Sneaky Find

There is nothing better than sorting some old junk out and finding a hidden gem, well I found three in this case, these beauties.

Breath of Fire 1 and 2! And Duke Nukem Advance.

The biggest downside in my youthful stupidity I rammed them at the bottom of a storage box and now they are all fucky. The cartridges themselves are in good condition, but the boxes lack any form of a strong constitution in the sense I’ve seen healthier looking roadkill. From a collectors point of view they are far from mint condition and would shave off a good chunk of money from their value. Luckily for me though I won’t be selling any time soon, and it’s nice to have the orginal box even if it is shot to shit as most of my other GBA games cases are long gone, but nevertheless a happy find is a happy find.

Them Socials, Yo.

I have now officially got Twitter and Facebook pages up and running. The relevant links are at the top of my home page for you all, so you can keep nice and upto date with all the tasty news and probably some other random shit. Feel free to like and share, spreading the tasty gospel so that I may provide joyous reads to all the new potential disciples across this moist, rock ridden planet.

The Gameboy Player

The Gameboy player is an attachable peripheral directly developed by Nintendo for the Gamecube. With it situated at the bottom of the console where it would connect via a high speed port. Allowing players to play any; Gameboy,colour or advance game directly through their console on to the TV. With control functionality going to the gamepad, and menu select allowing for games to be swapped in and out. Most games and features would work perfectly fine minus some exceptions and rumble/vibration features such as Pokemon pinball.

  • Ignore the dogshit quality photo’s i’m still starting out, it’ll get better I Promise.

Instead of going down the route of using an emulator to work, the player is booted up by a disc, which without renders it useless, not the best of designs. However this allowed for the internal components of the unit base basically being a Gameboy advance handheld system itself. A significant upgrade over it’s predecessors. Also being able to play all previous handheld generations of games boosted the Gamecubes library by hundreds of other games by proxy. Giving the option to play some games you may not have properly before or some you just didn’t want to play on the smaller screen.

This wasn’t Nintendo’s first attempt at this, the N64 had the wide boy, which was initially conceived as a way for gaming journalist and the like to be able to take better quality snapshots of Gameboy games. Having two variants released one for GBC and GBA games, making the aspect for nowadays a hard collecting endeavour as neither are particularly cheap and having to obtain two for one system is a tad annoying.

Even before this there was the Super Game boy, allowing Gameboy games to be played through the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. So this was really always coming in some form or another to the Gamecube. Which I can’t complain about as I now get the option to play some of the best Pokemon games in the series on my TV, way before the likes of Let’s Go or Sword and Shield.

The Magnum Opus of the Gba Pokemon Era, with Rayquaza in all their glory on the big boy screen.

Overall it comes with two big pluses even for the time it was a cool concept, and even now I think it’s impressive. The first being been able to play any of your childhood GB games on your TV and the second adding the inadvertent functionality of not losing charge as it’s powered through the Gamecube instead. A big flaw about it, especially some 18 years after its conception and release, its utterly useless without the boot up disc, which is also region blocked but oddly the unit itself isn’t. So getting paired with the wrong disc is just as much of an annoyance as not having it. The biggest drawback which for all I do really like this little bit of tech and rather not have to think is that even on release it was kinda never needed, just a gimmick to boost sales numbers at best.

A Solid 8/10, Certified highly Tasty. A cool expansion to an already underrated console, adding just a little bit more to the legacy of Nintendo and it’s push for handheld gaming.

Gamecube – The Short Review

Finally, some actual content for this review blog. I imagine it’ll take a least 3 minutes or more to read. I won’t be going into too much detail due to me probably covering it more within the game reviews and an upcoming tech comparison review I will be working on. I can’t promise how amazing my first official foray into journalistic gaming reviewing will be, but there will be something of interest there I hope. This is a mere stepping stone for my skills to be improved over time to keep you tasty folks hooked and coming back for more of that sweet sweet nectar. So please do enjoy.

The Gamecube is considered a commercial flop by it’s own parent company due to low sales when initially released way back when in 2001 in Japan and then to America, and finally Europe in 2002. Even so, it still managed to ship over 21 million units worldwide, which still isn’t the worst realistically. At the time it was going up against the absolute juggernaut that is the Playstation 2 which dropped in 2000 giving it a slight head start, and then not too long after in 2002 the Xbox appeared, which did alright I suppose, it did give us the Halo series. However no one can deny the might that was the PS2 which to this day is still the best selling console of all time at a mega 155 million units sold. With an extensive back catalogue of games that still reaches audiences today with various remakes and remasters. And if not that, it could just be dusting off your old collection from time to time or maybe fond memories of the games you played in your younger days.

The Gamecube even so, still managed to hold it’s own as time has gone by mainly in my opinion due to the high quality of games that they dropped over the 6 years of production. Even though you could pick up a Wii for cheaper and play your games on it. It doesn’t have the same feel as booting up the Console itself, with the unique gamepad that came with it, something Nintendo still likes to do for every new console.

The games coming on much smaller optical discs then their counterparts, opting out of CD and DVD playing functionality allowing a more focused set up for gaming. Which for this particular generation for me are some of the ones that have aged the best. Obviously not graphically or technically, as at the time they would’ve seemed incredible as it does every time a new generation drops but by today’s standards especially in comparison to the new powerhouses of the PS5 or Xbox Series X, with all the fancy Ray-tracing and shit. You have so many beloved series and the entries within, that are still so highly regarded. From The Metroid Prime series, Mario Kart Double Dash, LOZ The Wind Waker, Luigi’s mansion, Pokemon Colosseum and Xd Gale of Darkness and so on and so forth.

The Gamecube came with many cool features that the other 6th generation counterparts didn’t for instance the Wavebird. The first commercially sold wireless controller having to plug in a transceiver into the controller port, then using the channel selection wheel on it and the controller to connect up. The joytech flip up screen allowing you to play the game directly on the console itself or the broadband adapter used to play games like fantasy star online. Which also leads on to one of the simultaneously great and most ridiculous thing in gaming the Gamecube ASCII keyboard controller, which is literally a whole computer keyboard with the the left and right side of the game pad dumped at the end creating a true monstrosity, all just for the privilege of been able to use a chat function in game. You even have the strange Panasonic Q hybrid, which did allow for DVDs to be used, but that didn’t fair well in sales due to it being kinda pointless and horrific to look at, like someone you used to go to school with rock head rumple looking child being spammed over your social media’s 24/7 so you block them.

Then you have the GBA Link cable which allowed you to hook up your Advance to aid in different ways to play certain games like the LOZ the four swords adventure or trade Pokemon, usually through the Gameboy player which for me even today is still an amazing piece of tech and my favourite part of my personal collection. You slot a small slab looking platform at the bottom of your console and drop in the disc in the top. Then this allows you to play any of your Gameboy all the way through to GB Advance games onto your TV. Making it the true precursor to what the switch ended up becoming through trials using the Wii U.

Without waffling on for too much longer, I will wrap this review up. So for me it is truly one of the best consoles and even though it lacks most the features of today’s consoles I don’t necessarily feel that’s a bad thing. It did what it was made for, playing games and it did it very, very well. It may be nice to watch Netflix off your Playstation or talk to your mates over an online game, but you’ve lost the fun of making sure you’ve got the right memory card plugged in. The local co-op where you’d all be crammed round the same console in your room. You never had to worry about all the new firmware updates that could brick your saves. New features swapping round how the interface works. Sure the memory cards may or may have not caused a few problems for certain games, but it’d never break your console. In certain ways simpler is much better, don’t get me wrong I love my PS5 and Switch but not many games have come out in the last 10 years that’d keep playing, whereas on my Gamecube there is many.

10/10 Certified real fuckin Tasty. (No bias here I swear)

A Soft Overhaul

Just a quick update here, due to the cumbersome demands of life, and various other reasons getting in the way. I have somewhat not managed to move forward as intended, and for that I can only apologise. But with the arrival of a logo, and addition of a few social media accounts in the oncoming days. I will now be picking up where I left off some weeks ago. With the first task at hand, to start the reviews back up, you know the entire point of this blog.

So with that a slight soft restart here at TastyRetroGaming. To begin with I will be starting with Pokemon Colosseum, one of my favourite Pokemon games. Which one day will hopefully lead me onto the holy grail of the Gamecube games for me, XD Gale of Darkness. Whilst I begin this review I will also be writing up a full scale review of the Gamecube Console itself. Finally giving you all some of that tasty content you all so desire so much.

Logo

In the first wave of major incoming updates towards the site I will be looking for a logo. Once I have a logo, then comes the social media accounts which can all be linked back to here. Which ultimately gives us a little bit more tasty in our lives.

New Game Day

Monster Hunter Rise

Finally getting round to playing the newest entry in one of my favourite game series of all time, having come out way back in march this year. It’s technically the follow up to Monster Hunter World, and it seems to lean in to more of that style of play with a few new mechanics. Hopefully it will live up to all the hours I put into MH 4 Ultimate and MH Generations Ultimate which were the best entries in the series in my opinion, which world has started a trend in which the series began to deviate from slightly.

Appreciation Post

To this absolute monster of a game. The Elder Scrolls V, Skyrim. Whilst not so much retro, it is getting on in years now though at nearly 10 years old. With a new release on the horizon, only a month away for the next gen of consoles, as an anniversary edition including many community mods that hadn’t made it to the console versions.

No other game can say it’s been re-released as many times as this. And more importantly sold so consistently each time. I imagine soon enough it’ll be playable on your electric toothbrush, because why the fuck not. And to be completely honest even as im playing this game again currently, I’ll more than likely still pick up the new edition, as I am clearly very weak, and I’m the type of person Bethesda and Todd Howard clearly love.

Not many games can boast the replayability of this game, which for me is one of the biggest highlights of it. Many say it’s not as good as Oblivion or Morrowind and to a point I’d even agree. However it doesn’t stop me playing it countless times. My current run clocks nearly 35 hours on the switch version, and it is not looking like it’ll be over any time soon. I’m positive I’ll be writing about this behemoth RPG game many more times yet, even sooner with the chance of playing it on the PS5.