Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[NYN]

Glad my rambling gets you to consider. There is supposed to be a free demo on STEAM, that you can check out before putting money on that.

BIL turned me around on HUNTD0WN, too.

I find GC as original as it gets from taking the basics from genre staples and running with it, and that is not meant as a slant. Shovel Knight does the same thing, and I can deeply dig it for that!

[BulletMagnet]

There is supposed to be a free demo on STEAM, that you can check out before putting money on that.

Unless I'm missing something on the store page there unfortunately doesn't seem to be one (at least not now, maybe there was a temporary one up in the past) - same goes for GOG. Unfortunate indeed, as your write-up also has me rather curious...

[Sumez]

Not yet, but my interest has waned after seeing what they've shown. Things like this for example.

Lol what the hell. That can't be the intent. Surely it's placeholder beta stuff!

It looks fun, but it's a wasted opportunity to not have this be Ninja Gaiden IV and distance itself from the modern ones. It'd also remove the stink from III being the last classic title, and could fix the hot mess of the plot. Hell, bring Ashtar back, why not.

3? Stink? Really? What don't you like about it?

[cj iwakura]

Not yet, but my interest has waned after seeing what they've shown. Things like this for example.

Lol what the hell. That can't be the intent. Surely it's placeholder beta stuff!

It looks fun, but it's a wasted opportunity to not have this be Ninja Gaiden IV and distance itself from the modern ones. It'd also remove the stink from III being the last classic title, and could fix the hot mess of the plot. Hell, bring Ashtar back, why not.

3? Stink? Really? What don't you like about it?

The narrative choices mostly, and I don't think the villains or story is nearly as compelling as 2's or even 1's.
(Killing off Irene especially left a bad taste in my mouth.)

[Sumez]

I have an easy fix for this: Don't play Ninja Gaiden for the plot

Ninja Gaiden 3 rocks

[NYN]

The Ancient Ship of D00M (NA) is by far my favorite. The other 2 I scratch my head over at times and frown in certain situations. To each their ownage...
I, too, give a flying hoot about any "story", yet I get why some care about the GAIDEN cinematic presentation. Once upon a times it was sure novel. About Irene getting it in the intro: never played as far to a later point? Let's just say III is set 'tween OG and II. Geddit?

there unfortunately doesn't seem to be one (at least not now, maybe there was a temporary one up in the past)

Dang. Unfortunate. It certainly would gain more traction like that. Well, perhaps picking a short presentation in a video, then? It's definitely something many praise highly. I just took a frog leap into the pond, and I sure enjoy it.
What I dislike in the verbal reception I read is the term "MM clone". Yes, everybody gets it where it comes from. Though a clone to me is a thing without its own identity. And that is something GC possesses in truck loads.

[Stevens]

BIL turned me around on HUNTD0WN, too.

If your curious I did a small write up here viewtopic.php?t=45206&hilit=huntdown&start=9390

Two posts around the bottom third of the page.

[Randorama]

Some shameless self-promotion, if I may. This the newest squib of the week, on Data East's Diet Go Go.

[1KMS]

Lol what the hell. That can't be the intent. Surely it's placeholder beta stuff!

Definitely, but I think those filler rooms only exist to match the game 1:1 with the automap, which is ridiculous.

I still need to try Huntdown. I'm generally a fan of Lawnmower-Man-likes, but I wish more of them had a kindergarten flashcard minigame like the OG, and Allister Brimble in the mix.

[Randorama]

Shameless self-promotion: the revised squib dedicated to Funky Jet is now up.

[cj iwakura]

The Ancient Ship of D00M (NA) is by far my favorite. The other 2 I scratch my head over at times and frown in certain situations. To each their ownage...
I, too, give a flying hoot about any "story", yet I get why some care about the GAIDEN cinematic presentation. Once upon a times it was sure novel. About Irene getting it in the intro: never played as far to a later point? Let's just say III is set 'tween OG and II. Geddit?

Yeah, if the new game had the cinematic presentation of the NES games, connections to the OG trilogy or not, it'd be a massive earning of good will.

And I vaguely recall it being a prequel now that you mention it, though I didn't know it at the time and thought it was deliberately undermining 2's ending, which was my favorite.

[Mortificator]

I guess I'm the contrarian today but I like Ancient Ship of Doom more than Dark Sword of Chaos. II's Gradius-style options just come across as dumb with a side-scrolling dude. Plus III's suspended climbing and sword upgrade feel great.

If we get into story integrity, I liked that Black worked as a prequel to I without too many rough edges. NES I Ryu's obviously written as a young guy going out into the world on his own for the first time, but still. 3D NG II sure shit all over that. Razor's Edge would have worked fine as something set after all his NES & DOA adventures... then they put in Ryu's dad, alive, just to piss me off.

[Randorama]

Shameless self-promotion: the Double Dragon II squib is up.

[NYN]

I return to Shinobi 3DS, to perhaps clear the final stage on Normal. Maybe. Got more interested in unlocking the separate StreetPass challenges. No, I don't need another player passing by. I just need to take the system along in Sleep modo for a scroll: counting steps, it will transfer the movement to digital "coins". 1000 steps resulting in 10 coins, limited to a day. 13 maps total for 20 "coins" each. It feels like a hassle, though I have to admit at least it is accessible, and not buried under a now defunct net connectivity. Ah, wells. Come along, chum. We've got all Summer now.

[Randorama]

Shameless self-promotion: the Rastan squib is now up. Please spread the love, folks.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Not only am I not dead, I've been clearing Saturn games lately. Absolutely loved Shinrei Jusatsushi Taroumaru which I think fits this thread.

[Vanguard]

I've been replaying Touhou Wandering Souls again and again, and I keep finding more to appreciate about it. It's that slightly jank and surprisingly long platformer / brawler / RPG / collectathon hybrid made in RPG Maker that I reviewed back in 2019. It's managed to claw its way to the #1 spot in my favorite games of all time list. It deserves a second review now that I know it much better than I did back then, but for now I've dusted off the old youtube channel to upload a playthrough of the first area, complete with text commentary. I play very aggressively and unsafely there to compete with the author's own speedrun of the same content. Marisa dies six times in my video and only two of them were unintentional.

It has been hard to get a copy of this game ever since rpgmaker.net went down, but you can find a download for Wandering Souls at any of these three links:

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

For that last one, type "wandering" into the search bar in the upper right corner to find it easily. There could well be other lost gems in that archive.

I love how chaotic the battles are in Wandering Souls. You can play the same fight a dozen times and have it go differently every time. Its character switching mechanic is the best of its kind in the gaming medium. I love the level design, it's packed with secrets, it's full of unique encounters that play differently from the rest of the game in some way. I love Wandering Souls's implementation of the Getsu Fuuma Den air jump and the Mario World cape float, just moving around in this game feels good. There is one piece of misinformation from my old review which I would like to correct now: this game should generally not be played defensively. The most effective and most fun way to play is to kill them before they can kill you.

Wandering Souls can make a bad first impression, I didn't even like it the first time I tried it. It's scary to think that I considered dropping it at first. I would have really missed out! Part of the issue is that it is extremely unique and needs to be approached on its own terms. Thinking of it as a mecha platformer like Assault Suits Valken or Metal Warriors can help, you can't avoid all damage and it's okay to take little hits here and there, trading damage with the enemy is fine as long as you come out on top. There is no mercy invincibility. Taking a shotgun blast of danmaku bullets will usually kill you outright, and one of the leading causes of death is getting stunned by one attack only to get torn to shreds by the hundreds of bullets and lasers before you regain control. Don't sweat it much when that happens, that's part of why you have three characters. Another reason why it makes a bad first impression is because your characters start out a bit too limited, one of Wandering Souls's few missteps. If you make it to the third stage you'll pick up Sakuya who starts out in much better shape than the other two main protagonists. The enemies in the first area are likewise somewhat tame compared to what comes later.

I still remember how I pushed through the first area on my first playthrough with an overall negative impression, and decided to give it just a bit more of a chance, and I started noticing that it was doing some clever things with its level and enemy designs. By the third area I knew Wandering Souls was awesome and couldn't wait to see the rest.

You can't change your difficulty setting after beginning the game, hard mode should be a good starting point for the less confident task force members, it's a good challenge. For those who don't mind taking some beatings on the road to victory, jump right into lunatic. Wandering Souls is an RPG and to some extent that can bail you out if you get stuck. You keep all of the money, items, and experience you had when you die so there is no reason to go back and grind easy content, just keep trying, or go to another level you haven't beaten.

I give Wandering Souls the highest of recommendations. A desert island pick for sure.

[Randorama]

Shameless self-promotion: The Elevator Action Returns squib is now up. Please spread the love.

[Marc]

Well, I hope the board is right on this one.....
Managed to snag an Actraiser 2 cart for a decent price, along with a repro box. I know back in the day, even the mostly-reliable Super Play gave it a mild shoeing, but I've been curious ever since it became the only game to flat-out refuse with whatever fancy adaptor i'd just spent a fortune on at the time.

[Klatrymadon]

It's a cracking game, just a bit of a shock to the system at first. I think a lot of its difficulty comes from the fact that it has the slowest possible movement on the ground (which is good, because rushing forward just gets you swarmed), but gives you loads of manoeuvrability in the air, which can give new players the impression you're supposed to be flying everywhere. But it wants you to be slow and meticulous, isolating enemies and using the sudden bursts of speed as an answer to certain situations. You have a block that only works when you're idle, so it keeps you alert and constantly making decisions about when to hold off and when to go for the jugular. There's also a lot of slightly fiddly/techy stuff, like stunlocking enemies and using the i-frames after attacks to slip past their hurtboxes, etc.

It's really interesting and fun if you can gel with an action platformer that's largely uninterested in emphasising speed and forward momentum.

[Vanguard]

Yeah Actraiser 2 is one of the SNES's best games. It's got a very unique combat system that largely revolves around exploiting the generous invincibility on your character's moveset.

[Sumez]

Tried the demo for the new Shinobi game, and that completely killed any expectations I may have had for it.

It's a metroidvania-light. I think it has individual stages, but they have maps with backtracking, secrets and such, and you can revisit earlier stages whenever you want. Even in the demo I came across several obvious "treasure hidden behind blocked path that you need to come back with a new skill to access later" moments, which is the laziest school of metroidvania design.

Combat is basically roll-to-win. You can dodge anything by rolling through enemies, and defeat them by spamming attacks. This was just the first stage of course, but everything still felt way too easy, nothing puts up a fight - and every encounter with the same type of enemy is completely identical to the last time you encountered that enemy.


Whatever this is, it's definitely no R2RKMF