[VIRTUAL CONSOLE] Secret Santa: The Thankening

maximumzero

Link to the old thread.

This is the thread where the discuss the success of this year's Virtual Console Secret Santa. Who did you get as your santa? Who was your santa? What did you send? What did you receive? What do you think of what you got? Is it the first time you've played said game? Why did you send what you did. Thoughts on the whole damned thing!

Discuss.

My Santee was Cameron_Talley. I sent him Bonk's Adventure & Ghouls 'n' Ghosts. In his post from the last thread he said he grew up a Nintendo guy, as I had, so he asked for stuff that wasn't from Nintendo consoles. I sent him Bonk's Advenure because it was NEC/Hudson's big platformer response to Sonic & Mario, and I've always heard good things about it, so I figured he'd like it. As far as Ghouls 'n' Ghosts is concerned, the G'n'G series has always been one of my favorites, but growing up without a Genesis meant that I never played the series entry on that console. I assumed it would be as good as the other two, and it is, to an extent. Though I haven't picked up Ultimate G'n'G for my PSP...hmm.

Anywho, Elendil sent me Punch-Out and Ristar, two games I've definitely never owned before. Growing up with the NES meant that I played a hell of a lot of Punch-Out, but it was always a rental or a neighbor's copy. I love the game, though I've been stuck on Soda Popinski since Christmas and frankly it's pissing me off. As far as Ristar goes, never played it either, but definitely a fun game, if not a bit slow paced.

TheSonicRetard

maximumzero wrote: »

As far as Ristar goes, never played it either, but definitely a fun game, if not a big slow paced.

From the Sega superstar tennis thread, a fun fact about Ristar:

Ristar was originally the concept for Sonic the Hedgehog. Developed in concept in 1990, Ristar began as a bunny rabbit who used his ears to pick up rings and throw them at enemies. Yuji Naka thought this gameplay element slowed the game down too much, and when the switch was made to a hedgehog, the idea came up to let the player turn into a ball and throw themselves at enemies instead of rings, hence the stretchy ears idea was dropped. Interestingly enough, this idea would get revisited years later in Sonic Adventure 2 when Sonic gained the ability to throw rings.

Internal Sega concept art when Sonic and Ristar where the same character:


Anyways, after Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic team returned to make their next game. Resurrecting the idea of being able to stretch your ears, the game was reborn as feel, where you played a small black ball with 2 long yellow ears who used his hands to grab at stuff and throw them. At the last minute, Feel was changed to ristar, and the character was redrawn to resemble a star.

Ristar runs on the same game engine as Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, and uses the same graphics compression.

A beta image of Ristar back when he was Feel:

As for me, I wanted to participate in secret santa, but I spent over $200 on my family alone, using money I got from selling games and books. I was broke and, though I wanted to participate, I simply didnt have the money. Oh well, maybe next year.

maximumzero

Yeah Ristar is definitely one of those games I wanted to play growing up, but not having a Genesis kinda hurt those chances.

Couscous

Ristar is one of those that I need to play. I got it for less than a dollar and still haven't played it.