Games Beaten 2017

[ElkinFencer10]

The SNES Neo Geo ports are a mixed bag. Some are good, some are not particularly. And different companies did different ports, so make sure you read up a little before you dive in.

Truth. Better to just sell a kidney and buy an MVS.

[Sarge]

Or emulate through official means. A lot of the Neo Geo stuff is up on places like Steam and the Wii Virtual Console.

Or unoffical. I don't care. That's what I do.

(I still want a Neo Geo, though.)

[ElkinFencer10]

Or emulate through official means. A lot of the Neo Geo stuff is up on places like Steam and the Wii Virtual Console.

That's my rule on emulation. Unless there's no way to play it in a language I speak, that's the only type of emulation I'll condone (with the exception of MAME).

[noiseredux]

plus some of the NG ports on Steam have online play.

[whitewolfarctic]

I've beaten Abzu, Rise of the Tomb Raider and The Last Guardian.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Nice, guys. Keep up the good work! It is good to see some new members posting in here, and I always appreciate reading people's thoughts on the games they play to completion.

[marurun]

I've beaten Abzu, Rise of the Tomb Raider and The Last Guardian.

What are your thoughts on them? Were they all good and recommended for others? Any duds in there?

[BoneSnapDeez]

1. Chrono Trigger (SNES)
2. Gyromite (NES)
3. Lucy -The Eternity She Wished For- (Steam)
4. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Famicom)
5. Radical Dreamers (SNES)
6. Video Games 1 (TI-99/4A)
7. Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (Famicom)

Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (or, The Portopia Serial Murder Case) is an influential old murder mystery game created by Yuji Horii in his pre-Dragon Quest days. It was originally released on Japanese computers, and later ported to the Famicom where the text parser was replaced by a menu system (among other changes). A fan translation was released in 2011.

You play as a detective, who is joined by a loyal assistant. The goal is to solve a recent murder of some (seemingly) reclusive and wealthy individual. This tale is heavy on the dialogue, with most of it being comprised of detective and assistant conversing back and forth. It's a nice change from the typical brief internal monologue style so common in adventure games, and the game's overall tone is pretty humorous even in light of the heavy subject matter.

Gameplay unfolds in a screen-by-screen first-person viewpoint, where static scenery and/or character portraits present themselves. Everything is controlled by menus. You can look around, search for clues, take objects, dial phone numbers (manually!), hit suspects (damn, Japan...), question locals, interrogate specific individuals, make arrests and more. The majority of possible actions are superfluous, but it's quite fun to experiment. I'm actually not sure how to "lose" the game, but I believe the case must be reopened if you end up declaring the wrong suspect to be the perpetrator.

As goes for all old adventure games: should you choose to proceed with no hints or walkthrough, good luck! The overall field of exploration is quite small, only expanding once certain "triggers" are hit. I got stuck at one point early on. An internet walkthrough told me I had to go to Kyoto. I had no option to travel to Kyoto. I wandered all over performing every action I could. After returning to the game's starting point I had my assistant question the locals. They uttered some unrelated banter and immediately after the assistant proclaimed "Hey let's go to Kyoto!" and thus the pathway presented itself. So yes, it's one of "those" games. Searching for evidence is entertaining but also far trickier than it needs to be. For instance, when uncovering a hidden object with a magnifying glass an extremely small and specific set of pixels must be highlighted or the game won't register a hit.

Unique to the Famicom port is a Wizardry-like style maze that appears towards the game's end. It's a nice touch, but it also kinda bland and the expected "hidden passage" is, well, really hidden. Good luck.

The story is pretty awesome and well-written (kudos to the fan translators as well). It kept me guessing for the bulk of the game, though I was able to figure out "the big twist" about 3/4th of the way through. And this is an adult game. There are dead bloody bodies strewn about. Not to mention the strip club and stripper interrogation.

Graphics are delightfully primitive and there isn't much music to speak of, though the police siren "theme" is pretty startling and hilarious.

Highly recommended. This is a fantastic way to spend an afternoon and a great historic glimpse into classic Japanese game design. And since carts still go for <$2 there's no reason to pass this up.

P.S. If you need a Retron 5 patch holler at me. This is one of those games that requires a modified one. I'd post a link but I dunno if that's allowed.

[prfsnl_gmr]

You're awesome, Bone. I'll definitely follow up with you on that translation patch.

[Exhuminator]

Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (or, The Portopia Serial Murder Case)

Wicked beat!

only expanding once certain "triggers" are hit. I got stuck at one point early on. | For instance, when uncovering a hidden object with a magnifying glass an extremely small and specific set of pixels must be highlighted or the game won't register a hit.

This is the thing I hate about these old Japanese menu based adventure games. And why I hadn't played this one yet.

The story is pretty awesome and well-written (kudos to the fan translators as well).

And this is why I'd still like to play it someday. I've read Hideo Kojima cited this as one of the games that made him want to join the industry.

Highly recommended. This is a fantastic way to spend an afternoon and a great historic glimpse into classic Japanese game design.

Man I love reading reviews like this for old classic games, especially esoteric* Japanese ones. This is the kind of stuff I'd like to see more of around here! Big kudos to you for keeping it real Bone.

If you haven't beaten it yet, I'd like to suggest this as a followup:

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/850/

I'm suggesting it purely as a scholarly exercise though.


*Relatively speaking that is.