What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[BIL]

Yes, but since I can't find the mirror for the life of me (and there's no hints from the townspeople where the damn thing is, I'm sure it's what gets the healing spell since the order of spells in the menu has a nice big gap in the third spot), farming magic only serves to give me uses of Shield, Jump, Fairy, or Fire presently.

Quite literally the only non-town healing I have is fairies. It sucks. I have the downstab, which is nice to have, I dealt with the second palace whose boss absolutely sucks to hit unless you have the downstab, and went into the third palace which is filled with awful enemies that hit hard even with Shield up and Life 7, but fortunately gives the raft early on. Took a ride across the ocean to a land that's make me convinced this is Nintendo branded kusoge. There's now a bunch of enemies that require the Fire spell to obtain. It costs me a whole magic segment to use each time, eating into my supply steadily with the same damn encounters every few steps.

I want anyone who's whined about the encounter rate in Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Mother, etc, to eat an absolutely giant bag of dicks. Their random encounters are over with much faster, you actually gain from fighting them, you have way more options to deal with fights, and don't drain your resources to the extent these here do. The random encounters here are, in a word, shit. Friends who've said this game would not be particularly interesting or notable if not for the Zelda branding are correct. Its balancing is fundamentally awful; the Life spell frankly shoulda come where Jump was to make the generally janky melee combat more manageable, but even with it, I've got very high stats and unless I cast Shield every fight things are taking off entire life segments. Checking walls in the first game with bombs or the blue candle may be a bit tedious, but at least you can kill off enemies and then do it without constant interruptions from new enemies.

There's no useful tools to flesh out your moveset that don't eat into your main consumable resource, and the encounter rate on the field makes searching for hidden things on tiles an awful, repetitive chore. I've basically lost any enthusiasm for it. I'll beat it, but not with any particular enjoyment or gusto.

There's considerably worse NES titles on the system but that's not saying much, and they're not generally games from well regarded developers.

It's been a few too many years to recall what exactly changed - something something Fire, IIRC? - but I was stunned at how much more likeable the JP levelling balance was. (played via GBA Famicom Mini cart, no loadtimes or disk flipping, cf also Metroid bit of aspect ratio distortion, they redrew everything for GBA dimensions, but the collision seemed absolutely fine)

I seem to recall you can get a nice glass cannon going in no time flat, just piling everything into Attack. (STR? been a while) Eventually I was playing it as a longform single-sessioner, ala MetaFight.

Loss of NES dungeon palettes was a shame, quite shocking actually, and I missed the NES's field battle BGM. Otherwise though, had a great time with it. Only real complaint was yeah, as SuperDeadite mentioned, it's very unbalanced WRT pits. The endgame's are bar-none the biggest threat to a one-life run, after learning the ropes.

Would be interested to hear what you think of it Roo - I admittedly might just have a tolerance for its assholic qualities. Still one of the strongest sidescrolling ARPG attempts at knightly sword/shield combat imo. Particularly like the infighting dynamic and RELENTLESS OTG ATTACK on a certain endgame shitbird!

Hide in the corner glitch? How about I piledrive his ass into the corner instead (｀w´メ)

[Sumez]

I'm not sure if farming for fairy encounters to heal is intended or not to beat this, I'm resorting to what I need to. >w>

I don't remember ever doing that. Though I admit I'd just not considered the possibility.
Feels to me that as long as you're making continuous progress you'll come across plenty of healing opportunities.

I dealt with the second palace whose boss absolutely sucks to hit unless you have the downstab

One of the primary reasons I go for the downstab first

There's considerably worse NES titles on the system but that's not saying much, and they're not generally games from well regarded developers.

I think the devs of Zelda 1 are pretty well regarded

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Currently have upstabs (sneaky hiding spot) and all spells aside from Spell and Thunder. Reflect costs way too much to use considering it's the only thing that hits wizards in the fourth palace, I guess I'm meant to avoid most of them? Burn most of my magic dealing with them? Will figure it out.

It's been a few too many years to recall what exactly changed - something something Fire, IIRC? - but I was stunned at how much more likeable the JP levelling balance was.

Did some reading on this, aside from graphical and music changes (english ver seems to win here aside from not having animated water), the JP ver seems to have several improvements. Namely:

1) You can freely level up with linearly increasing exp costs regardless of upgrade chosen, allowing you to stack attack and go glass cannon, or pile on life levels for durability. More early flexibility it seems. However, if you get a game over by running out of lives, your levels reset to whatever your lowest level of all 3 stats is. So if you have 8 attack, 2 magic and 2 life, getting a gameover resets stats to 2-2-2. Which kinda means not balancing stats is highly risky.

There's apparently an NES hack or two out there that makes some quality of life improvements here, allowing for freeform levelling without forcing you to build balanced due to how costs work, and without the punishing level down on gameover.

2) The eastern island introduces 2 or 3 enemy types in the english version immune to normal sword attacks. You either run from them (usually by bouncing off with downstabs) or you can kill them with Fire. They're common encounters in the fields, annoyingly, making the deserts actually a lot safer in this region. In the JP version, these enemies took normal damage from the sword, meaning Fire was basically a utility/range buff. There might be a few enemies in the JP version immune to all but Fire, but if so you likely don't run into them as random encounters frequently and certainly not before Fire is available like in the english version!

[BIL]

Aha, that all sounds familiar... I don't think I ever used Fire, now you mention it! I was surprised when the NES's sword-proof enemies came up, in the scrolling action thread.

Yeah I think the JP system lends itself to arcadey single-session replays. I'd just pile everything into me blade, with the momentum of early dungeon conquests getting HP+MP up to scratch. After a few DUNGEON 1CCs (), even dying wouldn't sting much. It's really pits you have to watch out for, and it's only quite late that enemies get assholic about bumping you into them.

I found both FC Zeldas surprisingly attractive from "coinop ARPG" standpoint, revisiting a short lifetime after mucking with the NES revs as a kid. I could swear I recall the devs citing some Namco influences, actually... but nothing's coming up, so will just say I could believe it. The first game's dungeon battling reminds me of stuff like Grobda, now.

I like to think of Nazo no Murasamejou as the stealth third member of this set. (great review by M.Knight!) Kind of a linear action take on the first Zelda, with a charming feudal samurai vs ninja aesthetic. As with the Zeldas and Metroid, it's an FDS title, but the GBA Famicom Mini cart is a decent alternative, imo. Got a GBA Player as my stopgap FDS alternative for these games, then kinda left it at that. >_>

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It's really pits you have to watch out for, and it's only quite late that enemies get assholic about bumping you into them.

Yeah, it goes from manageable flame pits, the occasional enemy you have to deal with on them, to having those floating heads that seem to randomly spawn at times only spawning at the apex of your jump over lava. Like, am I supposed to know in advance and Fairy over? and Palace 4 onward also enjoy heavy use of rapidly breaking platforms over lava. Combine that with very stingy resources that require finding an easy respawning enemy to recover at a snail's pace, and it's rough. Unless you expend lives to recharge all health and mana, which seems to be REALLY helpful in fact. O_o

The brief glimpses of greatness and ambitiousness here and there. There's really no other melee oriented NES 2D games with such a focus on staying in an enemy's face and making precision blocking. But enemies like the boss of Palace 3 when he's off his horse tossing knives so fast that he can throw an unblockable up & down string while you try to hit him, preventing you from moving your shield up and down quickly, and will go offscreen where you can't see him or his knife arm any more, man. If I want stick and move melee in an NES game, Punch Out's still my game of choice.

Actually, jumping repeatedly while holding down and mashing attack to do jumping low stabs seems to work absurdly well on darknuts which reduces the whole blocking game to bits. Gah.

The exploration in this still sucks; I hate how frequent the random encounters sometimes are. There's no strategy or items to avoid them temporarily so you can cover more ground without interruptions, and every random encounter is the same each time in a given region so it gets stale fast. I won't say I'll never replay this but it certainly isn't looking likely. The level design feels abysmally bad. Palace 4's boss is literally the easiest at this point; cast Reflect and you win. It's exactly the same as the smaller versions of the wizards. What utter nonsense.

Palace 5 already, I'm realizing this is rather a short game when you know what and where to beeline to!

[BIL]

Palace 5 already, I'm realizing this is rather a short game when you know what and where to beeline to!

Yeah it was kinda shocking to realise tbh, this game being one of the great odysseys of gradeschool buddyville. You can send Link on a cutthroat raid to Great Palace to put his shoe up that lousy imitator's ass in good swashbuckling time. Metroid much the same, invade that shit, neutralise the target and GTFO before the place blows up. I wonder if they were deliberately designed like that... Metroid's timer-based ending hints at it, I suppose. At any rate, single-sessioning these two was my comfort gaming for a few months a few years back.

Speaking of Z2 endgame, minor spoilers (consideration never goes out of style!)

Legends of Buddyville

The FDS rev gives the bosses a bestial roaring SFX. Which extends to Thunderbird, surprising me... I'd always assumed it was some kind of guardian deity / adjudicator. IUDEX BIGBIRD. Then I saw Katsuya Terada's officially-licensed art, which has the thing looking like a malevolent ambush predator.



Neato. Some killer art from that same source... Japanese CERTAIN VICTORY GUIDE, iirc? It's been a while. Love the fatigue on a travelling Link, and the eerie stare on the Shadow. Maybe a point, on the latter! Be like water you hotheaded young fuck >83

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm completely done with this kusoge and ready to move onto shmups again. Sudden invisible enemies in both a new area and a town (thanks game, worst possible way to tell me "don't go here"), having to use the hammer on trees, the awful ghost enemies in the lava area, the giant palace area that takes forever to get to and attempt and then navigate... what a spectacularly awfully balanced game I am very fortunate to have the benefit of the internet to play and just beeline to the end with a map with now that I have zero investment in it. I'm an adult and life's too short to wallow in garbage. ^w^

Everyone who suggests saving all the crystals to suddenly farm lives with aren't wrong, you can use it to Fairy past all the bullshit and take deliberate hits, suiciding your way to where you need to go at the end. Or enjoy having to farm magic from the slimes slooooowly so you can fight the bird things without losing too much in the way of resources?

I like that the game asks me to press start to replay it. It's certainly... optimistic about that happening.

15. Zelda 2 - An improvement over Zelda 1.

AHAHAHAHA- no.

[SuperDeadite]

To be fair, the manual does say that the hamner will cut down trees, but its only needed so late in the game that many first time players will forget about it. And yeah the cross item is just to make sure you dont go to the final area until you will be allowed to enter it.

I think the main issue with the game design is being an FDS game, they were a bit short on rom space as the saving takes up most of half the disk by itself. I feel they tried to spice things up a bit for the USA cart release, but only went so far.

This was the first Zelda I ever played, and I love it. But it's very much a product of it's time.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

To be fair, the manual does say that the hammer will cut down trees, but its only needed so late in the game that many first time players will forget about it.

Huh, so it does. Is there anything to find using the hammer to cut, er, hammer down trees anywhere else rather than towards the end of the game? It's annoying that every random encounter causes all the trees to regrow so it's hard to see what you've cut down and checked.

[SuperDeadite]

Nope. There are P Bags, fairies, and 1ups hidden in various forest tiles, but you only have to walk into them to find them. That one town is the only time you have to cut the tree...

[Sumez]

I'd be curious about what Roo would think about Zelda 1 if he were to ever play it from the same perspective he approached Zelda 2.
But alas, we'll never know

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Sumez, I put up with the awful melee when we got to blue darknuts throwing stuff at me without any obvious windows to retaliate safely without eating a sudden knife, but when the overworld exploration's gonna send me into lengthy fights every few seconds with invisible enemies, and invisible tiles to check everywhere for potential items which makes it uh, extra fun, I'm out. The melee isn't even "stab when there's an opening" so much as stabbing and hoping rng don't block it. I had more success running up to enemies, doing a ducking stab, then running back and doing it again. Removes the blocking element entirely and often worked far better.

I'm not sure what your griping is about, I got to the 6th Palace playing blind before I got utterly sick of the game and used a map to skip the rest of the way to the end and call it technically beaten. I have shmups to play for god's sake.

By comparison, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have "check a nondescript tile here" as quests but there's explicit dialogue to point you where to look, and the random encounters are far less frequent, more rewarding, more interesting and varied, etc.

Also, you're the one who helpfully pointed out the last palace is nothing but red herring dead ends except for one path. So I chose not to waste my time with those in a game I loathe. Thanks for the spoilers! ^_^

[SuperDeadite]

Afaik, there is only one place where you will encounter invisible enemies on a blind run if you arent trying to sequence break the game. And yeah they are just to dicourage you from going into the final area before beating the first 6 palaces.

As for impressions on Zelda, Links Awakening is my fave followed by 2 and then 1. I really didn't care for Link to the Past. And I never bothered with the others lol.

[Sumez]

Sumez, I put up with the awful melee when we got to blue darknuts throwing stuff at me without any obvious windows to retaliate safely without eating a sudden knife, but when the overworld exploration's gonna send me into lengthy fights every few seconds with invisible enemies, and invisible tiles to check everywhere for potential items which makes it uh, extra fun, I'm out. The melee isn't even "stab when there's an opening" so much as stabbing and hoping rng don't block it. I had more success running up to enemies, doing a ducking stab, then running back and doing it again. Removes the blocking element entirely and often worked far better.

I'm not sure what your griping is about, I got to the 6th Palace playing blind before I got utterly sick of the game and used a map to skip the rest of the way to the end and call it technically beaten. I have shmups to play for god's sake.

My "gripe" is that IMO, the first Zelda game can be criticized for just about as many objectively dumb design choices as what you've just been stating if you approach it wearing the same hat, and I know you love that game . So I really do think it's a question of perspective. I don't take offense from you hating on Zelda 2, but I think the juxtaposition is interesting.
I hated Zelda 2 first time I played it as well, but that's almost 35 years ago at this point, which I don't even like to think about. At this point it's definitely among the NES games I really cherish for all the things it does well. Zelda 1 meanwhile never did much for me *shrug*.

And yeahh, the sword/shield melee dueling looks like it could be fun at first, but I don't really consider it much of a part of the game. I'm pretty sure the last few times I did a full run of a game, I didn't practice that approach to combat even once. Run ahead, skip unnecessary combat, and downstab the fuck out of shit.

Afaik, there is only one place where you will encounter invisible enemies on a blind run if you arent trying to sequence break the game. And yeah they are just to dicourage you from going into the final area before beating the first 6 palaces.

Yeah this is my experience as well - I was confused by that one.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

My "gripe" is that IMO, the first Zelda game can be criticized for just about as many objectively dumb design choices as what you've just been stating if you approach it wearing the same hat

I explained extensively before why the first Zelda has none of these issues and you can obtain a huge number of resources with a bit of exploration, even not counting outright sequence breaking of the dungeons. The only thing you could apply this criticism to potentially is the second quest which is intended as more of a bonus and its obtuseness can be forgiven.

And yeahh, the sword/shield melee dueling looks like it could be fun at first, but I don't really consider it much of a part of the game. I'm pretty sure the last few times I did a full run of a game, I didn't practice that approach to combat even once. Run ahead, skip unnecessary combat, and downstab the fuck out of shit.

Seeing you simp for Zelda 2 while saying this with a straight face, especially given the "melee with a blocking emphasis" is one of the few interesting things it's known for, is really disheartening.

[Air Master Burst]

Zelda 1 and 2 both kinda suck; influential as the first one was, that franchise didn't get good until the 3rd one. Ys is the definitive 80s arpg, with a shoutout to Golvellius.

I'd play the Neutopia games again before suffering through Zelda 1 again in this day and age.

[Immryr]

Zelda 3 is a very polished game, but it completely lacks the exploration of both Zelda 1 and 2. I prefer both of the NES games, personally.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Zelda 3 is a very polished game, but it completely lacks the exploration of both Zelda 1 and 2. I prefer both of the NES games, personally.

I remembered Zelda 2 as having a fair bit of exploration and it turns out there isn't actually much, at least not on the overworld. It's actually fairly small and obviously gated off into small sections by the items in each palace (aside from the second palace, where the gating happens from the note from Bagu). Finding hidden things on the world map is quite tedious though, as you've got to methodically walk over every single tile which gets you into a lot of fights. There's a few spots where stuff is very obviously hidden, others not so much.

The palaces themselves are more interesting to explore (until you get sick of the combat system and enemy placement...), even if the game no longer gives you an ingame map for convenience's sake.

Speaking of melee oriented games, I've beaten Mike Tyson's Punch Out before but never played the rebranded game after his license expired (or was it the other way around?). Are there any noteworthy changes? I also need to get through Super Punch Out, I think I made it about halfway before I moved onto something else (tough game that, it's more complex than Punch Out and has several fights on par with Mike Tyson and Super Macho Man in difficulty!).

[XoPachi]

I'm a decent ways into Echoes. At the 5th of what I assume are 8+ temples. (Birthday, so I took off and just binged it.)

It's certainly different. When you're exploring and traversing, it's a lot of fun usually. But combat is...BOY, I can't stand it. I avoid enemies as much as I can.
And they still insist on really bad menu systems. These are the only two serious gripes but they're those kind of issues that permeate the entire game.

The new gimmick won't get you killed. You're actually *more* likely to die in sword fighter form. But when you aren't using sword fighting, simple engagements take sooooo loooooong. And you are constantly bringing up that horrible TOTK arrow fusion menu they stuck with for Echo switching.
It's so weird how the one thing Zelda was consistently criticized for 20 years ago, Nintendo has just gone completely backwards on lately. Especially after huge leaps to address it in Worlds, the 3DS remakes, and Skyward Sword.
Once you get certain versatile Echoes, this issue is less of a problem for exploring and puzzling, but it seems to only get worse for combat as new enemies are thrown in. I'd like to say "well maybe combat isn't the focus", but enemies are EVERYWHERE. They're uniquely aggressive for Zelda and they're oddly tanky as shit this time with a lot of them guarding goodies in the overworld more often than any top down entry.

Where Tears and Wild had like NO enemy variation, this game seems to have every goddamn baddie in the Zelda lineage and then some. Which in -any- other Zelda would be great. But here, it just means more things to flip through in the menus. @-@

Fighting isn't more difficult or interesting. It's just very very arduous and surprisingly uninvolved for something that's supposed to be freeform. There's some cool and funny things you can do, but if you're just trying to move on, you're gonna be there for a minute regardless of your approach. It's a layered, compounded issue I could go on about honestly but I don't feel like getting more into it than I have for now.

I'm still eager to finish it though. I think I'll still enjoy it beyond it's grievous flaws by the end.

[BrianC]

Speaking of melee oriented games, I've beaten Mike Tyson's Punch Out before but never played the rebranded game after his license expired (or was it the other way around?). Are there any noteworthy changes?

The NES re-release with Mr. Dream? It's pretty much the same game with a reskin to replace Tyson. Nothing noteworthy.

[Sumez]

Seeing you simp for Zelda 2 while saying this with a straight face, especially given the "melee with a blocking emphasis" is one of the few interesting things it's known for, is really disheartening.

Melee shield/sword combat is absolutely not what makes Zelda 2 interesting, no.

[BIL]

This is reawakening my commando elf aesthetic. GREAVES ARE FOR PUSSIES1 I wouldn't say Zelda II emphasises blocking more than Revenge of Shinobi or Actraiser II do, tbh. These games merely temper the sidescroller binary a little. Typically when buddy attacks, you evade or counterattack. Better yet, whack him during startup from just inside his reach. No means of holding your ground in front of the enemy, let alone advancing tactically into their attack.

Offense is still the best defense, enemies just don't have total carte blanche to dictate your position. The mainstream Zelda fandom has this thing about JP Shadow being a demon swordsman that Nintendo nerfed for the NES. I've never been able to determine if it's true or just some twisted relic of buddyville. They shoulda just ran up on the fucker, in any case. This ain't Doppelganger from Castlevania III. >__>

Have it writ upon thy meagre grave: Felled by BIG JEFFREY, sexiest of all kings (｀w´メ)

Actually, jumping repeatedly while holding down and mashing attack to do jumping low stabs seems to work absurdly well on darknuts which reduces the whole blocking game to bits. Gah.

Yep! OTG stacks armoured corpses. They laughed at my hotpants, I laugh at their graves. Even the Great Palace's hyper-hopping Fokker knights can be fought head-on. Shield is mostly for warding projectiles while closing distance, and the odd poke while jockeying for a launchpad. In terms of OTG utility, Zelda II isn't that unlike Castlevania/Ninja Gaiden, just a bit heavier-handling and geared for single combat.

EDIT: Yooo! Our esteemed ninja colleague BUBUFUBU with the handy Fokker demo. I was wondering if I was talking out me arse m8, it's been five years since I was leaving corpse after corpse in my wake while blasting Venom and Frost.

...this is bringing poignant memories of a brief, doomed tryst with Athena's Sword Master, their admittedly much cleaned-up sequel to Dragon Unit. That Athena zenkai boost! cf Striker Gunner STG turning into cutting-edge killer DAIYOHHH.

Another neat combat system inspired by Dark Souls, which just like Zelda II's, you don't want to get overly tangled in. But where Zelda II's air physics and tenacious foes give its Bakuretsu Usagi no Ken a compelling weight, Sword Bro is just kind of an asshole, merrily dunking on all who'd challenge him from truly sneering heights. Presentation is absolute balls-out bravura though, worth a demo.

[Air Master Burst]

Speaking of melee oriented games, I've beaten Mike Tyson's Punch Out before but never played the rebranded game after his license expired (or was it the other way around?). Are there any noteworthy changes? I also need to get through Super Punch Out, I think I made it about halfway before I moved onto something else (tough game that, it's more complex than Punch Out and has several fights on par with Mike Tyson and Super Macho Man in difficulty!).

I actually prefer Super Punch-Out to the original but replacing bankable stars with comboing to build super meter changes the feel a ton. You can get real filthy once you get good at SPO and absolutely body opponents in ways you can't in the original Punch-Out, but the skill ceiling is much higher.

I will say I prefer the 3-round structure of the original, and timing out in SPO is pretty lame (although rarely an issue once you get any level of skill), but basically everything else is superior in SPO.

[To Far Away Times]

I do love the Punch Out games. Even the Wii one. Props to anyone who can beat Mike Tyson.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I actually prefer Super Punch-Out to the original but replacing bankable stars with comboing to build super meter changes the feel a ton. You can get real filthy once you get good at SPO and absolutely body opponents in ways you can't in the original Punch-Out, but the skill ceiling is much higher.

I also like that ducking is a single tap rather than a double tap; you don't even need the duck in the NES version as it's strictly inferior to dodging then pressing up to quickly return to center. The only thing I haven't quite gotten a handle on with the SNES one is when to use standard super punches vs when to use the rapid ones. My guy tells me that outside of memorizing specific instances to use them, the rapid ones aren't as good.

I also don't know if I quite get the power up system: when your super meter is full, keeping it at full changes the colour of your portrait until you hit a power up mode that will automatically trigger when ready. Or is changing the options to manual setting better?

Mike Tyson is really tough. I was trying to 1CC the game and Mike Tyson makes it way, way harder than any other fight due to how you have to dodge instant ko attacks for a minute and a half perfectly. You lose a match once you get 4 kos total or get tko'd, gameover if you lose a total of 3 times, 1 time vs Mike Tyson, you get no rematches on him. I remember my uncle had a copy of the game with passwords written in the manual and there was one for Mike Tyson in there, I eventually learned to beat him using the password, but man, it's brutal. I don't think I ever 1CC'd the game, i.e. going through start to finish and beating Mike Tyson, as you only get one shot at Mike Tyson, no rematches.

Turns out the password for that, and the secret "Another World Circuit" seem to have been exclusively given out by Nintendo Power and aren't in the game itself anywhere (likely because the Mike Tyson one was for debugging/development). There is a password at the end of the game that at least starts you as Super Macho Man who's significantly more manageable than Mike Tyson is (his spin punches have the same timing as Sandman's flash punches, more telegraphing but lasts much longer).

[Air Master Burst]

also don't know if I quite get the power up system: when your super meter is full, keeping it at full changes the colour of your portrait until you hit a power up mode that will automatically trigger when ready. Or is changing the options to manual setting better?

Definitely switch to manual! That lets you trigger it with a button press instead of automatically on the next punch, which can get awkward at times. Filling the super meter lets you use the super punches, and triggering power up mode will increase both speed and power of all punches.

My guy tells me that outside of memorizing specific instances to use them, the rapid ones aren't as good.

You can safely ignore their existence unless you're trying for speed KOs. They're super useful for them in a few instances, but otherwise you nailed it.

[BrianC]

I actually prefer Super Punch-Out to the original but replacing bankable stars with comboing to build super meter changes the feel a ton. You can get real filthy once you get good at SPO and absolutely body opponents in ways you can't in the original Punch-Out, but the skill ceiling is much higher.

The meter was actually used in the AC Punch Outs first, though SNES Super Punch Out introduced the rapid punches. Ducking was introduced in AC Super Punchout and works by pulling up on the joystick. Like the SNES Super Punch Out, it's necessary for dodging certain attacks.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

snip

Thanks for this! I'll try switching to manual from here on.

[Jack Emerson]

I saw that Rez is 70% off on steam, which put it at a price reasonable for me. I picked it up.

Rez is not a shmup according to forum rules, but it is very shmup aligned. If you are looking for a license, this may be an offering.

[Air Master Burst]

The meter was actually used in the AC Punch Outs first,

I've never played the arcade Punch-Out games, are they worth it? I admit to being more interested in Arm Wrestling than AC Punch Out, but that's mostly for character variety.