Haha, that guy is a minor legend.
Didn't know his madness had extended beyond the
Bladesaw Blade Shrine!
Happily dabbling with thirty-odd ACA titles at the moment, while sorting out a decent stick so I can GIT DOON. Some old favourites, some revered classics I've never tried, and some total obscurities (to me anyway). Ticking category one is
Metal Slug. No news, I'm sure: it's only truly dangerous in its final stage, but holy fuck - surely among the best casually hardcore scrolling action ever, perhaps
the best in arcade format. I don't say that lightly, I value my entertainments.
I know Slug scoreplay gets ridiculously intense, but it's not what I'm here for! I just want to tear shit apart in an unbroken blasting/gashing fury. I do like how there's specifically ten POWs per stage (I think?
EDIT: NOPE, definitely not!). Nabbing the four in Mission 4's boss area with a deft bit of vehicle entry/exit i-framing makes up for an otherwise trivial fight).
Prompted by Ninja-kun II's swimming demo lasting maybe two seconds before the player gets owned by a fish (to be fair, the hitboxes on those things are
murder), I was going to post my displeasure with similarly shoddy attract mode play in Little Annoyed Hell! Leaving MS1 running while typing this, I'm reminded of how seriously Nazca took the matter - as you'd expect, with the world-beating quality of this thing's pixel art. Mission 5 looks as arresting as the day I saw it in that random chippy circa 1997.
Homie's spacing/spoofing game is on point throughout, and he provides a cracking example of dealing with those annoying rocket-chuckers!
Dabbling as mentioned, reacquaintance threw up some unexpected things after a decade away. The first game's short hop aside, I recalled MS1/X/3 having near-identical handling models. Actually, they're fairly disparate. MS1's jump acceleration is noticeably more abrupt, but more importantly, its HMG sweep is much pickier - lacks the effortless drag of the latter two games (at least on a DS4 - maybe it's better on MVS/AES stick?). MSX has significant attack input blocking during its turning animation - nothing fatal, but it needs to be taken into account while negotiating dense crowds. Mash that button until the attack is safely out. MS3 seems the most refined, and with it being the one I spent the most time on by far BITD, I must've transposed its handling onto the others. Anyway, none of these games have serious control issues, but they do vary slightly.
~AESTHETE CORNER~
I was surprised at Mission 5's early scenery. Darker than I recalled. Not unwarrantedly so, given the indulgent carnage throughout.
Good discomforting touch, how the door swings open beckoningly at Mission Start.
A seeming Harry Callahan (or Frank Drebin?) moment for Marco.
"I shoot the bastard!" MSX has me wondering if st1's truckload of sword-wielding killers, a small baby, and Rumi Aikawa was hinting at something horribly unfortunate. Or maybe they were alright chaps who saved a lost girl from a broiling desert death, then got their war-faces on when the enemy arrived. Oh well. They're all dead now. I trampled them with my camel! Nobody helped the baby.
I remembered the wrecked houses revealing dead civilians, implying you'd brought the building down on them and the Rebels alike... but no, you can shoot out the windows to reveal the carnage within. Pair of dead guys in the delicatessen.
Yeah, getting atrocious again. Not to get too serious, bring the building down and leftmost victim loses their pants.
Blast the window out to reveal the dead butcher, still gripping a nasty cleaver. Wonder if he put up a fight with it.
Destroy the building for an abrupt shift to a scene so blackly lyrical, I'm wondering if it's a reference to something. A chef will make a run for it, guess he had better luck with the occupiers?
Legendary work on all counts. I one-lifed MS3 BITD, but only on the safest routes. Lots to work with here, and each one of these games is just sheer entertainment. I get why MS3's interminable late-game onslaughts annoy some but that is what gets me off tbh!
It's the big obnoxious cheeseburger movie to the first game's ultra-tight graphic novel adaptation.