Rastan78 wrote:
The only time I've ever come across something like this was was in Megaman 11. Overall a very solid game and it seems like its not nearly as egregious as HD. I was inconsistent at reproducing it but my best guess was that when you change directions there is a frame or two during the turning animation where it will eat your jump input. Very annoying in a game with a lot of pits.
I've come to regard HD as the IRL Lemarchand's Box from
Hellraiser. Very pretty, very nice to hold, but if you figure out how to open it (Famicom boxes are tricky), what's inside will tear your gamer soul apart.

Basically, whenever the dpad changes state, [A.] and [B.] inputs occurring on the same frame get eaten. Ready to make a long jump over a pit? You're getting dunked in. Need to stop and shoot a charging zako? Dead man's click. You have to learn to skip those frames,
then press the button. This goes great when you're over a pit exchanging fire with a boss who's machinegunning your tiny platform with deadeye shots launched from pointblank at random intervals. -_-
EVEN BETTER is the sprite dropout. It can't be called "flicker," that's what games like Recca and Abadox do. HD has bullets and enemies literally go invisible for near-seconds at a time.
TLDR: HD is legitimately a harder than average console action game, and an interesting stage-by-stage riff on Metroid and Zelda II's floaty yet punishing action. HD is
illegitimately arcade-tough. I get the feeling the designers wanted to make an action game but didn't have the time/skill to iron out the kinks, so they just patched it over with a ton of 1UPs.

OST by
Masahiko Ishida of Image Fight, X-Multiply, R-Type II, Mr. Heli and Saigo no Nindou, incidentally. Not quite as great as those (his style relies on pounding rhythm and guttural abrasion, not something the FC chip's great for) but worth a look if you did his sinister grooves.
Quote:
You can imagine how this pairs with small conveyor belt platforms that try to push you off. You're likely to be pressing away from the edge then press towards and jump simultaneously. And you'll never really know for sure if you got the glitch or just timed your jump late.
Honestly if I ever encounter something like HD again, I'm gonna pass - there's so many balls-hard games out there that don't involve rewiring your nervous system around shoddy programming.

Sengoku Strider wrote:
It's why it always felt like the Neo Geo came out of nowhere for me, I only knew SNK as a C+ grade company who I'd only score that high because of Time Soldiers, P.O.W. and Crystalis. The Ikari games were known round the schoolyard as some of the worst out there (though I did learn to like the second one once I got decent at it). It seemed super bizarre that they'd be in line ahead of Konami or Capcom or even Sunsoft for getting their own console. I was like "where did they get the money for this?"
Time Soldiers was actually ADK's, as far as I know. Very cool game, I like how it goes in the completely opposite direction of Obada's Ikaris by making your character super-agile (the enemies likewise). I've learned to love the Ikaris (meaning Ikari, Dogo and Guevara... Ikari III is blatantly mislabeled), though they are the definition of acquired tastes with their glacial movement speed.
Have you played
Search And Rescue? Phenomenal topdown run/gun, and my pick for the best one to bear the SNK logo. User-friendly yet utterly hardcore, also a drop-dead cool riff on
Aliens et al. Zombies in mech suits, blow up the suit and the zombie's still goin', blow away zombie and his parasitised guts coalesce into a hulking Xenomorph, blow away Xeno's chest and arm and cause it to blindly tumble off the disintegrating catwalk into the red-lit abyss, it's a good time.
POW I can't get along with simply for it refusing to let you drop empty guns.

I'm fond of the gritty KO system otherwise, the way enemies become "marked for death" is an interesting riff on Technos combo enders. No need to combo - if someone's on their last legs, and you hit 'em clean, they're getting a jaw-jacking/neck-snapping wallop with that incredible
*CRACK* sound. Pick up a gun and it's all gone though... and what kind of late 80s action game
dissuades you from grabbing an AK and lighting up a herd of fuckin' ugly reds?!