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Post by toei on Aug 12, 2020 0:37:14 GMT -5
EasyHard Wild Guns is part of a small subgenre of shooters sometimes called "Cabal-like" or "Cabal clones" after the first game that got famous for doing it. The same company, an arcade developer named TAD Corporation, also made a western shooter in that genre, which Wild Guns takes after.
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Post by Ex on Aug 12, 2020 1:11:32 GMT -5
EasyHard That DOOM .wad screenshot reminds me a bit of Outlaws. Wild Guns is certainly a classic. It loses a little luster when playing single player (co-op is the best experience) but is definitely worth playing solo. - Tonight I booted up that Xbox copy of Read Dead Revolver. I saved after finishing Chapter 11. There's 27 Chapters, so I'm a good ways in already. However, it's possible this game's gonna get hard. It's already been considerably challenging at times. So I did some research on RDR. Turns out there was never "two different development teams" as someone misinformed me long ago. The "two developers" for RDR; Angel Studios and Rockstar San Diego, were actually one and the same. Angel Studios were simply renamed Rockstar San Diego after their acquisition. But the same core people who started working on RDR in 2000, were the same people who finished it in 2004. “I’m not exactly sure where you heard [Rockstar cut Capcom’s ideas], but that is completely wrong. The Red Dead Revolver that actually came out, is basically more or less unchanged from what we [Capcom + Angel Studios] made. We had gotten the game pretty much most of the way to the end of development. What you see is basically what we already had.” - Yoshiki Okamoto
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Post by EasyHard on Aug 12, 2020 1:29:22 GMT -5
Ex: Huh, I never knew Capcom was originally involved with the Red Dead series.
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Post by Ex on Aug 12, 2020 9:19:20 GMT -5
Ex: Huh, I never knew Capcom was originally involved with the Red Dead series. Indeed. Yoshiki Okamoto who had originally designed Capcom's 1985 Gun.Smoke, wanted to make a sequel to said game. At the time, Okamoto wanted to call the sequel S.W.A.T., except the acronym would stand for "Spaghetti Western Action Team". Okamoto decided to work with Angel Studios to produce this Gun.Smoke sequel, as Capcom had previously worked with Angel Studios to develop the Resident Evil 2 port to N64. From there eventually this sequel was nenamed Red Dead Revolver, under Capcom's direction. Most of the development of RDR was overseen by Capcom via Okamoto, until Rockstar bought out Angel Studios in 2002.
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Post by Sarge on Aug 12, 2020 14:27:56 GMT -5
I battered through a couple more titles.
First, the familiar: Sunset Riders is indeed the superior game on SNES. I still have trouble with Chief Wigwam, although as long as you get to him with enough lives, I find the best strategy is to park right on top of him and jump and shoot downward to dodge his sword swings. As for the last boss, you indeed have to do judicious ledge-hopping to get past all the hail of bullets. I stay on the left side, usually fire a shot to the right to take care of the one over there, flip up and fire downwards, catching both on the left side, and repeat. Once you have them cleared out, getting on top and playing the angles will see you win. It's not that bad a fight once you know what to do, but initially it's insanely overwhelming and you don't get much time to learn what works, especially since the SNES version doesn't let you continue in place like the Genesis game. I'm sticking to my score of 8/10, although with more practice I might start revising it upwards.
Oh, right, and continuing the theme of Konami games on the system, you only get a single "good job, podner" (seriously, that's how you're gonna spell that?) congrats screen, locking the full credit scroll behind the hard mode, which I can confirm is indeed quite hard.
Now, the not so familiar: The Great Battle V. It's the fifth game in Banpresto's line of crossover Kamen Rider/Ultraman/Gundam series, and this one has a Wild West thematic bent. I both liked and disliked aspects of the game. It's not necessarily a game that you can just jump straight into, as reading the manual will let you know about a few techniques that I missed. Namely, the charge attack projectile of the main character, Roar, can be ridden, getting you to places both horizontally and vertically. There's also a lot more hopping and bopping here than the prior game; you actually jump on enemies' heads to stun them, then kill them.
I had a hard time with several areas initially, but then I learned (and I should have known) that the bonus game in which you can spend coins to compete for prizes has a top-tier prize of a life extension. While one of these is nearly impossible to clear under four seconds, one is relatively easy, and the other doable, so you can farm coins and get a full life meter. I wish I'd known this sooner in the game, as it would have made things a lot less frustrating. It also appears you have infinite continues.
Actual movement is a little strange. For some reason, your character moves forward quite a bit just on the slightest tap, and that makes accurate maneuvering quite tricky in spots. There's a snake boss that was really frustrating for that reason, since it was easy to get hit by his exploding projectiles because you couldn't make small adjustments. Hit boxes also feel a little too large.
There's another mode here, though, and given all the Cabal and Cabal-clone talk recently, it's of interest. Yes, several stages and boss battles take this form, right down to the dodge roll mechanic. I love that they included these, even if they're not quite as good as Wild Guns.
Also, it's a bit of a bummer, but you'll revisit several stages again, although with a different partner, and generally different bosses. It's unfortunate they padded it out this way, but it could be worse. It's a pretty long game, though - my save state time was 2h30m, but I'd guess I actually spent three hours with it total, although I stopped using save states once I knew continues weren't going to hurt me.
Even if I have a lot of small gripes here and there, the game certainly looks the part of a top-tier title. Man, there's some great sprite art here. And there was a tune or two that for some reason felt extremely familiar in terms of sound, but darn if I can place it, so I'll post it here.
If I had to give this one a score, I was originally going with a 6.5, but once I found out about the life extensions, it makes the whole ordeal a lot more forgiving, so I'm bumping it up to a 7/10. Definitely consider giving it a go.
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Post by toei on Aug 12, 2020 14:37:39 GMT -5
I'm thinking Lufia or Lufia 2. I don't know if it's a straight rip-off, but I'd bet I heard those exact sounds being used rather similarly in some SNES RPG, and those are the first that come to mind.
EDIT - I keep thinking of Chrono Trigger when I hear it, but I don't feel like going through all the tracks. I'm almost certain there's a pretty similar track in Chrono.
Agreed about the sprites, they're great. I don't quite like the feel of any of the Great Battle games. This one is better than some of the others, but it still only has the look of a top-notch game, IMO.
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Post by Sarge on Aug 12, 2020 14:54:05 GMT -5
I'm thinking Lufia or Lufia 2. I don't know if it's a straight rip-off, but I'd bet I heard those exact sounds being used rather similarly in some SNES RPG, and those are the first that come to mind. Agreed about the sprites, they're great. I don't quite like the feel of any of the Great Battle games. This one is better than some of the others, but it still only has the look of a top-notch game, IMO. Yeah, I think you may be right. It did pop into my head as I looked up that particular tune and gave it another listen, so I know I'm not crazy, anyway! EDIT: Actually, it's probably this one.
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Post by Ex on Aug 12, 2020 14:55:58 GMT -5
SargeI'd like to play through Sunset Riders this month, as I've never played through it before. But I'm thinking of going with the original arcade version. Both the Genesis and the SNES versions were altered from the arcade version, although the SNES version is closer to the arcade version than the Genesis version is. toeiI agree the The Great Battle games tend to look and sound much better than they play. I say that based on the three or four I've tried on the SFC. Granted I've not played The Great Battle V IIRC.
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Post by toei on Aug 12, 2020 15:00:06 GMT -5
Wait, isn't it closer to Chrono's theme? Starting from about 0:15
Similar melody and sound choices, and the drum track is almost identical. Chrono came out in March of '95, and Great Battle V came out in December...
It's slightly faster and a few things were changed just a bit, but it's too close to be a coincidence.
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Post by Xeogred on Aug 12, 2020 15:04:44 GMT -5
I think it sounds like a lot of things. What about Wild Arms though? But yeah, I hear maybe some Alcahest, Breath of Fire IV, etc, just kind of a standard sweeping movement of a track probably.
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