Emulation - Old School Pwnage

[TekDragon]

Well, i had a sudden urge to run up to the attic and dust off the ol' console systems and plug away at some of the great titles.

Instead of going up to that hellish nightmare of unfinished flooring, poor lighting, and hundreds of obstacle coarse like boxes; i remembered my other PC had a load of emulators and ROMS.

So right now i've got ZSNES minimized on my screen.

Metal Marines is, quite possibly, one of my favorite SNES games. It is a turn based strategy game where you build up defence/offence on an island and launch attacks against an enemy island. The objective is to knock out the enemy's HQs while protecting your own. For offence you get missle batteries and metal marines. For defence you get AA missle batteries, gun-pods, and a land mines. In addition you can build radars (increase AA effectiveness), factories (re-supply missle batteries faster), oil derriks (increase fuel production for launching attacks), and a factory that increases your income. Finally you can upgrade your AA's, MM's, and missles which makes them more powerful but is expencive. Overall an addictive, strategic, and very fun game.


Put your own recomendations here with a brief description. I'm sure theres dozens of great games i've missed and i'd like to re-experience some of the good ones i've forgotten.

[TekDragon]

My all time favorite RPG is Secret of Mana for the SNES.

SoM is a game from the old-school game making jugernaught: Square Soft. SoM was one of their greatest hits. The story line was one of the most engrossing i've ever seen. Combat was fast paced and required reflexes as well as strategy. Possibly one of the best features was the "leveling" system in which weapons and magic would get better as you used them. Having your charachter use a sword would earn you xp in it, which would unlock the next level move. Using moves required you to charge them up, then unleash them. Magic worked the same way, without the charge-up time.

Your charachters included The Boy (the 'tank'), The Girl (defencive magic), and The Sprite (offencive magic). The three of you traveled across the world attempting to prevent the seals of magic from being broken, allowing the Mana Fortress to rise again. Along the way you fight in inspirational environments, get a pet dragon (who flies you places), and fight awesome bosses.

Any RPG lover who hasn't played Secret of Mana is really missing out. I've played it through 3 or 4 times and i'm still wanting to play it again.

[Robot]

here's my vote for Bahamut Lagoon.

one of square's best rpg's/rts's. also, treasure hunter g is another good one, definately one of square's most charm-filled RPG's.

[Lise]

Some of the greatest Square games you probably never played: Seiken Densetsu 3 (AKA Secret of Mana 2), Front Mission 1, and Bahamut Lagoon. All are expertly translated now (FM slightly less than the others.) With any luck you have them, and if you don't... erm, go looking. ;)

Also, YOSHI'S FUCKING ISLAND god dammit. Quite possibly the best platformer the SNES ever produced.

Man, although I was weaned on 8-bit goodness, I was raised on the SNES. So many good memories and goooood games...

[Happy lil Elf]

Metal Marines fucking owns. Sadly back when I had ZSNES (and well over 200 games for it :p) I could never find a ROM that worked :(

And yes Secret of Mana is probably my all time favorite RPG for SNES. Not becaue the anything about it was so great, but because it was perhaps the only multiplayer RPG out at the time. Jesus I remember staying up for 30 hours at a time with three or four cases of Mt. Dew with friends playing that game. Good Times :D

[Lise]

As an interesting side note, they have now only recently released a console RPG that works like the old SoM did - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. From what I understand it's doing excellently. Makes you think co-op RPGs should be made more frequently, eh?

[Happy lil Elf]

Crystal Chronicles is out in the US?

[Lise]

Uh, isn't it?

Oh wait, it isn't yet. Go me go. :ugh:

The Japanese at least are snatching it up though.

[Everay]

metal marines pwns, and FF6 does too, never played bahumuts lagoon. and just about every game you guys said, i love

[AztecWarrior]

Emulation. Warez. Ban.

[Flammey]

Secret of Mana....Where do you think I got my name, Damn it?

I downloaded all the NES games and SNES games I could find about a week ago, now I have 728 NES games, and around 600 SNES games to try. I'm currently looking hard for PSX games, but man they are a bitch to find.

[Derfud]

Harest moon 64, can't stop playing... must harvest... must... feed chickens... must... milk... cows...

[Lise]

Emulation. Warez. Ban.

Just so long as we don't put up any links or anything we're fine. :p

Which is wy Smiley needs to edit his post. Like now.

[Everay]

is it illegal? i mean they dont make the games anymore, but i know you can still buy them. but what? will the video game sellers sue you? i know the companys dont care too much, since they no longer get a profit from it

[TheRagingGerbil]

Killed many an hour playing Secret of Mana and Lagoon. I also loved A Link to the Past, Starfox, and Mario Kart. I can't count the time my buddies and I spent yelling and screaming at "deathmatches" on Mario Kart.

On the old NES I played Sword & Serpents for ages, oh, and the Dragon Warrior series. Metal Marines was a personnal fav as well. I fell in love with Metal Gear from the first moment I played...still can't figure out what the hell the cigarettes are for.

The old Master System was home to the Phantasy Star series which I also played on the Game Gear when on the road. Rambo was a good distraction and a great third person shooter.

I never really got into my old Genesis to much. I guess I played it for the Mortal Kombat series. An addicting game I could never get enough of was Toe Jam & Earl.

N64 was good old Zelda, Star Fox, and Gauntlet.

[TekDragon]

Hamma, remove Smiley's post. Now.

Some of the greatest Square games you probably never played: Seiken Densetsu 3 (AKA Secret of Mana 2), Front Mission 1, and Bahamut Lagoon. All are expertly translated now (FM slightly less than the others.) With any luck you have them, and if you don't... erm, go looking.
Nanana! I played Seiken Densetsu 3! Honestly though... i never got into it. I dunno why. The storyline just never hooked me the way SoM did. And I never connected with any of the charachters. Maybe I'll try it again sometime.

What are Front Mission 1 and Bahamut Lagoon about?

Harest moon 64
Dude! That is the game that I HATE to love. I used to obcess about the SNES version (the original) back in the day. I'd wake up in the wee hours of the morning (in real life) and be like "bus doesnt come for 15 minutes. Lemme go milk the cows". My mom was like "wtf? Why don't you clean your room?".

treasure hunter g is another good one, definately one of square's most charm-filled RPG's.
What is treasure hunter g like?

[EDIT]: Removed ROM pimp offer.

[Lise]

Technically it is illegal for us to play them on our PCs if we don't own the carts, so we COULD get busted for it. But people don't really bother with busting individual users. :p What can get Hamma in trouble, though, is someone linking a place that offers ROMs and whatnot on his website, which is why smilie's post needs to be edited real quick-like.

And Tek, if you're going to pimp MM, don't post about it. ;) You'll also notice that I liked Lise from SD3 a LOT. :D

Agreed on any Harvest Moon game. After a while they get played out, but while they last... holy crap. Hours of your life will simply dissappear into thin air. It's scary. (Karen and Elli from HM64 are the hawtest, BTW :p )

[Happy lil Elf]

I didn't even know ther was a Harvest Moon for SNES. The N64 version though....god I wasted a lot of time on that game. And tehn when I had done just about everything I complained that it wasn't long enough, until I realized how much time I had poured into it :lol:

Never tried Front Mission one either. FM3 for PS was the shit though even though the plot seemed to fall apart towards the end.

If you want an addictive game for the Genesis, find Shadowrun. I only wish the SNES version was as good as that game.

Mario Kart was also the shit. We used to play deathmatches and a whole bunch of other games we just made up. Probably the console game that I put the most hours of multiplayer time in on now that I think about it.

[Squick]

Wow TekDragon, Secret of Mana IS the best game on the planet... Everyone I hear talking about Secret of Mana trashes it... But you had an amazing skill system, the weapon power-up system, the magic system, a character progression via items and level system, weapon upgrade system! This game was seriously complex for it's time!

OH! No one has mentioned Earthbound yet! I got sucked into the marketing and was lured by the massive box at the store and bought it... And it turned out to be one of my favorite RPGs of all time!

Squick

[TekDragon]

You guys are awesome :)

Happy lil Elf, Mario Kart 64 was right underneath Halo at college. While the guys were at one TV doing some CTF blood gulch pwnage the girls (and any guy who got knocked off the ladder) played Mario Kart 64. It was awesome just because it was easy to learn but hard to master. Our favorite map was the one in the desert with the train. I liked Wario's Speedway but my roomate always cheated on it :(

I played Shadowrun for the NES. It was fun.. but hard. I didn't have speakers hooked up on my PC so i could never tell when a torch was going to go out. Didn't know they had it for Genesis.

Lise, I was wondering why that sprite looked so familiar :) That's the cleric, right? My memory is fuzzy.

Squick, omg! I loved Earthbound. I used to play that all day last year. I'd turn off the music and play Nine Inch Nails and Korn techno remixes in the background while I played (freak on a leash techno remix is great for this game). EB was so trippy, it's scary. The music, the sounds, the background for the battle scenes, the charachters... EVERYTHING! It was made for stoners, 100%.

I dunno why people would bash SoM. My best friend in elementary school loved it. I remember we played it all the time.

[TekDragon]

Toe Jam and Earl

This game means different things for different people. For those who only played the latest disaster (think it was for PS2) you know TJ&E as a load of shit, which it was.

When *I* Say Toe Jam and Earl, i'm talking about the original release for the Sega Genesis. Me and my friends loved playing this game. The music and sound effects were hilarious and the game was addictive as hell. Basically these 2 funk master aliens crash landed on a planet. You had to go through the levels finding peices of your space ship. You collected presents which you didn't know what they were until you opened them (then you knew what that type of present meant, unless you got a randomizer) which gave you a good or bad effect like rocket shoes, icarus wings, or make tomatoes rain from the sky.

Herzog Zwei

GET THIS GAME! GET IT NOW!

For those who don't know, this was the grand daddy of ALL real time strategy games. You like Command & Conquer? You like Warcraft? This game preceded EVERYTHING.

The game was a top down view of a sprawling map. Two large bases were placed on the map, opposite each other. Each player controlled one of these bases. Smaller 'mini-bases' scattered the maps in between. Your charachter was a robot that could transform from a jet to a ground mech.

Fighting was handled not only thought your charachter but through all types of units. Tanks, APC's, gun-boats, AA missle launchers, motorcycles, infantry, turrets, supply trucks: all of them were used. In addition, your units operated under orders which you pre-ordered when you purchased the unit. Orders could be hold position, destroy and return, seek and destroy, move to nearest base and attack, move to nearest base and defend, and attack enemy home base.

These units were purchased and then your jet had to pick them up and drop them off on the map where you wanted them. Income came from how many bases you had captured.

At the end of the game there were HUGE wars. Collums of tanks flanked by anti aircraft missles and led by the enemy mech would clash against your positions of turrets, tanks, and APC's. Meanwhile gun boats would wind through the rivers seeking the enemy base. Motorcycles would patrol the ground seeking infantry looking to capture bases.

This game is a MUST HAVE. I encourage everyone to give it a try.

[Hamma]

Hamma, remove Smiley's post. Now.
What the hell is it? :confused:

[TekDragon]

Thank's Hamma :) Now be a nice guy and delete this post, and the ones directly above and below it, just to keep the thread on topic.

And where the hell is YOUR game recomendations? Huh? I KNOW you've got some good games.

[Hamma]

Ahh, well its in some other language I had no clue what it was :p

[Robot]

Bahamut Lagoon about?

it's this really awesome game that takes place in the world of orelus. (basically, a sky world where the land masses and continents and islands take the shape of floating pieces of land.) the evil stereotypical empire is attempting to wipe out the kahana (did i spell that right?) empire, which posesses great flying dragons. but it's not the typical "oh no we must defeat the empire!!!!!!!!!" storyline.

it's basically a FFT type thing, with non-iso tiles. each side has turns, where you can move all of your units. you have several parties of human members, and each party has a dragon. (you can mix and match as you please.) the dragon is controlled automatically (with some variations on their behaviour: "stay close" "attack" that you can set, etc.) and can become uber powerful if you feed them enough items. unlike in FFT battles, when you confront an enemy, you go into a seperate final fantasy type battle screen, where you can select each party member's moves. (their power is directly related to the power level of the dragon they have.) then, a one-turn battle occurs with each side, and you go back to the map.

the graphics are AMAZING. absolutely stunning. they beat out PSX graphics 5-1, easily.


What is treasure hunter g like?

the storyline wasn't anything really innovative (oh no, a "dark lord" has come back to earth and destroyed atlantis or something, time to move out of your mountain village and defeat him!) but it had its charm. the main fun of the game was the battle system, where you controlled 3 people. they each have a certain amount of "action points" when determines how many times you can move around the battle screen and how much you can attack. when you're further away from enemies, it takes less AP to move, but when you're closer, it obliterates your AP. this added a bit of a sense of strategy to it all. the graphics were also very good. not as in technically amazing as BL, but still very charm-filled and fun.

[Lise]

Come on, put the sig and avvie together. Big spear? Feathered headpiece?

(Valkyrie girl from the mountain kingdom :p )

[Kikinchikin]

OMG I FRICKING LOVED TOE JAM AND EARL!!!!!!!!! But u know wut sucks? I had no memory card, so I could never save or something. I remember one time i spent 10 hours straight playing it. Got to the final level, and had one more human to bottle, and no matter how hard i tried I COULDNT GET UP THERE! I was so heartbroken... 10 hours with one human left... sigh good times.

A few other Genesis games I loved- primal rage, dinosarus for hire and a few others but the best ever was
STREETS OF RAGE!!!!! omg this was sooooo awesome!
Mario kart 64 roxxorz your soxxorz as well and yeah warios track iz too ez to cheat on.

[TekDragon]

Robot, thanks for the suggestions. I'm definately going to get Bahamut Legion. Might try the other one too, sounds interesting. What system is it on?

Lise, i'm sorry :) It looked like that little sprite cleric girl to me. Now that i've loaded up the game i see that, your correct, it is the valkrye.

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Did everyone see the mini-reviews of Herzog Zwei and Toe Jam and Earl before me and Hamma had that discussion? I seriously recomend to ANYONE who likes RTS to get Herzog Zwei. Even now it's STILL incredibly fun and fast paced.

[Robot]

Robot, thanks for the suggestions. I'm definately going to get Bahamut Legion. Might try the other one too, sounds interesting. What system is it on?

both are on SNES, but you'd need to get a translation patch. (i think they have them around there somewhere. i'd link, but... y'know.)

[TekDragon]

Translation pack? How does that work? And what emulator does it work on? I'm used to ZSNES.

[Entra]

I liked General Chaos for the genesis back in the days. Same with Smash TV.