Scat
But god I love those maps stitched together of tens of photos. What a huge job that must have been.
VG&CE was the best at that. EGM did a great job as well.
Props to Andy Eddy and Steve Harris.
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NES/Famicom Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Teknoman
- Start date
VG&CE was the best at that. EGM did a great job as well.
Props to Andy Eddy and Steve Harris.
I've been putting it off because I don't really remember liking the game very much, but I finally got around to playing some Metal Gear.
I think I'm able to appreciate it now more than I could when I was a kid. Having said that, it's still got a lot of grueling flaws that I wouldn't blame anyone for not being able to put up with.
I'm a huge fan of good color use. This game is mostly brown, green and grey. The first couple of items I found were the identical shade of grey as the truck floors they were lying on and I thought that was a little weird. I later realized that every single weapon, equipment, or consumable item is the same grey as the floor. I was excited the first time I discovered a prisoner, but I was unfortunately not too surprised that he, too, was grey.
The first time you get inside a building you are surrounded by jeeps, tanks, and even the occasional sports car. All grey. I was excited to discover the elevator room, not because it offered anything interesting but because it was BLUE. It breaks my heart. Which is not to say I think the graphics are bad. I think the jungles look great and their tileset includes natural-looking curved shrubbery (even if they're a poor representation of the ridiculously strict grid-based movement limitations), and I love the lying dog sprite. It's a nice-looking game that's just showing WAY too few colors at any given time.
Graphics aside, Metal Gear is brutally unforgiving and often outright cheap. You lifebar drains extremely quickly as you're taking damage and you can easily find yourself dead in an instant. Getting into and out of trucks is a fundamental mechanic you learn early in the game. Unfortunately, when you exit the very first truck you figured out you could get into, you find yourself in the line of fire of the guard who instantly sees you and shoots at you.
And I've got the fact that I've played this game before working in my favor. I remembered where the floor opens up into a death pit. I remember having to work the looping-map mechanic to get into trucks that apparently could only be accessed by scrolling into their sides. I still was not ready for the gas-filled room that killed me instantly, despite having the gas mask in my possession.This is not an intuitive or user-friendly game.
Enemies notice you when you cross their field of vision. Guards don't have very good diagonal vision but they will be alerted to your presence when you cross their X or Y axis while they are facing you. The weird thing is they do this bizarrely off-kilt rotation routine (synchronized!). But you get used to it, eventually. You learn never to punch down to hit them because they will be alerted and attack you whereas you can safely juggle them from the left or right. Hilariously, there are several ridiculously inept guards who either constantly fall asleep at their stations or voluntarily leave because they think you're covering their shift. Those are precious presents when you realize you need to learn a complicated web of travel truck connections, leading to a lot of chain "THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE" moments.
Still, I'd be lying if I said Metal Gear wasn't immersive. There's very little handholding here (besides some vague plot descriptions and advice delivered far too late for it to be useful via transmitter messages, there's virtually none), and that makes you as the player the driving force behind your progress. When you make it somewhere new, it's because YOU were willing to learn the game's somewhat opaque mechanics. Even though you start at the beginning every time you continue, you do keep every item you collected up to that point, allowing you to skip a lot of what you had to do before. It doesn't take all that much time to make it to a new area or get a new item. I love that the game trolls you by countering the excitement of finally finding a gun with the realization that it includes no ammo. You feel constantly threatened, yet all these threats seem surmountable if you're willing to give them a few tries.
Also, the music is fantastic. It uses a lot of the same instruments as other great-sounding Konami games like The Goonies 2 and Bucky O'Hare. I'm not a fan of the siren blare that plays at the end of some transmissions, but the tunes are great. Also, there are a few hints of the attention to detail that would later become the hallmark of the series. I was actually impressed when I realized I could remain undetected by passing close enough to the video cameras to remain under their field of vision.
To me, Metal Gear seems like Kojima's doodle pad of what would later become Metal Gear Solid, which is both its most logical successor in that it retains many (if not most) of Metal Gear's fundamental mechanics and its complete antithesis (where it pays obsessive attention to detail where the original over-simplified nearly everything "because video game").
Please keep in mind I have not played the MSX original, which it seems is much better. It's certainly possible a lot of my criticism wouldn't necessarily apply to the definitive MSX version of Metal Gear. The NES version, while interesting and even innovative in some ways, is brutally uncomfortable to play, at least initially. It's very worth playing but you're only going to get out of it what you're willing to put into it.
I think I'm able to appreciate it now more than I could when I was a kid. Having said that, it's still got a lot of grueling flaws that I wouldn't blame anyone for not being able to put up with.
I'm a huge fan of good color use. This game is mostly brown, green and grey. The first couple of items I found were the identical shade of grey as the truck floors they were lying on and I thought that was a little weird. I later realized that every single weapon, equipment, or consumable item is the same grey as the floor. I was excited the first time I discovered a prisoner, but I was unfortunately not too surprised that he, too, was grey.
The first time you get inside a building you are surrounded by jeeps, tanks, and even the occasional sports car. All grey. I was excited to discover the elevator room, not because it offered anything interesting but because it was BLUE. It breaks my heart. Which is not to say I think the graphics are bad. I think the jungles look great and their tileset includes natural-looking curved shrubbery (even if they're a poor representation of the ridiculously strict grid-based movement limitations), and I love the lying dog sprite. It's a nice-looking game that's just showing WAY too few colors at any given time.
Graphics aside, Metal Gear is brutally unforgiving and often outright cheap. You lifebar drains extremely quickly as you're taking damage and you can easily find yourself dead in an instant. Getting into and out of trucks is a fundamental mechanic you learn early in the game. Unfortunately, when you exit the very first truck you figured out you could get into, you find yourself in the line of fire of the guard who instantly sees you and shoots at you.
And I've got the fact that I've played this game before working in my favor. I remembered where the floor opens up into a death pit. I remember having to work the looping-map mechanic to get into trucks that apparently could only be accessed by scrolling into their sides. I still was not ready for the gas-filled room that killed me instantly, despite having the gas mask in my possession.This is not an intuitive or user-friendly game.
Enemies notice you when you cross their field of vision. Guards don't have very good diagonal vision but they will be alerted to your presence when you cross their X or Y axis while they are facing you. The weird thing is they do this bizarrely off-kilt rotation routine (synchronized!). But you get used to it, eventually. You learn never to punch down to hit them because they will be alerted and attack you whereas you can safely juggle them from the left or right. Hilariously, there are several ridiculously inept guards who either constantly fall asleep at their stations or voluntarily leave because they think you're covering their shift. Those are precious presents when you realize you need to learn a complicated web of travel truck connections, leading to a lot of chain "THE TRUCK HAVE STARTED TO MOVE" moments.
Still, I'd be lying if I said Metal Gear wasn't immersive. There's very little handholding here (besides some vague plot descriptions and advice delivered far too late for it to be useful via transmitter messages, there's virtually none), and that makes you as the player the driving force behind your progress. When you make it somewhere new, it's because YOU were willing to learn the game's somewhat opaque mechanics. Even though you start at the beginning every time you continue, you do keep every item you collected up to that point, allowing you to skip a lot of what you had to do before. It doesn't take all that much time to make it to a new area or get a new item. I love that the game trolls you by countering the excitement of finally finding a gun with the realization that it includes no ammo. You feel constantly threatened, yet all these threats seem surmountable if you're willing to give them a few tries.
Also, the music is fantastic. It uses a lot of the same instruments as other great-sounding Konami games like The Goonies 2 and Bucky O'Hare. I'm not a fan of the siren blare that plays at the end of some transmissions, but the tunes are great. Also, there are a few hints of the attention to detail that would later become the hallmark of the series. I was actually impressed when I realized I could remain undetected by passing close enough to the video cameras to remain under their field of vision.
To me, Metal Gear seems like Kojima's doodle pad of what would later become Metal Gear Solid, which is both its most logical successor in that it retains many (if not most) of Metal Gear's fundamental mechanics and its complete antithesis (where it pays obsessive attention to detail where the original over-simplified nearly everything "because video game").
Please keep in mind I have not played the MSX original, which it seems is much better. It's certainly possible a lot of my criticism wouldn't necessarily apply to the definitive MSX version of Metal Gear. The NES version, while interesting and even innovative in some ways, is brutally uncomfortable to play, at least initially. It's very worth playing but you're only going to get out of it what you're willing to put into it.
davidwhangchoi
Member
i only read Martin's reviews bc he liked shooters. Sushi-X was the worst.
davidwhangchoi
Member
late to the party: but got DD and life force today =)
D.Lo
Member
Not speaking of you in particular, but it annoys me that people say this having not played it. Just because it's what Kojima said (he seems to be a possessive jealous man).
I have both on original hardware, and marginally prefer the Famicom/NES version. The MSX2 version runs choppy, like 25fps of less, it's jarring to have a 2D game that runs like a bad N64 game. And the Fami/NES version is chopped up and has some glitches, but is overall an easier, fairer and more enjoyable playthrough for me. Fami/NES also has nicer colours, while MSX2 has more detail, it's very drab, and the Jungle intro adds flavour too.
I pretty much agree with this post by Kurt Kalata (HG101)
http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2009/08/metal-gear-msx-and-nes-comparison.html
davidwhangchoi
Member
alright just beat life force in one credit:
i died stupidly on the fire board 3rd stage trying to grab a power pod.
and died 3 times at the end because i ran into a wall trying to avoid a power pod. i was was full power with a back up force field ready and didn't want to flip over the power icon to speed up.
tip: for the first stage if you want a free 1up right before the boss, stay at the top most or bottom of the board when tearing through the regenerating tissue for a free life right about when you reach the end.
here's some pics of the ending and when the game starts over on a harder difficulty:
i died stupidly on the fire board 3rd stage trying to grab a power pod.
and died 3 times at the end because i ran into a wall trying to avoid a power pod. i was was full power with a back up force field ready and didn't want to flip over the power icon to speed up.
tip: for the first stage if you want a free 1up right before the boss, stay at the top most or bottom of the board when tearing through the regenerating tissue for a free life right about when you reach the end.
here's some pics of the ending and when the game starts over on a harder difficulty:
Is the story the same? I never got into Metal Gear (in any capacity) so it may be cool to check out the NES version as a jumping-in point.
Flizzzipper
Member
I finally had some time to move on to Metal Gear this evening. I learned a lot of the basics and made it into the first building. Even as someone who plays a lot of old games, this one seems hard to go back to. I'm going to read up on it or watch some videos before I go back to it.
I just got the 8bitdo receiver and controller and aside from metal gear having no diagonal movement which threw me, it is working great.
I just got the 8bitdo receiver and controller and aside from metal gear having no diagonal movement which threw me, it is working great.
blast processed
Member
Does anyone here use their NES dust covers?
Flizzzipper
Member
Your thoughts are pretty much spot on with mine after playing it a lot today...well, in fact all of it. In it's time I can see the immersion and discovery being exciting and rewarding but the things it does wrong makes it not worth the time to me in the modern day. The floor pits are the worst and having to shuffle between keycards and gasmask...and hidden doors and respawning enemies.
Spladam
Member
Nice clear bro, dying trying to AVOID a pod is the worst.
I have to agree with both of you, I learned this myself a year ago trying to go back to it out of nostalgia. It's as you say, I see the elements in it that made me think it was so awesome back in the day, but it has some fundamental design flaws that keep it from aging well.
Flizzzipper
Member
I played some Ninja Gaiden 2 today. Got to the third stage where you have to jump on those pillars. Seems to have infinite continues and seems just as frustrating as the first one. I've never beaten the first one or played it extensively so I'm coming in pretty bad.
Everyone should really beat the first one or at least watch the cutscenes of the first since the story continues. You'll get more out of it.
NG2 is the easiest of the series. If I remember correctly, the difficulty doesn't ramp up as much in 2. I remember the stage in Act 2 with the winds being one of the toughest parts in the game.
It's not that tough...I would say Act 5 with the ice and 7-2 are the toughest parts of the game.
Yeah it's a great game!Sorry guys, Ninja Gaiden II post incoming today or tomorrow, depending on when I get the image.
Glad to see y'all are already playing it! It's one of my faves
davidwhangchoi
Member
wow you must be good @ ninja gaiden series. i'm in the same boat couldn't beat one as a kid. sorta gave up but need to finish it one day. pretty excited for part II. glad to hear it's easier.
I beat the 1st 2 games back in 2015 and
no death the 1st 2 games in the same year as well. I also think NG1's difficulty is a little overrated IMO.
Did Kojima get the best of you, or were you as sneky as a snek can be?
Either way, it's time to bust out of the shadows to play Ninja Gaien II by Tecmo!
This one is the easy one!
Either way, it's time to bust out of the shadows to play Ninja Gaien II by Tecmo!
This one is the easy one!
Wiki wiki ya ya, ya ya:
One year after the events of the first Ninja Gaiden game, in the Realm of
Darkness, Ashtar, the evil lord who controlled Jaquio, is informed of Jaquio's defeat;
he devises a plan to rule over Earth by opening the Gate of Darkness. A U.S. Army
Special Intelligence unit member named Robert T. Sturgeon is sent to find Ryu to take
out Ashtar.
Darkness, Ashtar, the evil lord who controlled Jaquio, is informed of Jaquio's defeat;
he devises a plan to rule over Earth by opening the Gate of Darkness. A U.S. Army
Special Intelligence unit member named Robert T. Sturgeon is sent to find Ryu to take
out Ashtar.
Here's how the voting shook out for anyone interested.
Header image by D Lo, Monthly image made
by Wanyodos. Guidelines below by RavenholmDX. Selection Process by OnPoint.
Thanks guys!
by Wanyodos. Guidelines below by RavenholmDX. Selection Process by OnPoint.
Thanks guys!
RoryDropkick
Member
I might do that this weekend. Been working on Nier Automata and more importantly been with my family and working on college courses. Did anyone pick up Brave Wave's digital release of NG1-3 OST yesterday? It's good stuff.
sixteen-bit
Member
Finally got some time to hook up my NT Mini and busted out a few carts for the occasion.
dat solbrain
Planning to scoop up the vinyl box set as soon as they go up. Top tier games and OST for me.
Barrel Cannon
Member
Awesome I'm glad this thread got bumped to the first page. I haven't played through NG2 in a while so it'll be fun to revisit. Will go find and set up my NES today so I can blow through it friday night.
Decided to finally give streaming retro stuff a shot via a combo of ReLive, the USB capture and deskstop streaming in general, and just ended up playing straight through Rockman 5 lol. Never really sat down with the game, and its not anywhere near as good as 2 or 3...or 4 for that matter, but its still pretty fun. The soundtrack is top notch though. Gravity Man, Wave Man, and Wily's Castle are great themes.
The final boss leaves a lil to be desired.
The final boss leaves a lil to be desired.
1st game isn't the hardest, that would be 3, but yeah 2 has more extra lives and more checkpoints so it's better in that regard.
Still though, using a continue after losing to any of the 3 final bosses has you restarting 7-2 all over again so there's that.
GurgleBot20
Member
I'm really not a fan of the level design in Ninja Gaiden 2. Level gimmicks such as in stage 2-2 or 3-1 kind of force a stop and wait playstyle, which is disappointing considering that Ninja Gaiden 1's constant momentum is what made that game unique compared to other action platformers.
I stopped here when I tried to play through it a few weeks ago, but that was also because I kind of lost patience by that point.
I stopped here when I tried to play through it a few weeks ago, but that was also because I kind of lost patience by that point.
davidwhangchoi
Member
i remember that's and why i didn't finish. i never owned the game but was playing at a sleepover in middle school. couldn't finish it because the family took us to see ghostbusters II in the theaters. man, this is bringing back some memories=) i still need to finish it!
Shin Johnpv
Member
That's US though right? I could be mistaken but isn't the Japanese release of 3 easier than the US release?
D.Lo
Member
Yeah Japanese 3 is the easiest in the series, US 3 is the hardest. And PAL never got 'Shadow Warriors' 3
.POTUS 2016
Banned
Can someone tell me if Ice Climbers on Famicom is import friendly? Is there any Japanese text that requires knowledge for story/etc context?
sixteen-bit
Member
Jeremy Parish did a video on the Columbus Circle trilogy. Check it out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UTxXLCQOEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UTxXLCQOEk
davidwhangchoi
Member
thanks!
ok, i finally won a copy of ninja gaiden II. it might come after the month is over but at least i was able to get ahold of the game =)
RoryDropkick
Member
It's literally the same ROM as the NES release.
POTUS 2016
Banned
Not quite. There are baby seals instead of yeti in the Famicom version. If no Japanese is required then I'm importing it.
Bought it.
Shin Johnpv
Member
I'm going to cross post this here and in the retro-AV thread but Kevtris has updated the HiDefNES' firmware and added 4 new Palettes.
Here's the info copied and pasted from his post on the NESDev forum.
"Well here it is, after 14 months!
http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/HiDef ... 20beta.nes
Changes:
* Audio DC level restoration to fix some monitors that'd be silent or have other weird audio volume issues.
* FDS channel redone to be hopefully more accurate.
* DPCM fixed to allow retriggering.
* Address bus filtering fixed so that graphical/palette glitches should be a thing of the past.
* PAL pixel capturing fixed.
* 4 new palettes added.
* Removed interpolation and associated menu. I needed the logic gates in the FPGA to fix the other things.
I tested 5 sets of PAL chips- 1 set always worked, but the other 4 had minor to very severe "speckling". These are all working perfectly now.
I tested 3 sets of "laser H rev" parts as found in the newest AV famicoms (I think) and they are all working perfect now as well.
This should fix all the problems people had I hope.
This update is a beta because I am not 100% sure I didn't break something else relating to DPCM, so if I did please let me know.
The four new palettes are:
Firebrand X NTSC
Firebrand X PVM D93
RGBSOURCE Hybrid
RGBSOURCE NESCAP
The original 4 palettes are still in there of course.
Hope that's enough because this thing is fulllllllll up. There is absolutely no room left anywhere. I have scavenged it all. btw,
the xray mode is "free" so it doesn't use any logic elements. It's the internal decisions being made about the HQX stuff. It's basically detecting edges."
I know I'm super excited to try out the Firebrand X PVM D93 Palette since that one is for digital displays to look like an RGB modded NES on a PVM.
Here's the info copied and pasted from his post on the NESDev forum.
"Well here it is, after 14 months!
http://blog.kevtris.org/blogfiles/HiDef ... 20beta.nes
Changes:
* Audio DC level restoration to fix some monitors that'd be silent or have other weird audio volume issues.
* FDS channel redone to be hopefully more accurate.
* DPCM fixed to allow retriggering.
* Address bus filtering fixed so that graphical/palette glitches should be a thing of the past.
* PAL pixel capturing fixed.
* 4 new palettes added.
* Removed interpolation and associated menu. I needed the logic gates in the FPGA to fix the other things.
I tested 5 sets of PAL chips- 1 set always worked, but the other 4 had minor to very severe "speckling". These are all working perfectly now.
I tested 3 sets of "laser H rev" parts as found in the newest AV famicoms (I think) and they are all working perfect now as well.
This should fix all the problems people had I hope.
This update is a beta because I am not 100% sure I didn't break something else relating to DPCM, so if I did please let me know.
The four new palettes are:
Firebrand X NTSC
Firebrand X PVM D93
RGBSOURCE Hybrid
RGBSOURCE NESCAP
The original 4 palettes are still in there of course.
Hope that's enough because this thing is fulllllllll up. There is absolutely no room left anywhere. I have scavenged it all. btw,
the xray mode is "free" so it doesn't use any logic elements. It's the internal decisions being made about the HQX stuff. It's basically detecting edges."
I know I'm super excited to try out the Firebrand X PVM D93 Palette since that one is for digital displays to look like an RGB modded NES on a PVM.
sixteen-bit
Member
do you club baby seals in JP Ice Climbers?
Shin Johnpv
Member
I don't know if anyone cares but I loaded up the new firmware on my HiDefNES and holy shit the FirebrandX PVM D93 palette is fucking gorgeous. Like I don't think someone could make a better palette.
brbusingimaginationsincenopics.gif ?
I care. Big time. Palettes are so hard to get right on NES.
Thanks for sharing. Got any pics?