Tag: retro

Densetsu no Stafi 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes, it’s more of more of the same. Same baddies (mostly), same skills (that again need re-learning), same silly characters to interact with. But! Densetsu no Stafi 3 adds something new – a second, female, starfish. If my Japanese is correct, she’s Stafi’s sister Stapi. At various times in the game you swap between the two starfish, sometimes at will, other times it is forced due to Events That Happen. Although similar, they have a couple of different skills. Notably, …

Densetsu no Stafi 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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See, I told you I was going to play them all. Soon after finishing Stafi 1, it was on to Stafi 2, which takes place directly following the events of the first game. Somehow, Stafi has lost all his skills so they have to be re-obtained, so really it’s a re-tread of the first game only with different levels. And more levels – seemingly a lot more levels. And different bosses. And some new gimmicks. OK, so not really a …

Densetsu no Stafi (Switch): COMPLETED!

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When I bought the original Game Boy Advance, imported from Japan, I ended importing a lot of Japanese games too. At the time it was usually cheaper, and there were some really weird looking games that I wanted to play. For a few years, I often saw the three GBA Stafi games for sale on the likes of Lik Sang (RIP) and Play Asia, but never cheap enough to buy. Eventually the DS came out and the 4th game in …

Street Fighter Alpha (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Anyone would think I’d recently bought both the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection pack and the Capcom Fighting Collection pack on the Switch eShop for super cheap recently or something. And if they thunk that, they’d be thunking right because I have. Now, I’ve said before that Street Fighter Alpha 2 is my favourite Street Fighter game (and, probably, my favourite one-on-one fighting game of all time), but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Street Fighter Alpha, er, One. It …

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes, it isn’t the best two player competitive blocks-in-wells based puzzle game (that would be Puyo Puyo), but you can’t not like Super Puzzle Fighter with it’s super-deformed Capcom fighters and just the sheer absurdity of it. The aim I much like other similar games – match up blocks and send them over to the other player’s well to fill it up a bit and bugger up their plans. Each character has a special pattern of blocks that, when you …

Vampire Savior (Switch): COMPLETED!

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No, not the horde-based twin stick only one stick sort of shooter. That’s Vampire Survivors, even though I keep getting the two names mixed up. No, this is the Capcom 1-on-1 fighting game from the late 90s heyday of Capcom 1-on-1 fighting games. There was a cheap bundle of bundles (a bundle^2, if you like) on the eShop recently where you could get Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection and Capcom Fighting Collection together for less money than either collection had …

Metroid Zero Mission (Switch): COMPLETED!

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An actual Metroid Metroidvania game! Released on the Switch Game Boy Advance Online Service Thing presumably to tie in with the re-announcement (and gameplay footage) of the upcoming Metroid Prime 4, I thought, why the hell not eh? It’s good. Oh so good. Yes, I’ve played it before, but almost 20 years ago so I remembered very little of it. In fact, I’d even forgotten about the whole “zero suit” bit where Samus loses her armour and you have to …

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Did I completely forget that this was also an arcade game? Pretty sure I only ever knew it as a SNES title, but no – here’s the arcade version. It is, as you’d expect, very similar to the original version but with better graphics and animation, and levels set in various time periods like “dinosaurs” and “pirates” as the title would suggest. It felt somewhat easier than the original, perhaps because there are a few more moves and certainly more …

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes! The arcade version! It’s another game on the Cowabunga Collection, and probably the best one on there from what I remember. Sure, it’s mindless and lacking in combos and special moves like newer examples of the genre, but it’s a classic and you can never hear “SAY YOIRE PRAYERS, TOITLES” too many times. Also, being an arcade game designed to extract as many coins from your purse as possible, it’s really rather hard and the bosses especially are just …

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Originally a Game Boy game, this TMNT game is now one of the games on the “Cowabunga” collection, and it… isn’t great. Pretty sure it wasn’t great at the time, either, what with the flickery graphics and barely-there animation and repetitive gameplay and the tiny viewport and, well, it goes on. It’s not that far from Kung Fu Master for most of the game, having to attack enemies as they approach from left and right, but there’s also some basic …

Super Mario Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Ah, who doesn’t remember the chart-topping MC Mario “Folks round here think I’m crazy, but I gotta rescue Daisy” song that was based on the music from this, slightly odd in hindsight, Game Boy Mario game? Kids, that’s who. Tch. And it is a bit odd. Super Mario Land starts out as a seemingly normal, low resolution and black and white approximation of the NES classic, but adds different enemies and the fire flower is a bouncy ball and there …

Sküljagger (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Sküljagger (no, I’d never heard of it either) is a Bad Game. Originally a SNES game which seemed to have been completely ignored at the time, it’s yet another 16-bit platform with literally nothing going for it. It seems to have a pirate theme or maybe a viking theme or who actually knows, or cares? You have a sword and have platforms to navigate. Wow. Even at the time this can’t have been more than a 5/10 title. It’s janky …

Golden Sun: The Lost Age (Switch): COMPLETED!

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With the original Golden Sun ending on a cliff-hanger, and The Lost Age carrying on directly from it (or rather, from slightly before the end of the first game), I didn’t really have a choice but to start it immediately afterwards. Well, not quite immediately, as you can transfer your saved game from the first game to the follow-up but this required half an hour of password input and correction. Not that you see the benefit of the password for …

Mega-lo-Mania (MD): COMPLETED!

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Yes, this again. Seems I didn’t play it at all in 2023! How did that happen? Anyhoo, this time through I played as Caesar (the green one), and for the first time I can remember, I wasn’t asked to form an alliance at all for the whole game. Normally at least someone panics and tries to get me to join with them, although I almost always decline. As usual, I reached the Mother of All Battles as the end of …

Psycho Soldier (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Another game off that SNK 40th Anniversary Collection thing I found Prehistoric Isle on. The game title really doesn’t match anything in the game itself, which is a platform shooter starring Athena (the SNK girl who is in a few of their games) and there aren’t any soldiers, psycho or otherwise. And you know what? I really enjoyed it! It’s quirky, very different to other superficially similar titles from the same era, and Athena sings her theme tune as you …