Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
User avatar
__SKYe
Posts: 701
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 1:51 am
Location: Portugal

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by __SKYe »

Crude Buster MD is great, kitten.
It takes a bit to get used to the controls, especially the long jump grab, but the game is tight from start to finish. You can reliably grab anything (if you time it right), bosses included (except the final boss, I think).
Getting a 1CC isn't too hard if you get the extends from the mid-stage bonus rounds; the sticking points are the twin cobra-dudes and (potentially) the final boss. It still has its challenging parts but I can't think of any that relies on luck or mindlessly trading blows.
And yeah, play the game for a bit before reading the stuff posted here -- there are quite a few situations that are better enjoyed on a blind playthrough. :)

---

Welsh made a Sailor Moon thread a while back, and I actually had some more notes about the games to post (especially about the other characters) but my lazyness took the better of me and I neglected to do it and now I don't remember most of it. :o
Sorry about that, Welsh, I'll eventually replay them and I'll make sure to post when I do.
User avatar
WelshMegalodon
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:09 am

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by WelshMegalodon »

Some time after making that thread I managed to get 1CCs for every character, so I'll be looking forward to seeing your thoughts.
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
Finite Continues? Ain't that some shit.
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
User avatar
kitten
Posts: 1102
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 1:26 pm
Location: プププランド

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by kitten »

__SKYe wrote:Getting a 1CC isn't too hard if you get the extends from the mid-stage bonus rounds; the sticking points are the twin cobra-dudes and (potentially) the final boss. It still has its challenging parts but I can't think of any that relies on luck or mindlessly trading blows.
Image
got it! Image

didn't have TOO MUCH trouble! kept figuring out better ways to fight stuff. i can actually do fairly well on the cobra dudes, you can grab one and throw him into the other and then grab the one that jumps at you fast enough to just repeat that. i also found a really bullshit strategy for the final boss where i just repeatedly bait his punch and punish it and basically just loop him the whole time. i discovered that strategy after losing a single life and then got him for like 3/4ths of his bar after that - could have had another stock in the clear pretty easily, which is a very, very secure clear.

the boss i have the most trouble with is probably the wendigo-mutant-lionman-thing refight? or maybe the warthog rhino guy? for the warthog rhino, i just toss him off screen, run to the other side, take a small hit, and then throw him and repeat. takes a decent chunk of life but is way better than any other strategy i could think of lol. the wendigo is just, i don't know, i flail around kicking like a moron and pray.

is hard mode any good or substantially different? i might go check it here in a minute. (edit: seems to just increase damage? lame)
beat this while on an edible to try and distract from the ongoing american apocalypse, btw. this is a premier chill game - i just love grabbin and slammin shit. Image really pleasant point between casual and hardcore that i look for in a game.

the only things i can think of that i would definitely change in the game are a few repetitive fights (you can loop the terminators too easily and they just waste a lot of time) and the health bar on the professor at the end. otherwise it feels really well-assembled for a DECO game with an otherwise unheard of/middling reputation. deserves a higher rung on the ladder, for sure.
BIL wrote:Crude Buster MD isn't as renowned a console rebuild as its stablemate Chelnov, but I get the feeling it should be. Never played the AC one, but the MD game is indeed nicely refined. SKYe's written a ton about his experiences with it, should answer just about anything you need to know. :smile:

Crude Buster, Kujaku Ou 2, Twinkle Tale and Shadow Dancer is one nice slate of MD action gaming. :cool:
i've been having a damn good time!! i probably like shadow dancer the least but i still like it. ran through shadow blaster again tonight, too, which... is kind of wild. definitely the worst game of the bunch but it has a lot of charm. casually did an SoR2 run the other night, too - ah, i am really feeling that love for the mega drive. is there an ending theme more delightful than SoR2's? it feels so powerfully optimistic.
Nobody did innocently deranged ReaganRama like DECO. :lol: They really loved that NYC skyline.
i didn't even realize how prevalent the theming was, here! great assemblage of screens. Image
mycophobia wrote:this is the big thing that kept me from playing MD Shadow Dancer beyond the bare 1CC on level 3. shits so boring and you can't insta-fail it like you can the arcade games' bonus stages. also not fond of the final stage being just a warehouse full of crates, really uninspired stuff. AC Shadow Dancer is so much better
i kind of want to grab a fast nomiss, but yeah, the bonus stages are.... way, wayyyy too long, and it's very easy to bite it once out of nowhere. my compulsion may get the better of me and i might wind up grabbing it, though.
WelshMegalodon wrote:Yes, I believe all of us agreed some time ago that No-Shuriken Mode was the best way to enjoy the game. Everyone (including BIL) also agreed that the bonus stages sucked.

I honestly don't mind the rote memorization too much. It makes the first loop nice and easy, perfect for comfort-food gaming.
i gave the no-shuriken mode a shot, and i don't know if i prefer it to having them or not. some parts of the game are genuinely easier and it does add a certain sense of exhilaration, but there's a couple bits where you really wish you could hit those fucking gunmen from a distance and they're a necessary component of boss battles, anyway. i'm kind of surprised by how many 1ups the game gives out 0_0; there's such a huge amount of space between the 1cc and a nomiss that it feels wild. feels like a bit of a concession the game isn't that taut and meant to be a bit more of a "comfort-food" affair, as you suggest.
~Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations have diverse names~
Image | Image
~*~*~*~*~*~* If there's a place that I could be ~ Then I'd be another memory *~*~*~*~*~*~
User avatar
__SKYe
Posts: 701
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 1:51 am
Location: Portugal

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by __SKYe »

Nicely done. :)
kitten wrote:didn't have TOO MUCH trouble! kept figuring out better ways to fight stuff. i can actually do fairly well on the cobra dudes, you can grab one and throw him into the other and then grab the one that jumps at you fast enough to just repeat that.
Yeah, that's what I do as well but I tend to mess up the rhythm of it and end up throwing or attempting to grab them while their still in they are in their invincibility period. I find it a fairly similar fight to the one against the 3 flamethrower enemies.
They're certainly not credit-ending situations, but they are still not as clean as I would like them to be.
kitten wrote:i also found a really bullshit strategy for the final boss where i just repeatedly bait his punch and punish it and basically just loop him the whole time. i discovered that strategy after losing a single life and then got him for like 3/4ths of his bar after that - could have had another stock in the clear pretty easily, which is a very, very secure clear.
Glad you came to a similar conclusion. :)
My no-damage strat is essentially to exploit the fact that he always performs the punches after taking damage and his i-frames -- you can walk through him without taking damage while he's invincible.
kitten wrote:the boss i have the most trouble with is probably the wendigo-mutant-lionman-thing refight? or maybe the warthog rhino guy?
Against the rhinoman I use BIL's strat. If you are either too close or too far away from him (after you knock him down) he'll ram you -- and I don't think you can grab him out of it -- but if you stay fairly close to him when he's getting up he'll jump over you instead and you can just follow him and grab him as he's landing.

As for the lionman, the safest strat is BIL's: just keep moving away from him as he chases you and he'll perform his pounce attack when he gets close but it will miss you, which gives you the opportunity to grab and throw him.

Or, if you're feeling brave, you can just grab him as he approaches you:
Spoiler
Image
It is nowhere near as safe and probably not something you want to do in a no-miss run, but it is a pretty fun way to fight him. :)

Have you tried grabbing the spider guy? That's another fun fight.
kitten wrote:is hard mode any good or substantially different? i might go check it here in a minute. (edit: seems to just increase damage? lame)
Sorry, haven't tried hard mode yet.
kitten wrote:the only things i can think of that i would definitely change in the game are a few repetitive fights (you can loop the terminators too easily and they just waste a lot of time) and the health bar on the professor at the end. otherwise it feels really well-assembled for a DECO game with an otherwise unheard of/middling reputation. deserves a higher rung on the ladder, for sure.
Yeah, there is a fair bit of recycling, and I concur; it is one of the best Data East games I've played.
User avatar
FinalBaton
Posts: 4461
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2015 10:38 pm
Location: Québec City

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by FinalBaton »

Shadow Dancer MD is SO fun in it's snappy arcade-y gameplay. love the one-hit KOs in hit despite me not really being into that mechanic usually. which telle you how I think it's beautifully designed here. good level designs, good flow, just dense enough with nemies, good enemy placement. good bosses. very solid game

There's just something so emminently pick-up-and-play about that cartridge. it's the first one I grab when I want an arcade-y experience
just the immediacy of it, is so strong.
-FM Synth & Black Metal-
User avatar
kitten
Posts: 1102
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 1:26 pm
Location: プププランド

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by kitten »

__SKYe wrote:Sorry, haven't tried hard mode yet.
hoo doggy, i was wrong about it just upping damage - i think damage values are the same, actually (i don't know why i thought they were different? i just very briefly looked at st1), it just increases enemy count in some areas by occasionally VERY scary numbers. think the fight with three flamethrower dudes is bad? what if it was four? what if... it was also four during the final stage bit where they show up? 0___0;; there's some moments on hard mode where if you screw up in what feels like a relatively minor way, you eat a shit sandwich and get an entire stock chewed through faster than you can realize what you did wrong.

in addition to the significant increase in enemy count, you also now get only two soda pop from in-stage vending machines, which can bite more than you think when you're already feeling more heat. i managed to get a 1cc recording down that i performed really well on for most of the game, but my performance on the boss rush at the end is abysmal. i think i walk into stage five with 6 stock, get knocked down to 5 before the boss rush, then wind up with only 2 in reserve at the end lol. i do the "safe" strat against the warthog that chunks up 4/5ths of your health (the other pattern is a little hard to time) and then have a pretty poor showing on both the lion man (augh! it's really hard getting the timing on him down) and the final boss (who manages to eat a stock and a half while i fuck up a simple pattern i can usually get through without any damage lol).

if you can get the boss patterns down with a significant reliability, a nomiss on normal is very feasible, but you'd have to be playing very tightly and with just a smidge of the grace of god to get through hard without losing at *least* one lol. anyway, another recording to the pile of mega drive games i'll dump in here when i actually get to writing up descriptions. i'd like a better recording to go up for crude buster hard mode given how much i fuck up in the final stretch, but i still haven't bothered getting a recording of shadow dancer or shadow blasters and have been wanting to grab one for both of those. i can only play so much MD before burning out... if i go perfectionist on crude buster i think i'll enjoy it less later when i want to go back for an inevitable casual run.

as for whether hard or normal are more advisable as the meat, it's a bit hard to say. a couple of the encounters on hard are just outright piss mean! normal feels like it will later by very accessible to the pick-up-and-slam casual revisit 1cc that i prefer going after, while you should definitely warm up with a few credits before moving to hard. when warmed up, though, a normal 1cc becomes a little bit dull and rote and the only choke points are boss fights that aren't honestly that fun. really depends on how much time you want to sink into a given play with the game, tbh, as to which is better. it's nice that both options are there.

anyone play this with a friend? seems like it might be a bit of a mess, tbh. demo play shows that you can grab each other and i assume other types of friendly fire are on @__@

- -

oh my god the arcade version looks like a mess, but i love this lol -

Image

watched a WORLD OF LONGPLAYS video for the MD vers to see if they accidentally discovered any boss strategies while savestating the game to shreds - feels you can use the evasive duck roll under the lion man's leaps and kind of just bait him around and kick him the whole fight?
~Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations have diverse names~
Image | Image
~*~*~*~*~*~* If there's a place that I could be ~ Then I'd be another memory *~*~*~*~*~*~
User avatar
BareKnuckleRoo
Posts: 6162
Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:01 am
Location: Southern Ontario

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

anyone play this with a friend? seems like it might be a bit of a mess, tbh. demo play shows that you can grab each other
Is there any reason to grab each other? Friendly fire in a beat 'em up is a bit iffy I think unless you have a tactical benefit to balance it out. I can't think of many games that do what the Streets of Rage series do though, where you have friendly fire but in exchange you can grab and throw each other to trigger special team attacks that have high priority/full invulnerability. Friendly fire's also only 1/8 normal damage in SoR so it's unlikely to be a large source of damage unless you're really hitting each other constantly (and it can be turned off in SoRR).
User avatar
WelshMegalodon
Posts: 1225
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:09 am

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by WelshMegalodon »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote:I can't think of many games that do what the Streets of Rage series do though, where you have friendly fire but in exchange you can grab and throw each other to trigger special team attacks that have high priority/full invulnerability.
Sailor Moon R has team throws, but no friendly fire. It's a win-win! :mrgreen:
Indie hipsters: "Arcades are so dead"
Finite Continues? Ain't that some shit.
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
User avatar
__SKYe
Posts: 701
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 1:51 am
Location: Portugal

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by __SKYe »

kitten wrote:anyone play this with a friend? seems like it might be a bit of a mess, tbh. demo play shows that you can grab each other and i assume other types of friendly fire are on @__@
I've only played solo, but BIL played multiplayer and posted about it way back.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:Is there any reason to grab each other? Friendly fire in a beat 'em up is a bit iffy I think unless you have a tactical benefit to balance it out.
Even when it has no practical use it makes for some pretty fun situations when playing casually with a firend. :)
User avatar
Stevens
Posts: 3799
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 11:44 pm
Location: Brooklyn NY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by Stevens »

Anyone else thrown for a loop with the new format?
My lord, I have come for you.
User avatar
kitten
Posts: 1102
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 1:26 pm
Location: プププランド

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by kitten »

^ there's a pinned topic for it. probably best to discuss that in there.
~Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations have diverse names~
Image | Image
~*~*~*~*~*~* If there's a place that I could be ~ Then I'd be another memory *~*~*~*~*~*~
User avatar
kitten
Posts: 1102
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 1:26 pm
Location: プププランド

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by kitten »

waho! finally added descriptions/reviews to some recent and some slightly-less-recent recordings i did. i started doing these for this thread and usually consider this the place i really like to post them, so lemme link them in here as i usually do with a similar recommendation to read the commentary. more than eager to offer tips or discuss strategy on any of these, though most of these plays are demonstrative enough or contain enough in the description that's probably unnecessary.

Golden Axe III - Mega Drive, Hard Mode, Nomiss, played as Chronos "Evil" Lait

- this one gets a harsh reputation that is semi-deserved, but i think it's actually worth a look. pretty solid and with more meat on the bone than first glance might suggest

= - = - =

Twinkle Tale - Mega Drive, Hard Mode, Nomiss, no mashing on spread shot

- lauded around these parts for a reason, one of the best mega drive games out there. absolute delight with a sense of pacing so rollicking that it'll knock your socks off.

= - = - =

Kujaku Ou 2: Geneijo - Mega Drive, Default Settings, Nomiss

- gradually more forgotten over time with its lack of re-releases and a staple of the early mega drive library. great stuff, if quite bumpy at first. best flamethrower in a side-scroller.

= - = - =

Crude Buster/"Two Crude Dudes" - Mega Drive, Hard Mode, 1CC

- great little single-plane beat 'em up with a sense of comedy that translates beautifully into its frenetic mechanics. smash shit up, chuck hot dog signs and tanks at goons, go nuts.

= - = - =

Metal Stoker: NEO HARDBOILED SHOOTING - PC Engine, Hard Mode, 1CC

- solid multi-directional "seek n' destroy' shooter with a very methodical pacing. great to pick away at and roughly forgotten in its library.
~Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations have diverse names~
Image | Image
~*~*~*~*~*~* If there's a place that I could be ~ Then I'd be another memory *~*~*~*~*~*~
User avatar
Vanguard
Posts: 967
Joined: Wed Jul 31, 2013 7:32 pm

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by Vanguard »

Image

Rockman 7 EP is a Rockman 7 hack by PureSabe, the author of Rockman 4 Minus Infinity. It definitely is not as good as R4MI. Expectedly, it's held back by Rockman 7's poor FOV, though better level design mitigates it somewhat.
Spoiler
Image

One of Rockman 7 EP's many vehicle sections
The levels are full of ideas and most of them are good. They feel pretty long in general, with lots of gimmicks and gameplay shifts, as is PureSabe's style. You've got autoscrollers, vehicle sections, a shmup level, and more. There are tons of midbosses which tend to be pretty easy, but are at least more interesting than the roadblock enemies Rockman games always have. The level design is overall more conservative and less interesting than Minus Infinity, but taken on its own merits it's perfectly good, right up until the ending where it gets completely absurd.
Spoiler
Image

In the final stage you fight weakened robot masters as normal enemies. That's not the absurd part, though.
I've said before that Minus Infinity's greatest flaw is that the ending goes a bit too far over the top. Wily's Optical Capsule in particular makes E-tanks nearly mandatory. I don't take it too seriously, the last level is literally called "Final Farce." Swallow your pride, burn a few E-tanks on the last stage and you'll have a good time the entire way through. Well guess what, the ending to Rockman 7 EP is even more ridiculous. The penultimate stage clearly wants you to use E-tanks, and the final stage is far, far worse. Near the ending, Blues and Eddie show up and give you literally hundreds of E-tanks that automatically activate when you run out of health. And it's necessary that they give you an enormous amount of supplies because the final boss is a joke in more than one way. You can't really lose to him but it's a near certainty he'll make you use a bunch of E-tanks. Even beating him with "only" 5 E-tanks used is pretty good. 20 isn't out of the question at all. I've made peace with Minus Infinity's Optical Capsule, but the fact that R7EP has two of these stages, and that its final boss is even more of a joke drags the experience down for me.
Spoiler
Image

This is the absurd part. You can't tell because of sprite flicker, but the entire screen is covered in bullets, not just the right side
Had high expectations for the weapon set going in. They are good, certainly a lot better than Rockman 7's set, but they're still a disppointment because Minus Infinity's guns make Contra look bad. The standout is Turbo Man's Self-Burning. It's broken. It covers Rock in flames and makes him deal contact damage to anything he touches, while also being immune to both contact damage and fire damage. A ton of enemies have no way to defend themselves if you sit inside their hitbox with that. It's very expensive in terms of energy, but once you've started it up it stays on until you take a hit, so as long as you don't mess up you can keep it going for the entire stage. Good risk/reward mechanic. The fire immunity lets you cheese more than a few obstacles, and if you go underwater with it, the water will boil and damage every enemy inside. Burst Man's aimed three-way shot is thoroughly solid and can largely replace your buster. Shade Man's ripple laser is also a good alternative. I do appreciate that the buster is still fairly usable, in Minus Infinity it was a penalty item.
Spoiler
Image

Self-Burning in action
Even setting aside the final boss, R7EP is insanely generous with resources. E-tanks are easy to find lying around, and often the game will drop a bunch of them into your lap all at once. There's a shop, as in Rockman 7, and you can also buy full stocks of E-tanks, W-tanks, and extra lives for next to nothing. Everything it sells is super cheap except for one upgrade that costs 999 bolts. It's basically the ultimate armor from Rockman X4 - X6. It's very strong, but you're not likely to be able to afford it until the final stage, and no, it isn't enough to make the final boss sensible. One interesting new feature of this hack is that you can overheal if a healing item takes you above full life. Your health will slowly drain until you're back to 100%. There's a full healing item before most boss fights, so if you arrive with 100% health, you can start the battle at 200%.
Spoiler
Image

Perfectly normal
"EP" seems to stand for "Economic Power." The ending goes over all of the items and lives you used and totals up how much it all cost. I think it's intended to be a type of scoring system, where lower is better, and the point of the final boss is to make a good score that much harder. The ending also lists dozens of achievements to shoot for in your runs, and which ones you got. I can't read the Japanese to say what most of them are, but there were ones for spending low and high amounts of money, completing the game quickly, and low% and 100% which presumably are for item collection. I got 100% item collection, which means this game is disappointingly short on secrets. Might be some interesting things to try in there, I couldn't tell you.
Spoiler
Image

Actraiser!
It's honestly pretty good if you don't mind the ending. It's a letdown compared to Minus Infinity, but that was always a near inevitability.

B

You can download the patch for Rockman 7 EP here: http://borokobo.web.fc2.com/#Rock7
User avatar
Stevens
Posts: 3799
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 11:44 pm
Location: Brooklyn NY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by Stevens »

Farm - Is with great fanfare I give you...er....um....hehe....

Cockhead?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDj1q8YJf90
My lord, I have come for you.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BIL »

That jump arc is legit Image
User avatar
EmperorIng
Posts: 5065
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:22 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by EmperorIng »

AVGN shambling corpse channel made a new episode about the NES Legend of Kage port.
Granted the nes port may be weak in comparison to the original; that I do not know.

However, James' handlers sadly didn't do their research. Making James say that the melee attack is worthless - when it's essential to blocking shuriken - is sad, especially when he is made to complain about the endless shuriken rain coming down on him. The episode is meh, not great, but the misinfo stands out like a sore thumb, like a live-action recitation of a HG101 article. His script is overall critical.

I may love James Rolfe but he doesn't have the influence he had years ago. At least there will be less parroting of his opinions like you'd see a decade ago. He teased at the end of the video a new episode about the Taito Legends* packs on the ps2. Gonna hurt a little bit to watch his producers write up a script probably shitting all over my favorite dev house.

Legend of Kage, at least the arcade version, is solid. The sequel on the DS is actually a bit of a rough, if not hidden gem made by some french devs iirc. Some problems (enemy chaining scoring system in a sidescroller with randomly spawning enemies!?) but satisfying combat and some great boss fights and a loving tribute -dare I say enhancement?- to the original.

*Funny moment: previewing some footage, he is made to say "Who the fuck ever even heard of KiKi KaiKai!?" Come on now Screenwave Ltd., don't you remember James and Mike streaming Pocky and Rocky on the channel?
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BIL »

FC Kage is very decent - picked up the cart a couple years back, having been impressed with its authentically no-nonsense pace. Totally the sort of game casuals would whine about, being simple yet unforgiving. Casual tears, an invaluable compass for those seeking quality! Image Indeed, you better wield that sword, and not just for the 2x bonus! It cancels enemy shuriken and kills would-be backstabbers dead with its generous hit area! Intercepting fire/enemies will eat your wire-fu ass alive without it!

Spoiler
Image


Basic even by 1985 standards, though I hesitate to say 86's much trickier Rygar outmodes it. Kage's Wuxia simplicity and cruelty feels genuine, much like its loops' elegant seasonal progressions. It's part of a different subgenre, really.

Its best feature may be providing one-half of Real Wuxia Simulator/Ultimate Ninja Shitstorm Saigo no Nindou's blueprint (the other, I'm convinced, coming from Contra and its subgenre-igniting XTREEM firepower). Always welcome under my roof - ACA ver even includes the MSM5232 and YM2203 sound chip versions, a lovely touch.

Always been fond of Rolfe, he's been a cheerful presence over the last decade/half's internet, and anyone who takes his character's defeatist ravings seriously is probably beyond help anyway. :lol:

Spoiler
Image


^ Always got a laugh out of that. :mrgreen:
User avatar
EmperorIng
Posts: 5065
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2012 3:22 am
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by EmperorIng »

Those people are probably the types to whine about Ninja Gayden's bullshit unforgiving difficulty. 8)

Speaking of ninja sidescrollers, I tried a bit of Kid Niki Radical Ninja by ol' Irem, and I sort of gave up at that game's quickly ludicrous difficulty spikes and controls, though perhaps I wasn't playing as seriously as I should have. The spartan action does remind me of... Spartan-X? :mrgreen: There's some satisfying action in there but I think I'd prefer Kage's more mobile, soaring acrobatics or Saigo's grimmer ninja carnage.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BIL »

EmperorIng wrote:Those people are probably the types to whine about Ninja Gayden's bullshit unforgiving difficulty. 8)
Indeed, much like the founder and patron saint of this dear old thread, Edmond The Mad. Image He never quite toppled that brick wall, but by God in heaven did he give it a battering, as we lessers found ways over/around. :shock:

Kid Niki took me some warming up to. For 1HKO sidescrolling, I prefer ultra-agile characters (Rygar), and/or heavily-armed ones (Saigo). Cheerful Yanchanmaru is neither, nor does he have checkpoints. It's a slightly uncomfortable spot, imo.

This said, six stages in I was enjoying it enough to grab the ACA version, some months ago. I like the insane frequency+hitzone of the sword, you can tear apart the... was it fourth boss, transforming flying ladythingy? The one that breaks down into smaller enemies with each hit. Mash the sword on first impact, and you can shred the whole ensemble in mere frames. I recall similar with the shrine's Beeman swarms.

myco mentioned the last boss being absolute bullshit, which wouldn't surprise me given Saigo's astonishing 11th-hour pratfall. Have to revisit this one, though I'm not gonna lie, I'd swap it out for chibi-wizard foot/floor murderfest Tonma in a heartbeat. Hop. Bop. BUST SHOT Image Image
User avatar
__SKYe
Posts: 701
Joined: Tue Feb 16, 2016 1:51 am
Location: Portugal

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by __SKYe »

Yeah, Yanchamaru is a solid game until one of the phases of the last boss, where bubbles randomly appear from the bottom of the screen. That's where my enthusiasm to clear it dried off. :)
User avatar
BrianC
Posts: 8859
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 1:33 am
Location: MD

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BrianC »

Too bad the Arcade Archives "Kid Niki" only has the Yanchamaru vesion. The Kid Niki version added checkpoints.
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BIL »

Good info! I think restart-based games, especially 1HKOs, should always have at least one checkpoint per stage... when I know I'm gonna get booted back to the start, it makes me uneasy. And not in a white-knuckle 1LC attempt way, but a "trying desperately not to fart during holy communion" way. v-v

Super R-Type (SFC) isn't as technically demanding as R-Type II or Image Fight, but god damn does it make me miserable with the tiniest mistake junking the entire stage. (I know the counterpoint, that this lets you regain powerups... but honestly, I'd rather take a swift fatal dogpile, with the remote chance of a heroic comeback, than hobble all the way back to the chokepoint Image)

Having witnessed THE BATTLE OF FUCKBUTT PEAK, getting SFC Slowdowned into a wall just makes me feel like a dumbass Image
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by Sumez »

EmperorIng wrote:AVGN shambling corpse channel made a new episode about the NES Legend of Kage port.
Granted the nes port may be weak in comparison to the original; that I do not know.

However, James' handlers sadly didn't do their research. Making James say that the melee attack is worthless - when it's essential to blocking shuriken - is sad, especially when he is made to complain about the endless shuriken rain coming down on him. The episode is meh, not great, but the misinfo stands out like a sore thumb, like a live-action recitation of a HG101 article. His script is overall critical.
That's disappointing considering how well researched his other recent episodes have been. A very refreshing alternative to his "Mike & James" videos where they systematically get everything wrong about everything they play. It feels like he's realised how influential his overtly stupid ramblings have been, and decided he wanted to be more responsible about it.
I also still do love James, and I'm very interested in seeing where his Taito Legends video will go. If he takes a stab at the rainbows in Rainbow Islands, that will be like taking a stab right through my heart.
User avatar
Sumez
Posts: 8019
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:11 am
Location: Denmarku
Contact:

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by Sumez »

EmperorIng wrote:previewing some footage, he is made to say "Who the fuck ever even heard of KiKi KaiKai!?"
Speaking of ninja sidescrollers, I tried a bit of Kid Niki Radical Ninja by ol' Irem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwNsrmc ... u.be&t=127

:|
User avatar
mycophobia
Posts: 751
Joined: Thu Sep 22, 2016 4:08 pm
Contact:

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by mycophobia »

the lack of checkpoints in Yanchamaru never really bothered me like they do in Super R-Type cuz the stages are relatively brief and if you know them well enough you can pretty much run and jump nonstop through them in short order, whereas in Super R-Type you're wading at a glacial pace through a slowdown-laden stage waiting for your chance to take on the boss again.... and then dying again cuz you don't know how the boss works yet... and then starting the whole stage over.....

Yanchamaru is a good game, well worth playing at least up til you can clear to the final boss, though it may be quite unsatisfying to drop it there. there's weird safespots you can do during the bubble section but i never mastered it. maybe i'll go back to it someday
User avatar
kitten
Posts: 1102
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 1:26 pm
Location: プププランド

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by kitten »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U03ABECUCKc&t=21m45s a few friends were laughing about and linking this in my discord, last night, and i took a better look at it this morning and oh my god. this guy trying to pick apart CV4 by theory while savestating through it for his very first time is a fucking laugh riot. incredibly confident assertions when he's being wildly stupid and constant gaffes. segues the stupidity of his clear and utter failures into a criticism of the game's sound design and scrolling. no coincidence the url has "BE CUCK" in it 0_0;

i really think that when you start examining games in save-stated vacuums or prioritizing individual stages that there is a tendency to go totally myopic about how the game feels that is wiiiiildly divorced from its actual intended pacing or the context of the stage in the game and what purpose it serves. some stages in *good games* are kind-of filler or warm-ups because there needs to be a little downtime or release of tension over the flow of the game. some are big spikes to make sure you stay invested! etc. etc. i feel like the focus on moment-to-moment safety and making absolutely certain that the player won't ever be caught off guard or surprised or not understand something is a huge part of what has lead to the staleness of modern action design. theorycraft people today don't seem to understand that taking a hit or falling into a pit once is the teaching moment. not to excuse "gotcha!" design or moments that beckon counter-intuitive reactions and pure memorization.... but death and damage aren't totally unfair moments to teach, and why people understand this with something like celeste or super meat boy that are meant to be played in a vacuum but not games with marathon pacing is beyond me.
~Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations have diverse names~
Image | Image
~*~*~*~*~*~* If there's a place that I could be ~ Then I'd be another memory *~*~*~*~*~*~
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BIL »

kitten wrote:no coincidence the url has "BE CUCK" in it 0_0;
:lol:

Had to have the internet in my flat ripped out at the roots, pretty much, and have just gotten it sorted out. So I've been sitting on some posts I wanted GIFs to go with (uploading even my lovingly optimised 2MB ones caused the browser to crap out).

One of those games is Bloodstained: ROTN, and while I've liked it a lot overall, the sheer convenience of teleporters and savepoints kinda irked me. Every area has a direct evac to homebase and back, typically near its entrance. This isn't some "XTREEM GAYMER" thing, it just diminishes the sense of distance I enjoy in a good Metroid-esque. (a sense that keeps me coming back to Legacy of the Wizard, where you've got single-use "return to surface" items that take up one of your three inventory slots, and are otherwise effectively miles from home. exciting!)

I prefer SOTN's approach, where a smattering of five teleporters can get you more or less around the whole castle, but you'll typically have to hoof it a bit to your destination. It's convenient without feeling child-proofed.

Anyhoo... two areas of ROTN have only one savepoint, not the usual two, and while doing some postgame reading, I came across some guy complaining, bitterly, that he'd gone more than five screens in these locales without hitting a savepoint. He was also apparently getting his ass handed to him by the milquetoast enemies. Image (ROTN coulda used some Cagnazzos, and Valkyries, and Venus Weeds, and Salomes, and Grave Keepers... its enemy design is middling at best even by SOTN's modest standards. COTM's aggressively pursuing (you can flat-out run away and they'll stay on your heels), TaitoLazoring Fallen Angels, its Wind "Dodge This Motherfucker" Demons, and BROOTALLY advancing Dark Armours walk all over ROTN's best. Ninja is alright. Master Carpenter and Bloodless shoulda been regulars. Fuck, this is turning into a longpost :oops:)

It was a quick refresher on just how convenience-geared modern gaming tends to be. Suddenly I was grateful ROTN didn't allow DOOM-style quicksaving and fucking rewind, as I'm sure some wieners would've suggested. Image I try not to shit on Digital Eclipse too much, but when I saw one of their top guys knock the ArcSys Kunio collection for a lack of rewind, claiming in essence "Ain't nobody got time for that shit no mo" (eg: learning to play), I knew these weren't serious archivists, but nostalgia merchants first and foremost.

I remember being all Image at SMT3: Nocturne's description of Hard difficulty, many years ago: "For those who wish to experience the thrill of death." You'd think we were playing fucking Russian roulette with how death tends to be regarded in the mainstream, these days.

(as always with SOTN and its followups, players can of course opt out of these conveniences. CASA DE BIRUFORD rule: one save upon entering an area. I pretend the savepoint asplode and stop working. Image)
Last edited by BIL on Thu Nov 19, 2020 12:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Hornet
Posts: 28
Joined: Fri May 22, 2020 7:09 am
Location: Athens. Greece

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by Hornet »

kitten wrote:i played through a bunch of shadow dancer md yesterday - anyone here really like that one?
*raises hand*

Much like Revenge of Shinobi and Shinobi III, Shadow Dancer MD is pure gold. And while I don't think I'll ever be able to say with absolute certainty which game is my favorite in this trilogy, in the "gun-to-my-head" scenario I would probably have to go with Shadow Dancer.

Fantastic mix of twitchy hand-eye coordination with methodical, more cerebral action. Just like Shinobi AC, there's definitely much more than rote memorization here. From my perspective, the defining aspect of the game is the strong emphasis on positioning, spacing and timing, which I personally find extremely satisfying. This theme takes various forms throughout the game, as the gameplay actually provides an awesome combo of memorization + improvisation + carefully calculated action where you are "organically" guided by the terrain/enemy placement/enemy behavior itself. When there's memorization involved, you only need to memorize very specific "little things", not large chunks of the game. I also love how tight and laser-focused its design is. An all killer no filler action game that bombards you with set-piece after set-piece, very well-thought-out enemy placement, no copy-paste situations and no stretches of dead space. On top of that, you get 3 unique difficulty settings. Awesomeness overload. :mrgreen:

The action is strategic yet surprisingly fast-paced -especially if you know what you're doing- and "arcade hard" but 100% fair, with no room for sloppy play and multiple ways to deal with each situation, especially if you're willing to use every move at your disposal (slash/jump kick/shuriken/bounce on enemy/ninjutsu/dog attack). Things obviously become more demanding in a Loop 3 + No Shuriken + No Ninjutsu run (which is definitely the highlight of the game for me) but, even then, I'd say that the design only becomes "overly strict" in very specific "key" set-pieces (like that section halfway through 4-2 :twisted:).

As with all Shinobi games, the Melee/Shuriken mechanic definitely takes some time to master, but that's why the glorious No Shuriken mode exists here. I also don't recall any problems with the hitboxes. Bear in mind that ninjas have i-frames as they appear, same goes for the spider-man guys. You are right about the latter being tricky because, unlike the ninjas, their activation isn't tied to a predetermined amount of time, instead, hit-detection activates milliseconds before they touch the ground. I had to learn this the hard way as Final Level/Room 3 used to ruin my 1LC runs. Being the only enemy in the game that requires more than 1-hit to kill, ninjas also have i-frames after receiving a hit, so you have to carefully time your second attack if you want to kill them before their next cycle begins, spam-attacking them won't work (it's also bad strategy since ninjas usually attack in groups, so it's generally safer to constantly create "safe space" for yourself by switching targets). Thankfully, SDMD does a better job than its AC counterpart at telegraphing your openings and enemy behavior in general.
kitten wrote:bonus stages suck horribly and are a huge waste of time/wrist health, and oh my god does the game just *spew* lives at you. if you play the third loop the game also just suddenly gives you TEN continues, too!
Agreed about the bonus stages, I wish someone made a rom hack that lets you skip them.

Regarding the large number of extra lives/continues, if I had to guess, I'd say that this was Sega's attempt to find a middle ground between not making any concessions to the game's aim for an "arcade hard" experience and not alienating the average console gamer / credit feeder. The game provides the average player with more than enough resources to ease the learning process, help them familiarize themselves with the ins and outs of the game, refine their strategy and go for the the 1CC/1LC run. Considering how the more "casual" corners of the internet feel about SDMD, it's safe to say that it didn't work (which is probably why the -otherwise fantastic- Shinobi III lacks a "proper" hard mode...despite featuring 4 difficulty settings :cry:).
User avatar
kitten
Posts: 1102
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 1:26 pm
Location: プププランド

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by kitten »

BIL wrote:It was a quick refresher on just how convenience-geared modern gaming tends to be.
i agree with this view on RotN, but i tend to think of it as the game that IGA has been trying to make forever and just orbited a lot for most of his career trajectory. it's largely a failure as an action game or game with any degree of tension, but it's a bunch of really well-greased (utterly lubricated, drippingly frictionless) gears turning in his psychotic mix/max toybox of what one once used to call "castlevania." i like the game quite a bit, but it is a huge, huge turn-the-brain-off type thing where action and platforming are just the interface to what is really a loot-centric rpg experience. i really think him trying to make an action game even as early as SotN was misguided (albeit that's still my favorite one largely thanks to the sheerly obscene effort of the art team) and he just wanted this big goofy playground full of silly toys and repetitive activities.

he's finally hit peak IGA, which i think is why it polarizes a lot of people in evaluating its quality - it's near impossible at this point to play pretend that he's making a game for castlevania fans, he's making a game for fans of his weird junk. i'm usually hyper-critical of these types of games, but the experience is so oiled and so copacetic that it's probably my favorite since SotN that he's done. most metroidvania attempts at tension usually fall a bit flat for me given how they're structured, so i don't mind this game being so convenience-oriented and bloated with 'stuff.' if an actual action game pulled this shit, i'd come down hard on it, though 0_0. i imagine there are some very tortured souls out there doing challenge runs on this game when it just so poorly facilitates good fights or meaningful tension anywhere outside of boss fights that are originally designed with attrition in mind.
I remember being all Image at SMT3: Nocturne's description of Hard difficulty: "For those who wish to experience the thrill of death." You'd think we were playing fucking Russian roulette with how death tends to be regarded in the mainstream.
lmao, yes. same with ___ souls games' advertising campaigns treating game death like this hyper-horrific punishment of utter humiliation that you must be badass enough to soldier through. i used to do co-op runs in these games with luna all the time, who is very tepid with most action titles, and she'd audibly gasp whenever i was reckless or testing the bounds of what could kill me and scold me on my rare deaths because i'd usually just careen off a cliff while running about all silly. unsurprisingly, she was a dramatically worse player because of her fear getting the better of her and stifling her improvement. the more death is characterized as this horribly punishing outcome, the more i think new players will struggle to understand arcade ethos and fail to appreciate classic action games for what they are.

- -
Hornet wrote:When there's memorization involved, you only need to memorize very specific "little things", not large chunks of the game.
i think i mostly just fundamentally disagree with this - or it just rubs me, personally, much more the wrong way than it does people who like the game. last week or so i've done one or two runs every other day idly seeing if i'll grab a nomiss, probably like 8-10 runs since i made that last post, and most of my deaths come from forgetting something here or there. it feels really relentless with how many of these little things there are to remember, and i still fundamentally don't understand the hitbox or hurtbox of the jumping ninjas and tend to occasionally get swipes on them that don't make sense to me in why they did or did not hit. i'll usually only die a couple times on a run and am never anywhere remotely near not getting the 1cc, but they're frequently in different spots and it's from a lap in concentration of how rote the game feels and then how spontaneously punishing it gets.

any time i want to go free-form or deviate much, it feels like the game punishes immediately. revenge of shinobi always felt like the one of the three of these that most facilitated player goofing, to me - and is a game i've really been meaning to sink my teeth back into for a few years. i don't much care for 3, though, and like it less than either shadow dancer or revenge. wayyyy too many auto-scrolling or gimmick stages. strong start and wonderfully tight controls, trash stage design.
~Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations have diverse names~
Image | Image
~*~*~*~*~*~* If there's a place that I could be ~ Then I'd be another memory *~*~*~*~*~*~
User avatar
BIL
Posts: 18989
Joined: Thu May 10, 2007 12:39 pm
Location: COLONY

Re: Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

Post by BIL »

While I am dearly fond of the game as a whole, I objectively regard Saigo no Nindou's sixth stage as the apotheosis of Video Game Death, and tangentially, a good antidote to the dick-numbingly inane plot armour of mainstream ents (the cherry atop Game of Thrones' shit sundae of a final season). It's about a minute total, and the boss is unfortunately a joke, but ho ho hoooly fuck, that stretch of rocky sand contains infinity-squared avenues for your one-man ninja army to meet a sudden end. Might be valiant (tragically cornered by a giant while striking down five other assailants), might be farce (eaten by wolves), that's life and death on the battlefield for you.

Crucially, because it'd be no better than a slot machine otherwise (see Digital "Must Have Rewind" Eclipse's randomly-freezing controls in SNK40th), no matter how obscure these ignominies, a learned player can see them coming a mile off and work around them (the tricky part is that you'll typically be juggling several at once, and motion-induced blindness is a motherfucker).

An unfailing deliverer of "The thrill of death," as Atlus succinctly put it. Experienced at safe distance, via comfy couch - OH MAN THATS HARDCORE No, "hardcore" would be joining a mercenary company and jetting off to sunny [active warzone], or building a time machine and fighting/fucking your way out of one million BC. This is videogames, they're supposed to kill people. Image
Post Reply