Jeneki wrote:Using this weekend to try out a few games, picked up Ikari III. And I don't get this game at all. Seems more like P.O.W. 2 than Ikari 3, but I suppose they're not really P.O.W.s in this game so that name doesn't apply. Is there a method to the madness here? Some really fast moving enemies that require precise lining up to land an attack, and you have to be like an inch from the top of the screen to get it to scroll up. Getting pwned hard on this one and will take any tips.
I tried to like this one, but it's just poor. Takes everything bad about POW (anaemic
jumpkicks a-go-go, boring enemy/stage design, graceless and aesthetically jarring gunplay), then cranks up the Camera Fuck for a comprehensively unlikable brawler. Among competitors to Technos's genre-defining 80s works, Ninja Gaiden outclasses anything SNK or ADK did with its tight fundamentals and spirited direction.
(I've tried in vain to coin a more succinct term for
Bad Scrolling Cameras than "screen edge riding." for now, pls consider
CAMERA FUCK the official stand-in.
"My junk! It is aggressively bumping and grinding the camera lens! " Do you see ;3)
RE tips, even the mighty Korean superplayer Janet only seems to have managed a
2CC. Given their prowess in other balls-hard (and better) arcade games, I'm gonna put that down to their wanting to be done with this one.
Probably common knowledge, but Koji Obada's
Guevara is the real Ikari III. Reinstates Ikari's shot/bomb/tank triad, with Dogosoken's special weapons and hulking bosses, and the nervy addition of POWs. Enemies won't deliberately execute them, but they'll happily mow them down while attacking you, viscerally punishing turtlers. Introduces an element of long-term mastery, as well as some bloody aesthetic grit.
Tough as hell - though just like its predecessors, the battlefield is riven with tactically lucrative seams. NB also: the first stage is longer, and its boss tougher, than much of the remainder - just like Ikari and Dogo, it's a tight-run ~15minute clear.
Here's my current st1 boss strategy - having reached him in the tank, with a bazooka, I'm carefully sniping his zako, conserving my gear for the head-on kamikaze. The heli's dives and seeking missiles are a real handful, I'm not sure how to fight it clean... for now it's all Armoured Bazooka (your special weapons will replace the tank's turret, for an intriguing "Super Tank" option).
Interestingly, while your grenades are sadly nowhere as devastating (or fun
) as Ikari/Dogo's catastrophic
REDSPLOSIONS, your peashooter's shot rate is much fiercer, and it will now damage most vehicles. At least one later boss can be plinked to death in short order.
The final stage and boss hit a profound, surgical extreme - I'm not surprised Obada seems to consider Guevara his last word on
the subgenre he helped popularise. Only a slim surplus of grenades for the preceding enemies - you need the rest to kill the boss. And while said boss is easily safe-spotted... if you're slow about killing him, you're eating the trademark Ikari airstrike. The timer stops only at the traditional Ikari freeze-frame, making it eminently possible for a slowpoke to kill the boss, trigger the ending demo, then eat a rocket mid-flex.
The HUD vanishes with the boss - as far as I'm concerned, that's the 1LC bagged even with a post-game death, though it'd
look like shit
I'd have been going for the 1LC, but I got sick of SNK40th's shite control bug. It's just about tolerable - right stick will randomly freeze up every hour or so, demanding a waggle to snap it free - but I found myself preemptively waggling whenever I had a moment, and feeling exactly like I don't want to: like I've paid money to play some shit-assed MAME hack on my TV. ACA Guevara's been on the list for like a year now, Ikari III and POW having made it out Q1 2020. Can't complain - there's always TANK aka Ikari Zero.
I'm just gonna wait on Hamster's usual excellent work. Roll on
ACA Battle Field, Bermuda Triangle, and most of all, mahfuckin
Search And Rescue
Also, Ikari III's FC port is dramatically more likable than the AC version. Fixes the camera and juices the crowd numbers, while upgrading the jumpkick to a walloping god-hammer. While you're still using it constantly, here you'll
want to, with every rocketing boot sending truckloads of zako sprawling into their graves.
Guevara's FC port is also a lot friendlier than AC, though it offers a
completely different breed of topdown run/gun. Unlike Micronics' bleak attempt to replicate tactical LS-30 action on FC (read: gut-wrenching input lag), SNK wisely jettison the conceit, unleashing balls-out 9000BPH
Senjou no Okami scoot/shoot. I've never determined if the scoring is viable, but I
do know it has
mad stuntin' cred - an All POWs 1LC is champion white-knuckle intensity. It's appeared on doujin superplays alongside the PCB for good reason.
Alternatively you can just rip through the stages, riding the napalm death torrent... but you'll leave behind acres of friendly and hostile graves alike.
Balls-out run/gun with a visceral finesse element.
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Good going on the Atomic Runner front, kitten! Not meaning to ignore you with this impromptu Ikaripost. I think that's the most detailed reportage I've seen on A.R. here, tbh. Only messed around with the MD one, so far, and haven't even tried the AC original. I wonder if the latter will finally see console release in the near future... odds are looking good, with both Hamster
and M2 working with G-Mode (owners of the lion's share of DECO IPs, including Chelnov). Currently it's just X68k for that one.
Incidentally, it was supposed to get a Saturn port - cancelled late in development. IIRC the ISO's floating around out there.