Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[Lander]

Hmm, AM2R. I ought to give that another chance now we're living in a post-Dread / still-no-Prime-4 world; played it around release and thought it was cool, but really hard once the more advanced metroid evolutions started showing up. Ended up dropping it after a particularly nasty Gamma fight, and waiting for Samus Returns instead.

I was going to ask what the pertinent post-1.1 changes were, but a brief glimpse at the changelog page has me reconsidering it...

'There may be some bugs due to the code reconstruction'

Sounds like the community has gone absolutely mad adding new features, difficulties, enemies... Ridley??

[Steven]

Doc never released the source code; pretty sure Nintendo would have killed him if he had, so I think all of what's been done since 1.1 is due to reverse engineering the game. I think Doc made it at least partially in Game Maker, but since development started somewhere between 2006 and 2008 and lasted until 2016, who knows. It is unquestionably the best game released in 2016, too.

I've never had any problems with 1.0 or 1.1 that I can remember, but they broke some stuff in the later updates and then fixed them. I haven't seen Ridley yet, but he definitely shouldn't be here and I hope he isn't. One change that I definitely don't like is that Doc removed health/missile/super missile drops from Metroids on hard, but the community undid that for some reason and now Metroids drop stuff on hard. Yeah, you can choose to just not pick those things up and I'm not a game designer (yet), but I'd be surprised if the game wasn't originally balanced around Metroids not dropping stuff and I don't think you can disable drops in the .ini.

Also not satisfied with how the X work in Fusion mode, either; they take way too long to spawn after the enemy dies and you have to wait to pick them up, but in Fusion you can pick them up basically immediately once the enemy dies, which results in AM2R's Fusion mode being awkwardly slow. I'd also prefer if every organic and semi-organic enemy always dropped X instead of only some of them to be consistent with Fusion, but it's not a big deal.

I do like the random mode, though. I remember when it was possible to get stuck in that mode, but it looks like they've fixed that now. It's always funny when you go to the first area in the game and it gives you Space Jump, Screw Attack, Plasma Beam, Super Missiles, Gravity Suit, Ice Beam, and Power Bombs and you're basically set for the entire game right from the start. There are a lot of pickups in that first area, so there is a decent chance you're going to get some late game equipment in there.

I really wish I hadn't left my Metroid II in the USA, as I love that game but it is quite expensive here. Fusion and Zero Mission are even more expensive, but I fortunately picked up a CIB Japanese Zero Mission about 10 years ago before it became insanely expensive. Too bad I didn't get Fusion then, as hard mode is a lot of fun. That's what the Everdrive is for, but I'd still prefer to have a complete real game, which is just over twice the price of the Everdrive.

[BryanM]

Came across this image while going through my imgur today. I have absolutely zero memory of making it, but it does seem like the kind of thing I'd do to nag about Contra's fixed threat lines.

7 years old, they say it is. That's older than many people.

[BIL]

Seems like yesterday, to my aged chagrin. 3;

Oh yeah that boss.

People give that thing a pass because he's such a short part of the game. His "safe spot" isn't even that bad since up until you destroy both arms, he's shooting aimed shots directly at you from uncomfortably close. By the time he's left to his static mouth spread, he's usually being finished off.

That and Contra 1 isn't really about the bosses. There's only a few of them, they're short, the rest of them are better, and they're not the main course. It's all about the running and gunning. Didn't become a boss focused series till at least 3.

Dangun is indeed god tho

Yeah, the arms' aimed shots aren't rocket science, but they're a substantial enough threat to illustrate a fundamental principle of 2D action: bullet herding. You can quite easily trap yourself by scurrying/hopping around at random, as indeed noobs are wont to. Cue "wahhh its impossible." Target prioritisation, too. You can't speedkill the head with even the strongest weapons before the arms start sniping you, and they're persistent; much better to deal with them first by leading their shots while returning fire, then finish off the core. Hey... now you're playing for real! GJ noobs keep it up! :O

Would be improved with shooting zakos spawning from both sides (would be rad if you could be forced into jumping a bullet with the flails whipping about), but it more than acquits itself as is. As good ol Dave Mustaine said, take out the organs then cut off the head.

Oh lmao! some crusty dillhole even did a peashooteR run where he moseys back and forth to draw the arms' fire before they can cave his fuck in from above!

Animated GIF 4.5mb: "THE HEAT INSIDE THE FIRE / TO MAKE THE END OF BATTLE"

Spoiler

Metal Slug 3's st2 boss/phase 1 The Monoeyes always reminds me of this fight and vice-versa, with the emphasis on herding and the deadly risk attached to an errant jump - intensified by both games' lack of height select.

For a really shitty Contra safespot, see Hard Corps' research facility (st2b) boss. Get in lower-right corner and hold up/left+shoot, job done. I feel so bad for the fuck, I make a point of never doing this. Peruse the funtime sidescrolling shack or MD thread and you will see much stern criticism of such things :O

[BryanM]

There, there.

I do wonder if Nintendo has the guts to make another platformer action RPG. What with the nostalgia with things like Mario RPG, Wonder, etc.

I don't even particularly want a sequel to Kid Icarus or Zelda 2 by this point, too much time has passed. You know HoloCure, the $0 vampire survivor knockoff everyone loves? Just make something like that, cosmetically. Tons of cute stupid shit, a ton of characters that play differently from one another; just make the neurons in people's brains melt like cheese from overstimulation.

[Lander]

this image

Imgur Warning: May contain sexual or adult imagery

...is this going to turn into a picture of a dick if I run it through a fast fourier transform?

[BIL]

Arcade Archives Mystic Warriors out today (GMT). Paging Sumez and Myco, and anyone else remotely into run/guns, for that matter.



Violent Storm next year pls

[Ghegs]

^Nice. I (think I still) have the PCB, and I worked towards a 1CC many years ago, but the Stage 6/train level's boss just felt near-insurmountable. That bit gave me the impression that the game wasn't quite tuned for single player, but for multiplayer action. Still a really great game from Konami.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Exciting stuff. I suppose there's little chance of a Moo Mesa release though, right? A lot of arcade releases have omitted the licensed games as they don't seem to be able to secure the license for a re-release (or can't be bothered to do so).

[Sumez]

Arcade Archives Mystic Warriors out today (GMT). Paging Sumez and Myco, and anyone else remotely into run/guns, for that matter.

Proudly got my PCB years ago
I prefer Sunset Riders, but Mystic Warriors is a fantastic game with a badass soundtrack to boot!

[BIL]

Proudly got my PCB years ago
I prefer Sunset Riders, but Mystic Warriors is a fantastic game with a badass soundtrack to boot!

Goddamn, time flies huh (almost four years since ACA Sunset, at this point) Actually, I may be misremembering you mentioning looking for a board. I recall Ghegs mentioning the train boss, and Myco saying it had MAME issues... otherwise, it's one of those former arcade exclusives I avoided looking up over the years, knowing it'd be like Christmas whenever I finally got around to it.

[Sima Tuna]

That's pretty cool. I hope we will get Violent Storm, if this is any indication.

[BIL]

Helll yeah. The HUNGER CITY TRILOGY may make it home yet!

Interested to see a # Of Loops select in the Options (1 / 2 / Endless). 1 by default; Sumez or Ghegs, do you know if that's the PCB default? I was happy to see. My only complaint of Sunset Riders is the 2ALL being a bit much, mostly on account of st2's dozy autoscroller and those silly bonus rounds.

I see there's a slowdown reduce option for 4P, as well, always neat.

[Sumez]

If it's like several other Konami PCBs, the default number of loops depends on the region. Can't even remember which region my Mystic Warriors is, but apparently that revision is missing a miniboss on the first stage for some reason.

2 loops is definitely the most fun way to play though.

[BIL]

Ta bud! Indeed, the ACA release's setting varies by region. Interested to see it's a DIP. In ACA Sunset Riders, it's a set JP 2ALL / NA Endless.

Japan

North America

I wonder if max difficulty works like Falco Tsujimoto's previous run/gunners Super Contra and Sunset Riders, where Rank starts at 100%, and stays there. Could make a Level 8 1ALL interesting.

That said, I actually wouldn't mind a Mystic Warriors 2ALL game. Despite having twice as many autoscrollers as Sunset, they're uniformly better-designed. Much higher pacing and difficulty, keeping multiple guns on the player at all times. As aesthetically satisfying as Sunset's second stage is, the pace is weak. No goddamn bonus rounds either; they're cute, but not something I want to deal with, long-term.

Something that threw me off, initially, is the melee attack freezing you in place, on the ground, and denying your air control, during jumps. Being accustomed to Metal Slug, I found myself rushing into a crowd, chopping the front-runner, leaving his backup live and dangerous. (incidentally, everyone hates MS4's Trevor and his goofy knife shoes for this reason) It's easy to adjust to, though, firing on massed enemies from marginally further than you might in Slug.

NINJA COMMANDO.WAV

^ I was so pleased at the raft setpiece not caring at all if you go in the water, ala Contra.

I notice the delay on landing from jumps is slightly longer than Sunset's, too; from near-invisible, to a short but significant stop. Again, it's harmless once spotted.

Noticed some pretty nice fire/water/dissolve transparencies, as expected of Hamster, after they nailed XEXEX two years back. The ACA version seems to run beautifully. I've left the Slowdown Reduce off; sticking to 2P, what's there feels nice n' natural. Glad to see Yuri's buns made it home unscathed, in these puritan times. As did Brad's own, almost as distracting lack of pants!

Tactical Upskirt Action (｀w´メ)

[Sumez]

The raft autoscroller is actually my biggest issue with the game. It's cool and all, but I can't survive it consistently. Obviously a skill issue, but something about it just keeps catching me off guard, mostly enemy projectiles just showing up where I don't have the time to dodge them, because I can't kill stuff fast enough - and it goes on for a really long while.
I love the last few stages however, and although they are also challenging, I feel like I have the tools to deal analytically with everything they throw at me.

The train boss can also be really devious, but usually taking a hit or two there won't damage my run too bad.

[BEAMLORD]

Mystic Warriors appears to be the fucking business. Keep calling it Mystic Riders, though

Took all the characters for a test drive in the short time I've had this evening, and so far Spyros and Yuri seem the best. Their rate of fire is face-meltingly satisfying. Really want to sorta stick with Yuri for *cough* reasons unknown, but can't get enough of Spyros' sweet 2-way shot at the moment.

[BIL]

Yuri is the most inexplicably entertaining character since Spin-chan

Just like the autoscrollers, I can tell they really worked on their character variety. Sunset is pretty much Gradius Double (Bob/Billy) vs Contra Spread (Steve/Cormano). This is a much subtler spectrum, even before the added wrinkle of melee power vs speed. I settled on Spyros aka Ninja Bob quickly, too, with Yuri in second (blistering shot rate, no pants), and Brad third (crazy melee reach, no pants). I like how Kabuki dude's headbang is the strongest yet slowest melee, but his low rate of fire seemed tricky; and I've still got Yellowman to try out. I mostly know him for getting RNG-napped; the male characters sound like they're yelling "COÑOOO~" during cutscenes, which is amusing if Spanish speakers are nearby.

The raft autoscroller is actually my biggest issue with the game. It's cool and all, but I can't survive it consistently. Obviously a skill issue, but something about it just keeps catching me off guard, mostly enemy projectiles just showing up where I don't have the time to dodge them, because I can't kill stuff fast enough - and it goes on for a really long while.

Yeah, the wave design instantly reminded me of Sunset's second and final riding stage; very easy to get trapped, with rehearsed macro speedkills a huge help. The presence of vehicles with multiple hitpoints is a further complication; and ofc, you don't have Sunset's beltscroller movement. It's gripping stuff! This is such a pitch-perfect arcade action game... bracing feelgood with absolutely thumping tunes.

I think you've posted this before, but it always bears repeating, Technouchi's self-arranged soundtrack is a must-hear. >WHO IS NINJA???

[Sumez]

James Brown is Ninja!

[velo]

The train boss can also be really devious, but usually taking a hit or two there won't damage my run too bad.

Destructible Contra boss turrets... that instantly respawn. Very funny, Konami.

[Steven]

For some reason I decided to play Metroid: Samus Returns on the 3DS, so I did. I was extremely excited for this game when it was announced, and because of the stupid region lock on the 3DS, I imported a limited edition copy that I never even opened because I was too impatient and did something extremely rare: I bought a digital copy so I wouldn't have to wait.

Then I played the game and absolutely hated it. This time, however, I actually kind of

liked it.

It's still the worst 2D Metroid game by far, and the worst Metroid game that isn't Other M, but I kind of enjoyed some of it this time. Maybe it's because playing it for the first time since Dread released has made me think of it as being less of a remake of Metroid II than a prototype of Dread. Samus Returns does some things well, but ever since its release I have always felt that for each of the extremely few things it does properly, it completely fucks up about a dozen things in return, and the game overwhelmingly seems as if it was specifically designed to waste the player's time. Seriously, game, fuck off with the brainlessly easy yet time-wasting and tedious Grapple Beam block moving puzzles, especially fuck off with the stupidity of the Gamma Metroids running away mid-fight and forcing you to go find them again, and also all of the similar needless time-wasting annoyances.

Speaking of needless annoyances, why are there only about 8 to 10 non-Metroid enemy types in this game and even about half of that number is just recolors? Why does this game have probably less than half of the enemy types that were in the original Game Boy game? Did they run out of time to make more enemies and just say "screw it, take the first two or three enemy types that show up in the first 30 seconds of the game and change their colors a bit and use those for the entire game and call it good"?

Why the fuck are the weapons so pitifully, horribly weak that it never feels like you actually get stronger? Why does it take half a dozen missiles to kill some weak little (recolored) enemies? Why does the fucking Screw Attack bounce off of zako-class enemies? Why did they decide to completely ruin the atmosphere of the last area, both before and especially after you kill the Queen Metroid?

God I hate so many aspects of this game so much!

Still, I kind of enjoyed it somehow this time. Dread fixed most of these problems, and for now I can live with it as a sort of weird Dread prototype. Maybe that's why I liked it more this time, but yeah, the game still kind of sucks in some very critical aspects. If you have a choice, go play the real Metroid II on the Game Boy instead; it's the better game.

[Lander]

Maybe it's because playing it for the first time since Dread released has made me think of it as being less of a remake of Metroid II than a prototype of Dread. Samus Returns does some things well, but ever since its release I have always felt that for each of the extremely few things it does properly, it completely fucks up about a dozen things in return, and the game overwhelmingly seems as if it was specifically designed to waste the player's time. Seriously, game, fuck off with the brainlessly easy yet time-wasting and tedious Grapple Beam block moving puzzles, especially fuck off with the stupidity of the Gamma Metroids running away mid-fight and forcing you to go find them again, and also all of the similar needless time-wasting annoyances.

That's an interesting lens to view it through. I found it serviceable when I played, but had enough distance from the Game Boy incarnation that I wasn't really drawing anything beyond surface-level comparison.

It's alright in its own right, but being so explicitly-realized makes much of it nigh incomparable to the simpler and more abstract original. That's a facet of remakes I've been noticing lately; you can reproduce the scenario, mechanics, etc. with nice new coat of paint, but no matter how faithful (or not in this case,) it's more or less impossible to reproduce the way an atmosphere or sense of isolation was encoded on limited hardware.

and the worst Metroid game that isn't Other M

...*sigh* I can't argue. I just wish Other M was a better scaffold for its non-Prime 3D gameplay.
Perhaps they'll take inspiration from Mario and Kirby, and have a more traditionalist swing at the idea when the series doesn't have one foot in development hell.

Why the fuck are the weapons so pitifully, horribly weak that it never feels like you actually get stronger?

Because it's the first Metroid with a parry mechanic, I suspect. You either bat everything away for free, or plant feet and take ages doing it classic style.
I forget whether Dread was quite so binary about it, but definitely recall SR skewing toward a feast-or-famine school of design.

[BulletMagnet]

As someone who never played the GB original (though I did complete AM2R some years ago) but happened to play SR for the first time fairly recently myself, I would posit that the game's greatest single strength is its depiction of Samus's character as a no-nonsense bounty hunter mostly through the player's actions as opposed to cutscenes (though there is a little bit of the latter).

One mechanic that struck me in that regard was (obviously) the parry, since you'd figure that if a baddie gets in the face of a hardened sort like Samus she'd have no issues smacking it right back where it came from; the other, weirdly enough, was the 360-degree aiming, whose implementation I wasn't completely a fan of, since I most always prefer a d-pad for 2D games, but especially once you get the wave beam and can snipe enemies through walls at any angle it just felt "bounty hunter-ish" (at least to me) to hang back and take care of business with minimal risk to myself.

Mind you, this is pretty much entirely in my own head, but especially considering how badly more "story-heavy" Metroids have tended to turn out (not only could I not finish Other M, but I rank Fusion as one of my least favorites, though I tend to be in the minority there), I couldn't help but appreciate the wisely passive "character building" at work in SR, though other aspects rubbed me the wrong way. As a side note I haven't played Dread, so I can't compare it to that.

[Lander]

Indeed, the cold hard badass showing for Samus was good. A conscious tock to Other M's tick, I'd say; they saw the image problem and corrected hard.
Perhaps a little too hard, in some sense; Prime demonstrated that a light underpinning of vulnerable humanity is additive to the character, but it's a thin line, so backlining it in favour of badass power suit stoicism was a safe move.

Forcing the D-Pad to special abilities was a mistake, though I thought the 360 aiming added a bit of dimensionality to the shooting, particularly in close-quarters.
Also liked that it works the iconic hand-braced power beam pose into regular gameplay; a nice folding-back of the cutscene styling developed over the years.

Fusion's an odd duck. I was rather hoping for a remake after SR's post-credits, since it spent many an hour in my GBA SP, but on reflection its contribution to the series is pretty binary.
All the horror-inspired SA-X stuff was great, but the linearity and AI companion intrigue turned out to be more of a bill in the long term...

[Volteccer_Jack]

Metroid 2 kind of inherently suffers from the fact that its premise requires you to fight the same minibosses over and over again. What's astounding to me is that we got not one but two remakes, and neither of them do anything to address this problem. Instead, they both make the problem even worse, by making the minibosses take much longer to kill and also severely reducing the role the arena plays, making them feel even more samey. Also shoutout to SR ruining the ending with a tasteless shoehorned anime fight.

I hope someday we get a Metroid 2 remake made by someone who actually likes Metroid 2.

Fusion's an odd duck. I was rather hoping for a remake after SR's post-credits, since it spent many an hour in my GBA SP, but on reflection its contribution to the series is pretty binary.
All the horror-inspired SA-X stuff was great, but the linearity and AI companion intrigue turned out to be more of a bill in the long term...

Fusion is the successor to Metroid 2. I think it could be greatly improved by a remake, but I'm also afraid people would fuck it up like they fuck up remaking Metroid 2.

[Sumez]

Just to continue the thread derailment - Nothing Samus Returns does is worse than anything Metroid Dread does. If it's a prototype for Dread, it's almost impressive that they managed to drop so much further with the "final product". I hope Mercury Steam never makes another Metroid.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Nothing Samus Returns does is worse than anything Metroid Dread does

Yet more proof that people who like Zero Mission should not be allowed to have opinions about Metroid. The differences in parry balancing alone are enough to make Dread a leagues better game than Samus Returns, even disregarding all other factors. The SR parry is that insanely broken.

Suffice to say that Dread is one of the top 3 games in the franchise, and Samus Returns is one of the bottom 3.

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

I do want to check out Dread - it and Prime 3 are the only games in the series I haven't played through - but I'm a little skeptical on it. Samus Returns didn't convince me that Mercury Steam knows good action (not a fan of the 360 aiming, the parry isn't really a good fit for 2D Metroid, neither the digger robot or final boss are interesting), and it sounds like Dread is a lot more focused on action than exploration - I hear a lot of talk about its relatively difficult boss fights, and on top of that I don't like the sound of them removing save points and just having autosave checkpoints; the old save system was particularly important for the kind of tension that kind of exploration game really needs (even if none of the previous Metroids were that demanding).

Unrelatedly, I really think the series has been in a slump, at least on the 2D end, ever since the GBA entries. The first three Metroid games are all excellent and also differ from each other very sharply, with each having its own distinct identity, but every 2D Metroid since then basically just feels like a rehash of Super. Continually reusing that game's exact progression structure and powerup set, meaning that you're pretty much just perpetually dealing with the same set of verbs and the same puzzles over and over, really hampers the potential of the later entries - especially with Zero Mission and Samus Returns, which feel awkward due to shoehorning Super Metroid's systems into the skeletons of games very much at odds with Super's particularities. I don't think any of them are bad but I don't think any of them have been particularly inspiring, either, which is a shame.

[BrianC]

I'm disappointed that Metroid Dread is not Metroid Dredd. That would be an interesting crossover. Very unlikely to happen, though.

[Sumez]

Nothing Samus Returns does is worse than anything Metroid Dread does

Yet more proof that people who like Zero Mission should not be allowed to have opinions about Metroid. The differences in parry balancing alone are enough to make Dread a leagues better game than Samus Returns, even disregarding all other factors. The SR parry is that insanely broken.

Suffice to say that Dread is one of the top 3 games in the franchise, and Samus Returns is one of the bottom 3.

Not sure what Zero Mission has to do with it, but Dread just isn't a great Metroid game. Mechanically it does a lot of things really well, and I think it has the best traversal controls of the entire series. It just completely forgets to actually be a metroidvania game, which IMO is a pretty massive strike against it, considering the series... It has most of the issues Fusion did, but a lot of its own ones as well.

As for the parry, it completely breaks combat in both of those games. It's such a horrible addition I can't understand why anyone thought it would be a good idea. They would both be better if they didn't have parry and weren't designed around using it against every enemy, so you'd have to, you know, rely on positioning and pattern recognition instead, like in any decent action game.
I guess you could make an argument that they made it less bad in Dread, I dunno? Doesn't help much when it's bad in both games