On Apr 02 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “it could be a loincloth/quiver, like pirates have "quiver me timbers"”
On Apr 02 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “The white collar fraud site has a whole section of pages dedicated to Crazy Eddy, including one on ads.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Can confirm - as soon as I read this I heard the ad tagline in my head! Though IIRC the business model was accounting and tax fraud, not moving stolen goods.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “The first Conan stories didn't hit public domain in Europe until 2008, and won't hit in the US until 2028.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “ PS. I put a few hours more into the game, and I cannot replicate your bug with the save names, not even when switching keyboards. I ran DOSBox 0.74-3, and the game from myabandonware . The game runs from c:\games\wol\”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Anybody who grew up in the Channel 11 viewing area (about a 100-mile radius around NYC) knows Crazy Eddy. He sold discount electronics, and his prices were...INSANE (mostly because it turned out his wares had 'fallen off of a truck').”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Looks like a quiver to me, which would make sense if one of the characters is supposed to be an archer.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Lots of Conan references. One of the longest of Howard's Conan stories was The People of the Black Circle from 1934. Quite good from what I recall.That Yarra guy sounds like he is over qualified to becoming a Country singer with a drinking problem.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “"Astrovir" could be the grown-up (adult-themed?) version of Astro Boy, and not just for Greek Geeks and Latin Lovers.Or a virus-themed variant of the recent hit game Astro Bot.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “The graphics are passable but the engine shows its age. But this time graphics where all over the place, 3d had just started to become relevant and companies still released games for older computers, being cutting edge and only playable on top end hardware could hurt sales.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Hey, I remember this one!Not the game itself, actually, but a review I read some 30 years ago. The reviewer called the game "a diamond in the raw", which would more or less align with your first impression of "interesting ideas, but janky execution". He also specifically mentioned the countless barbarian jokes that would be told in the city. In an era where the Xeen games, for…”
On Apr 01 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I remember skipping a bunch of content in Fallout 3 the first time I played it because I went exploring. For that reason, I kind of prefer having to trip a flag the first time I play things. Or maybe I should explore less. I dunno. Because I love the Matilda Gate in Suikoden 2.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “ The graphics are very clunky for 1993.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “The setting in Lemuria, combined with the "Dragon King" and quest to stop a gateway to chaos from being opened are also highly reminiscent of The Wizard of Lemuria, a Conan pastiche written by Lin Carter; the finale of the novel even involves an escape from the castle of the Dragon Kings (basically where this game starts).”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “"and NOT dressed like clowns."Well, I'm out. ”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Osric is the king in the conan movie”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Lemuria is a setting in conan stories, in the previous age, with Kull , thuriam age”
On Apr 01 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Old Wow Bastard, commenting anonymously because blogspot is sketchy. 1) you not knowing what a switch is/was is very on brand sir. Love it. 2) Let me just quickly express my extreme joy at seeing you review this. I played this when it was fresh and new. Will always have a very fond place in my heart. I very much hope you move onto PS2, as it’s a very substantive RPG imo. 3 is ok. 4 is good but…”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Bracer/armband?”
On Apr 01 commented on plot continuity across sequels ft: “No surprise I am so into it given I have been compiling an ongoing list of CRPGs where you can import characters/parties/world states from one game to another for ages, but yeah Wizardry VI/VII/8 is like the gold standard for this kind of behavior as far as I am concerned, even if I can definitely understand preferring something like Mass Effect's take on it.But yes, any time I see an…”
On Apr 01 commented on plot continuity across sequels ft: “When I started attending tabletop gaming conventions in the 1990s you would still occasionally see something about this written in the description of a game, like reminding you "NO homebrew characters from other campaigns" or similar, as the practice had died out recently enough that apparently some people still tried to show up with their half-dragon half-giant half-drow half-celestial…”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “The people from the Ataris Brand were Keena on playing Astrovir.I agree the manual and interface don't sound too helpful regarding the character classes. Nevertheless, if it says none of the characters is a cleric, then I'd assume Astrovir is a wizard. As for the archer, according to a walkthrough, it seems (ROT13) univat uvtu ntvyvgl / na nepure / hfvat objf vf abg ernyyl arprffnel be ng…”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “A bunch of carrots hidden behind a tapestry and some bones in a bookcase. Just your average RPG town household.Nice callbacks to games already played with KoL and SotSB. Beyond the lemurs, I took the Madagascar reference to also be about the animated films given the visitors arriving with their "exotic nature, strange tales and "feats of magic" [as perceived by the…”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “"Someone" being the game manual: "While each of the four characters is one of the five character classes,the fifth class, Cleric, can be utilized by any of them with high wisdom." This is impossible to reconcile with what you see on the character screen.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “ Looks like Lemuria is considerably older than a lot of other stuff; it was proposed in 1864, and it was not completely insane for the state of science at the time (or, should we say, during 1930es). This being said, the beauty of Amazing Stories crowd is that they drew quite liberally from the latest in greatest (at the time) in all science, history and anthropology included.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Given that the combat/clerical/etc. list has no numbers, isn't interactive and doesn't seem to appear past the creation screen, I would assume it's just meant as an explanation of what each stat does. ”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “ I just installed it, and so far I didn't encounter the save bug that Chet alludes to. In general, I've seen a bug with similar symptoms before; it happens if you switch your keyboard layout from English with default UTF-8 symbols to something with extra letters (some French letters qualify, AFAIR). Do you have any additional keyboard layouts installed in your Windows? Could you have…”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “I honestly didn't know that lemurs were the actual origin of "Lemuria." That's pretty funny. I also didn't know there were lemurs in India.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “I'm going with quiver.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Well, while the character creation/development, the dialogue trees, and the combat system seem lacklustre, at least the graphics are okay for their time. ”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “Yeah, Lemuria is definitely a concept Howard picked up (it was a pre-existing idea developed by Theosophists, and also gets name-checked in the Cthulhu Mythos). Per the name, it was originally a theory about why there are lemurs in India and Madagascar, but not the rest of Africa -- but because this was before plate tectonics, they thought there was an original lost continent that sank and broke…”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “ Lemuria, or Mu, is a canonical part of Conan's world. I also thought that Conan was in public domain and didn't need a license.”
On Apr 01 commented on game 546 warriors of legend 1993: “"whatever the thing in the lower right is"My guess would be a loincloth.”
On Apr 01 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Other examples covered on this blog: Bronze Dragon: Conquest of Infinity, Whale's Voyage, Space Hulk. Then there were games where the title also promised or at least hinted at something which was never expanded upon, e.g. Rivers of Light, Gates of Delirium, Fate: Gates of Dawn.Heck, you could even put classics like Final Fantasy (I'm aware of the story behind FF's name, but the…”
On Apr 01 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “In regards to the which is better discussion, I vastly prefer being able to stumble into finding something early. I could see a situation where an NPC tells you they will put an item somewhere and therefore you can't get it until then but otherwise let me pick it up. I remember playing a game called Tower of Time and coming on a weird item that it let me interact with but it just said you…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “"Gothic forest" is an artefact of translation. It was "Gashiko" forest in the original.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “In the case of the hovercraft here, I think the intent is that it is just unusable junk without the robot, so unremarkable you don't even notice it.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Worth noting here that a majority of console RPGs of this generation never made it to the US. They required cartridges with extra RAM, ROM, and battery backup - that was expensive. The much larger amount of text to translate compared to most console games of the era was also expensive. Most RPG titles cost two or three times as much as a typical game for the platform. This was also long before…”
On Mar 31 commented on game 447 forest of long shadows 1986: “Martin Page released Return to Long Shadows in 2023. Two versions are available here:https://martin-page.itch.io/”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Not allowing sequence breaking is easier for the linear, carefully planned dramatic stories of JRPGs. But instead of having the player search some area he might have combed through before, it's always possible to prevent access to areas where the player needs to find something later, by putting some obstacle before it, or making it accessible via a method of transportation the player will get…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Also in fairness, publishing a Nintendo Revolution console would have all XBox and PS fans in stitches because "Nintendo is Revolting"!”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star banallure: “When traveling on the Altiplano Plateau, you should always bring along provisions like naan bread or chai tea.”
On Mar 31 commented on game 302 wizardry crusaders of dark: “Absolutely devastated to Goog "Old 5 Kagal Survey" and see it never appears again after this entry”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Baldur's Gate just being the name of a town”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “And as unsolicited reply to one of your earlier comments along the line of „how did they expect players to figure this out“, I expect that designers knew and expected that we‘d spend waaaay more time on games back then without switching. You only had the cartridges that your parents bought ir that your pocket-money afforded you. So there was not much else to play. And Internet obviously. So if…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I am really happy that you are doing Phantasy Star! I played it when I was 10 or 11 year-old when it released and it is the first game I ever beat and 100%ed. I played through it again a few years later and I played through it again about 20 years later in my thirties and I still remembered the lay-out of many if the dungeons… crazy stuff. I love reading your playthrough, comments and…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Well, in fairness, it's supposed to refer to "we" and the two lower case i's are supposed to evoke a pair of people, both intended to emphasise the local multiplayer strengths of the console. It's just that didn't translate to English too well.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “There was that brief glorious moment when they were going to call the Gamecube successor "Revolution" but they decided to instead name it after a euphemism for urination.”
On Mar 31 commented on video summary of early era: “Well now that the video is gone, I have to say this is the only post from the beginning of your chronicle up until August 2018 that I cannot envision myself telling someone to check out. Looks like RPGBirdy cleared the whole channel six years ago and only has two unrelated videos up now?”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Isn´t it standard to name consoles to something stupid, thinking about x-box naming progression or Sony just phoning it in. With the exception of the gamecube that one was pure excellence in innovative names for a console.”
On Mar 31 commented on game 301 dungeons of kairn 1989: “Rolemaster was sarcastically so well-known as "Rollmaster" that I knew more than a few people who thought the latter was actually their company name. I certainly never played any of Iron Crown Enterprises' game systems, but I owned at least a half-dozen of their publications over the years since they were so fond of producing lists of equipment or random tables that could easily be…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Believe it or not, it gets worse after the dams.”
On Mar 31 commented on game 300 citadel of vras 1989: “The spaceport visual is stunningly evocative for the era. I probably would have left that screen open while doing my homework or something if I had played it back in the day. Well and been old enough for homework”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Well get ready for the awesome powers of Nintendo naming again as they prepare to launch their next console this year.... ... ... Switch 2!!! I wonder how much money the spent on coming up with that!”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “The game has a terse but I think fairly complete clue chain explaining what all of the quest items are for. The only missing link is someone explicitly telling you where Lassic is but I believe in the next entry Chet will relay the experience of finding the location after having gone everywhere else, theorizing Lassic has to be there because he's not anywhere else, and then realizing that all…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “If you don't have the Mirror Shield, she turns the entire party to stone on her turn. You can get lucky and keep having Alis cast ROPE (or is it Bindwa now? Three games and two thousand years are hell on magic names) on her while the rest of the party wrecks Medusa.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Yeah, you need the Crystal in order to avoid getting insta-fried by his hell lightning.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “The second game, "Legend of Darkmoon", has nothing to do with darkness or with moons; it simply takes place in a temple called "Darkmoon". Also, there's no "legend" involved; we just know there's a Bad Guy at the temple, and the party goes to beat him up.Although still called "Eye of the Beholder", the beholders in the second game have no plot…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “For what it's worth at this late stage:Barbrian, Dezorian, E.Farmer, Evilhead, N.Farmer - TALK or CHAT/TELE.Centaur, Horseman, Manticor, Sphinx, Tarantul - CHAT/TELE.I didn't know this until recently, but you can talk to the dragons! They respond to CHAT/TELE magic, but I don't know if that "wins" the encounter in the case of the unique dragons.The Magic Hat mimics CHAT…”
On Mar 31 commented on brief caer shiraz 1984: “That is an amazing coincidence. Thanks for the additional information, and please thank Dr. Kay for us when you see him again.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Hey, you want to hear something funny? Until just now, when I looked it up, I didn't even know what a Nintendo Switch was. I thought it had something to do with live streaming. I guess I was mixing it up with Twitch. Nintendo doesn't really do a great job naming things, does it? For years, I thought the Wii U had something to do with online education.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “My general rules for estimating a game's time is to halve whatever it claims on the box and double whatever is listed as the average on HowLongToBeat. That site doesn't make any distinction between blind play and winning with cheats, walkthroughs, and maps, which I'm sure that 90% of players smugly recording their times on that site are using.Last night, it took me almost two hours…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “That's another great example.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I had a further thought on your "Gothic Forest" banaal naming from the other session. There's entire games named like this! Take say, Eye of the Beholder. Is this a story that makes you doubt reality, or take different viewpoints into account because the perception is not what it seems? No, you go find a wand made out of a beholder eye and go point it at another beholder eye until…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “When it comes down to it, Phantasy Star 2 is amongst the harder jrpgs, esp of that period. I don't blame them including a guide. Getting it second hand though, that is not how I received it..”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I think I genuinely prefer a less "plot triggers" environment where you can find the item without being told.However this can sometimes lead to the flaw where you found the item outside of regular progression, but have no idea why you need it. Not that this game has so far set up "why" you need things, but still”
On Mar 31 commented on brief caer shiraz 1984: “I just read that comment this weekend, and then today I serendipitously discovered that the author of "Caer Shiraz", Dr. Paul Kay, works on the floor just below my office! We chatted, and he gave me some extra info, which he said I could share.He was 14 or 15 years old when he wrote the game. The original (unpublished?) version was for the VIC-20, and required you to re-load between the…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “PS: Looking at the armour Amundsen received in Japan as well as the descriptions in the Sega Ages version in-game Monster Manual (see e.g. here), I think Narwhal is right that there is a connection.While Frostman is characterized in the latter as "An ice warrior found on the frozen planet Dezoris. [...] cool and cold-hearted", the (start of the) description for Amundsen reads: "A…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Maybe if we hadn't had the shield, she would have killed us instantly or somethingI believe so.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Now that it's easy to get around with the hovercraftNote that the hovercraft lets you cross liquids, and water isn't the only liquid in the environment.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Sorry to kill you, man. It's your planet.These are one of the few "enemies" that you can TALK to.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “"There are places in the mountains where the ice is soft and impassable to those on foot." Another need for the hovercraft?I suspect you've answered this for yourself by now.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “That was a bit aggro from me. No, sorry, it was not my intention to be scorning, and I wrote that in a way it looked that way. You are right that I forgot about the changes in the Switch version.However, to my defence, to my honour of this internet avatar I have, the howlongtobeat stats are also interestingly on the lower sidehttps://howlongtobeat.com/game/6996/completionsNot only for switch. I…”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “This comment has been removed by the author.”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Sadly the rental version I had didn’t come with the walkthrough, only a simple controls manual. I still remember the painful nightmare of manually mapping out the four dams. I quit that game so often at that point. PS3 and PS4 on the other hand I enjoyed, PS4 especially so. ”
On Mar 31 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “fyi I believe this is also how the Mirror Shield works - if you don’t have it you just die, if you do, the fight goes normally”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “ Japanese versions of monsters were renamed in English translation to avoid potential collisions with existing franchises. "Amudsen" used to be "Vulcan". Some of the renames are quite pointless, though.https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DubNameChange/PhantasyStarI”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Never played this game to the end but a quick google search says yes, that is the reason.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Phantasy Star 2's inclusion of a full walkthrough has to be understood in the context of that game being Phantasy Star 2, and you really have to play it to completion to know what I mean by that because the first half is pretty standard JRPG fare.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Trying to avoid looking at spoilers, but I need a hint. Is the reason that Lassic is killing me instantly that I didn't find this "crystal" that he's supposedly afraid of?”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I always just imagined that more was happening behind the scenes (or text) since an 8-bit game could only do so much. For example, sure, the shield is there the whole time but we just don't get the extra details of how to find the shield hidden within a secret area of the fountain until we talk to that particular NPC. At least, that's how I explained it away... Perhaps it's be…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I think that the computer gaming market and the console gaming market in the US were much more distinct during that period, with the US console market being much more in line with what people expected from video arcades. Basically, in the US, if you wanted the more complex games, you became a computer gamer, and if you wanted simpler, more actiony games, you became a console gamer. I've heard…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “"I don't know if I mentioned this before, but the manual has a paragraph about literally every item you find in the game, including its statistics. This is helpful, but it also makes the game seem smaller, more linear, and more predictable."That was kind of par for the course with manuals for US releases of JRPGs in the 80s and 90s (the Japanese manual for Phantasy Star, by…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I guess the question is who did the localization for the North American and European release. According to this site, quite a few names were changed in translation and apparently not always for reasons of lacking space for letters. Based on that, the original name for said enemy in the Japanese version, "バルカン" can be translated as "Vulcan", which goes with the heat image and…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I don’t mind games that don’t let you find items before plot points, as long as it’s on the world map, and something that’s not bigger than a proverbial breadbox. I can totally buy that in one map tile that could represent several square miles, you can’t find a necklace hidden in a tree, even if you know it’s in there somewhere. The problem is when tiles represent much smaller areas or have…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “ROFL”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Amudsen did a tour of Japan in 1927, shortly before his death. He received the highest possible honours, including a visit to the Emperor himself! He received, among many gifts, a Samurai armour, which may or may not be what's represented in the game. He was a superstar in Japan the 20s, one of the few famous European names - possibly it persisted in the Japanese collective mind until the…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I regret to inform you that in Japanese, without Kanji, "Crystal of Space-Time" ("Jikuu no Kesshou") would take 9 characters ;-) (Ji-ku-u no Ke-s-sh-o-u, effectively)”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Yes, that was half the reason I subtitled the entry the way I did. I meant that I was looking for a more specific explanation as to why he's appearing in a JRPG as a spiky, armored warrior.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “As shamhat alluded to above, Roald Amundsen was a famous explorer of polar regions. In particular, his team was the first to reach the geographic South Pole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Amundsen”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “So then the question becomes, does Risingson Carlos know this, or was he just scorning Chet for no reason?”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “The Switch version lets you increase money and experience from battles to cut down on grinding, so that version's going to be shorter unless you want to suffer with the original mode”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “"By the time I get there, I would be willing to pay real money to ignore random combats."I'm pretty sure that's the way how most mobile games generate a revenue. ”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Were you playing the game blind?”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I have around 15 hours recorded on the switch version (and I like to explore and in case of mistake re do from hours ago). So yes, it's short.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I agree. I think I mind it less in a "Disassembulet of Yendor"-type quest where you have to assemble X map pieces, all of which have their own sets of clues and puzzles. If you can just brute force your way to one or two of them, I don't see that as a problem. The issue with U6 is that those map pieces lead TO a treasure that can be found without any of them by a player who chooses…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I'll try to thread that needle.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I appreciate the solution to that mystery. If anyone can come up with a similar explanation for "Amundsen," I might be willing to pay cash.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “"A CRPG like Ultima IV would have had the same chain of clues but also would have allowed the player to say, "Hey, there must be something special about that island," and search for it without the prompts. Which is the better approach? Discuss."As you wondered about back in your Ultima VI entry, I (and probably many other players) found Captain Hawkins' treasure without…”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “That's wild. As a sidenote, the same movie is responsible for the trope that zombies eat brains and walk around saying "bbrrraaaiiiinnnsss". Great movie in any case. ”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “lv 23 - 25 is slightly under powered for the endgame, lv 30 - 33 is over powered, as far a I remember.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “"Here's an oddly-named foe."Trivia time! There is classic zombie movie "The Return of the Living Dead" from 1986. In Japan that movie has been shown under the name "Battalion" for some reason. Because of that, Battalion is sometimes used as a naming for the zombies in Japanese games, as a Shout-Out. Of course, in this game the name was shortened to 8 letters.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Ah, yes, thank you for reminding me. There were a lot more days than it seems between these two entries.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star banallure: “WUA acronyms are a different thing.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I'm still not sure why we're bringing a cat into battle.https://www.instagram.com/mickeyandmort/reel/DGgw6hGprGw/”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “...and I thought "Ze" was to show how we Germans fail to correctly pronounce "The". ”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “The good news is, you are on the home stretch! You should be able to finish it with your next update.Maybe a small hint: Lbh qb abg arrq n ebnq cnff gb trg cnfg gur jneqra va gur cevfba. Trggvat neerfgrq naq svaqvat lbhe jnl bhg guebhtu gur frperg sbe vf npghnyyl gur vagraqrq jnl gb tb. Tb onpx vafvqr, lbh fubhyq abg unir gb svtug lbhe jnl guebhtu. Gura lbh pna pbagvahr ba sebz gurer.”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “I dunno who told you it was short. It's a pretty big game by 8 bit standards.The mantle is a frad mantle. It's made of frad fibers. Remember frad fibers?”
On Mar 30 commented on phantasy star polar exploration: “Perhaps Amundsen moved on to cold new worlds after Antarctica?”
On Mar 29 commented on phantasy star banallure: “These days we even have "RPG games".”
On Mar 29 commented on phantasy star banallure: “And Sahara Desert”
On Mar 29 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “Ah, okay, now I get it. Still it’s ridiculously cheap in the time, even if it’s snack sized.”
On Mar 29 commented on game 543 phantasy star 1987: “Oh, how times change, even for this blog. "I do find a man who has been turned to stone". I wonder if this has been stated by the developers somewhere, but this game's party seem to have an affinity with the Wizard of OZ. There's the undisputable female protagonist; the lion creature (well, the feline creature); the strongman guy which you have to rescue from his petrified…”
On Mar 29 commented on phantasy star banallure: “We still have the Mekong River and the La Brea Tar Pits.”
On Mar 29 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “According to one site I consulted, a dollar ranged from 2.05 to 2.34 DMs in 1989, with an average of about 2.25, so the game sold for $4.44 in 1989. According to various sites, $4.44 in 1989 is equal to about $10.00-$10.50 today. This was the basis of my calculation.”
On Mar 29 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Or... the smith could just be a big butt whit laser eyes”
On Mar 29 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I'm the one who wrote that last comment, and yeah, to be clear, the "underflow bug" was just an old hypothesis for why earlygame enemies seemed to do more damage lategame from decades ago. It wasn't a bad guess, but it isn't true. Per the decompiling, it's just the alternate damage formula - once you knock on-paper damage to negative, being high level means you take…”
On Mar 28 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “PS: Opening the game files with a text program, I see a "1988/1989" copyright for the first game, "1989" for the second. Don't see any for the third one.”
On Mar 28 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “This ad in the January 1991 Power Play mentions Teldor I and II for both Amiga and C64 as well as Teldor III for C64, with the price for the first two games on the C64 already having dropped to 5 DM.Since just a month earlier, only Teldor I and II were advertised and given when ads were sent in and magazines published, both 1990 or 1991 seem decent guesses for Teldor III.”
On Mar 28 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “Credit where credit's due! You found quite a few games of the 'Missing and Mysteries' list, plus others which didn't go there because the page did not yet exist at the time and looking for games Chet couldn't immediately track down was handled through comments and email alone.And that's in addition to solving technical problems - like with Sandor, whose successor is on the…”
On Mar 28 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “This one was a little bit too early for me, but it sounds enjoyable. One small remark: DM 10,- would be on the scale of $ 6.00 iirc. A dollar was usually around 1,80 DM in the days of my childhood. ”
On Mar 28 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “I also like how the ending text just casually mentions that volcanoes erupt and new islands form. And you gotta love a demon that says "ok".”
On Mar 28 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “The funny thing is, I made the same joke in this entry:https://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2024/10/game-529-swords-and-serpents-1990.htmlBut in less perfectly teed-up circumstances. I should have waited.”
On Mar 28 commented on phantasy star banallure: “@Ross, that bit about Torpenhow Hill isn't true, since there's no named hill there and Torpenhow's origins are not so distinct enough that there that the name is hill in a dozen languages.”
On Mar 28 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “Best comment ever.”
On Mar 28 commented on game 461 eye of beholder iii assault on: “The audio of Eye of the Beholder III seems to be the best in the series, but only if you patch your game with AESOP32 and properly set up your audio-cards first. If you do not do that you get these choppy popping looping errors that sounds terrible.”
On Mar 27 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Or swords made in the town of Laser.”
On Mar 27 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “"The Devil is super mad at you and is blowing stuff up on the surface, watch out, but, uh, go live in peace now" is certainly a way to set up a "to be continued, maybe".”
On Mar 27 commented on citadel summary and rating: “Not often I bring up my couple of years writing reviews for AllGame.com in the early 2000s, but $25 was also what they paid ($10 for a neutral summary blurb to use as an abstract in their database and $15 for a review; yes if you were smart you would probably have just written as many blurbs as possible, but I wanted my name on reviews!)”
On Mar 27 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “Hallelujah.”
On Mar 27 commented on citadel summary and rating: “Wow, I was reading Computer Gaming World at that point and was about to get hard into Dungeons & Dragons and I never knew until this very moment that it was The Dave Arneson (if I even noticed the name). Amazing. Glad I still have some of my late 80s/early 90s CGWs to check for his reviews now (or, you know, I could just look them up immediately online)”
On Mar 27 commented on backtracking zyll 1984: “You could beat Zyll (the wizard) with one player, but you had to remember that after casting 2 or 3 attack spells, you would be weakened and need to heal. You could leave the room you were in, to buy a little extra time, and a few seconds later, Zyll would follow you into the next room to continue the battle. However, you also had to travel light. When you were weak/injured you could not carry as…”
On Mar 27 commented on 2088 won with summary and rating: “This game excited me to read about and I was not sure what the nuanced enthusiasm I was feeling was coming from, and then I realized on some level this is probably the closest any game came to realizing the "Earthlings fighting the Serpioids of Mars" fake Wasteland paragraphs plot. Sure it is Misanthropes of Cryll but I bet there is at least one Flamelance in the game somewhere, and…”
On Mar 27 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “The French wine must be flowing freely.”
On Mar 27 commented on phantasy star banallure: “The SMS Power retranslation is amazing work, but it has probably had more person hours invested in it over almost 2 decades than the original game itself. It's built with tools that were not available at the time. I don't think it's fair to call the original "lazy" in comparison.”
On Mar 27 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “Nice little find, indeed, never heard of it, probably because my older brother only had an Amiga. Good for the German CRPG scene as well, I only became aware of homegrown developers with the 'Nordland-Trilogie' ('Realms of Arkania' for international markets). ”
On Mar 27 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Yeah, when the localization team got the game, their options were "reprogram and debug the entire text display and menu drawing routines with 1980s Sega of America resources and manpower" or "truncate the names". In Japanese you can cram something like "Crystal of Space-Time" into eight characters, without involving kanji.Despite being developed in Japan, the Famicom…”
On Mar 27 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “[I am sure Busca does miracles as well of course, but with LanHawk I saw them with my VERY EYES I TELL YOU!]”
On Mar 27 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “I always like reading about those isolated games - more so than about major well-covered titles.Special kudos to LanHawk for finding out lost jewels. Well, maybe not jewels, but gypsum. He does miracles indeed! ”
On Mar 27 commented on game 545 teldor 1989: “"A basilisk says: for 500 gold I will tell you a secret." If you pay, the secret turns out to be: "I heard there was a secret door."That Chet must find, to beat Teldor; but you don't really care for secrets, do ya?”
On Mar 27 commented on phantasy star banallure: “If I remember it correctly, Protection spell protects from physical attacks, while Wall spell repels magic.”
On Mar 27 commented on brief liberation captive ii 1993: “When I finally got into Liberation and did my first longplay on youtube I dug very deep into its mechanics to understand how to upgrade your skills. A skill-building system is in there, and it is more advanced than just buying items. You upgrade your skills by buying and combining chips and roms in specific configurations that youneed to optimize. It feels they did not progress this system beyond…”
On Mar 27 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I understand what you are saying. However, I thought the quote above explained that there is indeed such a dimension to the title. Even if the land was called, I don't know, "Eonland", you could still use the same title for the game since it talks about the symbolic moment in time when the story takes place and you'd realize that when you learn about the backstory. It might not…”
On Mar 27 commented on phantasy star banallure: “This makes me want to spread rumors about Laserswords in my next game and then letting the player meet a weaponsmith named Laser.”
On Mar 27 commented on phantasy star banallure: “For one thing, Phantasy Star 1 is inherently very grindy, meaning that the Addict taking time to grind out a few levels here or cash for equipment there doesn't add much to the total playtime.For another, the encounter rate is high enough that shaving some rounds off by getting equipment as soon as it becomes available (either because you're doing enough damage to kill the enemies…”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “That wasn't hypocrisy so much as it was a US-only censorship policy that was handled with significant indifference in the earlier part of the US lifespan of the console. Note that the NES only recieved a full US release in late 1986 - the 1985 date you usually find online was test markets - and the Zelda games got US releases in 1987 and 1988, very early on. First party games were treated as…”
On Mar 26 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “"be boring and just use content you had in your shareware version" was true of a lot of registered versions of shareware games.”
On Mar 26 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “Jonathan: the game you're thinking of is almost certainly DND, most likely Bill Knight's version.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “My recollection is that it opens with a big brick wall of grinding and then the pace evens out a bit after that. ”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “And VK, the game is very grindy whether I engaged in a bit of extra grinding or not. I maybe added 5% to it. I don't think that strips my right to complain about the other 95%.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Having already played a bit ahead, I feel like this estimate doesn't consider the size of dungeons in the latter part of the game.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Thanks, Colin. I always appreciate comments that don't have a bone to pick!”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I don't feel like people are really understanding the dynamic here. Sure, you can construct a logical scenario by which a planet was named "Perihelion" or a land was named "Midnight." That doesn't change the fact that when the player sees a game title like Perihelion or Lords of Midnight, he's going to assume that the title has metaphorical or thematic importance…”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I'm not saying that it's not appropriate, just that when you hear "Gothic forest," you think the forest might have some dark or gloomy element that justifies the name, not that it's literally named after the city of "Gothic."”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Hard to tell how far he really has left but I think your approximate is sort of true. Chets playing time is always hard to figure out, because he sometimes takes a long time for something considered easy and fast (probably because of blogging time included) and rush parts of games that took people weeks to get trough when they came out. Hope he isn´t too fatigued by the end of it.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I like it! "We found our way to a partly-ruined city which was mundnamed "Gothic"" has a good ring and flow to it!”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I had that song playing in my head for the rest of the entry.P.S. finally played and finished Elex. It was a blast.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “That reminds me of the Helliconia scifi novels. I wonder...they are from a British writer and were first published in the mid 80s.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “This comment has been removed by the author.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “So they named the city Casba is because they wanted to rock it. ”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “According to the manual, PROT (compared to WALL) will additionally sidestep the monster's special magic spells. And TERR only works on "weaker enemies".The manual for the Sega Ages (re-)release (publicly accessible on SEGA's own site) mentions a couple issues / potential walking dead situations of the original game which might be useful to know about.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Maybe they're asking for a cost-of-living adjustment, and Chet just keeps throwing fizzy drinks at them.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “There is indeed a way to avoid the lava damage, through use of an item, but I don't think the Addict has said item yet, although it should be available at this point.(Vg'f gur ubirepensg, juvpu vf va Obegrib.)”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Interesting site, thanks for the link. If I understand the last entry on that thread (reply#4) and the page it itself links in turn correctly, it's not so much a simple overflow/underflow bug as a different formula that kicks in if damage would be <= 0. And no additional check was coded in to correct or at least limit the effects.The Speedrunning guide linked by that entry also explains a…”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “It's been a while since I played this, but I remember finding a way to immunize yourself against the lava. Maybe it was in the Medusa dungeon that you skipped. Or maybe I'm confusing this with another game in the series.Your playthrough is actually reminding me of a lot of things that were common to all the (pre-online) Phantasy Stars: the vehicles that fit in your inventory, the…”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Actually, and answering to Chet's caption about "When do consoles become capable of using more than eight characters?", consoles doesn't have any built-in text management capabilities, so everything goes down to how it was programmed. In this case, the limit is because of a lazy translation. SMSPower retranslation actually have full names for enemies and items (And you've…”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Mundname & mundnaming.Daniel Mullings' Pony Island is a good example of "baitnaming". Or an opposite baitnaming, I don't know.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I like baitnaming, but I feel it would be more appropriate for video games named, I don't know, "Warrior Succubus of Hell" which would be a regular, not-sexy at all FPS.I propose mundnaming :)”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “To be fair to Mike Singleton, "Midnight" was not his initial choice and also makes some sense thematically. From the Digital Antiquarian's coverage of the game:"He thought of adopting the setting of a new play-by-mail design he’d been working on called The Lords of Atlantis, but Pratt [head of the game's publisher Beyond Software] wasn’t excited about that. [...] He…”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Nintendo had a particular hypocrisy about the cross thing, what with the super shield you could buy in Zelda 1 and the cross which made ghosts visible in Zelda 2.”
On Mar 26 commented on phantasy star banallure: “In Italian it would be "Altopiano" (with o and i), with the same meaning as "Altiplano" in Spanish.”
On Mar 26 commented on upcoming games warriors of legend 1993: “Definitely concur both that Pathways Into Darkness is just barely included in the local definition of "RPG" and also that it would be interesting to see Chet's opinions about it. ”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “Reminds me of a recent Japanese RPG I played in which the story is all about the struggle between Count Louis and Sanctifex Forden to succeed King Hythlodaeus V as ruler of the Kingdom of Euchronia.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “ Dr. Mad was Mad Doctor in the original.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Meanwhile, Mister Fantastic is a doctor, and his last name is Richards.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “1. The desperation for cola is a holdover from the original Japanese script where cola and burgers were medicine.2. The TRAP spell is for pit traps you encounter outside of combat. "What pit traps, James?" Yeah I know. But after a certain dungeon later you are going to be like "OH. THOSE pit traps."3. In addition to attacking all enemies guns also have a 100% hit chance, I…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “It makes a lot of sense that they'd allocate more space for names in a Wizardry port - all the original text is in English because it is an American game. ”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I consider myself a fan of the Phantasy Star games (sans the online ones), and heck, even I find the simplistic combat and high encounter rate almost unbearably tedious (oh yeah, and the PS2 dungeon with overhead pipes and cloud effects...ugh). It took them until PS4 to finally come up with a halfway decent combat system that alhad a bit of strategy to it (with the combos in particular). But I…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “"Both churches and healers use crosses. I don't think that would be allowed in an NES game."It would have been interesting if they had used the traditional Japanese symbol for hospitals.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Having a forest named after the town it surrounds seems appropriate to me, so often many fantasy names of places seem to be just completely unrelated to each other.”
On Mar 25 commented on game 543 phantasy star 1987: “Just read the manual.https://www.smspower.org/Manuals/PhantasyStar-SMS-US”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “"So long, and thanks for all the fish" --not Heinlein”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Dr. Doom is not a real doctor. https://screenrant.com/doctor-doom-marvel-name-not-real-doctor/”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “When it came to crosses Nintendo wasn't the most consistent. With Christian ones sometimes they'd be removed, and sometimes you get something like Castlevania 3 starting with you praying to a giant cross with the only change being that it isn't glowing. Meanwhile with the red cross the one that didn't like it used was the Red Cross, because they don't like it being used for…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “It's interesting to consider whether equipment in a game like this should count as part of character development - because of how tightly it's restricted to specific characters. Like, is there a meaningful difference between collecting XP to unlock a new ability and collecting money to buy a new weapon that only a specific character can use?”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Istanbul is fun, because, of course, it was called "Constantinople" by the Greek colonizers who built it, but when the locals took over, they called it what the travelers would always tell them when they asked where they were going: "eis ten polin" - literally "To the city".But what this reminds me of most of all is Torpenhow Hill in England, named for a succession…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I don't remember having to do nearly this much grinding in this game. I recall having to grind a little at the start, but after that I would run into so many encounters that I could save up the money needed for equipment upgrades and necessary purchases over the course of normal exploration. Meanwhile, experience was basically pointless since the power gain from equipment upgrades dwarfed…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Reminds me of the Sahara, which is literally just Arabic for "the desert". Or İstanbul, which is Greek for "the City".”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Not sure about the doctorate, but I'm pretty sure his real name is Victor Von Doom.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I hated the dungeon map layouts in Phantasy Star 2, and the parallax layer of overhead pipes just made it worse.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I think it's a bit harsh to use 'banallure' for Perihelion at least. IIRC it's a hot planet, scorched by solar flares. 'Perihelion' means 'the closest point in a planet's orbit to its sun' - so it could be that it was named by spacefarers as the very essence of 'perihelion'. If Midnight had been an especially dark realm, that would have worked too.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “It may be down to me being immersed in web forum culture, where the customary term for removing someone's posting privileges is "ban", but to me, "banallure" sounds like the temptation of the forbidden.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “... and that I want to form a band for some reason”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I would like to say that I really enjoyed the humour in the writing and the captions to this post so much that I'd bookmark this feed even if I wasn't interested in CRPGs. Thank you for the good time!”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Brings to mind the fact that (at least at one point. I think it's been retconned by now as a nom du guerre), Dr. Doom's doctorate was honorary, but "Doom" was his real name.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “It's also a bit unfair to complain that the game draws on too long and that you've hit the level cap too early when you grind so much.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Harming an animal has been the cheapest trick in the book to make you detest a villain, and it works on me as well.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “It would be nice to think the game is coming to an end. I feel like I've basically experienced it at this point.The third planet is not large (but can be a bit confusing) and then there's a bit of backtracking and then it's the endgame, so you're not far off.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I assume I'm supposed to find polymeteral and use it on one of those piles of junk to reveal the robotIn a comment on a previous post, I mentioned how the game's logic defeated me on a replay. This was the point. I knew Hapsby was in one of the junk piles from the previous playthrough, but the game wouldn't let me find him. Why? Because I hadn't spoken to the NPC that told me he…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “I liked how Dark Souls did lava, it was very lethal unless you stacked fire resistance gear, which would allow you to cross small pools in order to reach some treasure (or do speedrun skips). Elden Ring turned it into a minor inconvenience a la Phantasy Star, though.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Even as a dog person, I approve of attacking someone that wants to slay cats, so good riddance, Dr. Mad.Also, good to know that Casba Dragons rock, by which I mean that they have gems.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Welcome to the padded section of the gameplay! Given that level ups have diminishing returns and that there is a lot of backtracking on the only section of open world, it is clear that the random battles/maze part of this backtracking is completely unnecessary. But hey, 80s game design, growing pains.And whenever I see the city Casba I start singing mentally "Sharif don't like it"”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “That makes sense, the Italian Alti means higher and plano means floor. But I assume both would be from the Latin meaning something like "Higher Level", thus making sense as a word for a plateau. A pleonasm it surely is.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “In Spanish "altiplano'" just denominates a plain at an elevated altitude (compared to its surroundings), so an "Altiplano plateau" is somewhat of a pleonasm. There are a couple places named this, most importantly the Andean highland covering parts of Bolivia, Peru, and Chile (I've been to the larger area and seem to recall our host also having been in Chile early in…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “...sorry to double post, but I just ran a search on that issue, and it turns out that there's an bug that kicks in if your defense is higher than the enemy's attack, which seems to treat the "negative damage" the enemy would have done as positive. No wonder.https://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=215.0”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Regarding Odin's best weapon, I seem to remember it being a toss-up as to whether his final axe was better than the best gun you get for him. I think I ultimately went with the gun (fixed damage to multiple enemies as opposite to potentially more damage to one enemy, IIRC), but I don't think it matters that much.If you want to save yourself a bit of tedium in the last stretch (and the…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “"They grow on the Altiplano plateau" - my limited Italian translates that as "Higher floor".”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “The simplicity and sheer number of random battles is what made me tap out to Phantasy Star. I made it through the sequel, but that took a lot of willpower and a few peeks at a walkthrough. I hope you make it to the end so I never have to go back. Hahahahaha”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “Banalluring sounds like a pretty good choice for the specific constellation you describe. A more general term for a game whose title promises more than it delivers could e.g. be baitnamed or baitly named.We've seen other games where you just take some damage from walking across lava instead of dying (almost) instantly, like MM Xeen or Warriors of the Eternal Sun. Fantasy CRPG logic, I guess.…”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “"It would be nice to think the game is coming to an end. I feel like I've basically experienced it at this point. I have all the spells listed in the manual. Many more hours would feel superfluous."It's been a while since I've played it, but I think you're maybe about 60-70% through. You've got 13 hours in, so I'll predict your finishing time will be 19 hours.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star banallure: “What is with the cola shortage around here?Never played this game, but this reminds me of the game-within-the-story for Dream Park where a cargo cult used, among other things, cola for magical power.”
On Mar 25 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “Considering I am halfway through 2018 in my efforts to read every post it is insane that I accidentally scrolled over and saw CRPG Addict's comment here but it was so confusing that I had to see what it was a response to, and I am not disappointedBefore the huge JRPG boom when everyone and their dog was into anime? Yeah, sounds like 1996 at the latest from my recollection. I had just…”
On Mar 25 commented on quest for glory iii summary and rating: “Well you can certainly tell from his feelings on background music that CRPG Addict either does not have ADHD or has a different type than the "two videos playing simultaneously on your social media feed and a TV show playing in the background" that has become so commonplace these days.I have made the occasional post lamenting his feelings about music as an erstwhile computer/game…”
On Mar 24 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “Ahhhhh the Chet-Harland banters are back. I missed them.”
On Mar 24 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “I didn't realize Reddit had been around since 1990.”
On Mar 24 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “I guess the full version could be referred to as Schrodinger's Game...”
On Mar 24 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “I once, back in the Reddit days when they still were on the side of free speech, saw a meme titled JRPG-incomprehensible.jpg.It was a screenshot of that very moment, in a spaceport with Alis in her knee skirt and the in-game caption said, "There is a cake shop in the cave."The whole thread was people just shaking their heads. And posting links to similar bizarre screenshots on imgur.…”
On Mar 24 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “Those silly-sounding questions are so if they do later catch you trying to overthrow the government or whatever, that they can charge you with lying on your immigration forms an deport you all the faster. As we've seen lately, BigLaw firms can put up a huge fight on behalf of illegal aliens and they have real power and will work for free, in a way their would never do for their fellow…”
On Mar 24 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “Unless it turns up or there's feedback from the developers, we'll never know for sure. If it existed, I wouldn't be surprised if the 50-level number was extremely padded, e.g. by implementing small level segments as separate levels with teleporters.”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “Well, if I misinterpreted the text, that's no surprise. But I still think it's highly unlikely that they ever finished the full version. What are the odds that a 50-level game was produced has no mentions online?”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “I would have preferred they map it to a key, like the SPACE bar.”
On Mar 23 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “Thanks for reminding us!”
On Mar 23 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “Thanks for checking in, Harland. We were worried about you. It sounds like you don't plan to visit much more, though, which I hope isn't the case.”
On Mar 23 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “good luck and good smiles =)”
On Mar 23 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “Oh wow, this game! My little brother had it in SMS, an otherwise pretty crappy console, and I actually played it all the way through and won it. Zillion, too. I remember this part, getting the cat and realizing there were only 4 characters in the game. And also that the game world was relatively barren. I too wanted to earn the billion credits, but didn't. I hate when they put chat or talk as…”
On Mar 23 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “This is the CRPG Addict Blog!”
On Mar 23 commented on upcoming games warriors of legend 1993: “Speaking from experience, I think the only time I had trouble with emulating any Mac game it was just something that ran off a CD, and that was just sound issues. Mind you, I don't really go for intensive titles in Mac emulation just yet.Regarding softlocks: V guvax gur ceboyrz jvgu gur cbvfba cbgvba jbhyq or zber gb qb jvgu abg ernyvmvat lbh fubhyq or xrrcvat vg nebhaq, gura onpxgenpxvat naq…”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “Nah, there would be a lot more stuff if there was a full version. Unless you're going to be boring and just use content you had in your shareware version, you need a lot more stuff to populate 50 levels, which is just as much work (if not more) as making yourself a working DM-clone.”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “Speaking of swords, that icon reminds me of the crossed sword icon in Warlords (used for diplomacy I think). ”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “The developers could have simplified it to just clicking on enemies to attack, without needing to click the sword button first.”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “There's no proof that the full version didn't exist, just as is there is no proof that it did exist. Besides, the shareware version looks like a finished product that is just missing a lot of levels. From my understanding kickstarter demos are usually much further away from completion.”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “All Event Horizon/Dreamforge games allowed to print their dungeon maps, if I recall correctly. Coincidentally, they also had really large dungeons.”
On Mar 23 commented on omega rich game world: “SPOILERSOver 30 years have passed since I last played Omega. I bought it as a shareware with few marks (our currency before euro). My memory is pretty vague and I do not know what the ultimate WIN situation is, but I did finish the Ultimate Challenge without any online help:The game throws you in a room where there are 5 chasms, one for each element and one void. You need to have 4 elemental Orbs…”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “"Now, maybe there's some nuance here that I'm not getting in translation, but it sounds to me as if they haven't actually completed the full version, and they're waiting to see if they get enough people interested before they take the time to do so."It sound like an early access game. An Ur-Example?”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “An interesting SHORT (not quite a BRIEF?). The background you surface up here evokes Kickstarter demos - contribute if you want to see this become reality. ”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “In case of Guido Henkel that was Linel (a Swiss publisher, never heard of them) and mostly Starbyte. Which lead to them self-publishing the older Drachen von Laas and then Realms of Arkania. Not as shareware, though. (Hey, Doom was also Shareware - the coincidences keep coming ;) )I don't think shady publishers were a German problem in particular, though the fact that these publishers were…”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “I agree with Menhir and VK, to a native German the message reads more like "We made this game, if you liked it so far, please support us so we can stay independent from a publisher". The sad truth is, in the 1980s and early 90s some of the so-called "publishers" in the German games market had some, let's say, less than savory business practices - at least two German…”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “The Summoning (1992) also supported printable maps”
On Mar 23 commented on upcoming games warriors of legend 1993: “I have some cool memories of Hired Guns in the 90s, even playing it solo, even if I never got very far. The 4 simultaneous screens thing is very neat and original, and the level design is actually great, with a 3-dimensional grid, something quite rare for blobbers at the time. Too bad there's no character development beyond weapons/ammo (something we'll encounter with system shock too).”
On Mar 23 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “Very peculiar to have a separate program to explain the interface like that.That plant monster looks like the sort of thing Erol Otus used to do in TSR modules and books.Any game with cheese has to be worth a play.”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “In the day you would know whether save / load had worked, because you'd hear the disk grinding for the expected time, the stopping.Even with hard disks you could guess, but now everything is silent. It's actually annoying me lately when I play Old World - I click on the shortcut, but sometimes there is no 'Steam game launching' method, and nothing happens for a few seconds until…”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “SS runes were far more "vertical" than the lightning bolts in the screenshot, and more importantly only had that meaning when there were exactly two of them (to the point that a fair number of typewriters in the Reich were fitted with a specific key to make both at once). A single siegrune meant nothing, nor did groups of two or more.”
On Mar 22 commented on upcoming games warriors of legend 1993: “Does SheepShaver run fine for other people, then? It always feels like it's slightly struggling with performance no matter what I do with the settings, even on good hardware, so I've always used Basilisk II for anything that runs on a 68k.Back to PiD itself, I was surprised to see it on the list; I'd probably describe it as a proto-fps/adventure game blend rather than a crpg in any…”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “I played a DOS Rougelike back in about 1990 that had printable maps. The catch was that they had to be purchased with in-game currency (and they were VERY expensive). I have long forgotten the name of the game, but I seem to recall that our host has covered it. ”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “I agree with VK, as a native this reads as "We made this game, please support us making more games in the future". So I wouldn't call it a scam unless we know for sure that there was no full version ever finished (and no money ever taken without delivering).”
On Mar 22 commented on phantasy star gangs all here: “> "how many potential revolutionaries do they catch out of that?"ALIS: They're not "catching me" every time I go in there. I, uh.... um... I'm going for the "get to Level 30 before leaving Palma" challenge. Yeah that's it.”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “No damage feedback is a cardinal sin in my book.The spell creation screen got me even more concerned, with those little lightning bolts looking exactly like the official SS-runes; there must have been a better way to depict this, especially for a German developer.”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “I read it the same way, they state that the full version existed for people willing to pay the price, so that (repeating VK here) they can continue as independent publishers.Sounds like a scam, to be honest...”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “Printable maps is such a great idea. We need to send that idea back to the 80s in a time machine and popularize it”
On Mar 22 commented on game 544 blade of doom 1993: “The way I read it, the devs just say they're hoping to get enough registrations to justify going without a publisher so that they can continue being an independent developer.There's a confusing German syntax rule by which the verb in a subordinate clause must come last, so "belohnt wird" related to "dies", not to "Vollversion".”
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Hello Chet, I´m looking forward to your thoughts on Spellcraft and Magic Candle 3. I hope that professorship isn´t keeping you up too late each night.
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A Christmas Dungeon Adventure would be funny at this time of year to see :)
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