GPX

On 1/27/2024 at 4:22 AM, Gentlegamer said:

Wonder Boy III - The Dragon's Trap

Zelda II - The Adventure of Link

The Battle of Olympus

You can argue that every foundational game is derived from Atari and the NES/Master System. However, you can also argue that a foundational game is the first of its kind for whatever platform it’s on. Remembering also that a large group of PS1 fans might never have tried the NES/MS. 

With the examples you highlighted, certainly there were platform, exploration and some light RPG elements. Castlevania SOTN magnified them elements to make it feel like a genuine mishmash of genres, to sort of create a new genre in itself. Kind of like mixing colors to create a new color.

I’ve only see about 3-4 of the titles on the list, with Castle of Cagliostro being one of my favourite anime movie of all time, and Lupin being one of my favourite series of all time. 

Miyazaki is like the Miyamoto of anime, both know how to fully translate their imagination into reality. 

I vote @OptOut the winner of best awards host, on top of his class clown award!

Fun read!

1 hour ago, Link said:

A transcript of the pre-interview:

Splain: before we start, I’m going to need you to curl up in the fetal position.

GPS: this seems rather unnecessary, all I wanted to do was just a plain interview.

Spain: it’s VGS’s policy for…err…research purposes.

GPS: is it too late to back out? I’m having second thoughts.

Splain: trust me, just count to three, it’ll be relatively pain-free!

4 hours ago, Brickman said:

I always thought you were from NZ GPX! Glad to have another Australian around and a great read  

I’m from Oz, but in the Southern state. Hope you’re enjoying the long weekend mate!

On 1/25/2024 at 5:31 AM, DefaultGen said:

SOTN is a foundational game! We wouldn't be forced to deal with the term """Metroidvania""" without it, and you're not going to tell me anyone would ever say that if only Simon's Quest existed. 10/10 by default.

SOTN is 100% a foundational game. I struggle to recall a game quite like it at the time when it had came out. It added genuine RPG elements to the Metroid theme, but you get to play with whips and swords.

10 hours ago, Link said:

No. I did not. You may review the second half of the previous page if you are confused.

Oh, sorry! I didn’t see you quote anyone so I thought that was a response to the topic question.

The old “thinking someone’s confused, when it’s you that’s confused” switcheroo!

7 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Finally I can separate @GPX and @PII as two distinct people in my mind 

If it helps to distinguish us further, I’m the guy who likes to talk about WATA, even though I don’t own any WATA games!

I thought of you when I put up the SNES pic. Can we be SNES buddies now? 

Thanks @Splain for the gentle questioning. It was done quickly and relatively pain-free!

8 hours ago, Link said:

When I watch youtube, most of the time it's in the app on my phone or TV  

Did you post on the wrong thread by any chance?

19 hours ago, koifish said:

Part of it is the wording for the polls. I would give batman for nes a 10 personally, but would never say "everyone should play it". It's not a foundational game. It's still great though, so I give it 8.

In this case, symphony isn't a bad game, just a boring game. Too easy is a cardinal sin for my gaming needs. Having to make the game hard for yourself on purpose is more often than not a failure on the devs.

That said, I did play a while and I might enjoy playing it again or on occasion, so 6 text speaks to me.

Music is my other most important part of a game. There are plenty of games where the only part I like the soundtrack (ie. FF7). I won't rate boring games highly just because the music is good however. Just mentioning because symphony is a great soundtrack. Yamane also did my favorite CV, Bloodlines, so there's a little extra bias there.

Anything that isn't gameplay won't change my opinion 99% of the time. Great atmosphere /music/you name it is meaningless if the game is bad. When I want a story I read a book. When I want visuals I go to a museum, or to a park, or to a movie. When I want music I put on an album. When I want to play I boot up a game. If the game is dull then why am I here? I can get story/etc by watching someone else play it instead.

It’s interesting how you think the game is dull when it has so much going on, and more stuff to do than any other 2D-Castlevania in existence at the time it had came out, and even in the following decade after it. 

I don’t want to argue further with the scores, just curious what you think is a better representation of a 2D-Castlevania? 

Honestly, if it tastes good I’ll munch on the bones too!

On 1/22/2024 at 8:51 AM, mbd39 said:

Dust and grime can cause unresponsiveness but I don't think they increase stiffness which has to do with the materials themselves and might loosen up with use.

 

 

Are you 100% sure on this?

1 hour ago, koifish said:

It's not bad, but not great either. Cardinal sin is that it's way too easy (you have to make your own difficulty) and it gets boring long before its over (I quit before even getting to the upside down castle). Meaningless padding of a billion items and abilities that you'll never use is novel for replays and detritus otherwise.

Great music and art though, and if you suck at games then you can just grind until you win, a great boon to hack journalists and internet game reviewers. I'll give it a 7/10; If you suck at platformers then this is the one for you!

The soundtrack is 11/10 though; Download that and listen to it a lot. In fact, download every CV soundtrack.

EDIT: Changed my mind. 6/10

 

Let me know when you're in Seattle and I'll take you up on that!

 

Your ebay notification is showing. XYZ

I feel this is a post for giggles more than serious. 6/10? Considering you really liked the music, the atmosphere, and didn’t complain about the games main content. The heavy-loaded inventory is a bonus, really. Players can opt to bypass collecting the non-essentials and there is certainly a solid core game in there. 

Personally I didn’t care about the inventory as much, but loved the character supports (familiars) and how they can be powered up while you power up. I loved to see how those familiars change over the course of levelling up. It’s almost like there’s a 3rd genre of “Pokémon games” within the main Metroidvania theme.

Don’t get me wrong, any score is up to you, it just feels that your end score doesn’t quite correlate with your comments.

On 1/20/2024 at 2:32 AM, mbd39 said:

If diagonals are tough to hit due to stiffness then that stiffness can decrease over time with use. This is my experience with NES dpads.

 

I think the reverse can apply too ie. stiffness in controls can worsen over time. Dust and grime build up could occur. So maybe a general clean of the controller both on the outside and inside, might improve functionality.

21 hours ago, OptOut said:

Alright, I'm gonna come out and just say it: flying through the rings is fun! It's actually fun!!!

Yeah, Superman handles like a flying shopping cart, especially if you have to stop and turn around, but frankly that's a SKILL issue, IMO. If you can handle a trident controller and a stiff stick, it's not even a thing. 

Are you referring to only the rings stage? Or his movements throughout the whole game? Impressed with your enthusiasm with all things N64. I’m now in the contemplation phase with regards to this game.

@MrWunderful

Nice catch! Always good to see a nice score is still around in someone’s attic/garage!

I’m interested in a Sonic CD if one is still available. You mentioned possible future trades, what are you collecting for so we can know what to put up as future trade offers?
 

Train your thumb to get bigger?

On 1/16/2024 at 8:41 AM, the_wizard_666 said:

Right?  Like, when I saw that comment where 2500 seemed small, it kinda confused me.  I have more than double that, but 2500 games is still a massive collection.  Even Gloves at 550 has a hell of a collection.  Saying it's small is some weird passive aggressive overcompensation imo.

In this current era, numbers are starting to become meaningless. Pretty much anyone with a steady job can easily buy several big game bundles and voila! Instant 1000 games collection!

Unless of course if someone owns 1000 holy moly grails, then I think that would be pretty cool! Still, the number of the collection alone does not reflect the passion or uniqueness of the collection, it’s simply just…numbers.

On 1/17/2024 at 10:33 AM, CastletonSnob said:

Don't feel too bad for not being able to tell an authentic game from a repro right away?

Are you coming here seeking tips or wanting to troll people who’s giving you the tips?

10 minutes ago, Sumez said:

While the achievement is definitely a new milestone for NES Tetris, the terminology of "beating" the game is super misleading, and is really more a question of moving the goalpost.

A decade or so ago, "beating" NEStris involved reaching what was previously considered the killscreen.
Eventually, enough people were able to max out the score at 999,999 points that this became the accepted standard for "beating" the game, but even then a higher challenge existed for doing the same thing but on a level 19 start.

The goal post started moving once kids started using special techniques to mash buttons faster than possible by any of the other old fogeys still playing the game, and it's at least interesting to consider that if autofire were allowed in the game's competitive scene, this recent milestone would likely have been reached years if not decades ago - basically, the limitation of your sideways movement is the primary challenge in NES Tetris moreso than just the stacking.

But even now, with this kid reaching the point where the game just crashes, that doesn't mean you still can't take the challenge further. Depending on how you play it's possible to delay this crash and rack up more lines, more levels, and more points before it happens. So once that happens, that person will be the next person to "beat Tetris for the first time". Again.

I wasn’t trying to mislead, but probably more to do with me not appreciating the nuances of Tetris’ layers of challenges. I never really got into playing the NES so never thought too much of Tetris until the recent record breaking news. 

Nevertheless, this topic is still relevant because it takes a special kind of game for many players to persist with it, over many tries and decades with the aim to reach the pinnacle of what the game has to offer. Even if I haven’t touched Tetris for probably 30 years, I can still appreciate it as a historic piece of work. The question I’m posing, is how many games are similar to the effect of what Tetris has on the gaming community?

This is a tough one. If I had completed it, usually it was a fun experience and a memorable one. If it was a mediocre experience and easily forgettable then I would have forgotten it by now!

I think it would have to be something from an emulation game, likely something which was fun enough to play once, but added nothing new to the genre for me to go back to it ever again.

For now, I’m going to say Rival Turf on the SNES. It was a straight up Final Fight clone with less graphics/atmosphere/sounds. Beat it once, never touched it again since.

It’s pretty amazing how it’s been nearly 35 years for someone to “beat” Tetris on the NES. Imagine how many players have tried it, then multiply it by the number of attempts at playing it over and over again. The total attempts must be in the billions over the decades!

So by an extension to the thought above, I wonder what would be other game(s) that’s taken years to be completed by the gaming community? Would have to be both addictive and challenging, I’d imagine. Addictive enough to make you want to endure the lengthy process. Challenging enough to last the months/years to complete it, but not overly impossible so as to not put you off entirely as a gamer. A real balancing act!

@the_wizard_666, I think there are 2 separate issues from what I can tell from your original post:

1. “I feel not quite well mentally and physically”. This is an important statement that shouldn’t be glossed over, and for others to put more focus on the valuation of your games. If you are feeling rundown/depressed/burnout, my genuine advice is to focus on getting yourself better first and foremost (if applicable). Thinking too much about the “what to do” and the “what ifs” might wear you down even further rather than help to solve your issues. In the least, don’t let the thinking of your future inventory sales to be more of a mental burden than what you’re feeling now. 

2. What’s the best way to go about to release your games to the family members to make it as easy for them as possible while not allowing them to be ripped off by other people?

I don’t think it’s ever going to be an easy answer, because it would depend on various factors that are unknown:

- family members’ future attitudes on your collection?

- family members’ health and available time to sell off the collection if they plan to sell? 

- prices for games into the future can look drastically different to the values of the present. 

I don’t want to overcomplicate things for you, but just want to point out the perspective that the “best answer” to your topic today, might not be the “best answer” in the future. I think keep the plan simple, but don’t expect it to go 100% smooth should be the expectation.

9 hours ago, T-Pac said:

@RH @GPX recommending that I expand forward into the 32-bit generation? Blasphemy!

And here I thought you knew me better than that haha...

[T-Pac]

Life’s short mate..

Get drunk, break your own rules, play some 32-bit 3D-shooters!

21 hours ago, RH said:

I think the Shmup King console is Saturn if you're willing to import from Japan.

I don't know, though. I've yet to cross the Rubicon of collecting Japanese shmups but's it's been super tempting.

PS1 too with the Parodius games and Einhander, which I highly recommend you try one day as a gamer/reviewer @T-Pac.