"Good" kusoge

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Despatche
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Despatche »

This term already doesn't make sense for what Japan likes to use it for, but English speakers should never have been allowed to speak or write it. All the usual horrors of using weird language to claim that there's something meaningful to their personal hatred of a game, multiplied by the language being foreign and thus the vast majority of English speakers misunderstanding it by default.

Like, hating on Super Star Wars just says that you haven't played very many games. I'm not gonna say that it's some god game like Macaw does, it's not, but it's literally not a bad game.

See, Sengoku delivers the goods. If you're going to use this term, it needs to be for games that are 100% CURSED, just completely and utterly fucked in at least most possible ways, and in a way that feels like you're playing a shitpost. Super Star Wars is not such a game. Minakata Hakudou Toujou absolutely is.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Steven »

Then it's a good thing that I know Japanese and have been forced to use it quite literally every single day for over a decade.
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BryanM
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by BryanM »

It's an absolutely essential concept to name and label.

Look how absolutely fucked and rounded-off so many things have become. "Here is Street Fighter 2/Assassin's Creed/Star Wars. In a slightly different skin. Again." This is the world we could be living in instead.

The best of the essence of kusoge isn't the failure (though that is beautiful on its own), it's in doing things no other game is doing. And often, things no human would want to do. One Takeshi's Challenge brings more to the world than a dozen more Street Fighter 2 clones. Getting Over It and Umihara Kawase are experimental instead of soulless corporate crap. It's the realm of actual "art".

The grey walls of Mighty Number 9 make you want to kill yourself. Looking at the grass in Stargazer will kill you on its own. Outright and mercifully. You ask me which is "better", it's Stargazer. You ask me which is more "kusoge-like", it's also Stargazer.
Like, hating on Super Star Wars just says that you haven't played very many games
There's no sin worse than bland mediocrity.

I don't agree with people who call Last Battle a kusoge either, but it's not a big deal. We're all different people aligned differently. They don't "get" the same thing I get out of it.

(Which is calmly walking to the right while a guy pokes with a spear to go faster. I call this "the spear bus". While there is a rich vein of possibilities to explore here: this is a game where the standard model of walking to the right and killing motherfuckers is turned on its head. Instead of killing motherfuckers, you want them to stay on the screen so other jerks won't spawn to stand in your way.

But mostly it's a walking simulator to leave one to their thoughts. To contemplate the universe. The ongoing apocalypse in real life versus its doomy fictional vibes.)
this is a game where the standard model of walking to the right and killing motherfuckers is turned on its head
This is an absolutely great idea for a game! How many Mario-esque platformers are there that have puzzles and stages where you have to use the enemies to get through stages? As a core and constant feature?
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Steven »

BryanM wrote:There's no sin worse than bland mediocrity.
This is exactly why I prefer Sonic 06 over Chaotix; Chaotix is just fucking boring, but Sonic 06, as broken as it is, provides entertainment value due to how bad it is.
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drauch
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by drauch »

I don't think anyone agreed that Super Star Was was a 'kusoge'. I think we all decided it just fucking sucks.
Despatche wrote: Like, hating on Super Star Wars just says that you haven't played very many games.
Lol.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Air Master Burst »

BryanM wrote:
This is an absolutely great idea for a game! How many Mario-esque platformers are there that have puzzles and stages where you have to use the enemies to get through stages? As a core and constant feature?
Kirby's been doing this since the 90s, and it seems to also feature heavily in like every Mario Maker level I've ever seen.

ETA:
Despatche wrote:Like, hating on Super Star Wars just says that you haven't played very many games.
See, and NOT hating Super Star Wars just says to me that you haven't played any other game BUT Super Star Wars.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Rastan78 »

I've actually played all the way through the GB version of Empire Strikes Back, which is a port of the NES game. Now that is delving more into true kusoge territory. Everything from the controls, level design, boss fights etc leave a distinct aftertaste of WTF. After you beat a boss whose whole pattern is just rapidly run left and right by keeping your distance and slowly cheesing it out you're left thinking, did I totally miss something, or is that actually how that was supposed to go down?

Yet somehow I have a morbid fascination with the game. Might even have to play it again some day.
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Marc
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Marc »

The SNES Star Wars games were fucking garbage. It baffled me at the time how they were highly rated.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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Despatche wrote:This term already doesn't make sense for what Japan likes to use it for, but English speakers should never have been allowed to speak or write it. All the usual horrors of using weird language to claim that there's something meaningful to their personal hatred of a game, multiplied by the language being foreign and thus the vast majority of English speakers misunderstanding it by default.
I didn't know there was much to it, TBH. Kuso is just a crude expletive or perjorative meaning feces, and game is an English loanword to begin with. JapanKnowledege Lib only gives this:

俗に、出来が悪く、まったく楽しめないコンピューターゲームのこと。
("Commonly, a poorly made, unenjoyable computer game.")

That's an academic resource though. This sent me down a weird Japanese internet rabbit hole, but in the end by far the most detailed accessible resource on this one seems to be Japanese Wikipedia.

It was apparently first coined back in 1985 by Miura Jun, an artist and all-round media tarento who's been associated with Takahashi Meijin & Shigesato Itoi in the past (along with a billion others nobody here is probably interested in). He also had a band in the 90s called The Bronsons, because he thought Charles Bronson was studly. Their album was called Super Magnum, and the lead single was マンダム 男の世界 ("Mandom Man's World," which sounds like a password-locked folder on BIL's hard drive).

I tracked down a video for this, because I had to: https://youtu.be/F6lRjGVPaRA

Image

Uh...

Kusoge.

He first used it writing reviews for two Famicom games he didn't like - Miura that is, not Bronson - Ikki and Brain Battleship Garu (which I would note just says "Garg" on the title screen for some reason) in '85 for some nothing magazine. The guy shared a dressing room with Takahashi Meijin for a TV Tokyo morning show, who apparently hooked him up with an under the table employee-cost copy of Star Soldier when it was impossible to find, which is kind of gangsta.

I guess from this it got around game circles, appeared in Famitsu in '86, and then showed up in a commercial and various other places over the years until it became widespread.

They mention that it gets used in a bunch of different senses:

Stuff that's boring
Stuff that's way too easy
Crappy and inconsistent settings
Games that are poorly programmed
Stuff that's just completely terrible all around

They give the infamous Big Rigs as an example, along with Death Crimson (which I brought up in an earlier post), Transformers: Convoy no Nazo, and some game called Ōgon no Kizuna ('Bonds of Gold') for the Wii that I've never heard of, so I also had to look that up:

Image

"Reason it's crap #2: Enemy actions are dreadfully monotonous"
"The enemies are all standing around for you waiting."

So after all that, I'm not sure kusoge holds any particular semantic weight that saying 'crappy game' in English doesn't. Note I'm translating kuso here as 'crap' - it always gets translated as 'shit,' but since it's a word considered suitable for kid-oriented magazines, commercials & TV shows, I think that misses the cultural mark.
Marc wrote:The SNES Star Wars games were fucking garbage. It baffled me at the time how they were highly rated.
The first game hit North America in fall '92, where the SNES had only been on the market a year. They sold about 7 million in NA from launch through '92, so aside from the people who jumped on the Genesis for Sonic, the overwhelming majority of gamers were still playing NES games when it hit. The jump from 8-bit sprites with 2 colours and nothing but PWM square wave sounds to a thing that almost looked and sounded like the movie was really something.

By the time the sequel rolled around, there was still a lot of effusive praise, but the shine had worn off it in some corners. It was certainly no Aero the Acrobat:
Spoiler
Image
Retrospective praise I can only view as nostalgia goggles and Jedi occultists though.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Rastan78 »

I think Super Star Wars is kind of like Altered Beast. Games that were visually stunning in their day yet somehow it's impossible to view them through the same lense of naivete now. Oddly enough the ultra janky NES Empire Strikes Back game out the same year in 1992.

I'm pretty sure the first 16 bit game I actually got hands on in the day was Keith Courage TG16, and to my eyes it was absolutely jaw dropping lol.

The only thing I can think of as annoying about the overuse of kusoge is when it's used to be contrarian about a popular game that's clearly not poorly made. SFV is a kusoge bc crush counters are OP or something ridiculous. In my mind a kusoge isn't just a game you don't like.
It has to have at least some objectively bad qualities.

It's usually a losing battle to try being tightly restrictive about how words get used. Remember when some people were very upset about how games that dont perfectly resemble Rogue are now called roguelikes. They only succeeded in creating the hellspawn of a word "roguelite" which is somehow even more annoying than metroidvania.

Language is malleable so how words currently get used tends to win the day over how they should be, or were used in the past.
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BryanM
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by BryanM »

Ah, I was gonna bring up Altered Beast.

We all think it's a bad game, since it is a bad game... for us. Because we're all pretty high up on the skill curve when it comes to the general population. But people have to get into games somewhere.

You know those Barbie and Sailor Moon games where you have a ton of HP and not a lot to have to deal with at any time? Altered Beast is exactly the same as those games. A simple learning game for small children. It's just themed to appeal to boys instead.

---------

I didn't bring this up yet because the title said "Good" kosuge, and this next game coming up...... is not a good kusoge. No, it's a godawful abomination. I'm the lunatic that thinks Last Battle has some merit as an early Genesis title (you try playing Altered Beast for three months because your parents thought you were happy with it because they kept hearing "welcome to yer doom!" over and over. No guys, it's because it's the only genesis game I owned......), so you know this shit is gonna be some shit.

MOTHERFUCKING ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: HEROES OF THE LANCE

For those of you who aren't nerds, you need a bit of context here. Dragonlance was a Dungeon and Dragons setting that was massively influential in fantasy games back in the day. It was created by Tracy Hickman and his wife, and expanded alongside Margaret Weis in a series of fantasy novels. I read them back in elementary school. The lead designer of Phantasy Star often mentioned being inspired by them. They were a big deal.

And this, is the hit #1 video game based on a climatic scene that happens in the middle of the first book, where our intrepid heroes must descend into the territory of a dragon to secure a bible to return one of the gods back to the world:

Image

The GameFAQs board made many memes of this game, back before we called them memes. I think you'd call them "in-jokes". Man, remember that term? Shit, it was a different time.

Joking about it was much more fun than playing the game.

Some important features we all agreed on:

* Sturm's mustache was very powerful.

* The nude midgets that kicked you in the shins were quite heinous.

* The green stuff the dragonmen spat at you was Mountain Dew.

* The Michael Jordan Cologne made you invincible.

* Good things are "heroic". Bad things are "heinous". Any freak caught using the words "good" or "bad" were quite heinous and needed to be shunned until they learned how to be righteous.

* "Cromwelligent" was another synonym for good for when heroic was inappropriate or just getting old. I think it might be derived from The Simpson's "cromulent", but I try not to question these kinds of things too much.

I've heard it was considered a perfectly acceptable game back on the Amiga or whatever, but I only feel pity for the kind of fare those poor bastards had to endure if that was true.

On the NES, you could play Pool of Radiance and have a fun, sprawling Dungeons n' Dragons adventure. A game that cast a shadow over all DnD games to come after it.

Or you could play Heroes of the Lance and get kicked in the nuts by nude midgets.


Rastan78 wrote:Remember when some people were very upset about how games that dont perfectly resemble Rogue are now called roguelikes. They only succeeded in creating the hellspawn of a word "roguelite" which is somehow even more annoying than metroidvania.
I agree with this completely. If a game features the same one button one move control system, or an rpg of a solo guy running through randomized environments, it's totally like rogue. It doesn't have to be a clone or focus on the survivalist aspects.

It's like how every fighting game became Street Fighter 2.
Last edited by BryanM on Sat Mar 25, 2023 1:47 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Sengoku Strider
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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Rastan78 wrote:I'm pretty sure the first 16 bit game I actually got hands on in the day was Keith Courage TG16, and to my eyes it was absolutely jaw dropping lol.
I mean, the mech parts were jaw dropping. I remember seeing it running in Radio Shack the first time, and being blown away by the colours, the speed...and then trying to figure out what the heck was going on with the weird walking revolver enemies. In my eyes it was really the floaty jumps that did it in. There was zero chance it was ever going to avoid direct Mario comparisons, and Mario's 1985 256k physics obliterated it. When I got it I thought they'd hacked together two different shorter Japanese games, because the mech parts looked and played so much better.

Plus, they probably needed to do a lot more localization work than they did. It was way too weirdly Asian for a lead console pack-in in 1989. Like, Jaleco can completely rework Saiyuki World 2 into Whomp 'Em, Sega can turn Magical Hat into Decap Attack, but you guys aren't going to budge a single pixel for what's supposed to be your lead title?

The story goes that they didn't want to go with Blazing Lazers or Legendary Axe for the pack-in, because they didn't think they'd appeal to girls. I'm guessing they had marketing data that said Mario did well with them. And that the staff chose to name it Keith Courage to play to NEC America Sr. VP Keith Schaefer's ego. Which I guess worked. For him I mean. Not anybody else.
BryanM wrote:Ah, I was gonna bring up Altered Beast.

We all think it's a bad game, since it is a bad game... for us. Because we're all pretty high up on the skill curve when it comes to the general population. But people have to get into games somewhere.
I don't think it's a bad game. I never thought it was a bad game. The summer it came out I blew my allowance on it and root beer at the convenience store that had it every week. I was genuinely surprised when the podcast era came around and people started talking about it like it was known trash.

It's a flawed game. A short game. An easy game. But it's also a memorable game, a game with great atmosphere and art direction, and the different forms presented more variety than just about any action game of the time. Everyone remembers the full-screen flaming wolf roar and rising from graves. Nobody but video game hyperobsessives of a certain age remembers Keith Courage at all. From what they had available to them at launch, SoA were right to fight to have SoJ let them include it as a pack in.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Steven »

BryanM wrote:the title said "Good" kusoge
Yes, I have been thinking of changing it to "Enjoyable kusoge" since the day I made it. Would probably be more fitting.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by BryanM »

Nah, bad kusoge was gonna come up eventually no matter what. You can't know what's good without swimming in the ocean of the bad.
I was genuinely surprised when the podcast era came around and people started talking about it like it was known trash.
Splatterhouse, Ghost n' Goblins, Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Ghouls n Ghosts, Rygar... yeah, for anyone who wants a fun challenge to overcome that can endure for years, it was a very shallow, disposable game. Your defense of its merits are things like its vibe, its aesthetics, how it makes you feel powerful, mystery box aspects of what powerup will come next, and cultural relevance. Not the game part of the game. Have the same exact game in every single way, but change the characters to Sailor Moon characters, and we wouldn't know it even existed.

The GBA sequel really made me reevaluate my own nostalgia for the thing. Adding more to it really only makes it worse.

The human mode challenge is a mirror universe version of Ghouls n Ghosts' sword mode challenge...
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Rastan78
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Rastan78 »

Yeah the non-mech parts of Keith Courage were so mundane and felt boring and mediocre even back then. In a way that served to heighten the anticipation and excitement of reaching the next mech area. It was such an odd juxtaposition. This invigorating and surreal glimpse of the future hidden under a pile of been there done that. It really did feel like two completely different games duct taped together.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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I actually have that Sailor Moon game on Mega Drive. It's one of those games where you can't play the whole game unless you play it on the highest difficulty, and that difficulty also makes the game kind of annoying to play since it's of the type where the enemies basically move around the screen in perfect sync with the player.

Not a bad game, and it has some of the best color use that I have seen on the system, but frustrating + kind of boring + no multiplayer despite being a beat-em-up is not a good combination.

Keith Courage is... okay, I guess, if you have nothing else to play. Madou King Granzort on the SuperGrafx is kind of similar in the same way, and so are most 3D Sonic and Compile Heart games.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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I never owned Megadrive Sailor Moon, but I did play a good bit of it as a store demo in an import game shop. I had totally forgotten that until now.

I had the Super Famicom Sailor Moon, and while it was graphically nice, it was slow and stiff feeling and didn't have enough enemies on screen at a time. Wasn't really kusoge though, just mediocre. I heard the Sailor Moon Super S one was better, but I never saw or played that version.

I have the same opinion of Keith Courage and 3D Sonic. Neptunia never looked worth trying...well, the battle systems, maybe, but I hate the kind of humor the games have so they'd be really frustrating for me to play.

I felt that same way about the Genesis Altered Beast; it always felt like those pack-in games were marginal gameplay-wise, but not so bad that they weren't something to play if you didn't buy another game when you bought the system. It kind of made sense since you weren't paying much to get a pack-in, and an actually good game they could sell and make more money on.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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For the record, the arcade Sailor Moon by Gazelle is pretty dope.
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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cfx wrote:I never owned Megadrive Sailor Moon, but I did play a good bit of it as a store demo in an import game shop. I had totally forgotten that until now.
It's... okay. Not really worth spending a lot of cash on, but you can do way worse.
cfx wrote:I had the Super Famicom Sailor Moon, and while it was graphically nice, it was slow and stiff feeling and didn't have enough enemies on screen at a time. Wasn't really kusoge though, just mediocre. I heard the Sailor Moon Super S one was better, but I never saw or played that version.
The SFC Sailor Moon fighting games are super broken, but in a funny way. I think Saturn's kicks are unblockable or something like that lol. If you like weird/broken fighting games, they are absolutely worth checking out! I have heard only good things about the Sailor Moon RPG on SFC, whatever it was called. Another... something. Story? Chronicle? Something like that. Whatever it's called, I've heard it's good.
cfx wrote:I have the same opinion of Keith Courage and 3D Sonic. Neptunia never looked worth trying...well, the battle systems, maybe, but I hate the kind of humor the games have so they'd be really frustrating for me to play.
Yeah, Keith is... acceptable. There are some fun 3D Sonic games, though; Sonic R is both super janky but also a lot of fun, Generations is mostly pretty great, and Colors is very rough in spots but is generally fun enough to recommend if you play for score. Neptunia is either super whatever (everything except mk2 and VII) or actually pretty decent (mk2 and VII). Way too many low-effort spinoffs, though.
cfx wrote:I felt that same way about the Genesis Altered Beast; it always felt like those pack-in games were marginal gameplay-wise, but not so bad that they weren't something to play if you didn't buy another game when you bought the system. It kind of made sense since you weren't paying much to get a pack-in, and an actually good game they could sell and make more money on.
I have never really disliked Altered Beast. It's kind of a fun no-brain type of thing. Pretty great port for the time, too!
Air Master Burst wrote:For the record, the arcade Sailor Moon by Gazelle is pretty dope.
I have been looking for the PCB for that for about 6~8 months now for that exact reason; I haven't played it, but it looks really great.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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BryanM wrote:Splatterhouse, Ghost n' Goblins, Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, Ghouls n Ghosts, Rygar... yeah, for anyone who wants a fun challenge to overcome that can endure for years, it was a very shallow, disposable game. Your defense of its merits are things like its vibe, its aesthetics, how it makes you feel powerful, mystery box aspects of what powerup will come next, and cultural relevance. Not the game part of the game. Have the same exact game in every single way, but change the characters to Sailor Moon characters, and we wouldn't know it even existed.
I think that's mostly a fair characterization. There are a lot of games I can think of where the aesthetics were enough to carry it for me. But if I look at it as part of the genealogy of Spartan X design 3.5 years on, I don't think there's anything particularly bad about the gameplay. Do people really look back more fondly on Vigilante, which hit arcades 3 months earlier?

But I can only take the defence so far. It's not a game I've ever owned (unless you count compilations), and I've bought like 40 Mega Drive games ahead of it. (And yes, including Ghouls n' Ghosts and all 3 Shinobis). One day I probably will, but it's never made its way high (or even to the middle) on any to-buy lists.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

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The PS2 Altered Beast turdsoge ("Make it more violent!" Sega of America cried) reminded me of the whole branch of forced 3d mascot platformers that paled to Mario 64.

That time Bubsy visited the James Turrell exhibit is a high point... my personal experience with them is very limited because I never played any of them. Just looking at screenshots of Earthworm Jim 3d made me feel things.... sad things.

One classic that Interplay published that didn't get any affection was Sacrifice. The game part of that game is pretty eh, something that actually was an "experimental" kind of thing. A third person RTS centered around the player character. The writing, story and voice acting though.

Its failure lead to its company to stop taking risks and experimenting at all. Something I constantly lament about corpo game development: "During the MMO boom, why didn't someone try to make a Pokemon-knockoff MMO? Wasn't that money just laying on the ground? Zero competition, it didn't even have to be that good."
Sengoku Strider wrote:Do people really look back more fondly on Vigilante, which hit arcades 3 months earlier?
I think the best apples to apples comparison to its competition is Bad Dudes. Bad Dudes is bland in most every way, but is much more of a game.

Last Battle has things like time-sensitive strike cancelling to block stuff and footsies, yet it gets the shit reputation while this wolf-headed bastard beats the boss by kicking back and forth mindlessly like a jackass.

I guess it's like with the avoidance of Magician Lord; normal people like games designed by someone who doesn't hate their guts. Those weirdos.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Rastan78 »

Pit-Fighter. You know you love it.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Sengoku Strider »

I thought Pit Fighter was trash in the arcade. Dissuaded me from ever trying any of the home versions. But I can see how, if you weren't pumping quarters in, you could have some stupid fun with multiplayer.
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Rastan78
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Rastan78 »

There's also the belt scrolling follow up Guardians of the Hood. Yes both games are pure irredeemable trash from a gameplay perspective. It's the fact that it's impossible to play either with a straight face that makes them worth checking out at least for a few credits. Just for the laughs. Guardians has a level where you're fighting in a porn theater and a boss rips through the movie screen. The audience never takes their eyes off the film in spite of the janky slapstick beat down going on behind them.

And while we're talking 90s arcade digitized doodoo, high level SF The Movie competition is a thing that really happens.
https://youtu.be/6buyksiiWjM
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by cfx »

Steven wrote:
cfx wrote:I had the Super Famicom Sailor Moon, and while it was graphically nice, it was slow and stiff feeling and didn't have enough enemies on screen at a time. Wasn't really kusoge though, just mediocre. I heard the Sailor Moon Super S one was better, but I never saw or played that version.
The SFC Sailor Moon fighting games are super broken, but in a funny way. I think Saturn's kicks are unblockable or something like that lol. If you like weird/broken fighting games, they are absolutely worth checking out! I have heard only good things about the Sailor Moon RPG on SFC, whatever it was called. Another... something. Story? Chronicle? Something like that. Whatever it's called, I've heard it's good.
I've only seen pictures of the fighters. I wasn't too clear but the game I had and the Super S one I was referring to were the scrolling beat-em-ups. I think I remember seeing that RPG in Famitsu.
Steven wrote:
cfx wrote:I have the same opinion of Keith Courage and 3D Sonic. Neptunia never looked worth trying...well, the battle systems, maybe, but I hate the kind of humor the games have so they'd be really frustrating for me to play.
Yeah, Keith is... acceptable. There are some fun 3D Sonic games, though; Sonic R is both super janky but also a lot of fun, Generations is mostly pretty great, and Colors is very rough in spots but is generally fun enough to recommend if you play for score. Neptunia is either super whatever (everything except mk2 and VII) or actually pretty decent (mk2 and VII). Way too many low-effort spinoffs, though.
I like Sonic R and love the soundtrack. When I think 3D Sonic what always comes to mind is Sonic Adventure, which I hated. I have Generations which I have yet to play. I knew I'd at least like the 2D parts so risked getting that one. I'll look into Colors.

I'll keep those two Neptunia games in mind as I've off and on wanted to try one but wasn't really sure which weren't total junk.
Steven wrote:
Air Master Burst wrote:For the record, the arcade Sailor Moon by Gazelle is pretty dope.
I have been looking for the PCB for that for about 6~8 months now for that exact reason; I haven't played it, but it looks really great.
I always wanted this one. It was shown as the arcade game of the week in Famitsu at the time and looked great. Some years ago when I was still buying arcade boards I wanted to get it too. I either never found it at all or did and it was really expensive; I don't remember which. Unless it eventually shows up in something like ACA I'm sure there will never be a port of it so I will likely never get to play it. :cry: For all I know it's probably emulated, but I know nothing about that and it isn't my thing.
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Air Master Burst
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Air Master Burst »

Neptunia doesn't generally appeal to me but I am quite curious about whether the Space Harrier tribute they did is any good?
King's Field IV is the best Souls game.
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BrainΦΠΦTemple
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by BrainΦΠΦTemple »

i'm nOt totally positive about this 1, but i think beyond the beyOnd is considered a kusoge. it's at least cOnsidered to be a lousy game, and i dOn't really understand why. it's made by camelot and feelz like gOlden sun w/ a dragon quest battle system. people complain abOut the high encounter rate, but battles are quick as fuCk, so i don't really see an issue. beyond the beyond is fukken awesOme, and i dig it even more than golden sun, honestly

i'm way mOre certain tHat secret of the stArz is considered a kusoge, but tHat'z another jrpg tHat i think fukken rOxx. it's a standard turned bAsed battle system, but you can have characterz combine their turnz by having them mix their spEllz together to create different and more powerful spEllz. it's fun to test out combinatiOnz of spells in regular enemy battles, and then prepare for which 1'z to use on the bosses 'n stuff. tHat game's pretty fukken cool. =3

uH...finally, the last 1 is also a jrpg tHat was produced by irem (weirdly enough), and it wasn't released in the west, but there is an english translation patch fOr it. it's called shinsenden, and for a jrpg, it is tOugh as sHit. tHat game is going to brutally sHit fire down your throat. enemies are evil bastArdz right from the start, and it is almost kind of hard to start leveling up until yOu get to lvl 3 or 4, i think? been sO long since i played it. but after the starter tOwn, the first town you encounter has a sword tHat you think will be useful, but it's really a big "fuCk you, idiOt!!!" design moment (which this entire game is just tHat pretty much).tHat stupid ass-hell sword yOu can buy costz a lot and only addz +1 atk, so hEl yea \m/
shinsenden is a complete struggle of a sHit pile b/c you just get yOur ass beat over and over and over. so you have to grind fOr hourz and hourz and hourz. sometimes healing spellz dOn't do enough either until arOund the last arc of the game, and the difficulty startz to even out a bit by then, but regardless, you feel pretty gOd damn good after making it through tHat hell-crawl, and i would recOmmend the game b/c of tHat experience.
if some1 sayz tHat game suxx though, then i won't defend it, but it ended up becoming 1 of my favorite jrpgs 'cause even in jrpgs i like masochistic gameplay owo

all three of these fukkerz are probably cOnsidered kusoge jrpgs (i think i even saw secret of the starz and beyond the beyond on a list before but my stupid idiot brain cOuld be making up memories nOw) tHat are some of my favOrites. i don't really understand the contempt for beyond the beyond and especially secret of the starz (other than the goofy story and retardedly endearing english translation tHat was clearly made by japz, but idk why people made such a big deal about tHat sHit), but if you hate shinsenden i'd understand. hOpefully more people look back on these games though and realize tHat they're pretty kickass ^w^

anyway, if these aren't cOnsidered actual kusoge, then my post can go fuCk off

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Bloodreign
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by Bloodreign »

cfx:
The other SFC Sailor Moon beat em up is Sailor Moon R, not everyone's cup of tea, but to me an incredible beat em up. No it's not Final Fight, or Streets of Rage, but it does the trick for me.

As for if the Beyond the Beyond game is kusoge, some consider it to be so, but I remember buying it when it came out, first RPG I ever owned (But not the first ever played and beaten, that goes to Dragon Warrior IV), I found it to be a decent game. The problem with it in my eyes, the enemy encounter rate is absolutely batshit insane, you take a few steps, BOOM, you fight something, beat it, take a few steps, BOOM another fight. Rinse and repeat...... a LOT. It was made after all by the Shining Force guys, I figured back in the day it had to be due to the same type font every dialog box had. One of the main characters is cursed a majority of the game by a cursed scarf, and it does weaken him a bit. It's got some great music, and it's difficulty is pretty high, I was surprised to beat it, but not right away. No, no, it took me more than a decade later to finally put it away from the save file I had as I could never find the last stone tablet to finally access the final area.

Wasn't until I checked GameFAQ's later, and found a small island I somehow kept missing, finally fired up the game again, and beat it once and for all. This game isn't for everyone, just the hardcore RPG gamer who loves a stiff challenge.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by BryanM »

The hard definite line for me is when the people who play and love a game agree that it's shit. Anything below that line is just kuso energy in general, where a game deviates from conventional norms.

For jRPGs, anything that can't match up to Stargazer isn't really trying. When you swing for the king, you best not miss.

It's been a thought experiment of mine to ponder how much you can push an intentionally kus dungeon crawler. It's a delicate line: in order to maximize suffering, you have to somehow trick people into completing it. I fear it'd have to be something like Syobon Action, where you'd have to constantly escalate and innovate on the kinds of bullshit you throw at the player as they progress. The new bullshit is a reward.

It's much harder to do, than a game that flatters and babies its players.
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Re: "Good" kusoge

Post by cfx »

Bloodreign wrote:cfx:
The other SFC Sailor Moon beat em up is Sailor Moon R, not everyone's cup of tea, but to me an incredible beat em up. No it's not Final Fight, or Streets of Rage, but it does the trick for me.
That's it...sorry for the confusion due to my lousy memory. I only saw this one in pictures in Famitsu, but suspected it was an improvement over the earlier one that I had.
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