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Post by Ex on Jan 6, 2019 11:37:21 GMT -5
Also, how the hell did Two Crude Dudes get a good reputation? That game is awful. I don't know about the arcade version, but I greatly enjoyed the Genesis version. I played through it co-op with my daughter years ago, and we found the game to be hilarious and fun. However, if I'd played it single player, I might not have felt the same way. I respect that you came back to this thread to put in more effort. But your mediocre experiences mirror my opinion of Data East. The company has a few standout greats, but most of their library seems half-decent at best. I suppose there are a few high quality arcade titles I missed, but digging through their considerable library to find them wasn't a high priority for me. I like Karnov as a character, but his games tend to suck.
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Post by Sarge on Jan 6, 2019 19:00:03 GMT -5
Yeah, it was late and I got tired of battering my head against it. I need to figure out how to use save states with MAME so I can pick games like that back up instead of having to start from scratch again. Another game that would benefit from that is the arcade version of Rygar. There comes a point where the game no longer lets you continue. Most of Data East's output was "meh", but I still plan on getting to the Heracles games. It does sound like, between those and the Metal Max games, that they had the RPG side figured out quite a bit more.
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Post by toei on Jan 7, 2019 2:00:29 GMT -5
I've figured out from reading about it that the way through Karnov arcade is indeed through items. And, of course, through almost never dying, because you need your maximum firepower for the tough spots. For example, the boomerang, which you find towards the end of Level 3, kills most enemies in one hit, including bosses. But you have to aim right at the dragon's head. Though if you jump to throw it, you lose it. There are also certain items you can only use in certain spots. For example if you have a ladder before you get into that building in Level 2, you can climb on the roof, and when you reach the end, your Wings item with start flashing. Use it and you can fly around for a while, which lets you grab some items in the sky. One of these is a Super-Powered Fireball, which last a few seconds and absolutely decimate everything they touch.
Also, it's possible to actually pick your ladder up again after using it in most cases, but it's weirdly hard to do. I don't know if you're just supposed to wait around or if there's an actual control. Of course waiting around causes invincible plants to grow and throw seeds at you, so you can't really do that.
In Data East's defense, I'll say this; they had a lot of good ideas. What they lacked was balance and polish. Boogie Wings, a shmup where you fly a plane equipped with a giant hook that can pick up large objects and enemies and swing them / throw them around, is a really clever concept. Karnov has a bunch of cool ideas, and could have been a good game with some re-balancing. Secret Agent and Edward Randy put action movies in gaming form better than any other in terms of visuals and structure. Captain Silver did a bunch of crazy things, and Trio the Punch even more. Midnight Resistance's basic aiming controls where super experimental. There are many other examples.
As for RPGs, Metal Max wasn't really them (they were the publishers, Crea-Tech the developers), but they figured out how to make them by the second GoH (boring Gameboy installment aside). It's largely that they had a really good writer. He also wrote some adventure games for them, like Jake Hunter 3 & 4. I'm curious about those.
EDIT - Act-Fancer is another game with a good concept, cool art, and a terrible balance. It's slightly less frustrating than Karnov - you move faster, so it's easier to dodge attacks, and you can take two hits before you die. But you still lose your powered-up form if you get hit just once (WTF, DECO?), and worse, you actually regress one evolutionary step every few seconds. Plus grabbing the orbs that allow you to grow into a stronger demon/machine is stupidly hard, and they can easily just go off-screen. So yeah, could have been good, but I don't have the patience to put up with it.
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Post by Ex on Jan 7, 2019 9:11:39 GMT -5
you fly a plane equipped with a giant hook that can pick up large objects and enemies and swing them / throw them around That description reminded me of Go! Go! Tank for Game Boy, except GGT released two years prior to Boogie Wings. Albeit Boogie Wings uses the idea more for combat than puzzle solving.
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Post by toei on Jan 7, 2019 9:47:18 GMT -5
That game looks pretty cool too.
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