In the midst of playing CV3 and AD (X68000), decided to play Final Fight 2 on Hard for a bit, and got a 1CC with Carlos.
Despite a few mess ups the run went surprising well. Reached the final boss with 6 lives in stock and lost 2 against him, but that was pretty much in tune with my previous playthroughs.
Overall, there doesn't seem to be much change in the damage enemies deal, or on their HP (perhaps mostly the bosses, as they take about 1/2 of your HP per hit, depending on the attack they use), and the main thing that changes (at least from what I've noticed) is that enemies move faster -- not in the sense that their speed increases, but rather that they spend less time idle in between actions, so you don't have as much leeway as in Normal).
And while playing with Carlos, after using Haggar for a good while, I think I know the reason Haggar doesn't play as nicely as in the first game.
As you know, by pressing up/down/back on the last combo hit your character will throw the enemy backwards, and in FF1 the throw will work as long as you're touching the enemy (even if you're hitting them with the tip of your fist), but in FF2 there's a discrepancy between the regular punching range and this throw range.
This is especially noticeable with Haggar, because he has a larger range than the other characters, so you'll notice he won't perform the throw if you're hitting the enemies from afar.
Only after playing with Carlos today, did I realized that I almost never missed these throws with him, and that the problem must be that range discrepancy, though of course I might be wrong.
-----
On Akumajou Densetsu, I'm stuck on the Fake/Copy Belmont.
I've managed to reach him a couple times, but lost all of them. The stage is damn tough too, and even reaching the boss is a bonafide challenge.
It's also pretty odd that the developers made the spiked presses too overzealous (ie. you have to let them rise a tile above the character's head before you cross, otherwise you're dead), since they were fine in CV1 (in the Medusa's stage, for example).
Gonna have to plow through it though, and hopefully reach the next (last?) stage soon.
Question, does the Fake Belmont remain a Belmont if you fight it with the other characters, or does he change to whatever character you're currently using?
-----
As for AD X68000, still stuck on the Fake/Copy Simon as well.
All this time, I had massive trouble in the tower of dolls, and only rarely made it past them, but recently I discovered that if you don't move while on the stairs, they won't move as well. Any action from you (moving or attacking) will make them move as well, so you still need to be very careful, especially if they're close, as if you whip when one is near you, she'll hit you.
Surprisingly, the section after that. with the mirrors (right before the boss) is pretty mild, but the boss is a different story.
I've fought him some 10 times, and lost every single one of them. He's a real tough cookie.
He's really cool though, with his snake-whip, and the way he waves his tongue when you die.
Also, the music on the Tower Of Dolls is right up there with the Load BGM as the top tracks in the game, for me. It is really well done, and in a game with pretty much all fantastic tracks, that's saying something.
The soundtrack using FM-Synth is also fantastic and gives Yuzo Koshiro's work a run for their money, though I still prefer the SC-55 MIDI tracks.
The only downside of the FM tracks, is that the sound effects take away some channels from the BGM, which is perfectly normal in video games, but a shame because you don't get to listen to the tracks with their full glory during gameplay.
Incidentally, I've re-read the
interview with the devs (after a long time, barely remembered it), and one of the answers sheds some light on the high difficulty (or higher than usual), stating that they assumed that the average person who owned the X68000 was a hardcore gamer, and as such the difficulty was balanced for them.
Also, something I didn't quite understand at the time (I had yet to play the game), but now do and is quite amusing (again, only if you've played the game until this point):
shmuplations.com wrote:No one under 18 is permitted in the Tower of Dolls. When people came here during the bug checking everything suddenly got quiet…
Man, the devs back then seem to be really cool, funny people.
Brutal, @ blocky-kun. I know all too well how deceptively lethal that motherfucker is when he gets capricious. The floaty air handling really nips into the window for sudden reactions (as in a certain god damn ninja pit).
).
I like my threads comfortably fuzzy. Like a favourite old couch. 
), but under the hood, there's loads of 
Sounds like it turned out to be a pretty substantial game.
