man that's not even fair, athena is both an awful game and a micronics port. i was actually trying to get some of my micronics carts working to test something and they are all mercifully too filthy to work properly. but if i get it cleaned enough to play, i will accept your challenge.

i was snowed in most of last week so i found myself wanting to play a bunch of my old nes games. fester's quest was a game that me and my oldest friend played a lot but never really got anywhere in because it seemed too hard; hilariously enough, coming back to it now the game is dead simple and the only problem is that if you mess up learning a boss's pattern and die, it's all the way back to the start of the game.

it has some severe problems, though not much moreso than most of the games at the time. also, sunsoft music. hell yeah.

Never did like rarity like that. Reminds of me Earthbound. Sword of Kings anyone? I think by the time I actually got one of those I was so over leveled that I could have beaten the game in my sleep.

No problem, take your time ZC isn't going anywhere.

I don't think "mod" is the word I would use since these things are built from scratch using an engine known as "Zelda Classic" Check it out sometime there is some good stuff hiding on the main site. You need any suggestions just ask.

[Link]

console version nothing, man, this is the original. :P

i've noticed the damage from enemies and experience to level up here are much higher than the snes port i'm familiar with, and i'm really surprised at how well this serves as pacing when i think about it. until you get the 300xp needed to reach level 1, absolutely everything in the quarry can kill you almost instantly - there's basically no grace period after a hit, so rushing or ignoring enemies even for a second is guaranteed death. once you level up for the first time, you can survive the first screen pretty easily, but the second is dangerous. after level 3 the place is more or less ok to explore without constant terror (but still dangerous). by this point you also have enough gold to go back and buy a better piece of armor.

it feels like a nice start, to be constantly risking death, and having to learn your character's moveset and limitations as a necessity for survival. much like dragon quarter, the player is fenced in and kept there until they learn the basics cold. the fighting is never a grind, because of how quick it is; at level 1 a solid hit kills even the tough monsters on the second screen, especially if you learn their timing or exploit the terrain.

sometimes i forget just how much the genre as a whole has been emulating form instead of function. :/

i checked out some youtube vids of oath in felghana and i gotta say it doesn't look too appealing to me. part of the attraction to ys 3 is the positively gorgeous 2d art. since i'm familiar with 8-bit only in terms of what consoles can do, it's a real treat to see this game in action, and it manages to run nicer than it does on any of the emulators i've tried for comparison (snes port is not even worth mentioning after seeing the original in action :D)

i was also kind of baffled to look at the straight ps2 port of ys3 - why is everything single screens? no scrolling? really?

anyway, mado was indeed a huge asshole, although i managed to hit him quite often with the water bracelet's spell. was it luck? i'm sure as hell not going back to find out. while the whole lot of those guys were unnecessarily hard, the slog up to the bosses was more grueling than actually fighting any of them. i started the dungeon with no clue what i was getting into, wanting to play for twenty minutes or so, and found out i couldn't save halfway through.

megareply about thereisa is on my page, to spare yours from a two-letters-away-from-character-limit post.

i nominate you build an airship out of the athena carts, and then issue a challenge to the guy that was buying up every ntsc copy of magical chase for the tg16 who has probably assembled them into some kind of crude hoarder citadel.

I'd just like to announce that I have a new purpose in life: to collect as many copies of Athena as possible. If anyone wants to donate a copy to me, I want it.

My goal is to eventually get at least 100 copies of Japan's Smash Arcade Platforming Hell. What will I do with them? Tile a room? Take them to a dealer and watch him start choking down the bile at the sight of that many copies? Introduce my game collection as being "All Athena, All the time!"?

The possibilities are endless.

Unfortunately I seem to be some kind of backwards Falcom fan - nothing wrong with Ys, but I'd rather play anything else they've done over it

What's even more unbelievable is that I haven't unsealed it yet! I mainly bought it for the Legend of Heroes 7 mini artbook that came with the first batch

Seems to be a common fault between Nostalgia and SoA then - make games about exploration, and then make the exploration a real pain in the ass

Still continuing in Nostalgia. Airship battles make me want to puke now. Low Altitude battles are like normal battles... until you make your way to Japan, where they start being like mini-bosses. Mid Altitude battles are like mini-bosses from the get go. And High Altitude battles are literally full-on boss battles as random encounters.

Which is awful because High is the fastest way to get anywheres, especially if you're doing quests for the Adventurer's Association and are bouncing between Delhi and London or some such. Thankfully I got the Angel Wings to reduce encounters, but it's not the same as no encounters. And running from High Altitude encounters is likely a death sentence, since escaping fails more often than not.

It's really a downer on the exploration motif, since while I'd really enjoy looking for the special landmarks (World Treasures, they're called, and are places like Abu Simbel, Skara Brae, etc), I don't want to waste my time on fighting incredibly pointless randoms that give crappy EXP for the effort but a lot of cash (which is moot, since I'd rather do quests to get money than fight a High Altitude battle for 13 000).

The rest of the game is quite good so far, though. The airship parts make me want to hurl the DS out a window, though. I absolutely loathe having to buy airship weapons and armor (and airship HP, too! Yes, you increase your airship's ability to take punishment buy BUYING it too! ) with my hard earned gold, since when I get to a new town, it means that I'm usually broke after outfitting my ship and crew (because they need the best gear to head into the next dungeon too).

Oh, but there are excellent secret weapon/armor plans you can get for your ship, and by taking them to a craftsman you can buy secret/better stuff. The catch? There's only one craftsman in the world, and he's in Tokyo.

I really hope that something happens like the Yafutoma section of SoA, where you get the ability to avoid randoms entirely while travelling if you want. That'd be awesome.

yeah. long story short, it's the kind of thing i'm glad has mostly gone the way of the dodo.

i definitely agree about some of the crap zelda 1 expects you to figure out. we can probably chalk that up to influence from tower of druaga - you ever play that one? an entire game of "who would ever figure this out" bullshit that probably only ever got figured out because every arcade gamer in japan was working on it at the same time.

i will admit, i felt like the smartest person in the history of the world when i started using the camera. suffice to say a guy can only botch so many twenty-digit passwords before the life of his nes is in danger (works great for river city ransom, too).

ah, come on now, arche. :Þ one of the wise men tells you that paralysis doesn't work on wise men, and the solution is to use paralysis on one of the wise men? i mean, it's the kind of thing that most people would only ever stumble across trying things randomly in frustration.

i guess i'd say that's my problem with the game as a whole, that it doesn't communicate very clearly to the player what their goals are or how to achieve them. personally, my worst experience was the fight with sabera; i tried everything but couldn't even hurt her, getting the invulnerable ding noise from every attack. i couldn't figure out what i was doing wrong, and it turned out i was too low a level - one level up and everything falls in place. this is the kind of stuff i had more patience for in earlier years, but these days it's just intolerable for me.

hah, yeah, i've been buying up everything at that fort town. was about to leave and get the sacred shield later, but then though "wait a minute. this place has all the competent, good-aligned people so it's convenient to the plot. it also has low low prices on useful stuff so it's convenient to the player. the next time i see this place it will probably be a smoking crater. better do my shopping now. "

compile's stuff is all really great so a guardian legend playthrough is definitely on tap sometime soon. the main thing is that it's a long-term commitment and my digital camera broke, which previously was my way for recording those damned passwords. some weekend or snow day in he future, though...

Hmmm... well, it sounds like something I should pick up if it's cheap at some point, I'm not adverse to innocent tales with cute kids in them (just look at my banner, there' no use pretending otherwise!) especially after all the doom and gloom that's apprently cool these days.