Topic: Recent Retro/Misc Gaming Purchases? (Not PS4/PS5)

@RogerRoger
I found a lot of cheaper game choices from my local online shopping website so I could get better deals without importing from Ebay with inflated price. I haven't realized if there was a seller in my hometown who have a lot of rare games with fairly cheaper price than on Ebay (but still not a cheap price to buy an used game).

Just ordered Elden Ring for €37 on Series X. I actually wanted to buy this game at launch but I didn't have time for it back then. And I'm glad I didn't since I got it much cheaper now, my excitement for the game has gone up significantly since then and I get to play it on a next-gen system instead of my base PS4. I'm so looking forward to playing this game!

Just ordered Soul Hackers 2 for €50 on Series X. There are two reasons for why I bought the game now. First reason is that there aren't many stores that are selling the game and one of the stores I follow just raised the price for the game, which made me concerned in terms of its availability. Secondly, the game didn't appeal to me initially as it didn't look like anything special. However, now that I've been getting engrossed in the dungeon crawling side of Persona 3 Portable, I want to play more games like it. There aren't many SMT/Persona titles and they rarely come out with a new entry, so I figured it would be a good idea to get Soul Hackers 2 as well.

I used to not care about dungeon crawling in Persona in the past. But for some reason it's clicked with me in P3P. It's just so much fun that I don't care if Soul Hackers 2 doesn't offer much in terms of story or a social aspect. I've also heard complaints about the dungeons in SH2 being samey. Considering I'm playing P3P, which only has one dungeon that you constantly revisit, I'm perfectly fine with multiple dungeons looking the same lol.

@Bentleyma Today I learned Half-Life 2 was on the OG Xbox. Always assumed The Orange Box on 360 and PS3 was the console debut.

Just pre-ordered The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero on Switch. It's always a great feeling to buy a game of one of my favourite franchises. It's been quite some time since Trails of Cold Steel IV came out so I'm looking forward to delving into this series once more. Not to mention that I'll be playing the game on a handheld, which I haven't done with the series since Trails of Cold Steel II on Vita! Really excited for that.

I'm still unsure though if I'll play through it on launch day since I still haven't finished Persona 3 Portable yet and I'm also playing Immortals on Switch. I might play it initially but then focus on finishing these other games before continuing with it.

@LtSarge Did you end up playing the Sky games? IIRC the PSP games are on Vita, I imported physical copies of the native Vita versions instead.

As some of you may remember, I had an Evercade VS for Christmas last year. Still haven’t played it like, maybe I never will… but I’ve been chipping away at collecting all of the cartridges throughout 2022. And I just get some weird satisfaction from having them on the shelf… by way of some kind of ‘a history of gaming’ display.

Well, all the while I’ve kinda been hoping that Evercade might eventually manage to do a deal with a big publisher from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. No shade on Technos and Data East… or Atari and Intellivision but I was really hoping that we could get a Sega deal, or a deal with Konami… or… or Capcom. Well, turns out that Evercade have managed to secure a deal with Capcom to bring 18 of their stone-cold classics to Evercade! I was pretty excited… until I read a bit further and realised that they are built-in digital only games that are only available to play on the new Evercade EXP handheld.

This kinda defeats the purpose of the Evercade for me (and much of the community). The vast majority of Evercade users want the physical cartridge, the box art, the illustrated booklet that goes into the history of the games included etc. I’m ‘hoping’ that a Capcom cartridge may be released at some point down the road but I can’t help but feel that they were only able to do the deal with Capcom if it was for a handheld only, built-in, digital only release. If so, its put a bit of a dampener on me collecting these things as in the back of my mind my collection will never be complete.

@nessisonett No, only the second chapter is on the Vita store so I've not played them yet. I tried getting them on Steam but the games don't support MacOS, which is too bad.

@LtSarge I’d think that the Sky games would probably run alright through Wine on Mac, that’s how I got most games working when I had mine years ago. Surprised that FC PSP isn’t on Vita though, that’s bizarre.

@LtSarge I might have mentioned it before, but I'd recommend giving GeForce Now a whirl. It's free, and lets you stream of your own Steam games, so is great for those titles that wouldn't normally run on a Mac.

@nessisonett May be misremembering, but I swear FC used to be on the Vita store and then got removed.

@nessisonett Must be a regional thing. I know for a fact FC was on Vita in the U.S, at least, years ago. It's how I played the game.

Hard to say now, since the new website memory holed the Vita, and I'm not willing to log into the Store on my Vita now that I've hacked it.

Just ordered used copies of Professor Layton and Pandora's Box as well as Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. I've been in the mood for some more Layton and it's been a long time since I played Curious Village. So I'm looking forward to starting Pandora's Box next. I bought Miracle Mask as well because it was available and these games are fairly rare so I thought I might as well get it now.

I also bought Death's Door, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and Ender Lilies on Switch eShop.

Bought Quake on sale for the Nintendo Switch for $4. Normal difficulty is pretty brutal so far, but I appreciate the responsive motion control settings.

Definitely won't be a favorite of mine. Not a fan of the map design at all.

Orederd a Super NT yesterday so I can play all my SNES cartridges. Can't wait for it to arrive which is a year away.

@RogerRoger So far:

• VERY dull aesthetics. Everything is dingy and dark. Hopefully levels start gaining a sense of identity later on, but so far, they're all running together for me.
• Enemies are insanely annoying due to how damaging their projectiles are. The game likes to put these units that use grenade launchers in hard to hit parts of the map above where you'll enter a room, so you're swamped in explosions that can kill you in one or two hits.
• Environments are loaded with traps, which makes even the usual run and gun gameplay a bit of a chore.
• Weapons don't have the visceral OOMPH of DOOM weapons.

I'm not giving up on it, but this is going to be an uphill battle for me. Maybe later levels improve, but even if so, it doesn't make a great first impression.

@HallowMoonshadow @RogerRoger I'm into the second world now, and it IS somewhat better, but yeah, this isn't a patch on DOOM.

Had a good time with Elden Ring earlier in the year, so I bought a friend's copy of Dark Souls Remastered for the Nintendo Switch so I could give the series another chance. Unfortunately, I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to be doing atm, and the game doesn't explain itself (apparently I can't select whatever "reverse hollowing" is at bonfires because I lack "humanity"; googled all this and just came away more confused than before!).

Started as a pyromancer. Any unsolicited tips for a beginner are appreciated.

@Ralizah you’ll gain humanity as you go… so just keep playing (as long as you’re enjoying it that is) and it’ll rack up. Also, as far as I’m aware the pyromancer is a great choice for a noob, so you should be grand. All I’d say is journey in a direction for as long as you can until it feels like your hitting your head against a brick wall and then try a path less tread. The difficulty should guide you… it’s pretty intuitive tbh.

@colonelkilgore Yeah, I researched the classes, and that one seems to allow for some magic use without gimping your melee / armor options, so it seemed like a good choice at the time.

I guess my concern is that no matter which direction I go, I'm running up against intimidating enemies that block my path. I can probably get around them, but I don't want to die in an inaccessible area and lose my souls.

The best way to go feels early on feels like it's kind of tucked off to the side, out of the way. I was originally going down to the Londo Ruins, but quickly discovered ghosts that didn't seem to be damaged by either fire or steel, so I doubled back to Undead Burg.

The game looks amazing on the SWOLED handheld display. I seriously need to spring on an OLED monitor at some point.

Still wish this game had a damn map, but otherwise it's OK so far. VERY slow and clunky compared to ER, but I guess that's what to expect from a decade or so of iteration on the formula.

@Ralizah yeah so the ghosts of the Londo Ruins are a definite roadblock… I mean it is possible but you’re better off coming back to it later in all honesty. There are a couple of methods that can be used to deal damage to them but I won’t spoil that for you. Sounds like your on the right track now though.

In regards to a map… it would honestly detract from the exploration and the ‘aha’ moments of uncovering short cuts and piecing all of the areas together in your mind. It might not sound that fun but honestly, it’s one of the games strengths. Just try venturing forward with the aim of locating the next bonfire each time and it’ll all start falling into place.

Yeah the Switch port is really good to be fair. I didn’t play it on an OLED as my Switch is one of the 2017 variety but I can imagine it looks awesome… it looked and ran great on mine. I’m hoping it clicks for you as I’m always interested in peoples first forays into Miyazaki’s games.