Konami's Baseball for the #MSX is...functional? It's definitely influenced by Nintendo's Baseball, but it feels a bit slower. They tried to innovate by having a meter for pitch speed, which seems to be a weird choice given that it'll tell the batter what speed you're going to throw the ball ahead of time. Otherwise, foul balls are rare, and it's surprisingly easy. I suck at these 8-bit baseball games, but I won my first game here without much trouble.
Casio World Open is the jankiest golf game I've played in a while. The ball just dead stops when it hits the ground, no rolling or bouncing. The camera pans up when the ball's in the air, and when it pans back down, you may be facing a different direction in a rather disorienting way. And one time, the close up shot had me in a sand trap while the map showed me on the grass (see the third picture), something I've never seen before. Worth playing through for the weirdness.
Swing is an early Compile game where you play a window washer who has to avoid a bunch of flying monsters as you clean up a building. You can only move on areas with windows, so it ends up being a vaguely Pac-Man like maze game with Crazy Climber aesthetics. It's a fun little forgotten title that's worth trying out.
Macross: Countdown for the #MSX feels like it could have been good. There's some decent parallax, it feels decent moment to moment, but the design isn't there. There's long stretches were not much is happening, and challenge only comes when it forces you to move around terrain without having an easy way to dodge shots that pop out slightly ahead of where you'd expect them to. The result is just uninspired and boring, not even reaching the mediocrity of the Famicom Macross game.
I went in to Rambo for the #MSX expecting I'd hate it, as all I'd heard was that it was based on Hydlide of all games, but it ended up being a primitive yet compelling adventure game. I was expecting dream logic, but while there was a lot of trial and error, I was able to piece by piece figure out what the game wanted out of me. It's short, interesting, and I recommend going in without a guide to experience why MSX fans generally have a good time with this one.
Ski Command on the #MSX is prime piece of jank. Awkward 3d movement on a console that wasn't good at that by developers who couldn't quite pull it off, a ridiculous premise where you're a gun toting skier who can down helicopters and backflip off a cliff to take down an enemy fortress, and so oddly programmed that instead of giving you a game over screen, it acts like you're going to resume the level before hard rebooting the console. Legitimately fun to play despite everything.
I'm surprised I never heard of Moai no Hihou before. It's a simple puzzle platformer where you're a mouse trying to climb to the exit at the top of the level. You can destroy a block in front of you, which will cause any blocks supported by it to fall down, though blue blocks free float without support. It's a clever idea, and I mostly like the execution, though I wish there were continues or passwords. This is the first #MSX game I've played so far that I'd call a hidden gem.
I just got myself an #MSX , and I figured I'd make a thread on my thoughts on the games I play on my #MSXploration .
First up is Exoide-Z Area 5. There's something that appeals to me about the purity of early shmups like Star Force, where there were barely any power ups, leaving you to struggle against greater forces purely based on skill. And this game is a a pretty solid example of this early wave of shmups. Plays well, has some really good scrolling for an MSX1 game, and hard as balls.
Fel Temp Reparatio