Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[mycophobia]

I just recorded a quick Sunset Riders clear with notes on what I think is the best way to solve the harder parts of the game. I figured out how to deal with those archers behind the rocks too.

Nice. gonna go for a 2-ALL?

[Vanguard]

Nice. gonna go for a 2-ALL?

Probably not. Does Sunset Riders's second loop even change much? I only played a few minutes into the second loop after ending the recording, but everything seemed the same.

[mycophobia]

idk, I've never really played it. Something's gotta change, right?? I know in Mystic Warriors's second loop all the enemies fire more bullets and way more often

[Vanguard]

idk, I've never really played it. Something's gotta change, right?? I know in Mystic Warriors's second loop all the enemies fire more bullets and way more often

Yeah, I just gave it a shot and the enemies are clearly less hesitant to fire. It's a small difference but with big consequences. Simon Greedwell doesn't run out of minions as quickly - he might even have an unlimited number. The Smith Bros. attack almost twice as aggressively and Scalpem throws more knives. It doesn't seem unmanageable though I still don't think I'm gonna bother. I don't care much for loops and I'm only lukewarm on Sunset Riders.

Edit:
Oh yeah and El Greco is far more aggressive too. You have to actually dodge his attacks rather than keep him jumping around the whole time. He's still easy though. Chief Scalpem ended my credit so I don't know what Paco Loco and Richard Rose are like. Richard Rose could be pretty tough if he has unlimited reinforcements.

[Randorama]

Question: do these Konami games only have 2 loops? Sorry for asking the (probably) obvious.

[mycophobia]

Question: do these Konami games only have 2 loops? Sorry for asking the (probably) obvious.

Mystic Warriors in its Japanese version does not loop by default, but you can set it to 2 or endless in the softdips. In the European and U.S. versions it has 2 loops by default (but in the case of the U.S. version good fuckin luck clearing even one). Sunset Riders has 2 loops by default, but I don't know if it's adjustable to be 1 or endless like Mystic Warriors.

[BIL]

Something interesting about The Battle of Olympus is that they imitated Zelda 2's controls so closely that both games share a movement glitch.

Intriguing... I couldn't begin to know whether code reverse-engineering was a thing back then, but this makes me feel slightly vindicated. Revisiting Olympus immediately recalled Holy Diver, and its reproduction of ZII's "ledge pull-up" glitch - which could seem coincidental, if not for all the other resemblances littering HD. Metroid is even more strikingly recalled by HD, of course... and beyond the lunar platform/shooting, I still wonder if the former's odd, benevolent dpad/button interaction (hold B and tap forward for makeshift autofire) wasn't unhappily mutated into HD's dread input drop.

One detail I love about DMN that got lost in RCR are the game cartridges you can buy in the toy shop. In RCR, they went with made-up names for the games, but in DNM they're actually references to previous TJC games (namely Nekketsu Kouha, Dodge Ball and Double Dragon). There's also a fictional book based on Xain'D Sleena in the bookstore.

So cool, and good advertising too! Collect 'em all, kids. I guess three separate companies publishing the NES versions must've made keeping the references impractical. Kinda meta to think you toughen up your avatar by having him 1CC his own games.

Out of curiosity, do you recall the original name of the Zeus Wand? Was messing around building a maxed-out password for "arcade mode" (Hard/no deaths/no shops), and noticed its sprite is a branched sword, as associated with the deity Fudoh Myouou (I initially recognised it from Taito's Fudouh Myouou Den aka Demon Sword).



Not that anyone should buy the Zeus Wand for stat reasons - just wolf down Mint Gums by the crateload. Wait... you're gonna tell me those were originally steroids, aren't you. Sorry about your liver, Kunio!

Kunio-tachi no Banka has a pretty expansive movelist, but it also suffers from the fact that it's an SFC beat-'em-up where you only get to fight up to two enemies on-screen in most situations.

Ah yes - this severely turned me off when I first heard of it. Lately I've been a bit more forgiving of two-enemy limits, where Technos's more deliberate handling is concerned (the FC Double Dragons all did pretty well). Does still sound a bit perplexing though.

I dunno about playing as a stick-limbed schoolgirl either, kinda spoils my street brawler buzz. >_> Not to be all chauvinistic, toots, but you ain't no bull-necked Linda! (incidentally, I was kinda amused at the FC Kunio and DD1 manuals' willowy, conventionally beautiful depictions of their lady thugs. Yo, sorry about your face! But your sprite was one ornery-lookin' broad I would definitely hit with an aluminium bat!)

Funny to think the very first FC Kunio keeps three enemies onscreen as a rule. Ah well... there's always Combatribes and DD Advance.

kitten's not around much atm, but on our favourite subject of Famicom BG tiling this scene leapt out at me. <333 that view down the street into the distance.



Actually Monogatari and Koushinkyoku are both full of wonderful chibi cityscapes.

[EmperorIng]

It's probably not on par with the focus of FC originals, but did anyone ever play the 3DS release River City: Tokyo Rumble? As a tribute game, it's nice, though its format is very sprawling, with larger maps to traverse, lots of side-quests (which are usually: beat up dis guy), moves to buy, and it's clearly designed with a longer experience in mind. It's enjoyable fan-service with a bunch of characters to unlock (and a dodgeball mode!).

It's funny that in the year that game was released, River City Ransom Underground also came out as an essentially-licensed fangame - taking the western-localization as its timeline. So you have a western-developed fangame as a sequel of the localization starring Paul and Alex, AND a japanese-developed sequel to the original coming out starring Kunio - both with the name River City.

[M.Knight]

Nazo no Murasame-Jo 2-ALL

While I have already 2-ALLed the game before on its Famicom Mini version, I couldn't record any footage of it.
The run is rather good during the first loop but I make a ton of mistakes in loop 2 such as dying against the piss easy stage 2 boss. That said, the game gives you tons of extra lives so I still got the 2-ALL nonetheless. I am not fully satisfied with the run obviously but that's a first good step I suppose. A one-life 2-ALL could be nice, but the stage 4 and its tricky boss often get me. In any case, the video also shows a few hidden items here and there throughout the run so that can be helpful reference if needed.

From what I know, the game loops forever so I just kill my remaining lives in loop 3. I don't think the difficulty increases beyond that point, and even if it did, I don't have the patience to undergo such long runs.

[Sumez]

I don't like either of the SNES Kunio brawlers, but I want to try the 3DS games, localized as Tokyo Rumble and Rival Showdown.

I wrote my thoughts on Tokyo Rumble a few pages back. Maybe I just don't "get it", but I don't think it's very good. Admittedly I don't see the appeal in the original RCR either.

[BrianC]

I found out River City Rival Showdown has an extra "Fighting of Double Dragon" 1 on 1 fighting mode. The odd thing is that even the original JP Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari version of it uses the RCR names for some characters like Alex.

[Jonny2x4]

Out of curiosity, do you recall the original name of the Zeus Wand? Was messing around building a maxed-out password for "arcade mode" (Hard/no deaths/no shops), and noticed its sprite is a branched sword, as associated with the deity Fudoh Myouou (I initially recognised it from Taito's Fudouh Myouou Den aka Demon Sword).



Not that anyone should buy the Zeus Wand for stat reasons - just wolf down Mint Gums by the crateload. Wait... you're gonna tell me those were originally steroids, aren't you. Sorry about your liver, Kunio!

Looking up at the item lists for both versions, the equivalent to the Zeus' Wand is the めるへんのつえ or Märchen's Wand. Not sure if the sprite was the same or not. I think the three-branches are supposed to be holding a purple orb on the top, but it's not visible since the color blends with the wall on the background.

I will commend the localization of RCR for giving each item shop a unique name. In DNM they simply have generic names (e.g. ほんやさん, ふぁーすとふーど) and they don't even vary between towns like the ones in RCR (where one place has a Merv's Burger Joint while another one has a Hack's Chicken Sack). I'm guessing S.W. Little was the one who did the localization, since he's credited as director in RCR alongside Yoshida and Sekimoto and is not mentioned in DMN. He's also the only gaijin name that appears in the credits for the FC Double Dragon II, so I'm guessing he also had a hand in that game's localization too (the English version was actually written before the Japanese version if I'm not mistaken).

Ah yes - this severely turned me off when I first heard of it. Lately I've been a bit more forgiving of two-enemy limits, where Technos's more deliberate handling is concerned (the FC Double Dragons all did pretty well). Does still sound a bit perplexing though.

I dunno about playing as a stick-limbed schoolgirl either, kinda spoils my street brawler buzz. >_> Not to be all chauvinistic, toots, but you ain't no bull-necked Linda! (incidentally, I was kinda amused at the FC Kunio and DD1 manuals' willowy, conventionally beautiful depictions of their lady thugs. Yo, sorry about your face! But your sprite was one ornery-lookin' broad I would definitely hit with an aluminium bat!)

You're not forced to play as them. You can switch between Kunio and Riki and their girlfriends at any point by pressing select. However, the game ends if you die as one character, unlike Double Dragon III, in which you switch to the next available character, but continues are infinite (the game even has a very easy to cracked password system).

I think I mentioned this in the past, but the inconsistent art style of the Double Dragon series is something that always amused me about the series. Like how the characters in the manual looked like they walked out from the pages of Hokuto no Ken, whereas their in-game sprites have pretty basic design. I think the Japanese flyer for the original arcade game was the only piece of Double Dragon promo art that actually resembles the game, since sprite designer Koji Ogata drew it himself. For the flyers of II and 3, they hired a professional manga artist instead.

Come to think of it, Linda looked pretty manly in the iOS/Android version of Double Dragon that was discontinued, yet in Neon she's all super-hot.

[BIL]

Looking up at the item lists for both versions, the equivalent to the Zeus' Wand is the めるへんのつえ or Märchen's Wand. Not sure if the sprite was the same or not. I think the three-branches are supposed to be holding a purple orb on the top, but it's not visible since the color blends with the wall on the background.

Aha, the orb thing would explain a lot. I wondered if the JP one might've gone for a sword/fist motif. I notice one of the JP sprites appears to be a pair of spectacles, haha.

He's also the only gaijin name that appears in the credits for the FC Double Dragon II, so I'm guessing he also had a hand in that game's localization too (the English version was actually written before the Japanese version if I'm not mistaken).

I might've asked you about it before, but I've long wondered which revision of NES/FC DDII was the original. I consider the FC rev categorically superior - its default difficulty matches the NES's highest, while its highest leaves the NES in the dust... and it's user-friendlier, with the full game playable on any difficulty, credits enabled by default, and Mission 6's platforming adjusting to the skill level.

On the other hand, the NES version's cutscenes have a few extra graphical details (see Billy's jacket in Mission 2's ending, and the water in Mission 4's opening). Yet they're minor enough that I could believe they were later deleted in favour of minimalism. Strictly as a wild guess, it's like they were developed simultaneously and tweaked to their respective markets.

[Jonny2x4]

My theory about the English version being the original comes from the fact that the Japanese flyer for the game actually has screenshots of two story sequences written in English with a script that differs somewhat from the final localization.
https://disk-kun.com/handbills/fc/double-dragon-ii

As for the extra details in the cutscenes for the NES version, to be honest, I actually noticed that the graphic tiles for the cutscenes are arranged very differently between both versions when I was comparing both ROMs for regional differences, since the FC version has a full set of tiles for katakana and hiragana characters which are not present in the NES version. I would've imagined they removed a few excessive tiles here and there to make room for the kana needed for the Japanese localization. The final frame of the opening sequence in the NES version, which shows Billy yelling, is missing in the FC version, but they made up for that by making the prior close-up showing Billy's eyes much wider (adding his temples to the frame). Either way, nice catch.

Of course, there's also the possibility that the Japanese and English localizations were developed in tandem as you said. Each version actually has some regional leftovers from the other version.

[Vanguard]

Intriguing... I couldn't begin to know whether code reverse-engineering was a thing back then, but this makes me feel slightly vindicated. Revisiting Olympus immediately recalled Holy Diver, and its reproduction of ZII's "ledge pull-up" glitch - which could seem coincidental, if not for all the other resemblances littering HD. Metroid is even more strikingly recalled by HD, of course... and beyond the lunar platform/shooting, I still wonder if the former's odd, benevolent dpad/button interaction (hold B and tap forward for makeshift autofire) wasn't unhappily mutated into HD's dread input drop.

Yeah, that's not implausible. Maybe they even replicated that same interaction and then decided to remove it in a deeply unfortunate way.

Nazo no Murasame-Jo 2-ALL

While I have already 2-ALLed the game before on its Famicom Mini version, I couldn't record any footage of it.
The run is rather good during the first loop but I make a ton of mistakes in loop 2 such as dying against the piss easy stage 2 boss. That said, the game gives you tons of extra lives so I still got the 2-ALL nonetheless. I am not fully satisfied with the run obviously but that's a first good step I suppose. A one-life 2-ALL could be nice, but the stage 4 and its tricky boss often get me. In any case, the video also shows a few hidden items here and there throughout the run so that can be helpful reference if needed.

From what I know, the game loops forever so I just kill my remaining lives in loop 3. I don't think the difficulty increases beyond that point, and even if it did, I don't have the patience to undergo such long runs.

Nice job! That game is tough! I only watched through the midpoint of stage 4 since that's all I've seen in-game myself, but I like the confidence and aggression shown in your play. I think I'll use this as a guide when I pick the game up in earnest.

This and Zelda II make me wish Nintendo had kept making hardcore games. They clearly had the knack for it.

[Randorama]

Did we say that all Konami arcade beat’em ups/action games should be played in their Japanese versions? Are there any relevant exceptions?

[M.Knight]

Vanguard : Thanks!

Being aggressive in that game is rather important from my experience, as you can easily be overwhelmed by all the enemy ninjas that spawn if you take your time and stay on the same screen for too long. A fast and efficient playstyle is a way to alleviate the difficulty, and another one is to know the item spawn locations, as they can help you recover from a death, recharge your life if you need, and make your life easier in general. Proper thunder usage in particular can bypass many tricky sections so you should learn their locations and where you should use them.

I also wish Nintendo did more games like this one, because it's very good, frantic, and not watered down in its difficulty just becuse it is on a console. If you removed the very short bonus section before the castles that gives you many lives, you could even put it in an arcade cabinet I think.

[mycophobia]

Did we say that all Konami arcade beat’em ups/action games should be played in their Japanese versions? Are there any relevant exceptions?

in the case of Mystic Warriors the European version isn't so bad, they just give the bosses a bit more hp and that's the only change I can notice. In the U.S. version though the bosses have way, way, way too much HP, presumably to encourage 4 players. I wouldn't say it's impossible to 1CC but I can't imagine it being any fun.

But overall I much prefer the Japanese version.

[Jonny2x4]

I was under the impression that the regional variants of Mystic Warriors are all the same and that the only difference between, besides the language of course, were the factory settings. I know at least Violent Storm was like that (which had different defaults for the difficulty level, lives and extends).

[mycophobia]

nope, even on max rank in the Japanese version bosses go down super fast.

[BIL]

Crummy boots n' hacks are a dime a dozen in NES romsets, but this was just too adorable.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF GAME

Spoiler

It's not entirely horrible for a boot, tbh. Utterly detestable by Konami standards, but I'd totally have stomached this back when I could only dream of owning a SNES. Then I'd despise it now, like I do DOS Mega Man.

[Obscura]

The Biplane is what truly sells it. Red Falcon apparently brought a bunch of WW2 tech with him to fight Mad Dog and Scorpion!

[WelshMegalodon]

Red Falcon

Red Falcon?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Did we say that all Konami arcade beat’em ups/action games should be played in their Japanese versions? Are there any relevant exceptions?

I don't know about console releases, but I know this pretty much applies to all their arcade releases. They had an unnerving habit of fucking around with rebalancing on a lot of otherwise competent games to make them credit-feedy such as turning a lifebar into a draining over time meter, vastly reducing health items available, messing with other mechanics (X-Men Arcade - if I remember JP ver uses special stocks first, US ver uses HP to fuel special attacks and only uses the special items when you are low on health), etc.

Moo Mesa was about the only arcade release by Konami where I didn't loathe the US version and it was actually surprisingly small changes that didn't severely affect the game.

[Jonny2x4]

Moo Mesa wasn't even released in Japan as far as I know (neither was AC Turtles in Time). And I get the impression that many Konami games, like Dark Adventure and Crime Fighters, were actually made with the U.S. market in mind first and then readjusted for the domestic Japanese release.

[BrianC]

Red Falcon

Red Falcon?

I hope shout factory eventually picks that up (Liveman). They are releasing Jetman!


As far as difficulty on some of Konami's early US AC releases, I know it varies by publisher. Locomotion seems to be easier than Guttang Gottong. I'm not sure if anything is different with other Konami games like Frogger. I remember reading that the difficulty was different for the US Scramble, but I'm not sure if it was made easier or harder.

[mycophobia]

Moo Mesa wasn't even released in Japan as far as I know (neither was AC Turtles in Time). And I get the impression that many Konami games, like Dark Adventure and Crime Fighters, were actually made with the U.S. market in mind first and then readjusted for the domestic Japanese release.

that would make sense, I had always thought it was kind of silly how fast the bosses die in JP Mystic Warriors. at the same time I wouldn't want to have to fight the train boss any longer than I already have to

[mycophobia]

while I'm making consecutive posts about Mystic Warriors, I'd like to mention that the input handling in that game is GARBAGE!!!! just now: fuckin elevator section on the final stage with Spyros, I have both lives and full energy, and when it comes time to make The Jump the motherfuckin jump input wouldn't register! I tapped the shit out of that button! lost both lives in an instant because the game just kinda respawns you wherever the fuck on that section. so mad.

like I can't even imagine how shitty that game is to play with 4 players, the slowdown would be hilarious

[soprano1]

I hope shout factory eventually picks that up (Liveman). They are releasing Jetman!

CROSS CHANGER!
Black Condor is manly as fuck. Check out the Gokaiger episode with him in it, fucking good stuff.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Moo Mesa wasn't even released in Japan as far as I know (neither was AC Turtles in Time). And I get the impression that many Konami games, like Dark Adventure and Crime Fighters, were actually made with the U.S. market in mind first and then readjusted for the domestic Japanese release.

It'd be interesting to know which versions came "first" or if they were developed at the same time. I guess I should refer to it as the "non-US" versions for Moo Mesa since gameplay wise there's effectively two - the US "UAB/UAC" versions and the "AAB/EAB" (which I presume are Asia/Europe region codes as per Konami naming conventions).

I tapped the shit out of that button! lost both lives in an instant because the game just kinda respawns you wherever the fuck on that section. so mad.

Is this a common issue with Konami games? I can't say I've had any controls issues with any yet, but I've never played Mystic Warriors before either.