Air Master Burst wrote:THERE'S A CONTROL REMAP SCREEN THAT WORKS FINE FOR THE KEYBOARD SIDE BUT CHANGES NOTHING ON THE CONTROLLER SIDE.
I've encountered Steam releases of console games that let you remap the keyboard if you're playing with keyboard and mouse, but doesn't allow you to remap the controller if it detects you playing with a controller, and I always find it bafflingly lazy.
Somehow this is even MORE frustrating: It gives you the prompt for the remap on the controller side, and pressing a button will remove the prompt, BUT NOTHING FUCKING CHANGES.
Fortunately, I just discovered Bright Memory: Infinite actually released last year, so my morning is about to turn right the fuck around.
Sorry to hear, I've always liked WayForward's stuff. Hopefully they'll patch that shit up, not at all what I'd expect from something with their name on it.
Speaking of patching,
Volteccer_Jack re: Smelter wrote:Level design starts out tame but ramps up steadily and lategame stages are fairly intense. If you're the type seen in comment sections begging for MMX9 you'll have a good time with Smelter. But I do have two big gripes. First, the aforementioned walls of text, which are even worse than the ones in X5/X6 and can't be skipped, only mashed through impatiently. The story's not even any good, they completely waste the cool premise. And second, you're given infinite lives and fairly regular checkpoints. Fortunately every checkpoint is optional except the ones at the start of boss fights, so you can skip them to give yourself a bit more of a challenge.
That sounds like a good argument for it. I was about to say it seems bizarre to think of X5-bad textwalls in this day and age, but then I remembered that little kid who wrote into EGM asking if the next gen of consoles "wouldn't have slowdown." Some things are just part of human incompetence. Excellent post as always, marked for index!
Air Master Burst wrote:DAWN OF THE MONSTERS (STEAM) is the most heartbreaking refund I've ever had to request.
I LOVE belt-scrollers, I LOVE mechs and kaiju, and I love WayForward. 30 bucks is reasonable for me.
Or it would be if this wasn't the most ineptly-made piece of commercial software I've encountered in ages.
THERE'S NO MAIN MENU. THERE'S NO WAY TO EXIT THE FUCKING GAME WITHOUT ALT-F4. THERE'S A CONTROL REMAP SCREEN THAT WORKS FINE FOR THE KEYBOARD SIDE BUT CHANGES NOTHING ON THE CONTROLLER SIDE.
JUMPING JESUS ON A POGO STICK, IT TOOK ME 4 TRIES JUST TO GET PAST THE FUCKING STARTUP OPTIONS SCREEN BECAUSE APPARENTLY HAVING MULTIPLE CONTROL DEVICES PLUGGED IN CAN RANDOMLY CAUSE ALL OF THEM TO STOP WORKING, EVEN THE MOTHERFUCKING KEYBOARD.
If they ever unfuck their shit I will gladly throw 30 bucks at them again, but this... this is just... ugh.
Maybe it's just the worst console port I've seen in a decade and it runs fine there. I don't even want to know right now. This ruined my whole morning and I have a grump.
I looked this game up and it was made by the Runbow guys, 13 AM games, and published by WayForward. I liked what I played of Pirate Pop Plus on the 3DS (not the most original game, though), but haven't tried their other stuff.
1 = most crazy atmosphere, weakest gameplay
3 = best gameplay (one of forerunners to character action), but totally failed with style/art direction/atmosphere (music is cool though)
2 = kinda the balance here: more solid than first gameplay-wise though not as deep as third game; while keeping "signature" style and feel
Gaia Crusaders is like prototype for S3, and weirdly it's more interesting artistic-wise - too bad no artbooks or something that expands the setting.
As for other NG beatemup titles, I have at least one friend who really likes Robo Army.
Happy to see system finally gets something new in genre (Final Vendetta), but would be more exciting if it was not a "late port", but "made with NG in mind".
More time spent with Bloodstained lately, just beat the twin dragons. Difficulty is relatively light and areas are varied yeah, I like the changing perspective in tower areas. Game feels too grindy I think, every individual shards requires level up through alchemy proses and finding those materials ain't easy either. What if I collect shards too many? There's option to sell them but no idea if there would be any effects, or is it enough to bring one each.
copy-paster wrote:What if I collect shards too many? There's option to sell them but no idea if there would be any effects, or is it enough to bring one each.
Bunch of stuff I forgot. I played BB a ton, late 2020, but as with most sugary-sweet ARPGs, I forget most of the finer details.
I seem to recall using the basic Crossbow shard for 95% of my first playthrough (the one dropped by those green archer dudes in the Garden area). Decent fullscreen attack for both sniping and spreadfire, and a classic shotgun at pointblank.
EDIT: Aha, yep. Lion's share of use went to True Arrow (that crossbow shard) and the katana's Jinrai technique. You can get absurd mileage out of those two. More importantly they're fun to use.
That's nice to know. I've been grind the grinder shard only it works like crissaegrim with few MP cost. Still need to play more of this and figuring out best grinding spots.
It's super grindy which is one of the things that annoyed me most about it. Crafting ruins so many good games..
We here shall not rest until we have made a drawing-room of your shaft, and if you do not all finally go down to your doom in patent-leather shoes, then you shall not go at all.
While looking for my next victim after Final Vendetta (probably Jitsu Squad TBH) I found this delightful entry sitting unremembered in my wishlist. Looks rough as fuck still, but absolutely read the whole description, because HOLY SHIT THAT SNKGLISH IS TOP TIER!
Might throw down for it just to support a dev actually trying to make a belt-scroller, although I'm not nearly as hard up as I was a few years back.
My first Scrolling Action Monogatari post: just beat Japanese Metroid Fusion on hard mode with 1% for the second time. Overall this run isn't too difficult with some practice, and I had WAY more difficulty the first time I did it. Still surprised that the hardest part of the game is actually the fight with Yakuza and not Nightmare. Spoiler
Congrats! I seem to recall there being one incredibly hard-to-dodge item late in the game, near Ridley... I remember someone calling it the 1% run's TLB. I might be wrong, it's been a good while.
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
BIL wrote:Congrats! I seem to recall there being one incredibly hard-to-dodge item late in the game, near Ridley... I remember someone calling it the 1% run's TLB. I might be wrong, it's been a good while.
I think you're probably thinking of the Energy Tank in the reactor core. You have to make a relatively precise jump to avoid it.
WelshMegalodon wrote:There's a special end screen for 1%? I need to replay this now.
Yes, on both normal and hard. It is technically possible to do 0%, but...
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
I often hear people claim that a weakness of several Metroid games is how tedious going around picking up energy tanks to get 100% is.
What I think those people are missing is that the percentage indicator in these games isn't necessarily there to entice going for 100. Rather, the fun challenge has always been going as low as possible.
Metroid is actually exactly like Sonic; the first time you play the game, you will likely be terrible. Play it more and your skill will increase, allowing you to do it again but faster. Repeat infinitely for unlimited replay value!
Sumez wrote:I often hear people claim that a weakness of several Metroid games is how tedious going around picking up energy tanks to get 100% is.
What I think those people are missing is that the percentage indicator in these games isn't necessarily there to entice going for 100. Rather, the fun challenge has always been going as low as possible.
I used to love doing Any% runs with as few items as possible. Then I reached Mother Brain in Super without enough Missiles to trigger her second form...
RBelmont wrote:A little math shows that if you overclock a Pi3 to about 3.4 GHz you'll start to be competitive with PCs from 2002. And you'll also set your house on fire
You also have to pick up at least 3 Energy and/or Reserve Tanks or you can't kill Mother Brain. If you don't pick up enough and you save in the last save station in Tourian, you're stuck because you softlocked the game.
Playing through Trek to Yomi. This game is honestly kinda weak in the combat department, but the atmosphere and framing of each shot are so cool and there's a lot to enjoy in the visceral thrill of slicing down foe after foe. It does have the potential to get pretty repetitive since the same techniques will work over and over again and the enemy variety isn't that great, but once in a while it does something cool like throw you in a duel against 8 other samurai pressing the attack from both sides and in those moments it really does feel like a Kurosawa flick. Nice little breezy B-tier game.
We here shall not rest until we have made a drawing-room of your shaft, and if you do not all finally go down to your doom in patent-leather shoes, then you shall not go at all.
Interesting, thanks for the impressions! I had my eye on that one after spotting it on JPSN, looked like it might have potential. copy-paster's Bloodstained posts have me in the mood for some 2D katana fetishism.
feels like a really wild collision of gundam epyon, garo, and gaogaigar
Very esteemed company!!
Been working on a rough draft of main sprite, which has also been helpful in trimming the design down to a reasonable level.
Spoiler
Also some progress. This video is a bit old: I recently finished adding some basic throws and a throw escape mechanic. Almost all the really base framework is almost done so hopefully I can start balancing and really hammer out some mechanics and style soon.
RegalSin wrote:Japan an almost perfect society always threatened by outsiders....................
Instead I am stuck in the America's where women rule with an iron crotch, and a man could get arrested for sitting behind a computer too long.
In my never-ending journey of discovering that games that people say are good but I didn't think they were that good but then I played them more and figured out that they were, after all, pretty good, I like Revenge of Shinobi now.
In fairness to myself, I feel like I was totally set up here.
1) For YEARS, rabid (and oh, were they rabid) internet Genesis fanboys pushed Revenge as the most finely-crafted action title ever allowed to be revealed to profane Western eyes. A masterwork of light and sound, forged high atop Mt. Ge-mu by Japan's most practiced and spiritually disciplined of design masters. Whispers amongst high esoteric initiates in hidden temple precincts rumoured that the Emperor himself had put the finishing touches on the final main character sprite. Everyone talked it up.
2) I, as a Nintendo kid, grew up with Ninja Gaiden. That was my platonic ideal of what a 2D side scrolling ninja action game was. Ninjas are fast and agile. They dart hither, thither and flip about like shadowed lightning with pixel-perfect precision. Swords flashing through enemies faster than the eye can blink.
They run places.
So man, if this is the ninja game everyone makes such a big deal about, it's gotta be dope AF. 16-bit sprite drawn Ninja Scroll, a foundational pillar of the Sega legend.
3) So when I finally bought my first Sega console, the sainted Dreamcast, I was MASSIVELY excited when the Smash Pack was announced. Oh cool, Altered Beast? Wrestle War? I used to walk 45 mins to the cool-but-far convenience store to blow my allowance on those games and root beer all the time! Golden Axe? Choppin' weird eyepatch guys holding grapes on a stick with your badass dwarf and his gigantic murder blade? That game rocked! Phantasy Star II? OOOMMMMGGGG*
And what's this? Revenge of Shinobi? Oh hell yes.
4) I think you know where this story is going. I had zero frame of reference for what these games were supposed to play and sound like. The rabid internet Genesis people howled that their children had been murdered, but it all seemed fine enough to me. Phantasy Star's music wasn't making my ears bleed or anything like they said, these guys were just whining about nothing.
And my suspicions that these were all just Stockholm-syndrome manchildren, lives spent in desperate denial that their parents had callously thrown away their childhoods on the second-rate 16-bit console, were bolstered when I started up Revenge of Shinobi.
This is slow AF. The intro talks about the powers of stealth but this dude is out here just strolling along out in the open at 2 kmph. This jumping feels stiff as hell, this is like a mummy simulator. It's like frickin' Mortal Kombat or something. This double jump move is freaking impossible, the input buffer feels so jank and amateurish. They can't be serious that this is the pattern I'm supposed to be able to repeatedly pull off to beat this first boss. This waterfall level is absurd, I just missed that log jump for the 27th time. Is the whole game like this? Alas, little did I know at the time that this was entirely due to the Smash Pack's poor emulation and massive input lag. I didn't have the technical context or background to perceive such things.
5) My next encounter with it was years later, on the PlayStation 2 Sega Genesis Collection that got ported to the PlayStation Portable that had to be downloaded digitally through the PlayStation 3 to be playable on the PlayStation Vita. This may shock you, but that, also, was not an optimal playing experience.
6) My next next encounter with it was years later than the previous years later, on the Sega Genesis Classics Collection for the Nintendo Switch hybrid portable gaming console®.
L-L-L--A-A-A-----G-G-G--Y-Y-Y
Though better than the Dreamcast at least. And some of the filters are cool.
7) Serious time spent on Sega AGES arcade Shinobi on Switch. Oh yeah. That's what this game was like. Slow, deliberate, strategic, kickass. Almost got the 1cc, but the RNG flying BS everywhere on that last stage is brutal.
8 ) Time spent with Rolling Thunder on Namco Museum, also on Switch. Oh. People are right. Shinobi is totally this game with some extra stuff. I get the design lineage and developer intentions now.
9) Model 1 early production run Japanese Mega Drive. OSSC. .5 ms delay monitor. Official 6-button jp controller. OG The Super Shinobi cart with Spider-Man & Batman & The Hulkinator & Rambo & Bruce Lee & Jacky Chan & Godzilla. Espresso.
Okay. Apparently this is the only way to actually play this. This is a whole different ballgame. It's super responsive. The double jump is automatic now. That first boss has a face full of kunai, didn't miss a shot. Perfect bonus. Cool callback to Lobster from the original. This waterfall stage is a walk in the park. Memorize stage layouts, anticipate, and dominate. Puzzle out boss patterns. Flex by not losing your POW, now you know you've nailed it. Disco ninja's a chump. Took out the Brain-on-a-plane without getting touched. Your stupid twirly triple-segmented-rod doesn't phaze me anymore, random chinatown goon. Oh hey, this wavy level is a cool jacked-up throwback to 3-2 in the first game. The cover/title screen image is Sonny freaking Chiba? Boss. Wow, NES Strider was cool & all, but this game is an audio-visual league ahead of everything else that was on store shelves in December 1989. And these "BZHVWBBO!!" explosion sound effects? These are all-timers banging right out of the Mega drive and into the bassed-out headphones.
You win, Genesis kids. This is pretty darn good. Though history did ultimately vindicate me. Shinobi III can run.
* As an RPG loving middle schooler, there was no game that had me wishing I could get a Genesis more than Phantasy Star II. The awesome 80s anime sci fi/fantasy aesthetic, the reverential way magazines talked about it, even the cool title, it sounded like the most epic thing money could buy. Those internet Genesis fans talked about it as this watershed moment in human expression, a monumental masterpiece of emotion and discovery which wiped the floor with the likes of Final Fantasy. Let me tell you, my experience with that game makes for a story of colossal disappointment and roundabout redemption even more wordy than this one.
The Revenge Of The Super Shinobi is a very good game, with immortal art and sound direction - its dingy near-future look hasn't aged a bit, Koshiro's soundscape is suavely driven, and there's a genuine cinematic continuity to Joe's trans-pacific odyssey - but it's not the instantly lovable classic Genesis nostalgists tend to portray it as.
It was instantly beloved at the time, but that's mostly because what today counts as "well-observed production" was outright head-explodingly superior back then. Those fluttering dead leaves in stage 1-1 blew my god damn mind, my NES Contra-reared self assumed they were bullets. Ironically, an expert player will stride through gunfire much the same.
But in the cold light of the present, there's quite the memo barrier. Partially the good sort (stage layouts are complex, attack and movement are deceptively technical, damage powerdown is harsh), partially bad (camera isn't great, offscreen shooters a chronic issue). I see a lot of newbies throw their hands up at Joe's relatively plodding movement, long before they've reached the point of striding imperiously through walls of gunfire with POW crossguard raised, hacking down hapless prey at pointblank range. The shield magic expedites the learning curve tremendously, I always tell 'em to fire it up pronto. "Training wheels?" Yeah, so? You're not a Shinobi yet, you're a weenie. Get humble.
It's an early exemplar of what I term the Assault Course sidescrolling school, along with Castlevania Bloodlines and star performer Alien Soldier; all games built on the stark conflict of 1) rollicking action-packed courses and 2) brutal damage powerdowns. This results in a steep performance ceiling, where base survival is a mere shadow of authoritative dominance and demolition. Do you have to put a bit of work in, analysing and mastering each stage sector and boss battle? Yep! But for those who like really breaking their games down to the nitty-gritty, and paradoxically also enjoy unbridled flame-spewing carnage, they serve a certain niche formidably well.
Looks like lobster is back on the menu, boys (■｀w´■) Spoiler
Striker, my experience was the opposite of yours—Shinobi was my favorite game in the arcades for a long, long time and when I finally got the chance to play Revenge years after the heyday of the Genesis (which I had as a kid, but never tried this game for some reason) I was instantly disappointed by the appearance of a lifebar, the lack of plane switching and bonus stages, the limited shurikens, and so much more. Nowadays I can appreciate the game for what it is but for my money Shadow Dancer is the best MD Shinobi game—3 is audiovisually and kinesthetically brilliant but glacially paced, Revenge has the aforementioned cheap shots, but Shadow Dancer just nails it.
We here shall not rest until we have made a drawing-room of your shaft, and if you do not all finally go down to your doom in patent-leather shoes, then you shall not go at all.
As much as my nostalgia loves Revenge of Shinobi, Shadow Dancer has a motherfucking dog button and is therefore superior. I mean, it's better in other ways too, but DOG BUTTON.
Revenge of Shinobi is pathetically easy as long as you can get to the airplane level, because there's a 2-UP there that respawns every time you die and I've never managed to abuse it enough to hit the extra life cap.
I was playing the extremely awesome Ninja Combat (Alpha Denshi, 1990: early Neo Geo title) and trying a few rounds of Bucky O'Hare, too (Konami, 1992).
I was also thinking that Konami's Aliens (1990) follows a similar approach, though it is lacking "punches in the mouth" attacks (Xenomorphs are tough - only the Yautja and Schafer can punch them without consequences) and jumps.
The absolutely whimsical Ninja Kids also mixes approaches/genres/styles: one character (Sasuke? The red ninja) shoots shurikens, the others slash enemies.
I was thinking: how many (arcade) titles mix the "belt scroller fighting plane" with run'n gun long-range mechanics? I'd add the two Shock Troopers to the mix.
On a wild tangent...do we have a thread for "Arcade Sports Games"?
Chomsky, Buckminster Fuller, Yunus and Glass would have played Battle Garegga, for sure.
I was about to say it seems bizarre to think of X5-bad textwalls in this day and age, but then I remembered that little kid who wrote into EGM asking if the next gen of consoles "wouldn't have slowdown." Some things are just part of human incompetence. 
Excellent post as always, marked for index!
I played BB a ton, late 2020, but as with most sugary-sweet ARPGs, I forget most of the finer details.
I might be wrong, it's been a good while.
