Archived from groups: alt.games.video.nintendo.gameboy.advance (
More info?)
"Dunny" <paul.dunn4@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:34sgpfF4duqquU1@individual.net...
> "Mr. Bogus" <paulrahme@backwards.moc.oohay> wrote in message
> news:csb0gd$2c3$2@titan.btinternet.com...
>
>> Have u guys actually tried the original Sabre Wulf these days?
>
> Errr.. Yes, that's what I used to make the map
>
>> It's fun, but
>> for about 1 minute then u realise there's no progress / story / etc which
>> we've been spoiled by over the last decade or so. The only progress is
>> knowing there's 256 screens to explore (which all look practically the
>> same).
>
> Even so, the gameplay is fantastic. Trying to stay alive really does rely
> on quick wit and dexterity, and the game is very, very unforgiving. There
> were gameplay tricks to learn, moves with the sword, where you could
> ambush characters, how to use the Natives to find the amulet pieces, how
> to navigate a vertical tunnel when you can only kill to the left and
> right...
>
> You have to remember that the game had to fit into 48kb of RAM (of which
> 7kb was screen memory) which is a pitiful amount of RAM. All the story had
> to be packaged with the game - there was no room for it in-game. The
> progress was subtle. You could see the end of the game at the very start,
> but getting there was very hard work. When you finally had battled
> through, found the cliffs you saw, and the exit... and realised that you
> don't have all the amulet pieces. AS you got nearer the goal the monsters
> you fight changed - new ones started appearing, natives got nastier, small
> changes to the jungle layout...
>
> Nowadays, yes, all the progress is very overt. The original is extremely
> hard - you got 3 lives, and no more. No continues, no game-saves.
> Finishing a game now is at best a satisfying experience, but back then it
> was a triumph, worthy of celebration (which usually meant a bottle of pop
> and a bag of crisps). I'll not even start on the school-based games
> culture that ran on homemade maps on graph paper and pokes written in the
> back of a schoolbook...
>
> We've lost so much, only to be replaced by weak stories and "improved"
> graphics.
>
> D.
>
It wasn't school books for me. Although I do remember standing in the
newsagents reading pokes out of the latest Speccy magazine for someone else
to write down. Oh and half the time they didn't help.
The worst thing about those days has got to be sitting in front of the
screen for 5 minutes watching the border flash only to find that the game
didn't actually load because, in my Plus 2 days, the head was ever so
slightly out of alignment!