Anybody Enjoy Konami's Metamorphic Force?

[undamned]

I picked this up on a whim and have found it to be a pleasant distraction throughout the week. Sure it has some cheese in it, as did many games from the early/mid 90's, but overall, the gameplay is tight, sound is decent and the sprite work is great. So far I've spent the most time with the panther guy. Very fast, especially with dive kick canceling.

I dunno how hard I will push for a no-miss but, so far I can get to the 2nd troll battle (stage 5, I think). I'm playing a USA PCB, which features the ever loving lose health over time mechanic (ala Captain America), but I'm thinking strongly about converting to the JP ROM set, as I hear it uses a health bar that doesn't degrade over time and has some different graphics here and there.

Discuss!
-ud

[Ruldra]

Anybody Enjoy Konami's Metamorphic Force?

I do.

The US version is far too unforgiving. It's possible to beat it but you can only take a few hits at most. The japanese version is way better in that regard.

[Deca]

I always found it interesting that some songs from Metamorphic Forced were arranged into some of the Model DD series songs in Guitar Freaks/Drummania. Can't remember which were which specifically, just that there was some crossover.

[Austin]

I have only played it via MAME. It's awesome though!

[undamned]

Anybody Enjoy Konami's Metamorphic Force?

I do.

Haha, nice! I should have guessed you'd be amidst the fans!

Looks like there are less enemies in the JP ver., too. In the USA ver. there is a group of orange ogres in the area where the statues drop the boulders in stage 1. I'll have to check the rest of your recording for more differences.

Not sure if you care about speed, but you can traverse the screen much more quickly with dive kick (or in the case of the bull, horn dive) cancels. Just head in the direction you want to be, jump and then immediately hit attack. You barely get off the ground, but the dive attack gets you where you want to go much faster than walking and sometimes you get a lucky extra attack hit in there.
-ud

[Zerst]

I've played it a ton in mame and was seriously considering a pcb until i read that the boards are suicidal.

[drauch]

Awesome game! I love the weird gaian theme and the lumberjack who uses a log as a weapon. Too amazing, really.

[maxlords]

I picked it up a while back (US board) and couldn't get into it at all. It looked great, just wasn't for me I suppose. Maybe it's cause of the unfair difficulty of that version? I could just suck too though.

[Battlesmurf]

OO. Let me know if you get to converting it and what you think. If that's the case (easier dif)- I might have to do mine too. I love this game- it's one of the better 4p brawlers and it doesn't get much recognition- but holy crap it's hard (USA). I had to look for this one for months before I found one.

[ShmupSamurai]

Ah yes, me and my brother enjoyed stomping the shit outta the endstage bosses-funny bit.

PRO-TIP: stick to the JAP version. US is just token eating unfair.

[BrianC]

I haven't played it, but it looks interesting. A pity that it seems Konami altered the difficulty for western versions of a good chunk of their arcade beat 'em ups for the worse. Crime Fighters has that silly number count down life meter too. I'm not sure if the TMNT games are easier in the JP version, but I wouldn't be surprised since the US ones have cheap difficulty. I know for sure the JP versions of the Simpsons and X-Men arcade games are easier (good thing the releases on XBLA/PSN have the JP versions).

[Ex-Cyber]

I tried it a while ago, didn't hate it (though I find it hard to hate any 90s beat-em-up that makes an honest attempt to go beyond "cheap Final Fight clone with licensed characters slapped in"), but didn't really get into it.

[Estebang]

Definitely the second-best Konami beat-em-up (the first is Violent Storm). Unlike TMNT and Simpsons, it controls fluidly, is well balanced (in the Japan version), and attacks have actual impact behind them. I'm also partial to the excellent 80's/90's fantasy adventure cartoon aesthetic...can't think of any other Japanese media that displays a likely influence from He-Man, Thundercats, and similar shows.

[undamned]

was seriously considering a pcb until i read that the boards are suicidal.

Lies. Sound board needs caps replace eventually, but that is not a suicide feature, that is just old caps. Mine actually needs a cap replacement as it takes a few minutes for the audio section to warm up and start working! That was the reason it only cost me $25 shipped
-ud

[Specineff]

I saw Undamned play it today, and found myself surprised at how fair it was compared to other Konami beat-em-ups, even if it was the American version. This is what the X-Men arcade game should have been.

There is also an US Crime Fighters release that has a life bar and separate timer, but it's not easier than the JP version. There's a unique difference in the Japanese version: the handgun has unlimited ammo and can be lost if you get hit, while the American version lets you recover it if you lose it, but the bullets will run out. (PC Engine Fan X Mode= OFF)

[undamned]

Just for kicks I looked at the test menu last night. To my dismay, I was playing far from defaults. Out of the 7 or so difficulty settings, I was at like 2. And I had health set for 250 instead of 100. With these settings I can barely get to the 2nd boss consistently. Definitely going to switch to the JP ver.!
-ud

[BrianC]

The JP versions of Simpsions and X-Men sound more balanced than their US counterparts, though. Simpsons has screen clearing bombs and proper scoring and X-Men has the ability to hold and use multiple mutant powers without losing health (and has mutant power power ups on the ground. These changes might only be for the 6p version, though).

[Randorama]

I could loop the unforgiving version (4 times, once). Possibly one of the easiest beat'em ups around.

I liked it a lot as it placed a lot of emphasis on speed, like Violent Storm and Aliens vs. Predator, and permitted some nifty tricks by cancelling moves. A good player will pierce through stages and enemies, giving the feeling that the metamorphosed warriors are WAY more powerful than enemies.

Plus, the cheesy butt-rock and the mullets were ace.

[Specineff]

The JP versions of Simpsions and X-Men sound more balanced than their US counterparts, though. Simpsons has screen clearing bombs and proper scoring and X-Men has the ability to hold and use multiple mutant powers without losing health (and has mutant power power ups on the ground. These changes might only be for the 6p version, though).

That's it. I'm finding and beating the hell out of the %$#@-tards that approved the changes in the American versions. It's like finding out on your 20th anniversary, that your wife was raped one week before your wedding.

(Okay, not really. But you get my point.)

[Udderdude]

Crap like that only added to the reputation of arcade games being "Quarter munchers". Not cool, Konami USA (or whoever was responsible .. I'm going to point fingers until I'm satisfied >_>)

[gum_drops]

Its a rather unique/fun game. Very fast action and some unique graphical effects, ie the ice level with the reflections.

It is a shame about the usa difficulty as it makes going for a 1cc near impossible, since your health depletes automatically every several seconds.

I re-capped my metamorphic board recently, I still need to do violent storm and x-men.

[Randorama]

It is a shame about the usa difficulty as it makes going for a 1cc near impossible, since your health depletes automatically every several seconds.

I beg to differ. I tried both versions yesterday night and found the enemies in the US/EU version to be dumber. I almost finished the JP version on one credit.

Plus, I remember clearing the game by being virtually unscathed, back in my arcade days. I was rather bad at scrolling beat'em ups, barring a few exceptions.

The key issue is that the US/EU version punishes the player really hard if one gets hit. Both energy and metamorphic force go down, and they decrease incrementally on multiple hits.

It feels like someone at Konami thought that the game was too easy, so they had to make it hard in a rather wrong way. They were guilty of this on, like, all of their beat'em ups (say, arcade TMNT...).

[Ed Oscuro]

As the Bad Dudes intro might put it:

Code: Select all

Rampant difficulty related crimes
these days.. Whitehouse not
the exception...

Probably the operators' demand.

[Estebang]

With regards to Japan -> US difficulty changes in the 16-bit era, it seems like they generally thought that action games needed to be made harder (on both arcades and consoles) and RPGs should be easier.