The UKFF Retro Gaming Thread

[Jesse]

Decided to get back to my march through Castlevania after freeing myself from the grip of Final Fantasy Rebirth. Now I'm working through the Advance Collection, three games I've never played before and they look interesting.

I finally beat Dracula in Circle of the Moon this morning and that was a real bastard. This game has a great castle layout, some of the best boss designs so far, but a mixture of the frame being really limited to work on the Advance and the movement being really sticky made it more of a slog than I wanted it to be. Gave up on getting all the cards pretty early too, those drop rates are abysmal. Just upped my damage by 25% and skilled the bosses out.

Edit to avoid double posting, just beat Harmony of Dissonance and that was miles better. The addition of dashing makes the game significantly more fluid and it restricted the bosses down into much more manageable screens for the GBA. Feel really stupid that I had to look up a guide for one thing, and it was the main mechanic of the game (I just hadn't bothered to try pressing up in a very pivotal spot). Had so much fun with this I close to 100%'d it - checking out the map for both sides, gathering everything but the last bits of furniture, and seeing two endings.

Edited March 24, 2025 by Jesse
No double posting.

[FLips]

GODS
Yes I'm still playing GODS, no I haven't beat it yet. But I'm close.
I'm slowly figuring the game out, where the enemies spawn, how the puzzles work and so far I've made it to 3-3 so only a few levels off from the end!

As it happens the puzzles aren't just a one-and-done, they're all sequentially linked. So for example if I pull Switch A in Level 1, I need to do Switch B next or Switch C won't work and so on. This means that if you miss something in Level 1, you're locked out of some of the goodies in the other levels. It's bonkers and requires perfection almost. You absolutely need to learn it though because you get so much money and extra lives from it to help complete the game.

Not sure if these count as pure retro as I'm playing the remasters but I'm going through the Mass Effect games for the first time too so no spoilers please.

Mass Effect I really enjoyed. It was a bit barebones at times but I enjoyed the decision making and ended up playing as a bad boy Renegade but treated my team with respect. I liked the planetary exploration in my little car thing and finding bases to infiltrate. There's a lot of heavy worldbuilding too which is explained really well naturally through characters and conversation so you don't have to spend time reading books and things like in other RPGs. It's a fully fleshed out world from the get-go and it really immerses you.

I imported my stuff right into Mass Effect 2 which I'm on the final mission for currently with everyone except one DLC character (Zaeed) loyal to me. There's a lot of quality of life improvements but some of them I'm either not a fan of or had to warm to. The combat is technically better but I preferred it in 1 where healing was a medkit item and you didn't have to use the frankly poor cover system to regenerate. I'm also not a fan of the quicktime event Paragon/Renegade actions as they don't explicitly say what you'll say or do, so taking a punt on them has ended me up in hot water.
The planetary exploration is also much worse as now all you do is mind-numbingly fly from planet to planet and scan it for materials, and sometimes you get to land and do a 3 minute mini-mission. Halfway through the game I just stopped scanning planets.

On the whole though the game is objectively much better. Characters are fleshed out more (but I will never trust Amanda, Jacob or The Illusive Man, fuck em), the missions are beefier, the plot a little heavier and it plays great. Excited to move right onto Mass Effect 3 right after.

For those interested I'm boring and stick to the same teams unless forced to do otherwise. ME1 was Kaiden and Garrus, ME2 has been Garrus and Tali.

I also finished up a run of WWF Betrayal which only takes 20 minutes. It's a Gameboy Colour beat em up and it's bang average but I used to have it as a kid so every now and again I stick the rose coloureds  on and give it a playthrough. When it comes to WWE spinoff games, the only competition are mobile card games and Crush Hour so by default it might be the best one.

 

 

[FLips]

I know you're all sick to death of me banging on about my CRT tv by now but I have a confession to make.

So as you probably know I have my little 14" DVD combi that I've been using mostly for 8-16 bit stuff, NES, SNES, Megadrive, etc. I also last year got myself a 27" widescreen one that was used more for Gamecube/PS2/Wii/Dreamcast etc.

Well I want to admit to you I've never completely been happy with the 27" one. Don't get me wrong, it was absolutely worth the like £55 or so I paid for it and there's nothing particularly wrong with it, it just wasn't tickling my fancy. By all accounts the widescreen itself was still fairly useless at that period in time, only being fully compatible with some PS2 and Wii games. The rest would be output in 4:3 and stretched.
Well for the last year on and off I've been keeping my eyes peeled on Facebook Marketplace for preferably a 20" 4:3 to replace the 27" and last weekend finally stumbled upon a bit of a dream tv.
It's 27" still, but it's 4:3 and as you all know I love a bit of 4:3.

It's absolutely beautiful and I love it. Everything looks amazing on it, even the stuff I usually put on my 14" one. We got home from picking it up as well and my wife is baking me a cake. Genuinely think I might be getting put down later.

Outside of that I finished Mass Effect 2 and I'm most of the way I think through Mass Effect 3. Really wish I'd played them sooner because I'm super into them right now. Great story, excellent worldbuilding and lore that is easy to follow through just exploring and talking rather than having to read walls of text or watch long cutscenes, and the ability to take my same character through all 3 games has been really immersive. Some of the best RPGs I've ever played.

Edited March 29, 2025 by FLips

[hallicks]

My nan had a 32” CRT that she bought in 1990 or something. It got handed down through the generations until I had it in my first house after uni, so mid-2000s and it was still going strong. Lasted until 2011 when I moved in with now Mrs H and we had to tip it as I think the tube finally started going. It was an absolute monstrous fucker, two of us carrying up the stairs to the house probably partially caused my mate have back surgery not long after moving in. Great TV. 

[Dr. Alan Grant]

On 3/26/2025 at 8:34 AM, FLips said:

GODS
Yes I'm still playing GODS, no I haven't beat it yet. But I'm close.
I'm slowly figuring the game out, where the enemies spawn, how the puzzles work and so far I've made it to 3-3 so only a few levels off from the end!

As it happens the puzzles aren't just a one-and-done, they're all sequentially linked. So for example if I pull Switch A in Level 1, I need to do Switch B next or Switch C won't work and so on. This means that if you miss something in Level 1, you're locked out of some of the goodies in the other levels. It's bonkers and requires perfection almost. You absolutely need to learn it though because you get so much money and extra lives from it to help complete the game.

I’m willing you on to finish this game. I had it on the Mega Drive and could never come close to completing it. Over the years I’ve come to hate it due to that fact. The same applies to Pugsy for the Mega CD and Mission Impossible on the NES. Couldn’t finish them, therefore I hate them. 

[Jesse]

Wrapped up the GBA Castlevania's with Aria of Sorrow. Not a bad game, but I liked Harmony of Dissonance's castle, mechanic and characters more so coming immediately after it made it fall a bit flat. It was also really easy, probably the easiest one so far.

I have the DS collection next, but I need to play something as a palate cleanser after so many of these in a row.

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

Looking for some advice, I am thinking of getting a HDMI converter for my Dreamcast but I am little put off by the options available, not to mention the difference in cost.

Has anyone either brought one and if so, what aid your experience with it? Any recommendations? 

Thanks

[Merzbow]

52 minutes ago, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

Looking for some advice, I am thinking of getting a HDMI converter for my Dreamcast but I am little put off by the options available, not to mention the difference in cost.

Has anyone either brought one and if so, what aid your experience with it? Any recommendations? 

Thanks

Most of them are pretty cheaply made and might not last, Pound, Kyperkin and Kaico being the three you'll see around the most for around 30-odd quid.

A full on mod kit is the best option but also very pricey, personally I'd grab a BitFunx from Aliexpress for about a tenner as it's pretty much exactly the same thing as the three mentioned above.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005764331145.html

[Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz]

Thank you, I shall check it out

[Scratch]

On 4/4/2025 at 6:42 PM, Abe_Knuckleball_Schwartz said:

Looking for some advice, I am thinking of getting a HDMI converter for my Dreamcast but I am little put off by the options available, not to mention the difference in cost.

Has anyone either brought one and if so, what aid your experience with it? Any recommendations? 

Thanks

I bought this one from Amazon and it works perfectly.

https://amzn.eu/d/3LC1Yig

[Dr. Alan Grant]

Does anyone here use Nintendo Switch online for all the retro goodies? I’ve found a 12 month subscription on CDKeys for £25. NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64 and MegaDrive. Just seems too good to be true. The list of games available is full of ones I’d definitely play. Is there a catch before I bite the bullet? Maybe the games are poor conversions or the framerate sucks or you get sucked in Tron style and have to beat Ganondorf in person? It can’t just be £25 for all that and everything is sunshine and roses, surely. 

[FLips]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Alan Grant said:

Does anyone here use Nintendo Switch online for all the retro goodies? I’ve found a 12 month subscription on CDKeys for £25. NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64 and MegaDrive. Just seems too good to be true. The list of games available is full of ones I’d definitely play. Is there a catch before I bite the bullet? Maybe the games are poor conversions or the framerate sucks or you get sucked in Tron style and have to beat Ganondorf in person? It can’t just be £25 for all that and everything is sunshine and roses, surely. 

If it’s Nintendo Online + Expansion then yeah you get NES, SNES, GB, GBC, GBA, Megadrive and N64 plus DLC for select games like Mario Kart 8 and Animal Crossing. Think of it like Nintendo’s version of Gamepass.

If it’s just Nintendo Online then you’ll only get NES, SNES, GB and GBC but don’t get GBA, MD, N64 or DLC.

No catches and fairly decent emulation but obviously limited to the games they offer and having to use the Switch controller is iffy on things like N64.

£25 is a good price but it’s only usually £34.99 direct through Nintendo for the full expansion one so it’s not an unrealistic discount by any means. 

[Merzbow]

If you want the whole Switch Online plus Expansion cheap it might be best to find some people to share a family sub with, eight of you can split the cost for a year.

[Merzbow]

This came out of nowhere, a fixed and restored PC port of Breath of Fire IV from GOG.

https://www.gog.com/en/game/breath_of_fire_iv

[Browser Brady]

This is driving me crazy.

 

Was this song ever used in a video game in the late 90’s .

i could have sworn blind it was used in one of the wipeout games .