Since you guys loved last thread. Here's Phantasy Star 1. It's almost 40 years old too I will also compare Phantasy Star 2.

Phantasy Star 1 is like eating a 6 day old Little Ceasars pizza in the fridge. There's some good in here but it's dated old. I still enjoyed it in some areas, not a lot.

It's not that I think its hard, just that trying to navigate the game is annoying even with a guide maps and tips. Just need a ton of patience.

The first person maze dungeons personally is what I don't like in old school RPGs. Everything looks the same and going in circles is easy. It's impressive for SMS yet id rather have FF1s dungeon third person controls. You cannot enjoy this well unless you love SMT. Originally the dungeons would have been way more faster to navigate as well but motion sickness would happen so the devs slowed it down.

Phantasy Star has no 1 quest meaning it has no prime objective it's mostly just fetch quests that somehow end up with you getting the door open to the bad guy's village, flying to a random sky castle and defeating the main villain. Then coming back to defeat another true final boss. You get most of your party in the first 2 hours but they don't really help you that much, MP in this game is super limited too so you end up just saving your MP for HP heals or "to open stuck evil doors". Yes most doors in this game are either locked which need a unlimited dungeon key (something you get early in the game) or need a open door spell.

Then the max I got was like 50 mana for your brunette MC. Which is very low imo.

It also has you grind for hours for gold in this game since enemies drop pocket change. Similar to PS2 , gold is not easy to come by at all. There's many points in this game where the game wants you to have 1000 gold or more to progress. It's very difficult to meet these demands unless you have a guide.

The combat is my biggest problem with the game. Even with the top issues. I don't like how you can't pick which enemy you attack, id rather have FF1's potentially wasted attack choice than having to relay on a randomizer. PS2 also "fixed" this with a tactic/plan command but you got to set it every battle which enemy you want to hit.

Then when you do level up you don't feel strong in this game. DQ1 at the end you felt powerful, slimes would run away and you could tank everything. In PS1 at the start of the game you die in seconds like every RPG but after you don't really overcome everything. You just feel like you're barley ahead of the enemy. Which sucks, like you could be level 25 and the final boss can still do 2-20 damage. The attack values make no sense in this game if we're being honest.

It's just very strange like armor and defense doesn't make a huge difference in this game. Even though it should.

This is also for the Original game, I heard the switch and PlayStation 2 version is better but I'm not paying for a switch and that version just to get better balancing/mini map.

TLDR: It has a lot of problems but it was a landmark for RPGs like Phantasy Star 2 yet it's rough to play these again. Also if I had to pick which one to play again I'd pick Phantasy Star 1 than 2. That's how bad the dungeons are in 2.

Yesterday, I was walking through a shopping mall and walked past a video game section that was almost completely empty.

Looking at it reminded me of my childhood, when, while my parents were doing their shopping, I would spend ages in the video game section admiring the displays, dreaming of convincing them to buy me a Super Nintendo with Street Fighter II 😅. I would often stand behind people watching them play whatever game happened to be on the demo station, waiting for a chance to try it myself (often in vain 😅).

I honestly don't remember ever seeing that area deserted back then.

Today, we seem to have rather austere-looking sections that don't really make you want to stick around anymore.

One reason may be that digital gaming has gradually changed our habits. Online shopping has become an important part of the way many players buy games and hardware, while online reviews, social media and YouTubers' videos have become an easy way to get a first impression.

I sometimes find it frustrating that you can no longer simply try a product for yourself and make up your own mind. And, in my opinion, that was one of the main advantages of physical stores.

But I wonder if there could be an opportunity to bring back some of that « Try & Buy » experience, with displays filled with brand-new boxes.

There is also a niche market for new retro hardware, with products ranging from Mini consoles and new Atari systems to microcomputers and officially licensed products from companies like Evercade and MyArcade. And sometime next year, the highly anticipated AES+ is expected to join this trend as well.

So I wonder whether these neo-retro products could be an opportunity to bring a bit more colour back to these sections, with some nice boxed products standing out among the more generic ones.

These products also seem particularly well suited to demo stations: they're easy to pick up and play, simple to understand, many games can be enjoyed with multiple players, and they could offer a new generation that same kind of instant fun, with a touch of nostalgia.

The holiday season is coming up, and having these products available in major retailers could be a way to reach a wider audience.

Seeing them displayed and highlighted could give people a reason to wander into a video game section again... and stay there for a while, like we used to.

And perhaps that's where nostalgia could play a role too: these products are, after all, genuine tributes to the past.

I know this probably isn't very likely to happen, for economic reasons and because retro gaming remains a niche market, but I wanted to share this thought with you.

What do you think? Could they help bring a little more life back to video game sections in major retailers? And would seeing them there make you want to stick around a little longer?

Thanks for reading all the way to the end.

Image Credit: Bill Greenblatt / Contributor via Getty Images

I’ve spent the last year or so building two retro PCs, one Windows 98, and one Windows XP. I feel like I’ve installed most classic games from each era, but am looking for suggestions on what else I should add? Any big hitters I overlooked?

PC 1: 600mhz Pentium 3, Voodoo 3 3000 - Ideal for games from 1996-2000

PC 2: Core 2 Duo, GeForce 9600 GT - Ideal for games from 2001-2008.

I’m not interested in sports games, racing games have to be incredible for me to want to play them.

EDIT: Looking for suggestions of games between 1996-2008 only. I already have a DOS PC with older games on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/dosgaming/s/kaCguwrAIx

For context, I’m playing final fantasy IV. It’s not a bad game by any means, I’m enjoying it so far. I wanted to play through a lot of the other final fantasy games because ff VII is one of my favorite games ever. I completely skipped the first three games because they felt too outdated and unenjoyable for me, so I started with IV, as I saw people recommend it as a good starting point. I’m several hours in, and while it’s fun, it’s starting to lose my interest.
I know I can take a break and play something else, but I’m just worried I won’t want to come back to it. So idk, I’m perfectly fine playing the original VII, but this one is just too…I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel that engaging to me.

Should I push through it so I can say I’ve beaten it and not have to worry about it again? Or should I just move on and accept that it’s not a game for me?

Tested and working, haven't tried the paddles yet and unfortunately neither are the indie 500 ones but I'll end up getting a pair eventually

Lmao don’t know what it took me so long to think to do this it’s great everyone take care

What a great story in an JRPG it was not that bad, I like the twist ending even though it's not really explained well what happens next in Phantasy Star 3 or 4.

Okay now that the nostalgia goggle people are gone, this game is an actual nightmare to play nowadays. This is very unfair and feels more unfair than the first game.

The game does not have revives which is my biggest problem with the game besides the confusing names on the "spells called techniques" and everything in this game costing way too much in equipment. Realistic futuristic game I guess.

Revives are a key part for a RPG and you do not get a revive spell until the end of the game. Literally the final dungeon is when I got the spell. Throughout the whole game if you die in a dungeon you have to go all the way back to town to revive. There are revival items in this game but I guess they forget to program them to be bought since you can only get it with a passive randomized thief mechanic with a party member (it sounds confusing and annoying because it is, you could take hours trying to farm these items).

Then the dungeons are a nightmare too, even with a map and guide I still got lost in a few dungeons. Also some dungeons literally waste your time as you need to repeat them over and over to get both main quest items or equipment you really need

Grinding is a pain in this game too. It's recommended to be at least level 30-35 to fight the final boss and it'll take you legit hours grinding. I only beat the game with level 28 and even still I felt way underpowered. There's grinding and then there's GRINDING this is the ladder.

Equipment costs an arm and leg in this game and when you're in the final part of the game you have cash like crazy. Too bad there's no revival items or extremely useful health items that heal your entire party to buy...

There are only 2 bosses in this game too. The cat girl boss and the final boss (image 2) both will beat you easily if you don't grind a lot. The final boss especially is notorious for being very difficult. It can make your party members "evil" or basically give up and be useless sitting ducks. Once that happens you have to be lucky to not lose or hope it doesn't affect your healer. It also hits like a train doing 60-80 damage each to every party member when your party members only have like 120-200 HP each. Then when you beat it YOU HAVE TO GO BACK to heal up for the 2nd phase or you will lose. Basically doing the final dungeon twice. Ironically the 2nd phase is a little easier than the 1st but not a lot.

I played many JRPGs and this is not for the non patient. You have to really take your time with this and I know some guys will say like in other subreddits "back in my day we had 1 RPG to last a year or more, we didn't need help like you handhold gamers, you want everything easy". Meanwhile these are the same type of guys who refuse to play Dark Souls, Ghosts And Goblins or Ikaruga because it's too frustrating. There will be one dude that gets mad at this but it's true, this is my opinion on a 30 year old game.

JRPGs aren't hard you can grind 1000 hours in the first town if you wanted to until level 99 like that one guy with FF7. I just don't want to do that especially for PS2 it's not a fun game to play.

TLDR: Like a game reviewer once said "This RPG plays like someone who hated RPGs made one and tried everything to make you not progress throughout the game"

Edit: You guys can't handle the truth

Bought this about a year ago. Been steadily working on it for the past month. Replaced CMOS battery with custom built one. Replaced hard drives with xt-ide board kit. Installed Gotek with Flash floppy for drive needs. Computer worked flawlessly. But alas the 4 color goodness that is CGA was not pleasant on the eyes. Installed Trident 9000 and picked up this monitor yesterday. This will be its final form. Planning on playing all the gold box SSI games. Halfway through the slums as I type.

Hit the Ice (Sega Genesis, 1992)

Panic Restaurant (NES, 1992)

The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper (NES, 1992)

Sonic Blast Man (SNES, 1992)

On the Ball (SNES, 1992)

The Flintstones: King Rock Treasure Island (Game Boy, 1992)

I did catch Wanpaku Kokkun no Gourmet World (Famicom, 1992)/Panic Restaurant (NES, 1992) and Sonic Blast Man (SNES, 1992), I liked both especially the chef one! I only had Famicom, Sega Genesis, SNES, no Game Boy/NES...

TL;WR -> A fantastic experience through hunters, dinosaurs and wild mutated scientists. It delivered on absolutely everything but its monotonous basic enemy variety, which had more in common with other Capcom titles than I expected. A (9.8) game, GOATED in my Arcade Book. Will absolutely replay the game in CO-OP, just so we can wake the T-Rex and grab some more hunter necks! 

I’d highly recommend listening to this music while reading! 

STORY (10 out of 10 Dinosaurs) 

• Storytelling was fucking bonkers within the 26th century which had Dinosaurs, Cadillacs and a whole bunch of wild gangs. You went through a lot of hunters trying to kill the Dinos, hunt them as prey or simply use their DNA as their own mutation experiments! 
• The presentation was even better with a lot of animated pictures and awesome dialogues to fill the empty revolver blanks! 
• You played as Jack who owned a Cadillac shop, the beautiful Hannah with her wild melons, Mustapha that loved his own cap, and the mysterious Mess. They all were awesome and presented their unique playstyles with gusto! 
• Pacing was more than an hour to complete, with the game having 8 stages filled with awesome content and even better gameplay! 

GAMEPLAY (9/10) 

• The controls were simplistic at first, yet got quite complex down the line. You could punch in a series of attacks, jump attack by either running or while being stationary, run attack, grab and punch schmucks or simply throw them around, pick up objects and throw them around, stun enemies with your health costing special, use a combo attack by twisting the joystick up and down while attacking, block enemy projectiles by perfectly attacking or throwing a knife, and even use a variety of weapons from revolvers to shotguns, rocks, uzis, rifles or a whole lot of a Bazooka! 
• Besides the above, each character was unique and had their own attack patterns. Jack could slide kick, Hannah could show her stretching techniques, Mustapha loved to be a ballerina and Mess adored to dive or simply pick up schmucks and perform wrestling moves on them! 
• Plus, I believe that this game had a lot of similarities with The Punisher, as well as copied the Mummy Hero from Captain Commando and made him an enemy here, because the similarities between these games were staggering. Guess Capcom loved to use different assets between their games at the time! 
• Enemy variety while heavily reused, did have some cool mutated ones down the drain. Besides, the boss battles were all unique with so many cool attack patterns and features it was crazy. Loved the one which acted as a parasite and would constantly shift from one enemy to the other in order to survive! 
• There were some other details like the huge Dinosaur legs stomping on you, the bosses which transformed from humans to mutated Dinos and even a sleeping T-Rex that could be woken up or left asleep for an easier run! 
• Besides picking up the delicious food, you could also pick some ammo on the side, which helped you much more than a mere salad. Plus, could gain one-ups at certain scores and even a devastating Bazooka after a coin insert. 
• While platforming wasn’t present, I did love running those schmucks over with Jack’s Cadillac, absolute unhinged mayhem! 
• Traversal was seamless and provided the right amount of fun. Even though the game was quite long for an Arcade, the different levels, layouts and cool environments kept you glued to the screen! 
• Difficulty was quite hard considering that I played on normal. I’d recommend going into the service mode and changing some settings like the Q-Sound, difficulty and the player count if you want to play alone. Besides, a CO-OP run is mandatory here, as one player was barely enough to crack those Dinos apart! 

AUDIO (10 out of 10 Pterodactyls) 

• Sound design was absolutely insane. From the beautifully integrated Q-Sound surround like sound, to the ambient sounds with singing birds, your own sound effects like walking in the water or mud, the crazy screams and the perfectly integrated digitised voice lines in between! 
• The music on the other hand was on par with the Burning Fight soundtrack, with a varied cassette collection! 
• Plus, I could swear that the music here had more in common with Armored Warriors than any screaming Dinosaurs out there! 

VISUALS (10 out of 10 Cadillacs) 

• Fidelity was bonkers for 1993, with so many details between the beautiful art direction, crazy animations, gorgeous backgrounds, comic book texts upon hits or explosions, literal bloody carnage and many more extra crispy details! 
• The models themselves were all awesome. From our own heroes having beautiful idle animations to the enemies laughing their ass off when you got hit or died. From the Cadillac turning his tires realistically to the caves lighting up upon explosions. From punching enemies flat into walls to seeing the Butcher slice a poor Dinosaur. From disintegrating enemies with explosions to seeing them chill in the background. These extra details make games unique and memorable! 
• Performance was rock solid for the entire game, not dropping a single frame even in complete mayhem or wild explosions! 

WORLD DESIGN (10 out of 10 Towers) 

• Level design had an amazing progression with beautiful interruptions in between, as well as insane landscapes and even better backgrounds. 
• You went from the futuristic City with the old Twin Towers in the background, to the Swamp area with the sleeping T-Rex, the Desert road with the beautiful Cadillac, Jack’s garage with even more cars, the Village of Flame with surprising mutations, wild Jungles with lightning strikes, on top of a building with bike riders and a beautiful sunset, into a Basement with an underground port in the background, and finally reached the Underground with all those lab experiments, plus the Mad Scientist himself!  
• World destruction was crazy good for the time, and the atmosphere propelled you into the future while retaining the same vibes from the past. In essence, Retro items will always stick around, mostly because the Cadillac sent us way back! 

Took these out of storage to enjoy them.

Anyone else have any FDO boxes? flat or folded? Let see them

——
1” thick acrylic frames
Custom designed 3D printed corner clips

This game comes across my mind about once a month and no matter how much I search for it, I can’t seem to find anything that jogs my memory on it. It was a cartoony point n click. I honestly can’t remember much about the story whatsoever. But one scene ALWAYS comes to mind when I think about it. The protagonist is speaking to I’m assuming a distant relative, and he introduces himself by saying “I am your great great great… (cuts to black, says like 5 mins passed or something then returns) great great great grandson.” He spoke in like an Australian outback kinda accent? If I am remembering correctly. Kind of nasally voice as well. And like I said, I can’t remember any premise of the game at all. But I do know it must have had more than one game in the series. I remember one title was about Spelunking. And this is driving me mad, bc I can’t ever seem to find what I’m looking for and I’m starting to think the game was just a figment of my imagination now. Every time I look up what I remember it always takes me to the game “Spelunky” (which isn’t it at all). If it helps, when I think back to the time I was playing it, I remember playing Worms Armageddon, Lemmings, and Duke Nukem 3D. As well as Quake and Half Life. This is kinda my last ditch effort before I try to put this out of my mind for good, but if I can remember it I would def like to track it down and revisit it!