Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Sengoku Strider]

Quoting the whole thing to avoid all that work getting backpaged:

It seemed like some cheesy bullshit that'd require save states to get enough trial-and-error in to find the solution, so I tried it myself. It's hilarious the number of hits required to kill them goes -1 every time you die.

I found a series of inputs that seems to work every time they're performed almost perfectly. 8 HP statues, no autofire, tons of wearing out my controller's buttons.

... fuck, instead of writing out a guide by itself I'll include an AVI first...

... okay it's 10,000 MB per second for AVI, so I have a 21.4 MB mng file instead. Whatever the hell that is. I'm really hungry, but I'll try to figure out how to convert this bullshit...

...so hungry...

... alright that took less than half an hour, I was expecting it to take so much longer. I'll write the guide while it's extracting....

Something that's very important to keep in mind when coming up with any strategy here, the #1 priority is to hit the higher statues as much as possible. The ones on the ground will die long before the others do, the only statue that matters is the last one. Minimizing downtime is essential - if you start the stage by firing while on the ground you've maybe already lost. You neither move right nor jump in the air while you do that.

The Approach

Hold right until your guy starts moving, then immediately jump to the right and hit the middle and bottom statue. Pause briefly, and hit the middle statue again. Move right until most of the third row is visible (only about half of them have to be on screen to hit all of them. At least the ones you can hit, as the ones in the fourth row way above the top of the screen require the full eight hits to kill), then ninpo. Then retreat to the left.

The Retreat

Move left for a bit, then right a little.

Getting bumped wastes time. But so does moving left! And moving too far left will have a little bit of downtime where the second row of statues aren't spinning, due to the added travel time to your shurikens. I get the most consistent results by having the right side of the _HA sign lined up between the sword hilt and your ear.

MASH

Mash the shoot and jump buttons together. MASH THE SHIT OUT OF THAT FUCK.

There's really only one thing else you might do during this phase, and that's if you undershot your positioning, you can move yourself forward a little bit while in the air to correct it. If you overshot your position, well... hope things will work out, somehow?

You should get bumped once during this phase.

The Final Statue

A little tricky, but you have to stop mashing the jump button when the last statue hits the ground. Or your shuriken might fly over his head, which wastes precious microseconds. (Getting bumped while in the air also knocks you back further.)

The final bump should happen here. Your balls should be nearly on top of the electricity thanks to your superb positioning skills. It's important to resist the urge to press down and crouch, that will make your hitbox bigger and maybe kill you.

... so does shooting while standing.... and jumping.... all these things make your hitbox wider as well. Maybe not as wide as ducking. I'll need more research to know for sure...

-----

And now the file's done cooking. ... a 500 MB Avi file. For thirty seconds of button mashing. There really feels like there should be a vastly more efficient way to turn 18.4 MB of beautiful PNG files into an absolutely horrific, greasy awful AVI file...

Here's the greasefire. Youtube processing somehow made it even worse.


... But yeah, without Ninpo it's impossible without exploits. There isn't remotely close to enough time.

Hmm, that's almost exactly how I play it, but knowing the lower statues need less hits is valuable info that I'd never have figured out on my own. I appreciate the positioning demonstration too, so many time I've been down to that last hit but get bumped into the electricity.

[BIL]

Quoting the whole thing to avoid all that work getting backpaged:

I do this too, everybody should Never on the same page though, you wouldn't believe the horror shows I've seen on other forums

gigapost
gigapost + lmao
gigapost + lmao + humorous_cat.gif
*mousewheel smoking*
gigapost + lmao + humorous_cat.gif + goatse.jpg
gigapost + lmao + humorous_cat.gif + goatse.jpg + budd_dwyer.gif
*mousewheel on fire*
gigapost + lmao + humorous_cat.gif + goatse.jpg + budd_dwyer.gif + lemonparty.tga
*new page*
"I agree."

[mycophobia]

Didn't Shadow Dancer force you to cast a magic as soon as stage 2 to pass an enemy without getting hit?

nope you can do the whole game without bombing or dying, which i am currently attempting to do on hardest difficulty

[Randorama]

Anyhow, I remember Rando posting about it so that's an instant ping on me radar Will have to give it a quick recon, but I'm quite happy to see it all the same! One day they'll get to Rastan and Rainbow Islands. Probably the same day I get ran over by that garbage truck.

Uhm, Bonze Adventure? I remember this as a really creepy Buddhist version of G'n'G that has a remarkably hard final boss (Emma, king/queen of the underworld, turning into a kyubi/nine-tail fox).

It's not bad but Krakenboh, or whatever the player character is called, moves with a bit of inertia so jumps are always tricky to perform. It has an interesting score system revolving around bonus items (exorcist spells?), and the weapon system is not bad either (three colours/weapon types, a special attack, etc.). It should be one of those games that I 1-CC'ed once (because it was Taito), and never played again since (because it hasn't aged well, especially the game system).

I might have said something about Wardner but right now I can't recall, frankly

[velo]

Does rank do anything in Shinobi other than shave hp off of bosses? Or even just that ONE boss? I never noticed.

I've been playing both The Ninja Warriors '87 and the Sega CD port. The port seems to be more of a "fixed" version than I knew. Apparently they adjusted hitboxes etc in the player's favor to cut down on nigh-mandatory damage but shut down a bunch of the cheese tech. For example, I don't think you can ride the tank through the level 2, but it shoots bullets faster and you take a ton of damage if you block them. I don't think dragging minibosses across the levels to prevent spawns works either, or not as well.

[BrianC]

I went to Cutting Room Floor to see if I could find more info on Mandara, only to find out it doesn't even have a page for the AC Shinobi. I was hoping to find out whether or not Mandara's HP being higher the first time you face him was a glitch.

[mycophobia]

Does rank do anything in Shinobi other than shave hp off of bosses? Or even just that ONE boss? I never noticed.

at the very most "rank" takes hp off of bosses only, the rest is as static as static gets. same for shadow dancer, which definitely does decrease boss hp across attempts

[BIL]

Anyhow, I remember Rando posting about it so that's an instant ping on me radar Will have to give it a quick recon, but I'm quite happy to see it all the same! One day they'll get to Rastan and Rainbow Islands. Probably the same day I get ran over by that garbage truck.

Uhm, Bonze Adventure? I remember this as a really creepy Buddhist version of G'n'G that has a remarkably hard final boss (Emma, king/queen of the underworld, turning into a kyubi/nine-tail fox).

Sounds good - tbh, with Taito, as long as the underlying chassis is solid enough, I'm always down for more of an ~aesfetic~ trip.

[BryanM]

My comprehension on how the ninpo works was incomplete, so there's one bit of bad advice in there on when to use it. No, colossally, hugely, wrong. This is super important ninja tech.

When you chant your ninjutsu spell, time freezes. That gains you nothing but a moment to look cool, but if you think that's not important than you're not a ninja.

Also...

It causes any shuriken you've thrown to not deal any damage during the animation. That sucks!

What it does afterward is create a damage field that shrinks to a smaller secondary zone of damage toward the end. Statues that are close to you will take 4 damage. Those further away, a mere 3. "Close" is defined as "a circular arc with your avatar as the center, that reaches from...." ... fuck it, I'll make a diagram. This is easier with pictures.



The statues have to cross around that line by the end of the bomb animation to take 4 damage. The third ones up in the air can only ever take 3 damage, since we unfortunately can not bomb while standing in the middle of the air. Some ninjas we are...

All this time I thought it was doing three hits straight up to them. Just because I counted how many shuriken it took a couple times instead of testing it vigorously. Ugh, how unscientific of me...

So the #1 most important thing is to ninpo close to the statues. You could find yourself with dramatically more HP to churn through otherwise. I realize now 95% of my failed attempts were from ninpo'ing while too far away.

The place where I bombed in the clipshow is close to the correct place coincidentally. (But it's necessary to understand why something works.) You can't hit the fourth column statues within that 4 damage zone, so getting closer just wastes time. (Future edit: you actually can hit them in the zone if you're basically standing inside the frontmost statues. It loses more time than it saves, though.) The ideal position is just close enough to hit the third column within the high damage zone. And maybe not even then; we're talking about the difference of 1 hp on statue 3, 2 (that's 3 on the x axis, 2 on the y). Then again with the 2 or 3 second margin we're given, that may or may not be decisive.

I guess this is the major thing I felt like I was missing.





.... oh jesus, not 20 seconds later I realize ANOTHER essential ground-breaking feature of the ninpo. Will it stop?

When you ninpo, not only does it freeze time, but it effectively teleports you to the floor if you're in the air. So that's why my three shot opening during the initial approach worked so well, I was bombing while in the air, slightly. Which is a 0.5 second timesave if you know what you're doing and perform it immediately after the second hit on the statue lands.

Just imagine trying to learn all of this on real arcade hardware pumping real quarters into this thing. Like 20 hours and the entirety of your college fund.

Also I've just confirmed that jumping makes your hitbox bigger than crouching does. Every day we find ourselves ever a little more less wrong..



.... as a bonus observation, I noticed the head you fight afterwards kind of obeys the laws of physics. When it drops a fireball from up high, it bounces way more than one that's dropped lower. Good 'ole gravity. Hopefully this will be the last science post I have to do... for this particular fight.

[copy-paster]

Metal Slug 2 (Turbo patch, 400% Overclock) - No Death Run

I got the 1cc 2 days ago but didn't expect I nomissed this quick (all of these took me less than a week, started playing at 3rd this month). Game is pretty much autopilot until stage 5 onwards, st5 opening and middle is no frills all thrills leaving no dead air and I had so many close calls here it's clip/GIF worthy. Final stage is horrifying with brutal opener+bridge and oh god that Girdia/tank rush will all the grenadiers+shield soldiers+rolling bombers had me went AAAAHHHH for real, and 2 probably has the brutal Mars People as they'll pointblank you fast if you get close to them as soon as they land on the platform don't think they did this in X/3.

This run is also probably the greatest 60 second in my gaming history, just look at the Rugname fight holy shit I thought I was done for. Overall Slug 2 is pretty brutal with the limited weaponary and RNG-driven final stage and I still think X is a better game but graphic-wise 2 owns, also haven't touched X since like 3-4 years ago yeah. Will do the HQ recording because I happen to save the INP too and I don't think there's any no death replays with full overclock+turbo patch (Turbo vanilla is still pretty slow tho, like MS1 tier slowdown).

[BIL]

Holy fuck bro Congrats! That last stage's hangar battle is deceptively rough even with the slowdown - the thought of it running at full speed sounds like absolutely biblical intensity... so many goddamn Giridas, wayyy more than in MSX. Will enjoy that later, marked for index!

[copy-paster]

Thanks brah I can't wait for your thoughts heheh. I'd say this one is much more impressive than my Slug 3 or 5 nomiss so far just because of that ultra tight final stage play. The more I play Slug 2 the more I like the easygoing first 4 stages, yeah they're autopilot but it also have more stuff to destroy.

[Vanguard]

Haven't played a lot of platformers lately, but I did pick up Dead Cells and Hollow Knight. Both seem solid.

Dead Cells is a search action roguelite that lifts a bunch of concepts from Souls games. Every weapon has its own moveset, you have estus flasks, your main defense is a dodge roll with generous iframes, the game takes place in a spooky, ruined kingdom, etc. In spite of all of that, it reminds me more of Ninja Gaiden 1 more than anything else because the most effective way to play seems to be to ambush enemies and kill them before they get a chance to fight back. Not as satisfying as Ninja Gaiden, partially because the randomly generated level designs are inevitably not as good, partially because its RPG elements demand that you not be able to one hit kill the great majority of enemies. It does feel a lot less luck-dependent than stuff like The Binding of Isaac, both because the item balance is generally better and because you have the ability to remove unwanted items from the generation pool. Beating the game gives you an item that allows you to increase the difficulty, and then winning on that difficulty lets you do it again, starting from level 0 and ending at level 5 which unlocks the final area and true last boss. I'm on difficulty 2 right now. I'm not in love with a few things about Dead Cells, like how heavily iframe focused the combat is, how much crap there is to unlock, and how anal the game is about punishing the player for taking even one hit in a given level or boss fight, but I still like it.

Hollow Knight is a mostly conventional, high quality search action game. Its setting and many of its mechanics are reminiscent of the Souls series and the developers are straight up liars for saying Souls wasn't an inspiration. It's clear as day. But anyway, it does a pretty good job of ripping Souls off and of putting its own twist on things. I think the aesthetics and concept of the ancient ruined kingdom of bug people are great. One example that I think highlights the game's wonderful creativity is that an early boss fights using a sewing needle and thread as a rapier/grappling hook combination. I'm not too far in, but so far it's offering a nice, consistent and moderate difficulty level. It's also a bit too generous with healing for me. You have a magic supply that recharges as you inflict melee damage it only takes a few seconds to farm enough to refill half of your starting life bar. It works better against bosses where it's hard to find a good chance to cast the relatively slow healing spell. I'm hoping that over time the enemies' damage will outscale my healing. The game is designed to be difficult to navigate and easy to get lost in, which I respect but personally dislike. Your character draws your own map as you explore (after you buy the needed supplies) but unlike most metroidvanias, the map only updates when resting at checkpoints. There's more time spent getting from point A to point B than I like, but that's search action for you. Overall it feels like a real winner so far.

[Sima Tuna]

Currently on a Makaimura kick. I have all of them on my Switch now, minus Ghosts 'n' Demons of course (and the psp game). I've put in a decent amount of time in all the games, including Resurrection.

I'll just post a few random thoughts about them.

Resurrection is really fucking cool. It's brutal as hell and definitely feels the hardest on a first loop of any makaimura game. But IF you play on a difficulty lower than Legend, it's surprisingly kind with its checkpoints. So practicing trouble spots isn't too difficult. It has the worst Red Arremers in the series, they are fully invulnerable at all times except when in the middle of an attack animation. The extra magics and skills you can buy with Umbral Bees are cool. I wasn't sure I'd like this concept, since it's a more "console-ized" approach to GnG. You can't even buy magic unless you quit out of or beat the level you're on. So if you don't go back to main menu then you (for example) won't have magic at all during Level 1. But the skills themselves seem mostly well-balanced and fun. They're powerful but not too powerful and they all have caveats.

I'm not too far into Resurrection right now. I did the A and B sides for level 1 so I'm still in baby levels. I know the game gets hella difficult though.

Daimakaimura is a masterpiece. It's kicking my ass but I love everything about this one. The look, feel and sounds are just perfect. The crispness to the controls is a real *chef's kiss.* Jumping directly into an enemy and down-firing to kill them seconds before their sprite touches you will never not be awesome. Resurrection does the same thing but Resurrection also spams a billion enemies at you. Daimakaimura is a little more restrained, for example the reapers in level 1 in Daimakaimura run a lot slower than the same reapers in Resurrection.

Standard Makaimura is fun. I feel like this is the game of all of them I can get furthest in consistently. No idea why. For the age, it has held up like few other titles. It's pretty jank and random at times but I can't fault it for pioneering tactical medieval horror shooting action.

Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts (I think it's Chou Makaimura?) is also on the switch online service. I played this one on ps2 collections years ago. I like it, but I also find it the most frustrating personally. The levels are grueling and some of the weapons (scythe, axe, homing crossbow) are hilariously awful even by GnG standards. It really feels like a cruel trick when you get hit and knocked into a weapon you didn't want. More so in this one than the other games. I'm also not a fan of the very low framerates the game can sink to if you allow too many enemies to spawn or fire projectiles. This seems to induce additional lag.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to 1cc any of these games, but I love the gameplay style, presentation and design of them. They're just slow-paced enough to be strategic, but the levels rarely plod or drag. I also need to put more time into Cursed Castilla. I have played Battle Princess Madelyn and I think it's shit. But maybe I should give it a chance, I dunno. It just felt like that game had a lot of visual clutter (hit sparks, background elements inexplicably in the foreground) which obscured bullets and enemy sprites. Cursed Castilla seems decent though.

[copy-paster]

Haven't played Dai for ages but I like the MD port more because of how fast-paced it is, when I tried the original arcade version it feels slower than MD to me but then again only tried it like 8 years ago. I also like how a 2-ALL only take circa 30 minutes too, I have to say that I'm not that fan of the series. GnGR looks pretty but the Kaizo-tier difficulty is not what I'm looking for.

[velo]

I have played Battle Princess Madelyn and I think it's shit. But maybe I should give it a chance, I dunno. It just felt like that game had a lot of visual clutter (hit sparks, background elements inexplicably in the foreground) which obscured bullets and enemy sprites.

Regular or Royal Edition? The dev has posted on this forum, there's a whole story around how it didn't turn out as planned, but RE should be better (have not played either but was curious).

I have always wondered if the bad weapons in GnG were deliberately made as traps or if they just weren't balanced right. The axe in original GnG has nothing going for it, so I figure it's a trap, something to take your cross/shield away. Whereas, the torch looks like it should be a tradeoff for high damage but it reality it's just bad. Dai's weapons are mostly ok, Super's as you say seem like they're all worse than they were supposed to be. Speedruns I've checked revolve around abusing the scythe's charge attack, so I guess it's secretly good as long as you never ever get hit?

There are options for playing Super with little to no slowdown... either get a romhack or play it on anything but SNES I think (or Switch).

Ghosts n Demons had VERY long load times for me, for some reason. It's very different from the Wonderswan original, which seems like a cool game in its own right.

My comprehension on how the ninpo works was incomplete, so there's one bit of bad advice in there on when to use it. No, colossally, hugely, wrong. This is super important ninja tech.

I really appreciate this write up because just wtf is up with Mandara has long been a lingering mystery for me. Most of that stuff, plus whatever rank there is in the game, seems totally irrelevant outside of that one screen.

[Sima Tuna]

Some of the weapons in later Makaimura games are clearly designed as traps. Especially the ones carried as baskets by enemies. The way that you can jump, shoot, kill an enemy, the enemy can drop a basket where you're going to land and then you land to accidentally grab it... That shit can't have been an accident. It's just too devious. Or you get hit by an enemy and fall onto an Axe spawn. Weapon spawns btw don't ever despawn in some of the games. So the threat is always there. They do despawn in Resurrection but now your bones can collect weapons.

I think the weapons are a mix of trap weapons, niche use weapons and all-rounders. Every one of the melee weapons... You won't convince me they were put in as anything other than traps. Doesn't matter how powerful the weapon is when you can't hit anything. Most of the weapons that only allow 1 on screen at a time are traps too imo.

Looking at the level design of Makaimura games, there's quite a bit of intentional malice. That deliberateness is exactly what suggests to me that the bad weapons were purpose-built to screw the player. Scythe in Super GnG, Axe in Ghosts and Goblins, Sword in Ghouls and Ghosts, Hammer in Resurrection.... By the time Super Ghouls and Ghosts was made, I'm pretty sure Capcom understood what made weapons "good" in a Makaimura game. But the balance of power is definitely understated compared to other run and guns. There are no heavy machine guns or contra spread shots. Hence the "best" weapon in every makaimura is the one with best rate of fire for straight shooting. Contra bro in Contra spawns with a better weapon than you ever get in makaimura. I think the feeling of weakness (same as running around in your boxers) contributes to the comedic horror tone of the games. Makaimura has a unique atmosphere for a run and gun game that you can't get anywhere else.

I don't remember which version of Battle Princess Madelyn I have. I remember being confused by the multiple versions sold on the same storefront. I'll have to go look at footage of the new version to see if it has the same visibility problems I noticed from other footage and my own playing. One thing I can't deal with in games is muddy visual design which causes deaths. I remember these excessive hitsparks when your weapon shots would strike the ground (not even enemies, just level geometry) and that the hit sparks covered enemies and enemy shots.

[BryanM]

I always thought of the sword in Ghouls n Ghosts as a challenge mode for pros. Which I assume is impossible to kill the larvae boss with? (Torch is overpowered for that fight tho.) That Torch on the ladder in Ghosts n Goblins is definitely a booby trap though.

Creating a large variety of projectiles for a game is a super huge problem I've been thinking about for many decades now. It's applicable to so many kinds of games, run n' gun, shm'up, diablo-likes, etc. Damage per hit, range, rate of fire, area of coverage, movement pattern, penetration, fragmentation, # of projectiles.... there's only so many knobs to turn and only a few interesting ways to turn them. I can only come up with around five, good, basic shot types for a shoot'em up...

Giving less always gives you more room for variety. Imagine a fire flower that only lets you shoot fireballs that don't bounce at all. Then you have room to escalate to one bounce balls, two, etc, all the way up to potentially some kind of crazy "super" ball that crazily bounces around off everything and goes everywhere.

... dang the tingles that happen whenever the announcer announces a "ROCKET LAWCHA" pickup.

[Sumez]

But IF you play on a difficulty lower than Legend, it's surprisingly kind with its checkpoints. So practicing trouble spots isn't too difficult. It has the worst Red Arremers in the series, they are fully invulnerable at all times except when in the middle of an attack animation.

This is gonna sound awfully elitist, but IMO playing anything lower than the highest difficulty (aptly picked for you as the default selection!) is a big mistake. I think having more hit points is a decent way to ease the difficulty, but the extra checkpoints that they add in completely change the pace of the game in a way that detracts a lot from it.

Since the game is designed around the player having infinite lives, you never need to replay any section that you have already finished. This especially means that the final step right before a checkpoint will only ever be played once unless you decide yourself to replay it (which I'd recommend though). With several more checkpoints per stage, that adds up to quite a lot more challenges you'll never really get to experience because you just need that single fluke. And especially paired with the extra hit points, it kinda makes it a little too easy to just tank your way through, between the much smaller sub-checkpoint distances.
Basically, you're missing out on most of what makes GNGR arguably the best action game to come out in years.

But the skills themselves seem mostly well-balanced and fun. They're powerful but not too powerful and they all have caveats.

I was also really surprised by just how well balanced the skills seem to be in relation to your progress through the game. You might think that once you unlock the healing skill the game becomes far too easy, but hahahahhaha fat chance!

Jumping directly into an enemy and down-firing to kill them seconds before their sprite touches you will never not be awesome. Resurrection does the same thing but Resurrection also spams a billion enemies at you. Daimakaimura is a little more restrained, for example the reapers in level 1 in Daimakaimura run a lot slower than the same reapers in Resurrection.

This exact thing is what I enjoy so much about GNGR really. Trust me, if you enjoy those moments in Dai, Resurrection will leave you orgasmically exhausted by the end of it.

[Sumez]

Regarding Makaimura weapons, I think it's interesting how most of them have some limited utility (for example the axe in Dai will pass through anything, so it's really useful for the enemies in the elevator section, but nearly nowhere else), but never to the point where it could justify ever going with anything aside from the dagger. I agree thinking them as an optional challenge makes the most sense.

Resurrection puts an interesting twist on it. Because a lot of even the most hilariously shitty weapons actually have some situation where they might be advantageous over the dagger, they just suck for every other purpose. This makes it best to ignore them for the majority of the game, but a while into the shadow loop stages you're gonna unlock a skill which allows you to tap into this precise advantage, which makes them quite interesting and useful.

Also, Resurrection picks up a weapon if you die and your bones land on it. There's no way that wasn't done intentionally XD

[Sima Tuna]

Oh, I will be playing Legend mode when I finish Knight. I just didn't want to start on Legend because of the scarcity of checkpoints and the difficulty of the game even compared to other makaimura games. I should mention that Banners of Rebirth (extra checkpoints) are a thing you have to manually select when you die. If you just mash the retry button then the game places you at the last blue banner, which should be the exact same checkpoints as playing on Legend. So that's also an option if I feel like the Banners of Rebirth are too cheap.

As you say, all of the weapons in makaimura games have some edge use case where they could be useful, but never so much that this utility will surpass a functional straight shot. Lance is probably my favorite weapon because you start with it in all the games. It's not quite as good as Dagger but you start with it. So if you just take the mentality "I'm not picking up SHIT," then you can keep a decent weapon until a dagger or cross drops. Won't stop you being trolled by torch baskets placed cruelly on ladders you must traverse, however.

Also I just want to say that the music in Resurrection is fucking phenomenal. The graveyard theme isn't quite as bombastic as the PSP rendition, but every other song received a massive glow-up. Resurrection really is a great send-up of the series. I love it when devs come back to a game series that's been dead for years and do exactly this: they just make another one. Sure, it has remake elements in it. It has stages remade from Makaimura and Daimakaimura. But it's essentially a new game. They didn't try to do a 1:1 hd upscale of Dai or something. Somebody at Capcom really loves Makaimura and it shows. The deviousness of some of the traps is next level too. I hope the game sold/sells well enough for the series to remain alive for a while.

[Sumez]

The game was spearheaded by series creator (and Capcom legend) Fujiwara himself, who came out of retirement to make it, and it really has his fingerprints all over it (I'm surprised this wasn't advertised more heavily leading up to its release).
He's even billed using his company name Whopee Camp, which to my knowledge hasn't been utilized since Tombi/Tomba 2

[BIL]

Your writeups combined with that Fujiwara Connection make me sorely tempted to give this a go, I've just been putting it off for graphics whore reasons. It does sound like a hell of a time.

[Ebbo]

As someone who wasn't too keen on the graphics from watching trailers, I thought the style came together quite well during the actual gameplay. There are some janky animations, but overall both designs and backgrounds are as varied and macabre as one would expect from the series' pedigree. Explosions and other effects benefit the most, some satisfyingly crunchy stuff.

The deviousness of some of the traps is next level too.

Never has a stage gimmick put the fear of god into my mortal coil with such immediacy as the first half of Zone 4...

[BIL]

Oho! That does sound good, especially from a pyrotechnics maestro like yourself! I'll have to finally give this one a go, it's attained more than enough recommendation from trusted peeps.

EDIT: Nice, it's 50% off until the 22nd on PSN.

[Sumez]

As someone who wasn't too keen on the graphics from watching trailers, I thought the style came together quite well during the actual gameplay. There are some janky animations, but overall both designs and backgrounds are as varied and macabre as one would expect from the series' pedigree. Explosions and other effects benefit the most, some satisfyingly crunchy stuff.

I wasn't a fan either, like extremely not a fan. But it really does work different when you are playing the game and see it in motion. In fact, I'd even say the game looks really good.
The style doesn't lend itself well to the zoomed in closeups you see during cutscenes (which are featured in the original trailers) - but there's like three of those in the entire game.

Never has a stage gimmick put the fear of god into my mortal coil with such immediacy as the first half of Zone 4...

I'll never get over that stage man, even sitting now thinking about how fucking hilariously bad it can escalate from even a single cockup I can't help laughing. I want to catch more people livestreaming their first playthrough just to witness their reactions to the mayhem.
And the way they changed it up for the shadow loop is just perfect. At least you could theoretically survive a mistake on the vanilla version of the stage.

I'll have to finally give this one a go, it's attained more than enough recommendation from trusted peeps.

Man. Bil. GNGR is a R2RKMF all-time great, I'm sure you'll agree.

[BIL]

Looking forward to it! You guys always give my procrastinating backside the shoe it needs (or even DESERVES )



Will report back later/tomorrow depending on intensity of bumming

[velo]

They do despawn in Resurrection but now your bones can collect weapons.

Not the first in the series to do that I think... I want to say it goes back to the original. Could've been a glitch at first, but it was too funny not to carry forward.

I always thought of the sword in Ghouls n Ghosts as a challenge mode for pros. Which I assume is impossible to kill the larvae boss with?

If you get there with the sword, you'll find a dagger waiting for you, at least in some versions.

[Sima Tuna]

As someone who wasn't too keen on the graphics from watching trailers, I thought the style came together quite well during the actual gameplay. There are some janky animations, but overall both designs and backgrounds are as varied and macabre as one would expect from the series' pedigree. Explosions and other effects benefit the most, some satisfyingly crunchy stuff.

The deviousness of some of the traps is next level too.

Never has a stage gimmick put the fear of god into my mortal coil with such immediacy as the first half of Zone 4...

I initially wasn't a fan of the papercraft look either. However, after getting used to it, I must concede it conveys the enthusiasm and comedic horror of the series likely better than any other alternative. The animations are all suitably snappy and the bone falling sound is spot on.

[BIL]

Heyyy, this is pretty good Went in on Legend, as per Sumez-san - it's bumming me into next week, but that's Makaimura for you. I imagine I could happily bump it down one, but I'm liking the sheer audacity of it too much for now. You really fight for those checkpoints.

Handling feels nearer the first game's conservatism than the second's marginally more freewheeling action, despite the presence of vertical fire and magic. I love Dai's rollicking cutthroat pace more than the heavier original or floatier Chou, but this game definitely seems to know what it's doing. Pitch perfect stage design and tight mechanics so far. UMBRAL BEES a fun Soulsy mechanic; hard-won permanent upgrades that can catapult you over chokepoints.

Aesthetically, as Ebbo and Sumez said, it's totally fine - not my ideal of classic CPS pixel art, obviously, but not at all offensive, and in fact, highly charismatic in its own right. As a fan of rustic settings, I particularly like the wild overgrowth and tangled ruin (AirRaidX will be delighted to see Arthur's Feet Hide In The Grass ). There's a great sense of contiguous depth, extending through fore, mid, and background. Very comfy game to look at.

Another thing I really love, which I wish more 2D games would use nowadays, is the subtle camera zoom. It's so smooth as to be almost unnoticeable, and very welcome when engaging massive targets. The graphical facilitation of aggressively collapsing, erupting environments is great, too; feels like a logical evolution of Chou's earthquakes, tsunamis and peristaltic upheaves. Always liked that dwarfing effect; enhances the sense of nigh-insurmountable horror and superhuman kingly resolve alike.

Raaaad shit

Spoiler

Well, back to the hell I go.