jfitzenr

Was that the progammable one? I had one, and it was my main controller for like, ever! Until... i got mad at a game and broke it. That clear plastic wasn't as durable as the stock stuff. I rarely used the macros or the autofire but it was just so damned responsive and comfortable for some reason.

All this talk of WoW and especially Everquest makes me want to reinstall project 1999. Ugh.

This sums up that game perfectly to me. I always liked to rent it as a kid, and in my head it's a "great game. Objectively it's... kinda brilliant! The setting is cool, the gameplay ideas are amazing (though not executed perfectly) and it does nothing to grab my attention at all. It's... OK. I feel like if that game had been made maybe slightly later in the NES/Famicom lifespan it may have been executed better and become an unequivocal classic.

Well let's see what we got! Week mostly off, plus I've been sick and still nursing this back injury so... I mean at least I got to waste a lot of time on games! Genesis - Sword of Vermilion = ~15 hours. NES- Double Dragon - 65 Minutes. Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers - 20 minutes Mega Man - 80 minutes Little Samson - 30 minutes TG16- Galaga '90 - 55 minutes, and a new high score! 2600- Berserk - 30 Minutes SNES Donkey Kong Country - 45 minutes ARC: Ms Pac Man - 25 minutes Wonder Boy in Monster Land - 110 minutes I have GOT to be nearing the end of Sword of Vermilion, considering I maxed the XP counter out yesterday. (Level 31 is the cap? Weird.) It's a shame, this game suffers from what I noticed a lot of older console RPGs did- the variety and plot don't really escalate well toward the endgame, so while at first the novelty is great, by the end it becomes a bit of a grind. I still really like this game, but I definitely understand now why it isn't as highly regarded as some of the standard 'classics.' Took some detours to beat have fun with some old favorites. Megaman wasn't quite as hard as I remembered though still rough and I decided I'd resort to the pause trick this time around for the demon. I've been on a 'quest' to beat 'all' the classic Megaman games recently, and so with this I'm making more progress. Double Dragon is still one of those games that I've never beaten since childhood and it's been in the back of my mind ever since... hopefully it falls soon! Got a new high score on Galaga '90 - for some reason I absolutely love this game. I'm not very good though. When I finally build the cabinet I've been 'planning' on building for over a year, I think Galaga 88 will probably end up as a constant top-5. And I had to log a few minutes on 2600 Berzerk just because it was mentioned here. I haven't played this version since childhood, and I had no recollection of this being such a fun, well-executed, excellent port.

This is a really interesting topic! I ended up with primarily the 'big ones' for most of my life... not for lack of trying though! I remember the three systems I really begged for were the Turbo Grafx, Lynx, and Virtual Boy. Didn't get any of them. I wanted to beg for Neo Geo but even back then I knew it was ludicrously expensive. My earliest video game memories were a bit different than the norm... even though we had an NES very early in my life, it was my brother's and in his room so while I played it a good bit, I spent an awful lot of time on our Colecovision and a decent amount putzing around on our old TRS-80 CoCo. I have a bit of a benefit that most didn't though. Across the street from us (though it was a busy as hell street!) was a video store. We were obviously crazy frequent regulars, and our family iirc was actually member number 1. They rented consoles, and also had a TV setup in the corner where you could pay by the hour, they'd hook up a console, and you could just tell them a game you wanted to play and they'd grab it for you. They'd always cut deals for us, sometimes we'd pay for an hour and my brother and I would stay there all day, etc... so I got to experience most facets of stuff that way... I'm just now realizing how much of a lucky bastid I was for this. I mean I remember walking over there to rent a game and telling the employee that I had asked for Mortal Kombat 2 for Christmas, and he just brought me in back and we played MK2 for like 2 hours and he handed me a xeroxed complete special move list. Loved that place! I think the one that would've really changed my trajectory would've been if I had Genesis instead of SNES growing up. In retrospect I love the Genesis library and even then I really liked the system... and I used to play entire seasons of Madden, NHL, etc. on SNES so I probably would've been even more obsessed with a Genesis! However, missing out on FF4, FF6, Chrono Trigger, DKC, Mario World... because of my age when those were coming out, those were really the games that made me absolutely fall in love with gaming and I honestly dunno how my tastes and experiences would've differed with the Gen library. Most of my best friends had SNES as well, and that shared experience of playing through games together, showing each other the secrets we had found, etc. are some brilliant memories. I have vivid memories of coming into school every day and spending what seemed like hours bouncing ideas and advice off each other on how to beat Link to the Past because none of us had any chance of beating it on our own. Lots of inviting friends over simply so we could show off some of the hidden goals and tricks we had found in SMW... etc. I even had 'that one friend' that was a compulsive liar but only when it came to video games - he always had some ridiculous urban legend about an SNES game to share, and sometimes we even were gullible enough to try them. "Well, I mean I'm SURE that Sonya doesn't take her clothes off in Mortal Kombat, but.... what if she does?? Might as well spend the next six hours playing through Mortal Kombat only using low punch." I'm wondering now if maybe I would've been drawn to different friends. Like ya know, I loved baseball and football so I ended up hanging out with the kids who also loved baseball and football. I loved SNES so I hung out with SNES kids. Would I have hung out with "genesis kids?" I'm way overthinking this now obviously but it's interesting. I imagine if I owned the Sega systems I would've probably not developed quite the love of JRPGs that I did during that era, at least.

Faxanadu was fun! There's something about it that doesn't... click with me as much now as it did back in the day, but it's a lot of fun. Jin I don't know how you do it with Doom... I always really had fun with Doom but it was always so difficult and frustrating to me. I *eventually* beat both 1 and 2 on like, easy (not Too Young to Die but the other one) but it took me forever and I didn't beat Inferno until a remake much later.) You're a stronger man than I. "Thy Flesh Consumed" is never happening. I was thinkin' the other day; if game creation stuff counts I've got a weird top few. If you count editing and designing my own stuff, ZZT might take the crown. Also sometime in like 7th grade I wrote a pretty simple grindy rpg-battle game on the TI82, and over the next few years I, and some friends, kept adding new equipment, enemies, skills, etc. and just based on the raw fact that I spent so much time in school I bet that is up there. I don't know how I left it off, but I max-prestiged in the first Modern Warfare, so that has GOT to be top 5!

https://youtu.be/glFVXpz_abQ

I'm hoping it's Color a Dinosaur

I don't see why there's all this arguing. Of course there's emulation. Also remember that if you buy a Little Samson for $800, you aren't just throwing $800 into thin air- with the collecting market, that could be an investment with a positive ROI, and the fact that the game is fun or easily emulated would be beyond moot. It's not like we're talking about an arcade machine that costs 4000 quarters per credit that only exists in one arcade in the world or something here. The point is "What high dollar games are well made, enjoyable, or are your favorites." Basically if our two categories are: 1: Rondo of Blood, Little Samson, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound 2: Stadium Events, Action 52, etc which fit into the first?

Best I had was in College... it was about 2003, and one of my roommates had inherited a... hell it had to be 50+" CRT from his parents. I can't recall the size but thing was gigantic. To the point that we actually talked to the next tenants at the house we rented so we could just leave it and the entertainment center is was on because it was just stupid to move. We had a weird piecemeal 5.1 setup on it too with two giant 80s floorstanding 3-way main speakers and stuff and even a turntable. If it had been 1987 we would've been the place to BE! Fond memories of playing gigantic drunken RBI Baseball and Tecmo Super Bowl with buddies. Nothing like READY, DOWN, HUTHUTHUTHUTHUTHUTHUT shaking the walls. I seem to remember a commercial from the NES, maaaybe SNES era where some kids were playing NES on a Drive-In movie screen... and that pretty much became my lifelong dream as a child.

I finally was able to do this just a few months ago. I was always 'good, ish' at the game but a High Score comp over at BYOAC made me work at it... I didn't manage to 1cc it during the comp but finally got it after! Such a fantastic game though. I think if I ever have the room and disposable income for dedicated arcade cabs, that'd be my first. I spent a good few months trying to 1cc Wonder Boy Monster Land. Fail. That last level kicks my arse. There's not many I've pulled off, other than most of the old school fighters. I used to be able to do SSF2 for SNES with every char... know I beat Tekken 3 with every char but I'm sure not all of those were 1cc. Anyway.... Streets of Rage definitely, Double Dragon (NES), Megaman 2/3/4/X, Turtles in Time... I was always super jealous because my brother could beat Contra on one life. I've beaten it without the code but never wthout continues. How the HELL people "1cc" stuff like Castlevania, or 1-life Doom, just destroys me. I can't even like, 5cc Super Mario Bros!

Wow... good question! My top two are easy; #1 Everquest. Weeks and weeks played. I spent over 200 hours for a single camp for my epic weapon! #2 Diablo 2. I had like four accounts all full of level 70+ characters, trying out diff builds and stuff. Yuck. Beyond that we get into more reasonable ranges...Guessing here. 3. Final Fantasy VI 4. Super Mario 64 (I was half-assedly trying to compete in the speedrun world back in the day. I could do a 16 star run in under 20 minutes, but never really got good enough to compete) 5. Tecmo Super Bowl 6.... probably Civ 2. I LOVE that Military Madness was mentioned on here! I had NEVER heard of the game, but it came with the Turbo Duo lot I bought back like fifteen years ago and.... I binge-played that thing. It's incredible! I'm sure I'm missing something obvious. I used to play Smash Bros almost daily, so that's probably up there too. Spelunky might crack the top 10 or so too.

I think my DC might be the one console I wish I hadn't offloaded. Crazy Taxi, Skies of Arcadia, Shen Mue, frickin Virtua Tennis, Marvel Capcom 2... I remember loving PSO in its heydey, playing the thing on dialup and laughing at the ridiculous hacking. Later on I remember it handling early emulation and homebrew stuff nicely too. Maybe I'll pick up a DC as a christmas present to myself. From santa. I mean myself.

If this game was slightly less cryptic and difficult I honestly believe it would be regarded as a top-ten NES game. It is so, frickin', amazing! Literally brilliant. It basically laid the foundation for "Metroidvania" but... it's more interesting somehow. I need to find about 30 more games in this style, and they don't exist.

I think the biggest thing is deciding if you want to be a 'collector' or not, for each console or even entirely. As far as earlier consoles/computers, I think we can all agree that we can get perhaps 90%+ of the experience through emulation (legal or otherwise), flash carts, modern equivalents, etc. So what it really comes down to is... are you a collector? I looked back at my collection, which I accumulated almost entirely over the years through just... accumulation. Not collecting. And I realized... I'm not a collector. I did not get $500 worth of enjoyment out of owning Earthbound CIB; I got the same enjoyment from the VC release. I personally got rid of tons of stuff, and tbh I'm thankful for that. That said, what I realized is that I am NOT a collector, and don't REALLY have that mindset. However, I will say the most important thing I ever have gone through whether it's video game collecting or just, general life (and I know it's been said earlier in this thread...) pick a focus and dive in! I had a shotgun-spread of systems and games, and it was mostly because I enjoyed playing them (and having a ridiculous setup of fifteen consoles into two tvs) but it's much more satisfying to pick one thing you really love (one system, one year, one genre, whatever!) and dive in. As always ymmv, this is my own experience. But for instance - right now, I'd rather have say, a TG16 and a full TG16 collection than 15 systems and 50 games for each. (I don't have either, so) Another thing I really asked myself was the 'original hardware' question. Especially pre-snes. I LOVE having original hardware but... original hardware sucks. I really loved playing Tapper on CV until I realized that the joysticks were always dodgy and broken, and I'd rather log 20 hours on Dragon Warrior 2 if I know for sure I can back up the SRM instead of hearing the horrifying 'your battery sucks!' noise when I power it on. Granted some stuff is worthless without original hardware or controllers but again that's a question to ask yourself. I think the big thing is to ask yourself; why do I have this? Why do I want more? If it's because you love the system, the game, the nostalgia, or whatever, GO FOR IT! Do not pass Go, dive right in! However, if you don't have that slam dunk answer, maybe your best bet is to offload some stuff, and find the system/console/etc. that you DO have the slam-dunk for.

Yeah this is the really tough part. I mean, in Pong you play the role of a paddle. In Mario you play the role of a plumber or something. In Black Ops you play the role of a 13 year old with a headset and anger issues. Lord of the Dungeon comes to mind, even though it was unreleased but I think that would've probably fit in. Swordquest kinda fits in, but I think GH hits it; really when you get to what we'd slam-dunk, no-arguments call an RPG, it pretty much starts in the NES era. Some of those were ports of PC and Computer stuff tho.

I didn't make any money or anything but this find.... blew my mind somehow! This was a buck.

I've sold off pretty much all my tg16 and PCE games and am in the process of offloading my duo... but now reading this thread I'm not sure I want to get rid of it. You bastards! Lol. Time to log some hours in Ys 3

I do realize this is post is a year old but I wanted to throw up the horns! I love Hugo! They made two sequels as well. The second game, Whodunit, was fun but was a bit too obtuse for me to really love as a kid. The third one was in a jungle and, for my money, was as good, or better, than any Sierra adventure game. My post is a bit weird. It's not a game I ever owned, just I played it at my school. As a kid we started with Apple IIs, but then upgraded to a lab full of early Macs, and I *think* this must have been an early Mac game. It was "educational" somehow. I just remember you had to climb a snowy mountain, maybe solving trivia or something, and I think you threw snowballs at people/bad guys. I can't remember any details, it's barely on the cusp of my brain. Anybody help out?

Don't tempt me! I decided I'm going to do it blind; I so rarely have an experience anymore of playing through a console RPG blind anymore, and it's refreshing! I know there's a lot of immunes but Chrono is the most fun overpowered spell in video game history! I already lost my dark sword... that stupid item shop jerk just wiped out all my grind money! I really need to look into the 99 more. It's honestly probably the console/computer/etc. that I know least about. I hadn't even heard of its existence really until maybe a couple years ago. Never played or seen one or even emulated one, all I know is a few youtube videos and this thread basically but looks pretty awesome-- the arcade ports I saw on youtube look really impressive! (I was born in 85, but I remember playing Scarfman on my TRS80 and the Pac Man port on 2600, so the Pac-Man port for TI99 looks sick! ) They look pretty cheap online too... I really don't need an impulse purchase though, I've been trying to get RID Of my stuff!

Genesis - Sword of Vermilion - ~140 minutes Why can't I stop? And why oh why did I decide to play this game without a walkthrough or guide? Darn thing is going to take me hundreds of hours isn't it?

Lurked a little bit, figure this is a good first post eh? I was reading through this thread, spotted something I had heard of, and... I was up until dawn last night. Ya jerks! I'm appalled that nobody turned me on to Sword of Vermilion before now! I can't put my finger on what it is but this game is absurdly immersive and addicting somehow. It feels like a glorious blend of old-school PC/Western RPGs with enough JRPG influence and a simple enough interface to make it easily playable...thanks zylon for piquing my interest, and damn you zylon for ruining my sleep schedule! At least it's pulling me away from Ultima IV - I don't think I have the patience to play through U4 again! I've been laid up with a back issue for a few days so... lots of gaming goodness! GENESIS - Sword of Vermilion ~280 minutes GENESiS - Gain Ground - 40 minutes NES - GI Joe: A Real American Hero - ~150 minutes Colecovision - Tapper ~35 minutes Colecovision - Jumpman Jr - 15 minutes PC - Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar - ~70 minutes