Nostalgia

Ever put on an album you haven't listened to in a long time and it just takes you back in time?

I felt that way this week. My new car doesn't have a CD player (end of an era!) so I mostly listened to the trial satellite radio, which just recently ran out of subscription, the random ambient music that is in my car's library, and podcasts (I know; what a bore!). The other day, I remembered I had actual honest to God music I could be listening to, so I imported my Better than Ezra CD (Closer) and it's been a bit on replay throughout the week.

It's funny to go back to listen to music that was important to you when you were young but doing things that you do as an adult. I like to think that I've changed a lot from childhood to adulthood, but some things don't change. My personality is still kind of my personality, just with new wrinkles.

I sometimes wonder if I just play retro games because I'm nostalgic about the past, but nostalgia isn't the whole thing. I genuinely enjoy playing older things, wrinkles and all. I love the idea that I can start up a game, play for a couple credits (or however many are granted, or whether I want to save state my way to victory?) and then walk away and enjoy my day. Thankfully, pick-up-and-play games still exist, but these have the fringe benefit of being things I already own.

I've touched on replaying old games before, so I won't stick to that topic. Instead, I just wanted to express how that satisfying feeling of going back to something explored before years (or even decades) later goes beyond just games, like music. I don't just live in the past, though. I try to read or watch new things every now and then (I'm still actually reading books, again; what a life!). It's just that sometimes I do like to go back to the old things and experience them with my (slightly) changed perspective. Sometimes, it's cringey. Thankfully, I still enjoyed the album. I can't say the same about all of my music choices when I was younger!

Videogame Challenges, Redux

It wasn't that long ago that I wrote about how videogame challenges could be fun but obsessive. What's funny, though, is that somehow I found myself beating two challenges that I had abandoned:

• Street Fighter II: World Warrior, arcade version, difficulty 3, 1 credit challenge (1CC)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters, NES version, hard difficulty (only 1 credit allowed on hard)

Beating the SF2 challenge was a surprise for me. I still randomly put on old fighting games and play them for fun, and I had been playing a lot of fighting games since Capcom Arcade Fighting Collection 2 came out, so I thought, why not? I was able to beat it as Ryu, with a few rough spots against Balrog and Bison (two very close calls, round 3's if I remember correctly).

TMNT, on the other hand, was super random. I had previously written about how I played Tournament Fighters on NES for the first time and was pleasantly surprised by it. I had just finished reading the first volume of IDW 2011 comics for the series and, being in the mood for more Turtles stuff, decided to try out the Genesis version. That's a wacky game and one I am definitely going to go back to because of its odd nature. However, it also got me back into the NES one, which I had previously beaten on Normal. It took a few tries today, but I finally beat Shredder on hard. I had to be patient and remind myself that it's not a race. I played as Raphael, who has a drill move that resembles the psycho crusher, and his throw was also incredibly useful.

I'd like to point out that in the manual, the Turtles say "No weapons when hyping each other up." Meanwhile, Casey and Shredder both had weapons. Gotta hand it to Raph to sticking to their rule.

I think the difference between last time I tried to beat SF2 with 1 credit and now was that I was having more fun with it. It was fine to just give it a try and, if I failed, then go about doing something else. I've learned the lesson before, but it's a nice reminder to enjoy the process of playing the game. If I get the end result I was aiming for, that's great! However, winning isn't the reason I'm playing the games. It's to have fun. Sometimes that means going for a challenge that I don't normally do (perhaps more thoughts about limited continues or harder difficulties another time). I accomplished the goal and had fun along the way.

A funny sidenote is that last week after I 1 CC'd SF2, I turned around and tried to do a 1CC for Metal Slug and quickly abandoned it, thinking of my old post. Maybe one day, but maybe I can just say low-credit run and go for that? 😅

Breaking Up With Your Phone

I just finished reading a book titled How to Break Up with Your Phone, by Catherine Price (2018). I go through phases where I spend entirely too much time on my phone, but when I do go down a rabbit hole, it can be quite a deep rabbit hole. I hate that feeling where the phone (or just being on the internet) feels more like a requirement than a thing I can enjoy. While I didn't learn a lot of new things from the book (much of the research about social media and compulsive screen time is well-established at this point), the book was a reminder that I don't need to spend so much time on my phone, or the internet in general, to make use of it.

What I like about the book is that it's not just saying "never use your phone," though I imagine people may read the title and treat the title as that being the literal meaning of it. It's about being mindful of when we use our phones. What purpose are we using them for? Do we have a specific objective we are trying to accomplish (such as reading the news or checking our email), or is it part of a habit? A lot of times, it is definitely a habit for me. I am looking for ways to cool it on my phone and internet use, to get back to that point where I want to use these things for specific purposes (chat with friends, play games online, share things, read things) rather than let that be my default. I don't want life to pass me by.

Price asks us to consider: how do we want to spend the time in our life? Sometimes it is to be a little distracted, and that's OK too, but is distraction the default mode we want to be in?

If you're looking for a way to lighten up your own tech use, I would personally recommend the book. It's an easy read; I was able to knock it out over a few sittings. I'm already starting to use some of the tips (Discord is uninstalled from my phone once again, and I am limiting my other notifications).

Obsessive Gaming Challenges Part 2

Sometimes obsessive gaming challenges come premediated. Others come organically. I got into playing Resident Evil, the remake on PS4. I've never played any of them in the series before, but I have both that and Code: Veronica X due to a Humble Bundle I purchased years ago. I finally decided I needed to try it since I played Silent Hill and Parasite Eve and loved them. In fact, I enjoyed the RE remake so much that I wound up playing it a few more times in short succession and at some point will buy the first three on PC through Good Old Games. There's just something about the game design that clicked with me. I think it scratched that itch that Metroid-style games do sometimes, where you figure out where to find certain items to get you to certain places. It doesn't have movement-type upgrades like a Metroid would, but when you boil down the components, that's where you ultimately land.

Anyway, I eventually played through the game again with Jill on hard mode. It took a few tries before I was comfortable enough with the beginning to burn an ink ribbon on a save. Not having looked anything up about the difficulty level, I was concerned I would have a very limited number of saves, but it's surprisingly generous. In retrospect, I could have tried doing much less before taking my initial save. Instead, I had to skip past the initial cutscenes multiple times. Considering the amount of time that the version I was playing on took to load, I spent a lot of time waiting. It kind of made me feel like I was playing a PS1 game again. I ultimately made it through. Funnily enough, like Metroid-style games, I found the beginning of the game harder than the end, but that may have been because I tried to conserve a lot of healing items and ammo. It paid off big time when I reached the end. For my efforts, I unlocked Real Survival mode, which unlinks the item boxes (time to get that notebook out and keep track of where I leave things) and implements manual aiming. Geez! Not sure when I'll go back to that. I ended up playing the game three times in a row before I decided I needed to give it a rest. It'll be waiting for me when I get back, though.

Obsessive Game Challenges

What kind of challenges do you find yourself going back to over and over? I find myself going back to arcade games like Metal Slug and Street Fighter II: World Warrior to see if I can do a 1 CC (credit clear). I surprisingly got close to doing it in each game. There's a point, however, where it goes from something you do for fun versus something you have to do.

There was a point where I was sometimes getting to Vega or Sagat doing a 1 CC attempt with Ryu. Around the same time, I was able to reach either the second-to-last or the last mission (I can't remember any more; it's been a couple years). Suddenly I was getting annoyed by every mistake I was making, and next thing I know, I was spending time late at night to try to 1 CC these games. It's like the closer I got, the more enticing it was.

Ultimately, one night, I was on a Discord call with friends. It was past the time I should have reasonably been in bed. I decided "Let's do it one more time." You're probably expecting me to say at this point that I masterfully beat Metal Slug, right? Wrong. Instead, one of my friends, who knew that I was attempting these challenges, decided to quote Sans from Undertale. I'll put the text in spoiler-ese, just in case:

Show Quote

"You'll never give up, evan if there's, uh. . . Absolutely NO benefit to perservering whatsoever. If i can make that clear. No matter what, you'll just keep going. Not out of any desire for good or evil. . . But just because you think you can. And bwcause you "can". . . . . . You "have to."

Thank you, Nick97_ on Reddit for entering that whole dialogue.

I was on Mission 3, and when he said that, I just kind of sat there for a minute, thinking. I've played Undertale, so I know all about the spiel. However, that quote really hit me that night, and I gave up my playthrough and wished him goodnight.

It's been a running joke between us now, but every now and then, I think about it, particuarly when I try to do a particular gaming challenge for no real reason. There's nothing wrong with pushing yourself, but I think you have to balance it. Are you trying it just for fun, or are you trying it because you feel like you have to?

Instead, one of my personal favorites to do is just to replay the game, as normal, and have fun; trust the process. Maybe I'll do better next time; maybe I won't. But at least I'm not (as often) obsessing over silly game challenges!

8-bit, 2D Tournament Fighting!

Want to play a fighting game?

Sure, let's play Tekken!

Nah, too many dimensions. How about something 2D?

Sure, let's play Street Fighter 6!

Nah, too many graphics. How about something older?

Super Turbo?

Nah, I want ninjas in my game.

Mortal Kombat?

Nah, too serious. How about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters?

Sure, we can play Tournament Fighters on SNES! That's a cult classic!

Sure it's good, but what if we played a version with fewer buttons, fewer characters, and a totally different story?

You mean?

That's right, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters for the NES! This is a game that completely passed me up during my childhood. I loved playing TMNT II: The Arcade Game on NES and Turtles in Time on the SNES, but I completely ignored Tournament Fighters in all of its forms. I had a vague recollection that each version was different, but since I only ever had screenshots to go on. It's not that I wouldn't have played it if it weren't in front of me. You just have to know the context of the time. Games were expensive, not always available in your local area, or just passed over in favor of other games that you did come across.

As I have gotten older, I have developed a fascination of different versions of the same game. You may not think about it much anymore now that games that go multiplatform are the same game. Minor differences in technical performance or perks for buying it on one console or another aside, getting the same game on more than one contemporary platform for the most part comes down to your preference for where or how you want to play it. You might be more familiar with this concept with the debate of which version of Aladdin is better - SNES or Genesis? Those were two different games with the same title! I even love seeing the differences between two versions of a game that are almost the same. For example, we've got two versions of Street Fighter II Turbo or Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition for the SNES and Genesis. They are practically the same game, but I love the minor differences in how the same games are interpreted through the hardware. This doesn't come down to one being as technical as "one has a different framerate" but more like a watercolor versus paint approach. On an artistic level, I find it fun to compare two different interpretations of the same work (in the case of Street Fighter II, the arcade games they are based on).

Images from MobyGames. Street Fighter is a trademark of Capcom.

Back to TMNT, Tournament Fighters falls more into the Aladdin discussion. The Cowabunga Collection has all three versions - SNES, Genesis, and NES. This is not going to be an in-depth review of the NES version. I just wanted to share some observations that I had while playing this game.

• I love the fact that despite the source material, there are no weapons. Pick your favorite turtle in story mode, and you're going hand-to-hand. In the story, Shredder has had enough of the status quo and just wants to fight in the streets!

I notice Shredder doesn't say "no weapons" in his note!

• It's been said elsewhere, but I'd like to reiterate that it's fascinating this game exists. It's in the rare company of being a 2D one-on-one, Street Fighter style fighting game on the NES. That was very rare when you don't include the unofficial, unlicensed, and bootleg NES fighting games that are out there.
• Being a fighting game on the NES, it is shocking how well this game controls. I don't associate Konami with fighting games, but their technical skill with hardware in the 90's still stands up. The overall game runs surprisingly well.
• There are some special moves, too! When I played as Raph, he had a E. Honda headbutt move!

Or is this a Psycho Crusher?

• As each round progresses, occasionally a power up will fly onto the screen and drop a ball. Pick up the ball, and if you do a Hadouken motion (do I even need to tell you this command?), you'll throw it forward like a projectile. I didn't have anyone to play with in multiplayer, but I imagine it makes some fights interesting!
• Like most 2D fighters I've played, it even has grabs!

The dreaded tick-throw from Street Fighter II strikes back!

• When I first played this game, I beat it on Normal. I didn't finish it this most recent time (you have limited continues!), but I'll share my original screenshot of the reward for your hard work. As a side note, this game is incredibly challenging on Hard and you only get one credit!

Typical 90's ending when you had multiple difficulty options.

There's certainly more to say about this game, but I wanted to share my brief thoughts about this game. I have to imagine this game was written off compared to the other versions of this game. I would like to encourage you to step outside of your comfort zone and try a game that you might have passed over before. You may be surprised how much fun you have with it!

Note: Unless otherwise noted, screenshots were captured by me. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is owned by Nickelodeon. The Cowabunga Collection was developed by Digital Eclipse and published by Konami. The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters was developed and published by Konami.

On Replaying Games

Have you ever heard of the "Backlog of Shame"? I find it's most commonly associated with people's massive Steam (digital game shop) libraries, but it can really apply to any sort of entertainment options that people say they will get around to but may or may not. I guess it's most associated with Steam because it is so easy to pick up cheap games. The logic behind it is that when I was a kid (old man alert!), games were very expensive, so you didn't typically just get a new game every week or month (or days, anyone?). You had to make the most of what you had. In my case, I remember getting a game on my birthday, during the holidays, and on some other special occasions if I was lucky (or had generous relatives!). Other than that, renting was where it was at. Before I go full Grampa Simpson and rant about the onion strapped to my belt (which was the style at the time!), I should get to the point.

Image generated using Frinkiac. The Simpsons is owned by Disney.

Once we got access to larger libraries of cheaper games, a lot of us have libraries of games that span hundreds of games. If you sat down and tried to play through every single game the way we did when I was a kid, I am certain you would devote decades of your life. In fact, the HowLongToBeat website could likely be used to get a ballpark amount of time, but some things are better left unknown. As a result, we have to make a choice with our time. I'll read online about how people make these elaborate plans to get through their Backlog of Shame, much in the way you might try to tear through your backlog at work. I've tried sometimes to intentionally play games I already own rather than buying something new that catches my eye (I know, what a concept!), but I find when I do, I start to feel a weird pressure. That backlog really does turn into work. At some point, I had to give up and tell myself that I will never play through all of my games in the backlog. This is an extremely first-world problem, but it's a question of how we spend our leisure time, which I think is still an important one for our personal satisfaction. You could apply this to book, movies, or any other thing we do with our spare time. 

"Seriously, what's the point?" you might ask, tapping your foot like Sonic. Well, don't jump off the level just yet, because I'm getting there.

The concept of playing through a game backlog, or ignoring it and playing new things, is how to address replaying a game! This Reddit link (Do you replay games? r/patiengamers) is just one of many examples where someone actually feels guilty about replaying a game in the face of having a backlog of other games to play. As you can see in this link and others similar to it, there are a wide range of opinions, but just the fact that people feel guilty of not playing something new is an interesting thought experiment. One user comments along the lines that it reflects our consumerist culture, that we always have to be purchasing something new. I think it's a bit more complex, although I get that view.

I fit in the "and/both" category. I have a large library of games, but I also love replaying games. Growing up on and still enjoying classic games has conditioned me to replay them frequently. I can't imagine just playing through Megaman X once and then telling myself, "Well that was fun, but once is enough. I have other games to play!" Sure, I might move on to another game to play for awhile, but eventually, I'll get that itch. It's a weird sort of feeling that makes me want to revisit something. Even though playing through it will be familiar, I don't think of it as just doing the same thing over and over again. In a game like Megaman X, you can play it in a different order, give yourself restrictions (such as limiting what upgrades you get), or trying to speedrun it. 

Sketch I made of the boss select screen in Megaman X. I've just given you three different ways to play!

Even then, if you decided to replay the game in the same way you did previously, I don't think of that as wasting time. That is more like you enjoyed the vacation, tour, movie, etc., so much that you want to get as much out of it as you can! Each time you experience something, that experience is a two-way street. Sure, Capcom didn't change the data in the Megaman X cartridge between my playthroughs, but I certainly change a bit each time I experience something because I am not a static entity. In both my second and third playthrough of the game, I may have played the game before and understand how to beat certain bosses, but they are still different because each time I play, the snapshot of how I perceived the game on my end changes in some way. Maybe I get better at dodging certain attacks, or I prefer to take certain hits like a tank so I can bypass a set of spikes. Even speedrunners who learn how to optimize their playthroughs may spot ways to further innovate their runs along the same general path!

This is just the beginning of this line of thought, because I haven't even touched on randomizers, procedural generation, or a mix of the two, but I hope that if you have never gone back to replay a game you've played or finished before that this encourages you to do so. Never give up your interest in trying new things, but don't forget that you can still have a great time retreading an older path!