The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Browser Brady]

Is Super Mario World 2 : Yoshi’s Island really that good ?

 

i think i gave it less than an hour when i came across it as a rom a few years ago.

 

Worth a revisit ? 
 

 

[Devon Malcolm]

27 minutes ago, Browser Brady said:

Is Super Mario World 2 : Yoshi’s Island really that good ?

 

i think i gave it less than an hour when i came across it as a rom a few years ago.

 

Worth a revisit ? 
 

 

Brilliant game as long as you don't try and get 100 on every level as it will turn you into a psychopath.

[Fog Dude]

Yup, one of the three things you need to officially 100% a level is to finish with max health (which in Yoshi games means more health than you actually start with), so sod that for a lark. Otherwise still an excellent platformer, I was blasting through World 3 again just the other night.

[FLips]

It looks gorgeous, sounds just as lovely but the momentum on Yoshi and the brutal crying Baby Mario have always put me off fully loving it. That and it’s too hard, I’m actually stuck on my cartridge. I need to go back at some point.

[tiger_rick]

Love that game. The second SNES I got secondhand years ago came with it and I played to death for a while. I think Yoshi eating stuff might be my favourite thing in any non-football game ever. I never finished it. I'm shit at games and it was hard.

[Devon Malcolm]

Poochy is fucking stupid, I don't care what that level tells me.

Edited January 17, 2025 by Devon Malcolm

[FLips]

Went and spent my birthday money on some more SNES games. Not given them all a proper go other than to test them yet but picked up Zool which I'm keen to play more of as the SNES version is different to the Mega Drive version. It handles a lot better and thankfully a little slower, and it plays the same music on Stage 1 as the Amiga AGA version rather than the MD verison though admittedly it hasn't translated well to the SNES soundchip.

I got Cybernator which is a fairly hidden gem Konami mech game. Similarly structured as a run and gun to something like Vectorman or Robocop vs Terminator with vertical and horizontal exploration rather than a straight up run and gun like another game I got, Super Probotector. Probotector is just the PAL name for some of the Contra games so for those more familiar with it, this is Contra III: Alien Wars.
Really had fun with the short plays I had of both of them. Cybernator is more of a fleshed out game that rewards a bit of a mooch about and has some fun shooting/shield mechanics. It's decently detailed. Probotector is rock hard but what fun I had with it. I was surprised by the Mode 7 stage, which they could have made a full game in that style by itself and it could have been a success. I'm never going to complete it, but still brilliant stuff.

I picked up Earthworm Jim 2 for a fairly low price which was nice as I've had my eyes on it a while. One of the games I borrowed loads on the SNES as a kid from my Brother's mate round the corner. That, DKC2 and Clayfighter 2: Judgement Clay. It's a great game with a lot of unique and oddball ideas, though the repetitive and looooong dog bouncing minigame is a chore it's worth it to experience the rest. We found the cutscene of the cows saying "well done" so funny as kids that I wasted a load of paper and ink at school printing about 9 full A4 pages in colour of a screenshot of them and blu-tacked it to my wall to pop my group of mates when they came round.

Lastly I got Super Punchout which to be frank isn't really a game I think all that much of. It's no George Foreman's KO Boxing, that's for sure. That being said, it remained one of the last big first party games I didn't own, so the purchase was inevitable. I'm sure once I sit and give it a full go I'll get some enjoyment out of it.

I'm off out tomorrow and plan on picking up a copy of PLOK if it's still there. Another one I've been meaning to have a proper go of.

[Fog Dude]

Whilst I'm sure I somehow finished Yoshi's Island and the entire DKC trilogy as a kid but find them all tougher nowadays, Plok is one I definitely never got to the end of even back then. Would be interested to see how you get on with that. 

[Jazzy G]

How nice do these look? https://www.yankodesign.com/2025/01/17/street-fighter-xxl-arcade-machine-by-iconic-arcade-power-up-your-game-room-with-80s-arcade-glory/amp/

[FLips]

Managed to get that copy of Plok and I tell you what, it's an underrated little gem isn't it?
I'd heard good things about the music and it wasn't wrong, top quality stuff here that almost sounds CD quality at times. Graphics are big and bright and the Rayman-style gameplay is a ton of fun. Difficulty spikes a little bit after a couple of worlds like, especially on the bosses. It sadly switches from start-to-finish platformer into a euro-style "kill X amount of enemies to open the exit" platformer after the first world which doesn't work as well. For £6 though you could do far worse, but I think I'll struggle to complete it as it seems to be Game Over and done with no obvious password or save system. That being said I made it to the 4th area and it looks like there's only 5, so maybe I'll see the finish line.

Popped into a retro shop I'd not been in before too and came away with a few decent pickups. Earthworm Jim 1 on the SNES to complete the set. I don't rate it as much as EWJ2 but it's not a bad game by any means and I got it for a fair price. Also got Alien 3 which I'm disappointed with. I found the Mega Drive version to have a few faults but enjoyed the time-limit arcade style gameplay, but sadly the SNES version is a different game entirely. I couldn't figure out what to do and seemed to get soft locked into a room. Upon further inspection of the cartridge it's an LJN game. What a blunder. I'll have to watch some Youtube vids on how to actually play the thing.

In another one I picked up to fill out my 1st party Nintendo stuff, I got Pilotwings for a fiver. It's not a bad game but it doesn't offer much outside of the Mode 7 tech showcase. Worth a fiver but not much more.

Picked up Snake Rattle & Roll and Paperboy for the NES too. SRR is a decent little arcade game slightly held back by the isometric camera but it looks and sounds brilliant. Get your head around the controls and away you go. Another £5 bargain. NES is actually pretty good for arcade conversions, I've had plenty of fun on my copies of Marble Madness and Gauntlet II, so I was looking forward to Paperboy but sadly the cartridge hasn't worked so I'll need to take it back and exchange it when I get the chance.

I've now officially made it the furthest I ever have in Earthbound too. Absolutely loving it. It's a bizarre game though as it's immediately accessible from a design and character point of view but the difficulty spikes are brutal. Some serious level grinding needed at certain points, a real hardcore RPG you have to be in the mood for. Deceptively not as pickup and play as the colourful presentation would have you believe.
For anyone that has played it this will make sense, but for those that haven't then make of it what you will, but I'm about to fill my party with Poo.

EDIT: Got Paperboy to work after some thorough scrubbing with some hand sanitizer as I don't currently have isopropyl so it was a warm water job up to this point. After a shaky first couple of routes I made it to Wednesday and got the high score by 450 points. My very own three days at McColls.

Edited January 19, 2025 by FLips
Paperboy calls it quits!

[Jazzy G]

Paperboy is a game where you have to deliver newspapers, a task which involves delivering the newspapers. 

Earthbound is VERY grindy. I have a NES ROM of the original Mother/Earthbound 0 which comes with a trainer option to give double XP, and it's still pretty grindy. The music is fantastic, though. 

[Onyx2]

So that R36S is a tidy little thing isn't it? I'm at Mother Brain on Super Metroid 31 years late. At last I've had the excuse to experience this start to end.

Oh and I found this handy list of soft controls which I found useful, they certainly weren't in the box for me:

Spoiler

Cross/Joystick: Switch simulator platform
A key: enter and confirm
B key: return and cancel
SELECT:Enter screensaver standby mode
START:Set
L1 R1: Game menu page turning
Y: Collection
Volume +/-: volume adjustment
Power button: short press to enter sleep mode, long press for more than 5 seconds to force shutdown
Reset button: System reset and restart
System shortcut keys
Brightness adjustment: Right joystick R3 + up/down keys
Save/load archived game: Select key + L1 key/R1 key
Archive slot selection: select key + up key/down key
Exit the game: Select + Start (press twice in succession)
Enter RETROARCH: Select +X key / L3 joystick + R3 joystick
Pause the game: Select +A key
Restart the game: Select +B key

I've encountered one bug though that I can't figure out, it's not destructive but a little annoying: I was messing around on the Super NES menu and chose the 'grid' layout. Now whenever I select 'Super NES' the unit soft resets. I can search for any game in the collection and launch it, but I can't browse the SNES section. 

Anyone know how to reset this without being in the menu itself ? I'll try the system reset once I've beaten Mother Brain as I don't want to lose my save progress.

Edited January 20, 2025 by Onyx2

[FLips]

I’ll have a look when I get home from work. There’s usually options to access emulators from the main screen.

[Dr. Alan Grant]

I can’t even turn my R36 on anymore. I haven’t used it for a little while. So I charged it up yesterday, there’s a blue light constantly on between Start and Select, but it won’t turn on no matter what buttons I press. 

[Merzbow]

Sounds like the SD card has died, were you using the one it came with?