"Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Kriegor
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Kriegor »

Sima Tuna wrote:Fight 'n' Rage is honestly a fucking miracle. I have no idea how that game turned out as amazing as it is, except to say the creator clearly understands beat em ups like few others do.
He does pretty clear references to Cadillacs & Dinosaurs (same car scene, gameplay is heavily based on Cadillacs), Violent Storm (the dancing scene is copy paste), Final Fight obviously (many moves' animations), Streets of Rage 1 to 3 but that doesn't count (since everyone refences them)...

Just putting strike grabs or down up special in any beat'em up, it's funny because we're talking basic Capcom's stuff, which is the top of the iceberg, but just doing that is insanely rare in modern beat'em up. And when I say insanely, I mean it's in Fight'n Rage and that's all!!

He is also a good player which really helps making a balanced game. I remember complaints about S rank with Gal in score attack being too hard to reach on the Steam forum. He just made a video showing how he does it, himself, pretty comfortably. Turns out if you want to make a very good game, it helps playing this type of games a lot.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Air Master Burst »

I honestly put the vast majority of Konami's classic belt-scrollers on the same trash tier as all the modern chaff. Sega has dome real clunkers too. Even back when these were essentially big-budget AAA games (for the time), only Capcom managed to have consistent output and quality, so I think your standards are way too high here.

Then again, I would only put Final Fight in a top 10 belt scrollers list out of respect for its historical importance. It's a great game but totally outclassed by a lot of what came later, and I say this as someone who's already spent 20+ hours on it this week training for the 1CC.
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

Kriegor wrote:Whether you play Irem, Konami, Sega or Capcom's beat'em up in the 90's, it's clear they all understood the fundamentals. Now, most team start a beat'em up project with these specifications:
1/ I remember playing and enjoying Streets of Rage when I was a kid
2/ Let's make one now, but with all the evolutions from 3D character action stuff

Juggle combos and parries are cool and all, but when there's just that, I just go back to Tekken 7, sorry. A long combo is a good reward when landing the launcher is the real trick. And a good parry is fun when you had to guess right what was coming. When it's just rinse and repeat and everything else is unbalanced and trivial, I just go back to the old stuff.
Yeah I agree with you there. I know a modern beat em up is not gonna go to Crime Fighters 2 or DD 100% back to basics. Still the emphasis of the genre is on screen positioning and crowd control tactics not infinite juggles and 30 hit combos. Same problem as in fighting games after so many hits it starts to feel like you're just playing in training mode. And doing long combos 500 times starts to feel repetitive the longer they last.

I think a quality the best beat em ups have is the time to knockdown once you engage an enemy is brief. Also the time for the enemy to jump back up and re-engage is brief.

Sure a few longer combos are OK, but not if it takes away from the emphasis on movement and positioning.

At least they haven't started including features from 3D character action like spammable parries that can be done midcombo or invincible dodge roll that can interrupt your own moves ala Bayonetta. IMO the tension in beat em ups comes from there being a risk associated with engaging an enemy.
Kriegor
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Kriegor »

Air Master Burst wrote:I honestly put the vast majority of Konami's classic belt-scrollers on the same trash tier as all the modern chaff. Sega has dome real clunkers too.
Konami achieved very high quality toward the end: Violent Storm and Batman Returns are really really good (top 30). Metamorphic Force and Vendetta are more than all right. Turtles in Time and Hyperstone Heist were above average. It's really first stuff (the first Crime Fighters, the first TMNTs, the Simpsons, Asterix, X-Men) that are "mediocre". The thing that separate mediocre stuff from the past to mediocre stuff now is that they were still fast paced, intense and challenging. So even if they were basic, the intensity and adrenaline were there, as well as the desire to always play better and go farther.

Many modern beat'em up are made to be clear in one go. They are a bit longer to compensate, which hurts their density. Old arcade beat'em up are perceived as unfair (enemies don't warn you before they attack, iframes require resources). So we're adding stuff that destroy their methodical gameplay and the challenge they offered, to make room for timing based short story driven experience, where part of your skill is due to grinding xp, and difficulty can be ramped up through enemies' HP (counterbalanced by much longer combos) and the damage they inflict (which you're no longer supposed to take because you just have to press R1 when they raise their hands).

I still prefer a mediocre Asterix. I still prefer to spam my dive attacks and my charge attacks while my heart is beating hard and I'm focused on which target to prioritize and what path I should take. Just a personal opinion, but I wanted to emphasize the fact that I'm not talking out of nostalgia. I'm playing plenty of old school beat'em up even today of which about 70% of them, I just didn't get the chance to put my hands on back when they were released.
Air Master Burst wrote:only Capcom managed to have consistent output and quality, so I think your standards are way too high here
Irem as well. I don't think they released anything below good. Outside Spartan X, they were more trend follower than trend setter though.
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Sima Tuna
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Sima Tuna »

Kriegor wrote:
Sima Tuna wrote:Fight 'n' Rage is honestly a fucking miracle. I have no idea how that game turned out as amazing as it is, except to say the creator clearly understands beat em ups like few others do.
He is also a good player which really helps making a balanced game. I remember complaints about S rank with Gal in score attack being too hard to reach on the Steam forum. He just made a video showing how he does it, himself, pretty comfortably. Turns out if you want to make a very good game, it helps playing this type of games a lot.

Yeah, it comes across in his implementation of Turbo mode. The fact you can play Fight 'n' Rage at dramatically increased speed without breaking the mechanics shows how robust his game is.

I have to stick up a bit for Konami beat em ups too. The licensed stuff isn't great imo, but Vendetta is awesome. Vendetta is an extremely tightly-designed, yet unique game. It doesn't feel like any other brawler, except maybe the first Crime Fighters. Massive fucking props to Vendetta for implementing some of the fairer bosses in beat em ups, too. The only obnoxious one is Little Rude Bro, and that's intentional. Both enemies and bosses can fuck you up real fast, but the same is true for what you can do to them.

Violent Storm looks amazing, as does Metamorphic Force, but I haven't played either just yet. I think it's fair to assume they're mechanically solid though, based on footage I've seen of 1ccs.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Air Master Burst »

Kriegor wrote:Turtles in Time and Hyperstone Heist were above average. It's really first stuff (the first Crime Fighters, the first TMNTs, the Simpsons, Asterix, X-Men) that are "mediocre". The thing that separate mediocre stuff from the past to mediocre stuff now is that they were still fast paced, intense and challenging. So even if they were basic, the intensity and adrenaline were there, as well as the desire to always play better and go farther.
Turtles in Time arcade is unfair as shit and nobody can tell me different. There were a ton of games that were unbalanced or blatantly unfair back then because they had to milk more quarters or rental fees. Even a mostly "fair" game like Final Fight has some of that, with the stunlocks trying to get back up and the ridiculous gauntlet that is the level 2 subway.
Kriegor wrote: Irem as well. I don't think they released anything below good. Outside Spartan X, they were more trend follower than trend setter though.
That's fair, although I can't think of more than like 4 belt-scrollers they actually made. BanPresto might be a better example since they did a lot of mediocre licensed stuff but also some absolute winners.

I actually do want to try out Vendetta, Violent Storm, and maybe Metamorphic Force at some point. They look pretty good and everyone loves them, so there has to be something there, but even if those 3 are bangers I'd still put Konami's average at well under .500.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

Air Master Burst wrote:Even a mostly "fair" game like Final Fight has some of that, with the stunlocks trying to get back up and the ridiculous gauntlet that is the level 2 subway.
You can quick rise by mashing buttons rapidly to get out of repeated loop of stunlock into more knockdowns. Sometimes a game appearing to be unfair or being a "quarter muncher" might mean the player doesn't understand all the mechanics or strategies yet.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Air Master Burst »

Rastan78 wrote:
Air Master Burst wrote:Even a mostly "fair" game like Final Fight has some of that, with the stunlocks trying to get back up and the ridiculous gauntlet that is the level 2 subway.
You can quick rise by mashing buttons rapidly to get out of repeated loop of stunlock into more knockdowns. Sometimes a game appearing to be unfair or being a "quarter muncher" might mean the player doesn't understand all the mechanics or strategies yet.
You can, but unlike most later belt-scrollers you have zero i-frames on recovery, and enemies will absolutely spam your prone body with attacks that hit instantly upon recovery. Even pro level Final Fight players will tell you that holding jump and mashing attack to bust out the "instant" recovery special only works like half the time. There's a reason Capcom fixed this issue with their later games.

Final Fight is clearly not a quarter muncher in the traditional sense, and yet it still has some unfortunate design decisions that were clearly intended to increase profit at the expense of playability. Defending greedy corporate practices by gaslighting people by telling them they just don't understand the mechanics is a pretty bad look.
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

Do you know what gaslighting actually means? That's a pretty extreme thing. It means to lie, manipulate and abuse a person to the extent that they question their own sanity. Usually done in the context of an abusive domestic partnership or family relationship. You think I'm gaslighting bc I suggested that sometimes effective tactics in a video game might exist that make a seemingly unfair section achievable?
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Air Master Burst »

You implied that my issues with Final Fight aren't real because I don't understand the mechanics. I absolutely understand the mechanics, and these issues are real ones that actually exist. That's kind of a dick move.

You can try to get into debates about dictionary definitions or whatever to distract from the dick move you just pulled if you want to, though. Have fun with that!
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

Well the stage 2 subway section is definitely possible to get through no damage or very little damage. I mean I'll concede that there is some cheapness and jank in Final Fight, but it cuts both ways as there are so many cheesy tactics the player can abuse as well.

You could also mitigate the quick rise issue by holding B and autofire on A to get up much faster and increase the likelihood of getting off a special attack. Or perfect your approach to the stages to where you are not likely to get knocked down.

But holy shit dude I'm not trying to fuck with your head or defend corporate greed or anything like that.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Air Master Burst »

Rastan78 wrote:Well the stage 2 subway section is definitely possible to get through no damage or very little damage.
Of course it is, I can do it myself on a fairly regular basis. But putting that brutal of a gauntlet that early in an arcade game is a conscious (and greedy) decision to suck more quarters at the expense of playability, in this case a somewhat reasonable difficulty curve.

Never forget that this is both the era and the genre that gave us the paean to unmitigated corporate greed that is Double Dragon 3.
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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Lethe
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Lethe »

Air Master Burst wrote:BG2 could be great with a mod that removes the hardcore railroading. I've never made it past the part where the thieves guild blackmails you and the game just doesn't let you kill them all or break in and steal the info you need.
Normally I'd say it's dumb to drop an RPG within ~1 hour, but in this case the game only gets worse with the railroading on several fronts. Those of real taste ignore the garbage structure and play it for its idiosyncratic combat.
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BIL
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by BIL »

Air Master Burst wrote:Never forget that this is both the era and the genre that gave us the paean to unmitigated corporate greed that is Double Dragon 3.
The overseas version's proto-microtransaction shop can eat my ass, but the JP version is a pretty legit effort from East Technology, apparently. I hope it gets an ACA release so I can see what's up.

Similar deal with The Combatribes, and tbh a lot of US/EU/World versions of classic AC games (Konami were infamous for this, you're probably aware).
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

Air Master Burst wrote:
Rastan78 wrote:Well the stage 2 subway section is definitely possible to get through no damage or very little damage.
Of course it is, I can do it myself on a fairly regular basis. But putting that brutal of a gauntlet that early in an arcade game is a conscious (and greedy) decision to suck more quarters at the expense of playability, in this case a somewhat reasonable difficulty curve.

Never forget that this is both the era and the genre that gave us the paean to unmitigated corporate greed that is Double Dragon 3.
Oh yeah you're not wrong about that. I'm sure devs back then were thinking all along about how long players would hang around on a cab before sticking in more money. And when you had God level players showing up at loke tests and 1ccing games on the spot they just had to up the ante more and more.

I guess I tend to interpret "unfair" as meaning like virtually impossible without credit feeding. Personally difficulty spikes here and there don't usually bother me. There are good games that will throw a ridiculous section at you seemingly at random. But I do get why some people value an even difficulty progression from beginning to end, but I kind of enjoy a peaks and valleys kind of pacing. Oh shit. This part? Ah OK made it. Now I can catch my breath and coast for a sec . .

Maybe I'd feel different if I was still actually pumping in quarters to play and there were no save states to perfect the rough spots in a run?

@BIL Yeah it's weird to me when overseas versions got jacked up difficulty. Like wouldn't the player base in Japan typically be where the best skill and access to info was? We're over here just now figuring out stuff that was passed around in Gamest Mooks 35 years ago over in Japan and we got the hardest version?
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BIL
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by BIL »

While Toaplan's overseas boards weren't quarter munchers, I remember Uemura saying the perceived trend at the time (with STGs) was disciplined one-coin play in Japan, and SLAMMIN DOWN BREWSKIS W/THE BROS in the US, hence the checkpointless Twin Cobra, Fire Shark and Hellfire 2P. I suspect JP devs knew those Game Center samurai would show up at their cribs looking for vengeance if they tried any of that pay2win shit back home. :mrgreen:
Toaplan Forever (translation @ Gamengai) wrote:VHS: For the games first put out by Taito, were there any requests by them to "make something like this?"

Uemura: For the overseas versions, yes. They're the ones that requested 2-player simultaneous play. Originally in the overseas versions you didn't return to a checkpoint when you died, and simultaneous play was a must. The players at that time in America were always playing in a somewhat drunken fashion, not making strategies or plans.
I still wonder just how much of Double Dragon (published by Taito overseas) was driven by the same impulse. Kishimoto's OG Kunio is all about the stark adrenaline rush of one outnumbered hardass versus eight ruthless thugs, several of them armed... 2P is a totally logical evolution, but at the same time, I could easily see him continuing on in the lone wolf action movie trend, much as he'd already done at DECO with Road Avenger and Thunder Blaster, and as stuff like Devil May Cry would bring back in vogue in the early 2000s.

The really ugly stuff like US Thunder Cross and XEXEX's "Orius" incarnation, where they actively chopped out swathes of content (weapons, entire control mechanics in TC's case), I can only think they were on some misguided attempt to simplify things for that same perceived casual audience.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

All ur brewskis are belong to us

One rare case I liked by Konami was trading the cross in thr JP version for the axe in Belmont's Revenge GB. The game is easy and doesn't really need the cross so I kinda prefer the western release.
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Air Master Burst
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Post by Air Master Burst »

Rastan78 wrote:I guess I tend to interpret "unfair" as meaning like virtually impossible without credit feeding.
That makes sense, and Final Fight is a pretty fair game by overall arcade standards, but going back to it after later, more user-friendly Capcom belt-scrollers makes the unfair bits stand out even more. Still, for the time it was released it was revolutionary, and I like to think that after it made so much money they realized they could make even more by modifying or removing some of the cheaper and less intuitive design choices.
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

For me the ones that feel the closest to Final Fight's simple formula but perfected are Warriors of Fate and Punisher. It's too bad there wasn't an eventual arcade FF2 that was on the level of those.

I can live without the mounted horse sequences of WoF tho.
Licorice
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Licorice »

Persistence (i.e. Saving) was a mistake.

Almost any game can be made better by removing persistence, or rather changing the design to cater to a lack of persistence.

I've been leaning towards this conclusion for a while, but playing the very enjoyable saveless Metafight really sealed the deal.

I've also noticed games with password save systems are almost designed as if the feature is not there. Kind of a substitute for suspend and resume or a practice mode. Probably not always true, and might simply be correlated with contemporary design trends and other limitations of the day.

Decent compromises are the mentioned suspend and resume (why not?), suspend at the cost of a credit (better, e.g. sin and punishment), or saves as a resource (i.e. ink ribbons).
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copy-paster
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by copy-paster »

I haven't played Metafight but from the look of the length it's really ridiculous with no saves/password for stage skips.

Sunsoft did a better job for password system in their late NES days; Only 4 digits to begin with, and they separate sub stages by having their own code.
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Licorice »

I found myself getting up to areas further in much faster on subsequent attempts. Knowing where you're going and where the good power ups are is important.

If the game had saves, I'd never really put the effort in to learning its world in as much detail, or feel the satisfaction of smoothly breezing through what was once an arduous maze. I'd just kind of work and bumble my way through.

I've not cleared the game yet, just started on it a few days back, so can't say out of my own experience, but a brief search through YT shows speedruns taking 25 minutes, and "walkthroughs" taking 70 minutes. Seems reasonable to me.
Kriegor
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Kriegor »

Air Master Burst wrote:Of course it is, I can do it myself on a fairly regular basis. But putting that brutal of a gauntlet that early in an arcade game is a conscious (and greedy) decision to suck more quarters at the expense of playability, in this case a somewhat reasonable difficulty curve.
I really doubt it was intentional, especially considering how chill stage 3 is. Looks more like an oversight. Every beat'em up has those weird difficulty spikes, even on console. SOR2's challenge can be summed up by: "so there are 3 elevators". Originally, SOR4 had a hard stage 4, then stage 5 is a breeze, then 6 and 7 are intense, then 8 is easier than 1, then 9 wants to murder you... It's not like making a perfect difficulty ramp is easy.

If it was intentional, then we would see the same pattern in every Capcom's arcade game.

That's not to say Final Fight is not designed to push players to put more quarters into the cabinet. Of course you don't want the guy to spend 50 minutes with 2F (don't know how much it cost in the US). Or more than a hundred hours with less than it cost to buy a console game at that time! Beat'em up were already the most economical games in an arcade (yet they are the one branded as cheap quarter muncher!!!).

Where I really see that Final Fight wanted you to spend more, it's in:
- the number of life he offers. By the time you reach the end, if it had been a console game, you should have had like 7 extands. Beating the game with 3 lives is brutal, with the final stage probably going to take at leaaast 1 life out of you.
- the enemies' agressivity. But that's what makes it great as well. I'm in love with games that are at your throat at all time.
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Sima Tuna
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Sima Tuna »

Another reason Vendetta is so awesome. The difficulty curve (imo) is relatively smooth.
Spoiler
First boss is a cakewalk, so long as you don't get too greedy. Knock him down, knee his nuts a few times and then move away to repeat. Stage 2 has Joe, who can be a bit tricky, but also isn't too bad if you stay on his ass. Missing Link comes in at the end of Stage 2, and he could be the first difficulty spike for some players, with his "wave your hands in the air" invincible damaging taunt. But he's still not awful. He doesn't take kicks well and there are ways to knock him out of the sky mid-jump. Stage 3 is the big difficulty spike, but it should be. You're about halfway through the game now, and this is the point where the game needs to get serious or go home. Which it does. Rude Bros are way harder than any previous bosses, primarily because of Little Rude flying all around the place like the knockoff Fleaman he is. If you can nail down Little Rude, Big Rude is easier to kill than a normal enemy. But if Little Rude gets to do his thing, Big Rude has a way of sniping your ass with his long limbs.

Stage 4 is an interlude to the final level. Super short stage. Kurt is the first boss who spends a significant portion of the fight invincible, a beat em up staple. Very few bosses in Vendetta are invincible, unlike the i-frames spamming fuckos in games like Final Fight. But Kurt's spin2win can waste a lot of your time if he feels like abusing it. Other than that, he's a fair boss. I'd say about as difficult as Joe.

Stage 5 is the gauntlet. "I'm a martial arts masterpiece!" Faust will murder you if you don't know what his phases are about or what he's planning to do next. But hey, he's the final boss, right? He's still more fair than Belgar or Shiva.

The difficulty curve on Vendetta is smooth as silk, minus the bump with Little Rude. The game introduces all its gimmicks gradually, and then the post-run MEGA BOSS RUSH is where everything gets put together. You gotta bring your A game and demonstrate mastery of the systems, because now Konami starts to show off just how crazy intricate these bosses are. By pairing them up in complementary groupings. Link can dominate massive amounts of the screen at once, limiting the player's movement so the normally slow Buzzsaw can slice them up. Joe and Little Rude form an evil genius combo of leaping fleaman BS. :lol: Kurt and Faust is the most brilliant one. Kurt doesn't even feel like a boss intended to work on his own. His spinning does very little to benefit himself. But what it's amazing for is walling off parts of the belt so that a dangerous boss like Faust, with high-damage attacks, can pick off a trapped player. I've seen some GODLIKE plays from the Kurt and Faust combo.
Many arcade games seem to follow the standard "one easy level, then difficulty cranked to 11 from that point onwards" philosophy. Whereas modern attempts at "retro" games usually go the other way, with a middling, low difficulty which extends across the entire game evenly, padded with a lot of extraneous fluff. But I prefer it when games use a relatively even difficulty curve that culminates at the high end. I think Fight 'n' Rage does this very well, actually. Assuming you take the route which skips the autoscrolling sewer level (a low point of the game imo), the difficulty generally ramps up as you continue through the levels. The major difficulty spikes happen with the introduction of new enemy types, but those intros are kept modest (one or two dobermans at a time, then a large break before you see another one) rather than overwhelming the player with BS.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Air Master Burst »

Kriegor wrote: I really doubt it was intentional, especially considering how chill stage 3 is. Looks more like an oversight.

...

If it was intentional, then we would see the same pattern in every Capcom's arcade game.
I mean, they probably played their own game a few times before they released it. It's not like it takes dozens of plays to realize how absurd the subway is compared to the following 2+ levels. They knew what they were doing! I think they were just smart enough to realize from Final Fight's success that if they made a good enough game, people would spend more in the long run. Getting stuck on level 2 all the time probably started losing appeal with the casuals once more belt-scrollers started popping up.

ETA:
Sima Tuna wrote: I think Fight 'n' Rage does this very well, actually. Assuming you take the route which skips the autoscrolling sewer level (a low point of the game
If you use command throws it's stupidly easy. Especially when you combine it with Gal's down special, they never get a chance to do much. If they didn't give you the pow upgrade for the mosquito dudes it would be rough as fuck, though, every once in a while I don't get them all before it runs out and I gotta scramble a bit.

The boss is one of the easiest in the game, just spam your down-up through either of his attacks. This works with Gal and Ricardo, haven't tried Norris yet.
Last edited by Air Master Burst on Fri Aug 19, 2022 9:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kriegor
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Kriegor »

Sima Tuna wrote:Many arcade games seem to follow the standard "one easy level, then difficulty cranked to 11 from that point onwards" philosophy. Whereas modern attempts at "retro" games usually go the other way, with a middling, low difficulty which extends across the entire game evenly, padded with a lot of extraneous fluff. But I prefer it when games use a relatively even difficulty curve that culminates at the high end. I think Fight 'n' Rage does this very well, actually. Assuming you take the route which skips the autoscrolling sewer level (a low point of the game imo), the difficulty generally ramps up as you continue through the levels. The major difficulty spikes happen with the introduction of new enemy types, but those intros are kept modest (one or two dobermans at a time, then a large break before you see another one) rather than overwhelming the player with BS.
For my part, I don't like when arcade games take their damn time to ramp up the difficulty, because it's all about the replayability. I hate so many first stages, be it in beat'em up or any arcade genre really. Although they make sense the first time, they become so boring after that. I love Ikaruga, but the first two stages are so slow and boring, and so I never replay it just because of that.

You've got some long beat'em up that keep introducing new basic enemies during the last stage! SOR4 is particularly guilty of that. If there wasn't a fantastic randomizer mod for this game, I'll never play it, because the full run is about 1.5 hour, and about 3/4th of it is just a very long and slow ramp, introducing new enemy one at a time...

If the difficulty has to go from one to seven, and it's 7 stages long, I want it to be like 4-5-6-6-6-7-7 and not 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.

Also, I do like when the last battle is next to impossible. This is something shmup are not shy off. You went to the last boss with one credit? Then here's a final form that will absolutely destroy you! But it's extremely rare in beat'em up. Crime Fighters 1 and 2 get it right. Crime Fighters 1 might have the hardest battle in any beat'em up ever. It's just every fkn bosses but at the same time lol. But what's great is those games basically give you the ending scene, the congrats and all, and then here, bonus stage! Get rekt!

I like it because you always have something higher to aim for. When I love a game, I like to keep having higher goals (survival wise). An insane 2nd loop is also a great way to do this. Also something common in shmup but very rare in beat'em up. Crime Fighters 3 does this (though I'd prefer if the 2nd loop was the standard one). So getting back to my difficulty curve, I want it to be 4-5-6-6-6-7-7-ending scene-2nd loop-6-7-7-7-8-8-9-2nd ending scene-10 (bonus stage).
Bassa-Bassa
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

Kriegor wrote:
Air Master Burst wrote:Of course it is, I can do it myself on a fairly regular basis. But putting that brutal of a gauntlet that early in an arcade game is a conscious (and greedy) decision to suck more quarters at the expense of playability, in this case a somewhat reasonable difficulty curve.
I really doubt it was intentional, especially considering how chill stage 3 is. Looks more like an oversight. Every beat'em up has those weird difficulty spikes, even on console. SOR2's challenge can be summed up by: "so there are 3 elevators". Originally, SOR4 had a hard stage 4, then stage 5 is a breeze, then 6 and 7 are intense, then 8 is easier than 1, then 9 wants to murder you... It's not like making a perfect difficulty ramp is easy.

If it was intentional, then we would see the same pattern in every Capcom's arcade game.
I don't know about every, but Willow from the same year has the difficulty peak (not counting the stupid final stage maze) right in stage 2 (the infamous wagon stage). And I can see the point and even celebrate it - place it later in the game and practicing it as it requires would be harder in an arcade context. I know I myself would not have had the patience and time to properly learn it if it weren't placed as early as stage 2. I believe it didn't favour the game's success in the end - I knew many people who thought the game's brutal for not being able to beat that stage, and therefore, it's not actually a good game, but I don't think it's the game's fault. The problem in my eyes with FF's stage 2 is actually its length. It's a problem with the whole game given how demanding and how lacking of enemy types it is, but I guess they wanted to overcome Double Dragon so much that they went overboard in this frangible regard.
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Sima Tuna
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Sima Tuna »

Air Master Burst wrote:
Sima Tuna wrote: I think Fight 'n' Rage does this very well, actually. Assuming you take the route which skips the autoscrolling sewer level (a low point of the game
If you use command throws it's stupidly easy. Especially when you combine it with Gal's down special, they never get a chance to do much. If they didn't give you the pow upgrade for the mosquito dudes it would be rough as fuck, though, every once in a while I don't get them all before it runs out and I gotta scramble a bit.

The boss is one of the easiest in the game, just spam your down-up through either of his attacks. This works with Gal and Ricardo, haven't tried Norris yet.
When I say the raft level is a low point of the game, I don't just mean the boss fight. The stage itself is annoying too. Really, I dislike the concept overall. A very tiny bit of arena with hurt floor (at least it's not instant kill) everywhere else. I don't like the fire level in Final Fight either.
Spoiler
I'm sure you don't find the level too bad if you main Gal. Gal's special allows you to cancel your momentum into a landing at any time. Other characters can't do that. F. Norris' special actually increases his momentum (whatever direction you were sliding, you will speed up if you try to special out), which is what you don't want. If you are in the air and get pushed or slide over the water with F. Norris, I'm not aware of any way to correct yourself.

Taking damage from falling into the water feels bad. It just... Fair or not, it feels like shit. Getting knocked in by an enemy would be fine, but 99% of the time when I take damage in the water, it's because I slid in a way I wasn't expecting to.

I do have the 1cc for this game, so it's not like I suck complete ass either (just mostly). Fight 'n' Rage is a very mobile game with a lot of momentum and sometimes shit just happens in all the chaos. The raft level makes the game feel sloppier than it is, by harshly punishing the slightest mistakes in momentum (a thing you can't 100% control, since both your and enemy attacks will slide you,) and giving you no way to bail out. You have so many ways to get out of eating a combo, but no ways to stop from falling in the water. I should also mention that F. Norris default (grounded) superjoy sends him airborne, so you can't even superjoy in certain situations during the raft level with Norris, or else you will slide directly into the fucking water. You gotta take your hand completely off the dpad/joystick and hope nothing else pushes you while you are airborne. Enemies can even push you with their bodies, IIRC. Like, not even an attack, but just if there are x number of enemies crowding around you and you're airborne, they can push against your character and send you into the water by taking up all available space on the raft.

Tl;DR hazard stages in beat em ups are bad and feel bad.
For my part, I don't like when arcade games take their damn time to ramp up the difficulty, because it's all about the replayability. I hate so many first stages, be it in beat'em up or any arcade genre really. Although they make sense the first time, they become so boring after that. I love Ikaruga, but the first two stages are so slow and boring, and so I never replay it just because of that.

You've got some long beat'em up that keep introducing new basic enemies during the last stage! SOR4 is particularly guilty of that. If there wasn't a fantastic randomizer mod for this game, I'll never play it, because the full run is about 1.5 hour, and about 3/4th of it is just a very long and slow ramp, introducing new enemy one at a time...

If the difficulty has to go from one to seven, and it's 7 stages long, I want it to be like 4-5-6-6-6-7-7 and not 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.
That's reasonable. What I mean is that, say, the 2nd level should never be the hardest part of the game, you know? The game shouldn't go down in difficulty after they've already cranked shit up. I like (not love) SoR4, but it is both too long and too slow to introduce all its tricks. Beat em up length is very important. IMO a beat em up should not be longer than an hour, ever. Successive runs on 90 minute beat em ups become tiresome quickly. Show your bag of tricks, put the player through the wringer and then pat them on the ass and scoot them out the door. Don't wear out your welcome. :lol:

Vendetta difficulty probably goes something like 2-3-4-7(little rude)-4-8-10(boss rush). The first stage isn't a "1" because default enemies can strip your hp down to nothing in no time. I'd argue a normal enemy in vendetta is more dangerous than buzzsaw bravado, the first boss. :D
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Rastan78
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by Rastan78 »

BIL wrote:While Toaplan's overseas boards weren't quarter munchers, I remember Uemura saying the perceived trend at the time (with STGs) was disciplined one-coin play in Japan, and SLAMMIN DOWN BREWSKIS W/THE BROS in the US, hence the checkpointless Twin Cobra, Fire Shark and Hellfire 2P. I suspect JP devs knew those Game Center samurai would show up at their cribs looking for vengeance if they tried any of that pay2win shit back home.
Here's a relevant quote from a Final Fight developer interview. I guess Capcom was aware of the gaijin frat bro credit feeding playstyle at that time as well.
Nishitani:
I also checked out the arcades in America when I went overseas for business. At the time, a lot of American arcades were using tokens instead of actual money. While watching the side-scrolling action games, I noticed people pumping tokens into the machine just to continue. In Japan, the most essential concept is - "How far can I get with just 1 coin?" But the American players were having fun even while losing, and seemed to enjoy continuing the game.

-- They weren't salty over losing?

Nishitani:
Even though it's essentially "losing to the enemy," getting hit by Andore's pile-driver is more interesting, isn't it? (laughs) That's what the kind of thing they were enjoying. It was shocking to see this kind of cultural difference between Japanese people.
Also Akiman (key FF and SF2 designer) was saying he really liked shmups and thought Gradius is the best. But while creating the design doc for FF he felt as though shmups just weren't where it was at anymore.

So usually SF2 gets credited for harpooning the popularity of shmups in the arcade, but here's Akiman saying shmups were dwindling in the late 80s years before they released SF2. He's feeling like belt scrollers are the hot new shit.

I think bc the belt scroller boom was short lived and only lasted through the early 90s, before FGs took the reins, it's easy to underestimate the impact they had. I mean as kid I played and had access to way more belt scrollers than shmups.

Akiman's sentiment jives with my experience then during that pre SF2 era about 89-90. My friends were all over TMNT and Double Dragon, might branch over to Golden Axe or Michael Jackson Moonwalker etc if available and never touched shmups.
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BIL
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Re: "Unpopular Gaming Opinions"

Post by BIL »

Good stuff. :smile: Kinda bittersweet in hindsight, but then again, arcades in general were always on borrowed time with consoles advancing by leaps and bounds.

It may have been the same interview, but I recall either Nishitani or Akiman mentioning seeing Datsugoku/POW and resolving to surpass it with Final Fight, which made me laugh as Datsu is nearly as jank as ACDD1. :lol: I love it all the same, but just the way enemies freeze in place while you're jumping is a riot. :mrgreen:

EDIT: ah yeah, same one I think, though I recall a line like "Capcom must surpass them!" - will snoop around later, it's a great little quote.
Akiman wrote:I had a chance to go overseas together with Fujiwara (producer of Ghosts 'n Goblins), and at the time side-scrolling action games such as Double Dragon (Technōs Japan, 1987) and P.O.W.: Prisoners of War (SNK, 1988) were popular. Personally, I liked shooting games - I thought that Gradius (Konami, 1985) was the best. But the market wasn't about shooting games at the time (everyone laughs). So, I made a design document with plenty of detail and took on the development.
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