newtmonkey

I had the same experience, so I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one! I completed Oblivion and Skyrim a year or two ago, and both games were a pretty empty experience. You're just following the objective marker for a couple dozen hours, and then the game is over. At some point, the games become meaningless. It doesn't even matter that you have this massive world to explore, because you are just doing the same thing over and over, and all the content is scaled to your level; you will never go out of your way to explore some ancient ruin and find some awesome sword in it, because all you will find is some coins and maybe some equipment that's +/- your level.

@Tanooki I really do enjoy playing RPGs, so I don't want to give up on even a poor one, unless it's just intolerable! PS3 is bad, no doubt about it, but it's not broken, so I'll see it to the end. I've finished worse -- Tengai Makyo: Ziria and the Cosmic Fantasy games on the PC Engine, for example lol.

Quick follow-up: Eiyuu Densetsu: Sen no Kiseki (aka Trails of Cold Steel) I think this is just not my kind of game. I simply cannot relate to the characters at all, and the endless dialog is simply unbearable -- even with the game on 4X speed it takes forever just to get through a dialog scene, since every single of the 12 characters on the screen has to comment on every single thing. I'm convinced that this not written to actually tell a story, but instead to sell figurines, pencil boards, and body pillows. It's a shame, because I really liked Eiyuu Densetsu: Sora no Kiseki (aka Trails in the Sky), an earlier game in the series released back in 2004 that's just as wordy, but well-written and with interesting characters. WTF happened to Falcom since then? Ryu ga Gotoku 7 (aka Yakuza: Like a Dragon) Just awesome. My only complaint so far is that you spend more time watching cinemas than you do actually playing the game. Having said that, I just got through the first chapter, so I expect the game to open up a bit now.

Phantasy Star III I finished the first generation tonight. The few boss encounters were surprisingly easy; in fact, easier than some of the more dangerous random encounter groups! I really am not liking this game so far, but hopefully it will improve during the second generation.

Interesting topic! I think a case can definitely be made for using composite for not only the PS1, but plenty of other systems. PS1 dithering is definitely something you only notice with a higher quality cable, and this is also true for the Saturn and Mega Drive, and to some extent the N64. There are of course also the consoles that never originally supported anything beyond composite (or even RF), such as the Famicom and PC Engine. I think S-Video is a good choice in some cases, as it's much sharper and cleaner than composite, but not quite as sharp as RGB. PS1 dithering, for example, is much less noticeable using this type of connection.

Played some PS4 last night: Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness This is still free to play on PlayStation Plus, so I decided to give it another chance. Maybe the game completely sucks only for the first hour? Anyway, I gave the game another 30 minutes, and it's just awful. The "world" is a bunch of corridors, no thought whatsoever was put into encounter design (just the same handful of enemies dropped all over the map), and the game constantly wastes your time. It's bad enough that you have to tediously run back and forth through the corridor world, but the game constantly interrupts your progress with dialog scenes that go on and on but don't really tell you anything at all; even worse, they tried to make it "immersive" by having the dialog go on while you are playing... but slows you down to a sluggish walk and forces you to listen to it all, instead of allowing you to read/skim the text as fast as you can. Begone from my PS4, foul game! Eiyu Densetsu: Sen no Kiseki (aka Trails of Cold Steel) Much like with SO:IaF, this is free to play on PlayStation Plus, and I decided to give it another chance since I disliked it initially. It's better than SO:IaF, but still not good. It's a real budget production, which normally I wouldn't mind, but the game attempts to be somewhat cinematic, and so it just makes the low budget more obvious. One thing that really started to annoy me is that all the characters in your party walk with the exact same animation cycle, synchronized together, so when you see one of the many "all the characters walk into a room and look surprised" cinema scenes, they are all doing the same exact thing, at the same exact time. It looks extremely amateurish. The dialog and characters are just awful. Every single character is simply an exposition dump, and it's very hard for me to relate to a bunch of a kids in military school who are completely obsessed with which noble family each other character belongs to. It's so bizarre and awkward. Early on, the characters get sent to a sort of training dungeon, and are split up. Every time you run into one of the other characters, every single character has to introduce themselves, and then one of the characters will comment something like, "Cecilia Reinhardt! Of the famous Reinhardt family? You mean, you are the daughter of Frederick Reinhardt, the famous general of the Arnheim kingdom who fought in the Bloody Roses War of 1456? That must mean... you are a master of the Reinhardt school of fencing!" At one point, I thought the game was some sort of parody, because it keeps happening, character after character. And of course, as aristocrat brat pack grows, it just becomes more tedious because every single character has to comment on absolutely everything, so as to reinforce their single character quirk. The combat is pretty good though. I'm gonna try to get through this awful intro dungeon and see if the game starts to get more interesting once you get out. Ryu ga Gotoku 7 (aka Yakuza: Like a Dragon) Although this is just as plot-heavy if not more than the previous two games, the difference is that this game has likeable/interesting characters, fine writing, and exposition that's handled properly and naturally. It's a nice story, but it's hard to rate it as a game so far, since the pace of the game is extremely slow. You have access to a pretty large area right from the start, but there's really not much to do, so you end up just following the map markers to get to the next plot scene. Combat might be cool later, but so far it's very basic and easy -- just your single character fighting a handful of enemies at a time.

Gekkan PC Engine I decided to see what's out there for Japanese mags in scanned form on the good old information superhighway. As a major PC Engine fan, I was overjoyed to find nearly the entire run of Gekkan PC Engine, a monthly PC Engine mag that ran from 1988-1994, on Internet Archive... and found a few of the missing issues up on Retromags. The mag was initially released as PC Engine Special, but was renamed Gekkan PC Engine in 1989 and the name stuck until the very end of the run. I just read through the first issue (June 1988), and so far it's a very decent mag! Like most Japanese mags of the era, it's pretty massive and mostly in color, with tons of screen shots and extremely detailed strategy articles (and outright walkthroughs) for several games. The highlight for me is a complete walkthrough of R-Type, including stage maps with optimal routes, powerup advice, and boss strategies. As with Famitsu, it also has a pretty big "culture" section that is definitely skip-worthy, unless you have (or want) the mindset of a 15 year old Japanese boy in the late 80s. Even so, the rest of the content is quite excellent (though written for a younger audience), and I'd definitely recommend giving the mag a look! I think it would be cool to flip through even without knowledge of Japanese, because the layout and screenshots are both excellent.

It's been a while since I last used my PS4, so I started it up tonight and played some games: First, a few games from the excellent Arcade Archives series. These are really exceptional arcade ports, with plenty of options to tweak (though not to the extent of the M2 releases). There are TONS of releases in this series, and they are quite inexpensive. Each release is just a single game, but often contains multiple versions of the game (usually Japanese and World releases). They play great with the Dual Shock 4 over BT, with no recognizable input lag. Splatterhouse - The PCE release is one of my all time favorite games (one of the few games I can clear without continuing), so I had to get the arcade release. It's tougher than the home release, and of course looks and sounds a lot better. Argos no Senshi (aka Rygar) - I think this gets some flack for being "just an arcade game" compared with the quest-based NES release, but it's really quite cool. It plays great, and being able to hop on enemies is a useful mechanic that's sort of wasted in the NES version. The game gets quite tough quickly, but seems pretty manageable overall. Raiden - A fine version of this classic, with some really nice options. For example, you can choose to play as the 2P side ship, which starts out at a lower rank and makes the game a bit easier. It's also got both the Japanese and World releases, which is important because the former restarts you from a checkpoint after losing a ship, while the latter lets you continue where you were shot down. There's arguments to be had for either version, so it's good that they're both here. Zero Team - Truly a hidden gem! An over-the-op beat'em-up with small but extremely detailed characters, colorful backgrounds, and surprisingly deep fighting mechanics. It's also surprisingly fair, at least early on. I also played: Ryu ga Gotoku 7 (aka Yakuza: Like a Dragon) I really don't have much interest at all in this series of games, but when I read that this entry is actually an RPG with a job system and turn-based combat, I had to check it out. So far, it's awesome! The characters are interesting and/or likeable, graphics are fine, and it's just cool playing what is basically a pretty traditional JRPG but in a modern setting. I'll probably be focusing on this one for a while.

@Wayler Not any reviews in particular, but I've just noticed some comments and asides here and there in the first couple of issues suggesting the reviewer doesn't care for traditional RPGs. For example, in their Soul Blazer review: "...Soul Blazer treads familiar RPG territory, avoiding the weaker elements that plague many of these games - there's none of that tedious alternate-move combat stuff here, for instance." As for shmups, there were some comments that suggest they are already tired of the genre, which is a strange position to take in 1992, unless you just don't like the genre. Again, though, they were just asides and not reviews, so they might have even just been joking. Of course, they reviewed only a couple of shmups (fine reviews) and no real RPGs in the first couple of issues, so we'll see how it goes!

I've been playing some GBA lately. I have some fond memories of this portable, as I remember importing it when it first came out Japan from legendary importer National Console Service. They required you to buy it with two games, and I remember ordering it along with Fire Pro Wrestling A and Akumajo Dracula: Circle of the Moon (both fine games). Akumajo Dracula: Circle of the Moon I actually got to the last boss back in the day, but never completed the game, so maybe this is the year I finally finish this. Of course, I don't have my cart from 20+ years ago, so I had to start over the from the beginning. My opinion on the game is mixed. It's cool that the game has a bit of the classic lethality of the series (completely missing from SOTN), and the music is quite decent for the humble GBA. On the other hand, the castle is extremely boring with most areas looking identical. It also seems like the castle was designed with all your final abilities in mind, because exploring it early on is a massive chore. You have to choose between either walking REAL SLOW or dashing TOO FAST, so it never really feels comfortable to play. The card system is bizarre, because it seems very random... if you're unlucky (like me, now), you hardly ever find anything and are stuck with just your basic abilities. Kinda boring but not bad, and the boss fights are pretty cool so far. Metroid Fusion What a difference one year makes! Circle of the Moon was released in 2001 and looks somewhere in between a NES and SNES game... and then Fusion, released in 2002, looks like a late SNES release or even better in some ways. It also plays great, and I don't even mind how linear it is, though the text in the navigation rooms is truly awful. So far, I'm having a blast with this one.

Game Players PC Entertainment (1991) I finished reading through the '91 issues of this mag, and I loved it! Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of (mostly) PC games from this time. The layout is a bit dull consisting of mostly just a lot of text with a few screenshots, but the writing is of such high quality that I found myself reading each mag cover to cover (except for the previews section toward the end). There were some really good writers working on this mag, including the awesome William R. Trotter, who covered mostly wargames but was such a good writer/reviewer that I read every word of his reviews even though I have no interest at all in wargames. I don't think this mag is very well-known today, which is a shame, because it was excellent. I guess my only complaint is that I probably would never feel the need to read through these mags a second time, due to the dull layout. I can revisit an old issue of Nintendo Power or EGM time and time again thanks to the great layouts and tons of screenshots. In contrast, GPPCE is sometimes like reading an academic journal -- you'll learn a lot, and the content might be well-written and fascinating, but it's not something you'd hang onto and reread later.

Played some more: Bare Knuckle I was able to get a bit further tonight, reaching the bosses of Stage 6 (factory) on my last credit. I've been forcing myself to avoid using the special attack (police car), so I can learn better how to play the game. I think if I started making use of that attack, I could probably clear the game on default settings, but my goal now is to reach the last stage without using the special attack at all. I do like this game, but I'm not sure I like it enough to work on a 1CC. Bare Knuckle II I intended to just play it a bit to compare with the first game, but ended up playing this quite a bit. It's a massive improvement over the first game in terms of graphics and "feel," though I don't like the music as much. It plays "better" but there's something awkward in how Axel attacks in this game. I'll have to check out the other characters. I was able to get to the boss of Stage 5 (Ship), but ran out of lives and continues trying to figure out a good strategy for the boss. It's really impressive how much better this game looks than the first game, almost hard to believe they are both on the same system.

@Wayler Nice! I used to have the two Dracula Battle CDs back in the day, when I was a carefree and irresponsible student maxing out my credit card on import games and video game soundtracks bought downtown in Chinatown. Sadly, I sold both Dracul Battle CDs at some point, probably to help pay off that credit card debt haha. Some great music (especially that Theme of Simon Belmont you linked)!

This took quite a while, but I finished reading through all the 1992 issues of the magazines in my (digital) collection. Some comments: Computer Game Review and CD-ROM Entertainment I don't think many people know about this one today, though it was apparently pretty popular (it lasted from 1991 through 1996). It's a Sendai publication and has a somewhat similar layout to EGM, just with a lot more text. This mag sadly got a lot worse in 1992! I mentioned this earlier, but the core editorial team from VideoGames & Computer Entertainment ended up jumping ship to this mag, and by the end of '92 it's basically worthless EGM-style reviews for sometimes extremely complicated games, followed by what is basically VG&CE warts and all, including the reviews for fanzines (that mostly cover console games), and the annoying "survey" articles where they just describe in a couple of sentences a dozen games in a particular genre. Having said that, if you liked VG&CE back in the day, you might want to check this mag out! It's still a fun mag to flip through, regardless. No other PC gaming mag at the time was covering SO MANY games as CGR. Every issue has what seems like dozens of pages of 1-2 page reviews. It also has a great strategy section toward the end, which usually covers two games in impressive depth. Electronic Gaming Monthly 1992 was a fun year for this mag, as you can see it slowly becoming the monster it would become in '93/'94. There were even some monster-sized issues this year. The writing is starting to get a bit better with a bit more personality, and the layout is mostly perfected at this point. The editors also added a TON of import coverage this year, making it simply a fun mag to flip through, even today. Nintendo Power For many, NP may have reached its peak this year. It's still got an awesome layout, excellent screenshots, and the best game maps available. You've also got the Super Mario and Zelda comics (it was fun revisiting these), and the shallow but likeable George & Rob reviews. Having said all that, it's hard today to get very excited over this mag; there's little import coverage, so it suffers in comparison with EGM in that respect. And while the maps and partial walkthroughs are EXCELLENT, they're not really fun to read through today (mostly extremely linear platformers), and they go on and on for dozens of pages. Super Play This British mag first came out toward the end of 1992, and it's a brand new mag for me. I got interested in this mag due to the accolades heaped upon it by SNES super fan RVGFanatic (sadly, website down as of posting this). So far, I must agree: this is a great mag! Plenty of nice screenshots, fantastic import coverage (both Japan and the US), good reviews, and a great sense of humor. My only complaint is that they seem to really hate RPGs and shooters, which happen to be among my favorite games. We'll see how it goes. --- I also finished the 1988 run of... Computer Gaming World The production quality has increased a bit, and there is a much lesser focus on wargames this year. There is also much less of a focus on game developer "celebrities," which is probably due to the fact that PC games were getting complicated enough at this point where a single developer was not likely to release a commercial game on his own. The reviews are generally written well, though there are exceptions, and a surprising number of reviews begin with the reviewer subjecting you to several paragraphs of some awful story he's written to glamorize moving one icon against the other in some wargame. Cringeworthy stuff, but it's easy to skip. I must also mention that this year saw the bizarre inclusion of several pages of video game coverage, by none other than Arnie Katz! I cannot avoid this guy! Hopefully this article won't last long, because it is completely out of place in this magazine. One really fun addition to the mag this year is the Rumor Bag, which has an anonymous editor assuming some weird identity and reporting on industry rumors, but written like a story. In one issue, he's attending some kind of seance at a spooky mansion, and another he's some Russian guy being tailed by KGB agents in a museum. Fun stuff!

I am posting my thoughts on playing the game, not summarizing its plot for a Wikipedia article.

I'm a bit burnt out on RPGs, and am in the mood to clear some action games... so I spent a lazy evening trying out a few games on my good old MD2, with the goal of deciding on a game to focus on next month. I consider a game "cleared" if I can finish it on default settings, though for shmups I personally would not consider a game completed until I clear it without continuing. Bare Knuckle (aka Streets of Rage) I am 99% certain that I actually cleared this on default settings years ago, but I didn't make note of it in my records, so just to be sure I'd like to clear it again. I was able to get to the boss of Round 4 dying once, but for the life of me could not remember my strategy for taking this guy down. I went through life after life trying to figure it out... then, finally on my last life, I got it lol. X-Men I remember this game being pretty huge back in the day (I had three friends with Genesis consoles, and they all had this one), but I guess it's seen as somewhat poor now. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a shot and try to at least get out of the first area. First impressions were mixed. The X-Men themselves all look cool, but otherwise it's not a great looking game. The intro cinema has some pretty cool music, but once the game drops you into the first area, the music is just pitiful. The game also feels sluggish and controls are a bit floaty, though it's not anything you can't get used to. There's still something cool about it though, and I don't dislike the stage design. I actually ended up liking the game, so I might spend some more time with this one. I did get through the first area, but died miserably at the first actual boss lol. Musha Aleste I've played this before, but never seriously. This time, I got to the boss of Round 3 before losing my last life. What a game! It looks, sounds, and plays great. It doesn't seem very difficult on the default settings, so this might make a good 1CC for me.

I picked up a couple of games today and gave them a quick spin: Aleste Collection This is yet another entry in the excellent M2 ShotTriggers collection, and includes Aleste (SMS/Mark III), Powerstrike II (SMS), GG Aleste (GG), and GG Aleste II (GG). Both Japanese and overseas versions are available where available. Also included is GG Aleste III, which is a technically impressive new sequel developed by M2 for the Game Gear. I initially wasn't interested in this collection as I really had no interest in the series until the 16-bit releases... but the tremendous quality of the other M2 ShotTriggers releases compelled me to get this. I was pleasantly surprised. It offers all the usual M2 goodies, such as extremely low input lag, fun screen options, practice modes, and optional gadgets on the side of the screen tracking the game state in real-time. The games themselves are also a lot cooler than I thought they'd be... especially the GG releases, which are extremely impressive and much more playable on a TV than the original GG screen! My only complaint with this collection is that they really should have gone all out and include the two MSX Aleste titles as well. Maybe if they ever do a 16-bit Aleste collection, they'll include those as bonus games? Zero Fire Another M2 ShotTriggers release, this includes Zero Wing and Hellfire. As usual, it's a comprehensive release, featuring both Japanese and overseas arcade releases, home releases (Mega Drive and Super CD), and all the M2 trimmings. The bonus game this time around is the completely unrelated but fun Horror Story (both the Japanese and overseas versions, which are quite different, and the Super CD version). I initially skipped this one when I was getting all the M2 ShotTriggers collections, because I assumed that the meme-tastic Zero Wing couldn't possible be worth playing, and that Hellfire was just yet another dime-a-dozen shmup of no merit. However, having played around with both, they're actually quite cool, with some fun mechanics. Zero Wing lets you grab enemy ships for use as shields or projectiles, while Hellfire allows (and requires) you to change your direction of fire.

Akumajo Dracula (FDS version) I've been stuck at the Grim Reaper boss battle for some time, and even when I did defeat him in the past, I won either through cheesing the fight, or just dumb luck. If you look up strategies for this fight, you find a couple. Strategy (1) seems to be to hold onto the holy water the entire level, get the triple shot, and then defeat him effortlessly. Strategy (2) seems to be to pick up the boomerang, get the triple shot, and then defeat him with not much trouble. I don't like either of these strategies. Strategy (1) requires you to get through the entire stage without dying (and also strikes me as a really cheap way to beat the boss), while strategy (2) requires you to have enough hearts to "waste" on getting the triple shot for the boomerang (though you could maybe abuse the stairs to go back and forth and gather hearts?). I'd already mostly mastered the stage up until the "Hallway of Horror" before the boss room, so running through it all each time was just wasting my time. With that in mind, I used the Everdrive save state function to practice the Hallway of Horror until I got it down mostly perfectly, and now have a save state dropped right before the Grim Reaper battle. My next step is to practice the fight for a while, but just focus on avoiding and whipping the scythes. If I can develop a strategy there to somewhat reliably defeat him, then the next step is to load my real save on the FDS version (unlike the cart version, this one actually saves your progress) and run through the level. It seems doable. Gradius I'm been playing this here and there, trying to get better at it as I go, and I'm making some decent progress. I'm able to get to the third stage on my first or second ship, and I've got a lot better at recovering from a lost ship. I have certain powerups that I focus on during recovery (speed up once, then either missile or double depending on which would be more useful), which make recovery a bit less grueling. I've also been experimenting with dodging through tough areas, so that I can get through them even without being powered up. Today I was able to get through the enemy barrage section prior to the boss straight after recovery, with only a single speed up. This game is pretty great! It's a nice port of the arcade game, that plays great with simple but clean graphics.

Raiden Densetsu / Raiden Trad This is a pretty awesome port of the arcade game; I think it compares nicely with the PC Engine port, and of course both blow the bizarrely horrible SFC port out of the water. Having said that, this port is somewhat lacking when it comes to the details in the backgrounds... it's a cool port, but it just hasn't got the ARCADE FEEL. Enter: Arcade style tiles/sprites/colors hack: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3598/ I couldn't find nice clean screenshots from the same area, so I captured a screen from a YouTube playthrough of the original game to compare: Original MD/Genesis version ROM hack What a difference! In addition to redrawing a lot of the tiles and sprites for more color and contrast, it even adds color cycle animation to the rivers and such. Highly recommended!!

I will also add that the manual seems to have been poorly translated from Japanese to English. Once you get through the legal stuff that was likely written by NoA legal staff, and get into the actual hardware stuff, it's clear to me that it was written either by a Japanese employee of NoJ or NoA who was not fluent in English, or an English-speaking translator who did not understand what he was translating and used vague terms to cover his ass (the many uses of "perform XXX", "the contents of XXX", and "carry out XXX" for example). This kind of garbage translation was "acceptable" back in the day because there was no other option, and also probably because anyone developing professionally for the SNES knew enough to be able to read between the lines and figure it out. Today, it's beyond fixing, imo. Just accept it for what it is.

@Zoyous That makes a lot of sense! It definitely feels like it was made by people who just don't get RPGs. I am playing through this series for the first time, and loved Phantasy Star, and really liked Phantasy Star II, so this has been quite a disappointment! I knew of its reputation, but I expected it to be just mediocre, rather than amateurish and lazy.

Phantasy Star III I'm a few hours in now, and this game is just joyless to play. I adjusted Myu's technique grid to give priority to the technique that allegedly cures poison, but it still failed five fucking times in a row. Absolutely infuriating! I guess I'll just load up on antidote items. The amount of backtracking in this game is unreal, even in the first few hours. Of course, there is no quick travel option, so you just have to hike back and forth slowly over these massive but empty maps, getting interrupted every few steps, constantly getting poisoned. Dungeons are thankfully not as massive as in the previous game, but are frustrating in another way -- they typically will have 4-5 chests in them, but every single one so far has just been a healing item. What a waste of time. Really disappointed with this one! I knew it was seen as a weird misstep in the series, but I wasn't expecting such a lazy borderline incompetent game. It's like it was designed by people who had never played an RPG before.

Jamestown (PC) I've been practicing stage 2 on Legendary, as this stage really has given me a lot of trouble in my Gauntlet runs (way more difficult for me than stages 3 or 4). I think that this stage requires the most memorization in the game, outside of stage 5 of course with its moving blocks and stuff. Anyway, I got down to clearing this with one death, and that one death was really very avoidable... so I will probably give the Gauntlet another shot next. Like I mentioned earlier, I probably won't go for the 1CC for this game, since it's not an arcade game, so I'll be happy to just finish the Gauntlet on Legendary with the two continues the game gives you. Gunbird (ARC) This is a lot of fun! I knew of this game, and probably played it before on MAME or something, but never really sat down and played it for real. I like how the playable characters are all different, and the "charge" attack is somewhat unique. The graphics in this game are really excellent, with some fantastic backgrounds full of tiny details. I'll probably stick with this one for a while and see how it goes. I was sad to read that the Switch port has some major input lag (6-7 frames, very noticeable to me), because I wouldn't mind playing it on the living room TV. Oh well, MAME it is.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition Oh wow, this game is really exceptional. The first hour is pretty story-heavy, linear, and puts all sorts of restrictions on you (though you still can explore around the town all you want)... but after that, the real charms of the game reveal themselves to you. Character/party customization is great, there's tons to explore and find in a massive world, and combat is actually pretty cool with certain attacks being more effective at certain ranges/locations. I've only explored one dungeon so far, and it was pretty good with some nice verticality. The characters are fun, but the story is really melodramatic and sappy. Hopefully it gets better.

The use of the save point is explained in the manual on page 11: https://archive.org/details/final-fantasy-iii-usa-rev-1/page/n5/mode/1up