^ Always brightens my day, that angry little dude.
I keep this fellow as my work PC wallpaper for the same reason.
Super Helpful! :3
That Omega Fighter non-critique, and the Gunstar one preceding it, got me thinking about STGs and mainstream acclaim (as you guys discussed recently
ITT); specifically, why it's probably never gonna happen. At least not with any STG our community would regard as praiseworthy.
Crowds tend towards the shock of the "new." In electronic gaming, STGs are very nearly as ancient as they come. They too were new at one point, of course! And accordingly lauded, and over-imitated.
I put "new" in some very contemptuous apostrophes because really, when John Q. Journo and his reader Matt J. Mainstream are jizzing/shitting themselves in exalted wonder/frustration at FPV brownman shredder
Call of Dillhole XVIII: Uncle Sam's Dillhole Burns For War Once Again, or the rolling open world equine fantasia of
Dark Poles On A Horse MCLMVII: Mr. Hands Return From Grave, or even the riveting long, blathering walks of
Ambiguously Non-White RugMunchers Plus Alpha: Buy This Game Or You're Literally Hitler - they're ultimately doing very little "new" at all. Still sitting on their doughy asses, gawking at a flat display, fiddling away at a controller like it's 1959.
Even if they're enjoying a particularly KINEMATIC view of screaming Generic Snackbar #343256's tonsils, as they mash [X] to make their
Buff & Cool US Marine crank the generator hooked up to his mischievous brown ballbag. Or undertaking a movingly vast,
Desert Bus-calibre odyssey to the fabled
Shrine Of Wish I Hadn't Done That to forge Mr. Hands' new o-ring. Or negotiating sophisticated moral quandaries unheard of in the realm of interactive entertainment, like
Press A To Lez On Shaniqua (Race Fetishist ending) or B To Lez On Chiquita (Black Erasure ending) !
But the shameful atavistic reality is juuust about obscured behind Snackbar corpses whose modeling required PTS counseling, and horse armour dildos made of more polygons than the entire contents of fifty prior-gen AAA titles put together, to say nothing of t0tes modern & ~SoCiAlLy InSiGhTfUr THEMEZ~
STGs aren't ashamed of the ancient past. To an extent, they embrace and extol it. On some level, all the most revered STGs resemble G-G-G-"Galaxians," the despised name our possibly illiterate friend relentlessly fists himself with, in the above non-review.
And that's just not shocking or new at all. Tight, concise, tailored to its medium - pffft! Where's the
[IN-APP ADVERTISEMENT Press X To Order More Dew, Bruh!]
innovation, maaan?
As Tuna recently mentioned in the FromSoft thread... it's reached the point where Miyazaki and co merely - albeit artfully - smuggling in the most ancient principles of oldschool action gaming -
You're gonna die, a lot, before you can start doing justice to your badass avatar - is treated as some Shocking and New enigma to be solemnly puzzled out, you know, for the good of the medium.
From's temerity even became the basis of a wildly successful, now-iconic ad campaign!
These casuals' flabby backsides had become that numbed to the most minor stimulus.
All this referring to the world of AAA big budget Doritos n' Dew goonery, of course. There'll always be the occasional throwback darling from the indie/doujin/bedroom etc scenes, especially as game creation continues to become more accessible for filthy plebes, not just the most sainted of corporate ghouls.
I'd like to think it's a recoil reaction. Those ancient principles enduring for good reason, and the sheer tonnage of fluff around aforesaid MAINSTREAM HITZ being so debilitating.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:I mean, I'm not going to argue UPL had the best spritework out there in 1989 by any means, and the music and SFX certainly aren't like the best fidelity necessarily
Apropos this post, I really dig the "Turbocharged 8bit" aesthetic both Omega Fighter and Ninja-Kun II have going on. While Atomic Robo-Kid and Mutant Night were clearly embracing contemporary hardware with their much bigger, chunkier sprites, OF and NK2 look and play like early 80s games liberated from flicker, slowdown, and ROM limits via that same raw power. All the stuff that'd cause choking slowdown and blinding flicker now runs without a hitch, with tons of fine-brush detailing and parallax layers on top.
Aww FUUUUUUUCK Oh nm nice landing :3
^ Not only does LIGHTNING BOY have a cute taiko-drumming telegraph for his attack... you'll never eat an invisible bolt when you encounter ten of him on the same line! No excuses.
Some goober journo daydreaming of the FMV CYOAs that would shortly, briefly enjoy the limelight won't be impressed, but needless to say, fuck them.