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Author Topic: Retronauts Mark II  (Read 9446 times)

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Arc

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #40 on: February 06, 2008, 01:29:29 AM »

This post brought to you by Atari Classics Evolved, now coincidently more British than ever.

Jumping right into the Street Fight podcast, the subject of the SNES controller comes up. If the old purple & gray had one advantage, it came from its thick shoulder buttons. Mapped to fierce, no questions asked.

My personal introduction to the series was in a theater lobby, where some older kids were grouping up whoever was interested. They were surprisingly gracious in teaching moves, signaling a new age of arcade competition. Before, it was single player or teamwork, but here it became a one-on-one showdown. You could read personalities just through playstyles, and comers of all ages preyed upon my seemingly innocent demeanor. Little did they know, a beast resided within my hear-aw, yeah right, they kicked my face all over town. Wasn't until Soulcalibur that my inner fighting demon, Pat, awakened.

Didn't stop me from playing in those early days. Every loss was close, and worthwhile. The charm of that era was sometimes in the legitimacy of a defeat, as compared to the juggling wankfests of today.

When the console editions came barreling down, the obsession spread like a Kuwaiti oil fire. Or a DC Riot, if you will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CYeqEB9HDM

The oft copied bonus stages were highlights, and nights were spent aiming for secret endings by way of perfect playthroughs. Even today, some are convinced there is no singular correct way to pronounce Ryu. Unfortunately, instead of challenging me, other players would waste my time attempting to prove their non-existent skills against the computer. Not once, not twice, but thrice had I spent the night with totally different players who had become hung up on CE Bison. They had to prove, to me of all people, that they had the fighter's spirit zomg, not noticing that I already lay unconscious next to them. My interest waned, and by the time I stumbled upon a Super Street Fighter II Turbo cabinet, I had thought someone was playing a practical joke. You know, like NAFTA, or Ice Hockey.

Then the Major Motion Picture reared around with the lesser gore imitators, be it Killer Instinct, Primal Rage, or... Weaponlord.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNOf8VwvE7U

Thankfully, my interest returned after purchasing a strategy guide which featured pro interviews (Guile was thought to be the strongest character then) and loads of official art (which has since been given away in Dirty Santa, along with an official movie magazine and SF2 on Tiger handheld). So incensed was I to play one summer day, I ventured three miles in a hundred degree humidity for a copy of SSF2. When I returned, the cartridge didn't startup correctly until an hour after it had cooled down. The first PSX title I experienced to any true depth was Alpha 2, and it wasn't the improved animation or moves which grabbed my attention, but the character interaction. At last a fighter was attempting to immerse me beyond the gameplay, clunky quips and all. Once Alpha 3 for the PSX hit, it was all over. No fighter since has murdered as much of my time. The soundtrack was pretty kickin' too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdj6DXuCejY

I've no inherent problem with fighters that opt to load on the characters, as I'll find one or two favorites either way. The problem with Street Fighter 3 was that the loaded on cast members were insultingly oddball to the determent of the rest. And this is coming from a freakin' Blanka fan. We went from Guile & Sagat to Necro & Oro, disgusting piles of meat that made bloated Zangief & leathery Dhalsim appear downright sexy. Character relation isn't just move sets and fan service, another virtue many current fighters have forgotten. It's design, believability by relation, and attitude.

Mortal Kombat, the series that initially understood this concept the best, came and went. Sure, everyone knew of it, but the roller rinks & laundry mats weren't giving it anymore attention than the stained Pit-Fighter machine. However, by the time Mortal Kombat II landed, the phenomenon couldn't be ignored. EGM fueled the fires from the cover page, to the features, to the postal letter art, which once featured a Scorpion-clad Sonic the Hedgehog holding the gory dismembered head of Mario, eyes rolled back and all. Their throwaway comments on Shen Long & nudalities only served to further fan the flames. Mortal Kombat II in my area attracted a different crowd, a clear testament to its 'presentation'. Gang members and pimps alike would surround the machine throughout the day, but if you waited, you could play. Even with my respect for MKII's superior sound system and larger screen, the dusty 3-in-1 Samurai Shodown machine in the corner sucked up more playtime from my hours in-between Putt-Putt & Ski Ball. Why wait in line, when you had so many other choices flashing and beeping at you?

Then, we have everything jammed between. The Hi-Tech Expressions DOS-only edition of the original Street Fighter (that Parish mentioned finding in a bookstore) was dumped into big box stores the nation over, along with Mega Man 1 & 3, for the deceptive price of ten bucks. Controlling these mutant ports, however, would've been easier with a bucket of eels glued to your fists. Chun-Li Gets Naked and Beaten: The Home Video had a high profile rollout, complete with non-ending for further entries that never surfaced. And even when the series simmered down in popularity, the action figures were still moving off the shelves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYM137bXH2c

Then: Mass Confusion. Street Fighter II: V. The USA Cartoon. Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. Alpha. X-Men Vs Street Fighter. EX (C.Jack 4life, yo). Alpha 2. Marvel vs Capcom. EX Plus. Ex Plus Alpha. Then at last, Street Fighter III, which itself had revisions.

From an accessibility standpoint, the series never learned. Capcom didn't catch on that foreign markets began to sneer in unison when the Super edition was released instead of III. By the time SNK vs Capcom rolled out, players had stepped back and were content to merely watch.

With Street Fighter 4, the talk of simplification is heartening, but will the habit of revisionism seep in once again? Or will the company let a work stand on its own for once, ports notwithstanding?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fekazysWHLA
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Kashan

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #41 on: February 06, 2008, 08:06:05 AM »

With the exception of Gill, Necro, 12, and myabe Q, I'd say the SFIII characters mesh better than the street fighter II or Alpha characters. Also, I'm personally hoping for two or three revision for SF4, possibly in the form of downloadable content. I just know they aren't going to be able to add all the characters I'd like in the first release. Chances are the game won't be perfectly balanced on the first release either.

Holy shit, Namco made Weapon Lord?
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Arc

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #42 on: February 14, 2008, 08:35:26 PM »

Phantasy Star Podcast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJUCQ_9PJTU

The description header is dead on, as Shane & Christian load on platitudes upon the original series, with Sharkey & Milky expanding with the Online years later in. Bettenhausen goes into how he invited friends over for the unveiling of PSIII (HURR), a hint line that told him to give up, and dinner with a series producer.

Regarding retro roundup: Chicks love simulated chores, as long as fluttering eyelashes and butterflys in the stomach are involved. Thus, Harvest Moon's success with every demographic of woman under the, er, moon right alongside the Sims & Animal Crossing. Tom Nook is a hottie, afterall.

Even if you're unable to play Lords of Thunder or Gates of Thunder, acquiring their soundtracks is crucial for your GETS-ME-PUMPED workouts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDLP6FZWq-w

If Phantasy Star was being mentioned in an article, the price was sure to be highlighted. EGM made absolutely damned sure you knew PS4 was $100, come heaven or Sushi-X.

As someone who leans more towards traditional Phantasy Star, I've had to accept that the days of that side being the primary reference for the series is over (for now). Kids today, with their baggy pants and rap music, really did eat Phantasy Star Universe up. Thankfully, many are willing to try out some of the older titles once their hooked. My experience with the original was statistically improbable. Finding a friend with a Master System, and finding one with something other than Enduro Racer was pure luck.

By that point, I had sacrificed a year to Dragon Warrior III, so PS's full impact wasn't quite as hard hitting. Still, the colors. THE COLORS. It was the equivalent of wading into a pool of unwrapped Starbursts. The palette contrasted and washed over as no television at the time could faithfully produce.

It was essentially a dungeon crawling Star Wars, balancing the space opera elements that so many other franchises simply litter about. The text limit intermixed with totally HURR translation gave us such classics as ATTK, MAGC, and RD. DRAGN. Not only were fully proportioned humans presented, but so too were full screen backgrounds. The haunting bleakness of the typical 8-bit darkness was generally nowhere to be found.

Indulging in the old ultra-fantasy upon a Blast Processing unit still strikes me as awkward, but nevertheless Phantasy Star II was easy to slip into. The startling introduction cinema hooks the imagination, what with nightmares, smooth man chest, and obedient catgirl [spoiler]the original Aeris[/spoiler] that may (or may not) turn you gay. Even through the 16-bit drama, an upbeat fighting spirit endures throughout, [spoiler]to very the end, which isn't quite as downbeat as the podcast makes it out to be[/spoiler]. The jump to futuristic technica was complete, but surprisingly the cyborg race wouldn't come into the series until Phantasy Star III.

PSIII, the anti-thesis to PS's technicolor presentation, and PSII's interface. The colors are dour and the characters (uglified by East meets West styling) are removed from the playfield. Mixing it up with a lesser Y's entry is entirely possible for the untrained eye.

Phantasy Star 4. What needs to be said? No other Genesis title comes close. The paneled cinemas holdup, both character and enemy designs surpass everything on the market today, and you could perform moves entitled 'Rayblade', 'Airslash', and 'Hijammer'. Critics and audiences alike praise it even despite Chaz's hair. Originally slated for the SegaCD, we could have seen a far larger gameworld with 3D elements, but who is to say those would be improvements?

The remakes mentioned therein were released in 2003 & 2005, and are actually worthwhile despite the moon language. Animated sprites ooze out from all over the place, and the cinemas are directed like self-important eroge. Both titles opt for third-person over first-person, and the walking is sped up. Phantasy Star Collection & Phantasy Star Complete Collection are two separate products, with the former landing on the Saturn with loads of swag, and the latter coming to the Playsation 2 in late March of this year. Despite Jeremy's hopes, they appear to be Japanese only. And here we were, gearing up for some more Radical Dreamers hanky-panky.

Concerning the PSO era, my knowledge is limited to what the GIA reported and little else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyEnJCgTZds
Internet, boyeeeee

The larger than life opponents and tales of peace corp worthy international relations still cannot overcome Milky's tale of corrupt data. Was it just me, or were there too many versions of this era to keep track of? Did any of these versions interconnect with one another online? It seems like whenever you turn around, some console server is going hell in a shitbasket. RE: Outbreak File#2 went down in less than 24 months, but maybe that was for the best.

Informative segment all the same. Emotes will End All War.

 :wuv: :wuv: :wuv:
 :wuv: :fuckoff: :wuv:
 :wuv: :wuv: :wuv:

Closing out, here is to pouring a 40 on the curb to Phantasy Star V, audio high fives, and Shane's ending line.

my mags, let me show you them
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François

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #43 on: February 15, 2008, 10:38:19 AM »

One of the unsung accomplishments of PS4 is how the game plays downright zippy. The random encounters are efficient and fast-paced, wasting no time at all on any superfluous visual doodads while still looking good as heck. Part of this is due to the macro system, but frankly the battles' pace is so masterfully engineered that I have never seen any other RPG provide anything even remotely close to it. Blast processing was a philosophy more than it was a technology, it seems.

In fact, now that I think about it, probably one of the reasons I don't like FF6 so much is because it seemed so agonizingly slow and clunky in comparison.
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Arc

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #44 on: February 15, 2008, 11:10:31 AM »

Funny, I was contemplating last night on the similarities between the two and their respective franchises.

See! We had a sliver of dignity once! See!
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Sharkey

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #45 on: February 15, 2008, 12:27:08 PM »

Part of a point I started to make but didn't get to finish was that the game was pretty much ungriefable. The closest thing I managed was to, as mentioned, gift wrap useless things to make them look like crazyrares and disappoint people when they snatched them up. Also, one of the downloadable things that nobody ever did was a shop that sold CDs. Using one in the middle of the last boss fight so it suddenly started playing the theme from Nights or Burning Rangers pretty consistently flipped people out a bit.

But yeah, that and making dirty pictochat or whatever icons was pretty much the farthest you could go in terms of being a dick.
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Norondor

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #46 on: February 15, 2008, 02:03:31 PM »

re: Gears of War; In what way is a giant longbow/rifle/rocket launcher not in-genre for a japanese RPG? Squall would totally use one of those, ok.
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McDohl

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #47 on: February 16, 2008, 02:00:42 PM »

After listening to the PS retronauts, I popped in my gamecube copy and started playing for about an hour.  One of the unidentified weapons that dropped turned out to be a Soul Calibur.  Providence? :smile:
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Bal

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #48 on: February 16, 2008, 09:47:02 PM »

Phantasy Star makes me deeply regret not being into RPGs back in the 16-bit era when I was a Sega man.
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McDohl

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #49 on: February 28, 2008, 09:05:41 PM »

New Retronauts!

Woo!  The triumphant return of Jenn Frank! :D
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Classic

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #50 on: February 28, 2008, 09:06:23 PM »

Phantasy Star makes me deeply regret losing track of all the clean & convenient emulation sites and software I once used.
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Kayma

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #51 on: March 01, 2008, 12:13:33 PM »

Just listened to the PS retronauts. Having used the last of my willpower to strap myself to my bathtub with my belt, I spent the next 16 hours trying to get free, download Blue Burst, and find a free server. Because I need to graduate from this fucking university. It helped to think about the time my GC memory card got wiped, slaying my level ~40 Racaseal. Alas, poor Aleste, you are missed.

I agree that it's about damn time the series gets some remakes with coherent localizations and some difficulty tweaking. I'd like to actually finish PS2 someday.

RE: Those CDs: Awesome. Dark Falz (Was he called that in PSO? I can't remember) lost some of his menace when fought to the NiGHTS tune, but gained something much more valuable. 
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Brentai

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #52 on: March 01, 2008, 12:21:43 PM »

40?  You're whining about a LV 40 character?  You gigantic PSOssy.
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Kayma

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #53 on: March 01, 2008, 12:46:21 PM »

40?  You're whining about a LV 40 character?  You gigantic PSOssy.

It was about more than levels. Aleste and I... we were in love!

Alright, I admit, I had incredible ADD in that game. The only time I ever got excited was when I was mowing down rappies looking for easter eggs or some shit. Otherwise I was just hanging out in the room for the raft tunnel worm boss digging on the music. For me, 40 was groundbreaking.
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Brentai

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #54 on: March 01, 2008, 01:00:28 PM »

Man, I hated that music.  It was the first thing I hacked out when I figured out how to switch music in PSO PC.  Changed it to Wipeout, natch.
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Norondor

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #55 on: March 01, 2008, 01:49:44 PM »

See, hearing De Rol Le's theme during the PS podcast essentially forced me to go download PSOBB. It's similar to someone accidentlly saying the words "Deus Ex" in a room full of PC gaming nerds.
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Saturn

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #56 on: March 03, 2008, 05:57:22 PM »

See, hearing De Rol Le's theme during the PS podcast essentially forced me to go download PSOBB. It's similar to someone accidentlly saying the words "Deus Ex" in a room full of PC gaming nerds.

FUCK, REINSTALLING.
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Shax

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #57 on: March 04, 2008, 02:50:15 PM »

Quote from: Parish
So (Luigi) comes off as a kind of Mr. Kimura-type in Smash Bros.?

..... :omg:

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Cthulhu-chan

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #58 on: March 04, 2008, 08:36:49 PM »

God bless you, you magnificent bastard.
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Classic

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Re: Retronauts Mark II
« Reply #59 on: March 04, 2008, 09:17:53 PM »

I didn't think it needed to be said C-Chan. But...  :sadpanda: I gave myself a cramp trying to give him karma.
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