What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

vol.2 wrote:lol. I've seen your youtube videos. You make the most difficult racing sims look easy. :wink:
I've seen Ghegs's videos too, can confirm. :lol:

I was playing Super Metroid yesterday, I hadn't touched it in a while. It was pretty satisfying coming back to it with an improved bag of tricks. I was a lot better with Wall Jumping, and was able to grab a bunch of items much earlier than intended thanks to it as well as clever use of Shinespark in a few rooms.

I unintentionally got confused about where to go though, and spent a bit of time forgetting where the grappling hook was. It turned out that because I'd gotten the Wave Beam before Power Bombs (wall jump woo), I was able to get to Crocomire's lair in through the back way, via a blue gate, instead of through the path that uses both Power Bombs and Speed Booster. I got to the bottom and couldn't proceed because I didn't have Power Bombs you'd have following the intended route, and by the time I did manage to get some, I had a bit of forgetfulness spending 20-30 mins backtracking and exploring to see if I'd missed anywhere else I could explore!

Phantoon is nasty, I didn't realize it gets really angry when hit with Super Missiles and I didn't know how to dodge its enraged attack. I had an absurd amount of health going in and limped away with about 200 health + 200 in reserve. Stopped in Maridia, finally have the Gravity Suit, once I get Space Jump I'll be able to explore to my heart's content and try to find everything for a change.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Hornet »

Marc wrote:Xenon Racer. Seems to have flown under the radar and garner mostly middling reviews, which is quite a shame. On PS Pro at least, it a gloriously colourful futuristic Ridge Racer rip-off, with handling to match. It all initially feels too heavy, but get used to juggling the brake and acceleration properly and there it's possible to pull off slides that would make RR blush. The course design so far seems to be pretty well designed around it, with only a few corners that feel impossible to navigate at the moment due to your innate weight when not sliding, but that might still be down to me at this point.

It's not god-tier by any means, but for the fiver I paid, I'd recommend giving it a whirl. I'm pleasantly surprised.
Ghegs wrote:^ Xenon Racer was fun, but it was much too easy. The AI doesn't put up a challenge at all.
How do the drifting mechanics work in Xenon Racer, are they closer to the classic or modern RR games?
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

BareKnuckleRoo wrote: I was playing Super Metroid yesterday, I hadn't touched it in a while. It was pretty satisfying coming back to it with an improved bag of tricks. I was a lot better with Wall Jumping, and was able to grab a bunch of items much earlier than intended thanks to it as well as clever use of Shinespark in a few rooms.

I unintentionally got confused about where to go though, and spent a bit of time forgetting where the grappling hook was. It turned out that because I'd gotten the Wave Beam before Power Bombs (wall jump woo), I was able to get to Crocomire's lair in through the back way, via a blue gate, instead of through the path that uses both Power Bombs and Speed Booster. I got to the bottom and couldn't proceed because I didn't have Power Bombs you'd have following the intended route, and by the time I did manage to get some, I had a bit of forgetfulness spending 20-30 mins backtracking and exploring to see if I'd missed anywhere else I could explore!

Phantoon is nasty, I didn't realize it gets really angry when hit with Super Missiles and I didn't know how to dodge its enraged attack. I had an absurd amount of health going in and limped away with about 200 health + 200 in reserve. Stopped in Maridia, finally have the Gravity Suit, once I get Space Jump I'll be able to explore to my heart's content and try to find everything for a change.
Super Metroid is such a fantastic game because of how open ended it gets via these tactics.
Personally I skip the grappling hook entirely (you don't need it when you got wall jumps and shine spark), and the biggest sequence break comes from learning the mockball trick, and using it to sneak under the door that's meant to block you until you get the dash. This allows you to get a power bomb early and skip two bosses entirely.

I've never tried to "speedrun" the game as such, but it's fun to play through multiple times consecutively and continue cutting down on the resources you pick up to see how little you can get away with to still get through in one piece, and get better times on the result screen in the end. Phantoon can be super scary even after you get the fight down, but ultimately my performance comes down to how many energy energy tanks I need to reliably survive against Ridley.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Getting into the Wrecked Ship without the grappling hook seems especially tricky! I'm not sure what the easiest way to get across would be.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Do a diagonal shinespark from the left "shore". :) It takes a bit of practice to get down (since you need to execute it right after a room transition), but it's very easy once you got the timing down.

Edit: Nevermind I misremembered, it's not diagonal, it's not straight ahead. You can tell the slanted surfaces are placed precisely to allow for this.
Video demonstrating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Pknv2QooA

The trick is you need to stop right before hitting the water, there's not a lot of room to do that after the spark is charged.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Marc »

Ooh, the Blizzard Collection has added Lost Vikikgs 2 and RPM racing for free. I had some fun with RPM back in the day, it was just a faster and (slightly) smoother of the C64's 'Racing Destruction Set'. Also found out that R&R Racing has three varying zoom levels, despite finding no mention of it in the manual, so that's my last niggle with that game sorted.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Ghegs »

Marc wrote:Ooh, the Blizzard Collection has added Lost Vikikgs 2 and RPM racing for free.
Oh that's awesome, thanks for the heads-up. I did think it was a missed opportunity to not have Lost Vikings 2 in the collection, very happy to see that rectified.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Even more important, judging by screenshots they added the SNES version with clean pixel art graphics, and not the horrible pre-rendered abomination from the PC/PS1/Saturn release.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BulletMagnet »

Sumez wrote:Even more important, judging by screenshots they added the SNES version with clean pixel art graphics, and not the horrible pre-rendered abomination from the PC/PS1/Saturn release.
They're saving those for the "Reförged" edition.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by AyeYoYoYO »

null1024 wrote:So, I'll start off:

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.
Always. 8)
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Marc »

Oof, RPM Racing is much, much rougher than I remembered. Probably never really noticed at the time, my SNES was a direct upgrade from my C64 and RDS, but yeah. Oh well, it was free.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by guigui »

I launched a single credit of Fight'n Rage, currently half price on the eshop.

Oh god is everything brilliant here ? In less than 10 minutes with the game I saw : arcade PCB launch mimic, gorgeous pixels, good display options, tons of unlockable, bouncy boobs, tremendous parallax, rock music, short but enough tutorial : try the rest by yourself, tight and fluid gameplay, very good hit sensation, grab moves, mid-boss with whip and bouncy boobs, Game Over screen before stage 2.

I want more !
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Got that game on order from LRG, really looking forward to finally trying it out. Heard lots of great stuff.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Marc »

I really don't need any more belt-scrollers, but I keep hearing such good things about Fight n Rage....
So, I've picked up so much shit in sales between the three machines over the last five years, that some of it has been lying around forever unplayed.

So this week, I've tried a few bits here and there with the intention of whittling down to the stuff I'll definitely spend time with. So far, I've deleted:

Shantae Risky's Revenge: Directors Cut: Perfectly serviceable, does nothing really wrong, and looks lovely, but just failed to interest me. I found the plane-switching annoying, the lack of knockback annoying, and after maybe two hours I'd seen enough. I've still got the HD Shantae on the HD, but I've alos got Bloodstained, Dead Cells, Monster Boy, Hollow Knight.....

Redout: Can't put my finger on exactly what turned me off this. It looks good, moves well, there's just nothing there I haven't played a million times before. I dunno, I feel like I should have made more effort with this one, but again, during the few hours I spent with it I didn't really engage properly, so.....

Aqua Moto Racing Utopia: Initially looked like a decent wave-race knock-off, but the course design simply isn't up to that standard. Seems like the designers just threw bouys as far to the left and right of each other as they could and called it a day. On Wave Race, they're placed so that there's still a smooth line through them whichever craft you use, this is nowhere near as elegant. Shame, as the basics aren't too bad.

I also deleted my saved game on Disco Elysium. Fine game, but I'm really not in the mood for something so slow-paced, and this will benefit greatly from being played on PS5 as there's LOTS of loading.

Also Pandemic 2. Again, something I'll definitely go back to, but it's just not for me at the moment, the world is grim enough as it is, without spending time in a virtual one :D

On next weeks list:

Assault Suit Leynos
Iconoclasts
Sunset Overdrive
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mischief Maker »

Fight'n Rage is legitimately awesome, but after the innovations of Streets of Rage 4, I just can't go back.

Speaking of which, they recently announced an upcoming DLC for SoR4 featuring new playable characters. Only Estel is confirmed so far, I don't think either of the two remaining silhouettes look like Roo tho. :(
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

What are the innovations in SOR4 that you're missing in FnR?
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

Mischief Maker wrote:don't think either of the two remaining silhouettes look like Roo tho.
Oh look, an excuse to post this again. The hair on one of the silhouettes looks like it's probably SoR4 Shiva.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mischief Maker »

Sumez wrote:What are the innovations in SOR4 that you're missing in FnR?
#1, enemies can't slide out of the playable area and attack you from offscreen.

The second one is more of a taste issue, I love how SoR4 makes the HP loss from using special moves a "debt" that you can earn back by landing regular hits instead of a permanent loss/waiting for a special bar to charge up (taking any hits wipes out your chance to recoup the debt). Fight'n Rage sorta works around it with the Knights of the Round "parry" mechanic where hitting a direction just before an attack hits will nullify the attack and instantly charge your special bar (and it's pretty much mandatory to learn if you want to defeat the flying bat boss on the raft), but I'm not really a fan of blocking in fighting games.

Third, all the information the game gives you on enemy states. White flash means the next move can't be interrupted, red flash means they're coming in for a throw, etc.


Now on the flipside, I like how much smoother Fight'n Rage controls compared to SoR4. I don't think SoR4 removing running from all but the speedster character added anything. And while SoR4 allows some combos, it's nothing like the Devil May Cry-esque mass air juggling insanity of Fight'n Rage.


Finally, if someone walks in the room while I'm playing SoR4, I'm only going to be embarrassed if they come in for the slow motion panty shot that happens right after knocking Ms. Y off her mecha-throne. Whereas I would be deeply embarassed by Gal's idle animation alone.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sumez »

Mischief Maker wrote: #1, enemies can't slide out of the playable area and attack you from offscreen.
Haha, for an "innovation", I'm kinda bummed beat'em ups didn't figure this out like 30+ years ago. It's always annoying, so it feels like it should be an intuitive next step.

I like the description of how the special moves work, too. Sounds like a nice mixup of ideas from TNWA and Bloodborne respectively :P
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Stevens »

Marc wrote:I
Assault Suit Leynos
While I only played through it two or three times I really enjoyed my time with it. Lots of fun.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:an excuse to post this again. The hair on one of the silhouettes looks like it's probably SoR4 Shiva.


I'd be shocked it its anyone other than Max and Shiva. The characters are already in game. I think Roo will eventually be playable though, lots of people want him.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Searchlike »

Sumez wrote: Haha, for an "innovation", I'm kinda bummed beat'em ups didn't figure this out like 30+ years ago. It's always annoying, so it feels like it should be an intuitive next step.
Sometimes annoying, other times deadly. I almost lost a life in Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon because some idiot enemy was hiding off-screen long after the boss was deader than the Virtual Console and if you know that game you know its timer is not fucking around. This was the first stage thankfully, but still, it's my one gripe with the genre.

...

In other news...
Image

I just got my first Expert 1CC in Super Monkey Ball. I had to pause buffer the second to last stage as I fucked up the timing required to clear it easily and had to improvise a last second strategy, quite literally. I died at Expert Extra 1, but I can already smell those Master levels. You see, you can't credit feed this game if you want to play the hardest mode, but once you reach it you are able to continue indefinitely until you beat it or as long as you don't turn off your system in which case you are forced to win your ticket back all over again. Fun times!
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Mischief Maker »

After the discussion yesterday I played a marathon of Streets of Rage 4 last night (first covid shot Tuesday, finally) and Cherry, the character I've heard the most people say they don't like, finally "clicked" for me.

It's her aerial stomp. I wouldn't call it an OP move, because there are plenty of enemies with uppercut moves that hard-counter it, but in the right situations it dominates. Enemy doing a super-armor move? Oh dear, I might have regretted doing a ground-based attack against that, (stomp-whiff). Enemy knocked down? Headstomp bounces them back up. Some nasty attack coming my way? Headstomp to dodge while still keeping the pressure on. And god help any hapless enemy trapped in a corner while Cherry is stomping on their head. It's like Devil May Cry's enemy step in a belt-scroller.

She's so different from how the rest of the lineup controls. But now that I'm starting to get the hang of her, that Goro blackbelt fight outside Shiva's dojo, which normally takes forever, absolutely MELTED under her relentless head-stomping assault.
Two working class dudes, one black one white, just baked a tray of ten cookies together.

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Then he says to the white dude "Watch out for that black dude, he wants a piece of your cookie!"
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Mischief Maker wrote:After the discussion yesterday I played a marathon of Streets of Rage 4 last night (first covid shot Tuesday, finally) and Cherry, the character I've heard the most people say they don't like, finally "clicked" for me.

It's her aerial stomp. I wouldn't call it an OP move, because there are plenty of enemies with uppercut moves that hard-counter it, but in the right situations it dominates. Enemy doing a super-armor move? Oh dear, I might have regretted doing a ground-based attack against that, (stomp-whiff). Enemy knocked down? Headstomp bounces them back up. Some nasty attack coming my way? Headstomp to dodge while still keeping the pressure on. And god help any hapless enemy trapped in a corner while Cherry is stomping on their head. It's like Devil May Cry's enemy step in a belt-scroller.

She's so different from how the rest of the lineup controls. But now that I'm starting to get the hang of her, that Goro blackbelt fight outside Shiva's dojo, which normally takes forever, absolutely MELTED under her relentless head-stomping assault.
Yeah man, she might be my favourite, along with Floyd. She never needs to touch the ground, she keeps you out of so much trouble. When I'm playing multiplayer I'm totally cool with it when the other players are grabbing the OG trio ahead of me.
Searchlike wrote: In other news...
Image

I just got my first Expert 1CC in Super Monkey Ball. I had to pause buffer the second to last stage as I fucked up the timing required to clear it easily and had to improvise a last second strategy, quite literally. I died at Expert Extra 1, but I can already smell those Master levels. You see, you can't credit feed this game if you want to play the hardest mode, but once you reach it you are able to continue indefinitely until you beat it or as long as you don't turn off your system in which case you are forced to win your ticket back all over again. Fun times!
Nice. I remember that game when it first hit around the GC launch. I can't even imagine pulling that off, there were plenty of times it seemed to me the controller wasn't even fully capable of doing what the game demanded. I did see a Game Sack video where they said the opposite though, that nothing's better for it than that analog stick.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Vanguard »

Searchlike wrote:I just got my first Expert 1CC in Super Monkey Ball. I had to pause buffer the second to last stage as I fucked up the timing required to clear it easily and had to improvise a last second strategy, quite literally. I died at Expert Extra 1, but I can already smell those Master levels. You see, you can't credit feed this game if you want to play the hardest mode, but once you reach it you are able to continue indefinitely until you beat it or as long as you don't turn off your system in which case you are forced to win your ticket back all over again. Fun times!
Nice job! Super Monkey Ball 1 1CCs are daunting.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Searchlike »

Sengoku Strider wrote: Nice.
Vanguard wrote: Nice job! Super Monkey Ball 1 1CCs are daunting.
Thanks! :mrgreen: I've been pretty obsessed with this game for a while now and I'm glad it's paid off. I've beaten it twice more since that post and had a few more runs where I died halfway through the game. Managed to reach Expert Extra 5 on my last attempt which means I'm just 6 stages away from Master. Hope my luck doesn't run out anytime soon.
Sengoku Strider wrote: I can't even imagine pulling that off, there were plenty of times it seemed to me the controller wasn't even fully capable of doing what the game demanded. I did see a Game Sack video where they said the opposite though, that nothing's better for it than that analog stick.
No idea how this plays with other controllers, but the octagonal gate of the Gamecube's analog stick is a godsend for extra precision.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I got to play a TON of Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 5 recently. Fantastic game. Only minor gripes are the timer is very short on the song select screen in Time Attack, and there's no Time Attack mode where traffic you need to dodge is present? Still, great fun to play. I'm not yet sure if it dethrones Outrun 2SP as my fave arcade racer mechanically, but it's close.
No idea how this plays with other controllers, but the octagonal gate of the Gamecube's analog stick is a godsend for extra precision.
I love octo gates in general. You can still learn to do circular motions as long as you avoid riding the gate, and there's never a question of knowing where the exact center of each direction is for maximum precision on an analog stick. I am finding that I prefer square gates for bottom of the screen movements in shmups though, where you hold down + move diagonally to move more slowly horizontally than you can by just pressing left or right. It's mechanically annoying to do and feels weird on an octo gate.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Marc »

In my quest to de-clutter my hard drives of shit, I started Sunset Overdrive yesterday.
I..... kind of like it. I don't do open-world games much these days, but this is more Crackdown crossed with Jet Set Radio than some po-faced GTA rip. One of those games where traversing the map is genuinely fun, the entire thing is a mass of things to grind and jump between, and the weapons all feel good. It's brain-dead, I'm pretty sure I won't see it through to completion, but I'll definitely sink a few more hours in this week.

Had a mess around with Alex Kidd and the Lost Stars on the Astro Mini. Finished this one on the Master System back in the day, but couldn't work up much enthusiasm for it this time around.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Marc wrote:Had a mess around with Alex Kidd and the Lost Stars on the Astro Mini. Finished this one on the Master System back in the day, but couldn't work up much enthusiasm for it this time around.
I had heard about Alex Kidd games my entire life as a major franchise and figured they must be really solid. Until I finally played a bunch of them and...this might be stepping on a landmine...but discovered it was probably just Master System kid Stockholm syndrome. Shinobi World is the only one that isn't kinda bad.

I was initially actually pretty shocked at how lame a lot of the big name Master System games were. Very few of them would have rated among the Famicom/NES library, at least during the system's initial run in Japan. Heck, a lot of them were released on it, to little fanfare - albeit not 1:1 ports. But I don't think a 1:1 port of the Space Harrier slide show would've had much impact. Not redesigning their arcade games with the home console hardware in mind like Konami & others did was a major mistake.

But Mark Cerny said in this period Sega had a policy of 3 months dev time & out the door, which explains absolutely everything about that library and its lack of fine-tuning. It's also obvious they were doing everything humanly possible to keep ROM costs down on most titles, which really hamstrung what they could do with things like scaling.

I will say later on when cart sizes got bigger and devs knew their way around things, some magic was performed for the PAL territories. Somewhere there's an alternate universe where Sega released the FM version of the hardware in the West and didn't, y'know...

Image

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

Image

...staff their marketing department with deer.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by To Far Away Times »

Been playing Monster Hunter: Rise with a bit of Cisco Heat and The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy on the side.
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Re: What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

Post by BrianC »

Sengoku Strider wrote:
Marc wrote:Had a mess around with Alex Kidd and the Lost Stars on the Astro Mini. Finished this one on the Master System back in the day, but couldn't work up much enthusiasm for it this time around.
I had heard about Alex Kidd games my entire life as a major franchise and figured they must be really solid. Until I finally played a bunch of them and...this might be stepping on a landmine...but discovered it was probably just Master System kid Stockholm syndrome. Shinobi World is the only one that isn't kinda bad.

I was initially actually pretty shocked at how lame a lot of the big name Master System games were. Very few of them would have rated among the Famicom/NES library, at least during the system's initial run in Japan. Heck, a lot of them were released on it, to little fanfare - albeit not 1:1 ports. But I don't think a 1:1 port of the Space Harrier slide show would've had much impact. Not redesigning their arcade games with the home console hardware in mind like Konami & others did was a major mistake.
Alex Kidd and the Lost Stars SMS is actually a bit different from the arcade. AC version is more challenging and has lives instead of that odd time system of the SMS version. Space Harrier NES is actually inferior to the SMS version and IS a direct port (and I would argue that it's more of a slideshow than the SMS version). It tries too hard to replicate the music instead of making use of the NES sound chip, has a terrible fire rate, bad slowdown, and odd shooting angles. Oddly enough, it has the stuff added to the SMS version like the jet and new final boss. I disagree that Sega didn't redesign their games for the hardware. Shinobi adds a life bar and has subtle differences in level design, Double Target/Quartet is very different from its arcade counterpart, and even Space Harrier has some stuff exclusive to the SMS version. SMS also got its own sequel to Zaxxon.
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