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Post by Ex on Jan 12, 2018 11:52:18 GMT -5
I will check out Story of Mio, thanks for the recommendation.
I think when you look at the way Japanese computers worked in the early 80s (like the PC88), those old PCs were geared towards menu based applications. Their OS was intended as such. In that regard, it makes sense that Japanese adventure games were menu driven for so many years. A byproduct of the era.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 12, 2018 12:06:28 GMT -5
I did my run through Batman: Return of the Joker.
So Ex, you're not wrong, the game is tough, but it's also alleviated significantly through very short stage segments and unlimited continues. You can even grab a password for each stage.
That being said, there were some problem spots that I ran into; I tend to forget some things between runs. The blimp stage is easiest if you just crowd the right edge, so that's actually not the worst of it. The sewer stage has some troll enemies that will knock you into the drink. The ice stage has those tornado enemies that will usually catch you unawares, not to mention those missiles that drop with virtually no warning. That cave level has a moving platform with an enemy that will toss a knife and send you plunging to your doom if you don't know it's coming. And the elevator stage in the last area leading up to Joker can take a few tries. I probably continued five times through my run. Much of that was rushing and pure carelessness on my part; familiarity breeds contempt and all that.
Graphically and aurally, the game is an absolute tour de force. It sports massive, almost 16-bit style sprites, some great spritework overall, and some kickin' Sunsoft tunes. Gotta love that bass! While I don't feel the game is quite as good as the first NES Batman, it's less of an investment to burn through it, given the leniency with continues and checkpoints and whatnot. I still very much recommend it, even if it's just to see what peak Sunsoft could still do. Seeing them lose their way in the 16-bit era was one of the more depressing things to behold. I'd give this one an 8/10.
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Post by Ex on Jan 12, 2018 13:12:53 GMT -5
I should just swallow my pride and savestate my way through B:RotJ. The graphics and music in it are out of this world given the platform. It looks and sounds better than quite a few early 16-bit releases.
I agree Sunsoft's fall from grace during the 16-bit era was just shy of devastating. I have to wonder if key personnel simply went elsewhere. It's hard to believe the competency of their 8-bit team went that flaccid come the 16-bit era. Something deeper must have happened.
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Post by Ex on Jan 12, 2018 15:36:04 GMT -5
One more licensed platformer down, but I'm taking a break from the genre now: 7. RoboCop | Arcade | 1987 | 5/10
RoboCop the arcade game, is a licensed action-platformer developed and published by Data East, released in 1987. RoboCop is based on the 1987 film of the same name. The plot takes place in the near future, concerning a cop named Murphy who nearly dies in the line of duty, only to be resurrected as a cybernetic super cop. Now Murphy is tougher and more dispassionate then ever, and according to this game, is out to murder a couple hundred criminals. After he kills them he tends to say things like, "Thank you for your cooperation." (This arcade game has a fair amount of unintentionally hilarious spoken dialogue.) The game design is basic side-scrolling move, attack, and jump stuff. That is to say, Murphy can only move left or right, punch or fire his weapon (in various directions), and jump. The jump button means there's some platforming elements here, but honestly most of the platforming access is done via stairs or elevators. Jumping tends to be reserved to reaching power-ups scattered about. Graphically and aurally, RoboCop is standard fair for a 1987 arcade game. That means it looks and sounds a lot better than the NES version (or other simultaneously released versions). The aesthetics do capture the atmosphere of the film, but the gameplay really doesn't.
The gameplay here is paper thin, really. If you're not shooting a million dudes dead, you're shooting ED-209 dead. Unfortunately ED-209 is the only non-human boss in this game. As such, ED-209 is used for nearly all boss encounters. You'll see palette swapped ED-209s early on, and eventually fight two ED-209s simultaneously. All of this redundancy quickly makes RoboCop feel repetitive. Even though it only takes about twenty minutes to beat this game, the player will likely tire of the unimaginative tedium after about five minutes. There are occasional bonus stages between missions, where the player attempts to destroy as many targets as possible, in a limited amount of time. This is done in first person, and high scores reward life points. Not that it matters much, as RoboCop suffers from quarter-muncher-extremus. Dying every five seconds becomes an inventively towards the end of the game, as swarms of identical enemies and bullets constantly hound the player. This happens to the point of slowdown even, as the game struggles to handle the excessive sprite counts. Still, I wouldn't call the arcade version of RoboCop a bad game necessarily. It's certainly better than other versions of the same game. And for fans of classic arcade games, and the film itself, what's here is a decent little jaunt. Yet one can't help but think Data East rushed this board out the door, hoping to capitalize on the film's success while it was still popular. Thus I can't help but wonder how much better RoboCop the arcade game could have been with six more months in the oven. At least the cabinet looks great.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 12, 2018 15:42:35 GMT -5
It should have been too easy to make a good Robocop game, haha. I'll have to pass on the two you just beat. But now I'm curious about Robocop 3 NES again since I had that one growing up, might give it another look tonight.
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Post by toei on Jan 12, 2018 16:27:36 GMT -5
I almost posted about the Data East RoboCop game in the arcade thread. I walked into a grimy, barely-lit city arcade when I was 8 or 9, put a few quarters in that machine and ran out within 3 or 4 minutes. It's really the perfect game for a 5-minute session, full of explosions and gunfire but barely playable in the long run. Wow, that was almost poetic.
Have you tried the direct sequel? It's got some of the same flaws, but from what I've seen of it, it's a more interesting game.
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Post by Ex on Jan 12, 2018 17:05:58 GMT -5
I am sure as a kid, I did play RoboCop in the arcade at some point. I was feeling slight twinges of deja vu.
>Have you tried the direct sequel? It's got some of the same flaws, but from what I've seen of it, it's a more interesting game.
I have not yet. I would like to try more RoboCop games though. I have a soft spot for the character.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 12, 2018 17:21:04 GMT -5
1. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Genesis) 2. Darkwing Duck (NES) 3. Batman* (NES) 4. Journey to Silius (NES) 5. Aladdin* (SNES) 6. Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse* (SNES) 7. Run Saber (SNES) 8. Batman: Return of the Joker (NES)* = replay Finally checking out the weirder second NES Batman game from Sunsoft. The strange thing about this one is that I vividly remember the game cover extremely well. And something about Batman going Super Saiyan when you get enough power ups seems oddly familiar. But I don't really know if I played this game or not, none of the levels themselves really rang a bell, nor did the music or anything compared to the first game which I grew up on. But something weird about that cover... maybe I rented it once and knew that was not the one I wanted and I always opted for the original Batman? Quoting Sarge: The blimp stage wasn't too hard for me, after knowing where the enemies will spawn a few times through haha. But yeah that ice stage and the sewer one were some of the hardest by far (that first troll bridge too). Was tough to dodge everything in the ice stage so I kind of just brute forced it after several attempts, since the levels aren't too long in this in general. But the sewer stage... okay, I used save states. Jumping was a little funky in this, then you had guys throwing knives at you, weird things rolling out of the sewers that hit you, and any little hit would send you into the death pits haha. The elevator stage wasn't hard for me, I think all the sliding action I did in Contra Hard Corps prepared me for this, heh. It was nice that Batman had a slide. This was very useful during the final Joker fights too. The bosses were frankly pretty easy, sometimes a little boring though because they were sponges... but so was Batman. I had a tough time with the weird turret boss though. I thought the flying shmup levels were really cool, crazy easy though. My favorite weapon was the N spread shot. Batman - Return of the Joker (NES) - Stage 7 Music - loved this track.
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Post by Xeogred on Jan 12, 2018 23:07:16 GMT -5
1. Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse (Genesis) 2. Darkwing Duck (NES) 3. Batman* (NES) 4. Journey to Silius (NES) 5. Aladdin* (SNES) 6. Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse* (SNES) 7. Run Saber (SNES) 8. Batman: Return of the Joker (NES) 9. Ninja Warriors (SNES)* = replay Heard a lot about Ninja Warriors last year because of the soundtrack on various VGM podcasts. Amazing Taito at work here. dunpeal2064 reminded me in another thread I wanted to hit this one up and I'm glad I did, mostly (we will get to that in a second). I'm always kind of skeptical of beat em' ups that don't have Z-axis movement, I guess it's Z-axis? You only move left or right in this despite a lot of games in the genre allowing you to move up and down too. So that's different, but once I got used to it I didn't mind. I liked the Kunoichi the most for her speed and agility. It was easy to figure out a few tricks, like using the special attack to get some i-frames and dodge a hit, or get the robots in a corner to continually throw them as they can do nothing, and she could duck and tear a lot of enemies up. It got trickier as the game went though with the mix of tougher enemies. The jumping claw guys (straight out of Streets of Rage) were the most annoying, or the fire breathers that always had a little spacing on you. Lots of dangerous combinations later on. But that final boss... FUCK THAT. What a pile of shit. Most frustrating gaming rage of 2018 so far for me. I was having a blast with this game, but this final boss was so damn stupidly annoying and gimmicky I don't know if I want to touch this game again! Sheesh! You have to somehow throw enemies at him in the background sitting behind some glass shield, when there's an assortment of three enemies on the screen constantly ganging up on you along with these laser beams that keep shooting down along the arena. Resorted to save states to get this over with so I could sleep tonight. Always heard the game was hard, but I thought it was totally fair and doable until this part. I still highly recommend checking this out if you like the genre or the looks of it, but be warned for that final boss.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 12, 2018 23:54:11 GMT -5
Oh, good grief. I played through the whole game without the slide. I knew I was forgetting something. And now I know how I was expected to beat another certain boss in the Genesis rendition. I was giving that a go earlier this evening. I... don't recommend it. It's the same game in broad strokes, but it just feels wrong. Ringler Studios, you did not do a great job with the port. As for Ninja Warriors... I actually beat that on the real hardware. Took quite a few tries to grok the final battle, but yeah, it's very different from the rest of the game. In some ways, not unlike the Turtles in Time Shredder fight. @ex: I still like the Robocop arcade game, I just love the feel of it. But you're right that it's basically a giant quarter muncher. It was flat out designed to separate you from your money, full stop. I'm guessing that for most people, those two or three quarters worth felt awesome.
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