In Episode 046, MetalFRO and Addicted dive into the world of Neo Geo and look at one of the more unsung shooters in the library. From developer Aicom and publisher Sammy, we get the unique isometric shoot-em-up Viewpoint, complete with pre-rendered 3D graphics and a smoking hot 90s house soundtrack.
So a Decisive Battle / Boss Theme cover from Final Fantasy VI was going to be an inevitability, I suppose. Definitely a track that I knew I would get to eventually, but for the longest time I didn't have any inspiration to do it. Then the inspiration hit me all of a sudden and I didn't wait to get started on this one. I hope you all enjoy it!
In Episode 045, Addicted and MetalFRO dig into the Konami vault once more and take a close look at Salamander, the non-sequel follow up to the wildly popular Gradius. Salamander and its counterpart Life Force have a storied history of revisions and ports that we dive into in more detail, and discuss the differences between them.
Posted on May 4th 2022 at 04:42:39 PM by (bickman2k) Posted under Site news
Hello again!
Over the past few days, we have made a lot of progress on the site functionality so I wanted to give an update!
Submissions/Approvals These are now working as expected! We found some settings that were keeping this from working that have been temporarily changed to allow things to function properly. This has also allowed the "All Collections" list to update as expected as well.
Forum error messages This has been fixed as well with the changes we made. Again, this is another band-aid fix to the root issue, but it will let things get back to normal while we continue to make the changes.
https I have heard the question a few times, so I figured I would update here with the status of this. The server is currently already https enabled. The reason why it isn't enabled site-wide at this time is largely due to the forum software being out of date. I have plans to set up a sandbox page at home, run the required forum upgrades, then begin developing a new theme. The new software supports https, so this combined with the other efforts of updating/auditing the code for hardcoded paths should allow us to finally enable https site-wide.
A huge thanks to everyone for reaching out to report issues over email, site PM, or Discord. Having a lot of data points helped to determine what was going on better. Another big thanks to the staff members who were helping me to test the various functions as we made changes to verify functionality.
And, naturally, thank you to everyone for your patience and understanding as we worked through this. I know it took longer than I hoped, certainly, but we're certainly on the road to making a lot of progress in updating the site for the future.
Posted on Apr 13th 2022 at 08:51:52 PM by (bickman2k) Posted under Site news
Hey everyone! We recently went through a server migration for several reasons (OS no longer supported, security updates, space, etc), but, as you may have noticed, we have had some issues since the migration. I am trying to correct all of the issues as quickly as possible, but it certainly hasn't been easy.
Thanks to everyone in Discord who helped report the current issues. If you would like to reach out, please join the Discord where we have a site issues channel for people to report the issues. I also plan on posting those issues on a Trello board here so I can more easily track them. You can find the board here: https://trello.com/b/Jxj3...rf-generation-site-issues
Finally, I can't say enough how much I appreciate the patience from all of you while we make the required changes to get the site up and running fully again.
Posted on Mar 17th 2022 at 12:00:00 PM by (slackur) Posted under Evercade VS
When the Evercade portable first released in 2020, there were many who scratched their heads in bemusement. Surely in this day and age of the Switch, the various cheap emulation portables, and now the Steam deck, a new cart-based budget portable game machine was unnecessary? What was this newfangled British toy, and was it fated to be another nifty but niche Game Gear or Lynx? Or a comical disaster by way of Game.com or N-Gage? Well, now that the Evercade has had a few quality of life updates and almost two years of cartridge releases, a better evaluation may be given. Especially now that the Evercade VS, a home console version of the Evercade ecosystem, has finally arrived here in the US. After spending a few weekends with the VS and the entire current library, here are my thoughts on everything Evercade.
Posted on Mar 13th 2022 at 12:00:00 PM by (Pam) Posted under video, review, PC
I was a big fan of point and click adventure games when I was growing up. Though I always tended to prefer LucasArts, there were a few Sierra series I loved as well. Quest for Glory was one of them, and one that unfortunately seems to be a bit overlooked. While many people fondly recall King's Quest or Space Quest, a number of people in my comments section have told me my videos are the first they've heard of this series.
Shadows of Darkness is the 4th Quest for Glory game, and I think it's the best. Like the others, it combines role-playing with adventure in a really great way that gives you multiple ways to solve problems and defeat enemies. This one takes place within eastern European lore and has some very memorable characters and situations. Have you played this series? What do you think of them?
For those of us who collect games, we all understand that we have a few stinkers in the collection. Looking at the library of releases for any game console or platform, there will always be games that are objectively terrible, a lot of stuff that's just not very good, a lot of middling releases, a fair number of solid titles worth your time, and usually a small number of absolutely outstanding games that are among the best on offer. Unless you're curating a small collection of only games you enjoy, you're bound to have a turd or two on the shelf. Why do we pay money for these things? Let me offer a few ideas as to why there's nothing wrong with owning some bad games.
After a brief hiatus from working on new content for my channel, I finally made my return with Dark King, the final boss theme from Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest! I know this game has its fair share of haters, but I quite enjoy the game for what it is, and everyone knows it has a rocking soundtrack! I hope you guys enjoy this one!
I replied to a tweet a few days ago from @gamesyouloved that went like this:
"if someone wants to start a retro game collection what's the best way to do it?"
My reply:
"If I were starting now, I'd go for quality over quantity and buy like, one good game every paycheck or something."
I've been thinking about this tweet and its replies for a few days now, and I'd like to elaborate on it. Of course, to answer this question, there are so many variables to consider, and each person will have his or her own set of circumstances which will dictate what can be done. Note that the question is about collecting specifically, so while I'd naturally lean on emulation, this article will be about how I would build a physical collection from scratch today if I had to.
Developer: Konami Publisher: Konami Platforms: PC-8801, MSX2, PC Engine Super CD-Rom^2, Sega/Mega CD, Saturn, Playstation Years of Release: 1988 (PC-88), 1988 (MSX2), 1992 (PC Engine CD), 1994 (Sega/Mega CD), 1996 (Saturn), 1996 (Playstation)
Snatcher is a legendary game in the modern era. Today it is considered a great opus of interactive fiction, and it largely stands above most of its contemporaries among those that have played the game. In its time, it was heavily overlooked by most of the international audience despite a wealth of rave reviews. Snatcher was originally developed and published by Konami for Japanese computers, releasing on the NEC PC-88 and MSX2 in 1988. Development was quite lengthy and expensive for Konami and shows many of the trademark behind the scenes issues with projects led by Hideo Kojima that would eventually lead to their fallout decades later. The project suffered from an unrealistic scope, as roughly half the story was condensed or axed altogether. Despite this, development still took far longer than most projects of the era. All of this would not pay off in Konami's eye, as the game's initial PC sales were underwhelming. A cult following developed around the game, and this likely led to Konami issuing later ports. The first one being 1992's port to NEC's PC Engine Super CD-ROM^2. What is interesting is that this PC Engine CD release was not just a straight over port, but it included the game's 3rd Act as a mostly cinematic experience. 1994 would see a strangely Western exclusive port released for Sega CD that allegedly only sold a few thousand copies. This Sega CD release further expanded on Act 3, adding some extra exploration and action. The final ports were released in 1996, exclusively in Japan, for the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn.
Formulating a digital avatar, a representation of a player's interaction within a video game, is a construct often taken for granted. Given the importance placed upon player agency in many modern games, from customization and features in Skyrim to vehicle selection and colors in the Forza Horizon series, great effort is often taken to connect the player to what is on the screen. Upon reflection, four games I've played recently paint a fascinating picture of the evolution of where we started and where we are now.
Summer 2001 was an interesting time for me. I had moved out of my home state to the East Coast and was trying something new in the work arena. Previous jobs had come and gone, and nothing really stuck, so rather than continue to flounder, I thought I would change my course. I quickly found out that my newly chosen path was a huge mistake, and within just a few short months, I would move back to my home state and get back on the career path I started on, albeit in a different direction. But for a few months in the middle of 2001, I lived about 45 minutes from the ocean, and had a fairly eye-opening experience learning about the differences between small town midwestern life and what life was like in the south.
During my stint on the coast, I spent a fair amount of time on my off days looking for entertainment. Whether it was browsing music shops, used video game stores, pawn shops, etc., I found ways to occupy my time when I wasn't working. And of course, there were also movie theaters. One of the more highly anticipated releases the summer of 2001 was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was to be the debut film from Square Pictures. Having played and enjoyed Final Fantasy VII just a year or so prior, I was looking forward to the movie. I thought the idea of using full computer animation for everything was novel at the time and assumed the storytellers at Square had a good chance of coming up with a good story.
