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[PATV] Wednesday, July 25, 2012 - Extra Credits Season 4, Ep. 23: Games You Might Not Have Tried: 16
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
This week, we list some under-appreciated titles from the beloved 16-bit era.<br /> Come discuss this topic in the <a href="http://extra-credits.net/episodes/games-you-might-not-have-tried-16-bit/#discuss" target="_blank">forums</a>!
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If you ever do one for the PS1/N64 era of consoles, you have to include "Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon" for the Nintendo 64. Think Mario 64 platforming mixed with OoT dungeon crawling (though maybe not as refined) with a shockingly large open world to explore in. The story is hilariously written with a ridiculous plot and I still laugh out loud at some of the story's twists. It seems to be really under the radar, but whenever I do find someone that has played it, they typically have the same high opinion as mine.
As for future subcatagories in these episodes, I'd say do an episode on the PS2 (with some Xbox and Gamecube thrown in, or just a whole episode for Gen. 6 consoles). The system has easily 1000+ games, there are bound to be some obscure gems hidden in that huge pile. Plus it's more reasonable for people to play with PS2s still available to buy.
I'd love to see a PS1/N64 episode next. The playstation is one of my favorite systems, alongside the SNES and DS.
Steam: pazython
Speaking of magic cats, two games I'd love to see mentioned in a hypothetical future PS2 episode would be Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2, strange names to be sure but wonderful games nonetheless.
They all suffered the same fate most Atlus titles did before the recent Persona games, they were great, were acknowledged as such but never really sold all that well.
I'd also throw in SMT 3: Nocturne into the mix, but that one isn't really as obscure.
Most of Koei's other titles were strategy games. These boardgame style masterpieces included Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liberty or Death, Nobunaga's Ambition, and IMO the best boardgame style strategy game ever made, Pacific Theater of Operations 2. They also had a really fun business sim called Aerobiz Supersonic that was actually a pretty big hit with my friends.
Great ep guys.
The Odyssey 2 games are interesting in that the system appears to be way under powered when compared to the Atari 2600. The graphics were mostly made from prerendered spites, so it was effectively text mode. While many of the games were obvious knock offs of popular games, they were slightly tweaked with unique features and graphical touches that showed care. Their Master Strategy series attempted to overcome the system's limitations by incorporating a board game into play. Quest For the Rings is considered the best of this series.
The Intellivision is interesting because it comes across as a thinking man's Atari. It had the numeric keypad that used overlays for the various games and often these buttons were put to use, unlike in later systems like the Atari 5200 or Colecovision. This led to more strategy-based gameplay that was rare in video games at the time unless you were using a computer. Interestingly, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Cartridge AKA Cloudy Mountain plays somewhat similar to Odyssey 2's Quest For the Rings with a boardgame-like overworld map that merely determines which underground labyrinth you enter. The differences end there as AD&D's gameplay is more inspired by the old text computer game Hunt the Wumpus where sound and graphical "clues" let you know which monsters are nearby and where they might be.
The Odyssey 2 is largely out of print and difficult to find outside of emulation sites. Intellivision has game compulations on most of the major platforms for the last decade including the Nintendo DS which recreates the keypad on the touch screen. Even so, I'm sure most of the current generation is unfamiliar with these systems except as punchlines in episodes of South Park.
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
As for games you might have missed, Live-A-Live and Seiken Densetsu 3 were both fantastic JRPGs (Tactic and Action, respectively) which were never translated into English, but which can be played nowadays thanks to the wonders of fan translation.
Another World AKA Out Of This World and Flashback are both pretty awesome, although they might be a bit to well known to qualify for you.
Glad to see Terranigma get some love.
Practical: You folks asked for requests for sub-genres: There was a non-mainstream push for gaming systems (largely CD based) before the PS1 came out--of course this gave us say, the Sega Saturn, but it also gave us the 32x, 3DO, the ...CDI, I think? And I'm probably missing some. The prices of the consoles were ludicrous and the games were just weird (see: the pseudo-animated Zelda games for the CDI). I'd like to see an episode on games from that weird in-between era.
Mostly unrelated: So, the virtual console on the Wii (and 3DS? haven't tried it) is probably the most readily available source for older games that I'm aware of. But let's be honest, I'm not going to drop $5-10 on the majority of games in the shop. The odds are really high that I'd play it for 15 minutes, get frustrated and/or bored, and never play again. Would a subscription model a la netflix work on the virtual console or some related service? One thing I love about netflix (streaming) is that I can try random shows or movies for just 10 minutes, and if I don't care for it, I"m not out any extra money. I'd love to have that feature on the VC, and maybe the game publishers could make more money too.
Team Fortress 2 Backpack: Someone you love
PD: Yes, I DO like the Shadowrun PC game. It's a innovative FPS that only bombed because it was tied to Directx10 and upgrading to Vista.
PD2: Can't wait for Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Online.
Rocket Knight Adventures
Sub-Terrania
Puggsy
I'd like to suggest an episode about Sega Saturn games.