Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Sumez]

I'm bummed the physical seems to be restricted to only LRG. At least the digital will be out early enough for me to gauge opinions and tell if it's worth importing, but LRG don't have enough interesting stuff for sale right now to justify a $150 order for me.

LRG is such bullshit. I finally received my Ninja Gaiden vinyl box set almost two years after preordering. Something similar happened with the Garegga set. I refuse to order from them anymore unless they can actually start to communicate production timelines.

That's really odd, considering I got my Ninja Gaiden vinyls directly from Bravewave like 4 years before LRG even had it up for preorder.

I mean what's the point of physical releases if I have to download stuff (which doesn't get added to the disc) for them to be up to date?

LRG actually make a point out of adding all existing DLC to the disc/card before it gets shipped.
The late release of Celeste's DLC was actually the reason that game got so delayed, because they wanted to have it included.

I'm not sure how you'd be able to expect them to account for any future DLC though? What game was it?

[BurlyHeart]

I'm not sure how you'd be able to expect them to account for any future DLC though? What game was it?

I think it was the fighting game Kohime Enbu Ryo Rai Rai and it also happened with Skullgirls 2nd Encore.

Looking back with a calmer head, I guess one could argue that fighting games are a bit different, but I remember at the time being a bit miffed.

EDIT: I do have a feeling there was another non-fighting game title, but I can't find the information. Buying a game, and discovering it later got a release in Asia (River City Girls & Ninja Warriors) might have been an issue too. Just to clarify, I'm not against the company or what they do. It was just a personal decision based on these factors (+ cost) to go totally digital instead.

[BurlyHeart]

Whilst I am wary to take any credence in reviews of beat em ups, the initial impressions of the new turtles game have been overwhelmingly positive.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments ... s_revenge/

[Sima Tuna]

What I didn't see in a brief perusal of that OP was any gaming website whose opinion I even remotely trust. When it comes to beat em ups and arcade games, you really need a reviewer who can play with the 1cc mindset. Even positive reviews of shmups are often shit because they engage on a surface level only. It'd be like reviewing Blazblue while playing on the easiest difficulty, with the easy automatic control style enabled. Yeah, you had fun with the game. Yeah, I also think Blazblue is a good game. But there's a gulf between our opinions, despite ultimately agreeing "thing is good."

I'm more interested in why somebody thinks what they think, rather than what they think.

[it290]

This is the same team that did SOR4. It's hard to imagine them building a bad beat 'em up after that pedigree.

[BurlyHeart]

This is the same team that did SOR4. It's hard to imagine them building a bad beat 'em up after that pedigree.

Pretty sure Dotemu are only publishing, though I am sure they have given some advice / feedback. Tribute Games are the developers.

They had a hand in Scott Pilgrim, which is roundly praised, though I personally think it is very, very average in the gameplay department.

Still, I am optimistic about the new TMNT game.

[Sumez]

I was confused half a second there. If it got SOR4 devs on it, I trust it.

But Tribute Games are the people who made Panzer Paladin, which is another game that looks amazingly good, but is amazingly boring to play.

[Sumez]

Ah, Skykid got a review up! Good times:

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/sw ... rs-revenge

[BurlyHeart]

Continuing on re the new TMNT game:

Spoiler

Hmm from a trusted player, I've heard the game is okay but quite flawed and not up there with Fight'N Rage or SOR4.

https://twitter.com/Tetsuo9999/status/1 ... 3q-MUw49fQ

Anyway, we'll wait and see. Still gonna play it. Putting this in spoilers as I don't want ruin anybody's hype.

I was confused half a second there. If it got SOR4 devs on it, I trust it.

But Tribute Games are the people who made Panzer Paladin, which is another game that looks amazingly good, but is amazingly boring to play.

You probably know this, but for the uninitiated, DotEmu brought together 2 developers for SOR4 - Guard Crush Games (who had an interesting beat em up in Streets of Fury) for the combat system, and Lizardcube (of Wonder boy: The Dragon's Trap fame) for the art. This is not to belittle their contribution, but they did have a lot of help.

[TransatlanticFoe]

While it's nice to hear that the game is solid, it sounds like it has the same basic problem Streets of Rage 4 had - arcade mode is just story mode with no save points and no continues.

As well as perhaps being a bit of a slog at 2 hours, it's disappointing arcade mode in both titles isn't a shortened (45 mins, hour tops), curated and dialled to 11 version of the story mode.

A lengthy story mode for the modern audience, a "proper" arcade mode for the purists/nostalgics. Instead you have a story mode that's too short for modern players but an arcade mode that's too long. It compromises both audiences when it really doesn't need to.

[Rastan78]

Watching the preview gamplay of TMNT I had a feeling it was going to be too long. Just the first couple stages were at least twice as long as normal for this style of game.

That's what absolutely killed SOR4 for me in spite of all the other good things the game had going. After my first arcade mode 1CC I just found myself getting bored about 20 or 30 minutes in.

I think what you're saying is a good idea. Arcade mode for purists and score chasers and the lengthy story mode for the casual fans, first time players and the review scores.

[BurlyHeart]

Just reminder, SOR4 on release was also far from the game it is now.

EDIT: Some more thoughts on the game:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/user/tetsuo9999/community

tetsuo9999:
Thoughts on Shredder's Revenge

- overstays its welcome (~2 hr run time)

- excessive super/hyper armor

- annoying enemies that lock you in QTEs

- gimmicky bosses that turn invincible for excessively long periods of time
- zero combo variety/player expression, both due to the moveset and the aforementioned reasons
- the characters play identically except for minor differences. The main difference is their move speed, attack speed and damage. This REALLY kills replay value for me. It's kind of a waste of this amazing pixel art...

It's definitely better than the old arcade games in terms of gameplay, but also manages to still feel one-dimensional and artificially difficult/annoying. I keep trying to play it again, but realizing how unfun the bosses are and how little gameplay depth/variety it has prevents me from doing so, along with the reality of the characters basically being elaborate skins with minute differences. The slow characters might actually be worse than the fast ones because they can't build meter as quickly due to how the super mechanic works.

Check it out on Game Pass, buy it for casual fun with friends or wait for a sale, but don't expect anything on par with SOR4, Mayhem Brawler or Fight'N Rage. It's not a terrible game by any means, it's just not as good as the competition.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Oh it's on Gamepass, sweet. Have played a few stages as Donatello.

Like SOR4 the hyper armour is a bit excessive, especially on bosses where it oftens feels like you either chip away or have to take damage yourself to get anywhere, and it's easy to get stuck in an animation you can't cancel out of before an armoured enemiy attacks. Standard enemies can get pokes in mid-combo as well which feels like a collision detection oversight. I kind of feel the super attack should work like a standard desperation attack and drain health or else it's just too overpowered - it's very easy to charge up the meter. There's also an annoying memorisation element to it, goons drop in straight into attacks a lot and sometimes have a second wave that gets you just as you attack through the first one. It doesn't do much damage, it's just irritating. Same goes for obstacles on the hoverboard stage, it'll often toss two in a row to catch you out.

I've not figured out a lot of the priority on attacks yet but the pace of the game is much quicker than a beat 'em up usually is and it feels fluid when you get into a rhythm. It's just, especially early on, you get blocking enemies and hyper armoured enemies that slow things down. When you start getting one or two in the mix it's better. There are a few different throws but no grapple, which is a bit disappointing, plus an escape roll and a dragon punch style anti-air attack. There's a lot to play with though - always a good thing.

I feel like it needs a balance patch, being able to damage an enemy out of hyper armour status would be helpful or at least restrict you to single hit attacks on it to avoid getting stuck in a combo animation. Enemies also shouldn't appear and attack at once, plus when you respawn you have no invincible window. I died, respawned and immediately got combo'd by a boss that just charged around the screen with hyper armour.

The presentation is absolutely top drawer stuff though. Lots of silly foot soldier idle animations, classic arcade style stage transitions and a re-imagining of the cartoon's title sequence. I would have prefered larger normal sprites, because it makes the bosses look oversized by comparison. But I guess that's a concession to 6 player(!) mode.

[Sima Tuna]

This is the same team that did SOR4. It's hard to imagine them building a bad beat 'em up after that pedigree.

Pretty sure Dotemu are only publishing, though I am sure they have given some advice / feedback. Tribute Games are the developers.

They had a hand in Scott Pilgrim, which is roundly praised, though I personally think it is very, very average in the gameplay department.

Still, I am optimistic about the new TMNT game.

I have a very negative opinion of Scott Pilgrim. I think it's extremely overrated and the gameplay is more comparable to a grindy dungeon crawl than a proper R2tRKMF experience. I think I whinged about this already, earlier in this thread. River City Ransom has stat boosts, but they cap before too long and it's possible to play the game without grinding. Scott Pilgrim puts way more emphasis on the statistics side of the gameplay. Not a fan.

SoR4 is a good game, but I agree with people who say the game is overlong and uses the crutch of hyper armor too much.

Edit: That tetsuo guy is usually a pretty reliable source for beat em up quality. Although mayhem brawler looks awful.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Ooft, triceratops thingies later in the game. With near constant hyper armour. Ranged weapons. Shields. Charge across the screen. Counter air attacks. Feels like that's why they made the super attack overpowered and easy to charge up. The boss is that on steroids, who summons an army of the charging buggers.

I feel like this badly needs a balance patch to tone down hyper armour. And another to sort out collisions, as it's easy to end up with enemies overlapping you but you can't hit or grapple which leads to an awkward shimmy. There's a solid foundation here, but it's janky in places and a chore to tiptoe around all the hyper armour (and not really fun to cheese it with super attacks).

[Sima Tuna]

Heh, I saw somebody playing the game earlier today and noticed the Triceratops enemies are Duffy from Burning Fight. They do the full screen invincible charge.

[it290]

Yeah, I have to maybe kind of eat my words a little bit. I can see what they were going for in terms of adhering to the style of the old games, but that's a questionable template to begin with. The game is very reliant on iframe dodges, and yeah, very little character variety and not a lot of combo strategy. I've just spent a brief amount of time with it but it seems they also do some stuff that's pretty questionable from a basic '2022 game UI table stakes' standpoint, like you can't remap controls without exiting to the main menu (as far as I could tell), and it appears you can only have one save file at a time for story mode (so no clearing all challenges on each difficulty).

I haven't felt the stages are too long, though. Each one lasts ~4-6 minutes. SoR4's are quite a bit longer (and I agree that game overstays its welcome when playing straight through, but it's really meant to be played for rank—another missing element here—or in the DLC's roguelike mode).

[BIL]

I didn't realise the calibre of talent (or the smart pairing of specialised mechanic & art teams) behind SOR4. That makes sense... I've no doubt it's an excellent game, just going by the calibre of peeps who vouch for it ITT and elsewhere, but I couldn't help thinking "Where was DotEmu hiding all this talent?" I only really know them for those disastrous standalone emulations of Metal Slug 3 and Shock Troopers (avoid like the plague - go with the superb ACA NeoGeo versions instead), and a just-acceptable PS4 Ys Origin.

[BurlyHeart]

Didn't realise the calibre of talent (or very clever pairing of mechanics & art specialists) behind SOR4. That makes sense... I've no doubt it's an excellent game, just going by the calibre of peeps who vouch for it ITT and elsewhere, but I couldn't help thinking "Where was DotEmu hiding all this talent?" I only really know them for those disastrous standalone emulations of Metal Slug 3 and Shock Troopers (avoid like the plague - go with the superb ACA NeoGeo versions instead), and a just-acceptable PS4 Ys Origin.

It's a great game now and vastly improved over its release. I personally think the DLC is one of the best ever additions to a game.

The three modern beat em ups that set the new standard for all, imo, are: Fight'N Rage, SOR4, and Ninja Saviors: ROTW. All three have character variety, excellent system mechanics, great presentation, and a decent challenge with good balance. Saying that, I am in agreement with it290 that SOR4 is a tad long. It actually puts me off sitting down to play it.

A few hours left until I get home, and then I'll be giving Shredder's Revenge the once over. My expectations have been tempered somewhat, but, being a TMNT fan, I am still looking forward to it.

EDIT: Final Vendetta released today too

[Stevens]

Just reminder, SOR4 on release was also far from the game it is now.

EDIT: Some more thoughts on the game:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/user/tetsuo9999/community

tetsuo9999:
Thoughts on Shredder's Revenge

- overstays its welcome (~2 hr run time)

- excessive super/hyper armor

- annoying enemies that lock you in QTEs

- gimmicky bosses that turn invincible for excessively long periods of time
- zero combo variety/player expression, both due to the moveset and the aforementioned reasons
- the characters play identically except for minor differences. The main difference is their move speed, attack speed and damage. This REALLY kills replay value for me. It's kind of a waste of this amazing pixel art...

It's definitely better than the old arcade games in terms of gameplay, but also manages to still feel one-dimensional and artificially difficult/annoying. I keep trying to play it again, but realizing how unfun the bosses are and how little gameplay depth/variety it has prevents me from doing so, along with the reality of the characters basically being elaborate skins with minute differences. The slow characters might actually be worse than the fast ones because they can't build meter as quickly due to how the super mechanic works.

Check it out on Game Pass, buy it for casual fun with friends or wait for a sale, but don't expect anything on par with SOR4, Mayhem Brawler or Fight'N Rage. It's not a terrible game by any means, it's just not as good as the competition.

Wow. With the exception of the characters feeling the same that list of complaints is identical to SOR 4 at launch.

SOR 4 is dope as fuck now (balance is kind of spot on) if anyone here still hasn't played it.

Which I find hard to believe:)

Edit - My give Final Vendetta a chance. Looks solid.

[Sumez]

I didn't realise the calibre of talent (or the smart pairing of specialised mechanic & art teams) behind SOR4. That makes sense... I've no doubt it's an excellent game, just going by the calibre of peeps who vouch for it ITT and elsewhere, but I couldn't help thinking "Where was DotEmu hiding all this talent?" I only really know them for those disastrous standalone emulations of Metal Slug 3 and Shock Troopers (avoid like the plague - go with the superb ACA NeoGeo versions instead), and a just-acceptable PS4 Ys Origin.

Dotemu seems to know either 1. who to utilize or 2. which projects to back, because despite their spotty reputation with emulation releases, their nostalgia sequels seem to have a good thing going. I tried Windjammers 2 a couple of weeks ago and can confirm it's legit.

[velo]

Although mayhem brawler looks awful.

It's not quite at the FnR/SoR4/Ninja Saviors level, but way above any of the other indie bmups I've tried. It's been heavily improved by updates, as well, even adding a new character. The devs get it.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Final Vendetta sounds interesting, standard arcade mode and no continues. Is it tight enough and tough enough to be worth picking up though?

[Udderdude]

So this looks interesting. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1903 ... ve_Zero_X/

We really are spoiled for choices these days, huh?

[Stevens]

Final Vendetta sounds interesting, standard arcade mode and no continues. Is it tight enough and tough enough to be worth picking up though?

I don't know. Are you a bad enough dude to save the President?



All kidding aside will pick up later today or tomorrow.

[Sengoku Strider]

Mark MSX put Turtles through the wringer:

https://youtu.be/IfN0imRhadg

[BurlyHeart]

Final Vendetta sounds interesting, standard arcade mode and no continues. Is it tight enough and tough enough to be worth picking up though?

I'm liking it better than TMNT so far. It's pretty old skool and quite tough. There are some cheap, unreactable attacks and enemies won't think twice about surrounding you and smacking you to death. The music is top notch and I dig the overall presentation. There is no normal difficulty - only Hard and Easy, with an extra difficulty for defeating Hard with Miller. No continues (as yet, that I can see). I've got to the third stage so far.

The combo chain system is based on a timer, and stays active even if you get hit.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people will hate the game

[BrianC]

It seems most of the Tribute Games stuff is incredible graphics and music and flawed gameplay? I got one of their other games on PS Plus, Curses 'n Chaos. It had some impressive visuals, but the gameplay felt a bit thrown together and repetitive. As a big TMNT fan, I still bit on Shredder's Revenge. I like it so far, but definitely agree that it's flawed. Definitely no SoR4 or Fight 'n Rage. I also bit on Mayhem Brawler on PSN and I'm enjoying it so far.

edit: I also found the throws a bit off in Shredder's Revenge. For some reason, they use the same button as supers and it seems to be impossible to throw without getting a voice that indicates that the meter isn't full enough for a super.

I'm liking Final Vendetta so far too. I like Clarie's punch attack that just goes straight out and hits fast.

edit: Found out throws in Shredders Revenge weren't done the way I thought they were (they aren't using the same button as supers). It's also much easier to throw during an enemy stun. Also, flying kicks ARE in the game using the attack+somersault button.

[it290]

Mark MSX put Turtles through the wringer:

https://youtu.be/IfN0imRhadg

Yeah. He's wrong in saying it's worse than Turtles in Time though, this game offers way more options for the player than that.

[BrianC]

Mark MSX seems to be mostly referring to the SNES version of Turtles in Time. Arcade is quite a different beast with some moves much harder to pull off and way more cheapness compared to the SNES version. The first TMNT AC was also different from the home versions and had a different method for throws than Turtles in Time (NES port had no throws at all). A similar method was used for TMNT: The Manhattan Project on NES. I also feel that Hyperstone Heist does some things better than Turtles in Time SNES (mainly a more reliable dash that is set to manual by default).