non-STG arcade games EDIT: RECOMMEND PLZ

[TLB]

I know, it's been done, etc.

Lately I've found that Rainbow Islands is more fun than anything I've played from 1987 outside of R-Type. I also liked stuff like Strider and Cannon Dancer. Puzzle Bobble was fun when I was younger, but I'm not always in the mood for slow games like that. Brings Uo Poko to mind (also fun). I suppose I haven't played many non-STG arcade games. Nothing else comes to mind offhand. Whatcha think?

[Op Intensify]

Blah blah old games blah

Seriously, what are you hoping to get out of this thread? It would be much more fruitful to pick one game or series, and discuss it in depth.

[TLB]

I'm asking for recommendations.

[Moniker]

I've always had a soft spot for (arcade) platformers: Rygar, Tiger Road, Black Tiger, Ghosts 'n Goblins, etc.

The only MAMEable racer I've spent time with is Outrun, which is very fun. NeoGeo has a bunch of good isometric racers, Overtop, for example.

Tons of FTGs, obviously.

Light gun games are great too, but I don't know how to play them on a PC.

[Op Intensify]

Recommendations? Then you may have a quick braindump of lesser known, quality non-STG arcade games:

Gundhara
Nightmare in the Dark
Crack Down
Gunbuster (no relation to GAINAX)
Motos
Get Star/Guardian
Marchen Maze
Light Bringer
Cross Blades!/Blade Master
Oni/Metamoquester
Raimais
Purikura Daisakusen
The Lost Castle in Darkmist
Dyna Gear
Gaiapolis
Surprise Attack
Landmaker
Puchi Carat
Crime City
Mystic Warriors

[trap15]

Some of my favorites:

Demon Front (IGS)
Shinobi (Sega)
Demon's World (Toaplan)
Legend of Makai (Jaleco)
Vandyke (UPL)
Rampart (Atari)
Taisen Hot Gimmick series (Psikyo)
Super Sidekicks 2 (SNK)
Gals Panic (Kaneko)

[BulletMagnet]

If you'll pardon the self-promotion, some time ago I did a series of posts on my now-dormant blog about obscure puzzle games: not all of them are from the arcades (or obscure enough that you don't already know of them), but a fair portion of them are. Here's the first in the series, subsequent ones are linked in the sidebar.

[mesh control]

Street Hoop
Super Sidekick series
Magical Drop series
2020 Super Baseball

Neo Geo is where it's at for non-STGs

[Ed Oscuro]

prepare for a suprise, load up one of the Touchmaster games in MAME. Fun for a few minutes at least (I must confess I played these for weeks on end months back; haven't touched them in a long time though. Trying for new highscores on randomized games = lol)

Serious Face Man's recommendations:
G.I. Joe (and I would also highly recommend at least a look at Devastators, although the fires-in-the-dirt Uzi might seem odd at first. It does pick up later when more armor arrives onscene after the first few stages.)
Rally Bike (Toaplan shootin' without the shootin'! The maze navigation is bothersome at times, though.)
Gun Ball / Nitro Ball (Data East '92 I think; the titles are sometimes spelt without spaces)
Ninja Emaki / Youma Ninpo Chou (sometimes considered STGs; the Western-region Ninja Emaki can be played almost endlessly so its difficulty curve is very gentle, maybe too gentle for your patience)
Dead Connection (Taito; '90 or so, semi-top-down third-person arena shootin; of course Outfoxies is also popular but it is a more traditional sidescroller format')
Flame Gunner (control takes some getting used to, though I think I prefer it to Chaos Heat by a wide margin...seems to run on PlayStation hardware, strangely obscure given how fun it is)

Some driving games are fun too - I ought to check out Scud Race sometime. I also have a soft spot for the Cruis'n games (at least in their original arcade incarnations - although I felt most Midway racers, includin' World, Exotica, and the Rush games were pretty reasonable on N64; and at least Rush 2049 also has an additional replayability mechanic through token collection or something on the console)

[Obiwanshinobi]

Chelnov (check out the MD remake too as both are essential), Baku Baku Animal (not sure if the emulation's any good), Super Monkey Ball 1&2 (also SMB Jr. on the GBA), F-Zero GX (I know the coin-op version is called AX alright)...

[Limbrooke]

I'm asking for recommendations.

Way to keep it cool...


Anyway, recommend eh? Outrunners is a great follow-up to Outrun, if that's your cup of tea. Phozon by Namco is a fine game too and I would say could fit into a few categories ("ionization energy!") given there's very few games like it I can think of. The Cliffhanger: Edward Randy is decent side scrolling brawler, although it's not perfect and can feel a little sluggish it's otherwise a pretty interesting game with tonnes of fodder to bullwhip.

[BIL]

Assault overhead tank shooter with dual-stick controls, which may or may not be a pain to set up in MAME (no idea - I play it on the PS1's Namco Museum Vol.4, which supports either twin sticks or simplified joypad controls). If you can work out a control solution, it's a simple seek-and-destroy affair made wickedly intense by the time limit, ultra-aggressively backstabbing enemies and appropriately chunky tank controls.

Elevator Action Returns slapstick murder simulator. It's a rather easy game and suffers from a lack of massive bosses, but it's impossible to not love the winning combo of dozy yet inquisitive AI and extreme violence. See how many guys you can set on fire with the same incendiary grenade!

Geostorm / Gunforce 2 simple, competent sidescrolling run-and-gun that's worth experiencing just for the howling mad aesthetic. Doesn't play much like Metal Slug at all, bar the POWs, but as a proto-Nazca game the art style will interest any Slug fan.

Gain Ground interesting strategic shooter. You'll find the deliberately sluggish game speed either intriguing or repellent, but don't be fooled by the sedate opening stages. It quickly becomes hard and intense as hell.

Gunspike / Cannon Spike not sure if this is playable in MAME (has a perfect DC port). Regardless, it's a Psikyo-made overhead run-and-gun. Could almost be called an arena shooter, with the simple one-room levels, but the player / enemy balance is more like Shock Troopers than Robotron. Fast and intense with the rampant pacing you'd expect from a Psikyo game, and for better or worse their trademark "brick through a windshield" boss patterns. Interesting combination of shooting and brawling.

Metal Black hey asshole OP, if you can't 1CC this FUCK YOU ;] ;] ;]

Saigo no Nindou / Ninja Spirit stylish and fiendishly hard Irem ninja sidescroller. Extreme firepower and maneuverability on offer, and you'll need it. Turns into pure memoriser hell in the last couple stages, but is quite improv-friendly otherwise.

Shock Troopers overhead run-and-gun with some of the smoothest controls ever. The strafing and dodge roll abilities make for ultra-aggressive and finessed action. Shares the Metal Slug games' flair for cartoony, colourful, unspeakably horrific violence.

Thunder Fox fast, smooth and ultra-macho action sidescroller. Plays like a cross between The Ninja Warriors and Rolling Thunder, with the former's endless barrage of melee combat and the latter's multi-tier levels and shooting. The MD/Genesis port is shit, lest anyone think it's an accurate reflection of the AC ver.

[Ed Oscuro]

Speaking of Mega Drive ports...Midnight Resistance! Again, fairly different across platforms, but I'm not terribly familiar with it. I know the music and weapon selection rooms are different somehow, as is obviously the control system (the arcade game uses a rotary stick).

Two interesting Irem brawlers that come to mind - Blade Master (Cross Blades?), alright, but UNDERCOVER COPS!!! Grab the nearest concrete pier and get to work on those badguys. That reminds me - I have fond feelings of SNK's Sengoku games (although they're not so fun to play seriously, IMO). I'm sure we could pick out other interesting titles like Shadow Force, The Combatribes, Kaiser Knuckle (more of a SF2 type game I believe - oh yeah, Karnov, another must-play!) and Knuckle Bash (I knew the word "knuckle" entered my head for some reason).

A few awesome lightgun shooters - the Lethal Enforcers games, Under Fire, Operation Wolf 3. If you're not convinced by the last two, well, you could go play Vertexer. Oh, that's right, you can't because it's not emulated. Well, Night Striker is cool, too.

Haunted Castle - Spooky Fun Time is almost upon us, and you haven't lived if you haven't AT LEAST seen the chessiness of the first stage. Beware though, nasty Medusa teats (Medusa's face is nasty, not so much the teats, but the overall effect is rather less pleasing than it should have been...on the other hand, that probably helped keep Mr. Belmondo focused on his journey. Nasty snake-woman boobs are no replacement from stolen wifey boobs. It's true.)

And finally, two Leland games: Pig Out and Asylum.

[Op Intensify]

Ugh, Haunted Castle is IMPOSSIBLE. One life, three continues only, very little health (and no pork chops), massive chunky sprites and floaty jumps that make it impossible to dodge anything. On top of that, special weapons are a rarity, and only the cross is useful at all. You can increase the max health in the dip switches, but it doesn't help much. At least it's awesome to see Simon wield a sword.

[trap15]

Stop Estebanging all over this thread.

[Op Intensify]

Stop being a flippant cunthead for no reason at all. What the fuck does that even mean?

You've been obviously trying to pick a fight with me in the past several threads. What's your problem? PM me if you absolutely need to, so we can sort this fucking nonsense out.

[Ed Oscuro]

I think the trap is talking to me
Half (roughly) of the games I'm mentioning in these last two posts are legitimately good - but then the other half seem to be crap, just worthy of knowing of. I leave it to you to figure out which is which!

Ugh, Haunted Castle is IMPOSSIBLE. One life, three continues only, very little health (and no pork chops), massive chunky sprites and floaty jumps that make it impossible to dodge anything. On top of that, special weapons are a rarity, and only the cross is useful at all. You can increase the max health in the dip switches, but it doesn't help much. At least it's awesome to see Simon wield a sword.

This depends somewhat upon the revision you're playing - I believe both regions have a harder and easier version.

Also, wtf, Flame Gunner just froze on me I'll have to pass along the savestate. I was doin' OK too. (Hostage escort mission. Also, is the theater's boss the prototype for the rollerskate bomber from MGS2?! One remarkable difference is that this guy is skinny, however.)

More recommendations-for-the-sake-of-knowing: Some Midway games are worth checking out just to get an idea - Blasted for example. Atari's Vindicators (and the sequel) is pretty interesting, but awkward to play on keyboards (a controller with dual analogs should help). Thunder Jaws (not to be confused with Thunder Fox) is interesting to check out. Don't care for the gameplay, personally, but it's a neat idea. Of course you can't go wrong with Konami's S.P.Y. - Special Project Y (annoying acronyms ahoy!), Crime City provides another take on Thunder Fox, with "Let's go for a kill time." bonuses, and we haven't even covered many of the classics. I leave you with a quote from Parenthood: 'They're bad dudes. That's why they call the game "Bad Dudes."'

Some more traditional Japanese-style fun - well, we've got Mirai Ninja (better than I had remembered, but strange - Finest Hour is also kind of like this; both are Namco titles, maybe even running on the same hardware), Ikki (not everybody likes this one - the lovely Famicom port loses too much of the playfield but has a nice bonus game), and UPL's Ninja Kun games (the second has the subtitle Ashura no Shou, whatever that's about).

[Op Intensify]

Ikki (not everybody likes this one - the lovely Famicom port loses too much of the playfield but has a nice bonus game)

lol, the Famicom port of Ikki has a reputation in Japan for having led to the coining of the term "kusoge."

[trap15]

I think the trap is talking to me

Nope, I'm talking to Estebang

[Op Intensify]

Fuck off, Trap. Your extensive technical knowledge does not give you free license to act like a stalkerish dillhole without any justification. Estebang is just one of many different usernames I have used across the internet over the years, and nowhere else.

If you want to keep making idiotic jabs at me like this, let's take it to PM.

[Ghegs]

Let's take it to PM.

I approve of this idea. No more of this in public.

[Friendly]

Ikki (not everybody likes this one - the lovely Famicom port loses too much of the playfield but has a nice bonus game)

lol, the Famicom port of Ikki has a reputation in Japan for having led to the coining of the term "kusoge."

That's a pretty kso-article. I think I am sensing a pattern there at hardcoregaming101.

Part of the ksogame definition according to hardcoregaming101

-The writing and voice acting are terrible. This encompasses bad/hilarious translations and localizations as well. Most of SNK's Neo Geo library qualifies to some extent given their hilarious win quotes. Zero Wing would too, for its legendary TAKE OFF EVERY ZIG intro, even though the game itself is pretty solid.

Most licensed games are pretty bad and expecting them to be so is almost a given. But there's a special place in kusoge hell for licensed games which fall into a totally inappropriate genre. Like that weird Batman maze crawling game on the PC Engine? Or the Star Wars 3D fighting game, Masters of Teras Kasi?

LOL. That does not a ksoge make.

[TLB]

THANKS FOR ALL THE WRECKS SO FAR.

One question: How come no one's mentioned Liquid Kids yet? I forgive you.












TLAEM BKALC

[Ed Oscuro]

TLAEM BKALC

I don't play 1v1 fightin' games

Ikki (not everybody likes this one - the lovely Famicom port loses too much of the playfield but has a nice bonus game)

lol, the Famicom port of Ikki has a reputation in Japan for having led to the coining of the term "kusoge."

That's a pretty kso-article. I think I am sensing a pattern there at hardcoregaming101.

Part of the ksogame definition according to hardcoregaming101

-The writing and voice acting are terrible. This encompasses bad/hilarious translations and localizations as well. Most of SNK's Neo Geo library qualifies to some extent given their hilarious win quotes. Zero Wing would too, for its legendary TAKE OFF EVERY ZIG intro, even though the game itself is pretty solid.

Most licensed games are pretty bad and expecting them to be so is almost a given. But there's a special place in kusoge hell for licensed games which fall into a totally inappropriate genre. Like that weird Batman maze crawling game on the PC Engine? Or the Star Wars 3D fighting game, Masters of Teras Kasi?

LOL. That does not a ksoge make.

I still haven't figured out what Batman did to that author's parents. I thought it was a neat change of pace when I first saw it, even though I expected (and wanted) to see something more in line with the MD or FC games (Genesis/NES). Hell, you might say the system's Die Hard game is less successful in its own chosen genre...and there are plenty of worse games on the PC-E.

Now you've got me wondering if I actually have seen Ikki cited as "the first kusoge" anywhere but HG101 (and sources that cite it, like the Ikki entry on Wikipedia probably does). It's actually a reasonably good game, regardless of format, and the guy who wrote the article just didn't take the time to get it. The mechanics are supposed to be cheesy, like the broad that chases you down and immobilizes you, but as I recall the article didn't get the joke. That aside, I actually enjoyed the game for its play, not because it was funny.

This makes me think rather more strongly than before that there should be some competition to HG101...some fine articles there, but unfortunately there's plenty of thoughtless ones and seemingly no care goes into editing or editorial discretion that would keep some of the stupidity at bay.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Isn't the guy running the place a Sega freak? No harm meant, but I still don't quite get what was THAT great about pre-DC Sega. Not that they didn't make any good games before DC; see my Baku Baku Animal recommendation, also, I played OutRun yesterday just to check out if my Saturn wheel works and it's a good enough game for such an oldie, but come on, Super Mario Bros. of car games it is not (to be fair, I don't know what is).
Speaking of Midway, Hydro Thunder - if you can get the PC port to work (shouldn't be a probem on WinXP).

[Friendly]

@Ed
That's rather bothersome. Someone writes an inaccurate article, which then gets quoted as fact on Wikipedia, which others read and believe to be fact, perpetuating it. And thus fiction becomes reality.
If Ikki isn't the first ksuge (or even considered to be a ksuge), then it should be removed from Wikipedia. Someone care to research this?

PS.
hardcoregaming101 obviously is not a credible source for Wikipedia entries (or anything else).

[Marc]

Saboten Bombers. Everyone should play this. Frantic as hell, shame it never got converted (I don't think).
OutRunners for being the most impossibly beautiful sprite-based racer ever.
Ninja Spirit was excellent, made the last level many years ago but when I tried again recently it just bummed me. Immense game though, pacy, excellent weapons and really intense levels.
I also love RoadBlasters to this day, something very hypnotic about it.

[stryc9]

Seconding Black Tiger.

Wonderboy (the original and an excellent score attack game) and WB in Monsterland are both solid action platformers.
These games just don't age at all IMO, still great to play.

[dan76]

Mr. Do! - Considering it was made in 1982 it has amazingly deep gameplay. There are many different ways to play and strategies to master. It's my all time favourite game and I'm still learning new stuff - usually by watching John in Casino.

Pacland - Screw Mario, this game is great. Loads of tricks, get very difficult on later trips. Really nice graphics style for the year. There are 4 different rom sets, if you play it make sure pacman has a long nose. The short nose versions were for the US to make him look more like the cartoon.

+1 for Wonderboy

[jepjepjep]

I also liked stuff like Strider and Cannon Dancer.

Two of my all-time favorites. They have a unique feel/style that I haven't found in other games (including Strider 2).

I'd suggest Daimakaimura for some awesome late-80's Capcom platforming action. Also highly recommend Rastan and Shinobi.