TRP-STGT 2017 Conversation Week 2: Last Resort

[copy-paster]

Honestly the 'dead air' isn't bother me much, at least not on the same level as first stage of R-Type III. The only hardest part I know was st4 midboss just before the main boss, the game turns to flickerfest and died without knowing what kills you.

[Vanguard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiSE1RdwVEg

That's not a very good score at all

If he held down the autofire button I bet his score would have been fine.

[Deadliar]

This was OK. Slightly better than Bakaretsu Breaker. If BB was a 5/10 Resort would be a 5.5/10

Without a doubt I can say that the best part of Last Resort was learning proper dick hygiene on stage 2.

[Square_Air]

Without a doubt I can say that the best part of Last Resort was learning proper dick hygiene on stage 2.

I find it funny that the developers had no sense of subtlety and those enemies are clearly dicks and can't be made out to be anything else. 3 dicks in the first loop, 3 dicks in the second. That's a grand total of 6 dicks. Impressive.

[Stevens]

Without a doubt I can say that the best part of Last Resort was learning proper dick hygiene on stage 2.

Stop polluting threads with dick talk.






















We have a dedicated thread for that:D

[EmperorIng]

This is a weird game. It's like I'm on an emotional roller coaster. First I don't like the slow-paced R-Type clone-iness. Then I warm up to its quirks and think its pretty neat. Then I keep on playing it to actually clear it in a week's time frame and I end up on the edge of disliking the game.

Last Resort is like a cleaning simulator. You spend 3/4 of the game sweeping the floor of enemies. Occasionally you'll have to move to clean a new spot. Every boss, including the final boss, is safe-spot city. Park your pod in front of you, and destroy bullets and bosses with equally low effort. The only times you die is through either a) picking up too much speed and crashing into something, b) dumb mistake, or the most likely culprit c) lost inputs and sprite flicker. I don't know if its mame, but I've had at least 3 good runs ruined by being killed by an invisible bullet. It's like they wanted to copy R-Type, but instead of the arcade they chose the ZX Spectrum port of R-Type with invisible bullets! It doesn't help that your ship has the width of a semi-truck.

I wish the stages were a bit more exciting and not as prone to flicker. The pod handling is fine and there are several nice moments, usually once per stage, that really take advantage of the game's conceit and gimmick (contrast this to R-Type, which imo makes better use of switching up your pod, weapons, and tactics).

[Despatche]

I'm very confused about basically this entire thread. I really do think people are making stuff up, I really truly believe that, because none of these complaints make any sense. They don't refer to anything that you actually experience in the game, as if people are talking about some different Last Resort from another universe, yet the images and videos they post clearly show the Last Resort of this universe. I don't get it.

What little sprite flicker there is is mostly being caused by autofire, and I have still never encountered a situation where I simply couldn't see what was what, ever! There's basically no dead air in this game, I have no idea where that's coming from. The safespots are not even remotely relevant because they routinely take you away from points, and the game is simply not difficult enough that you would ever need to use them. It's an easy game, but it is by no means an uninteresting one. It's basically Leo, but with a loop that isn't at all harder for some reason.

I agree, we absolutely need more classic horizontals, because I'm also pretty sure people are gonna get even more upset about whatever we pick.

[BIL]

This was OK. Slightly better than Bakaretsu Breaker. If BB was a 5/10 Resort would be a 5.5/10

Without a doubt I can say that the best part of Last Resort was learning proper dick hygiene on stage 2.

Good that you've learned, but remember - PRACTISE good dick hygiene too (｀ω´メ)

[EmperorIng]

Some of it is playful hyperbole, which I hope you're engaging in as well.

What little sprite flicker there is is mostly being caused by autofire, and I have still never encountered a situation where I simply couldn't see what was what, ever! There's basically no dead air in this game, I have no idea where that's coming from. The safespots are not even remotely relevant because they routinely take you away from points, and the game is simply not difficult enough that you would ever need to use them. It's an easy game, but it is by no means an uninteresting one. It's basically Leo, but with a loop that isn't at all harder for some reason.

Well maybe not "dead air" in the sense that absolutely nothing is going on, but I consider it pretty 'dead' when you cruise through half of stage 3 shooting the pod down to kill those jumping enemies that don't even have the chance to fire before embracing sweet merciful death. About the only hectic moment in that stage is when the midboss is swooping around and you wonder what angle its lasers are going to be when it fires. The first half of stage 4 is you cruising along the ceiling shooting the pod down to kill walkers.

For me, the flicker danger looms large at the stage 4 midboss (well, pre-boss boss). If you have the G missiles, the combo of autofire, the explosion sprites, enemy death sprites, etc. are enough to obscure shots (or collisions!) until its too late. I concede I might be confusing flicker with bullets being obscured by enemy/missile explosion sprites. Very frustrating.

I agree, we absolutely need more classic horizontals, because I'm also pretty sure people are gonna get even more upset about whatever we pick.

Undoubtedly; that's half the fun!

[Despatche]

Absolutely not. Ten years of "playful hyperbole" has made me absolutely sick of the concept.

The first half of stage 4 is those double-sided laser assholes. The stage 4 midboss is a great example of being totally capable of seeing where you're going, especially with G.

"difficalty" set to 3 on arcade/MAME - Last Resort goes from 0-7 instead of 1-8 levels of difficulty for some strange reason.

Oh.

[EmperorIng]

Ha ha ha, I guess you really can say that Last Resort has 0 difficulty. I know I died early into loop 2 (right before st2 boss aagh) but I am likewise surprised at how... much the same it was compared to loop 1!

A weird quirk of the stage 3 mech boss is that only one time did it decide to hover over to the left of the screen (presumably to moon me) and shoot saw blades at me. I was so surprised that I died, and on the next time it didn't do it. I can't figure out how the rank figured there, because it happened when I had lost a life - but other times when I no-miss'd getting there, he'd act normal. Has that happened to anyone else? Is that more a loop 2 thing?

The stage 4 midboss is a great example of being totally capable of seeing where you're going, especially with G.

I'll just disagree; I think it's pretty chaotic with all the explosion sprites! The concession I'll make is that if you are fast enough the boss parts die too quickly to matter.

[BIL]

A weird quirk of the stage 3 mech boss is that only one time did it decide to hover over to the left of the screen (presumably to moon me) and shoot saw blades at me. I was so surprised that I died, and on the next time it didn't do it. I can't figure out how the rank figured there, because it happened when I had lost a life - but other times when I no-miss'd getting there, he'd act normal. Has that happened to anyone else? Is that more a loop 2 thing?

Happened to me once when I was slow destroying his kneecap (and I'd died just before, so I don't think it's a rank thing). Lesson: kneecap your enemies promptly or they'll be able to moon you.

[Perikles]

A weird quirk of the stage 3 mech boss is that only one time did it decide to hover over to the left of the screen (presumably to moon me) and shoot saw blades at me. I was so surprised that I died, and on the next time it didn't do it. I can't figure out how the rank figured there, because it happened when I had lost a life - but other times when I no-miss'd getting there, he'd act normal. Has that happened to anyone else? Is that more a loop 2 thing?

That's what happens when the leg times out - if you kill it in time, you'll initiate phase 2 of the fight as usual, but if you fail to do so, the boss will corner you in rather nasty ways. Since bosses gain a little bit more health in loop 2, you might've been unable to deal enough damage in time whilst your strategy worked in the first loop, it can occur in both loops, however.

Edit: BIL's a ninja!

[Shepardus]

That also happened to me several times. I suspected it was because I was taking too long, so I started sitting closer to the boss during that phase and I don't think it's happened since. That boss is where the sprite flicker gets the worst in my experience - the player sprite is often just gone for the entire first phase. Fortunately the orb still showed up so I locked that in front of my ship and used it as a reference.

I never had issues with sprite-flickering on the stage 4 midboss (you're talking about the thing right before the boss, right?), but I died a lot on it anyway until I watched videos to figure out how others were handling the section. That part's probably the hardest part to wing your way through without a plan.

[Deadliar]

One time during a practice run the mech boss's leg just started teleporting all over the screen.

Some time later the upper part of the mech fell down as if the leg was destroyed, but the sprite was glitched and it was unkillable.

Last Resort bugs are very real. Though I won't lie, I had no flickering issues and this is the only one that I encountered.

[Despatche]

Assuming those aren't bizarre MAME bugs.

I never had issues with sprite-flickering on the stage 4 midboss (you're talking about the thing right before the boss, right?), but I died a lot on it anyway until I watched videos to figure out how others were handling the section. That part's probably the hardest part to wing your way through without a plan.

Would you believe I did it on my very first try without even using G, then proceeded to never do it again even with G?

[ED-057]

top five reasons this game was not as good as bakubrkr (or R-Type for that matter):
5. slowdown
4. dropping input during slowdown
3. if you try to lock the pod in place while your ship is not moving it doesn't necessarily stay there
2. if you're trying to get the pod to a particular position it takes its sweet time about going there
1. no way to lock the pod's direction of fire

[Shepardus]

Would you believe I did it on my very first try without even using G, then proceeded to never do it again even with G?

That's basically what happened to me with the stage 5 boss of Bakuretsu Breaker - no-miss no-bombed it the first time I faced it while setting up savestates, never repeated the feat.

[KAI]

Damn, couldn't play this game cause I didn't had a proper pc last week and the ps2 port was so shit the game was locked with 5 lives on default setting