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Post by Ex on Sept 18, 2019 13:23:51 GMT -5
I remembered another comic series I collected as a kid: Gen¹³I bought these in the mid-90s. Looks like the series got a reboot in '06. Doesn't look like there are any video games based on the series though.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 18, 2019 13:32:54 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, I remember that one, too. There was supposed to be a PSX game, but it never released.
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Post by Ex on Sept 18, 2019 13:55:21 GMT -5
That beta looks pretty bad, but at least we know there was an attempt.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 18, 2019 14:55:31 GMT -5
Yep. I'm pretty sure I saw some sort of preview in a magazine for this; it's the only reason I went looking. I don't know how far along it was, but it definitely seems like it wasn't coming together.
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Post by toei on Sept 19, 2019 20:10:27 GMT -5
I really should have stopped playing Batman NES, but I somehow decided to try again two days ago and now my stupid mind won't let me stop torturing myself with it until I win. It's a much worse game than I ever thought. The final level, including the two bosses, is some of the worst trash I have ever played. This game has a really terrible way of handling lives and health; you can never gain extra lives, and you don't regain your health when you make it to the boss. Since several of the boss battles are legitimately broken, it's sometimes impossible to win them without full health, or close to; and since that final level is pretty broken too, it's nearly impossible to make it to the boss with full health. So what happens is this: you start with a continue with 3 lives. If you manage to beat that awful level on your first try, which is quite hard as it has several BS parts that are further ruined by the game's objectively bad hitboxes which stretch well past the sprites, you make it to the boss and you might as well let him kill you, because you likely won't have enough health to handle him. This means that, at best, you then have two chances to beat both that boss and the Joker, a boss so broken that the only strategy people ever give to beat him is "try to get close and punch him really fast and hope he dies before you do". If you beat that level on your second try instead, then you only have one chance to beat the bosses. Fail the level twice and you might as well kill yourself to get to the next credit, since your last life is useless. This isn't only a problem at that point in the game; I've had to kill myself many times because I made it to levels with too little health, or with 0 extra lives left. Good games of that era reward you for getting better at the earlier levels by letting you accumulate extra lives, so that you can make it to the final level with 8 or 9 lives and you don't have to replay the damn thing a million times just to get a shot at the final boss; Batman punishes you for playing it instead by forcing you to repeat that trash level again and again and again until you get lucky enough to win a battle that seems mostly up to chance. Horrible design.
I also can't agree with Ex that this is a good-looking game. Literally only the first part of the first level takes place outside and has what could sort-of be described as "noir aesthetics"; everything else is some ugly nondescript interior with random colors, like almost every other NES game. Off-purple walls, off-green platforms... At least it's true that some of the music is good. After replaying those stages far too many times, the Level 1 and Level 3 themes have really grown on me. But I hate this game and wish I'd never tried it.
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Post by Ex on Sept 19, 2019 21:06:01 GMT -5
But I hate this game and wish I'd never tried it. I think you just don't like NES games in general. You don't like NES graphics, and you don't like the design commonalities employed by NES platformers that were vogue in its era. So I can understand why you wouldn't like Batman. But I am glad you gave the game an honest try.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 19, 2019 21:42:29 GMT -5
Just so y'all know, the terribleness of The Uncanny X-Men for NES is not overstated. It is a trash heap, on top of a trash heap. (I did finish a level, though.)
Honestly, it reminds me of some of those absolutely awful games you might find on a multi-game shareware disc, where it's some goofy-controlling, terrible hit detection, unclear goals sort of game that makes you go blaaaaaah.
I have my doubts whether I'll see it through. Probably not. It's borderline unplayable. But it's not unplayable, so it escapes getting a 1/10 from me. 2/10, and that likely won't change.
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Post by toei on Sept 19, 2019 21:48:04 GMT -5
Ex I think so too. But what annoys me is that those design choices I hate are really specific to the NES rather than the era those games belong to. Batman NES came out in 1989, the same year as The Legendary Axe and Shadow Dancer arcade and The Revenge of Shinobi, two years after Zillion 2, etc. The better arcade, PC Engine, Master System and Genesis side-scrollers that came out at the same time were all much more tightly and fairly designed, yet NES games seemed to be stuck in this micro-climate of bad design.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 19, 2019 22:04:42 GMT -5
Well, you know my opinion on Zillion 2 and The Legendary Axe. The former is probably a 6/10 in my book, and the latter maybe a 6.5. Whereas I love Batman, but then again, I love a lot of the NES platformer output. Batman has a certainly weightiness and solid feel that I like in at least some of my platformers.
EDIT: Have you danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? All this Batman talk got me wanting to play through Batman on NES again. So I did! And yes, I got whomped a whole bunch against Joker as I always do, and played through the final stage probably five or six times. It's not that long a run, though, and I had no issues getting to Joker with all my lives intact, even if not my health. I got to the point where farming for health took longer (or it felt like it) than just going at him with basically two lives. And the secret, as always, is punches. And jump-ins. With a full life meter, and as long as you're getting in your hits when he calls lightning (which will sometimes miss based on your spacing, even if you're in punch range), he'll eventually drop. Just any time he switches sides, make sure to do a well-spaced jump right in front of him, so you avoid a gunshot, and are inside the range if he does another. And if he calls lightning, pound him!
You don't have to fight the penultimate boss again if you beat him, so it's just a matter of battering through that final stage until you break through against Joker. While I agree that checkpoint is incredibly punitive, at least not facing that other boss gives some clemency. And his pattern devolves pretty quickly; jump close fireball, jump far fireball, while in that jump toss boomerangs to hit, he'll jump back and throw another short fireball so jump it, and repeat the pattern.
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Post by Sarge on Sept 21, 2019 0:01:12 GMT -5
Okay, I battered my way through Jim Lee's Wild C.A.T.S. It was decent enough, although far longer than it probably needed to be, much like The Death and Return of Superman. It probably took me two, maybe two and a half hours to get through it.
You get to play as three characters, and while you can select them, much like X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, each character has their own mission and stage. They interlock, so you'll finish a task with one that will let another proceed. While it doesn't really change anything but the stage order, I appreciate it tried to do something different.
I ended up liking the hulking guy the most, because he has a nice running tackle that works well for managing enemies, almost like a Golden Axe running attack. The swift guy had the best melee combos, but enemies can also interrupt you, which can make them dangerous. When I got lower on health, I'd often just fall back on drop kicks, jumping blade attacks, and the aforementioned shoulder ram.
Graphics are pretty decent looking. Sound design is pretty decent, too; they're all Tallarico joints, and some of the chunky guitars sounded pretty nice. Hit detection doesn't feel as solid as I'd like, but it was better than Supes. Also, there are some climbing bits that are really annoying.
Overall, I'd say this was... a smidge above average. Probably a 5.5 or a 6/10. I'll be nice and give it a 6, actually. Not the worst thing I've played on SNES at all.
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