Glad you're liking it! DD1's brawling is honestly quite underrated, imo. I put it off for absolutely years in favour of DDII, remembering it as mashy and lacking oomph (the scrubby talk quoted here only further convinced me). When I finally gave it a fair shake, I was thoroughly surprised. It's not a masher in the least - there's a small but undeniable finesse to taking down enemies cleanly. If you ignore that, then you're gonna have a sloppy, trade-ridden time. It's a perfect complement to the second game's more intensely technical ethos.FinalBaton wrote:BIL you motherfucker... you've done it again :O
Your DD2 talk got me hyped for some Tecnos fun so I got meself an NES copy of Double Dragon(bought it on ebay in a lil bundle with Shadowgate and Street Fighter 2010 for $20 CAD. Not bad, I wanted Shadowgate anyway).
Fired up the game and HOLY CRAP this is fun. I hadn't played that one since I was a kid so I had forgotten how addicting it is. I have DD2 here and I can flat out say : I like the first game even MORE. You move around the screen really quickly which I love, and the enemy variety and AI is a ton of fun. Just lots of subtleties in that last aspect which I didn't expect to see in an NES game.
It even does a few things better than DDII; weapons are mortally dangerous, being much more satisfying to confiscate and subsequently murder their wielders with. The skulduggery factor is higher - you can beat the crap out of floored enemies, while their buddies actively try to break up both these and standing grapples. And you get a couple of intense Abobo double-teams, where DDII's strongmen are only fought one by one.
TLDR: fuck the scrubs.
Have you played SF2010 before? It's one of my most beloved FC action games, though it's got an infamously unfriendly difficulty curve. It's won over me and several other regulars of this thread, sometimes after very rocky introductions. Even if it doesn't click with you immediately, it's the sort of game you might learn to love some years down the road. The trick is to approach it methodically... your character isn't suited to twitch action, but like any quality title, the game is designed around that. Once you realise enemies move as methodically as you do, former chaos starts to click, and tactical improv becomes second nature.
Animated GIF: How 2 Option
Spoiler
This sounds like you may be playing a hacked ROM - I'm not very experienced with X68K emulation, but according to Squire, they're not hard to encounter. According to SuperDeadite (X68K expert extraordinaire), Akumajou Dracula should be taking 4HP per hit before the first loop is over. It's been many years since I 1-ALLed it, but that sounds accurate - meanwhile the PS1 port's Original Mode uses a similar damage scale, but ramps it up a bit slower (takes like a stage longer to start doing 4HP).__SKYe wrote:You only lose 1HP for any kind of hit (be it a bat, or a boss or environmental damage), and always deal 2HP per hit to the bosses. There's a few instant death spots apart from falling from a platform to the bottom of the screen/water.
Overall, and while the 2nd loop does get more difficult, it's not much of a difference, and so far I still think the game's pretty easy.
IIRC, both the X68k and PS1 versions eventually start killing you in one hit. Haven't gone quite that far myself. I know saucykobold has some high-loop clears on his Youtube channel, seems pretty brutal.I can only assume that this is going to be a Contra-style looping, in that the initial loops are moderately easy, but things pick up after loop 3~4, and also that the extends will stop at some point.