Discussion Do you like retro games?

[Flippy]

A post on another thread made me think about how much I used to enjoy vintage computers and retro games. I can still indulge a little every now and then, so I'm lucky in that respect I guess. Even if the opportunities are few.

Anyway, I just wondered, if there are any like minded individuals on SS who enjoy retro games or vintage computers? Maybe you like coding or you like to solder new things to 8bit computers/consoles?

Back when I was "fully functional Flippy" I used to spend some time on retro computer forums and it used to be something I enjoyed. So I was hoping to rekindle something like that on this thread perhaps.

Maybe there won't be many takers here as I guess it's still pretty niche but, here's hoping at least.

So if retro/vintage computing is your cup of tea, maybe you might post a response and we can argue over which is better Speccy/C64/Amstrad CPC or Atari ST or Amiga, or even some of the newer retro stuff! :-)

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

My gaming days started in the '90's so isometric RPG's and point 'n' click adventure games were my bread and butter.
But, before that, my first console was a cheap copy of Nintendo. Two games comes to mind - Bomberman and Battle City. Spent hours and hours beating those.
I don't know if that counts, but these are the oldest games I was fond of.

Also, a bit newer, and def doesn't count (there was also a PS3 version), there was a game on PS1 called Kula World - to this day I regard it as the best puzzle game I've ever played.

 

[Flippy]

My gaming days started in the '90's so isometric RPG's and point 'n' click adventure games were my bread and butter.
But, before that, my first console was a cheap copy of Nintendo. Two games comes to mind - Bomberman and Battle City. Spent hours and hours beating those.
I don't know if that counts, but these are the oldest games I was fond of.

Also, a bit newer, and def doesn't count (there was also a PS3 version), there was a game on PS1 called Kula World - to this day I regard it as the best puzzle game I've ever played.

That sounds fun! Was it one of those Dendy NES clones?

So you like puzzle games? And RPGs? :-) I used to like a game (well I still do) called Logistic on the Amstrad CPC. It was a puzzle game where you put "coins" on a board in each square. So if you put a coin on an empty square it would indicate a "1" then you could add another on the same square and once it exceeded "4" the coins would spill onto the adjacent squares. So the idea, was you and your opponent would place the coins on the board and if one of your coins spilled into your opponents coins they would switch to your colour. So you could set up cool chain reactions. Once all the coins on the board were yours, you win the game.

I haven't seen anything exactly like it recently.

I haven't heard of Kula World? I think it will definitely qualify as retro though, even PS3 is pretty retro these days! :-)

 

[UseItOrLoseIt]

That sounds fun! Was it one of those Dendy NES clones?

Lol, I honestly don't know. Something like that. Bought in on a local fair for 20 bucks or something.

I used to like a game (well I still do) called Logistic on the Amstrad CPC. It was a puzzle game where you put "coins" on a board in each square. So if you put a coin on an empty square it would indicate a "1" then you could add another on the same square and once it exceeded "4" the coins would spill onto the adjacent squares. So the idea, was you and your opponent would place the coins on the board and if one of your coins spilled into your opponents coins they would switch to your colour. So you could set up cool chain reactions. Once all the coins on the board were yours, you win the game.

Sounds.. intricate :) I kinda miss those type of games. I miss the me who was patient enough to go through these slow burners. There's no way I would be able to pass Bomberman now. Hell of a hard game.

I haven't heard of Kula World? I think it will definitely qualify as retro though, even PS3 is pretty retro these days! :-)

Take a peek.
https://www.theretroperspective.com/blog/2018/1/12/kula-world-review-ps1%3fformat=amp

Just found a reddit post that says a fan made a 20th year annyversary remake of the game for PC. Very nice!

 

[Flippy]

Lol, I honestly don't know. Something like that. Bought in on a local fair for 20 bucks or something.

Sounds.. intricate :) I kinda miss those type of games. I miss the me who was patient enough to go through these slow burners. There's no way I would be able to pass Bomberman now. Hell of a hard game.

Take a peek.
https://www.theretroperspective.com/blog/2018/1/12/kula-world-review-ps1%3fformat=amp

Just found a reddit post that says a fan made a 20th year annyversary remake of the game for PC. Very nice!

I just checked it out! It looks cool, actually reminds me of a 3D version of a game I used to play called "Ball Bearing" or "Crocco Magneto".

Buy Ball Bearing for CPC | retroplace

All offers with pricechart for Ball Bearing. German marketplace specialized for games & systems with daily changing offers.

www.retroplace.com

I'm sorry you don't get to enjoy playing your games as much. I know how upsetting it can be to loose that sort of outlet :-(

Do you think you might be able to play the fan remake of Kula World maybe? Is it more of a game that you can dictate the pace?

 

[Deleted member 8975]

I liked Sega Genesis and Ps1 era games. The first console I owned was a gameboy color and then subsequently an NES, then a GameCube.

My favorite was gamecube for Super Mario Sunshine which I 100% multiple times, Metroid Prime and Zelda Wind Waker. Nba Street volume 2...Clone Wars, Bounty Hunter.

On Gameboy...link to the past, Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, Gold, Silver

Gameboy Advanced Metroid Zero Mission

And lastly though it's not super retro: Knights of the Old Republic. Hands down my favorite game of all time and those are my favorite games of all time pre 2009.

I'm gonna throw some bones though to the even older retro pc games: the original oregon trail. Lemmings. All the Humongous Games but specifically Spy Fox in Dry Cereal. Elroy goes Bugzerk and Elroy hits the pavement <-- Some of my favorite adventure games.

 

[Flippy]

I liked Sega Genesis and Ps1 era games. The first console I owned was a gameboy color and then subsequently an NES, then a GameCube.

My favorite was gamecube for Super Mario Sunshine which I 100% multiple times, Metroid Prime and Zelda Wind Waker. Nba Street volume 2...Clone Wars, Bounty Hunter.

On Gameboy...link to the past, Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow, Gold, Silver

Gameboy Advanced Metroid Zero Mission

And lastly though it's not super retro: Knights of the Old Republic. Hands down my favorite game of all time and those are my favorite games of all time pre 2009.

I'm gonna throw some bones though to the even older retro pc games: the original oregon trail. Lemmings. All the Humongous Games but specifically Spy Fox in Dry Cereal. Elroy goes Bugzerk and Elroy hits the pavement <-- Some of my favorite adventure games.

Ahh, I remember when the genesis or mega drive was launched. We used to see it in shops but not really understand if it was any better than the master system or Nintendo. A kid at my school had one but no one really cared. Then Sonic the Hedgehog came out and he was king of the hill lol!

I got a GameCube back in the day, briefly with mario sunshine but I got tempted by an Xbox as I had a theory it could be hacked. Turned out a few month later soft mods came out and I had tons of emulators on there and ripped games! I really liked my Xbox but I didn't have it long until the 360 came out and the he's dried up super quick!

I never really managed to get into Mario Sunshine, I think it was just a little too different to traditional Mario games for me.

I only played a little of Zelda, but I may play it properly as there's been a remake made for my favourite computer, the Amstrad CPC, though I might have to be quick as Nintendo won't like it lol!

I keep intending to download it but, I'm never in the right frame of mind it seems :-/

Lemmings was one of my favourites back in the day, but I never owned it. I used to play it on a friend's Amiga when he was being charitable enough to let me. It was lemmings mania in the early 90s! It's a shame Sony just sit on the franchise and never do anything with it :-(

 

[Deleted member 8975]

Good sega games besides sonic were Echo the Dolphin, Xmen 2 Clone Wars, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, Comix Zone...those are like the main ones I remember.

I actually wanted an xbox lol but got the gamecube instead.

SMS was very hard to get over the controls. They completely sucked on gamecube and the rerelease on switch was not much better.

Which zelda did you play Flippy?

Yeah Lemmings was like the main game I remember everyone playing lol. That and Oregon Trail.

 

[Panna]

In recent years I've been a hardcore snes pirate. I've always adored older games considering them to be superior to their flashy graphic counter parts in effort and writing, and so it's been extremely enjoyable.
A few I've found that have been really enjoyable is the Gaia trio, specifically terranigma and soul blazer.

Terranigma involves playing as a young man living in a village in the center of the earth who opens Pandora's box and goes around regenerating the planet by destroying guardians and freeing the souls of people, animals and even plants. I really enjoyed this one for having a feature that lets you teleport into the box to change armor and weapons. Pretty nifty for snes games. Great ost

soul blazer involves being called by god himself to free the souls of humanity that were sold to satan by the king. Musics great and it's not too hard, it's older than terranigma in terms of graphics and functionality but it's extremely enjoyable.

hopefully I'm not detailing the thread. If this interesting I got a few more I'd like to share

 

[Flippy]

Good sega games besides sonic were Echo the Dolphin, Xmen 2 Clone Wars, The Adventures of Batman and Robin, Comix Zone...those are like the main ones I remember.

I actually wanted an xbox lol but got the gamecube instead.

SMS was very hard to get over the controls. They completely sucked on gamecube and the rerelease on switch was not much better.

Which zelda did you play Flippy?

Yeah Lemmings was like the main game I remember everyone playing lol. That and Oregon Trail.

The Zelda game was The Legend of Zelda. It's been a long time since I played it, though I've played it off and on over the years. I've never been great at it though lol!

I like Comic Zone, but again I keep getting my ass kicked by it! I really liked the idea of it when it first came out. Like a super cool nerd making comic books gets transported into the world he created. And he happens to be able to kick ass!

Oregon Trail seems to be one of those games recently that gets ported to loads of stuff! I like that sort of thing, it's fun to see games eventually make it on to systems where you thought it would never happen. It's also funny to see it playing on the computers in home appliances, because "why not?" Lol!

I think I recall Mario Sunshine was a bit irritating with the controls and that made it feel less relaxing to play.

But I have fond memories of lemmings mania, I used to draw all sorts of lemmings as a kid, make up new tribes and characters. It would be fun to be 11 again! :-)

 

[Panna]

I think I recall Mario Sunshine was a bit irritating with the controls and that made it feel less relaxing to play

Mario sunshine is pain to one hundred percent, specifically that poison river level that one hit kos you if you mess your jumps up trying to grab the red coins. The music is so good though

 

[Flippy]

In recent years I've been a hardcore snes pirate. I've always adored older games considering them to be superior to their flashy graphic counter parts in effort and writing, and so it's been extremely enjoyable.
A few I've found that have been really enjoyable is the Gaia trio, specifically terranigma and soul blazer.

Terranigma involves playing as a young man living in a village in the center of the earth who opens Pandora's box and goes around regenerating the planet by destroying guardians and freeing the souls of people, animals and even plants. I really enjoyed this one for having a feature that lets you teleport into the box to change armor and weapons. Pretty nifty for snes games. Great ost

soul blazer involves being called by god himself to free the souls of humanity that were sold to satan by the king. Musics great and it's not too hard, it's older than terranigma in terms of graphics and functionality but it's extremely enjoyable.

hopefully I'm not detailing the thread. If this interesting I got a few more I'd like to share

I have been a SNES pirate too over the years! I downloaded a huge collection from the pirate bay years ago and put them on an SD card to use on a real SNES using a flash cart, though it can't run SUPER FX games. Back then a work colleague and I worked out that if I had bought all the games at retail prices I would have paid millions lol!

Am I right in thinking that the Gaia games are known as the Earth Bound series in the UK. I've not played them but I feel sure that's what they were called over here. Well I did play one for a few minutes to test my flash cart as pirate copies of the game run with a really cruel glitch if they detect either the cart is not real or the system is a clone. As I remember the game just gets harder and harder and all the other characters in the game disappear making progress impossible!

 

[Deleted member 8975]

oh the original zelda! yeah I love that one too. It's like binding of Isaac but...way earlier lol. Comic zone is notoriously difficult. I've never gotten past the third area and just getting there is difficult.

The Oregon Trail has been remade so many times. The modern ones are nothing like the original 2. The Oregon Trail II had full FMV and it was just so amazing and funny. The original OT was really hard, What was cool about OT II was that when you died, you could be burried on the trail and in subsequent games if you left after that date, you could find your graves and partner graves along the trail too.

The hardest things in SMS were the parts where they took away the backpack. The camera controls were completely manual so you'd have to execute entire combos and movements sometimes blindly or be quick with your fingers. Luckily I was good with both XD

I agree about the lemmings. I wish they would reboot them. It would be cool to have a modern take and even a 2nd, 3d version maybe. Or like even just an adventure game exploring their lore. They were really cool. That reminds me as well of the zoombinis lol. Remember those?

 

[Flippy]

Oh shit, this is spooky! Clive Sinclair has just died! In case you don't know he is credited as the person who brought computing to the masses in the UK with the ZX80/81 and Sinclair Spectrum! So weird as the other night I just watched a docudrama about him and the 8bit computer revolution in the UK in the 80s! Quite a weird coincidence.

Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies aged 81

Creator of the landmark ZX Spectrum and the less commercially successful C5 died after a long illness

www.theguardian.com

 

[Panna]

I have been a SNES pirate too over the years! I downloaded a huge collection from the pirate bay years ago and put them on an SD card to use on a real SNES using a flash cart, though it can't run SUPER FX games. Back then a work colleague and I worked out that if I had bought all the games at retail prices I would have paid millions lol!

Am I right in thinking that the Gaia games are known as the Earth Bound series in the UK. I've not played them but I feel sure that's what they were called over here. Well I did play one for a few minutes to test my flash cart as pirate copies of the game run with a really cruel glitch if they detect either the cart is not real or the system is a clone. As I remember the game just gets harder and harder and all the other characters in the game disappear making progress impossible!

The earthbound series is entirely different, specifically made up of mother for nes, earthbound for snes, and mother 3 for game boy advance and never officially released in the us outside a fan patch. You're probably thinking of earthbound, if it detects a pirated copy the enemies show almost every second on map, and if you manage to reach the final boss it deletes your entire save file

 

[Mr2005]

Yes I traded my life for SNES games and now I don't even play them

 

[Flippy]

oh the original zelda! yeah I love that one too. It's like binding of Isaac but...way earlier lol. Comic zone is notoriously difficult. I've never gotten past the third area and just getting there is difficult.

The Oregon Trail has been remade so many times. The modern ones are nothing like the original 2. The Oregon Trail II had full FMV and it was just so amazing and funny. The original OT was really hard, What was cool about OT II was that when you died, you could be burried on the trail and in subsequent games if you left after that date, you could find your graves and partner graves along the trail too.

The hardest things in SMS were the parts where they took away the backpack. The camera controls were completely manual so you'd have to execute entire combos and movements sometimes blindly or be quick with your fingers. Luckily I was good with both XD

I agree about the lemmings. I wish they would reboot them. It would be cool to have a modern take and even a 2nd, 3d version maybe. Or like even just an adventure game exploring their lore. They were really cool. That reminds me as well of the zoombinis lol. Remember those?

The thing about lemmings is that it is just crying out for a mobile version! It's practically ready to go as it is! Just bung it on a phone and add touch controls!

I had no idea that there was a sequel to Oregon Trail, with fmv! That sounds quite impressive and the addition of the burial sites staying there on subsequent play throughs is pretty clever!

I think I get stuck on the third area on comix zone too, thinking about it. Basically I've lost all my continues and that's it, I'm done. I've got it on my Mega Drive mini so I should really think of giving it another play through! It's not set up at the minute and I just don't quite have the motivation to juggle HDMI ports and micro usb sockets right now :-/

The earthbound series is entirely different, specifically made up of mother for nes, earthbound for snes, and mother 3 for game boy advance and never officially released in the us outside a fan patch. You're probably thinking of earthbound, if it detects a pirated copy the enemies show almost every second on map, and if you manage to reach the final boss it deletes your entire save file

Oh I see, I'm muddling two franchises :-) You certainly know your retro games if you know about the glitch! I just played it for a little while to determine if my clone SNES system and my flash cart would trigger the bug and thankfully it all seemed fine. Yikes that was 5 years ago now!

Yes I traded my life for SNES games and now I don't even play them

I'm sorry you aren't playing them :-( I assume that like me you struggle to muster the motivation or concentration? I also struggle to be comfortable, due to pain and that is a constant distraction :-(

 

[callme]

Poor man, rest in peace Sir.

You guys MUST look for Speccy, the fully functional and surprisingly good ZX Spectrum emulator on Android. Archive org has a very good library of assorted ZX spectrum games courtesy of the same uploader. Have at it.

It's very heartwarming Mr. Sinclair built this computer as seemingly a hobbyist at-home project, and a modest one since he isn't the opportunist type Gates and Jobs had both become long ago, success didn't change him.
How did you even get it to work when computers and future was utopia? This is what a pioneer truly is. We all know the Jetsons and all the other views - by 2020 we would've had flying cars made of recycable material and humans would easily live to 150.

What a time the UK 80's must have had - ZX spectrum and Roy of the Rovers! And coin pushers at fairs, of course.

One interesting fact from behind the Iron curtain - our (read socialist USSR satellite) computer technology in the 80's was blatanltly stolen, yes, stolen because it would've never had reprecutions, from the US and UK computer architectures and renamed.
Slightly unrelated but, who doesn't know Simon the Sorcerer?

 

[Deleted member 8975]

I think they did a mobile Lemmings but it was the PS version or whatever. It was not good lol.

 

[Flippy]

I think they did a mobile Lemmings but it was the PS version or whatever. It was not good lol.

Oh wow, I must have been living under a rock, well actually thats probably fairly accurate recently. I had no idea that they actually made a mobile version!

 

[Deleted member 8975]

Oh wow, I must have been living under a rock, well actually thats probably fairly accurate recently. I had no idea that they actually made a mobile version!

Yes it is available on ios and ipad right now. It's garbage lol I 've played it :/

 

[Flippy]

Poor man, rest in peace Sir.

You guys MUST look for Speccy, the fully functional and surprisingly good ZX Spectrum emulator on Android. Archive org has a very good library of assorted ZX spectrum games courtesy of the same uploader. Have at it.

It's very heartwarming Mr. Sinclair built this computer as seemingly a hobbyist at-home project, and a modest one since he isn't the opportunist type Gates and Jobs had both become long ago, success didn't change him.
How did you even get it to work when computers and future was utopia? This is what a pioneer truly is. We all know the Jetsons and all the other views - by 2020 we would've had flying cars made of recycable material and humans would easily live to 150.

What a time the UK 80's must have had - ZX spectrum and Roy of the Rovers! And coin pushers at fairs, of course.

One interesting fact from behind the Iron curtain - our (read socialist USSR satellite) computer technology in the 80's was blatanltly stolen, yes, stolen because it would've never had reprecutions, from the US and UK computer architectures and renamed.
Slightly unrelated but, who doesn't know Simon the Sorcerer?

The good old Spectrum was endlessly cloned in Russia and communist countries in the 80s! There the Pentagon 128 and 512 and these machines were in use years after the west moved on from the Spectrum. Which just goes to show that we have too much of a throw away culture here!

I've built a ZX Spectrum clone, actually two the Harlequin and the ZXUno! The latter can do all the special modes of the Pentagon machines.

There's still a thriving home brew scene for the Spectrum machines in Russia! The Spectrum truly was the "People's Computer"! It's not my favourite machine but I've come to really appreciate the old Speccy over the years!

I think I have Simon the Sorcerer for my Amiga CD32 but even if I could find it, I couldn't really play it as the CD digital analogue convertor is burnt out so I can't get CD audio. The chip is really hard to find and I've looked into alternative chips but it would take quite a bit of modifications to get it to work sadly and I don't think I have the stamina to get it done :-(

 

[callme]

Too bad.. it's probably no good on Android either...

Have you tried Leisure Suit Larry reloaded? A remake of a 1987 game popular before internet existed - entirely crowdfunded with $3 million or so, 35 years later.

Also the old adventures - Sherlock Holmes and the silver earring, Murder on the Orient Express, the creepy Draculas and their horrible graphics..

 

[Flippy]

Yes it is available on ios and ipad right now. It's garbage lol I 've played it :/

Ah, don't have any iOS devices any more :-/ But I will see if there's any videos on it on YouTube!

This is quite fun, I'm glad I started this thread! :-)

Too bad.. it's probably no good on Android either...

Have you tried Leisure Suit Larry reloaded? A remake of a 1987 game popular before internet existed - entirely crowdfunded with $3 million or so, 35 years later.

Also the old adventures - Sherlock Holmes and the silver earring, Murder on the Orient Express, the creepy Draculas and their horrible graphics..

Actually, I've really been thinking of playing the Sherlock Holmes games, the FMV ones on mega CD or TurboGrafx CD. My girlfriend bought me an FPGA board for my birthday that I've converted into a MISTer system so I have basically any hardware system you can think of at my fingertips. It's a shame that I haven't used it as much as my girlfriend probably hoped. I really should try to use it as I'm very lucky to have it.

I never played Leisure Suit Larry back in the day as I never had a machine powerful enough to run it. My friends all used to play it ok their posh 16bit systems though. I suspect their parents didn't know.

I was happy enough with my 8bit system when the stars aligned briefly and I was allowed to enjoy it without being made to feel guilty.

I always thought my machine could run things like that so sometimes I used to make similar games that really only got to the proof of concept stage.

I was good at art so I could make some very decent pixel art that didn't look a million miles away from 16bit graphics.

 

[callme]

The good old Spectrum was endlessly cloned in Russia and communist countries in the 80s! There the Pentagon 128 and 512 and these machines were in use years after the west moved on from the Spectrum. Which just goes to show that we have too much of a throw away culture here!

I've built a ZX Spectrum clone, actually two the Harlequin and the ZXUno! The latter can do all the special modes of the Pentagon machines.

There's still a thriving home brew scene for the Spectrum machines in Russia! The Spectrum truly was the "People's Computer"! It's not my favourite machine but I've come to really appreciate the old Speccy over the years!

I think I have Simon the Sorcerer for my Amiga CD32 but even if I could find it, I couldn't really play it as the CD digital analogue convertor is burnt out so I can't get CD audio. The chip is really hard to find and I've looked into alternative chips but it would take quite a bit of modifications to get it to work sadly and I don't think I have the stamina to get it done :-(

ZX in particular? No wonder, I had doubts it was early Wndows but when it comes to the cost of a then-Windows, no way.

It must've been hard to access all parts needed back then. If you did recently, parts are old and expensive if in a good state.

Really?! I thought the russian retard Dota culture is in full swing, as it looks like it has for the past 10 years? Sorry, although I am in my 20's, I am very disconnected to computers and only ever had one, you know something something poverty.

Amiga 32 can be played on a regular Amiga, yes? All the great adventure titles in one place. How do you mod it? It seems on those consoles if you make a mistake, it's as good as gone.

It feels terrible being young, never being a gamer, yet liking all the old classics but never have owned a console. Not everybody's fave, but NHL and Heavyweight Boxing plus Contra speak well enough.

 

[Flippy]

ZX in particular? No wonder, I had doubts it was early Wndows but when it comes to the cost of a then-Windows, no way.

It must've been hard to access all parts needed back then. If you did recently, parts are old and expensive if in a good state.

Really?! I thought the russian retard Dota culture is in full swing, as it looks like it has for the past 10 years? Sorry, although I am in my 20's, I am very disconnected to computers and only ever had one, you know something something poverty.

Amiga 32 can be played on a regular Amiga, yes? All the great adventure titles in one place. How do you mod it? It seems on those consoles if you make a mistake, it's as good as gone.

It feels terrible being young, never being a gamer, yet liking all the old classics but never have owned a console. Not everybody's fave, but NHL and Heavyweight Boxing plus Contra speak well enough.

The ZX Spectrum did predate Windows by a good few years. Basically while in the west we bought (to an extent) the latest thing and threw away the older machines, not considering them viable for "serious" use, people in Russia built clones of those same machines, adding improvements and making them do things that were considered impossible. For example; adding way more RAM, hard disks, floppy drives and more sophisticated graphics modes. These became the machines used in schools and smaller offices, whilst the more advanced machines were only available to the government etc.

But if you want to know how these retro machines can be modified, basically the Russian computer geeks are a perfect example. Basically the chips in computers are constructed of transistors. You can think of them as electronically triggered switches. If you combine the transistors in different ways you can get them to do lots of complex things. A chip, or integrated circuit (IC) is just basically transistors connected together in a specific way for a specific reason.

Now, if you were a Russian hacker in the 80s and your friend had bought a smuggled in ZX Spectrum, you might decide you want one, but can't afford to have one smuggled. So some clever people started to figure out what chips were in there and find russian clones of those chips (usually from the military). They would connect it all together the same way and where they couldn't find a clone for a custom chip (like the spectrum ULA) they would figure out how it worked and use several other chips to make a copy. If they didn't have the right chips, they might make an equivalent from transistors.

When you modify these old machines it's pretty similar, you maybe find a broken burnt out part, you search up the number on the part on Google for example and see if you can track it down or if there's a clone replacement available. If there's no replacement, then you search for the parts data sheet (google again) and then when you understand how the chip works you can look for an alternative. In a lot of cases you just need to wire the part in differently, but in some cases, you can't find the right part so you have to modify the circuit board to accept the new part and do the same job by adding different passives such as capacitors, resisters, inductors and maybe crystal oscillators.

You have to get creative some times with it. But as long as you are careful and don't work on a retro (or any other) computer while it's plugged in with a soldering iron and you don't break anything it's actually perfectly safe to modify them. :-)

 

[user_name_here]

I like playing SNES jrpgs on emulator apps - some online, some stand alone PC and some on my phone. Quite a few decent emulators on the app store.

Quite enjoy many of the PS1 classics too. I thought the PS1 mini that came out a few years ago was just short of being good. It needed way more titles

 

[nex]

After going with SNES and later games, 3D etc., I've come back to playing 8-bit games. Gargoyle's Quest 1+2, Mega Man 4, and mostly Mega Man 9 which is kind of a modern game but slavishly adheres to the technical limitations of the NES. These games hold up even today and there's something about their limitations that makes them stand out even today. For example, modern 2D games tend to spam visual effects and screen shake whenever they can, because... well, just because they can. Mega Man 4 is a great game regardless of the time you're playing it, and not spamming VFX and screen shake all the fucking time makes it a better game than most contemporary platformers.

 

[Flippy]

After going with SNES and later games, 3D etc., I've come back to playing 8-bit games. Gargoyle's Quest 1+2, Mega Man 4, and mostly Mega Man 9 which is kind of a modern game but slavishly adheres to the technical limitations of the NES. These games hold up even today and there's something about their limitations that makes them stand out even today. For example, modern 2D games tend to spam visual effects and screen shake whenever they can, because... well, just because they can. Mega Man 4 is a great game regardless of the time you're playing it, and not spamming VFX and screen shake all the fucking time makes it a better game than most contemporary platformers.

Cool, I like the renaissance of 2D Pixel games that's been happening over recent years. I think restricting yourself to the range of abilities of a retro system makes you think more creatively. New games look amazingly realistic, but it's rare that they impress me. In my mind I'm more impressed with a neat trick someone figures out, that manages to do the impossible or seemingly impossible. When you've got more gigaflops than you can shake a stick at, the visuals had better be impressive!

Did you play that Mighty No.9 game (I have it, pretty sure I got the title right) I bought it for the WiiU for cheap a couple of years ago. Managed to start getting quite into that game before my last major episode of anxiety and severe depression. Anyway, if you have played it, what did you think of it? :-)

I like playing SNES jrpgs on emulator apps - some online, some stand alone PC and some on my phone. Quite a few decent emulators on the app store.

Quite enjoy many of the PS1 classics too. I thought the PS1 mini that came out a few years ago was just short of being good. It needed way more titles

You can hack the PS1 classic to run better and get more games. I think the process is pretty trivial these days! You could play some PS1 classics and pretend you are a giant!

As for the SNES, if you are interested in trying the games on real hardware you can get flashcarts now that let you put the ROMs on an SD card and play the games on authentic hardware and can sometimes even let you save like an emulator. You might wonder what's the point, but I think it's really cool to see a limited resources console perform. Emulators have all the resources in the world by comparison. There's just something cool about using the original hardware in my opinion :-)

 

[Makko]

I remember playing one of those early pokemon games on a handheld console in middle school. I think it was Silver. I liked naming my pokemons after people I knew in real life and breeding them together for the lulz. I was also angry that I couldn't join Team Rocket and that Haunter wouldn't evolve no matter how much I leveled it up.

Funny that I don't remember where I got the console from; it was certainly not from my parents. I think I stole it from someone.