My worthwhile thoughts on a few PCE games

[nat]

Impossamole sucks, JJ & Jeff doesn't!

You've got it backwards, friend.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Impossamole sucks, JJ & Jeff doesn't!

You've got it backwards, friend.

Indeed!  Give me Impossamole any day of the week over JJ & Jeff!

[Turbo D]

really? I can't stand impossamole, haha.

[ParanoiaDragon]

It has its problems.....but, I deffinitly dig it.  I'd love to remake it someday with better controls, etc.

[Turbo D]

that would be cool if you did because i had bought it with great expectations only to be disappointed. I was really excited about it, haha. Oh well.

[turbofan1]

It has its problems.....but, I deffinitly dig it.  I'd love to remake it someday with better controls, etc.

You would love to do A remake of impossamole?.That game is pretty well known for ending the Turbo`s short life span.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Mmm, I'd say the game didn't help, but, it has promise to be an awesome game.  It just needs to have it's "wrongs" replaced with "rights"

[nat]

The collision detection sucks, and the title song is atrocious. Beyond that it's a pretty fun game.

[ParanoiaDragon]

The collision detection is what originally pissed me off about the game.  The day I originally bought it when it came out......I hated that damn game, but, after my friend & I cooled off in the pool, we rethought about the game, & ended up beating it.

[esteban]

The collision detection sucks, and the title song is atrocious. Beyond that it's a pretty fun game.

I know I'm repeating myself, but every time I see this, I cannot help but remind you that the title song is FRIGGIN' AWESOME.  It is the highlight of the game.

[Turbo D]

the sound in that game makes me laugh, it sounds like it was done by camerika or codemasters or whatever its called.

[ccovell]

What you're hearing is the familiar arpeggio sound common in European chip music.  Impossamole's music was arranged by Barry Leitch, who was well-known in the C-64 world.  I don't think this game's music is that great, but a TON of the Euro stuff is fantastic on the C-64.

[Turbo D]

wow, cool. Now that I think about it, I only hear sound like that in europeon games, haha.

[Keranu]

Youkai Douchuuki is a game that has really stuck to me ever since the first time I played it. I don't even play it much, but the atmosphere of the game is extremely enjoyable to me and I absolutely love the song in the first level. Also the spiritual boss fights are way cool!

Impossamole sucks, JJ & Jeff doesn't!

Completely agreed.

I know I'm repeating myself, but every time I see this, I cannot help but remind you that the title song is FRIGGIN' AWESOME.  It is the highlight of the game.

Completely agreed to the max!

[CrackTiger]

Although I've never played it seriously, I've always liked Youkai Dochuki.

It seems pretty faithful to the arcade version too.

[nat]

Completely agreed to the max!

What would agreeing to the minimum be like?

[Turbo D]

Maybe it would only be 80% agreed 

[esteban]

Completely agreed to the max!

What would agreeing to the minimum be like?

Q: What would agreeing to the minimum be like?
A: You know, guys, even though I'm usually not a fan of music that sounds like the tunes in Impossamole, I have to admit that the title song is decent. Oh yeah, I'd also like to add that JJ & Jeff is a decent game.

[Keranu]

Completely agreed to the max!

What would agreeing to the minimum be like?

Q: What would agreeing to the minimum be like?
A: You know, guys, even though I'm usually not a fan of music that sounds like the tunes in Impossamole, I have to admit that the title song is decent. Oh yeah, I'd also like to add that JJ & Jeff is a decent game.

Correct! However it should end like "Oh yeah, I'd also like to add that JJ & Jeff is the friggin' best game ever created." ;)

[esteban]

hahahahhahaha. Poor nat! Little did he know that the proponents of JJ & Jeff would join forces against him .

[CrackTiger]

Completely agreed to the max!

What would agreeing to the minimum be like?

Q: What would agreeing to the minimum be like?
A: You know, guys, even though I'm usually not a fan of music that sounds like the tunes in Impossamole, I have to admit that the title song is decent. Oh yeah, I'd also like to add that JJ & Jeff is a decent game.

Correct! However it should end like "Oh yeah, I'd also like to add that JJ & Jeff is the friggin' best game ever created." ;)

Come on Keranu, at least be reasonable and say something like "the friggin' best platformer ever created."

[Keranu]

Ok you're right, I guess it's not better than Insector X.

[nat]

hahahahhahaha. Poor nat! Little did he know that the proponents of JJ & Jeff would join forces against him .

I feel so.... alone. 

[Keranu]

nat, embrace the wonderful world of J.J. and Jeff with us and you will never be lonely again.

[esteban]

nat, embrace the wonderful world of J.J. and Jeff with us and you will never be lonely again.

Keranu, I have a plan. It is a compromise, and I think nat might be interested. Basically, Keranu and I will try to open our hearts to a game that we're not particularly fond of (or, alternatively, to a game that we think is over-rated).

nat, I'm sure there is some turbo game that you dig that I (we) think is rubbish OR is over-rated. Name it and I (we) will find some aspect of it that I (we) can "appreciate" on some level.

Ahhh, I don't know if this plan of mine is any good. It's a pretty lame plan, since Keranu and I already love games that others consider rubbish. Damn it!

[Keranu]

I like the plan and I think Impossamole would work well if we exclude the awesome title screen.

[ParanoiaDragon]

nat, embrace the wonderful world of J.J. and Jeff with us and you will never be lonely again.

Keranu, I have a plan. It is a compromise, and I think nat might be interested. Basically, Keranu and I will try to open our hearts to a game that we're not particularly fond of (or, alternatively, to a game that we think is over-rated).

nat, I'm sure there is some turbo game that you dig that I (we) think is rubbish OR is over-rated. Name it and I (we) will find some aspect of it that I (we) can "appreciate" on some level.

Ahhh, I don't know if this plan of mine is any good. It's a pretty lame plan, since Keranu and I already love games that others consider rubbish. Damn it!

What, & I don't consider some rubbish games great?

[esteban]

nat, embrace the wonderful world of J.J. and Jeff with us and you will never be lonely again.

Keranu, I have a plan. It is a compromise, and I think nat might be interested. Basically, Keranu and I will try to open our hearts to a game that we're not particularly fond of (or, alternatively, to a game that we think is over-rated).

nat, I'm sure there is some turbo game that you dig that I (we) think is rubbish OR is over-rated. Name it and I (we) will find some aspect of it that I (we) can "appreciate" on some level.

Ahhh, I don't know if this plan of mine is any good. It's a pretty lame plan, since Keranu and I already love games that others consider rubbish. Damn it!

What, & I don't consider some rubbish games great?

You are always very polite! Well, so is Keranu, usually. But we've been pretty heavy-handed with nat recently.

But, that said, you are more than welcome to join us, because I'd love to see what game you'd choose!

[nat]

Let's make it a little more interesting.

Go watch Back to the Future part II and then tell me it's not the best movie in the series. Er, I mean, I want you to tell me it is the best entry in the series. And mean it.

If that can happen, then I suppose anything's possible and I'll give JJ & Jeff another shot.

[esteban]

Let's make it a little more interesting.

Go watch Back to the Future part II and then tell me it's not the best movie in the series. Er, I mean, I want you to tell me it is the best entry in the series. And mean it.

If that can happen, then I suppose anything's possible and I'll give JJ & Jeff another shot.

I wasn't lying: I am going to rent BttF II this weekend. I'll probably rent the original as well, since I might have to watch it to rinse out the bad taste the sequel might leave in my mouth.

But, wouldn't my time be better spent watching Teen Wolf, Secret of my Success, Class of 1984, or *shudder* even The Frighteners (ouch!) ?

[nat]

Don't go in expecting to hate it. You'll spend the whole movie finding things to complain about.

Go in pretending you've never seen it before.

[esteban]

Don't go in expecting to hate it. You'll spend the whole movie finding things to complain about.

Go in pretending you've never seen it before.

Will do! And I've decided I'll also rent "The Secret of my Success".

[Keranu]

Secret of My Success is awesome, I need to watch that one again too!

Hey Steve another Michael J. Fox movie you should check out is Bright Lights, Big City! I saw the cover for that movie at a video store years ago and after reading it I was convinced it would be the best movie ever since it starred three awesome actos (Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates), was about 1980's drug addiction in the big city, and had music by Duran Duran! Unfortunately when I rented it, the tape didn't work but I finally got the movie on laserdisc months ago! Man that movie was a HUGE dissapointment, but I still enjoyed it even though it was much different than how I pictured it and is pretty damn cheesy and hilarious. It's one really weird movie, I'll tell you that.

[esteban]

Secret of My Success is awesome, I need to watch that one again too!

Hey Steve another Michael J. Fox movie you should check out is Bright Lights, Big City! I saw the cover for that movie at a video store years ago and after reading it I was convinced it would be the best movie ever since it starred three awesome actos (Fox, Kiefer Sutherland, Phoebe Cates), was about 1980's drug addiction in the big city, and had music by Duran Duran! Unfortunately when I rented it, the tape didn't work but I finally got the movie on laserdisc months ago! Man that movie was a HUGE dissapointment, but I still enjoyed it even though it was much different than how I pictured it and is pretty damn cheesy and hilarious. It's one really weird movie, I'll tell you that.

Awesome, I'm totally going to find that movie and rent it. I've never seen it.

[Keranu]

Me and my family were laughing pretty hard at that movie, so get ready for some funny strange moments !

[ParanoiaDragon]

Well, I have been trudging thru JJ & Jeff gradually, but it's difficult to get into.  Hmm, I sincerely hate Drop Off, Double Dungeons, & Deep Blue(which I beat using save states).  I'd have to think about it.

As for BTHF2, I love that movie personally, but, the 3rd is my favorite, hands down, it just rocks for me!

[esteban]

As for BTHF2, I love that movie personally, but, the 3rd is my favorite, hands down, it just rocks for me!

Now that's just crazy talk!

[nat]

Deep Blue(which I beat using save states)

You're not a real man until you beat Deep Blue on the real hardware.

I'm serious, I think my balls dropped another two inches that day.

[Keranu]

As for BTHF2, I love that movie personally, but, the 3rd is my favorite, hands down, it just rocks for me!

Now that's just crazy talk!

Agreed! Though I think it's pretty subjective depending if you're into wild west culture or not. Personally I didn't like that theme, so I just couldn't get into the majority of the movie. If I was into wild west stuff, then maybe I would've liked it more, but I'm not really sure. I did enjoy the very beginning and end of the movie though (just like Return of the Jedi!).

[nat]

Like I said before, a series is officially dead once you get a sequel set in either outer space or the "old west."

[Keranu]

Haha, very true. At least cheesy space sequels entertain me !

[Emerald Rocker]

You jackasses, stop ruining GUTS' topic.  You all know the only reason anyone watched those movies was to see Michael J. Fox's bare butt, so you can stop pretending they were actually good/fun/cool films.

Damn butt-watchers.

[Keranu]

Nah man, we watch Corey Haim movies for some hot bare butt. And with the avatar you have, I'd say you enjoy it too ;) .

[ParanoiaDragon]

I'm not really into the old west at all, infact, I used to hate it.  But, the exceptions are BTTF3, & the Wild Arms series.  And I guess some random anime's that have a sci-fi western theme.

[nat]

You jackasses, stop ruining GUTS' topic.  You all know the only reason anyone watched those movies was to see Michael J. Fox's bare butt, so you can stop pretending they were actually good/fun/cool films.

Damn butt-watchers.

GUTS could save his thread from this hijacking by posting another mini review.

[GUTS]

SOL MOONARGE-  Oh hell yeah, this game was great.  It definitely needs to be added to the list of games that are easy for non-Japanese speakers to play through.  The game is just plain fast, it's a nice change of pace from most of the archaic old RPGs of the era.  There's a fast walk button, everything loads really fast (with one exception I'll get to in a minute), and the battles are ULTRA fast.  There is literally no loading at all when you get in a battle, it's like playing a cartridge game.  Plus if you get tired of holding the I button down during battles, there are like 8 or so auto battle options you can play with (I didn't figure these out, they all seemed to do the same thing for me but I'm sure there is some benefit to them).  You can even target 1 or all enemies with any weapon or magic just by pressing up, no need for specialized weapons or magic.  The dungeons also offer quite a bit of variety with some of them taking place in a side-scrolling view with some cool puzzles.

The graphics are also pretty amazing for the most part.  The main over world graphics are just ok, but the dungeons are nearly all really, really cool looking with tons of detail and some nice effects.  The cinemas also use some great effects and are pretty awesome.  Even quite a few of the enemies in the game are really nice looking and HUGE, plus all the bosses have some great animations and weird attacks that look cool.  Overall the game leaves a great visual impression and if it wasn't for the mediocre over world graphics I would say it hangs with some of the best looking RPGs of the 16bit era.

There are a few bad points, although considering how awesome and well done the rest of the game is, they are basically just slight annoyances that really stand out because of how great everything else is.  The first is the incredibly high encounter rate, which isn't a pain for most of the game, but once in a while you run into an area or dungeon where every fucking enemy has to use an attack that hits ALL your characters so you sit there waiting for the god damn attack to finish just to have to see it again and again.  Also, enemies get the first attack about 80% of the time, seriously.  It really, really gets irritating a few times where you play as one character and the enemies have status altering effects (one tower in particular the enemies can put your guy to sleep, it took me a few tries to get out of there alive).  The only other real problem is that getting in and out of your ship later in the game has a weird 5 or so second delay where the game has to load something.  I have no idea why since the graphics are the same, but I assume it's maybe loading in the sea based enemies or something.  You will do a lot of entering/exiting the ship for about 3-5 hours of the game, so it gets really irritating sometimes.  Also, I found that magic was completely worthless outside of healing spells.

I'd say this is one of my favorite PC Engine RPGs now, it was fun as hell, easy to play, FAST as fuck, and incredibly well put together.  I'd definitely recommend spending the $30 or so it goes for.  It took me about 25 hours to beat, although I think I left it on for a few hours one day so that might be a little high.

There are a few parts where you might get stuck, here's a quick rundown of all the places I got stuck-

-Early in the game you have to read some graffiti on the wall to the right of the bed in the princes room in Itch castle (the first castle in the game).  You can't see it so just get in the bed and press against the right wall and search.

-You have to visit the thief tower a second time to retrieve the treasure you couldn't get the first time, this takes place after you get blasted into the sky by Silver.

-In Ain village (the one that is in a mountain that you must pass through to get to the mountain dungeon) there is a lady shopkeeper on the top left of the village that you must talk to from the side after you beat the mountain dungeon.

-In Neo Raputo there is a secret door behind the Sultan that you can only enter at night when the Guard is gone.  Just press up against the wall and you'll pass through.

-In the Dimension Dungeon (cave above the town where the people are ghosts and only come out at night) you have to equip the rainbow goggles to see the hidden chests/warps.

-There is a small island in the middle of the map that doesn't show up on the map where the Ghost Ship will be cruising around after you beat the Dimension dungeon and get all the treasures.

[RuninRuder]

Awesome, that game sounds great.  The ULTRA fast gameplay and the side-scrolling dungeons with cool puzzles have sold me on it.  Hopefully I'll be able to get around to it soon; I have a bunch of RPGs that I want to play through soon, like Tenshi 2 and Dragon Slayer 2, and I've been itching to replay Blood Gear...

Sleep spells should be outlawed.

[Keranu]

Wow that game sounds super rad, I totally have to get it! I've seen the same screenshots for it for years and it always looked funny and amusing to me.

[nat]

I'd heard somewhere this game was no good.

I'll have to give it a try.

[Carbon Tiger]

Sol Moonarge.........never heard of that one and considering I already have a ton of PC-E RPGS I may have to add it to the collection. Sounds fun and from the screenshots looks different then a lot of other games too.