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Genpei Turtle posted:ET only really has one major issue, with getting out of pits. You hold up to float out of pits, but once you’re out, continuing to hold up will cause you to fall back into the pit. Once you know that though getting out is pretty easy. Really, given the incredibly short development time and deadline it's kind of a miracle that it functions.
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Jun 24, 2023 20:34
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This page about ET has, among other things, code fixes for the game's main issues http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/
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Jun 24, 2023 21:36
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DontMockMySmock posted:I never played ET but I definitely read the manuals of games starting around age 4-5. You think I'm gonna figure out Solar Jetman without a manual??? hell nah. Right - it had full color printing and original art. https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manuals/en/pdf/CLV-P-NAANE.pdf Looking at breakout - Atari VCS games tended to come with with togglable modes, none of which are explained in-game. https://atariage.com/manual_thumbs.php?SoftwareID=889 E T is definitely an RTFM kinda game https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/manuals/vcs/et.pdf I'd spoken with a Nintendo Game Counselor at a retro game fest and he told me Legacy of the Wizard as a bitch of a game to advise about. The manual helps out but - I'd wager only 10% of the people who bought a copy completed it. https://mikesrpgcenter.com/manuals/nes/Legacy_of_the_Wizard.pdf 80's japanese computer rpgs were notoriously "here's the world, you sort it out"
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Jun 26, 2023 04:25
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Coffee Jones posted:Right - it had full color printing and original art. Legacy of the Wizard is one of those games I never figured out what to do as a kid, then when I returned to it as an adult it was no big deal, even without looking at any guides. Just an improved ability to map things out in my head and better recognition of level design cues.
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Jun 26, 2023 06:00
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Meaty Ore posted:Legacy of the Wizard is one of those games I never figured out what to do as a kid, then when I returned to it as an adult it was no big deal, even without looking at any guides. Just an improved ability to map things out in my head and better recognition of level design cues. Same, but the dad's Soukoban-style stages still kill me due to the fussy way that you interact with blocks.
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Jun 26, 2023 12:06
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Genpei Turtle posted:ET only really has one major issue, with getting out of pits. You hold up to float out of pits, but once you’re out, continuing to hold up will cause you to fall back into the pit. Once you know that though getting out is pretty easy. ET is still a mediocre game. Flipping through different actions at the top of the screen was a bad design choice. And you can still fall back in pits after you carefully maneuver out of them because his head retracts and touches the pit again. Also the only pushback against you as you play are the clunky design elements and the rather pointless government agent. It really feels like the rush job it was; with more feedback and refinement, it probably could have been salvaged. As it stands, it's the crappy version of the 2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark. That stupid poo poo about ET being a flop that brought down the video game industry is never going to die, though. I saw some video the other day that just repeated that while also getting pretty much every other detail about Atari incorrect (confused Atari Corp with Atari Games, thought all 2600 games were made by Atari, that kind of thing). Dr. Spitesworth posted:Same, but the dad's Soukoban-style stages still kill me due to the fussy way that you interact with blocks. That stops me from completing the game. It's just awful.
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Jun 27, 2023 14:42
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Random Stranger posted:That stops me from completing the game. It's just awful. Legacy of the Wizard is full of neat ideas, but my favorite things about it are (1) the Koshiro soundtrack and (2) the password that lets you skip immediately to the fight with the dragon and beat the game.
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Jun 27, 2023 18:29
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If you've ever watched a speedrun of Legacy of the Wizard, the Dad's route can get up to some massive shenanigans if you know how to abuse the block mechanics. I strongly recommend it, it's reasonably short and entertaining.
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Jun 27, 2023 23:54
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Wizkid, it was so confusing it was actually kinda scary to me as a very young child 
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Jul 10, 2023 05:41
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i'm sorry but what the gently caress is that
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Jul 10, 2023 22:18
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Rockman Reserve posted:i'm sorry but what the gently caress is that A video game named Wizkid
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Jul 10, 2023 22:48
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Wizkid Deez nutz! ... someone had to say it after that screenshot.
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Jul 10, 2023 23:09
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Spy vs Spy for NES. Like a lot of Goons, I cut my teeth on Mad and rented the game once or twice as a kid. It's not that the game is that hard to get but it never really clicked for me as a kid. It's a very cool concept, though;.
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Jul 11, 2023 02:48
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:Spy vs Spy for NES. Like a lot of Goons, I cut my teeth on Mad and rented the game once or twice as a kid. It's not that the game is that hard to get but it never really clicked for me as a kid. It's a very cool concept, though;. I had that on DOS and I had tons of fun playing it with friends and my sister. I don't think any of us ever succesfully did the objectives though, it was just a sandbox game full of wacky traps you could set for eachother.
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Jul 11, 2023 07:42
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EDIT: Wrong thread, derp.
The Kins fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jul 11, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 19:01
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Griefor posted:I had that on DOS and I had tons of fun playing it with friends and my sister. I don't think any of us ever succesfully did the objectives though, it was just a sandbox game full of wacky traps you could set for eachother. That sounds like the board game 13 Dead End Drive, I don’t think we ever played a full game but had plenty of fun with the traps.
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Jul 14, 2023 05:21
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The Kins posted:EDIT: Wrong thread, derp. Retro Forums Where You Had Zero Idea What Was Going On
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Jul 14, 2023 08:31
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Not the most out there example but been playing Castlevania 2: Simons Quest over the weekend, now that's a game that me and my dad felt lost on when we had it on the NES, I recall we managed to get to the first mansion and get Draculas Rib but I don't think we ever got much further than that. It's strange because I have a very vivid memory of my dad playing through Tomb Raider 1 almost totally with a GamesMaster magazine walkthrough - we had to wait till the next issue to get past The Cistern - but maybe they just weren't as readily available when we had the NES
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Aug 21, 2023 21:09
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Strategy Guides were definitely a thing in the late 80s. There was also Nintendo Power and GamePro. CV2 has a full feature in one of the early issues, and NP tended to provide a lot of gameplay tips. I myself was stuck after the 3rd mansion because I had no idea about ducking at the cliff with the Red Crystal, and I didn't have access to any guides or magazines. In hindsight, I could've asked to be taken to the library or a bookstore and looked up the solution. That just never occurred to me. A classmate at school (I was in 4th grade) ended up helping me. I'm glad that NPCs who give you blatantly false info never really caught on in game design. I believe there are hacks out there that remedy this for CV2, at least. Ofecks fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Aug 22, 2023 |
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Aug 22, 2023 19:44
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I vaguely remember Nintendo Power having a special strategy guide-esque issue devoted to a Castlevania game, I just can't remember which one.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:48
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It was definitely Castlevania 2. I liked the early issues so much that I bought reprints, back before you could just get free high quality scans of them anywhere.
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Aug 22, 2023 19:51
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They only did 4 special strategy guide issues. They were SMB3, Ninja Gaiden 2, Final Fantasy 1, and one dedicated to all the 4 player games coming out for the Four Score. Castlevania 2 was heavily featured in the second issue. It’s the one with the scary cover of Simon holding Dracula’s severed head that got a lot of complaints from angry parents. Kevyn fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 00:42
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i had an unofficial (and pretty bad) strategy guide for a bunch of NES games i didn't own in those days that i remember having cv2 info. i mostly remember it for having extremely fever-dream captions that are definitely worth me looking for when i get home from work tonight
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Aug 23, 2023 01:50
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I never got to Death Mountain in Zelda 2 until I snuck a Nintendo Power behind the display in Babbage's and found out about Bagu
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Aug 23, 2023 02:29
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As a kid, I received Castlevania II as a gift from a family friend (who had also received it secondhand) because they couldn't make heads or tails of it. I didn't have that issue of Nintendo Power and nobody else I knew had ever touched the game. It's as impenetrable to me now as it was thirty years ago.
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Aug 23, 2023 04:17
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Kevyn posted:They only did 4 special strategy guide issues. They were SMB3, Ninja Gaiden 2, Final Fantasy 1, and one dedicated to all the 4 player games coming out for the Four Score. I had the Final Fantasy one. Sort of a major part of my childhood, actually. Paging through that guide over and over. Edit: Now you've got me paging through the Nintendo Power archives. From the cover, I now remember I had the 4-player guide too. What's weird is I didn't have the 4-player adapter. I do recall really sort of getting into the rosters of the soccer game, and also being interested in the variations of the teams strengths/weaknesses on the beach volleyball game. EconDad fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 04:34
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I also had the 4-player guide with no 4-player adapter, but I was into Gauntlet 2 and Swords & Serpents. I remember being mad that the issue wasted so much space on a beach volleyball game while Nightmare On Elm Street only got a quarter of a page. Also, hey, early Katsuya Terada! 
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Aug 23, 2023 14:38
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They sent those 4 guides to every subscriber. It was when the magazine first went monthly instead of bi-monthly. The idea was you’d get a regular issue one month, then a guide the next month. They abandoned it after those 4 and just started putting out regular issues every month. I had the Four Score but I think the only games we had for it were Super Off Road and NES Play Action Football. Kevyn fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Aug 23, 2023 |
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Aug 23, 2023 15:03
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Kevyn posted:They sent those 4 guides to every subscriber. It was when the magazine first went monthly instead of bi-monthly. The idea was you’d get a regular issue one month, then a guide the next month. They abandoned it after those 4 and just started putting out regular issues every month. The Guides ruled. I wish they had stuck with them.
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Aug 23, 2023 20:15
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I still have the FF1 guide with all of the scribbles I'd put in it for things like what spells I taught my characters or crossing out the contents of certain chests and writing what was in them because the guide had mixed them up. That guide also helped clue me in on the fact that enemies will always cast their spells in the same order so, say, Astos will never cast anything but Death/Rub first off meaning that you're safe from a second cast until he's gone through the other seven spells in his list.
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Aug 23, 2023 20:36
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Why was the wrong item in chest thing so prevalent? The Phantasy Star II guide has so many of them wrong.
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Aug 24, 2023 04:13
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I love the near-infinite replayability of FF1, just by the simple nature of having any combo of classes you want in your party. It is like an adjustable difficulty level, with many "settings". I've still never really been "brave" enough to try a run like four BMs or four WMs. Maybe I'll try it soon...
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Aug 24, 2023 06:04
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hexwren posted:i had an unofficial (and pretty bad) strategy guide for a bunch of NES games i didn't own in those days that i remember having cv2 info. the advice isn't completely terrible in this book, though occasionally slightly out to lunch, but the image captions were absolutely not written by anyone who knows how video games work, and probably made any kid looking at them dumber for having done so. Here's a few bits and bobs:          
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Aug 24, 2023 08:24
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hexwren posted:the advice isn't completely terrible in this book, though occasionally slightly out to lunch, but the image captions were absolutely not written by anyone who knows how video games work, and probably made any kid looking at them dumber for having done so. Here's a few bits and bobs:  I assume that Link's face was a prank on an editor. I think it had a neat section on Dr. Chaos.
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Aug 24, 2023 14:34
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I actually had the blue cover one. This is like the Truman Show in here for me currently.
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Aug 24, 2023 14:39
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I had both of them, but not until after I had finished CV2. They would've come in handy, despite the weird text. I also had a paperback that covered a bunch of games and was text-only. I think I still have it somewhere, but I don't feel like hunting around for it. The cover was purple-ish, and had a bizarre scene of a teenage gamer turning into a robot. One of the passwords printed in it (again, I think it was for CV2) just plain didn't work.
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Aug 24, 2023 18:47
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Halloween Jack posted:Hoooly poo poo I had the other volume of this, the one with the red cover. Actually, as with the 4 player special, I think I still have it in a box somewhere. I never owned the red-cover one, only seeing it once or twice in the wild, and I never realized until now that like half those games on the front cover are in both volumes also, the phrase "grab this evil agent of quickman before he zaps you with a laser beam" will live in my brain rent-free until I die hexwren fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Aug 24, 2023 |
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Aug 24, 2023 20:06
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I had this. I was winning, son. 
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Aug 24, 2023 20:16
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I hated when magazines would have video game "tips and tricks" that weren't helpful at all. Stuff like "Talk to the old man in the cave!" for Legend of Zelda, as if half the people who played it never figured out how to get the sword.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:23
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Kevyn posted:I had this. I was winning, son. I had Volume 3 and I'm pretty sure I never owned any of the games covered in it. But having a book about video games was almost as good as the games themselves when I was 7. Years later I gave them a spin on an emulator and discovered that I had imagined much better versions of games like Amagon and Monster Party. ...wait I just looked this up and it covers Simon's Quest! So I had the guide and the game at the same time and never put it together. drat I was a dumb kid.
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Aug 24, 2023 20:39
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