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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2018 3:37:46 GMT -5
I'd always assumed Max Payne took inspiration from John Woo films more than anything. From my understanding, John Woo movies and older noir films from the 40s and 50s were the original inspiration. The Matrix was one of their later inspirations as it was so successful when it came out in 1999 and the action scenes in that movie were also strongly influenced by John Woo, so it all blended together. The best 3D beat-'em-up is Die Hard Arcade I have played through Die Hard Arcade a few times. It is very good, I'll say it's the best co-op'able 3D beat 'em up. But for a single player 3D beat 'em up experience, God Hand is sure hard to beat. I'm quite the Die Hard fan so I'd be interested in playing this. Although apparently they removed any blatant connection to the movie in the Western release? I understand not having the rights to use Bruce Willis' face, but the guy they replaced him with in the cover art looks godawful.
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Post by toei on Jun 24, 2018 5:25:49 GMT -5
I'd always assumed Max Payne took inspiration from John Woo films more than anything. From my understanding, John Woo movies and older noir films from the 40s and 50s were the original inspiration. The Matrix was one of their later inspirations as it was so successful when it came out in 1999 and the action scenes in that movie were also strongly influenced by John Woo, so it all blended together. I have played through Die Hard Arcade a few times. It is very good, I'll say it's the best co-op'able 3D beat 'em up. But for a single player 3D beat 'em up experience, God Hand is sure hard to beat. I'm quite the Die Hard fan so I'd be interested in playing this. Although apparently they removed any blatant connection to the movie in the Western release? I understand not having the rights to use Bruce Willis' face, but the guy they replaced him with in the cover art looks godawful. It wasn't a Die Hard game in the first place, actually, it just took some inspiration from it, so they just bought the rights to the name for the Western release. Although the art on the Japanese cover looks a lot like Bruce Willis, it's not officially him. I notice the covers to the Die Hard Trilogy games don't show Bruce Willis either, so I guess he refused or asked for too much.
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Post by Sarge on Jun 25, 2018 14:18:58 GMT -5
I played through Dungeon Magic, the Taito arcade game, not the NES RPG (published by Taito, created by Natsume). It sports an interesting isometric view, but the combat system doesn't actually let you attack on the diagonals; it still plays like a belt-scroller. The hit detection feels a bit off to me at times, which impacts my enjoyment a bit.
You get to choose from four characters: the swordsman, a bigger dude that punches things (and sometimes slashes), an elf girl that kicks stuff (and does a flipping leg slam, ouch!), and a wizard. All of them have a somewhat standard assortment of moves: a dashing attack, a normal combo, the ability to grab and punch or throw enemies, and unique supers. They also have the ability to charge up attacks. Each character also does something different in that case. For instance, the elf shoots a bow, and a much more powerful charged bow attack when charged to the maximum. The wizard can shoot a fireball, or let loose an area attack when fully charged. The puncher will actually pull out his sword for a large slash, and it sends out a shockwave at maximum. This adds a little bit of character to the game, along with the solid sprite work.
Once again, though, brawlers can have interesting mechanics, but miss the "feel" to elevate it, and I think the iffy hit detection just drags the game down too much, despite all the interesting things going on here (including a rudimentary leveling system and weapon upgrades). I'd say the game gets a 6/10 from me. A little better than average because of the presentation, but really lacking that extra oomph to elevate it to a genre great.
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Post by toei on Jun 25, 2018 20:02:22 GMT -5
I played through Dungeon Magic, the Taito arcade game, not the NES RPG (published by Taito, created by Natsume). It sports an interesting isometric view, but the combat system doesn't actually let you attack on the diagonals; it still plays like a belt-scroller. The hit detection feels a bit off to me at times, which impacts my enjoyment a bit. You get to choose from four characters: the swordsman, a bigger dude that punches things (and sometimes slashes), an elf girl that kicks stuff (and does a flipping leg slam, ouch!), and a wizard. All of them have a somewhat standard assortment of moves: a dashing attack, a normal combo, the ability to grab and punch or throw enemies, and unique supers. They also have the ability to charge up attacks. Each character also does something different in that case. For instance, the elf shoots a bow, and a much more powerful charged bow attack when charged to the maximum. The wizard can shoot a fireball, or let loose an area attack when fully charged. The puncher will actually pull out his sword for a large slash, and it sends out a shockwave at maximum. This adds a little bit of character to the game, along with the solid sprite work. Once again, though, brawlers can have interesting mechanics, but miss the "feel" to elevate it, and I think the iffy hit detection just drags the game down too much, despite all the interesting things going on here (including a rudimentary leveling system and weapon upgrades). I'd say the game gets a 6/10 from me. A little better than average because of the presentation, but really lacking that extra oomph to elevate it to a genre great. Yeah, I feel the same way you do about both Dungeon Magic and Gaiapolis. Both look like they should be really cool, but are just ok in the end. Taito was really uneven when it comes to beat-'em-ups, though. Sonic Blast Man 2 is good, Rastan 3 is decent, Arabian Magic and Dungeon Magic are just okay, Growl starts out fun but becomes completely unplayable later on, and both Sonic Blast Man and Silent Dragon (which was actually developed by the same company behind arcade Double Dragon 3) are terrible.
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Post by Ex on Jun 25, 2018 20:53:46 GMT -5
I played through Dungeon Magic myself last June. I thought it was decent. I agree screenshots make it look better than it actually is, though playing it co-op might up the fun factor. Same thing with Wizard Fire, which I finished a few days ago (AKA Dark Seal 2 in Japan). Looks great in screenshots, but the play of the thing leaves a lot to be desired. I still plan to play through the original Dark Seal (AKA Gate of Doom) soon regardless.
Has anyone played through the arcade game Blade Master? Any good?
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Post by Xeogred on Jun 25, 2018 20:54:56 GMT -5
53. Mega Man Zero* (DS) [MMZC] 54. Mega Man Zero 2* (DS) [MMZC]
* = replay
Wasn't even planning on beating this in a day... but that just happened. Zero 2 is easily better than the ZX's and improves upon Zero in all the major areas, fixing everything. The only nitpicks I have is that it still has the grading system, to which speedrunning levels is basically required and I'm not doing that. I guess this sort of thing is for beefing up the handheld replay value to get a ton of mileage out of perfecting the game. You have to beat bosses with an A rank or higher with the Buster only, to unlock some extra "Forms" that change up Zero's colors, stats, and movesets, but I played through the entire thing with his base form. You also unlock some "EX" moves which changes up the fully charged buster shot and what it does upon impact. Well again, I had this set to some ice spike thing and that was it! The game is humorously easy coming out of how unbalanced and wonky Zero 1 is, though this is maybe still tricky for new fans. I think I recall Zero 3 and 4 being harder. The Elf system makes more sense in this one and I only spent a few minutes at most grinding at the beginning of one stage later in the game for some E-Crystals to level some Elves up. I had unlocked just about everything with ease, full health bar, DOUBLE health bar on top of that, 4 sub-tanks, additional enhancements like higher jump and run speed, spikes/lava no longer doing instant deaths, etc. I kid you not, I didn't even use a single sub-tank in the last stages... though I had some one time useable Elves that I used to heal up. The one sub-tank I got early on was very useful though and I needed it a lot, but the game definitely gets way easier as you go and the boss weaknesses really tear through them. Beating the game does unlock New Game + and a Hard Mode, along with some "Proto Form".
The classic Mega Man formula is perfect as is and that's what Zero 2 and on get back to! Instead of the weird half baked Metroidvania thing Zero 1 attempted, which was just having to backtrack through the same 3 stages over and over again. In Zero 2 you've got 8 classic stages again and some intermission stages in between. The music somehow gets even better than the first, Zero has an improved sprite himself, and everything in general looks even sharper and better. Not sure if the resolution is different, but the game is gorgeous. The level design is top notch as well and dramatically better than Zero 1's, still some nasty spikes here and there but a lot of these areas wouldn't feel out of place in the X games and that's awesome. The story and characters were great in Zero 1 and continues to build up to the awesomeness of Zero 3-4.
Easy 9/10.
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Post by toei on Jun 25, 2018 21:14:59 GMT -5
I played through Dungeon Magic myself last June. I thought it was decent. I agree screenshots make it look better than it actually is, though playing it co-op might up the fun factor. Same thing with Wizard Fire, which I finished a few days ago (AKA Dark Seal 2 in Japan). Looks great in screenshots, but the play of the thing leaves a lot to be desired. I still plan to play through the original Dark Seal (AKA Gate of Doom) soon regardless. Has anyone played through the arcade game Blade Master? Any good? At first Blade Master didn't ring any bells, but after watching a vid, I remember playing it. I thought it was a really mediocre (again, despite cool visuals) because you don't have attack chains like in normal beat-'em-ups; instead, you just have one basic attack that you have to repeat continuously, as this vid shows: It's already a simplistic genre, and making it drastically simpler is just too much. One beat-'em-up that is pretty decent, but clearly meant for 2-players, is Tecmo Knight/Wild Fang. It's a gory late-80s fantasy beat-'em-up where you can change at will between riding a giant or a tiger. Instead of throws, it has a mechanic where you can jump on enemies' heads and either pound them to them (sort of like Skate's move from Streets of Rage 2) or wrap your whip around their heads and spin around until it decapitates them. Problem is, unlike 99% of beat-'em-ups, your attacks can only hit one enemy at once, so if you walk up to two enemies and start attacking, the second one will hit be able to hit you and stop your combo. Even bigger problem is that in single-player, losing a life takes you back to an earlier checkpoint instead of letting you continue on the spot, and losing two (ie a continue) forces you to restart the level. Again, only in single-player. It's a horrible mechanic that basically amounts to a huge penalty for playing by yourself, and I hate beat-'em-ups that do that. I would really like to finish the game with another player one day.
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Post by Ex on Jun 25, 2018 21:18:17 GMT -5
The game is humorously easy coming out of how unbalanced and wonky Zero 1 is Did you start 2 from scratch? Or are you still playing using that all-four-games-in-one-go mode?
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Post by Xeogred on Jun 25, 2018 21:39:40 GMT -5
Yup. I played the intro level on the Easy mode at first the other day but it was pretty boring that way, I don't regret going that route for Zero 1 since it has balancing issues in my eyes. So I started it over today. From here on I'm playing them separately, so their base intended releases. That's why I mentioned the one subtank I had early on was pretty useful before I got some health upgrades. It was cool how a single subtank could be used multiple times and only uses what is needed. The X series doesn't play that nice heh.
Although I emulated these games years ago, I maybe played them on a PS2 controller but I'm not sure. I bet they would be harder on a normal GBA. The controls customization and 3DS+grip comfort makes all the platforming and action perfectly doable.
I can confidently say ZX Advent was much harder than this, which I wasn't totally expecting. It would be funny if I walk away thinking ZX Advent is harder than all of the Zero's. But I do think 3-4 amp it up... I'll find out soon.
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Post by Ex on Jun 25, 2018 21:47:12 GMT -5
It would be funny if I walk away thinking ZX Advent is harder than all of the Zero's. But I do think 3-4 amp it up... I'll find out soon. I seem to remember Zero 1 being hard, Zero 2 being moderately difficult, and Zero 3 / 4 being fairly easy, but that was 12 years ago. I can't fully trust my memory from that long ago on this. So I'm really interested in your final takeaway, concerning the original Zero series versus ZX Advent. My takeaway from ZX Advent was it was very hardcore and obviously meant to appease series vets. It didn't disappoint!
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