GRcade Retro Club Weekender 2.0 - Every Friday to Monday!

That's a strong opener!

OrangeRKN wrote:

That's a fantastic start to the Weekender, thank you for sharing Orange! I'm a big fan of Skies on the GC and have a copy of the NTSC version, I refused to pay the £75 which the PAL version was going for at the time (about 3 years ago). I have an Action Replay so can region unlock my cubes so made no difference for me.

The price of the PAL version has shot up recently, So to have one complete with manual is really awesome too!

It's an absolutely fantastic game, and one I promise I will finish on stream one day...

If there's one game we get a remastered port for, this would be it! I long to play this on Switch!

I actually just counted my NES games 127 that's a few more than the 80 to 100 I have always estimated I'm going to make a collection video .

The Doom Spoon wrote:That's a fantastic start to the Weekender, thank you for sharing Orange! I'm a big fan of Skies on the GC and have a copy of the NTSC version, I refused to pay the £75 which the PAL version was going for at the time (about 3 years ago). I have an Action Replay so can region unlock my cubes so made no difference for me.

The price of the PAL version has shot up recently, So to have one complete with manual is really awesome too!

It's an absolutely fantastic game, and one I promise I will finish on stream one day...

If there's one game we get a remastered port for, this would be it! I long to play this on Switch!

It was £30-40 when I got it, can't remember exactly how much or when but I remember it basically being priced like a new game despite it being pre-owned and (at the time) last generation. Definitely pleased with that investment, although I wouldn't want to sell it anyway! The receipt is actually in the box still so I know I got it from GAME, but the ink has long-since faded to nothing so no price on record unfortunately.

Have you never finished the game, or just not on stream? It really is excellent, I've been wanting for the longest time to do a replay but am waiting for a good opportunity to not only replay it, but to get my partner to watch along too (and hopefully convince her on why I love the world and characters so much!).

That'll be on Gamecube again, I wanted to own it on DC for collection purposes as probably my favourite JRPG but the quality of life and extra features on GC just make it the superior version. IIRC the only advantage the DC original has is better quality music as it hasn't been compressed as much, and the moonfish tracker integrating with the VMU rather than the less fun on-screen tracker. In fairness the soundtrack to the game is excellent, but I don't think it's worth the even worse balance to encounter rates and losing the extra bounties!

And yes, I would love a Switch port oh so much. Currently getting my JRPG fix from Monster Hunter Stories 2 though, so all is good for the moment!

kerr9000 wrote:I actually just counted my NES games 127 that's a few more than the 80 to 100 I have always estimated I'm going to make a collection video .

Haha that's awesome! Please feel free to post the video link here at part of the Weekender! I'll look forward to viewing your collection!

OrangeRKN wrote:
Have you never finished the game, or just not on stream? It really is excellent, I've been wanting for the longest time to do a replay but am waiting for a good opportunity to not only replay it, but to get my partner to watch along too (and hopefully convince her on why I love the world and characters so much!).

That'll be on Gamecube again, I wanted to own it on DC for collection purposes as probably my favourite JRPG but the quality of life and extra features on GC just make it the superior version. IIRC the only advantage the DC original has is better quality music as it hasn't been compressed as much, and the moonfish tracker integrating with the VMU rather than the less fun on-screen tracker. In fairness the soundtrack to the game is excellent, but I don't think it's worth the even worse balance to encounter rates and losing the extra bounties!

I haven't actually ever finished it but I hope that will change one day! Just got to figure out a good permanent set up for my GameCube and I think I'll start then!

I love the feel and vibes this game gives off, not enough devs do it these days!

Vyse possesses endless, boundless optimism and love for adventure which was rare for JRPG protagonists at the time and still is now. The "love triangle" setup between the main characters not only never gets resolved but is also never even a problem and in a way that sums up the game. There is threat and peril, of course, but everyone is just so absolutely determined to overcome it through friendship and teamwork. That feeling can't help but be infectious! There's a climactic moment in the game where everyone comes together (kids these days might call it an "Infinity War moment") and it's honestly perfect, it makes even me feel real human emotions.

Your passion for this game is quite infectious Orange, definitely giving me the urge to sort out my cube and go play it!

OrangeRKN wrote:...here are two versions of one of my favourite games - Skies of Arcadia...

...The boxes

It's great to see you hitting the first home run in the new Weekender thread, Orange! I'm not too familiar with the Skies of Arcadia series but I'm conscious it has a cult following. Having a game on two platforms is neat as you can compare and contrast.

OrangeRKN wrote:...The manuals

The Dreamcast manual is really chunky because the whole thing is replicated in several European languages. The Gamecube manual is thinner because the majority is only in English - it just has one page "quick start" guides in others. The Gamecube manual is my favourite for other reasons though...

Contents pages

The DC manual is pretty thorough in covering how to play the game, as you'd expect, but the GC manual has pages just for game lore. Pages like these:

Characters and The World

It's exactly this kind of content that makes me miss manuals in modern games...

Amen to that, Orange. I really miss game manuals; the good - or even just okay - ones added to the experience of getting a new title. I was always pretty happy with just the plain text versions but when you had illustrations, screenshots and colour... oh boy!

OrangeRKN wrote:...Bonus "Great New Games in 2001"

Thought this might be interesting too - some promo material still in the Dreamcast box. Lots of number 2 sequels in 2001 it seems! Also fun to see some games listed as "Coming soon..." that never did see the light of day on Dreamcast - games like "Jet Set Radio 2". Of course the Jet Set Radio sequel that did come to be was Jet Set Radio Future on the Xbox. To think what future the Dreamcast could have had!

This is a tremendous bonus! It's great to look over the range of games for a console and to get excited for upcoming titles. I recall that Sega's Master System games often I included a fold-out poster of the games available and I must have spent hours looking over them.

Thanks for a great first post in the thread, Orange. I'm excited to think what else may crop up now as other folk post here and share photos and stories on their gaming history. I think this could be the kind of thread that builds up into a library of cool stuff to check out. Here's to the Weekender! .

Great post OR!

Skies of Arcadia

I genuinely think it's a game with a solid shout as being my favourite for the Dreamcast. I had such a bloody good time playing that game, as you say it's got such a unique and positive spirit to the whole proceedings, without undermining the stakes involved! I adored the soundtrack and visuals to it. The Dreamcast had such a solid feel to its graphics at the time, compared to the fuzziness of the N64 or the wobbly polygon's of the PS1 everything on the DC just felt so real and tangible and that really helped with games like Skies - exploring all of the locations felt so great because of how vibrant and solid they appeared!

I can't actually remember what I did with my DC and copy of Skies, I have a strong suspicion that I traded it in toward my Gamecube back in the day. It felt like a good idea at the time and I definitely got to experience more games/systems as a result of trading things in but at times like this I do look back and wish that I had kept hold of more stuff from my collection

Kind of reminds me how older consoles - NES/SNES/Master System/Mega Drive - the backs of their boxes would have loads of game screenshots. We kept the box for ours (I mean I don't have it any more I'm talking in the 90s) and I'd always fawn longingly over the games on the back.

This is the closest I could find to what I mean online



Getting the Xbox Series X and just having a big Master Chief on the box was not as interesting I must say!

Yeah in the pre-internet days packing a leaflet for upcoming games or putting a load of that kind of thing on the console box was a solid way of communicating your release plan to customers.

I got my GameCube out of the loft recently to play some Metroid Prime and the box for that has got a similar vibe as well, I'll see if I can grab a picture of it to add in here!

Back of my GameCube box:



It's a solid set of showcase games and it's hard to recall just how much better these things looked compared to the previous generation. That NBA shot is a bit gooseberry fool though, all the others are fairly impressive action shots or something showing off the new graphical capabilities - "Look at these water reflections!" "Look at all these x-wings!" etc but NBA is like "Hey look it's a guy!"

He may be a famous basketball guy tbf...

Isn't the Star Wars shot from a prerendered cutscene? Sneaky Nintendo...

What game is that top left?

EDIT: Just noticed there is a key and it says it's Eternal Darkness

Bullshots: The First Generation

Jenuall wrote:Back of my GameCube box:



...

Great stuff, Jen! I remember seeing the Star Wars game running in a Dixon's store and I was amazed at how good the graphics were.

I recall that the GameCube and Xbox launched very closely together, with the GC cost reduced to £129.99 for the launch. Looking back, it was a bargain price for a great console but it seemed to get caught between the two rivals; PS2 had been around a while and was massively popular whilst the Xbox seemed just a wee bit fresher and - with the hard drive as standard - more powerful. I have never played on a GC and it probably remains the one console that I wish I had gotten into.

Jenuall wrote:Yeah in the pre-internet days packing a leaflet for upcoming games or putting a load of that kind of thing on the console box was a solid way of communicating your release plan to customers.

I got my GameCube out of the loft recently to play some Metroid Prime and the box for that has got a similar vibe as well, I'll see if I can grab a picture of it to add in here!

I remember going into Cardiff city centre with my gran to go and preorder a GameCube for my birthday, it was due out 10 days before!

Anyway I preordered the Black one but no game as I didn't know what to get, as part of all the marketing bumf, a promotional vhs was included. It contained 45 glorious minutes of trailers and gameplay footage of every game due out on release day!

I spent DAYS watching it over and over again, wondering what game I would choose, bless my grandparents, they out up with me hogging the TV a lot to watch that tape!

I was torn between FIFA World Cup 2002 and Rogue Squadron so would rewind and fast forward the tape to get to those parts a lot! I vividly remember my nan and grandad being amazed at FIFA, they couldn't believe for realistic the gameplay was, they said "it's like watching the real thing!".

I eventually decided on Rogue Squadron, and was probably the best decision ever, that game provided me with my first mind blown moment due to graphics, it looked so good! In fact, it would really hold up well today, if they ever did a HD remaster, well... I'd be one happy Doing!

The Doom Spoon wrote:I eventually decided on Rogue Squadron, and was probably the best decision ever, that game provided me with my first mind blown moment due to graphics, it looked so good! In fact, it would really hold up well today, if they ever did a HD remaster, well... I'd be one happy Doing!

You might well be aware, but there is some fun (albeit possibly more frustrating!) trivia around Rogue Squadron and how the trilogy was enhanced and remade for the wii but, thanks to financial and licencing woes, has never seen the light of day - despite being finished and ready to release. It sounds really, really good too!

IGN wrote:Containing Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, and Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, this trilogy was meant to be one massive collection of all three games, all honed and re-worked to run on then-modern consoles. The team had completed nearly fifty percent of this trilogy when a reportedly rocky and unstable environment at LucasArts led to its early cancellation.

Once their exclusivity period with Sony ended, Factor 5 turned their attention back toward the Wii. Now able to start creating something new for the platform, the team decided to resurrect one of their previous projects: the Star Wars trilogy originally slated for the first Xbox.

"...we wanted to support every single control that you could imagine. So, for the flight sequences, you could, for example, choose to have the Mario Kart wheel to actually control your X-Wing, together with the balance board, which would control the pedals."

Space combat wasn't the only focus, however. According to Eggebrecht, there were also speeder bike racing levels, third-person action sequences, and even lightsaber battles making the most of the Wii Motion Plus' 1:1 controls.

An all-new graphics engine had the game running at 60 frames per second (fps), with a visual fidelity Eggebrecht is still proud of.

"Believe me, if you ever saw it running on the Wii at 60 [fps], it is by far - and I think I'm not overstating that - the technically most impressive thing you would ever see on [Wii]."

The Wii trilogy was eventually finished, but once again, Factor 5's Star Wars project was shut down.

"There is an artistic loss of that game, which I think everybody on the team agrees is the best work they've ever done," Eggebrecht says of the cancellation, noting that they are proud of their work on a newer project as reformed studio TouchFactor. "But there's also the human toll, and everything could have been easily resolved by just getting this game out. So, it was a huge bummer."

source

So for the first Weekender, I thought I'd start with something close to my heart, and that's Starwars games on the GameCube!

We were absolutely spoilt with a range of different games from the franchise on this system! Every one of them offering something different!


From the awesome re-enactments of Starfighter battles in the original trilogy, to diving deeper into the events of the Clone Wars, and even taking a deeper look at the antics of one popular Bounty Hunter! Then you have the ever charming and always stupidly fun, Lego games!

---

Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader

I wanted to take a closer look at a couple of these games, so up first is my all time favourite and one of the Star Wars games ever produced, Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader!


Apart from this being the first Cube game I played, this still holds up today, both visually and gameplay as an incredible Starfighter game!

I have many happy memories of me and my mate in year 6 gushing over this game and once completed, trying to trawl magazines and the early internet for cheat codes to unlock secret ships, levels and have unlimited missiles and lives!

From memory, the ship's you could unlock with codes were, the Millennium Falcon, Slave 1, Naboo Starfighter, TIE Fighter, TIE Bomber, TIE Interceptor and Vader's TIE Fighter!

Once we discovered one, we'd play it to death! Figuring out the best way to use the ship, what missions it was good for and generally how it felt!

I would always test them on the final mission, taking on the Imperial Fleet then having to destroy the Death Star 2!

---

Bounty Hunter

Moving on, I wanted to highlight a game I loved so much, but doesn't seem to get the recognition in the Star Wars game community, and that's Bounty Hunter!


In this game you play as Jango Fett, and it's based before the events of Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. I loved this game, firstly because there wasn't loads of character development for either Jango or Boba in the film's, so this really gave you a snapshot into the life of a Bounty Hunter and let's be fair, both were cool as hell characters! I'm so glad the Mandalorian exists now to give us all this lore, but before that, this was basically all we had!

I always remembered the gameplay to be very good, and many levels almost having puzzles to figure out in order to complete them! Overall it was just super badass experience getting to play out this awesome character!

jawaX wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Back of my GameCube box:



...

Great stuff, Jen! I remember seeing the Star Wars game running in a Dixon's store and I was amazed at how good the graphics were.

I recall that the GameCube and Xbox launched very closely together, with the GC cost reduced to £129.99 for the launch. Looking back, it was a bargain price for a great console but it seemed to get caught between the two rivals; PS2 had been around a while and was massively popular whilst the Xbox seemed just a wee bit fresher and - with the hard drive as standard - more powerful. I have never played on a GC and it probably remains the one console that I wish I had gotten into.

Yeah it was an absolute bargain, I still can't believe more people didn't snap one up! I remember it being a big deal when it had the price cut just before launch. I was really excited when I picked it up, I'd not long had my GBA and it felt like a really great time to be a Nintendo gamer!

The Doom Spoon wrote:

Jenuall wrote:Yeah in the pre-internet days packing a leaflet for upcoming games or putting a load of that kind of thing on the console box was a solid way of communicating your release plan to customers.

I got my GameCube out of the loft recently to play some Metroid Prime and the box for that has got a similar vibe as well, I'll see if I can grab a picture of it to add in here!

I remember going into Cardiff city centre with my gran to go and preorder a GameCube for my birthday, it was due out 10 days before!

Anyway I preordered the Black one but no game as I didn't know what to get, as part of all the marketing bumf, a promotional vhs was included. It contained 45 glorious minutes of trailers and gameplay footage of every game due out on release day!

I spent DAYS watching it over and over again, wondering what game I would choose, bless my grandparents, they out up with me hogging the TV a lot to watch that tape!

I was torn between FIFA World Cup 2002 and Rogue Squadron so would rewind and fast forward the tape to get to those parts a lot! I vividly remember my nan and grandad being amazed at FIFA, they couldn't believe for realistic the gameplay was, they said "it's like watching the real thing!".

I eventually decided on Rogue Squadron, and was probably the best decision ever, that game provided me with my first mind blown moment due to graphics, it looked so good! In fact, it would really hold up well today, if they ever did a HD remaster, well... I'd be one happy Doing!

Very good choice on Rogue Squadron, and I don't think you'd be alone in being interested in a HD remaster!

I remember the days of watching upcoming game footage on VHS tapes, even if it feels like such a bizarre setup these days. I had a few tapes that came with magazines and practically wore them all out with the amount of times I must have watched them! One highlight was getting the first issue of PSM2 which came with a VHS of the famous MGS2 trailer, I genuinely don't think I've ever had that same level of excited anticipation for anything since!

Not my image sadly but this was that magazine:

Jenuall wrote:

Gaming mags back then we're the shizz! I remember getting a GameCube magazine and getting so excited seeing all the new games coming out for it!

Also, I take a look at Rogue Squadron as one of my Weekender submissions, it's in the post just above yours!

Took me ages to frame those shots too! My wife come up stairs and I was sprawled out on the floor with my phone, she called me a nerd and walked off chuckling!