RE: Gekisha Boy
BIL wrote:tbh I was never entirely sure what sort of game it actually was (the aesthetic always brought to mind the Mega CD's point/click thingy Switch), but a sidescroller with Cabal shooting sounds bang-on for this thread. I'm trying to remember if there's any others... Dick Tracy (MD) comes to mind, though it's more of an accessory mechanic there, if memory serves.
I've previously described it as similar to Pokemon Snap (back when kitten joined in) based on the photography based gameplay, but their actual gameplay are not similar at all.
The best way to describe it, is that it has two gameplay types woven together; each of which, if standalone, would be somewhat lackluster from a challenge perspective, but together they mesh quite well, for a very interesting title.
On one hand, you have the picture-snapping mechanic; it poses no threat to the player, and the challenge comes from snapping pictures at the right moments. On the other, you have a side-scrolling action gameplay. I say action instead of just platformer, because the camera lens actually also is a part of the gameplay on this side; it is used to destroy harmful projectiles/items that come your way (while also giving points). It also has no actual platforms of pits, though it is for the better when you consider the game's gameplay as a whole. Again, by itself, this would be a pretty bland and simple game.
The ingenuity of it comes from trying to snap the best pictures (at the correct moments), while contending with a slew of obstacles that you must avoid -- hence the connection with Cabal; it's similar in how you must both guide your character away from harm, and guide the cursor at your targets.
The game also keeps each of these gameplay elements easily discernible by making every harmful obstacle either be mostly red (as in the first level), or have a red outline, so that both the fore- and background elements are easily distinguishable from eachother (as evidenced by the following screenshot).
The final mission/minigame, that I described as a sort of whack-a-mole, is actually quite similar to Snatcher's gun segments, with the screen divided in a 3x3 grid, only that here, you have to manually aim the cursor (and somewhat accurately) at the target, whereas in Snatcher the cursor just snaps to the correct target depending on the direction you press.
BIL wrote:I've been a bit AWOL lately, but having plugged in my USB pad for the first time in a while, I very briefly tried out the PCE-CD port of Downtown Nekketsu Koushinkyoku (FC). This is the athletics-themed followup to Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari / River City Ransom.
I've never actualy played any of the sports-oriented Kunio games, with the exception of the dodgeball game for the GBA. Still have to give them a nice, mindful playthrough sometime. Can you give me a quick rundown of which of them are worth playing first?
RE: Final Fight
Jonny2x4 wrote:The weirdest thing is that Japanese Final Fight fans tend to be more critical of the Mega CD port for some reason. Most of the criticism tend to be about superficial aspects (e.g. the remixed soundtrack and the bad voice acting in the cutscenes), but they often bring up the the slow attack speed as a sticking point. IIRC, there's also a glitch that makes Poison and Roxy escape unharmed from Haggar's backdrops.
For me, the voice acting is the least concerning, and the soundtack is not that bad, but the slow attack speed is quite annoying. I've since grown to appreciate the proper boss invincibility time of the the ARC and MCD versions (read: less of it), as opposed to the SFC and GBA ports, as Vludi rightfully pointed out many pages back, though the MCD slow attack speed is still an issue for me. Didn't know about the Poison/Roxy glitch, though.
RE: Games worthy of 1CC
BIL wrote:I'm just gonna trawl through the thread and link to posts I like tbh. Needless to say, all are welcome to join in.
The thing is, while the info on some games is well contained (in one post, or within a few, adjacent posts) and can easily be indexed and linked to (the only cost: finding where such posts are located), many of the games discussed here have tidbits of info spread all over the thread, which will make it a nightmare indexing everything about them; Ninja Gaiden, Contra and Castlevania being prime examples of this. You'd essentially have to go through the entire thread to do so, so just finding the most relevant posts seems like a good idea, if you intend to keep your sanity.
As for the list(s) and info/reviews/strats of the games themselves, here's my view on how it could be done, and my rationale for it.
First, I'd keep separate lists for genres and perhaps for platform as well.
- • By genre, both because there are naturally many more games in some genres compared to others, and because some people prefer some genres over others, or are looking for a particular genre to play at that moment. There is, of course, not only the issue of what genre a game belongs (more so with some games than others), but also the variable amount of overlap between genres. I wouldn't stress this much, and would go with something like "side-scrolling action" for something like Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania, but would like to see, for example, Contra and Metal Slug listed as "run-n-gun". Some (many?) games are a bit trickier to define, though I'd list them according to their basic gameplay; for example Spartan X, Green Beret/Rush 'n Attack and Irem's Kaiketsu Yanchamaru/Kid Niki; I'd maybe list them under the same genre (focused mostly on enemies dying in a single hit, with a few exceptions, mainly bosses) despite their different theme/tools used (hand-to-hand in Spartan X, knife/sword on both Yanchamaru and Green Beret, and even the occasional weapon in the latter). It's a bit of an imprecise science, but with the community's help, I'm sure we'd reach a consensus.
• By platform, again, because it's easier to find games on specific platforms you're interested in, but, perhaps more importantly, because global lists intrinsically imply that games contained within them are (genres notwithstanding) equally good (or close), and this does not take into account the relative ranking of the platforms themselves. For example, a global list likely wouldn't include any game from the MSX, since in comparison with all the other games, they are inferior. But, within the MSX catalog, some games are significantly better than others. Obviously many people don't care about such platforms at all, but I think it would be nice to be able to find which are the good games on a specific platform regardless of their global ranking (or lack of thereof).
Another thing I'd like to see, is that the lists themselves be separated from the big strategy/review posts.
By having these separate, if one just wants to find a game to play next, they can simply browse through the lists, see the relative merits of each game (I'll elaborate on this further on) and decide which one to go with, without the fear of spoilers, both in story and in tactics (at least I enjoy playing games blind at first). And if someone else wants to see the tactics/strategies of a game, then they can just go the that game's particular page/post and read away.
It's a nice system, in my opinion, and it also supports Stevens & FinalBaton's practice of having multiple user strats/reviews per game, while the lists themselves remain clean.
As for the lists themselves, besides the above, I'd make several of them, the criteria being their games's ratings/ranking (at its simplest, something like Vanguards A=top, B=good lists).
I think that, given the massive amount of games that people here have played, one, or even a few lists will result in a huge amount of games in each, that can't possibly be all of the same level of quality. Or some games will just be left out.
Personally, I'd make four, or even 5 lists, each containing the games of the following quality:
- • Top: Probably what Randorama (and most everyone else) wants in the first place; the top quality games out there. This means listing only the best games even on games filled with them. For example, in the Metal Slug series only maybe MSx and MS3, and the rest relegated to the B-list; in Contra, maybe Contra FC and CIII; in Bare Knuckle, BK2 only; Ninja Five-O, etc. Series with many great, but similar titles could be a problem; using Metal Slug again: to either list MSx and MS3 (and maybe moree) here, or to just list the best in the series (whatever that may be) and relegate the other(s) to the B-list.
• Good: The ones that are good (not just solid, but good), either not on par with the ones on the A-list, or where their series is already well represented in the A-list. Examples would perhaps be, Contra: Hard Corps, Super Contra FC, the other metal Slugs, Final Fight 2 & 3, Bare Knuckle 1 & 3 (I know some will disagree with BK1 ), etc.
• Decent/Solid: These would be the ones that are overall decent, but not as good as the list above. Examples, Valis 4 (and maybe some others), Kunio FC (maybe belongs in another, see below), etc.
• Weird/Quirky: I originally envisioned this list to be on par with the "Good" list in terms of quality, but which contains games that are quite weird/quirky, for the lack of a better description. Games that, despite good, may not be to the taste of the average gamer (I write average here with respect, and not meaning it's common use (ie. casual); perhaps "average hardcore gamer" would be more fitting). Gekisha Boy would qualify, for example, and perhaps also Quarth and Gomola Speed.
The three-tiered (or perhaps even more) rating system is important, because there are simply too many games to fit in two lists, in my opinion. I'd even make one or two more:
- • Classics: For the good classics, I mean. Those games that, compared to the games in the A- and B-lists are more (sometimes much more) primitive, but that are still very playable, and which are also very important for their history. Examples would be, Kunio-kun, Double Dragon 1 FC (maybe even the arcade original), Yie-Ar Kung-Fu (both FC and arcade), Ninja-kun (arcade, the FC version is a much disliked one, though I find it charming ), etc. Many/most of these could belong in the above lists, but in general, I like to make explicit which games are only deemed "decent", but due to being prototypical and/or cementing a certain genre. I don't know about you, but I believe that the year/era in which a game was made matters, even if its gameplay would be considered subpar later on.
• Playable: Essentially a 4th-tier, below "Decent/Solid". The only reason I'd make this last list, is because I'm usually reluctant to call a game garbage/kusoge, and believe there's a fair difference between somewhat crappy but playable games (like Valis 2, for me) and absolute garbage that is best forgotten.
I would also like to see some more information with each game, somewhat like Randorama posted on the Pang series, instead of a simple long list of games. Which game belong on which list could be decided by a vote of the community. And please, no ranking among each game in any single list. I think it just leads to unneccesary complexity, and the fact that a game is on a list should attest to its quality (along with a small profile for each game, described next).
Besides maybe a small explanation of the game's mechanics (again, like Randorama wrote on Pang(s)), maybe also the following:
- • Regional changes (pertinent to the gameplay): What changes between regions, so that someone that wants to try the game knows what to expect. This should be just a rundown of the pertinent differences, like Bare Knuckle 3, Contra Hard Corps, Castlevania 3/Akumajou Densetsu, etc. Other less important changes could just be expressed in a small note, like in Bare Knuckle 2/Streets Of Rage 2 -> Cosmetic differences only.
• Differences with other ports: Not every port, rather the ones that are supposed to/seem to be equivalent. For example, for this point, I'd consider Final Fight SFC/MCD (and maybe GBA) as ports, but not Ninja Warriors Again as a port of the arcade and PCE Ninja Warriors; I'd treat it more like a semi-sequel/remake, and would prefer for it to be listed as its own, standalone game.
• Thoughts on what to expect if playing for 1CC vs 1LC vs no-damage (or 1-ALL vs 2-ALL, both in infinitely looping games like Contra/Castlevania, and like in STGs finite looping games like DDP, etc): I know this isn't exactly usually discussed outside this forum, but since this list is for people like us, I think this would be a good thing to know. For example, how hard to go from a DaiMakaimura 1CC to a no-miss or to a no-damage (or even from a credit-feed to a 1CC, where respawning isn't instant (eg. Contra)). I would even like to see how viable/hard any number of self-imposed challenged are on a game, eg. Contra with peashooter+no items or Ninja Gaiden with sword only. Not any game needs (or is even interesting enough to have) this kind of info, but there are plenty that do.
I understand that this is likely a lot more specific than what you guys were thinking, so don't take this as anything more than a suggestion. Putting games into the lists wouldn't be too troublesome, though, since they are all mutually exclusive (and should be, for the sake of our time and sanity).
I'll write a few entries using this format later on, so as to give you an example of how it would look (been writing this piece for a while now, so I'll have to defer it
).
Regarding the storage/display of such information, I think a website would be the best. A collection of simple, static-HTML pages is all that's needed for such a project.
To finish up (that was a lot of text
), regardless of whatever way it ends up getting done, I'm all for this project, and I'll gladly help.