Thankfully, traditional gaming isn't going to die because of systems like this; worst-case scenario, we find other means of fulfilling our gaming tastes. I've been out of touch with recent indie stuff, but following the home page of TIGSource on a daily basis is arguably a more interesting pursuit than following console launches - at least in terms of upcoming games.
I feel like the moving parts for a decent game are present in Athena, but the lack of recovery time when taking damage, the lack of mid-level checkpoints, the high likelihood of collecting a powerup that makes you weaker, and the game's hazy understanding of collision detect - issues that might not individually ruin a game - combine together to make a title that tough for what I feel are the wrong reasons. Then again, I've beat my head against other titles like Back to the Future II and III and gotten a certain degree of enjoyment out of them, so there's ultimately a certain degree of subjectivity there.
...but I suppose I should be saving this for a future review, eh?
If you haven't already, I'd recommend stopping by telebunny.net and reading Jeremy Parish's "Anatomy of a Game" blogs. He's been going back to some famous 8-bit titles and exploring, among other things, the ways in which well-designed older games nod you in a certain direction without telling you too much. Of course, there are those maddeningly opaque moments, too, and weaker NES titles like Milon's Secret Castle thrive on that sort of thing. Newer games could certainly learn from this sort of thing.
Funny... I *just* bought the original game on Saturday. Meh, whatever.
Your setup is certainly cleaner than mine. I've got my NES carts stacked vertically due to the size of my shelving, and my CIBs are a bit helter-skelter, but at least everything fits.
The game world of Monster Tale somehow feels a bit smaller than that of the SOTN-style Castlevanias; I'm not sure if it actually is, though, although the progress rate of the increase in completion percentage leads me to believe so (especially since some of that percentage comes from unlocking forms for Chomp). The backtracking is unusually transparent, and the lack of teleportation makes is a little less comfortable than it could be... but then again, Super Metroid didn't have any teleportation, as I recall, although the game structure didn't really beg for it.
Amen to that!
I haven't, but I'm somewhat afraid to do so. I can say right now that I *won't* be buying any of the Panesian titles, Stadium Events, or Myriad 6-in-1, and will probably do some of the harder-to-find stuff via emulation. I'm sure the remaining stuff is probably a few thousand dollars, but I might get sidetracked by real life and throw in the towel before I hit full completion of the entire library. Hence the reason I'm letting the purchases slow down for the time being, in hopes that I'll eventually have a few lucky finds like that $3 copy of Amazing Tater.
I remember, with Tyson, that there seemed to be a slight touch of randomness with the exact timing of his dynamite punches, and I never quite got the rhythm the first time around. I rarely see people cite that game on "hardest NES games" lists, though, so maybe I'm just missing something. There's very little room for error, that's for certain.
Also, I just started watching that speedrun - the 8:23 one, anyway, of the first run of the game - and it doesn't seem like there are any super-weird glitches to exploit like there would be for, say, Elevator Action. Also, I just totally realized that the wall in that one area of level 2 isn't solid, so I could've saved myself a ton of trouble and just walked through it. D'oh.
Micronics was a contract developer that made a bunch of crap on NES, including Super Pitfall and that totally manhandled version of Ikari Warriors. Jeremy Parish brought them up on the NES 25th anniversiary episode (#99) of Retronauts, which is where I first heard about them.
