Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Randorama]

Shameless plug-in; the Midnight Wanderers/Roosters (Capcom, 1991) squib is now up. Great action game, adorable fairy tale-like design, good OST, gentle thus solid challenge, and many different ports for all types of players. We will also have squibs for Chariot and Don't Pull, the other two games in the Three Wonders 3-in-1 games compo, so please stay tuned.

[1000Eyes]

I finally got a 1CC of Spartan X. It's one of those games that hooked me on Arcade gaming ever since I started to take it seriously February this year I wanted to write a review to consolidate what I know in my journey so far, and maybe capture what makes this worth playing after so long:

It's often called the first Beat 'em up, but it's actually much closer to a shmup with fists. Here's Takashi Nishiyama, the game's director, in his own words:

[Spartan X] wasn't really a fighting game. The developers were aiming to make a rhythmic shooting style video game.

Perhaps we can go a little further and find out just what a peculiar hybrid this game is.

At the most basic level, what Nishiyama says makes sense, with equal emphasis on both quoted genres. After all, the game is centered around a slow, always centered protagonist who cannot attack while moving, and thus he is forced to engage with the game's High / Low combat distinction. This distinction can be thought of not unlike lanes in a Shmup or rhythm game. Thus, the game's complexity mostly stems from timing the enemies coming from both lanes, replicating the wave-based, sequence-based combat of the above genres.

This is altogether different from Beat 'em ups, which later evolved into crowd control heavy games where spacing and multiple enemy manipulation is much more important. There's little complex enemy behavior in Spartan X, you fight them one at a time in sets rather than face them as dynamic chess pieces, and you barely move. Lanes and waves, rather than states and positioning.

What did set Spartan X apart, however, was its randomness and chaos, which was best embodied by the knife guys. They are privileged with the game's most complex behavior: they have a chance to throw a knife into either lane at set intervals, but also can mix it up by occasionally retreating when approached. This interacts well with the game's treatment of manual scrolling. You must move forward to progress as enemies spawn infinitely, but since moving doesn't allow you to attack, you can choose to delay and mix up waves to allow for quicker progress. Since the waves are random, you can get some pretty nasty configurations that upset your timing of the waves and the knife guys. If you take too much risk, you can end up in a situation where enemies overload you while projectiles from both sides get chucked at you — a true checkmate. This overlapping that's an inherent risk in the RNG and your own inputs are where the game really shines. This relentless flow also differentiates it from later follow ups like Green Beret, which added actual platforming but traded away the sheer uninterrupted stream of being surrounded and thinking on your feet.

The game does have some structural issues that prevent it from achieving its full potential. No other obstacle in the game is as interesting as those projectile lobbers, despite a clear effort. The first is the trio of obstacles (snakes, confetti ball, dragons) on Stage 2 that initially is a very exciting roadblock, maybe the first real not-easy section of the game, where you are forced to retreat, crouch, attack and generally make full use of your moveset for the first time, but it's much more predictable and forgiving than the game's other challenges once you learn it. In Stage 4, we are introduced to moths that can speed up and vary their height at will, which in theory should lead to an exciting reaction game. In practice, however, the spawns are not aggressive enough and the section is rather short, so you just speed by most of the time. The game unfortunately peaks in complexity around Stage 3, and the rest is more of an endurance test with the occasional curveballs. It's a good thing that the core dynamic as described above is fun enough, and that the game is rather short, a 1CC run clocking in less than 10 minutes, but the missed opportunities are fairly obvious and repetition does set in eventually. The bosses are also by and large uninteresting, save for the Stage 4 boss which acts like a lottery version of a knife guy.

It's also got a poorly thought out mechanic in the punch. It's basically a worse, shorter-ranged kick that's meant to be the scoring option due to its riskier nature, but playing for score is boring due to infinite random enemies resulting in a lot of tedious milking tactics. Moreover, the game eventually forces you to use the punch to beat enemies that are invulnerable to kicks, which feels more like a design concession than an organic challenge.

While hard to deny on an aesthetic level, systematically there isn't much that Spartan X gave to Beat 'em ups. Interestingly, however, the brief flourishing of chaotic arcade platformers that emphasized random spawns or enemy behaviors like Ghost n Goblins or even console ones like Contra NES, owe their design partly to the philosophy of Spartan X. In truth, despite the multitude of iterations and even direct sequels, Spartan X stands out due to how pure the experience is: virtually nothing but enemy encounters, and more importantly virtually nothing but improvised flow of combat. This improvisation stands in contrast to the surgical minefield school of the Classicvania, which focused more on precise enemy placements and tricky terrain. Thus, the sheer immediacy of Spartan X’s kill-on-instinct core that allowed the game to shine all these years later despite its at times rudimentary construction.

The first Beat 'em up? Possibly. The wellspring of an entire era’s design ethos? Most certainly.

[Stevens]

Congrats on getting the Spartan clear Rando. It took me years before I finally put Mr. X down in the arcade.

The furthest I've ever gone I think was the 3rd loop wizard. There is an interesting method of dealing with him, which I can't seem to find right now.

It has to do with walking away from him. He teleports and then you walk towards him. He will walk backwards till he reaches the stairs. At that point you pummel him.

This method is close:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruz4sS0Jlo4

[Randorama]

Thanks Stevens, but it's 1000Eyes, our winner of the day

[Vanguard]

Touhou Wandering Souls

Touhou Wandering Souls is one of the best games ever made. It's a unique hybrid of many genres, taking elements from platformers, beat em ups, RPGs, shmups, and collectathons. Even though it's an action game, it was made in RPG Maker. Its assets are all taken from other games. The main characters and bosses come from Touhou fighting games. Most of the enemies are from Maplestory, and the level graphics mostly come from Donkey Kong Country. Despite being such a hodgepodge, it all comes together incredibly well.



In Wandering Souls, you play as Reimu Hakurei, Marisa Kirisame, and Sakuya Izayoi, on a quest to resolve a new incident in Gensoyko. Magical barriers suddenly appeared all over the land, preventing travel between different parts of Gensokyo, along with mysterious artificial souls that have the ability to break those barriers. The goal of the game is to collect wandering souls and expand the territory you can access, until you can find and defeat the culprit behind it all. Every level has a wandering soul at the end, and many levels have additional souls hidden somewhere inside them. Many levels also award another soul for completing the level under certain conditions, such as beating the level without using any spellcards, or without letting any of your team members die. Collecting wandering souls unlocks not just new levels, but also new spellcards for your characters, and new equipment at the shop. Usually you get a new set of upgrades for every 20 souls you gather.



The combat system is a mix between a platformer, a beat em up, and a danmaku game. Your characters all have a set of normal attacks which don't cost anything to use, but are generally weak, and you have two kinds of special attacks that are stronger but cost resources. You have skills which consume stamina, which regenerates quickly, and spellcards which need to be charged up and consume magic, which regenerates slowly. Offensive play in Wandering Souls is more interesting than in most platformers because there's a big difference between landing an average hit on the enemy versus landing a good hit. Reimu has homing amulets that pierce through enemies, you want to position yourself so they pass through as many enemies as possible. Marisa has a bunch of laser attacks and if you manage to keep the enemy in the beam throughout the entire attack, you'll do more damage. Sakuya has attacks that throw a bunch of knives at the enemy, and the more you can get to land, the better. Some attacks are capable of hitting at long range, but will hurt more in close range. Most attacks have some way of using them that makes them more powerful.



You can switch between controlling each of your three characters. When switching in combat you need to wait for a 15 second cooldown before you can switch again. Each character has her own pool of health, magic, and stamina, and all three will recover for inactive characters, health will not naturally recover for your active character. It's a good idea to burn through all of your character's stamina during the 15 second switching cooldown period and then switch to someone else rather than use normal attacks until your stamina recovers, but you can also build a character for fast stamina recovery if you prefer to keep using them over switching. It's the best implementation of character switching I've ever seen in a single player game. Games like Castlevania 3, NES TMNT, and Shock Troopers don't do it half as well as Wandering Souls does. If one of your characters is killed, she will revive with half HP and MP after 60 seconds. 60 second revivals with three characters is pretty forgiving. You can take big risks all the time because even if it goes badly, losing one character generally isn't a big deal. Enemies are also very limited in how much they can threaten you through attrition, but they are absolutely capable of killing all three characters within 60 seconds of each other, especially on lunatic difficulty where most enemies can kill you in one attack if enough of their bullets land.



Enemies mostly attack with spreads of colorful bullets like you'd expect in a Touhou game. It's often impossible to dodge everything when multiple enemies are shooting at you, but single bullets usually deal minor damage. There is no mercy invincibility and if you get hit by a full shotgun spread of bullets you'll probably die right then and there. It feels a little bit like playing a mecha platformer, such as Valken or Metal Warriors, where the focus is on minimizing the damage you take rather than avoiding it outright, and it's a good idea to destroy your enemies as quickly as possible to minimize the harm they can do. The enemies themselves are varied and well-designed. There are small enemies who try to take you down with numbers and big enemies who are a threat on their own own. There are support enemies who don't directly threaten to you, but they can strengthen other enemies or weaken you enough to be a serious indirect danger. There are suicide bomber enemies who kill themselves while trying to take you down with them, and much more. Their AI is very simple and they seem to choose their attacks randomly. The simple AI works in the game's favor to make battles chaotic and unpredictable, and you can replay the same fight multiple times and have it turn out wildly differently each time. Many enemies have their own spellcards, which are generally their most dangerous attacks, and you'll want to try to stop them when you see one charging up. If multiple enemies are able to cast their spellcards at the same time, that is often a death sentence for you. Taking damage comes with a seemingly random chance of getting stunned for both sides, with the likelihood increasing with bigger hits. It can be unfair when you get stunned by a minor attack, which keeps you in place long enough to get torn to shreds by a barrage you otherwise could have dodged, but that's part of why you get three characters. You can equip items with the interrupt immunity enchantment to prevent hitstun, and you can briefly activate hyper mode to make your character immune to hitstun among many other benefits. In addition to random hitstun, you can interrupt enemy spellcards by inflicting mute or using the stun status ailment, which is separate from hitstun. Killing enemies immediately cancels all of their spells and attacks, so if they do get to cast a dangerous spellcard, it might be worth rushing in to kill them as fast as possible.



Wandering Souls is an action RPG that feel like it's really halfway in between an action game and an RPG, instead of just being an action game where your numbers go up. There's a very strong emphasis on managing resources, and the way you approach combat continually evolves as your characters improve, both because you pick up new abilities, and because your resource pools expand. Marisa goes from whacking monsters with her broom at the start to stunlocking them with a meteor shower spellcard while simultaneously using a weapon skill to cover the screen in lasers. Your character build comes from your equipment. You have tons of different ways to approach things, and you can change your equipment build anytime you're not in combat. Wandering Souls has the status ailments you expect to see in an RPG, and they're extremely reliable. Mute will stop bosses from casting their spellcards just the same as it will stop minor enemies. Poison works on very nearly every enemy in the game, again including bosses, and is a great way to wear them down if killing them immediately isn't an option.



One thing I like about Wandering Souls is that it is totally unpunishing. If your team gets wiped out you keep all of the experience, items, money, and souls you earned. Gaining one or two experience levels while retrying a difficult stage isn't likely to make a big difference in whether you win or lose, but it does remove the incentive to go back and grind easier content.



I love the level designs in Wandering Souls. They're all fast paced, varied, full of ideas, and full of secrets. There's not a single loser in the bunch. The main focus of the levels is on combat arenas you get locked into until you kill all of the enemies, but there area also platforming sections, hidden shortcuts and treasures, and more. Some levels have optional side areas you can explore for extra souls, and many of them change up the gameplay in interesting ways. In the scarlet devil mansion, there's a side room with an enchanted book in it that casts a variety of spells on you, including an unavoidable instant death spell, and you have to keep applying status ailments to stop if from killing you. There are challenges about dodging obstacles, clearing an area within a time limit, using environmental hazards to defeat particularly tough enemies, and a bunch of other things. And if you ever find an optional challenge you don't want to deal with, you can always leave and come back a few hours later to easily clear it with overleveled characters and equipment.



Below the spoiler is some late game stuff that I think is cool, but that someone interested in playing the game might prefer to discover for themselves

Spoiler

After beating the final boss, you find out that she released another set of 100 wandering souls just before your arrival, bringing the total up to 200, and every level in the game gets a harder version with stronger enemies and some new challenges. You also unlock Sanae as a playable character, and can swap out any of your initial three protagonists for her. A new secret level is added to each area of the game, and completing it unlocks a new character. Beating the harder version of the final boss, Yukari, unlocks her too. All together there are 9 unlockable characters, bringing the total up to 12. After obtaining 180 of the 200 souls you unlock a final new area, with new levels and boss fights. Beating the true last boss fight unlocks an overpowered new upgrade that makes getting 100% completion easy. I love that the developer packed all of this much stuff into the game, even though most of the people who play Wandering Souls won't see all of it.

There are three difficulty options, normal, hard, and lunatic. Wandering Souls is fairly long and you unfortunately can't change the difficulty after starting the game. Normal mode is pretty gentle, I recommend hard for a moderate challenge or lunatic for a serious challenge.



Wandering Souls was released as freeware, but it has been difficult to find a copy since rpgmaker.net, the site where it was originally hosted, went down. You can get a copy of Touhou Wandering Souls at any of these links:

https://files.catbox.moe/rql67b.zip
https://archive.org/details/rmn-game-47 ... ring-souls
https://rmn.rmarchiv.de/

I've recorded a 100% playthrough of Touhou Wandering Souls on my youtube channel. The first video, which includes a text commentary, can be found here.

[Marc]

I've asked this before, but what the fuck is the thing with jumping on Spartan X? Saturn, Mame, what other versions I've played all have this weird thing where it just will not fucking let you jump forward! It details any momentum I build up as soon as it happens and I've never gotten to the bottom of it.

[1000Eyes]

what the fuck is the thing with jumping on Spartan X?

You have to be already moving forward to jump forward (press jump while holding a direction), and it will always freeze you for a little bit when you touch the ground. I think the idea is to prevent you from being too agile, as movement in this game is supposed to leave you vulnerable. You can see what happens when this was lifted in Trojan: it becomes a primary offensive and defensive tool

[copy-paster]

It's been 10 years since my first time playing Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles, and today I got to beat Drac's third form and beat the game on both bad and true endings in 1CC pace! Took a top route on the bad end and vice versa. This has without a doubt the hardest Drac in all of mainline Classicvanias I've played, his third form has an overlap of each attack, you'd better off prepare to fight him with enough hearts to spam hydro storm when his HP is low. Really grateful to get this in the bag and I don't have plans to do a Nomiss run in this.

[Blinge]

Where Birru?

[BIL]

Still around! Just busy ;3 Been SECRET ADMIRIN' yall fine posts and fighting the wood fight on deez streets (´ω｀)

Bit big (◎w◎;)(｀w´メ)

Good fight I mean (■｀w´■)

[Blinge]

Damn man.. A real Chod

[BIL]

I've seen several such troubling signs in our beloved fair CUCK ISLAND, Burinju! A full dossier will be submitted at some point (■｀w´■)

It's been 10 years since my first time playing Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles, and today I got to beat Drac's third form and beat the game on both bad and true endings in 1CC pace! Took a top route on the bad end and vice versa. This has without a doubt the hardest Drac in all of mainline Classicvanias I've played, his third form has an overlap of each attack, you'd better off prepare to fight him with enough hearts to spam hydro storm when his HP is low. Really grateful to get this in the bag and I don't have plans to do a Nomiss run in this.

Sterling fearless DORAKYURAology as always, mon frere ;w;7 Longtime blind spot in my portfolio, that one!

EDIT: ah, crumbs >w<

I finally got a 1CC of Spartan X. It's one of those games that hooked me on Arcade gaming ever since I started to take it seriously February this year I wanted to write a review to consolidate what I know in my journey so far, and maybe capture what makes this worth playing after so long:

It's often called the first Beat 'em up, but it's actually much closer to a shmup with fists. Here's Takashi Nishiyama, the game's director, in his own words:

[Spartan X] wasn't really a fighting game. The developers were aiming to make a rhythmic shooting style video game...

1000Eyes you are SUPER FN COOL (■｀w´■) Superbly played and written, marked for thread index! Which is gonna be a Christmas Special at this point. >w>

[Stevens]

It's no secret around here - I have been excited for Neon Inferno for quite some time. Reviews are starting to drop:

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

This is just the 1st one I clicked on, but they all seem to be pretty positive.

It comes out on the 20th.

[Marc]

what the fuck is the thing with jumping on Spartan X?

You have to be already moving forward to jump forward (press jump while holding a direction), and it will always freeze you for a little bit when you touch the ground. I think the idea is to prevent you from being too agile, as movement in this game is supposed to leave you vulnerable. You can see what happens when this was lifted in Trojan: it becomes a primary offensive and defensive tool

It seems to fail constantly though, I understand the pause on Ianding, but a lot of the time, even when already advancing, flicking up just shoots you straight up rather than forward up.

I mean, you've 1CCd so it must be me, but as I say, it does the same across every version I've played, most recently on Antstream.

[SriK]

I haven't seen anyone post about it in this thread yet, so just a note that Zenovia Interactive's new title NEON INFERNO is now out on all major platforms!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2957 ... n_Inferno/
Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/produ ... no-switch/
PlayStation: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/concept/10016056
Xbox: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/ ... n2zs6c8bxc
Physical Edition: https://limitedrungames.com/collections ... switch-ps5

Not sure if anyone here has already played it, but I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any (positive or negative).

Just one thing to note, there are currently some performance issues on Switch 1, which can be worked around as detailed here: https://x.com/ZenoviaLLC/status/1992309865700786551 -- This has already been fixed on our end, and the patch should go live by a week or two from now. (It shouldn't take that long of course, but you know, Nintendo.)

[Sanguis]

I've finished Neon Inferno on normal mode and started hard. A few quick remarks :

Great overall ambiance. Made with excellent taste IMO.
Really loving the boss themes and Don Giovanni. City of shattered glass might be my favorite VGM of the 5 last years, so I'm glad Qwesta was part of the project.
The difficulty is fine, a tad easy maybe, even in hard so far. But we're a particular audience here.

The only (new) game on which I've really had fun this year. I can't think of any problems.

[BIL]

I haven't seen anyone post about it in this thread yet, so just a note that Zenovia Interactive's new title NEON INFERNO is now out on all major platforms!

Congrats bud, glad to see it reviewing well

[Imhotep]

I haven't seen anyone post about it in this thread yet, so just a note that Zenovia Interactive's new title NEON INFERNO is now out on all major platforms!

I've just finished Neon Inferno on Hard.
I'll be keeping at it to get an Arcade clear, if motivation lasts.
I haven't tried lower difficulties or any of the extra weapons.

At this moment I'd say it's a good to great game, the high points are obviously the graphics, sound design and overall setting, world class stuff here.

Mixing the mechanics of Run n Guns & Crosshair Shooters works surprisingly excellent, too.

I'd say the weakest point of the game are the level- and boss designs, they are merely good. Regarding the gameplay that is, designwise they are excellent.
The level design feels too gimmicky, I'd like to have longer sections that purely rely on the core mechanics.
Generally, there's not enough enemies on screen for my taste.
I'd like to have the combination of fixed enemy patterns and bullets pointed at the player more often and overlapping.
The small ship enemies don't integrate well into the flow of the game atm.
Boss patterns are telegraphed too well and should overlap more often, they should generally be more unpredictable. Some bosses like the submarine are downright boring.

The dodge feels slow, which is fine, but I'd love to have a run mechanic in combination with the dodge à la Nam 1975.

I don't care about the store. Atmosphere-wise it's excellent, but having to activate the guns myself during the levels turns me off.
Maybe it'd be possible to buy 1-2 loadouts/weapons between stages, which then drop at certain (meaningful) points during the next stage, maybe according to preferences from the player.
I'd also rather have health drops, along with a more unpredictable/less static level design.
Making zero mistakes is less appealing to me than surviving a brutal game.

Still, this game is tons of fun and a huge achievement.
I hope that it performs as well as it should, and that you find the dedication to flesh it out further, to make the gameplay as excellent as the presentation.
Congrats!

[Imhotep]

Ok got the 1cc / all achievements in Neon Inferno, Steam timer says 22.5h.

It's a fun and utterly gorgeous game.
I still think there's lots of air in the level design, the game's biggest weakness in its current state.
I might elaborate on it more at a later point.

Aside from the implementation of the crosshair shooter and reversal elements, which can be considered "classic" from now on thanks to this game, what gave me the greatest excitement was the opera scene: Arcade action gameplay and classic opera music match incredibly well. There should be games that expand on this unlikely combination. The stunning artworks during that scene help, too.

7.5/10

[Vanguard]

I'm still playing Wandering Souls. In my eyes this is the best video game ever made. I'm reasonably confident that I'm now the world's best Wandering Souls player, though of course I've got far less competition than I should given the game's stellar quality. I've recently recorded a speedrun of lunatic difficulty, getting a 100% clear with a time of 8:58:42. The first 100% clear I posted in this thread some years back was 47:50:37.

However, the main reason I came here is not to post about Wandering Souls yet again. I'm posting because the author of Wandering Souls finally released his second game, 13 years later. It's called The Myth of a Godslayer and as expected of Estheone, it rules. It's a 2D Zelda-like game with a heavy emphasis on combat and platforming. The level design and puzzles are quite good, and the enemy design and combat are the best I've seen in this kind of game. It's a two man project with zero budget, so don't expect much in terms of production value. The dialogue portraits in particular are a bit unfortunate. I don't consider it as good as Wandering Souls is, but it is still very solid, and something like this is probably an easier sell with the R2RKMF crew than a Touhou fangame.



It's going for $20 on steam. It's got a pretty substantial demo too. The demo is also up on itch.io, presumably a DRM free version will show up there at some point.

[1KMS]

A Ninja Gaiden Shadow colorization hack has been released.
https://www.marcrobledo.com/game-boy/ni ... shadow-dx/

I've been working on a translation of some of (Ninja Ryuukenden FC director) Hideo Yoshizawa's posts on X. I still need to spruce up the page a little, but it's mostly complete.
http://tvga.me/games/ninja_ryuukenden_f ... nicle.html

Or read the shmuplations version. They beat me to the kaiten giri.
https://shmuplations.com/ninjagaiden/

[it290]

A Ninja Gaiden Shadow colorization hack has been released.
https://www.marcrobledo.com/game-boy/ni ... shadow-dx/

I've been working on a translation of some of (Ninja Ryuukenden FC director) Hideo Yoshizawa's posts on X. I still need to spruce up the page a little, but it's mostly complete.
http://tvga.me/games/ninja_ryuukenden_f ... nicle.html

Or read the shmuplations version. They beat me to the kaiten giri.
https://shmuplations.com/ninjagaiden/

All these years and I never knew about this 'hold the jump button when wall hanging and press left or right' technique until now!

[copy-paster]

Hot damn that recollection was a great read. Props to the programmer stays on his ideal and made the game known for its brutal difficulty

Honestly the OG final checkpoint would've turn the game can be beaten in a really short time, like an hour or so as long as you keep continuing.

[1KMS]

Yeah that programmer is one of the unsung heroes of Ryuukenden it appears. I wish Yoshizawa had more conviction, but he is the Klonoa guy (and Runmal is an RPG script writer ). At least he'll concede fans like it the way it is.

[Vanguard]

I've been playing a lot of 30XX, the Megaman X roguelite. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Megaman X gameplay. If you don't mind the RPG elements then I think this is the overall best Megaman X and Megaman Zero gameplay you can get. The bosses are still interesting the 50th time I fight them and I certainly wouldn't say that for any the official MMX mavericks. You can tweak the difficulty settings in a huge number of ways including enemy health and damage, adding a timer, making the level generator choose more difficult layouts, and more.

I've recorded a clear on fairly high difficulty settings here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SsnmKWyPB4

[stellar_light]

I've been playing a lot of 30XX, the Megaman X roguelite. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Megaman X gameplay. If you don't mind the RPG elements then I think this is the overall best Megaman X and Megaman Zero gameplay you can get. The bosses are still interesting the 50th time I fight them and I certainly wouldn't say that for any the official MMX mavericks. You can tweak the difficulty settings in a huge number of ways including enemy health and damage, adding a timer, making the level generator choose more difficult layouts, and more.

I've recorded a clear on fairly high difficulty settings here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SsnmKWyPB4

I poured a ton of time into 20XX and loved what I played of 30XX even more but didn't get the chance to explore it as thoroughly. Definitely need to go back to it now that it's out of Early Access, the platforming and level design are so slick.

[Vanguard]

I've never tried 20XX, I wonder if it's still worth playing now that 30XX is out? Those programmer art graphics sure are a step down from 30XX's professional pixel art. Did it do anything 30XX doesn't?

I greatly appreciate how well they replicated Megaman X's movement physics.

[it290]

It's incredible that the dev was able to release those games on console and not have their asses sued off given what the promo art looks like.

[NairobiNantucket]

Capcom doesn't have the best track record in American courts.

Moreover, their window already passed letting MN9 and Gunvolt establish precedence in the genre. Combined with litigation costs and the optics of bullying an indie studio, unlike Nintendo with their evergreen cross-cultural multimedia phenomenon, Capcom is likely content making money hand over fist with MH and RE.

[stellar_light]

I've never tried 20XX, I wonder if it's still worth playing now that 30XX is out? Those programmer art graphics sure are a step down from 30XX's professional pixel art. Did it do anything 30XX doesn't?

I greatly appreciate how well they replicated Megaman X's movement physics.

20XX's stages and bosses are still great and have some unique gimmicks, but yea it's not nearly as polished as the sequel or includes nearly as much level variety (four level themes shared between two bosses each vs each boss having their own stage in 30XX), although the physics are still spot on. One thing I do prefer in 20XX is that there's less of a focus on the permanent meta progression upgrades--there's still some, but much more downplayed compared to how emphasized the grind is in 30XX. If you're curious then it's still worth trying, but I probably won't be going back to it very often anymore.