Together Retro April 2021 - Little Big Adventure

[alienjesus]

Another update from me - I also dove into my second game for the month - Stranded Kids for Game Boy Colour. This game is probably slightly better known by it's US name of Survival Kids (and despite me normally preferring the PAL name for stuff, the US name is definitely the better one in this case).

I've played this before, but only a very short amount. The game has 8 endings and I'd previously gotten the first possible ending (where you get picked up by helicopter) which based o what I've played tonight means I probably didn't get more than 2 hours into the game.

Anyhow, this time I'm going for a more complete experience, so I started over. I remember having some difficulty understanding how to set up some of the basics the first time, but this time around it was a bit easier - partly due to prior knowledge (I know to set a fire below beehives and throw dry leaves on it to get honey for example from reading about it last time), and partly due to some things being more spelled out then I remember (the game outright tells you things you need for the torch or the raft for example).

Anyhow, I got up to the helicopter ending, got that one again and moved on. After that my character made a raft, and I got an ending where I died of hunger and dehydration at sea, so that was nice. 2 endings down, 6 to go!

I got the 3rd ending (with some guidance) by creating a spare save file and going 100 days without leaving the island. This one had me staying on the island for the rest of my life with my monkey pal, but it was presented as a good ending, so thats nice. That was ending 7, meaning I have 1,2 and 7 now. 3 down, 5 to go!

Anyhow, after that I left on the raft again, this time properly equipped with food and water supplies. I was caught in a storm and washed up on the north side of the island where I couldn't previously access. Most of my stuff is gone so I'm having to find equipment again on the north side of the island to do things I could do before. I did find a boat though, which is probably going to be my next focus for escaping the island - it's locked up with 7 locks which needs different gems put in to release it though, so I guess we have a quest ahead of us.

I'm really enjoying my time with this game again, and I'm glad I came back to it for a more in-depth experience.

[alienjesus]

3rd post from me in a row. Come back guys and play some Game Boy! It's good I promise

Anyway, I made progress in both of my current adventures yesterday. Spoilers ahead!

Great Greed:

Picking up with the adventures of Gram in Great Greed - I had just arrived in the nation of Spaghetti, tasked with finding Princess Citrus of Greene Castle. The monsters here were pretty tough, as is the way of Great Greed - each new country takes about 1-2 hours, and the monsters are very difficult early on until you gain a few level ups, better spells and equipment. Luckily the grind is normally not too time consuming. Anyway, I made a beeline for the nearest village (named Macaroni Burg) in order to have a base to build from. 1 better sword, some better armour and an improved healing spell, I went on my way accompanied by a warrior lady I met in the weapon shop who asked me to join the anti-biohaz army.

I went to their encampment, and it turns out the warrior was Princess Citrus all along. She introduced me to her advisor, Mr. Shrimp, and told me they were short on weaponry at the army camp, so we went to the next town to buy more.

Unfortunately, all the weapons were out of stock, having been bought as prizes for a beauty contest that was being held. We needed to win, but Mr. Fifi, the local beauty pageant king told us he could make Citrus a beautiful magic dress if we went to the forest and found a beautiful apple, a passionate peach and a wise walnut. This was a pain ebcause the local monsters had a tendency to steal them, but we found the stuff and had an amazing dress made. Citrus then won the beauty pageant, but Mr. Fifi jumped up and activated the dresses magic, which made all the men of the world of green super attracted to citrus and she couldnt moved due to being surrounded by the crowd. Luckily, Gram is from another world so resisted the magic and beat down the evil Mr. Fifi. In his dying breath though, he laughed about what was happening at the encampment.

A quick run back to the army encampment, and everyone was beaten down. Some were worse for wear, but some only displayed the message 'he has 0hp left' when spoken to. It turns out Mr. Shrimp was an agent of Bio-Haz all along, so we chased him down and beat him down .... eventually. These boss fights are tough, and it took me about 5 attempts to win. Afterwards, an earthquake happened and Citrus fell into a pit. I ventured forth to the nation of Escargot, ready to adventure onwards tomorrow.


Stranded Kids

When we last left off with the unfortunate Mery, she had set out on a raft to escape her island predicament, only to be hit by a storm and washed up again on the north side of the same island.

Unfortunately, it turns out we'd lost a lot of our equipment during our oceanic adventure, so I washed up short on supplies - I only had my knife, Axe and water flask still intact, meaning I had lost some useful tools in the form of my big stick (for moving rocks) and my umbrelleaf (for losing less stamina in rain) I also had no more food, and I was hungry and thirsty. Stumbling forward, I found an odd star-shaped rock, and then ...a wharf? Turns out this island wasn't always uninhabited, as there's a boat here chain to a wharf. If I can unhook it, I can go home! Unfortunately, the boat is chained with 7 locks, all a different shape. The star gem I just found is the key to one of the locks, so you can see where this is going! 6 more to find!

I explored the nearby area which was not as welcoming as my starting location, containing less food and water supplies, and also no honey trees which were a great source of energy before. I did find a new big stick and umbrelleaf though, and also constructed a new bow and arrow. I found a swamp full of alligators but I fed them raw clams which had the effect of paralysing them, just like it did me. This let me explore freely, and I found a route back to the starting area.

Exploring the island, I found all sorts of secrets - I found the round gem in a tree over a cliff, but it fell and was eaten by a fish, which I had to catch to get it back. The square gem was in the swamp and needed me to float ove rlily pads to get it - removing it unplugged a water flow, draining the swamp soemwhat and allowing me an easier route through. The Rhombus gem I had found earlier in my adventure behind some trees I cut down. That was 4 down, 3 to go! In the process of finding these I also used my bow and arrow to unlock a new route through a cave behind a waterfall, and inside I found a mysterious key. Who knows what this is for!

The triangle gem was next and proved more challenging to find. A statue missing an eye was on a shore near the baot, and washing a tablet nearby indicated I should search the desert in the island's southwest for something. I did so and found some new statues had appeared. Smacking them with a hammer found me an eye gem, which I put inside the first statue I had found - causing a walkway to rise out of the water leading to the triangle gem. Whoever had been here before certainly had some complex devices set up!

When exploring, I had found a few new signs of life on the island - traces of some fires which I hadn't lit. On my way back to the boat to find the triangle gem, I found the source - another kid, who had collapsed nearby. I carried him back to the baot and fed him some meat to revive him, and he gave me the ovalgem he had found to say thanks. Hooray! 6 down, 1 to go. Suddenly another earthquake happened, and a keyhole was uncovered in an area I'd been earlier. Guess that's where I'm going next.

The ruins I unlock turned out to be the games 'final' area - it contained a series of relatively challenging puzzles to complete to unlock keys and get deeper into the ruins, where I found the moon gem, the final key to the boat.

From this point I obtained 3 more of the games endings - ending 5, where we escape on the boat but my rather sickly friend collapses and dies was a bit traumatic. Luckily, if I stuff him full of nutritious honey, I instead get ending 6, where we both return home together and all is well. Feeding him even more food results in ending 8, where we leave together on the boat and also end up getting married 10 years later (we're 10 at the time of the game).

That leave me with just 2 more endings to obtain. Ending 3 is just a case of tedium as I have to wait til 100 days have passed with my new friend. Ending 4 is a bit of a pain though - I have to leave on the boat without ever finding my new pal, which is going to require me to hop back to a very early save. I'm so close to all endings though that I think I'll go ahead and get it. Maybe I'll finish tonight?

[marurun]

I am still slowly making progress in Dragon Quest III and posting about my adventures in RPGs:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=53485

[MegaJ]

Progress! Spoilers ahoy!

Makai Toushi Sa·Ga (Or... The Final Fantasy Legend) -

So, because of that weird save file screwup, I had to start my adventure again. Somehow, it actually felt like it took LONGER this time!
But either way, the first part of the adventure is pretty short- the game's regular world is actually pretty tiny by RPG standards (even small ones like this!) and that's because this game seems to have multiple, smaller world maps connected together instead of one big one.
Your time in the regular world is actually pretty short- you need the King Armor, King Sword and King Shield to put onto the statue of the hero. King Armor needs you to defeat some bandits in a cave to free his lady love from their tyranny (the lady is a cyclops thingy and the bandit leader is a big frog) and he gives you the armour as thanks.
King Sword's castle is a fully hostile dungeon and he's the boss. I beat him and take his sword.
King Shield just kinda doesn't want anything to do with you the entire time, and something seems... a little off about him. His advisor just tells you to leave if you go there before the other two. But after getting the other equipment you return and- oh no! The King's Steward was poisoning him all along! You chase him into a hidden room and he goes down in, like, one hit.

With all the equipment gathered, you add it to the statue, and gain a magical black sphere. Guess this is what we need to unlock the tower to paradise!
But wait! A big snake-turtle monster was waiting for someone to gather the equipment again! Boss fight!

-And onwards to the tower!

The game starts getting pretty dangerous from this point on. Everything up to this point feels like an introduction in comparison.
I travel through the tower and find another world in a room- it's... Paradise? What everyone's challenged the tower to get to? Huh? Already?

It's just... a town. Even calling it that is pretty generous- the whole place is just a tiny world with some water and a small island with people. There's a nearby healing spring which recovers us to full health, and the people here comment about how they have no shops because they don't have to work and don't need them, and everyone is just chilling and lazing around. Good for them? There's literally nothing else here to see or do. The people there call this place Paradise, but is it really? I'm not sure. I guess... our quest continues. This area was 100% optional, too, interestingly enough!

Further up the tower and- similarly, it seems like this room leads to Hell!

It's a big dark void place filled with spikes and gargoyles who will attack you every time you talk to them. The people here seem to think that if they can endure this place's punishment then they'll truly be able to find paradise. Huh.
...It took me almost my whole visit of this place to realise that that spiked floor was actually damaging me as I walked across it (no sounds or visual effects or anything when you do) I escaped with my entire party at 1 hp...

...Thankfully, there was a full health spring just a screen or two away, and I was lucky enough to not get any random battles up to it. Phew.

Now I've opened another floor to find the second proper world map- an ocean world.
A maze of caves connected a bunch of small islands here- each with even smaller mini-islands surrounding them. The townsfolk spoke of a floating island, so I investigate each of them one by one, until- wow! This random island is the floating one! It works exactly like a ship!

Travelling the sea, I find an old man's hut. He tells me where to find an Air Seed. A townsperson tells me how that releases oxygen underwater. Another tells me how a whirlpool pulled him down to an undersea castle. I think I can sea where this is going!


Oh yeah, and I can buy 66 butts

[marurun]

You have helped me realize of a need for butts I wasn’t previously aware I had! 66 might just be enough!

[alienjesus]

Long post incoming, because today has been a day of adventures

Stranded Kids

So, yesterday I picked up my quest in Stranded Kids. When last we left off, I'd obtained 6 of the 8 endings, so yesterday was focused on working towards the last 2. The 7th was easily obtained as it just required me to play for 100 days - I grabbed some long lasting food and filled up my canteen with water and just slept the days away until I got to 100. In this ending, me and my pal Ken stayed on the island forever, but it's OK because we were pretty happy about it.

Ending 8 was a bit of a mission because a decision I made near the start of the game had rendered it unobtainable. Luckily, I had a save file from just before that decision, so I loaded up....and played through 3/4s of the game again. Luckily, it's not too long a game once you know where to go and what to do, so I picked up the file, rebuilt the raft and took the monkey with me this time. This is the choice that makes the ending impossible. Randomly, if you take the monkey you can find the oval gem in the desert, but if you leave the monkey behind the oval gem is instead owned by the second kid. The ending I need is to leave on my own without discovering the second kid so obviously it's a probably if he has one of the items I need!

This morning I picked up from there and after that I worked through the game again, grabbing all 7 gems by my lonesome and leaving for the final ending. Obtaining all 8 rewarded me with a new game plus mode, and I get a cool hat in it. I think that might be the only difference, but hey, I did it!


Great Greed

I picked up my adventure in Great Greed in the country of Escargot, and I quickly learnt I needed to find some cool mint to be able to cross the scorching desert. Expecting a major quest, I walked about 10 steps west on the world map and found the mint. Unfortunately I also found one of bio-haz's evil minions - Cavity, who challenged me to come and fight him.

Crossing the desert I found the oasis town of Torte, where I ran into my old friend Microwave, court magician of the King and generally crazy 100 year-old witch. She joined up with me and we explored the storage warehouse of Torte to find the legendary Zap spell, which is basically an instant death spell. Low success rate though, as you'd expect. The dungeon was quite confusing, but we managed it. From there, I raided Cavity's tower with Microwave, and it was quite tough. Great Greed is certainly starting to not pull it's punches. Cavity himself was very tough, casting stat buffs on himself whilst cancelling my own. After defeating him, Microwave hurt her back and I had to carry her back to Torte, but luckily I could just use my escape spell to leave. After that, I left on the only boat in the kingdom of Escargot - only for Cavity to show up once last time and blow it up in the ocean.

I woke up in the nation of Soup, where I found another of the kingdom's princesses under her alias Marcela. She revealed she was really Princess Gum Drop and she had fallen in love with a man named Pint and wanted to stay with him and his son Junior. However, seeing the sacrifices I had made she joined up with me and left. We crossed the freezing mountain surrounded by her magic barrier, and man, this was a long and tough dungeon full of enemies with very powerful spells that it's hard to react to. Which made it very frustrating when, after crossing the mountain and arriving in the next town, we were told to go back to the mountain to meeting up with a master who was crossing it. When we got to the mountain, we met the master who told us Pint Junior was lost in the mountains, so we had to navigate backwards through half the dungeon to rescue him, and then once again to leave. Bah - this was definitely a low point for the game. Thankfully, once it was done I strapped myself to a kite and flew to the country of Burger, leaving Gum Drop behind to look after Pint Junior.

Burger was covered in rubbish and we discovered quickly that Bio-Haz was from Earth and was trying to dump all pof Earth's rubbish into this world to save Earth from pollution. We ain't down for that though, so we finally stormed Green Castle and saved the King & Queen who gave us the best armour and sword in the game. Fully equipped, we set forth to attack Bio-Haz' castle.

In the castle we were aided at various points by all 5 of the Princesses we met. Cup Cake, who had uncovered the fradulent mayoral candidate with us, helped us sneak into the castle town, and Truffle, with whom we purified the polluted lake helped us infiltrate the sewers into the castle. Gum Drop then turned up and helped us through the magic barriers at the front of the castle by using her own magic, and finally we rescued the imprisoned Candy, who previously helped us escape at the beginning of the game, and she accompanied us to Bio-Haz's lair. I died a lot here, as every random encounter was lethal and I burned through MP for healing spells fast. Luckily I found a shop I could by MP refills at.

We made it to Bio-Haz and whilst tricky, he was thankfully easier than most other bosses before this. Upon beating him, the final princess, Citrus showed up to aid us in a battle against his true form. Previously we'd helped her win a beauty contest to get equipment for her army, and then she fell into a crevice after an earthquake seperated us.

The final Bio-haz was a long fight and it took me 2 tries - but again, much easier than many of the game's other bosses. We defeated bio-haz and saved the day.

As a reward for saving the world, the King of Greene offered me the hand of one of his daughters in marriage. This bit amused me because you get to choose whoever you want in the room to marry. This includes the obvious, expected choices - Candy, Citrus and Truffle, but also a pair of uncomfortable choices in Cup Cake and Gum Drop. Gum Drop is now engaged to Pint, so you need to keep asking her over and over to basically coerce her into marriage until she basically goes 'ok, I guess so'. Cup Cake is 11 years old, and when you ask her the king says 'She's only 11. But I guess we can let her marry you when she grows up'. Not the best father in the world then...

But as well as the 5 princesses, you can also ask any of the other 5 people in the room to marry you, including Microwave the 100 year old court magician, Lunch Box the head of the royal guard, Time Out the King's advisor, or even the King or Queen themselves. All of them will accept if you ask enough . I married Time Out because he seemed the most surprised to be asked. He said he wasn't sure this was the ending I deserved but he would promise to love me with all of his heart as my future wife.

[alienjesus]

Double posting to seperate out the wall of text:

Anyhow, final thoughts on the 2 games I beat:

Great Greed is interesting and does a lot of fun stuff, but it's also a bit grindy and old-school. If it played up it's weirdness a bit more I think it'd be a classic, but it plays a few things just a little too straight and that's a little disappointing. It was a decent time, but not a must play, despite the absurd names of every person and place making it stand out.

Stranded Kids is great. There's a lot more it could have done with the premise and I kinda feel some of the survival elements take a back seat especially in the latter hald when the quest for the gems begins. Food is maybe too abundant and some mechanics don't get a chance to be used properly, such as creating traps for animals or going fishing. I'm curious to see if the sequel does things differently, I definitely plan to get to it and the spiritual successors Lost In Blue on DS eventually.


With both my games finishing around the same time, I decided to pick up 2 more to replace them. I quite enjoyed being able to take a break from grinding in Great Greed with a different style of gameplay in Stranded Kids, so I've chosen 2 slightly different games this time too.

Next up for me is Crystal Warriors for Game Gear, a simple Strategy RPG which I've played a bit of before. Alongside that I think I'll start up Madou Monogatari for Game Gear too - a 1st person dungeon crawler which I suspect will take a bit of grinding to get through.


How's everyone else's adventures coming along!?

[PartridgeSenpai]

How's everyone else's adventures coming along!?

I've dragged my feet for this month's TR so far, but I'm planning on playing through Gargoyle's Quest during my stream next week ^w^

You've warned me that one is pretty hard at the start (much like Demon's Crest), but I'm still excited for it ^w^

[alienjesus]

A few days ago I started up Crystal Warriors, and before I got a chance to write about it here... I finished it today!

I've played some Crystal Warriors before, about this time last year for another Together Retro. At the time I bounced off of it but this time around I really got into and enjoyed my time with it.

It's a really basic Strategy RPG. You can use up to 9 characters on a map, and the mechanics are very simple. You only gain experience if you land the killing blow on an enemy, and every enemy is worth exact 4 experience points, with 10 needed for a level up. There's just a little less experience available in the whole game then is needed to level up a full team of 9 to the maximum of level 9.

The game has an element system, where water beats fire, fire beats wind and wind beats water. Earth element exists but is neutral to everything. If you have the advantage, you do about 1/3rd extra damage and take about 1/3rd less and vice versa if you are at a disadvantage. By defeating monsters though you can deploiy them in battle to take a hit for you and do (fairly minimal) damage back, so it pays to capture monsters that defeat the element you're weak to. All fighters can capture monsters, but mages and healers can't - they have plenty of options anyway though.

There are 6 classes in the game. The main character Iris is a Princess, with good attack, defence and 6 movement, but low HP and MP. She can cast spells and use monsters and is earth element, making her a good all-rounder, but due to never having elemental advantage and a weak spell list she tends to be a bit middling offensively - she's a better damage sponge or healing support.

There are 3 fully physical units - Rangers, who are lightly armoured wind element units with great attack but the worst defence of the physical units. Fighters, who come in Water and Fire varieties are decent in both attack and defence, and Lords (who also come in Fire and Water varieties) are more defensively strong but slightly weaker on attack. To be honest though, the differences are fairly minimal and all 3 classes are fairly interchangeable. Physical units tend to be your tanks as they have more HP and are good for body blocking mages from getting attacked, but they tend to get injured a lot when attacking as they get counter-attacked so they need deployed strategically. Sometimes it's better not to attack so you take less damage. All physical fighters onlky have 5 move comapred to other units 6 so you tend to shuffle along behind a physical frontline.

Mages are Earth element spellcasters who can cast spells of any element once purchased. At range, spells do one high hit of damage but avoid counterattacks. Up close you get 2 attacks the same as physical units but take counterattack damage too. They also get a scan spell which reveals enemies, who appear as question marks until scanned or fought. This is useful as you can see what element matches up well before attacking blindly and normally you'll spend your first few turns scanning everyone. Healers have low stats all round but can heal people, obviously. It's worth feeding them kills though as when they jump from level 8 to the maximum level 9, their stats quadruple turning them into the most powerful attacking and defending powerhouse in the game. It takes some time to get there though!

The story of Crystal Warriors is barely there and not especially interesting. There's an evil empire who have the elemental crystals and you must beat them. It's mainly told through 20 words of NPC dialogue in the very tiny town section between levels. The town is identical each time too, other than the dialogue and whats in the shops - this is a very stripped back affair.

I had a good time playign through Crystal Warriors though - it's short for the genre at about 5 hours, and to be honest that makes it a nice change of pace. Give it a go if you get a chance.

[Nemoide]

I'd really like to play Crystal Warriors at some point. The Game Gear is a great little unsung gem of a handheld!

I started my game for this month: Cave Noire for original Game Boy! It's a roguelike by Konami that never got a release outside of Japan, but is extremely inexpensive and easy to figure out (there's a good guide on GameFAQs and a translation patch for folks who are emulating).

So far, it seems like a solid original GB game in how it's designed to be played in small chunks and delivers what you'd want from a roguelike if you're a fan of that genre. The game is pretty minimalist: you have a menu where you can go on a quest, change your characters name, or delete your save data. When you go on a quest, you're given four options: Quest 1 - kill X monsters, Quest 2 - get X gold, Quest 3 - get X orbs (cups), Quest 4 - free X fairies. The X varies based on the level of the Quest, you start with first level quests and they go up to 10 (although 10 is referred to as "M" for some reason).
You set off with a random assortment of items to help you and then enter the procedurally generated dungeon! Being a fairly traditional roguelike, it's all turn based; monsters only move after you move. Once you accomplish your goal, you can find a special door tile that springs you out of the dungeon.
So far it hasn't been too hard, but I do know the game ramps things up considerably as it goes. But I'm having fun and look forward to sinking more time into it!