Tag: Snes

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SNES Game 43: SimCity

The Super Nintendo version of Sim City was the first console game in the Sim City Series, it was also apparently a launch title for the system. I have to admit though I never saw it in the early days, in fact I think I got it very late in the day.   It was developed by Nintendo EAD under license from Maxis and published by Nintendo (in 1990). I think the fact that Nintendo worked on it themselves shines through into the final product. This is far from a hasty cash in conversion, its a very specialized version of the game tailored towards SNES owners and it shows pretty much straight away, I know this is giving the game away early but I have to admit that this is actually my favourate version of Sim City. I fell in love with it from more or less the instant I played it.

The gameplay is similar to the PC version, but every step possible seems to have been made in order to make it easily playable with a jupad, there are also more buildings and scenarios added to the game so in a way you can consider this a sort of Sim City 1.5. There are lots of other little style based changes which the average user would not notice unless they have played both the SNES and PC versions, one example is that the buildings  present in the SNES version resemble those in Japan  as apposed to the typical North America styled ones in the PC version.
The best thing about this for me in comparison to the PC version is the adviser they have added to the game who goes by the name Dr. Wright, he is supposed to be a cartoon parody of Will Wright the creator of the Simcity Series, obviously I know that now but as a kid I never realized that, I just took him as a new cutesy fun Nintendo character and I actually wondered if he would ever turn up in anything else. He is basically there to offer you advice and to tell you things such as the population growth of your city. To add to the Nintendo related flavor Nintendo also sprinkled one of two little touches in there  the Godzilla attacks from the PC have been replaced with Bowser attacks and if you can reach a particularly high level of  growth then there is an unlock-able Mario Statue that you can place in your city .
The graphics are functional but cute, the music is a little twee but its also catchy, I have the main music from this game on my MP3 player and actually find it quiet relaxing. For those of you who haven’t played this the whole point of the game is basically to make a thriving city which grows and grows in size, but how you do this and what tax rate you set, how you choose to lay out the city all of these things are left to you. This is great as you can build a giant city have fun with it and then decide to do it all again this time setting it up in a completely different way. There are lots of different maps, you essentially put a number in and it decides a map for you, you then get to say Yes or No to this map.
In some ways this game was the 90’s equivalent of console Minecraft. I mean this in the way that you would spend your time building an impressive world which you could then show off to your friends. This is and was a great game if you had friends to share it with as you will all use the same basic game, the same basic framework but yet end up with a totally different city, to an extent your city is a reflection of yourself. One of the best things about the game was that there was very little like this on the system. If you were sick of all of the platformers, one on one beat em ups, sports games etc then this was something different something original, and for that I think it deserves a place in everyone’s SNES collection. This is pretty much the only PC to SNES conversion where I can say with utter confidence that I think the Super Nintendo version is the superior version. I am going to give it a 10 out of 10  that is how deep my love for this game is, I don’t think there is anything else really like it and I think that it is almost infinitely re-playable.
If you want to buy this game then it will cost you about £8 for a pal cart. Which I think is an absolutely brilliant price considering the fact that the enjoyment you can get out of it can be practically limitless.
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Retro Monday Returns! Game 89 – Prince of Persia!

OK, It’s been a little while since I’ve done Retro Monday. I believe the last time was back in October 2017 where I played Monster Max for the Game Boy.

So, A long while indeed. I decided to bring back Retro Monday for a few reasons.

  • The first is that I miss doing it, it was a way to give games I may not have played before a try, even if it’s a brief 1 hour. It gives me that chance and I can play it more in my own time if I like it
  • It’s fun, I had loads of fun with the games that were played, even the bad ones because of the chat.
  • Mario Kart Monday and life got in the way before. I can now get Retro Monday back, but the earlier time of 7:45 – 8:45 was too early as my children got bigger, but with Mario Kart Monday not happening anymore, Retro Monday can take its place

That brings us to the newest Retro Monday. I thought Hey, we’ll pick a game a go from there. I forgot about E3 and for the first Retro Monday in about a year and a half, it was Retro Wednesday.

On to the game I got to play.

The game was choosing on The GRcade Forum in the Retro Monday Revenge thread, the rules are the same a person picks 3 games and 1 is picked via a poll. The person who chose this time was Grum and the game that won was Prince of Persia for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Coming out in 1992 it’s a platforming game that originally made for the Apple II in 1989, The game has a timer of 60 minutes where you have to reach the end, fortunately on the SNES version it’s doubled to 120 minutes which you would think would make the game easier, well that isn’t the case, the levels are more difficult and there are double the amount going from 12 to 24. One good thing in the SNES version is that after the timer runs out you can still finish the game, but you fail to save the Princess.

I really liked playing this even though I ran out of time on the second level. The game is tough and requires trial and error, but I think that’s the point, you have to take your time, or if you move quick and get taken out by a trap, you then know when to slow down and think about your approach when you get there again. I found the combat a little irritating. Not because it was bad, but I was never sure about when to attack or parry. Sometimes the enemy would take one swipe at you, you’d parry then attack, other times it was several consecutive attacks, and I’d die. Maybe there are better signals for their attacks that I personally didn’t see, and on a replay, I’ll keep an eye of for that. The platforming is solid, with simple running and jumping over gaps and traps to climbing up and down ledges, there appears to be a sneak, that must be used later in the game to get by things, maybe enemies that are sleeping. I know it’s useful when there are spikes. If you run into where spikes are you get poked, but if you sneak you walk into the fine enough as if you are walking between the spikes and you can progress. Little things like that make it pretty interesting. Oh and then there’s the frog thing which I have no idea what it’s for.

Musically the game is good, there’s great music in the levels and some wonderful sound effects, from the spikes jutting up through the floor noise, to the ARGH of the guy you attack with your sword. It uses the SNES sound chip well.

I’ll be honest, I never played Prince of Persia before Sands of Time, and I think this is a very very good game and should be tried by all, yes it’s difficult and you have a time limit, but it’s fun and learning the game is a part of it that’s done so well it feels like it makes sense.

Verdict: Recommended.

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The GRcade Twitchcast Episode 6 – Break Ups and Mining

The cast this week is Doom and Pedz with a dose of Jazzem about halfway through.

This week the members of GRcade discuss some of the recent gaming news is, things like Activision and Bungie splitting up and EA cancelling yet another Star Wars game. Along with the news, we discuss the data mining of the Switch and it’s Snes games that may be coming to the online service. We talk a little about each game that is in the data mining information and a little bit of what we’d like, what other systems we’d like, the online service itself and then answer a few questions from the viewers in the Twitch chat.

Audio file