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Post by bonesnapdeez on Oct 24, 2018 19:33:03 GMT -5
Double post! Earlier this month, Hot Gimmick Cosplay-jong was released on Switch. I think this game was originally on PS2. Other entries in the series appeared in the arcade, though I can't find an arcade release for this one. So strange; I wonder how many Westerners would be interested in such a release. The game was developed by shmup gods Psikyo, oddly enough. It costs a whopping $20 (not $19.99 for some reason). Yeah, definitely an oddball. PS2 cover art:
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Post by Sarge on Oct 24, 2018 22:58:15 GMT -5
Survey says... it's okay. It doesn't do anything special compared to the Capcom CPS1 brawlers. It's certainly thematically appropriate. Maybe give it a shot in MAME first. (That's what I just did!)
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Post by toei on Oct 25, 2018 7:49:42 GMT -5
I really don't like Night Slashers. It seems to have some people giddy, but I assume it's more the visuals and horror theme, cause I never see anyone bring up the gameplay. It's not just that it does nothing special, but that it does nothing especially well. Every enemy has this weird, overlong death animation where they're still standing for a moment, so you don't know right away that they're dead - I always end up punching at the air once or twice unless I actually count the hits. This really throws you off if you're trying to play well. Besides, it's unsatisfying; you want enemies to be knocked the hell down (or fly away like in Streets of Rage 1), not slowly tumble. And while I usually like horror in games, the idea of punching zombies with your bare hands is just nasty. These things are made of decaying flesh! I've tried several times to get into it, and I've finished it at one point, but the fighting never felt right to me.
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Oct 25, 2018 8:09:47 GMT -5
I've been buying all the Johnny Turbo releases, so I will be giving Night Slashers a shot... eventually.
Seems like most people agree that Data East was a "B-list" arcade developer overall, at least compared to titans like Capcom and Konami.
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Post by toei on Oct 25, 2018 8:50:30 GMT -5
Data East was definitely B-List, but they made some interesting games, too. They were just never really as polished. There are 4 big companies when it comes to beat-'em-ups: Capcom, Konami, Sega and Technos. Those are the only ones whose input in the genre is notable in both quality and quantity.
As far as arcade A-List, the "four giants" are usually understood to have been Capcom, Konami, Namco and Sega; SNK might have been close, though most of their good games fall within one genre. Namco wasn't into beat-'em-ups at all, though, and SNK's few attempts at the genre were not good.
Companies like Irem, Data East, and Taito would be B-List (even though Taito started with the biggest arcade hit possibly ever in Japan, Space Invaders, they fell a bit behind, and their '80s and '90s output is almost never as solid or innovative as that of those other companies). There are other companies that made great games, but they were more specialists than generalists.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 25, 2018 12:10:40 GMT -5
I've always seen Data East as a whole as B-list. I don't know that they put anything out that was absolutely amazing. Maybe the Heracles games or Metal Max, although I must admit I haven't played through any in the latter, and only the DS game for the former. I hear really good things about the two SNES Heracles games, though.
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Post by toei on Oct 25, 2018 13:00:36 GMT -5
Metal Max Returns is excellent, Saga's pretty good, and I'm still waiting for MM2. The original series was programmed and published by Data East, but designed by a company called Crea-Tech, which was started by a friend of Yuji Horii who'd helped write the scenario to the first 3 Dragon Quests but wanted to make something more "free" that would eschew the fantasy setting. Glory of Heracles is great, too - Squaresoft even headhunted the main writer/director of 2, 3 & 4, which might be what killed the series. I don't recommend the DS revival, it's bland and boring, but 3 & 4, absolutely, and 2 is one of the better NES RPGs.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 25, 2018 13:05:39 GMT -5
I strangely enjoyed Glory of Heracles on DS, but I can see where folks might not like it much at all. There's always the occasional JRPG that gets panned that I end up having a decent time with.
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Post by toei on Oct 25, 2018 13:30:58 GMT -5
I strangely enjoyed Glory of Heracles on DS, but I can see where folks might not like it much at all. There's always the occasional JRPG that gets panned that I end up having a decent time with. Part of the problem is that it reprises story elements from GoH3, but doesn't really do them justice. I don't know how far that goes since I stopped playing it after 8-10 hours, but if/when you get to GoH3, you'll see.
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Post by Sarge on Oct 25, 2018 16:42:59 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm sure since I never played through GoH3, it didn't impact me as much.
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