Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call - 3DS
A Bird Story - PC
Quake - PC
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare - PS4
Quake: Scourge of Armagon - PC
Quake: Dissolution of Eternity - PC
Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis - NDS
Painkiller - PC
Gungrave: Overdose - PS2
Adventure -Atari 2600 (PS2)
Auto Racing - Intellivision (PS2) [1979]
Boxing - Atari 2600 (PS2) [1980]
The Count - TI99/4A (emulated) [1981]
Dragonstomper - Atari 2600/Starpath Supercharger (emulated) [1982] *new*
Total: 14
Previously: 2014 | The First 400 Games
Wow. Just wow.
I recall that when I played Halo 2600 for the first time (shortly after it came out), I was just blown away by the potential and power of the VCS. That homebrew game really deepened my appreciation for the system, and though I play with my VCS with some regularity I haven't really had one of those moments of being completely floored by a game on it since playing Halo 2600.
Dragonstomper gave me that moment, showed me another dimension of the system, and made a strong argument that everything that people love about video games really do have their root in the 2600.
Dragonstomper is an RPG. It isn't an RPG in the sense that Adventure is an RPG (though Adventure is a great game), but rather it is a more traditional RPG in the sense that you have stats, magic and weapons, effects, dungeon crawling, random encounters, party members, and so on. It is somewhat like The Legend of Zelda (a debatable "RPG" of course) in that regard but with some grinding. Yes: grinding in a VCS game.
The game is split up into three area, which you play through in order: the wilderness (where you battle enemies, raise your stats, and collect gold), the town (where you buy things at shops with the money you earned in the previous map), and a dungeon where you are tasked with avoiding traps en route to slaying a dragon.
The game is really very straightforward and most actions are done via menus that animate and respond quickly. There's nothing slow or clunky about the game, and the level of depth is just really something incredible. Of course this was a game that required the Arcadia Starpath addition and played off of a tape, so it had more capabilities than most standard carts. The music and graphics are well done, the dragon looks cool, and the game requires some strategic use of spells/items to clear (I made it to the boss the first time after a few hours and was woefully under prepared, forcing a restart where I did a run with some grinding and got myself set up better for the dungeon).
- Dragonstomper (1982) (Starpath)_2.png (2.52 KiB) Viewed 1167 times
So this was the "D" game in my alpha-by-year challenge and was a really nice surprise - a game I knew nothing about and from which I expected even less. I'd be curious to know if anyone here has played it (Bone?), what they thought, etc. It is EASILY one of my very favorite games in the VCS library now, and I am strongly considering tracking down a physical copy just to have on the shelf
