Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Volteccer_Jack]

it sounds like Dread is a lot more focused on action than exploration - I hear a lot of talk about its relatively difficult boss fights

It has easily the best exploration in any Metroid game besides Super. There's a stretch at the beginning that's annoyingly linear (unless you glitch), but right after you get morph ball the game opens up immensely. On my first blind playthrough I did a significant sequence break and didn't even realize that it was a sequence break until after finishing the game.

As for bosses, the final boss is the only one that stands out as difficult to me. The rest are typical Metroid game bosses pretty much. I think they're pretty good generally, only complaint there is a couple of them get reused multiple times.

and on top of that I don't like the sound of them removing save points and just having autosave checkpoints

Save points still exist, it's just when you die you respawn at a checkpoint instead of going back to the save room. Personally I never thought the save points were a factor in Metroid's tension, so it doesn't bother me.

The first three Metroid games are all excellent and also differ from each other very sharply, with each having its own distinct identity, but every 2D Metroid since then basically just feels like a rehash of Super.

I think Fusion has a very distinct identity. Dread too, although a substantial part of that identity is being a sequel to Fusion.

[copy-paster]

late but R2RKMF 2023 recap:

Personal fav achievement: Ninja gaiden 1 and 3 nes nomiss, metal slug 2 turbo max overclock nomiss
biggest screwups: haven't played metal slug x and 4 very much

goals for 2024:
slug 1, x, and 4 nomiss
ninja gaiden 2 nes nomiss
trying to get atleast one beat em up 1cc since I'm really suck at these games when it comes to 1cc, my current interest is either zero team or PuLiRuLa

[Steven]

My R2RKMF for last year was basically just periodic Sonic and Horror Story with a little Metroid in the last few days of the year. Still haven't done Horror Story A 1CC yet, but I am planning on doing it and probably X68000 Dracula eventually.

As for bosses, the final boss is the only one that stands out as difficult to me.

For "normal" gameplay sure, but try Experiment No. Z-57 on hard mode or Dread mode with 0% with no Spin Boost and no Space Jump.

Nothing Samus Returns does is worse than anything Metroid Dread does.

Among other things, Dread runs at 60 FPS, unlike Samus Returns, Dread lets you perform analog aiming while moving while Samus Returns rigidly snaps between some preset angles, Dread has way more enemy types than Samus Returns, and Samus Returns reuses so many music tracks and sound effects from Super Metroid and the Prime games without even arranging the music or altering the sound effects that it causes the game to somewhat lack an identity of its own, something that Dread doesn't have a problem with, so that's definitely not true...

I hope Mercury Steam never makes another Metroid.

Dread is a massive improvement over Samus Returns in every way except for maybe the soundtrack, and both games' soundtracks are mostly held up by arranged music from older games, but so do I. I want Nintendo to do it internally, but have no hope that they will.

In any case, I think I've finally figured out something that's caused me to dislike Samus Returns so much: it never actually feels like (it's supposed to be a remake of) Metroid II. This isn't something that I can qualify; the game simply feels completely wrong to me, and I mean that outside of the incredibly stiff movement and 30FPS framerate, which itself might be partially responsible for movement in Samus Returns feeling so gross in general.

I also learned something during my Samus Returns revisit: Dread has that cool thing where you can jump from hanging a ledge with very little delay after grabbing the ledge if you do the jump input within several frames of grabbing the ledge. This mechanic is in Samus Returns as well, which I didn't know until now. The timing is much more strict, but it is possible.

As for the counter... just don't use it unless you have to. For Samus Returns, Ice Beam + missile everything that doesn't require the counter; this is probably faster than anything other than simply avoiding combat entirely, but you might run out of missiles. In both games you have no choice but to use it for the counter tutorial, and for Dread you also need it for the final boss and several (I think 5 or 6) minibosses that can't be killed without it. There might be something else that I'm forgetting, but you can mostly ignore it if you want. In Dread it does damage when used while moving and can be used to kill weaker enemies without losing too much momentum.

I do want to check out Dread - it and Prime 3 are the only games in the series I haven't played through - but I'm a little skeptical on it. Samus Returns didn't convince me that Mercury Steam knows good action (not a fan of the 360 aiming, the parry isn't really a good fit for 2D Metroid, neither the digger robot or final boss are interesting), and it sounds like Dread is a lot more focused on action than exploration - I hear a lot of talk about its relatively difficult boss fights, and on top of that I don't like the sound of them removing save points and just having autosave checkpoints; the old save system was particularly important for the kind of tension that kind of exploration game really needs (even if none of the previous Metroids were that demanding).

Unrelatedly, I really think the series has been in a slump, at least on the 2D end, ever since the GBA entries. The first three Metroid games are all excellent and also differ from each other very sharply, with each having its own distinct identity, but every 2D Metroid since then basically just feels like a rehash of Super. Continually reusing that game's exact progression structure and powerup set, meaning that you're pretty much just perpetually dealing with the same set of verbs and the same puzzles over and over, really hampers the potential of the later entries - especially with Zero Mission and Samus Returns, which feel awkward due to shoehorning Super Metroid's systems into the skeletons of games very much at odds with Super's particularities. I don't think any of them are bad but I don't think any of them have been particularly inspiring, either, which is a shame.

Dread is good. It has plenty of exploration, but the game's invisible hand is strong and will push you forward unless you intentionally decide to ignore it, in which case the game will let you do almost anything you want. Fusion and Other M force you to do exactly what those games want you to do and show you where to go. Zero Mission also shows you where to go, but doesn't force you to go there and you can just disregard the marker and go do something else if you want.

Dread very heavily suggests where to go, not with a blinking icon on the map, but through how its level design makes the "intended" progression very... convenient, and, like Zero Mission, you can ignore the suggestions and just go do what you want, although only after a certain point. Once you get the Morph Ball you can immediately do almost anything and go almost anywhere, provided you know how to do the sequence breaks to get the items that you need. Zero Mission lets you skip way more stuff though; even without glitching, Zero Mission does not require Long Beam, Wave Beam, High Jump, Screw Attack, Power Bomb, Charge Beam, Super Missile, Speed Booster, Varia Suit (yes, you can skip the Varia Suit in Zero Mission. Kind of, anyway...), and maybe some more stuff that I can't remember. The only required items are the Power Grip, Morph Ball, Bombs, a single Missile Tank (except on hard, unless you are playing the European version), Ice Beam, the three unknown items, and the Varia Suit that is eventually forced upon you if you skip it. Dread has I think three things you can skip, not counting Missile Tanks and Power Bomb Tanks. Everything else is required, although I think you might be able to skip some more stuff with glitches.

Speaking of glitches, Dread is quite glitchy, but like Super Metroid, the glitches make the game better. Some got patched, but they intentionally left most of them in the game, so even on the latest patch you can still do stuff like skipping several bosses entirely by shooting through walls without the Wave Beam. The only major casualty was a really cool glitch that makes you completely invulnerable and that was used for some other cool sequence breaks, but it was very difficult to do. There isn't anything as awesome as Super Metroid's weird glitch where you use the Spazer and Plasma Beam together to reset the entire game, but there are some cool glitches here.

Prime 3... exists, I guess. I don't like Prime 2 that much, but at least I managed to finish the game. It took 18 years, as I've had it since launch and didn't like it then, but I did finally force myself finish it several years ago. I dropped Prime 3 after about 2 hours. It's... kind of like Other M in first person. Run down a super linear hallway to get an item and fly to another super linear hallway and do the same thing, maybe this time with some awkward motion controls because it was an early Wii game.

[BIL]

I'm badly drunk and suffering from Cheeto Dust Radiation, apologies if this rambles. Stay in school, kids!

late but R2RKMF 2023 recap:

Personal fav achievement: Ninja gaiden 1 and 3 nes nomiss, metal slug 2 turbo max overclock nomiss
biggest screwups: haven't played metal slug x and 4 very much

goals for 2024:
slug 1, x, and 4 nomiss
ninja gaiden 2 nes nomiss
trying to get atleast one beat em up 1cc since I'm really suck at these games when it comes to 1cc, my current interest is either zero team or PuLiRuLa

You'll nail MS1/X/4, I've no doubt; much less painful than MS3.

Crime Fighters 2 (use Boomer) might be a good choice for 1CC, only thing is, it has a second loop. But it's one of the best-designed (hard but fair!) arcade beltscrollers I've ever played. Even the loop's totally reasonable, unlike its ridiculous predecessor and its dumb Boss Revenge stage! Just a great time in general. EDIT: Zero Team is a great choice too, though! Drunk is clearing up That's another I'd recommend in the same spirit as CF2.

For 2023, I guess I'm happiest with my Shinobi Non Grata nomiss. Not a hard clear, tbh - like so many first-rate console originals, it's more about performance than raw survival. So many Flawless Victories and Katana Finishes missed. It's more that I actually played a new R2RKMF in the year it came out. Being as much into older games as newer ones, and there being so many more of the former, I tend to put new releases off forever. Currently enjoying Dark Souls III (2016) thoroughly.

I also finally played a bunch of other recent-ish highlights. Biggie was undoubtedly Tokuro Fujiwara's utterly superlative Kaettekita Makaimura / GNG Resurrection, which led to a run of some of my favourite posts ever ITT. Inti's GrimGuardians (GalGuardians? I never nailed down WTF it's called) was a good time, as well. Didn't finish the latter's Gunvolt III or Luminous Avenger II due to a lack of time - but as expected, having blind-bought 'em after Jack's endorsements, hyper-refined hardcore! I'm a terrible Rockman participator, and an even worse Rockman-adjacent one, but I do like 'em. I'll be getting back to these.

Also took a stand against my shameless Nihon Chauvinism and gave some Western-developed gems their due. Huntdown genuinely blew my socks off. While after Stevens and Tuna's endorsements, I knew to expect quality, this is truly Elevator Action Returns Once Again. Jump in blind if that name means anything to you, it's astounding! Genuinely funny game too, 2000AD fans will adore it. I likewise knew Tanuki Justice would excel, on Sumez's recommendation - but again, it's the kind of quality you have to experience firsthand. If that game had appeared on PCE/Saturn, it'd be fapped over nowadays.

This also led me to try out WonderBoy Bobi's earlier Aggelos, which comes with absolute recommendation for fans of oldschool sidescrolling ARPGs. Finally, it was great to see SriK and co's Steel Assault get a PS4 release!

Finally, I never got around to writing up Super Cyborg, but only because it's already well-attested to ITT. As a hypothetical third FC Contra, it's absolutely worthy of Umechan Team's mantle. IMO, it's worth regarding in the same light as Hideyuki Falco and Nobuya Nakazato's respective arcade/console successors.

This was also a notably killer year for reference-standard home releases of 80s/90s vintage works, thanks to ever-stalwart M2 and Hamster. Horror Story finally got its definitive home translation via ShotTriggers/Arcade Garage, and Arcade Archives had an absolute raft of classics, capped off by the epochal Mystic Warriors (roll on Violent Storm!). Stalwarts Wild Fang, Rolling Thunder 2, and Splatterhouse instantly come to mind, as do The New Zealand Story and Jigoku Meguri - but I was just as happy to see the scrappier proto-Leynos Finest Hour, which I left at the brink of a 2ALL. Gonna nail that one down this year, methinks. Runark and Tank Force both impressed, with full-blooded celebrations of hardcore Technos beatdown and Bombermanesque tactical topdown shooting. I was also reminded of the absolute utter hardcore that is Grobda! A game that'll last you a lifetime; the National Battling Association is not for the faint of heart or tactical acumen.

Keeping to Plasmo's main forum tradition, favourite posts from others goes to Lander's Taromaru writeup. Thank you for fighting the good fight for misunderstood idiosyncrasies, brother. There are other favourites, like copy-paster's MS2 Turbo NoMiss, but as mentioned, Cheetos Radiation saps my attention span.

[AGermanArtist]

Great read, you've reminded me of quite a few games in my backlog I'd forgotten. Those Luminous Avenger games are really fun.

[mycophobia]

Arcade Archives Mystic Warriors out today (GMT). Paging Sumez and Myco, and anyone else remotely into run/guns, for that matter.



Violent Storm next year pls

got muh clear on the switch version which i bought a couple days ago. really nice to play through the game without graphics glitches for the first time, can finally fuckin see those three dudes in stage 7

[Lander]

Cracking year-end review, BIL! My long and short term memory are both looking like a stuffed suitcase lately, so it's nice to be reminded of the highlights
Huntdown continues to rise in profile - 2000AD is a weighty invocation!

The GnG:R arc was great fun - following along with a bevy of legendary playthroughs, and discovering a newfound well of stubborn determination in the process.
I suppose not finishing the back half of loop 2 qualifies as my notable R2R screwup, though I'm at peace with it; those are future battles yet to come!
Also, not getting around to Ninja Warriors: Once Again Once Again; combo-efficient 2D brawling is a total shoo-in, but time and whim left it as a particularly shiny glint near the top of the to-play pile.

I did a lot of dabbling this year, educating myself on such choice classics as Rastan, Cadash, and Double Dragon Advance without diving into full clear territory. Though Osman went the distance after captivating me with its unrestrained techno-arabian rampage. A beautiful killer machine that was a pleasure to learn and ultimately 1CC; deserves to be enshrined in a gold-wrought cabinet fit for a sultan.

But Shinrei Jusatsushi Taromaru has to be the crowning vidya achievement in effort spent and relative payoff - sankyuu, sankyuu - a hidden gem in every sense, and continually rewarding.
To wit, returning to take on Ranking Mode and finish up the enormous ST I have archived will be this year's big R2RKMF goal; the rust will probably prove useful for filling in the remaining blanks.

And cripes, it really was almost a whole year ago! Feels like a vast chasm of time, but compressed down by countless fast-flying hours hammering away at unrelated matters in the proverbial inventor's shed. One of these days!

[Sumez]

I got myself a Bonze Adventure PCB the other day (Jigoku Meguri for the kool boiz, but this is the english version, not sure if there are any regional differences - Taito usually doesn't deal in those)

Anyone got any familiarity with the intricacies of it? Seems like a relatively easy game, but I didn't put too much time into it yet. I played the PCE port quite a bit when I got that, but that seems like an eternity ago now, and I barely remember it, but the arcade rev. definitely has a tighter challenge as per arcade standard, despite the console port being incredibly good.

The things that confuse me are the weapon mechanics, score items, and "random" item drops.
You have three different weapon colors, but I'm not sure if there is any difference between them outside of the special attack which happens when you shoot while crouching (which fires a "special" orb that can explode into an attack with more range). Doing this will *some times* downgrade a large attack orb to the smaller variant, but some times you get to keep the large orbs - I'm not sure what makes the difference, maybe it's possible to stack more attack levels invisibly after picking up enough colored orbs?

The score items that appear all over the place have some sort of increasing value going on. At the start of the game they'll increase from 10 to 100 before starting over, but after a while they will change and go from 50 to 500, and eventually 500-5000. I haven't gauged what causes the value to increase, but a death will make it drop. It might just be a question of looping it enough times, in which case it's just a basic no-miss reward.

As for the items you get, there's a bead charm and the blue thing you pick up which appear all the time. I think one of these increases your fire rate, and not sure about the other one. But they pop up constantly, so you'll never go without them. More interesting are the super rare 1UP items and the buddha statue that gives you a shield protecting against one hit. As per Taito standards I refuse to believe they are entirely random. This replay confirms that:
https://youtu.be/Y--50lV-Gpw?si=0-gqM4-iuNazXo3N&t=152
You can see the player getting a 1UP item on the first stage, and then intentionally avoiding any more points before shooting the headstone further ahead for a shield, which indicates that it's tied to your score digits (which read a neat 88000).
But I have no idea if there's a relation between the location you uncover items and the digits, and what the rules are. I can't find anywhere on the internet divulging this information, so we need to get it out there

[Bloodreign]

https://twitter.com/LimitedRunGames/sta ... 5481015502 If you missed these awesome little sidescrollers the first time, you get another try. That's right, the original Sparkster trilogy is seeing re-release for most of the modern consoles out there today. I really need to play these again since I have the original carts.

[copy-paster]

First 1CC/No Death run of 2024 starting with Metal Slug X max overclock

Nothing too much to say other than I fucked up the mutant section (pressing A and B at the same time like always) and I didn't grab the Super Shotgun on the white mars people, all of that was the first time I deal with such situation imagine my shock, their blue balls and two tanks is too KOWAI! All's paid off with a perfect RNG drops on the final boss tho.

[Sumez]

Ugh, struggling with Bonze Adventure. I'd consider it really easy for an arcade game, but at the same time it's one of those games which are really easy on paper, but where anything can go wrong anywhere for seemingly no good reason (my experience with Elevator Action Returns is similar).
There's not too much RNG in the game, but what is there can be really damning. I'm working on my consistency now, I feel like I should be able to consistently reach the final boss with at least 3-4 lives in stock, but it hasn't happened yet.

The final boss is a whole other ordeal though. The first form is really simple but deviously dangerous! It spits out a semi-random formation of fireballs which move in spirals to make dodging less straight forward. That's dangerous on the left side of him where you need to quickly gauge whether jumping or ducking is the best action. If you need to duck, you should move as far aways as possible, while jumping is safer in closer proximity. The game has a really annoying quirk where as long as you are pushing sideways, ducking is impossible (unlike most other games where ducking prevents moving), so you need to be really good at letting go of the direction while pressing down. I am very bad at that!

The second form is this crazy shooter section where your player transforms into a dragon with a massive but inconsistent hitbox, and a ton of really weird unwieldly intertia. It looks tough in a video, but in practice it is even more impossible to control. Upon countless attempts I've managed to beat it twice after credit feeding, both after manipulating it to get on the left side of the screen - so I'm still not sure if that's actually a winning strategy or if I was just lucky, because fighting it on the left side feels identical to fighting it on the right.

Has no one else beaten this game? I'd really love any sort of helpful hints with this fight, because currently it just feels like a permanent wall keeping me from the 1CC.


As for the questions I had earlier, I've wasted a bunch of time looking into the mechanics, and come to some useless conclusions:

You have three different weapon colors, but I'm not sure if there is any difference between them outside of the special attack which happens when you shoot while crouching (which fires a "special" orb that can explode into an attack with more range). Doing this will *some times* downgrade a large attack orb to the smaller variant, but some times you get to keep the large orbs - I'm not sure what makes the difference, maybe it's possible to stack more attack levels invisibly after picking up enough colored orbs?

So there's a few different levels of big orbs, and some look almost identical, so it's hard to tell, but each special attack does downgrade your orbs. In fact, the system seems quite simple, there are three weapon colors, and each is upgraded separately every time you pick up an orb of that color, so you can get green all the way to its largest size, and then switch to red and that will be tiny - but switching back to green you'll still have the largest size. So there's really no downside to picking up everything you come across. And there's rarely/never any reason to go with one specific color from what I can tell.

The score items that appear all over the place have some sort of increasing value going on. At the start of the game they'll increase from 10 to 100 before starting over, but after a while they will change and go from 50 to 500, and eventually 500-3300. I haven't gauged what causes the value to increase, but a death will make it drop. It might just be a question of looping it enough times, in which case it's just a basic no-miss reward.

I was wrong, I haven't been able to find any way for the "medal value" to drop.
As far as I can tell there's an internal counter that increases every 3584 (0xE00) frames. Once you have earned over 100,000 points, the step decreases to 1792 (0x700) frames, and your medal values increases every few steps of that counter.
In other words, if you really want to milk scoring as much as possible in the game, you need to reach 100,000 points as quick as possible, and then just sit around stalling for as long as you can get away with without timing out. That... sounds really terrible. I don't know if I'm overlooking anything else.

As for the items you get, there's a bead charm and the blue bean thing you pick up which appear all the time. I think one of these increases your fire rate, and not sure about the other one. But they pop up constantly, so you'll never go without them. More interesting are the super rare 1UP items and the buddha statue that gives you a shield protecting against one hit. As per Taito standards I refuse to believe they are entirely random. This replay confirms that:
https://youtu.be/Y--50lV-Gpw?si=0-gqM4-iuNazXo3N&t=152
You can see the player getting a 1UP item on the first stage, and then intentionally avoiding any more points before shooting the headstone further ahead for a shield, which indicates that it's tied to your score digits (which read a neat 88000).
But I have no idea if there's a relation between the location you uncover items and the digits, and what the rules are. I can't find anywhere on the internet divulging this information, so we need to get it out there

I've mapped out these mechanics as well as I could, but unfortunately it's not particularly helpful.
The only useful item which can be manipulated is said shield - basically it appears when your score ends in three zeroes, so any full thousand (but your last digit is always 0). Every third item you uncover will give an powerup, while the others will be the scoring talismans/medals, so you also need to coordinate the score digits with every third item drop. It can appear anywhere, there's nothing unique to the location in that video.

The other common items (colored orbs or the two blue powerup items I still don't know the purpose of) depend on the third digit in your score.
The 1UP is nearly impossible to manipulate. It requires the item drop to be one in every 14th drop, but it also needs to be a powerup drop, so it can only happen on the cross-section between "evry 3rd" and "every 14th" (so every 42th item appearance?) *and* the third digit your score needs to be a 0 (xxxx0xx). So I guess on average every 420th item drop should be a 1UP which explains why it's so rare.

[Sumez]

Well I did work out one easy manipulation. At the very start of the game you can force a score of 1000 before uncovering the third item, and start with a shield, which is extremely useful since it pretty much functions as a 1UP.

[Stevens]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dUmr2d ... sp=sharing

Had a chance to play Kung Fu Master in the wild over the weekend. It was the first time I looped the game on a cab. My actual high score is 313,000, but I forgot the trick with the mage boss.

I think I am going to go for 400,000.

[Sumez]

Ugh, I was really enjoying Super Cyborg until the final two stages.

Overall I think it's a really solid Contra clone, that taps into what the NES versions of the first two games do well. But the further you get into the game, the more often it will just stop you in your tracks and force you to wait for spongey enemies to die, or hazards to get out of your way. This gets really tedious on the overhead stage, but the stage following it is overall just bad - culminating in the elevator section right before the final boss which is one of the worst setpieces I've played in any run'n'gun.

The first five stages are fun though.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Mirrors my thoughts, unfortunately. I liked the game well enough early on - I don't think it's outright amazing but it was completely solid - but it really descends by the end. That final elevator shaft was incredibly aggravating; I can't stand how the slight wiggling of the tentacles that come out of the sides actually changes their hitbox, because it makes it way too finicky to kill them in time. The final boss was annoyingly interminable too.

[BIL]

I'd axe the topdown stage for certain; I think it could go AWOL entirely, and the game would only gain for it. Too long and lukewarmly-paced. I think they should've played it safe with something like the GB game's second topdown; short and crunchily speedkillable. I do recall liking the boss, at least. Bigcore mkIII bouncy lasers always get my appreciation.

I thought the final stage was all kinds of rad though. >_> But the elevator definitely misses the brevity and surprising dangerousness of its GB inspiration. It lands nearer its namesake Super C's own, much dozier elevator... which ofc arrives far earlier in its game. Both feel like wanly obligatory callbacks in an otherwise scintillating tribute act.

First 1CC/No Death run of 2024 starting with Metal Slug X max overclock

Nothing too much to say other than I fucked up the mutant section (pressing A and B at the same time like always) and I didn't grab the Super Shotgun on the white mars people, all of that was the first time I deal with such situation imagine my shock, their blue balls and two tanks is too KOWAI! All's paid off with a perfect RNG drops on the final boss tho.

Good going! I knew you'd nail it, after your MS2 Turbo nomiss.

Taking on that Girida pincer attack without the Super Shotgun sounds like hell I'm so used to terminating those bastards as they roll in with a couple bombs and a shotgun blast apiece. Will enjoy watching that!

Ugh, struggling with Bonze Adventure. I'd consider it really easy for an arcade game, but at the same time it's one of those games which are really easy on paper, but where anything can go wrong anywhere for seemingly no good reason (my experience with Elevator Action Returns is similar).
There's not too much RNG in the game, but what is there can be really damning. I'm working on my consistency now, I feel like I should be able to consistently reach the final boss with at least 3-4 lives in stock, but it hasn't happened yet.

Supremely valuable coverage, as always. Sorry I've nothing to contribute, but it sounds like you've scruffed the bastard properly. Will revisit whenever I get around to the ACA ver - I say that a lot lately.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dUmr2d ... sp=sharing

Had a chance to play Kung Fu Master in the wild over the weekend. It was the first time I looped the game on a cab. My actual high score is 313,000, but I forgot the trick with the mage boss.

I think I am going to go for 400,000.

Jealous. Gorgeous cab - and I was totally unaware DECO published Kung Fu Master!

[BulletMagnet]

SLG have started taking pre-orders for Shadow of the Ninja for anyone interested.

EDIT: The game's also been delayed to the summer, but there's a new video to tide us over.

[velo]

Ugh, I was really enjoying Super Cyborg until the final two stages.

Overall I think it's a really solid Contra clone, that taps into what the NES versions of the first two games do well. But the further you get into the game, the more often it will just stop you in your tracks and force you to wait for spongey enemies to die, or hazards to get out of your way. This gets really tedious on the overhead stage, but the stage following it is overall just bad - culminating in the elevator section right before the final boss which is one of the worst setpieces I've played in any run'n'gun.

The first five stages are fun though.

Mirrors my thoughts, unfortunately. I liked the game well enough early on - I don't think it's outright amazing but it was completely solid - but it really descends by the end. That final elevator shaft was incredibly aggravating; I can't stand how the slight wiggling of the tentacles that come out of the sides actually changes their hitbox, because it makes it way too finicky to kill them in time. The final boss was annoyingly interminable too.

The slow walk speed is a big drain on the overhead stage, making it duller and limiting the gameplay. It's a lull but not excruciating like Blazing Chrome's gimmick level. I wasn't sold on the final boss, until I killed him. Now it's all good. It earned a big multiphase boss for the finale, and It's a better fight than say some comparable Hard Corps bosses, in my opinion. I haven't found many indie run n guns I'd rank over Super Cyborg.

[TransatlanticFoe]

SLG have started taking pre-orders for Shadow of the Ninja for anyone interested.

It looks like it's getting a standard ININ retail release too for PS5 and Switch. Only the native PS4 version and the fancy pants extra stuff editions are exclusive to Strictly Limited. The regular Strictly Limited ones just have different artwork and are numbered - content is the same.

[Randorama]

...so, I have 1-CC'ed Shadow Dancer (arcade), Speed Rumbler, Avengers (the Capcom "tate" fighting game), Trojan, SonSon and Pirate Ship Higemaru (one loop, to be fair). I then did a 2-ALL of Mad Gear and Top Secret (i.e. the Japanese version of Bionic Commando).

Shadow Dancer was a "let's quickly re-learn the stages and be done once and for all" affair. I feel that the arcade version is buggy, and that the graphics have aged really poorly. Still, I had to take this grudge off my mind.

The Capcom block was a bit of a hassle, because I had to overcome decades-long walls that prevented me from 1-CC'ing the games in the first place. Speed Rumbler implements an interesting game mechanic (swap between car-based action shooting and character-based action shooting), but it is a clunky game. This was a pain in the ass. The other titles were easy to clear once I looked up the relevant replays.

Mad Gear is a more modern version of a Data East driving game in which players control a car that can jump over other cars and obstacles (... I can't remember its name, sorry). This one is however by Capcom, has a glorious OST and was originally an MX68000 game, I believe. All I had to do was to learn how to clear the first loop with the F1 car, and the second loop with the "standard" car. Easy but fun.

Top Secret is...well, a famous (or even notorious) action/platform game with the "grappling arm" mechanic, mildly infuriating and memorization-heavy stage design, and a generally cool OST and gfx. I had to re-learn the safest routes and pull off a cohesive run, and that was it.

So...

I believe that I have exhausted my supply of arcade, decade-long grudges in the R2RKMF genre. There are, actually, a few more grudges that I don't really feel addressing, at this stage: Pipi & Bibis, Bubble Bobble 2 in 1P mode, Don't pull in the Three wonders package, Altered Beast, Teddy Boy Blues and perhaps Alien Storm. I would add a few titles by Namco, though I do not even remember exactly which ones would count as personal grudges (y'know, old age and such, but I know that Metro-Cross is lurking somewhere in my past defeats, eyes gleaming in the dark like an enraged Xenomorph!).

Pipi & Bibis becomes excruciatingly hard from level 4 onwards: players have to memorise a solution to each stage, implement it, and die if they make small mistakes. I don't feel like I have the temperament for it anymore, so the grudge can stay there.

Bubble Bobble 2 1P mode...oh dear, the game is not easy and I would need re-learn more or less everything from scratch. Besides, it is a long road to the Drunken Master. See above. Don't pull also falls in this category: it is 32 stages of memorisation.

There is, then, the Sega & Namco block. Altered Beast... at the time I loved it, but never managed to go past stage 3. Now, it feels like a drab and very simplistic platform (with a glacial pace to boot). Alien Storm makes me think that DoctorTrouserPlank has been barking for 15 years at the wrong tree: the Shinobi group were really taking the piss on players with this one (no energy refills? zakos doing half a bar of damage with a combo? First perspective shooting sections full of sudden hit enemies? Yeah, right).

Teddy Boy Blues could be an option even if it gets *really* tricky after level 20 or so, and there are 43 levels before it loops (maybe there are 2 loops?). Length is an issue, but this could be a title that I would be really happy to 1-CC, after almost 40 years. Just in case you wonder, it was a 1985 release.

Finally, Metro-Cross is a matter of stamina and time: I think that there is an anime in which a character mentions that the game takes 4 hours or so to 1-CC, because it is 100 levels or more. I love the whole idea of the poor guy having to survive the obstacles of future life (ok, I always interpreted the setting in this manner). However, I think that I would attempt the 1-CC if it would become a requirement in a future job contract (...unlikely, because I would never sign a contract implementing such an irrational clause).

I would actually add Mappy, Pac-Mania and the arranged version of Pac-Man (the 1996 title), and perhaps even Rompers. The truth is that I liked these titles, but I never really cared about these titles enough to go for the 1-CC, to be honest, and I really suck at "dot-eater'em ups". Raimais, sorry: I will love you from afar.

...Maybe I should just figure out how long Phozon is, and call it quits with Namco and with ga(y)ming in general. If you people have read this far, any suggestions or arguments pro or con tackling any of the "leftover grudges" are welcome (arcade, please). If not, I maybe just ride off in the sunset, I guess.

[Bloodreign]

Mad Gear is a more modern version of a Data East driving game in which players control a car that can jump over other cars and obstacles (... I can't remember its name, sorry). This one is however by Capcom, has a glorious OST and was originally an MX68000 game, I believe. All I had to do was to learn how to clear the first loop with the F1 car, and the second loop with the "standard" car. Easy but fun.

That would be Bump N Jump, or Burning Rubber as it is called in Japan. Metro Cross is actually 32 stages, not sure if the game loops, the Famicom version I believe does after a short ending screen.

[BIL]

My shamefurry late response to a post I can no longer find (;｀w´;) Udderdude's reportage on newly-discovered 1982 topdown rammer SUPER CRUSH!! is truly Dick Stock-calibre A surprise Yuzo Koshiro in the comments, even!



OnionSoft, more like ONIONHARD mirite PRACTICE SAFE RAMMING (｀w´メ) Orca stuff is always fascinating. The game footage instantly made me think of Senjou no Okami II's hovercraft stages; wonder if there was any influence?

Arcade Archives Mystic Warriors out today (GMT). Paging Sumez and Myco, and anyone else remotely into run/guns, for that matter.

Violent Storm next year pls

got muh clear on the switch version which i bought a couple days ago. really nice to play through the game without graphics glitches for the first time, can finally fuckin see those three dudes in stage 7

I was so happy to see those glorious transparencies and dissolves in full flight! Big boost to my Hamster Will Save The 90s meter.

...so, I have 1-CC'ed Shadow Dancer (arcade), Speed Rumbler, Avengers (the Capcom "tate" fighting game), Trojan, SonSon and Pirate Ship Higemaru (one loop, to be fair). I then did a 2-ALL of Mad Gear and Top Secret (i.e. the Japanese version of Bionic Commando).

Fine hunting as always, Rando-sensei. I'm gonna get a hitlist going this year, myself; left a hearty slate on the back burner. No coincidence that my arcade output is inversely proportional to my exploits in Yharnam et al. One truly enhances the other.

If you people have read this far, any suggestions or arguments pro or con tackling any of the "leftover grudges" are welcome (arcade, please). If not, I maybe just ride off in the sunset, I guess.

Not listed, but have you cleared Ninja Spirit? That's a nice no-filler 1CC; concise and technical. JP rev (Saigo no Nindou) is preferable; I hear the INT rev dilutes its pitch-perfect difficulty with additional checkpoints and powerups. 99.9% sidescrolling action masterpiece, .1% coin-grubbing kusoge; laser that bad tattoo away, fades to a handsome scar.

[Udderdude]

It's nice to see someone appreciates hot CARxCAR action, especially when they're kawaii AF. I deleted that post because it was mostly off-topic to this thread anyway. But yeah, really amazing that there's still stuff out there that hasn't been dumped. I think that's the only footage of the game on the entire internets, which is why I was so excited when I saw it.

[Randorama]

Bloodreign: Yes to both points! I forgot that the game was called Burning Rubber, and I somehow I convinced myself that Metro-Cross is staggeringly long (100 stages x 2 loops), to the point that I did not even bother to look up any relevant information on the game. My bad.

Birru-Dono: Ninja Spirit is not a personal grudge because I never played the game in the arcade. This is a bit of a mistery - my uncle bought and installed more or less all other Irem games he could find, because he had a near-religious fervour for their output. It *is* one missing game in the long list of arcade titles that I have cleared by this point in life.

I do need to figure out, though, if I am up to the task in terms of patience and actual skill. I tried a few rounds of Pipi & Bibis and then Teddy Boy Blues, to gauge the feasibility of a 1-CC at this current age of mine. Bloody hell, at the last rage-quit I was ready to bang down the walls with headbutts, just to reduce a bit the sheer frustration stemming from the lack of a decent grasp of these two titles.

Maybe I should go the Dr. Plankster way and claim that they can only be 1-CC'ed via TAS, eh!

[BIL]

It's nice to see someone appreciates hot CARxCAR action, especially when they're kawaii AF. I deleted that post because it was mostly off-topic to this thread anyway. But yeah, really amazing that there's still stuff out there that hasn't been dumped. I think that's the only footage of the game on the entire internets, which is why I was so excited when I saw it.

Orca are the sort of dev I'd love to see Hamster get the rights to, although who knows how complicated that could be... fond of 'em ever since randomly trying out Marine Boy in MAME, an ungodly span ago. Ababox's creepy vertical downscrolling famously unnerves, but here it is a near decade earlier.

Birru-Dono: Ninja Spirit is not a personal grudge because I never played the game in the arcade. This is a bit of a mistery - my uncle bought and installed more or less all other Irem games he could find, because he had a near-religious fervour for their output. It *is* one missing game in the long list of arcade titles that I have cleared by this point in life.

I do need to figure out, though, if I am up to the task in terms of patience and actual skill. I tried a few rounds of Pipi & Bibis and then Teddy Boy Blues, to gauge the feasibility of a 1-CC at this current age of mine. Bloody hell, at the last rage-quit I was ready to bang down the walls with headbutts, just to reduce a bit the sheer frustration stemming from the lack of a decent grasp of these two titles.

I think you'd do fine; you've always demonstrated the appropriately analytical approach to arcade games, something I immediately noticed from you and other mainstays, when I found this place a short lifetime ago. Saigo is feared by newbies for its randomised enemy spawns; but in truth, its scope for RNG mayhem is severely restricted, by design. Two onscreen apiece, for the roving enforcers; one apiece, for the juggernaut. More than enough firepower for all of 'em.

The trick is, as with any good game, analysis. Learn to outplay each enemy type, while learning the stage layouts (the latter deliberately uncomplicated; "Spartan X but outside" is fair descriptor... although maybe that's just Legend of Kage, which Saigo is unmistakably indebted to ). Once you know the basics, no matter what the RNG throws out, you'll be able to adapt. Akin to Daimakaimura; blood-simple action filtered through expertly restrained RNG, riveting every time. As with Capcom's game, it's flexible, but never a cakewalk; Stage 6's mixups of jagged terrain and pincer hordes is pulse-pounding every time. But that's the spirit of arcade gaming; no saves, no plot armour, do your best you have ever done.

It's quite short, too; ~15mins per NoMiss, an arcade intensity-to-runtime ratio I've become partial to (see also Ikari and Double Dragon II). Like a nice steak, it's all in the sear.

[pja]

By some weird coincidence I also played Super Cyborg recently... and I don't even share the extent of the praise you guys gave it, at all I thought it sucked from the start to be quite frankly, visually it's a complete mess where I don't know where to look and everything just merges together (enemies, background, bullets and the playable character). You mentioned spongy enemies stopping you in your tracks in later levels but they are already there very early on (the weird tube zombies in 2 and frogs in 3), and bosses that have relatively long stretches where they can't be damaged isn't really what I'd like from your action packed run and gun (level 3 boss is especially egregious and this is where I quit for now).

I kinda wanted to continue in hopes it gets better in later levels but from what you guys are saying it gets worse so I'm not too hopeful

[BIL]

I think it's a worthy Umechanesque, but very much bound by its namesake FC Super C(ontra); which has a similar over-reliance on bullet sponges/meatwalls (FC stage 7, aka Two Snowfield Tanks Wasn't Nearly Enough). I'd actually say the inheritance is apparent right from stage 1, with those flower obstacles... but I got more entertainment out of figuring out how to kill them, and the st2 tank zombies, and other things without breaking stride than is normal, much as with Super C.

The globalisation of Super C's charge shot really helped, there. Reminds me a bit of Shattered Soldier, in that regard. You can take out the stage 3 boss very quickly with aggressive charge shots once you've sussed out its patterns, IIRC (been a year or so). I remember raising an eyebrow at that one, too, initially.

[Randorama]

Birru-dono: Analytical mind maybe (I mean, I do the job I do), but one thing is competence, and another thing is performance. I mean, the problem I have with the final few grudges in the list is that I may lack the patience to re-develop enough motor skills (precision, coordination, speed...) to STFU the games and earn the much sought 1-CC (please notice the italics, just in case).

So...

I am at an age and mental mindset in which I can find motivation when I am getting paid for the task, or I have health benefits from the task, or the task has some kind of social usefulness.

I doubt that my employers would pay for 1-CC games, though I might find a way to churn papers with an impact factor out of the experience. Yes, this sounds like some kind of deeply perverse post-modern bollocks on steroids, especially because *it could actually work (e.g. "International Journal of Memory Studies, volume X, Issue Y, pp. ZZ-TT. Confessions of a crap 1-CC player: how I loved to fail over and over again. A cognitive approach"*).

Health benefits...maybe I could implement extra training sets when I rage-quit, and follow a grease the groove regime. An example would be "stage practice->rage-quit->one-hand push-ups" super-sets, perhaps. Maybe, I should play with protein shakes and kettle bells at my side? (The walls of my apartment would be happy, I guess).

Social usefulness: oh dear, I can imagine that some of the more vocal "top-scores" on this forum can easily prove how they prevented global warming by participating in gaming festivals and uploading 1-CC replays on the interwebs. I would propose wittier jokes on this matter, but they would turn ugly anyway and I would end up using words like "NEET", "eugenics" and the like in a few more lines of commentary. Let's just say that I actually deleted those few lines already, in a bout of lucidity.

A brief update, anyway:

With Pipi & Bibis I would also need to re-discover all the "solutions" to stages 4, 5 and 6 (...or just copy from a replay), but with Metro-Cross, Ninja Spirit and Teddy Boy Blues I would need to concentrate on ironing out performance on the latter stages. 80's arcade games were unforgiving and wrong positioning and timing ("where" and "when") were generally punished swiftly, as we all know. Programmers were happy to be "gate-keepers" on "gaming experiences" by "forcing players" into "rigid modes" of "experiencing the game narratives" that "prevent players from fully appreciating the authors' eschatological intentions" (...am I aping 2010's/gaming journalism rhetoric well? One day I will probably strangle Kieron Gillen, even if I generally like him as a human being and comics author). Anyone who actually knows how the deeply flawed economical system of arcade gaming works would not even entertain this rhetoric in fieri, anyway. Ignorance is a bliss, et cetera et cetera.

Also, yes: the 20- to 25-minutes formula from the "arcade '80s" suits me just fine, these days. I noticed this when playing the Darius titles again: the first title has this crisp, fast-paced stage design that seems perfectly tailored for a busy adult with not so much time for the 1-CC. I wouldn't be surprised that this is the case because arcade players in the '80s were mostly salarymen with little free time and the urge to win quickly, I guess. Case in point, I am experiencing "endurance" problems with longer games beyond the 25-minutes mark: suddenly much slower reaction times, blank slate moments ("duh, what am I supposed to do"), and random fumbled movements. A clear indicator of the lack of practice is the "dot-eating syndrome": the moments in which I see a bullet/attack incoming and I ran into it as the most instinctive reaction

Anyway, as I mentioned in another thread when discussing progress on Don Pachi, I am currently away from my "proper" set-up, so I am reporting "ga(y)ming struggles" under the black-tinted goggles of wireless keyboard-ga(y)ming. Still, the next big target in my life with be August 2025 (contract renewal, and/or moving to a different job and country), so I have this distant urge to sort out and finalise a part of my life before I shelve it and move to future endeavours.

...I am taking the piss on quite a few matters, including myself, because post-modernist self-irony makes me laugh a bit. You should have read this post while on the loo and emptying your stomach from disposal, for an optimised experience





*I have changed the name of the journal on purpose to avoid the even vague risk of getting into trouble (OK, I am posting all this rubbish under a nickname but still...). The journal actually exists, and does publish a certain kind of ultra-subjective, post-modern drivel masqueraded as "phenomenological research on memory" (i.e. people posting their musings on something they remember from childhood, et similia). Most of their papers are more...empirically based, but the aforementioned drivel does sneak in. I would say that 10% of their papers are drivel-oriented.

So, the temptation of exploiting the drivel I have been drivelling on this forum for two decades is indeed real...I just need to hallucinate a demon and an angel debating the issue at my side, and we would also have material for, dunno, a reality show or something. Hey, influencers do this for a living, so it is now a perfectly ethical course of action for profit! Do shoot me on sight if I ever realise any of these "dangerous visions" (thanks Mr. Ellison!), though. My identity is known, and my domicile can be provided if the need arises. I can already imagine Birru-Dono coming over with a silencer, a Jason Statham/Carlos Ezquerra-character expression, and put me out of my misery with a laconic "Forgiven? No. Forgotten? Never. Farewell, sensei".

[pja]

I think it's a worthy Umechanesque, but very much bound by its namesake FC Super C(ontra); which has a similar over-reliance on bullet sponges/meatwalls (FC stage 7, aka Two Snowfield Tanks Wasn't Nearly Enough). I'd actually say the inheritance is apparent right from stage 1, with those flower obstacles... but I got more entertainment out of figuring out how to kill them, and the st2 tank zombies, and other things without breaking stride than is normal, much as with Super C.

... you know, I didn't even catch that the name of the game itself is an obvious reference, it's Super C(yborg) after all Anyway, I don't know what it is, since I liked both Famicom Contras but so far I don't like this one. One thing that makes me suspicious is that this is one of these games that has a "Normal" difficulty which is not actually selected by default (that is "Easy"), so I didn't know which to pick - I tend to trust developers on the baseline difficulty level since they should know what's the most balanced one for first playthrough but if you name it "easy" that doesn't sound like the one to pick I picked Normal, which maybe was a mistake.

[velo]

Funny thing is, one thing I liked about Super Cyborg is that it felt much less bullet spongey to me than other indies. As far as I remember, it fed you a steady stream of popcorn mixed in with the heavier guys, whereas Blazing Chrome almost felt like it didn't have real zako, like a common enemy could waltz straight into you from quarter-screen distance eating bullets the whole time. Been a while since I've touched either, though.