No Accounting for Taste - Your Guilty Pleasures and Unpopular Favourites

[zylon]

7 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Ahh yeah that's a low skill threshold then if those examples are where you'd draw the line, especially on Gradius.  Still SuperDD just isn't well done so you're not wrong there.

SNES, just like all systems, there's games I can pick up, and run with, those I just seem to excel at, those I don't, but still fun, and those I've no chance in hell, lol. The more buttons I gotta use, the less likely I'll have any luck with it. I do best with 1-2, sometimes 3 buttons, at best. If I can get away with seldom using 3rd, then I'll get further. RPG's, I can do all the menus you got, click 'n wait. Action rpg's, not much chance with most, but I do well at Soul Blazer. Most platformers, I'm excellent comic relief. So, no megaman, castlevania, etc. Super detailed moving backgrounds give me hell, such as any thunderforce games, I need what moves or can kill me, to really stand out. Not all inclusive though, as I can get somewhere in a few of the Contra games.

[zylon]

Since I had the ED clone out, I attempted copying that included card onto ones I had here, that worked. Results were a zero, not a game will load and run beyond black screen, and they took a LOT longer to get that far. It will load anything from the included card, Chrono Trigger being the biggest I knew of to try. It loaded and ran all tested from included card- CT, FFIII, Paladin's Quest, Tecmo Secret of the Stars, etc. Those latter two, being possibly the only ones using "saves", that I might play on it. It works on both my Yobo FC Twin Slim, and the household Gamerz Tek g16 HD, with no issues. Not bad, but I just don't see these being a viable "long term" alternative to having carts.

[Tanooki]

I don't trust them but for a time (still?) some of them were like $20-30 cheap so I can see why people grabbed the stuff.  I'd rather have a solid chip only solution which is why I have the 253 cart from this year, and the FC shelled 154in1 robocop menu Ultimate Famicom Remix 1+2 cart because between the pair are like 350+ games to mess with which is plenty and that will hold up better than a 10 cent crap quality memory card with a sketchy copy of an everdrive.

[Austin]

BlazeOn is a "good" title if you think falling asleep at the wheel should be expected of you while playing.

 

That's one of the biggest snooze-fests in the genre as a whole.

 

I guess at least it's better than D-Force.

 

 😞💤

[zylon]

3 hours ago, Austin said:

BlazeOn is a "good" title if you think falling asleep at the wheel should be expected of you while playing.

 

That's one of the biggest snooze-fests in the genre as a whole.

 

I guess at least it's better than D-Force.

 

 😞💤

Good! I might be able to do that. 🤔I've driven same car 20yrs, and the same 6 mile route to work for 28yrs. I've had several days where I remember getting in the car, and just somehow ended up at work. Entire drive being a blank. D-force does bite, as does UN squadron, even allowing for my lack of skill, and poor effort by the programmers.

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I don't trust them but for a time (still?) some of them were like $20-30 cheap so I can see why people grabbed the stuff.  I'd rather have a solid chip only solution which is why I have the 253 cart from this year, and the FC shelled 154in1 robocop menu Ultimate Famicom Remix 1+2 cart because between the pair are like 350+ games to mess with which is plenty and that will hold up better than a 10 cent crap quality memory card with a sketchy copy of an everdrive.

It seemed like the most efficient way to be able to test-drive the most titles, at reasonable cost. Getting back into this system, after 25yrs off it, I only remembered a handful of titles I liked. Never were many of these around, in my circles then. I believe it was around 25 shipped, when I got it. The card, seems to be far better than anything I got here. If you aren't endlessly deleting and adding to it, the weakest link becomes the flash memory in the cart itself. Multicarts are lightyears better, but had to start somewhere. I only had a small box of originals from the house. Ironically, the few sports titles we had, remain the better games in the box, lol. gradius 3, bulls v blazers, qb club 94, thunder spirits, wheel of fortune, illusion of gaia, and lagoon.

[schuwalker]

On 7/6/2023 at 6:47 AM, Austin said:

Have to drop the obligatory Super R-Type. I know it's got a poor reputation for several reasons, and it makes sense to me, but it's one I got back in the day and it was one of those games that just "clicked" right away for me from the moment I fired it up. It was stylish, had a great soundtrack and looked fantastic. I've played it heavily over the years and it's up there with a couple others on the system (like DKC, SCIV, SMW, etc) where it's basically a "comfort food" game and I can sleepwalk my way through it, even on the higher difficulties. If it didn't slow down as much as it does and it didn't send the player back to the beginning of each stage upon death, it would likely have a better reputation. The level design flows organically much like the first R-Type and it's just a good flow from start to finish--much less of that nonsense puzzle-like stage design, "memorize or die" moments like found in R-Type III's later levels.

Super R-Type might've been the first Super Nintendo game I picked up. I didn't know at the time it was basically R-Type II with some added and axed stages. The slowdown really didn't bother me much but the music was altered from the arcade. I've grown to like the SNES version music - still prefer the arcade. The thing that really bothered me was they nixed stage 3 all together (that was my favorite level in the arcade), stage 5 is also altered. I'm assuming these two levels alone would've taxed the system too much??? The new levels are thought were bland much like the newer bosses. Still not a bad port I guess...

 

My guilty pleasure is Actraiser 2. I know it's probably sacrilege but I put the sequel right up there with the first one. 

[Tanooki]

Yikes...Actraiser's red headed step child as nice?  I mean, if you ignore the huge difficulty spike, and you could find a smart way to get around the nasty sliding landing from the double jump to where it doesn't hinder you yes it's a solid action game with some utterly gorgeous visuals at the upper tier of non-chipped SNES games could do.  I could see if you fell in love with it having it as a guilty pleasure.

[zylon]

Despite all the giant epic rpg's on snes, one of my faves is the simple Secret of the Stars. I even had a repro of it made up. None of my multicarts had it, other than the ed clone. 

common opinion is it sucks, but I began with original Dragon Warrior, Phantasy Star, and the GB FF Legend trio.

 

 

[Tanooki]

It's probably not that bad, but if your starting point was the more smooth approach that Square took to their titles, you would likely not look so kindly.  The Dragon Warriors, Phantasy Stars, old BoF, Lufia, etc stuff is more stiff compared, not bad, just not the same so it would be easier to jump on board I'd imagine.

[Wayler]

When I was in my RPG phase (lots of free time + interest), I always dismissed this one because of how underwhelmingly underwhelming it looks. And looking at the SNESdrunk video, I guess I did not miss on a hidden gem. Your guilt has been approved zylon. 

[zylon]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

It's probably not that bad, but if your starting point was the more smooth approach that Square took to their titles, you would likely not look so kindly.  The Dragon Warriors, Phantasy Stars, old BoF, Lufia, etc stuff is more stiff compared, not bad, just not the same so it would be easier to jump on board I'd imagine.

 

31 minutes ago, Wayler said:

When I was in my RPG phase (lots of free time + interest), I always dismissed this one because of how underwhelmingly underwhelming it looks. And looking at the SNESdrunk video, I guess I did not miss on a hidden gem. Your guilt has been approved zylon. 

Best way to describe it, is imagine an unfinished game, leftover from the previous generation, that someone found, and slapped bandaids in enough holes to make it float. Then, they used it, to get out of having to do any future ones. I find some of the problems in it, humorous, such as "Uncle Save". They didn't even make an effort and just used the script "placeholder" as is. Items, etc, are best done by net today, but before that, you wanted to save, and test out anything you found, to see what it'd do. I believe this was the only entry, in Tecmo RPG Series, lol. That said, if you stumble upon a copy today, no paperwork, and have experience in the type, it does give enough to complete it, without looking up things on the net. Nowhere worth the hundreds asked today, but fits the 10 bucks for the repro I ordered. Someone could likely do better with PS1 Rpg Maker. I still look fondly upon playing it, but wouldn't recommend it to most.

[zylon]

I'm kinda amazed, that a lot of the titles in this thread, are on my red "non-rpg" multicart. It has a battery, but I think only prince of Persia & Mario world, use it. 🤔 My other one is mainly my rpg use, with Chrono, ff2&3, lufia, etc.

Edited July 17, 2023 by zylon

[Tanooki]

Posting this for posterity. I’ve had these for many years. Vintage SFC multicarts.  The stickers are accurate. Stupidly the one with Mario and fzero do NOT save. Everything works right on both otherwise. 
 

 

[jeffythedragonslayer]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Stupidly the one with Mario and fzero do NOT save.

Dead battery?

[Tanooki]

5 hours ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

Dead battery?

Funny you ask, board doesn't support one.  Smaller board, the other even smaller yet, mix of a chip and glop top setup.

[Wayler]

Meaning they just slapped together a bunch of games without thinking or knowing about a battery save for the them. So it's probably blind luck that only 1 game really needed one out of those 8. I don't remember F-Zero needing one but it's been a long time. Does it save lap records? 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Wayler

[Tanooki]

2 games -- SMW and F-Zero as F-Zero does save best times/lap records.  I mean it's not really a loss with F-Zero it was more about the fun than precision racing but Mario sucks having to play it like SMB3 and plow through with no saves.

[zylon]

I don't play those, but my nephews do, and that would suck, a straight playthrough on SMW. My green cart has the chip save, which seems to work. Besides funny spelling, like Maio world, only errors I know of on the red one, are Demon's Crest doesn't work, and UMK3 is really MKII. Otherwise, it's mostly beat'em ups, shooters, fighters, & misc filler, but some deeper dives into the catalog. It goes well with the green one, as the core games don't overlap a lot. I think 4 final fights on each, is bit excessive, lol. The kids have been enjoying the final boss battle on FFMQ, using my save.

[CaptainBreakout]

Actraiser 2 was mentioned.  Funny enough that I actually paid for a custom cart to be made that featured the two games.  I still like the original more.  Lots of time behind that one. 

[Tanooki]

I just ordered the 239 cart from ali an hour or so ago for under $20, total win.  I decided to compare the game lists of the two and because it doesn't have the heavies of the bigger I have, and replaced it with quite a few good gaps and others in general it was worth having especially due to the robust system pixel games put into place.  I can see largely swapping those two out on the go when I'm not in the mood to go fishing on my shelf and helping make the everdrive even less used than it already is.

[zylon]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I just ordered the 239 cart from ali an hour or so ago for under $20, total win.  I decided to compare the game lists of the two and because it doesn't have the heavies of the bigger I have, and replaced it with quite a few good gaps and others in general it was worth having especially due to the robust system pixel games put into place.  I can see largely swapping those two out on the go when I'm not in the mood to go fishing on my shelf and helping make the everdrive even less used than it already is.

I have the 239, and while not in order, it does have more on it, that I'd play. Function is the same, and if you end up with an older battery one, it still saves multiple games at once. There's a 630-in-1 that also does that.

[Austin]

On 7/16/2023 at 4:42 PM, schuwalker said:

My guilty pleasure is Actraiser 2. I know it's probably sacrilege but I put the sequel right up there with the first one. 

Actraiser 2 is one of those games that gets better the better YOU get at it. It's absolutely brutal though. I didn't appreciate it until sometime last year where I tried learning the game. I think I made it about halfway through and hit a roadblock, but intend to try again. Just mastering that first level itself took some time, sheesh. You really have to get comfortable with its mechanics and memorize the layouts. It's a game for higher skilled players which is why most don't enjoy it, especially compared to the first game, which was pretty friendly to its players.

On 7/14/2023 at 3:25 PM, zylon said:

Good! I might be able to do that. 🤔I've driven same car 20yrs, and the same 6 mile route to work for 28yrs. I've had several days where I remember getting in the car, and just somehow ended up at work. Entire drive being a blank. D-force does bite, as does UN squadron, even allowing for my lack of skill, and poor effort by the programmers.

Oh, that sounds fine and all, you do you. That said, wait until you get to experience bullets registering as hits even though they are several ships away. It's a wonderful time! 🤣

Edited July 18, 2023 by Austin

[NE146]

I bought Actraiser 2 at launch and made the effort to get through the entire game (Pretty sure I held out hope there'd eventually be a world building part ). It's been so long at this point but I forget exactly where I was, but I hit some wall where it seemed impossible to progress and I eventually gave up. lol what a thing to do to your fanbase 😜

Edited July 18, 2023 by NE146

[zylon]

13 minutes ago, Austin said:

 

Oh, that sounds fine and all, you do you. That said, wait until you get to experience bullets registering as hits even though they are several ships away. It's a wonderful time! 🤣

Just played some today. Long as I don't do anything beyond the regular rapid fire button, I get somewhere. Since the "purty" games kill me off on opening screens usually, it makes a better candidate for my nephews learning to play. No stupid options, just hold this button and go. It's not like I'm going to beat any of these, except maybe Aero Fighters and STG. It's about as good, or bad, as Super R-type, or anything on this, beginning with "Super", lol. I let them take the partially broken RD2 I had here, home, and would not worry about them taking $10 Blazeon home to practice.

[Austin]

5 minutes ago, zylon said:

Just played some today. Long as I don't do anything beyond the regular rapid fire button, I get somewhere. Since the "purty" games kill me off on opening screens usually, it makes a better candidate for my nephews learning to play. 

That's cruel that you'd be willing to put your nephews on something that's the equivalent of a rusty old bike with no tires and nails popping out of the seat. C'mon, give 'em something at least a little bit better. (BlazeOn is at least infinitely better than D-Force). 😆

Edited July 18, 2023 by Austin