Welcome to the 57th issue of the GBAtemp Recommends Revival Project! This project is a weekly feature where we share our favourite games and applications with you. The things we recommend may be "old school" titles, a Homebrew, a ROM hack, sleeper hits, an application, etc, but one thing's for certain, we think they are fantastic and deserve your attention!
This week because it's my first week in charge, I'm serving a double helping of retro goodness...plus they've waited a while to get these posted.
GBAtemp Recommends!
Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Written by GBAtemp member raulpica & parts originally edited by Another World.
Ultima VI: The False Prophet, one of the last games in the Ultima series of renowned RPGs, was released back in 1990 by Origin Systems for a series of 16-bit computers like the Amiga, Atari ST, PC MS-DOS, Fujitsu-Siemens FM Towns, PC-98, and Sharp X68000. Ultima VI was the first in the series to be developed mainly for PCs, and not the Apple II, like the rest of the series, thus extensively using high-resolution VGA graphics and modern-day sound card support.The game was also released to the Commodore 64 and the SNES. While the SNES version retains fidelity to the original version (which was not the case on the SNES version of Ultima VII), most of the game mechanics were entirely adapted to fit the console's limitations. A special mention must go to the FM Towns version, as it had full speech from Garriot himself and most of the Origin Systems' staff at the time.
Ultima VI is a classic '90s RPG. You've got a party, there are many NPCs around the map, and a fair lot of things to do. The world was quite extensive for the time, with cities to explore, numerous dungeons, and secret stuff to find. Dialogues were very well written, allowing you to ask many questions of the NPCs, which slowly showed how each of them had an interesting, vital life.
While the game can get a bit confusing mid-game, leaving you with an entire free-to-roam world, this confusion becomes quite rewarding as the game grows on you. When completed it will leave you with some great memories.
If you're searching for an enticing RPG story, with lots of stuff to do and helpful people to get to know, then Ultima VI is the game for you!
Genre: Role-playing
Release Year: 1990 (1993 SNES)
Developed & Published by: Origin Systems, Inc.
Designed by: Warren Spector & Richard Garriott
Released For: Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, FM Towns, PC-98, Sharp X68000, SNES
GBAtemp Recommends!
Metal Storm
Written by GBAtemp member BortzANATOR
Metal Storm is a game i discovered as a ROM on a cd years ago my friend gifted me. It had every single NES title. Since the NES didn't support saving, I would randomly select a title and play till I got bored. The title alone was good enough to get me hooked on this game, but after some gameplay, I wondered how this game was even made back in 1991.
You pilot a M-308 Mech and traverse stages that I think are supposed to be the innards of a computer and wipe out the virus robots. The game is virtual eye candy. Your mech is animated with the highest degree of care, the action is butter smooth, and the fore ground and background are not separate pieces, but look like it.
From the Wikipedia page:
You can see what i mean here.Although the NES does not directly support parallax scrolling, programmers continuously redrew the tiles making up the game's backgrounds in order to animate them scrolling at a different rate than the foreground, giving an illusion of depth, notably in the game's third and fifth stages where there is a "second" background layer that appears to scroll behind the first.
The game also punches up the action instantly when you realize you have a button to control gravity. You read that right, gravity. When you flip. your mech flips up to the ceiling as if gravity has been reversed. Be advised, enemies also flip with you. So plan accordingly. Also you can get 3 power-ups, but you can only have one at a time. There's a bigger gun, shield, and booster that allows you to be invulnerable while shifting gravity.
The game really strikes me as a late NES title and it certainly feels like it. Using all of the NES'sresources and looking quite nice while doing so like many late generation titles. I found MS to have an incredible selection of bosses, even if it is a bit limited, because the game is criminally short. But that certainly doesn't stop it from also ramping up the difficulty into oblivion on the last 2 or 3 levels. Its Even hard for me, an experienced retro gamer.
Metal Storm is fantastic. If you haven't played it, its the only reason you need to dig out that old NES in your closet, or download am NES emulator. Its a stellar title in NES library that I feel a lot of gamers haven't experienced.
Genre: Side-scrolling platform/Shooter
Release Year: 1991
Developed by: Irem
Published by: Irem/Tamtex
Released For: Nintendo Entertainment System
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