Together Retro: Eighties' Ladies' Night

[chupon]

Amazing OP! Wish I made more time for games these days but just have other priorities.

Wanted to chime in and say Legacy of the Wizard is legit my favorite NES game. I LOVE the music. The labrynthian concept. The colors! It's top notch - total package and the game is one of many in a series of sequels and ports. I'd recommend everyone read the HG101 write up on the series. Really great stuff.

Guardian Legend, Metroid are also wonderful total full blown package games. Highly recommended.

While I've beaten those two - I've still never beaten Legacy of the Wizard on NES. Probably because I've never cheated. If I can find my elementary school hand drawn map for it I'll scan and upload. It was on graph paper - many pages with colored pencils and is a serious work of art. Anyways - I've three crowns. Could never find the forth boss.

Seeing you all play this masterpiece makes me so happy. I hope it brings joy to you all and not frustration.

Seriously - thank you for playing Legacy of the Wizard!

[Sarge]

I love Blaster Master, but I think The Guardian Legend is superior. It's one of my legit favorite games on the system. Lots of Compile goodness. Also, if you hate the overhead sections (at which point I will question your taste), then the password "TGL" will get you to an all-shooter mode.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I'm probably going to start with Valkyrie no Bouken on Famicom.

I know you're a boss, Bone, but if you were planning on playing this one blind, with no outside help, you're in for a bad time. It didn't take too long for me to go running, screaming, to a guide, when I played it. I also can't oversell just how much luck was involved for me to beat the game. The last couple islands, and last dungeon, are completely ridiculous, even with a guide.

Yeah..... I just completed the first "continent" and things are... interesting, to say the least. I get a strong Hydlide vibe from this one. Janky and cryptic. Also, unless I'm wrong there doesn't seem to be any real way to "continue" after death, besides entering a password upon being booted back to the title screen. So I've been making sure to jot those down every time I visit an inn, which is rather irritating.

Oh, and this is one of the few Famicom games I own with the box. I noticed that it came with a sheet of three end labels -- one was peeled off and affixed to the cart by the previous owner. Anyone know if this is unique to Namco Famicom titles? I have several Namco games with no end labels. I always figured they fell off eventually, on account of these games being 30 years old, but now I'm thinking they were never applied in the first place.

[Exhuminator]

Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em.

I love Blaster Master, but I think The Guardian Legend is superior.

I agree with this man. I only beat The Guardian Legend for the first time myself just a few years ago. So this isn't nostalgia talking; The Guardian Legend kicks ass.

Wish I made more time for games these days but just have other priorities.

One thing TR is good for is allowing folks to vicariously enjoy classics. I hope this thread does not disappoint you.

[Markies]

As long as I don't have another week like this one, then here is hoping I get to play some Final Fantasy II (NES) at the end of this month.

Until then, I will enjoy that beautiful first post and watching the posts in this thread!

[Exhuminator]

Well, I beat my first game for this TR:


Dirty Pair: Project Eden for the FDS.

Female protagonists? Yes! Made in the '80s? Yes!
Good game? Yes! NO. The polar opposite of awesome.
I like the anime film okay, but not this game.
Full review here.

Oh well, they can't all be jams folks.
But things should only get better from here! (I hope.)

[BoneSnapDeez]

That game blows.

[Ack]

Well, I booted up Flicky and played through about ten levels. The jumping feels floaty, which has pros and cons, the pros being that I can easily hop over an enemy when I have room, the con being I feel off when I jump. I liked it well enough, but then I made a mistake:

I tried out Gain Ground.

Playing Gain Ground with only female characters is ridiculously hard, because the handful of women are extremely limited in what they can do. The four that I encountered come in two varieties: grenade users and boomerang users. While the grenade users can lob onto structures, they use weak sidearms and move too slowly to really be useful. The boomerang ladies can throw boomerangs around corners, which can be a nice way to snag entrenched foes, but it takes some practice to get good with them. And certain levels just make all four feel like trash characters compared to what some of the male characters are capable of doing. Stand on one side of the map and fire a missile all the way across that can ping bosses while keeping me out of range? Yes, please.

I admit, I strayed from the female-only challenge with this, but I really don't see any reason why they couldn't have made at least a few more of the characters women. Or non-white dudes. Seriously, the only guys who aren't white are a Japanese samurai and a black guy who throws spears. That...that's some bad stereotyping. Oh, and then there are a couple of fantasy races, namely a dwarf with a bow and some kind of elf-looking dude with water magic.

Those problems aside, I ended up having a blast with Gain Ground. So much so, I beat it. I'm gonna write up my thoughts soon.

[Sarge]

Gain Ground is super cool. I think I beat it last year? I knew better than to attempt a female-only challenge because of that. You need as much of a team as you can get; losing most of your contingent isn't very fun!



Also, I do believe I beat my first MSX game ever tonight as part of this TR. Psycho World (also known as Psychic World here in the West) is a very strange platformer. The controls are a little janky, but not so much so that it harms the game. You might think your weapons suck, but they get better. You also get access to a lot of them. In fact, there are some mild puzzle-solving elements with the platforming with each weapon. Some might be able to destroy a wall, others melt ice or freeze platforms. It's never anything tough, but it does keep it a bit more interesting than a straight slog. Bosses can also have a mild puzzle-solving element, but honestly, most of them you can just mash and win ridiculously quickly. In fact, you also get something of a shield powerup that makes you invincible for a limited time. That coupled with a powerful weapon equals bad times for bosses. They're all pretty much pushovers.



There are eight stages total. They run the gamut from jungles to space stations. There are even a few neat cutscenes at various parts of the game. Overall, it's a pretty neat game. Not amazing, but pretty decent. I played this version because the level layouts are apparently much more sprawling and interesting than the ports to Master System and Game Gear, although I might checkout out the SMS version just to see how much changed.

[Exhuminator]

Nice job Ack and Sarge!

I too have beaten another 80's Ladies' Night kinda game...



It's Layla for the Famicom.
It's better than that Dirty Pair schlock I suffered through.
But... Layla's not exactly great either. SAD to SAY
It does have ice cream and death tornadoes though.
In space.

Full review here.

Next up is a HAL game. It's kicking my ass.
I must go sit upon the retro mountain and retrotate until the retro path becomes clear to me.