What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[BIL]

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!

I always effortpost in Notepad++, no matter the site. Internet ist krieg, mistakes can be fatal

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.

I will wholeheartedly call GNGR Fujiwara's masterpiece, the culmination of a lifetime's honed expertise. A minor miracle, getting a scrolling action game of this uncompromising calibre from a major label.

Doubly so, that it works as both a single-sitting arcade gauntlet, and a Dark Souls-esque Hard Action RPG to unravel at uneasy leisure.

Triply so, that both halves not only co-exist, but mutually enhance. Ferreting out each stage's secrets for the true end is maddeningly hard without a studied oldschool approach, mastering the quirks of each; this isn't a Kaizo rote memo gagfest, nor is it so generous for brute force to cut it. But each conquered stage grants a hearty, morale-boosting upgrade; opening up new techniques and strategies, while illuminating a potential 2ALL single-session route, for those who want it.

I don't think I'll bother with that until way later on, but I put a lot of God Hard gems on that bucket list. Just reaching the true end was an odyssey, as-is. And as you say, while I didn't expect better than mediocre looks, it's a far more attractive game in-person than stills might suggest. Bursting with the same wicked verdance as Dai, Chou, and Blazon. Fujiwara and co took the recapturing of Makaimura's personality every bit as seriously as its pinpoint-precise handling; GNGR legitimately plays even tighter than the already airlock-tight 2D games, imo. Looks and handles like the Naomi Makaimura that never was.

Vacation Snaps

TLDR recommended

[null1024]

After mentioning how hard Beatmania IIDX was, well, now I'm breaking barriers down in it, finally clearing 3s with relative ease. Slow going, but I'm getting places. Changed my hand position, which definitely helped. Probably will need to change it again as I get better, but right now, what I have works.
Having a fair bit of fun even still. There's one guy who is on the machine constantly and I'm genuinely too impatient to stand behind and wait like I should, so I ended up playing a bunch of Sound Voltex instead. I'm now clearing 11s with ease on cab, and a lot of 12s now, even if I'm failing out on a few [often for dumb reasons, the penalty for twisting the knob too early/late is brutal, your rate percentage drops like a rock and trying to get back onto the laser path is tricky with all the other stuff going on].
Overall, it feels great. Definite, tangible progress. I'm very glad that my home setup is clearly helping too.

I really wish I had nice knobs at home like in the arcade, but they're expensive. The little bit of inertia on the arcade knobs is great too, lets me take my hand off for a moment. Eventually, I'll look into something better than the dirt-cheap ones I have installed on my home controller.

I also set up my SDVX controller to theoretically be able to play Beatmania IIDX, using the two extra buttons that the controller's firmware supports. The top row is basically extra button, start, extra button, and it's centered above the four SDVX main buttons, but like, the button spacing is a tad too far to be comfortable [it IS an SDVX controller first and foremost, and my home controller is a little scrunched compared to an arcade panel], and the knobs don't quite work for scratches. It could work -- I haven't put it through its paces for this purpose.
I do need to be able to set up some way to play a IIDX clone at home -- I saw something about Beatoraja being a good way to play, so I guess I'll set that up. Like with SDVX, there's a subscription service PC port for IIDX.

I probably should go play something on the NESiCA cabinets instead of just playing rhythm games when I'm at R1.
There was a neat shoot-em-up by G.rev installed that I didn't get the name of, where you could pick up various weapons. Only played it twice, and didn't play it this time, but it was fun.

I always effortpost in Notepad++, no matter the site. Internet ist krieg, mistakes can be fatal

Honestly, I should have learned that lesson years ago, but I too often forget.

[XoPachi]

Playing Psycho Dream.

It's...ok. It's kind of annoying but it's not as shitty as some other obscure side scrollers on the console. It's worth playing. I like the weird music.

[Mortificator]

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

I've had to log in to this site more times this year than I have every prior year combined. I was wondering if it was just me / my browser or what.

[Lander]

Rather uncharacteristically I've been trialing the """"""Bullet Heaven"""""" genre by way of the Halls of Torment demo: The latest in a rapidly-growing line of Vampire Survivors-alikes riding the current trend wave. And as I understand it, one of the few imitators that manages to exceed its source material.

Seems solid. The Diablo 2 stylings are well executed, core gameplay has a modicum of skill to it on top of build strategy stuff, and if nothing else it's compulsive enough to eat time like a motherfucker.
The demo's very generous as well - multiple stages, characters, progression stuff, easily tens of hours in there if you're the type to equate game time to cash value.
Canny move on the developer's part I daresay, since the pitch is only going to get better as it progresses through early access and adds more to the main game.

I still don't think the genre name is particularly earned, but it's interesting to see facets of shmup skill like tap-dodging and projectile herding pop up occasionally.

[Sumez]

Kaze and the Wild Masks is surprisingly great!
It doesn't look like much (graphics are great, but the design looks bland), but I've heard enough recommendations of it that I thought it deserved a try, and it really lives up to the hype and then some. Easily the best DKC-like since Tropical Freeze. It has a fantastic sense of flow throughout the stages that makes every single obstacle enjoyable in a way The Impossible Lair wishes it could have done on at least one stage.

It takes a while to get going as the first few stages are so easy that it feels like you're just pushing through samey environments with no attention to the individual aspects, as if some old Amiga platformer. But after a while it really switches gear and finds a focus, mostly thanks to how each stage is fully dedicated to mostly just one tested and tried platformer gimmick, such as the zipwire, raising lava, springs, spikes, lamps, etc. Even the "mine cart" stages manage to be amazingly good.
Though it never manages to become difficult, and offers infinite lives, it makes up for that with a perfect set of challenges available on every stage - you need 100 of the little collectibles which mostly just demand an exact route through the stage and not taking too many hits, the four "kong letters" which usually make out small additional challenges, as well as two hidden bonus stages. These are usually very easy to obtain, and if you don't catch them the first run you'll get it the next.

Aside from these, the game also recognizes beating a stage without taking a single hit, and on a replay you can enter a time attack mode which removes most collectibles on the stage. The time attack usually isn't tight in a timing sense, since you can screw up many jumps and still make a gold medal with 5-10 extra seconds on the clock, but simply beating a stage in a single attempt, in one continuous flow that doesn't waste time, is exactly what makes the game rise from a typical platformer to a really good one. I ended up doing all of the challenges on each stage before moving on to the next, which while it never felt particularly difficult, required me to stay long enough with each stage to become familiar enough with it that it felt like I had mastered it. Extremely satisfying design for this sort of game.
If you like classic linear platformers without any sort of metroidvania, exploration, or other rpg'ish gimmicks, Kaze is definitely a massive recommendation.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Rad Racer is a cool game. Traffic feels aggressive in the later stages but bumping a car from behind allows you to speed it up, and then you can drive along behind it where it blocks other cars from appearing in the lane. Very different from OutRun, 10/10 game.

Then there's the sequel. It's always been a bit of a bugbear for me in that I've wanted to beat it, but man is it bad. Inertia added to movement, acceleration and handling are far worse, there's a stupid instant start mechanic where you have to charge 5 seconds at the start of every race or after a crash, traffic is outright brutal with the worse handling, engine noises don't play any more if music is playing, engine noise is way worse sounding than the first game, time limits are far more demanding...

I have a hard time giving up on games, but I think I'm about done with Rad Racer 2. I did manage to beat the last stage eventually by using the level select and retry cheat, but I'm like at a 10-20% success rate as the dodges required are brutally unforgiving. We're talking really mean memorizer bullshit in the last few stages where you get like 3 waves of super slow cars in a row, 3 red rival cars that are insanely hard to pass, then more super slow cars. I'd rather move on and play something fun than grind out the 1CC I think.

edit: ugh, got the 1CC in Rad Racer 2. I decided not to give up completely and stick to 3 attempts a day. Damn it's hard though.

[Marc]

So I got the opportunity so actually get a bunch of us together, which is a rarity these days, and a bud brought round the new AEW wrestling game. All I can say is, if you've been waiting for a successor to the N64 games.... you've found it. Bear in mind there was copious amounts of beer involved, and the usual 4-player chaos, but the controls layout is identical, the mechanics are as identical as my addled brain remembers, and the moveset is the same - strike/grapple reversals based purely on timing, with the soft/hard strike/grapple attacks. Maybe it doesn't have quite the same weight as the thunderous N64 games, but it's not far out. You should try this out ASAP.

Thought Luigi's Mansion might be getting a touch one-track by now, but the whole thing is just so wonderfully put together that I'm still enjoying every minute. There are some lovely puzzles, the ghost catching is the greatest Ghostbusters game never written, and the characterisation and presentation is outstanding. This is what I imagined when I heard about interactive cartoons, not tripe like Dragon's Lair.

Also lots of Hot Wheels Unleasged. Brilliant arcade racing with great drift mechanics and fun course design. Another thumbs up.

[null1024]

I got a chance to try out Museca over at Round 1, a game that Konami killed support for quite quickly... and like, because of that, I can't just use my eAmusement card and skip all the tutorial nonsense ASAP, bleh. It is extremely maddening seeing the IC reader right there, and not being able to do anything with it.
It's a rhythm game with five spinny button panels and a foot pedal. It's mechanically sound enough [the foot pedal feels like a mistake], but I genuinely have no idea what's going on with all this stuff getting in the way of you actually playing the game, and I really didn't feel like going back for another credit either.

I was wondering why it was sitting off in the corner instead of with the rest of the rhythm games, but like, it takes forever to get into the game itself because it's trying to show a tutorial, it's trying to explain a bunch of features that don't matter because no eAmusement support anymore, etc, etc. Sux. I'm assuming there isn't some event mode switch in the settings to get rid of all that garbage either. Very lame.

[blackoak]

Kaze and the Wild Masks is surprisingly great!
It doesn't look like much (graphics are great, but the design looks bland), but I've heard enough recommendations of it that I thought it deserved a try, and it really lives up to the hype and then some. Easily the best DKC-like since Tropical Freeze. It has a fantastic sense of flow throughout the stages that makes every single obstacle enjoyable in a way The Impossible Lair wishes it could have done on at least one stage.

Nice, I've had this on the wishlist forever, but this endorsement is just what I needed to pull the trigger. Going to check it out today!

[guigui]

Also lots of Hot Wheels Unleasged. Brilliant arcade racing with great drift mechanics and fun course design. Another thumbs up.

Can you develop a little on this one ? Describe drift mechanics more, see how well it goes along with, say, Sonic Racing Transformed ?

[Sumez]

Nice, I've had this on the wishlist forever, but this endorsement is just what I needed to pull the trigger. Going to check it out today!

Hope I didn't talk it up too much, seems some people in here didn't like it, but I can't really see what's not to like about it. I guess if you don't go for every time trial + no-hit challenge you're definitely gonna miss out on its strengths. It's a little regrettable that the game doesn't have any recognition of getting them all, but it's satisfying regardless.

It also feels like it's lacking maybe that "final" set of stages to thematically lead up to the final boss fight (which is still pretty cool as it is), and offering a higher challenge. You can tell that the developers definitely have the skill to create really fun tough challenges, it's just that the ones in the game as it is have a lot of leeway for mistakes.

[Stevens]

For those of you that like to fight in tight spaces:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1867 ... of_Choice/

[Lemnear]

Pandemonium (PS1)(PAL)
Tombi! (PS1)(PAL)
Ridge Racer Type-4 (PS1)(NTSC)
Bomberman World (PS1)(PAL)
Kula World (PS1)(PAL)
Tekken 3 (PS1)(PAL) 60fps
Diablo (PS1)(PAL)(Co-op)

[XoPachi]

Kaze and the Wild Masks is surprisingly great!
It doesn't look like much (graphics are great, but the design looks bland), but I've heard enough recommendations of it that I thought it deserved a try, and it really lives up to the hype and then some. Easily the best DKC-like since Tropical Freeze. It has a fantastic sense of flow throughout the stages that makes every single obstacle enjoyable in a way The Impossible Lair wishes it could have done on at least one stage.

Nice, I've had this on the wishlist forever, but this endorsement is just what I needed to pull the trigger. Going to check it out today!

Sometimes I felt like the only one who ever wanted to give the game a try in my circles. It gets dismissed a lot despite the reputation from people who play it.
not like they're unsuccessful enemies. My only issue with it at all is the designs of the enemies. Fighting vegetables is just....kind of overly juvenile to me. But it's whatever. They're at least visually contextualized excellently. You can be sure you tell each one apart, immediately understand their purpose, and gimmick in a given level so it's not like they're unsuccessful enemies.

Not getting the Impossible Lair slander though. I thought that game was equally as fantastic with a nice focus on things setting it apart from anything in that niche of platformer. I've seen a lot of hate for that game and I simply don't see it.

[Sumez]

Impossible Lair just didn't feel fun to play to me. I just wanted to get done with every stage I played, where in Kaze I wanted to return to them until I was able to do a flawless run through them.
I liked the overworld of Impossible Lair, but the stages were clumsy. I really liked the original Yooka-Laylee, too.

[drauch]

Diablo (PS1)(PAL)(Co-op)

Interesting, lol. Nostalgia I assume for this version?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

If we're on the subject of console dungeon crawlers, highly recommend the two "Champions of Norrath" games on PS2. They're Everquest spinoffs, but play like realtime action games, with a huge emphasis on blocking which negates all damage outside of piercing attacks. It's not a game where you trade blows and tank hits, as you generally die in 2-4 hits depending on what you're facing! Block + swap to ranged weapons causes you to do a backstep or jump with blocking frames, you can cancel attack lag with blocking, there's a fairly large set of classes and weapons (for a console dungeon crawler), a decent mix of skills in the trees to experiment with, 4 player multiplayer... really good stuff.

There's also a fair number of bugs usually related to equipment (items that raise +Health or +Mana do nothing, you can equip + Stamina or +Intelligence to raise those maximums and their associated stat, casting an elemental buff when your weapon already has a permanent form of that buff causes it to disappear) that are generally avoidable if you know about them, so well worth playing anyways.

[BIL]

So I got the opportunity so actually get a bunch of us together, which is a rarity these days, and a bud brought round the new AEW wrestling game. All I can say is, if you've been waiting for a successor to the N64 games.... you've found it. Bear in mind there was copious amounts of beer involved, and the usual 4-player chaos, but the controls layout is identical, the mechanics are as identical as my addled brain remembers, and the moveset is the same - strike/grapple reversals based purely on timing, with the soft/hard strike/grapple attacks. Maybe it doesn't have quite the same weight as the thunderous N64 games, but it's not far out. You should try this out ASAP.

Oh my God. Thanks for the heads-up! I enjoyed the simpler, somewhat fighter-influenced Def Jam and Kinnikuman games AKI did in the subsequent gen, but it broke my heart waiting for a proper successor to VPW2 and No Mercy. I see AKI's illustrious GETA-san was onboard as advisor, it sounds like his presence is apparent.

For those unfamiliar, those N64 games are masterpieces of party/hardcore crossover. A guaranteed pickup n' play riot in 4P Battle Royale - the explosive power, crushing impacts and lovingly handmade animations (*thrusts crotch furiously at enemy for massive meter*) haven't aged a day - but the classically timing-based engine (mashing = MUDADA, you'll only die tired) and its myriad counters, reversals, and counter-reversals ensures hellacious sagas between seasoned veterans! Shocking turnarounds and cunning ruses abound, be like JoJo Part 2 The Wrasslin. Legit killer games anyone with an appreciation for arcadey intensity should try out, entirely irrespective of interest in the ol' PURORESU.

[XoPachi]

I ignored Def Jam, but I never would have guessed that was by the devs who did Legends vs New Generation. My sister and I played that game all the damn time. The show was awful, but that game was surprisingly pretty good.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Did a run through Castle of the Winds. First time in many years. Still love it.

[Sima Tuna]

GG and Hail King Buttman.

[Lander]

Blast from the past, I used to play that on a friend-of-the-family's PC when I was a wee lad
Never did grasp any of the RPG nuance. Wander, find a few spells, die, come back again to do the same another day. Simple times.

[Steamflogger Boss]

GG and Hail King Buttman.

Bidets for all in his kingdom, long may he reign.

Blast from the past, I used to play that on a friend-of-the-family's PC when I was a wee lad
Never did grasp any of the RPG nuance. Wander, find a few spells, die, come back again to do the same another day. Simple times.

Yeah it was one of the first games I can remember playing. The first part was made freeware so it was one some disc with a bunch of games that we had.

I find the game to be pretty fun but I'm not a rogue dungeon crawler expert.

Spoiler

There are a few near useless spells but many I did find key uses for. Some I imagine would be even more useful on harder settings. Very key items to have imo are Boots of Levitation and enchanted packs of holding. You really want to have a fast speed so you can run away from enemies successfully as well. The packs help with that so you aren't as burdened. The final boss is crazy. Surrounded by a pack of the strongest enemies in the game and he will teleport away while fully healing after taking enough damage if you let him. I found the best way around this was casting Slow on him a bunch.

[Steven]

After a few years of stalling, I finally bought the new HD version of Kara no Shoujo and its two sequels, Kara no Shoujo and Kara no Shoujo. Yes, modern physical PC games in 2023 with no DRM or Steam bullshit do still exist. Not my first time with Kara no Shoujo (the first one, not the second one or the third one), but it is my first time in Japanese. I somewhat dread playing it because

1. I vividly remember all of the miserable suffering even though it's been about 10 years since I last played it
2. it's unbelievably annoying to get the true ending, which I never managed to do somehow, even with a guide
3. the H scenes are so bad that the game would be better without them. Fortunately, most of them can be avoided entirely
4. holy shit this game uses a lot of old-ass kanji that nobody uses anymore, which makes reading the text a pain. This is typical for Innocent Grey, of course, and given the 1956 setting, I guess I can somewhat forgive them.

It's (mostly) such a good game otherwise, but I REALLY wish Innocent Grey would start using higher resolutions because Sugina Miki is easily one of the best artists in the entire game industry at this point, which is probably why Innocent Grey does art exhibitions, and his art deserves it. Oh well. Innocent Grey finally released a game that runs in 1920x1080 for the first time this year, so hopefully they'll bother to use even higher resolutions eventually... not that I have a display that goes any higher than that.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Also been playing a fair bit of Alien Crush lately. I broke 100 million today. The game is actually beatable (you have to get 999 million). Though you'd really want to use an emulator as that would be a lot nicer than leaving the console on for as long as it would take. My guess for it is around 40 hours playing somewhat conservatively.

[null1024]

Been playing a bunch of Aqua Rush [Arcade]. I don't think this got ported anywhere?
It's a line-clearing game where the main mechanic is that you can grow the size of the piece, changing its shape, and you go through layers of blocks above you.
I'm having a blast with it. A bit less cerebral than it seems at first glance, but like, who cares about that, it becomes some seriously twitchy fun. In a way, it somewhat reminds me of Mr. Driller, but it's still a very different sort of game.

I cleared the 800m and 1000m courses handily enough [well, the final stage of the intermediate course stymied me for like 2 hours the first day despite nothing else requiring more than one try, then I beat it like third try the day after]. The 1200m course is really fucking me up, I'm barely able to make it halfway through, and I have a long way to go given the clear times listed on the default score list. I'm definitely floundering too, as a lot of the time, I'm just waiting for a piece almost lock and then I mash the buttons to have it fill the space above it -- very lame, but sometimes it's all you can do with how little space you have.

Looking at speedruns is helping, very different piece structure early on versus what I was doing so it's much faster, later stages look more like what I was going for but like, just done better.
https://www.speedrun.com/aqua_rush/runs/zp05q38m
Also I'm pretty sure this is still not even like super high-quality play given the score list, but eh, it's better than what I was doing.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Aqua Rush is amazing. One of my fave PCBs, a local got me into it and I snagged one of my own for alarmingly cheap given how fun it is. Have you tried the endless course yet? Hold all three buttons when you hit Start, and it'll appear as a third mode under 1 Player and 2 Player.

The 1200m course is really fucking me up, I'm barely able to make it halfway through, and I have a long way to go given the clear times listed on the default score list.

The 1200 m Hard course is super hard. It and the endless mode add a unique single width piece that randomly appears where all three of the buttons extend it, so if you're mashing in anticipation of filling a hole with a standard piece and suddenly you've got a super long skinny piece, yeah, that's bad. I've made it to stage 9 or 10 of Hard, but that's with a lot of practice, and the locals who are super into other puzzle games like TGM haven't managed to 1CC Hard either. It's quite a bit more daunting than Normal is; autofire to rapidly mash and extend pieces might help.

One thing to note is that the board will actually drop as a piece is floating up so you have to be quick. The only way to pause the board dropping is to get a line clear. That causes the board to halt as you're positioning the next piece, so to avoid the board dropping rapidly you have to pretty much be getting a line clear with every piece you place, if not at least every second piece.

[null1024]

Aqua Rush is amazing. One of my fave PCBs, a local got me into it and I snagged one of my own for alarmingly cheap given how fun it is. Have you tried the endless course yet? Hold all three buttons when you hit Start, and it'll appear as a third mode under 1 Player and 2 Player.

The 1200m course is really fucking me up, I'm barely able to make it halfway through, and I have a long way to go given the clear times listed on the default score list.

The 1200 m Hard course is super hard. It and the endless mode add a unique single width piece that randomly appears where all three of the buttons extend it, so if you're mashing in anticipation of filling a hole with a standard piece and suddenly you've got a super long skinny piece, yeah, that's bad. I've made it to stage 9 or 10 of Hard, but that's with a lot of practice, and the locals who are super into other puzzle games like TGM haven't managed to 1CC Hard either. It's quite a bit more daunting than Normal is; autofire to rapidly mash and extend pieces might help.

One thing to note is that the board will actually drop as a piece is floating up so you have to be quick. The only way to pause the board dropping is to get a line clear. That causes the board to halt as you're positioning the next piece, so to avoid the board dropping rapidly you have to pretty much be getting a line clear with every piece you place, if not at least every second piece.

You know, I was wondering what the game was telling me about in Japanese when I got the 800 and 1000 clears. Thanks!
Also, I've gotten murdered a lot by the board moving a bunch while I'm moving into position a lot.
Was extremely frustrating when I was doing the 1000m clear on the last stage, I'd just barely lose as I was about to save myself from death.
Still probably going to work at getting to the end of 1200, even if it definitely won't be a 1CC. That single width one hasn't screwed me over yet, but in time, it probably will.

[Marc]

Oh my God. Thanks for the heads-up! I enjoyed the simpler, somewhat fighter-influenced Def Jam and Kinnikuman games AKI did in the subsequent gen, but it broke my heart waiting for a proper successor to VPW2 and No Mercy. I see AKI's illustrious GETA-san was onboard as advisor, it sounds like his presence is apparent.

For those unfamiliar, those N64 games are masterpieces of party/hardcore crossover. A guaranteed pickup n' play riot in 4P Battle Royale - the explosive power, crushing impacts and lovingly handmade animations (*thrusts crotch furiously at enemy for massive meter*) haven't aged a day - but the classically timing-based engine (mashing = MUDADA, you'll only die tired) and its myriad counters, reversals, and counter-reversals ensures hellacious sagas between seasoned veterans! Shocking turnarounds and cunning ruses abound, be like JoJo Part 2 The Wrasslin. Legit killer games anyone with an appreciation for arcadey intensity should try out, entirely irrespective of interest in the ol' PURORESU.

Ha, I had your good self in mind when I posted!

From ages 17-22, the same 4 of us had a regular Wed/Fri gaming session before we headed off to our favourite rock clubs, and the N64 wrestling games were a mainstay throughout that period. Obviously, after that period of time, we all ended up more than competent with their various systems, so I’d say we’re all in a decent position to judge this one. The only slight weirdness was playing what felt like an N64 game on a modern pad. Once we adjusted to that, it was, as they say, like riding a bike, everything works identically, to the point where I’m half convinced they’ve recycled some of the animations.



The highest compliment I can pay it, really, is that after years of adulting, and maybe not making as much effort as we should as a group, we’ve already set up a chat to arrange a full night dedicated to this. Happy days.