lot from 1 and 3 was just weird/unfair.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
It has 128 levels, I believe. (Half of one byte, it shows up a lot in old games.)
Then it starts over at the beginning.
Ah, here we are:
Two exclamation marks!! There's a credit roll, but I really think the game starts over after the credits. Blank map, no weirdness like a second quest. Huge let down.