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Da Dood
2019-06-05 07:53:01 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 3 - Shadow Dancer » Done!

I shouldn't waste short games early in the marathon but whatever.

This is a more simple, arcade-style Shinobi game -- just walk forward, throw shurikens, rescue hostages and deal with the tricky enemy spawns. You die in one hit too.

At any time you can charge your attack and Musashi's wolf friend will dash and hold the enemy still. The wolf is pretty limited in that he can only attack enemies directly in front of you, but it's a helpful (and badass) feature still.

The enemy placement is brutal on higher difficulties. This is one of those games where a ninja will spawn right next to the exit sign and then you die and look like an idiot. I played Lv.1 (Normal) this time, though, so it was smooth.



Clear time: 25 minutes
Da Dood
2019-06-06 09:11:37 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 4 - Metroid 2: Return of Samus » Done!

If this game had a map or a less cramped screen, it would have been a 9/10 in my book. Sometimes it's just so hard to tell where you are in relation to other rooms. Granted, the route is more straight forward than the usual Metroid, but it'd still be nice having better indicators and clear landmarks.

Still a cool game, though. Lots of welcome gameplay refinements coming from Metroid 1 (Samus can crouch!), plus the ability to save.

There's a certain point in Metroid 2 where it starts flowing really well... it's in the second major area where you find Wave Beam, Spring Ball, Hi-Jump and Varia. Those items are all more or less concentrated in the same part of the area, and you just walk out of there feeling like a badass. The movement is especially much more convenient from that point forward.



Clear time: 2:34
Da Dood
2019-06-07 07:22:10 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 5 - Sonic Adventure DX » Done!

Finally a version of this game that doesn't hurt my brain! I dunno how the GC port compares to the original on Dreamcast, but I did notice framerate stuttering every now and then, and some of the music is delayed when you start an area. Definitely the lesser evil vs. the PS3's gigantic purple border that can't be turned off, though...

The camera in this game is atrocious, LOL. Especially the overworld. Dunno how people can trash Super Mario 64 after playing this. Sometimes Sonic just disappears from view while the angle freaks out.

Still, the action levels are enjoyable and that's mainly why I play this game. The beach, the night highway and the amusement park are so fun. I like how you can be speedy without memorizing the levels 100%... I played Sonic and the Secret Rings a while ago, and in that game you pretty much had to know the levels inside out to pick up speed.

I never bothered with other characters on the PS3, but I think I'll do everything here eventually. So many unlockables! Not too excited about Big the Cat, though, based on all the horror stories I've heard...



Clear time: 2:50
ryu
2019-06-08 01:04:15 am
The Dreamcast version has different character models and less bugs (I've fallen through the floor a few times on Gamecube, never happened on DC). Big's story is actually OK if you have a bit of patience
tomatobob
2019-06-08 01:42:10 am
One shall stand, one shall ball.
I guarantee you could fall through the floor in the Dreamcast version. It's not a Sonic game if you can't fall through solid ground, Robotnik's deadly speed traps are the key to Sonic level design.
DJGrenola
DJGrenola
Edit history:
DJGrenola: 2019-06-08 05:48:17 am
2019-06-08 05:47:56 am
it's kind of a curse for that series or any game that emphasises speed I guess

collision detection gets harder and more CPU intensive the faster you go
Da Dood
2019-06-08 11:29:44 am
Dood Trigger™
I never fell through the floor, but the camera was pretty much possessed, haha.

Got Devil May Cry 5. Will probably wait until the marathon's over to start, but yeah, yay.

Day 6 - Mappy » Done!

All work and (almost) no play today! Went with Mappy 'cause it's a quick arcade style game.

I used to play this game a ton as a kid, in one of those 20+ multicarts. There's surprisingly a lot of strategy with opening doors and manipulating enemy patterns. If this was a bit more robust content-wise it could have been great, but I still enjoy it for what it is.

Mappy doesn't have an ending, so I played one full loop.



Clear time: 15 minutes
Da Dood
2019-06-09 09:37:49 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 7 - Ninja Warriors » Done!

For a 2D plane beat-'em-up in the style of Kung Fu, this game sure gives you a lot of ass-kicking options. You can combo, grab, throw, jump kick pogo, block, crouch walk, fully charge specials or release them earlier with a different attack. The crowd control just happens so naturally in this. You always have a way out.

I also love just how much priority your guy has (or in this case, girl). Pretty much every attack connects before the enemy can do anything about it. It's easy and all, but you feel like a superhero.

Anyway, yeah, love this one. Like most Natsume games from that era, the gameplay is pretty addicting and responsive, and the music is great.



Clear time: 47 minutes
Da Dood
2019-06-10 09:44:58 am
Dood Trigger™
Day 8 - Vice: Project Doom (blind) » Done!

First blind game of the month, for NES.

I always heard this game was a hybrid genre, but the great majority of it plays like a Ninja Gaiden-style platformer. There's a couple of top-down driving sections and gallery shooter levels, yeah, but most of it is your typical NES sidescroller.

The main guy has a sword with decent arc range, a pistol with limited bullets, and a grenade that deals continuous blast damage. Sometimes you don't want to waste too much ammo in the platforming gameplay because the next part might be a gallery shooter, and those use bullets/grenades. The guy can also crouch run which looks pretty slick.

I enjoyed it! Controls feel great, level design is interesting enough, graphics are hype, and the difficulty is pretty brute force-able (most things barely scratch your health bar, and there's unlimited continues). Cool stuff.

Some of the music was kinda bland, though, especially the final level which sounds like one of those crappy licensed Ocean games. Yuck, haha.



Clear time: 1:20
Da Dood
2019-06-11 01:38:55 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 9 - Ninja Gaiden for Sega Game Gear (blind) » Done!

Another blind game. Sadly, this one's just average.

The sword slash teleports Ryu's whole body forward in two frames of animation. You get used to it, but it's pretty disorienting at first. The ninpo command is DOWN and attack, which is super unintuitive. And there are no continues, just 3 lives and a few extra ones to find.

NGGG (what?) does have a couple of interesting moments, like the skyscraper and the pillars, but overall this was a pretty barebones experience and I wish I was playing better Ninja Gaiden games instead. This may be more enjoyable than vanilla Ninja Gaiden 3 (3D), but we all know that's not saying much.



Clear time: 35 minutes (I game over'd on the final boss... started from scratch and finished the game deathless!)
Opium
2019-06-11 10:50:26 pm
Jesus Da Dood it's too bad you don't get paid to play video games.  You'd be rich af

I finally finished Okami.  It took about 50 hours. The last time I tried to play through it, it was so long that I quit. But now that I know exactly how long the game is, I realize that I was 95% done with it the last time when I stopped.  Oh well.  I got an S rating and over 90% of the stray beads.  I need to start another playthrough some day and get the rest.

I'm thinking about getting that rhythm based Zelda themed game Hyrule Cadence since it comes out in a couple of days.  The gameplay must be pretty fun for Nintendo to have taken  enough interest in it to let that dev make a Zelda-ish game like this, so I'm kind of excited about it.

And bloodstained comes out in a week.
Da Dood
2019-06-12 08:08:37 am
Dood Trigger™
LOL. I tend to play games that are short and that I know how to play/expect how they're going to play, so it's not that crazy. You'll see that I rarely do shmups or FPS 'cause I suck at them... GoldenEye kicks my ass :(

Grats on beating Okami! That game sure does take forever and a half.
Da Dood
2019-06-12 01:03:58 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 10 - Contra: Hard Corps » Done!

Played as Fang on the Lab/Fight route. Fang's weapons are powerful, and the Lab/Fight route leads to what I always considered the best ending.

This game is great, but man, I have a lot of beefs with it, especially vs. Contra 3...

Hard Corps is much more memorization-heavy, and when you do memorize it, there's significantly less improv/unpredictability to it. Several bosses in HC don't make it too clear what part of their bodies you're safe from, while others just take way too long for their samey patterns.

I also dislike the button toggle for fixed aim compared to just holding R in Contra 3/4, and not being able to cycle weapons while firing (it toggles fixed aim instead).

The multiple routes are a sweet idea, but the hype always wears off IMO since you have to do the same junkyard and jungle levels halfway through.

I could change my mind about those, because I love the game and I'm always open to replay it. But my best experience with it was my very first time discovering it, unlike other Contra games that feel better and better as you master them.

That all being said, the game is awesome, with lots of firepower options, excellent set pieces and presentation. Akira Yamaoka was part of the music team for this. Pretty neat. He went on to compose the music for Shattered Soldier as well IIRC.



Clear time: 1:20
Da Dood
2019-06-13 08:30:19 am
Dood Trigger™
Day 11 - Yo! Noid » Done!

I'm conflicted about this game. On the one hand, I have a ton of nostalgia for it. It was one of my favorites on the NES as a kid; I loved the wacky Noid character (had no idea he was a mascot for Domino's), the music, the yo-yo and the level design variety.

On the other hand... yeah. This is a OHKO platformer with no checkpoints, and you can probably guess how cheap some of these levels can be.
There's one specific part at the end where you have to do the "Mario bounce" on a spring (press jump the moment you land on it so it propels you the highest). If you mistime it, you're dead. You can bring a high jump power from a previous level, but of course when you die you lose power-ups, so you'd have to keep it deathless for almost two whole levels.

Finally, there's the pizza eating contests, which are this game's idea of a boss fight. Instead of fighting the boss in an action scene, you challenge him to a card game where each contestant picks a numbered card and the highest number wins the round. It's very simple, and the boss always picks first, so you always know what number you need. But these parts can be pretty slow in an otherwise intense platformer. I appreciate the change of pace, I guess.

One thing I had no idea until today: in the whack-a-mole bonus stages, you can hold A to run faster. Duh. That makes them so much easier. Pretty good to know too because the bonus levels give you extra continues AND skip the rest of the main level.

Yo! Noid is weird and charming and all, and I enjoy it, but it certainly isn't a platformer to recommend.



Clear time: 1:30
Da Dood
2019-06-14 07:14:53 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 12 - International Superstar Soccer Deluxe » Done!

GOOOOOOOO-- okay, let's try being a little less obnoxious...

Man, what a trip. This is probably the game I played the most as a kid. Me and my friends used to do daily tournaments, bets and everything.

I think the game has aged nicely. Gameplay is still fun, there's plenty of tactical options outside of the field, cool modes, good music and graphics. This sure feels like the beginning of Konami's, uh, co-reign? of soccer games. And it mops the floor with FIFA, at least that gen's FIFA.

That being said, I forgot all about how to play this, LOL. You don't really get in trouble because the AI is pretty dumb (on Normal), but scoring isn't too simple until you start finding exploits. And I couldn't remember any. I found some things eventually, though, and then the game was free.

I finished the International Cup. It's basically World Cup format, but with local preliminary rounds before the proper groups. I should've played 3 minute matches instead of 5... they just get old after a couple of minutes, and if you find goals early on, it's a pretty dull rest of the match.



Clear time: 2 hours
Da Dood
2019-06-15 08:11:06 am
Dood Trigger™
Day 13 - Street Fighter Alpha 2 » Done!

I don't think I'll ever be great at this game, but I'd say it's currently the fighter I'm enjoying the most. I like the combos and the way the moves feel. The combos here are short and tough to pull off; it's not like Marvel 3 where if you don't inflict a full health bar of damage in one combo you feel like you failed. Plus the art is gorgeous.

Another thing about Alpha 2 is that the CPU is surprisingly fair... you can use your character's play style and react/counter without resorting to AI exploits like a lot of fighting games.

Played as Guy. I have a handy Notepad doc with combos and stuff that I use whenever I forget how to play this, haha. So cool how they gave him the classic Final Fight combo. I know he's a low-ish tier character but I just have so much fun with his speed and his moves. His mid kick is very useful.

I'm interested in learning other characters eventually, like Rose, Charlie, Sakura, Rolento, maybe one of the traditional shotos...



Clear time: 14 minutes
Da Dood
2019-06-16 09:06:34 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 14 - Lightening Force » Done!

That's how the name is spelled in-game, whatever, haha. This is aka Thunder Force 4. Awesome shmup with gorgeous set pieces and music.

Also extremely difficult... maybe the only reason I'd still place Thunder Force 3 one hair above Lightening Force is that 3 is easier. There's some cheap crap in LF, no doubt. Enemies and shots that appear dead center out of nowhere, bosses that don't seem to take damage at all, sometimes claustrophobic level design.

But man, what an unforgettable game. Halfway through they even give you a new weapon where you charge your "option" shields (by not shooting for a bit) and release a sword beam that nearly 1-shots bosses.



Clear time: 1 hour
ryu
2019-06-17 01:15:09 am
Never beat that one. Was doing ok once for a while, but kept dieing in the later stages. Gave up after a while. Didn't realize about the super blast you getr after a while so I could handling end-game bosses without it >_>
Da Dood
2019-06-17 07:10:19 am
Dood Trigger™
Yeah, the beam is amazing. Some bosses get like 2-shot by it!
ryu
2019-06-17 10:35:13 am
remind me to double check my early morning posts - even I can't tell what I was saying there lol
arkarian
2019-06-17 05:27:08 pm
red chamber dream
i started playing the witness. loving it so far, only a few hours in and still have a ton of the island to explore, but this is basically a super pretty myst. that can only be a good thing
arkarian
2019-06-17 05:27:18 pm
red chamber dream
also it's already hard as fuck
Da Dood
2019-06-17 05:47:22 pm
Dood Trigger™
Day 15 - Power Blade » Done!

Oh yes. More Natsume.

Pretty chill action platformer. The goal is to explore each level until you find an NPC that grants access to the boss gate, then find and enter the boss gate. You can choose the order of levels, but it doesn't seem to matter much. The difficulty is average-ish and there are infinite continues.

You play as Nova (cool name!), whose main weapon is a boomerang that can be thrown in 8 directions. It also has a handful of speed/power/rate of fire upgrades. And then there's the robot suit. Hell yeah. The robot suit is a power-up that makes Nova's shot ridiculously OP until you take 3 hits. Kinda like the helper suit in Shatterhand. Super fun to use.

The only frustrating part of Power Blade is when you don't know the NPC location, and you get to the boss gate without the code and have to backtrack for it. It's not a huge deal 'cause the levels aren't that big, and even when you're lost you find useful goodies, but still.

There's nothing particularly inventive about this game, it just feels good to play IMO. And the music is awesome.



Clear time: 1 hour
DJGrenola
2019-06-18 03:13:05 pm
is anyone doing bloodstained
ryu
2019-06-18 03:52:06 pm
I preordered a PS4 copy, hoping it arrives tomorow. Would have preferred it on Switch but that's supposedly a technical mess.