The Official WTF are YOU playing right now thread

[schadenfreude]

As for me, I 1CCed Rondo a few nights ago, then — at about 3AM in the morning, no less — I felt bad because I used an item crash against Dracula, so I immediately booted up the game again and cleared it by going through the alternate stages this time and only using the whip against Dracula. For Dracula games, I've only 1CCed Akumajou Dracula on FDS and Vampire Killer on MD (and haven't played much of the others except finishing Symphony many years ago), but this is by far the easiest of the 3 1CCs. I always thought the "casualness" started with Symphony, but now I'm thinking it was this one. What do we call this phenomenon? I am thinking "Casualvania" or "Castlevagina": take your pick.

It took me something like forever and a day to clear the original on FDS; Death and Dracula were such bitches, and, "Ninja Ryuukenden"-style, the bats were especially skilled at pushing you into pits. But in Rondo, falling into a pit often takes you down an alternate path, and getting hit doesn't propel you backwards anymore. Some of the later alternate stages are tricky, but nothing that I didn't eventually pass on my first try. And the battles with Death and especially Dracula are a letdown (though it doesn't help that I played Symphony of the Night years ago, which starts with the final battle) compared to earlier titles. And not that I used this shit, but the ability to restart at any level and buy "Technic" (haha) videos that show you how to beat bosses? C'mon guys. I thought these games were for men. Hence "Castlevagina".

But hey: it's beautiful as fuck, I love the non-linearity, and shit brah the music. The track "Op. 13" sounds like it's straight out of a Sonic game. Is it too late for Sega to sue?

[schadenfreude]

Also, I forgot to mention this:

Also, it's cool that you're playing the Shenmue games and Gekka no Yasookyoku, because I have them next on my list on what to play. I only tried both very briefly way back, which is just silly considering how amazing both Shenmue and Gekka seem to be.

If you think Ico is "barely a game", I can't wait to hear your impressions of Shenmue. The game's loaded with "non-gaming" elements like talking to people with no dialogue options, collecting mostly useless trinkets, QTEs that give you infinite attempts to pass, and towards the end of the game a required mini-game you must play several times. If my memory serves me, the sequel unfortunately jacks up the quantity of QTEs and mini-games, but there's also more fighting in it too.

[zinger]

Yeah we'll see. I will say though that I was incredibly impressed by the little I have played of Shenmue (before I gave up due to the english dub), simply because of the atmosphere and the insane amount of detail. Everything I've seen from the game looks so incredibly cool, so yeah, I hope I won't be too disappointed. I also have a copy of L.O.L. Lack of Love lying around that I need to try out by the way. It's supposed to be great, but also slow, arty and not traditionally game-like. I at least know that the soundtrack is really beautiful.

I don't collect games — just hardware on which to play those games — so no matter how much something costs, I'll eventually sell it and use the money to buy other games

Same here (as I also explained in a blog post a while back: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3229#p28583), but I have a lot of other expenses and very little income at the moment.

[Gaijin Punch]

Shenmue 3 is on my radar. The original had me hooked due to atmosphere alone. I had only lived in Japan about 2 years (maybe less) when it came out, but man... loved it. Felt like I had taken a train down to Yokosuka 1986.

I need to figure out WTF I'm going to do about that the upcoming sequel. Definitely only going to consider playing it in Japanese... I assume at this stage, the US version would have a Japanese track and subtitles option (wouldn't it?) but can't risk it. Certainly hoping the staff is the same. I won't have a PC strong enough to play it. PS4 for sure... but also no console. O.o

I wouldn't mind going through these again just before it comes out. So many memories. Not sure how it will look on a big old flat screen though.

[zinger]

I wouldn't mind going through these again just before it comes out. So many memories. Not sure how it will look on a big old flat screen though.

There were news earlier this year about Sega registering domains for "Shenmue HD" and "Shenmue Remastered" (https://twitter.com/Shenmue_Dojo/status ... 8005332993).

[schadenfreude]

Not sure how it will look on a big old flat screen though.

I've hooked up my Dreamcast to HDTVs in the past through VGA, and I admit it looked pretty good. The image quality does greatly depend upon the quality of the TV's internal scaler, but I'd say in general, HDTVs handle 480p stuff really well — way better than 240p/480i stuff, of course. I'm talking about 720p/1080p TVs; I don't have any experience with 4K TVs.

All that said, I still prefer using my VGA CRT computer monitor because I'm a CRT freak.

[RadiantSvgun]

Popped in Life Force in the cab and went for a 1cc. Had a few deaths, getting old and out of practice sucks.

[Gaijin Punch]

Popped in Life Force in the cab and went for a 1cc. Had a few deaths, getting old and out of practice sucks.

How long had it been? I find those games are use it or lose it, and by that a break of a few weeks means you're done.

[RadiantSvgun]

Popped in Life Force in the cab and went for a 1cc. Had a few deaths, getting old and out of practice sucks.

How long had it been? I find those games are use it or lose it, and by that a break of a few weeks means you're done.

I got the pcb a few months ago, but honestly it's been at least 2 years since I've played the older shooties. I lost most my lives on the vertical boss that tosses out all the bouncing orbs, I've forgotten where the safe spots are located. Lost one more on the speed part at the end and just squeaked though with 0 lives remaining. Board is super flakey though, and the Blue is missing which makes it looks really f'n yellow. I need to get it repaired but I just haven't gotten around to it. I do have a week off starting today, so I'm going to fire up some boards and get back to the roots.

Last night I played Windjammers with the wife. Normally she hates any games that aren't puzzle, but she really tore me apart in WJ.

[schadenfreude]

I've been on an SFC kick these past few weeks. I started with some DoReMi Fantasy, Magical Pop'n, then Demon's Blazon action. All were easy but fun, though Demon's Blazon disappointed me. I had more fun playing the Red Arremer game on the Famicom, partly because your floating duration isn't infinite from the start of the game like it is in Blazon. And I hated replaying the levels repeatedly, pseudo-Metroid style but worse. But I can't deny the sweet art and somber mood.

Then I started a sub-SFC kick with a Quintet kick, with Actraiser, Soul Blader, and then Actraiser 2, which I just beat a few nights ago. Soul Blader was pretty meh (basically a Gauntlet clone with poor graphics, simplistic combat with poor AI, crappy music, and these incessant cutscenes that flip back and forth between the dungeon and the town as new objects are revealed in the town — so infuriating!), so I gave up on that one after a few "worlds", but the other two, man. Actraiser 2 took a while to grow on me — and it didn't help that the first level I chose (Gratis, the jail level) is probably the worst and most depressing level in the game. I didn't appreciate the boss rushes in either game, but I sucked it up and pushed through them. At least they taught me new techniques to beat the bosses more efficiently, which gave me enough satisfaction to keep playing. And facing and defeating Satan makes enduring any trial worthwhile!

I am taking a break from the Quintet kick by starting Hagane. I'm hoping I'll coin it in a few nights.

[Gaijin Punch]

I've been on an SFC kick these past few weeks. I started with some DoReMi Fantasy, Magical Pop'n, then Demon's Blazon action. All were easy but fun, though Demon's Blazon disappointed me

Are these originals? I have recently peaked on YJ and Ebay at some SFC classics. Magical Pop'n... fuck me in the goat ass. Wha....?

[schadenfreude]

Nah, via a Super Everdrive. With it, I can get an unemulated experience without fighting the price gougers. And you can do cool things like apply a patch to a Seiken Densetsu 3 rom and unlock 3-player play on real SFC hardware, which I dream to play through someday with 2 other buddies. I have no idea why Seiken Densetsu 2 supports 3 players but the third one does not! Oh, I know — probably because Nasir didn't work on it.

[zinger]

Great picks. I remember being really annoyed with Demon's Blazon for a bunch of reasons, but when I think back on that experience, it still stands out as one of the most memorable ones on the SFC. The atmosphere is just insanely cool. I guess a bunch of games are like that -- Shenmue (which I recently beat by the way, happy to have picked the Japanese language version which was surprisingly enjoyable and easy to follow) and Broken Sword come to mind. Shadow of the Colossus is similar for me I guess, but I actually only played maybe half-way through that; the frame-rate and oftentimes rather dull graphics put me off, but it was still a very powerful experience (felt like I was in Ray Harryhausen movie ) -- maybe I'll give the PS4 remaster a chance!

Also: damn, I wish Quintet had done more games like Actraiser, I mean side-scrollers or at least games with more focus on action. Both Actraisers are just crazy good, in their own way. For some reason the boss rush in the first Actraiser didn't bother me as much as in Actraiser 2, maybe because it was easier? I sometimes fantasize about how Actraiser 2 would have turned out if they fleshed out the "simulation" aspect of the original game in addition to making the action more intricate? For me, the civilization building was mostly a gimmick (that worked exceptionally well the way it was done and integrated with the action stages), and I used to conclude that it couldn't have worked as well a second time around, and that ditching it was the best thing to do... but still, pretty curious about what the design documents for Actraiser 2 might have looked like initially!

Speaking of SFC action games, any Alcahest fans around here? I think it seems strangely overlooked, considering how well-designed and atmospheric it is. From my impression, it's like a Zelda game for grownups, meaning solid and somewhat challenging top-down fantasy action, very little padding, and takes place in a much more interesting setting than any Zelda game I've ever played. I've only beaten a couple of stages so far, but will probably give it some more time in the future.

[Gaijin Punch]

I guess a bunch of games are like that -- Shenmue (which I recently beat by the way, happy to have picked the Japanese language version which was surprisingly enjoyable and easy to follow) a

Was it your first time through? I'm tempted to bust out the DC and play through these two games before Shenmue 3 comes out... but not sure. The first is a great length. If you don't want to get all the shit you can probably do it in like 15 hours, which for me these days is just long enough. The second, which is equally as dope, takes a bit more. Quite rewarding, but a 30 hour game for me these days will take me forever.

I'm pumped for 3. Will buy a PS4 a bit before it's released for sure.

[zinger]

Yeah first time for me. Hmm, I don't think replaying the Shenmue games would be worthwhile. I can understand that you would want to freshen up your memory of the story and feel the atmosphere again, but considering they're pretty long, slow (and sometimes quite tedious) games, as well as the fact that you've already played them once... wouldn't it be better to watch some videos and just read up on the story before you begin with part 3? I think there's the risk of ruining your good memories of the original games as well (I mean, the experience could never be as exciting as the first time you played them -- I generally avoid replaying games nowadays because of this reason, except if they are pure action/arcade games)?

[mackdangerously]

I'm still plugging away at the arcade version of Tiger Road. Damn that game is rough. I have figured out some important strategies recently and today, I made it to the stage four boss door. I would have made more progress but I put it down for about a month because it was pissing me off. I need to stick with it and try to play it a little every day.

[zinger]

Man, the learning curve in that game is so mean... it's hailed as one of the great Capcom classics, but it certainly isn't as easy to get into compared to the Makaimuras or Black Dragon. I never got very far.

I've spent almost a month now out in the country... Really looking forward to get back home now and finish Bayonetta. I love it. I guess it's the first proper sequel to DMC? I actually barely touched DMC3, which seems like a solid game in many ways, but from what I saw they went totally overboard with Dante's attitude? I don't know, maybe it's not a problem later on, but the atmosphere in the first DMC was so good from the first couple of minutes, and I was very much annoyed with it in DMC3. And what's up with the "Style" system? Just seemed forced to me... but then again I can't say I gave it a fair chance. Anyway, I love Bayonetta. Still haven't decided if I like that or Ninja Gaiden 2 more; NG2 has a cooler player avatar going for it, the ability to run and fight on the surface of the water (which is just so cool!), and I guess I like the enemy designs more overall (can't get enough of slicing swat teams to pieces), but the Witch Time system in Bayonetta is so much fun, and the scene development and settings are more dramatic and extravagant. The NG games have the bow-action going for them as well, which adds a certain type of variety to the action that I like. One thing that was a bit of a let-down for me with NG2 though was the difficulty: the default/normal (Path of the Warrior) setting is very easy, but when you unlock the harder difficulties it seems nigh on impossible. Maybe I'm missing something? I liked the crazy intensity of Path of the Mentor at first, up until the first boss, which just felt ridiculous to me. What am I supposed to do about the constant hail of exploding shurikens? Did they mess up the balance here or do I just suck?

[schadenfreude]

Shenmue (which I recently beat by the way, happy to have picked the Japanese language version which was surprisingly enjoyable and easy to follow)

Awesome! It helps significantly that most of the dialogue is common speech with repetitions (i.e., the question "Do you know where X is?" is asked over and over), which helped me get through it. You could also say the game sort of plays itself at times. Is the sequel coming up soon on your to-play list?

Also: damn, I wish Quintet had done more games like Actraiser, I mean side-scrollers or at least games with more focus on action.

Yeah, I'm stunned at how good Actraiser 2 is compared to the reception you can read about it on the internet. A lot of people felt gipped with the increased American difficulty coupled with the molasses avatar movement — and even I was disgusted at first, plus I made the mistake of starting the game in the Gratis level, which is easily the worst and ugliest level in the game — but past that, the game takes you on a crescendo that ends with a whimper at the slightly disappointing confrontation with Satan. But his sprite is really something!

I sometimes fantasize about how Actraiser 2 would have turned out if they fleshed out the "simulation" aspect of the original game in addition to making the action more intricate?

I would have liked to see more of a connection between the two parts of the game. For example, in the sim part, you can find items that increase your MP and grant you new spells for the action part, but the side-scrolling part never gives you anything you can use in the sim part. At first, I'd go out of my way to hit those statues in the hard-to-reach parts of the levels, but when I realized they just increased my score, I couldn't be arsed anymore. Later, I read that the score you get in the levels influences how high your population can be, which influences how high your level can be, but I had no problem attaining the max level. I did have to sit around and wait for the villagers to finish building all possible roads and upgrade their houses, which was tedious.

The sim part also needs more variety and less of a feeling of inevitability; I'm sure my completed villages looked almost the same as yours, which wouldn't be true if we compared cities we built in a game like SimCity. But I think of Actraiser as a combination of simple but challenging action stages with simple and unchallenging sim stages. It's hard to get bored of such a setup as it seesaws back and forth between those two modes. If only the sim parts were more challenging and had more significance.

[schadenfreude]

I am taking a break from the Quintet kick by starting Hagane. I'm hoping I'll coin it in a few nights.

No sarcasm there. I read many accounts on the internet about how this is one of the hardest SFC games, but I 1CCed it by my 10th try, and I didn't even use bombs. I think I died twice during my final run. I tried the American version to see if they amped up the difficulty in that one, but it feels the same. The game unlocks "hard" mode after you beat it on normal, but "hard" mode just adds more enemies and unfortunately gives them a lot more health, slowing down the game, which is not what I want out of a ninja side-scrolling action game.

Overall, the game is fine, but it feels like CAProduction threw an abundance of moves in the game and hoped no one would notice that most of them are never necessary and never put to good use. And having enemies randomly drop 1-ups like Rockman and recharging my health before each sub-stage and boss fight aren't doing the "challenging" narrative any favors. I like it, but I'll take any of the better Shinobis over it. Also, one pro-tip: Go into the configuration menu and set bombs to select, which makes X and A cycle through weapons. I dunno how they fucked that up.

After clearing that, I started playing Umihara Kawase. Man the graphics are ass — the blocks throughout the levels look like the candy-striped menus from Mother 2. And that ugly upscaled digital photo of a background! I figured I'd put this one down pretty quickly, but I'm still playing it a few days in because of the challenge and whimsy. I never thought a game about a cute girl who goes fishing would cause me to swear so much at my screen.

[mackdangerously]

Man, the learning curve in that game is so mean... it's hailed as one of the great Capcom classics, but it certainly isn't as easy to get into compared to the Makaimuras or Black Dragon. I never got very far.

One thing that was a bit of a let-down for me with NG2 though was the difficulty: the default/normal (Path of the Warrior) setting is very easy, but when you unlock the harder difficulties it seems nigh on impossible. Maybe I'm missing something? I liked the crazy intensity of Path of the Mentor at first, up until the first boss, which just felt ridiculous to me. What am I supposed to do about the constant hail of exploding shurikens? Did they mess up the balance here or do I just suck?

"Mean" is putting it lightly. I would be more inclined to use a word like "evil." I have figured some stuff out and am getting close to a clear. I'll keep you updated.

It has been many years since I played NG2 but from what I remember they increased the projectile spam to goofy levels. Where NG Black was about choosing your attacks and planning your counters, NG2 was about constantly being on the move. On the higher difficulties you couldn't stop for a microsecond. If you have a PS3, you might want to give NG Sigma 2 a try. It's not perfect but you might find that you like it better.

[Gaijin Punch]

Yeah first time for me. Hmm, I don't think replaying the Shenmue games would be worthwhile. I can understand that you would want to freshen up your memory of the story and feel the atmosphere again, but considering they're pretty long, slow (and sometimes quite tedious) games, as well as the fact that you've already played them once... wouldn't it be better to watch some videos and just read up on the story before you begin with part 3? I think there's the risk of ruining your good memories of the original games as well (I mean, the experience could never be as exciting as the first time you played them -- I generally avoid replaying games nowadays because of this reason, except if they are pure action/arcade games)?

Dunno. I've played through the first at least 3 times and 2 at least twice. I really enjoy replaying through, as there's so much to explore. And at this late stage in the game, I've probably forgotten most of it.

[zinger]

Shenmue (which I recently beat by the way, happy to have picked the Japanese language version which was surprisingly enjoyable and easy to follow)

Awesome! It helps significantly that most of the dialogue is common speech with repetitions (i.e., the question "Do you know where X is?" is asked over and over), which helped me get through it. You could also say the game sort of plays itself at times. Is the sequel coming up soon on your to-play list?

Yeah, that makes it a pretty good way to practice/improve your Japanese as well! Not really dying to play the sequel at the moment to be honest, but probably will at some point!

I sometimes fantasize about how Actraiser 2 would have turned out if they fleshed out the "simulation" aspect of the original game in addition to making the action more intricate?

I would have liked to see more of a connection between the two parts of the game.

Yeah, definitely. One thing I hoped for was that the overall designs of the action stages would change based on your actions in the sim parts. Even merely aesthetical transformations would be cool, alterations of the background art for instance. But like for you, the lack of complexity wasn't much of an issue for me, the mere idea of fusing two genres into one game like this was cool enough. But yeah, if they had gone with a similar approach for the sequel, they should have expanded it in some way to make them... not necessarily more challenging, but more intriguing somehow. By the way, the sim stages are pretty much multi-directional STG stages with a city building aspect added to them, when you think about it. So maybe add more interesting attack patterns and player arsenal? Or remove the shooting aspect altogether, and just focus on the city building?

Overall, the game is fine, but it feels like CAProduction threw an abundance of moves in the game and hoped no one would notice that most of them are never necessary and never put to good use. And having enemies randomly drop 1-ups like Rockman and recharging my health before each sub-stage and boss fight aren't doing the "challenging" narrative any favors. I like it, but I'll take any of the better Shinobis over it. Also, one pro-tip: Go into the configuration menu and set bombs to select, which makes X and A cycle through weapons. I dunno how they fucked that up.

I never finished Hagane, despite being super-impressed by it initially (except for stage 1). I've never actually felt like playing it again after that. The biggest flaw for me when I think back about it is the first stage which is pretty terribly designed: just a long stretch of flat ground with boring enemies and an uninspired gunships as I remember it. Atmosphere, stage and boss designs definitely gets a lot better as you go along of course, but the first couple of stages are so important in arcade-style action games. Less inclined to revisit/finish it after reading your impressions now... but I do have some very cool memories from when I played it!

"Mean" is putting it lightly. I would be more inclined to use a word like "evil." I have figured some stuff out and am getting close to a clear. I'll keep you updated.

So... are you enjoying it? I remember being really impressed by the detailed graphics for such an old game, but at the same time the overall theme doesn't suit my tastes as well as, say, the Makaimuras.

It has been many years since I played NG2 but from what I remember they increased the projectile spam to goofy levels. Where NG Black was about choosing your attacks and planning your counters, NG2 was about constantly being on the move. On the higher difficulties you couldn't stop for a microsecond. If you have a PS3, you might want to give NG Sigma 2 a try. It's not perfect but you might find that you like it better.

Goofy indeed. Maybe I'll try Sigma 2 at some point!

I've cleared Bayonetta (Normal) and Metal Gear Rising (Hard) this week. I gotta say I'm a bit disappointed with Bayonetta in the end, especially after playing MGR. I mean, it's great, but I was increasingly annoyed about a lot of its design choices as I progressed. Most obvious thing is the mini-games: motorcycle stages were cool as hell, but I really disliked the Space Harrier stage which was obviously just padding. But the most important flaw for me is the structure of the game, which gives an infinite amount of continues with checkpoints after every single fight, which really works against the main draw of the game -- it never forces you to learn your own moveset or the enemy patterns in-depth! Hard mode is better in this regard, but you have to unlock it by beating Normal mode first... I wish they had just limited the number of lives you have (which I think is how the first DMC was structured, if I remember correctly?). I also wish the game was shorter, with less but better stages; there's a lot of (aesthetically) abstract or organic-themed stages which do practically nothing for me, and I'd much rather have one single cool castle or enemy base to infiltrate than how the last couple of stages were actually designed. Yet another thing, which is also related to the length of the game, is that you have to face some of the bosses (if not all of them?) multiple times; some of them weren't really that interesting to begin with in terms of attack patterns, and whatever visual appeal they have of course gradually wears off for each time you encounter them.

MGR has pretty much the same check point system with unlimited continues, but it's much shorter and aesthetically more coherent (and bad-ass!). I wish the enemies were a bit more aggressive on Hard, because oftentimes some of them just stand around watching as you slice up their buddies. That seems to change on Very Hard though. I'm going to take a break from this now, but I think I want to tackle VH (without carrying over upgrades from a previous play session) at some point -- considering a play-through only takes around 5 hours, with practically no padding, it's very well-suited for replaying. As for which fighting system is better between Bayonetta and MGR, I couldn't say for sure, but I'm very much in love with having the option of both parrying and dodging enemy attacks in MGR, and overall MGR is definitely the superior game for me.

[zinger]

After clearing that, I started playing Umihara Kawase. Man the graphics are ass — the blocks throughout the levels look like the candy-striped menus from Mother 2. And that ugly upscaled digital photo of a background! I figured I'd put this one down pretty quickly, but I'm still playing it a few days in because of the challenge and whimsy. I never thought a game about a cute girl who goes fishing would cause me to swear so much at my screen.

Heh, I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw Umihara Kawase! It's pretty fun anyway (I always loved the ninja rope in Worms:)), and the atmosphere is so unique I guess it deserves some hype. Definitely overrated in my opinion though; if only the environments and enemies were more varied and attractive it could have been great.

[Gaijin Punch]

Which version are you guys referring to? I've always found the difference between normal and high level play to be mind boggling. There are some cool videos floating about on the interwebs, and one Playstation Magazine from back in the day had an append disc which had some extra stages on it. Always loved that shit. Now it's just DLC.

[schadenfreude]

I'm talking about the SFC version, the only one I've played so far. I plan to check out Shun on PlayStation, maybe later this year. And I agree high-level play looks cool, but I don't want to dedicate the time to get that good. I enjoyed the game enough as a few-hours break from the action side-scrollers I was playing at the time.