Gaming Journals

Being unemployed again I’ve been able to take a couple day trips to a retro arcade that recently opened up, Rusty Quarters. In Uptown Minneapolis, Minnesota.  It takes an hour and 2 buses to get there, but it’s been worth it.

I had been anticipating this place opening for a while and was excited to try out some of the classics.

I tried most of their games out. Asteroids, Burgertime, Centipede, Crystal Castles, Defender, Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong (2 of them!), Donkey Kong Junior, Frogger, Joust, Ms. Pac-Man, Q*Bert, Space Invaders Deluxe, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Track & Field.

The first game I played was Crystal Castles. Never played it before. It uses a rolling ball for control of the character.  This game was pretty fun and the ball control worked well. Right away I was spinning the ball fastly to sweep up the lines of dots. I looked at the marquee game play instructions on many of the games I had never played or didn’t fully understand how to play.  And some just because they look cool.  This place has all the original cabinets for these games and some are pretty cool to behold.  Space Invaders Deluxe for example, uses a projection of the game screen onto what appears to be a thin cardboard scene of a city.  The best word I can think of to describe playing it is that it’s classy. Very classy.  I don’t recall playing Space Invaders with 2 buttons for left and right, either.

Another game with buttons for left and right was Asteroids, positioned just adjacent right to Space Invaders.  Space Invaders is also the game closest to the entrance. Where Rampage is also close but adjacent the store’s main window where there is a table and bench for players to take a break.  Also a fridge for Mexican coke, (AKA, the real cane sugar shit!).

Asteroids was a game that I grew addicted to almost instantly.  Before I played it I was watching another guy playing, almost beating the hi-score of 37k.  I saw him disappear and appear somewhere else and I said, “Whoa, what was that trick?” and he told me about the hyperspace feature.  I had no idea it existed.  I had never actually seen an asteroids cab and the way the game brightly lights shots fired was captivating to me. It’s cool how it brings so much focus to the game, the shots and how bright they are.  Also, the sound effects are awesome.  The music resembles something like Space Invaders, as time progresses in a stage it beats faster and the UFO enemies keep coming.

Later on I watched the same guy from Asteroids playing Burgertime, and there he explained some of the mechanics and how to play correctly to me as well.  I tried to play but barely got lucky enough to beat the first stage I think.

Centipede also sparked my interest a little more than other games on the first day. I don’t remember ever playing Centipede before.  It was also controlled by trackball.  At first, I didn’t realize I could move up and down in the bottom area of the screen.  I’ve played this one a handful of times and it’s still odd to me. Not exactly sure what my strategy is supposed to be yet.  Really odd, hard, but interesting shooter.

The DK and DK Jr cabs were a bit odd to me.  The joystick felt really mushy the way it was moved around.  It felt like it was broken but at the same time it was responsive if I held it depressed all in one direction.  The stick was throwing me off completely and I could only manage to beat the first stage in DK and DK Jr.  Are they supposed to feel like this?

All of the games in this arcade use American cabinets with American parts from what I can tell.  Including the Street Fighter Alpha 3 cab with its Happ parts and uniform American button layout.

All in all Rusty Quarters is a great little place to hang out and play retro arcade games.  They have cubby holes for you to store your backpacks or coats which I find quite handy and the table, (if only just one) is nice to have if you need to take a little break.

On the 2nd day I went, Space Invaders was glitching out on me, sadly.  A fake UFO will sweep across the bottom of the screen creating its own barrier.  Then about 5 seconds later all of the invaders rush the screen and I get an instant game over. Sucks man. I hope they fix it because playing that game is possibly the highlight of the place for me. It’s just so cool.

Commando is a special arcade game for me.  It is one of the Arcade games I appreciated in an actual cabinet out in the wild.  That wild place where I originally played it was a mexican restaurant my family liked to go to called Old Mexico.  I’ll order the fajitas.

This place had two arcade cabinets near the entrance of the restaurant and next to the games was an odd fortune-telling machine taller than me that gauged your “lovelines,” was that it? It had a white ball you rested your hand on.  The games were Pac-Man and Commando.  Commando had the “Commando” title burned onto the screen.

To go off on a tangent about playing Pac-Man before I get to Commando:

I had played Pac-Man a good amount already, in fact, one of my friends’ Dad owned a cocktail Pac-Man cabinet in their home.  I spent a lot of time at his house playing Pac-Man, it was an awesome thing to do.  I played so much that after what must have been 2 months of sneaking credits in when my friend was doing something else: I beat his Dad’s score on the machine.  Reaching 1 million points, I got my first taste of playing a game for score and the thrill of beating someone’s score.

I remember I was really proud of myself for beating his Dad’s score.  It was a million points in Pac-Man after all.  A credit that must’ve lasted a half hour and a credit that featured the whole variety of point items.  I held that glory for the following week or so and one day I came back to his house and I found out that his Dad had unplugged the machine and reset my score.  I remember that fact brought me a dirty satisfaction because I thought that he wasn’t pleased that I beat his score.  But I also felt a tad deflated that my score was off of the machine.  After that time I didn’t set a new score, I had already had my fun.

Back to Old Mexico.  It may have been because I already played Pac-Man that Commando stuck out to me. And well, it was Commando. A game that wasn’t Pac-Man but a newer game, a vertically scrolling world war themed shoot’em’up by Capcom.  I asked my parents for a few quarters and that’s all I played for each visit, maybe a couple more after we ate.  It was a difficult game and I uncommonly reached the 2nd stage but I did like it.

Some 10 years later, I began to play Commando again in the comfort of my own home with a pre-built arcade joystick and button setup.  I’m not standing anymore or asking my parents for quarters, or catching customers walk into the bathrooms in the corner of my eye but it’s something.  I’ve been playing the past year or so it seems. Not using any save states for practice because I have held this nostalgia of playing the game like I would in that restaurant.  But tonight, I’ve finally seen and beat all 8 stages, where the game declares your mission completed.  But the game just keeps looping anyway.

Back then, I never imagined that I could see all 8 stages of the game.  It was mostly just something to do to kill time.  I was, however, keen on playing.  Maybe I would beat the 2nd stage this time?  No idea, maybe I’d get lucky.  I never was that lucky.  But I loved the thrill of beating the first stage, where enemy soldiers flood out from a large gate.  Some running like being chased by killer bees and others spraying bullets and lobbing grenades like a slow-motion battle sequence, it was a chaotic end of a stage.

The 2nd stage end-area has a lot of enemies flooding you from 6 caves and it’s a tighter space than the first stage end-battle.  Even beating the 2nd stage in the recent year I found there was a methodical strategy and skill to beating it.  But when I played as a kid I merely hoped for the best, probably scantly devising some crass button-mashing method.

Tonight I saw the end of the stages and one section features something annoying but comical that I couldn’t pass previously where cars drive straight down from the top of the screen trying to run your ass over.  I can imagine the enemy general thinking “Fuck! He’s killing all our men. Okay, get in the cars! He can’t kill those as easily… and RUN HIS ASS OVER!”  Before this the cars and motorists were attempting a flank kill so I guess this was their last resort move.  Many of the cars rush down while soldiers take pot-shots at you.  The rest I just played like you play the majority of the stages, constantly moving upwards and doing a spread shot kind of attack, picking off intrusive enemies in the way and managed to finish the last end area.

I was somewhat surprised to find that beyond the first 2 stages, that Commando was a real gem of a game all together.  I guess I knew it was fun, but I didn’t expect my enjoyment to necessarily last to the completion of the 8 stages.  I just thought of it as that game I played at Old Mexico but now it’s a game that I cherish and will continue to play when I want a cheap thrill.  Thanks Capcom and thanks to the brave soldiers that died in the war.

Kind of crazy to think I started Dragon Warrior IV 4 months ago, this Summer.  You may have thought, “Oh, crazy Aquas thinking he has the patience to beat an RPG on the NES. He hasn’t posted about that for months, he probably stopped playing.  He’s not old school enough, Hrumph! I am old school, however.  I STILL collect PEZ dispensers!”

But, NO! I finished Dragon Warrior IV!  I took my time.  Maybe completing this game was a sign that I’m not a teenager anymore.  Given that circumstance, I would have completed the game in a few weeks to a month.  Times do change, yea, so I really took my time with this one.  Well, now that I think about it more–this isn’t the first time I spent more than a few months on an RPG or game in recent years. Persona 4, yeah, that took nearly a year.

So perhaps not only because I don’t have the obsessive compulsion to power through games anymore, is the fact that Dragon Warrior IV is an NES RPG.  But a little patience and frame-skip was all I needed to rightly appreciate it– Lest I become burnt out on pixels on random encounters.

I wanted to play Dragon Warrior because I wanted to see the similarities to the Mother series and because I wanted to play one of the NES era Dragon Warriors to get to know the roots of the series.  I found more than a few similarities that I’d like to point out in a list.

1. The changing color window menus: White border when your party is healthy. Green when one of your members is close to death. Red when a member is KO’d.
2. Instead of losing progress when Game Over’ing, you just return to the last save point with KO’d members who are revived for a fee.
3. A variety of music for the overworld and battles.
4. Limited inventory for each character.
5. An auto-fight feature (introduced in Chapter 5 for your other party members)
6. A teleport ability and many similar abilities i.e. buff and sap spells.
7. High experience enemies. (Metal Slimes to Fobbies / Foppies and the Criminal Caterpillar)
8. Starting each chapter as a new character alone, uniting them towards the end of the game.
9. Terrific hits = Smaaaash! hits
10. In Chapter 5, you use a colossus to travel a mass of water. (In EarthBound, this is somewhat similar to the use of Dungeon Man’s submarine to reach Deep Darkness.  And to the fact that Dungeon Man can move at a point.

The AI was competent enough for auto-fight in chapter 5. It didn’t bother me much switching tactics occasionally.  The teleport ability was very welcome and it became available quickly in the game with the use of Wings of Wyverns.  The high experience enemies were awesome to have around. They gave tons of experience.  Limited inventory was not often a large worry but you did need to stock your items somewhat smartly in the early chapters. I compared the terrific hits to Smaaaash! hits because both seemed to do more than your average critical hit in an RP-type-G.  Point 10 about the colossus just kind of stuck out to me as funny as Dungeon Man is one of the weirdest/ coolest parts about EarthBound in my opinion.

On the music: it was wonderful. I never heard an NES soundtrack so emotive and deliberate in its melodies.  This is clear to be heard for a couple of symphonic albums released for DQ IV’s music.  In spending that extra 40 seconds idling in the overworld or for that extra long battle, looking over a FAQ or itching my ass; the melody would go on to tell a whole new aspect of the story that was going on with the characters.  I love the story the music tells to accompany the events of the story.

For example in Chapter 4, the story of a dancer and fortune teller whom are sisters. Their battle music portrays just this premise of a dancer and fortune teller attempting to defeat dangerous monsters.  Surprise, bewilderment, confusion, uncertainty, teamwork, cunning, shouting and crying are all things happening for these two characters in their plight. Koichi Sugiyama paints the canvas of my imagination with his lively compositions.  Every time I heard a new song in the game I was always happy and hearing the latter verses always brought a new light to the ideas revolving around the story.

I think part of why the music is so successful is because the story and motives of the characters are straight-forward and not overly written in.  Few key lines get the point across.  Some of the best are when characters meet each other and join.  The brevity of their union is almost magical.

‘Very impressive!’ ‘Hero, let’s fight together to save the world!’ – Ragnar, after the Hero slays a boss.

‘I’ve one favor to ask of you. Monsters are after me.’ ‘I’d feel safer being with strong people like you.’ ‘Let me join you. Let’s travel together all over the world!’ – Taloon, the fat Arms Merchant.

I feel this way about the characters being mostly open slates in the Mother series as well, particularly Mother 1 and 2.  Jeff’s introductory speech is still funny to me, especially when you decline him.

On the overall difficulty of the game, it was not particularly unfair or “grindy.” I did however Game Over many times usually when I ran out of provisions and I was deep in a dungeon.  Thankfully this was not a large concern because getting Game Over doesn’t restart your progress.

On party management the wagon is a great idea.  In overworld areas and some areas the whole party received experience.  But the 4 members outside of the wagon only gain experience in dungeons.  Because of this I was able to make use of all the characters without some characters becoming too low-leveled to use.  Each character had their own purpose but I will say that Ragnar and Taloon were my most un-used in Chapter 5.  Mostly because Alena is just too badass with her double strike and Terrific hits occurring often.

Wrapping this up but one thing I need to mention is the day and night cycle for the overworld and towns.  This feature really helped the atmosphere.  In the day-night change the color palette changes about 5 times.  Every change is meaningful, reflecting the light or night beckoning or escaping on the land. And you could freeze one of those palettes by entering a town.  Also cool was that the night in town was different from day and new dialogue NPC was available and in some cases events only happened at night.

I recommend this game for anyone willing to play an older style RPG.  I did manage my time a bit by frame-skipping the battles that only required mashing the A-button. But playing the real thing may be a test of patience as enemy encounters can be frequent in some areas.  For me this was a great J-RPG experience.  Charming through and through and by the epilogue I was moved at what I had gone through.  30 some hours in front of a CRT monitor, Sega Saturn USB pad in hand.  Hats off to Enix.

What Dragon Quest game should I play next?