Together Retro: Eighties' Ladies' Night

[noiseredux]

Agree with Exum's post wholeheartedly.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Alright,

So I beat FDS Metroid. Glorious.

I'm a noob and had no idea that once you destroy the regenerating "doors" in Mother Brain's chamber they never come back. So to make that final battle easier one can blast some doors, flee, heal, and then return. Noice. Got the less-than-three-hour Justin Bailey ending.

Also, took down Wabbit on Atari 2600. This is a sort of fixed shooter with questionable game mechanics. Eventually it becomes "impossible" to keep playing as the enemy sprites move faster than one can perceive, become invisible, and then there's essentially a kill screen. This happens within about ten minutes of play, by the way. Excellent. So yeah, I'll call this "beaten."

Think that's it for the month, for me.

[Sarge]

I’ve opened a path to the final dungeon, and The Legend of the Ghost Lion ends tonight. The game is a complete slog, however, and barring an absolutely mind-blowing ending, I will not recommend it to anyone.

I actually have a partial playthrough of that on the EDN8. I like some of the ideas, but I hit one dungeon and it's like, "encounter! encounter! encounter!" Jeez, I know 8-bit RPGs were known for their encounter rates, but there's no real point to them in this game outside of money since level advancement comes from finding "Fragments of Hope" in various areas. I'm still tempted to finish it, if only because I have a morbid fascination with the game (must be the box art) as well as Tecmo Secret of the Stars.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Oh it's sooo much better than Tecmo Secret of the Stars. That game is just hilariously bad. Like a crappy joke that goes on for 30 hours.

[Ack]

Oh it's sooo much better than Tecmo Secret of the Stars. That game is just hilariously bad. Like a crappy joke that goes on for 30 hours.

And yet, we put up with it for those 30 hours..

[BoneSnapDeez]

Yeah gotta be a SNES RPG completionist and all that..............

[laurenhiya21]

So I played some Metroid and it's difficult! You guys make it sound super easy, but so far I haven't really made any progress. I mean I got the first powerup (which doesn't say much since it's right there), but after that I will go a little ways one way and die. Go a ways a different way and die. Lots of dying.

I'll give it another shot though I think, but does anyone have any pointers?

[prfsnl_gmr]

I’ve opened a path to the final dungeon, and The Legend of the Ghost Lion ends tonight. The game is a complete slog, however, and barring an absolutely mind-blowing ending, I will not recommend it to anyone.

I actually have a partial playthrough of that on the EDN8. I like some of the ideas, but I hit one dungeon and it's like, "encounter! encounter! encounter!" Jeez, I know 8-bit RPGs were known for their encounter rates, but there's no real point to them in this game outside of money since level advancement comes from finding "Fragments of Hope" in various areas. I'm still tempted to finish it, if only because I have a morbid fascination with the game (must be the box art) as well as Tecmo Secret of the Stars.

OK. I finished it up last night. It has the potential for interesting battle mechanics, and the end game is challenging. It just doesn’t come together...at all. The encounter rate is not too bad, but since they don’t provide you with any real benefit, the battles are just pointless interruptions to boring fetch quests. Worse: (1) all enemies toward the end of the game are really “slippery” causing you to attack three or four times before landing a hit; (2) you have an extremely limited inventory that gets filled up with permanent items and leaves little room for consumable healing items at the end of the game; and (3) everything about the game is so slow...I turned the game up to 160 FPS, approximately four times normal speed, about half way through, and it was still a slog. The whole thing took me maybe six or seven hours; so, I think you would be in for an interminable twelve to fourteen hours if you played it at normal speed.

Not recommended.

[BoneSnapDeez]

So I played some Metroid and it's difficult! You guys make it sound super easy, but so far I haven't really made any progress. I mean I got the first powerup (which doesn't say much since it's right there), but after that I will go a little ways one way and die. Go a ways a different way and die. Lots of dying.

I'll give it another shot though I think, but does anyone have any pointers?

Take it slow. Remember than enemies will frequently drop energy refill items.

The game has aged poorly. I'd honestly recommend a walkthrough to consult, or at least a some maps. There's no in-game map and it's hard to self-map as it lacks a grid-like structure.

Before you tackle anything too hard I'd recommend a treasure hunt. Try to power up Samus as much as you can by collecting all the early energy tanks, missiles, and items. The StrategyWiki page has a great step-by-step process laid out for this sort of thing.

[noiseredux]

Do you have access to Zero Mission? That felt a lot easier to me.