The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[patiirc]

Typical, Pat reads my previous post and responds just as I post the review that got it working lol

 

 

Oops!

 

"Next time Gadget, next time."

[Ron Simmons]

Mike, you said it's a shame ScummVM only works for Adventure games - try Dosbox for anything that ran on DOS, brilliant little tool.

[patiirc]

New week is up, will sort the following week around Boxing Day or the day after.

 

This week is Super Fantasy Zone on the Sega Megadrive

 

Triple A to nominate another game

 

Happy Gaming!

[patiirc]

Last day for RF Retro inspection nominations today

[patiirc]

Well Super Fantasy Zone, what do we have here? a game to end all games or something else?

 

I must admit I hated the Fantasy Zone games previously, I'd played this when was younger and didnt think it was much cop and have Fantasy Zone II on the Master System, however as a game, it's not bad. It's not brilliant but not bad at all.

 

The game itself takes you as OPA-OPA who needs to avenge his fathers death in the only way he knows hell. Vengence is a shootem up! The game itself is rather weird, you have rounds to build up cash and scored whilst shooting base ships to earn the right to meet the bosses. In this respect, its an expansion on Defender gameplay, except instead of saving humans you are destroying what they would have been instead ( and there are no bosses). Other than that its very similar, right down to the lasers that OPA-OPA can carry which are very reminiscent of Defender

 

What I did like was is the game is colourful bright and breezy and plays well, lots of variety with the boss battles and various powerups even if the format does get a bit samey, What I didnt like was the time limit on the super weapons brought with cold hard cash, the useless missiles and the very cheap deaths. For example, when a boss comes on screen if you dont memorise where they appear, it's game over time sunshine.

 

I can see why this would appeal, not really my cup of tea but enjoyable nonetheless solid 6.5/10

[Ron Simmons]

Christmas has kind of put pot to me posting a review (and I'd imagine would have affected others too?) and since I'm only accessing the site on a phone, I'll post a quick verdict - the game was OK. I've played better retro shooters of similar style (Project X, Parodius, Xenon etc) but in spite of that I still enjoyed the game. Graphically it was cheerful, the gameplay is fun if repetitive and the music is OK too.

 

7/10

[patiirc]

Right, Ive not forgotten or abandoned this, just gave it some slack over Xmas.

 

We are still waiting for some reviews so will give it a few more days before booting up the next game.

[Mike Castle]

Been meaning to post my reviews. As I said on the Retro Fusion one, the Christmas period likely knocked a few people for a loop, and starting the one over there at Christmas was likely a bad choice.

 

Anyway... Super Fantasy Zone.

 

I'll be blunt right off the bat. I don't like scrolling shooters like this. Never have done. Ever since I was playing them on the Amstrad I've hated them. I even hate Space Invaders. To me just scrolling around shooting at everything is dull.

 

This game... didn't change my opinion of that. I'll admit the game is challenging, but the style of game doesn't entertain me, and in fact bores me to tears. I could only stand 5 minutes of the actual game before I just switched it off and shifted over to a rom of Sonic 2 with the "removed" levels (read: Names of levels that were meant to be in, and have been basically mocked up, alongside Dust Hill Zone, which requires the creator to be shot out of a cannon into a brick wall which is less than a foot away).

 

I just couldn't enjoy this game. Graphically it's pretty damned good, sound wise it fits for the type of game, hell even the controls do work well. But I got bored fast.

 

In short. It's likely a perfect game if you like this sort of game. I can't stand them.

 

3/10. As they actually appear to have put some effort in, and I can't fault them for their efforts in this like I could with some games.

[FLips]

I promised Pat I'd do a review of this today but I've been super busy. I'm afraid I'll have to skip my own nomination this time around, if only to allow it to move on.

 

Sorry chaps.

 

Quickly though, I love the graphics and sound in this game. It might not be everyone's cup of tea (even I don't think it's amazing) but there's a reason it crops up on "best of Sega" stuff.

 

6/10

[patiirc]

Right thanks peeps for all of that.

 

New week is up shall run til a week Saturday/Sunday

 

Week 15 is The Firemen on the Snes

[Ron Simmons]

The Firemen? I've been intrigued by this one for a while. I'll post my review over the weekend.

[Mike Castle]

Okay, I was late on the last one, so I'll hit this one early.

 

I'd never heard of The Firemen, previously. So I had no clue what I was going in for. When I saw the image of the game when I went to nab the rom, it looked like some top down scroller, so I wasn't sure if it would be good or bad.

 

What it actually turns out to be is mainly scroller, with what feels like a hint of RPG style of text thrown in to create some semblence of a story.

 

Before I get into the meat of the review, lets hit the outer shell of it. First up the sound.

 

Sound wise it's pretty good, it doesn't get in the way of playing, but it doesn't detract, and when you do notice it, it's actually pretty good sounding. I like that.

 

Graphically, it works well, although it has a very old style Final Fantasy feel about it. Nice and bright, and despite the fact you're pretty much just fighting fire throughout, they've managed to have different sprits mean different things. Very well done considering half the game is orange.

 

Controls are relatively easy to get the hang of. Though it can be annoying when you're meant to be crawling and you wind up lobbing a water bomb (or whatever those things are) instead.

 

The intro... I didn't bother with, I could tell right from the off it was going to take way longer than I was prepared to wait to scroll through the text... well fuck that. I don't mind intros in games. When they're done well they are done amazingly well. But when they're slow and take forever to finish (or feel like they are, because you could have read the same line ten times before the next one turns up) I really stop caring.

 

So I skipped that and got right into the game itself. So was it any good?

 

Well yes and no.

 

It was fun, very much so in fact, I was honestly surprised that I was enjoying just going round spraying fire with a hose. Although a lot of the early stuff is made easy in that you don't need to use the main hose and instead can just use the weak spray to keep moving slowly forwards as you go. Switching to the hose really just for bosses and robots.

 

I also liked the way the levels sometimes changed as you were going through them. While some games from yester-year would simply prevent you going back through a door you've already come through, this one would have in game reasons for it. Like a roof caving in, or an explosion, and I liked that, made it feel like you were constantly doing something, even if it did make it exceptionally linear.

 

In fact if it has any bad points, it's the one. It's very, very linear. You have to get from point A to point B, then point B to point C. But despite a couple of small areas you can disappear to (then return pretty much to where you were) it's a straight run of rooms to get there. This is fine for a lot of games. Most 2D platformers have no choice but to work that way. But the flaw with this game is that once you lose all your lives it leaves you with the thought of "Do I really want to go through all that again?" And unfortunately the answer is... not really.

 

I can see me maybe picking it up again in a few months to have another crack at it, but it will only be when I'm bored as hell with nothing to do. Which to me doesn't say a great deal about it's replayability value. Sure it's fun while you're playing, but even while you're playing it's relatively repetitive. So when the time comes that you die and have to start fresh, well if it's repetitive while new challenges turn up, how repetitive will it be to revisit the old ones?

 

That being said, it is a good game, and while I'd never have recommended it to buy if I'd been playing this at the time it came out (or hell, maybe I would... I liked that damned Asterix game in the past after all), I would heartily suggest downloading it for a one off play at the very least.

 

So to that end, 5/10. It has a fair bit going for it, and it's been well thought out. It just unfortunately doesn't lead to a game that would be worth returning to again and again.

[patiirc]

5 marks off for a naff intro and being linear? Damn, this is a tough crowd . Interesting review nonetheless Mr Castle.

 

There is a Playstation sequel to this that came out about a year later, Ive never played it but may address some of the issues you raise?

[Mike Castle]

Nah, I never watched the intro and wont judge games on it (unless they are unskippable, in which case fair enough as the programmers would have fucked it up). It wasn't anything near a great game, but it was fun for a single run through. It just doesn't have enough replayability to make it worth returning to again to try and beat the thing completely, and to me that's one of the most important things for a game (at least it was back then. Now you just pick up from about 5 seconds before you died).

[Ron Simmons]

I've not yet posted a review, but that's because I've been playing the game - as in I played it to the point I actually forgot about why I bought it!

 

Excellent fun, surprisingly fun in fact. I expected a 2D Mario Sunshine, and thank God that's not what I got. I absolutely loved this game, credit to whoever the heck nominated it. Brilliant choice.

 

The intro was terrible, I agree with Mike there but I too think the score was a tad harsh. It's good brainless fun, a game that doesn't need any sort of plot to be enjoyable.

 

9/10