GRcade Retro Gaming Chat 2.0

Valkyrie Profile in the top 10

KK wrote:Rundown of the best PS1 RPGs of all time according to Time Extend...

https://www.timeextension.com/guides/be ... f-all-time

Somehow they've forgotten Alundra (which came out just before Resident Evil 2 in the UK, if I remember correctly) which was described as 'Zelda on the PlayStation' at the time. Will set you back a considerable amount on eBay now though (about 60 quid).

Where the hell is Megaman Legends or do they not count that as an RPG?

I can’t believe the price of Silent Hill on eBay (in excess of £100). From what I remember it wasn’t even a rare game, was it? It debuted at 3 in the charts behind Driver and Syphon Filter and remained in the top 10 the following month (according to ARCADE). And it got a Platinum re-release.

Thankfully it’s still on the UK PS3 store for under 6 quid so I think I’ll buy it tomorrow.

Sonic CD is thirty years old this month! Did you have a Mega CD and did you try out the game? It gained a very positive reception at the time of release and was perhaps the biggest name on Sega's Mega Drive peripheral.

I was a huge Mega Drive fan at the time but the cost of the Mega CD add-on turned me away. Years later - around 2010 - I obtained the unit and a copy of Sonic CD... it was great! I loved the look of the Mega CD and I could imagine how the use of CDs was pretty high-tech for a console at that time. Over a few years I picked up a small collection of Mega CD titles - around twenty games - and it was neat checking them out. Alas, I don't have the space to set up my retro gear now but I remain very fond of the Mega CD.

jawa_ wrote:Sonic CD is thirty years old this month! Did you have a Mega CD and did you try out the game? It gained a very positive reception at the time of release and was perhaps the biggest name on Sega's Mega Drive peripheral.

I was a huge Mega Drive fan at the time but the cost of the Mega CD add-on turned me away. Years later - around 2010 - I obtained the unit and a copy of Sonic CD... it was great! I loved the look of the Mega CD and I could imagine how the use of CDs was pretty high-tech for a console at that time. Over a few years I picked up a small collection of Mega CD titles - around twenty games - and it was neat checking them out. Alas, I don't have the space to set up my retro gear now but I remain very fond of the Mega CD.

I didn't get Sonic CD or a Mega CD back in the day but like 15 years ago ish I got a Megadrive 1 with MegaCD 1 Sonic CD, the Sega compilation disc, lemmings for Megadrive and a few other bits and pieces off a market as a bundle for the like £20 or £30 sort of price... Sonic CD is really awesome I absolutly love it... I proberbly only have about 8 Mega CD games though as I have only ever picked up what was cheap.... I have a disc only copy of Keio Flying Squadron for the Mega CD which is also a fantasticgame,I got that in the bottom of a crate full of stuff I grabbed off someone for a tenner.

kerr9000 wrote:I didn't get Sonic CD or a Mega CD back in the day but like 15 years ago ish I got a Megadrive 1 with MegaCD 1 Sonic CD, the Sega compilation disc, lemmings for Megadrive and a few other bits and pieces...

Ah! Similar to me, kerr! That Sega Classics disc is great, isn't it? Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Columns, The Revenge of Shinobi and Super Monaco GP! Oddly enough - and I only just realised this! - Golden Axe only allows single player mode on this version, though. A bit strange!

kerr9000 wrote:...I proberbly only have about 8 Mega CD games though as I have only ever picked up what was cheap.... I have a disc only copy of Keio Flying Squadron for the Mega CD which is also a fantasticgame,I got that in the bottom of a crate full of stuff I grabbed off someone for a tenner.

Blimey! You did well to get Keio; that is a pretty rare game on the Mega CD. I think my best find was Robo Aleste.

jawa_ wrote:

kerr9000 wrote:I didn't get Sonic CD or a Mega CD back in the day but like 15 years ago ish I got a Megadrive 1 with MegaCD 1 Sonic CD, the Sega compilation disc, lemmings for Megadrive and a few other bits and pieces...

Ah! Similar to me, kerr! That Sega Classics disc is great, isn't it? Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Columns, The Revenge of Shinobi and Super Monaco GP! Oddly enough - and I only just realised this! - Golden Axe only allows single player mode on this version, though. A bit strange!

kerr9000 wrote:...I proberbly only have about 8 Mega CD games though as I have only ever picked up what was cheap.... I have a disc only copy of Keio Flying Squadron for the Mega CD which is also a fantasticgame,I got that in the bottom of a crate full of stuff I grabbed off someone for a tenner.

Blimey! You did well to get Keio; that is a pretty rare game on the Mega CD. I think my best find was Robo Aleste.

Yeah I never understood the thing with Golden Axe I found that very weird especially when its two player on every MegaDrive Multi cart.

Yeah, I bought the Mega CD when it was new. Getting all the games on the Sega Classics disc was the sweetener needed to offset the high price. Sol Feace was also in the bundle and I ended up playing far more of that. Sonic CD was great, but Ecco was better because the CD-based music was sublime. I loved the Sherlock Holmes game. Night Trap and Ground Zero Texas were highlights, but of course the best thing was Snatcher.

I didn't ever own a Mega CD yet somehow ended up acquiring Road Avenger and Sonic CD at some point, I could have played them from disc via emulation (Gens had an option to play games from disc, and supported 32X roms) but never did.

It took me a long time to get a mega CD, probably at the end of it's life actually, but I managed to get a used one along with road avenger for £75 I think it was.

I'd coveted some mega CD games for so long, particularly sonic CD which was almost mythical as I didn't know anyone who had it. Second hand game shops also didnt seem to have it but I eventually tracked a copy down. It was like playing sonic from the future, that cartoon intro, the amazing soundtrack (I had the mega CD routed through my little HiFi via Phono), the special stages.

Playing it now I see a lot of the flaws, but back then it was incredible.

Updated my PS3 320GB HDD to a 500GB SSD today (a Samsung Evo 870, £30). Was a piece of cake (as long as you have a flash drive to reinstall the firmware from Sony’s website), though re-syncing the trophies to their servers is incredibly slow. An episode of Season 12 of South Park I downloaded from the PS Store is also now unwatchable as its license has expired and Sony don’t have the rights to re-issue it. This appears to be the case for most videos not called PlayStation Access. So it can sit on my SSD but I can’t actually watch it any more.

Going through my Store downloads, I also noticed Burnout Crash and Earthworm Jim sitting there, which I’d forgotten all about. So I re-downloaded both but alas they’re only the trial versions, and you can no longer purchase them as they’ve been delisted.

The speed of the XMB menu, especially launched when a game is running, is vastly improved, as is the web browser. Loading times seem to vary, with some titles barely being any different and others massively faster, especially if you can install to the SSD. I’m presuming the disc drive speed is a big negative here. The most impactful thing seems to be menu navigation. That lag has been virtually removed entirely, which is brilliant.

Money well spent, I’d say.

KK wrote:Updated my PS3 320GB HDD to a 500GB SSD today (a Samsung Evo 870, £30). Was a piece of cake (as long as you have a flash drive to reinstall the firmware from Sony’s website), though re-syncing the trophies to their servers is incredibly slow. An episode of Season 12 of South Park I downloaded from the PS Store is also now unwatchable as its license has expired and Sony don’t have the rights to re-issue it. This appears to be the case for most videos not called PlayStation Access. So it can sit on my SSD but I can’t actually watch it any more.

Going through my Store downloads, I also noticed Burnout Crash and Earthworm Jim sitting there, which I’d forgotten all about. So I re-downloaded both but alas they’re only the trial versions, and you can no longer purchase them as they’ve been delisted.

The speed of the XMB menu, especially launched when a game is running, is vastly improved, as is the web browser. Loading times seem to vary, with some titles barely being any different and others massively faster, especially if you can install to the SSD. I’m presuming the disc drive speed is a big negative here. The most impactful thing seems to be menu navigation. That lag has been virtually removed entirely, which is brilliant.

Money well spent, I’d say.

Might be worth upgrading my two systems with SSDs, if only for the quicker menu navigation.
Shame there's no good fix for the fan issues on the Phat models yet.

The online services for the PS3 and 360 are a bit of a nightmare these days, with so much now delisted and no quick way to view your purchased games without spending ages going through the download lists so I'm not looking forward to ever having to download all that again.
Had to do it for my 360 when I picked up Rock Band again. No way to just see all the RB DLC I've bought, have to go through the long download list (Which has every demo, theme or piece of digital tat you ever downloaded on it as well) and pick out the 50+ songs manually. Oh and the screen only shows 5-6 items in the list at a time and each time you have to move through the list you have to wait a second or so while it loads them. Occasionally it would also throw me back to the start of the list which was always fun when I have to scroll past a couple hundred items to get back to where I was. Why there was never anyway to just see all your purchases I don't know? Having to dig into options to redownload something, or find it on the shop again was a pain in the arse.

Found out how to watch old videos, they’re now filed under “My Videos” on the PlayStation 3 store, and are instead streamed. Seems that unless your videos are installed on the original HDD, they’re unwatchable in their downloaded (and better quality) form.

I always dismissed the Lynx, because it was competing with the big-name libraries of the Game Boy and Game Gear, but reading an issue of Retro Gamer from early this year where they focused on Atari, I realised it had some great games. So I've just bought the Evercade Lynx Collection 1 - massive bargain with 17 games on it.

rinks wrote:I always dismissed the Lynx, because it was competing with the big-name libraries of the Game Boy and Game Gear, but reading an issue of Retro Gamer from early this year where they focused on Atari, I realised it had some great games. So I've just bought the Evercade Lynx Collection 1 - massive bargain with 17 games on it.

The Lynx really is one of those "Oh yeah, that was a thing" systems.

It's a library I've never really delved into in anyway, but it would be nice to do so at some point. It's on my eternally growing list of things to get to eventually.

I had a Lynx back in the day, was virtually useless without the mains adapter because it ate through batteries at an alarming rate. Looking at the two collections, the 2nd one has the better games on it. Pity neither have the ones I really enjoyed, Batman Returns and the Bill & Ted game.

The Lynx was supposed to get an Eye of the Beholder port but it never arrived.

A little warning: the five Atari-licensed Evercade carts will become “legacy” at the end of the year. Because Atari are getting back into the business themselves, I guess they don’t want to extend the licences.

Stores will still get new stock until the end of the year, but after that they will become harder to find. If you were looking to pick any of them up, or were thinking about going for a full Evercade collection, you’ve still got a while yet, but keep it in mind. (I’ve just ordered a couple, and I’ll get the rest over the coming months.)

I think this might be what finally gets me to get an Evercade.



Those original 2D Duke games always get a bit overshadowed by Duke 3D, but they were decent platform shooters in their own right.

I'm not sure I'll get any more Evercade bits got up to 14 carts in no time but find I've kind of bounced off it a bit and gone back to my little Chinese knock off emulator handheld really, you can just mess with stuff more on that kind of device I guess.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:I think this might be what finally gets me to get an Evercade.



Those original 2D Duke games always get a bit overshadowed by Duke 3D, but they were decent platform shooters in their own right.

I’ve never played them, but they look like they’ve done a great job on these versions, so I’m keen.