Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Sumez]

Gold armor cheesing is allowed in that section if only because it's pretty cool looking.

[Squire Grooktook]

On Professional it becomes nearly mandatory due to steam traps becoming nearly unavoidable if you aren't fast/finessed enough. Can be very frustrating to recover there on professional, and on failure I usually don't feel up to retreading the ocean again lol.

[__SKYe]

Alright, I made a few GIFs to show a few things you can do in Streets Of Rage 1, and hopefully spread the love, so that more people will give it a shot.

Disclaimer: The moves/techniques I'll post here, are what I personally use, and is quite likely that there're better/safer/cooler ways to play, so keep this in mind.

Note: I usually use 'poke' instead of 'punch' (or use them interchangeably), because the emphasis isn't on the damage that the punch deals, but rather the effect it produces (making the enemy go into hitstun, so that you can follow up with a combo or other moves).

Okay, starting out, the basic poke+throw, or poke+grab and knee the enemy+throw (to deal more damage, as later enemies have more HP).
It's useful to stop a retreating enemy (and giving you time to approach him), an aggressive enemy, you name it. I do this a lot throughout the game.

Spoiler

Dropping a weapon by letting the mohawk enemies (Y-Signal, etc) throw you. Some weapons are single use only (like the pepper shake and the knife), but the others are undroppable (except when taking damage), so you can use this if you accidentally pick up an unwanted weapon.
You need to be able to land on your feet after a throw (which is done by pressing Up+Jump while in the air, after being thrown).

Spoiler

Next, there's a couple of infinite combos you can do, and they're both useful in different situations.
First, the standard punch/wait/punch everyone knows about, and is a staple in the SOR series. I know some people consider this cheap/lame, but in some stages, it can save you a lot of HP/lives.
The second, is done by grabbing an enemy, kneeing him/her twice (without the knockdown hit), then releasing and grabbing him/her again, and repeat. Useful for single enemies (not a group) that have a lot of HP, and dominatrixes who crouch after a single punch.

Spoiler

The kneeing infinite combo is especially useful against some bosses, but you need to be careful when there're helper enemies around.
Also, remember to do the "release & grab" fast, or some bosses/enemies will hit you in the mean time (like the 1st boss).

Spoiler

This next one is very useful to avoid taking damage when surrounded by enemies. Since there's no health draining special attack in this game (like in the sequels), you don't have many options to escape while surrounded (except using the special, but you may want to save it to the bosses).
By throwing a punch left and then right in succession, you can hit (and stun) enemies in each side, and avoid taking (much?) damage.

Spoiler

One useful thing to do in the elevator stage, though I'm sure this is pretty common, is to poke/punch an enemy, walk to him and throw in backwards out of the platform.
You can quickly dispatch enemies this way, but the stage is still tough, as you won't be able to do this for every enemy.

Spoiler

You are also invincible while throwing enemies or picking up items, so in a pinch, you can avoid damage by deliberately throwing/picking up stuff when danger is near.
Note that the i-frames are slim, so you might just end up getting hit anyway.
Here, I avoid taking damage from the cart, by throwing the enemy at the right time.

Spoiler

Last but not least, my strategy for the Twins (aka the Blaze Clones ).

The first thing to notice is that, when there are 2 of them, one will always walk slowly towards you, and the other will walk fast.
You'll want to target the fast one.
Start by walking towards her (if you're too close, she'll backflip away, so give her some space), and let her jump over you. As soon as she lands, approach her from behind, and perform a backthrow. You could theoretically do more stuff, if the other twin isn't around, but this is dangerous, and could lead you into taking damage.
In this case, simple is better.

Immediately after you do this, depending on where the other twin is, you'll want to face towards her, so she'll throw you normally, instead of suplexing you (which is unnavoidable).
Again, remember that you must press Up+Jump in order to land on your feet, otherwise you'll take damage.

If you did it right, this will happen:

Spoiler

If you fail to face the 2nd twin properly, this will happen.

Spoiler

And if you're lucky, you'll end up grabbing the 2nd twin, and get free damage. Very nice.

Spoiler

Now, after you beat one, the other will cycle between walking fast and slow (and their respective attack patterns). You still want to target her when she's walking fast, so when she's walking slowly, throw a punch(es) to knock her down, and make her revert to walking fast.

Spoiler

That's it for now, hopefully this wasn't too boring.

EDIT: Some rephrasing, and minor spelling corrections.

[BIL]

Excellent post, will be referring back to that on my next SOR1 excursion! Good to see others embracing the technology of GIFs. ^_~

[__SKYe]

Excellent post, will be referring back to that on my next SOR1 excursion!

Thanks, I usually don't post stuff like this, because I'm not exactly an authority on the subject. But if it helps anyone, or gets anyone insterested in (re)playing the game, it's all good.

Good to see others embracing the technology of GIFs. ^_~

Haha, yeah, GIFs are pretty cool, and also really handy to demonstrate small techniques like these, where making a video would be a pain in the ass.

One thing that still bothers me, and is especially noticeable in 16-bit games like this, is that the colors in the GIF sort of flicker. It also happens on the Famicom GIFs I make, but I guess due to the lower palette, it's not as pronounced. It's only a minor hiccup, though.

[soprano1]

Second GIF is a very neat and cool technique. Nice work on all the GIFs, SKYe. And enjoy the holiday!

[__SKYe]

Second GIF is a very neat and cool technique. Nice work on all the GIFs, SKYe. And enjoy the holiday!

Thanks, and make sure to enjoy the holiday yourself.

[FinalBaton]

Very nice guide __SKYe. In the third gif (left one) I recognize what I call the freeze punch. I use that a ton in SOR2. Also in SOR2 I abuse the forward+special move of Axel when I'm surrounded : changing direction during the move will recharge(read : restart the whole animation from the first frame) it if it lands a hit on an enemy right as you turn around. This extends the special indefinitely, as long as there are enemies around you to punish

Will try and post a gif later

[__SKYe]

Very nice guide __SKYe. In the third gif (left one) I recognize what I call the freeze punch. I use that a ton in SOR2.

Yeah, this is a very common *technique* on the SOR series, and other beat-em-ups, Final Fight included.

Also in SOR2 I abuse the forward+special move of Axel when I'm surrounded : changing direction during the move will recharge(read : restart the whole animation from the first frame) it if it lands a hit on an enemy right as you turn around. This extends the special indefinitely, as long as there are enemies around you to punish

I didn't know about this one. Thanks for the tip.

In SOR1, you don't have the luxury of a special, so you need to resort to either 1) don't get surrounded, 2) use something like what I described, or 3) use the Police Special.

The 1st is not really viable, as you're bound to get surrounded at some point, and the 3rd isn't either, because not only are specials limited (in uses), but you'll also probably want to use them on the boss, or thereabouts.

[kitten]

great gifs, skye, i will definitely remember to go back to this post when i boot SoR1 up again.

just got a ton of pc engine stuff, today, tho :O

[M.Knight]

Ahh yes the bats that seem to always be in just the way of your jump trajectory if you're balls out running. I've always written them off as the same type of thing Castlevania on the NES does.....it seems to be programmed deliberately to make you suffer if you're trying to plow through it. Nudging forward and keeping pressure on enemies while still retaining a tiny bit of aggression reserved is key.

It doesn't bother me, but it certainly makes you think look before you leap! Lol

You definitely need to know where the bat spawn points are in Memorization Gaiden heck, learning the spawn points of all enemies help a lot

If you expect the bats to come in randomly like in Castlevania then you're going to get fucked royally, haha. You gotta condition your brain to think differently here

I personnally treat every action platformer that way(learning spawn point) so it wasn't such a drastic departure for me. But I can see how it can be for others. Without a doubt.

The emphasis on memorization can be frustrating at first, but it has benefits : this aspect will help make you a better player in the long run. And therein lies the magic of the game

I tend to move ahead without taking a breather if the road seems clear. Stopping my movement even though there is no immediate threat ahead is a bit unnatural to me and my hyperactive playstyle, but I am getting the hang of it as those frustrating deaths are an absolute reminder to be more careful.

these are all things that bug me a little bit, too, especially the first one (which takes quite a while to get used to). the second game has an even more restrictive hitbox than the first, but the third game has a power-up that mitigates the tiny hitbox and adds both horizontal and vertical range. you might want to dig into the rest of the series to discover if you prioritize another entry as your favorite (don't forget US and JP 3 are very different games).

I don't know if I'll wait until I clear Ninja Gaiden 1 before tackling the others, but I defintely plan to do so sometime later.

[kitten]

well, since a whole bunch of the pc engine stuff i ordered got here, i decided to go ahead and finally do a one life clear of hiho densetsu - chris no bouken. took me 3 attempts - 1 rough 1cc to get back in the swing, another run to choke on the final boss like an idiot, and then the final one, where i properly achieved. a 1cc in this game when you've played through it once and roughed everything out is super duper breezy and hits that kind of braindead passive entertainment that is juuuust engaging enough for me. you know, like playing a rockman game for the umpteenth time - you're going through the motions, but you're not falling asleep.

man. like. don't get me wrong, i know that this game is not particularly good. or even "good." it's not good. there, i said it. i didn't want to, but it's true. but, man. maaaaan, it has cast some sort of very serious spell over my poor feline brain. the weird sprite art, the cutscenes where the artist tried but just couldn't get to higher quality, the surprising variety of enemies and stage hazards, the number of slightly interesting bosses, the weirdly makaimura-esque pillars that drop random items - i think i actually love this game. it's a little dull and a little easy when you know what to do, but it's never completely sedate and all the trappings scream that this was a little labor of love that just didn't make its way to any notably refined quality. it's the little game that could! it made it over the hill and then immediately collapsed from exhaustion. i have some favorites on famicom like this, too, and it's games like these that truly endear me to the system - b-team developers making whatever effort they can in their unique little property.

i know i brought it up pages ago as something i wondered if anybody played - did a search and it seems emperoring played it for his pc engine thread, and someone with a one piece icon (forget their name) also gave it a go. i like the weird indiana jones-esque theme of it all, and it feels like a very rare entry where there's not this skeevy nature to the woman protag. i don't know if i can genuinely recommend this as a solid action platformer, but if anyone here has sensibilities similar to my own and occasionally enjoys picking that still-fresh-fruit off the top of the dumpster pile, i'd say to give it a go.

edit:

skye, you may have missed it in the "things you've bought" thread, but i recently acquired a bunch of pc engine stuff, including a SEALED gomola speed (that i got for cheap). only, well, it's fucked! doesn't work at all, and i feel i've tried everything. i ordered a replacement loose hucard with a kunio dodgeball game (cheap enough that buying it a 2nd time doesn't sting too hard, and i've already got case and manual sitting around). you're like the only person in the thread who i think played it when i brought it up, letting you know i might be doing a brief couple notes in the thread for my opinions on it, sometime soon.

[EmperorIng]

I say Hihou Densetsu: Kris no Bouken is in many ways decidedly mediocre, but there is enough there to enjoy for a one or two runs. Great soundtrack, distinctive in-game graphics (borderline kuso), lulz-worthy cutscene art (the thickness of Kris's legs going all over the place... and those damn faces, ugh!) and a few neat ideas here and there make it at the very least interesting. Those moments are coupled with a lot of lame design choices, weird hit detection, and dull levels, but if you emulate, find it cheap, or burn a CD, it's probably worth your time as a curiosity - a "me too" Makaimura clone. I think you're right about it being a labor of love... of sorts: I mean, someone had to say "all right, now this silver-haired bishounen transforms into an awkwardly-drawn giant aztec man who stands rigidly still at the corner of the screen - that's the last boss" and believe in the project.

Gotta love all those cheap enemy pounces, Indiana Joneses that steal your powerups, purse-snatcher style, and knockback to make it truly special, ha. At least the enemy spawns are so memorizer-heavy that as you said after a bit you cruise through the game, guiding Kris, that brown kid who doesn't do anything, and that old guy who may or may not be a Nazi to save Atlantis from the forces of hard-gay shirtless aztec men.

===

One of my years-long gaming goals has come to end in that I finally was able to purchase a copy of Bubble Symphony for the Saturn for still within the reasonable price range (~$80 - after factoring in foreign shipping ). I have been wanting to play that one for quite some time, given its mixture of big sprites, Taito fanservice, and late-era single-screen refinement. Single-Screen platformers in general I've been wanting to get myself into for some time. Taito Legends 2 gives me a number of them, like Don Doko Don and Fairyland Story and Chack n' Pop.

Chack'n Pop... now there is a game that is nearly incomprehensible. Is it even a platformer if you can only sort of jump on low ceilings? Why are bombs so awful? Why does every enemy decide that it wants to spawn at once, preferably when you have no way of avoiding them? I know kitten has some experience with the shoddy famicom port - I can only wonder how the game might have been compromised in the porting process.

Not that I hate the game! I don't think I like it (yet), but it's just... weird.

I do like Fairyland Story though.

[__SKYe]

skye, you may have missed it in the "things you've bought" thread, but i recently acquired a bunch of pc engine stuff, including a SEALED gomola speed (that i got for cheap). only, well, it's fucked! doesn't work at all, and i feel i've tried everything. i ordered a replacement loose hucard with a kunio dodgeball game (cheap enough that buying it a 2nd time doesn't sting too hard, and i've already got case and manual sitting around).

Ouch, that sucks... You've been waiting to get it for a few weeks now, right?
At least you got it cheap.

you're like the only person in the thread who i think played it when i brought it up, letting you know i might be doing a brief couple notes in the thread for my opinions on it, sometime soon.

It's good that you brought this up, as I intended to 1CC it, but ended up postponing it (with the NG run and stuff). Now I've got a good reason to go back to it.
I also have to clear my shame of having used a hand full of continues to beat it.

[kitten]

Chack'n Pop... now there is a game that is nearly incomprehensible. Is it even a platformer if you can only sort of jump on low ceilings? Why are bombs so awful? Why does every enemy decide that it wants to spawn at once, preferably when you have no way of avoiding them? I know kitten has some experience with the shoddy famicom port - I can only wonder how the game might have been compromised in the porting process.

have i talked about chack'n pop on here? ?_? i guess you checked my backloggery page

yeah, chack'n pop is not good. i've played both arcade and fc, but only really tried to dig into the fc version. enemy behavior is completely incomprehensible and the bombs are especially hard to use. i don't like this game a goddamn bit, haha. i'm not really a fan of taito's single-screen stuff, in general, though (aside from fairyland story, i guess, and i haven't played parasol stars yet), but i feel like if i'm entitled to outright hate any of them, it's this one.

you get a bonus (i think a 1up?) for getting out of a level without killing a single enemy, but it is hellishly difficult to do more often than on a stroke of luck. i tried for a good hour or so to understand how to force enemy movement to do what i want or even reliably bait them, but it seems semi-randomized, semi-going to absolutely fuck you over. iirc the game has an early loop point, and i gave up before so much as reaching that. this is one of those games where i'm not certain if it's really that bad, or there is some sort of way you can actually, reliably game the system that flew over my head.

Ouch, that sucks... You've been waiting to get it for a few weeks now, right?
At least you got it cheap.

yeah it bummed me out pretty hard.

- - - - - - - - - -

off-topic - need to either move this or just pm me if there's something ya'll would like to respond to:

Spoiler

by the way, i've been playing psycho chaser, and

kitten, holy shit, why are you talking about a shmup in the action game thread, you fiendish idiot!?

whoa, whoa, whoa. hold on. i don't know where else to post about this. the pc engine thread is for cd games, and i'm not about to start a thread in the shmups section for an old hucard shooter that nobody remembers or cares about (edit: apparently quite wrong about this, but the talk about it in shmups section is from a few years ago). plus, like, you walk around and have to avoid the environment. that's... kind of scrolling action and not shmuppery. well, not really, but please let me get this out. shmups chat seems to be more about new stuff, anyway, most the people who enjoy these older ones seem to post in this thread, and i've been posting about pce stuff in here a bunch.

holy shit, this game is mean. like, way meaner than i was expecting. your hitbox is huge, your movement is agonizingly slow, and you die in one hit with the exception of a brief invulnerability period dropped via a random & rare power-up. you also have 4 separate shot types, and the game absolutely expects you to be able to cycle through them with perfect finesse. only, well, it's very easy to get tripped up while switching! it waits to put new shots on the screen until it's cleared old ones off, and this can really fuck you over while cycling. say i'm going from the side-ways shot to the basic shot, right? between those two is the lousy-as-hell homing shot, which will fire while i'm switching unless i also release the fire button (typically a bad idea, you want to be shooting almost all the time). while switching, it will accidentally fire a homing shot and delay my basic shot coming out, which can be outright lethal. this game would be outright, immediately better with total removal of the homing shot or at least an option to get it out of your cycle - it adds a button press too many in SO MANY instances and is so inconsistent and hard to tell what it's going to do that it can kill you. not to mention that as you see that homing shot come out, your brain often thinks that means you pressed the cycle button the wrong amount of times, and if you go to correct that, you can also die from not having the proper shot out.

recovery in the game is mean as hell, too. many power-up drops are randomized, and ones late game have high chances to be speed-downs. every time you die, you're stripped of your missiles and speed-ups, and it is freakishly easy to get boxed in due to the aforementioned large hitbox, slow movement, and weapon switching. the game is pretty hectic, and lots of enemy shapes are identical to each other, with colors differentiating what they do. some enemies fire super-fast lasers down the screen once they're on screen, and if your eyes are distracted elsewhere and you didn't read that thing as the color it was to realize it was going to do one of three separate things, it's an easy death. and then comes the hell recovery, where you pray to whatever higher force you believe in to receive some sort of reprieve in the form of generous power-ups while you risk box-in death after box-in death. eat shit if you had the misfortune to die on stage 4 or up, because those speed-downs will sometimes get you killed or take the place of a vital speed-up you need to get back to semi-reasonable speed. even at max speed you are sluggish, and it drives me nuts.

man, i love old shooters and i love my offbeat console vertizontals, but i really hate the system of having speed-ups as power-ups at all. it does nothing but make recovery cruel, and randomized power-ups on top of an already cruel recovery are just hateful. it's not like this game is some sort of super-hard shooter, either, it's just that it will kill you quickly and with little warning and zero mercy... and then you're fucked into a painful recovery in the game's hellishly long stages with extremely repetitive stretches of enemies and environmental blockage.

- - - - - - - - - -

1cc'd it. almost no miss cleared it, my only death (or two? i forget) was super early on. i still maintain all my complaints >:E this game is mean. there are a few portions where if you're not using a forward firing weapon, and the game tries to bait you just before these segments into using a side-firing weapon, you will die. two power-up pods to your left and right, you don't have the time to get both with straight shot, you switch to wide (which ONLY shoots left and right of you), all of a sudden, 3 tanks the perfect width of your field of movement barrel all the way down the screen at a speed that might not (depending on when you shot the power up pods) give you the opportunity to switch weapons - boom, yer dead. there's honestly a couple little bits like this. mostly, the game is fairly good about letting you use wide shot when it clearly wants you to, but there are a few parts where you're totally fucked if you do.

the levels are all agonizingly long and extremely visually repetitive and it makes it hard to memorize when said segments are, because there are no real meaningful landmarks and some enemy patterns will perfectly repeat themselves with matching level geography.

kitten, wow, you sure are bitching and moaning a lot! do i need to get you a fucking bottle and burp your dumb ass?

yeah idk it's my thing. i don't hate the game (hell i like it a bit and did before getting the 1cc during the initial, unedited post) and i don't think it's kaizo hard or whatever, or even really all that hard, period. it's just mean and fairly shitty about how it's mean. i have played harder games without complaining to people because they're better crafted.

- - - - - - - - - -

oh, right. there were a couple of things i wanted to mention about the game.



what in the everloving fuck is this? during one of my runs, and during only a single one, i found a power-up that was an exclamation point. it was very near drifting off the screen, and i managed to pick it up. all of a sudden, i was gold and all my shots were powered up beyond what i'd ever seen before in the game. my main shot had a double stream, i fired two homing chasers, the wide shot now launched two waves out of each side instead of just one, and the multi directional shot now shit in ALL directions, including several streams forward. what the heck? what was that? does anyone else know about this? can you reliably get it or is it just a super rare, random thing? i want to say i might have got it by shooting off in an area that was about to be closed off via scrolling, but i honestly cannot recall what the hell it was i shot that it flew out of or if maybe an enemy dropped it.

also, what does that one power-up that drops from like every single enemy do? the weird little thing that almost looks like a shot? i never figured out across multiple playthroughs. adds no points whatsoever, powers nothing up - sure, it does something. how about that other power-up with the 5 green squares in it? what does that do? that one may give you points, but i wasn't paying attention enough to check.

does the second loop do anything other than increase enemy HP and start you with full psycho energy and everything you left off with? i mean, if so, yaaaawn, but also, i've noticed that the last stage of the final game finally changes those weird, useless power-ups that look like a shot into randomized power-ups, presumably because all of your psycho meters have been blued out. that persists into the 2nd loop. one time, when i died on a failed run, i noticed the ability to apply a bonus point of psycho energy to one of my weapons... what the heck entitled me to that? it only happened once. normally, beating a level gives me 3 points to spend, and that is the only trigger for getting them. this game is weird.

- - - - - - - - - -

i kept going in loop 2 after taking a break to write the previous part of my post and grab a small bite and managed to get up to stage 4. got a score of 721,620 (couldn't grab a picture! on game over, you cannot pause and the score lingers only for then, as far as i can tell, there's no "show your score"). loop 2 seems to mostly increase enemy hp, but also seems to increase fire rate. i could definitely do better than this, but i don't really like the game all too much to bother with it. i think i'm done with it.

[BIL]

Not singling you out kitten, but your post raises a few points re: topicality I'd like to address.

kitten, holy shit, why are you talking about a shmup in the action game thread, you fiendish idiot!?

whoa, whoa, whoa. hold on. i don't know where else to post about this.

I am obviously pretty lax about "the rules" of this thread - I've explained why single-screeners and beltscrollers are welcome, and even with further-flung genres, I would much rather quality discussions be held here than not at all. However, for shmups, please use Shmups Chat. That's what it's there for! (*cue Haddaway's What Is Shump* - don't worry, Psycho Chaser is a shump)

the pc engine thread is for cd games, and i'm not about to start a thread in the shmups section for an old hucard shooter that nobody remembers or cares about (edit: apparently quite wrong about this, but the talk about it in shmups section is from a few years ago). plus, like, you walk around and have to avoid the environment. that's... kind of scrolling action and not shmuppery.

It's kind of Elemental Master, Gun.Smoke, Undeadline and Guwange too. ;3 This thread may expand to more general "2D action" at some point, and I'm obviously fine with the occasional OT, but I'm not untethering it from the fine art of sidescrolling action just yet. That's a very specific design discipline, one near my heart and nowhere near exhausted for discussion.

Maybe a more general 2D action thread is called for? I'd give it a shot, but time and energy aren't plentiful atm. Exams for the next month or so. 3;

well, not really, but please let me get this out. shmups chat seems to be more about new stuff, anyway, most the people who enjoy these older ones seem to post in this thread, and i've been posting about pce stuff in here a bunch.

The main chat forum is very knowledgeable and very friendly towards older games, as is this forum in general. See the acclaim rightfully given to Perikles's anthology threads for a recent example.

[kitten]

aye aye!

i'll keep it in mind, going forward. i'm just very scared about making new threads and had a lot to say that i didn't know where to stash. edited it into a spoiler and asked for people to pm to continue it, won't post about shmups in here in the future (unless it's like that post i made where i'm posting a bunch of action games and have some small bit of discussion from a shmup i played among them, see: here).

might be useful for you to append those rules to OP, bil

[BIL]

Oh no, more general cross-genre discussion like that is fine - inevitable, I'd say, and encouraged at that. Action gaming as we know it is ultimately all pretty intertwined, certainly in the 2D sphere.

Also, goddamn, can't believe that was almost a month ago. I actually did end up nabbing Dengeki Big Bang/Clash At Demonhead (FC) shortly afterward. Silly action game, but much like Dragon Slayer IV, it works hard where it matters: Teh Rambling. Sprawling overworld rather than fathomless labyrinth, but the hybrid of agreeably simple varmint-blasting and breezy wandering won my approval likewise. Will have to post in more detail at some point.

[kitten]

i have been meaning to pick a copy of that one up for a decent while, at this point. i kind of enjoyed some of vic tokai's other stuff for the famicom, even though it wasn't particularly good, it generally had a really charmingly distinct presentation.

also been meaning to pick up a copy of doropie, but that game is way the fuck overpriced for how mediocre and how much a blatant rip-off of rockman it is. there's always like a dozen carts on yahoo auctions that are at right about 8000 yen, and nobody ever buys those. sigh.

[BIL]

For a while, after glancing at a few replays, I thought Doropie literally was some sort of Taiwanese Rockman hack. Never really looked into it beyond that... there's a cottage industry of suspiciously similar FC Rockman-alikes, it seems? Cocoron and Lickle come to mind, too, and Power Blazer + Captain Saver definitely hew pretty close as well.

I'm only mildly into even the source series tbh, so I've stuck with Takeru's pair for now. Coco's more novel than great but I do genuinely love Lickle. Faster pace, cooler movement options and more streamlined tool-switching than I associate with Capcom's stuff. Shootin' and killin' still feels a tad trivial but aforementioned motoring pace and joy of clambering up walls offets that.

I just wish it hadn't chickened out at the very last moment, that shoulda been a true last boss. Hard mode pls. 3;

I do like Doropie's title! lmao. blackoak/GSK/rancor and other JP-literate friends: do they call Bruce Wayne, "Bloose Weinu" in the Japan version of Battoman?

[kitten]

For a while, after glancing at a few replays, I thought Doropie literally was some sort of Taiwanese Rockman hack.

was years until i realized it wasn't a hack, too. even more impressively, it came out only 3 months after rockman 3 and well before 4, meaning it did a basic charge shot before rockman even did. wild. there's several things that make it feel way the hell more recent than it actually is, but it was a genuine game of the era.

I just wish it hadn't chickened out at the very last moment, that shoulda been a true last boss. Hard mode pls. 3;

i like lickle a pretty decent bit, myself, and really wish takeru had gotten to do a 3rd famicom game in that vein. i don't feel like lickle gets quite as good as the better rockman games, but it gets close and is notably different-flavored. feel like a 3rd game by them could have been true excellence.

- - - - -

just to note, even doropie's basic sprite could almost be read as an edit of rockman's. those other games do enough to differentiate themselves (and cocoron has akira kitamura on board, so it makes sense, as does lickle's rockman influence considering that), but doropie is seriously blatant.

[FinalBaton]

I'll have to try Clash At Demonhead soon, that one speaks to me. It's got tons of charm and seems to be good where it counts. Hell, just the basic mechanic of having a huge sprawling world combined with a big clear map you can pull anytime, makes me wanna play it.

[BIL]

Have you played Legacy of the Wizard/Dragon Slayer IV? I could see fans of one enjoying the other - similar combo of basic but likable, plentiful action and large nonlinear maps. They're the sort of low-pressure 2D action I'll play to relax, enjoying the casual mental exercise of learning to efficiently navigate the huge map.

And yeah, Demonhead's style is wonderful. Even playing in Japanese and not knowing what's going on, it speaks for itself.

TALK TIME

Spoiler

[FinalBaton]

Have you played Legacy of the Wizard/Dragon Slayer IV?

I have not! I've been tempted for a while now, but the deep labyrinth of the game legit looks daunting
Also I can't figure out, by watching longplays, what the objectives are! and that's kinda holding me off a bit as well

I hope I'll dig this game, as I love Falcom with all my heart


Speaking of them : I've always loved the look(and of course, the sound) of the Sorcerian games on PC-88. Although I'm wondering if they play well. How do those characters that are trailing behind you even attack? lol

I think there's one on the Megadrive also. Has it been localized for the Genesis?

[BrianC]

I think there's one on the Megadrive that is also localized for the Genesis, right?

There is a Megadrive Sorcerian, but it hasn't been localized. The only fan translations of it are unfinished.

[FinalBaton]

I think there's one on the Megadrive that is also localized for the Genesis, right?

There is a Megadrive Sorcerian, but it hasn't been localized. The only fan translations of it are unfinished.

Damn! that's relly too bad. Would love to try it out

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

Goddammit, listen to those 4 songs featured in this vid : all instant classics. Falcom Sound Team JDK really can do no wrong

[BIL]

Have you played Legacy of the Wizard/Dragon Slayer IV?

I have not! I've been tempted for a while now, but the deep labyrinth of the game legit looks daunting
Also I can't figure out, by watching longplays, what the objectives are! and that's kinda holding me off a bit as well

It's infamously vague about what you need to do, with a near-total lack of text or hints, and I highly recommend keeping a good item list (like Strategywiki's) nearby. (for the longest time, I thought the HP-restoring bread item was some kinda small furry animal, or maybe a butt >_> ).

However its structure is actually quite simple. Basically the dungeon sprawls off from its central point (the huge dragon statue, a few floors down) into several self-contained sub-areas. These are linear action/puzzler affairs, with a boss at the end of each - kill the boss, get the crown, and warp back home. Get all the crowns to unlock the final area.

The tricky part is figuring out which family member is suited to each area; there's also a fair bit of route variability, depending on whether you seek out vital equipment or grind up the cash to buy it from shops. Boss order is set, too, despite area order being free, so you can experiment a fair bit there as well (you'll likely favour fighting certain bosses with a specific family member).

It's a simple game, on both action and exploration levels, but the dungeon's immense size and intricate design (there's zero copy/pasting, unlike say Metroid, with tons of individuality in both presentation and architecture) make it a favourite sidescrolling labyrinth to revisit now and then. Plotting out an efficient route with the absolute minimum of grinding or retreats back home is one of my fondest little FC past-times. Charming microsprites (waify elves, bulky skeeltens and formless horrors alike look great!), and bubbly Yuzo Koshiro BGM too. It's also a great game for fans of the MSX aesthetic - beautiful port to Famicom by Compile!

[FinalBaton]

It's infamously vague about what you need to do, with a near-total lack of text or hints, and I highly recommend keeping a good item list (like Strategywiki's) nearby. (for the longest time, I thought the HP-restoring bread item was some kinda small furry animal, or maybe a butt >_> ).

However its structure is actually quite simple. Basically the dungeon sprawls off from its central point (the huge dragon statue, a few floors down) into several self-contained sub-areas. These are linear action/puzzler affairs, with a boss at the end of each - kill the boss, get the crown, and warp back home. Get all the crowns to unlock the final area.

The tricky part is figuring out which family member is suited to each area; there's also a fair bit of route variability, depending on whether you seek out vital equipment or grind up the cash to buy it from shops. Boss order is set, too, despite area order being free, so you can experiment a fair bit there as well (you'll likely favour fighting certain bosses with a specific family member).

It's a simple game, on both action and exploration levels, but the dungeon's immense size and intricate design (there's zero copy/pasting, unlike say Metroid, with tons of individuality in both presentation and architecture) make it one of my favourite sidescrolling labyrinths to revisit now and then. Plotting out an efficient route with the absolute minimum of grinding or retreats back home is one of my favourite little past-times. Charming microsprites (waify elves and bulky skeeltens alike look great) and a bubbly Yuzo Koshiro BGM too. It's also a great game for fans of the MSX aesthetic - beautiful port to Famicom by Compile!

Thanks for the review! Now I really wanna try it out, haha

[BIL]

If of any interest, here's a slightly more in-depth commentary, where Obscura and I bond over our mutual appreciation of this little gem.

[Sumez]

Coincidentally I got myself a cheap US copy of Legacy of the Wizard (rare occurance of a European seller, which saved me around $20-30) just yesterday, as I figured I'd probably never get around to playing my Japanese copy.

As for Clash at Demonhead, I got that one a couple of weeks ago, having ordered it right after bringing it up in here myself. I sniffed a bit to it, and I'm enjoying it enough to probably go on. Once you get a hold of it, the precision heavy take on the classic "jump n shoot" gameplay is actually really rewarding when you nail it, despite the controls being horribly floaty.
Aside from that, it's mostly marred by two major flaws. One is the incredibly lackluster level design, and the other the obscure world map, which is mainly caused by every area being referred to only as a number, making it impossible to remember where each area is. You do have an in-game map, but you can't see the numbers of the roads on it, you need to be at an intersection where you can pick them.