Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Sumez]

I'm glad to learn that I can just play Contra III defensively and make it through much more safely. Now I'll go and finally beat that hard mode.

[Squire Grooktook]

That is an abomination and I am officially mad now

[Obscura]

This reminds me of a conversation I earlier had with someone who claimed older first-person shooters like Doom were too easy because you could backtrack and lead all enemies into your chainsaw deathtrap infinitely for as long as the levels allowed it, because it is the safest and most ammo/health conservative tactic to use, as the game in no way encourages you to do otherwise, whatever that means. You COULD spam the same combo in a brawler over and over in order to survive and you COULD camp in a corner and you COULD bombspam your way to victory and you COULD hold down the whip button in SCIV to stunlock an enemy to death and you COULD spam hadoukens and you COULD hide behind the same piece of cover in TNO to pop nazi skulls etc etc, as there is no scoring system or developer interview which tells or encourages you otherwise.

You can't actually do that in Doom though because the level design doesn't allow it (monster block lines FTW!) and not every level even has a chainsaw and enemies will shoot the hell out of you before they finally are within range of your chainsaw.

Likewise, hadouken spam won't win you many SF games unless you're facing terrible players, and only scrubs complain about watching effective defensive play.

[Sumez]

In fact the chainsaw is pretty shitty in Doom, using it is risky and it's just there so you can do it anyway and feel badass. Doom's level design is very much geared towards interesting combat situations all the way through - You can try to cheese the game, and lure out enemies one by one, but there's always danger. I wish they still made FPS games like that. Well, I guess the new Doom probably isn't half bad actually.

[Obscura]

Wrack is the game you're looking for, not Doom 4.

Just be sure to play it on Hardcore difficulty or higher. Hardcore = Normal, Bullshit = Hard, anything below Hardcore = loleasy.

[Blinge]

Uh, I don't see why that couldn't work. if you lead the monsters to a tight corner, then you're in melee range as they chase you round it.
Assuming we're not taking "ALL the monsters" literally

There may not be a chainsaw on every level, but you can bring your chainsaw to every level..
who the hell likes pistol restarts.

[Obscura]

Word of God (or at least Word of Petersen, close enough as far as I'm concerned) states that the levels were designed for pistol starts, not for carry-overs. Most Doom fans these days play every level from pistol start.

Also, the chainsaw's pain chance isn't high enough to reliably kill anything bigger than a Pinky without taking damage in return (and even that requires a special technique).

[BIL]

The whole basis that Contra III is special here was that in every other Contra game you can just sit back and cowardly kill stuff with lame tactics in total safety, whereas Contra III is supposed to be entirely different and all about aggression and shit. And I'm like "No it's exactly the same as every other Contra game, it is atypical only in being very short."

All I've said this entire time, in response to your claims of III being weak and dumb and so on, is that unlike all Contras before it*, and both Nakazatos after it, its Hard mode remains a consistently dangerous thrill even after being mastered. I like to master my games until I can attack the course aggressively and tear it apart. Where the rest of the series largely fade into routine from there, this one gains, right from the opening minute which keeps me scanning for threats even while demolishing it in an unbroken rampage for the Nth time that day. It's very unlike the others from that expert viewpoint, one you yourself correctly identified even if you don't share it.

*Arcade Super Contra excepted, with a couple of very stern caveats that knock it a couple rungs down the quality ladder.

I've no idea what happens in any of these games, or indeed sidescrollers in general, if you hobble along vibrating and shooting from the hip like a homicidal OAP possessed by the ghost of Ian Curtis. It honestly never occurs to me. Strategically, my mind is headed in the opposite direction: "How can I move forward with devastating efficiency?" In terms of a game's quality, "Is this going to get boring as fuck once I can?" I said your initial demo looked fearful and halting, and suggested you quit worrying about painstakingly dispatching those snipers and just splatter the fucks with maximum firepower. You listed a bunch of stuff why no, it's too dangerous, and I thought fine. Different strokes.

Then you unleash your madly vibrating man as some kind of ultimate proof the game's not what I thought it was.

Apparently you guys are scared shitless just watching a video of me playing the stage, unable to take your eyes off the sides of the screen. But at the same time, a mindless simple tactic which completely eliminates that terrifying threat only inspires mockery. So like, sure, whatever.

Jack pls, that was some seriously unexpected, madly vibrating shit. Superb comedic timing. Please don't resent us, we are all soulful men here. 3:

Spoiler

"Aroo?"

BTW the tactic of intermittently covering your back without even paying attention is thwarted by stage 2 of Ninja Spirit, while spamming the sword-shield takes you safely to stage 4. Regardless, the greater number, variety, and speed of the enemies in Ninja Spirit means that dealing with the waves of fodder is involving and fun in its own right, and is in fact core to the action.

Whoa! Nobody mentioned stage 2 or 4 of anything. At least I didn't. Please don't embark on a vibrating odyssey across the sidescrolling canon. Or if you do, at least heed my advice and avoid Alisia Dragoon, it doesn't work in that one. Too much turnaround lag. Prince of Persia's another no-go, it's more of a funky shuffle there.

As opposed to Contra III where it's just a thing you do because there's a slight chance of a shooty guy spawning and any other response entails unnecessary risk.

Learn to downshot. You can dodge and kill things, without breaking stride and suddenly having to worry about getting shot in the face by a hellish sniper!

[Blinge]

Also, the chainsaw's pain chance isn't high enough to reliably kill anything bigger than a Pinky without taking damage in return (and even that requires a special technique).

What, the pinky requires a special technique? Not in my experience.
As for the pain chance point, well fair enough, I'm not about to test it.

Most Doom fans these days play every level from pistol start.

Get outta here with that shit. Where's the evidence for "most" fans play it that way.
Someone using a broken technique like the chainsaw abuse wouldn't throw away that advantage because of something a programmer said either??

All this is beside Durandal's point though really.

[Skykid]

It's baffling to me how long you can argue back and forth whether Contra III is a good game At this point I can't tell if the insults flying across are still made jokingly.

Tell me about it. There's no argument as to whether or not Contra III is a good game - it's one of the very best of its ilk. In the world there are just people who are right and people who are wrong. It's as simple as that.

[BIL]

There in fact was no argument as to whether III is good or not. It was pickier than that.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

What, the pinky requires a special technique? Not in my experience.
As for the pain chance point, well fair enough, I'm not about to test it.

Pinkies can be safely chainsawed, cacodemons often can be (barring the presence of other threatening enemies), and mancubi can sometimes be. Chainsawing any other monster with decent HP is probably a really bad idea unless they are alone and you can use terrain to sneak up on them. I can't see chainsaw turtling being a viable strategy for most of Doom 2 at all.

[Volteccer_Jack]

I've no idea what happens in any of these games, or indeed sidescrollers in general, if you hobble along vibrating and shooting from the hip like a homicidal OAP possessed by the ghost of Ian Curtis. It honestly never occurs to me.

Tactfully destroying threats in multiple directions is great fun; having several enemies drop out of nowhere in close proximity around Ryu is one of the coolest things in NGIII. But Contra III utterly fails to make them compelling and so they aren't meaningfully different from the ignorable fodder in, say, C4's first stage; needing to occasionally shoot behind me is a simple mechanical chore.

Please don't embark on a vibrating odyssey across the sidescrolling canon.

Well if you don't want me to shoot left maybe don't praise to high heaven the fact that a game has enemies on the left.

In Contra 3, there's nothing exactly preventing you from playing ultra-defensive and neither is there anything which encourages you to play ultra-offensive. What might be 'this enemy encourages me to play defensively' to you is 'this enemy encourages me to take risks' for another. The riskier it is, the more rewarding it is to defeat that challenge. Perhaps you lack incentive to do so because there is no real scoring going on, but hey, it lets you live another day, and you can proudly wear that 1cc on your belt. Don't be surprised when people call you a scrub for doing so, most people prefer watching more skillful displays of offensive playstyles over turtling. Who enjoys watching a projectile spam fighting match?

An enemy which severely punishes taking risks while being virtually harmless to a defensive player does not encourage taking risks by any sane definition of the word 'encourage', not sure where you're trying to go with that line of thinking. It's not like it's particularly difficult to encourage players to be aggressive; Konami is pretty great at it, just not in the Contra games.

Also it's tangential, but projectile combat in fighting games tends to be extremely nuanced and exciting. They are high-risk and low-reward. A bad Hadouken eats a jump-in combo, which is generally much more damaging than the punishment for any other mistake, even something crazy like a blocked dragon punch. I feel like this highlights a disconnect between things that look exciting at a glance and things that genuinely are exciting.

[BIL]

You keep mentioning stopping your advance to kill enemies spawning behind you. At the same time, you infer a sniper issue. The solution is to not stop advancing at all. You can jump bullets, downshot pursuers, and advance on snipers with total impunity while shredding all in a hail of S+S fire. The game design rewards practice with a simpler, far more spectacular run where danger is reacted to and dispatched on the fly.

Tactfully destroying threats in multiple directions is great fun

That's how I feel tearing through st1's streets. There'll always be something in need of subtle, creative response as I carve an unbroken swathe of death through set hazards to the gunwall.

Obviously if you're happy with your results, that's fine. But I know from experience that III/Hard is a game that's cruel to hesitation and increasingly rewarding of refined, aggressive technique. So I'm going to have to ask for a little understanding too, when I disagree that you're playing it at all authoritatively. ;3

As a concise, varied and lastingly volatile course for ever more comprehensive S-Rank demolitions, it's a technical obsessive's dream. For base 1CCing, yeah, I imagine it does play out rather like the other Nakazatos, with a harsher (second loop) memo barrier and less free running at that.

Well if you don't want me to shoot left maybe don't praise to high heaven the fact that a game has enemies on the left.

No what I mean is, please don't waste your time jitterbugging on my account. Believe me I know it's possible to play good games very unconventionally! You'll wear out your controller, as well.

[Obscura]

What, the pinky requires a special technique? Not in my experience.
As for the pain chance point, well fair enough, I'm not about to test it.

Pinkies can be safely chainsawed, cacodemons often can be (barring the presence of other threatening enemies), and mancubi can sometimes be. Chainsawing any other monster with decent HP is probably a really bad idea unless they are alone and you can use terrain to sneak up on them. I can't see chainsaw turtling being a viable strategy for most of Doom 2 at all.

This is only true in ZDoom-derived ports. In ports that emulate vanilla hit-detection correctly, Mancubi are nearly impossible to damage at all with the chainsaw, and Cacodemons will almost always get to bite you at least once.

To chainsaw Pinkies without getting bitten in retaliation in vanilla-accurate ports, you have to rapidly tap the "run backwards" key while sawing them. In ZDoom, this isn't necessary, because the exact mechanics of their bite and the chainsaw suction are different.

[Squire Grooktook]

After seeing BIL's gif so many times, thought I'd instagif my own 1lc's clip



Lacks that snazzy gunwall pointblank, but still shows a merciless forward push.

But yeah, I always thought this was the safest strategy, but I guess jitterbug/vibrator is marginally safer. But I guess that just confirms that Contra 3 is the supreme speed run twitch shooter: most speedruns eliminate rng. C3 forces you to expose yourself to it, and yet never forces you to slow down no matter what the cards hold. The zako gunners could force me to perilously land in between dogs and bullets (and have many times), or jump early to intercept a blue zako while a deadly bullet is already on the way, and I'd still never have to stop moving if my nerves and sight reading are up to snuff.

The same holds true for the rest of the game. SHADOW BEAST KIMKOH will never meteor rain you the same way twice, but skilled gunning will cut him down within the same time each encounter.

If the game had a Gigantic Army style scoring system, I'd wager some of the non-believers might understand more. But even so, in this game it's far more intuitive and explosively satisfying then any other I've played to transition from barebones survival to never-relent crush gun rockin'. And the rng keeps it gut wrenching every time~

[Blinge]

To chainsaw Pinkies without getting bitten in retaliation in vanilla-accurate ports, you have to rapidly tap the "run backwards" key while sawing them. In ZDoom, this isn't necessary, because the exact mechanics of their bite and the chainsaw suction are different.

I've been safely chainsawing pinkies since I was a little kid. doom95.

Obviously this I can't prove that. This is a stupid diversion u vibrator!

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

This is only true in ZDoom-derived ports. In ports that emulate vanilla hit-detection correctly, Mancubi are nearly impossible to damage at all with the chainsaw, and Cacodemons will almost always get to bite you at least once.

To chainsaw Pinkies without getting bitten in retaliation in vanilla-accurate ports, you have to rapidly tap the "run backwards" key while sawing them. In ZDoom, this isn't necessary, because the exact mechanics of their bite and the chainsaw suction are different.

Huh, alright. I've been using Zandronum as my source port of choice (despite disliking how it handles autosaves and the invisibility item) but I guess it's actually not that accurate. I'll have to switch.

[Shoryukev]

After seeing BIL's gif so many times, thought I'd instagif my own 1lc's clip

Spoiler

This GIF makes Contra III look extremely fun. I can't believe I missed both 16-bit Contra games when I was a kid, need to get my hands on them BAD....I'm about ready to break my personal rule and use ebay lol (finding them in the wild is half the fun for me).

[Sumez]

How the hell would you ever find games like this without eBay? Do you live in a magical wonderland where "retro games" are actually sold in physical stores or on fleamarkets?

[FinalBaton]

How the hell would you ever find games like this without eBay? Do you live in a magical wonderland where "retro games" are actually sold in physical stores or on fleamarkets?

Retrogame stores

but some games are indeed harder to find

(althought contra 3 shouldn't be too hard to find since it's a popular title.)

[Shoryukev]

It takes time to find them, but I bump into rare games all the time. The problem is it's never exactly what I'm looking for, which has positives and negatives. The negative is I was looking for something else, but I've found myself enjoying games I'd probably otherwise not buy so it balances out. A few examples of recent local pickups are Shadow of the Ninja (NES), Dragon Warrior IV (NES), and Wonder Boy in Monster World (Genesis)....I wasn't looking for them, but I was happy to pick them up regardless and ended up loving them.

There are 2-3 stores within an hour's drive that I visit regularly. I play in a band and there's a good store about 2 blocks from the drummer's house, so I've gotten to know the owner really well and he's always happy to tell me about anything cool that comes through the doors. There is a small chain store here called the Exchange I visit sometimes. They are willing to ship inventory from another store for free, so sometimes I buy from there. I'll go to a fleamarket here and there but haven't had much luck on that avenue. I'll usually save my pennies for the annual retro game swap meet that happens in Cleveland, it was huge this year! I ended up getting MUSHA as a loose cart while I was there, it has some label damage...but it was a good price.

Often I'll have to make compromises on several fronts. Maybe it has label damage, maybe it's a loose cart and I wanted the box, maybe it's something I wasn't specifically looking for, but it's fun hunting things down. Sometimes it takes me a LONG TIME to find a specific game (it took me a little over a year to track down Phantasy Star on SMS), but eventually I do come across stuff locally. We all have our own rules about collecting, finding stuff locally is just one of the quirks I have in mine...I just don't like contributing to the price gouging on ebay so I try to steer clear of it unless I get desperate for something. Also I won't buy from a store that has prices above ebay.....which unfortunately is the case most of the time. I'll get excited seeing something rare only to find that it's an insane price.

[Sumez]

Retrogame stores

Which just happen to be around?
We do have a couple of stores locally that sell this stuff, but considering they have to both compete with eBay AND pay their rent, the prices are rarely favourable, and it's really random what you'll find. There's bound to be a ton of total crap because that's the stuff that doesn't sell.

Shadow of the Ninja (NES), [...] I wasn't looking for them, but I was happy to pick them up regardless and ended up loving them.

"wasn't looking for them" -_- Shadow of the Ninja is a great game, and expensive in either NTSC version - really annoys me because I want to get rid of my PAL version.

[Shoryukev]

Shadow of the Ninja is indeed a great game!

I guess what I meant by that is I will often go in looking for one thing, and come out with something different. When I found Shadow of the Ninja I went in there looking for Shining Force 1 or 2, but then I saw it for a good price and had to have it. It kinda sucks not being able to find what you want right away...but sometimes I'll buy something that I've never heard of and end up really enjoying it. Admittedly I'm not the biggest expert on retro games, so there's lots of unknown gems to me. I knew Shadow of the Ninja was a spiritual predecessor to the Gameboy Ninja Gaiden, but I'd never seen or played it before.

A lot of it is luck too, if there's something good on the shelf in these places it won't last long. One store sometimes posts new stuff that comes in on their facebook page, one time they posted that they just got in Panzer Dragoon Saga and I made it there an hour later and it was gone LOL

Ebay is all about instant gratification, everything you can think of is there. Most of the time that's a good thing, but there's lots of games in my collection I'd never have bought if I didn't branch out and try something new since all the well known games were out of stock.

[FinalBaton]

Retrogame stores

Which just happen to be around?

Yes!
Don't know how it is in Europe, but here in NTSC-U land we have a lot of them. If you live close to a decent-sized/big city than you should have lots of choice.

For example : closest city to me is Québec City, which is not even that big at 800 000 souls (1.5 millions with suburbs included). Yet there are 4 official retro game shops. And at least as many "unofficial" ones (people who sell their stuff at home or at a kiosk at a flea market, in addition as posting adds on Kijiji.ca). And all the stores I went to have good stuff. The prices, for the most part, are a bit lower than Ebay BIN prices too.

But of course some stores might be run by shitty owners and will sell for Ebay prices and above. Not the case here though, so I guess I'm lucky.

[FinalBaton]

Shadow of the Ninja is indeed a great game!

Indeed!
Just got my NTSC-J copy. Oh boy, I'm having quite a bit of fun! hehe

[trap15]

Bringing back the slightly old topic, what's the opinion on Gunforce II, aka Geo Storm? The first Gunforce is a bit janky, but II looks so wild and crazy and exciting, I can't help but get the feeling it's awesome. Yet to try it, though.

[BIL]

From fairly limited experience (made it to the last boss before credit-feeding and moving on, a few years back), Geostorm is technically simplistic but aesthetically titanic. Possibly the most indulgently-depicted sidescrolling destruction ever. Teeming hordes fall to your dual blazing guns, extravagantly and often hilariously. Highlights from memory are those snipers who not only get blasted from their window perches, but meet a cringeworthy spine-snapping fate on the ground below, and the st1 midboss who goes for the ultimate last-ditch assault by suplexing a warhead from his burning heli onto your speeding train.

Far from the smartest or most ambitiously-designed sidescroller I've played, but one of the most unforgettably, endearingly OTT. Absolutely balls-to-the-wall soundtrack to go with Nazca's peerless visual mayhem, too!

[Imhotep]

I've cleared Gunforce 2, but it's an endlessly looping game without any ending message whatsoever. The difficulty rises in the loops, though.

It's very comparable to the team's other output (Metal Slug, In The Hunt, ..) in that its main appeal comes from the depiction of mayhem and destruction in a post apocalyptic world. The game's stance on this scenario is a distinctive mixture between cynism, irony and melancholy, which for me is, besides the godly pixel art and lush presentation, the most intriguing aspect of this game and its brethren.

The gameplay is also very typical: large parts of the game are not threatening at all or at least predictable, but then there's occurrences of rng in unexpected places that, together the absence of extends and only two lives, keep you from clearing it too soon.

7.5/10

[Vludi]

Bringing back the slightly old topic, what's the opinion on Gunforce II, aka Geo Storm? The first Gunforce is a bit janky, but II looks so wild and crazy and exciting, I can't help but get the feeling it's awesome. Yet to try it, though.

Gunforce II is pretty cool, the design feels more "frantic" than Metal Slug games overall, the only problem are the slowdowns but I guess Mame overclock would fix that.