Together Retro: Fantastic Dizzy

[ExedExes]

Is Exed Exes the only person playing this?

If I have a means of playing the TR game, I will. It's really what brought me to register here after poking around and reading a few threads.

[gtmtnbiker]

Who made the suggestion for this game? I don't have any means of playing it unless I use an emulator. I might check it out.

[alienjesus]

Who made the suggestion for this game? I don't have any means of playing it unless I use an emulator. I might check it out.

I did. The Dizzy games are pretty well regarded here in the UK and I thought it might be cool to play something that wasn't so big in the US or Japan.

EDIT: So I sat down and played this at last, and I'm pretty impressed. I was expecting it to be rather rough around the edges, but it's actually pretty nice. The graphics are quite pretty, even if the animations aren't exactly mind blowing, and the control for moving and jumping is smother than I expected. The inventory management is certainly a pain though. The sound is decent too, although not especially catchy.

I'm a little concerned by the lack of saving and the limited lives - it seems a fairly long game to try and get through all in one go like that. Perhaps emulating is the way to go, so you can use save states - even if only so you dont need to spend hours playing.

I did a bit of exploring early on and found a few items that I figured out how to use. It seems the thing to do at this stage is find out how to explore the village and meet the other yolkfolk, which requires lots of keys. It might be best to find an easy place to remember to leave all non key items until you think you might need them, because if you leave them where you find the keys you'll quickly lose track of where everything is.

Overall, so far - quite impressed.

P.S Would I be right in thinking it'd be a good idea to grab every item I find and drop it off near the yolkfolk village? Seems like that's where most of the stuff will be needed, and it'll make it nice and easy to find later too.

[ExedExes]

P.S Would I be right in thinking it'd be a good idea to grab every item I find and drop it off near the yolkfolk village? Seems like that's where most of the stuff will be needed, and it'll make it nice and easy to find later too.

In all honesty, I thought this month at first was gonna be a stinker, because I always associated the Dizzy series as just poorly made stuff (Codemasters games for the NES were distributed by an unlicensed publisher in the US which made them about as unfavorable as Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree's output). That's the reputation their games had in this country (with the sole exceptions of Micro Machines and the Game Genie) and most game magazines of the time felt the same. Then I found out this had a Genesis/Mega Drive port. It was a bit difficult at first, but I'm glad the powers that be here considered an international game.

I wouldn't drop *every* item off in the village. If you're not going outside the village to pick up stuff, then it might be a good idea to. If all goes right, you won't be leaving too much in the level to begin with (all the keys you pick up, for example) Plus, the crossbow you find in the village will be needed in the city stage to get into the castle. The rope also comes in handy in a few places in and out of the village.

[SpaceBooger]

Just got the game in from ebay and will be playing it this weekend... I'll post up some opinions then.

[Ivo]

P.S Would I be right in thinking it'd be a good idea to grab every item I find and drop it off near the yolkfolk village? Seems like that's where most of the stuff will be needed, and it'll make it nice and easy to find later too.

This is what I did, and I also noted on paper where I left some particular item whenever I left it elsewhere. The world is not so big, but backtracking all the time is a bit of a bother with the enemies fluttering around. To be honest I don't like the enemies/damage system, with possibly one exception I think the game would be better off with 1-hit kills and practically no enemies (i.e. like the previous games in the series that I played).

Remember where you leave the rope.

Ivo.

[ExedExes]

Remember where you leave the rope.

If I had to offer one-line advice for this game, I'd have to say that's the line I'd use. That rope is useful in many places.

As for progress, I burned pretty far through. Went to the graveyard, underwater, and the mines. Got the 10 stars in the bubble sequence, and the 20 stars in the mine cart ride.

92 stars were collected, with 58 more to go.

[gtmtnbiker]

I got about 25 stars playing the Genesis version in Kega Fusion using the keyboard. Interesting game. I will start again but use Ivo's suggestion of writing down where you leave an item. I will also use save states.

For those playing the Genesis version on the real system, are you supposed to do the game in one sitting? Or can you save your position?

[dsheinem]

For those playing the Genesis version on the real system, are you supposed to do the game in one sitting? Or can you save your position?

From just playing it for a bit, it looks like you have to do it in one shot.

Anyone want to buy my cart? This game is not for me.

[ExedExes]

Complete!

2 things to remember -- getting all the stars before the final castle (that area alone has the last 29 stars) and also completing all the sliding puzzles for extra lives, because I burned a few on the final Metroid-style vertical shaft climb. This game was as Codemasters puts it, absolutely brilliant. If it wasn't suggested here, I would not have played it. Too bad so many are missing out on this experience.