The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[RedTwoster]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

My next "project" is to get Sonic Mania running on my CRT just for a laugh. From what I understand there are a couple of bits that are made for the 16:9 format such as the spider boss, but from what I've seen it's "90% fully playable in 4:3" so we'll see. Won't take long to do and it'll be interesting more than anything else.

Be sure to include some photos of your efforts here - I’d love to know how well this works. I recently moved house, and I’ve been flirting with the idea of getting a CRT TV, now that I have the room for it. I saw one available for £15 at a retro games event a few years ago, and I’m still kicking myself for not picking it up. 

1 hour ago, FLips said:

After watching the brilliant "U Can Beat Videogames" on Youtube, which is a fantastic channel for detailed guides on retro games, I managed to beat Batman on the NES.

It's a brilliant little game with responsive controls, tough but fair gameplay similar to a Ninja Gaiden at a slower pace, and importantly with enough practice something you can beat in under an hour. The music isn't all-time great but there's some choice cuts in there for sure.
If you're looking for a NES era fast-paced platformer then you can't really go wrong with it.

Is it the same game as the Amiga version, or are they separate entities? 

[hallicks]

1 hour ago, FLips said:

Yeah that's Theme Park, or judging by the ability to name the guest possibly Theme Park World which was the sequel.

Ahh of course! Yes I remember when you’d complete the first level, you’d buy land in some other country for the next one. 

[FLips]

2 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

Be sure to include some photos of your efforts here - I’d love to know how well this works. I recently moved house, and I’ve been flirting with the idea of getting a CRT TV, now that I have the room for it. I saw one available for £15 at a retro games event a few years ago, and I’m still kicking myself for not picking it up. 

Is it the same game as the Amiga version, or are they separate entities? 

Well I can already tell you how it works. It doesn't. At least not to any capacity I can use it.

Sonic Mania as it turns out had the makings of 4:3 aspect ratio during development but was abandoned and never added to the game as an option, so outside of an unfinished PC mod you can only play in 16:9. I looked into a few bits and decided not to bother unplugging my Switch to try it with the adapter as all anecdotal evidence online says don't bother.
There is an unofficial Wii port that might run 4:3 but I've found it impossible to get working as it requires a LOT of dicking about and the thread for it I found is full of people with issues such as crashing on the last level, black screens, not loading, etc. I gave it a good hour to try and get it going but it's currently a non-starter. The forum I found the instructions on are a combination of more experienced than me and link to GitHubs which I barely know to to navigate, or respond to people with the same issues as me with "well you're doing it wrong".

Might be one I go back to.

That being said, it did light a fire in me to try other games that might work, on a console I know would display them with a native 4:3 option; my Wii.

So after a bit of downloading and tinkering, I went ahead and COMPLETELY LEGITIMATELY acquired copies of Mega Man 9, Mega Man 10 and Cave Story

They all look fantastic as you would expect. I was fortunate enough to be able to do a comparison of Mega Man 9 vs Mega Man 3 to see how original NES looks compared to a "modern" interpretation of it. It probably comes as no surprise I'll now be viewing the Wii 4:3 versions as the definitive versions of Mega Man 9 and 10. I did initially try the 360 port but that doesn't run 4:3 native so you get the black borders of doom.

Displayed in it's somewhat intended form you can really view them as graphically high quality versions of the same game, similar to how games now look night and day at the start and end of a console's life cycle. MM9 looks like 3 but late in the console's life and with all the bells and whistles.

The first 3 images are Mega Man 9 and the last 3 are Mega Man 3. You can barely tell them apart other than the slightly smoother pixel work on 10. You could easily imagine they were both NES games though.

Batman on the NES is it's own thing. The closest you might get to it is the Game Boy version but that's not a port either.

 

Edited February 17, 2025 by FLips

[Jesse]

This Bsky thread is good fun, a collection of odd/unique sound effects for jumps in various retro games
 

 

[FLips]

That Bart vs The Space Mutants one is second nature to me but in isolation yeah it’s odd.

[FLips]

After a little bit more tinkering I finally got Sonic Mania running on the Wii in both 4:3 and 16:9.

I'll get the obvious out the way first, this is a mod of a modern game running on a console a generation behind, running on a pair of TVs from the 90s. It has a couple of flaws.

In 4:3 the game is actually mostly built to run natively so as I'd heard, it runs 90% perfect with some issues arising from the screen cropping out some of the main menu and some of the bosses that position on the sides of the screen. The biggest offender is the spider boss from Flying Battery but honestly it was no issue at all. You can't see the spikes on the opposite side of the screen, but they fill the entire wall so hit Robotnik in the right direction and you can't miss. Similarly the Death Egg Robot on Green Hill Act 2 can scroll off the left of the screen if you run too far right, but the screen scrolls with Sonic so he always shows back up when you go in for the hits.
Could be a little confusing if you've never played it before, but realistically who is playing Sonic Mania for the very first time on a 14" CRT running it from a modded Wii?

16:9 packs more content on the screen as the game is meant to run like that anyway, but personally I found it to scroll a little funny. It's hard to describe but it was as if the game was behind glass and the scrolling made me a little dizzy. 4:3 is the way to go for me personally, but it did look lovely in 16:9.

I wouldn't say either look as good as playing it on modern consoles, but they were never going to. I will say though if you wanted to play a modern 2D Sonic on the same hardware you would have back in the day then you really can't fault it in 4:3. Looks stunning, runs in 60fps fully input responsive and bar a couple of bits missing from the sides it's as if it's a Mega Drive game. Certainly worth the effort it took to set up and by the sounds of it should be moddable as there's a lot of chatter about a "no decoration" mod to remove bells and whistles from the bonus games to have it run 60fps like it does during the actual game. You can also get the Encore mode DLC to work with it no hassle to, which I'll get around to.

I've been playing with the Wiimote turned sideways but apparently it has full controller compatibility including Gamecube, and other features like 2P Tails control and so on.

Just really exciting stuff (might be one for the dull men's thread)

 

Edited February 22, 2025 by FLips

[RedTwoster]

If you haven’t played it, I’d highly recommend Sonic Triple Trouble 16-but, @FLips. I’ve no idea how feasible it would be to get it running on a CRT, but even if you don’t, but I’m sure someone, somewhere has - at the very least - given it a go. 

Edited February 23, 2025 by RedTwoster

[FLips]

54 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

If you haven’t played it, I’d highly recommend Sonic Triplr Trouble 16-but, @FLips. I’ve no idea how feasible it would be to get it running on a CRT, but even if you don’t, but I’m sure someone, somewhere has - at the very least - given it a go. 

That’s tomorrow sorted I think!

[FLips]

10 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

If you haven’t played it, I’d highly recommend Sonic Triple Trouble 16-but, @FLips. I’ve no idea how feasible it would be to get it running on a CRT, but even if you don’t, but I’m sure someone, somewhere has - at the very least - given it a go. 

Sorry for the double post but I got this working quicker than expected (sadly) due to there not being any way to port or launch it on a console natively. So I have moved my CRT to my computer desk and used my HDMI to Scart adapter.

I’m running it in 16:9 instead of the 4:3 option because 4:3 uses the black bars to squish the screen so while it looks fine i’m not really getting any benefit to using it because my TV is compressing an already compressed screen further.

It’s actually been a really interesting thing to do because due to my monitor duplicating the screen you can see the side by side in how pixels are displayed and it really shines through just how cleaner a CRT is on this type of game.

I can’t speak for the game itself as I haven’t played past the intro boss fight yet but so far i’m loving the music and funnily enough as I was typing this and chatting to my wife she went “they just jumped off the screen” so I guess the 10 minute Time Over feature is in too!

Even through a converter it feels responsive and while it does cut a little of the text off the corners, I think the built in 4:3 aspect means I shouldn’t suffer with any of the gameplay when it comes to not seeing any of the screen. It also has controller compatibility so it’s plug and play with no faff. Very nice.

I’ll report back with how I enjoyed the game when i’m done with it!

 

Edited February 23, 2025 by FLips

[RedTwoster]

Ah, I can’t believe you got it working so fast! Honestly, I think it’s better than ‘Mania, although I love both games. Fair play to Sega for letting fans do things like this, and fair play to the fans for being dedicated enough to produce something of commercial quality for no financial returns.

[FLips]

Finished Sonic Mania a couple of times over the last month or so, once on the Netflix version on Mobile and once on Wii. Interesting to play them on two fairly alternative consoles but both worked brilliantly.
The mobile game touch controls have always been an issue for me but they work the best I've ever used on Sonic Mania mostly due to the ease of the drop-dash ability meaning you never really have to hold down to spin dash and can fluidly use the jump button to keep momentum. Got through the Mania mode and I'm up to Metallic Madness on Encore which is the penultimate zone.
The Wii version got start-to-finished the other day when my mate was round and we were both impressed with that too, as you've seen in my previous posts. There was a worry from the forums I found it on that some of them crashed on the last zone and couldn't go further without deleting files but my copy ran smoothly start to finish and now I've finished the full game I can confirm that other than the previous issues with a couple of bosses I mentioned, this version is just as good as the others. Again, I won't just lie and say it looks better on a CRT because the game was made for newer consoles so it's not optimised and it's made to run in 16:9, but I will say it looks stunning and if you can get around the odd minor issue it's 100% worth playing this version.

After being impressed by Sonic Mania Wii my mate saw I had an Amiga emulator on the Wii and without even taking a breath went "HAVEYOUGOTSUPERFROG?" which I did, so on it went.
I've never played Superfrog before but I was actually really impressed by it. This was the game that kickstarted (if you don't mind the Amiga pun) what became a slippery slope of getting games and consoles for my mate based on what he had as a kid (and in hindsight some of which I remember playing at his Gran's house).

Superfrog is loads of fun though. Amiga platformers are few and far between when it comes to quality and never really "good" but "good for the Amiga". It's just not where the console flourished, for me at least. Superfrog is up there with the better ones though. Handles smooth as you like, the music is catchy but never annoying, and even though it's a dreaded euro-platformer it's very generous with collectables so you never feel like you have to backtrack too far or too often.
Like with most Amiga 500 games we ended up playing though "up for jump?!" became the catchphrase of the day.
Best bit of Superfrog though? That Superfrog Fruity. I can't imagine how frustrating having to win a password in a fruit machine would have been back in the day, but in modern times with passwords at our fingertips we had a right laugh trying to win it right through until level 2-4.

Less of a laugh when he came back the next day and the virtual keyboard on the Wii never worked so we couldn't enter a password, so that led to our next venture...

Discussing other games he had as Flink and Attack of the Mutant Penguins we realised that alongside the Atari Jaguar we both remember playing as kids, he never had an Amiga, he had an Amiga CD32. He reckons he still must have them both at his Grandparent's old house which his Uncle now owns but they're hoarders so wouldn't even know where to look. Imagine though, a Jaguar and a CD32 at the same time. Can't have been too fun as a kid (he had a Mega Drive at his own house but his games on that were shocking) but as a collecting adult? What a goldmine.

Anyway, getting the CD32 to run took bloody ages for a number of reasons. The first being it wasn't built into the Wii Romset I had so I had to get it on my PC. Thankfully I already had WinUAE on it but getting the kickstart roms for the CD32 was a nightmare because the owners of the Amiga IP are (from what the forums say) a fucking money-grabbing nightmare who are basically hoarding all the property and copyright striking any of it that appears online, and charging for it themselves. It's their property so obviously they're within their rights to do that, but for the Commodore Amiga? Really?
Apparently the biggest problem with them though is they don't actually know or care much about what they have so some of it they're not making available at all and this includes things like the Amiga OS and other bits enthusiasts would love to know about/get their hands on. I dunno, i'm just here for the kickstart roms and thanks to this debacle I had to, shall we say, sail the seven seas to get it.

Second issue came when I plugged my CRT into my PC to display it on. For some reason unlike a few other things I've done this with including the Sonic Triple Trouble game Rooster recommended (which I will get back around to, promise) and soon the Atari Jaguar emulator, the Amiga just struggled to display anything right on it. I spent what must have been over an hour messing with it to fix wrong screen size, thick scanlines, dodgy sound and a slurry of other issues. Eventually using a mixture of my own settings base on what I could see, and a very in-depth guide by John Novak which is actually incredibly thorough and interesting even outside of this https://blog.johnnovak.net/2022/04/15/achieving-period-correct-graphics-in-personal-computer-emulators-part-1-the-amiga/

In the end it still wasn't perfect but it was as good as I could get it and I had got it running PAL 50hz with a PAL filter which dulled the colours a bit but was more accurate to how it should look.

Once it was up and running off we went with Superfrog CD32 Version which upon seeing it had an animated opening cutscene my mate gleefully declared "I remember this, this is the definitely the version I had!"
The game is exactly the same as the 500 version though and doesn't benefit from being on the CD32 at all, other than one important aspect; a jump button. Oh what a difference it makes, though Up can still be used for those that freakishly prefer it. Because we were now running direct on a PC too it meant we had full keyboard/mouse control rather than a virtual keyboard and having to use the Wiimote as a mouse pointer. We used a password to get back to where we were and then played it right through to World 4-4. Brilliant little game isn't it? Rock hard at parts though and seems to follow a level pattern in the four stage setup of Normal/Normal/Bullshit/Bullshit.

After that we moved on to The Misadventures of Flink which from what I can remember doesn't differ at all from the Mega CD version I once owned back in the day. As with most Psygnosis games it's style over substance with the graphics being stunning (though obnoxiously letterboxed I assume to stop it running like junk) and the music is nice enough but nowhere near the upper echelon when it comes to Psygnosis stuff. The main offender for this game is it controls with some of the worst momentum since Bubsy where Flink moves at a crawl but gradually builds speed as you walk, this means when it comes to precision platforming you start at a stall and feel like you're jumping in mud. A lot of deaths in this game came from the difficulty platforming with the awful momentum system and not from the challenge itself.
Frustrating more than anything as there are all the ingredients for a classic game in there if Flink moved normally, but he doesn't, so it's buried in the forgettable pile.

After that we realised the CD32 didn't actually have many/any other good games (at least that aren't available on the regular Amiga or elsewhere) so I showed him some of my preferred A500 games while the emulator was on.

So next up was Lotus III: The Ultimate Challenge which is up there with Outrun for me as the top two arcade style racers. Perfect soundtrack, tight controls, fun weather and day/night mechanics. I think I said it before there aren't many racing games I like outside of Mario Kart and the like, but this is one I wish I had as a kid. If I did I might be off working in a garage rather than in an office and messing about with emulators in my spare time.

GODS was next which I will outright admit with no problem isn't really a good game. It has flaws out the arse. What it does have though is one of the best title tracks in gaming and that can go a long way to get you pumped up for a mediocre game. It also has those beautiful Bitmap Brothers graphics and style, and a cool story with a badass protagonist.
We both had a laugh on it though, sometimes when a game is dicking you through to the bone all you need is a funny pain sound effect or bizarre mechanic to get you through.
Whether this was him going "AGH" every time a fireball walloped him in the head, me having to explain that to pick up items you have to press crouch and attack, but also press attack again to highlight an empty space because you drop the item you're highlight after watching him pick up and drop the same key back a dozen times, or one part where we stood on a moving platform but never moved with it so awkwardly had to shuffle along the platform. A ton of design messes that oddly make up a fun, charming and hard hard game.

After that before he left we shot Turrican II on. After a little bit of the first level he went "God Turrican is a looker isn't it?". Even after all these years it still gets the plaudits it deserves so fair play. Going back to Up for jump wasn't the best but what can you do.
A game that looks and sounds like this, neither of us minded being stuck on the first stage and replaying it. It has plenty to explore for extra lives and once you learn the patterns and controls it gets a little easier. One of the Amiga's best, if not the best. Nothing wrong with an invincibility cheat though.

After my mate left I got around to getting the Atari Jaguar set up for next time and that was one of the easier things I've had to do. The emulator runs like gold on the CRT right out of the box with me only having to change maybe or two settings to have it in PAL instead of NTSC. Got a full ROMset with 3D box art and tried a few bits I was interested in. I'll save the reviews/comments for a time when we've had a proper go but I can say right now Attack of the Mutant Penguins seemed fun even if I don't fully understand it yet, Alien vs Predator is class, and Rayman is just as good as the PS1 counterpart but with a MIDI soundtrack that isn't as good but has it's own charm. Bubsy is dreadful and I can confidently say might be one of the worst on a console with a library this small.

Very well may work my way through the whole Jaguar library which isn't something I expected to be doing this year, or any year to be honest.

 

 

Edited February 27, 2025 by FLips

[RedTwoster]

21 minutes ago, FLips said:

I've never played Superfrog before but I was actually really impressed by it. This was the game that kickstarted (if you don't mind the Amiga pun) what became a slippery slope of getting games and consoles for my mate based on what he had as a kid (and in hindsight some of which I remember playing at his Gran's house).

Superfrog is loads of fun though. Amiga platformers are few and far between when it comes to quality and never really "good" but "good for the Amiga". It's just not where the console flourished, for me at least. Superfrog is up there with the better ones though. Handles smooth as you like, the music is catchy but never annoying, and even though it's a dreaded euro-platformer it's very generous with collectables so you never feel like you have to backtrack too far or too often.
Like with most Amiga 500 games we ended up playing though "up for jump?!" became the catchphrase of the day.
Best bit of Superfrog though? That Superfrog Fruity. I can't imagine how frustrating having to win a password in a fruit machine would have been back in the day, but in modern times with passwords at our fingertips we had a right laugh trying to win it right through until level 2-4.

I loved Superfrog growing up! The magazines hyped it up as a Sonic-killer - which it definitely wasn’t - but I bought into the hype and believe it at the time.

As far as Amiga platformers go, it has the best version of Wiz ‘n’ Liz, which holds up to this day and still feels pretty unique - I’m not sure anyone has repeated the concept. For those who haven’t played it, you rescue ‘wabbits’ as fast as you can, collecting letters they drop to spell words. 

Rodland also holds up really well. 

I also think the Amiga has the best versions of Robocod, Chuck Rock II and Rainbow Islands.

I used to love Oscar growing up, and while I probably overrated it, I still think it’s a decent game.

Bubba ‘n’ Stix still looks beautiful, even if it does feel a bit slow these days. It’s a nice idea though and enjoyable all the same.

McDonald Land and The Addams Family are both Mario rip-offs, but they’re good Mario rip-offs and definitely worth playing.

I still love the Amiga to this day, and although I enjoy it more for its mouse-based games, there are a lot of platformers that I absolutely adore.

Also, @FLips, can we swap lives?!

[FLips]

6 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

I loved Superfrog growing up! The magazines hyped it up as a Sonic-killer - which it definitely wasn’t - but I bought into the hype and believe it at the time.

As far as Amiga platformers go, it has the best version of Wiz ‘n’ Liz, which holds up to this day and still feels pretty unique - I’m not sure anyone has repeated the concept. For those who haven’t played it, you rescue ‘wabbits’ as fast as you can, collecting letters they drop to spell words. 

Rodland also holds up really well. 

I also think the Amiga has the best versions of Robocod, Chuck Rock II and Rainbow Islands.

I used to love Oscar growing up, and while I probably overrated it, I still think it’s a decent game.

Bubba ‘n’ Stix still looks beautiful, even if it does feel a bit slow these days. It’s a nice idea though and enjoyable all the same.

McDonald Land and The Addams Family are both Mario rip-offs, but they’re good Mario rip-offs and definitely worth playing.

I still love the Amiga to this day, and although I enjoy it more for its mouse-based games, there are a lot of platformers that I absolutely adore.

Also, @FLips, can we swap lives?!

I'll have to check some of those out, though I've definitely played Robocod and Rainbow Islands on the Amiga. If I remember rightly I was a big fan of Rainbow Islands. If Addams Family is the one where you play as Gomez then I played that too and remember it being OK.

My mate did mention Bubba N Stix yesterday as one he had on the CD32 so no doubt that will get played at some point.

[RedTwoster]

13 minutes ago, FLips said:

I'll have to check some of those out, though I've definitely played Robocod and Rainbow Islands on the Amiga. If I remember rightly I was a big fan of Rainbow Islands. If Addams Family is the one where you play as Gomez then I played that too and remember it being OK.

My mate did mention Bubba N Stix yesterday as one he had on the CD32 so no doubt that will get played at some point.

That’s the one - you’re Gomez. I’d definitely recommend Wiz ‘n’ Liz the most out of these. It’s available on other systems too, and it’s a blast multiplayer; whilst also giving a strong single player experience. It’s a great game.

I think I said to you before, but I bought myself a Virtual Boy a while back. I’ve since sold it for a tidy profit. While it actually does have some solid games, they all play far, far better on the 3DS. 

If you’re ever tempted to buy one yourself because you’re curious about the games, I wouldn’t bother. Emulation is the way forward here.

[Merzbow]

Yeah Wiz n Liz is a great classic, maybe too easy but it has bags of charm and controls really nicely. I've heard the Megadrive version has some extra graphical effects but it still looks lovely on the Amiga.

First Samurai is a bit of a lost platformer these days and I'd definitely recommend giving it a go, was given all eights and nines out of ten at the time but I think the far poorer SNES version is remembered more. For some reason that port cut out like half the levels and other things which is weird as it's not like the Nintendo was a weak console or anything. But yeah it's great fun with some of the best art and sound on the system.

What a cool looking ad for it, too.