Retro Con and More

On 09/12/2025 at 10:06 AM by KnightDriver

Went to Retro Con last Saturday with my gaming buddy MadKrammer, bought some stuff, played a few NES games, and finished Farm Together 2.

Retro Con 2025, Oaks, PA. - Here's a good short summary video of the show someone did.

Waiting in line for the show, I played Alleyway on my GBA SP. I realized that in outdoor lighting, the screen isn't quite so unbearably dim as inside. I didn't have to strain as much.

Exactly two minutes after entering the front doors, I spied the very thing I was looking for, an Atari 2600 Junior. I paid $10 for it with one controller but no cables. Not a problem. I borrowed an AV cable from MK's old Intellivision he's not using and a power supply is on order. I can't wait to test it.

In the days before the show I had played the following NES games:

Arkanoid - Always great. I'm still looking for the controller it originally came with. I love the power-ups the game adds to the Breakout formula.

Dragon Warrior - Got killed coming back from an outting in the woods. As careful as I was, I still got beat pretty early on. It's like the game is a wolf pack waiting for your spells to be used up and you heading home to pounce with encounters every few steps. I'd like to know if this is actually programming or just an illusion, but it always happens to me in this game. I still love it though and can't wait to play the remake coming real soon.

R.B.I. Baseball - It took some serious cleaning to get this cart to finally boot, but when it did I rediscovered a very good baseball game.

Before the show, on Friday, I made a trip to Just Press Play, a game store in Lancaster, PA. It's a good one too, a little far (an hour drive) but worth it on the only day of the week I have the time for it, Friday. I got the following:

Jackal (NES) - $12
Iron Sword: Wizards & Warriors II (NES) - $6
Robotron 64 (N64) - $25
Forza Horizon 4 (Xbox One) - $16

Digitally, I got Darkest Dungeon: Ancestor's Edition on a sale for $7 on Xbox Series S.

This current week, after Retro Con and such, I finished Farm Together 2 and the last achievement, Farm level 200. What a grind. I spent 294 hours total. A redditer said he did it in 100 hours, so if you're just achievement hunting, you can optimize everything and do it quicker. But I like to figure out the systems myself and do a little cosmetic building. I really got into building hills as big as possible and laying railroads with bridges and lighting. It was super fun, but I'm happy to move on finally.

MK and I battled for those last farm levels to see who would get there first. I won but only by a few minutes. I had discovered the lightning boost feature right at the end and it doubled my output. I hit 200 harvesting the longest term crop, Baby Boo Pumpkins. They take 2 real time days to grow but give you a lot of XP.

And that basically ends the summer for me.

In addition to games, I just finished the paper book of Terry Pratchett's The Color of Magic. I'm half way through the audio book version and have the made-for-TV movie ready to watch. I also started a story collection by Gene Wolfe, a scifi/fantasy writer I'm just discovering who's supposed to be a great writer. I have his Book of the New Sun series (the first two books anyway) ready in the wings. (Howl's Moving Castle is on hold at the moment but I hope to get back to it soon).

There's also my obsession with the What Went Wrong podcast about the troubles of making movies. It's so much fun.

Finally, I saw Spinal Tap II last night. It was good. I have to look up the drummer they used because she was great.

And that's all I can think of at the moment.

Cary Woodham

09/12/2025 at 07:56 PM

I really miss going to conventions like E3 and PAX.

Arkanoid was one of the first games I got for my NES because it was a game I could get my dad to play and I thought the included paddle controller was cool.

KnightDriver

09/13/2025 at 09:19 AM

I keep looking for that controller. I may have to look it up on ebay because no one seems to have it around me.

Super Step Contributing Writer

09/12/2025 at 08:00 PM

Wait, is the drummer they used still alive? Did she spontaneously combust? I forgot that comes out this weekend!

09/13/2025 at 09:32 AM

The Tap had many drummers (numbered in the film - no spoilers) and this was their newest one.

One thing I wished this movie had was more concert footage like in the original film. But we get to see an awesome audition performance by Diddi Crockett, real name Valerie Franco of the band Phantom Lynx. Darn, she is good.

Ranger1

09/16/2025 at 12:52 PM

Dragon Warrior was a very grind heavy game, and that's saying something fo a series that is already grind heavy. I used to dash out, do three or four encounters in the immediate area around the castle, then dash back in. There are a couple of spots that you can wander into that aren't meant to be explored when you're lower level, but there's nothing that warns you about that, and you die with your first encounter. And money was soooo hard to come by, and not nearly enough equipment available to help you. I'm really looking forward to the remakes. Which means I should probably go back and finish off DQ 3 before they release 1&2, which 3 is the prequel to.

Someday, I will get to go to a Con.

09/20/2025 at 09:27 AM

The economies in some of these games is downright like scrabbling for spare change in a dump. I absolutely loved the improvements in the Final Fantasy remake. I hope it's the same for DQ.

My friend and I would go to more but he's handicapped and it's a strain on him. So we only do one a year. If we had a wheelchair van though, it would be different, but those things are expensive. I need a new car soon too, and I'd like to get one with a wheelchair lift, but the price, yikes!

daftman

09/22/2025 at 01:31 PM

Retro Con sounds fun!

You finally finished that farming game! And congrats on the win! Think how much free gaming time you'll have now lol.

I've read only maybe half a dozen Discworld books and I think they get better as they go. Color of Magic is good but I'd put it at the bottom of the ones I've read. I've been intending to get into Gene Wolfe's works for, well, decades at this point. It is surprisingly hard to find his stuff used and so much else to read in the meantime. The Book of the New Sun, in particular, is supposedly very good.

10/02/2025 at 06:39 PM

I actually went back to the first Farm Together for a bit to see if I had the stomach to get that last achievement, but I found out pretty quickly the grind is a little more intense in that one and I don't want to sink another 300hrs into it.

I enjoyed Color of Magic and what I got to in The Light Fantastic but I was always a little confused for some reason I've yet to figure out. Maybe they way the characters are lifted from one crazy situation to another so frequently. I want to read at least the first three books.

The first book of the New Sun was pretty great. I've been naming all my gaming characters the main character Severian after reading it. I found the first two books bundled together at my library, but yeah, they aren't around in the used books stores I go to for some reason. Maybe one will turn up sometime though. I'll be looking for them to own. Oh, if you read it, have a dictionary nearby. I looked up a lot of new words reading The Shadow of the Torturer (the first book in the New Sun series).

PixlBit