Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Stevens]

"Basilisk Mine Field"

Wow they took one of the best songs in the game and turned it into one of the worst on the NES. That's a special kind of talent.

[BIL]

With the resurgence of Jaquio strategy discussion, and it being at least a year since I last one-lifed NG1, I recorded a quick n' dirty 1LC this afternoon. Wanted to see how much my own techniques held up after so long away.

YE BABY I LIEK IT RAWWW

Killed him with 50%HP remaining; my usual flame-herding method worked fine, albeit with several more bumps than my ancient run (which wasn't quite so rusty). The timing and motion is pretty much muscle memory at this point... but as ever, the iron rule here is: don't go for hits you're not entitled to. You can certainly play more audaciously with experience, creating more opportunities to strike... but if he or his flames have you dead to rights, stay on the defensive.

I found the end more interesting - tried stealing his last several hitpoints in one go, which immediately got me swarmed. My escape method is even more instinctive than the regular dodging, so I'm glad I recorded it. Unlike the old run, where the only swarm occurred too late to change the outcome, I thought I might actually die this time around! Slipped 'em without issue.

The despawning zone at the lower screen edge seems more generous than I recalled - quite a few times I thought flames would return on me, but the edge kills 'em pretty dead. Sides seemed quite workable too, though I never relied on them much outside of swarm escapes.

Elsewhere... some of the old run's mistakes fixed, others entirely new, one particularly tragi-comic mistake in 6-2 which saw me lose my usual Jumpslash for Windmill Star. Seriously thought I was screwed, but was pleasantly surprised by my breaking of the dreaded Ceiling Bird Spawner. I like a glass half-full approach.

Being reminded of the SFC Trilogy fiasco also made me want to record a new run - the old one lacked the end credits, and good lord, those chaps deserved the recognition.

[kitten]

played a couple of new games, yesterday! relevant to this thread would be:

ganbare! daiku no gen-san - which i found to be pretty decent. it's a lot more generously designed than the game boy games, which are my extent of familiarity with the series. for the record, i found the first gb game to be "okay, but way too rigidly designed" and to look & sound great (was hoping for something like a portable splatterhouse-esque game and wound up disappointed), while i found the second gb game to be outright bad. no idea what was going on there, but even gen's sprite is drawn worse. anyway, only real sticking points with this one are the weirdly bad music (very MIDI - was this the composer's first sfc game?) and the final boss, who i couldn't discern a reliable pattern for and might hammer my aspirations for a quick nomiss on a replay. pretty breezy & low-priced little game that seems to lack irem's trademark rigidity and spats of outright cruelty.

mickey no tokyo disneyland daiboken - this one is outright awful. horribly sluggish pacing & movement with maze levels and trial & error blind jumps. like a lot of licensed sfc games, it looks good, but the play is severely lacking. notably worse than capcom's mickey games (at least the first one), which i also do not like at all. the only mickey game i've played that i really enjoyed was mickey mouse III: yume fuusen for the famicom. surprisingly decent effort by kemco, there, and you get some rad tunes by the composer for the fc port of shadowgate.

also still playing dragon view, which is starting to bore me to death. too much dickery on the boring overworld and the dungeons are way too easy. bosses either kill you by attrition because you're underpowered or die in a flash. this game seems to only be interesting for its genre mash-up novelty value and relies way too heavily on its poorly done, paint-by-numbers rpg fluff. really disappointed with this one.

aaaaand i need to get back to super turrican 2, which i've barely touched. it seems surprisingly decent for a euro game, but still distinctly inferior quality to most quality action games on the console. still can't play the first one because i haven't bought a 2nd snes, and my snes is a model revision that causes the game to lock-up.

- - - - -

does anyone have any opinions on contra force? is that worth picking up? its price has become a bit daunting and it feels like it's just going to be mediocre, but my cravings for fc action feel strong enough that i might not regret getting it.

[Jonny2x4]

Contra Force was pretty mediocre from what I remember. Basically it plays like Contra with the Gradius power-up selection bar, which sounds intriguing on paper, but it's pretty sloppily implemented. While the power-up selection bar in Gradius provides a bit of tension, since you have to decide on the fly which weapon to use at the moment, there's no such tension in Contra Force, since you can grind for suitcases by walking back and forth in the same areas until you get all the power-ups you want.

You can switch between the four player characters on the fly, a feature which was no doubt added because some platforming sessions are impossible with certain characters due to their differing jumping height. In fact, if you run out of lives as one character (each has his own life stock), you'll get a game over regardless of how many lives the other characters have. Yet, this rule doesn't apply if you're playing with a 2nd player and the other person runs out of a lives with their character, leaving you with a character whose skills are not suited for your current area. Considering the Famicom version was canned, I wouldn't be surprised if the option to switch characters was something they added for the NES version to avoid having to redesign the levels or go through a pesky debugging process.

As for the characters themselves, they're more or less balanced, except for Beans, who has the most useless arsenal of weapons: a time bomb which travels in a semi-random pattern and a time mine that does the same but faster. IIRC, his character stands in a crouching pose and lies on his stomach when holding down, yet his hitbox is the same as the other three characters. I also remember that one of the other characters (the one with the homing missiles), must acquire his homing missiles before the rolling attack or the latter will cancel out the former.

Personally I wouldn't recommend Contra Force unless you can get it for really cheap.

[mycophobia]

With the resurgence of Jaquio strategy discussion, and it being at least a year since I last one-lifed NG1, I recorded a quick n' dirty 1LC this afternoon. Wanted to see how much my own techniques held up after so long away.

YE BABY I LIEK IT RAWWW

Killed him with 50%HP remaining; my usual flame-herding method worked fine, albeit with several more bumps than my ancient run (which wasn't quite so rusty). The timing and motion is pretty much muscle memory at this point... but as ever, the iron rule here is: don't go for hits you're not entitled to. You can certainly play more audaciously with experience, creating more opportunities to strike... but if he or his flames have you dead to rights, stay on the defensive.

I found the end more interesting - tried stealing his last several hitpoints in one go, which immmediately got me swarmed. My escape method is even more instinctive than the regular dodging, so I'm glad I recorded it. Unlike the old run, where the only swarm occurred too late to change the outcome, I thought I might actually die this time around! Slipped 'em without issue.

The despawning zone at the lower screen edge seems more generous than I recalled - quite a few times I thought flames would return on me, but the edge kills 'em pretty dead. Sides seemed quite workable too, though I never relied on them much outside of swarm escapes.

Elsewhere... some of the old run's mistakes fixed, others entirely new, one particularly tragi-comic mistake in 6-2 which saw me lose my usual Jumpslash for Windmill Star. Seriously thought I was screwed, but was pleasantly surprised by my breaking of the dreaded Ceiling Bird Spawner. I like a glass half-full approach.

Being reminded of the SFC Trilogy fiasco also made me want to record a new run - the old one lacked the end credits, and good lord, those chaps deserved the recognition.

Impressive as always. Clued me into a couple of health drops that I didn't know about, significantly the one on the last screen of 6-3...

Here's a scrubby 1CC I just streamed. 3 deaths, two of them really silly, but I did get through the entire final boss rush without dying which is what I wanted at the very least for a bare 1CC recording. Features a really dumb Jaquio fight where I get hit by the man himself three times lol. I thought for some reason clinging to the right wall meant he couldn't run into me. I WAS WRONG. But I swear that's how it was working last night.

No death shouldn't be too far off especially since I know about that last health drop now.

[Arasoi]

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[Jonny2x4]

Interesting that it also advertises the unreleased FCD game Gastar Field/ガスターフィールド. It's also amusing that Konami always advertised their MSX soft lineup along with their Famicom stuff. Even though the MSX was not in direct competition with the Famicom, it's still odd to see Konami advertising their non-Nintendo games on their Nintendo products.

[kitten]

IIRC, his character stands in a crouching pose and lies on his stomach when holding down, yet his hitbox is the same as the other three characters. I also remember that one of the other characters (the one with the homing missiles), must acquire his homing missiles before the rolling attack or the latter will cancel out the former.

hoo boy lol this is sounding really good

*long sigh* i just feel like i'm kind of hitting the bottom of the barrel when it comes to fc/nes action stuff and that it's one of few i have left to acquire and play. i want to believe with a little elbow grease it'll be decent, but i feel like i'm hoping a little too highly - this is going to be the contra equivalent of strider nes. i'm familiar with its localization history, but my ability to suppress this little gleam of optimism that i'll end up seeing this as a flawed-but-almost-there classic is faltering.

i've actually emulated it years ago - maybe even rented it? i feel like i played it on the real deal once, but can't remember how - and found it to be really lacking, but i've had bad first impressions many times before.

what kind of stuff is left on the console for me that i don't have yet? i'm probably still missing a couple quality titles

[BrianC]

The coup de grace is Act 5-3, where the FC's vast, affectingly crumbling shrine becomes a fucking building site! I couldn't believe it when I saw it.

The heck? At least they didn't replace Bloody Malth (though he's called the Bloody Master in the English text mode of the PCE version) with a barrel throwing ape (though this version almost looks like one).

[Jonny2x4]

I could forgive Contra Force's poor design decisions a lot more easily if the game wasn't so riddled with slowdown, it's really bad. I assume this is because of poor coding/quality issues during development of Arc Hound. Kind of similar to the Strider Famicom prototype, a quick spit shine and rebrand, shoveled into the American market for consumption

Now that I remember, Contra Force uses the Select button to change your weapons. But if you're familiar with the original model Famicom, then you'll know the second controller has no Select and Start button. So it's a wonder how they would've implemented the weapon change function for Player 2. The mike? or maybe you had to purchase a third-party controller. Maybe that's why Arc Hound got canned in the first place, but still got released as Contra Force in the U.S.

*long sigh* i just feel like i'm kind of hitting the bottom of the barrel when it comes to fc/nes action stuff and that it's one of few i have left to acquire and play. i want to believe with a little elbow grease it'll be decent, but i feel like i'm hoping a little too highly - this is going to be the contra equivalent of strider nes. i'm familiar with its localization history, but my ability to suppress this little gleam of optimism that i'll end up seeing this as a flawed-but-almost-there classic is faltering.

i've actually emulated it years ago - maybe even rented it? i feel like i played it on the real deal once, but can't remember how - and found it to be really lacking, but i've had bad first impressions many times before.

what kind of stuff is left on the console for me that i don't have yet? i'm probably still missing a couple quality titles

Well there's always Rush 'n Attack/Green Beret, which is sort of a proto-Contra anyway. The FCD and NES versions don't differ that much compared to other Konami localizations aside from some difficulty rebalance (e.g. the number of lives, the max stock of ammo, continues) and the removal of the sewer shortcuts in certain stages.

And if you're eager for a non-canon west-only NES entry of a Konami franchise, there's always Snake's Revenge, which is genuinely good in my book. Basically Metal Gear 1, only it's a lot more linear and broken into levels.

[BIL]

Best things I can remember from my brief dalliance with Contra Force in NESticle, almost twenty years ago (holy shit, emulators are becoming nostalgic now) are

1] Rad st1 BGM. I like those unruly breakdowns, and how it maintains its catchiness through them all.
2] BEANZU-KUN. That smug grin suggests his codename was well-earned! I wish I'd had the sense to name my account BEANZU!

Other than that, holy slowdown Batman! G-Darius PS1 port slowdown, where the game doesn't slow down so much as occasionally reach normal speed when the screen is empty! May be exaggerated due to time, but I'm not too compelled to revisit anyway.

Clued me into a couple of health drops that I didn't know about, significantly the one on the last screen of 6-3...

Oh yeah, that one is critical - either on a first run, for weathering the fleaman ambush, or returns, where you won't get the boss rush HP refill. Note you can grab it without triggering the guarding fleaman.

Congrats on the 1CC! Now you've got the rush nailed, the rest will surely come together in time.

BTW BIL I found this sitting in my old photobucket account. I can't remember which game had the flyer this thing was scanned from, I think some MSX Akdra title.

Cool, thanks! Never seen those illustrations in colour. I love Bill's psychotic murderstare, haha. Makes me wonder what exactly he's smoking there. I shuffled the FC manual versions around a bit so the clean & sober Lance is KEEPIN HIS EYES PEELED over Bill's shoulder!

The rightmost screencap of an enraged st3 boss really takes me back to being seven years old, and stunned at seeing Contra in motion on my friend's NES. I didn't know you got guns in Nintendo games! It was the exploding bridge, and the characters trucking along while blasting enemies from the water below that really blew my mind. The first truly all-out scrolling action game I encountered, still among the best.

[Arasoi]

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[BIL]

Don't worry, those are all well within the thread's ambit. I've kept the definition of "scrolling action" deliberately loose, both sidescrolling, topdown and beyond (isometrics are cool too). The 2D Zeldas are fine, for example, but I'd have to draw the line at Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy.

[Arasoi]

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[FinalBaton]

I have a Dragon Buster II famicom cart here(NAMCOT bay-bay!!) : I think it's quite allright. It has quite an arcadey feel for an adventure game (which I like), althought it's top-down instead of sidescrolling. Also very simple. still decently enjoyable to play once in a good while.

[Arasoi]

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[FinalBaton]

I'm fond of that one too. I like the lack of music in the stage areas, it provides a kind of eerie discomfort in not knowing whats on the next screen.

I like the arrows ricochet. And also the fact that getting closer to enemies gives you more firepower(limit of only 1 arrow on-screen at a time, but arrows disappear after they hit enemy. So if it takes less time for the arrows to hit the enemy(when you're closer), then your firing rate will be higher.)

I also generally like the graphics
And the idea of "choose your route", having to consider what item is in which dungeon type, etc

[BIL]

btw, ear bleach for use after hearing SNES Basilisk Minefield: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmgpkFtCyx4

Always been my favourite guitar rendition of the song - his tone, chording and impeccable technique remind me of Falcom JDK Band's classic Ys Perfect Collection ASTs. Speaking of! Fucking hell, that one satisfies. Guitar screams like a jet engine.

Avoid the actual Famicom NG arranged soundtrack, btw - it's nearly as useless as Trilogy. In both cases, "arrange" = "sustain random notes over the original music." No good!

[Arasoi]

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[BIL]

Superb. Had never considered such a heavy incarnation of that song, but that's the perfectly-judged metal arrangement I'd expect of Naoto Shibata & co's Dracula Battle albums. Those (including Shooting & Snatcher Battle) and Ys Perfect Collection are my benchmarks for heavier fan stuff... if it keeps up with either, you know I'm happy.

I wonder if there are any comparably excellent NGIII arrangements about? Fairly underrated OST, I think - I'm a big fan of its violent melancholy, and the further exploring of the "FC violin" that makes NGII's "Unlimited Moment" my favourite of that soundtrack. Besides clear NGII winner "The Parasprinter" ofc.

Little Annoyed Hell Omake: "Parasprinter" not being the set in stone choice for NGII's brilliant final stage. I never seem to get it these days, it's always that forgettable train/ice stage BGM that I can't even be bothered to recall the name of! Or worse, st1's "Going Gets Tough" which isn't bad in itself but is totally out of place in the heart of birdy hell.

[Jonny2x4]

1] Rad st1 BGM. I like those unruly breakdowns, and how it maintains its catchiness through them all.

Contra ReBirth has an unused FM-esque rendition on the official OST album.

Cool, thanks! Never seen those illustrations in colour. I love Bill's psychotic murderstare, haha. Makes me wonder what exactly he's smoking there. I shuffled the FC manual versions around a bit so the clean & sober Lance is KEEPIN HIS EYES PEELED over Bill's shoulder!

Not sure how often you browse upstairs, but I posted a few Contra art on the favorite box art thread, but I might as well repost them here too in case you missed them out. These were the original paintings by Hideaki Kodama that were auctioned off several months ago.

Contra GB

Spoiler

Contra Spirits

Spoiler

Hey no problem. I think that ad might be part of an insert from the CIB Space Manbow I sold to a friend a few years ago. I asked him to check just out of curiosity.

Space Manbow was a few years after FC Contra. Most likely he'll find a Solid Snake/Akumajou Densetsu pamphlet than anything else.

[BIL]

Contra ReBirth has an unused FM-esque rendition on the official OST album.

Oh man, I actually have that album too! Must've forgotten about it somehow over the years...

Very cool - I like the clear reference to AC Super Contra's jagged-yet-chuggy guitar sound. Sounds quite X68000-esque otherwise. Great choice of song, as to be expected from Manabu Namiki... his Gradius Rebirth and Dracula Rebirth OSTs are full of lesser-feted gems too.

Not sure how often you browse upstairs, but I posted a few Contra art on the favorite box art thread, but I might as well repost them here too in case you missed them out. These were the original paintings by Hideaki Kodama that were auctioned off several months ago.

Saw and saved both, ta for posting. Contra's JP GB box is simultaneously the tiniest yet most manful piece on my shelf. Have to say I've always found Spirits' rendition of Bill a bit too Macaulay Culkin-esque, but man, do I love the absolute shit-eating grin on Red Falcon. He's practically crying tears of joy.

[Arasoi]

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[Obscura]

With the resurgence of Jaquio strategy discussion, and it being at least a year since I last one-lifed NG1, I recorded a quick n' dirty 1LC this afternoon. Wanted to see how much my own techniques held up after so long away.

YE BABY I LIEK IT RAWWW

Killed him with 50%HP remaining; my usual flame-herding method worked fine, albeit with several more bumps than my ancient run (which wasn't quite so rusty). The timing and motion is pretty much muscle memory at this point... but as ever, the iron rule here is: don't go for hits you're not entitled to. You can certainly play more audaciously with experience, creating more opportunities to strike... but if he or his flames have you dead to rights, stay on the defensive.

I found the end more interesting - tried stealing his last several hitpoints in one go, which immediately got me swarmed. My escape method is even more instinctive than the regular dodging, so I'm glad I recorded it. Unlike the old run, where the only swarm occurred too late to change the outcome, I thought I might actually die this time around! Slipped 'em without issue.

The despawning zone at the lower screen edge seems more generous than I recalled - quite a few times I thought flames would return on me, but the edge kills 'em pretty dead. Sides seemed quite workable too, though I never relied on them much outside of swarm escapes.

Elsewhere... some of the old run's mistakes fixed, others entirely new, one particularly tragi-comic mistake in 6-2 which saw me lose my usual Jumpslash for Windmill Star. Seriously thought I was screwed, but was pleasantly surprised by my breaking of the dreaded Ceiling Bird Spawner. I like a glass half-full approach.

Being reminded of the SFC Trilogy fiasco also made me want to record a new run - the old one lacked the end credits, and good lord, those chaps deserved the recognition.

Watching you play "jumprope the Windmill Star" like some kind of minigame absolutely made my evening last night.

[BIL]

The Battle Albums are godly. Don't Wait Until Night is still an oft played favorite for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Iqu87kVxeU

Out of curiosity, have you heard any of Naoto Shibata's main band Anthem? Only dabbled myself, but Bound To Break has some very Battle-esque slamming bombast - the later (and pricelessly-titled) Domestic Booty likewise.

A total noob at the J-rock/metal myself, but I liked those two enough to keep around. These guys knew how and when to bust out Don Airey on the keys. No coincidence that Chris Tsangarides was a close colleague and produced both the aforementioned LPs, in addition to Priest's almighty chromium-plated Painkiller (and Sad Wings of Destiny, but PK's definitely a likely Patient Zero for the immaculately polished yet juggernaut-heavy Dracula Battle sound!)

Watching you play "jumprope the Windmill Star" like some kind of minigame absolutely made my evening last night.

Ta bud The most fun subweapon by miles imo - getting into trouble ("oh hi Cho Aniki frisbee dude, gimme a sec willya?!") is just as amusing as nailing those rebounds! Sort of finesse destruction mechanic that could very easily form the backbone of an entire game. Just running away from the thing's a blast, haha.

[Jonny2x4]

Saw and saved both, ta for posting. Contra's JP GB box is simultaneously the tiniest yet most manful piece on my shelf. Have to say I've always found Spirits' rendition of Bill a bit too Macaulay Culkin-esque, but man, do I love the absolute shit-eating grin on Red Falcon. He's practically crying tears of joy.

That's Devil Emperor Gava to you. Or is it Uranian Devil Gava? I was never sure how to translate those weird-ass enemy character names from Contra. Probably explains why they often went with made-up new names for the U.S. versions.

I kinda noticed some of the Contra games after the first two AC games had a tendency to make Lance less Rambo-looking, like in the Pachisuro version from a few years ago, where he's given some weird anime-esque hairstyle. Not to mention he was made into bad guy in an SS uniform in Shin Contra before being written out completely in Neo Contra. I wonder if someone at Konami got cold feet or something over possible likeness infringing. Maybe I'm just reading too much into things.

Ah, right you are. Tail end of '89 if my googling is to be trusted, putting it long past 2/9/88. Makes me curious about what I had it with though... checking the release schedule I think it might even be an insert from Wai Wai World. I might still have it in that case..

Wai Wai World definitely seems most likely to have a Contra pamphlet included with it. Not only it came around the same period, it has an entire Contra-themed level.

[kitten]

kitten, not sure where you are at with NES/Famicom at this point for action/scrollers but I can toss a few obscure titles at you here, see if anything sticks.

Choujin Sentai Jetman (Super Sentai license, developed by Natsume)
Cosmo Police Galivan (more Metroidey, but its got the gameplay)
Dragon Buster ( Namco's 1984 arcade forebear to Zelda 2 and all of it's clones. Clunky gameplay, but a fun look at humble beginnings)
Getsufuu Maaden (Very TMNT like in it's gameplay, IMO. Though faster and more floaty)
Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (Samurai Pizza Cats. Published by Tecmo, not sure if they developed it)
Mitsume ga Tooru (Osamu Tezuka licensed property. Developed by Natsume)
Ninja Crusaders (A decent little NG clone, a lot more fun than Contra Force)

Some of these are a little on the edge of the genre, but close enough I think.

i recorded a mitsume ga tooru nomiss clear a couple of pages back :p these are some relatively thoughtfully obscure recs, though! i appreciate the thought. i've got jetman on the way, already have & have played mitsume ga tooru, getsu fuuma den, and ninja crusaders, and am aware of/loosely interested in the others and have been lazily pursuing them. galivan is somewhat of a spiritual sequel to bio senshi dan, isn't it? i have access to the AC dragon buster via the namco museum collection, so i might give that a shot before going after the fc version.

one of the notably high quality looking titles i feel i've yet to pick up is moon crystal, and that one is pretty pricey and very rarely gets any good auctions listed - curious what the rest of the thread thinks on this one, too. also been after a copy of doropie for a couple of years. even though i can hardly call that one quality, the rockman fan in me has to have it! having finally won a copy of captain saver has made me acutely aware of how few games for the games console still exist for me to discover. i adore the famicom so much that it's a bit crushing to me that its library is finally losing its feeling of being infinitely vast and full of great stuff to discover. probably never going to stop playing the games, of course, but it felt like i'd never stop finding amazing new stuff.

i've also yet to pick up some other, non-thread-relevant stuff! i still haven't bought a copy of recca because of the extreme frequency with which it is counterfeited having paralyzed me into waiting until i find a believably era-accurate loose cart at a low price. lots of counterfeiters try to artificially damage their carts by dinging or scratching them, rubbing some dirt on (same w/ the repro boxes) - but you can still tell they're fresh reproductions by the unscuffed exteriors. it uses a generic black case & the mmc3 mapper (which is crazy impressive), so it's easy to fake a relatively legit looking copy, but it seems people don't do cannibal repros of it - and at least that still makes a bad sticker suspicious. arggghhh, why is getting a copy of this so stressful?

- johnny's recommendation of snake's revenge is actually spot-on, though! i had somehow let this one slip through the cracks

going to grab a copy of that one, today, even

[Arasoi]

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[BIL]

Moon Crystal is very cool imo - totally unique in the FC sidescroller canon AFAIK, with its mildly cinematic take on pure platforming and simple but grimly satisfying knifeplay. Great doublejump mechanic, and the knife's hitbox is perfectly-judged. The stages are generally really good about putting the Prince of Persia-esque pullup/grip mechanics through their paces too. Also has a bit of POP's "hit the switch, race the door" puzzling to it, though it leans far more towards action/platformer overall.

Held off on it for years, on account of the lame bosses - although it's entirely possible to kill them (at least the six I've seen) without taking a scratch, it's always simpler to just blunder in and damage race. But recently I thought "what other FC sidescroller do I enjoy with good stage action, shaweet OTG slashing and noticeably weak bosses?"

It's very good. Would be an instant recommendation without the hefty pricetag but I've no regrets!

The most interesting thing about Doropie to me (I'm only casually into the actual Rockmen, never mind their imitators) was the aesthetic likenesses to Vic Tokai's later Battle Mania games for MD. Very similar feeling that the art directors really wanted to be directing a magical girl OVA (or a Dirty Pair thingy, in Mania's case). Eye catch! Haha. Then they go and stick the cute character in some lame cave.

Also, I could almost believe Mania 1's street scene is referencing Doropie... notice the stacks and stacks of boxes marked "DOROP." Unsold stock? The roboduck thingy from Time Dominator is in BM2 along with a razz at SMW's Cape Mario, and I just realised that's totally Whip Rush's ship bringing the powerups. Seems reasonable.



Anyway, Sumez is the thread's other Rockman diehard that I can recall, and he reported brutal regret at shelling out for Doropie, so I'd be careful!

[Arasoi]

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