A Big Thank You From Retro 101: One Year On

It’s been a year since the first article was published on the new look Retro 101 and it’s been a busy one at that. When I first looked to move the sight to more manageable surroundings I was really doing it in order to maintain and archive the reviews and features that already existed. I wasn’t sure how long it would last or, to be honest, if anyone was interested. However, as soon as the site officially made its way back to the net (and indeed before it had), I was literally swamped with encouragement and interest from the wonderful retro gaming community.

The initial new content and reviews moved from the old site seemed to go down well and we were certainly getting noticed. With a bit of twitter and YouTube integration the site has attracted far more readers then I every envisaged and for that I can only say thank you. The site had always been a mix of retro games and new games that built on a retro style and before long I had messages coming through asking for various games to be looked at.

Initially I was unsure how to approach this as being what is effectively a new and unproven site I felt the only real way to get hold of things to review would be to pay for it. With such a vast amount of content out there this would be impractical on a wide scale and so I had to jump into the world of PR once more. Initially working on the premise of joint reviewing with Gamestyle (another, bigger site I’m involved with), I made a few enquiries into the ether. To my surprise every single one came back to me with code and so the site began to grow and gain a reputation on its own.

Twitter also helped massively and gathering followers from the worlds of indie development, PR and journalism certainly helped to identify where to go and who to ask to help get the site the content it needed. Now, a year on Retro 101 is trusted by a large amount of studios and PR teams. Retro 101 is now at the point where studios such as Ubisoft, Blizzard, Arc Systems and Nippon Ichi trust us to give fair appraisals of their work and this is something I am very proud of.

But Retro 101 has never been just about the big guys. The site exists to take retro games, indie games and AAA games and place them all together on the front page. We have a simple philosophy and that’s that everyone gets treated the same, everyone gets on the front page and games get reviewed honestly and in the order they’re received. 

Review code is handpicked to fit our audience and we don’t apply for code until research has been done to make sure it’s something that seems like it will interest the readers. If you get an email from Retro 101 it’s because I personally have sifted through the release schedule and identified your game as something I feel the readers will want to know about.

The support we have received from enthusiasts, developers and PR teams is nothing short of phenomenal. Almost every email I’ve sent has been replied to and we’ve got just about every single piece of review code that I have requested on behalf of the site. I never expected support like this and it is truly humbling to realise how wonderful the people in this industry are.

A the bottom of this piece is a huge list of people Retro 101 would like to thank but here are a few that have stood out as we developed. 

Frozenbyte Studios gave us our very first piece of review code on the new site. A very friendly exchange led to Trine 2 (Wii U), being our first reviewed piece of code on the site in its new surroundings. A big thank you has to go to the studio for having faith and also for making such an amazing game.

Our first piece of full retail review code since the move came from Arc Systems via Blazblu Europe. Persona 4 Arena allowed the site to show it was up to the task of taking on big releases and giving great coverage. The Persona 4 Arena review is still the most read article on the site. Again, big thanks to the team for letting us do the game justice in our review.

James Marsden and the Futur Lab team also deserve a mention. After initially winning a copy of the Velocity mini the site has developed a good relationship with the studio. They make awesome stuff and are always so easy to deal with. If all companies were like this my job would be so much easier.

Support from Gamestyle has also been strong and a massive thank you has to go to Bradley Marsh. From helping with the occasional review to sending contact details my way it’s fair to say we wouldn’t have been able to find half the things we’ve covered if it wasn’t for him.

Old friend of the site Toby Lethby has also been instrumental in getting Retro 101 back on the .co.uk webpage. As useful as moving to a blogger template has been, it’s not the same as a solid and independent website url.

A host of other people and studios have supported the site in the past year and I’d like to say a huge thanks to – Dan and Dakko Dakko, Dant Rambo and Gaijin Games, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Playdead, Dennaton Games, Devolver Digital, the Cosmo Cover team, Team 17, Neko entertainment, Q-Games, Curve Studios, Pwnee Studios, Derek Yu at Mossmouth, Shahid Kamal Ahmad, The Bitmap Brothers, Cellar Door Games, Becca and Sam at Indigo Pearl and Kirsten at Double 11 and many others.

I’d also like to thank our army of dedicated twitter followers and website readers for spreading the word and visiting the site. You’re all amazing, but maybe Kaelyn is just that little bit more awesome (and 8-bit synth town you really need to get back on twitter).

A huge thanks to you all and I look forward to seeing what happens next with the site!

Gareth Chappell

Retro 101 Head Editor.

Dragon's Crown Review (PS3/PS Vita)

The side scrolling fighter has spent many a year in the dark but seems to have had a mini revival recently. Code of Princess and the compilation of Capcom Dungeon and Dragons games are already upon us and now Dragon’s Crown is here to lure us back into the ways of bashing monsters senseless in the name of gold and potions.

The first thing that hits you about the game is gorgeous art style. Everything is presented in beautifully drawn 2D with some of the richest environments and settings we’ve ever seen. Characters and enemies are also highly detailed and all the heroes look unique and different from each other. However, the representation of female characters is somewhat questionable. We can certainly see female gamers being put off by the over sexualisation of some of the characters. 

Portrayal issues aside, there is a fair bit of variety in the different characters on offer. Each comes with a handy recommendation as to the level of player skills required and a distinctive weapon and skill set. There’s something for everyone with characters ranging from warriors and mages to archers and hammer swinging dwarves. Each class has a large group of unique skills, along with a more generic skill set, that can be levelled up to further fit the player’s individual style.

Most of your quests will start in town and here you can visit the adventurers guild to accept missions. There are also the usual array of shops to visit, a church to get characters resurrected, the tavern which serves as your hub for organisation and the palace. More areas unlock as you progress through the first part of the game and you can quick travel to any location in the town via a handy pop up map. Once a mission has been accepted you can head off to the teleport gate to warp to the appropriate dungeon.

Dungeons are far more varied than you might expect, with each area containing a wide variety of enemies and traps. Some are filled with mutated fungus while others contain orcs, lizard men and giant spiders. There are also monsters to ride (a nice homage to Golden Axe), and numerous secret places and loot to hunt out.

The main way of finding hidden items and areas to is to move an on screen cursor around the screen and click on things. This works on the PS3 by using the right analogue stick and via the touch screen or stick on the Vita. It’s an idea that doesn’t really seem to fit as you can find yourself moving the pointer over every inch of the screen to see if you can find anything. That said, it rarely gets in the way and unless your OCD is likely to kick in, it won’t break the flow of the game.

Combat itself is satisfying and fairly varied. Once you start unlocking skills there are a wide range of moves and techniques you can use to build massive combos. The further through the game you get the more careful you have to be and button mashing certainly won’t get you past the higher difficulties and later levels. Moves like the sliding take down become invaluable and you’ll learn what you can and can’t block quickly or suffer the consequences. 

The game opens up to online play around half way through and then it becomes a much richer experience. This is a game designed to be played by four good players and this allows for high score runs to be attempted for loot and bragging rights. For single players you can add other characters to your adventure to give yourself a fighting chance.  Most of these characters are picked up as piles of bones in dungeons and then need to be revived in the church back in town. This, along with the need to appraise treasure you’ve found will be a constant drain on your gold. 

You also need to pay attention to the status of your armour and weapons. As you attack and take damage they degrade and will eventually break. Losing your equipment in the middle of a dungeon is likely to lead to certain death, so it’s important to keep things maintained. This isn’t such an issue normally, but when you get the chance to continue from one dungeon to the next without heading back to town its needs careful consideration. Why would you do this? To raise your score of course.

Overall, Dragon’s Crown is a roaring success. The PS3 and Vita versions integrate nicely with cloud saving and there are no noticeable performance issues when switching to play the game in its portable format. There are some questionable choices with the art style surrounding the representation of female characters but aside from that this is an excellent adventure. It’s the best side scrolling fighter since Guardian Heroes and we can’t think of much higher praise to lavish upon it than that.

Overall 8/10

Lone Survivor: Directors Cut Review (PS3/PS Vita)

The horror genre has been on a downward spiral in recent times. The series stalwarts of Resident Evil and Silent Hill have seemingly passed their best and what we are left with is an ever increasing amount of creatures to gun down or cheap shocks we have seen before. Lone Survivor aims to change that by taking a different approach. 

Presented in a side on, 2D, 8-bit style, Lone Survivor is the story of a man trying to escape a disease ridden city where monstrous creatures roam the streets and corridors. It’s very much set in the psychological horror mould and uses a subtle script and clever use of music to try to get inside your head. You might wonder how a game with 8-bit graphics can be scary but when it works it certainly does make you feel decidedly uneasy.

Before starting the game it asks you to set up your playing environment. If you can, you need to be in a dark place and to also use headphones. We would say that it’s also much better to play it via the Vita than on the PS3, as when it’s running on a large high definition screen it really doesn’t work as well. You can change the size of the game window but this is clearly a game more suited to the hand held system. It’s also worth working out the best gamma settings as if you get it wrong you are not going to be able to make out much of what is on screen. The settings can be adjusted mid game as well to find the right sweet spot. The 8-bit graphics have their charm but they can be a total nightmare in trying to work out exactly what it is you are looking at.

The game itself plays out like a point and click adventure game where you actually move around. You’ll be looking for items to take to somewhere else, normally to unlock a route or door to the next area. There is also combat and stealth mechanics to get past the monsters. As you might expect, ammo is limited and firing the gun makes all the monsters in the screen come charging after you so it’s often wise to try and sneak past them.

There are also a number of different systems working away under the surface of the game. The main one of these is your characters sanity. At the end of the game you’ll get one of a number of different endings based on how high or low it is. It goes up or down depending on certain actions you take such as eating and resting properly, or taking the different pills that you find around the world.

Food and sleep are also key components in your adventure. If your character doesn’t eat regularly he gets hungry, which can lead him to not sleep properly or collapse. When you sleep you save your game but doing it when you are not tired also affects your sanity meter so there is a constant risk reward systems at play. If you go on a long trek and discover a load of things but aren’t tired you risk either losing sanity or dying in an upcoming encounter and having to retrace your steps.

Luckily for players there are mirrors, which act as teleport points spread throughout the world. This makes moving around a little easier but having to retrace steps to find items lost after death is still a frustration which doesn’t do much to enhance the flow of the game. This frustration also increases when you get stuck in an area you simply can’t get out of without dying. 

The other main issue with the game is simply the environment. You are effectively, continually walking up and down dark corridors for the whole game. There are only a couple of enemy types and the game gets more difficult by pretty much just giving you a longer corridor with more monsters in to avoid.  This isn’t a major issue until you get stuck and repeatedly die somewhere, then the feeling of repetition can kick in and this takes away from the overall experience.

Faults aside, when it works (and it does most of the time), this is the closest you’re going to get to the feeling of dread and unease found in the early Silent Hill games. It’s creepy and you never for one moment feel safe. There’s a lot to juggle with food, sleep, ammo, batteries and sanity and a number of side quests and different endings to experience. If you’re looking for something different then this is the game for you. Just make sure you play it on the Vita as it’s much more effective in the dark with the headphones on.

Overall  8/10

Spud’s Quest Review (PC)

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen Dizzy and other puzzle/platform heroes making their way onto consoles and computers. A brief return for the genre came with an iOS version of Dizzy: Prince of the Yolk Folk, but by and large everything has remained quiet. Spud’s Quest clearly wants to change that and provides gamers with another chance to manage their inventory, jump around and drop items to solve puzzles.

Anyone familiar with the Dizzy or Seymour games will be right at home here. In the traditional way your character has to pick up items and take them to the place they need to be used. You can carry five items at once but you’ll still end up using a number of the games areas to dump things in. It’s all very Dizzy like and there are number of familiar areas and moments that fans of the Dizzy games will recognise and remember.

As well as the traditional item puzzles there are a few new tricks added to try and carve out an identity for Spud as its own entity.  To start with there’s a switching mechanic which allows players to change to controlling a frog (a prince with a curse of course). The frog can then be used to access smaller areas and solve puzzles. Our hero can also attack enemies by throwing stones. This adds a bit more for players to do as they can kill monsters instead of just avoiding them. Leaving a screen causes monsters to re-spawn though so it can become repetitive.

There is also a night and day cycle at work which adds some variety to the colour palette as well as causing various shops and houses to open and close and characters to move around. The graphical style is clear and colourful and highly reminiscent of Dizzy’s Amiga and other 16-bit adventures. However, In a way this is one of the game’s biggest problems.

Much like Retro City Rampage, it’s nice to see all the references but if you know the source material your thoughts start to drift off to those games. As well put together as Spud’s Quest is and as much care, attention and genuine warmth towards the source material has been put into it, it’s just not quite got that magical something that the best Dizzy games have. 

The game also carries the problems associated with the genre, such as obscure puzzles and constant back tracking. Not a problem as such, as you know what you are getting into but new players may well lose interest after tracking back and forth through the same screens. The bigger inventory negates some of this but you still don’t really know what items you’ll need until you get to a destination. 

Any issues though are fairly minor. This is an enjoyable adventure of the like we haven’t seen for a while. It’s an admirable attempt to try and get this style of game back into people’s thoughts and the game clearly has a lot of love for the games it is reminiscent of. If you’ve been waiting for something new in the Dizzy style then it’s well worth checking out. It’s a promising sign for the future and we hope the team build upon this to create a genuine classic in the future.

Overall 7/10