This is a SNES RPG which came out very late in the system’s life, and was never released outside of Japan. I played this using a fan translation patch which itself is over twenty years old.
Stuff about Games I've Completed
This was mentioned on the Exeter Social Discord group, and it made me curious to see how well it has held up. I played the Mega Drive version, which was what I had when I was younger. I remembered it being pretty mediocre, bad but not as bad as most of the mascot or tie-in platformers of the era. That’s exactly how I found it today as well, the graphics are nice, the music is good but the actual platforming is fiddly and hit boxes are very unpredictable. It’s very short though, only five levels with a few stages each.
I think this is the first time I’ve finished this game. I’ve played it several times before on different platforms but always gave up before the end. There are only ten levels in the game, but a few of them are copies of previous levels that you go through in reverse. It’s clear that the development was rushed, because even within those levels there are sections that are copied over and over to pad out the game. The level called The Library is the one that people normally call out as having done this, but I think it is pretty common throughout the whole of the game.
This is a remake of the second Yakuza game, but it is the third game chronologically. I completed Yakuza 0 about the same time last year and very much enjoyed it, I also played the original Kiwami game years ago as well. I think this series has absolutely clicked with me now, I very much enjoyed this one.
This is a late-era SNES action RPG that was only released in Japan and the PAL regions. I live in the UK, and despite the SNES possibly being my favourite console and my love for RPGs, I never played it. It was released in December 1996, by which point I already had a PlayStation, so I imagine that’s why it slipped past me.
I actually have a physical UK copy of this game, I think it’s supposed to be one of the rarest ever made. It was released after the Saturn was already effectively dead. I bought it second hand I think off of eBay when that site was new and you had to post cheques in the mail. It only cost me £30 I think.
This is an RPG on the PlayStation made by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the man that created the Final Fantasy series. It’s set in modern day New York, and you play a cop that is dealing with horrific incidents caused by mitochondria coming alive and trying to take over the Earth.
This is a GameBoy Advance game where you play a series of “microgames” one after the other. Each one lasts a handful of seconds, and you have to figure out what you have to do, and what the controls are before you run out of time. The aim in each section is to finish a certain amount of them without losing all your lives. Each level is themed around a different character, and has it’s own intro and ending cutscene.
I was obsessed with this game before release, I was reading up on Internet forums about it when it was going to be on the Nintendo 64. The director of the game was on a lot of forums answering questions and doing interviews. It released for the GameCube in the end, after being delayed several times.
This is the second Mario platformer for the GameBoy. The graphics are significantly improved, it looks quite a bit like Super Mario World on the SNES, although it is obviously in greyscale and much lower resolution. It also has a world map where you select levels like the SNES game too.
I picked this game at random as something to play with my youngest son, Joe. I’d never played this version before, and we managed to get all of the retro achievements within about twenty minutes. It only has two of the original games four levels, and is obviously very simple graphically. We both had a lot of fun playing through it though, it definitely has a lot of the feel of the arcade game.
I bought this with the Dreamcast at the UK launch of the machine. I was absolutely amazed with the graphics and speed. The first level with a section where a killer whale is destroying a jetty behind you while you run into the screen was unlike anything I’d seen before.
I bought this with the PlayStation 1 on launch day in the UK, I went halves with my brother to be able to afford it. We both finished the game that day since it’s only really a single track. It has multiple difficulties, and on the higher one an extra section of the track opens up. You then have “extra” difficulties where you drive the track mirrored. We ended up playing the demo disk that came with the PlayStation quite a lot too, I was very impressed with one where you’re controlling a dinosaur.
This is the US NES version of the Famicom game Dragon Quest. It was never released over here in the UK, and I didn’t even hear about it at the time. I first encountered RPGs reading about them in Super Play magazine for the SNES.
This is a Game Boy Advance remake of the original Metroid for the NES. I’ve never finished the NES one since I always get lost, it lacks the map of Super Metroid and the graphics aren’t detailed enough to make the areas as distinct. I’ve finished this one a couple of times now, and it’s excellent. It’s a pretty short game like all Metroids, but the whole thing flows excellently and there is no padding.