I believe that we discussed
Rolling Thunder 1 & 2 to death over the years, or even decades.
Said this:
I decided to attempt a 1-LC of
Rolling Thunder 2 as a "comfort clear", i.e. a clearing of a game that I can perform without too much focus and constant practice. In my experience, this is something I can achieve once I practice the game enough that I end up memorising a 1-CC/1-LC route I can mentally practice away from the game (or: do you think I *really* look at the street when I go buying groceries?). The first
Rolling Thunder does not give me too much trouble, at least the "Old" (180 seconds) version. On the other hand...
Rolling Thunder 2 is a nice upgrade to the first chapter: Namco had money and R&D power to spare already in 1990, so the game features lovely, highly detailed graphics with some scaling and rotating effects, a killer OST (Sasou Ayako's first? Brilliant mix of jazz and other Bond-esque vibes), Leyla as the 1P, and a very fast pace.
This is were I think that the game's virtues end. The game has a very interesting art direction, but some game mechanics seem to work for the worse, in their update from the first chapter. I remember writing about it somewhere, but let's say that I don't want to link here my crappy youthful attempts at writing. So, let's just say that I loved this game as a kid. As an adult, I developed a bittersweet attachment to it. So, I'll propose some aspects of the game system that I find problematic:
1. Stage scrolling can sometimes kill you. In certain spots (stage 2, 4, 7), the stage may suddenly scroll up/down and place your sprite off-screen. This means instant death, though it is avoidable once you know when it happens. Stage 6 includes several moving platforms that must be navigated via jumps. The characters have a problematic "old school" way of jumping. The jump button must be pushed before inputting the direction, or the character will move first and then jump. This entails that in stage 6 players can fall from platforms easily, if they are too close to the platforms' borders.
Rolling Thunder had the same problem...after three decades or so, I still find it irksome.
2. Stage design is more homogeneous than in the first chapter. Stages 2, 3 and 5 include a few stage-specific enemies. The other stages all revolve around variations of the "Mickey Mouse" enemies (one hit to kill: their heads look Mickey's) and the "Gibbon-like" enemies (two hits to kill: their heads/helmets vaguely look like gibbons'). Some variants require several hits before they die, but that's the whole extent of variety. The first title had way more interesting, if campy enemies that forced the players to think more about how to approach stage design critically ("How do I pass this part?").
Rolling Thunder 2 focuses too much on killing enemies quickly before they swamp the screen, as far as I am concerned. Speed of execution and memorisation of enemy sequences can solve all stages except the final one.
3. My third gripe is a consequence of my second gripe. The first title allowed players to accumulate bullets. If a player completed stage 1 with 80 bullets, the player will keep them when starting ST 2. The game would award refills (e.g. 40 bullets on ST 2 if the player would complete ST 1 with less than 40 bullets), but survival and parsimonious use of weapons would be rewarded handsomely. Players who can reach the final stage on one life (a feat by itself) would usually have enough bullets to dispose all enemies quickly and mercilessly, as befits final stages.
Rolling Thunder 2 instead resets bullet counts each stage, but also awards generous amounts of bullets Until ST 7 (i.e. the penultimate stage). On this stage, refill rooms are in tricky spots but players who visit all three of them will potentially have 80 extra bullets by the end of the stage. So, the chief tactical aspect of the first game ("use your weapon wisely") seems almost absent, in this second installment.
ST 8, the final stage, presents the opposite issue because does not give the player enough bullets to kill all the enemies. The only way to clear the stage and the game is to learn how to avoid killing enemies and save enough bullets to reach the final boss and avoid being munition-less. This is quite the ordeal, because it involves a lot of memorisation, the use of rather risky manoeuvres (e.g. hit some enemies once, then jump behind them and waiting that they exit the screen), entering rooms and waiting inside them to let enemies move across and out of the screen without attacking.
The choice of enemies that should be spared is not too strict (but players must really avoid killing two 8-hit enemies!). Nevertheless, whichever approach players choose, it must be executed without fault. Even a few misses at the beginning of the stage may entail reaching the final boss without enough ammo, and thus ending up getting killed in a rather frustrating manner. I think that
Rolling Thunder had a similarly frustrating final stage, but in
Rolling Thunder 2 the frustration seems also to come from the fact that, again, only this stage offers a very sudden, suffocating tactical battle. Oh, and the final boss is an imbecile with useless attacks, but it takes tons of bullets before it dies: hardly an impressive design choice, on my agenda.
4. I have some other minor gripes:
A. Bullets may be hard to detect against some backgrounds (yellow outer shell, red inner shell, and they flicker);
B. Hit detection is at times erratic, and enemies' movements are at times choppy;
C. Rank seems rather poorly implemented. Reaching ST 8 on one life means that all enemies will move very fast and will be extremely aggressive. One death seems to noticeably reduce the rank (down by
40% or so?). I am really bitching about the feature because I want a 1-LC, of course;
...So, I may content myself with a "rote 1-CC", and let the 1-LC be a possible outcome that may make me happy, if I ever reach it (and that would be another 30-years grudge off my head, to be frank). I feel that my current self lacks the love that my younger selves had for this title. The whole "nap until ST 8 and then avoid breathing and blinking for 4 minutes and 20 seconds" experience makes me feel like those younger bastards should have known better about games, even if back in those days of arcade naivety people could easily overlook unbalanced stage design.
I may edit this rant a bit: let's say that if anyone finds it amusing, I achieved a consolation goal
Next: will the Rando 1-CC the
Pac-Man title in
Namco Collection Vol. 2? (aka: "grudges may grow old, but remain forever fresh"). Stay tuned!
EDIT: 1-LC'ed the game while tweaking my approach to the first section of ST 8. In a nutshell: I wasn't entering as many doors as I could, to let enemies move outside the screen. I tried the new & improved route a few times, and landed 3 LC's in a row, the last one with a staggering 12 bullets to spare. This might become a "comfort 1-LC", if I practice some more.
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
First impressions are very positive. Action Squad is similar to Deadbolt. You are plopped into these building floorplans and must proceed, room-by-room, eliminating threats. In keeping with the Door Kickers theme, you have multiple types of missions. The most common is Hostage Rescue, where you must kill the terrorists/gang members/generic dickheads while rescuing the hostages. To do this requires you tamp down your reckless gun-enthusiasm a bit, as those stray shotgun blasts can murder the fuck out of Jenny McCivvie as easily as they do Donovan O'Druggie. Most rooms have multiple entry points, and you can take additional tactical items into each mission. 
I actually forgot the stopwatch is totally useless on later bosses, felt a long-forgotten pang of despair at the battle raging on amidst its ticking SFX. 
Whip-only Frankensteiner Bros and Death are guaranteed drama. (tbh even Bat, Medusa and Mummies can bring heat in VS, given the sadistical damage scale)
I should be used to it by now, but this game keeps surprising me. So many subtleties and quirks packed into its classic twitch/method chassis.
Nicely done! It's a long haul without much meats. I've still not given Eric a proper go after all these years, got a biblical case of one-character/ship/car mind. Leaves lots for later. 
