I DID IT! -Off Topic Edition-

[Vludi]

Also: WHY THE FUCK IS THERE NO FINAL BOSS!?

That's western AAA games in a nutshell, sometimes you have one but it's utterly shit.

[Imhotep]

1cc'd Armored Warriors/Powered Gear, my only remaining Capcom beat 'em up to clear. I appreciate the game a bit more now but i stll much prefer other titles. Will probably revisit it later using other mechs and weapons, but for now i'm quite satisfied.

That's very impressive. If you feel like doing a list, I'd be interested in how you rate the Capcom belt fighters and how you think they compare to the ones from other companies.

[Vludi]

That's very impressive. If you feel like doing a list, I'd be interested in how you rate the Capcom belt fighters and how you think they compare to the ones from other companies.

Thanks!
I think Capcom brawlers are some of the best you will find on arcades, but there are other great games from different companies of course:
-Irem games are inspired by the Final Fight formula adding some special moves here and there (Blade Master plays more like King of Dragons but still great).
-Guardians from Winkysoft probably has my favorite combat engine in the genre, the moveset is big and flexible and the controls are excellent (enemy design and bosses however aren't the best imo). The previous game (Denjin Makai) while not as good is also pretty solid.
-Violent Storm from Konami is another game with very solid mechanics, pretty much an homage to Final Fight but with its own quirks.
-Light Bringer from Taito is a great isometric beat 'em up with fantasy theme and RPG elements, it was released around the same time as D&D1.
-IGS titles like Knight of Valour, i don't have much experience with them but they are well regarded, inspired by the D&D games and Warriors of fate.

My favorites from Capcom are Final Fight, Alien vs Predator and Tower of Doom.
-Final Fight is a pure formula that just doesn't get old, the controls are great/responsive and the crowd control is very well done, character variety is nice for its time, playing as Guy is completely different to Haggar.
-Alien vs Predator is another great game, most people will tell you it's an improvement over Final Fight but for me it's more like a mutation of the formula, there is much less emphasis on grabs/enemy positioning here and more focus on powerful special/long range attack. Character variety is good, Predators are very flexible while Dutch has more "traditional" controls, Linn has vanilla melee but great guns and the air throw gimmick.
-Tower of Doom is pretty good, it's slower paced than Shadow over Mystara but the AI is a lot more satisfying to fight and it's much better balanced, its combat is closer to Knight of the Round than Shadow over Mystara since there is a lot of blocking and careful movement compared to the mindless offensive in SoM. Also regular items like oils or knives are actually very useful for regular battles.

In terms of difficulty i'd rank them like this:

Spoiler

Hard:
Warriors of Fate: The enemies in this game are evil, very agressive AI that require good timing and positioning. Also the bosses have looong life bars.
Final Fight: Playing as Guy or Haggar definitely take some time to get used to the mechanics and AI, Cody however is more doable because the knives trivialize a lot of the hard parts.
Knights of the Round: This game is pretty difficult if you don't know about the extra lives, it's more doable with it but still a tough game.

Medium:
Tower of Doom: This game is pretty rough on your first tries, but once you notice handy mechanics like blocking for i-frames and attacking enemies from below, it's a lot more doable. It's sort of similar to KoTR but since you have more moves/items/magic it's more about knowing the basics than execution.
Aliens vs Predator: Tough game overall, but on the second half there are many weapons that will help you.
Cadillcs and Dinosaurs: If it wasn't for Slisaurs this game would be pretty easy, one of the hardest bosses in the genre.
Captain Commando: Consistently tough game but never goes too crazy when you have a good route.
Armored Warriors/Powered Gear: This game has pretty floaty controls compared to the other games, but it's not too bad if you use a safe setup of weapons and strats.
Tenchi wo Kurau: Simplistc game but with a pretty decent challenge, US version is probably hard tier due to the changes.

Easy:
King of Dragons: First revision is cakewalk, later revision is a better challenge but still easy.
Punisher: Your characters are extremely powerful and you have an absurd amount of grenades to help you, enemy AI isn't as relentless as Final Fight or Warriors of Fate either.
Shadow over Mystara: this game is more about resource management than execution if you want a simple clear, very forgiving.
Battle Circuit: as Yellow this game is a joke, extremely broken moves and you can buy like 5 extra lives, some of the other characters are a better challenge but still not that hard because the charged attack trivializes most bosses.

[Blinge]

^ Thanks to advice from this beat' em up boss.. This beat off boss just beat Streets of Rage 2 =D

My first Beat' em up clear!
Feels good man, I've wanted to 1cc one of this genre for ages.

That clusterfuck with the whip girls in stage 6, and the Stage 7 elevator feel like the hardest sections.

[andsuchisdeath]

Thanks for your opinion on difficulty rankings, Vludi.

I was under the impression that a Final Fight clear is by far the most difficult to achieve out of the bunch.

Having cleared Warriors of Fate, perhaps a FF clear for me isn't as out of reach as I once previously thought.


Anyways, this should have been posted in December, not August, but considering what an ordeal this was (on a number of levels), I guess it's worthy of the late post.

Big Fight, default settings, and by the skin of my teeth...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72p1iDvRysQ

I'd like to do a better run, or even better, a non-Chen clear (which would require A LOT of experimentation), but I was pretty thrilled in just clearing the game the way I did.

[Imhotep]

thanks for sharing Vludi!

I'd add Zero Team as a quality non-Capcom brawler.

Nice to hear that you enjoy Cross Blades / Blade Master, too. I've been playing it recently, got to the final Boss several times, but I haven't even come close to beating it yet. I've been using the smaller, non-Arnold guy.

And yes, Dynasty Wars is brutal. Is it just the restricted health / lives that makes it harder than the japanese version?

[Vludi]

^ Thanks to advice from this beat' em up boss.. This beat off boss just beat Streets of Rage 2 =D

My first Beat' em up clear!
Feels good man, I've wanted to 1cc one of this genre for ages.

That clusterfuck with the whip girls in stage 6, and the Stage 7 elevator feel like the hardest sections.

Well done Blinge!, yeah the elevator of stage 7 is the hardest part of the game, that's where i die on the Megaplay version of SoR2

Thanks for your opinion on difficulty rankings, Vludi.

I was under the impression that a Final Fight clear is by far the most difficult to achieve out of the bunch.

Having cleared Warriors of Fate, perhaps a FF clear for me isn't as out of reach as I once previously thought.


Anyways, this should have been posted in December, not August, but considering what an ordeal this was (on a number of levels), I guess it's worthy of the late post.

Big Fight, default settings, and by the skin of my teeth...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72p1iDvRysQ

I'd like to do a better run, or even better, a non-Chen clear (which would require A LOT of experimentation), but I was pretty thrilled in just clearing the game the way I did.

I find Final Fight slightly easier than Warriors of Fate (then again i've played Final Fight a lot more), so go for it.
Good run, i liked that you can play as bosses in that game, not very polished but fun nonetheless. That Sengoku 2 run is pretty impressive too, i suck at Sengoku games lol

Nice to hear that you enjoy Cross Blades / Blade Master, too. I've been playing it recently, got to the final Boss several times, but I haven't even come close to beating it yet. I've been using the smaller, non-Arnold guy.

The trick is to corner both of them to the right and cheap them with jump attacks, otherwise they are extremely difficult, not programmed to play fair at all. Also Roy is the best character, Arnold is worthless, he is slower and weaker than Roy and the final boss is even harder to do the trick.
I don't remember the details in Dynasty Wars since i've just cleared the jp version, probably damage differences/AI aggressiveness but not sure, will check it out later.

[Blinge]

Oh man I found out yesterday about the 3 (!!!) hidden 1-ups in SoR2. That certainly makes getting a clear a lot easier.

Armed with fresh knowledge I gave it a go with Blaze and cleared with her too.



https://youtu.be/-G8uuPIeDZI

Barely avoided losing a life to Souther/Stealth at 49:10. I struggle with every Zamza variant.

I've never felt like trying to clear with all characters in a game before, gave it a go with Max but Zamza took a big chunk out of me and Souther finished me off >_<
..Aand that's a reason not to start upping the difficulty currently.

[atheistgod1999]

Memorized the whole hiragana alphabet.

[andsuchisdeath]

gave it a go with Max but Zamza took a big chunk out of me and Souther finished me off >_<
..Aand that's a reason not to start upping the difficulty currently.

There's a helpful Max trick to use against Zamza/Souther. When you force him into a blocking animation, immediately use the forward A dash attack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ywTUsQ5v8M

IMO the easiest way to play Max is to use the behind grab jump B atomic drop as much as possible. You can set this up with a deep, almost cross up-esque jumping down+B elbow on most enemies that lack anti-airs. Sliding over knocked down enemies can also give you ripe behind grab positioning too.

[Blinge]

Haha holy shit that video is destruction.

Got the clear with Max and Skate. Damn man skate is a lot of fun.
I know it's hardly "I did it!" material at this point.. but the discussion has been about beat 'em ups and SoR...

[Stevens]

Memorized the whole hiragana alphabet.

Color me impressed. I tried self taught language and failed miserably.

[WelshMegalodon]

Memorized the whole hiragana alphabet.

エーシスト・ガッド・1999は
超必殺技「ひらがな」を覚えた.

[atheistgod1999]

エーシスト・ガッド・1999は
超必殺技「ひらがな」を覚えた.

Where did I say that I memorized katakana and kanji as well? The only full part I understood was "1999は", AKA "1999wa" AKA "1999 is".

[WelshMegalodon]

ATHEISTGOD1999 MASTERED THE
"HIRAGANA" SUPER DEATH BLOW

[NTSC-J]

エーシスト・ガッド・1999は
超必殺技「ひらがな」を覚えた.

Where did I say that I memorized katakana and kanji as well? The only full part I understood was "1999は", AKA "1999wa" AKA "1999 is".

How about the part that says "hiragana"?

If you aren't using it already, I really recommend you try a free online flashcard program called Anki. You can download pre-made decks or make your own.

[atheistgod1999]

How about the part that says "hiragana"?

The only full part I understood was "1999は", AKA "1999wa" AKA "1999 is".

[NTSC-J]

Yeah, jackass, I was ribbing you.

Listen, I know the other thread is your "give me advice I won't take" topic, but here's some more advice anyway: with every interaction you have, try to figure out the other person's motivations. Judging by your stories of school life and posts on here, you can't seem to read social cues at all and you never know when someone is joking or if it's genuine malice. You always seem to default on the latter so you come back with something snarky and then people snap at you. But if there doesn't seem to be a reason why that person should be mean to you, assume that they're not.

I also posted the recommendation for using Anki which you ignored.

Had I written that post to someone else here, I would expect a reply like:

Yeah, yeah, I missed that one.

Anki looks kind of neat, I'll check that out, thanks.

If you approach every interaction like every person is out to get you, magically, that's how they'll end up.

[atheistgod1999]

Beat all the Crazy Box missions in Crazy Taxi on the Dreamcast. It only took a couple hours so it might not be worthy of sharing, but whatever.

[Stevens]

Crazy drift sucked. Loved the bowling one though.

[atheistgod1999]

Crazy drift sucked.

Why? It's super useful.

[atheistgod1999]

Beat the Tower Knight in Demon's Souls.

Spoiler

In the flesh.

[Skykid]

Got my Metal Slug 1CC. My favourite of the series, glad I finally got around to pipping it.

A beautiful game in every which way this one; Nazca are stuff of legend for their work here. While clearly much easier than 3 (no comment on 2, not played it enough) the final mission takes a lot more work than stages 1 through 5. It gets pretty hairy, with a touch of RNG that ensures you gotta be on your toes. I would have no-missed if it weren't for one irritating little grunt who shot me point blank in the face with his rocket launcher while I was trying to take care of all the other little grunts.

Anyway, satisfied. Waiting to get back from Shanghai so I can clear it again on a cab.

[BIL]

Always loved the artful understatedness of that final scene. Feels like a quaint little docklands coda to the epic maritime battle that ensues after the bridge collapse. The general sea-salty air of weathered metal, damp concrete and blue sky is superb. <333

I wonder if the same artists had a hand in Undercover Cops' first stage.

[Skykid]

Always loved that final scene. Feels like a quaint little docklands coda to the epic maritime battle that ensues after the bridge goes out. The general air of weathered metal, concrete and blue sky... <333

It's as much a work of art as pixel based vidya games can possibly be. The amount of teeny details crammed in are above and beyond the call of duty.

And I love MS1 the most because it's not just brilliantly rounded, but it's thematically consistent. No aliens. No zombiefying. No fat mode. No man-eating plants. No fish. Just pure pocket-sized ultraviolent one-man-army war from one perfectly pitched locale to the next.

Nazca, I salute you.

(Incidentally, are there any interviews with Nazca floating about the inter web?)

I wonder if the same artists had a hand in Undercover Cops' first stage.

Pretty sure that's the case. The IREM team that handled UC, In The Hunt, Geostorm etc were all the Nazca guys. They're certainly good with weathered metal: decayed rusty steel and bleak bodies of water are their forte.

I think the shipwreck beneath the Amazonian waterfall, gushing torrents of water from various tributaries as its rests both in foreground and background is my favourite part of the MS series' background art. Inspired.

[BIL]

(Incidentally, are there any interviews with Nazca floating about the inter web?)

blackoak delivers ^_~

[Skykid]

I thought he might. That's my bedtime read sorted.

[Skykid]

1cc'd Slug for the second time, first attempt on the cab. Amazing how much easier the last stage feels with the added real estate of larger screen dimensions.

Got absolutely mugged off with losing a life, but upped my score. I'll go for a no miss on this and then call it a day.

[Skykid]

Raised my scoring game on Metal Slug to 955400, but still haven't managed the no-miss.

In the meantime, 1CCEED Vampire Killer with Johnny Morrison of the Wyld Stakettes.

[Stevens]

His bandmates are waiting in the phonebooth.