Final Lap Twin is on the Turbografx 16 from Namco. It's definitely got some Pole Position DNA. The "Twin" part comes from supporting 2-player split screen, but the single player game has several modes. There's an Arcade Gran Prux mode that's pretty good, but the "Quest" mode is the real treat. Imagine Dragon Warrior, but random encounters are a one lap race. You save up to buy new parts, taking down the top racer of six cities in order to get secret parts to build a super car and take on the world champion. It isn't super deep, but it's a good time, and an innovative way to play a classic racer.
Also, the racing handles excellently, and, like I said, fell from the Pole Position family tree. They did a tennis game with a similar RPG mode called World Court Tennis, too.
Cuurently playing the Sonic CD re-release for PS3. Finally got to enjoy this game... I would never be able to purchase a Sega CD back in the day. I also beat Duck Tales (NES) and Duck Tales Remastered (PS30 last weekend.
Blowing on cartridges since 1987
It's super common, so hopefully it's still a cheapie.
Been playing a shitload of Dragon Force on Sega Saturn. It's one of my sister's favorites, and so when her ex took the Saturn with the divorce, I fixed her up a junker so she can play her copy I bought her years ago. After testing it with NHL '97 with no issues, I decided to test it with my copy of Dragon Force, given that it will be the console's primary use. Ended up playing for 3 hours, copying the save to a memory card, and continuing long after giving her the system.
Playing as Mikhal, and have conquered about half of Legendra. Reinhart and Gongos are conquered, and Leon and Goldark are down to pretty much themselves. I have to work the next four overnights, so I won't play again until probably next Monday. Good stuff!
Also, played a bit of Macross 2036 on PC Engine. What a good horizontal shooter! A bit easy to be sure, but holy cow is it true to its source material. Great game!
I've been pretty low on gaming time this past month or so. I did get almost to the end of Libera's route in Period: Cube on Vita, though. Now I'm playing Collar x Malice, but I've yet to even get on anybody's route yet. It's really interesting so far, and I have a feeling that this is gonna rank among the best of the otome visual novels available in English on Vita. I popped a couple other recent Vita purchases in for a brief try too: Ys: Memories of Celceta and Bard's Gold.
On PC, I finished Kagemitsu's route in The Charming Empire, and I'm on Chapter 6 of Soshi Amazaki's. I don't know if it's just how my luck in picking routes has gone or if the game is wearing out its welcome, but I feel like I've been enjoying each route less than the last. I still like Tanba's best, since the heroine actually had some spunk and did her own thing in that one. She's a lot more resigned to being trapped in the palace and used as a pawn in the others, and I feel like practically all she does is think negatively about herself. It's an endless stream of internal dialogue about how useless and helpless she feels, and that gets really repetitive and tiring route after route. It doesn't help that the protagonists of Hakuoki and Period: Cube are a bit similar in that regard. I'm not saying their situations don't give them reason to feel that way, but so much of that negativity was starting to bring me down. Collar x Malice is a breath of fresh air after these, with a heroine who has some confidence and calls out BS, at least in her head, if not voiced. Anyway, to get back to what I was saying about the diminishing returns in The Charming Empire, Kei's route was all right (helps that I like the voice actor), though not as good as Tanba's. Sera's was kind of dull. I've never been crazy about characters/routes where the core point is the guy's desire to protect the heroine. Kagemitsu's probably would've been on par with Sera's or Kei's, if not for it falling apart at the end. It turned into mess of disjointed, cobbled together pieces. As for Soshi's, nothing is standing out either way so far, but I have little motivation for the game at this point. I'm ready to just finish it off and move on. I wouldn't describe it as bad, but it doesn't support five routes very well, not when it feels like going through the same motions in most of them. I wish more of them were like Tanba's and switched things up a little.
Outside of my usual handheld and PC gaming, I started up Harvest Moon 64 on my Nintendo 64. My anxiety has been pretty bad lately, and as I was watching one of Daria's videos actually (about RPGs she'd like to own but doesn't yet, in which she named Harvest Moon for SNES), I was thinking about how relaxing I find Harvest Moon on SNES. But I've absolutely killed that game, having beaten it with every wife and maxing out the money and everything. On the other hand, I've owned Harvest Moon 64 since around the mid 00s, I believe, and I've yet to play through it even once. I figured now is as good of a time as any. I love how similar the mechanics are, down to the last little details. It feels both like something new and something very comfortably familiar. But the slight differences make a big impact, like how quickly the day zips by and the fact that the protagonist can get sick if he stays up late. In the SNES game, I'd usually clear the entire farm of stones, stumps, and weeds on the very first night, since the night is endless and you can just restore your energy in the hot springs, but here I am almost halfway into this first spring with only a small fraction of the farm cleared and just two patches of cabbages growing. I'd like to woo Ann (because I'm narcissistic, haha; if I'm playing as a male character who romances female characters, I'll usually first go after the female character who most reminds me of myself. I'm not outgoing like her, but I share my middle name with her, I love animals too, and I wear my hair tied up when it's long.) She was one of my favorites in the SNES game as well, except there she was the tomboy mechanic girl, while Ellen was the one passionate about animals (here, Elli is in the family that owns the bakery). The only problem is that I can't find her half the time, haha. Meanwhile, Karen appears every damn place I go. Anyway, I'm having a blast so far. I can picture myself being in the same position with this game as the SNES game years from now (knowing it inside and out, taking advantage of all the quirks, having played through it with every wife).
I'm a few days into fall in Harvest Moon 64 on Nintendo 64 now. I kinda feel like I screwed up summer. There were three typhoons (which I can't control, but still), and my farmer got sick three times. So that's six totally wasted days right there, and one of them made me miss a festival. I still haven't fully figured out what causes sickness, but I guess I've been pushing it too far on how late I'm staying up. But the day goes by so fast that it feels impossible to get everything done. I don't think I even harvested much in the summer. The typhoons wiped out some, and I was trying to keep everything watered, but I'm pretty sure I had some crops that never grew enough to produce a single vegetable. What a waste. And since I wasn't shipping much vegetables, I've been perpetually broke. I forage in the mountains just about every day, which may be part of my problem, since that eats up time. At least I have a full coop of six chickens now, but I've yet to afford a single sheep or cow (so I had nothing to enter in the cow festival). I am slowly winning over Ann (the heart at the end of her dialogue turned from white to blue, and she appears on the farm now and then), and hopefully fall's eggplants will go better for me. It's fun to actually grow stuff (besides grass) in fall, since the SNES game kinda dragged in the fall and even more so in winter.
And in The Charming Empire on PC, I cleared another chapter. Maybe it's my imagination, but I feel like Soshi's chapters last a little longer on average than chapters in other routes.
STREET FIGHTER..
I have never been that into street fighter ..being into NEO GEO fighter for so long ..
Even on consoles I just never played fighting games That Much but after getting the Street Fighter II CE arcade machine I want to learn more about street fighter..
Especially the characters ..
Now on TV the other day the Street Fighter Movie that I have seen before but this time I'm trying to understand who is who..
That's where I am at trying to understand learn about the characters..
Took my wife to see Newsies at the Muny (the municipal opera house in Forest Park in St Louis), the stupidly picked up on my Dragon Force game around 12:30am. That game destroys time.
Captured Leon almost immediately, and Goldark is cornered in his las castle...but stupid Scythe and Gaul will not stop attacking over and over, which has ground my progress to a near halt, as every time I start to get ready to deploy, I get attacked again, roundly win, and then get back to work. If I play tomorrow, I will immediately crush Goldark so I can get over and continue whipping Wein's ass. I started encroaching there already, but once I can stop getting pulled west every ten seconds, I have a few armies there that will happily pound Wein, Tieris, and Junon with ease. Many, many dragons are headed east.
I'm playing Sunset Riders on the Genesis. Never played SNES version, but for me this game is one of the greatest Genesis games ever made. It's so fun, yet so good.
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I'm now a couple days into my second spring in Harvest Moon 64 on Nintendo 64. Winter was surprisingly profitable, and fall wasn't bad either. At first, it seemed like winter was going to drag like in the SNES version, but it was a good opportunity to finish clearing the remaining stones and stumps on my farm, grind for lumber in the mountains, and then from the 8th to the end of winter, I spent most days mining. I have three sheep and two cows now (though two are still too young to produce milk/wool), and I have a third cow on the way (since my adult cow is pregnant). I bought a stairway leading to nowhere for my house, haha, but at this point, it's lumber that's the real hurdle in building expansions, not the monetary cost. I've also got Ann up to a yellow heart, and even her brother is starting to act a little friendly. I assume she's gotta be at a pink heart for marriage, which I have no idea how to do in this game since I've seen nor heard nothing about a blue feather. Maria is strangely up to a blue heart too, even though I've put no effort into wooing her, though I may have thrown a gift or two her way when I was carrying something and couldn't find Ann. Likewise, I had to pick someone other than Ann to dance with once when I stupidly voted for Ann even though my farmer wasn't chosen as the harvest king or whatever the heck. Anyway, all in all, for my first time through this Harvest Moon, I don't think I'm in too bad of shape after the first year.
I'm also up to Chapter 9 in Soshi's route in The Charming Empire on PC. I'm trying to get in a routine of hammering out a chapter each morning while I eat breakfast.
I love Sunset Riders. Oddly enough, I've not spent much time with the Genesis or SNES verson. I have the dedicated 4-player cabinet, so I never ponied up for either of them. I've considered taking a shot a the Genesis game, as it is so different it might as well be a spinoff.
More Dragon Force for me. The whole map is conquered, so just doing sidequests until I decide to finish. In the meantime, I won't be playing anything at all for the next few days due to work. Boo.
Man, I got skunked on the Flower Festival yet again in Harvest Moon 64. I voted for Ann again, this time as king, but she wasn't selected to play the role of the goddess this time. At least I could decline dancing with the one chosen and dance with Ann anyway. On that note, Ann is up to a pink heart, and I still have no clue how to wed. I wouldn't be surprised if I have to get a certain house expansion first, but everything takes too damn much lumber. I've almost got a full barn of cows and sheep now. I've turned my first cow into a calf-making machine, haha. She's already given birth to two, with one more coming, and I've bought four sheep. I figure I may as well go half cows, half sheep in this file. I don't know which is ultimately more profitable (probably cows), but I'm not gonna pass on the opportunity of keeping sheep when they're new to this version of Harvest Moon.
In The Charming Empire on PC, I think I'm up to Chapter 11 in Soshi's route? I saw the plot twist coming a mile away, but I'm still kind of glad they pulled it rather than doing nothing interesting. That said, how they've handled it since has been pretty ehhhhh. The protagonist's thoughts, feelings, and reactions are all over the place and make even less sense than usual.
For some much better writing, I got back to Collar X Malice on Vita. This opening common chapter after the prologue feels like it's going on for all eternity. Not in a bad way, I'm just surprised that I still haven't advanced to the next chapter.
Only did one more chapter in The Charming Empire on PC. Getting so close to finishing this one off. Well, unless they pull out some epilogue or something.
I'm at the beginning of my second summer in Harvest Moon 64 on Nintendo 64. I'm taking it slow in the game now. Days take longer to complete with all the time I spending tending to the animals, and the allure of playing some Harvest Moon for the first time in years has worn off some now that I've completed a full in-game year. Not that I'm having less fun now, I just want to enjoy it at a more relaxed pace.
So instead, I'm getting serious about Collar X Malice on Vita again. I finally cleared the common chapter, and I somehow ended up on Kei Okazaki's route. I wasn't trying to get on any particular route, so I'm not sure what I did that led to his. I'm not sure if it's the best route to start with, since he's sort of an outlier compared to the others, but it's not like there are many options the first time through, as I hear Yanagi and Shiraishi aren't available until later. Besides Okazaki, that leaves Enomoto and Sasazuka, and I hear Sasazuka is the worst part of the game as far as shoddy QA goes (so lots of typos and what have you). So I'm not sure I'd want my first route to have lots of localization issues. Enomoto is a bit of a comedic relief character, so I don't know if I'd want him at the center of my first route either. So all things considered, maybe Okazaki isn't a bad place to start.
Rastan (Arcade)
None of my cabinets are regularly wired for the -5v Rastan requires for sound, so I ran a simple modification that can be easily reversed in one after play testing my Tecmo Knight board. Rastan is a long time favorite of mine, and it's nice to finally be playing it completely on correct hardware. It's a classic if there ever was one. Sure, I may prefer Black Tiger as a similar platformer, but Rastan has its own magic. I'm pretty rusty, and only got half-way through stage 2 on my first credit. Lots of brushing up to do, but it'll be a blast being able to play this the way I remember it, with no glossy filters or anything.
When I have free time I play Free Gear or Governor of Poker on http://www.friv5online.com/ . There are many small flash games, very interesting, by the way. A great way to chill out at least for 10 min.
Woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach issue (not to mention the back and forth of working overnights and trying to be normal on days off), so I played a credit each of Tecmo Knight and Gondomania.
I suck at Tecmo Knight, but it is pretty cool, and I bet it's a blast co-op, but I haven't had anyone over who will play it with me. If only I could pull off an adorable puppy dog stare, or my son was old enough for its absurd violence...
Gondomania, though, I've gotten pretty good at playing. I hadn't played it in a few months, as I'd left Heavy Barrel in my rotary Time Soldiers cabinet, but even without my contact lenses I cleared the first three stages on one credit. Utterly underrated shooter that rotary stick fans really ought to play, and one of Data East's smoothest games of the era. It's probably my second favorite game that uses that control setup after Time Soldiers, though admittedly I've never gotten to get my hands on a SAR board to sink my teeth into... that shit is rare.