FATAL ATTRACTOR: The Art & Spirit Of ATTRACT/TITLE/GAMEOVER

[BIL]

BOOM! A bracing shot of Fighter's History Dynamite, from the ever-faithful purveyors of FTG love @ Fighter's Generation. (that's totally not The Old Mills thumping the cab after a 200th-loop Truxton miss )



Final Fight (SFC)'s manful contribution to the august art of glass-punching.



So that's where Jaleco stole their ingenious Soldam attract title from! Taito, ever-undersung innovators!



Taito starting as they meant to go on with superbly characterful single-screen platformers. I can just imagine how irresistible this must've looked in person ca 1983! Surely a Namco influence at work with those lovable attract/intermission sequences.



Ghost Babel (GBC) - masterly use of negative space and contrast! The whole intro is superbly-done, as is its wider presentation, but it's this particular image that always jumps out at me. Speaking of the red and black attack...



Sweet Jesus! Tank Force's warfare tends towards the chibi-cute n' cuddly, but that Continue? sequence is stone-cold brutal.

[xxx1993]

I watch Project X Zone 2's opening every morning to start the day off. I even go the extra mile and sing the theme song that plays in the opening, "All the World's a Stage".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2t_edHk9PE

[Steven]

I think I just found the most terrifying character select screen in the history of video games: the international version of Snow Bros 2.

Thanks, Toaplan.

Spoiler

[BIL]

I've never quite understood whether that was in-house Toaplan, or some odd post-bankruptcy revenant, ala the Takumi-developed Kyuukyoku Tiger 2.

Either way: holy fuck. "With New Elves," more like "With Bath Salts."

EDIT: Oh, International. That usually explains it!

[xxx1993]

Speaking of Project X Zone, I also love the first game's opening, with its theme song sung by Yoko Takahashi of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame, not to mention it uses the freaking Dirty Harry gunshot sound for Mii Koryuji's Dragon Jewel rifle. Plus, that sound often makes me think of Lethal Enforcers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohf8bZsTSSo

[Steven]

I've never quite understood whether that was in-house Toaplan, or some odd post-bankruptcy revenant, ala the Takumi-developed Kyuukyoku Tiger 2.

Either way: holy fuck. "With New Elves," more like "With Bath Salts."

EDIT: Oh, International. That usually explains it!

lol yeah, this was really quite something to see for the first time.

I honestly don't know much about the 90s Toaplan games other than Out Zone, Dogyuun!!, and V-V. and Snow Bros. 2 is in an especially weird place since it somehow released after Toaplan went bankrupt, so there is very little information on this game, at least that I can find. I'm also not sure what this Hanafram thing that is usually seen in conjunction with Snow Bros. 2 is, as this seems to be the only game that I can find related to whatever Hanafram is supposed to be, although at this point I'm pretty sure Hanafram is actually just Toaplan. I am going to try to find out who was responsible for this character select screen and demand an apology on behalf of humanity! Or something.

[Kino]

I am going to try to find out who was responsible for this character select screen and demand an apology on behalf of humanity! Or something.

Might possibly be Nanpei Kaneko? He was the lead graphic artist on Fixeight and Knuckle Bash, had a very distinct "American pulp" inspired artstyle. Perusing some of his more recent works, I'd believe him to be the only Toaplanner with a mind twisted enough to produce that Snow Bros select screen.

[BIL]

Haha, Knuckle Bash and Fixeight were exactly the games I thought of. MAKE MAH DAY!

Such a charmingly off-model reading... Clint's original, icy-cool "Go ahead... make my day" versus a yelp of unbridled run/gun bloodlust!

EDIT1: Ohshi, those pieces are killer Some choice avatar materials there, ta Kino.

EDIT2: Aww shit -

Speaking of Project X Zone, I also love the first game's opening, with its theme song sung by Yoko Takahashi of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame, not to mention it uses the freaking Dirty Harry gunshot sound for Mii Koryuji's Dragon Jewel rifle. Plus, that sound often makes me think of Lethal Enforcers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohf8bZsTSSo

Reflexive DIRTEH HARRY super teampost! Nicely done kid

[xxx1993]

Haha, Knuckle Bash and Fixeight were exactly the games I thought of. MAKE MAH DAY!

Such a charmingly off-model reading... Clint's original, icy-cool "Go ahead... make my day" versus a yelp of unbridled run/gun bloodlust!

EDIT1: Ohshi, those pieces are killer Some choice avatar materials there, ta Kino.

EDIT2: Aww shit -

Speaking of Project X Zone, I also love the first game's opening, with its theme song sung by Yoko Takahashi of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame, not to mention it uses the freaking Dirty Harry gunshot sound for Mii Koryuji's Dragon Jewel rifle. Plus, that sound often makes me think of Lethal Enforcers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohf8bZsTSSo

Reflexive DIRTEH HARRY super teampost! Nicely done kid

You heard it, though, right? Makes the opening even more kickass.

[Steven]

BIL, I have a present for you. This one is auditory and not visual, but it's definitely special.

https://youtu.be/c7Ppx-M4IoA

Spoiler

OUT RUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuUUUUHHHHHhHHHHHHhHHHHNNNNNNNnNNNNnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNN


WTF?!?

[BIL]

That was so god-awful, it actually made me recommit to maintaining this thread.

Goddamn, though... just how profoundly born-lame does a man have to be, to even think of putting that disgusting garbage anywhere near beautiful breezy OutRun? Oof, Christ. Cheers for the archaeology, I occasionally dabble in the Euro PC stuff but I hit my limits pretty fast.

I noticed Dead Connection's intro BGM syncs up pretty nicely with Metal Black's opening. I wonder if YACK and his fellow Zuntatas shared notes.

THEY FIGHT ON, KEEPING NEWALONE IN THEIR HEARTS

[Sumez]

I honestly don't know much about the 90s Toaplan games other than Out Zone, Dogyuun!!, and V-V. and Snow Bros. 2 is in an especially weird place since it somehow released after Toaplan went bankrupt, so there is very little information on this game, at least that I can find. I'm also not sure what this Hanafram thing that is usually seen in conjunction with Snow Bros. 2 is, as this seems to be the only game that I can find related to whatever Hanafram is supposed to be, although at this point I'm pretty sure Hanafram is actually just Toaplan. I am going to try to find out who was responsible for this character select screen and demand an apology on behalf of humanity! Or something.

Snow Bros. 2 is weird to me in how beloved the first game is, to the point where outside of STG circles, it's arguably the most popular Toaplan game overall, and its sequel borderline unknown.
SB1 was an extremely widespread game, internationally, and I come across sales of both original PCBs and contemporary bootlegs all the time. Ports for the NES and MegaDrive are extremely coveted, and now there's even that recent port with "hi-res" graphics which again includes only the first game. More notably even, I'd say Snow Bros is also one of the most specifically "cloned" games out there, given how basically every single other arcade game that could be perceived as a Bubble Bobble-like, generally tend to derive much more directly from Snow Bros in terms of mechanics, scoring tricks and stage design. Be it Saboten Bombers, Zupapa, Nightmare in the Dark, the Tumble Pop trilogy and so on.

But I never see Snow Bros 2 anywhere, and I never see anyone talking about it. In fact, every time I see it brought up, it's for the meme qualities of that above character select screen.
I expect that it's a rare game, but it also doesn't seem to have been digged up by emulation enthusiasts either. Is it just a really bad sequel? Or is it just lacking the "We grew up playing this game aspect" from the original? From what I can tell, I always thought it looked like "more of the same", which should make for a decent enough game already.

[Steven]

That was so god-awful, it actually made me recommit to maintaining this thread.

Goddamn, though... just how profoundly born-lame does a man have to be, to even think of putting that disgusting garbage anywhere near beautiful breezy OutRun? Oof, Christ. Cheers for the archaeology, I occasionally dabble in the Euro PC stuff but I hit my limits pretty fast.

Yeah, U.S. Gold's Out Run attract mode is really weird. I do wonder what the fuck they were thinking when they made it. A giant cacophony of random orchestral noise followed by a demonic OUT RUUUHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNN~! is not exactly what I think of when I think of this game. At least, it wasn't until I found this monstrosity a few years ago. I am surprised that I only remembered it now, but it's still terrifying in its own strange way.

I honestly don't know much about the 90s Toaplan games other than Out Zone, Dogyuun!!, and V-V. and Snow Bros. 2 is in an especially weird place since it somehow released after Toaplan went bankrupt, so there is very little information on this game, at least that I can find. I'm also not sure what this Hanafram thing that is usually seen in conjunction with Snow Bros. 2 is, as this seems to be the only game that I can find related to whatever Hanafram is supposed to be, although at this point I'm pretty sure Hanafram is actually just Toaplan. I am going to try to find out who was responsible for this character select screen and demand an apology on behalf of humanity! Or something.

Snow Bros. 2 is weird to me in how beloved the first game is, to the point where outside of STG circles, it's arguably the most popular Toaplan game overall, and its sequel borderline unknown.
SB1 was an extremely widespread game, internationally, and I come across sales of both original PCBs and contemporary bootlegs all the time. Ports for the NES and MegaDrive are extremely coveted, and now there's even that recent port with "hi-res" graphics which again includes only the first game. More notably even, I'd say Snow Bros is also one of the most specifically "cloned" games out there, given how basically every single other arcade game that could be perceived as a Bubble Bobble-like, generally tend to derive much more directly from Snow Bros in terms of mechanics, scoring tricks and stage design. Be it Saboten Bombers, Zupapa, Nightmare in the Dark, the Tumble Pop trilogy and so on.

But I never see Snow Bros 2 anywhere, and I never see anyone talking about it. In fact, every time I see it brought up, it's for the meme qualities of that above character select screen.
I expect that it's a rare game, but it also doesn't seem to have been digged up by emulation enthusiasts either. Is it just a really bad sequel? Or is it just lacking the "We grew up playing this game aspect" from the original? From what I can tell, I always thought it looked like "more of the same", which should make for a decent enough game already.

Interesting that you'd bring up Snow Bros now, as I have been playing that new Snow Bros Special on the Switch for the past few days. I kind of... like it now. Yeah, never thought I'd say that. I still think the graphics in this remake are hideous, but the gameplay is fine and can actually be kind of fun if you play with autofire... until you get to the new levels that are exclusive to the remake. Those are kind of not so great.

Snow Bros 2 is pretty much a straight upgrade over the original Snow Bros, mostly because you can go down through some platforms. Other than that, it's like you said: mostly more of the same, but that one upgrade completely changes how you play the game and I think it makes it better.

The Snow Bros 2 PCB is actually relatively cheap and easy to find here, and I actually see way more Snow Bros 2 PCBs than Snow Bros PCBs, but I think it is likely that the overseas Snow Bros 2 PCBs are comparatively rare. Toaplan's bankruptcy and the Japanese release of Snow Bros 2 happened more or less simultaneously, so it's possible that they got the Japanese PCBs out just fine but were only able to get a small number of them shipped overseas due to the bankruptcy.

[null1024]

I've been thinking an awful lot about Alien Storm's intro.
It's a pretty normal, fairly okay attract sequence... but then you just see the logos from Shinobi, Altered Beast, and Golden Axe fly in before ALIEN STORM shows up and... really, it's like when a movie trailer is like "from the studio that brought you $POPULAR_MOVIE", except actually cool, and Sega is able to drop some mega-famous names there.
Just absolutely makes you want to play the game.

Also, I was going to post about Dead Connection but it definitely got mentioned already.
Taito was way too good at cool-ass openings. BIL's edit of the Metal Black opening there was way too cool.

[Steven]

I've been thinking about name entry music recently. I think most people don't even bother listening to the name entry music, but all of the Kyuukyoku Tiger game overs this year resulted in me listening to Affection quite frequently and I noticed something: Affection is really really damn good. It's my favourite game over/name entry music in anything ever as of right now, and I always let it play in full whenever I game over.

[BIL]

Brass Balls Front And Center! Like Flipull and Soldam, Finest Hour lets you know exactly what time it is. Most definitely amongst their all-time coolest.



Battle-frenzied Baraduke II ~ BAKUTOTSU KIJUTEI, starting as it means to proceed: harrowing.

Prompted by recent discussion in the ACA thread, I never noticed the XTREEM SHINOBI CONTENT of Ninja Gaiden's title logo! Definitely noticed dat butt doe!



STUPID SEXY HAYABUSA-KUN (｀w´メ) God damn, the attract sequence - and the entire game - absolutely bristles with fine-brush detailing. "HOTELL" lmao!

Also, I was going to post about Dead Connection but it definitely got mentioned already.
Taito was way too good at cool-ass openings. BIL's edit of the Metal Black opening there was way too cool.

Sankyuu! ^o^ They sync up so uncannily well - I almost wonder if YACK & co had some formula worked out? Both attracts are absolute classics, with iconic Engrish on top!

I've been thinking about name entry music recently. I think most people don't even bother listening to the name entry music, but all of the Kyuukyoku Tiger game overs this year resulted in me listening to Affection quite frequently and I noticed something: Affection is really really damn good. It's my favourite game over/name entry music in anything ever as of right now, and I always let it play in full whenever I game over.

Hell yeah, Name Entry / Continue / Game Over BGMs are my jam. :O A rich seam of concisely evocative BGM. Just off the top of my head, sticking to Namings only for now:

"Greatest Knights" from Wolf Fang (AC) Gorgeous sendoff for bitterly hard-fought mecha warfare. The shimmering lead guitar, the brooding organ, the soldiering martial beat... like a lot of good HS tunes, it can sound either triumphal or elegiac, depending on how your run went.

"Sasurai no Samurai no Tomurai" from Saigo no Nindou (AC). "Wandering Samurai's Funeral," I believe? Darkly turbulent; always makes me visualise a lonely room by candlelight, and the haunted nightscape of stage 3. Since the PCE port lacks a score table, it lends an elegant foreboding to the start menu. Masahiko Ishida's IREM BGM is unfailingly first-rate.

Untitled from Argus no Senshi (AC) Lovely little harp concerto. A real marathon action/platformer, not especially long at ~30mins, but wickedly treacherous; this is a perfect cooldown. IIRC, you need either a high enough rank, or an ALL to hear it; there's at least one other BGM in less celebratory tone, though with the same pristine tone.

"Into The H.I." (Part 1) from Metal Black (AC) Elegiac closer from a famously eccentric post-apocalyptic OST. I'm especially fond of the subtle organ sound YACK coaxed from the hardware. The second part is IIRC reserved for ALLs; not bad, but crash and burn for the better tune.

"Name" from Darius Gaiden (AC) Sublimely chilled riff on the Visionnerz motif, from OGR's inimitable weirdpop masterwork. Bittersweet right down to its title, in the series' context of unending exile war.

"We Love The E.A.R.T.H." from Cho Ren Sha 68k (X68k) Amazingly soulful reedy warble! Loser Kashiwagi never disappoints.

"Bluescape" from Battle Garegga (AC) 90% on Namiki lifting this from somewhere else, but as always with his Garegga OST, it works too well to ever object.

"Remember The Knights Of Legend" from Thunder Force IV (MD) Exceptionally cool and breezy TFII reprise; I love the crisp contrast of the clanking bass and those crystal-clear leads.

"Congratulation!" from Hyper Duel (AC) Like Gradius II's Naming BGM, this is just pure feelgood. I prefer the AC's ruggeder sound over the Saturn arrangement, but both are good. Hyakutaro Tsukumo had a legendary win streak with Tecno Soft's mid/late 90s works.

Untitled from Gradius II (AC) Unfettered joy; epitomises the good cheer of Gradius II & III's shared sound image. Motoaki Furukawa

Untitled from Super Contra (AC) Unlike most of this stomping OST, it's nothing too special - until near the end, busting out a slick arpeggio, an avalanching drum roll, and a siiick bass slap breakdown :O The crunchy tone is so good; I feel like sampling that bit for ringtones/alerts etc.

Untitled from Psyvariar 2 (AC) While I'm more fond of MU/Revision's soundtracks overall, Psyvariar 2 still has some great tunes, this being an exceptionally smooth send-off.