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[Leo656]

Starfox for SNES just came in the mail today.

Aaaaaand Metroid for NES just showed up. Whoooooo.

[Iroh]

I am currently streaming "Ghost of Tsushima" on Twitch. Words can't express how awesome this game is.㊙️🇯🇵💗💗

[Leo656]

Got some great deals on used games, recently, so I splurged on a few things for fun. Some good, some less-so, and some just to have:

- Golden Axe (Genesis)
- Jurassic Park (NES)
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit (NES)
- Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six (NES)
- Cruis'n USA (N64)
- Mario Kart 64 (N64)
- Starfox 64 (N64)
- Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (Game Boy Advance)
- Metroid: Fusion (Game Boy Advance)


So that's pretty swell.

[Leo656]

So even though I know it's bad, I wanted to check out "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" for NES since I found it cheap. I haven't played it in over 20 years, but rented it a lot as a kid. I always kinda had fun with it, even though it's very busted and I could never beat it. And after growing up and seeing all the videos and articles about how lousy it is, I wanted to see for myself if there was anything redeemable about it.

In short: Not really. It COULD have easily been fixed and turned into something decent with just a little bit of tweaking, but it misses the mark by a lot. There are some interesting ideas and it does a halfway decent job of replicating the plot of the film, and I do feel that it COULD have easily been a good game without a ton of overhaul. But it's not. It's "playable" at best, but it's certainly not fun.

- I know that it's an adventure game, NOT an action game, but the constant one-hit deaths are annoying as f*ck. Especially when enemies like stupid dogs or shoes can kill you while you're locked into talking with an NPC.

- Searching through drawers is 90% of the gameplay, but it takes too long considering how 99.9% of the time, "It's Empty". Wouldn't be so bad if there were more items to find OR it took one second instead of four or five to search something. As is, items are scarce and most places you explore are empty.

- Related: Since most buildings are empty, there's really no point in having such a large overworld. Between L.A. and Toontown, the game gives you a pretty large game world to explore... there just isn't much point in doing so, EXCEPT that the Weapons and Items you need to find are mostly randomly generated. Even so, on this playthrough I think I found ONE item by Searching in a drawer; Everything else was just lying on the ground out in the open, rendering the Search mechanic completely pointless.

- Related to the above: You can visit both Maroon Cartoon Studios and the Acme Gag Factory... but nothing happens. They're just there taking up space. I guess maybe sometimes a Weapon or Item might randomly generate there, but shouldn't they be important, somehow? They're some of the only unique-looking buildings in the game, with most of them having the same generic presentation, so you'd think since they went to the trouble of programming them they'd be more than just a neat-looking background. But that's literally all they are! At least the Ink & Paint Club has a reason to exist in this game.

- Weapons are useless. You get plenty of Weapons from the movie, or at least ones that would fit in the movie's aesthetic, such as Portable Holes and Exploding Cigars and Cartoon Bombs, but you essentially have to be standing right on top of an enemy to use them properly and they don't fall for it very often, thus you're as likely to get hit by them as you are to hit them with a Weapon. Better to just avoid enemies whenever possible.

- The music isn't the worst I've heard, and is pretty standard NES stuff, especially LJN-released games, but the tunes loop after too short a time and the result is very, very grating very quickly.

- The game gives you almost no guidance; the only way I ever made progress even as a kid, was through other people having played it. The game tells you to find Jessica's phone number to call it - which you can't do since 1989 - but NOT that giving Jessica a rose will have her tell you where the next piece of the Will is. Likewise, you can find a "Heart" Item, but the game doesn't tell you what it's for. Point of fact, you go to a building in L.A., find Dolores, give her the Heart and she tells you where the next piece of the Will is (actually her tip is always identical to Jessica's, which is pretty redundant). I've played this game a hundred times, and I only knew that was Dolores because I read it yesterday when I looked up what the heck the Heart was even for. How would you know it's even her? She looks identical to every other woman in the game, except maybe a hair taller. Most people would give up on this game before even finding two pieces of the Will, just because the searching of empty buildings and trial-and-error gameplay are so tedious, but nothing ever feels rewarding. You never feel like you've accomplished anything even when you make progress.

- The Big One: The Judge Doom boss fight is most likely the WORST I've ever played, or at least the most annoying and frustrating. I have never beaten this game, and am starting to doubt if I ever will, just because I don't have the patience for something so goddamn stupid. This fight is totally busted on every level. Let me count the ways this Boss Fight is terrible:

1. Hit Boxes Are Bullsh*t. I lost count of how many times there was a pixel's worth of black space between Doom's giant fist and my character, but I would still take a hit. Meanwhile, several of my punches clearly connected without doing any damage... BUT sometimes I'd still land a hit even though I was facing AWAY from Doom, if I was standing close enough.

2. All Weapons Are Useless. They give you a gun, which does nothing. Bombs and Cigars do a tiny bit of damage, BUT you have to trick him into walking over them, which almost never happens. The only way to guarantee they'll hit him is to stand right next to him when you use them... and you WILL take a hit in doing so, and lose more damage than you'll do to him in the process. Again, 99% of the stuff you can pick up in this game has no point.

3. Doom takes WAY too many hits to knock off the platform. Even if you execute perfectly and never get hit, it's gonna take about ten minutes to do enough damage to him. And you're not gonna do it the first time. You can easily spend twice as much time on this ONE fight, as you will playing the entire rest of the game. The Final Boss takes longer to beat than playing the entire rest of the game. Awful.

4. YOUR attack, meanwhile, barely does anything. Oh, you can spend upwards of 10+ seconds "charging up" your punch... but it only barely does more damage than a regular punch, AND leaves you wide open to take a hit. It's still better than trying to use regular punches, but not by much. For as much effort as it takes to charge up, tapping the B button a million times, it feels weak as hell when it actually lands.

5. Doom No-Sells your offense. Y'know how in most games, when you hit an enemy, they react for a second, maybe get knocked back a little bit to create space between you? Not here. And that's a HUGE problem, because most of the time, hitting Doom will just let HIM hit YOU immediately in return... sometimes TWICE! And every hit he gives you does twice as much damage as your hits do. ALL they had to do, was make Doom get knocked back a step when he gets hit, so he couldn't automatically hit you back. That alone might've saved this thing. As it is, every time you even try to attack feels like a waste... he's usually just gonna hit you right back.

6. Doom is Invincible when locked into his Attack Animation. If he reaches back to throw a punch, and you hit him first, guess what? Your hit doesn't count, but HIS will knock you across the screen. Likewise, when he goes to shoot daggers, you can't damage him. You can't hurt him without getting right next to him and leaving yourself wide open, and most of the time you're just going to take more damage than you give. If your shots still counted, it might be worth taking a hit in return. Too many times, he hit me at the exact same time I threw a punch, completely neutralizing my attack. It gets to the point where you don't even wanna risk attacking the guy, period.

7. I didn't get this far, but the Dip Cannon is ALSO bullsh*t. I've seen people beat it; after you knock Doom off the platform - after 10 minutes of Flawless Punching, good luck with that - you have EXACTLY enough time to run down a ladder, climb another one, grab the Dip Cannon, scroll through and then SELECT the Dip Cannon, climb down the ladder, face Doom, hold down the B button and spray him with Dip. If you are off with any of this by a HALF OF A SECOND, he kills you immediately and you have to do the entire f*cking boss fight over! Mistime climbing the ladder? DEAD. Can't select the Dip Cannon fast enough, or over-shoot it and have to scroll back to it? DEAD. Finger slips off the B button for a millisecond? DEAD. And then you have to do the ENTIRE FIGHT OVER.

Even if they JUST fixed the Boss Fight, the game might be tolerable. But it's near-impossible to beat and there's no fun to be had even in trying. It's just a gigantic endurance test to see how much frustration you can endure before you give up. I've seen the "ending" on YouTube, and it's such a sh*tty reward that it's not even worth beating the game to see. There is just NO reason to play this game unless you hate yourself.

I do like the graphics quite a lot for a licensed NES game; they're bright, colorful, and the sprites recreate the movie characters fairly well. And there are some good ideas present, and it does a good enough job in following the movie's plot, better than most licensed NES games, really. With some tweaking, it COULD have been worthwhile. As is, there's really just no point.

I was hoping I'd find SOME redeeming factor in it, but no, it really is as bad as everyone says it is. And that's a shame. It COULD have been something decent. But that Boss Fight is terrible and the ending isn't worth it. I don't even know if I'm gonna bother beating it. I know I CAN, even though I haven't ever. I got him down to ONE hit before dying, and then I had to take a break, because my blood pressure was through the roof by that point. So I CAN beat it... I just don't know if I care anymore. It's a bad game with no reward for completion, except saying "I had enough patience to beat a bad game." Yay?

This was not a fun experiment.

[Ninjinister]

Got a Saturn last week finally, only $50 but had no AV cord and controllers were an extra $20. It also isn't 100% perfect and sometimes it has trouble starting a disc but I feel like it's worth it.

Picked up an Action Replay because holy s**t some games go for stupid prices on both sides of the ocean but quite a few that are dumb in US are massively cheap in Japan. I got All 4 Virtua Fighter fighting releases for $39, shipped free.

[Leo656]

Yeah, that was a real bummer. My wife HAD to get a Saturn, because she had one as a kid, and I get that... then we go online and it's like "Ouch, most games cost as much as a beat-up used car. That's unfortunate." So we have like three games for it, not even good ones. I think we're just gonna cheat and buy bootleg discs for most games on that particular system. Not spending $300+ on one goddamn video game. I try very hard to avoid repro's as a rule, but Jesus Christ.

Is it giving you the old "there's no disc in here" business? Try putting a book on it, that helps.

How lame is it that nobody figured out disc-based consoles properly until Sony? Imagine my shock when the PS1 actually worked 100% of the time. My experiences back then with the Sega CD and the Saturn had me convinced that the damn things would only work properly if you did a rain dance first. No wonder Sony stole the entire market within a year.

[Leo656]

Spider-Man (PS1) came in the mail today. I forgot I even ordered it.

[Icebot]

Playing Super Mario Odyssey, I just got 117 in that 100 jump rope challenge.

[shredder orokusaki]

I currently play Horizon Zero dawn it reelased on pc on Friday. Very good game and i destroy all robots!

[Icebot]

Playing Zelda Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64 console, the controls are honestly so much better than the Wii U ones when playing the game from eshop.

[shredder orokusaki]

I startrd playing Battletoads which released yesterday on my PC and it is very fun game check it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiCp...CMmCibJ4AaABAg I played the old battletoad games in 1998 when i was 11 years old my first pc then a 486 100 mhz. great games!

[Leo656]

Been playing StarFox (SNES) off and on for a couple days. Finally finished Path 1. I like this game a lot; I never used to play shooters but now I play pretty much anything.

I am obviously not very good however, as Path 2 then handed me my ass pretty quickly. Still a very fun game though.

[Storm Eagle]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Been playing StarFox (SNES) off and on for a couple days. Finally finished Path 1. I like this game a lot; I never used to play shooters but now I play pretty much anything.

I am obviously not very good however, as Path 2 then handed me my ass pretty quickly. Still a very fun game though.

I decided to revisit that game on Saturday after watching this episode ofHigh Score on Netflix where they talk about the Super FX chip. I finished all three courses that day in two hours or so. I plan on revisiting Yoshi's Island since it also uses the Super FX chip, and then Star Fox 2.

[TigerClaw]

Got this today.

[shuriken]

TMNT-Mutants In Manhattan. I like it for what it is, better than the ps2 era games at least.

[Leo656]

Sure is! Super-low bar - "Battle Nexus" is worthless trash and I usually don't talk like that, but It Is What It Is" - but MiM is objectively, probably the best TMNT game ever and likely the best we'll get for a very long time.

[Icebot]

Just starting a new game of Zelda Breath of the Wild.

[Leo656]

Maaaaaaan, I still gotta play Skyward Sword. I don't even own a Switch yet.

[AquaParade]

Anyone playing Avengers? Sort or impulse bought it last week but it's much more fun than I expected. If anyone has it on PSN, maybe we can play.

[Icebot]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Maaaaaaan, I still gotta play Skyward Sword. I don't even own a Switch yet.

I never played Skyward Sword either. I also never played Wind Waker or Twilight Princess. I plan to play them someday.