What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Sumez]

Started off Super Mario World, obviously back in the day I used the save feature and everything reset each time, so it’s nice to finally do a full run. Still the pinnacle of 2D platform games in my eyes, with Yoshi’s Island just behind. Never did play any of the New Super Mario games apart from the first DS one though – any of them in particular worth a go?

Yes! New Super Mario Bros Wii is actually really good! And the Wii U one is at least decent.

I really didn't like the first NSMB on DS at all. It felt like it was trying to look like a 2D Mario game without feeling like one at all. The gameplay was there, but the level design was completely pointless and uninspired, except when it went gimmicky for no reason without exploring the ideas it would introduce. So when NSMBW came out it really surprised me a lot.
Mario 3D World also feels more like a sequel to the NSMB games than its own main-line series, and comes recommended (again, much more than the 3DS one, though 3D Land isn't that bad either)

[Kiken]

After spending several hours playing Taito’s Land Maker at Magfest, I snagged the NTSC-U/C PS1 version (Builder’s Block) off of Amazon for cheap. I’ve been playing the hell out of arcade mode steadily inching my way towards the counter-stop (current high score is a third the way there).

[Hagane]

Been playing Fight'n Rage again, an indie belt scrolling beat'em up. Best home-system only game in the genre, easily.
A very free-form combo system, great enemy formations, decent challenge, no clutter or extraneous grinding mechanics, multiple paths, fun to use characters, great physics that make the combat feel satisfying.

There's good mobility, several defensive options from invincible shoryuken-style moves, Bare Knuckle-style sidesteps or even parries like those of the Street Fighter III series. You also have desperation moves that need a full special bar to use, also like Bare Knuckle, but you can also do them without a full bar by spending some life, as in Capcom games. Also a successful parry completely replenishes your special bar. Dash moves are similar to Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, and the mobility and cancel options feel like modern Capcom fighters. You can cancel pretty much everything with jumps, specials or throws. It feels like a "best of" of beat'em up mechanics, yet the game feels like its own thing.

Really really appreciate the lack of padding. There are several points in the game where you can take alternate paths, kinda like Shadow Over Mystara, but you get to change entire levels that way. So if you already mastered one path you can change things quite a bit by taking another one, and they don't feel as throwaway designs. There's a shop, but it lets you buy extra modes and alt palettes/"costumes". There are many endings and play modes so those obsessed with content will find quite a bit in here. Really like the Practice mode that comes with combo challenges, too. Also has a pretty good metal/hard rock OST.

Only complaint is that there are way too many effect going on sometimes that can make things confusing. And the default CRT filter is pretty ugly, but thankfully you can remove it.

I really missed a game like this, a new game that feels like a pure arcade title. The developer clearly knows his stuff when it comes to beat'em ups.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ujLI3FgQY

[Udderdude]

Been playing Fight'n Rage again, an indie belt scrolling beat'em up. Best home-system only game in the genre, easily.
A very free-form combo system, great enemy formations, decent challenge, no clutter or extraneous grinding mechanics, multiple paths, fun to use characters, great physics that make the combat feel satisfying.

Art style reminds me a lot of Mighty Final Fight on the NES, with the super deformed art style. Looks pretty good.

[BrianC]

Been playing Rabi Ribi and Super Mario Odyssey. Beat the main game on both. Now doing post game content.

[guigui]

Been playing Fight'n Rage again, an indie belt scrolling beat'em up. Best home-system only game in the genre, easily.
A very free-form combo system, great enemy formations, decent challenge, no clutter or extraneous grinding mechanics, multiple paths, fun to use characters, great physics that make the combat feel satisfying.

Art style reminds me a lot of Mighty Final Fight on the NES, with the super deformed art style. Looks pretty good.

Wow, console version in the way ?

[wgogh]

Shinseiki Evangelions

Since the beggining of the year, I've been feeling like video games were taking my time with next to zero profit. Of course, college was though last year and having fun is important, but I was so focused in learning musical theory and other studies that playing games felt too much like wasting time. So I had this idea; if I could learn or at least train a new language while playing, I would feel more doing so. As I am kind of used to english, of course it had to be japanese. For that, I picked up some jp ps2 games; Densha de Go Final, Initial D and Shinseiki Evangelions (Yes, Evangelions). The Evangelion(s) game was the best for my intent, since it is a simulator and has many examples of greetings and every-day words.
You can play as almost any character from the anime, including the Nerv staff, Shinji's school mates and even Pen Pen, the penguin. It is a very complete game, since each of them to the most useless character has it's own story and Hideaki Anno helped in the development of the game. You have to deal with hungry, thirst, bed smell etc, as well with your relations with the other characters. Those other characters have their own stats and relationships as well. You may think that its just a matter of being nice to everyone and everyone will love you, but that is not the case. Sometimes, a harsh answer or cold behavior gives better results. Well, makes sense, since the cast is fucked up emotionally. Anyway, its similar to The Sims, but if you have bad stats, your performance in the Eva will drop, and you never know when the angels will attack.
When they do attack, Evangelions turn into a strategy game. It is all about moving yourself aware of the range of your attacks, basically like a wargame (wargame with miniatures, like X-Wing), which is cool. If you mess up, you get to hear "Fly Me to The Moon" and its Game Over. Not easy, but probably the best Eva game if you don't care for visual novels, and I sure dont.

[soprano1]

Sometimes, a harsh answer or cold behavior gives better results. Well, makes sense, since the cast is fucked up emotionally.

Director included.

[copy-paster]

Tetris The Grandmaster 2

Really want to clear Normal mode. It seems that the game has input lag on level 250+. Any tips to clear this one?

[Acid King]

Nioh was quite a surprise. Ninja Gaiden never really clicked with me – I don’t know how anybody can suffer such a shitty camera in a game that’s already so damn difficult – any I only gave this a shot due to hearing the numerous Souls comparisons. Enjoying it so far, the one thing I don’t get on with in general are games with huge lists of button presses to execute pre-set combos, so it was a nice surprise to find the controls so stripped back. The Ki mechanic adds a nice dash of strategy (though am I right in thinking that you can just hammer the recovery button and not really be penalised?) and the pace is frantic enough that it instantly shrugs off any meaningful Souls comparisons. It should also be mandatory from now on for every game to offer the ‘action mode’. Good stuff.

I'm surprised this game hasn't gotten a dedicated thread here yet. I got this at launch last year and gave it a rest after finishing the first round, went back recently to do NG+ with my original character and start a second, and I'm getting it a bit better this go around. You don't necessarily get punished by hammering recover, but it's not advantageous to do so. Timing it when it's full will get rid of the Yokai realm blobs around you and will give you a damage boost. If you time it when it's full and you switch stances at the same time gives you a damage boost and refresh your ki gauge more. I think when I played the first go I used mid stance the whole time, now I'm getting used to doing this like starting enemies with a combo in high stance, then switching to low when I recover my ki and dodging out or continuing to press with quick attacks. The nice thing about adding skills is you can assign them and play with them a bit before you add more.

My original character I went sword/kusarigama and dumped a lot of points in ninjitsu, which was a ton of fun. I leaned on catwalk+suppa scroll to run around unseen/unheard and went full stealth, performing sneak attacks and sniping with the bow/rifle/cannon. I've been playing a lot of co-op though on NG+ though and the stealth stuff doesn't help much there, some of the ninja skills are still useful. My new character I'm doing dual swords/axes and onmyo and doing a more straightforward playthrough, using elemental buffs and focusing more on learning close combat skills and the ins and outs of the weapons. Really digging the dual swords, though I still haven't gotten the parry timing down yet.

[Sumez]

Tetris The Grandmaster 2

Really want to clear Normal mode. It seems that the game has input lag on level 250+. Any tips to clear this one?

No lag anywhere in TGM2, at least not on PCB. Haven't played it on emulator in years, but I don't recall any there either.

I'm not really sure what I can say to help with Normal mode - it's basically the game's practice mode, and once you get a good enough feel for basic Tetris, you should be able to clear it well enough. The most essential part of the game is getting a solid feel for the seven different shapes, so you always know what the game can possibly throw at you, and start stacking in a way that you don't rely on any single piece, but always have a placement for every possible piece.

Here's a really good basic Tetris stacking guide. I don't know if it helps with clearing Normal, but it's definitely important if you want to step up your game after that:
https://www.ryanheise.com/tetris/tetris_stacking.html

And a more thorough guide that starts with the basics, but then goes into some of the more TGM specific aspects, such as using the wallkicks to perform special rotations and twists, and how to handle 20G (500+ on Master mode):
http://kitaru.1101b.com/TGMGUIDE/

[Mischief Maker]

Been playing Aztez some more. Absolutely bloody fantastic.

It's amazing how the Actraiser-esque strategy portion makes the little 2-minute action matches that much more compelling than a linear mission-based Devil May Cry game.

Such an injustice that it flopped in sales due to frigging Slime Rancher stealing its thunder.

[EmperorIng]

After spending several hours playing Taito’s Land Maker at Magfest, I snagged the NTSC-U/C PS1 version (Builder’s Block) off of Amazon for cheap. I’ve been playing the hell out of arcade mode steadily inching my way towards the counter-stop (current high score is a third the way there).

Builder's Block is such a wonderful hidden gem. Dirt cheap budget release with a silly photoshop cover, but beneath that you have a very satisfying and addicting puzzle experience, with reams and reams of content. Between the chaotic arcade mode (where matches can end without you knowing what the hell just happened) and the huge "puzzle" campaigns that are more chilled out, it's a game I pop in whenever I want to have some mindless fun.

Good luck with that counterstop! The arcade mode murders me by about the 4th or 5th match.

Such an injustice that it flopped in sales due to frigging Slime Rancher stealing its thunder.

One of those two titles was reviewed by Super Bunnyhop - so even middling and qualified praise was probably the best exposure that game could have asked for.

[Marc]

Nioh was quite a surprise. Ninja Gaiden never really clicked with me – I don’t know how anybody can suffer such a shitty camera in a game that’s already so damn difficult – any I only gave this a shot due to hearing the numerous Souls comparisons. Enjoying it so far, the one thing I don’t get on with in general are games with huge lists of button presses to execute pre-set combos, so it was a nice surprise to find the controls so stripped back. The Ki mechanic adds a nice dash of strategy (though am I right in thinking that you can just hammer the recovery button and not really be penalised?) and the pace is frantic enough that it instantly shrugs off any meaningful Souls comparisons. It should also be mandatory from now on for every game to offer the ‘action mode’. Good stuff.

I'm surprised this game hasn't gotten a dedicated thread here yet. I got this at launch last year and gave it a rest after finishing the first round, went back recently to do NG+ with my original character and start a second, and I'm getting it a bit better this go around. You don't necessarily get punished by hammering recover, but it's not advantageous to do so. Timing it when it's full will get rid of the Yokai realm blobs around you and will give you a damage boost. If you time it when it's full and you switch stances at the same time gives you a damage boost and refresh your ki gauge more. I think when I played the first go I used mid stance the whole time, now I'm getting used to doing this like starting enemies with a combo in high stance, then switching to low when I recover my ki and dodging out or continuing to press with quick attacks. The nice thing about adding skills is you can assign them and play with them a bit before you add more.

My original character I went sword/kusarigama and dumped a lot of points in ninjitsu, which was a ton of fun. I leaned on catwalk+suppa scroll to run around unseen/unheard and went full stealth, performing sneak attacks and sniping with the bow/rifle/cannon. I've been playing a lot of co-op though on NG+ though and the stealth stuff doesn't help much there, some of the ninja skills are still useful. My new character I'm doing dual swords/axes and onmyo and doing a more straightforward playthrough, using elemental buffs and focusing more on learning close combat skills and the ins and outs of the weapons. Really digging the dual swords, though I still haven't gotten the parry timing down yet.

Yeah I'm somewhat surprised given the Souls love around here - this for me feels far fresher than Souls III did. I'm finding it balls hard, but more because the sheer pace of it leads to me behaving far more recklessly than I'd normally play. Had to turn off at the second proper boss yesterday though - I know what I'm supposed to do, but keep making an absolute hash of executing it. Yeah, really enjoying this so far though.

CV4 run ended on the Clock Tower, not too bad saying I haven't played it properly in I don't know how many years. I really can't face those dull early stages again though - I can get up to 8 without loosing a life now, so I'm gonna start again then make a save there. Gets a bit more memorisation based from that point. The movement on the Clock Tower feel all off these days though - it's as though the game is never fully sure of how to behave once you put feet on a moving cog.

Started to delve into the unplayed PS4 games this weekend. Had Risk of Rain knocking about for a while and pretty much written it off after a single go. Tried again and it's actually not that bad once you get to grips with it. Seems to have more in common with something like Diablo than an actual platform shooter though - any given run is basically entirely dependant on what drops you are given, and whether the game has seen fit to leave plenty of drones to pick up. Managed to finish it after a couple of tries, last stage is a bit drawn out and tedious though. Fun enough to pass a few hours, but doubt I'll go back to it now.

[splitt442]

Just finished Binary Domain for the PS3, very solid little shooter from Sega's Yakuza team.

[gameoverDude]

Narc (AC) - Tried like hell to 1CC this and just missed it. Played on full defaults (extra lives every 100,000). Died with 2.16M at the final boss. Another life or two left and I would've had that SOB.

[BulletMagnet]

Finished up Horizon Zero Dawn a few days ago - according to the official tally I completed around 95% of the "main" game and about 92% of the expansion. Could have probably ground out a couple more trophies, but nah. Despite how many times the game made me curse my head off at it, I still have to say I enjoyed it quite a bit - moreover, as much as the camera could frustrate me, I can sort of understand why they kept things at the angle they did, as it does keep you right in the action when things are going the way they "should" go, too bad it's so off-the-rails whenever you've got to fight on the fly. If they can make a sequel which somehow keeps the grandeur of the original while fixing that particularly grating flaw, they have a classic on their hands as far as I'm concerned.

Picked up Gravity Rush 2 in the interim, in response to the sorta-success of the "don't forget" campaign to keep the servers running; so far, weirdly enough, my main complaint here is the same one as I had with Horizon, a camera that's simply zoomed in too close, and here I don't think it confers enough advantages to be worth parsing, the first game simply played better than this one (and the PS4 edition ran at 60 FPS too, which this one doesn't). The world and characters are still charming, and flying around every which way just for the heck of it is still enjoyable, but as soon as you've got something to accomplish (and manage to find it, often without markers to help you) the camera will all but inevitably puke all over itself; it's kind of tragic, as the move to the PS4 improved the original game, but the "from scratch" sequel comes off as tainted by the hardware and the things you "should do" on it, as opposed to what the game actually warranted. Well, I'll see how far I get...

[BrianC]

Anyone playing Iconoclasts? I checked the PSN store and was surprised to see it was finally released. I read about it a long time ago and it sounded promising.

I started playing Zelda Breath of the Wild on Switch.

[Mischief Maker]

Just finished Satellite Reign.

It would have been such a better game if they left out that "wait 20+ minutes in real-time to research items" mechanic from the original Syndicate.

Spoiler

Also the final boss battle was lame and the ending SUCKED!

"Gee, a team of heavily armed cyborgs just murdered me on my porch twice in the last hour. Maybe I should stay inside, preferably in some fortified panic room, instead of taking an evening stroll in my glowing bathrobe? Nah! I'm sure they've left by now."

[Marc]

Mystical Ninja: Another that doesn’t hold up quite as well as it used to. Fun enough, but the main attraction back in the day was its grab bag of ideas and mini games, these days it’s nothing particularly special. The town sections are aimless, and the platforming was done many times better by Konami themselves. Very charming though.

The Chaos Engine / Soldier of Fortune: It’s pretty true that 90% of the time, arcade-style games on home computers tended to be pale imitations of their console counterparts, but every now and again something like this came along. Superb top down shooter, with some fantastically designed levels. SNES version is more colourful than the Amiga version I used to play, but I think I prefer the stark look of the original actually. Muscle memory has gotten me through the first two worlds, but the difficulty is starting to ramp up now, although it’s occasionally a bit unfair (it loves spawning enemies directly in the player’s path, which explode and take a big chunk of health on contact), for the most part I’m enjoying this as much as I did first time around.

Run Saber: FUCK!? They actually got away with this? I mean, there’s blatant, and there’s blatant – some of the animation frames look directly lifted from Strider. Sadly, from the two levels I played, in every other way it’s like comparing a Fiat to a Ferrari. Levels lack the tight focus of Strider, everything is a bit vague and floaty, and it all feels a bit empty. Shame, there seems the backbone of something that could have been half decent with some polishing.

I had the briefest go at Hagane... seems slick.

[Udderdude]

The Chaos Engine / Soldier of Fortune

Very underrated game. I'm not a big fan of the console ports, though.

[Sumez]

Chaos Engine feels like a big hole in my upbringing, as what looks like one of the only European overhead run'n'gun games that doesn't actually sucks. There's even this guy who's trying to pressure me into playing it every time I run into him.
I can't figure out which version I should go with, though.

Amiga is out of the question, I can't stand loading times and don't plan on ever hooking one up again.

[Udderdude]

There's a DOS version.

[drauch]

Yeah, on GOG as well if you wanted to go that route. I know someone here once commented that the DOS version has an inferior soundtrack to the Amiga, but if that's out of the question then huzzah!

[Marc]

Chaos Engine feels like a big hole in my upbringing, as what looks like one of the only European overhead run'n'gun games that doesn't actually sucks. There's even this guy who's trying to pressure me into playing it every time I run into him.
I can't figure out which version I should go with, though.

Amiga is out of the question, I can't stand loading times and don't plan on ever hooking one up again.

From what I remember, there aren't too many differences between the SNES version I'm playing and the Amiga version... sound isn't quite as high quality, and the scrolling is a bit jerkier, but I don't think there are any real changes to the gameplay.

Still have a big box version of Chaos Engine 2 for Amiga. DAMN that sucks.

[Sumez]

I guess I'm being more picky than I can afford right now, but I really prefer a physical copy of the game, too.

[Ji-L87]

Anyone playing Iconoclasts? I checked the PSN store and was surprised to see it was finally released. I read about it a long time ago and it sounded promising.

Yes.
The release caught me off guard as well. I thought it was once again condemned to indie dev limbo. I really enjoyed my time with the two short demo versions I played some years ago and It sure is nice to see it out.

I haven't gotten that far, currently rescuing scientists in an underwater base. The game plays well, light metroidvania and action platformer, and the spritework is gorgeous. Music is good. Good in the sense that it's perfect for BGM but not memorable enough to stick with you once you stop playing. Controls feels snappy as well (both using keyboard and usb Saturn gamepad).

I am however worried that I will get tired of it and it's mechanics before I finish it and since I just got a notification that I can pick up my copy of MH World it might be some time before I sit down with the game properly again. We'll see.

[IrishNinja]

finally playing Dragon Force & literally can't put it down, glad i saved this one for the last of my big Saturn playthroughs! takes a bit & i actually had to read the manual, but totally worth it

[wgogh]

Kuma Uta
Going on with my japanese studies and playing some import ps2. This time i picked up Kumauta, a game where you type in japanese to make the bear sing. Also, its a Sega game, from a time when they were experimenting a lot of new things. There is a story where you fight for popularity with another singers, including one that looks like Leonard Nimoy. I thought it would be nice to make a song about shmups (and the bear was able to sang better the japanese titles, as expected). If anyone is curious about the game, I've upload my song, 'shooting game bushi' (シュテインガーム ブシ).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VqUUIT ... 3lJJe/view

Edit: note, the bullets on the background and the mimic death in the end were just happy coincidences.

[No_not_like_Quake]

Tokyo Xanadu eX + and Disgaea 5, mostly concentrating on the former. Also a few other small games I bought dirt cheap on digital sale.