WelshMegalodon wrote:
What do you think, BIL? Are Kunio-kun and Double Dragon indeed "cheesy as hell"?
Cheap, cheesy, cruel... I like to distinguish games that are assholic, obtuse and loaded with cheap shots, yet firmly masterable, like Final Fight, from true quarter-munchers, where even a hypothetical expert simply can't evade death, due to shoddy design. I'm not certain, but isn't T2: The Arcade Game literally impossible to finish on a single life? I could easily be wrong there, but that would be the sort of thing I mean.
I could see Kunio and DD1 being minor members of the first class. Kunio's relatively accessible by arcade action standards, I'd say. Particularly with it pitting you against seven enemies at once, per stage, with later foes sporting 1HKO weapons. It's also very short, so a 1CC's little obstacle - though it's obviously designed with extended loops in mind (see the stacking mugshots). Well-timed dash attacks deal with most problems.
Double Dragon is one bent game, almost feels like an escaped beta. Besides the titanic slowdown with more than two enemies onscreen, it's also easier than many prominent console-original beaters, if you exploit the infamous Spanish Archer.

If you forego
El Bow and "fight fair," outzoning and outboxing enemies, it's a reasonable game imo. (outside of those dumbass traps in the final stage)
I still consider DD1 a genre classic, played in this mode - the hybrid of martial prowess and skull-crushing carnage was never recaptured, even by the objectively superlative DD Advance.
DDII's better-balanced, moveset-wise, but its large enemies starting with the st2 boss can do 90% damage per hit, and will mow through your reserve lives until you learn to counter them. The final stage is likewise a total clusterfuck, if its waves aren't properly partitioned and speedkilled. Plus, there's another dumb terrain trap to wrangle. It's a simple game, but very unforgiving. Further along the scale to Final Fight.
That said, Final Fight is still way, way,
way the hell harder than DD2, and objectively, I could see it being called cheap. It's gonna rifle your wallet, motherfucker! :O But again, I wouldn't call it a quarter-muncher, as you can most definitely wrestle it into 1LC submission with enough hard-earned (or particularly in our DIGITAL SUPERHIGHWAY age, hard-stolen ;3) expertise.
(not to knock internet-derived technique - something I often think of is that one JP superplayer - I'll have to look him up -'s comment that his Mushihimsama WR wasn't merely "his," but all of his arcade crew's combined insight. you totally miss that communal element, tackling these games alone on console, as we tend to in the West - the internet is the nearest we're gonna get to a substitute. beggars can't be etc etc)
Later Capcom beltscrollers feel a lot less cruel than FF to me. The Punisher is the usual example, but I don't think any of them are quite as blunt at destroying the novice player's face. They're certainly not walk-overs, though. Nearer to the happy medium of "hard but not cheesy," I suppose? I would say Metal Slug does this, compared to Super Contra, with its more responsive controls and less assholic stage design.