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Post by Ex on Mar 21, 2021 21:45:14 GMT -5
Finished Twilight Princess HD! I agree playing without motion control is the best method (it was GameCube for me). You've beaten what I consider to the be the best 3D Zelda. Glad you enjoyed it. |
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Post by Sarge on Mar 21, 2021 22:06:21 GMT -5
I played on Wii, and didn't have any issues with it. In some ways, the motion control was better (aiming), and in some worse (I found the shield triggering with the nunchuck finicky). I still want to replay via the remaster, though, and thankfully I do have a copy on hand. Funnily enough, when I bought it I'd just started up a replay via the Gamecube version, which I haven't beaten. And of course, I've barely touched it since then.  |
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Post by Sarge on Mar 21, 2021 23:48:44 GMT -5
Quick run of Ninja Ryuukenden III. It's so much easier and more accessible. It still has some teeth, but it's easily the most fair of the NES trilogy... unlike the US release, which amps the difficulty through the roof.
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Post by Sarge on Mar 22, 2021 22:08:33 GMT -5
Double Dragon II: The Revenge for PC Engine is a'ight, but it has nothing on the NES game. Interesting to see the reinterpretation, but I don't like how most special moves don't have much power anymore. I can't use my jumping-in uppercut much anymore, and the cyclone kick is super nerfed. It's not a hard game, though - unlike the NES game, seeing the ending (especially if you up your lives and continues) shouldn't be hard for old hands.
Also, if you hate how difficult the NES game is, and how you have to play on Supreme Master to fight the real end boss, give the Japanese version a shot. It's a lot, lot easier since you can play the full game on normal, and get continues. (I didn't need them, though, when I played through it earlier this year, though.)
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Post by toei on Mar 22, 2021 23:42:33 GMT -5
I feel the opposite way. DD2 PCE-CD is so much better than the NES game, which is really nothing special. Better level design and overall feel. I'm also a big fan of DD2's controversial control scheme (I can't remember if the NES version keeps it, but it's straight from the arcade original), in which the left button hits towards the left, and the right button hits right. People seem to get confused with it because they want it to be the same controls as usual with one button for kicks and one for punches, but once you get that out of your mind and realize that the placement of the buttons reflect the direction of the attack, it feels completely natural, and it lets you fight off being ganged up on better than any beat-'em-up.
Shame it's the only good beat-'em-up on that console (not that there's many bad ones, either... the only other real beat-'em-up I can think of is Riot Zone, which isn't worth playing).
Actually, maybe the Japanese version you mentioned will be a good excuse to play through the NES version again.
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Post by Moulinoski on Mar 23, 2021 9:46:44 GMT -5
I beat Phantasy Star IV! (Sort of) Looking back, I can see why I stopped playing where I did the first time around. After beating Zio and the first Dark Force , it's a very climactic point in the story. So much happens at that point that it feels like that should be the end right there. But then it keeps going. And it keeps going. And going... It suffers a bit from "overstaying its welcome" syndrome. The other knock that I have against it is a Phantasy Star staple: despite having some lengthy dungeons and taking many cues from Dragon Quest, it takes its Game Over cues from Final Fantasy... Yeah, if you get a total party wipe, you get sent to the title screen and you lose all of your experience, gold, and progress! So you have to either make sure you exit a dungeon after getting a treasure you really want to keep or use save states and the rewind feature of the Genesis Collection to soften the blows (which I did because after a while, I was just pushing myself to finish the game). I have a final knock against it: Final Fantasy softens the Game Over blow by providing save points within its dungeons, usually close to a boss fight making automatic boss fight scenes more tolerable; in PS4's case however, you can go up a flight of stairs and be locked into a boss battle! Whoops, would've been nice to know what was up ahead so that I could go back and save so I don't lose everything I got at that point. (I should mention that Final Fantasy only started doing this in Final Fantasy 4 and on so it's possible that there was no precedent for it yet). Finally, if I hadn't known about the localization issues, I would've been very confused by certain names and I'm sure I missed some extra references although this could've been remedied with Sega Ages Phantasy Star having a new translation instead of the old one. Oh well. It probably sounds like I didn't enjoy the game but I absolutely did! I did have to take several breaks and I did have to push myself to get through Garuberk Tower and the Air Castle . Those two dungeons nearly killed my interest in the game. Otherwise, I loved it. It feels like I got to explore Motavia the best with Dezolis being sort of eh. I liked the vehicles, the planet hopping, the enemy designs (specially the alien monsters). The final sequences felt very climactic again and piqued my interest again and the ending felt like a real send-off to the series. I don't know if it was by design or a very clairvoyant coincidence that this was the final Dragon Quest-y Phantasy Star. I really would've liked to see how the series would've progressed if it hadn't switched to an Action RPG style. Then again, I have not played any of the Phantasy Star Online games or their derivatives. I do have another retro game that I've beaten by semantics in that it showed me its credits scroll: Cave Noire. For the uninitiated, it's a Gameboy dungeon crawler / rogue-lite that was only every released in Japan. Once you beat the seventh level of each of the four mission types it throws you into the credits. It was surprising to me because I looked up a guide shortly before to see how many levels it goes on for since I was under the impression that it was just a mindless, endless dungeon crawler game. But nope, you can beat it. It's hardly worth playing for the story since there is none; but it's a fun little game to play when you have to wait ten-fifteen minutes for whatever reason since you can get through a dungeon in that time. I plan to eventually start Phantasy Star 3 soon, but I think I'll take a bit of a break from Phantasy Star before starting it. I've been trying to work on my own computer game project for some time and I've subscribed to an online course on management that I now have to keep up with (and hopefully, it'll expand the opportunities I can pick up in the future). Edit: Sorry about the formatting. I've never used spoiler tags before and wasn't sure how they'd show up. I won't fix it because I have to get back to work (this was a break that took longer than I expected). |
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Post by Ex on Mar 23, 2021 9:50:48 GMT -5
Phantasy Star IV and Cave Noire are both great games, good taste man. I've beaten the former but not the latter. Cave Noire gets rather difficult eventually, but I always enjoyed its OST even when dying. As a portable roguelike with cute graphics, I think CN was well ahead of its time. PS3 is a downgrade from PS4, but I think it's still worth playing regardless.
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Post by Sarge on Mar 23, 2021 12:24:18 GMT -5
NES version definitely keeps the left-right attack mechanic. I wish supers were more powerful in the PCE game, and the soundtrack is... uh, not good. I was alerted to the fact that a hack exists that puts in the DD2 arrange album, though, and that would absolutely be ideal.
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Post by Ex on Mar 24, 2021 10:07:07 GMT -5
DD2 PCE-CD is so much better than the NES game, which is really nothing special. Better level design and overall feel. I guess that all depends on when you first played DD2 on NES, and if you even enjoy the NES as a platform to begin with.
I first played DD2 NES in 1990, with a friend named Trent, who had bought the game via funds gathered by recycling cans. I remember his name and how he bought DD2, because DD2 NES made such an impression on me when I first played it. Double Dragon II: The Revenge on NES was innovative and an inspired effort by Technos. By that I mean, Technos completely redesigned the NES version from the arcade, making it a unique DD2 experience. DD2 NES was incredibly fun in its day, with great combat mechanics, co-op (which DD1 NES lacked), nice colorful graphics and pleasant audio, while offering evolved gameplay over its NES predecessor. So personally I disagree, and believe the NES version of DD2 is special. Even today I still think DD2 is fun and the best beat 'em up on NES. I enjoy all of it except for some of the shoddy platforming at the very end, which was only included because platformers were a hot commodity in the late '80s. (Thankfully the Famicom version of DD2's platforming is less sadistic, and you can even fight the true final boss regardless of difficulty level chosen.) I have not played the PCE-CD version of DD2, so I can't speak to its quality. I know it released four years after the NES version on more powerful hardware. From what I've read and watched, Kid ignored the arcade original DD2, and instead adapted the NES version of DD2 for their PCE-CD port. The big difference being, the PCE-CD version has less cartoonish graphics and animated cutscenes. (Unfortunately the fight on the massive bulldozer at the end of the forest level is missing in Kid's version.) It's clear that without DD2 NES as a template to build from, the PCE-CD version of DD2 wouldn't even exist.
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Post by toei on Mar 25, 2021 18:54:22 GMT -5
I beat two Japan-only PSX games: Abala Burn and Rapid Angel.
For the first, I did try switching emulators like I said in the Now Playing thread, but the same bug triggered. The coin I was trying to grab turned out not to be mandatory, though, so I just decided to forget it. The fighting engine really kind of sucks in that game. Early on, all the bosses and mini-bosses you encounter are pushovers, so it's not so bad, but there's a few dangerous ones later one that are very awkward to deal with because they're so huge and you have tiny arms and legs. It's just really hard to tell whether you'll actually hit them, with their weird shapes and hitboxes. In those occasions, the best thing to do is to stay away and shoot fireballs until they die. It's almost invulnerable - it's just cheap and tedious cause it does very little damage. There's a gauntlet of like four bosses at the end who can actually sidestep away from fireballs, but they're ironically very weak otherwise. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'd rate it. I really like the fighter+exploration concept, but this game is quite flawed in both aspects. It's probably worth a 5, but I'll give it a 6 because it's my favorite type of hybrid gameplay.
As for High-Tension Comical Action Game Rapid Angel (the actual full title), it's a charming little 2D action-platformer for the PSX. You can play as three different girls; one uses punches and kicks, one a sword, and the other throws knives and spells. I'd say the first is the most fun to use, as she gives the game a beat-'em-up feel. There are lots of small boss fights against other regular humans that aren't really bound by patterns, and they're pretty fun too. The game is extremely easy, however, and feels kind of mindless. The controls also aren't as precise as I'd like, though they're not a major pain to deal with either. There's 14 levels, but most of them are ridiculously short - I really think they should have combined them into about 7, so you wouldn't always be getting interrupted by end stage screens. They're mostly flat up until the late game, where things get less linear and more interesting. I enjoyed those late levels; if more of the game had been like that, it'd be a solid 7, but as it is, it kind of feels like a trifle, so... 6? It does have some really nice-looking areas, and it's worth a quick playthrough, but it feels like the kind of game you should be able to buy for 10$ - I'd be mad if I'd paid 40-50$ for it.
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