April Together Retro: 1980s Genesis

[pook99]

@Bonesnap: the rock-paper-scissor thing was the dumbest thing I have ever seen in a game, I mean you guess wrong and lose a life?? WTF were they thinking? The game is mediocre either way but I may have slogged through it if not for that horrible design decision.

[nightrnr]

One of my favorite things playing a platformer is Boss fights. I've always thought that Alex Kidd cheapened the experience greatly by replacing these sacred events with janken.

@PartridgeSenpai
Yeah, Revenge of Shinobi was left out of most later collections. One of the reasons I keep my 6-pack cart around and even still boot up Sega Smash pack on Dreamcast sometimes (atrocious as the porting is). Oddly not a game I ever play on standard emulation.

[opa]

I did try Sword of Vermillion and it is way too slow for me to slog through. (I really did want to like it though; music sounds pretty good).

There's a curious change in Golden Axe on the PSP collection. They took out the female death screams. Now whenever a female dies they give the deep man "AGH!" upon fading away. Maybe they felt that was too violent but you're hitting people with a sword/axe anyway so that doesn't justify censoring a game that was already old at the time of the collections release.

[Ack]

It probably sounded too erotic. A lot of female wounding or death screams in games can also sound close to sexual moans if taken out of context.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I did try Sword of Vermillion and it is way too slow for me to slog through. (I really did want to like it though; music sounds pretty good).

Despite being an action RPG, it does have pacing similar to that of the original Dragon Quest.

There are some cool tunes. I like this inn theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dARf5rq ... D3&index=7

[Note]

Spent some time playing Revenge of Shinobi the other night. I really like this title a lot, the gameplay is fun, and the soundtrack is great. However, I'm not good at the game yet. I find some of the environments a bit odd for a ninja game, but hey, Sega got creative with it. I got to level 4-3, up to the boss that is a rip off of the Terminator. Unfortunately I couldn't get past that level, but that's the farthest I've got into the game, so hoping I can get even further next time I try.

I bought my copy of Revenge of Shinobi last fall from a local game store, without doing much research beforehand, so I wasn't sure which version of the game I had. After looking into it, it turns out I have the first version, with all the copyright infringement bosses in tact.

I'm also gonna take some time to revisit Forgotten Worlds and Last Battle.

[nightrnr]

My guess is that you have Rev 01 or Rev 02 of Revenge of Shinobi. Not a huge difference between the 2, both have Godzilla, but "Devilman" instead of "Batman" boss (which apparrently only the Japan original had).

This outlines differences:
https://tcrf.net/The_Revenge_of_Shinobi_(Genesis)

I've only played through the one in 6-pack (rev 03). (Changed the Godzilla monster, but not much else).

[retrosportsgamer]

Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is indeed horrible. I first tried this series out 20+ years ago via emulation as I remembered a bit about the first level. Gave it a whirl last night on the Sega Mini. Woof.

[o.pwuaioc]

I spent some time with Space Harrier II and Ghouls n‘ Ghosts last night.

These games are hard.

Ghouls n Ghosts is hard but rewarding. It's easily my favorite of the bunch. Plus the music is cool.

Of the games on the list, Alex Kidd and Super Thunder Blade are garbage, Forgotten Worlds mediocre, Mystic Defender was forgettable, Phantasy Star II doesn't hold up, Space Harrier II and Super Hang On might have been fun at the time, but they're really not great ports, Thunder Force II is an OK game, but not really my style, so in the sale pile it goes. Golden Axe I remember skipping and going straight for Golden Axe II, and so I haven't played it on the Genesis since I was 7/8? I still only have GAII, but maybe I have the wrong game.

Truxton, Revenge of Shinobi, and GnG are the only games on here I bought and wanted to keep, and honestly I haven't played any of them except GnG for many years, so maybe I'll want to let them go, too.

The rest I never played.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Back after losing power for a few days.

I posted a full review of Alex Kidd in Games Beaten. It is indeed quite bad. Felt like I had to slowly inch my way through the game whole. The entire experience reminded me of the WD-broken final stage of Exile: Wicked Phenomenon. Just terrible.

Still rollin' through Vermilion, though I've slowed down a bit. This game reuses tilesets to the point of insanity.