Together Retro: Eighties' Ladies' Night

[Nemoide]

I did it; I beat Metroid!
With the "bad ending" so it wasn't revealed that Samus is a woman...

I'm pretty confident that if I tried again with a mind for speed I could AT LEAST get the ending where she takes off her helmet, but I'm not feeling it at the moment. Maybe in a few years. I'm aiming to make Samus Returns for 3DS my next Metroid game since that's a well-recieved alternative to Metroid II.
This game does a lot of things right: the fluid and responsive controls, the satisfaction of exploring areas, and the excitement of getting closer to accomplishing the goal of destroying the Mother Brain. But it also does a lot of things wrong mostly with the obtuseness of many hidden areas, inescapable pits, starting with 30 health, and no way to quit and get a password except for dying. I can't imagine someone beating this with the best ending in the pre-internet days without a guide.

I liked this game, but I'm expecting to like later 2D entries in the series more. It's pretty great by NES standards, but didn't 100% knock my socks off.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Nice job finishing it. I've gotten the second-best ending but beating it in under an hour seems insane.

You can get a password without dying; press up+A on controller two. A layover from the old Famicom hardwired controller scheme. Still awkward though, certainly.

[MrPopo]

Nice job finishing it. I've gotten the second-best ending but beating it in under an hour seems insane.

If you know where to go it's quite doable. You do the initial Brinstar, which gives you an E-Tank. Rush to Ridley, trash him, get his tank. Head back to Kraid. Beating Kraid is the hardest part, but it rewards you with a third tank, and then you get the fourth on the way out. Head to Tourian and win. The routes to both Ridley and Kraid are actually really straightforward if you know which doors to go for; most of the maze stuff is for getting the random side items you don't need.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Sounds good, but I'd still get owned.

Plus, getting that energy tank in Kraid's lair takes me like 20 attempts.

[MrPopo]

Plus, getting that energy tank in Kraid's lair takes me like 20 attempts.

That's a time loss.

[ESauced]

Well ... I took my shot at Athena. After looking at some screenshot comparisons I decided that I liked the aesthetics of the arcade release a bit moreso than the NES release. It really is a beautiful looking game for the time of release. But wow ... this game was really designed to unceremoniously eat your quarters with no remorse or pity. The number of enemies on screen at any given time is full-on bonkers. Coupled with the fact that the controls feel a bit clumsy at times, it was not a great time.

So I fired up the NES version to see if it was any more forgiving. And in some ways it is. The enemy count is more reasonable than the arcade release (although it does have the aggressive respawning typical of many NES games from this time period), but ... the controls feel even worse in this one. And that sucks, because in some ways I feel like this game would have a lot of potential if only the controls were tightened up a bit.

It's a game that I want to like. And it comes so close ... but yeah I think I'll give The Guardian Legend a try. I'll probably play Athena again at some point to see if I can get better acclimated with it. If anything it was nice to play the arcade original and the NES port back to back. When and if I do go back I'll definitely opt for the arcade release which I feel like is the definitive version.

Yeah I felt the same about it. It is just way too brutally difficult and the controls don’t make it any easier.

I’ve mostly been spending the month playing Ms Pac Man. I consistently get between 20,000 and 25,000 points. I don’t get better no matter how many times I play. Sometimes I die because Pinky trapped me, usually it’s just because I miss a turn or get over-aggressive and run straight into a ghost.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Y'all should just try Psycho Soldier instead of Athena. It's the sequel, and while not great by any stretch it's at least playable.
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/pro ... SOLDIER001
It's also on SNK Arcade Classics 0 (PSP).

Pre-Neo Geo SNK is pretty jank.

[Sload Soap]

King Lassic is dead, Darkfalz merely a bad dream and Alis is queen of the Algol system. Wooo!

I finally pushed through and beat Phantasy Star last night. The last but one dungeon was a real pain in the arse with all its twists and hidden traps. Had to do two delves to get through.

I was kind of glad to be done with the game by the end which is a shame. It's not that I didn't enjoy the game overall but some of its more archaic design was starting to wear down on me as the difficulty ramped up. I kind of genuinely hated all the mucking about on Dezoris, going back and forth through identical looking caves. The dungeons themselves were the biggest drag. They are a novelty at first and look great but by the end as they got more complicated I was kind of wishing they were top down like the rest of the game. The lack of detail goes from being a technical quirk to being just badly designed and tedious later on. Even something as simple as having different floors in the same dungeon be different colours would have helped.

There are other slight annoyances as well: the game is cryptic which leads to a lot of aimless wandering. Magic is underutilised as you can't replenish MP in the field which in turn leads to a vast majority of the battles being waged by hitting attack and waiting for the enemy to drop. The game isn't difficult as there aren't really any enemies or bosses that pose a real challenge but there is a sense of attrition as healing items are pretty much useless and have to be carried in bulk (which the game won't let you do with its limited inventory) and as mentioned spells cost a lot and can't be topped up. And generally stuff takes longer than it should i.e, you can't heal your whole group at a hospital, items have to be bought one at a time, you can't choose which enemy in a stack to attack, you have to open a treasure chest manually at the end of each fight, etc. All stuff that comes from the game being 30 years old and of its time.

I don't want to rag too much on the game though because these issues are more a factor of age than quality. Phantasy Star is still a very playable game and it looks and sounds amazing. Definitely better than its contemporaries in Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Yes it wore on me towards the very end but before that it was a blast and I loved exploring the different planets and the simple but fast paced battle system keeps things moving really well. And as esoteric as it can be, it also meant there was always worth in really exploring each planet to the fullest, checking out every cave, visiting every town. There is very little fluff here.

As for the theme of the month it's hard for me to draw any meaningful conclusions. Alis doesn't really have any personality outside of her motivation to avenge her brother's death and she is never expanded on beyond that. The game is neither plot nor character driven as there is none of either. It's gameplay driven through and through. That said it is nice that Alis eschews the tropes of the time and is the heavy hitter of the team rather than some magical waif. It would also be nice to Sega send some love her way as an example of an early female lead not defined by her gender (hint: put her in your new racing game).

I'd out of the big three Phantasy Star is the best JRPG of its time. I prefer the remakes of FF1 and 2 but if I was thrown back to 1987 I would plump for Phantasy Star in a heartbeat.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Nice post brah. Your thoughts echo mine quite a bit. I also agree that the Dezoris caves are a really weak section. Rest of the game is a fun romp. Gorgeous graphics and soundtrack.

I gotta be "that guy" and point out that Dragon Quest wasn't entirely a contemporary of Phantasy Star or Final Fantasy. It just appears that way due to slow and uneven Western localization. Looking at the Japanese release dates, Dragon Quest II was out eleven months before Final Fantasy and Phantasy Star (which were released two days apart). Dragon Quest III was released less than two months after Fantasy Fantasy and Phantasy Star. Really, the holy 8-bit trinity of excellent (and similar) JRPGs is Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, and Dragon Quest III.

[noiseredux]

Great post and congrats on finishing such a classic.