MICRONICS Appreciate

[BIL]

This is a Miclus. Note its vibrant azure complexion, gleaming eyes and happy jig. It is commonly found hiding under crates in Raiden. Its favourite thing is fucking up your runs in Raiden Fighters!

This is a Micronicus. It's gone an insalubrious shade of red and seems to be suffering from advanced cataracts. It's too listless to move, let alone dance a jig. Also it's missing its fuckin nose. It's found at the Options screen of Micronics' RAIDEN DENSETSU (SFC), and is the harbinger of a pale facsimile not fit to shine the boots of its MD and PCE contemporaries. Embarrassing!

Yet for Micronics, mere competence is something of a miracle! Their signature is the Micronics Chop. You will know it when you see it, and praise Jesus when you don't! (because you have put something else on!)

Please post your appreciations of Micronics here. I was recently thiiis close to picking up their FC Kyuukyoku Tiger, but then this happened and I just couldn't trust the fucker! Who knows if at some point it'd drop a bleedin' tank on me. I still kinda like it though! It really keeps pace with the AC ver - it doesn't even slow down much, because it's perpetually running in a slightly more palatable chop. Smart-ish!

What is the closest you have been to Loving A Micronics? Have you ever actually managed to? I try not to hate them too much, but they hoovered up a lot of great IPs and squandered a lot of potential classics! However in their favour they did rise from Rather Shit to Just About Passable! And though it's saddening to think of the "arcade plus" ports other teams might've managed with, say, Makaimura or Ikari, they did at least stick close to the source material where they could. Their stuff is unambitious and technically feeble but at least usually retains a sense of arcade concision.

I must confess, their FC Tiger Heli is, again, just about passing muster. I have such a terrible weakness for heli vs sniper tank shumps. However it too is doing some weird shit and needless to say, The Chop is afoot.

[Ed Oscuro]

I blew a bunch of Micronics out of the new house today. Most of them were curled up and waiting for death...thank Gott for the new cordless leafblower!

Gint Baum has a list of migraine-inducing adventures. Hmm, I should try out my Raiden FM Towns port sometime. Apparently these are the guys who fucked with Ninja-Kid II on FC as well. Shame. I do kind of like the KT port on NES though, for the same reasons (chunky lookin' goodness). I don't know if I played long enough to run into that ninja copter tho.

[BIL]

My biggest recent MICRO-SHOCK was learning via GDRI that they apparently had a role in Sonic Wings... not just the SFC port, but the arcade original from Video System. I went from "yee, imma buy it right nao" at the port to "wait, what." Still need to check back! It seemed decent, really - would've likely slipped past me, but the bugger is pricey now so I had to vet! It's my nightmare scenario to unknowingly plunk down for one of theirs, like finding a godawful Brazilian wandering spider in your Tesco bananers.

TBH I could imagine them doing okay with strict adult supervision (ie Shin Nakamura himself armed with a katana and biting down on a live hand grenade so even if you kill him you get blown up too).

[Austin]

Definitely Twin Cobra on NES as my favorite thing by them. It's at least still pretty playable.

[BIL]

Having recently one-lifed Ikari, and a few months earlier Dogosoken, both via Hamster's customarily superb Arcade Archives, I cast a nostalgic eye back to Micronics' Famicom conversions.

As with their borderline-good FC Kyuukyoku Tiger, Ikari makes a decent attempt to preserve the AC's stage design. Pretty much everything up until the final Gate is recognisable. I actually prefer the altered final battle, versus a pair of the arcade's underused Boss Tanks, over the AC's exasperating buffet of rote memo dicks.

From this point, it's revealed that the arcade's short, intense ~15minute course is merely the first of the FC's four stages. I don't like this conversion, and the AC's terseness is one of my favourite aspects, so I stopped watching here. But it's another gesture tempering Micronics' repute for zero-effort, IP-gobbling kusoge. Unfortunately, sure as sunrise, their characteristic jank drags it down. Translating the rotary controls to FC pad was a doomed endeavour, but even so, it moves and handles like shit (these observations from my own dalliances with the ROM, while considering picking up a copy - I was in a dark place ). Choppy, buggy, seemingly 30pfs - the usual nastiness that curbstomps Micronics' catalogue a mile beneath those of Konami, Capcom, Tecmo and other FC action luminaries.

SNK themselves showed how it's done with their beautiful FC Guevara, which ditched the rotary controls, dialled player firepower and speed way up, but kept the hostage system in place - tasking the player not to red-mist the poor fuckers right along with its teeming zako hordes. A uniquely frenetic Bizarro take on the arcade's de facto Ikari III. Their FC conversion of Ikari III likewise artfully sidesteps the lack of rotary input, going for a simplified, faster, crowd-flooring blitzkrieg, one I find instantly more appealing than the monotonously stringent AC game.

FC Dogosoken doesn't fare nearly as well on stage design, partially since so much of the AC's identity is tied to its biblical hordes, and the rampant splatterings thereof. Rather than compensate and parlay into something more FC-friendly ala SNK, Micronics deliver a ghost town. I really couldn't be arsed, and just kinda glanced at a speedrun while doing other things. However, again, there's at least some spark of effort in the ARPG-styled upgrade system, and the new items (jetpack, wheee). Should any of this stuff be there, probably not - but again, it's a gesture that makes me marginally less disdainful than if they'd merely shat out Dogo: 28 Days Later Label.

I'm amused to finally realise Micronics had an aesthetic, just like SNK's Guevara/Ikari III/Datsugoku guys, Konami's Umechan Team, and the Technos crew that today go by Miracle Kidz. It's a poor one, to be sure, with none of the others' timeless joie de vivre - but you can at least look at FC Ikari, Dogo, 1942 and Tiger Heli, and instantly tell they're from the same people. That's worth something in my book! ...you can just feel the hum of the incoming caveat, can't you?

An altogether poor dev, not unrewarding of mild examination at safe distance, with a dubious yet unmistakably hard-fought zenith in the Almost Good FC Kyuukyoku Tiger.

[kitten]

i like rubble saver a lot, which is a game boy remake of an fc game that, according to gdri, had a single micronics person on it? man, who made miracle ropit, actually, it's usually credited as micronics but that may not be the actual case??

i laughed a few times when i died in super pitfall, which brought a smile to my face.

uhhh... i played acrobat mission once and really disliked it? i think that's another instance of shared staff, it was technically done by UPL. i remember you once bringing up that it was a micronics game, BIL, but i am currently unsure if that's the case. you know, UPL did gomola speed, and i actually really like that game. maybe there was a micronics staff on there.

i think, mostly, i hate them - but maybe not as much as i hate tose. god damn did those mother fuckers put their fingers in a lot of pies.

[BIL]

Big fan of Rubble Saver here! Didn't find Ropit nearly as charming, though it's been a few years... I recall it lacking RS's "chibi Ex-Ranza" pacing. Was amusing seeing familiar enemies and terrain hazards in more annoying form ( ). Actually now that I think back, I learned of Roppit from you, shortly after you'd signed up.

uhhh... i played acrobat mission once and really disliked it? i think that's another instance of shared staff, it was technically done by UPL. i remember you once bringing up that it was a micronics game, BIL, but i am currently unsure if that's the case. you know, UPL did gomola speed, and i actually really like that game. maybe there was a micronics staff on there.

I mostly know of Acrobat Mission (AC and SFC) via Perikles, who always noted the latter as another of Micronics' rare bouts of likeability (while also noting the weapon system is bugged, dohoho). Never bothered with it myself.

UPL are cool cats in my book. Ninja-kun and its sequel have an interesting "hard chibi action" thing going on, they look affably Bubble Bobble-esque, but mechanically they're actually pretty stern. Both have god-awful FC conversions by Micronics.

There's Mutant Night too, which I think you know of... bizarre, almost surreal airwalking mechanics and powerups, simple but intense action, unforgettable aesthetic... I really dig that one, planning to put some quality time on it this summer. Atomic Robokid (sort of Mutant Night: The Shooting) has a similar likeability, big bold sprites and simple, fast-moving action. IIRC, Micronics actually handled its Mega Drive conversion, but it seems to have gone fairly smoothly - one of those "Wait WTF?" cases where I only found out it was them after the fact, see also SFC Sonic Wings.

Gomola Speed is great stuff too! For more topdown, there's also Nova 2001, kind of a poor man's Robotron, but its strafe-lock mechanic is the earliest example I know of. Its sequel Ark Area is more appealing, on one hand, but inverts the lock controls, which drives me batshit. Still, worth a look. One of those smaller devs with a huge personality.

[trap15]

EDIT: I didn't see the first posts

What is the closest you have been to Loving A Micronics? Have you ever actually managed to?

I must confess, their FC Tiger Heli is, again, just about passing muster. I have such a terrible weakness for heli vs sniper tank shumps. However it too is doing some weird shit and needless to say, The Chop is afoot.

I have a strange appreciation for FC Tiger Heli, but it's an obvious piece of shit. But I love Tiger Heli that much to get over the extreme Micronics-isms of that port. I think any conversion of that game would get to me tbh.

see also SFC Sonic Wings.

Supposedly Micronics also programmed the arcade version of Sonic Wings 1 as you said, so I can't be too surprised that it's a relatively faithful port; maybe the micronics magic translates better when they wrote the original. I'd take a guess that they probably programmed a number of Video System's arcade games around then, probably including such magical games as Turbo Force and Karate Blazers.

For more topdown, there's also Nova 2001, kind of a poor man's Robotron, but its strafe-lock mechanic is the earliest example I know of. Its sequel Ark Area is more appealing, on one hand, but inverts the lock controls, which drives me batshit. Still, worth a look. One of those smaller devs with a huge personality.

I can also recommend both Nova 2001 and Ark Area, they're great games. Nova is unfortunately a bit on the easy side, once you get comfortable with it, it's more an endurance match than anything. Ark Area is all around awesome, quite enjoyed my time playing that one, though again it's a bit on the easier side; not as easy as Nova, but not difficult to loop.

but you can at least look at FC Ikari, Dogo, 1942 and Tiger Heli, and instantly tell they're from the same people

You're not wrong. But mostly it's the terrible frame-rate and excessive sprite flicker that gives it away

[BIL]

I wonder if their 16bit work (Sonic Wings, Acrobat Mission, Atomic Robo-kid Special) fared better simply due to stronger hardware neutralising their chronic weaknesses. Or maybe they were just more experienced, or had hired decent programmers by then. The FC Micronics Chop™ is truly iconic in its hideousness. Fire up Guevara after Ikari, or 1943 after 1942, they feel AMAZIN'

I also wonder if there are any good stories from JP devs, regarding those "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SHITBIRDS DOING WITH OUR IPS?!" followup efforts.

[FinalBaton]

Gomola Speed is very fun. Highly addictive game

[BrianC]

I watched a video of Miracle Roppit and I noticed the lives screen and falling water in one stage are similar to the lives screen and falling water in Super Pitfall. Wouldn't be surprised if it used the same engine. Super Pitfall definitely has the same kind of jankiness, though there was a hack that fixed much of it.

I wonder what the deal was with the FC commando. Capcom staff worked of it, but it has a similar jank to games often credited to micronics. It also has a similar title screen to FC Makaimura, which was often credited to micronics staff.

Good thing a bunch of the UPL games mentioned here are in Hamster's Arcade Archives. Ninja Kid/Kun (not to be confused with the different NES game that was localized as Ninja Kid) AC versions are good stuff.