Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Immryr]

What I learned when I was playing castlevania a month or two ago is... Holy water is ludicrously powerful. You can stun lock almost every boss by spamming triple holy water. Jump + throwing it trivialises the axe knight medusa room too. Without that weapon I doubt I could clear the game without putting a lot more effort and time into it. Which, incidentally I probably will do at some point.

[dojo_b]

CV's Death and the hallway leading up to him are I think one of the pinnacles of 8-bit action. I would resist using any approach that eliminated the need for tactical awareness. If you have a desperate need to clear or 1CC and it's not working out then sure, but by all means go back and do it without holy water and, say, at most double cross. (BIL had a cool diagram somewhere for the knight/medusa fighting, but try going in blind. I should admit I'm not that good at this section, but I still love it.)

Re: Contra, any partisans for the arcade version?

More generally, I'm trying to better understand the history of arcade action platformers. Feel free to correct me, but these games don't seem to have made as big an overall impact in the arcades as shmups or beat-em-ups (which I'm excluding here, along with oldschool proto-platformers like Donkey Kong). And they seem to have less of a lasting fan base. OK, you have the famed Metal Slug, and other great examples like Ghosts 'n Goblins + Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and one thing I would note compared with console-centric series like Ninja Gaiden or CV is the early escalation of difficulty and the persistent intensity of attacks, often randomized. It works well in GnG and surely kept the quarters flowing, but I wonder if the mercenary need for intensity in arcades was overall less conducive to memorable level design.

For reference, here's a nice thread on this forum with recommendations for such arcade games.

[BIL]

levels that don't let you heal up before a boss help ensure you take a good whack.

This was a minor lightbulb moment for me, a few years back. You really have to keep it together to survive the great wallmeat famine of '86! Very different experience attempting to take down each stage without a refreshing checkpoint here or there.

Current random favorite NES thing: The "Don't Knock" signs in Data East's (?) Werewolf.

That damn game. 3: So much cool weird stuff! Neato i-frame acrobatics! But the level design always bludgeons me into indifference after that second sewer area. I'm gonna give it another look and attempt to survive until that building they nicked off Rockman 2's intro.

BIL had a cool diagram somewhere for the knight/medusa fighting

Haha, it was actually screencapped from an AVGN video. It was presented to me by some huffy forum fellow as proof the game was ZOMG UNFAIR. I proceeded to... remedy him. W̶I̶T̶H̶ ̶A̶ ̶F̶*̶C̶K̶I̶N̶G̶ ̶S̶P̶O̶O̶N̶ with mspaint!

WARNING: contains a non-unseeable infohazard

Spoiler

I always get there with x3 cross. I think I'd find it trickier to use holy water since I'm so used to my approach. No weapons necessary indeed though. Rovely stuff. Much like Jaquio it'll tangle up a rash or jittery player horribly. LEARN 2 SPACE is best method whatever one's armament! (・｀W´・)

You can also completely demolish Dracula's second form with crafty use of the holy water in the game's last candle. I saw Funkdock pull it off live (edit: on stream, that is) at... AGDQ14, iirc? Mad skillz. I continue to bluff my way through with x3 cross to the grill. I find the trickier part of the last stage is deciding whether to keep the super 1337 weapon I arrive with, and risk all sorts of bad Bat and Hopper things happening en route, or weinering out with the stopwatch and arriving at DORAKYURA with less firepower. I tend to weeny it these days and recoup what I can by getting the boomerag right beforehand and destroying his projectiles.

[cicada88]

CV's Death and the hallway leading up to him are I think one of the pinnacles of 8-bit action. I would resist using any approach that eliminated the need for tactical awareness. If you have a desperate need to clear or 1CC and it's not working out then sure, but by all means go back and do it without holy water and, say, at most double cross. (BIL had a cool diagram somewhere for the knight/medusa fighting, but try going in blind. I should admit I'm not that good at this section, but I still love it.)

I agree. This hallway was definitely hard, but I found it a bit overrated if you are meticulous about learning how to proceed rather than just hoping to wing it with natural action game prowess. I played through Akumajou Dracula (CV1) about 6 months ago for the first time, and I wasn't aware of the ability to spam holy water or whatever the tactic is.

Having recently played Zelda II, also for the first time, there were some Palace spots in the game that reminded me of this corridor from Dracula.

[Immryr]

You weren't aware that when you have a secondary weapon at level three you can have three of those on screen at a time?

Anyway way I found easiest to get through that room had nothing to do with spamming. Just jump and throw a holy water as soon as you see an axe knight, that way your water will cover enough distance when the axe Knights back up and kill them in one. Then you just need to standing whip all of the medusas and move forward till you see the next knight.

The spamming is just strong against bosses.

[cicada88]

You weren't aware that when you have a secondary weapon at level three you can have three of those on screen at a time?

Not really that, it's just i usually chose not to pick up holy water because I didn't realize how to use it/how powerful it was and generrnally opted for the cross I believe. I just didn't find this area nearly as frustrating as that falling block (before during and after it) in Akumajou Densetsu (CIII). I must have spent 4-5 hours trying to beat that level and ended up giving up.

[Immryr]

You weren't aware that when you have a secondary weapon at level three you can have three of those on screen at a time?

Not really that, it's just i usually chose not to pick up holy water because I didn't realize how to use it/how powerful it was and generrnally opted for the cross I believe. I just didn't find this area nearly as frustrating as that falling block (before during and after it) in Akumajou Densetsu (CIII). I must have spent 4-5 hours trying to beat that level and ended up giving up.

I haven't got round to cv3 yet,so I've got that to look forward to!

[cicada88]

You weren't aware that when you have a secondary weapon at level three you can have three of those on screen at a time?

Not really that, it's just i usually chose not to pick up holy water because I didn't realize how to use it/how powerful it was and generrnally opted for the cross I believe. I just didn't find this area nearly as frustrating as that falling block (before during and after it) in Akumajou Densetsu (CIII). I must have spent 4-5 hours trying to beat that level and ended up giving up.

I haven't got round to cv3 yet,so I've got that to look forward to!

It's an amazing game, but that one route is pretty brutal if you don't use any of the character transformations.

[BIL]

Definitely avoid the lower/block mania route on your first time through either CVIII or Akumajou Densetsu. Head up at every opportunity (the first is an optional stage to get Grant, who's agilityx1000/Rockman jumping to Sypha's boss smasher). Lower route is punishing, aesthetically very monotonous (swamps, crypts, catacombs, caverns, dungeon), and you may be tempted to recruit Alucard who's not great. The upper route is by no means EZ MODO but it lacks the tedious falling/melting block gimmicks and punishingly long stages, plus it has more colourful locales and generally better tunes.

I went with lower on my first run and ended up rather annoyed, until trying out upper. Much smoother experience. Once I was done with that I replayed lower and actually enjoyed the tougher challenge and change of route (after all the brightly-hued overland locales, suddenly a hardcore trudge through gloomsville made sense).

[Pretas]

(the first is an optional stage to get Grant, who's agilityx1000/Rockman jumping to Sypha's boss smasher).

Grant is only useful for getting around in CVIII, but he's a powerful combatant in Densetsu, due to possessing infinite throwing knives that don't take up the item slot. Probably the only justified change made for the US version.

[Ed Oscuro]

Quick comment on CVIII: I like Mad Forest so much that I hate to go from that to the clocktower. Still extremely early days on that one - I don't think I've ever gone much further. Playing this game on a frontloader some years back really showed me that emulation really doesn't feel anything like the Real Deal - especially in the looks department, where the MYSTERIES OF CRT have a strongly positive effect on enjoying the game. It's also amusing to think that just the first stretch of this level squeezes more character out of its inspired tileset and tile work than the entirety of BAYOU BIRRY's carefully arranged but incredibly repetitive regions - the swamp at the very beginning of the game may be the worst offender, but I might hate Bourbon Street more. Still, the entirety of that game is like this, just functional, ticking off a box where some guy in a suit said "we need jungre Setting." "Ah, kaicho, you mean a swamp?" "Yes, yes, make like Super C." This shows that successful visual design on the NES implies not being too enamored of a painterly vision of precisely drawn details all locking together, and instead using tiles carefully to sketch out evocative surroundings; my impression of CVIII's opening stages is of unique places with many landmarks, rather than a series of essentially static movie prop backdrops placed behind the playfield. Bayou Billy is a smaller game than CVIII, which may have prompted this decision somewhat - rather foolish in my view since Splatterhouse did great with its own rather sketchy swamps and many other diverse locations, and even the original Castlevania does very well with tile work in a pretty small ROM, especially in the first interior corridor and the bridge leading to the mummies.

Hmm, if CV1's holy water is really that overpowered, I guess that some rethinking of that appraisal is in order. My belief is that Konami wanted some "penalty" items, which still would have some use (stopwatch, knife) but should be dropped at the first opportunity. Chucking x3 Axes sounds like a good idea except that they leave the screen a bit too quickly, and I don't think they give any damage directly ahead, so shot placement is more vital to catch flying foes. Holy water's "gotcha" would have been that you can't just plant it while standing still if you want to get any range, but in this game that's not such a problem. Crosses actually still do a fairly good job stunlocking Igor at The Monster fight, and at the very least reduce the number of bounces he can get in.

For a comparison, Vice Project DOOM / Gun Dec's three-weapon combo has close combat covered (sword), a somewhat weak ranged option (the knife, basically, but with a shorter period between shots and with more ammunition), and a grenade, which is the most interesting thing here because it is totally unlike the holy water: it's used, paradoxically, to quickly reach the other side of the screen with a small burst of damage. Not the most original effect and it gets used fairly infrequently (at least by me). I'd like to compare Dynamite Batman's loadout sometime too - good ole Bats has a bit of stunlock power in his fists alone, though you need it to stop the rampaging steam cleaners starting from stage 1. (not Maxie Zeus = the original "Knight of Coprolite?") Also worth pointing out that any of these "select to switch weapons" control schemes is immediately inferior to the ease of slinging out a subweapon in Castlevania.

CV's Death and the hallway leading up to him are I think one of the pinnacles of 8-bit action. I would resist using any approach that eliminated the need for tactical awareness.

I don't think the cross alone is going to clear the medusa / knight room, because the medusas are a bit difficult to hit with it and the knights seem to register just one hit. It might buy you a second free of axes, though.

I did have BIL's comments on the medusas in mind throughout my playthrough, but it seemed hard to put into practice even as far back as the very first medusa head hallway because of all the lovely, juicy heart distraction pickups in that area. In the knight area it's obviously somewhat worse.

I'm not sure if there is some simpler remedy, but the bat bridge and the last clocktower infested by eagles and humpers seem an even more difficult test. I agree that they're not quite as appealing to deal with as the straightforward nature of the grand medusa + knight hall. (In another instance of deflated promise, 1993's Dracula X one-ups even Shinobi 2002 in the visuals - you've got dogs with swords in their mouths? We've got BATS with swords - but does absolutely nothing with the idea, since these flabby vermin die in just one hit, as apparently they have harmed themselves picking up the cutlery.)

More generally, I'm trying to better understand the history of arcade action platformers. Feel free to correct me, but these games don't seem to have made as big an overall impact in the arcades as shmups or beat-em-ups (which I'm excluding here, along with oldschool proto-platformers like Donkey Kong).

I don't know quarter intake or anything, but given the success of Data East vs. Capcom, or Konami's eventual die-off to the Street Fighter juggernaut, I think that's accurate. The competitive fighter thing doesn't speak to me personally, but I understand the simplicity in the concept anchored by stringent execution requirements and loads of competitiveness.

I do like arcade Contra, and Super Contra as well, but I think Data East did just as well in their arcade platformers / spins off the old Contra idea. For one, they didn't try to fatten up all their games with extraneous "bonus modes" like Konami did in pretty much everything from Aliens to A-JAX (still like that bonus quiz in Surprise Attack though). There's usually some element or other missing, though. DE's late (1993-1994) output seems pretty good, though I haven't gotten the hang of something like Wolf Fang and the other games are generally trying to spread out into coverage of all the genres (gunsight style game, zombie brawler, horizontal autoscroller, etc.). Earlier on-topic games like Robocop, Psycho-nics Oscar, and Chelnov all have great ideas and some good execution (though Oscar's powerup system is a bit convoluted and sucks up too much attention). Level design is definitely one of the areas that they had difficulty with, but they did try some cool tricks there (I won't say Karnov has incredible level design, but I like its sprawling city with lots of vertical area and mystery).

Also, I wanted to put a good word out for trap15's incredible suggestion of looking into JJ Squawkers. I don't know much about the game mechanics yet, but it certainly ticks the box of fluid control with impressive visuals. Its combat style is somewhere between Contra and Castlevania - shorter range projectiles, I think.

[cicada88]

my Famicom life at the moment....just need to add an LJN folder

[Ed Oscuro]

On the subject of Famicom, the ports of UPL's Ninja Kun games (not the Jaleco ones) should be pretty entertaining. NK 2: Ashura no Shou-sama even keeps the awesomely brutal wall climb stage. Eat this, hardwired controller users :3

[BIL]

Grant is only useful for getting around in CVIII, but he's a powerful combatant in Densetsu, due to possessing infinite throwing knives that don't take up the item slot. Probably the only justified change made for the US version.

Densetsu's unlimited dagger needed nerfing for sure, with Grant's maneuverability already an *enormous* advantage over the other three characters. But it's still very poor at killing even stronger enemies, let alone bosses. Weak, slow and unlike the whip, non-piercing (huge problem when facing crowds, or even a single projectile user). What CVIII stamped out was the option to play ultra-defensively, pecking away at stuff from a distance; aggressively attacking anything sturdier than pests was already a bad idea.

My Ralph/Grant loop 2 runs don't play out all that differently from CVIII. Use Grant to scramble up walls and along ceilings over baddies, use Ralph's whip and x3 cross/firebomb to smash bosses and threats that can't be slipped past. CVIII's Trevor/Grant team is a lot more entertaining, though, without that constant safety net of free projectiles. CVIII Solo Grant also turns the game into a first-rate ninja sidescroller.

[BrianC]

my Famicom life at the moment....just need to add an LJN folder

The odd thing is that some of the early LJN games like Karate Kid were actually programmed by Atlus. A good chunk of early Atlus games were published by other companies. While the LJN games weren't great, Atlus made some solid games for NES. Xexyz was also programmed by Atlus.

[BIL]

I was about to say Micronics, they of much bad porting infamy, did Ghostbusters. But that particular turd was Activision-published.

Gaijin-published kusoge, piped straight from the motherland!

[cicada88]

my Famicom life at the moment....just need to add an LJN folder

The odd thing is that some of the early LJN games like Karate Kid were actually programmed by Atlus.

I loved this game as a kid. Title theme is still legendary...I had it looping in the background for 20 minutes the other day as I cleaned up my gaming area.

But all jokes aside, I probably should make HAL, Taito, Rare and Namco(t?) folders. Tecmo, Technos and Hudson Soft too.

[trap15]

On the subject of Famicom, the ports of UPL's Ninja Kun games (not the Jaleco ones) should be pretty entertaining. NK 2: Ashura no Shou-sama even keeps the awesomely brutal wall climb stage. Eat this, hardwired controller users :3

I think those ports count as "decent" and nothing more. The large amount of flicker, slowdown, and running at like 10 fps makes doing more complex maneuvers from the arcade game nearly impossible without a lot of persistence.

[Ed Oscuro]

Aw damnit! I just took a look at it.

Ninja Kun: Majou no Bouken (1985) is unplayable due to this, with slowdown all the time. It's a simple game and losing fluidity = no point at all to playing it.
Ninja Kun: Ashura no Shou's framerate seems better, but it's still much stiffer than the real thing (didn't do a frame skip test but it looks like there is a bit of lag), so any stage becomes harder and more reliant on using tricks (though the game is built around them). Fire inputs seem to be dropping often (in puNES) even without much happening onscreen. Some additional headaches: You can't overpower an enemy's stream of shuriken (or lightning from an oni) with your own (doable in the arcade game, at least on defaults). Blocked shuriken might have a persisting damage window, so jumping forward and blocking a shuriken still kills you if you land in the sprite of the blocking animation. Likewise, killing an enemy doesn't save you if the enemy still manages to get out a shuriken after being killed. For extra fun, puNES is showing the ninja occasionally throwing portions of his own sprite out in the water stage, instead of slashing with the sword. The port is full of junk like this, but these examples caught my attention. It still seems playable - barely. All this and people call Ikki the famous kusoge?!

Looking at the originals in MAME again, these had some promise but weren't really top-tier stuff from UPL. Still, they were fluid to play at least, and as the ports lose that, there's really no point.

Guess I'll hold onto my Ashura no Shou cart for the moment.

[BIL]

I was surprised when I learned Ikki is apparently considered kusoge. I'd never heard of it until trap recommended it in ash's FC topic, and apart from the unfortunate presence of my ultime peeve, screen edge-riding scrolling, I really liked it. It's a major flaw but nobody calls Story of Thor or MD Aladdin kusoge. Granted it's just irritating there and potentially fatal here.

Ahh, who am I kidding. Nobody normal notices that stuff. Certainly not a remarkably bad game otherwise. Sounds like a BUNCHA FUCKIN SCRUBS stinkin' up the joint! PLUS ÇA CHANGE (・｀W´・)

---

edit: Oh WAO



Been messing about with Akumajou Densetsu: Melty Blocks Daibouken The Second Loop this weekend. After my usual favourite team of Ralph/Sypha I gave R/Grant a spin and noticed a bunch of stuff I forgot!

-JP Grant's only offensive subweapon is the axe.
-He's limited to x2 shot.
-Throwing knife's not a subweapon, therefore limited to x1. Slow as hell even at pointblank, and non-piercing. Weakest primary weapon in the game.

Meanwhile in CVIII:

-Grant's subweapons are dagger and axe.
-He can get x3 shot. x3 Axe trashes bosses/hardcases, albeit not as quickly or safely as Trevor/Sypha's best.
-Combat knife has no range, but its speed makes it the game's fastest melee killer, and it pierces.

So JP Grant is easier for novices to use, but US Grant is far stronger in skilled hands. Low DEF and lacking range make him a higher risk/higher yield attacker next to Trevor. Awesome gritty feel to CVIII Grant, closing in on and knifing tough enemies capable of swatting away 1/3rd of your HP.

I wonder how intentional this rebalancing was? It's certainly not the mere nerf I'd recalled. It makes me lean more towards the tough US loop being expressly for diehards, rather than simply mean-spirited. I kinda want CVIII again, now.

[dojo_b]

Solid intel.

A funny thing happened on the way to the castle in CV I today. I managed to find myself up against a headless, motionless Skele-Dragon, with seemingly the only way past it to jump at it and take damage (since the vertebrae can't be hurt directly)



The enemy appeared normal at first; this weirdness seemed to be triggered by shooting the head with a knife, then walking left, causing the head to be scrolled off-screen just as the knife hit. (I don't think it would've been the fatal shot.) The picture shows me inspecting the scene afterward.

[Edited to add: this was in the PRG0 version of CV I. Don't know if that mattered, but one should play PRG1 to avoid crashes on sprite-heavy screens.]

[Pretas]

It's specifically the Famicom version of Ikki that has a kusoge reputation in Japan. The arcade version is okay.

Someone made a silly romhack of Ikki FC that covers the landscape with topiary Mario heads.

[Ed Oscuro]

Favorite thing to see in the Forum! Gonna give this a look.

The arcade version is okay.

Don't fuckin' care about that story, Ikki FC is objectively better than the Ninja-Kid, even Ashura no Shou, on the Famicom. It's still smooth and playable. The premise is simpler but, aside from the tricky nature of managing the screen-riding issue, it's playable.

Speaking of things, Kurt K. wrote strangely off-point things about the game, calling the arcade games "hardly enthralling" while totally ignoring the playability problems in Ashura no Shou (dirty edit: Famicom), coupled with a severe failing to do the one thing you expect HG101 to at least attempt to get right - what game came first? The URL ("jajamaru") would point to Jaleco, the second paragraph points to UPL, and the third paragraph points to Micro Cabin.

I try to be nice, but then I read something poorly organized and totally ignorant like that, and I remember that he makes a living off writing about games...

[BrianC]

Another article with "good for a gameboy game" in it too. Especially puzzling here since Ninja Taro GB sounds pretty mediocre.

[BIL]

A funny thing happened on the way to the castle in CV I today.

Never seen that one before - out of curiosity, do you know which revision you were playing? PRG0 is known to have a nasty crash bug associated with Death. PRG1 fixed it and was also the basis for the 1993 FC cart reissue, which I primarily play these days... haven't come across any notable weirdness, besides a couple of harmless glitches triggerable by interrupting the demo play appropriately (start with upgraded whip, mute st1 BGM).

Besides adding an exclusive Easy difficulty with the interesting omission of knockback, the FC Dracula also makes one of the most endearingly nerdcore revisions ever: A+B autofire no longer activates during the stage clear jingle, and the subsequent score tally is quicker with an appropriately shortened ticker sound effect. That's even more precious than HOD's rating your crystal-grabbing pose!

It's specifically the Famicom version of Ikki that has a kusoge reputation in Japan.

Only one I've played. :/ It's not that bad a game. I suppose "crap game" has more liberal applications in Japan than our Western adoption of the term ("Rise of the Robots game").

I try to be nice, but then I read something poorly organized and totally ignorant like that, and I remember that he makes a living off writing about games...

I've seen the "101" cited in defense of the scrubbier comments they endorse, as if a foundation module has a license to be shoddy. "Casual Hardcore Gaming 101" is a more honest label and it's one I try to remember whenever I inevitably run into another eyebrow-raising declaration. It's a brochure with some unfortunate captioning... damage is probably being done to the uninitiated or indisposed, sadly, but I hope the real enthusiasts will interpret "Taromaru is arcade-unbalanced with its screenloads of cruel flak! Waaah!" as a challenge and things will work themselves out from there ("oh wow, there is a block button!").

[dojo_b]

Yes, I should've said, the bug was in PRG0. I know because after taking a break and posting, the frequent crashing on Death fights became intolerable and I looked into the issue online. No idea if PRG1 fixes this more minor thing.

Another recent bug highlight, in Ninja Gaiden: falling into the large pit in stage 6-2 and reappearing at the top of the screen, only to plummet back to my expected death.

[Ed Oscuro]

@ dojo_b: This sounds really familiar to me. I think that's fixed in PRG1.

Speaking of random games:

The Ducktales games are surprisingly fun, although the first one has a rather too elaborate setup for the pogo stick and too much reliance on making you bounce around in small nooks (at least in Transylvania). Spotted a batch of ceiling tiles in that level helpfully positioned so you can stand in the status bar. Fun game, lots of character in the graphics.

Kick Master - seems a bit iffy, experience system seems out of place, lack of ranged attacks is limiting. Kind of a mix visually, but soundtrack is one of the all time greats

Nightmare on Elm Street (An LJN AUDIOVISUAL SPECTACLE!) - odd collectathon game with an incredibly difficult second boss which quickly smothers the screen with leaping tongues. I like the silly radio jingle, though.

Raf World - Would love this one except for the flat level design, too much reliance on timing-based action (flickering laser beam barriers, knife portcullises, and bosses) with otherwise boring gameplay (see enemy, shoot enemy to death with autofire handgun). Going into the menu to switch weapons is also a pain and seems pointless. Stuck at a point where it seems like you can't avoid taking damage to pass (one of the invincible-until opened turrets set below the player level).

Low-G Man - Haven't figured this one out yet. The freeze gun and high jumps are appealing ideas, but the screen fills up with enemies in a hurry. Framerate seems iffy too.

Back to the Future (Yet another LJN PELLICLE BOBBIN' SMASH WOWZA) - the pain. Paperboy's lesser sibling. Always nice to know that Nintendo approves killing random people in the street with bowling balls. Must be Troma fans.

Back to the Future II & III - surprisingly has some charm to it, but ruined (just barely, but still decisively) by countless noodle-brained early Beam Software game design conventions on top of what is essentially a maze game with Super Mario Bros. game elements copied over. Super Mario Bros.: The Movie: The Game (Biff & Pizza Edition). One aggravating design flaw: One specific common enemy will give you a Fire Flower-style powerup in the first stage, if you catch it. If you don't you might as well reset the game.

Captain Comic - quirky and difficult Color Dreams port of the semi-classic (at least at the time), very early PC platformer noted mostly for being a smooth scroller on on the PC when such things weren't done. The potential fun of ideas that seemed workable on the PC are destroyed by screens smothered in brave birds and even worse suicidal enemies (love the red wasps that always seem to fly along the floor, too low for stiffjointed Captain Comic to shoot at), and difficult platforming leading to dead ends. Strangely, the NES version is an uninspired compromise port, without making much use of the NES's extra abilities, and losing some of the character of its original version (like those crazy swirly orb enemies). Too bad classics like Commander Keen and Bio Menace didn't get a chance to make the leap instead, though with Color Dreams at the helm I'm not sure it would have been a good idea.

Dragon Buster 2 - surprisingly a bit fun, at least for the first couple dungeons. Unfortunately the formula never seems to change, and stupid Namco hadn't yet given up the fascination with constant noise on character movement. Could be worse, but still grating. I beat the first dragon ("now the real battle begins") just shooting him from offscreen as he got caught on a turn in the tunnel. Otherwise it goes quite badly for the hero, who is normally horribly outgunned.

Batman - Return of the Joker: Not much needs to be said but I thought I'd link to this comparison of the versions. Again, porting "by the numbers" doesn't seem to work out, what a surprise! [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vmXxDN-tBE]And another addition to the "longplays by people just learning the game" file. The SNES prototype seems to have more energetic enemies than the originals, which rarely move and normally seem AI-less. It's kind of surprising how the original version makes little concession to its own move set and weapons - like a lot of other games on this list, play is frustratingly reduced to peek and poke strategies against enemies just appearing offscreen. The snow field wizards (?) are a notable example of this problem. Perhaps the (C)rush / cannon shot type is really a penalty item.

[BIL]

Yes, I should've said, the bug was in PRG0. I know because after taking a break and posting, the frequent crashing on Death fights became intolerable and I looked into the issue online. No idea if PRG1 fixes this more minor thing.

Hell of a deterrent to subweapon spamming, that. Spam my boss, I crash your game!

Edited my post with a correction, it was 1993 that Dracula was reissued for Famicom cartridge. '93 must've been interesting for Japanese series fans... Rondo, X68k and Vampire Killer all in development and the original game getting a loadtime-free reissue. I wonder how many diehards had to invest in new hardware for the three original games.

[Ed Oscuro]

VK was in development; the others were released in that year.

Getting the X68000 platform - especially the dev-recommended XVI model, or even a 68030-based unit, would've been pretty expensive!

Speaking of Castlevania subweapon spamming, the x3 Axe makes really short work of "Ghost Dreamin' Grant."

[BIL]

VK was in development; the others were released in that year.

Oh I know - but according to the Rondo dev interview at GSK's site (edit: blackoak's X68k dev interview, rather!) it and the other two were all being developed simultaneously. So I figure there was at least some point circa '93 when fans had three brand new Draculas for as many platforms on the way. Productive time, at any rate.

I've seen the series criticised for spreading itself too thin around this time, but as a fan I'm glad for the variety. The three SFC Goemon games that followed that series' debut on the platform are certainly quality, but they're nowhere as interesting to play back-to-back. Then there's the spectre of a single Dracula bunged onto SFC, PCE, MD and X68k, buhhh.

A shame Dracula's later return to SFC was such a hodgepodge after all that new material. Totally speculating here, I wonder if XX was merely an attempt to bring the series back under Nintendo's roof after the previous ventures. Not to reiterate my frothing dislike for the game too much, but that's about all it really accomplishes for the series. Multiple characters? Naw. Nonlinear action? Yeah we can do dat - BEND OVER FOR BAD END ;3 ;3 ;3

Getting the X68000 platform - especially the dev-recommended XVI model, or even a 68030-based unit, would've been pretty expensive!

Should've gone with Neo Geo too, for the REAL HAWT DAWGS ^_~