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Post by Sarge on Oct 8, 2020 20:55:31 GMT -5
toei: Yeah, I have to admit, I'm kind of a sucker for those fantasy-themed shooters like Elemental Master or Twinkle Tale. Much more my speed, I think. I remember enjoying Sol Divide quite a bit, too - guess it's something about having a melee attack along with the shooting? Might explain Lords of Thunder, too.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 8, 2020 21:01:26 GMT -5
toei : Yeah, I have to admit, I'm kind of a sucker for those fantasy-themed shooters like Elemental Master or Twinkle Tale. Much more my speed, I think. I remember enjoying Sol Divide quite a bit, too - guess it's something about having a melee attack along with the shooting? Might explain Lords of Thunder, too. Add to that list King's Knight (NES) and Dragon Spirit/Saber. Sadly, I never got around to playing Dragon Blaze (no JP PS2), but I think I would like it.
Edit:
Thunder Force is among my favorite Genesis shooters, both III and IV. I'd love to hear why you think you didn't like it, toei.
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Post by toei on Oct 8, 2020 21:17:46 GMT -5
@opwuaioc I had issues with visibility in Thunder Force 3 - bullets just didn't pop out from the backgrounds the way they should - and I think I didn't like the multiple speeds gimmick. Mostly, though, I just didn't like the level design. I'm also not a fan of the generic space setting, though that by itself isn't enough to completely turn me off a shmup. I enjoyed Gate of Thunder, for example. But shmups are the last classic genre I started to explore, as I didn't play them at all as a kid. Some I'm still kind of bad at them. I haven't completely written off Thunder Force 3 or 4, though. Maybe they'll click some day.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 8, 2020 22:02:24 GMT -5
@opwuaioc : Ooh, Dragon Spirit is really good, too. Love the soundtrack in that game. Actually, I used to listen to a MIDI version of the first stage through an old program called WinGroove. (I'm old.) EDIT: Uploaded just for y'all. Someone recreated the WinGroove soundfont. Heck yeah. I'm having serious flashbacks here. www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=55060WinGroove was some really impressive software for back in the day. Near real-time playback (just a touch of startup lag), and the whole program and samples fit on a floppy disk. I mean, you have to admit this sounds pretty darn good for Windows 3.1/9x-era software.
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Post by Xeogred on Oct 9, 2020 14:32:56 GMT -5
My play activity has finally updated on my Switch, seems like I spent about 10 hours on Super Mario Sunshine ("Played for 10 hours or more"). Still glad that's over with.
I'll bump it up to a 5/10 though... so it beats out Tomb Raider Underworld.
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Post by Ex on Oct 9, 2020 20:38:07 GMT -5
I'll bump it up to a 5/10 though... so it beats out Tomb Raider Underworld. Well considering I finished Sunshine but dumped Underworld, I'll have to agree. It's nice to see someone else agree that Underworld was fairly terrible.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 9, 2020 21:48:59 GMT -5
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is still pretty great.
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Post by anayo on Oct 17, 2020 10:03:34 GMT -5
toei : Yeah, I have to admit, I'm kind of a sucker for those fantasy-themed shooters like Elemental Master or Twinkle Tale. Much more my speed, I think. I remember enjoying Sol Divide quite a bit, too - guess it's something about having a melee attack along with the shooting? Might explain Lords of Thunder, too. I loved both of those! Elemental Master somewhat less, but that's only because it was too short and I wanted more of it.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 1, 2020 0:23:53 GMT -5
So I went and did what I said I should do when I finished Flying Dragon: beat Flying Warriors for NES. I'm not even sure where to begin.
Well, let's start with the structure. So the game has three distinct modes. Two are used a lot, the other pretty sparingly.
Normal exploration: This is where you run around a non-linear but fairly small side-scrolling map to accomplish tasks. It's usually to track down some item you need to beat a boss, or proceed deeper into the stage.
Fighting mode: Here, you fight enemies using a sort of karate tournament-style with some extra moves thrown in that I'll get to shortly.
RPG mode: Just you, mano y mano with a boss where you pick attacks, heal, and defend.
Sounds pretty wild for an NES game, right? Well, too bad Culture Brain flubbed the execution. The exploration mode comes closest to being enjoyable, but the level layouts are generally trash. The game loves to put platforms in places where constant enemy spawns knock you into pits. Hit detection feels very strict - it's hard to land precise hits, and you lack range on your attacks - and many enemy patterns frustrate.
The fighting mode would be fine, honestly. There's a sort of give-take early on where you wait for the mark to appear on your opponent to attack, and make sure to defend when it appears on you. You fill up a K.O. gauge that will eventually let you unleash the Hiryu no Ken, if you can land it, and later on you have magic spells you can cast in your superhero mode. Speaking of superhero mode, there are fights where you absolutely have to transform, or you can't block enemy spells. The real problem is that enemies toward the end are very fast, with vulnerabilities often not staying open long enough to engage in fisticuffs. In fact, doing so will likely get you hit. The strategy becomes defending as much as possible to max the K.O. gauge and hoping you can land a magic attack without them blocking. To the game's credit, these fights are incredibly tense, as things can go badly in a hurry. But the real problem I started having toward the end was the game eating inputs. Ah, yes, the time-honored tradition of making sure you can't get a block in through no fault of your own. Thanks, game! Even without this, the controls tend to be quite stiff.
RPG mode only gets used for two bosses. It doesn't feel like it was implemented well - it's more RPG flavor than actual RPG, since your options are limited. You can choose to erect a barrier, which gives you a chance to block attacks... but the only other option is to use magic water to heal yourself or change to other folks during the boss turn. After he hits you, you can hit back with a spell, or if your K.O. gauge is full (better hope your barrier held!), unleash a Hiryu no Ken. Especially for the last boss fight, you're going to want to grind and buy as much Magic Water as you can carry. You do have to swap to another character briefly for the final boss, but that's about it - there's no major advantage that I can tell, although it wouldn't surprise me if I discovered there were some elemental bonus for using particular members (both here and in the tournament mode).
All this sounds terrible, but there really are some good ideas in here. I like the RPG trappings. The art, while not impressive, also isn't terrible. There are some legit good tunes here. For a while, the combat, while clunky, has a sort of measured, methodical pace before it takes a dive at the end. There are also some interesting mechanics where the only way to reveal a Tusk Soldier in disguise is to finish them off with a particular move. This sounds like it would be awful, but in practice, it's fine, as you have an item that will take you directly to those fights again. The game even tells you what you need to do to finish them off correctly. You can buy "Windy Shoes" that let you teleport within the area you're in (so you can go back to the shop from the last area, for example, and then back). You can technically grind if you so choose, either on Tusk Soldiers or regular enemies. (You will need to do this for money against the few enemies that drop it unless you're amazing at the game.) The game not only gives you passwords, but also gives you continues, which actually work more like extra lives so you don't have to start areas over again until you run out... and even then, it lets you keep all of your obtained items and progress. The only thing you have to do is traipse back to where you lost, which isn't generally that bad once you know where to go. And there's a decent amount of game here. A legit run took me almost six hours. Of course, I'm sure that could be shrunk much smaller, as several longplays I checked will attest to.
Basically, this game embodies much of the Culture Brain ethos. Take a "normal" game, and add RPG elements. And in this case, a sim-ish tournament fighter. Interesting, but it just didn't come together for them like their better titles. I'm still really happy to have finally finished it. I've always been very intrigued by it, both for the structure and the comics that I would see in GamePro for it. With some tweaks, I think this could have been fantastic, but in the end, I'm left leaving it a very uneven 5/10.
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Post by Chainsaw Bilqis on Nov 1, 2020 9:44:56 GMT -5
I have never played Flying Warriors, so thanks for the review. I wonder how the concept of the game came about? It is interesting. I guess Culture Brain was trying to increase their North American sales with superheroes or something haha. Are there any good online resources about Culture Brain? I have some English books on Japanese game developers, but despite the thoroughness of these books Culture Brain is barely mentioned in them (there are a few mentions, maybe I just overlooked a section on them so I will double check). It is a shame because I think there is probably some really cool stuff to learn about the company.
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