Twenty Four Years Later

 Just a screenshot to share here. I wanted a ship like this in 1998.

It might take awhile to equip it with cannons and learn how to sail it, but the seas will soon run red once again.

Beaten: Phantasy Star (Master System via Sega Ages/Switch)

 My latest deep dive into the past of gaming brought me to the Sega Master System for some unfinished business with the classic RPG Phantasy Star. I once owned a used Master System and had this game, but had barely touched it.

My hope was to play this on my Game Gear portable using the Master Gear Converter (Sega loved cranking out hardware) but Phantasy Star was the one cartridge not compatible with it. Which was fine, as there were bigger fish to fry by the mid 1990s.

Phantasy Star was Sega’s answer to Final Fantasy which itself answered Japan’s desire for western RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry. Sega also copied using “Ph”  instead of “F” from the Strategic Simulations Inc. RPG series Phantasie and the mix of dungeons and space travel from Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress. Derivative, yes, but with enough brilliant and fresh design of its own to stand out. I’m sure no one cared back in the day when RPGs were few and far between, especially on a system that was dwarfed by the NES in terms of market share.

The Sega Ages re-release for the Nintendo Switch presents a slick, polished package that maintains everything I remembered from the original with a few tweaks. An automap fills in along the right side of the screen as one explores, sparing the need to break out the graph paper. Looking closely at the map reveals the location of hidden doors so the party of adventurers doesn’t have to slam into every wall along the way.

There are also character bars on the right showing health and magic power. The pause button calls up a handy list of most items, weapons, armor, and spells for reference. Finally, my research on the internet confirms what I thought was happening - experience points and money gained from encounters is greatly multiplied from the original. 

Purists who want the original experience can set the game to play that way, but fuck that, I have a life. In addition, all those tweaks do not change the classic RPG grind of near-constant enemy encounters and the eternal mystery of every classic RPG where the player hits the “Um, what do I do next” wall.

By mid-campaign I had maxed out my cash, had bought the best gear available in stores, but was stuck to a point where I had to keep sweeping through every town, dungeon, and NPC conversation to figure out what to do next. 

Thanks to a good save system allowing for pick-up-and-play sessions, I persevered to the satisfying ending with my maxed out characters. The overall experience was very rewarding by itself and the Sega Ages version of this game is definitely the way to go.

The Switch is seeing a lot of these retro re-makes and collections and is proving itself a great platform for them. I highly recommend Sega Ages Phantasy Star, but would caution that, even with the vast improvements to gameplay, a big commitment of time and endurance is still required to reach its end. 

2021 Review

 Well it’s already April of 2022 and it looks like we’re all safe from 2021 now. Looking back, it wasn’t a huge gaming year for me. As the world opened up again in May and I returned to the office in October, my gaming time was again greatly reduced. 

 Let’s start this review with what was beaten:

Paper Mario (N64 via Wii Virtual Console via Wii U Transfer)

Farcry Classic (Xbox 360 via Xbox One)

Feeding Frenzy (XBox 360 via XBox One)

Heavy Weapon (XBox 360 via XBox One)

The Outer Worlds (XBox One)

Gears of War 4 (XBox One)

Tales of the Unknown Volume 1: The Bard’s Tale (C64-Xbox One via The Bard’s Tale Trilogy Remastered)

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (XBox One)

Dragon’s Dogma Dark Arisen (PS3 the bad ending)

The Artful Escape (XBox One)

As far as my annual Game of the Year, I’d have to give it to The Outer Worlds (XBox One), with The Artful Escape (Xbox One), The Bard’s Tale Trilogy Remastered (XBox One), and Dragon’s Dogma Dark Arisen (PS3) as runners-up.

While the new generation of consoles were out of my reach (this time due to supply chain issues), I enjoyed another year of catching up with some oldies I had passed up. Focus on new releases continued to diminish, mostly because some of the few games I was excited for got pushed into a 2022 release window.

I got a Chinese retro console called Super Console Pro X or something. It came loaded with emulators and software reaching back to the 1970s, but most of them are in other languages or don't work. I keep a small notebook next to it to write down games that actually work. MAME (arcade emulation) is the big star here, with lots of classic early 1980's arcade hits working pretty well. I finally have a home version of Cheeky Mouse to play, so overall the thing was worth it.

I set up some Commodore 64 and VIC 20 emulation on our old laptop, but have yet to pipeline my entire old libraries for each console to the laptop. Like the retro console, it takes a lot of work to get some of these working. I'm glad emulation is there, but am not happy with the general difficulty of enjoying it. I hope to develop more skills in this department in the next decade headed into my dream retirement.

Also this year was my return to Ultima Online. With not much time to play, and the loss of apparently most of my money and resources (due to stupidly abandoning a house full of shit I had created in 2018 for my 20th anniversary in the game), I have only created a small new home on the spot of my original house at Point Zima/ Felucca/Atlantic. It's fun so far but lonely. My goal is to have that house there the day the servers shut down for good, if ever. And of course, explore the High Seas Expansion that they finally added. 

Keeping with the theme of reaching back to the roots of gaming, I picked up the way overpriced but definitely cool Atari Mini Pong Jr. It was a perfect addition to my man-cave collection.I also finally added a complete in-box copy of Space Wars to my Vectrex collection. Space Wars is the home version of the 1978 Cinematronics arcade game of the same name which was based on the 1962 only-at-MIT Spacewar! I feel that I have now covered the origins of all of gaming in my humble collection.

But my life is at this point now, where I have little time to play video games and even less time to update this blog, but that’s not the point. My love of the hobby is eternal and will endure past this pre-apocalyptic nightmare world and all the burdensome obligations of work and relationships that I have saddled myself carrying.

K.C’s Arboretum - A K.C.’s Krazy Chase Variation

To maximize the playability of some of their limited games, Odyssey would often create a game program and put it on a cartridge, but then in the printed manual would offer written instructions for game variations that changed rule sets or just utilized the same software in unique ways.

Monkeyshines is a great example of this, and while the software is called Monkeyshines, cracking open the gorgeous, quality printed manual reveals that it is really just a software package consisting of five games: 

• Monkey Tag!
• Tailspin!
• Shuteye!
• Monkey Chess!
• Bananas!

The keyboard is used to alter the play screen in different ways in each variation. Application cartridges Type & Tell! and Keyboard Creations! had several games written in the manual, but a quick search on YouTube reveals no speedrun of Nincompoop! Amateurs.

And there were more such suggestions in the pages of Odyssey 2 Adventure magazine. I was a player that sent in and got printed one such variation for Invaders from Hyperspace! Which leads me to one such game variation I created back in 1982 for K.C.'s Krazy Chase! which I called K.C.'s Arboretum.

Using the game's programmable mode, the player can add and remove walls thus creating their own maze layout. One day I was playing around with that mode when a thought struck me...will the trees regenerate in closed boxes and be out of the way if I create a maze with that?

A quick test lead to a few prototype mazes scribbled on graph paper and also tested before settling on the final design for K.C.'s Arboretum. The goal was to rescue 6 trees from consumption by the Dratapillar and regrow them on 6 pedestals, untouchable by either the Dratapillar or K.C.

Below is the document I created that day, for decades tucked inside a folder with various other Odyssey 2 advertisements and such:

 

One can see the maze design for the arboretum, and along the right the programming steps used to create the maze. The series of numbers in the middle represents the first successful arboretum achieved, with all 6 of the trees trapped in the six pedestals. 

The trees are eaten by either the Dratapillar or K.C., so the goal of the variation is to get the lowest score possible to get all 6 trees on their pedestals. Each time a tree is eaten, it regenerates somewhere else in the maze. As the Dratapillar circles the perimeter, he clears any trees out there, and the player has to clear them out of the interior area. Here is the maze:

The sequence of numbers from the sheet are 4-15-16-21-26-34 which represents the first tree being trapped at a score of 4, the second tree at 15, and so forth until the sixth tree was trapped at 34 for a final score. Another score on the sheet is 3-15-24-38-45-79 and apparently dated April of 2004. Another set of numbers stops at 49 for the fourth tree and I vaguely remember giving up the last time I tried.

And so the Arboretum was lost to time until this week. I dusted off the keyboard part of the Odyssey 2 and did some very, very old school level editing. Here is the program used to create the maze. Note that ENTER, CLEAR, and YES are keyboard buttons on the Odyssey 2.

• RESET (SELECT GAME should be on the screen)
• P
• ENTER
• 4 A CLEAR
• 7 A CLEAR
• A 2 ENTER
• A 4 ENTER
• A 5 ENTER
• A 6 ENTER
• A 7 ENTER
• A 8 ENTER
• B 2 CLEAR
• B 3 ENTER
• 3 B CLEAR
• 4 B ENTER
• 6 B CLEAR
• B 7 ENTER
• C 1 CLEAR
• 1 C ENTER
• 2 C ENTER
• 3 C ENTER
• 6 C ENTER
• C 6 CLEAR
• 8 C ENTER
• C 7 ENTER
• 1 D ENTER
• D 3 ENTER
• D 4 CLEAR
• 4 D CLEAR
• 5 D CLEAR
• D 8 ENTER
• 2 E ENTER
• 3 E ENTER
• E 5 ENTER
• 6 E ENTER
• 7 E ENTER
• E 7 ENTER
• E 6 CLEAR
• 2 F ENTER
• F 3 ENTER
• F 4 ENTER
• 5 F ENTER
• F 6 ENTER
• F 7 ENTER
• 3 G CLEAR
• 6 G CLEAR 
• YES

So, not only did I enter all that and play a round, I broke the world record:

I actually felt a bit crestfallen after getting that score. Maybe this variation isn't the cat's pajamas I remembered it being, but I bet they would have published it in Odyssey 2 Adventure magazine back in the day. Odyssey 2 was a system where the programmers squeezed the most out of the machine and the players squeezed even more using their imaginations. 

Hardware Review: Retrogameboyz Odyssey 2 Gamepad - Can It Run U.F.O.?

 I had been searching here and there for awhile to find a modern-made Odyssey 2 controller, or someone who could retrofit my six old original controllers with modern tech, to no avail. As the fortieth anniversary of the Odyssey 2 becoming my first console arrived, I decided to search again, and found a custom NES-style gamepad controller being sold on Etsy by Retrogameboyz .

The current link to order one is here . I'll just say here and now, if you own an Odyssey 2 you should get one or two of these as soon as you can. My celebration of forty years of gaming on the console would not have been possible without it. It is also great to review new hardware for the Odyssey 2 again, as the last new hardware I got for it was The Voice module 39 years ago.

It is worth noting here that there are two models of the Odyssey 2, and only one of those has joystick ports. The other version has the joysticks hard-wired to the console and this controller will not work on the system that has no controller ports.

It is solidly built with quality parts and feels as good as an NES controller did in my hands. The plug is solid and sturdy, and the cord is very long, allowing one to play a good distance away from the console. In addition to the awesome Odyssey 2 logo emblazoned in the center of the controller face, other images include K.C. Munchkin, Spyrus the Deathless, and the dreaded Dratapillar. It looks sleek and is finished with such quality that I am not too worried about the images coming off anytime soon.

The play's the thing, though, so I started out with Speedway for a test, and it handled like a dream. The controls were refreshingly responsive as I moved on to Alien Invaders-Plus and got the same results. Next up was a maze chase game, K.C.'s Krazy Chase, to test tight responsiveness and quick turns. I was able to make short work of the Dratapillar and Drats.

Next was Killer Bees, a game comparable to Robotron in frantic gameplay, and using the Retrogameboyz gamepad I lost myself in that one for more than a test session. With a good controller I was reminded why Killer Bees was not just one of the best for the Odyssey, but one of the best of that generation.

The final test was one I was not hopeful for - U.F.O. In the late 2000s there was a PC game called Crysis that according to legend was so demanding of  PCs at the time that the test of any performance for those machines was "Can it Run Crysis?".

And so it shall be for aftermarket Odyssey 2 controllers - Can it Run U.F.O.? Of course, the console itself runs the game, but can the controller be used to play U.F.O. smoothly? Your ship in the game is surrounded by a shield of dots that can take a hit but then needs a few seconds to regenerate. One of those dots in your shield is your cannon, though, and it only rotates clockwise around your ship for aiming.

This forces the player to fly around in clockwise arcs to rotate the gun around to the next target, all the while avoiding asteroids and enemy fire. To say it takes some getting used to is an understatement, but once the player gets the feel for it, they realize that this amazing use of the Odyssey 2's limited controller options really works, and it works well.

The original Odyssey 2 controllers had a joystick and a ball base that made for easy clockwise rotation to pull off U.F.O.'s control scheme. I am happy to report that the Retrogameboyz Odyssey 2 Gamepad pulls this off just as well, if not better than the original stick. Like Killer Bees, U.F.O. is one of those Odyssey 2 games that one can just blast the hours away unknowingly.

I have already ordered my second controller from Retrogameboyz and can only hope that I can send some more business their way with my recommendation here. Having a new controller has really brought life into my old Odyssey 2 again, and I can only marvel at how timeless the gameplay is on some of these now-ancient videogame cartridges.

Forty Years of Home Videogaming

 On Christmas morning in 1981 I was unpleasantly surprised when the Atari VCS I had asked for turned out to be an Odyssey 2. I’ve written about that several times in this blog but needless to say my disappointment that morning was somehow both intense and well-hidden.

It might have been lessened if the pack in game, Speedway/Spin-Out/Crypto-Logic was good, or if the Space Invader clone, Alien Invaders-Plus was playable past a score of 10. But there I was on Christmas morning with no Asteroids or Missile Command, much less Atari’s great licensed Space Invaders.

I began immediate research on what was available for the system soon after, with Dad taking me to our small town Magnavox dealership (shoutout to Ron's Magnavox) to get a third game a few weeks later in January. Not only was this pre-internet, it was pre-Electronic Games magazine, so I was in the dark regarding what the system had.

I was determined to get a better space-themed game, and not knowing any better picked up Cosmic Conflict. It helped Dad that the game was on sale for twenty dollars. While better than Alien Invaders-Plus, it was still pretty limited in replayabilty. There is a strict time limit and it was not too hard to press the score toward that limit by getting good. While the game was another dud for me, it was still an additional box on the shelf, bringing my budding software library to three.

Dad was feeling more generous soon after and I, now better informed thanks to the second issue of Electronic Games magazine, finally scored K.C. Munchkin. My Atari-owning friends took notice, having no home Pac-Man clone and seeing the clear replay value in a game that not only comes with a handful of mazes, but also allowed the player to program in their own levels. 

And so it went with each major Odyssey 2 release up until the Great Videogame Crash of 1983. Odyssey 2 hung on long enough to get Killer Bees and Demon Attack out the door, and I scooped them up at release. I picked up Volleyball for $6 in late 1984 but until I began retro-collecting in the early 1990s I did not actively seek any additional games for the system.

Today I have the entire North American library for the Odyssey 2, and a few amazing "homebrews" that came in the 2000s. Forty years ago I was a kid with no money and a strong desire to develop a great software library for the console I was stuck with. Now I have all those games and struggle to find the time to play and appreciate them. 

Let's wrap up the 40th Anniversary of my acquisition of the Odyssey 2 with images of past Christmasses playing Alien-Invaders-Plus. 

1981:

2007:

2021:

Teaser

Summer 2021 Auditions

Over the summer, I did some more auditioning of games and played through a few.

Chromehounds (360)

This mech game from From Software has long since had its servers shut down, so I was not able to play its much-lauded multiplayer. The game has 6 smalll single-player campaigns, presumably for training ahead of online matches, and I played through the Sniper missions and had some fun.

It's as clunky as one would expect from a mech game in terms of menus and customization. The actual battles are fun and fast-paced, graphically manageable for the 360, and quick to play. I hope to return for more of these missions someday, even though I am currently stuck on one of them.

Dishonored: Death of the Outsider (One)

Like a fine bottle of wine, I've saved this Dishonored 2 DLC for awhile and only opened it up when I wanted to taste the fine blend of stealth gameplay and fantastic story once again. It did not disappoint, and offered a great farewell to the series by wrapping up the story behind all the weird magic of that whale-oil soaked world.

Like Dishonored 2, I played a complete stealth and no kill playthrough, carefully picking off guards, hiding their unconscious bodies, and avoiding any detection. There are only a few chapters in this story and at least one area was used twice, but it was nonetheless a great thrill exploring that world one last time.

Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright Dual Destinies (3DS)

I was long overdue for a return to the courtroom since I have not played one of these in almost a decade. I left the weird spin off game Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth unfinished on the DS as it just did not captivate me like the Phoenix Wright games did. Looking to keep my gaming balanced across all systems and all genres, Dual Destinies seemed like a good game to use to return to the series.

I'm a few cases in so far and progressing nicely when I have time (my lovely wife decided to pick up the 3DS again too, for a damn solitaire game, so we are sharing one unit). It's the usual interview phase/courtroom phase mechanic, with the usual cute young assistant with a weird power and insane enemy prosecutor characters to increase the courtroom drama and antics.

Graphically, it is absolutely gorgeous and the best use of the 3DS magic to create depth I have seen so far. It's just plain fun, more interactive story than game, and I am enjoying it so much that I already picked up the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for the Switch, in anticipation of later returns to the courtroom.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (PS3)

I downloaded this PS3 adventure back in 2013 when it was free via Playstation Plus, and dabbled a little then, making a note to come back and play it later. Later turned into the summer of 2021, and knowing full well that this would be a huge commitment of time and have a steep learning curve, I dove in again.

It's an action RPG where the player is the hero and is accompanied by up to 3 "pawns", which are NPC companions. The player has one pawn as their main companion who levels with the player, and two randos that get changed up as needed throughout the game. They were not that stupid, which is a compliment in terms of NPC behavior in the videogame world.

There is not a lot of monster variety overall, but there are big monsters about that take a lot of time to kill, Giant cyclopses, griffins, and manticores are scattered here and there and those fights are fun. Players can climb on these beasts and hold on with one hand while hacking away with another, which was a very cool game mechanic.

Stamina drains so fast that one is forced to be careful to a point that the combat is just not that much fun at times. Of course, there is a whole level of item management and crafting that I barely skimmed that can provide the player with relief potions, but I am just too old to deep dive into that. 

So when I arrived at the end of the game, I took the bad ending option and called it a day. I tried the final boss fight once, and the damn dragon had 10 health bars to hack down. My heart just wasn't in it and the bad ending was satisfying enough.

Thanks, Dad

The recent passing of my father at the not so middle age of 91 has been as heartbreaking as one could imagine. When I think of all the things he was to me as a dad, I still get choked up. He was not really a teacher, other than leading by example, and what an example of his generation he was.

His work ethic was tied to a reward ethic, and while his career as a press room foreman at a printing company was good enough to raise four kids, we were not really rich. At Christmas each year he received a very nice bonus check, and he spent much of it being generous to his kids.

As I type this and still tear up a few months after his funeral, I remember that those gifts continued into adulthood, and even though he may have not known what I was playing,  he usually hit a home run when he guessed.

1975

Dad got us a Pong clone for Christmas and being a nine year old nerd-in-waiting, I promptly kicked everyone's ass at it and we all got bored with it in a few days. I tried to get into it later but it only had a single player handball game for solo play. The real star for me that Christmas was the bigass Space:1999 Eagle Ship with action figures. It was awesome.

Status: Lost

1978

This Christmas centered around 2-XL, a toy robot that was really just a fancy 8-Track player with an unbelievably innovative design that allowed it to seem like interacting with an actual robot. The tapes had quizzes and questions covering all sorts of topics. It was an educational toy that was a lot of fun, and I received several additional tapes that Christmas. 

Now that I reflect on it, it was technically my first programmable electronic device, and since it also played 8-tracks, my first audio equipment that wasn't a hand-me-down from an older sibling. My first album purchase followed shortly after Christmas, and yes it was the soundtrack to Grease, because it was and still is awesome.

Status: Lost

1979

My older brother had the Mattel Football handheld that kicked off (pun intended) the handheld electronic gaming explosion in the late 1970s. It was cool as hell and fun, but I had my sights set on another game that came out before Christmas from a little company called Coleco.

The Coleco Amaze-A-Tron handheld was a randomly generated maze game that took place on a 5x5 grid of small touchscreen squares. The LED numeric display told the players where to put the plastic piece that represented START and the one for FINISH, and two players took turns racing through the maze. It was even fun solo and had eight variations total. 

Finally, a game that never got boring. It's a masterpiece in design that still works to this day, although I did snag a backup on Ebay to replace the box and a missing plastic player piece.

Status: Still have it. Got an extra one off Ebay for replacement box, game piece, and battery cover.

Also that year, Mom and Dad surprised me with a second electronic gift that was not on my radar.  The T.E.A.M.M.A.T.E. Game Computer, an LED toy computer with a 4x4 red LED grid display and a numeric keypad to program it was one of those toys meant to be educational and with me, it succeeded.

By entering simple commands, the player could program small mini games and light displays. There was not a lot to work with here, and there was no way to save things you entered, but the device (technically a dedicated console like those Pong-only machines) and its stellar manual covered the basics of how computers work so well (ROM, RAM, Input, Output, etc) that I used the device in my 8th grade science fair project and got a Superior blue ribbon.

Status: Lost

Finally that year, there were more 2-XL tapes and an actual game for it called Tri-Lex, which was a fun break from the quizzical nature of the other tapes. 

Status: Lost

1980

While this was the year when Atari changed the industry by bringing home Space Invaders for the VCS, I still was not on board for getting a console. I had seen and played a little on my neighbor's Atari but was not impressed with Combat for long. I wanted Space Invaders as a handheld and Entex had that covered, and luckily so did Dad.

It's a very oversimplified and pared down LED version of Space Invaders but was fun to play and truthfully, still is. 

Status: Still have it. Picked up an extra one somewhere for parts.

1981

By the fall of 1981 the Space Invaders clones and the overall explosion of arcade games had me hooked, and I desperately wanted that Atari VCS, but not for Space Invaders. Atari had paved the way for the arcade-to-console pipeline and with Asteroids it was clear that if I wanted to play the now cool as hell arcade games at home, I needed an Atari VCS and made that quite clear to Dad, as I trusted him and Mom with what I knew then would be my most life-changing gift ever.

So they got my an Odyssey 2 with Alien-Invaders Plus and while grateful as always (it was expensive), I was crestfallen at first as their Space Invaders clone was pretty bad. Telling my friends, 3 of which got Ataris that year and one whose Dad already had one, that I was now stuck with the Odyssey 2, was a shameful experience.

Since the gang would stay overnight in my basement, with someone bringing an Atari and all bringing games, it wasn't long before they were amazed at subsequent Odyssey 2 games like KC Munchkin and UFO being better than the Atari games. We also got our shit together once long enough to play the awesome Quest for the Rings.

In the end, Dad's brand loyalty to Magnavox or whatever lead him to get me the Odyssey 2 taught me that any console could have incredible games and to be humble and take what life gives you and enjoy it. 

Status: Still have all.

Also that year they got me (from what I understood at the time) the first videogame watch in the Nelsonic Space Attacker Watch. The thing was an engineering marvel and a design masterpiece, with two layers of LCD working in conjunction, a full calendar, game demo mode, a small light, and other bells and whistles.

I was too young and stupid to take care of it however, and it was lost to the ages.

Status: Lost

1982

This Christmas Odyssey 2 was getting something the Atari VCS wasn't - a voice synthesis add-on called The Voice. By now I was in full support of Odyssey 2 development and there were great games coming out with the unit that took advantage of not only its speech but its other improved sound features.

Dad rounded up The Voice, Type & Tell, and Attack of the Timelord that year, and it was a good haul.

Status: Still have all.

1983

Dad's generosity extended past Christmas at times, and in the summer of 1983 I convinced him to get me a Commodore VIC 20 Computer and Datasette Drive.  I swear, I was soooo close to convincing him to get me the Commodore 64 instead, but that machine was too pricey in 1983 for his tastes. I got a few games before Christmas and on that holiest of mornings my software library for it grew with Gorf, Jupiter Lander, and Omega Race being added to my collection. The real prize, however, was the 16K Memory Expander cartridge they got me, a necessary addition that paved the way for Crush, Crumble, & Chomp a few weeks later.

Status: Ebayed

1985

By this year I was grown up but living at home while working and attending classes at the Mansfield OSU branch. The working part allowed me to finally catch myself up to the state of the art and I acquired a Commodore 64 and disk drive shortly thereafter.

Dad was taken back when he saw that I had gotten the disk drive myself as well, saying he had inended to get me that for Christmas. And that was the handoff, we both knew. From this point on I was able to fund my own game purchases, and most certainly would at my own discretion.

Nonetheless, he and Mom got me Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative, a terrible Star Trek text adventure that I barely ever got into. It was very weird, but I was grateful and it set a precedent of them buying me random games throughout my adult life with no knowlege of what I had and what I was interested in.

Status: Ebayed

1989

By this year I had long since moved back to Columbus with my Commodore 64 in tow and had started my new city life, balanced between work, college, and partying my ass off. I lived with my mess of a college girlfriend who hated my love of games, but had allowed my to add an NES to my collection, purchased with my tax refund.

I'm not sure if I had told Dad about owning one, but that Christmas they surprised me again with a copy of To The Earth, a terrible NES light gun game. Once again I was grateful, but baffled.

Status: Ebayed

1992

The fall of 1992 brought a great wave of Super Nintendo games for me, and the world, so I was in absolute awe when the folks got me Super Castlevania IV. This game was already in my sights of course but they took a chance that I did not have it and hit a home run with this gift.

Status: Ebayed. Reacquired on the SNES Mini console.

2004

Mom passed in 2003 and at that point gifts were no longer expected anyway between all us grown up kids and Dad, but we usually got small things. Thus I was absolutely floored when Dad gifted me with a completely unexpected XBox console. 

I was mostly playing MMORPGS like Ultima Online and City of Heroes in those days, and the only console of that generation I had acquired was the Nintendo Gamecube. I'd been living away from home for almost 2 decades at this point so I have no inkling that Dad had made anything other than an impulse buy with that one. 

Maybe he wanted to gift his then tragically still messed up and single son one last big gift, and he really outdid himself with this generous final offering. The fact that the XBox's market share compared to the Playstation 2 mirrored the Odyssey 2 to the Atari VCS was not lost on me. I think it came with Halo, and I developed a small library for the system over the next few years. 

Status: Traded In.

2017

Dad got me a real nice pen in a case from a local jeweler. I know, it's not a videogame gift, but it means a lot to me in several ways. It's a reminder of the old school world he lived in, and in which I was raised. Also, it sits on my desk at work, which for the past year and a half has been at home, a reminder of his work ethic and how his hard work and attention to detail progressed his career.

2021

Dad passed in early July, but with the easing of restrictions we got to gather the family for Fathers Day at the assisted living facility he was in.  He lit up to see us all there, marveled at his great grandson who towered over us all, having graduated high school and signed up to join the Marines.

Dad's last gift then was to hold on for one last gathering of the family. Over those last few months of visits, he held varying levels of lucidity, but always recognized us when we entered his room.

After settling his affairs (managed by my much smarter sister), I was sent a small inheritance a few weeks later of just over $500. At first I just deposited it and did not think of spending it on anything for myself. But my supportive wife reminded me weeks later that I was entitled to do just that with Dad's inheritance. 

So I recovered one of these on Ebay last week:

Thanks, Dad, one last time. I’ll take better care of this one.

MANGAR DEFEATED, SKARA BRAE SAVED!

Beaten: Tales of the Unknown Volume 1: The Bard's Tale (Commodore 64 /XBox One)

Thirty five years after booting up a floppy disk and embarking on a journey through frozen streets, seedy taverns, and complex mazes of catacombs and castles, my party of six adventurers and one monster have defeated the evil mage Mangar atop his tower, freeing Skara Brae from his wintry curse.

So for the record, my first run on this game in 1986 put my party only one and a half levels away from this victory. I had no idea back then that I was close, and the cantankerous old Commodore 64 floppy disk version probably discouraged me from finishing more than the distraction of new games as mentioned in my previous blog entries, I have concluded.

The old version only allowed for saving at the adventurer's guild back in town. In the remaster, one can save anywhere, which ends the frustration of making a little progress for a few minutes before heading back through the dungeon and back to town to save.

Especially in those last few levels of Mangar's Tower, there are enemies which can insta-kill a party member by turning them to stone, which, while being reversable by a magic spell, still results in a corpse. So why did the designers add a spell to un-stone a character when it only removes that effect and leaves a corpse anyway? Just to save the expense when you drag their corpse back to the healers in town, I guess. Those helpful but expensive monks will charge for both services while chanting the same thing the monks in Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Everything in the remaster is sleeker, faster, and streamlined to remove the hardware-based difficulty and frustration of the original, distilling the difficulty back to its core elements - cautious exploring, meticulous mapping, lore-based puzzles, and enjoyable strategy-intense turn-based combat. The pacing is perfect - if one explores each and every dungeon level rather than rushing through to the stairs to the next level, the party will level up to the challenges of the current area.

The automap saves one a lot of legwork in cracking this classic beast of an RPG. It has shown me that most of my old maps had missing or misunderstood parts to them, but for the most part those maps and accompanying notes were good to go as a helpful tool through most of this campaign. The automap was not present in the original version, and in the remaster serves not only to map the game, but to allow the use of the magic spells right through the map rather than having to close it and then cast the spell one needs. 

If the party is teleported unexpectedly, for example, one can cast the Scry Site spell right in the map to see where they were teleported to. The best part of this is the party teleport spell working within the automap, saving the player the work of plotting out on graph paper maps the x,y,z destination coordinates. Here, one just scrolls through the levels and moves a cursor before pressing Y to use the spell to get there. Of course, there are areas and even whole levels where these spells do not work, by design.

Also useful was the decades of game experience I've had since then. Thirty five years ago I was a less experienced gamer and these dungeons were intimidating and their mechanics sometimes obtuse. Since then, I've played many more RPGs and learned how one's party of adventurers can encounter weird effects when dungeon crawling, and to use all of the game's resources to their fullest. I did not know that the late-game master key, which saves a lot of time toward the end of the game, also prevents the party from getting turned around when they step on a spinner square trap. A trip to Roscoe's to get it analyzed revealed that helpful tip.

The final battle against Mangar was epic and took a few tries, as he summons more Demon Lords. Finally, I figured out a way to take him out with only losing a few party members. After the victory, I returned to that last level to map out everything I had missed, only to discover an additional item that might have been helpful for that final battle. Oh well, a win is a win.

I cannot thank inXile entertainment and their team enough for this remastered version. If their goal was to craft a lovingly faithful yet modernized and accessible version of the classic that would reach one old gamer like me and recreate the joy of playing the original, then mission accomplished. At the end, back at the Adventurer's Guild, the menu now offers a launching point to start The Bard's Tale 2: The Destiny Knight, and I have no doubt that I will return for a rematch on that one later in life. 

And finally, thanks to Barry Ledbetter and Andy Kiss, hopefully out there somewhere,  for their assistance in the first campaign all those years ago. The maps and notes were an unbelievable help in getting through the whole thing this time. When I create my great assembly of game maps, their assistance will be noted as well.

The Bard's Tale Trilogy Remastered is the quintessential Bard's Tale, and I will never be that much of a purist to where I feel my accomplishment in beating the first game is diminished somehow by its streamlined mechanics. It is still fun, challenging, and stands as a shining example of how to bring old games to modern times.