What have you been up to lately with your SNES/SFC?

[zylon]

Killed the SNES side of the RD2 finally. Played hella game of Gradius III, love that one until I die once, lol. Fell asleep, woke up this morning, hit reset, and DOA black screen. NES side still runs, but the nephews are gonna hate me. 😂

[CaptainBreakout]

Whoops... Moved to the "non-super" Famicom thread.

Edited May 23, 2023 by CaptainBreakout
Whoops....I just realized this is supposed to be in the Famicom "non-super" thread. Moved there.

[zylon]

My good game of gradius 3 actually did kill it, just not the system itself. Looks like one bulged capacitor inside the power supply. It still ran the NES side fine, but only 200ma needed to power that. It still gave enough power to stay running, but not a powerup.

Edited May 23, 2023 by zylon

[zylon]

Testing with my multicarts, and the fix is good. I found an old phone charger, with same rating, and swapped the cable from it.  Normally, the 180-in-1, that I got for the kids, is in there. No more delay on SNES powerup, from cold, so that cap must've been failing for awhile. I hide my cart when they're here, so they don't wreck my saves, lol. 

[Wayler]

I've been playing Megaman X3 seriously for the first time (tried it with an emulator back in the day). Either I suck or then it's way harder than X or X2. Finally managed to beat all 8 mavericks and now going through the stages again to get the bonuses before tackling that Doppler fella.

 

What I didn't know was that you can only have 1 of the 4 chips per game and there are no backsies. So when I first found a pink capsule containing the shooty enhancement I was overjoyed. Yes,yes Dr. Light, you say my system can only handle one of your awesome chips, cmon gimme. Then I find a second pink capsule and it has the double jump. Now that is more useful! I want to change!...........What! I can't change? You did not tell me that? WTF old man, you're supposed to help me!!

 

I wanted the jumpyjump =(

 

[zylon]

Treated myself to this lil' guy I picked up used. 😎

[WavyGravy]

On 5/29/2023 at 9:38 AM, Wayler said:

I've been playing Megaman X3 seriously for the first time (tried it with an emulator back in the day). Either I suck or then it's way harder than X or X2. Finally managed to beat all 8 mavericks and now going through the stages again to get the bonuses before tackling that Doppler fella.

 

What I didn't know was that you can only have 1 of the 4 chips per game and there are no backsies. So when I first found a pink capsule containing the shooty enhancement I was overjoyed. Yes,yes Dr. Light, you say my system can only handle one of your awesome chips, cmon gimme. Then I find a second pink capsule and it has the double jump. Now that is more useful! I want to change!...........What! I can't change? You did not tell me that? WTF old man, you're supposed to help me!!

 

I wanted the jumpyjump =(

 

It's not just you, X3 is a lot harder than 1 & 2. Not as bad as X6, though. The chip thing has another wrinkle to it as well: If you decide not to take any of the 4 chips AND find all the other items, there's a special fifth chip in one of the Doppler stages that gives you the effects of all 4 of the other chips at once.

[zylon]

My new goodie arrived. 68-in1, mostly the US released rpg's and some other stuff. Only notable absence, is Lufia Fortress of Doom, which is often buggy. It does hold multiple saves at once, but how many hasn't been tested yet. I stopped at 4 test saves. Tiny 1220 battery, with a 2032 nes board shown for comparison.

Edited July 31, 2023 by zylon

[newtmonkey]

Mystic Quest: Final Fantasy USA

I completed this back in the day when it was first released in the US, but I decided to revisit it and play the Japanese version, to see if there are any differences (other than text, nothing so far).

 

I remember liking the game back then, though of course I realized it was quite scaled down from a full RPG experience.  Replaying it now, I must admit that I'm pleasantly surprised with this one!  It's linear, and the story and dialog are pretty dull, but this is true for a LOT of console RPGs.  I decided this time around to not use those grinding areas on the world map, as I suspect the game was originally balanced with not using these in mind.  Without the grinding spots, the combat is actually pretty fun and honestly harder and more interesting than lot of "proper" console RPGs (such as the Cosmic Fantasy games, or Final Fantasy II [US]).  Regular enemies are capable of doing a lot of damage quickly, but they also have a lot of weaknesses to exploit.  For example, I never used the "bomb" weapon in combat my first time through, and it's surprising how useful it is against certain enemies.  Bosses can also be pretty difficult.

 

There's a lot of cool stuff about this game that I had forgotten.  I like how it uses a weird variation of the magic system from the first Final Fantasy, but instead of slots per spell level, you get slots per magic category (white, black, seal).  I also like how what you do in the game actually has a visual effect on the world; very few RPGs, whether console or PC, do something like this.

 

I recall really liking the soundtrack to this one, but I don't feel like it's aged particularly well.  There are some great compositions, but they are let down by the sample quality.  I know the good old SNES is capable of much better (just listen to Final Fantasy II, Super Castlevania, Secret of Mana, or TMNT Tournament Fighters), so it's a bit disappointing.  The Mystic Quest cart is half the size of Final Fantasy II, so I guess it's not surprising that sample quality suffers.

Edited August 6, 2023 by newtmonkey

[zylon]

On 8/6/2023 at 2:33 AM, newtmonkey said:

Mystic Quest: Final Fantasy USA

I completed this back in the day when it was first released in the US, but I decided to revisit it and play the Japanese version, to see if there are any differences (other than text, nothing so far).

 

I remember liking the game back then, though of course I realized it was quite scaled down from a full RPG experience.  Replaying it now, I must admit that I'm pleasantly surprised with this one!  It's linear, and the story and dialog are pretty dull, but this is true for a LOT of console RPGs.  I decided this time around to not use those grinding areas on the world map, as I suspect the game was originally balanced with not using these in mind.  Without the grinding spots, the combat is actually pretty fun and honestly harder and more interesting than lot of "proper" console RPGs (such as the Cosmic Fantasy games, or Final Fantasy II [US]).  Regular enemies are capable of doing a lot of damage quickly, but they also have a lot of weaknesses to exploit.  For example, I never used the "bomb" weapon in combat my first time through, and it's surprising how useful it is against certain enemies.  Bosses can also be pretty difficult.

 

There's a lot of cool stuff about this game that I had forgotten.  I like how it uses a weird variation of the magic system from the first Final Fantasy, but instead of slots per spell level, you get slots per magic category (white, black, seal).  I also like how what you do in the game actually has a visual effect on the world; very few RPGs, whether console or PC, do something like this.

 

I recall really liking the soundtrack to this one, but I don't feel like it's aged particularly well.  There are some great compositions, but they are let down by the sample quality.  I know the good old SNES is capable of much better (just listen to Final Fantasy II, Super Castlevania, Secret of Mana, or TMNT Tournament Fighters), so it's a bit disappointing.  The Mystic Quest cart is half the size of Final Fantasy II, so I guess it's not surprising that sample quality suffers.

My nephews like watching this one, as the magic animations are silly. We had it since back then, but none of us ever played it through until I did, this summer. The kids like to play the final battle, using my leftover save. Ours is the US version, and one thing that really kept throwing me, was the backwards "Heal", and "Cure" items. I went through every area it had, since game didn't have much.

[neogeo1982]

Picked up a 120 multicart locally after seeing all you guys talking about them. All lots of fun even with a few hacks on it too. I saw others with Donkey Kong Country or Megaman X on them. Too much overlap with what I own on cart already though. This one seemed the most rounded with the RPGs and action games.

 

[Bloodreign]

Some Ebay pickups, 3 SFC games, and other stuff to go along with them.

 

SFC:

Jikkyo Power Pro Yakyuu 2

Jikkyo Power Pro Yakyuu 3

Magical Drop 2 (Glory be, AT LAST! Took a few years to finally snag one)

 

PS1:

Namco Anthology 2 (for that sweet remake of the Famicom game, Valkyrie no Bouken, amongst 3 other games with original versions and remakes on it)

 

PS2:

Soul Calibur II

 

GBC/GB:

Animaniacs GB

Adventure Island Game Boy (Japanese version, pretty much called #2 as the GB games were ports of the NES games, 2 and 3 respectively. Wondered why I couldn't find the first GB game, it was called the second game)

Puyo Puyo Sun (Another one that took years to get)

Puyo Puyo~n (4th GB/GBC Puyo Puyo game, took longer than Sun to snag one for a good price)

 

NES/FC:

Hi no Tori

Ganbare Pennant Race (Yay, more baseball, 3rd one picked up this time)

 

[zylon]

On 8/29/2023 at 8:58 PM, neogeo1982 said:

Picked up a 120 multicart locally after seeing all you guys talking about them. All lots of fun even with a few hacks on it too. I saw others with Donkey Kong Country or Megaman X on them. Too much overlap with what I own on cart already though. This one seemed the most rounded with the RPGs and action games.

 

That one's noteworthy for having the translated JP Dragon quest 1&2, FF IV, and Secret of Mana 2, on it, as well as the BS Zelda game. Uses cr1220 battery, but holds multiple saves. 

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

I'd always been intrigued by this one, ever since I saw a brief preview of it in what I guess is an issue of Nintendo Power.  I never really gave it a chance, though, due to the (mistaken) assumption that it less an RPG and more an adventure game or some kind of story game.

 

Well, I was looking through a list of SFC RPGs and saw this, and decided to finally give it a try.

 

You start the game by selecting a character/scenario to play, ranging from a caveman adventure in prehistoric times, to a robot exploring a space station in the far future.  Each scenario is like its own little game with unique quirks and style.  The combat system appears simple at first, but is actually pretty deep; it takes place on a small grid map and each character (and enemy) has a range of abilities with various effects (buffs and debuffs) and ranges.  Combat can be pretty tough, but you can run (100% chance) from nearly every fight, and leaving combat (either by winning or running) heals your party to full health.  It's less about conserving resources over many battles as in the typical RPG, and more about doing everything you can to win each individual battle.

 

I decided to go in chronological order, so I started with the prehistoric times scenario, which plays mostly like your typical RPG.  It has two quirks.  First, it takes place before humans developed language, so all communication is done using gestures.  Second, you obtain equipment by bringing parts to a guy that combines them into stuff for you; bring him a stone and a stick, and he'll make you an axe.  Several hours later (including some pretty tough battles), I completed the scenario.

 

It's a fantastic game!  It's too early to say for sure, but so far I'd rank it up there with Square's best.  I'll probably be doing the ninja scenario next.

[newtmonkey]

Played a few games last evening:

 

Live A Live

I completed the Ninja scenario.  This was a very cool but sometimes frustrating scenario.  You have to infiltrate a castle to assassinate an evil lord, but how you do it is up to you.  You can choose to kill no one, kill everyone, or something in between.  The 100% and 0% kill paths are basically for experts wanting to replay the game, so I just killed anything that attacked me, and left everything else alone.

 

There were some frustrations.  The castle is quite large and mazelike with multiple paths through, which is cool, but it took some time to get the layout down (there's no map in the game).  There are also several situations you can get yourself into that are basically instant death or a major progress setback, so you need to save often.

 

Anyway, it seems like this would be a fun scenario to replay (I'm actually looking forward to playing the remake eventually).  With that down, I'm probably going to go with either the Kung Fu or Cowboy scenario next.

 

Rockman X

I am 99% certain that I completed this on the Mega Man X Collection (PS2) many many years ago.  If I didn't finish it, I at least got to the last level.  I recall it being a really good port (I think it even runs in 240p), but why not make 100% sure that I complete these game, on the original hardware (well, on an SD2SNES)?

 

First off, I ran into some weird bug.  After clearing the intro stage, I went into Icy Penguigo's stage, got the leg upgrade, and then jumped up to that area where you can use the flame weapon to get a heart.  The game froze for a second, then brought me to the "Got Shotgun Ice" screen and then took me back to the stage select screen for a second before dumping me back in the intro stage.  Really weird.  I figured it was some issue with the "in-game hook" function of the SD2SNES, so I restarted the game, disabled the hook, and it was fine.

 

Anyway, I cleared the Icy Penguigo stage legit and jotted down the password.  I'd like to complete this one by the end of the year!

 

F-Zero

This was one of the first SNES games I got back in the day, so I have a lot of nostalgia for this one.  I remember buying this one mostly because it was marked down ($20? $30), and I also remember not expecting much but being blown away.

 

So, this is a "revisit," as I cleared the three cups back in the day on Beginner, possibly on Normal as well.  I don't know if I want to master this game, but we'll see.  I cleared the Queen League on Beginner (I had already cleared the Knight League), clearing all tracks at first place.  I'm not bragging about clearing the easiest difficulty level, but it was nice to see that my old man eyes and hands could still function at a respectable level.  I even remembered a lot of the twists and turns on the tracks, as muscle memory set it.

 

Anyway, what a game!  I think it still looks great today, and I love how colorful the backgrounds are (and of course the fantastic soundtrack).

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

I completed the kung fu scenario.  It's the story of an old martial artist looking for pupils to teach his martial art.  After collecting three pupils, you then have to decide how to train them and ultimately choose a successor.  There's a quick lady bandit, a clever young kid, and a strong fat guy.  I went with the bandit because several of the best techniques scale damage with speed.

 

This is a really short (1-2 hours long) but very cool segment that would probably be fun to replay, just to end up with a different successor.

 

I'll do the cowboy scenario next.

Edited October 12, 2023 by newtmonkey

[KidGameR186496]

I've been replaying EarthBound via emulation after finally playing and finishing Mother 3 on GBA.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

On 7/1/2023 at 12:45 PM, zylon said:

Treated myself to this lil' guy I picked up used. 😎

How are you liking that overall? Like from controllers to game performance how would you rate it overall as a SNES console?

[zylon]

On 10/13/2023 at 1:16 AM, OldSchoolRetroGamer said:

How are you liking that overall? Like from controllers to game performance how would you rate it overall as a SNES console?

It's actually quite good, though the cords on controllers are quite brittle. I've already got one taped up on top. The pads are almost as good as some of my old ones, but the ABXY buttons are bit farther apart than on originals. It plays everything I have, even a repro of Dual orb II. That game runs instantly on the G16, but you have to hit some buttons on the initial "black screen", if playing on Retron 2. A downside is not having the PAL/NTSC switch of the R2. ED's work on it, but only for non region locked games, so Euro Terranigma will not run. It will however, run on the R2 with the switch. I've run my originals, some repros, an ED clone, and my handful of KO multicarts without issues. My Wizardry V cart died in this system, and still not sure whether the heat from long leveling session, helped kill it. The SRAM inside the cart burnt.

No green bar up left center of screen, like any AV stuff run through my upscaler on the TV, but the unit does get kinda warm, vs others. Power button doesn't feel like it does anything, and I expect the faint clicky part inside to be a failure point. Cart slot doesn't have death grip, nor need an Eject button, and much more self guiding than the slot on R2. Only poor game performance, is if you have a glitchy Lufia- FOD. The R2 does better with glitched out dungeon screens, in this one instance. You can play through it on G16, but be sure to brush up on glitch avoidance.

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

Having finally completed Pillars of Eternity on PC, I'm back to this one.

 

I've been completing the scenarios in roughly chronological order, and I already completed the caveman, ninja, and kung fu scenarios... so next up was the cowboy.  Even though you play as a badass gunslinger, 90% of the scenario is you coordinating the defense of a town against some bandits.  It's a cool idea, but the execution isn't great.  Even without using a walkthrough, I had more than enough time to find all the tools around town (simply go from building to building and search every container) and assign the townspeople to set traps, so there's not any thought involved or anything.  The scenario ends with a fight against a boss with an attack capable killing you in a single shot; of course, the only way to know this is to either witness your party getting killed by it, or stumbling into it yourself (and having to reload from your last save and watch a pretty long unskippable cutscene).  Oh well, once you figure that out, it's almost impossible to lose against the boss.

 

I gave the next scenario a try.  It's basically a fighting game using the same turn-based combat engine as the other scenarios, which so far doesn't really work that well.  We'll see how it goes.

[The Mr. Video]

Been playing Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts lately to try out my new SCART cable and to test a Super Famicom controller I found at the flea market. I managed to get to the 4th boss before having to stop yesterday.

Edited November 1, 2023 by The Mr. Video
English grammar is fun!

[Tanooki]

When I get some free time again later in the week yesterday I nabbed a copy of Mega Man Soccer for somewhat of a steal, and there was Plok last Friday which I have touched a little, and that one is quite fun.  MMS I had before, it's 8bit basic in style, almost Kunio-ish but with MM robots from what I remember.  Anyone ever give that one a shot much?

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

I completed the modern day scenario (Masaru), which is set up like a fighting game but using the regular Live A Live battle system.  It's a fun idea, but there's really not much to it.  There are six enemies to fight, and you can select them in any order.  Your character does not level up or anything, but you can learn a couple of moves from each opponent if you get hit by them.  You also have a "charge" move that gives you a stat boost and heals you a bit.

 

That's basically all there is to this scenario.  Within 15 minutes or so I was at the last boss of the scenario.  This guy was pretty frustrating as he does a lot of damage, has a lot of HP, and is difficult to maneuver around due to his size and position in the arena (making healing difficult, maybe impossible).  It took a few attempts but the win just came down to luck, as I was able to stun lock him with this one kick move (it has a % chance of turning the enemy around, so he then has to waste a turn turning back to you).

 

Anyway, this is definitely the worst scenario in this game so far, so I'm glad it was so short.

 

I next started up the "near future" scenario (Akira).  I was expecting this to be a cyperpunk story, but it's actually closer to a Japanese superhero story (Kamen Rider, etc.).  Hopefully it will be decent.

[newtmonkey]

Live A Live

Tonight I played through the near future chapter (Akira).  I was dreading playing through this one, as I remember giving it a try years ago and not liking it for some reason... but it ended up being a really fun scenario!

 

This is basically a Japanese superhero story, complete with a gang of masked criminals terrorizing a small town (including an orphanage).  The twist is that your character is sort of the side kick of the actual badass hero... but you have psychic powers and become increasingly powerful as the game goes on.

 

It is probably the most conventional RPG-like scenario in the game.  You have a tiny world map to explore with a handful of locations to discover, random encounters (visible on the map), and your party of heroes grows as the story progresses.  Instead of a store, you find all of your equipment, either in locations or dropped from enemies, but after a certain point can upgrade your stuff for free... meanwhile, you gain more and more psychic abilities (basically spells) as you level up.

 

It's one of the longer scenarios in the game, but it's still only a few hours long at the most.

 

Next up will the "sci fi" scenario (Cube).  I've read that this is more of an adventure game than anything, so I'm not really looking forward to it... I'm foreseeing lots of "go here, talk to this guy, go there press that button, then go back to there and talk to this girl, etc." so I'll probably just follow a walkthrough for this one and enjoy the story.

[Kirk_Johnston]

22 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

Live A Live

Tonight I played through the near future chapter (Akira).  I was dreading playing through this one, as I remember giving it a try years ago and not liking it for some reason... but it ended up being a really fun scenario!

 

This is basically a Japanese superhero story, complete with a gang of masked criminals terrorizing a small town (including an orphanage).  The twist is that your character is sort of the side kick of the actual badass hero... but you have psychic powers and become increasingly powerful as the game goes on.

 

It is probably the most conventional RPG-like scenario in the game.  You have a tiny world map to explore with a handful of locations to discover, random encounters (visible on the map), and your party of heroes grows as the story progresses.  Instead of a store, you find all of your equipment, either in locations or dropped from enemies, but after a certain point can upgrade your stuff for free... meanwhile, you gain more and more psychic abilities (basically spells) as you level up.

 

It's one of the longer scenarios in the game, but it's still only a few hours long at the most.

 

Next up will the "sci fi" scenario (Cube).  I've read that this is more of an adventure game than anything, so I'm not really looking forward to it... I'm foreseeing lots of "go here, talk to this guy, go there press that button, then go back to there and talk to this girl, etc." so I'll probably just follow a walkthrough for this one and enjoy the story.

Akira on SNES. Do you have a link to that?

 

Edit: Oops! I totally read that wrong. Ignore that.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston