Ninja Gaiden [NES] + R2RKMF: Scrolling Action Monogatari

[BIL]

At ~55secs? Nope, that's OG FC Batman. Also a textbook example of how not to fight the Joker. (now there's a Batman game with no shortage of sockin' baddies in dey fuckin mout)

[Ed Oscuro]

Ah, okay. I thought the big blur of whatever was shooting as seen in ROTJ. Well guess the player brought that one on themselves. The one game left I haven't got any idea about is at about 0:18.

[BIL]

You do have three projectile weapons in the original Batman, but the game is balanced ala Dracula or Ryukenden so they don't supplant the melee attack or each other. For the Joker, you want to be in close and pounding away on his ribcage so he won't be able to blow Batman's head off with his comedy elephant revolver (or do contact damage - enemies lose the ability while taking damage themselves).

0:18 is Balloon Fight. Usually gets called a shameless Joust ripoff but I've always liked it. Probably because I've never had any attachment to Joust! It's really fun in 2P simultaneous, some of the best treachery on the console next to Contra's waterfall stage.

Incidentally, went through a short Batman trade paperback phase recently. In "The Cult" he and Robin end up busting out M16s to take on an army of lunatics. But of course the M16s shoot tranquiliser darts~

And on that tangent! The Long Halloween and its sequel Dark Victory are superb. Year One and The Dark Knight Returns go without saying. The Monster Men and The Mad Monk are solid spiritual sequels to Year One. The Cult isn't as good, but gets nostalgia points from me since it's late 80s-tastic. One-shots The Killing Joke, The Man Who Laughs and Gotham by Gaslight are all worthwhile man in spandex reading too.

[Obiwanshinobi]

If you like Balloon Fight, check out Balloon Kid for the GB(C). Slowly autoscrolling action that makes me think of Irem rather than Nintendo. As a matter of fact I'm about to go play it in the park.
It's got Balloon Fight-like challenges, bossfights, score attack mode of sorts and sperm whales.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, I saw your mention of it in another place, and your comparison of that to Chelnov got me interested.

[Ed Oscuro]

And on that tangent! The Long Halloween and its sequel Dark Victory are superb. Year One and The Dark Knight Returns go without saying. The Monster Men and The Mad Monk are solid spiritual sequels to Year One. The Cult isn't as good, but gets nostalgia points from me since it's late 80s-tastic. One-shots The Killing Joke, The Man Who Laughs and Gotham by Gaslight are all worthwhile man in spandex reading too.

It's way out there, but did you check out Arkham Asylum? Short and weird, but hey, Maxie Zeus eating poop! AW YEAH

[BrianC]

If you like Balloon Fight, check out Balloon Kid for the GB(C). Slowly autoscrolling action that makes me think of Irem rather than Nintendo. As a matter of fact I'm about to go play it in the park.
It's got Balloon Fight-like challenges, bossfights, score attack mode of sorts and sperm whales.

It also got a Famicom port with Hello Kitty called Hello Kitty World.

[BIL]

It's way out there, but did you check out Arkham Asylum? Short and weird, but hey, Maxie Zeus eating poop! AW YEAH

Oh yeah, totally forgot about A Serious House on Serious Earth (<--AWESOME TITLE A serious house on serious earth it is / In whose blent air all our compulsions meet / Are recognized, and robed as destinies). Overall, I prefer the noir-ish hardboiled Batman of The Long Halloween and Year One to the psycho-introspective stuff like AA and The Killing Joke, but it's definitely worth a read too. Keeping up with the deranged art and manic pace is a fun excercise in itself.



edit: and poor Harvey Dent poops his pants, d'ohoho.

[Obiwanshinobi]

It also got a Famicom port with Hello Kitty called Hello Kitty World.

Balloon Kid certainly deserved a home version, but the original is one of those games working particulary well on Game Boy. As such, it's not terribly on topic (slower pacing than something like Mega Man or Green Beret), yet so peculiar and good at that it needed to be namedropped.

[Turrican]

Reading this thread has made me realize how much luck Batman had with the videogame medium. I wonder if any superhero whatsoever can ever hope to stack half of the quality games Batman got. As a spidey fan I feel totally humiliated.

[Edmond Dantes]

I wonder if any superhero whatsoever can ever hope to stack half of the quality games Batman got.

Mega Man

[Obiwanshinobi]

Mega Man is a robot.

[BrianC]

Reading this thread has made me realize how much luck Batman had with the videogame medium. I wonder if any superhero whatsoever can ever hope to stack half of the quality games Batman got. As a spidey fan I feel totally humiliated.

At least Spidey made out much better than Superman or Aquaman. He got a few good games, appeared in some cool Capcom fighting games, and even made a cameo in Revenge of Shinobi.

[Edmond Dantes]

Mega Man is a robot.

and... Robots can't be superheroes? Or what?

Anyway, speaking as someone who hates Batman, even I must admit the NES game was pretty damn good. I kinda-sorta liked the Sega ones too.

[Mortificator]

I played through Ninja Gaiden III yesterday with this hack. The readme says...

The US version of Ninja Gaiden 3 is inferior to the Japanese version in 3 ways. Greatly increased damage from all hazards, limit of 5 continues, and no password system. My previous patch addressed the first two problems, fixed the damage and you never run out of continues. This patch finally tackles the final piece, passwords.

The patch's author has overlooked a couple of other region differences. The US version also changed the power-ups available in some orbs in a way that generally makes things more difficult, and it sends the player back further after death. This means the hack results in a game that's harder than the Japanese version and easier than the US, and I actually like it that way. Ninja Ryukenden III is just too easy to be satisfying, while Ninja Gaiden III is too aggravating, at least for me.

The game did glitch once. I fell at the rainy vertical area in stage 5, and before I could start making my way back up, the moving platforms disappeared. I ran around a bit with no way to ascend, then collision detection failed and I fell through the floor. Just a warning in case anyone else tries the hack, though it only happened once, and I can't be totally certain the patch was what caused the issue.

[BIL]

I've never been entirely happy with Ryukenden III. It's a fun game but you can tell there are dead spots (unheard of in the first two) and other deficiencies that the US one addressed, albeit going a bit overboard with that damage scale. But I'll take a beating over a cakewalk any day.

The way I see it, everybody takes a beating sometime.

I'll probably end up adding the NES to my console library for NGIII, Shatterhand, Jackal (FDS-only and not as good in JP) and a handful of others.

WAIT, WHATS THAT

Since Taroumaru feels like it was designed to be an arcade game, you can forget about it being properly balanced, because enemies attack in huge numbers and the bosses litter the screen with tiny projectiles.

Oof, I'm sorry everyone. I just went to grab a Taromaru iso so I could emulate it while away this week, and the download page had c/p'd in the HG101 review. Walked right into it! Right after lunch too. A lovely potato salad with lots of mayo. Uh... oh fuck... no, I'm okay.

I think I will see about recording a Normal no-miss. I would much rather record a Hard no-miss, where the game really tests your psychic killing aptitude, but I'm way out of practice and some players could apparently benefit from a more fundamental demonstration. Working title: "How to not ignore the game's defining mechanics because you just had to get that review of the ISO up for your hardcore gaming site and resorted to playing it like Contra cuz you walk to the right shootin at stuff whats the diff ROFL"

[Obiwanshinobi]

Robots can't be superheroes?

Can they? Robots are tools developed by human beings to fulfill given tasks. Superheroes are human beings granted inhuman traits.
Mega Man in particular is patterned upon Astro Boy which is patterned upon Pinocchio (the literary topos must be much older). I can't see any messianic pattern here.

[Moniker]

Robots can't be superheroes?

Can they? Robots are tools developed by human beings to fulfill given tasks. Superheroes are human beings granted inhuman traits.
Mega Man in particular is patterned upon Astro Boy which is patterned upon Pinocchio (the literary topos must be much older). I can't see any messianic pattern here.

The war has ended for now peace has returned. But those who sacrificed
themselves for the victory will never return. Exhausted, X gazes at the
destruction he helped cause and wonders why he chose to fight.
Was there another way? Standing on the cliff, the answers seem to escape him.
He only knows he'll fight the Mavericks again before he finds his answer. How
long will he keep on fighting? How long will his pain last? Maybe only the
X-Buster on his hand knows for sure...

[Edmond Dantes]

Robots can't be superheroes?

Can they? Robots are tools developed by human beings to fulfill given tasks. Superheroes are human beings granted inhuman traits.
Mega Man in particular is patterned upon Astro Boy which is patterned upon Pinocchio (the literary topos must be much older). I can't see any messianic pattern here.

What's the difference between a human being and a robot who is practically indistinguishable from a human?

[blackoak]

The war has ended for now peace has returned. But those who sacrificed
themselves for the victory will never return. Exhausted, X gazes at the
destruction he helped cause and wonders why he chose to fight.
Was there another way? Standing on the cliff, the answers seem to escape him.
He only knows he'll fight the Mavericks again before he finds his answer. How
long will he keep on fighting? How long will his pain last? Maybe only the
X-Buster on his hand knows for sure...

I love those soulful, broody Mega Man endings... that's a favorite. I remember it really comes out of leftfield too.

[Obiwanshinobi]

What's the difference between a human being and a robot who is practically indistinguishable from a human?

Their origins.

[BrianC]

I'll probably end up adding the NES to my console library for NGIII, Shatterhand, Jackal (FDS-only and not as good in JP) and a handful of others.

I have Jackal and I plan to get NGIII and Shatterhand for NES, but I'm somewhat torn with Shatterhand. From what I tried, unless I'm mistaken, Solbrain seems mostly the same gameplay wise, but has a single stage that's different. Is this correct? Then there's games like Wrath of Black Manta/Ninja Cop Saizo that are so different between regions, that make me want to get both (though I have the former).

[BIL]

I've played relatively little of Shatterhand/Solbrain, but I found the former's submarine level incredibly awesome and the latter's fairground rather lame (regarding both theme and game design). I think some boss placements are different too. I may get both for completism as a huge Natsume fan, but on what I've seen I'd go with Shatterhand first, especially as it's their original game unaltered by licensing. (EDIT 2018: actually not sure about that anymore, and also, fairground was totally underrated here! fuck you, me!)

I think it's worth having both the JP and US versions of Ninja Gaiden III. The JP one is good for blasting through while enjoying some of the best presentation on the console, and the US one is Master Ninja Mode. And both have all the parallax Tecmo couldn't be arsed to preserve for the SFC comp.

[BrianC]

I've played relatively little of Shatterhand/Solbrain, but I found the former's submarine level incredibly awesome and the latter's fairground rather lame (regarding both theme and game design). I think some boss placements are different too. I may get both for completism as a huge Natsume fan, but on what I've seen I'd go with Shatterhand first, especially as it's their original game unaltered by licensing.

I'll probably do the same, but I think one of the bosses was censored for Shatterhand (two woman, replaced by robots for Shatterhand).

[Ed Oscuro]

lol wrath of the black manta

just emulate that one

I've never regretted getting Shatterhand and not searching out Solbrain, either.

[BIL]

I remember when Black Manta was the hot new thing as shown in the inside front cover of Archie's Double Digest, ha. I think I finished it on a rental.

Ouuu... not so rough!

WHY ARE YOU KIDNAPPING CHILDREN

[Ed Oscuro]

BUSINESS REASONS

[BIL]

Oh god, that game.



Feel the tension!



DOPE IS PEOPLE

[Skykid]

What's the difference between a human being and a robot who is practically indistinguishable from a human?

Their origins.

Well put.

[Edmond Dantes]

What's the difference between a human being and a robot who is practically indistinguishable from a human?

Their origins.

Yeah, but when we have superheroes who are everything from "born mutants" to "aliens from another planet who used to work for planet-eaters," it seems artificial to preclude robots.

(In fact, isn't there a canon, comic book superhero who actually is a robot? Like ROM the Space Knight or something?)