What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[Gamer707b]

Just downloaded Ghosts N Goblins a couple days ago and been playing that. I didn't like the look at first but when I saw it in motion it slowly changed my mind. The gameplay is all there for those wondering.

[blazinglazers69]

Just cleared Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master. Damn. Just a perfect game, honestly. I was a Nintendo kid growing up and never had a Genesis so this was my first time experiencing it. It's a 10/10. Perfect 16 bit presentation with a killer OST. Great varied level design with a steady difficulty curve. It's challenging enough that you'll have stupid deaths hear and there, but approachable enough that it won't overstay it's welcome. I'd compare its difficulty to Super Mario World. It's that super comfy level of being fairly easy, but just challenging enough that you get a good 5-10 hours of fun to beat it/1cc it.

[XoPachi]

I already really liked the GBA trilogy of F-Zero but the more I play them, I like them even more especially now that I'm -way- better at F-Zero than I used to be when I first found these.
They're so intense and handle so well. Also all 3 of these games are surprisingly different.

Max is very much the classic games brought to the then new generation and I honestly think this might be the hardest of them between the SNES games and the GBA trilogy. The CPU racers are ruthless and the drone racers/bombs might as well just be troll and Lenny faces. It's a seriously blisteringly paced game because of how frantic races are. Something is constantly on your ass and you frequently make micro adjustments to your lines to avoid tons of hazards. It's absolutely exhilarating and a blast to get through Master mode. And the music in this game is fantastic. Cloud Carpet, Stark Farm, Crater Land, Bianca City, and Fire Field seriously nail F-Zero energy. Everything sounds white knuckled in it's own way. Like just listen to this. It's great.
Shame the machines are ugly because aside from that minor nitpick, this game is all but perfect. I don't mind them going with a new roster, just wish the machines looked good. Hot Violet and Blue Falcon 2 are the only actually good looking ones with Wind Walker being tolerable.

GP Legend is this strange middle ground of classic and modern F-Zero. It was the only one of the classic style games with X and GX's performance slider. Having beasted on GX for most of my life, I instinctively push the slider to max accel but that option being there makes this game stick out. Being the only other game with a story mode, the Zero challenges, being the first to bring the entire X roster and then some to the classic style, it makes what looks like a generic entry very fresh. It's also surprisingly forgiving. I haven't unlocked Master mode yet, but coming to this from F-Zero Max, Expert is immediately breezy. Super robust package. Gorgeous too. Especially considering this is an anime tie in, a 4Kids anime tie in, it's stunning how simply superb and full featured this game is.

And Climax is kind of just the best swan song I've seen I think. This game has it all and any compromises were more than made up for. It's probably the best looking game on the GBA to me. It makes further use of the two previous game's prerendered machines. GP and Max didn't have many frames of your machine while driving and when turning, they just rotated the sprite. Climax is the only classic title to show the machines more fully getting basically every angle during a race. It makes sliding more legible an action and kind of gives a better emotional response to actually controlling something on screen. Roads have more detail making the tracks look more futuristic. The colors are even better, backgrounds are very pretty, and the UI is very excitable and festive. This game ditched the story mode, but it has the most tracks of the 3 I think on top of a fucking track editor that's actually pretty damn good.

The only things I don't like about GP and Climax are the pilot art, music, and really tame but excessively used announcer. The announcer doesn't fit F-Zero to me compared to X/GX's. I just find him, especially in Climax, to be obnoxious. I wish you could shut him off.

Playing Climax makes me think Nintendo could honestly bring back the series if they pushed the already, for the time, full featured creation aspects dotting the series.
Mario Kart doesn't have anything in the way of X and Climax's track editors, X and GX's machine creator (not really anyway) or even GX's avatar editor. Being able to make and share tracks, make custom machines, create emblems or paintjobs, or maybe even pilots and share some of that online would probably make F-Zero absolutely stand out in a way Nintendo would want it to. It could be Nintendo's TrackMania or Kart Rider but for -the- premier AG racer.

Seeing how popular Metroid has gotten after Dread and surprisingly the Prime remaster makes me think now would be a great opportunity for the series if they were considering it. I don't ever expect it, but I actually think Nintendo or the right third party studio could make an excellent F-Zero refresh.

God, I love this series...
Alright, I'm done.

[To Far Away Times]

I like the GBA F-Zero's, with Climax being my favorite of the bunch, but they do feel pretty limited to me with the 2D scaling, in a way that games like Outrun, Super Hang On, felt a bit more natural. Maybe because I played so much of F-Zero GX, and was expecting more of the vertical track elements that couldn't really be done with the GBA games?

[XoPachi]

I like the GBA F-Zero's, with Climax being my favorite of the bunch, but they do feel pretty limited to me with the 2D scaling, in a way that games like Outrun, Super Hang On, felt a bit more natural. Maybe because I played so much of F-Zero GX, and was expecting more of the vertical track elements that couldn't really be done with the GBA games?

It's definitely been done on the GBA with certain games, but the track philosophies are different between those and F-Zero has always been super anal with performance. Honestly, I would adore a revisit to classic F-Zero that emulates the old style but puts in a few 3D features.

[Marc]

The original will always be my favourite, but I was surprised by just how good the GBA games where when I dug in a few years ago. And yeah, Max on Master is probably harder than the SNES game. I need to go rom hunting for the BA games at some point.

[Squire Grooktook]

Thanks for the info on the GBA F-Zero games, XoPachi. I only got into the series and learned to appreciate it just recently, and I've wondered if the GBA games were worth playing. I really adore the simplicity of F-Zero's controls and gameplay yet the tremendous depth and excitement they offer.

[XoPachi]

Thanks for the info on the GBA F-Zero games, XoPachi. I only got into the series and learned to appreciate it just recently, and I've wondered if the GBA games were worth playing. I really adore the simplicity of F-Zero's controls and gameplay yet the tremendous depth and excitement they offer.

Oh of course! People might not like them as much as I do, but I do genuinely think that they're very worthwhile to play and present familiar and very full packages. I'm always down to shill F-Zero. The games are obviously very different from the 3D entries so if you'd like any driving tips, I have a solid foundation having cleared a chunk of the Master Mode cups so far.

One thing about Climax and GP Legend I neglected to mention is that they bring in control mechanics from X and GX. The side and spin attacks make their classic style debut in GP legend. The spin attack doesn't really have much use but it is easier to attack racers in these last two games and they can actually be -eliminated- in GP and Climax unlike F-Zero 1, 2, and Max. The side attack can be used for last minute adjustments to your line in tight turns.

F-Zero Climax has Boost Fire. F-Zero 1 to Max had the Super Jets which every lap, you got one prolonged boost and could hold up to 3. GP Legend did away with this in favor of the 3D games' boost meter starting on lap 2. Climax takes it further and brings back the Super Jets and has the boost meter. Starting lap 2 when you get boost power, you will also get a Super Jet (which looks like a Premier Ball). While you use your normal boost, hitting boost a second time will use the Super Jet and you get a super charged rainbow Boost Fire that is almost uncontrollably wicked fast. It's great for pinches and puts this jittering effect on the track for a reasonably convincing mach speed effect. Climax is the only classic game that has 3 laps instead of 5 so you only get 2 Super Jets per race. It did away with the performance slider from GP Legend with this and slight machine rebalancing in it's place.

The original will always be my favourite, but I was surprised by just how good the GBA games where when I dug in a few years ago. And yeah, Max on Master is probably harder than the SNES game. I need to go rom hunting for the BA games at some point.

Max is brutal and almost annoying but it really does give you room to get better and it's really satisfying finding these slick ways of gaining that small edge over the game. You find yourself making these daring corner cuts and threading the needle between CPU racers and guard rails through right angled hairpins. Nail biting maneuvers you wouldn't even consider doing if the pressure wasn't on you. It's exciting and you feel cool doing it in those razor's edge moments. Having that intense music playing while it's going on makes for an extremely gripping experience. I've been playing it docked on my Steam Deck with my 8BitDo and it's incredible amounts of fun.

[SuperDeadite]

Cleared Evil Within on Akumu. Such a great game, and Akumu really is the best way to play it. Forces you to really get creative and use everything you've got.

Next up for me is Fatal Frame 4 (Steam version).

[BurlyHeart]

Chipping away at Metal Slug XX's Combat School. Some missions are a little silly but overall I've found them very useful for learning levels and think they're a nice addition. The game as a whole is a brute for sure and is going to take an absolute age to learn. The missions make that more digestible imo. For e.g. one mission they'll require you to no miss a stage or boss, another to collect all POWs, or finish in a certain time. Sometimes giving infinite ammo and other times only the handgun is available. Then you'll get a grade based on your performance. Helpful ways to learn the game in bite sizes. Then there are some questionable ones like shooting beach balls into a mining cart but, perhaps at a stretch, I guess you could make a case they help with some skills (timing shots, memorizing patterns etc.)
I really like this game and the cast of characters with various abilities. I've found it quite responsive (Steam) though from reading reviews it appears another PC could handle the game quite differently. Guess I got lucky.

Still play a bit of KOF XV the odd time. Mostly practicing combos, but I generally have fun when I do play online and have no trouble finding matches around my rookie skill level, despite so many complaining about matchmaking issues.

Stopped Green Beret for a bit after I suddenly found the urge to blast my through Double Dragon. Stage 1 & 2 are routed and hope to start the third tonight.

I've got my Hard Mode time in The Ninja Warriors Once Again down to 2693 seconds. Would like to get below 2500 seconds and (slowly) learning how to one-combo kill many of the enemies. Stage 3 & 4 bosses waste a lot of time if you let them get onto the higher platforms where it's impossible to strike them. Found some solutions to that which should help bring the time down.

Bought Wild Dogs - a Gameboy palette inspired run 'n gun - after watching the trailer and hearing people complain about how difficult it was. Promptly refunded it after an hour and a half. Found it very easy. Felt the levels were overly long and a tad boring, especially the dog stages. There was also some dodgy hitboxes in the shmup and mech sections. The weapons weren't balanced with the spread gun and homing missiles being really strong. Shame. Really wanted to like this.

The Toxic Crusaders demo was a bit of a laugh, but the game definitely needs some work. Still, it was promising for so early in development.

Still taking my time with Cross Code and very much enjoying it. Doing all the side quests and talking to everyone I can. An NPC mentioned I have 50% of the map found, which is nice. Still plenty to do.

[BEAMLORD]

For those playing Steel Assault on PS4/5, there has been an update to the game and it no longer crashes or corrupts save data (I'm playing on PS5).

[BIL]

For those playing Steel Assault on PS4/5, there has been an update to the game and it no longer crashes or corrupts save data (I'm playing on PS5).

Ah, good to hear; as expected of SriK and co.

[BurlyHeart]

Played Teki-Paki for the first time tonight (many thanks @jehu!)

It was a lot of fun but also quite stressful I was just about to die on the final line when I suddenly got a huge chain. I let out a huge roar

Level 52 was best tonight. No idea if it's good or not but it was fun. Will definitely return to this.

[Steven]

Teki-Paki is secretly one of the best Toaplan games. I think most people are like "WTF is this thing?" when they play it for the first time and then don't really go back to it, but once you understand how it works you won't be able to get enough of it. There is a pretty good reason that everyone working at both Toaplan and M2 got addicted to it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Same goes with GetStar. Toaplan is widely known for their shmups, especially round here, but they've made some solid non-shmup games!

There's a mechanically similar game called Emeraldia, but I find it way harder and less approachable because every block takes two "hits" two destroy. Might just be that I suck at it. :V

[Blackfielding]

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Thank you very much for this really interesting post! Very useful!

[Steven]

Poor Get Star, probably the most unappreciated of all of Toaplan's games. It was overlooked in its time and is criticized now, and outside of the developers, who really love it, especially Iwabuchi, who unhesitatingly and enthusiastically calls it his favourite Toaplan game, probably only a very small number of people who REALLY love Toaplan like this game.

Maybe people play crappy Guardian instead and dismiss Get Star because of Guardian, which is completely understandable because Guardian sucks, but Get Star is good and cool for various reasons, like how it's just kind of pleasant to play. Stage 2 boss is admittedly kind of stupid, though.

Get Star is probably the second-rarest of the Toaplan games that actually got released, with only Enma Daiou being more rare, so if you see a PCB for sale, buy it immediately. Same for Enma Daiou, really, but you'll probably never see that one, so don't even bother looking for it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Revisited Turbo Outrun. It's the only one of the arcade games I haven't 1CC'd. Just nabbed the 1CC, but man you really have to go slow on the last few courses because of all the insane turns and traffic blocking you. I have a fair bit of nostalgia from playing this in an arcade as a kid but... gosh, it's definitely the black sheep of the series. Visibility is worse than the Genesis version of Outrunners at times, and dodging traffic feels like playing bumper cars, with the rival and cops sometimes slamming you into obstacles with little way to avoid a crash. There's also an insane amount of debris on the road that causes your steering to slip. It feels like such an incredibly messy, chaotic experience compared to the polished, clean feeling that Outrun, Outrunners, Super Hang-On, Outrun 2, etc, gave. What a shame.

edit: OutRun's Game Gear port's kinda interesting in that the third tracks are all nighttime courses, a relative rarity in the series, and look rather nice, but damn the game is hard.



You have to play MT which gets a significant acceleration boost, and even then, the game is insanely hard. Scrolling is choppy enough and your hitbox large enough that dodging traffic is much harder than it needs to be, and the game is balanced so any kind of crash including a vehicle on vehicle collision (which can and usually drops you to 0 in this) will jeopardize a run. Shame, but I think GP Rider and the Sonic Drift games, which have much smoother scrolling, fared better as far as racing games go.

[XoPachi]

This level is a PAIN in the ass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7a2TcwiAlw

[null1024]

Unnamed SDVX Clone since I want to go to Round 1 to play Sound Voltex, but didn't feel like driving all that way.
I really do like Sound Voltex. The game just feels cool to play, all the knobs and buttons and having the effects change in the song.
Apparently you can play the actual arcade version on PC, but like, there's a subscription service that's like 1628JPY/mo needed for it, bleh.

The game is an absolute PITA on keyboard, so I looked into getting a controller, then looked into doing the nice DIY option [kind of expensive, need to wait for PCBs to ship, need to spend shipping from three different places, fuck], then said fuck it and built a cardboard box controller with some absolute garbage I got for cheap on Amazon as a proof of concept.
Maybe next payday or whatever, I'll look into making it actually nice or putting money into a real controller [right now, the cheap nice option is $130+shipping, a proper SDVX controller is like $180+shipping], but like, it's playable and I had fun making this thing.

I'm definitely worse on the cardboard box vs on a real arcade panel, especially since my buttons are really tiny and shit, apart from the two Sanwa buttons I put in that I remembered I had [those are acting as FX-L and FX-R].
I found the rest of the spare buttons I had for my HitBox, so at some point, I'll replace them.

Also, being able to build arbitrary controllers with a Pi Pico is great, I kind of want to buy some sticks and do this for Libble Rabble [and it'd work for Groove Coaster too -- maybe a few other games if I added extra buttons]. Maybe just go all in on actually using wood too, lol.

[edit]
Playing some more today. Genuinely can feel myself getting better with the trash box. Had to fix a few dumb wiring problems I had, and at some point I really need to replace those buttons, they're too small for the songs that want you to use the opposite side hand to input a note because the hand you'd usually use is fiddling with a knob. I also need bigger knobs, bleh.
Still, I'm having a blast.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Well, I solved a childhood mystery. I was always unable to beat the C64 version of Out Run on my north american C64, at least on all except like the easiest course, and with a lot of luck. You'd regularly lose even with no major crashes.

Turns out it seems like the US release didn't account for timing differences in the timer. I remember as a kid I only ever beat A and B, and that was with an insane amount of effort. You'd lose even with no major crashes. It seems playing it in an emulator at PAL speeds (50 FPS) instead of NTSC (60 FPS) adds a significant amount of time as you cross each checkpoint... it's possible the developer, US Gold (a British developer despite the name) was doing the testing and development on PAL consoles and didn't realize playing it on an NTSC console ended up giving you about 20 fewer seconds on the remaining time as you crossed checkpoints.

Also apparently the port was apparently a product of child labor where some 17 year old had to do it single-handedly? Yikes. The fact that a bug like this might make it in the overseas release makes more sense now.

https://www.eurogamer.net/the-boy-behin ... of-the-80s

[BurlyHeart]

Oh man that really sucks. Feel quite bad for kid BKRoo!

[BurlyHeart]

Been playing quite a bit of Teki Paki and enjoying it. The artwork is class and the music is surprisingly cool too.

I have a question regarding the block drops....can you control where they drop or is that random? Like when they first appear a crane or similar device will move the blocks left or right before dropping them.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Oh well, it's nice being able to have an answer as to why I couldn't even get past the 3rd stage of route E, even with no major crashes. The music in the port at least is great.

can you control where [blocks in Teki Paki] drop or is that random? Like when they first appear a crane or similar device will move the blocks left or right before dropping them.

Great game! It revels in being a bit chaotic though. You can't control the horizontal position of where it drops directly, but you can influence it by delaying letting a piece lock into place or not quick dropping a piece. It's meant to add chaos to the game, much like how piece drop speed seems to actually fluctuate the longer you play, with it suddenly slowing down for several drops before picking up the pace again.

Note that the game only ends when the entire board is filled; if a few columns are at the top, you can deliberately let a piece land with a block sticking up into the drop area and it'll disappear, meaning you don't have to deal with it if the board's getting full!

[BurlyHeart]

Thanks BKRoo. I suspected that was the case but just wanted to check in case I was missing something.

[null1024]

Still at it with Sound Voltex/USC. Rebuilt the controller [it's still made of cardboard, just like, better cardboard so it doesn't flex inward and it's bigger so it doesn't slide around], replaced all the buttons with 30mm Sanwa ones instead of the cheap junk I bought and the two 24mm ones from the HitBox, and boy, my performance went way up. Almost doing as well as in arcade now.
Finally getting the knack of handling trickier stuff with the lasers too, but I'm still like, not good. I'm still genuinely not a fan about the timing window with knob turning, it just doesn't feel right. I want to blame my setup, but it feels similarly not-right on cab. Oh well. I'm doing better despite that, and that's all that matters.

On an unrelated note, I really need to play more Street Fighter 6. I'm having fun with it, I just haven't played it nearly as much as I should.

[XoPachi]

Sound Voltex looks so unbelievably difficult. It's also kind of wild to me how Konami just dominates the genre. People say that don't have any games these days, but MAN do they have that market absolutely cornered.

[null1024]

Gah, the site logged me out when I went to post, so I had to retype all of this.

Sound Voltex isn't that hard to get started with, but it sure looks intimidating, especially after seeing someone do very high-level songs on it.
It's honestly pretty intuitive with the button layout, even if there's a definite practice period needed. I started off with lv 3 songs, got up to 7s in like two weeks [this was all arcade only play, so it was pretty much like 4-5 evenings in that time], and then I got up to clearing some 10s in another week and a half. Since I've built the controller, I can consistently do 10s and some 11s, I'm at a wall with 12s.
The laser notes are really what makes the game hard [and you will absolutely need to move your hands around a lot, doing one bit with the knobs and then pressing the rest of the buttons with another hand], but they're also what makes the game so much fun to play.

Much smoother than my Beatmania IIDX experience so far, where after like four weeks of total play, I'm able to do some lv 3 songs.
I definitely gotta put more time into it, but it's genuinely just kinda hard.

Konami totally competes with itself at this point. Yeah, there are other big arcade rhythm games, but Konami has so much of the market that I'm pretty sure all they're doing is shuffling players away from their older cabs when they put out a new release, rather than bringing in new players.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Gah, the site logged me out when I went to post, so I had to retype all of this.

This has happened to me more times than I'd care to admit with big posts. ;w; I always get in the habit of copying post text before posting or previewing a really lengthy post just in case now!

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Embarrassing amounts of Super Mega Baseball 4. Such a fun game. Almost the perfect Baseball videogame.