Retrogaming

[nova_one]

I’ve been wanting to write this up for a while, but I’ve kept putting it off. Here are some of the games I played lately, all but the last via emulator. Coupled with beer, it’s how I spent my spare evenings in Japan after I stopped writing.

I started by downloading virtually every SNES ROM via a single BitTorrent and have been playing them with

Comments

[vovat]

You know, I actually can't remember how Secret of Mana ends, although I think I've seen it.

I used to hate Sabin, but when I played the PlayStation version I realized that was because I had a crappy SNES controller that couldn’t do the Blitzes.

I know my brother used Sabin pretty much all the time, but he also had trouble doing some of the Blitzes, probably largely because of the controller. I'm pretty sure they get easier to do after you've figured them out for the first time, though. As for Locke, I never considered him to be one of the better characters. Once I got online, though, I learned that he had a rather large fanbase.

All of the more risqué humour was taken away, which led to bland cutscenes, and I didn’t think much of FFVI’s characterization as a result.

I remember being both amused and confused upon learning that Cyan's porno magazine was changed to a book of mechanics for the American release. I guess it still made sense, as Cyan's fear of machinery was an established character trait, but it does kind of bother me when translators insist on cleaning things up for American audiences.

I'd be curious to learn how the scene of the party preparing Gau for his meeting with his father worked in the original Japanese. The American take on it made it so over the top in its humor that it kind of seemed out of place. Maybe that was done to soften the disturbing impact of the actual meeting, though.

I've never played Xenogears, but I'm interested in it. I've never been able to get an emulator to work properly, though, and I don't have a PlayStation. Then again, I could probably get a used PS1 or 2 and a copy of the game for not that much money.