8-bit Side Games
Jul. 7th, 2023 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroDragon Quest I&II (SNES, Replayed on RG350) – I played Dragon Quest II with the Dragon Warrior version of the fan translation, and the Adjustment hack. The hack halves MP consumption; drops the speed, defense and encounter rate of monsters by 30%; doubles XP and GP gains; and adjusts the equipment each character can equip, all to make the game faster and easier. This version makes it much easier to just explore, looking for new places and finding clues as you go. (Which I believe was a lot of the intent of the original game, too!) I did end of looking up the “feelie” map that originally came with the game, because that does make a real difference once you’ve got the boat. (There is an in-game map in the remake, in the Dragonlord’s castle. I missed it. I also couldn’t get the sunken treasure to spawn, though thankfully you don’t actually need the flute to find the crests.) The difficulty spike in Rhone remains even with the changes (the developers admitted long ago that they ran out of time and Rhone was never playtested); I still felt like I needed to grind to manage Hargon’s Castle despite making it through everything else just fine. (I used save states to fight Hargon and Malroth a couple of times each until I won; that felt like better use of my time than grinding in Rhone.) Between the changes made to the SNES remake and the changes added by the hack, I think this was downright playable at a casual, enjoyable pace. The series really hit its stride with DQ3, but I have a nostalgic fondness for the first two games and I think the various enhancements to make them more playable have paid off.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES, Played on Retroid Pocket 3) - Wow, this game is astoundingly hard. The physics are bad and the enemies are often sacks of hp that hit too frequently; plus you have only four lives and don't earn others and there are plenty of instant deaths. The ending is, to my knowledge, unique: Shredder fights you with his anti-mutation gun, and then you use it to turn Splinter back to human form.
Rolan's Curse (Game Boy, Replayed on RG350) - I did a Let's Play for this years ago, but haven't actually played through it since, so it felt like time. (It's only a couple of hours, and that's if you play it thoroughly looking for all the power-ups.) It's a relatively primitive Zelda-like; broken into four stages (with fairly repetitive biomes) with limited backtracking and three optional areas (and only one path-making tool). The real gimmick is that if you don't find the permanent power-ups in the early stages, you'll either be seriously underpowered for the boss or need to grind the temporary ones until you aren't. All that said, it was one of the first Game Boy games I ever owned and it's still pretty fun if you don't expect too much from it.
Ufouria: The Saga (NES, Played on Retroid Pocket 3) – Bob-Louie needs to save his friends and then gather the keys to escape in this interesting little Metroidvania game hobbled by its NES sensibilities—the characters move too slowly, there isn’t enough direction, and the only real attacks are a clumsy butt-stomp you need to press down to activate (like Scrooge’s cane in Ducktales) or throwing the blobs defeated monsters leave behind. And there’s extremely limited healing. A review I found online noted that this was an easy game, which I suppose it true when compared against other NES games, but not in the overall scheme of things, especially when you try to get through the lava areas or past the final boss. (This is very much a game that I suspect wasn’t beaten much in the era before save states.)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES, Played on Retroid Pocket 3) - Wow, this game is astoundingly hard. The physics are bad and the enemies are often sacks of hp that hit too frequently; plus you have only four lives and don't earn others and there are plenty of instant deaths. The ending is, to my knowledge, unique: Shredder fights you with his anti-mutation gun, and then you use it to turn Splinter back to human form.
Rolan's Curse (Game Boy, Replayed on RG350) - I did a Let's Play for this years ago, but haven't actually played through it since, so it felt like time. (It's only a couple of hours, and that's if you play it thoroughly looking for all the power-ups.) It's a relatively primitive Zelda-like; broken into four stages (with fairly repetitive biomes) with limited backtracking and three optional areas (and only one path-making tool). The real gimmick is that if you don't find the permanent power-ups in the early stages, you'll either be seriously underpowered for the boss or need to grind the temporary ones until you aren't. All that said, it was one of the first Game Boy games I ever owned and it's still pretty fun if you don't expect too much from it.
Ufouria: The Saga (NES, Played on Retroid Pocket 3) – Bob-Louie needs to save his friends and then gather the keys to escape in this interesting little Metroidvania game hobbled by its NES sensibilities—the characters move too slowly, there isn’t enough direction, and the only real attacks are a clumsy butt-stomp you need to press down to activate (like Scrooge’s cane in Ducktales) or throwing the blobs defeated monsters leave behind. And there’s extremely limited healing. A review I found online noted that this was an easy game, which I suppose it true when compared against other NES games, but not in the overall scheme of things, especially when you try to get through the lava areas or past the final boss. (This is very much a game that I suspect wasn’t beaten much in the era before save states.)
