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Post by toei on Apr 24, 2023 17:42:23 GMT -5
Yeah, I only found out recently that Decap Attack is also part of that set of games, I never actually played much of it. The aesthetic just didn't appeal. But the Japanese version is very different, apparently based on an anime series. Yeah, the visuals are more appealing in the original game compared to the cheap Halloween stuff they went with in DeCap. Annoying music, though.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Apr 24, 2023 18:12:15 GMT -5
Kaguya Hime Densetsu I've played a good chunk of those early proto-VN Japanese adventure games and this is the worst by far. It SUCKS. It took me four attempts to finish this. Not four attempts in quick succession. More like four attempts over two years. First two attempts I got stuck at the same spot. Missed a "trigger" or something, I dunno. Third attempt I got btfo just minutes away from beating the game. Finally beat it this afternoon. The story is inspired by the Japanese folktale "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter" but very loosely. Most of the game is a bunch of lolrandom humor. Like, you meet Santa on his off-day, rescue a turtle from bullies, take beauty school lessons, dress up as a woman to infiltrate a nunnery, get robbed by an all-female motorcycle gang, and more. There are very specific and weird bad endings early in the game (if you fail to slay a cobra with a knife you're doomed to live in a seedy back alley... for some reason) but then the game gets lazy and just proclaims you "dead." It's as annoying as any old adventure game but the developers took things a step farther by adding in atrocious "action" sequences. For instance, at one point you have to jump over a pitfall...... by rapidly tapping B and right simultaneously and then mashing A to jump. And that's just getting started. The final stretch of the game is this atrocious ocean maze (you steer a ship). Your viewpoint is extremely small due to the massive text boxes, the scrolling is somehow worse than that of the MSX, and touching anything results in an instant game over. Oh, and the ship "drifts" so you can't even sit still. The endings are insane and predicated on capriciously accumulated "points." A really high score results in a kiss from the princess. Score too low and, I shit you not, you become a "detective" and saunter off in the old timey gumshoe trench coat outfit (why??). Oh, and if you "kiss" anyone else throughout the course of the game the princess completely rejects you at the end and instead turns her affections towards.... the turtle. Okay maybe the game is kinda funny. But yeah, don't play this. Portopia, Suishou no Dragon, etc. are much, much better.
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 24, 2023 21:47:45 GMT -5
Zillion II ~25 minutes
- Such an interesting colorful aesthetic, a kind of style you wouldn't really see on the NES/SNES - Definitely a brief arcade-like experience with only two level concepts, but it works and it's really simple fun - I liked both level styles. I'm not sure if you can transform into the mecha in the first vehicle stage or two, but it was fun to stay in that mode afterwards. It's such a huge vertical hit box though, so dodging in that form was interesting to say the least. But I have bullet hell war scars by this point...
- The jump physics are a little quirky but aren't too hard to master - I like how you rescue some buddies and pick them up like... items, they just disappear after you hear some chime from walking over them lol. They're huge player sized sprites too so that's why it was so funny to me - On my second life spent on the final boss, I discovered a goofy trick that maybe works on the other bosses? The bosses i-frames lets you the player pass through him without taking any damage, lol. He always did this fly by swoop low to the ground you have to duck under or jump over. Or nah, just shoot him and time your jump with the i-frames, you'll pass through. Not sure I took damage once after that...
Now let us all bask in 80's Production IG.
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Post by Ex on Apr 24, 2023 22:09:02 GMT -5
XeogredRespectable beat my dude. And that particular anime opening is my favorite anime opening of all time. Love everything about it, especially the theme song "Pure Stone". Although "Burning Stone" (from the same anime OST album collection) is pretty good too:
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Post by Xeogred on Apr 24, 2023 22:14:28 GMT -5
That's the good stuff right there.
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Post by toei on Apr 24, 2023 23:22:16 GMT -5
Production IG was formed after the making of Zillion to keep the team together (it was Tatsunoko Pro initially) because management was impressed with the quality of their output. It's literally the reason Production IG exists. People need to give it more respect.
Fun-fact: there are brief excerpts from Zillion in a '90s Michael & Janet Jackson video (which was the most expensive music video ever made at the time).
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Post by Ex on Apr 25, 2023 11:07:15 GMT -5
It's well known MJ enjoyed video games, but it's not as well known he liked anime too. I remember reading Taj Jackson (Michael's nephew) talking about how he introduced MJ to anime with Robotech and Akira. In that regard I'm not surprised there's some anime clips in that Scream music video. toei - I agree people need to give Zillion more respect, not just the anime, but the games as well. The first Zillion is difficult and yeah too much for most players, but it's still a fun time that I beat legitimately back in the day. The "ID cards" thing is kinda annoying (just figure out a mnemonic system like I did), but exploring the huge base, rescuing Champ and Apple (that you can control), and completing the mission is good fun.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 26, 2023 0:24:47 GMT -5
Why play another system when you can knock out another NES game you've always wanted to finish? This time it's Phantom Fighter, a game where you fight kyonshii (or jiang shi), aka Chinese hopping vampires. It seems like a pretty iffy game at first - you're slow, don't have many moves at your disposal, and if you don't know the rhythm of the game, you might die pretty quickly. As it turns out, though, there's a very deliberate pattern here:
- Track down the temple and fight through it to establish your home base for healing. - Earn scrolls at the "kyonshiis are here" locations (which you can grind for). - Spend your scrolls to get moves at the training hall. - After you have all your moves, go to the "danger is in the air" locations and get three orbs. - The orbs unlock the way to the boss of that town.
Almost the whole game, outside of one level that doesn't have a training hall and the last one which has nothing but orb locations and the last boss, follow this pattern. So it's a game that can be pretty repetitive if you do it all in one go. That's... uh, what I did. But there is a strangely addicting quality to it. As you get moves, your movement speed drastically increases and you can do quite a bit more damage. Funnily enough, one of the most powerful moves can be learned in the second town, the side kick. Extremely powerful. Supposedly other moves are stronger (like the jump kick or "4 thrust" which is a rapid punch move), but I found the side kick to be the easiest to employ, and almost wish I hadn't bought the jump kick, powerful though it is, since it messed up my fighting rhythm.
The game does give out password, and while I save-stated, near as I can tell from a couple of game overs I got, the game doesn't take your progress and only penalizes you half your scrolls. So it's definitely a game you can get through with perseverance, and again, you don't have to do it all in one shot like I just did.
Anyway, how do I feel about this one? I won't call it a hidden gem, but I do think it was a decent time, probably in that 6 or 6.5 range. Definitely not the dumpster fire it may initially seem to be. (And it probably took me... three hours? Maybe a bit less.)
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Post by Ex on Apr 26, 2023 10:59:18 GMT -5
Sarge - I rented Phantom Fighter when I was a kid, and I remember strongly disliking it. The initial slow movement and repetitive nature I'm sure threw me off. It's interesting that the game's originally based on the 1985 film Mr. Vampire ( Reigen Dōshi). The films's about a guy killing Chinese vampires (kyonshi) just as the game is. - I'm about 2/3rds through the original Wonder Boy on Master System. This is a game I had as a kid. I was pretty sure I never beat it, but so far I remember everything I've seen, so maybe I did beat it as a kid. Wonder Boy is better than I remembered it to be, but it's also longer than I remembered it to be. I may finish it this evening if I have enough time and energy.
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Post by Sarge on Apr 27, 2023 12:50:02 GMT -5
Another NES game? But Sarge, you need to play something else! Yeah, I probably do. And I did try to jump into a couple of SMS games and came away thoroughly unimpressed by them (Captain Silver was one, can't remember the other right now). So after I started up Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (another on my want-to-beat list), I shifted gears to Alfred Chicken. Yes, a Euro platformer. But get this - it's actually quite good, and not full of cheap deaths, although it does have enough challenge to make it not boring as well. It's not a long game (only five decently-sized levels), but I thought the level design was solid and Alfred controlled pretty well overall. So this one's a win for me, probably a 6.5 or 7/10. Worth a shot if you've exhausted a lot of the A- and B-tier platformers on the system.
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