What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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Blinge
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

I feel that.
i'm sitting on 17 hours of King's Field 3..
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by To Far Away Times »

Did another run through of Hades. Brilliant little game. It really blurs the line of how much of your progress is skill based and how much is upgrade based, but at the same time, that's kind of the whole point, isn't it?

Victory still feels earned and exciting, even though progress is probably inevitable with a little perseverance.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mortificator »

Metro 2033. I suppose this series' positive reception is due to its atmosphere, which is well realized, but there's little interesting about the gameplay. As a quasi-realistic FPS, enemies are either normal human hitscanners or mutants who rush into melee. There are constant interruptions for monologues, town walk-throughs, dream / vision scenes and the like. Every location is either a subway tunnel or the gray wasteland.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BrainΦΠΦTemple »

been takin' a break from superplAys and just fukken off on the dragon quest 7 remake for 3ds. pretty solid remake of my favorite dragon quest gaMe
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by FinalBaton »

Got the Saturn setup in the living room and I'm playing/learning KoF '95 exclusively the last few days. Gawd that game looks gorgeous, including on a nice Trinitron setup like I have here *chef's kiss*

I'm starting to get a good handle on the riddim.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

FinalBaton wrote:Got the Saturn setup in the living room and I'm playing/learning KoF '95 exclusively the last few days. Gawd that game looks gorgeous, including on a nice Trinitron setup like I have here *chef's kiss*

I'm starting to get a good handle on the riddim.
KoF's run from '95 to '98 was absolutely godlike. Street Fighter still took most of the attention, but KoF was running rings around it in this period.

'95 does have an issue with absurd damage values all over the place, but it's still a good time. I played it endlessly in the arcade & on PS1. Man, the first time seeing Iori was crazy. Game definitely drew a crowd when it hit with everybody picking him.

But the series gets a lot better in '96, where they completely changed up the game into the rushdown close range rumble that became its trademark. At the time it was such a departure that I thought they messed it up, but they more than justified the decision. '97 tightens everything and does a lot with the story elements. '97 & '98 are almost the same game mechanics-wise, that was the series' high point until 2002, then KoF XIII a decade later.

So yeah, if you get the chance to pick up '96 or '97 on Saturn, go for it. '96 has cool character spritework on the loading screens from the Neo CD version that you won't see anywhere else.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by FinalBaton »

Cool thanks for the reccos! I'll definitely look into '96 and '97 for my Saturn. I admit that what first drew me to '95 was the ROM cart. So interesting, hardware-wise.
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BIL
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BIL »

The BG artwork from KOFs 94-96 is good enough to frame. Those ex-IREM guys knew exactly how to nail that balance of ambience and spectacle, something later entries tended to miss.

Image

Image

Still, there's some comparable beauties later on. <3

Image
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by FinalBaton »

yeah those 2 definitely stood out. Killer!

the character designs are so great too. plus vibrant colours and great shading

And that snappy feel of connecting hits and those slapping sfx... different but so satisfying
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by vol.2 »

I like that third one a lot. Almost imagine Jack the knife creeping around in the shadows.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Stevens »

The Mrs. loves Red Dead Redemption. Like 100% the original twice and has hundreds of hours in RDR 2 Online (PS4). Now that she also has a gaming laptop we have started playing it together. I don't love Red Dead like she does, but I do like it.

Also still playing Phantom Abyss. Finally snagged my 1st tier two treasure a few days ago. I don't have a lot of play time in 1st person platformers so progress has been slowish.

Also considering picking up Ghostrunner. Played the demo - sort of a Hotline Miami + Katana Zero + Mirrors Edge. Anyone play it?

EDIT - Search funktion is my friend. Saw MM and Sumez have mentioned it. Downloading now!
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mischief Maker »

Ghostrunner is my 2020 GOTY, though there wasn't much in the way of competition.

Protip: you can mix dash, slide, and jump to move much faster.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by null1024 »

I want to say I've been playing PSO2: New Genesis but like, when I get home in the evening, I kinda can't be arsed. :lol:
Been just logging in and getting my one free item roll. :oops:
BIL wrote:The BG artwork from KOFs 94-96 is good enough to frame. Those ex-IREM guys knew exactly how to nail that balance of ambience and spectacle, something later entries tended to miss.
Every background in KOF95 is basically perfect. 94 is pretty top for the most part, and 99 is great. The rest seem to lack something in comparison.
It's a shame I don't actually like playing any of those three. :lol:
96 isn't quite as pretty as them, but that was the KOF that got me actually hooked on the series. Not the best KOF, but it defined almost everything about how modern KOF plays in one go.

Of the KOFs I play regularly [well, "regularly" -- haven't fought anyone in weeks now sadly], 98 has some fairly decent ones, and 02... bleh, they're kinda really mediocre in 02 [but who can't love the sheep with K O F shaved into them].
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BulletMagnet »

null1024 wrote:Been just logging in and getting my one free item roll.
Player Engagement successful!
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

BIL wrote:Image
I wish I'd been around for this era :|
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Marc »

I've never really played much of the KoF series, but looking at those backdrops makes me want to. Beautiful.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Blinge wrote: I wish I'd been around for this era :|
Around where? :D
The game was only like 3 years old when I got my copy (that's honestly crazy to think of now), but the actual community around these fighting games? Arcades were already long dead at the time in this corner of the world.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

I mean any era where arcades were a thing
Although london FGC? I probably would've been stabbed.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mortificator »

Image

I couldn't find a gif of it after the skies opened so you'll have to look to YT for that, but it's interesting to compare the KOF '99 rainy stage to one from the same platform eight years earlier. Howard Arena doesn't look bad at all, especially when you see the parallax in action, except the rain is solid lines + splashes on the close plane instead of water interacting with every exposed surface.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

ROM chips got a lot cheaper over those eight years :D
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Rastan78 »

Sumez wrote:
Blinge wrote: I wish I'd been around for this era :|
Around where? :D
The game was only like 3 years old when I got my copy (that's honestly crazy to think of now), but the actual community around these fighting games? Arcades were already long dead at the time in this corner of the world.
In the US you basically had to live in NY, Southern California or the SF Bay Area. Surely there were other scenes, but those were the main ones. Even then finding competition in games like Garou or Last Blade was nearly impossible. KOF was much more popular in Latin America and China. Actually this is not a bad time to be into old school fighting games with things like Fightcade out there.
The BG artwork from KOFs 94-96 is good enough to frame. Those ex-IREM guys knew exactly how to nail that balance of ambience and spectacle, something later entries tended to miss.
First time I stumbled on SS2 it was on one of those big 50 inch projection deals. Between Nicotine, Hanzo, and Genjurou stages the atmosphere of that game had my jaw on the floor. Old school SNK can never be touched!
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

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I lived in lower Manhattan, and I used to love going into Chinatown Fair
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BIL »

null1024 wrote:
BIL wrote:The BG artwork from KOFs 94-96 is good enough to frame. Those ex-IREM guys knew exactly how to nail that balance of ambience and spectacle, something later entries tended to miss.
Every background in KOF95 is basically perfect. 94 is pretty top for the most part, and 99 is great. The rest seem to lack something in comparison.
It's a shame I don't actually like playing any of those three. :lol:
96 isn't quite as pretty as them, but that was the KOF that got me actually hooked on the series. Not the best KOF, but it defined almost everything about how modern KOF plays in one go.
Now I think back, it's 96's Ikari and Yagami stages that always jumped out at me. I've an affinity for moderately dingy waterfronts, I guess. :mrgreen: I like how, while the aesthetically germane Kyo/Athena and FF/AOF teams share locales, they went the extra mile for these sharply divergent crews; a rat's eye-view of glittering metropolis for the preposterously well-coiffed Yagamis, and an impassive seawall as ruggedly purposeful as Clark's boots.

Image

Image

Also, FF/AOF truck stop is just super chill and easy on the eyes.

Image

Image

(all images via Frankie @ The Fighter's Generation... holy crap, I've been casually falling back on his image archive for like twenty years now :o odd feeling, when internet archives of even older games start becoming nostalgic in themselves)
Of the KOFs I play regularly [well, "regularly" -- haven't fought anyone in weeks now sadly], 98 has some fairly decent ones, and 02... bleh, they're kinda really mediocre in 02 [but who can't love the sheep with K O F shaved into them].
02 really suffers from those frantic spectator animations, I think. SNK always used regularly-looping routines, but they knew how to work with them... while I kinda like the composition of 02's Mexico and Cambodia in stills (and even the latter's oppressive grey colouring - can practically taste the ozone, in a more mundanely perilous sense than, say, SFA2's otherworldly-intense Australia stage), it's hard to when King and Tizoc and Sue-Il all look like they're having serious fucking problems. :lol: Easily ignored (or rather impossible to concentrate on) while at the controls, ofc.
Mortificator wrote:I couldn't find a gif of it after the skies opened so you'll have to look to YT for that, but it's interesting to compare the KOF '99 rainy stage to one from the same platform eight years earlier. Howard Arena doesn't look bad at all, especially when you see the parallax in action, except the rain is solid lines + splashes on the close plane instead of water interacting with every exposed surface.
It's always fascinating going back to the Neo's early marquee fighters, when they were trying all sorts of flashy new tricks - scaling cameras, visible body damage, extended voice acting - to stand apart from SFII - then seeing them really hit their stride artistically as the hardware began to age, leading into stuff like the Real Bouts, Last Blade and Garou, which are about as gimmick-free as SFII itself was at release.

Impossible not to wonder what they might've done on a new 2D-focused platform, had the Hyper NG64 gone differently. Rest well gents.
Rastan78 wrote:First time I stumbled on SS2 it was on one of those big 50 inch projection deals. Between Nicotine, Hanzo, and Genjurou stages the atmosphere of that game had my jaw on the floor. Old school SNK can never be touched!
The four newcomers and their stages are emblematic of Sam Sho II as a whole - absolutely world-beating intensity and artistic drive. Image

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KO
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Even the voice actors sound like they're breaking a sweat in the recording booth. One of those militantly hardcore genre works that nevertheless radiates a universal joie de vivre. I've never encountered a gamer, even the most FTG-averse, who wouldn't at least sit down and watch a few credits of SSII. Image

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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by FinalBaton »

I definitely intend to pick up a ShamSho for my Saturn as well. Looks like 3 and 4 are on there
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Rastan78 »

02 really suffers from those frantic spectator animations, I think. SNK always used regularly-looping routines, but they knew how to work with them...
As long as at least one background character looks like they're jerking off it's all good. This was established as law by the early generation of FGs.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BIL »

^ VERY true... gotta have that stroke though! Image

Image
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

FinalBaton wrote:I definitely intend to pick up a ShamSho for my Saturn as well. Looks like 3 and 4 are on there
Skip 3 (Zankurō Musōken), go straight to 4 (Amakusa Kōrin). It was a case of SNK revamping a ton of things for III, but ending up with what a lot of people consider the low point for the series. IV rectified its mistakes and is in the running for best SamSho.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Agreed, Samurai Shodown 4 is SS3 done right. Though I do think the absurd speed with which some rounds can end given the right (or wrong) approach has some appeal. There's a real strong do-or-die experience to these games.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Gamer707b »

Just finished The first Ori game on Switch. Hadn't played an adventure type of games in ages, so it was a nice change. In a way, it reminded me of Ico. Maybe the music? I bought 3 other games over the weekend that Im pumped to play. The 2nd Ori, a really nice looking platformer called Kaze and the Wild Masks and Hollow Knight. I always stayed away from Hollow Knight cause I heard it was really long, but it might be good. Been playing a lot of arcade games the last few years, so its nice to try something different.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Blinge »

Hollow Knight is pretty long. I kept coming back to it after a break here or there rather than trying to blaze through it.
of course it can be beaten in under 5 hours for one of the speedrun achievements.

The only problem with your message is surely you'll be a bit sick of the genre if you play Hollow immediately after Ori ?
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