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Post by Sarge on Nov 23, 2020 18:36:18 GMT -5
There were definitely points where Castlevania came to mind as I went flying down pits.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 23, 2020 18:37:47 GMT -5
No jump spells for the Belmont's...
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2020 20:45:34 GMT -5
Anyone play Kenseiden? I think at one point I had written it off, but I'm rethinking that decision. Surprised it wasn't mentioned yet in this thread.
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Post by toei on Nov 23, 2020 21:03:28 GMT -5
Anyone play Kenseiden? I think at one point I had written it off, but I'm rethinking that decision. Surprised it wasn't mentioned yet in this thread. Yeah, I like Kenseiden. Played it for the first time in 2018. This was my review from the Retro Games Beaten thread: Just finished Kenseiden (Master System). I've heard it described as a Castlevania clone, but as I've posted here before, I've barely played that series and don't know how many of Kenseiden's elements existed in Castlevania at the time. At the very least, the setting is different, though it's still vaguely horror; you play as a samurai fighting creatures from the Underworld throughout the 16 provinces of Japan. In general the levels are short and fun to explore, though the platforming parts can get stressful. In between levels, there's a map of the country from which you can choose where you want to head next. It's possible to head directly to the final boss while going through as few levels as possible, but the point of the game is to explore every level, building up your character for the final confrontation. There are 6 bosses spread around the levels, each of which drops a scroll that teaches you a new move when defeated, ranging from a high jump to various sword moves that generally make your life easier and the game more fun. The coolest is the berserker move, which allows you to just hold the Up/Left or Up/Right diagonals to wave your sword back-and-forth as you walk, hitting anything you run into. Some levels just contain helpful items - a gourd you can carry around to refill your health once, a continue, or katana power-ups that double your strength until you lose a life. There are also Training levels, which are basically obstacle courses where you must hit arrows coming at you from all sides while jumping from one platform to the next and ducking under spears coming down from the ceilings. Ironically, though the first one is easy enough, the rest are by far the hardest part of the game, because getting hit even once means failure. I've only managed to finish the second one with a ton of practice, and didn't even bother with the remaining two. The easy one is definitely worth doing, as the old man who runs the place rewards you by expanding the size of your health bar significantly. The game could have easily become a minor Master System classic, but it lacks polish. Getting hit sends you stumbling backward for a while, and there's this really stupid mechanic where if you fall off a platform in the process it prolongs the stumbling, usually sending you right down into a hole. Some of the boss battles are pretty messy, and the falling rocks in several levels are cheap and annoying. I don't believe it is actually possible to complete a no-damage run of this game, as some hits seem obligatory. Finally, one of the first bosses you'll meet, the ghost of the legendary Benkei, has a hitbox so small and so hard to hit that it makes it one of the hardest parts of the game. You basically have to hit him in the middle of his right leg, and there is no marker indicating it might be his weak point. Even when you know, it's hard to pull it off constantly, and when you start to fail he rapidly traps you in the corner and destroys you with a just a few hits of his mace. Still, definitely one of the good games on the System. I played it through emulation, so I could enjoy the FM soundtrack; on a real North American Master System, I'd have been stuck with the PSG tunes.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 23, 2020 21:36:12 GMT -5
I've played through it myself, and even wrote a little blurb about it for the old GameSpite Quarterly. I probably need to post it over in the articles section before it gets lost to the ether (it's on the Wayback Machine). Also, a run through Mystical Fighter. While more fluid than Legend for sure, it also doesn't look quite as nice, and has a surprisingly dull color palette for such colorful source material. I also discovered, as toei mentioned, that you don't fight the real end boss unless on Hard, and even then the ending is a trifle telling you to play on "Expert". No thanks! It's a decent beat-'em-up, though, probably a 6/10 for me. You've played better, and you've definitely played worse. Okay, link to the article I wrote. Take it easy on me, y'all, it was eight years ago...
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Post by Ex on Nov 23, 2020 22:52:37 GMT -5
Ninja Five-O is an action platformer developed by Hudson Soft, and published by Konami in 2003, for the GBA. In this game the player acts as a cop, who is also a ninja. The player's goal is to rescue hostages and kill terrorists, over and over and over again. The gameplay itself is basically Shinobi mixed with Bionic Commando, but the end result is not as good as that sounds. The best aspect of NFO is its protagonist's control and physics. The ninja moves swiftly, attacks quickly, and swings like Spider-Man. With a katana, shuriken, and offensive magic, the ninja is fairly deadly. With a high jump, ledge grabbing, floor slide move, and swinging grapple, this ninja gets around. The movement and flow of controlling this ninja, does indeed "feel" like being an agile killer. Without a doubt, the frenetic moveset of the protagonist is the best aspect of this game. And initially, the player will think they are in for a great time because of this. Unfortunately everything built upon this fluid protagonist capabilities is a let down. I don't want to spend pages explaining why I didn't love NFO. I'll just keep it short as I can. My number one issue, is the level designs are really bad. They don't make any sense conceptually, for what they are supposed to represent. And these level designs are full of locked doors, requiring searching for keys incessantly, while also searching for hidden hostages incessantly. That makes playing NFO less of a frantic action game, and more a glorified scavenger hunt... full of backtracking. So the level designs suck, and the there's just lots of little dumb things. Like the fact that if you accidentally kill a hostage, you lose a lot of life, but if you rescue a hostage, you don't get any life for that. You cannot attack with your katana while swinging, this causes no end of problems. That means when you swing up onto a platform, you can't attack an enemy when you land upon them. Not without landing first, then attacking. When you pull yourself up from a ledge, there is a slow animation for that, and you'll likely get hit. This cop is a NINJA, he should be able to flip up onto the ledge with his katana flinging like a pizza slicer! Not crawl up like an elderly mountaineer. Speaking of crawling, you can't swing your katana while doing that either. Just so dumb. There's a laundry list of things like this, which irritated me more and more the longer I played. +Agile protagonist is fun to control. +Above average sprite animation. +Grapple 'n' swing mechanics are decent. +Nice little cutscenes keep the plot going. +Unlimited continues (and you'll need them). -Stage designs are bad city. -You can't attack during certain movements, and that causes problems. -Bland vanilla background graphics. -Very limited OST. -Not nearly as good as Shinobi or Bionic Commando. I first played NFO in 2003, but never beat it. Going back in 17 years later, I realize why now. This game is hard as nails, but mostly in bullshit ways. The stage designs are at once inept and overtly punitive. Having to constantly hunt for keys and hidden hostages, becomes dull as bricks right off the bat. Backtracking constantly is a bore. Bosses are exercises in masochism and they have too much health. That said, the sprite design/animation is good, and control/physics really are in a class of their own. The few tracks of the OST are decent, I wish the OST had three times as many tracks though, because you feel like you're always listening to the same two songs. Oh well, lost potential. This particular protagonist and his wicked moveset deserved a much better game than this mess. Ex's rating: 6/10
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Post by Sarge on Nov 23, 2020 23:14:13 GMT -5
Well, dang, at least you made it to the end. I beat it whenever it launched (or thereabouts), although I sadly never owned a real copy.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 24, 2020 18:38:50 GMT -5
Relevant for this month:
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Post by Ex on Nov 24, 2020 22:05:47 GMT -5
Completely forgotten for years upon years, then resurrected via Club Retro, and suddenly this. And another retro ninja game to boot. I'm telling you guys, HRG is affecting the retro gaming scene on a quantum superstring level.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 24, 2020 22:35:00 GMT -5
Heck yeah. Pretty amazing. Even though I wasn't super wild about Return of the Ninja when I played some earlier, I'm still tempted to get this. Have y'all seen the prices it goes for now? Loose cart is around $70, CIB is around $240. It's not even COVID driving the increase here - it apparently started around May 2018 with the biggest spike.
While we still have this effect, I think we need to have a Bionic Commando and Gargoyle's Quest month. (Seriously, I'd go nuts if we got a new game in either of those series.)
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