It's a beat-em-up with some minor RPG elements. It's a Capcom arcade game. Come on.
It is ok to want a beat em up style Action RPG.
Archived M2K2 Forum
Quote from tomatobob:
It is ok to want a beat em up style Action RPG.
Odin Sphere Leifthrasir exists, and besides being repetitive as hell with its bosses and levels, it's great!
Anyway, finished Persona 5 today. It's long as all fuck, but fantastic either way. Great dungeons, great battle mechanics, really comfy cast and setting, amazing soundtrack - game's got it all. It's probably the best thing I've played all year.
Dood Trigger™
Pretty close to 100% Yooka-Laylee!
I was watching a speedrun of the game, believing that the guy couldn't possibly grab items I was missing 'cause they must require late game powers... turns out, nope, I'm just dumb. Ended up getting more than a few item locations spoiled. Haha. It's okay, though, some of those I would never find in a million years (hub battery? Really, game?).
The final world is amazing. Maybe it was just hitting the right Super Mario Galaxy notes for me, but yeah, this place has gorgeous visuals and I love the neon colors. Great fun to explore too, and almost no obnoxious goals. The only parts I didn't enjoy were the space mini golf and the arcade. Also, why not give you both Pagies for beating the high score the first time in these mini-games? Seems like a cheap way to make you replay them.
Gotta finish worlds 1-3 and then it's final boss time. I should be done with the game tonight.
I was watching a speedrun of the game, believing that the guy couldn't possibly grab items I was missing 'cause they must require late game powers... turns out, nope, I'm just dumb. Ended up getting more than a few item locations spoiled. Haha. It's okay, though, some of those I would never find in a million years (hub battery? Really, game?).
The final world is amazing. Maybe it was just hitting the right Super Mario Galaxy notes for me, but yeah, this place has gorgeous visuals and I love the neon colors. Great fun to explore too, and almost no obnoxious goals. The only parts I didn't enjoy were the space mini golf and the arcade. Also, why not give you both Pagies for beating the high score the first time in these mini-games? Seems like a cheap way to make you replay them.
Gotta finish worlds 1-3 and then it's final boss time. I should be done with the game tonight.
Dood Trigger™
Yooka-Laylee is done and 100%'d.
Wow @ going back to worlds with late game moves. It is crazy how much of this game you can cheese with flying and other stuff. This makes me excited about replaying YL because it doesn't look like it would be especially difficult to skip to where you get the flying move in the hub. Unless the game is programmed to give it to you at XX Pagies, which frankly wouldn't make a lot of sense.
You can also skip the whole 100 Pagies goal (that's the minimum # to face the boss at the end) with a pretty easy clip. Kickstarter master race. \m/
Really cool game, I loved it. The movement feels great, the platforming is satisfying and I just love how much you can improvise. Almost any surface can be used as a platform, so you enter a room and start looking around for literally anything sticking out of walls to help you climb up and reach platforms. It's very liberating. Too bad the worlds are too expansive, and there should have been more worlds than just 5. After a few hours staring at the same backgrounds and terrain it gets kinda old.
Rare-a-thons ranked IMO:
Banjo-Kazooie > Tooie > Yooka > Conker > a cardboard box > DK64
Wow @ going back to worlds with late game moves. It is crazy how much of this game you can cheese with flying and other stuff. This makes me excited about replaying YL because it doesn't look like it would be especially difficult to skip to where you get the flying move in the hub. Unless the game is programmed to give it to you at XX Pagies, which frankly wouldn't make a lot of sense.
You can also skip the whole 100 Pagies goal (that's the minimum # to face the boss at the end) with a pretty easy clip. Kickstarter master race. \m/
Really cool game, I loved it. The movement feels great, the platforming is satisfying and I just love how much you can improvise. Almost any surface can be used as a platform, so you enter a room and start looking around for literally anything sticking out of walls to help you climb up and reach platforms. It's very liberating. Too bad the worlds are too expansive, and there should have been more worlds than just 5. After a few hours staring at the same backgrounds and terrain it gets kinda old.
Rare-a-thons ranked IMO:
Banjo-Kazooie > Tooie > Yooka > Conker > a cardboard box > DK64
So I'm like 6 hours into Oceanhorn and I talk to this guy who whisks me away to the final area - and there is no way to go back. I wasn't even close to being done exploring. There was no warning. I have way less health than I want to have, I only have 2 of 6 magic spells. Then I spend forever trying to kill the final boss, only to watch a video and find that I don't even have what I need to kill him. Piece of shit game.
Dood Trigger™
Been replaying some short retro games while Dark Souls 3: The Fire Fades slowly makes its way here via jungle raft.
DuckTales -- I didn't know that medals were a thing in this game. Not only you get the best newspaper for collecting $10 million/all big treasures, you also score a gold medal for beating the game on Difficult. It's nice how much DT changes from any% to best ending. Suddenly the game is 5x bigger.
Super Mario Bros. 2 -- Wanted to do a playthrough as Toad only. Wasn't as hard as I thought, although some levels like 5-1 are kind of a pain without a more controllable jump. This game is really cool, I don't give it enough credit usually.
Mystical Fighter -- Pretty unremarkable Genesis beat-'em-up in general, so much that I... forgot how to play it. I got through the whole thing with just jump kicks and roll kicks and it felt super lame. Then I restarted to see if I was missing something and yep, totally forgot about the OP grab attack where you spin enemies and throw them. It's not the most intuitive move to discover on your own because you have to touch the enemy while holding the attack button. I think the manual teaches it, though, at least. Went through the game again and it was much faster (and better).
Thunder Force 3 -- Finished the hardest difficulty (Mania). Damn, this game is freaking awesome. Along with the first party Sega stuff and Treasure, this is the kind of game that makes the best use of the Genesis' speed and sound. The action is so fast and smooth. Mania wasn't as hard as I imagined but still pretty tough.
Gley Lancer -- Another shmup beaten on the hardest difficulty (also named Mania). Except this one was brutal. The bullets are so fast and so many, there were several parts I couldn't get through without constant pausing. It doesn't help that this is one of those shmups where you die and have to restart from a checkpoint. And the power-ups aren't quite as powerful as I remember, though maybe playing this right after TF3 had something to do with it. Why not give you a little shield at least...? The music is fantastic and the action is also lightning fast. I like TF3 better, though.
DuckTales -- I didn't know that medals were a thing in this game. Not only you get the best newspaper for collecting $10 million/all big treasures, you also score a gold medal for beating the game on Difficult. It's nice how much DT changes from any% to best ending. Suddenly the game is 5x bigger.
Super Mario Bros. 2 -- Wanted to do a playthrough as Toad only. Wasn't as hard as I thought, although some levels like 5-1 are kind of a pain without a more controllable jump. This game is really cool, I don't give it enough credit usually.
Mystical Fighter -- Pretty unremarkable Genesis beat-'em-up in general, so much that I... forgot how to play it. I got through the whole thing with just jump kicks and roll kicks and it felt super lame. Then I restarted to see if I was missing something and yep, totally forgot about the OP grab attack where you spin enemies and throw them. It's not the most intuitive move to discover on your own because you have to touch the enemy while holding the attack button. I think the manual teaches it, though, at least. Went through the game again and it was much faster (and better).
Thunder Force 3 -- Finished the hardest difficulty (Mania). Damn, this game is freaking awesome. Along with the first party Sega stuff and Treasure, this is the kind of game that makes the best use of the Genesis' speed and sound. The action is so fast and smooth. Mania wasn't as hard as I imagined but still pretty tough.
Gley Lancer -- Another shmup beaten on the hardest difficulty (also named Mania). Except this one was brutal. The bullets are so fast and so many, there were several parts I couldn't get through without constant pausing. It doesn't help that this is one of those shmups where you die and have to restart from a checkpoint. And the power-ups aren't quite as powerful as I remember, though maybe playing this right after TF3 had something to do with it. Why not give you a little shield at least...? The music is fantastic and the action is also lightning fast. I like TF3 better, though.
Dood Trigger™
A couple more retro games revisited...
Splatterhouse 2 -- Finished on Game Master mode (only get 2 HP instead of the default 4). The gore and style of this game are so great. Every level looks different and has something unique to find. The animations are like 2 frames, which is lazy but also kinda charming. The controls are a bit stiff, though, and the hitboxes aren't always fair; you eventually learn to hit enemies during specific poses when they're more vulnerable, otherwise it's very easy to trade hits. This game is also ridiculously pattern based. You have to memorize the enemy placement and boss attacks to survive in pretty much every stage.
That said, man, I really changed my mind about this game. Had a blast this time. The slide move is super helpful, and the patterns aren't that bad once you die the inevitable first 5 deaths. There are unlimited continues and the stages are short, so normally it's no big deal to die and retry. Will replay this on Normal (again) some other time, maybe in the marathon next month.
Also, gotta love these old-timey congrats screens:
Splatterhouse 2
Gley Lancer
Marvel Land
Sol-Deace -- I don't remember talking about this game here before. Just a meh shmup. Compared to the real great stuff on the Genesis, like Thunder Force, this is passable at best. Your ship fires with 3 cannons that can be upgraded separately with different weapons. You can adjust the angle of the two cannons above and below the ship by flying forward/back; firing locks them at that angle. It's a cool feature, but underutilized by the level design, which is pretty cookie cutter. Finished on Advanced difficulty. It was tricky, but ironically I had less trouble now than my first playthrough on Normal last year.
Splatterhouse 2 -- Finished on Game Master mode (only get 2 HP instead of the default 4). The gore and style of this game are so great. Every level looks different and has something unique to find. The animations are like 2 frames, which is lazy but also kinda charming. The controls are a bit stiff, though, and the hitboxes aren't always fair; you eventually learn to hit enemies during specific poses when they're more vulnerable, otherwise it's very easy to trade hits. This game is also ridiculously pattern based. You have to memorize the enemy placement and boss attacks to survive in pretty much every stage.
That said, man, I really changed my mind about this game. Had a blast this time. The slide move is super helpful, and the patterns aren't that bad once you die the inevitable first 5 deaths. There are unlimited continues and the stages are short, so normally it's no big deal to die and retry. Will replay this on Normal (again) some other time, maybe in the marathon next month.
Also, gotta love these old-timey congrats screens:
Splatterhouse 2 Gley Lancer Marvel LandSol-Deace -- I don't remember talking about this game here before. Just a meh shmup. Compared to the real great stuff on the Genesis, like Thunder Force, this is passable at best. Your ship fires with 3 cannons that can be upgraded separately with different weapons. You can adjust the angle of the two cannons above and below the ship by flying forward/back; firing locks them at that angle. It's a cool feature, but underutilized by the level design, which is pretty cookie cutter. Finished on Advanced difficulty. It was tricky, but ironically I had less trouble now than my first playthrough on Normal last year.
Dood Trigger™
More NES retro goodness...
TMNT -- I had only beaten this once a couple years ago, wanted to play it again and maybe improve. This game is way too hard, but awesome. The planning is fun because there are all these optional little dungeons to explore, a variety of items to collect and the 4 turtles to use. If you screw up and die, you can usually make a detour and revive the dead turtle, and for how unforgiving the difficulty is, at least you can do stuff like enter a building over and over to refill the whole group's HP.
I finished the game twice last weekend. My goal was to finish without using a continue. Did it both times, but the first time was kind of a disaster... I lost 2 turtles to the stage 4 crushing walls, rescued one of them in the next area and barely survived the rest. The underwater dam may be the most infamous part of TMNT, but it's got nothing on that final Technodrome corridor with the jetpack a-holes. Ugh. Then I ran through the game a second time and never lost a turtle. Cool.
TMNT 3 -- My goal was to get the max score of 999900. It's not that hard but it forces you to kill enemies with weak attacks 'cause they give more points. You know, Jake Kaufman (who made the music for Shovel Knight, DuckTales Remastered) considers this one of the greatest videogame OSTs. I can see it. The music is varied and gets you pumped.
TMNT 2 -- This game has almost no strategy or variety because everything dies to B+A, but somehow it's still really satisfying and relaxing to play IMO. I found a safe method for Krang, dunno if it's old. Jump kick him past his laser, then B+A as soon as you land and he'll flinch for a split second. That's just enough time to jump out of the way and start again.
Double Dragon -- I beat this game once before but it was... sloppy. This time I learned how to properly (ab)use the elbow, which makes most of the combat a breeze. Stalactites and stone walls still suck, but I had more fun and eventually finished with zero deaths. Pretty cool game. DD2 is better, though.
TMNT -- I had only beaten this once a couple years ago, wanted to play it again and maybe improve. This game is way too hard, but awesome. The planning is fun because there are all these optional little dungeons to explore, a variety of items to collect and the 4 turtles to use. If you screw up and die, you can usually make a detour and revive the dead turtle, and for how unforgiving the difficulty is, at least you can do stuff like enter a building over and over to refill the whole group's HP.
I finished the game twice last weekend. My goal was to finish without using a continue. Did it both times, but the first time was kind of a disaster... I lost 2 turtles to the stage 4 crushing walls, rescued one of them in the next area and barely survived the rest. The underwater dam may be the most infamous part of TMNT, but it's got nothing on that final Technodrome corridor with the jetpack a-holes. Ugh. Then I ran through the game a second time and never lost a turtle. Cool.
TMNT 3 -- My goal was to get the max score of 999900. It's not that hard but it forces you to kill enemies with weak attacks 'cause they give more points. You know, Jake Kaufman (who made the music for Shovel Knight, DuckTales Remastered) considers this one of the greatest videogame OSTs. I can see it. The music is varied and gets you pumped.
TMNT 2 -- This game has almost no strategy or variety because everything dies to B+A, but somehow it's still really satisfying and relaxing to play IMO. I found a safe method for Krang, dunno if it's old. Jump kick him past his laser, then B+A as soon as you land and he'll flinch for a split second. That's just enough time to jump out of the way and start again.
Double Dragon -- I beat this game once before but it was... sloppy. This time I learned how to properly (ab)use the elbow, which makes most of the combat a breeze. Stalactites and stone walls still suck, but I had more fun and eventually finished with zero deaths. Pretty cool game. DD2 is better, though.
Dood Trigger™
Probably gonna skip Dark Souls 3 this month... got the marathon coming up in a few weeks and I've been enjoying the retro stuff a lot. Did/doing a couple more games, both NG+ themed:
Castlevania 3, hard cycle
I finished the regular game first, so I had trusty ol' Sypha there with me for all of NG+. I love how different and useful the partners are in this game. Sypha is so versatile... her spells are all great, and her little stick thing is fast and attacks in an arc, which helps hit erratic enemies like birds more safely. There were whole levels where I don't remember even switching to Trevor. Grant and Alucard have their strengths too. I should play them more often.
In NG+ they tweaked certain levels just enough to make you change strategies, and oh man there are a ton of bats... but overall IMO this wasn't that much worse than the regular game, which is already a tough challenge. The new skull heads are pretty annoying, though.
The Legend of Zelda, 2nd quest
I'm still in the beginning, exploring the overworld, gathering equipment and peeking at any dungeons I can find. Based on 1st cycle locations I've already found some decent things, including blue ring and other shop goodies. I also found a heart container in one of the graves. The bad news is that now I have no clue where the final sword is, haha.
The only thing I dislike about the 2nd quest so far is that a lot of the bushes/bombable walls are different. There's just no way I'm gonna bomb and burn every tile on the screen to find something. I'll try to progress as much as I can on my own and then I'll check a map somewhere when I get stuck.
Castlevania 3, hard cycle
I finished the regular game first, so I had trusty ol' Sypha there with me for all of NG+. I love how different and useful the partners are in this game. Sypha is so versatile... her spells are all great, and her little stick thing is fast and attacks in an arc, which helps hit erratic enemies like birds more safely. There were whole levels where I don't remember even switching to Trevor. Grant and Alucard have their strengths too. I should play them more often.
In NG+ they tweaked certain levels just enough to make you change strategies, and oh man there are a ton of bats... but overall IMO this wasn't that much worse than the regular game, which is already a tough challenge. The new skull heads are pretty annoying, though.
The Legend of Zelda, 2nd quest
I'm still in the beginning, exploring the overworld, gathering equipment and peeking at any dungeons I can find. Based on 1st cycle locations I've already found some decent things, including blue ring and other shop goodies. I also found a heart container in one of the graves. The bad news is that now I have no clue where the final sword is, haha.
The only thing I dislike about the 2nd quest so far is that a lot of the bushes/bombable walls are different. There's just no way I'm gonna bomb and burn every tile on the screen to find something. I'll try to progress as much as I can on my own and then I'll check a map somewhere when I get stuck.
Dood Trigger™
And... it's done! The Legend of Zelda 2nd quest is over. Or as the game said it...
Man, that was really enjoyable. I gotta admit that I was expecting something almost like a kaizo hack, but the 2nd quest is pretty well balanced. I only died once, in a suicide run/recon trip to Level 6. The enemy placement is tricky sometimes, but not as obnoxious as I thought it would be. Pretty much the same level of difficulty as the harder areas from the 1st quest, maybe with a couple of exceptions. But I mean, you still get a nice defense boost with blue/red tunic, still get to use potions, still get the OP sword.
Spoilers
Regardless, it's really cool how all the dungeons in the game are completely different, and almost everything in the overworld is rearranged. I already thought OoT's Master Quest felt like a brand new game, and that was just the dungeon mazes that got redesigned... in LoZ the 2nd quest is like 90% a new game. Great stuff. I will definitely play it again.
Man, that was really enjoyable. I gotta admit that I was expecting something almost like a kaizo hack, but the 2nd quest is pretty well balanced. I only died once, in a suicide run/recon trip to Level 6. The enemy placement is tricky sometimes, but not as obnoxious as I thought it would be. Pretty much the same level of difficulty as the harder areas from the 1st quest, maybe with a couple of exceptions. But I mean, you still get a nice defense boost with blue/red tunic, still get to use potions, still get the OP sword.
Spoilers
What I found weak was having to walk through walls and play the flute at random spots with no indication. I said the difficulty wasn't too bad, but having only 1st quest knowledge would get me seriously stuck somewhere with very few supplies. And probably only half the dungeons open.
Regardless, it's really cool how all the dungeons in the game are completely different, and almost everything in the overworld is rearranged. I already thought OoT's Master Quest felt like a brand new game, and that was just the dungeon mazes that got redesigned... in LoZ the 2nd quest is like 90% a new game. Great stuff. I will definitely play it again.
I think I like the second quest better than the first one, tbh. I think it's amazing how after three decades I still play that game, and I still remember the location of every freaking thing in both quests. Playing them back to back 100% is totally do-able in one sitting for me. I still play through both of them at least once a year.
Dood Trigger™
Couldn't revisit LoZ without a "quick" Zelda 2 playthrough.
My goal was to get a 000 file, which requires beating the game without a game over, and worst of all, without saving. This game is kind of an a-hole and takes a continue from you whenever you save, so you gotta do it all in one sitting for the triple 0. It doesn't take very long if you know the dungeons and where stuff is, but (and maybe it's just me) the gameplay is just really demanding overall. You gotta constantly think about the next step and do well in combat. The comparison is already a lame meme these days, but Z2 truly feels like a retro age Dark Souls. All the choices you can make (got Fairy before 2nd palace! Feels great to fly through all the keyholes), how rewarding the gameplay is, and of course, the unforgiving difficulty.
I had to do it twice, because... I'm dumb and got all the way to the Great Palace without the freaking Thunder spell! Goddamn it, haha. I had that Home Alone Catherine O'Hara feeling the whole way through the final dungeon and only at the last second I remembered about the stupid spell. And you can't even backtrack there, gaaah. My fault, my fault. Adding insult to injury, I planned my leveling up <i>perfectly</i> that first run, but the second time I must've made a mistake and ended up having to grind 6K exp for the last magic upgrade. Oh well, I did it.
Glad I gave Z2 a second chance a few years ago, because I kinda hated it when I first tried it. I really love this game now.
My goal was to get a 000 file, which requires beating the game without a game over, and worst of all, without saving. This game is kind of an a-hole and takes a continue from you whenever you save, so you gotta do it all in one sitting for the triple 0. It doesn't take very long if you know the dungeons and where stuff is, but (and maybe it's just me) the gameplay is just really demanding overall. You gotta constantly think about the next step and do well in combat. The comparison is already a lame meme these days, but Z2 truly feels like a retro age Dark Souls. All the choices you can make (got Fairy before 2nd palace! Feels great to fly through all the keyholes), how rewarding the gameplay is, and of course, the unforgiving difficulty.
I had to do it twice, because... I'm dumb and got all the way to the Great Palace without the freaking Thunder spell! Goddamn it, haha. I had that Home Alone Catherine O'Hara feeling the whole way through the final dungeon and only at the last second I remembered about the stupid spell. And you can't even backtrack there, gaaah. My fault, my fault. Adding insult to injury, I planned my leveling up <i>perfectly</i> that first run, but the second time I must've made a mistake and ended up having to grind 6K exp for the last magic upgrade. Oh well, I did it.
Glad I gave Z2 a second chance a few years ago, because I kinda hated it when I first tried it. I really love this game now.
Finished Trails in the Sky the 3rd earlier this weekend. Anyone ever wonder what Tales would be like if the series had actually decent writing and world building? Well, this series is kind of an answer to that. Granted, the gameplay is closer to stuff like Grandia and tactical RPGs (which means it's slow as molasses at times), but it's definitely a charming little trilogy of PC JRPGs that I'd recommend to any fans of the genre.
red chamber dream
alright i've got a couple big problems with yooka-laylee. the camera is mostly good but fucking blows when in tight passages and the like. also, the controls when rolling are fucking shit. i get that it's supposed to be hard to steer because you go so fast, but it's also the only way to not slide off certain slopes. and then they put in a fuckload of platforming where you have to stay rolling.
does this get any better later on, like with maybe a new move? because areas like the caves in the second stage are frustrating as hell, and it's all due to the controls not being responsive enough.
does this get any better later on, like with maybe a new move? because areas like the caves in the second stage are frustrating as hell, and it's all due to the controls not being responsive enough.