The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Jazzy G]

Anbernic Arc-S is a cracking piece of kit. Looks like a Sega Nomad from the face layout and runs Retroarch. Obviously the first game I tried on it was Street Fighter Alpha 3 and it played wonderfully. I'm obviously now playing through Magical Tetris on GameBoy Colour, because what Tetris needed was Disney characters and an overworld. It does N64 and Dreamcast. I should probably try and figure out how to put other stuff on it. 

Powkiddy A13 is on the way. Hopefully I have a good experience with that one as well. 

These look interesting. I'd probably go for the Alpha 2 one, but boasting 14 games I can't help but think they'd have at the very least the main 5 versions of SF2, Alpha 2 and 3, and Third Strike. Maybe Final Fight as well. 

https://bleedingcool.com/games/iconic-arcade-reveals-two-street-fighter-arcade-cabinets-at-ces-2025/

Edited January 8, 2025 by Jazzy G
No triple posting for me, brother.

[Onyx2]

Mind blown. 

Taken from the excellent Sebs Place video (very good retro channel). Note mention of 'Judo' Gene LeBell. 

Also for Hertfordshirers a little history of Stevenage town centre at the start. 

Edited January 11, 2025 by Onyx2

[Browser Brady]

Anybody ever played this ?

 

 

[Jazzy G]

Looks like one of the Yuke's games that was localised into the Smackdown games? 

One of them was available on the eShop on Wii U. It was the US version though, called Natsume Championship Wrestling. The Japanese version was based around All Japan rather than New Japan, and all the wrestlers had been changed for licensing reasons, but you could still kind of tell who they were.

 

 

 

[Browser Brady]

On 1/12/2025 at 5:49 AM, Jazzy G said:

Looks like one of the Yuke's games that was localised into the Smackdown games? 

 

 

 

 

Would i be correct in thinking that this is the same engine (if thats the right word) as WCW Vs the World ?

 

 

Shin Nippon looks great. 

Edited January 14, 2025 by Browser Brady

[Jazzy G]

Or some variation on it ported across to PlayStation? 

Powkiddy A13 is a great piece of kit. Looks a bit like a Fisher Price laptop or one of the older portable DVD players, but it's a heck of a machine. Joystick and buttons are decent, but also swappable if you feel that way inclined. The buttons are maybe a little far apart, but it's a minor gripe. The English translations of the Chinese game names are amusing. The screen is big and bright, about 10". There's a single speaker but it sounds nice and bassy. Plays a good game of Street Fighter, along with ass loads of other fighters and brawler, etc.

Its got Tetris The Grand Master 2 on it, which is a challenging game from a very challenging series. Arcade Tetris players are hardcore. 

Also has USB inputs on the back to plug a second controller in as well as an HDMI out to connect it to your TV or Projector. Maybe not as portable as my Anbernic handheld, but definitely cool to take to a friend's for a bash on. 

[FLips]

Dug the SNES out on my week off and treated myself to a couple of new games. My local retro place that I worked for years ago was recently featured on TheGebs24's channel too which was pretty cool. Well deserved for them to get a bit of recognition, the same two lads have ran it since it was a Chips back in the 90s.

I picked up Tetris & Dr Mario which I haven't put much time into other than a quick couple of games to test it worked but the presentation is pretty colourful and slick and there's a good variety of 1p/2p/1p vs CPU options on both games, plus a mixed match which I never got a full feel for but seems to be a mode that switches between both on the fly. Definitely one to break out when the wife wants to play some multiplayer stuff, but I don't think it'll top Tetris Attack.

I got Putty Squad which was somewhat of a mistake on my end. I thought it was Claymates which I'd played on the Switch Online and thought was pretty unique and wanted to see what it was like on the OG console. Completely got my games mixed up though and this isn't related to those Clay games at all.
It was a happy accident though, as this is a fairly niche little bit of gaming history as it was originally created as an Amiga game and has all the trademarks of an Amiga euro-platform puzzler to the point I looked it up and it turns out the SNES version was the only one that ever got released, as the Amiga and Sega versions got cancelled up until 2013 when the Amiga original got a surprise release. I believe Richard Joseph did the soundtrack too.
It's pretty decent for the type of game it is. You play as a little blue putty ball that can stretch, punch and inflate itself to move around stages layed out similarly to other Amiga titles like GODS. You have to rescue however many red putty people and then the door appears. There are weapon and health collectables and finding starts increases your attack type and power, and getting hit loses stars and decreases attack. It's fun to play the only official release of an Amiga game on a SNES, and the port of it seems solid.

Another one I grabbed was Animaniacs which is a Konami effort different to the Mega Drive counterpart in both gameplay and mechanics. Similarly I imagine to how the Tiny Toons games and others were handled by different developers between consoles, this one loses the character swapping for skills and instead treats Yacko, Wacko and Dot as a 3 life system. You can still change between them but it's aesthetic only.
I haven't given it too much time yet but it looks and sounds great, even if it is less creative than the Mega Drive counterpart. I imagine with Konami's name tied to it though, it has something worth playing to offer once I dig my teeth into it.

Last and to be frank, fairly least is Joe & Mac Caveman Ninjas which I was under the impression I played and enjoyed on the Switch but in hindsight must have been Joe and Mac 2 because this one is a fairly standard platformer with pretty weak hit detection and floaty Ghouls N Ghosts jump mechanics. It's not Taz-Mania levels of shocking or anything, but it's nothing to write home about. So far from what I've played it's not even on the same level as Chuck Rock.

Outside of those new ones I've finally gotten round to playing Earthbound which looks and sounds brilliant on the original console. It's filling the RPG gap that FFVII Rebirth simply isn't filling so I'm enjoying the more traditional mechanics, grinding levels and exploring the towns and areas. Such a unique game and the soundtrack is second to none on a console known for great soundtracks.
It features one of my favourite moments in gaming too where roughly around the halfway point into the game, after a few fairly difficult sections, you drink some coffee to relax and the game fades into some trippy dream-like recap of the events so far to encourage you to keep going. It's such a unique and weird experience, just like the rest of the game.

Sim City is getting a lot of play too and for a game I only played for the first time ever in the last couple of years, it very well may be one of my Top 5 SNES games. It's definitely my comfort game on the console. Simple gameplay, easy to learn but hard to perfect. It's a game you can pop on for a quick go and before you know it you're nearly 100 years in. The later Sim Cities got way too complicated for me, having to develop water pipelines and traffic systems in a 3D environment just doesn't have the same stress-free feeling as this top-down more chill effort.

[RedTwoster]

12 minutes ago, FLips said:

I got Putty Squad which was somewhat of a mistake on my end. I thought it was Claymates which I'd played on the Switch Online and thought was pretty unique and wanted to see what it was like on the OG console. Completely got my games mixed up though and this isn't related to those Clay games at all.
It was a happy accident though, as this is a fairly niche little bit of gaming history as it was originally created as an Amiga game and has all the trademarks of an Amiga euro-platform puzzler to the point I looked it up and it turns out the SNES version was the only one that ever got released, as the Amiga and Sega versions got cancelled up until 2013 when the Amiga original got a surprise release. I believe Richard Joseph did the soundtrack too.
It's pretty decent for the type of game it is. You play as a little blue putty ball that can stretch, punch and inflate itself to move around stages layed out similarly to other Amiga titles like GODS. You have to rescue however many red putty people and then the door appears. There are weapon and health collectables and finding starts increases your attack type and power, and getting hit loses stars and decreases attack. It's fun to play the only official release of an Amiga game on a SNES, and the port of it seems solid

The original Putty was one of the first games I ever owned and, presumably, played (I’m sure I played something belonging to a friend or relative sooner, but I can’t quite remember). It came with the Amiga 600 Wild, Weird and Wicked pack - a Santa present for me, and the first computer/games machine I owned:

I wanted a Mega Drive, but my parents thought I should have something educational and got me this instead, which was a blessing in disguise as this meant I could play games like Monkey Island and Cruise for a Corpse, alongside the best versions (at the time) of games like Another World, Cannon Fodder and Wiz ‘n’ Liz. An absolute gem of a machine.

[SuperBacon]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

Joe & Mac Caveman Ninjas

Now this is incredibly vague but I remember a caveman/boy game on the NES/SNES/Megadrive (boy I wasn't kidding about the vague) and it may very well be this, but looking at some pics it doesn't seem like it (although it was 30 odd years ago)

Was there a similar game around that time that? 

[DavidB6937]

5 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Now this is incredibly vague but I remember a caveman/boy game on the NES/SNES/Megadrive (boy I wasn't kidding about the vague) and it may very well be this, but looking at some pics it doesn't seem like it (although it was 30 odd years ago)

Was there a similar game around that time that? 

Could potentially be this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistorik_Man - I first thought of the Prehistorik games but I think they were older and for DOS.

[FLips]

3 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Now this is incredibly vague but I remember a caveman/boy game on the NES/SNES/Megadrive (boy I wasn't kidding about the vague) and it may very well be this, but looking at some pics it doesn't seem like it (although it was 30 odd years ago)

Was there a similar game around that time that? 

Off the top of my head there was Chuck Rock, Joe and Mac and Prehistorik Man.

Also Bonk’s Adventure

 

[SuperBacon]

Further "research" shows that I think it was Joe and Mac, as the others really don't ring a bell. 

Is there a bit where you throw drumsticks of chicken or something? ?

[Jesse]

Real off the wall, but I always recall a 'caveman' game from my childhood and then when I look it up I'm actually thinking about Adventure Island
 

 

[DavidB6937]

27 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Further "research" shows that I think it was Joe and Mac, as the others really don't ring a bell. 

Is there a bit where you throw drumsticks of chicken or something? ?

They throw various things, and they pick up food items for health so you might just be combining that in your brain.

[Jazzy G]

There's a lot of love for the SNES Sim City. I like how the monster attack disaster has Bowser stomping over the city. 

I've been playing Tetris The Grand Master, and Tetris The Absolute Grand Master 2 through the Hamster Arcade Archives on Switch. It's a VERY different beast from "Nintendo" Tetris. There are versions of the second one on my Powkiddy, but I have a suspicion they're running at half speed because I can usually make it through the "normal" mode, and even manage to get a couple of lines during the 20G mode during the credit roll. I'm not brave enough to try Master mode or Grand Master mode yet. Tetris is a much different prospect using a joystick to a controller as well. Maybe I'll dig my little Switch fightstick out and try some Switch Grandmaster.