Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[copy-paster]

X68000 Akumajou is challenging but it's very fun! Sharp handling and great pixel art works, tough but exploitable bosses, and the infamous 4 hit and you die mechanic as early as stage 3.

One way to make the game less painful, at least to me is grab the herb on st3's below the ground candle (you need to get through the mud first and it's easy to miss it, make sure to correctly position yourself) and keep it for the rest of the game. Sure it will take 10 hearts per use but the game is very generous with it as well.

[BryanM]

This Dinoblade prototype video is something that made me feel happy the entire time watching the thing.

(Yes, I think this is the non-shmup non-rpg thread.)

[BIL]

(Yes, I think this is the non-shmup non-rpg thread.)

That's where you're wrong (■｀w´■) Gun.Smoke and Faxanadu are most welcome ITT. Happily, we now have an esteemed second wing for hardcore killing games similar to Sekiro!

EDIT: alright that's amazing, I thought it was a guy in a fancy helmet fighting dinos and went "lmao" then I realised exactly what I was looking at and my colleague asked me if I was feeling alright. God and Jebus bless Dinoblade.

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Meanwhile, elsewhere!

Is there a 2D game where you play a buff, shirtless dude, wielding melee weapons that isn't awesome?

I can think of a couple, but I have hard evidence the developers were fat. (｀w´メ)

Sword of Sodan Retrospective

Is there a 2D game where you play a buff, shirtless dude, wielding melee weapons that isn't awesome?

Sword of Sodan

tbh, in addition to the devs being fat, Sodan also featured a player character who wasn't topless. The kiss of death to an ailing barbarizer! See also Haunted Castle (pff) and Dragon Unit (a REAL tragedy, as Undead_TAMA and co are fuckin buff. the curse of modesty will undo even the sexiest men!)

Been MIRIN Rastan a lot in the few hours I've had for gaming lately. A consummate barbarian swashbuckler! The striking/zoning aspect is FTG tight - while bump damage lacks oomph, player and enemy weapons alike are laser precise. And there's a surprisingly rich movement suite for its cruel terrain. Between low/high jumps, and their walking/running variants, it's versatile, yet snappily binary; completed by the bloodening rush attack, perfect for smiting foes and seizing ground in the same tactical heartbeat.

The x3 damage on jumpslash is an especially slick reward for artful OTG slayings - whether a vaulting divebomb, or a chasm-hurdling leap that beheads interceptors in one bloody swoop. There's also a killer aggression incentive via weapon timeouts. Not a fan of this ethos, typically; I prefer to budget my ammo, learning when to conserve, and where to brutally unload. But the level design complements perfectly, with pickups placed like oases. Grab that flail and bust some fuckin heads, son! Hanging back like a weenie will only complicate matters later on!

In pure aesthetic terms, it's a more varied game than I'd recalled. Decent sense of journey over valleys, swamps, and volcanic hellzones. Rastan himself, despite the clear AHNULD riff, is also perfectly-judged. Buddy is formidably ripped, but not bodybuilder-bravura; on the contrary, he's lean and taut and unmistakably hungry AF. "Used to be a thief and murderer to survive in a harsh world" indeed. Very arguably nearer Robert Howard's iconic rogue than his most famous screen adaptation; I could easily believe this was a Conan license, initially, ala Ikari's development as a Rambo II game ("The Furious Rescue," in Japanese theatres).

The rope setpieces can be a bit daft, but with the pace and intensity surrounding them, they're easily forgiven. A crisply technical yet viscerally momentum-based Combat Platformer, very unlike forerunning titans Green Beret and Makaimura, and their close descendants Dracula and Rygar. While it's certainly rougher-edged, their bullseye bump damage notably amiss, I find it every bit as invigorating and, above all, as amenable to lethal technique.

Gonna jump in hard once next week's out, after putting some hours on F/A. I so love a good new-to-me, never mind two, three, four, etc etc etc. Ham-chans working as intended.

[XoPachi]

Gravity Circuit is on sale and got an enormous new update with a ton of difficulty modifiers and touch ups to it's systems.
Some of the harder stage layouts have really questionable little challenges (Wave's stage has some ROM hack-y Kaizo BS at small points).
But, the game isn't a cakewalk anymore even with everything collected and unlocked. Bosses are not terribly hard, but you have to actually work and place Bursts with a bit more thought now. Not that they've given arbitrary invulnerability, but you really need to weave through actually dense attacks now.
And with 1.5x more health on them, you have to really make every hit count. This is kind of how they should feel on normal honestly. I'd say they're a straight upgrade.
G-Dash is kind of dangerous to spam now and there's direct answers to it's usage in some places. And the modifier that sends you to the beginning of the level on death adds a good pressure. Especially with double hazard damage. Though it didn't have to send you all the way back to the damn hub world. The beginning of the stage would be fine.

[BryanM]

Contra DLC for Vampire Survivors might be the highest profile Konami-adjacent product in years... For some reason I thought Silent Hill f had been announced a ridiculously long time ago, but it hasn't even been two years... I feel kind of like an idiot even entertaining the idea they'd do a Tokimeki 1 remake.

... it's weird to think they've been kind of ass-blasted as a company for a while now. Tokimeki 3 was funded by a crowdfunding initiative. This was before the fan-fuckery that was Kickblaster scams, so it wasn't a mere pre-order campaign. They sold shares of the game's profits, I think? The game that came out was considered rather shitty compared to the standards of its predecessors; an off-putting art style, alongside an experimental 3d cell-shading thing (actually used effectively later in Love Plus), much fewer characters, etc.

This was over 20 years ago, so the rot has been in the corp for awhile.

I'm just a stupid anon, but maybe they could have used the profits from the previous games in the franchise to fund the new games in the franchise? Ah, the hell do I know.

It just amazes me how they could make so many influential games, wildly successful and the inspiration for tons of others, and just constantly buttfumble everything. Love Plus was so successful, news agencies would run stories about some goober marrying the thing in real life. New Love Plus was doomed to fail since it had the same cast and was more like an enhanced version of the first game, like asking people to replay the exact same game they just played. As soon as it didn't do too great, they gave up on the franchise completely!

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Gave Hagane the Final Conflict a play to get it to imprint in my mind better. My first impressions are I don't like it too much; either you just walk by the enemies or have to come to a complete stop and dismantle them carefully. I prefer games where playing skillfully is rewarded with being able to move fast. Maybe it has layers or something, I'll report back if I change my mind and won't say anything more if I don't.

It seems more competent than a Valis, but I'm not sure if that makes it better than a Valis.

The x3 damage on jumpslash

I've always thought this feature really might be a bug, like multiple hits landing on multiple frames. Is it only 3x? It feels like so much more than that.

The risk from jumping is almost always a big fat zero, since how often is there a ceiling spike lingering over your head? Not using jump attacks on the first boss gives you an epic battle, a fearsome fight for the sidescrolling history books. But use the air attack, and you barely see the guy for a couple frames before he instantly explodes in gore before he can even do anything.

It all just seems really iffy.

[Steven]

Every LovePlus was an enhanced version of the first game except for maybe the phone games, which I know nothing about. Even after all this time I still can't believe they decided to just make almost exactly the same game four separate times instead of actually trying something new. It and Tokimeki Memorial are both dead now anyway aside from maybe Girl's Side. The 30th anniversary of Tokimeki Memorial is in exactly 10 days, so while I am expecting absolutely nothing other than a celebratory Twitter post, it will be interesting to see what happens then.

Anyway, back to the topic, I want to remind everyone that Toaplan's seminal R2RKMF game Get Star is now officially available in the USA and maybe other parts of the non-Japanese world on PSN and Nintendo's thing. You still need Wardner, Horror Story, Knuckle Bash, FixEight, and the legendary Out Zone to complete the Toaplan R2RKMF set, but it's a start.

[Sima Tuna]

Jeez, I bought ACA Metal Slug X on sale for the Switch... I know Metal Slug games are kinda laggy and eat inputs, but holy fuck. I was mashing the SHIT out of the fire button in the mummy section (where they spawn in right on top of you) and I'd say about 75% of the time, my character stood there doing nothing. The autofire would work if I held the button down, but tapping would not register most of the time. The level after the mummy section was less laggy and dropped fewer button presses, so I assume this is how the game originally was. Hamster usually don't fuck up a port, and I'm not blaming them. It's been a while since I played Metal Slug X specifically. I know MS1 isn't this laggy and doesn't drop inputs this hard on Switch. Framerate for MSX is also pretty abysmal considering this was supposed to be the "fixed" version of MS2. Again, I realize every Metal Slug has frame rate issues, but the frame rate going to shit seems to have a direct relationship with the game not recognizing inputs. Cue me mashing the shit out of the fire button, cursing, while Tarma stands there clueless and a dozen bad guys spawn in from every angle.

Contextual melee also fucks you over with the mummies teleporting in on top of you (suddenly my ohko flame shot becomes a knife stab dealing fuckall damage), but that's more of a gameplay/design issue than technical.

[Steven]

Pretty sure the emulation is 100% accurate and it does that on a real Neo Geo. I might go check later next month once I stop being stupidly busy with dumb work shit that takes up all of my time on my off days (yep, basically working 7 days a week now with no off time and I hate it so much), but for now I don't really have time to do anything, which is why I've barely posted for the past few weeks.

The contextual melee attack is really annoying, though. It's cool for the first few times, but then once you get killed because you knifed when you wanted to shoot you find it's really not that great.

[BIL]

Back when I was a young nerd, ardently fighting other wastrels for the honour of #1 Silent Hill Wanker, we had a good buddy, much older, who told us how Konami abruptly went 110% beancounter-driven circa 2006, to a ghastly extent that saw all the famous outsourcing horror stories you know and love. I forget the specifics, but he always described it as a real nosedive. (he was at Konami Hawaii, working on Frogger etc, sound dude - had a hilarious story I've told before, of the top brass showing off a retail Lament of Innocence, and him innocently exclaiming "Wow! When they get the actual level designs in, this'll be great!" )

At the time I thought "Oh hell naw! They'll surely come back around, and we will see whether SH4 bros (LOLOL ) are vindicated by SH5 being FPV and obnoxiously well-lit!" Aaand they never did. So at this point I genuinely DGAF. It's like feeling bad that your favourite 70s rockstars, now in their late 70s, keep explosively shitting themselves trying to hit the high notes, needing weeks off with a steady supply of Horlicks and Metamucil to recondition their o-rings. It sucks, it does, but it's not like their great stuff went anywhere, and chances are, revisiting it will do you good!

This is not an appeal to nostalgia, fuck that shit. Seriously, yuck. That shit will make your wiener soft and floppy like cheese! It's about things that never stopped being good. ACA Mystic Warriors and Surprise Attack came out a few months ago, they're amazing. You can play Crime Fighters 2, as well! I bet Violent Storm, Metamorphic Force, and Gaiapolis will be around soon too. That's just stuff being currently released, in first-rate lowest-lag reference-accurate form. If you're really arsed, there's a better chance of you scoring a shaweet old Konami kit than the shitbirds in charge ever approaching their 90s peak again.

Anyway, apologies for the hippy dippy bullshit. It's not, really. I think I'd go nuts if I cared what these beancounting assclowns got up to in their dotage. They're fuckin useless! Enjoy the stuff from when they didn't suck, there's probably tons you've yet to attain any semblance of competence at! I know that's how it is for me!

*that's not an SH4 dig! its dryly foul, floodlit ambience is an authentic vibe! stfu young me you fat gay baby.

Gave Hagane the Final Conflict a play to get it to imprint in my mind better. My first impressions are I don't like it too much; either you just walk by the enemies or have to come to a complete stop and dismantle them carefully. I prefer games where playing skillfully is rewarded with being able to move fast. Maybe it has layers or something, I'll report back if I change my mind and won't say anything more if I don't.

I can't imagine playing Hagane and not moving fast by default. >_> It's an uncomplicatedly generous sidescroller. You certainly can memorise it to the point it goes really, really fuckin fast indeed, but you don't need to do all that. Use your airdash more. Don't worry about contact damage because there isn't any. Bounce off nearby heads! Sometimes an enemy shoots at you and you wanna do a front flip -> Burn Knuckle to iframe through their attack and kill them in one go. That's about it.

It seems more competent than a Valis, but I'm not sure if that makes it better than a Valis.

Now there's enticing food for thought

The x3 damage on jumpslash

I've always thought this feature really might be a bug, like multiple hits landing on multiple frames. Is it only 3x? It feels like so much more than that.

Renowned scientists have analysed the megabytes, and concluded it is indeed x3! This can be tested by poking lategame enemies - an authentically bad idea, because they're designed to be taken out OTG, preferably by an Axe or Firesword so they're really fuckin dead.

The risk from jumping is almost always a big fat zero, since how often is there a ceiling spike lingering over your head? Not using jump attacks on the first boss gives you an epic battle, a fearsome fight for the sidescrolling history books. But use the air attack, and you barely see the guy for a couple frames before he instantly explodes in gore before he can even do anything.

Jumps are also a great way to eat shit from snipers you could've just ran up and splattered, projectiles and all! They're powerful but certainly not obviating.

As for the bosses, I think you've fundamentally misunderstood the barbarian Rastan, my lord! That first cunt was never even in the game, he'd lost everything he had the moment he refused to take his shirt off.

tfw when they dont show manboobs (｀w´メ)

manboob hiders = take their heads. take all they have left. (■｀w´■)

It all just seems really iffy.

It's a more skittery-feeling game than the typical Dracula or Makaimura, on account of the nonexistent bump feedback, but I'm pretty impressed at how well it hangs together regardless. tbh, in these wankvexatious situations - "Hmm, did they balance the irritatingly wafty EuroCollision™ with fuckoff brutal skull-caving attacks deliberately, or was it a happy accident?" - I'm less inclined to bust out the smoking jacket, than just work with what's on the table. Some cunt tried to do a halberd spinny-mah-winny, and I chopped his fuckin head off. Another prick did some incredibly fruity kungfu shit, and I buttfucked him so hard that somewhere in the mists of time, his startled grandma bit his grandpa's wiener on their honeymoon, causing them to break up and him to never be born.

Oh well \(˘w˘)/ Let's hop this badass firepit with swashbuckling elan. Watch out for that goat!

Jeez, I bought ACA Metal Slug X on sale for the Switch... I know Metal Slug games are kinda laggy and eat inputs, but holy fuck. I was mashing the SHIT out of the fire button in the mummy section (where they spawn in right on top of you) and I'd say about 75% of the time, my character stood there doing nothing. The autofire would work if I held the button down, but tapping would not register most of the time. The level after the mummy section was less laggy and dropped fewer button presses, so I assume this is how the game originally was.

That actually sounds a bit out of the ordinary, and makes me wonder if ACA-NG's Switch versions are as screwy as Kiken mentioned (overlocked Metal Slug to reduce input lag, IIRC?). Now granted, I have played an absolute fuckton of MSX over the years, on MVS and MAME and more recently PS4, so I might've just absorbed its timing... but I'll still notice input drops. (more MS1's department)

Even at the absolute worst-performing part of the game (relative to the action taking place), the terrifying slideshow framerate of Final Mission's opening half (doesn't really come across in footage, it's a ~feels situation~ ), I never worry about drops... I just know to compensate for the struggling game speed. I make a point of playing pretty recklessly, too - this rocket was about to fuck me in the mouth, DGAF, being held up is infinitely worse! - but I never think for a second I'm gonna be left with that awful "WHAT. WHAT THE FUCK" drop feeling.

Mission 2 is the game's smoothest-running by far, too. I dunno, not meaning to kick off console war / Scooby Doo mystery, just saying I'm kinda surprised (but not, given aforementioned commentary from those in the know). Sorry to hear at any rate bud. 3;

[BryanM]

Renowned scientists have analysed the megabytes, and concluded it is indeed x3!

foo... time to do some more save state science (SSS)...

Alrighty it's true. First boss goes down in 10 normal attacks, jump attacks are 3x. I guess my impression was just from all the free air attacks he gives you before he starts to move.

It's still crazy how strong they are.

Don't worry about contact damage because there isn't any.

That's one of the things I dislike. What is this, a walking simulator? If you don't have to engage with enemies, then you should at least have to engage with the stage!

all the famous outsourcing horror stories you know and love

Argh. The MBA's really will never understand art isn't like building car mufflers, will they... Such a waste of talent and hard-earned knowledge+skills.

That outsourced Splatterhouse game was one of the greats in outsourcing history. Basically 0% of what the guys footing the bill wanted them to make. Gotta keep a tight leash on that shit if you don't want things to fly off the rails. Wall-Mart Persona 5 at least keeps the same vibe, and that's from, you know, keeping some of the original design guys as overseers tightly in the loop. Nothing comes easy. Nothing is free.

except for maybe the phone games, which I know nothing about.

One was a card battler and added a new girl. That's all I know!

The minimum-assed mobile games are a big ?. (And give the medium and maximum-assed mobile games a bad rep.) If the developer isn't invested in a game, why would the players be either. Tokimeki Only Love getting a promotional anime, only to shut down a month after it finished airing, was a huge lol.

Also a little lol at the guy who made Love Plus hoping to help the population crisis by encouraging guys to talk to girls, only for guys to marry their DS instead. How could you think anything else would happen? Of course that was going to happen!

(And as an apocalypse guy, people getting addicted to AI puppets really draws out the

Spoiler

in me.)