Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[kitten]

youtube got feisty and recommended me another mike matei video, which made me look at his channel to rubberneck for the first time in quite a while. has a live play of the original nes contra up where he gets a nomiss the description - "After months of attempts, it finally happened." fucking. lol. ppl might remember in here where a year and some odd ago i showed how his hard mode 1cc of contra 3 (not played live) was obviously stitched together and fake and man alive is it hilarious to see him struggling for *months* to finish nes contra on stream without dying, which is a substantially easier thing to do. i looked into the vid history and he wasn't kidding, he would pop it in for several hours for about 4 months and just miss it constantly.

this reminds me, though, that i haven't played hard corps in quite some time and still haven't done a nomiss on contra 3 hard mode. got a 1cc ages ago and still never went to follow it up. there's so many games i want to play but the bursts of energy feel so random, and i'm on such a pc engine kick right now.

[BIL]

Saigo AC Mode nomiss is way the hell harder than anything Hard Corps has to offer anyway. >;3

(I'd actually put it just under Contra III Hard nomiss, partially for the latter being mechanically pickier, and having more stringent execution, plus a lategame burst of Saigo-esque RNG terror in the hive... but most of all, for being considerably longer. if Saigo had padded itself out to a similar ~20mins at the intensity it reaches in half that time, it'd be a goddamn nightmare. I get the feeling IREM wanted a typically easy first-loop opening, with a swift acceleration to second-loop carnage by the end)

I get lots of AVGN recommendations, which I don't mind really. Always had a soft spot for James, and tolerated Mike by proxy. I stay away from anything of theirs remotely resembling "hard gaming," though. I know the odds are good my spine will shatter under immense cringing force. Like any mainstream source pretty much.

Having said this I thought their NES Super Contra and Contra episodes were cute. The first showed some genuine co-op camaraderie and the second... ended very badly but at least provided an object lesson in using your fuckin loaf. Yo it's a proximity-activated trap, stop banging your head on it! MIKE PLS (also a cracking example of the original game's immortal zako entertainment when Mike, menaced by a heavy gunner, hits the deck and is promptly trampled by his pursuers. "I COULDN'T DO ANYTHING" )

Also, IDGAF, this still makes me laugh. All in the timing.

Spoiler

I like unwinding with the old Jaguar, CDi etc episodes. I dislike nostalgising in general, but when it's stuff that was more or less utter shit to begin with, that I can get down with. (the Jaguar actually has some really good stuff, to be fair, but it's indelibly tarred with that mid-90s Western console brush in my mind)

[Vanguard]

She is a lot of fun to play even if her giant cans are pointless. Although perhaps they act as counter weights during her i frame flips? I don't know. I've never taken even an introductory course in robotics.

It looks like she keeps her extending arms coiled up inside her shirt when she's not using them.

[BIL]

^ Indeed, I've seen that hypothesis! Alternatively, as she is described on the website as "an assassination type," maybe they're unfathomably destructive warheads.

(I always thought Kunoichi was the "sexy infiltrator" type, hastily repurposed for frontline combat. The protagonist force is always portrayed as on their last legs, see Ninja and Kamaitachi not having any frickin skin! Maybe under happier circumstances, Hair would not be for ensuring a bone-shatteringly unbroken fall, post-suplex, but surreptitiously slitting a target's throat at a table for two. oh god it's all so morbid.)

[Stevens]

Good eye guys. I think when she dies her arms fall by her side and no boobs as a result?

[Vanguard]

I tried out Rocket Knight Adventures. I know it's well-loved but I'm lukewarm on it.

Spoiler

The central mechanic is a rocket boost which gives you a ton of mobility, so you'd think most of the level design would accommodate that, but if anything it's the opposite. Boosting in most areas will get you killed unless you've already memorized the level and know exactly what you're doing. You're also pretty much on rails for the entire game and it feels like a big missed opportunity when your character is so mobile.

More than anything else RKA reminds me of Bucky O'Hare, a game I dislike. I'm given to understand that there's shared staff between the two, so it's not surprising. Both games bank hard on variety through stage gimmicks. RKA has hori shmup sections complete with Gradius references, a mine cart section, and an escape from a giant mecha followed immediately by a battle between two giant mecha, among other things. It's all rather hit or miss, with exciting climaxes interspersed between periods of dead air. Another similarity with Bucky O'Hare is that both games have wacky 1HKO hard modes. RKA picks up a lot towards the end and I think the final stage is pretty cool. The final boss's first form finally gives you a satisfying use for all of that aerial mobility. The final escape is reminiscent of Contra 3's true last boss, which again isn't surprising because this is a Nakazato joint. Give me Rocket Knight Adventures: The Hard Corps where the whole game is like that.

Sparkster's moveset is pretty unique and worth talking about on its own. His basic attack is a sword slash that fires a fairly powerful projectile. There can only be one shot on screen so you do more damage up close. If you get into point blank range and strike with the sword itself it does damage every frame and will tear through anything in seconds. Striking also disables collision damage for most enemies, which is nice. Sparkster's rocket can be charged up and used to boost in any direction and he's invincible while doing so. Boosting downwards on the ground causes him to do a spinning attack in place that does per-frame damage. Rocket boosts in cardinal directions do twice as much damage on impact as diagonal boosts, but hitting a target with a diagonal boost will cause Sparkster to do his spin attack, which can potentially beat out a cardinal boost's impact damage. Anyway, it's a solid and versatile ability set that allows for a lot of risk/reward choices, and it's unfortunate that the level design doesn't do more to capitalize on these merits.

One thing I really do not like about Sparkster's moveset is that attacking while while jumping breaks your jump. So if you jump and then immediately strike, Sparkster will do a short hop even if you're holding down the jump button. It's a shockingly amateur mistake coming from Konami.

Between the rocket boost and the numerous speedkill options, there's clearly a lot on offer here for speed and style players. But as a humble survival player I give it a B.

[Mischief Maker]

Someone on another forum gave a much better analogue to Valfaris' gameplay than I came up with:

Earthworm Jim.

[BIL]

ACA: VS. Castlevania is up on Japanese PSN. Surprised me, I had to refresh my browser to make sure it wasn't showing the Switch page! I didn't think it'd be allowed on PS4, with its PlayChoice-10 roots. Then again, VS. Gradius is already on there, so I should've figured.

From distant memory, the game is pretty much a parameter tweak of the NES version - but it's still neat seeing any incarnation of it on a Sony platform. Nabbed for future reference.

===

Welcome Back To Violent City:
THE NINJA WARRIORS ONCE AGAIN QUICK STARTUP GUIDE (GAME 2019 NATSUME)
v1.0 / 2019 Biruford Press, 99 Tinkletowne Crescent, Weewillehwinkeh BLVD

---

Contents

0. Basics
1. Ninja
2. Kunoichi
3. Kamaitachi (coming soon)
4. Yaksha
5. Raiden (oh god WTF)

Corrections or contributions gratefully accepted! Special thanks to iconoclast and Zaarock for many superb replays that helped me get my head around the all-new juggle engine, and will doubtlessly illuminate WTF I'm doing with Raiden!

---

0. BASICS

[HUMAN-TO-ANDROID COMMAND INTERFACE]

EIGHT-WAY DIGITAL STICK

[ATTACK BUTTON] [JUMP BUTTON] [BOMB BUTTON]

THAT IS ALL

[STRIKING ATTACKS]

• Land successive hits to execute a combo ender. Blocked hits work fine! Required number of hits varies by character, from Ninja's two punches=Nunchaku to Kunoichi's four slashes=Katana.
• Stand or crouch for different ender.
• Holding [UP] as a combo ends while your meter is at 100% = SUPER COMBO ENDER. Aim as desired with the diagonals!
• Unlike the typical Final Fight-modeled combo system, TNWOA's timing window is deliberately very loose. Even landing hits at relaxed pace will get you the big enders. You're also free to turn around, or go between standing and crouching, while landing said hits.
• Exploit this! EG: whack a couple grunts, then nail a deadlier target with the resulting ender. Build hits from a crouch then hit [UP] for the Super Combo Ender, etc.
  
  BAP-BAP-BLAOW
  Spoiler

  
• Combo enders have ABSOLUTE INVINCIBILITY. Attack aggressively.
  
  "OMG CHEETZ LMAO, THAT FLAMES TOTES HIT U"
  Spoiler

  

[GRAPPLE ATTACKS]

(KAMAITACHI does not have conventional grapples! see his upcoming section for details)

• Walk into an enemy to grapple them. Attack with [UP] or [NEUTRAL/SIDE] or [DOWN] plus [ATTACK]
• [UP] and [NEUTRAL/SIDE] throws can be aimed in either direction. [DOWN] throws cannot.
• Throws have ABSOLUTE INVINCIBILITY. Attack aggressively.
  
  ABSOLUTE. FUCKING. INVINCIBILITY.
  Spoiler

  
  NAGE WA MUTEKI DA
  Spoiler

  
• Grapples snap onto enemies VERY QUICKLY, perhaps frame-instantly. The tiniest window will work. With the aformentioned i-frames, chain-slamming your way through the tightest scrums, never mind flattening the masses with deliberate crowd control, is a sound tactic.

[JUGGLES]

• TNWOA has a substantial juggle engine, though its combos are deliberately on the conservative side. With the possible exception of Kunoichi's shuriken combos, an attack can only be used once per juggle. A basic example:
  
  Yaksha: [grab] then [up+ATK], follow with neutral [ATK], then [crouch ATK] and finish off with [up+ATK]
  Spoiler

  
• Don't obsess over juggles. You're not fighting in a vaccuum - other enemies will backstab if you're intensely focused on a single target. Generally, use juggles to append a bit more damage onto a solid conventional attack.
  
  Kunoichi's classic SFC jump-in, plus a bit extra
  Spoiler

  

[GUARDING & EVASION]

• Hold [ATTACK] to guard. If your character is in hitstun, or executing a move, guard will activate instantly on the next active frame.
• So if you get hit by a combo starter, don't hesitate - immediately hold [ATTACK] to get your guard up.
  
  KEEP YOUR FOOTING = KEEP YOUR METER
  
  Spoiler

  
• Press [JUMP] while guarding to superjump forward. Hold [AWAY] to superjump backward. NB: NINJA lacks conventional jumps.
  
  Spoiler

  
• Superjumps are 100% front-invincible, but totally rear-vulnerable. Great for aggressively invading enemy space. Not a free ticket out of trouble! Backflipping into a horde of enemies will get you a shoe up your ass!

[SUPER METER]

• Auto-charges over time. Meter will reset if player is knocked down while charging.
• Use EX ATTACKS with [UP + ATTACK] whenever sufficiently charged. Max meter required for [BOMB] (consumes entire meter) and Super Combo Ender (consumes a small fraction).
• Meter resets between stage areas. Use it or lose it.

[THE ENEMY]

• Enemies will attack while you are in range, regardless of whether you are guarding or not.
• Exploiting this with the Super Jump mechanic is a vital basic skill. Use the jump's total invincibility to get in range while baiting out attacks, then punish upon landing.
• A detailing of enemy characteristics and behaviour is incoming! For reference purposes, here is a good naming resource, based on the Super Famicom original, but 100% applicable to TNWOA. I am pretty sure "Kunoichi" is a rough guess, regardless these enemies are referred to as "Katanas" for clarity's sake.

===END OF PART 0: BASICS===

PART 1: NINJA
PART 2: KUNOICHI
PART 4: YAKSHA

[it290]

Not a big fan of VS. Castlevania — in my experience the clock is the biggest killer. Could be a fun title if you're into speedrunning, though.

[Marc]

Gah, I think I'm done with Ghouls. Struggled my way to the 3rd stage, but, crucially, I'm not enjoying myself in the slightest. Game just seems to want to screw the player over at every opportunity, whereas with GnG and Super there's usually a bit of flexibility. My attempts at playing it are punctuated with cries of 'ah that's fucking BULLSHIT', which is very rare indeed for me.

[BIL]

Did it clobber you with unwanted chests and/or weapon pickups? That's the usual red mist trigger, it seems... It can be a total cunt about enemies with jars too. Squire made a valuable observation, they're pretty much the game's version of suicide bullets.

I want to try a sword-only run sometime, it's woefully unpractical in some regards but god damn, the sense of LIFT STEEL and KILL PIGMANS is real. Magic packs a wallop too.

[Austin]

Thinking about it, Ghouls might be the easiest of the bunch for me. The big thing about it is making sure to, 1) Think on your feet at all times, and 2) Play smart. The requires a ton of discipline but when you get it down you can just breeze right through it. Such a good game.

[Stevens]

Getting better with Kunoichi from start to Jubei, but still getting my ass handed to me by that fucker.

[BIL]

Thinking about it, Ghouls might be the easiest of the bunch for me. The big thing about it is making sure to, 1) Think on your feet at all times, and 2) Play smart. The requires a ton of discipline but when you get it down you can just breeze right through it. Such a good game.

Currently, I think Daimakaimura and Saigo no Nindou are my joint favourite sidescrolling action games. Besides sharing a winning trio of snappy handling, nonstop pace and rolling stage design, both make sublimely well-balanced use of RNG to ensure lasting tension. Immortally replayable. I would formally rate Dai higher, for its instantly engaging opening stages. Saigo's are fun, and let the player enjoy the soaring jump, but they're a little too harmless. Dai also has generally more involving bosses, and a lack of any real lapses in form.

Saigo, meanwhile, starts gaining intensity steeply from stage 3 before hitting a nightmarish peak in stage 6 - simply the most authentically merciless (yet entertaining!) one man war I've seen in gaming. No plot armour, and no noise - everything's doing its damnedest to kill you. Excellently, enemies are just as liable to bad luck as you are. Sometimes they'll crash down in waves of steel and fangs it's all you can do to escape. Others, it just won't come together for 'em, and you'll be gifted an opening to punch clean through. Survivor's guilt will ensue, in such cases. Overwhelmingly, you'll get some of both - lucky breaks followed by hellacious near-misses, seizing openings wherever you can. Making it to the end in one piece will make you feel like a superhumanly capable and wily but also damn lucky shinobi, every time.

But besides the relatively sleepy opener, it also has the Ninja Pit. Less a mere flaw than a noxious kusoge blight to be torched away with extreme prejudice. Also, the sixth boss is a joke - undeniably a welcome respite after stage 6's raining hellstorm, but it shouldn't be there. Saigo's still my personal favourite for that wicked intensity level, though, and its last boss is classically economic peril.

Its four weapons are also better-balanced than Dai's, each having at least one critical role over the game's course, and generally more nuanced than Dai's relatively straight projectile focus. It's also an innately gratifying toolkit, opposite a wickedly dangerous challenge. Saigo gifts the player with monstrous, screen-raking firepower, then plunges them into a harrowing wuxia horror show for the ages. Don't get too comfy with the POW grenade carpetbomb - a samurai killer will tank through those incendiaries and lop your head even as his kimono burns and his flesh sloughs! Nor will the ripping triple Kusarigama stop an unnoticed, lowly zako from slashing your spine. It's a snap to actively maintain dominance, outside of stage 6's total onslaught, but just like Dai, it'll bring you down hard for complacency.

And I will say one thing for the pit - at least it is, mercifully, 100% static. Like the shrapnel in Tony Stark's chest, even the tiniest added stress would've probably killed the game outright. As it is, we have the technology to salvage it.

Finally, in spite of its breezy opening three minutes Saigo has one of the best intensity-to-runtime ratios I've ever seen. Super-efficient scrolling action fury.

Both on my all-genres desert island list for sure. Both do pretty much everything I want a hard scrolling action game to do. They're not as mechanically expansive or as well-stocked with stages and bosses as others, but that's not what either's going for. A quick 1CC of each is a rugged climb and a hard-fought win every time.

Getting better with Kunoichi from start to Jubei, but still getting my ass handed to me by that fucker.

Jubei can give Kunoichi a rough time with her stubby reach - can't crouch P him like on SFC either. Sometimes it'll bite, others he'll do this:

Spoiler

Best to nail him with jump-ins followed by the grapple flurry, he can't slip away from that one. Hitting an enemy will typically cause them to hesitate for a split-second, post-hitstun - he's very different and nowhere as slippery, but this Silverman GIF illustrates:

Spoiler

(grapple flurry is down+attack during grab - hold the button for the full sequence. It's mortally risky on SFC, but completely invincible in TNWOA... so rather than sneaking in flurries wherever you can, it's best to precision-barge into the crowd and slap on the flurries while would-be backstabbers haplessly swing and slash at you)

"Here, hold this." /AHNULD

Spoiler

MUDADA! Nage wa MUTEKI DA!

[BIL]

Decided to give Part 0 its own post. Also, once I'm done writing all this, I'll post it in a dedicated thread. For now, with more of us getting TNWOA, I figure it'd be good to have even a partial guide available.

BACK TO TOP

1. NINJA



Apex Destroyer. A simple and brutally effective attacker who demands implacable play. Offset his low base speed, unconventional jump mechanics, and lack of easy evasion with crushing combos and grapples. Use his deceptively explosive speed bursts to keep on top of prey.

[STRIKES]

[ATTACK] = PUNCH Face smasher. Among the game's best strikes - fast, strong, rangey, and leads quickly to Nunchaku/Rockets.

[PUNCH x 2] then [ATTACK] = NUNCHAKU Standing combo ender. Superb all-purpose tool; does decent damage with an invincible, bi-directional knockdown. Can swat Flying Drones with ease. Bust it out when you're surrounded to create space and buy time. If you're getting routinely swamped, you're probably not using it enough.

Spoiler

[PUNCH x2] then [DOWN + ATTACK] = SNAPKICK Crouching combo ender. Swift knockdown. Good if you need something floored immediately and can go without Nunchaku's defensive assets.

Spoiler

WITH FULL METER: [PUNCH x2] then [UP + ATTACK] = ROCKETS Super Combo Ender. Long-ranged frontal knockdown; delivers considerable damage to the masses. Great for scorching tough crowds, and/or blowing away skittery pests. Skilled play will let you bust it out repeatedly.

Spoiler

WITH 1/3rd METER: [UP + ATTACK] = EX NUNCHAKU Nunchaku goodness on demand, at the cost of invincibility and rear guard. Use on crowds @ meaty range to create mass juggle carnage. Use x3 on Gigantos @ meaty for monstrous, giant-slaying damage. Potent juggle tool against one of the game's rare walls, great in stage 7's elevator battles.

Spoiler

[DOWN + JUMP] = JIGOKU no ELBOW DROP (｀ω´メ) Fun finisher. Splatters waking enemies; time it just right to rack up massive hits on multiple targets. Don't try on bosses, their wakeup i-frames will slip it. Can also poke a bit with its giant hitbox.

Spoiler

[GRAPPLES]

[GRAPPLE] then [FORWARD or BACK + ATTACK] = BODY SLAM Quick basic slam. Looks rad.

Spoiler

[GRAPPLE] then [UP + ATTACK] = GIANT SWING Bidirectional knockdown + pointblank bludgeoner. Its individual hits are weak - however, its meaty juggles will rip through crowds.

Spoiler

[GRAPPLE] then DOWN+ATK = ATOMIC DROP Brutal damage done fast; among the game's deadliest one-hits. Slap 'em onto hard targets and bosses wherever possible. Despite its lack of crowd control, with throwing's i-frames and Ninja's immediate recovery, you can demolish enemies one-by-one with successive Drops.

Spoiler

[BOOST ATTACKS & EVASION] Ninja cannot jump. He can, however, HIT DE BOOST.

[GUARD] then [JUMP] = FRONT TUMBLE It may look ungainly, but its total invincibility and short range make it an ideal precision advance.

Spoiler

[GUARD] then [AWAY + JUMP] = BACK TUMBLE Good when you need to create immediate distance, typically facing a multi-enemy frontal attack.

[FORWARD + JUMP] = BOOST DASH Excellent movement option for zipping about the screen, and switching sides on floored targets.

Spoiler

Collide with an enemy during dash for the SHOULDER CHARGE a superb combo starter.

Spoiler

[BOOST DASH] then [ATTACK] = BOOST KICK Not very strong, but will reliably flatten all in your path. Hold Attack during dash startup to execute kick on frame 1.

Spoiler

[JUMP] = HOVER Neutral variant. Will hoist you over mortars, sweeps and flying kunai.

[HOVER] then [ATTACK] = HOVER SPIN No-range knockdown. Not very strong; mostly a keep-away for would-be exploiters.

[HOVER] then [DOWN + ATTACK] = HOVER DIVE A short-ranged stomp, badly nerfed from its highly useful Super Famicom incarnation. Still a decent sweep punisher.

[HOVER] then [DOWN + ATTACK] = HOVER DP Where the Dive's range got nerfed, the DP is boosted for swatting the new Flying Drones. Useful for that, when you can't bust out Nunchakus. Beware the recovery period!

===END OF PART 1===

PART 0: BASICS
PART 2: KUNOICHI
PART 4: YAKSHA

[BIL]

Getting better with Kunoichi from start to Jubei, but still getting my ass handed to me by that fucker.

Oi Stevens, uploaded a quick demo. Thought I would whoop he ass since I was in the neighbourhood collecting footage.

Jubei's a slippery bugger but he's SCURRED of Kunoichi's jumpkicks and can't do much about 'em tbh. Going after him more aggressively would probably get trickier! Strictly 4 Survival demo.

[Stevens]

Thank you sir.

I made it to the twins last night. Got to Jubei with full health, and then proceeded to get my ass handed to me again. I had about 1/4 health (he was at 3/4) before I pulled it together. Managed to not take a hit the rest of the way.

That said it was still a white knuckle affair. I took to staying away and only jumping in after he finished attacking. Was able to bomb him twice which helped a lot.

[BIL]

Was enjoying myself so much I decided to save the stage replay too, turned out to be fairly illustrative!

As on SFC, it has to be stressed - Kunoichi is a grappler character, just a very agile one. You need to focus on getting into meaty range - she's devastating there but cruelly stranded at a distance.

WARNING WARNING WARNING
GLITCHFINDER GENERAL IN SESSION

Now, I love TNWOA, a whole helluva lot. Sit down to record some GIFs -> oh god where'd my morning go! Adds a fiendishly compulsive styling layer to the SFC's traditional survival pressure, with buttery-smooth, state of the art handling beyond even that of the original.

BUT I was reminded of why I swore off Kunoichi for the time being. Control glitch needs patching. With Ninja and Yaksha's more methodical inputs, and Kamaitachi's lack of conventional grapples, it's easy enough to ignore. Not so with Kunoichi. I'd been telling myself, in the interim, that maybe it's a "feature." It certainly makes PPP chains nice n' smooth. But no, it's bad enough that the inputs for attacks which don't even end up executing carry over into grapples.

EG#1: deliberately OTG a falling jumpkick too late to execute, grappling an enemy on landing. Whoosh, instant bulldozer - now, maybe I wanted the bulldozer. I often do! But sometimes I want the flurry, or hair, or I want the bulldozer a tick later. Either way - I MUST HAVE CONTROL

EG#2: mash buttons to get up quicker after knockdown. "Hey Panther-kun, did you ever see The Mountain And The Viper?" "Why yes Kunoichi-chan, I BLBPTHHHH" That's on SFC. In TNWOA the same inputs = instant throw.

EG#3: get smacked in the face during slash startup, move forward to counter-grapple. ITS TIME 4 REVE - wait, where'd you go? Wham, instant throw.

The third is where I got really annoyed, since those gritty, bulling "smacked in the mouth? wrench their shoulder out" grapples are at the heart of aggressive Kunoichi play and thus my enjoyment! The SFC game's controls are functionally perfect, so having to suddenly babysit TNWOA isn't great. I swore I'd never do that again, after Holy Diver showed me IREM body horror IRL as my nervous system rewired itself to counteract its nightmarish glitches.

If the SFC one had suffered this control glitch, the course of this thread would be markedly different, as I could never have gotten into it so wholeheartedly. Thankfully we live in an age of wonders, as evidenced by TNWOA even existing to begin with! I'm gonna try and submit a bug report/patch request. Hopefully I'm not the only one or the first one to notice this!

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Thanks for the Rocket Knight Adventures writeup, Vanguard. I learned some new stuff I had never noticed such as non-diagonal dashes doing double the damage.

One thing to note is you don't have to aim downward to get the spin attack. You can activate the spin attack even in midair by releasing attack without holding a direction. It's rarely practical though cause if the spin ends while you're inside an enemy you'll then take damage.

I remember thinking it was a good game that would've benefitted from a bigger playable area onscreen. There's lots of dashes you have to make blind as you say - it's a lot better than Sonic the Hedgehog is in that area thankfully, and the bosses are a lot of fun, but it's an issue when the screen's view or the sprites are large enough that things sometimes feel cramped.

I've not had the chance to play it, but was the HD release/remake any good?

[BIL]

stage replay

By the by - watch at 75% speed (aka Arcade Double Dragon Mode ) for SLOW JAMZ Seriously! st5.1 & 5.2 BGM were already hawt, but both sound amazing this way. Plus, bonus Dynamite Deka-esque "GUWOAAAR" KO voices!

[mamboFoxtrot]

I've not had the chance to play it, but was the HD release/remake any good?

I'm assuming you mean the 2010 game. Its not a remake or anything like that, its actually an original title.
Its not bad, but not great, either. The number of levels is rather low because they decided to focus on the length of the levels instead. They also focused a lot on the shmup parts, making that stuff almost half the game. I think they improved the mechanics on that front well enough, adding a charge beam, and the new combo score mulitplier mechanic fits these parts well; but obviously for folks here these stages will be rather breezy.
The biggest downside to the game, besides the lack of variety in level themes, is that it doesn't have any of the bombastic setpiece driven energy of the original game, nor the capacity for the super-speed blasting and flying around of the SNES game. A good deal of the game is just kinda standard platforming but hey you can do little airdashes I guess, and some enemy gauntlets to pad things out.
(The developers were aware of the suicidal nature of the boost in the original games so they nerfed it a lot for this one. I can understand why they did it, but I wish they had left in the option to charge up a classically full-speed dash.)
Another dumb quirk of the game is that you have to unlock Hard Mode separately for each stage by satisfying some secret condition on the prior stage's boss fight.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

They also focused a lot on the shmup parts, making that stuff almost half the game.

That's too bad. The shmup stages where you jet along are far from the worst minigame stages in a game, but making it half the length of the game seems unacceptable.

Another dumb quirk of the game is that you have to unlock Hard Mode separately for each stage by satisfying some secret condition on the prior stage's boss fight.

So it's a dumb "achievement" system where you have to fulfill an arbitrary condition to unlock instead of something more universal like "beat normal 1st"? Ick.

[Stevens]

Was enjoying myself so much I decided to save the stage replay too, turned out to be fairly illustrative!

As on SFC, it has to be stressed - Kunoichi is a grappler character, just a very agile one. You need to focus on getting into meaty range - she's devastating there but cruelly stranded at a distance.

WARNING WARNING WARNING
GLITCHFINDER GENERAL IN SESSION

EG#1: deliberately OTG a falling jumpkick too late to execute, grappling an enemy on landing. Whoosh, instant bulldozer - now, maybe I wanted the bulldozer. I often do! But sometimes I want the flurry, or hair, or I want the bulldozer a tick later.

No shit? I thought it was poor inputs on my part. Jump in, go for flurry, and get bulldozer instead. Definitely annoying.

Last two runs (Kunoichi and Yaksha) ended at Zelos. Don't think I'm far off from a 1 CC with both.

[BIL]

It's a real shame, and I hope it can be patched out. I'm probably going to wait and see if that's possible before bothering with uploading ALLs, certainly with Kunoichi. I hate having to tiptoe around it. On the plus side, even with this annoyance the game plays like a dream. Natsume's godlike i-frame sense is even keener now than it was twenty-five years ago. Hopefully it'll be possible to enjoy it without babysitting in the near future.

[Marc]

Did it clobber you with unwanted chests and/or weapon pickups? That's the usual red mist trigger, it seems... It can be a total cunt about enemies with jars too. Squire made a valuable observation, they're pretty much the game's version of suicide bullets.

I want to try a sword-only run sometime, it's woefully unpractical in some regards but god damn, the sense of LIFT STEEL and KILL PIGMANS is real. Magic packs a wallop too.

It's the random stuff that's infuriating me. For instance, the face/rock things at the start of ST2 - sometimes it's a breeze, but I've actually got a save state where, due to the pattern it throws them in, I've not managed to progress after a dozen+ attempts. And then there's the bridges straight after - memorisable sure, but an utter cheap-shot for a new player. And the hit boxes on the first boss's bullets are ridiculous.

I rage quit last night and played Strider instead. Wasn't doing too badly up until the anti-grav bit.... never liked that back in the day, it's the only place the game feels clunky.

[BIL]

Stage 5 of MD Strider knocks it down a peg, sadly. Big hitboxes jam up the second half's setpieces, and if you no-miss to Ouroboros mkII, the JP cart flat-out softlocks and forces you to timeout or suicide. Still a landmark effort and permanent resident of my shelf, but if you've not played the arcade version, or if it's been a while (I highly recommend the 99% perfect PS1 port), you'd be amazed at how much smoother its stage 5 goes.

[Marc]

I've got the PS1 disc, just need a decent CRT to set it all up on, looks like ass on my cheapo flat unfortunately.

[Stevens]

Made it back to the twins with Kunoichi. Ninja on hard - made it to the last stage on my first try:D

[BIL]

With their "harmless to stand in front of... UNTIL IT'S NOT" AI, and high vulnerability to meaty attacks, Neo Phobos & Deimos really bring out the importance of Kunoichi's front flip (jump while guarding). See a pincer coming? Need to resume optimal range? Barrel straight into and through their massive swings until you get where you need to be. Ping ping, can't do shit to you. From the front at least - mind your ass!

Wondering if the simple loop I stumbled onto with their "midboss" incarnation works on the boss equivalents (putting aside the matter of crowd interference). Actually not even sure if it works at all... was discovered literally that very second and I called it a night after. Could be useful.

[Zaarock]

Ninja lifts an explosion and gets shot in the back with the corpses of his enemies