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12 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

@Happenstance @S.C.G @nekunando @Grazza and anyone else who wants to answer. What would you say your favourite Sega console is? 

I was thinking about it this evening and I found it to be a hard choice to make between the Mega Drive and Dreamcast. The MD has the nostalgic value going for it but the DC was ahead of its time and had an amazing library of games made when Sega went all I'm with creativity. Hmmmmm....

That's a really difficult question!

On the one hand, I have amazing memories of Streets of Rage 1& 2, Golden Axe, Sonic 1, 2, 3 & Knuckles and Super Hang On as well as something like Shinobi III that I first got to experience on the Wii Virtual Console :smile:

On the other, the Dreamcast is probably my favourite non-Nintendo console and one that I'm really glad I picked up just over a decade ago on eBay :hehe:

Sega Rally, Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Soul Calibur, Rez, Crazy Taxi, Daytona USA, Virtua Tennis and even the Sonic Adventure games have their moments. The Dreamcast really deserved to do better!

The way Sega churn out the Mega Drive classics at every opportunity has somehow diminished some of their specialness, even if I was considering picking up Columns on the Wii VC before the deadline just because the music and sound effects take me back to a really happy place :red:

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8 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

So we’re you guys Mega Drive 1 or 2? 

I now know the audio is supposed to be better with the Mega Drive 1 but as a kid I just loved the design of the 2 in comparison and it’s still the only type I’ve owned.

I owned the Mega Drive 2 and the Master System 2 consoles. The first iterations of each just look all kinds of wrong to me!

I also had the Mega CD 2 deck. :D 

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1 hour ago, Happenstance said:

Someone needs to come up with a proper way to play old light gun games on hdtvs. I know there are people claiming some stuff can be done but I just want something simple like a tiny box you can sit under your tv and register the hits. It was annoying buying all these Saturn and PS1 games this week and skipping over games like Time Crisis and Virtual Cop because I didn’t see the point in getting them.

Yeah, it's very frustrating needing a SDTV to just play these types of games. It's a favourite genre of mine, as well. :( 

10 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

So we’re you guys Mega Drive 1 or 2? 

I now know the audio is supposed to be better with the Mega Drive 1 but as a kid I just loved the design of the 2 in comparison and it’s still the only type I’ve owned.

Mega Drive 2 for me. The thing just looks so sleek.

Thanks for the replies, guys. It seems myself and @nekunando have trouble deciding but the rest of you seem to be clearly in camp MD.

 

 

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I keep wondering if I should work on my PS2 collection next but everytime I take a look through the best PS2 games I realise that its actually surprisingly accessible elsewhere these days and it feels a bit pointless.

I might take a look at the top RPGs for the PS1 and try and get some of the ones I missed out on the first time around. I think Grandia and Breath of Fire IV were pretty highly recommended last time I looked.

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15 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

So we’re you guys Mega Drive 1 or 2? 

I now know the audio is supposed to be better with the Mega Drive 1 but as a kid I just loved the design of the 2 in comparison and it’s still the only type I’ve owned.

I don't own a Mega Drive but, to me, the Mega Drive II was the Mega Drive as that's what my friend up the road had. I didn't even realise there was an earlier version until much later :grin:

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3 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

I think Grandia and Breath of Fire IV were pretty highly recommended last time I looked.

Have you never played Grandia before?

This thread surely made me realize that you are a horrible person...a horrible, HORRIBLE person. :p

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5 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Have you never played Grandia before?

This thread surely made me realize that you are a horrible person...a horrible, HORRIBLE person. :p

Lol, I'm surprised that didn't happen a long time ago!

Nope, never played Grandia. My first RPG was FFVII and then probably didn't play another one until FFX.

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15 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

I keep wondering if I should work on my PS2 collection next but everytime I take a look through the best PS2 games I realise that its actually surprisingly accessible elsewhere these days and it feels a bit pointless.

I might take a look at the top RPGs for the PS1 and try and get some of the ones I missed out on the first time around. I think Grandia and Breath of Fire IV were pretty highly recommended last time I looked.

There are still a bunch of games that never got released elsewhere, especially Capcom stuff. The Dino Crisis and Resident Evil gun games, Under the Skin, Maximo games, Chaos Legion, Onimusha 1-4, Capcom Fighting Jam, Breath of Fire V...and that's just one publisher/developer.

I have yet to play Breath of Fire IV. I know it's rated very highly but I never got around to playing it. 

I do own Grandia on my Vita but I never completed it.

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14 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I do own Grandia on my Vita but I never completed it.

whats-wrong-with-you.gif

I think it's time for me to never read this thread again...it's killing my mood. :D

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48 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

I keep wondering if I should work on my PS2 collection next but everytime I take a look through the best PS2 games I realise that its actually surprisingly accessible elsewhere these days and it feels a bit pointless.

I might take a look at the top RPGs for the PS1 and try and get some of the ones I missed out on the first time around. I think Grandia and Breath of Fire IV were pretty highly recommended last time I looked.

I picked up Breath of Fire IV in CeX years ago for £1 when they were getting rid of a lot of their retro stuff.. but I've never really found the right opportunity to play it yet!

I was playing Grandia II on Dreamcast last year but moving house really hampered my progress as I haven't touched it since we moved.

As for growing your PS2 library, there probably isn't that much I can recommend as it's possibly the least appealing console I own. Like you say, great games like Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Shadow of the Colossus can be found elsewhere and there isn't really a great deal that I could highlight that isn't also on Gamecube. Gitaroo Man, Onimusha and Silent Hill 2 are about the only reasons I still have a PS2!

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9 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Did any of you play the Parasite Eve games?

I never got to play the original game due to it never being released over here. I played and loved the second game, though. It played like a Resident Evil game. 

I also played 3rd Birthday on the PSP but couldn't get into it.

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16 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

@Happenstance @S.C.G @nekunando @Grazza and anyone else who wants to answer. What would you say your favourite Sega console is? 

I was thinking about it this evening and I found it to be a hard choice to make between the Mega Drive and Dreamcast. The MD has the nostalgic value going for it but the DC was ahead of its time and had an amazing library of games made when Sega went all I'm with creativity. Hmmmmm....

 

Easily the Mega Drive for me too.

 

I was really into gaming at the time of the Saturn, and got a lot of enjoyment out of it.  Whilst it's now thought of as a machine that wasn't very good at polygons, I remember how cutting edge it was at the time, and how cool it was to have home versions of Virtua Fighter and Virtua Cop.  On a personal level, I loved having a 32-bit home console with extreme 2D prowess.  Marvel Super Heroes and Street Fighter Alpha 2 were something else, and I really liked the sprites in Story of Thor 2 (Beyond Oasis 2).

 

Dreamcast was a funny one for me.  I was burnt out with gaming and didn't appreciate it properly at the time.  I distinctly remember having been swayed by Nintendo's 3D adventures and wasn't really in the mood for Dreamcast's arcade games.  However, I must say I played Skies of Arcadia later on GameCube and thought it was brilliant.  Maybe if I'd have played the likes of that and Grandia 2 at the time, I'd have appreciated it more.

 

But as I say, the winner for me is easily the Mega Drive.  It's hard to explain the feel at the time - how that really was the first console with games that felt almost like the arcade experience (Altered Beast, Ghouls 'n' Ghosts) and together with the Game Gear and various Sega magazines, the whole Sega atmosphere was magical.  I've never had more fun sitting round a console with friends.  Even though it was only 2-player, there were usually a few of us either playing and/or watching Golden Axe, Streets of Rage or Two Crude Dudes.  Streets of Rage 2 is so good it holds up as one of the few brawlers that really does rival Final Fight, and the composer Yuzo Koshiro is still working his magic with Etrian Odyssey (one of the reasons I got into that series was because it felt "Sega").  Then there were the platformers that were integral to the mood of the day, such as Castle of Illusion, Robocod and Revenge of Shinobi, not to mention all the exotic-looking RPGs I wanted to try.  It might have been because I was a 12-year-old boy commuting between my home and London (I used to take my MD with me!), and the world just felt cooler then, but for me, there will never be anything to match the Mega Drive.

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Ok then, got my list of PS1 RPGs I'll try to track down.

Grandia
Chrono Cross
Breath of Fire IV
Parasite Eve
Parasite Eve II
Legend of Dragoon
Star Ocean: The Second Story
Vagrant Story
Wild Arms
Legend of Legaia
Suikoden II
Xenogears
Alundra
Alundra II

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@Grazza thanks for the reply. I figured MD would be your fav. You've spoken very highly of it over the years.

3 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Ok then, got my list of PS1 RPGs I'll try to track down.

Grandia
Chrono Cross
Breath of Fire IV
Parasite Eve
Parasite Eve II
Legend of Dragoon
Star Ocean: The Second Story
Vagrant Story
Wild Arms
Legend of Legaia
Suikoden II
Xenogears
Alundra
Alundra II

Have you missed your PlayStation to play imports? A few of them are available on PSN if you prefer to go that route. I myself have Vagrant Story, Suikoden 1&2, Wild Arms and Grandia on the Vita.

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Just now, Hero-of-Time said:

@Grazza thanks for the reply. I figured MD would be your fav. You've spoken very highly of it over the years.

Have you missed your PlayStation to play imports? A few of them are available on PSN if you prefer to go that route. I myself have Vagrant Story, Suikoden 1&2, Wild Arms and Grandia on the Vita.

I may go that route for some of the more expensive ones but I would like to own the originals. Suidoken II for example is £110 on CEX at the moment so I wont be getting that!

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12 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Ordered a copy of Grandia for PS1 with that extra voucher that was sent to me yesterday.

Hopefully it's not the greatest hits version. Hate those boxes.

Youre a brave man ordering from CEX. I couldn't do it. I've seen the state of some of their games in the store and I couldn't have them in my collection. I need to see the condition the goods I'm buying.

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2 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Hopefully it's not the greatest hits version. Hate those boxes.

Youre a brave man ordering from CEX. I couldn't do it. I've seen the state of some of their games in the store and I couldn't have them in my collection. I need to see the condition the goods I'm buying.

Yeah to be honest if it wasn't for the vouchers I would be ordering elsewhere and will be from now on.

The one good thing I have noticed about CEX though is the prices. Double checking stuff on eBay things go for a lot more on there.

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9 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Hopefully it's not the greatest hits version. Hate those boxes.

 

I do my best not to have any Platinum/Player's Choice/Nintendo Selects versions of anything as it's just got to be the original boxart!

I only have a few Platinum games for the PS1, which doesn't actually bother me that much, but I can't really stand it on any other system :red:

Heck, I hate the ACA branding on the Switch game icons so much that I haven't yet bought any of them! I will.. but it doesn't make me feel good.

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Yeah. As long as CEX stand by their listings then I shouldn't have any Platinum versions of games coming to me yet either. Never been a big fan of them.

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Ok, last purchase for a while...

psone_star_wars_episode_i_the_phantom_me

I don't think it was a good game but I have good memories of playing this Star Wars game and kind of wanted to play it again. Only a couple of quid so if it doesn't live up to my memory I'll be fine.

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23 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Ok, last purchase for a while...

psone_star_wars_episode_i_the_phantom_me

I don't think it was a good game but I have good memories of playing this Star Wars game and kind of wanted to play it again. Only a couple of quid so if it doesn't live up to my memory I'll be fine.

Yeah, it was an awful game. Even back then. :D 

You not picking up the Resident Evil games? Surely they gotta be dirt cheap.

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I will do eventually just to have them as part of my collection but I never enjoyed playing that series so I'm in no rush.

Annoyingly though, I just got an email from CEX to say that they couldn't find a copy of Croc for the Saturn for me so I cant have that. Thing is though, its still in stock on their site but the price has gone up...

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27 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Ok, last purchase for a while...

psone_star_wars_episode_i_the_phantom_me

I don't think it was a good game but I have good memories of playing this Star Wars game and kind of wanted to play it again. Only a couple of quid so if it doesn't live up to my memory I'll be fine.

"The door is open. Let's go!" is my only lasting memory of that game!

I'm not a Star Wars fan but my friend had the game and he let me have a go at a few sections he was having trouble with :smile:

When I was casually browsing the Saturn section of CeX the other day, I noticed Croc was out of stock and figured you must have got the last one. Chances are one of the staff members has set that copy aside for themselves..

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