Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[WelshMegalodon]

i feel health bars are a dangerous enough thing to put into most classic action games, because it gives the designers an excuse for a lot of stuff to cheaply hit you or damage values to get out of control.

I see this raised against the euroshmup genre quite often, but not so much against sidescrollers in general. I'm interested in hearing your take on lifebars in the Kirby games, especially Super Deluxe.

[__SKYe]

I wouldn't say it plays "as flawless as the original" when it has all the issues I pointed out, stuff like the extra i-frames on bosses can be quite problematic. It's a matter of preference I guess, the Sega CD port is definitely more accurate overall but the combo issue may rub off some people (understandably so, but I can live with it), while the GBA port has smooth combos but inaccurate mechanics otherwise which I dislike as I'm used to the arcade, also don't like the tiny playscreen of the GBA at all. There is no doubt that the x68000 port is the best one however.

The screen size is obviously something that can't be refuted, and of course, someone playing this port must be aware of that. Though I believe, even given the screen size limitation, the GBA port still plays very well.
This is, of course, something that may put people off, but personally, I'm not too bothered by it.

I agree that the increased invulnerability frames on the bosses, can be problematic (especially at higher difficulties, I imagine), but I guess the player just has to adapt, and remember to not attack bosses too soon after a knockdown.
As for the difficulty balancing issues, I'll refrain from answering that, as I still haven't played much at the higher difficulties.

As for the Sega CD, it is indeed a matter of preference, but unlike for you, that small change ruins the game for me. This is not to say that the game is unplayable for me, but given the chance to play this, or any of the other ports, I would definitely go for something else.

As for the X68000, yeah, it always got the best ports from the arcade.

Now, you (I assume) have much more experience with the game (and it's ports) than me, so perhaps, that plays a role in why we prefer/tolerate different ports, but I'd rather have the slightly different gameplay, but the accurate combos/inputs, rather than the opposite.

I'm hoping to have a more refined opinion in the future, though, as I gain more experience with it.

[kitten]

I see this raised against the euroshmup genre quite often, but not so much against sidescrollers in general. I'm interested in hearing your take on lifebars in the Kirby games, especially Super Deluxe.

works fine! kirby is what i consider a playground platformer (or combination brawler, given its moveset), where refined/focused action is not the intent of the game. kirby is more about joy in free movement, toy (power) variety, pacing, and abundance of vibrancy in its presentation. a lifebar doesn't impede or really complicate any of those things. i mean, heck, you can fly over pits in kirby. one of the reasons i love superstar is because the partner essentially cannot even die, allowing you to play with someone who is not skilled with games to almost zero impediment.

[kitten]

got the power rangers movie game, today, completing my trifecta of natsume brawlers for the snes/sfc

it's pretty good, but i've got to say that considering this came after the ninja warriors again, it's a fair bit disappointing, too. aside from the previous game being a brawler, i can't understand why they decided to make this one. there aren't any combos or grabs, enemies all act a bit more like action enemies than brawler ones, and there's pretty minimal crowd control. the sprites are all huge and there are multiple portions where the scrolling locks to have you fight off a horde, but aside from that, this plays much more like a straight action game and even has your health represented by five distinct sections of a bar rather than a full blown health bar.

you start off as one of the teens from the movie (chosen from six, and you're allowed to change every new stage), and you collect little power-ups dropped by enemies to fill up a bar. you can expend a portion of your bar to do a special attack, or, when full, press the same button to then transform into a power ranger. as a ranger, you get a health refill and become a bit more powerful. i'm pretty sure you lose the ability to do the special attack at this point, but when you fully fill the bar again, you automatically enter a state where you use your particular ranger's weapons until the bar depletes. press the button again, and you'll expend the remainder of the bar for a screen-clearing special.

there's a wide variety of hazards and robots that act a bit as interesting nuisances to shake up the combat, but very disappointingly little basic-enemy variety. there's more platforming than the previous game, too, again bringing up the question: why isn't this an action game with slightly smaller sprites and more refined stages? the boss variety is pretty good, at least. there's a few that are actually particularly challenging and most of them have pretty interesting variety in their attacks, and there's a few minibosses that are pretty neat, as well. i had to continue on my first play, but managed to 1cc while playing on hard on my next attempt.

if you can take a bit of slow pacing due to some overtly simple enemies, there's some pretty cool stuff and a good bit of fun to be had. you even get a snowboarding stage it's not an essential game for the console, but it's fairly good.

[BIL]

got the power rangers movie game, today, completing my trifecta of natsume brawlers for the snes/sfc

it's pretty good, but i've got to say that considering this came after the ninja warriors again, it's a fair bit disappointing, too.

It's always sounded a lot like the situation with Shatterhand/Solbrain and Choujin Sentai Jetman (FC), to me. Formidably sophisticated genre-leading effort, followed shortly by a competent but relatively forgettable contract job. Gotta pay those bills between the all-out masterpieces.

[kitten]

It's always sounded a lot like the situation with Shatterhand/Solbrain and Choujin Sentai Jetman (FC), to me. Formidably sophisticated genre-leading effort, followed shortly by a competent but relatively forgettable contract job. Gotta pay those bills between the all-out masterpieces.

have you seen that the solbrain game was definitively confirmed to have originally been shatterhand? one of very few instances where you get the real deal over on the NES, instead. shatterhand is all-around the better package, too - distinctly better exclusive stage and art.

this is a hell of a lot better than jetman, by the way. enough so that i would call this good. decided not great and far from excellent, but i do consider "good" a distinctive term of notable praise.

[BIL]

I hadn't heard of any definitive confirmation, no - out of curiosity, are you saying you have? It's always puzzled me, since Shatterhand has objectively more content which you'd need to delete to get Solbrain, yet it's usually cited as the original.

Having said that, I don't consider Shatterhand nearly as big a gain on Solbrain as other NES sidescrollers like Castlevania III (much more interesting Grant, and a brutal second loop) or Ninja Gaiden III (way more intense enemy + powerup distributions in the earlier stages, compared to the overly easy FC version - the damage scale is silly but I prefer a beating to a cakewalk!).

Shatterhand's submarine stage is okay, and the marginally more sophisticated wallcrawler+roboduo bosses are neat, but the former is fairly gimmicky compared to the masterful platform-oriented stages, and the latter ultimately get shredded just as fast if you know what you're doing. The really interesting content is all in the FC version, unlike CVIII/NGIII.

The cash pickups are a bit goofy too, always make me think of Ducktales.

[kitten]

I hadn't heard of any definitive confirmation, no - it's always puzzled me, since Shatterhand has objectively more content you'd need to delete to get Solbrain, yet it's usually cited as the original.

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hzk/kommander/rvsrs.html confirmed by kommander, a pretty dang old-school jp game blogger with a love for stuff like this. you may again thank sharc, my lurker friend, for originally finding this and showing me. any time i have cool and unheard of information it generally came from him, first!

Having said that, I don't consider Shatterhand nearly as big a gain on Solbrain as other NES sidescrollers like Castlevania III (much more interesting Grant, and a brutal second loop) or Ninja Gaiden III (way more intense enemy + powerup distributions in the earlier stages, compared to the overly easy FC version - the damage scale is silly but I prefer a beating to a cakewalk!).

ryukenden 3 is the only of the ninja gaiden/ryukenden trilogy that i actually like. it is certainly easier and relatively easy, in general, for an action game from the generation, but i felt like it was the best-designed of the bunch and had the most deliberate hand in its enemy/power-up design and placement. the other games always struck me as if they were just littering enemies (with extremely single-minded patterns) all over the place without a second thought. 1 i have always found particularly unintuitive to learn given its (clearly unintended) respawning behavior problem, enemies knocking & chaining you onto walls you can't climb, and not marking the orbs (which, given its faster pacing, is even worse than when castlevania does it). 2 felt like a marginal step-up and some quality of life improvements. 3jp felt like they'd finally gotten a hand on what they were doing. i felt the placements were more fair and intuitive, orbs were finally marked, and the power-up finally solved that niggling complaint i'd had with the series and its extreme disadvantage i felt it put ryu at when jumping to a lower platform and trying to slash someone.

i've beaten all the games in the trilogy twice and years far enough apart that the learning experience was essentially renewed (but US 3 only once), and i honestly consider ryukenden 3 to be the better of the two by a pretty fair margin. real talk, though, my favorite ninja gaiden-esque action game is gun-dec, which i only picked up somewhat recently but am quite fond of. my least favorite is probably ninja crusaders which i have not even attempted the second loop on.

haven't tried the second loop on US castlevania 3, either. i've beaten both versions (and i think twice each), but it has been a long time since i've gone back to either. the butchered music always seemed like too steep a downgrade, honesty! i've recently ordered a famicom cart for akumajou densetsu, and have been looking to give the game a long-deserved replay (i have quite a bundle of fun coming on my next shipment, honestly). if i find myself particularly fond of it, i may end up trying that second loop you mentioned for the first time and go back to the US version. maybe!!

The really interesting content is all in the FC version, unlike CVIII/NGIII.

i like the submarine a lot and this may be a picky thing, but i really love the character art for the protagonist of shatterhand. both his sprite and how he is detailed in the opening and ending. i just couldn't live without that! i consider shatterhand on about the same level of quality as TNWA and wild guns, it's a real treasure, to me.

Those moneybags are a bit goofy too, always makes me think of Ducktales.

aw, they're fun i love when video game power-ups and collectibles are super distinctly video gamey.

[kitten]

a few more details i forgot to mention about MMPR: the movie for snes:

- it is very obvious that this was not originally intended to be a game based on the movie. aside from a single boss, there is absolutely nothing at all tying the two together but the final boss, ivan ooze. his stage doesn't even look like something from the movie (you just fight him on a throne and then begin an escape). lord zed (from the show) has his iconic "Z" painted all over every single stage. enemy cars have it on them, it's spray painted as graffiti on the walls, flags on the airship carrier have them, etc. you get the picture. the title screen has to put "featuring ivan ooze" on it, just to remind children who will probably never see the end given the game's moderate difficulty and limited credits that he is, in fact, somewhere in the game.

- the end to this game advertises you to look for "POWER RANGERS 3 -THE FIGHTING EDITION-," which suggests that this was originally intended to have "2" in the title and was developed concurrently with the fighting game (especially considering their close release dates). at the end of the first game, you fight using the giant robot ("zord") from the show against a couple of bosses in a mediocre transition to fighting game territory. although not particularly good, it's a bit more thought out than when other games do it. in THIS GAME, however, there's not a single zord fight. this leads me to believe that they had been developing an engine for fighting with them before they realized they had made it too complex and split it off into its very own game. i imagine the devs, being told by their publisher that this was now a movie game, probably transitioned the intended lord zed final boss fight (zords and all) over to the basis for the fighting game and then banged out a final stage and (surprisingly good) boss battle with ivan ooze as the end to this one. then, the fighting game ended up being the basis for the much loved shin kido senki gundam wing: endless duel. neat!

- the game takes place on two different planes, which you can alternate between, similarly to how revenge of shinobi works. this is a neat detail, but doesn't dramatically change the action or anything else i said, so i didn't bring it up. i think i mentioned it a couple pages back, anyway. it's also a bit too long, and could use stage condensing, imho.

- as far as i can tell, the only difference between normal and hard is more boss health.

- they once again use basically the same sprite for every ranger (except white, who gets entirely redrawn, because he's the most popular). this has kimberly looking amusingly muscular and without her trademark shirt, and all rangers without their neat lookin' helmets. all rangers are drawn correctly in the ending photo, which draws a bit of attention to this.

- no miss clearing this would be pretty tough! it gives you a few extends for a reason. i'm not sure i'm going to attempt it, but it will remain a vague temptation

[Sumez]

I see this raised against the euroshmup genre quite often, but not so much against sidescrollers in general. I'm interested in hearing your take on lifebars in the Kirby games, especially Super Deluxe.

Having one hit kills would be a huge and very needed improvement to the Kirby games.

ryukenden 3 is the only of the ninja gaiden/ryukenden trilogy that i actually like. it is certainly easier and relatively easy, in general, for an action game from the generation, but i felt like it was the best-designed of the bunch and had the most deliberate hand in its enemy/power-up design and placement. the other games always struck me as if they were just littering enemies (with extremely single-minded patterns) all over the place without a second thought. 1 i have always found particularly unintuitive to learn given its (clearly unintended) respawning behavior problem, enemies knocking & chaining you onto walls you can't climb, and not marking the orbs (which, given its faster pacing, is even worse than when castlevania does it). 2 felt like a marginal step-up and some quality of life improvements. 3jp felt like they'd finally gotten a hand on what they were doing. i felt the placements were more fair and intuitive, orbs were finally marked, and the power-up finally solved that niggling complaint i'd had with the series and its extreme disadvantage i felt it put ryu at when jumping to a lower platform and trying to slash someone.

I have so many comments to this, but I'm not sure it's worth even going through, knowing that most other people in this thread has the same stance as I do anyway. Lets just leave it at the fact that most of your assertions are downright incorrect. It's baffling to me that you cannot enjoy these incredibly well designed games, but in the end it is only your own loss.

So lets instead discuss the fact we can agree on: Jap Ryukenden 3 easy, and the US version is hard.
However, the Jap release is so easy that I did a 1CC in my first ever attempt at the game, and as I have already pointed out, I'm not particularly good at video games. That is TOO easy for a game of this type. I can see why people would find the US version too punishing on the other hand, but compared to the cakewalk that is the Japanese version, it's definitely preferred.

[BrianC]

Having one hit kills would be a huge and very needed improvement to the Kirby games.

The original Kirby's Dreamland has a hidden configuration menu where the life meter can be set to one bar. The configuration menu can even be combined with the extra mode.

[Sumez]

Yup, this was one of the first games I got for game boy as a kid, so I played the hell out of it. I still consider it the best of the series, by far. While the enemy powers are a ton of fun to play around with in the later games, they also make them pointlessly easy. I haven't seen a single Kirby game with a challenge that's actually designed around Kirby having these powers. It's almost baffling they never tried to balance that out.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy Super Deluxe, but I would have loved to see it offer some actual gameplay, too.

[Squire Grooktook]

I've always felt the thing that inhibited Kirby's challenge most of all was flight. I remember playing a few boss fights in a few Kirby titles a long time ago with a house rule of "never fly if it's not mandatory", and it was a lot harder. It's similar to the "wall jump to the top of the screen" complaint about Mega Man X, except bosses are even less aggressive about protecting the walls, and the ascension manner is even more easily available.

Copy powers are also a part of it of course, it's obviously hard to balance such a massive suite of abilities. But they are also somewhat uniform, mostly amounting to different types of projectiles and melee attacks. So in theory it shouldn't be that bad. If anything, a more hardcore game would end up with the majority of the powers sinking to the bottom and being regarded as useless (as is the case with many stg's) rather than breaking the game.

I don't think it's impossible to balance a game around both though. It's pretty clear that 1 onward, Nintendo intended Kirby to be amongst the breeziest of its flagship titles, and never tried to make it anything else.

*edit*

Actually, Copy Kitty is an interesting take on a more "hardcore" on the fly power copying game.

[BIL]

http://www.ne.jp/asahi/hzk/kommander/rvsrs.html confirmed by kommander, a pretty dang old-school jp game blogger with a love for stuff like this.

Thanks, I knew about this page (Kommander is indeed cool). AFAIK it's just Kommander's word though? I can't read Japanese unfortunately. I was thinking more of staff confirmation, etc. I seem to recall GSK asking Natsume/ex-Natsume about it, can't remember if anything was said definitively though.

It seems incredibly counterintuitive to me that they'd delete content from Shatterhand (twin bosses' second form, the sub's unique assets) for the sake of Solbrain and its relatively anonymous fairground stage. Ultimately I don't consider the losses very relevant, but they're there. Eh... weirder things have happened, I'm sure.

ryukenden 3 is the only of the ninja gaiden/ryukenden trilogy that i actually like. it is certainly easier and relatively easy, in general, for an action game from the generation, but i felt like it was the best-designed of the bunch and had the most deliberate hand in its enemy/power-up design and placement. the other games always struck me as if they were just littering enemies (with extremely single-minded patterns) all over the place without a second thought.

NRIII is easy to the extent you can largely bullshit your way through, unless going for style points... which I'm okay with (I always go for style!), but it's a stark betrayal of the crucial method/twitch balance the first and second games struck with Dracula. NGIII clawed its way back to that sweet spot and is in some ways my favourite of the NES games - I like the combo of flexible weaponry and cruel intensity, playing like NGII with teeth.

I always gravitate back to the brisk simplicity of NG1, though.

1 i have always found particularly unintuitive to learn given its (clearly unintended) respawning behavior problem, enemies knocking & chaining you onto walls you can't climb, and not marking the orbs (which, given its faster pacing, is even worse than when castlevania does it).

Not a fan of the unmarked orbs either (we were discussing this shortly before you joined, incidentally). Chain beatdowns don't happen on their own, though (you get plenty of recovery time to regroup/retreat once socked), and likewise, I always found the wall complaint indicative of bad player positioning.

Given NG1 staff have confirmed they spotted the boss rush knockback glitch, liked it, and decided it could stay ( ), I can maybe buy that they didn't *initially* intend such garotte-tight respawn. However, the result is you're brutally punished for retreating, and sometimes loitering, both behaviours I find disgraceful. >:3 So I'm A-OK with it in practice.

2 felt like a marginal step-up and some quality of life improvements.

NGII, its irritatingly tiny swordbox and overly mild damage scale aside, is the best of the three as far as flex/method balance goes (edit: I get the shadows' smaller swordbox, but on Ryu it's just punitive). The scale lets you absorb beatings to little consequence, but unlike NRIII with its floaty gravity and generally slower handling, pits remain a mortal danger.

real talk, though, my favorite ninja gaiden-esque action game is gun-dec, which i only picked up somewhat recently but am quite fond of. my least favorite is probably ninja crusaders which i have not even attempted the second loop on.

Gun-Dec is very good, and almost to NG what that series' leavening influence was to Dracula. Much better attempt at Easy Ryukenden than NRIII, I think. Like NGII, it needed a slightly harsher damage scale to impart pressure in its flatland segments... however, also like NGII, it's so fast-moving you'll quickly end up in a pit if not careful.

Ninja Crusaders I've tried so hard to love over the years - passed up another nice copy just last week. >_< I dig the punishing instakill precision, but the action itself lacks real punch and gratification... feels pecky and halting (Ninja Spirit nails this balance sublimely). The weak production doesn't help either.

[trap15]

MMPR: the movie for snes

I love this game to tears, and I've probably written about it somewhere. Real great advancement on the 1-plane beat 'em up style, whole lotta fun for a lot of ways to play.

[Sumez]

Copy powers are also a part of it of course, it's obviously hard to balance such a massive suite of abilities. But they are also somewhat uniform, mostly amounting to different types of projectiles and melee attacks. So in theory it shouldn't be that bad. If anything, a more hardcore game would end up with the majority of the powers sinking to the bottom and being regarded as useless (as is the case with many stg's) rather than breaking the game.

Sure, balancing towards every power and still keeping them interesting is not an easy task, but the Kirby games usually don't even pretend to try. Most of the bosses stuck to the design from the first game, where specific patterns will release a star or a minion that can be sucked up and spat back at the boss to damage him.
However, being able to freely damage the boss with the press of a button as long as you have any power equipped (which you have 99% of the time) completely mitigates the entire boss design in almost every single case across a myriad of different games. This is especially obvious with the minibosses that you can always damage all the time, and are only remotely dangerous if you would have to sit out their attacks. Try looking at the Poppy Bros. miniboss from the first Kirby game and compare him to his incarnation in any of the sequels. His entire pattern is pointless at best.

[Sumez]

MMPR: the movie for snes

I love this game to tears, and I've probably written about it somewhere. Real great advancement on the 1-plane beat 'em up style, whole lotta fun for a lot of ways to play.

Which is the go-to version for this game? MegaDrive or SNES?

[BIL]

The original Kirby's Dreamland has a hidden configuration menu where the life meter can be set to one bar. The configuration menu can even be combined with the extra mode.

God damn! :O Didn't know about the config. This game gets better and better with your tips Brian, cheers.

[Sumez]

The game gives you the code to enter the menu when you beat Extra mode

[kitten]

I have so many comments to this, but I'm not sure it's worth even going through, knowing that most other people in this thread has the same stance as I do anyway. Lets just leave it at the fact that most of your assertions are downright incorrect. It's baffling to me that you cannot enjoy these incredibly well designed games, but in the end it is only your own loss.

i don't appreciate shitposts directed at me. "alert the hive, this pitiful ignoramus is wrong about ninja gaiden!!!" this is a childish, shitty, and useless way of disagreeing with someone.

BIL has a pretty infectious positivity about games he loves and convinced quite a number of people in the thread to either play the game or reconsider its quality. i knew what i was walking into and avoided saying much about ninja gaiden for quite a while, but since someone already quoted my backloggery, i figured i'd voice a few feelings to BIL that i'm sure he's capable of coming up with his own responses to. i don't need your snide pity that i somehow don't understand how to enjoy something when i'm pretty sure i have a fair enough grasp on it.

Thanks, I knew about this page (Kommander is indeed cool). AFAIK it's just Kommander's word though (can't read Japanese) ? I was thinking more of staff confirmation, etc. I seem to recall GSK asking Natsume/ex-Natsume about it, can't remember if anything was said definitively though.

i don't believe he cites a source, but just google translating, it seems to suggest that it's more than mere assertion. might be worth hitting him up to ask?

It seems incredibly counterintuitive to me that they'd delete stuff from Shatterhand (twin bosses' second form, the sub's unique assets) for the sake of Solbrain and its relatively anonymous fairground stage. Ultimately I don't consider the losses very relevant, but they're there.

my guess it that it was an awkward publisher demand that they complied with ASAP just to get it done.

Not a fan of the unmarked orbs either (we were discussing this shortly before you joined, incidentally). "Chaining" doesn't happen, though (you get plenty of recovery time to regroup), and I always found the wall complaint indicative of bad positioning.

the unmarked orbs seem like kind of a killer when some portions are definitely much more difficult without the "right" power-up. i feel like castlevania is much more generous about being flexible w/r/t you having different subweapons throughout the levels, and sometimes even on bosses. it also tends to place them in spots where if you drop a bad one, you can safely avoid it or think about if you want it before proceeding. that hesitation in ninja gaiden often means a respawning enemy harassing you. even refusing to use holy water and focus on the other subweapons, castlevania still feels like a highly competent game.

"chaining" i've had happen in a particular part of the the final stage (roughly halfway through?) where i don't even realize there's a background to climb on and get stuck between two pillars and a maniac aggressively hounding me between them. i hesitate, get knocked, and then get incredibly confused at what the hell has happened, and get knocked several more times while trying to jump off. you need to actively realize that the background is a threat to be knocked into, which feels unintuitive. this is not a severe complaint and it happens pretty rarely, but it just seems a bit absurd that it even can happen.

Given NG1 staff have confirmed they knew about the boss rush knockback glitch, and kept it anyway (:lol:), I can maybe buy that they didn't intend such garotte-tight respawning - however the result is you're punished for retreating, and sometimes punished for simply loitering, both of which I find disgraceful. >:3 So I'm A-OK with it in practice.

you're also punished for killing something while its respawn point is still on screen, which i find unforgivably shitty and extremely unintuitive. there are points where you see a bird, immediately pause to take care of it, and then have it come back. you inch a bit forward, do it again, and boom, it's back again. in this example, there was no retreating and imo only mild loitering. i've seen NG speedruns and know that there are ways to push through every situation without death and make your play look graceful, but i feel like the learning process is extremely weird given this respawn quirk. rather than punish me for retreating, it often feels like it punishes me for moving forward recklessly if i've not taken care of what's already on screen, in many instances.

there are moments where a quick pause is useful to take care of an enemy like the bird before making a perilous jump, but to a novice player, discovering where that point is becomes extremely painful. it feels as if being aware of spawn points of the birds becomes almost necessary to know when killing would be disadvantageous or get you into deep shit. this is one of the notable moments i'm talking about. notice that slight hesitation. the amount of moments like this compound when you don't know the best spots to use a whirlwind slash. watching someone play like this looks exciting and enjoyable, but the game's learning process feels incredibly cruel and disrespectful to the player's time.

is everything in ninja gaiden manageable to an expert or practiced player? yes. can the game be gone through quickly and in a satisfyingly brutal way? yes. is learning how to do this even remotely enjoyable? in my opinion, no, not at all. ninja gaiden's relentless action when played competently is interesting, but i feel like it was not particularly deliberate/smart in its design to make it this way. i would argue the playtesters probably did account for high level players to go through the game the way that they do, but the enemy placement is still something i feel could have been more clever and interestingly challenging without having what is very much near a specifically right way to play through every part.

you're forced to become at least moderately competent in execution to so much as beat that final stage (especially with the punishing rule they put on the final boss), but even when i hit a stride and was starting to go through the level without significant error on my approach to try to learn the boss again, i did not feel any thrill. it felt rote and unpleasant - much like how i started to consider metal storm's second loop when i was able to finish it. i could get through the levels reliably and skillfully after practice, but the "fun" never started (with noted exception of stage 6 in metal storm, which i already talked to you about enjoying).

Gun-Dec is very good, but like NGII, it needed a slightly harsher damage scale. However just like NGII, it's so fast-moving you'll quickly end up in a pit if not careful. Ninja Crusaders I've tried so hard to love over the years - literally just passed up another nice copy last week. >_< I dig the punishing precision, but the action itself lacks real punch and gratification... feels pecky and halting (Ninja Spirit nails this balance sublimely). The weak production doesn't help either.

i've managed to do a no miss of gun-dec multiple times and really love it. i feel like it has ninja gaiden's relentlessness without its memorization, and better enemy placement and bosses, as well. there's still a couple parts (particularly that jungle level) where you kind of need to know something is coming and be ready ahead of time, but they're what i'd consider a (more) forgivable level. part of why i like gun-dec is that it has a scroll deadzone similar to NG3's, where you can take a couple of steps to the left without scrolling the camera - letting you make mild readjustments for the platforming without being punished by another enemy flying into your face. this of course becomes a bit of a problem in the (minimal number of) sections where you're moving from right to left, but they account for it well enough.

Which is the go-to version for this game? MegaDrive or SNES?

megadrive version is an entirely different game. snes one is the only one by natsume (i believe they had exclusive rights to snes power rangers stuff).

[BIL]

The game gives you the code to enter the menu when you beat Extra mode

Imma just steal 'em from y'all and do it first time through >:3

Nah, Extra's plenty interesting enough on its own for me, haha. I love it when games let you tinker with these settings though (NGII could've used a 50% HP option, for sure).

edit: oh hey kitten :O

i don't appreciate shitposts directed at me. "alert the hive, this pitiful ignoramus is wrong about ninja gaiden!!!" this is a childish, shitty, and useless way of disagreeing with someone.

Having posted with Sumez here for some months now, I honestly didn't interpret his post that way FWIW.

[Sumez]

i don't appreciate shitposts directed at me. "alert the hive, this pitiful ignoramus is wrong about ninja gaiden!!!" this is a childish, shitty, and useless way of disagreeing with someone.

Actually, I think you might want to watch the way to deliver your thoughts on games. You have a really brash attitude towards anything that you consider a flaw in a game to the point where you continously appear to be putting other people down, and have been doing the same thing in other threads here.
It doesn't matter to me, because I appreciate your input, I know it is mostly hyperboles and you are simply passionate about your interests, but others might not take so lightly on it. I also don't appreciate that you refer to my completely calm and inoffensive statement about what I see as misunderstandings of the Ninja Gaiden games as a "childish shitpost". You can do better than that.
I can understand why people dislike the respawning mechanic of the Ninja Gaiden games, you are not the first to share this sentiment, but please understand that most of us love exactly this aspect of the game, it is by no means an unintended glitch, and it is definitely not a subject to pick a fight with forum users over.

edit: Changed my post to appear less offensive, as it was not intended as such. I mean what I say, and hope that you don't take it too personally...

[BIL]

the unmarked orbs seem like kind of a killer when some portions are definitely much more difficult without the "right" power-up. i feel like castlevania is much more generous about being flexible w/r/t you having different subweapons throughout the levels, and sometimes even on bosses. it also tends to place them in spots where if you drop a bad one, you can safely avoid it or think about if you want it before proceeding. that hesitation in ninja gaiden often means a respawning enemy harassing you. even refusing to use holy water and focus on the other subweapons, castlevania still feels like a highly competent game.

The only part of NG1 I think really suggests a particular subweapon is 6-2's infamous jump, where jumpslash is the obvious solution (definitely not the only one, though - shuriken and windmill star work fine, only updraft is objectively shitty due to its lack of horizontal reach). Even there though, it's nowhere as bad a situation as arriving in Castlevania's own, far crueller 6-2 chokepoint without the Stopwatch. Like I said ages back at the start of this topic, I don't even bother with specific subweapons to any great extent, preferring to switch around as I please.

you're also punished for killing something while its respawn point is still on screen, which i find unforgivably shitty and extremely unintuitive. there are points where you see a bird, immediately pause to take care of it, and then have it come back. you inch a bit forward, do it again, and boom, it's back again. in this example, there was no retreating and imo only mild loitering.

You've got to fight for every inch of land here, to the extent sometimes killing things from a safe distance won't cut it. Like I said, I can get the respawn being construed as overly harsh (I like to refer to it as "rabid!") but I don't find it all counter-intuitive in a classic "run to the right" sidescrolling action game.

I think it's also balanced out by the total inability of enemies to enter the screen independent of player input - allowing the player to sanitise a given area and at least proceed at their own pace. Castlevania's 6-2 clock tower and its infinite eagle beatdown is again a far crueller spot than anything in NG1, for example - attempting to intuit through is simply not worth it given the game's restrictive handling and vicious damage scale.

there are moments where a quick pause is useful to take care of an enemy like the bird before making a perilous jump, but to a novice player, discovering where that point is becomes extremely painful. it feels as if being aware of spawn points of the birds becomes almost necessary to know when killing would be disadvantageous or get you into deep shit. this is one of the notable moments i'm talking about. notice that slight hesitation. the amount of moments like this compound when you don't know the best spots to use a whirlwind slash. watching someone play like this looks exciting and enjoyable, but the game's learning process feels incredibly cruel and disrespectful to the player's time.

That eagle, and many others like him (plus bats!) spawns as you near the edge of the platform. He'll definitely be a nasty surprise if you've looked without leaping, but yeah - don't do that. There are a couple of very lategame instances where a flying pest will spawn while you're mid-leap, but they're never aimed to reach you before you've landed. It's pretty mild stuff IMO.

It's definitely not necessary to memorise NG spawn points to any great extent - I still haven't, anyway. There certainly are a few specific chokepoints here and there in the latter two Acts, but nothing I find at all out of the ordinary for this genre. Again, I always refer to CV1's st6 (bridge and tower both) as the sole point in both games where things truly spiral out of control, and you're going to get your ass thrown back at you over and over until you nail down a perfect method. NG1's 6-2 jump, and the specific jump only, is the only part I find comparably deadly.

is everything in ninja gaiden manageable to an expert or practiced player? yes. can the game be gone through quickly and in a satisfyingly brutal way? yes. is learning how to do this even remotely enjoyable? in my opinion, no, not at all. ninja gaiden's relentless action when played competently is interesting, but i feel like it was not particularly deliberate/smart in its design to make it this way. i would argue the playtesters probably did account for high level players to go through the game the way that they do, but the enemy placement is still something i feel could have been more clever and interestingly challenging without having what is very much near a specifically right way to play through every part.

We're gonna have to disagree here - I like to think I've a pretty good eye for action game design, and NG1 feels utterly deliberate from start to finish. It's also nowhere as strict as you're claiming, outside of the aforementioned couple of chokepoints. I completely bullshit my way through every time, within sensible limits - if I make an undeniably stupid move, or a fatal error of judgement, yep, I'm dead! But there's no particular route I follow other than "6-2's third floor has a helluva nasty jump" and "6-3's second and third have some irritating hunchback drops."

I get that it may sound like I've been blinded by routine, but as I've said since this thread's first page, it's the balance of recklessness to methodical stage design that's kept me playing it all these years. It's not an especially strict game.

you're forced to become at least moderately competent in execution to so much as beat that final stage (especially with the punishing rule they put on the final boss), but even when i hit a stride and was starting to go through the level without significant error on my approach to try to learn the boss again, i did not feel any thrill. it felt rote and unpleasant - much like how i started to consider metal storm's second loop when i was able to finish it. i could get through the levels reliably and skillfully after practice, but the "fun" never started (with noted exception of stage 6 in metal storm, which i already talked to you about enjoying).

Metal Storm's second loop is on another planet with regards to strict routing - there's absolutely no comparison there! Maybe if NG1 killed you in two hits at most, but even then I think it'd be less crushingly unforgiving of players not executing careful strategies. I genuinely find NG1 more comparable to Metal Storm's sixth stage, in that while it's not all improv (there are a few situations you objectively shouldn't be in), you can largely plot your own way through.

This reminds me of something Squire and I once discussed, regarding the game's engine. With any action game, I think it's critical you not only memorise stage layouts but also master your handling of the player character. NG1's flexible jumps, instantly-cancellable attacks and low damage scale let you wangle out of small mistakes that'd leave you dead to rights in stricter games - not to rag on CV1, I love it just as much, but it's the obvious comparison.

Granted, it may be my own learning approach and values just synchronise particularly well with NG1. It seems to happen with a lot of others though, so I'm not willing to call it a total fluke.

edit: oh also

i knew what i was walking into and avoided saying much about ninja gaiden for quite a while, but since someone already quoted my backloggery, i figured i'd voice a few feelings to BIL that i'm sure he's capable of coming up with his own responses to.

This thread's not quite the NG1 cult hangout it might appear from its earliest pages. Edmond The Mad kicked things off not by arguing the game was sub-optimally designed (maybe it is?), but flat-out unplayably broken (oh hell no, muhfucka imma kill u >:3 ).

[kitten]

Actually, I think you might want to watch the way to deliver your thoughts on games. You have a really brash attitude towards anything that you consider a flaw in a game to the point where you continously appear to be putting other people down, and have been doing the same thing in other threads here.
It doesn't matter to me, because I appreciate your input, I know it is mostly hyperboles and you are simply passionate about your interests, but others might not take so lightly on it.

i don't believe i've been doing this in other threads and am really curious at what is causing that accusation, but noted, anyway. (genuinely and without any irony) sorry for my snap. i'm paranoid (and with diagnosed reason to be) and read into certain things people say a little too much. i'm told this relatively often and am mostly genuinely ignorant to whatever it is i'm doing that grates on others. i assume a big part of it is just being overbearing - quick to respond and large posts when i do. i view firm criticism the same way that i do firm praise specifically when it comes to games, and this thread is full of hyperbolic, firm praise. i don't feel like my language is particularly any less severe with my criticism than with my praise, but that always seems to step on people's toes, quicker.

I also don't appreciate that you refer to my completely calm and inoffensive statement about what I see as misunderstandings of the Ninja Gaiden games as a "childish shitpost".

"It's baffling to me that you cannot enjoy these incredibly well designed games, but in the end it is only your own loss."

telling someone it's their loss for not thinking your way - especially when having just mentioned everyone around you thinks that way - is an extremely condescending approach built to shoot down discussion before it happens. i may be extremely firm in my criticisms, but i doubt you'll ever see me saying that to someone else in the thread. when you shared your list, i did not pick out games you rated lowly that i enjoyed to tell you that i consider your opinion of them "your loss," and should i be inclined to convince you of the possibility of thinking otherwise, i would certainly not choose those words.

I can understand why people dislike the respawning mechanic of the Ninja Gaiden games, you are not the first to share this sentiment, but please understand that most of us love exactly this aspect of the game, it is by no means an unintended glitch, and it is definitely not a subject to pick a fight with forum users over.

bil just acknowledged the possibility it was unintended, and both of the proceeding games remove said mechanic. i feel like there's more sufficient evidence given the design of the sequels that said mechanic was unintended than believing it was. i feel you could make a more compelling argument that the levels are built around acknowledging it (which i might agree with) and accommodating it (which i would disagree with). i believe it was less of an "oh hey look we designed the game and this thing happens, oh well," and more of a "dang, we can't fix this weird behavior, let's roll with it." i believe their job at "rolling with it" was amateur.

again, sorry for snapping, that's twice in two days to people i've otherwise had pleasant conversation in the thread with - and both times started when i criticized a game and being felt i was thrust on a defensive by their responses. it's probably for the better i mostly post praise in the thread.

The only part of NG1 I think really mandates a particular subweapon is 6-2's infamous jump, where jumpslash is the obvious solution (definitely not the only one, though - shuriken and windmill star work fine, only updraft is objectively shitty due to its lack of horizontal reach). Even there though, it's nowhere as bad a situation as arriving in Castlevania's own, far crueller 6-2 chokepoint without the Stopwatch. Like I said ages back at the start of this topic, I don't even bother with specific subweapons to any great extent, preferring to switch around as I please.

the last level of castlevania is the only reason i have the game at 3 stars instead of 4. i find the beginning bat stretch to be a near-lottery and subsequent clocktower segment to be abjectly poor in design.

You've got to fight for every inch of land here, to the extent sometimes killing things from a safe distance won't cut it. Like I said, I can get the respawn being construed as overly harsh (I like to refer to it as "rabid!") but I don't find it all counter-intuitive in a classic "run to the right" sidescrolling action game.

i still maintain that it feels deeply counterintuitive. imagine that i see a bird spawn, pause only momentarily, and then jump and slash it - this is what i would consider elegant and skillful play, but i could be punished with another one spawning. imagine it spawns behind me as i'm moving forward and i don't have the room to jump over it - provided i don't have whirlwind slash, i'm then demanded to pause and take care of it for a moment, which could get me into a pickle with what's ahead of me. there are multiple moments like that in the final stage, there's one for example.

there are solutions that become clear as you play more, yes, but they're not at all obvious at first in some of the tougher instances. enemy spawn points need to be precisely understood in many circumstances and memorized in others, and forgetting where another enemy will show up can mean that your behavior moments earlier could lead to your death. during the 6-2 jump, not only is it important to know that the cross tossing enemy will be on that platform, but where on the platform they'll spawn as you scroll and where you can safely hit them without them reappearing, provided you don't have whirlwind. this requires understanding a very poorly relayed and highly ambiguous quirk of the spawning system and fits the definition of "unintuitive" to a t. many people abuse or advise abuse of the spawn system here to despawn the guy. despite there being a lot of quick and reactive action in ninja gaiden, i feel like the crux of the game's design relies on being proactive and memorizing some very, very specific-to-this-game nuance.

i use backloggery, and most people will mark their no miss clears (should they have done any) with a special modifier that makes it easy to find when you're browsing their page. i browse a lot of people's pages and examine their taste and commentary, and have observed ninja gaiden to be one of the most common action game no miss clears, and frequently a person's only no miss in their entire library. i firmly believe this is not because it's easy, but because it's so memorization intensive (and hailed as some sort of legendarily impossible game to get people motivated) to beat it that by the time one is through, they begin to see it as no longer being a tremendous leap.

That eagle, and many others like him (plus bats!) spawns as you near the edge of the platform. He'll definitely be a nasty surprise if you've looked without leaping, but yeah - don't do that. There are a couple of very lategame instances where a flying pest will spawn while you're mid-leap, but they're never aimed to reach you before you've landed. It's pretty mild stuff IMO.

edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrODauyuMgY&t=10m17s this timestamp has two jumps in a row where, without whirlwind, you're going to be jumping into someone. the first one spawning that soldier in mid-air (perhaps you jump under the soldier as you jump, but look me in the eye and tell me that is highly counter-intuitive) and then a second one where you land on a soldier (if your brain went "oh no an enemy, better hold back," here, you bounce off the front of him instead of the back and into a pit).

what about the eagle i linked in my last post? does that one not require triggering him and then just a moment of hesitation? provided it doesn't, is it not a bizarre intuition to develop to just jump off platforms when you don't remember what is there? what you mention here as a safe behavior is something you built over playing the game, not a natural intuition. i'll agree the instances are not so bad when you've learned them, but i feel they're bad at teaching you behavior you need to take into other situations and most of the rest of the game. mild when memorized, but a very weird lump in the learning process. it's very easy to look at what to do during these points with hindsight of having successfully gotten through them more than once.

when playing, i'll often have lapses where i forget if this is the ledge i need to be preemptively spinning as i lurch off of it or if i instead need to be ready to hit an enemy who happens to be near the landing point. many enemies in the game come at you quickly, and it goes against what i've learned in so many other games to have to push into them to not see them respawn. if a runner comes at me in a game, i feel like the natural, intuitive response is to pause to prepare to attack and then strike. in ninja gaiden, it's more important to know he'll be coming and then play a bit of chicken with him so that when he dies, you aren't punished with another. the timestamp i linked earlier in this post is a great example of what i'm talking about, here. you're being attacked from every direction and then asked to jump back and forth up a couple of platforms to go up, which iirc respawns some enemies. that bit confuses the shit out of me as to what the hell spawn triggers i'm activating.

I get that it may sound like I've been blinded by routine, but as I've said since this thread's first page, it's the balance of recklessness to methodical stage design that's kept me playing it all these years. It's not an especially strict game.

this might be something fun for me to play when i get my capture rig. i've long wanted to get a no miss in this game just to have better criticisms, but both times i've played and beaten it, i've just hated playing it so much i've never done it.

if i somehow realize i was being a total scrub and start liking the game in the process, i will absolutely hold no stubbornness and admit such to you. if i don't, i will silently erase all the goodwill the TNWA recommendation bought you >;O

(naw i promise i won't lol)

[Squire Grooktook]

Ninja Gaiden's definitely a love/hate affair, as this threads beginning and some of my own friends have demonstrated.

It took me a while to warm up to it myself. In many ways, on paper, it's not the kind of thing I usually tout (mostly static, fixed enemy positions instead of ever encroaching zako hordes, etc.) but it's unique pace and stylish momentum eventually won me over. Maybe not for everyone, but very much has it's own niche as a forward charging rush of a game.

[kitten]

Maybe not for everyone, but very much has it's own niche as a forward charging rush of a game.

have you played and how would you compare it to gun-dec? i'm curious.

this goes for anyone else who wants to answer, too. i'd like to be able to see if you like similar things about both games or like ninja gaiden and dislike gun-dec, somehow. i think this would give me a better picture if it's something i could somehow eventually enjoy or if my strong dislike of it is more or less immutable.



back to mmpr the movie for a sec: oh my god, up+attack knocks your opponent onto another plane. too bad the game never, ever makes you do difficult crowd control, or that could have been an interesting nuance!

[Sumez]

telling someone it's their loss for not thinking your way - especially when having just mentioned everyone around you thinks that way - is an extremely condescending approach built to shoot down discussion before it happens.

I'm sorry if you feel that way, that was definitely not the intended message, so apologies for that. I am actually genuinely sorry that you feel unable to appreciate the Ninja Gaiden games as I think they are exemplary demonstrations of the genre - and knowing your taste in games, I feel like it actually is a loss that you do not appreciate them. But I'm not going to try to force your opinions, you are entitled to think what you do.

when you shared your list, i did not pick out games you rated lowly that i enjoyed to tell you that i consider your opinion of them "your loss," and should i be inclined to convince you of the possibility of thinking otherwise, i would certainly not choose those words.

I would actually appreciate knowing what games I am at a loss for not appreciating. Some times giving games a second chance has opened them up for me, Contra 4 being a recent example of a game I hated at first but ended out loving.
Of course, it is very likely that titles you would pick out are ones that I have already heard from on multiple occasions. An obvious example are the Shinobi games. Shinobi 3 especially, I have delved into a lot, completed it on hard, and still feel completely unable to see why people appreciate it as much as they do. I guess that is just the way it is. As for my rating of Alien vs. Predator, I really should retract that one. It is old, and I feel that it is highly biased considering that I am mostly completely unable to appreciate belt scrolling brawlers. AvP is actually the game in the genre that appealed to me the most.

Honestly, I'm much more interested in knowing what games I dislike that you happen to see qualities in, than being told I'm wrong for liking games that you consider bad.

i browse a lot of people's pages and examine their taste and commentary, and have observed ninja gaiden to be one of the most common action game no miss clears, and frequently a person's only no miss in their entire library. i firmly believe this is not because it's easy, but because it's so memorization intensive (and hailed as some sort of legendarily impossible game to get people motivated) to beat it that by the time one is through, they begin to see it as no longer being a tremendous leap.

Coincidentially, I feel exactly the same is true for Castlevania. It is the only NES game of its class that I have beaten on a no-miss clear without even intending to go for it, and only shortly after "learning" the game at that. Once you have it down, you just have it down, and that's all there is to it. I feel it is much easier to slip up in Ninja Gaiden, but generally it's mostly the same principle.
I don't think it's a problem in either game though. I love games like that, as long as they don't depend on memorization.

[Sumez]

Ftr, I like Gun-Dec, but I gave up kinda halfway into it because the level design felt kinda half-assed and "random" (again, not random as in RNG, but as in random actions by the designers ). I feel like it is not even close to the level of the Ninja Gaidens, but that is just an "early impression", it honestly deserves a second full body cavity search before I can truly judge it. I got it around the same time as Shatterhand which was a first sight love story for me.

[Immryr]

gun-dec is definitely a fun game but it's a little on a the easy side - even for a scrub like me. your sword is just too over powered. the fact it hits enemies infront, above and behind just makes dealing with the swarming enemies a little too easy. and even when you do get hit the damage isn't high enough to punish you considering you get some health meat at the end of just about every section. as bil mentioned there is quite a lot of potential danger from the pits if you play too carelessly though.

[Squire Grooktook]

Haven't played it myself, but it's on a list of well-liked nes/fc sidescrollers I eventually want to make time for.