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In a funk of half-asleep ebay biddery, I've gone and won Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Anybody played it?

Also, I saw an actual Retron5 in an FNAC in Lisbon recently. Does anybody know if there are any machines in the pipeline that will play N64 carts? I feel like a machine that could play the whole cartridge catalogue from NES to N64 would be pretty irresistible.

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In a funk of half-asleep ebay biddery, I've gone and won Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Anybody played it?

Do yourself a favor and play it with a guide. It's inscrutable in a totally un-fun way.

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Couldn't resist picking up a pal for Ness. Has anyone played Mother 3? I'm eyeing a cart with an English translation but it feels like Nintendo might put out an official version over the Wii U VC. It would certainly be a ballache to localise but I think EarthBound has done well enough for them to make it viable. And although I'd prefer The Official TranslationTM, I'd much rather play it on a portable. Has anybody had any experience with repro carts or fan trans?

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I wouldn't be so sure Nintendo would do that, I can't say much without spoiling it, but if US Nintendo can't handle petting humans on the head in the new Fire Emblem, they will never release Mother 3, the US side of Nintendo seems to be ridiculously conservative compared to the Japanese side. Get the fan translation.

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I bought myself an early birthday present which arrived this morning:

photo_zpsskn2jgkf.jpg

 

I decided that although I love physical games and hardware, I have neither the space or the money to invest in umpteen modded consoles. Plus time is a luxury and save states are my friends. This works nicely with modern TVs and lets me play any region I fancy. So far I've only fired up a couple of things to fiddle with settings but first impressions are very positive. The bundled bluetooth pad actually feels fine in your hands but the buttons are really horrible loud clicky things - I plugged in my SNES pad and won't go back. I've tested it with Castlevania II and these:

 

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No filters, only scanlines. Everything looks so good!

 

Playing Streets of Rage, it felt really slow and chunky after the recent 3DS version. I went into the menu and changed the 'console' from EU to JP and the game shot into 60hz. The music sped up too until I reset the cart and from then on it was silky smooth. USA too. Man, we PAL gamers really got screwed back in the olden days! Thankfully most of us never knew any better.

 

I'll report problems or anything that's particularly cool. It's slightly strange playing Streets of Rage with a SNES pad but the config on the 3DS is the same. In the meantime, 'physical' emulation FTW!

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So, I played Bare Knuckle III for the first time EVER on Saturday night on the Retron. It's so good! It really feels like Streets of Rage 2+, with slighter faster and more fluid moves. Skate (or Sammy) in particular feels better where I found him stilted before. It looks fantastic and I played it with an English translation patch, which helped with the cutscenes. The story in general is much more explicit than the previous games. It's noticeably easier than 2 (we got to Round 7 first time on Normal with no save state shenanigans) and although the music isn't as immediately catchy, it does grow on you. I definitely recommend finding it if you have the means.

 

I just ordered Aladdin for MD (hopefully I can make it out of the cave on that damn carpet with save states!) and I'm steadily building a select library of Super Famicom carts. Street Fighter II Turbo arrived this morning and I'm waiting on ActRaiser and Front Mission. Does anybody have any recommendations for imports?

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I played Parasite Eve and while the whole mitochondria plot is a bit silly by modern science standards, I really enjoyed the game although it was kinda easy, except for the finale which is hard for dumb reasons (you're being chased and have to fight the final boss again if you get caught).

 

It a bit weird, it almost seems like each area was created by a different team? Only a few areas have completely hidden items needed to continue the story and the weirdest thing of all? It seems you only automatically discard keys in the hospital after using them, for the rest of the game you have to discard them manually.

 

It feels like the tried to make a "survival horror RPG" and failed because you'll be swimming in bullets pretty soon, which reminds me how weird the ammo works. All the weapons use the same ammo, including the grenade launchers, but only one or two weapons use an actual rocket ammo.

 

All this stuff makes me think that maybe the game was slightly rushed or they just didn't have time to give the game the extra polish... I still think it's great though and I'll playing EX mode now where you have a 70 floor dungeon, which is random and a bit dull, but still enjoyable?

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I remember really enjoying Parasite EVE 1 and 2. I even played the PSP game and it was all right. I hope that one day it gets a reboot or something.

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I just finished the "EX" tower in Parasite Eve... when did this trend of an post game dungeon begin? 

 

I must say, the guides got me scared over nothing, the final boss wasn't THAT hard. 

 

I never beat Parasite Eve 2, I guess it's a good time to try. Does the gameplay change a lot from game to game?

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IF my PS3's disc drive worked I would definitely be buying PS1 games. It's a big gap for me. I never owned one but I played Die Hard Trilogy and Twisted Metal round a friend's house.

 

 is doing the rounds at the moment. It's a very glitchy WIP but the Mega Man and Castlevania demos show some potential, I think. They have a strong stopmotion diorama feel.

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I just finished the "EX" tower in Parasite Eve... when did this trend of an post game dungeon begin? 

 

I must say, the guides got me scared over nothing, the final boss wasn't THAT hard. 

 

I never beat Parasite Eve 2, I guess it's a good time to try. Does the gameplay change a lot from game to game?

 

I remember the process of leveling up, customizing your character, etc. changing quite a bit, but not the gameplay? It's been a decade though.

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I've decided to sell my Retron 5. I sat down yesterday with Yoshi's Island and Sonic 3 & Knuckles but it wasn't a flawless experience. It works well enough and although I've never had any real problems, I've never been convinced by the build quality. In the year (wow, almost to the day!) I've had it, I've completed and (mostly) enjoyed Streets of Rage 3, Aladdin, Sword of Vermillion (!), Grunty's Revenge, New Ghostbusters II, Batman, Simon's Quest and Super Mario Bros 2, plus various blasts on my old games. It's a decent system, notwithstanding the crappy controller, but selling it will allow me to justify a Switch in its place. Plus I wash away the uncleanliness of the hijacked emulator issue.

 

The thing that really pushed me over the edge is this Kickstarter launching in April. It's a slick looking website but, after reading up on the console, it seems to have a bit of pedigree and they are addressing all the obvious concerns. Minus points for MORE lumps of plastic but it's got a disk drive! Frankly, if N64 was part of the initial batch, they'd already have my money. But again, that's something they address and their modular design allows for a certain amount of future proofing. I'm cautious, but it looks promising. More details to come, but now is DEFINITELY the time to pick up those PS1 games that escaped. There's a FAQ about the system here and an interview with the devs here.

 

Also, I'm calling Mother 3 on March 3rd for Switch VC. It's crazy there's been no mention of VC and it's less than 2 weeks away. They must have something in the works. Or maybe it'll launch the paid online thing.

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This seems like a good place to make my first contribution...

 

I get a bit precious about the term 'Retro' - nobody talks about retro-reading after all... But, yeah, anyway... I play everything I can from any year - except RPGs because bleurgh, RPGs.

 

This was my old games room before we moved to a tiny barn for 2 years:

https://goo.gl/Omq412

https://goo.gl/IK8vlX

 

This is what will become my games room now that we've moved back to surburbia:

https://goo.gl/JgmB1s

 

I've got 25 consoles, 10 handhelds, and a half decent PC to squeeze in there somehow!

 

 

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My dodgy Wii U analogue came courtesy of my cat. Git.

 

Nuts to shelves - you need some sort of console carousel for all those! Or various islands set up around the room...

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1 hour ago, dartmonkey said:

Or various islands set up around the room...

I'd love that, but the usable floor space will only be about 6x3 metres.

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Almost have all the insulation up in the rafters for my games room - starting to think about which old consoles will go where/connect to what.

 

To that end, remembering that the the multi-disc DVD player I was using as a surround amp  was on its last legs when I packed it up I managed to pick up this little (enourmous)  beauty for £25:

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6gybJ2pnWG0eFRuNW1oaVdfSDA

 

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Soooo, I've been playing some old games. On Switch I've got King of Fighters '98 and I downloaded Garou over the weekend. They're both incredible looking and they're great games to play with my wife because we're both indiscriminate button mashers.

 

Also on Switch, Wonder Boy. :tup:You should definitely try it out if you're at all interested in 8-bit games.

 

I got Wave Race 64 for 1.99€ - man, what a fantastic game! It looks primitive but Nintendo nailed the controls and the waves. There's no fiddly boost or anything; in fact, you can play it one-handed. Blue Storm on Gamecube prettified the whole package but 64 really had it down. I really think (and have written before) that Nintendo need to bring back this B-tier of games on Switch. 1080, Excitebike, F-Zero and Wave Race were all great back in the 64-bit era and we haven't really had any of them since the Gamecube (the underrated ExciteTruck notwithstanding). Anyway, Wave Race 64:tup:

 

After taking delivery of the last of my gear from my parents' loft, I finally have my Dreamcast here! Now to decide if I can dedicate time to Shenmue 2. If so, I'll be using a walkthrough. I'm going to try and do Chrono Trigger on DS over the summer, again with a walkthrough. Perhaps it's a shame but the reality is either use a guide to play the game, or never play the game. No contest really.

 

Also, that Retroblox console I mentioned has been delayed due to a name change. Some concerned company contacted them after the reveal and they decided to rebrand. A shame as the name/logo tied in nicely to the concept. I imagine the console will be cropping up again somewhen in the next month or two - I don't know if E3 would be a good time to launch that kickstarter or not.

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It was a beautiful weekend in my part of England so I decided to try out a 'Retrobright' (ish) solution I read about a while ago.

 

Couple of weeks back I bought a one litre bottle of 12% peroxide cream from eBay.

 

The thing I read suggested mixing this with 'Vanish oxy-action' but, since I didn't have this I  mixed the cream with a little bicarbonate of soda and painted it onto the number keys of my very yellowed Amiga 600 keyboard.

Then it was left out in the sun for 3 hours.

 

This was the result

 

Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

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Well that's really cool. I wonder if it would work on the finish of an old console as well.

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I don't see why it wouldn't.

I have a slightly yellowed Dreamcast I'm planning to try it on.

I'll post some good before and after pics.

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Yesterday 8bitdo released a firmware update making all of their controllers Switch compatible. As the first third-party controllers of any kind for Switch, this is pretty big news!

 

I've used but never owned an 8bitdo controller, so after yesterday's announcement I ordered an SFC30 and it arrived this morning. It's really lovely! Unlike most third-party retro controllers (including their own NES / FC30 / Pro), the SNES / SFC30 look and feel almost indistinguishable from the originals.

 

I just tried it out on my Switch, and it synced and worked seamlessly. I'm looking forward to playing through Shovel Knight, Wonder Boy, and whatever comes out on VC.

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