What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[BIL]

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.

Exactly how it was for us Everyone remembers Goldeneye/Perfect Dark as the local multiplayer phenoms, quite rightly - but I'm no longer surprised to hear AKI's games commanded similar loyalty, nor that they continue to. Nobody cares about War Zone or Nitro or Mayhem, now - I distinctly recall someone bringing in a random copy of World Tour, and the consensus going from "No commentary? Or sampled speech? Or entrance themes?!" to "GOD DAMN" and "BETTER THAN PPV" in five minutes, the couch providing infinitely better commentary - but No Mercy and VPW2 are reliably invoked as the gold standard multiple generations on. All set for the weekend.

[Lemnear]

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

Interesting, lol. Nostalgia I assume for this version?

is the only version playable in 2 on the same screen °^°

[XoPachi]

I finished Rift Apart last night.
It's....good. It's certainly among my favorite AAA titles I've played in like a decade. But like the 2016 reboot, there's a lot less Ratchet than the PS2 titles. Probably just under what Deadlocked provides.
But the general gameplay is way better than those titles. It just doesn't have a lot of the classic Ratchet variety and breadth of content we were used to from the series. Don't get me wrong, it's varied for sure but it's very short lived. UYA had 18 planets while Rift Apart has 9 for instance and they're not much longer or more involved save for Sargasso and Savali. But those two planets consist of it's main plot and then a fetch quest spanning the play area. And Sargasso's is kind of bad. Not MMO bad, but it feels throwaway. I feel like a lot of gadgets and planet gimmicks didn't have much time to shine and a good chunk of what you experience feels extremely railroaded. The junk planet where you find the Fixer was extremely sparse as you were just kind of pulled along almost literally for half of it.
There's no races, there's only one arena with much more short lived challenges and few unique engagements. Unless we count Trudi who hardly gets any play time, you don't get any dogfighting. And there isn't a lot of side things to collect. Though I do like mix and matching changing the colors of the armors this time around.

But there's definitely some advantages. Ratchet movement always worked but I swear they just didn't want you to move all that fast sometimes. The dash boots in the old games were so tedious to use. It was one of those weird things where it was obviously faster, but just by nature of how it's utilized, you felt like you were just going slower. The hoverboots in Rift Apart are shockingly elegant. You can just move around faster and freer but it doesn't turn the game into something it shouldn't be. It's just good transportation to keep things fluid and cut out a lot of sluggish moments I remember dealing with in the PS2 games. The boots and the phantom dash (also surprisingly infrequently used) can serve as options in combat to provide new evasion methods. It just felt like there weren't many enemy types so I'd still default to strafing and side jumping.

Glitch is the best hacking sequence they had in this series in my opinion. I couldn't stand the minigames even all the way up to the 2016 reboot's laser puzzles. I just wanted to be platforming, exploring, or shooting at shit. And Glitch just gives me some of that instead of an obnoxious puzzle. It feels so much more fitting. But I just wish she had more levels. There's a constantly looming threat of viruses evolving but you barely see that. I think there were 4 stages for her. They were actually really fun and she had a tiny little story of her own which contextualizes and justifies her presence in the game further. Glitch is a distilled version of the game's main story pillars of forgiving yourself for past inadequacies and finding confidence to push through frightening unknowns.

And of course the weapons and action are fantastic. Probably the most ridiculously eye meltingly chaotic game yet with some extremely powerful weapons. And the Bouncer is back!

It's a good game. I hope Ratchet sees more and they build on this. I'm glad to see a very classic mascot game exist today in the AAA space.

rivet big cute

[Steamflogger Boss]

Almost not really a game but I finished up Yuna on the PC engine yesterday. Going to start the second one soonish.

[cfx]

.

[null1024]

If you own the discs, pretty much any CD imaging software that supports BIN+CUE should work. I say should, because I do remember there being something screwy about the fact that PC-Engine games tend to have multiple data tracks [quite nearly every other CD system only uses Track 1 as data and any additional ones are audio]. A quick google search suggests a program called TurboRip specifically for PCE games due to the aforementioned issues and it seems to come up clean in VirusTotal, but like, I've never used it.
From there, you should just be able to burn the patched image onto a regular CD-R.

Also, I should play the second one. I had a wonderful time going through the first.
It's mildly disappointing how not-a-game that the parts with any actual "gameplay" are, but it's just such a fun, charming story that I can't complain that much.

[Steamflogger Boss]

If you own the discs, pretty much any CD imaging software that supports BIN+CUE should work. I say should, because I do remember there being something screwy about the fact that PC-Engine games tend to have multiple data tracks [quite nearly every other CD system only uses Track 1 as data and any additional ones are audio]. A quick google search suggests a program called TurboRip specifically for PCE games due to the aforementioned issues and it seems to come up clean in VirusTotal, but like, I've never used it.
From there, you should just be able to burn the patched image onto a regular CD-R.

Also, I should play the second one. I had a wonderful time going through the first.
It's mildly disappointing how not-a-game that the parts with any actual "gameplay" are, but it's just such a fun, charming story that I can't complain that much.

Fwiw I have actual copies of the games and found it easier to just get isos online. But I mean, if I can patch it and get it working anyone can I suspect

Anyway I realize I didn't say too much on it in my post there but I enjoyed it tremendously. Though I would just as soon have the "gameplay" segments be removed entirely. Really nice to see all these fan translations recently. I also grabbed Private Eye Dol to try out.

[XoPachi]

Modded my 3DS.

[null1024]

For whatever reason, I decided to give Wonder Momo [Arcade] another shot.

The game still feels deeply unpleasant to play with its floaty handling and just how readily you can just die after getting touched and then sequentially get hit by things because of the odd way you move after getting hit... but I dunno, it's not the worst.

Using the stage boundaries for i-frames is useful, but feels extremely goofy -- it's basically like getting hit when you run to the curtains, but you don't actually take damage. Naturally, you can still end up in a really awful situation because like, it's like getting hit.

I spend a bunch of time doing crouching and split kicks. Standing kicks are just stubby enough to be a mistake every time.

I'm probably missing something else I should be doing to survive longer, my credits aren't going that far yet, but like, eh. If getting knocked back wasn't so bad, this game would probably be like 2x more fun, and if your standing kick wasn't so stubby, it'd be another 2x more fun. There is a lot of fun being left on the table for no reason.

Oh yeah, and I feel dumb for not noticing that the attract demo shows you how to transform if you miss the tornado -- just face the screen and spin a bunch. I missed it once and was like "wait, do I just have to eat shit at the boss?" [no, the game isn't that mean].

[Air Master Burst]

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is everything I could have hoped for. It's been out for like 10 hours and I've been playing for 9. Everyone should go buy it for full price so they make more.

Objectively there are a few things that could probably be better but I've been waiting for this for like 2 decades and it hits all the right beats. Instant GOTY.

[Lander]

Finally got around to playing the DOS game attached to the excellent Crusader: No Remorse OST.

What on earth were Origin thinking when they came up with this one. A mechanically-dense real-time tactical shooter on the Ultima engine? Are you out of your mind?
I salute whoever was mad enough to greenlight this, and the team that somehow made it all work. Because it does; in spite of the wacky collision and simulator control scheme, sauntering around tac-rolling into crouched gunfire and blowing up entire movie budgets' worth of destructible isometric scenery is great fun.

Nice old-school mission design too. It gives me a kind of Duke Nukem vibe with all the interactivity scattered around to reward observant (or trigger-happy) players.
Surprisingly lengthy as well - really puts the emphasis on mission when you have to clear four floors of bruto-industrial chem plant dungeon before hitting the hub area.
And puzzles that actually respect the player's intelligence! It takes a moment to recalibrate to, but is very satisfying when you twig - of your own accord - that the force field over the door is being tripped by an invisible beam that can be shot off the wall or rolled under.

There's a ScummVM core that offers a source port-like experience with niceties like follow cam, subtle control improvements, and 1024x768 rendering, but it's seemingly unfinished. Various in-game events (like the soda machines in mission 1, or death by slime pool) don't function properly, the flick-screen doesn't work right at higher res, and - critically - the difficulty balance is completely out of whack; enemies drop less resources, take more shots to kill, and show up (or don't) on difficulties they shouldn't.

So DOSBox Staging is the way to go here. Proper accuracy, proper scaling via the OpenGL Pixel Perfect backend, and game balance that feels immediately right. More of a pain in the ass to configure pad controls, but it works nicely on a DualShock if you abuse the sticks for weapon and item switching.

So yeah, nice. Holds up to the soundtrack. Though I'd love to see it get more than a scruffy source port as legacy - there's something quite unique here, and it could be even better if the engine wasn't coming apart at the seams trying to keep up with the WHITE HOT TACTICAL ACTION

[Sima Tuna]

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is everything I could have hoped for. It's been out for like 10 hours and I've been playing for 9. Everyone should go buy it for full price so they make more.

Objectively there are a few things that could probably be better but I've been waiting for this for like 2 decades and it hits all the right beats. Instant GOTY.

I'm just waiting on info for the Switch version. If the Switch version is solid then I'll consider buying for full price (which I never do for anything anymore.) I loved JSRF so much.

[null1024]

Still getting better at Sound Voltex. Mostly clearing 12s now without too much difficulty, but I'm kinda stymied by most 13s now. Definitely wish I had the space or money for a full-size controller instead of my quick-n-dirty cardboard box one for home play, but I just can't justify the price [especially after shipping lmao], and again, a full-size controller is huge. Very tempted to get the Pocket SDVX Pico v5 due to the much better construction, but it is fairly pricy for the size [it comes out to $150 after shipping, bleh].

Also, I bought Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. It controls really well, definitely made by people who liked JSR but wanted to tighten things up a bit.
Combat definitely needs a fair bit of polish -- I'm 90% sure that most of the issue with how lame it feels is the complete lack of hitstop or screen shake or anything when you hit an enemy. It just feels extremely lacking when hitting things.
I had a crash after I was messing about with the phone camera while grinding and was putting it away and then the game just died. Didn't really lose anything other than a few seconds of time, but it was odd. Being able to mess around with the phone while doing tricks and riding around and whatnot felt amazing though, it really lets you be the reckless hooligan you're supposed to be.
I do have ingrained muscle memory from other games where doing tricks is mapped to the d-pad though, so for like 30 minutes, I'd keep opening my phone on accident.

Other than the combat and the single crash, there were a handful of things that just feel like they need a little bit of polish -- one thing that comes to mind, and I'll admit that this is nitpicking, is that area transitions don't really have a nice fade-in or anything, so it doesn't feel right.
Still, it's really stylish overall and feels like a more than worthy successor to JSR and JSRF.
I like the way you input graffiti, I love being able to airdash backwards to change direction on a rail, movement feels weightier, it's very fun just going around doing tricks.

[Sima Tuna]

One thing I will say: Every single review for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk has people bitching about the combat. Now, I'm not saying combat is good. I haven't played the game. But see, the thing is, Jet Set Radio? People bitched about combat. Jet Set Radio Future? People bitched about combat. I've never seen a game of this type with combat in it, where people didn't bitch about it.

So I think either people aren't understanding what these kind of games do with the combat, or they do understand and don't like it (which is fine,) or this weird subgenre needs to drop combat entirely and just be about the tricks. No matter which way you come at it, I've never seen anybody who reviewed a Jet Set "genre" of game who liked the combat in it.

If Bomb Rush is anything like Jet Set, you probably get a lot more damage from ramping into dudes than trying to punch/kick them in "neutral" like it's a beat em up.

[null1024]

BRS at least hasn't been that frustrating compared to JSR when it comes dealing with enemies [BRS's movement helps a lot too], but actually fighting back is present enough that attacks not really having much hitstop or any kind of effect until the enemy is launched flying is really lame. It's almost to the point where you're not sure if you're hitting the opponent [if not actually that bad, there are other cues that are noticeable].
The game doesn't need to have a complicated or deep fighting system since it really is more about movement and tricks and getting around the environments under pressure, but the basic act of hitting something shouldn't feel so weightless and uncertain.

[Air Master Burst]

I actually enjoy the combat in JSRF for what it is, although I still resent the overuse of arena combat.

BRC's big flaw is that fighting regular cops is absolutely terrible. I actually enjoy the bosses and various higher-level police, but it's just SO LAME to fight the basic one star cops; and of course that's what you face the most. If they were graffiti-able after like 2-3 hits it'd be fine.

The only other real issues I have are the supreme uselessness of the map and the lack of a proper Professor K analogue.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I was gifted a copy of Terraria. I do not like Terraria.

The controls are a mess for me and I really struggled with it on both a controller and KB+Mouse. I'm not into building oriented games to begin with and the interface for building something as simple as stairs was maddening, plus the rest of the time seems to be slowly digging into the soil in the hopes of finally finding something interesting to craft with or fight. The melee combat isn't super interesting and getting some good projectile weapons improves things significantly.

Not for me.

edit: Stuck with it longer and had to spend a few hours learning the controls, some of the default bindings I couldn't manage. It's got a fairly steep learning curve to it due to the involved interface and the need to build so that NPCs actually show up and stick around, but it's a lot smoother once you figure out the basic game flow and realize all it's way better to simply chop a few trees down and just stick a quick set of walls around yourself than try to plan any elaborate building at the start as nightfall will eventually interrupt you.

Getting some mobility items really alters things a lot too, and explosives help tremendously with the tedium of mining.

[Lander]

Aye, Terraria has a fair bit going on beneath its perfunctory appearance. I found it improved a lot once into the broader groove of Find new biome -> Explore and power up -> Prepare boss arena -> Kill boss -> Move onto next biome and repeat.

Moreso once you have a proper arsenal. It does escalation quite nicely, so you can eventually load up with all manner of nifty swords, guns and gadgets that bolster the fun factor. If memory serves there are a lot of arcane hidden craftables and such, so skimming a guide to get a general idea of what's available at a given stage of the game can be helpful.

And, as with most games if its ilk, it's elevated significantly by having a co-op party to share the load.
NPC lodgings were always a pain too. We eventually ended up defaulting to the minimum-viable vertically-extensible shopping center tower block to store them all in.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

It was a bit of a learning curve figuring out how to work out what you can craft and where; I saw the guide had a craft window that let you see what you could make with materials, but I missed the text that showed "Anvil/Forge required", etc. Exploring for life crystals to bulk up helps tremendously since you can't instantly fix damage (due to 1 potion every 60 seconds rule) and generally want to have extra health to soak hits.

The biggest thing that helped was switching D-Pad from quick item select to Smart Cursor, which makes it select items tile by tile. I also worked out how the autoselect button worked and mapped it to a face button which made things a lot easier (the default had it on L3 I think? or R3). I'm not great with WASD + mouse in 2D platformers for some reason (I can handle that in a FPS fine weirdly enough) so taking the time to figure out a controller scheme I'm comfy and understanding what each button does has helped a lot.

I was playing it in co-op and while it was helpful to have a second person to build and mine with, I made the mistake of firing it up blind in co-op and it would've been better if I spent a few hours coming to grips with it solo (I played offline for a bit after our first session to learn the game, then the next co-op session felt immensely better).

[Sima Tuna]

Yeah, you want to throw down a quick square around yourself. Build up and down a ways. Put some pits in front of your doors so the zombies can't knock the doors down. Once you have a basic structure, then you can focus on discovering the various biomes, figuring out where you want your permanent base to be and grabbing some relics to make traversal and combat easier.

What I like about Terraria is it feels a lot more like a "game" than minecraft. There are quite a few bosses and relics to find.

I like to build my house on a mountain in between two biomes. Then I make a hellevator and a sky ladder for easy transit across the map.

[Lander]

What I like about Terraria is it feels a lot more like a "game" than minecraft. There are quite a few bosses and relics to find.

Yeah, after years of updates, I think 'out of hand' is a fair description of Terraria's content roster. And I haven't looked at it for a good while either.

From what I hear, Minecraft has been a lot more conservative and don't-break-what-works by comparison.

hellevator

Man, it sounds so much more metal than it really is

Ideal: SHYEAH DUDE, HELLEVATOR!

Reality

[CStarFlare]

Been sitting on copies of the SFC Rockman trilogy for a while now and finally decided to give X3 a run through. It's my least favorite of the trilogy for all the usual reasons, but I was treating this run a little casually and was surprised to find some things I never really realized before.

First, getting the leg chip actually makes the game feel much better. The existence of the Hyper Chip is a low-key curse - it's such a huge disincentive to ignore the chips, which were arguably X3's best idea. Double air dashing in the main stages feels great, even if I never really found myself using it much in the latter Doppler stages (spike wall being the exception). I'm slightly curious to try out the others, but I don't think I'll be starting a new game immediately.

Second, I'm surprised to find that killing certain enemies with their weakness actually grants alternate bosses in the Doppler stages. I'm sure I'd killed Vava without his weakness at some point as a child, but revisited the game so many years later that I didn't realize I used to fight him in the second Doppler stage because I always went for the Z Saber. But I have always fought Bit and Byte with the X Buster exclusively, so it was a revelation to find out you could kill them both during the Maverick stages and fight a whole new boss in their stage in Doppler's. I generally find X3 overstuffed, but I have to admit this is a neat touch.

I'm also about 1/3 of the way through Donkey Kong Country. I played a lot of 2 and 3 as a kid, but never played the original - I'm generally underwhelmed, but it's not a bad game. It will be interesting to see if I'm similarly underwhelmed when I move on to 2 or the original just isn't as good.

[cfx]

.

[Steven]

Prerendered graphics are completely hideous. I can't believe anyone ever thought they don't look like complete garbage, and they look even worse when used in a game that mostly uses traditional pixel art because the prerendered stuff clashes horribly with the pixel art and looks like it's from a completely different game.

[Lander]

I always assumed pre-rendered spritework was a case of CRT patching up the holes, since it looks bloody awful on modern displays.

Though there are some exceptions. CAVE do a solid job of hand-tweaking renders into nice-looking sprites, and Brigador layers a bunch of convincing 3D lighting and shading on top of its baked 2D, which fools the eye better than most of the heyday stuff.

[mycophobia]

i think dkc3 is one of the best looking games on the snes when viewed on a crt

[BrianC]

I always assumed pre-rendered spritework was a case of CRT patching up the holes, since it looks bloody awful on modern displays.

Vectorman is definitely one of those pre-rendered games that looks wrong on modern displays, mostly due to heavy use of dithering. Some collections with it don't even look right on CRTs thanks to being upscaled to 480i (even on systems that support 240p).

[Steven]

I'd have to go check some stuff on my CRT, but I can only imagine how much better Crimzon Clover and the post-Dangun Feveron CAVE games would look if they used more traditional pixel art.

The prerendered helicopter in Garou: Mark of the Wolves makes me laugh due to how strangely undetailed and flat it looks compared to most of the rest of the game, making it appear very out-of-place.

[null1024]

I grew to like pre-rendered visuals more as time passed. I absolutely fucking hated them back in the day, though.
I thought DKC looked like absolute fucking ass way back when, but the look has grown on me. I'd almost even say I think DKC looks nice now. Almost.

As for DKC itself as a game, I also never really could get into it.

[CStarFlare]

The display issue could be part of why it's left me so cold. I remember DKC2 and 3 looking pretty good, but these days I don't own a CRT so I've been running my console through my PC monitor. Colors are pretty dull, quality is pretty bad and there's no scanlines to pick up the slack - it's rough and does subtract for the experience. (the whole janky setup is making me question whether trying to deal with hardware and legit games is really worth it, but that's a separate can of worms)