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| LEGENOARYNINLIA 467th Post
  
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|  "Weekly classic fighting game thread" , posted Sun 10 Apr 05:31:  
This idea popped in my head just now and I thought I should just go with it.
I'm sure everyone in here has played a plethora of different fighting games from way back. And I'm sure everyone has some great memories about them as well. So let's talk about them! We'll pick one fighting game per week and talk just about that one gem of a game. The more personal we can get the better. Did you become a fan of a certain character because of particular game? Or did you begin to hate some character for some reason in that game? Does a song in it bring back memories of good old times? Did you love the game even though you only had access to a sub-par console port? Or maybe you just regret selling it to buy another game you wish you had never bought. Let's share these stories. Hey c'mon!
And now begins the epic drama
Ultra Deadly Attacks meet the Hidden Power.
This is the long-awaited Real Bout!
Let's start off by talking about REAL BOUT GAROU DENSETSU.
RBGD is a game I own for three different consoles for some reason.
I was so into the game at one point (must've been in 2012) that my girlfriend back then made custom wrapping paper from Shinkiro's art to wrap my birthday present in. See? (Yeah, Krauser and Blood weren't in RBGD and Yamazaki is MIA which is a shame.)
For me RBGD is one of those games that I can enjoy even if I'm playing it against the CPU. Garou Densetsu in general trumps all other fighting game series in that regard, IMO. Maybe that's why I have Real Bout for the Playstation, Playstation 2 and Saturn. I was so happy to find a Hong Kong release of the PS1 version last December while going through video game stores in the New Territories looking for old games. Just because it's Real Bout and because it's the HK version. I don't have any better reasoning for buying it. The manual for the HK version has translations of all the special moves in English which was a pleasant surprise. What does Hishou-Ken actually stand for, does anyone know? Because I doubt it is egg-beater-blast..
I remember sitting on the HK MTR and reading the manual with a smile on my face when I tried to imagine who was responsible for the English translation. The first page starts off with:
quote:
Greetings.
Hey, guys. Thanks for choosing REAL BOUT GAROU DENSETSU for PlayStation.
Before you start playing, folks, will you take a careful look through this manual and see how things work? And also, don't lose this manual. It's got full of handy help, ya know.
- Oh, while reading this masterpiece, you may want to read the manual of the PlayStation.
- Hey, note that some of the pictures used here come from the video arcade version. Well, they sort of make my job a lot easier.
Oh what an innocent and casual world video games have once existed in.
Well, I don't want to spill all my lone wolf beans in one post so I'll pass on the mic...
EDIT: fixed typos.
~The artist formerly known as TheRedKnight~
videograpple.tumblr.com/
[this message was edited by LEGENOARYNINLIA on Sun 10 Apr 07:37] |
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| neo0r0chiaku
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|  "Re(1):Weekly classic fighting game thread" , posted Sun 10 Apr 07:27:
quote:
This idea popped in my head just now and I thought I should just go with it.
I'm sure everyone in here has played a plethora of different fighting games from way back. And I'm sure everyone has some great memories about them as well. So let's talk about them! We'll pick one fighting game per week and talk just about that one gem of a game. The more personal we can get the better. Did you become a fan of a certain character because of particular game? Or did you begin to hate some character for some reason in that game? Does a song in it bring back memories of good old times? Did you love the game even though you only had access to a sub-par console port? Or maybe you just regret selling it to buy another game you wish you had never bought. Let's share these stories. Hey c'mon!
And now beings the epic drama
Ultra Deadly Attacks meet the Hidden Power.
This is the long-awaited Real Bout!
Let's start off by talking about REAL BOUT GAROU DENSETSU.
RBGD is a game I own for three different consoles for some reason.
I was so into the game at one point (must've been in 2012) that my girlfriend back then made custom wrapping paper from Shinkiro's art to wrap my birthday present in. See? (Yeah, Krauser and Blood weren't in RBGD and Yamazaki is MIA which is a shame.)
For me RBGD is one of those games that I can enjoy even if I'm playing it against the CPU. G
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My experience with RBGD started at Electronic Boutique. Well, not playing experience but let me explain. So at the time when stores like Electronic Boutique and Gamestop(or was it called another name? I forgot) was selling import games, especially Sega Saturn games, they had RBGD on display. Pandoras Cube and Starland did not have the game from what I remembered. I would always browse and look deep into the Saturn games they had for sell. RBGD stood out to me as a game that had a badass covert art on its package. It looks so sick and vicious, I fell in love. I would always just stare at it and look into the case more like if I knew how to read Japanese when I really could not. I mean this game was literally in every EB store(and that other video game store) I came across in multiple states I traveled to. My mind was like "I really need to buy this game, or set of both, soon!"
During those times I was always searching and buying import Saturn games on eBay. I finally got my hands on RB2 for a steal. However, the guy sent me one with no manual. I did not say anything until i tried the game out as much as I could. Sad to say, I was kind of disappointed with the game. Not that it was a bad game, I just wanted a little more or different at the time. After playing many fighting games during that time, especially KOF, I wanted more or expected more.
The game had a good presentation and great characters but I felt like I could not use them more like I wanted to. It bugged me to that it used the exact songs(arranged) that KOF 97 used for those characters. So it did not felt new/different to me. It was my pickyness that I did not get to experience the game like how you describe LEGEN. I really wanted to play with the Gin brothers especially but did not felt right to me. It was great to experience the characters from the old FF days.
The only FF game I played heavily with were FF1 and FF2 both for the Genesis. FF2 was the best ever and the music for the genesis was the best out of all of them including FF3. As a result, I spent about two weeks with RBGD and sent it back to the seller with no problem. He gave me a refund and that is when I finished my time with RBGD. All in all, I still believe the box art with Geese and his henchman(well they cut them off on this version) on the Sega Saturn is kick ass.
Long Live I AM!
[this message was edited by neo0r0chiaku on Sun 10 Apr 07:31] |
| Lord SNK
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| "Re(1):Weekly classic fighting game thread" , posted Mon 11 Apr 00:43
I played RBFF after having played RBS, so I was spoiled a little by the upgraded graphics (like Blue Mary sprite, the RB one was ugly compared to RBS) but I enjoyed the game really a lot.
RBS it's a sort of Dream Match without story, so I liked it for 2 players battle with friends, but for 1P game / story mode I enjoyed a lot more RB.
Fatal Fury (the first one) is one of my preferred games, and having a sort of rematch of the fated duel with Geese atop the Geese Tower (obviously using Terry) was pretty cool.
I remember finishing it with one credit and beating the crap out of Geese taking advantage of the infinity scrolling of that stage and Geese tendency to spam Reppukens. Terry's Crack Shoot could pass above them and hit Geese very easily.
quote:
The manual for the HK version has translations of all the special moves in English which was a pleasant surprise. What does Hishou-Ken actually stand for, does anyone know? Because I doubt it is egg-beater-blast..
I don't know what is the actual translation, but I remember that the official english name was "Flying Crunch".
quote:
I love that the game seems designed with the final battle against Geese in mind, considering the ring out system - and on top of that, how that made the 1st round in the Geese fight not have a stage limit.
It was unlimited only on the first round? I have completely forgotten this thing!
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| LEGENOARYNINLIA 468th Post
Gold Customer
| "Re(5):Weekly classic fighting game thread" , posted Tue 12 Apr 17:36
For those who haven't seen RB1 in action here's a channel that has lots of great matches: rb1ukyo
quote:
I haven't played very much Fatal Fury so I don't have anything to add in terms of personal anecdotes, but I'm very much enjoying reading everyone's comments. I think the last time I played RB1 was at your house LEGENOARYNINLIA! I should give the game another shot.
Thanks for starting this thread, it's a fantastic idea!
I'm sorry but I doubt you have been to my house, nobi! I live in Finland. I think you've confused me with someone else. But if you want to come over and play some games, sure why not!
My personal anecdote about RB1: I'm a huge Yamazaki fan, but playing the game I got the feeling that the game needs to be experienced first hand as the Bogard bros and I had no choice but to reset the machine and pick Terry instead. I beat the game as him first, then as Andy and then as Joe. Only then I felt like I could play as the other characters. That's how riveting the setting of the game is. SNK's games really knew how to do boss fights right* and how to set up the athmosphere for the battle.
*even if that is not the consensus on the internet
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quote:
Real Bout 1 is one of the important landmarks in my long NeoGeo career; as it was a game that "pulled me away" of my regular fighting game menu and made me realize that appetizing with more frequence other dishes was not bad at all.
I'll never forget the cool selection screen, specially since the arcade itself was dark and gave a similar feeling; making us rave more about the game.
Hopefully this thread will encourage more people to try out different games and especially to dip deep into the history of fighting games and really relish the offerings.
The character selection screen in RB1 is one of the best I've ever seen in a fighting game. And when you made a note about the less consistent art direction in the later game I was immediately reminded of RB2's character select screen which is the complete opposite of what RB1 has. It's very bland. RB1 has intense presentation and I love it. The whole game wrapped up in this mood that someone is going down and soon.
quote:
The only FF game I played heavily with were FF1 and FF2 both for the Genesis. FF2 was the best ever and the music for the genesis was the best out of all of them including FF3. As a result, I spent about two weeks with RBGD and sent it back to the seller with no problem. He gave me a refund and that is when I finished my time with RBGD. All in all, I still believe the box art with Geese and his henchman(well they cut them off on this version) on the Sega Saturn is kick ass.
I haven't really played those ports on real hardware, but I did check out the Mega Drive FM soundtracks on Youtube and enjoyed them a lot. Thanks for the tip! FM stuff always puts me in a good mood. Unless it's crap quality like the SSF2 port.
Oh, and speaking of the Saturn port of RBGD. On my modded PAL machine I can do this trick with the Japanese version of the game: Start up the game normally, then hit ABC+Start to reset the game and suddenly the game changes to RBFF. The title screen and other graphics are in English!
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If someone hasn't heard this one yet but enjoyed the story in Garou Densetsu games; definitely check this out: Kong Kuwata - The Sunset Sky Final (AKA Geese singing to you from the heavens)
RIP Geese
~The artist formerly known as TheRedKnight~
videograpple.tumblr.com/
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| Toxico 6016th Post
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|  "Re(6):Re(10):Re(10):Weekly classic fighting g" , posted Tue 26 Apr 03:55
Dominated Minds, along with Wild Ambition; were basically the only SNK games for ps1 that weren't cluncky as hell nor neither butchered ports.
I mean, for the console kofs, we could only play single player due to the atrocious loading times and many times we even agreed on using the same characters to decrease those loadings; and when the game finally loaded you had a chunky game with low FPS. For the regular SNK fan here, DM was basically the first oportunity where you can truly get "the SNK experience" in home; of course we didn't knew anything about AES or whatever those things were called, since such expensive stuff never travels that far worldwide.
As for RB2, I have always been quite conflicted about it; since due to the flow of damage, time available to fight and how strong the act of defending is; even if the two players aim to go at it aggressively, the match can still end in a time over, bleh.
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Last update : Chapter 25 as of 31/08/12
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| neo0r0chiaku
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| "Re(2):Re(10):Re(10):Re(10):Weekly classic fig" , posted Mon 2 May 04:46
quote:
SO LONG, GEESE...
Only the lonely can be the strongest.
I guess that's enough for RB love. What's next?
Well my arcade didnt have real bout games (a shame) but the one I play 94 and SS back in the day (20 years ago T_T) had also Darkstalkers and boy I was in love.
At the time I couldnt speak any foreign language so I didnt know what was happening. But the music, voice acting and sound effects along with the visuals created this atmosphere that was so dangerous, so thrilling at the same time incredibly attractive. I was around nine or ten so this horror type game blew my mind. I used to watch horror movies/series secretly even though I was scared as hell. This game has this same attraction for me. I remember this old style europian street stage was truly scary and adventrous for the 10 year old version of me.
Nothing particularly was horrifyingly scary but the atmosphere and the characters somehow make it like that Iwas inside that world. To my surprise years later considering there was no internet or nothing to know that it exist, in a far arcade in outer city have the sequel. I only have few chances of playing it. Character select and Lei Lei's stage was memorable. Not as scary but rather exciting. I chose Lei Lei always. One day I find Ps1 copy fo Darkstalkers 3 and played it to death. I remember the bus ride home it was the longest. I was trying to figure out who was who and who was new in the back cover artwork. When I arrive home I
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You know, this was the game/series I wanted to bring up as our next topic! Well It started one day going to some random pizza place. I noticed an arcade cabinet with the label CAPCOM. So I was excited and went to check it out. It was a game I never heard and seen of. I remember what stood out and made me think "what in the world is this," was Lord Raptor. He was one scary dude and his model looked very detailed and creative. So I was standing there at the cabinet for about 5 minutes looking to see if I am even capable of playing this game. I thought Primal Rage was crazy (that was my other Classic FG I wanted to bring up) but this one got it in the bag.
Since that day, I wanted to get my hands on Darkstalkers. After my research, I got a copy of Night Warriors for the Saturn. I must say, I was so happy to have had this game and it was worth every minute and time. I made sure I used the honor system to explore every character and its endings without continuing after losing. Colors, music, supers, and story was amazing! The wildest character was Anakaris. The coolest stage was Talbain. The best BGM was Bishamon. The funny thing about Darkstalkers is that, it was not as graphic as you would think based on its horror presentation like many mature/controversy games at the time. I made sure Night Warriors last for a long time.
Darkstalkers 3 came out at the arcades. After a year, It was time for me to decide whether to buy it on the Saturn. It was a debate on either Vampire Savior or Pocket Fighter. It was either a new obscure game or a game played before but better. Walking almost a couple of miles to Starland thinking, I opted for Pocket Fighter. My friend had Darkstalkers 3 on the PS but it was not the same.
Vampire Savior had a much deeper tone to it. The new characters we very cynical and ironic. The game felt better when trying them. The returning ones felt a bit the same with no changes. B.B. Hood was by far my favorite with that sadistic look. Her BGM was like my ring tone for my brain!
By this time, It was buying Vampire Savior on Saturn for collection purposes. Never got the chance to. I am glad to have had the opportunity to play Night Warriors. CAPCOM made a very good franchise out of it without copying or mimicking many other FG's at the time. It did and still does hold on its own as a unique fighter that deserves to be revived or continued in the future.
Long Live I AM!
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| nobinobita 1592th Post
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| "Re(3):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Thu 5 May 22:30
quote:
Some people want to play a complete edition of 3rd strike with backgrounds and musics from Second Impact.
I want to play a complete edition of Vampire Savior with all the animation frames from Hunter put back in. And the background as well actually.
I remember the first time I saw Jedah in action. When he grabbed his opponent and made their head burst I realised that 1) they had created separate graphics for each character just for that move, and 2) this is from the same company that makes Street Fighter.
On the top of my head, such special damage animations have been created for...
* Dimitri's midnight bliss, of course (also used by Anakaris).
* Electric damage from Victor (also used in various electric moves).
* Zabel's baseball for Hell Dunk.
* Anakaris' curse.
* A couple of characters have a special animation for Bishamon's old school torture/Edo interrogation technique.
* Most characters also have a special animation when Bishamon orders them to cut their own throat.
* All characters have a special "Fatality" animation when Bishamon kills them with his special OTG.
* Gallon's close range ES where he slices the opponent in half vertically.
* Most characters have a special face when Felicia climbs on their head.
* Lilith Dancing (at least the beginning).
* Q-Bee's extreme stinging.
* Jedah's blood injection (and the blood gets stocked in a different part of the body for each character: hands for Dimitri, nose for Squatch, wings for Morrigan... I always
[/U
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I vividly remember the first time I saw Darkstalkers. I was in Middle school. I was hanging out with a good friend after school when his older sister (who was a super cool mature High Schooler who taught us about cool bands like The Pixies and cool trashy European exploitation films like Vampyros Lesbos) came in and told us "You gotta see this new game at the Skyline Mall arcade. It's like Street Fighter, but with vampires and werewolves and Frankensteins. It's the coolest thing ever!"
We rushed to the arcade. Upon first glance, Darkstalkers was immediately the most beautiful game I'd ever seen. It still is! The animation, the character designs, the way it just absolutely oozed with personality. It blew my mind!
I love the entire cast so much. I used to draw all the characters all the time. They were all such fresh, original, yet incredibly iconic takes on classic monsters. I can't praise them enough. And the way they were drawn was incredible too.
I'd always liked Street Fighter, but Dark Stalkers was clearly on another level. By the time SF2 Championship Edition came out, I felt that the promotional illustrations had clearly outpaced the actual in-game graphics. With Darkstalkers, the sprites finally matched the quality of the concept art. Bengus in motion was an incredible thing to behold. It's one of the first games I can recall that clearly had feature film quality animation. I love it so much!
I have to admit though, I never actually got very good at Darkstalkers. I never had many people to play it with. I think I spent more time just watching the animations in practice mode and drawing the characters than playing it against other live humans. I love watching tournament videos for it though. At a high level the game looks so aggressive. I love the pace of it. There's a back and fourth quality to it. The matches don't feel like people taking turns comboing each other, they feel like two animals mauling each other to death unrelentingly.
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| Iggy 10222th Post
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| "Re(2):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Fri 6 May 02:07
quote:
You forgot when they burn everyone has differrent type of animation.
I did not!
quote:
and then you have all the other shared special damage animations: burned, strong OTG...
Plus, I was listing specific animations to a move, which is and always was something crazy to do: creating such moves means you have to draw specific frames for all characters just for this move, and the more new characters you create the more expensive each one becomes just because some clever guy in the first game created these personalized hit animations.
Guilty Gear also has plenty of those (and they are great, most of the time) but they are the bottom of a joke in a cinematic super (LOL, he put his fingers up his butt). What made Vampire special was that they were very discrete, happened naturally during the course of the fight and never drew attention to how fantastic that tiny little detail you barely registered actually was. Elegance does not pay.
That's also why Vampire characters tend to stay in their games, because they either make everyone more expensive (though it can be fun, i.e. the Midnight Bliss galleries) or they get neutered and get lame, like Anakaris in MvC2.
Morrigan, Leilei and Felicia are so far the only Vampire characters that made it to the 3D World, and while them being girls make them more visible, I'm sure the main draw was "and none of them would lose any iconic move with a special animation".
Vampire was the ubris that paved the way to the fantastic but economically unwise SF3.
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| Loona 1066th Post
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| "Re(1):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Fri 6 May 08:48
I recall my surprise at finding the game at the arcade back in the game - the finer points of its craftsmanship weren't that obvious to me at the time, but I always enjoyed looking at Raptor/Zabel's stance animation, not to mention other things like his chainsaw kick and electric intro - it was almost sad to see what an asshole he was in the story, which the game didn't shed that much light on outside the endings.
I recall reading that the team of originals from MvC2, Son-son, Ruby Heart and Amingo, were originally meant for a new Vampire game that never happened, which may be backed up by the fact that game had an animation for Felicia in a nun suit that wasn't in her source games.
I could see Son-Son fitting in as another nod to Chinese mythology, but a pirate and a cactus plantoid seem like weirder fits... then again, by Vampire Savior the stricter monster archtype thing was already cracking quite a bit, since BB Hood and Jedah aren't exactly walking references to monster movies like the rest. Alas, they didn't even get to return for MvC3. Maybe if there's a Project X Zone 3 then ruby heart will come back and tie in to Vampire lore a bit more, after their word with Ingrid in PXZ2 I have faith in their abilities.
On the topic of custom animations like Midnight bliss, despite issues with Cross Edge I'm amazed that they bothered to include Demitri as a playable character with that super, which meant giving MB sprites to several trash mobs and boss/playable characters, since an RPG with a tactical component tends to have a bigger cast to work with.
...!!
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| Just a Person 1748th Post
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| "Re(4):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Fri 6 May 21:34:
quote:
On that topic and one I forgot to mention, the Saturn version of vampire hunter/night warriors allowed you to also use the BGM from the first game as well. I think the colors of the characters from the first game was in there to. There was actually these dark tone colors that the cpu used for the characters on arcade mode that was not selectable for the player on hand. That was odd but those colors were very cool. It was mostly a dark color with black to give it a evil theme look.
I never understood why Capcom decided to change the colors of the characters and stages from the first game in Vampire Hunter/Night Warriors (even though they had already done it before in SFII Hyper Fighting and SSFIIX)... such a weird decision. Especially because they would still appear with their original colors in their endings, anyway.
In fact, Vampire Hunter/Night Warrior is quite weird (not in a bad way, of course) in itself: it's hard to define whether it is an upgrade of Vampire/Darkstalkers (as it has the same stages, sprites, plots and endings from the original game) or an actual sequel (considering the huge changes in the game system, the brand-new soundtrack - which was MUCH better than the original one, in my opinion - and the lots of special and super moves).
Whatever it is, though, it is really good. I have fond memories of the many hours I spent playing it in the arcades or simply watching other people playing it (although my parents' memories of the money I spent in it are probably not so fond...).
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Fri 6 May 22:22] |
| HAYATO 1205th Post
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| "Re(4):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Sat 7 May 05:38
quote:
Some people want to play a complete edition of 3rd strike with backgrounds and musics from Second Impact.
I want to play a complete edition of Vampire Savior with all the animation frames from Hunter put back in. And the background as well actually.
That would be quite cool! If it also had the music of BOTH Hunter and Savior, that would be amazing!
As the avid Vampire Hunter fan I am, I'd gladly give my left testicle for such a compilation! I spent so many afternoons playing the Saturn version against my friends on my teenage years that I can't understand those times without it. Playing the game, thinking about it, creating fan art of the characters... at one point I even attempted to wite a fanfic centered on Donovan's weird relationship with Anita! Vampire Hunter is still my favorite entry on the series and became an obsession that stayed with me for some years, but damn, was it worthwhile!!
As NeOrOchiaku points out, the Saturn port of Vampire Hunter had some nice, albeit obscure additions: by way of a hidden menu (at least in the PAL version I owned), not only does it allow you to enable the original Vampire/ Darkstalkers soundtrack and character palettes, but also the original stage backgrounds! Moreover, the CD-rom contained the roster's complete spritesheet, altough, due to RAM restrictions (IIRC the game was released before the advent of 1MB and 4MB Extended RAM Cartdriges), it was put to full use only during mirror matches.
Thanks LegenOaryninlia for the link to that discarded stuff website! It was very illustrative and made for a great, Darkstalkeresque nostalgia trip!
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| Just a Person 1751th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(6):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Wed 11 May 00:41:
quote:
My city never had a Vampire Hunter machine, so I jumped from years of Dark Stallkers to Vampire Savior in one go.
My experience was quite different: Vampire Hunter was the first machine from the franchise in my city for years (or so I thought back then). Only years later I found a Vampire machine in an obscure arcade place, and I was a little disappointed by it, not because it had fewer characters, but because the music and the gameplay just didn't feel as enjoyable as in the other games.
Maybe that's why I see Vampire Hunter less as an actual sequel and more as a much needed upgrade of the first game (...well, besides the already pointed out fact that VH reused the same stages and endings from the original game).
As for Vampire Savior, the new characters looked great and I loved the Dark Force implementation, but I didn't like the new stages and music as much as the Vampire Hunter ones (they were still great, though, and the credits roll music is incredibly beautiful), nor I liked the adoption of two life bars instead of the three-round system (which is weird, because Killer Instinct has the same system and I love it). But even though I prefer VH, I still had lots of fun with VS.
(...it's weird to use these names for these games, as the arcade cabinets here used their Western names)
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Wed 11 May 00:49] |
| Just a Person 1758th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(7):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Sat 21 May 02:34:
I hope it's not a problem to post here twice in a row, but these past days I just had some more random thoughts about the Vampire/Darkstalkers series:
- I remember that when Darkstalkers Resurrection was announced, many people complained that instead of just re-releasing the Arcade versions of VH and VS, Capcom should just release the Dreamcast version of VS (which had all characters and the possibility of choosing the mechanics and movelists from either Vampire, VH, VS or VS2/VH2. While that could have been cool, that version missed individual endings, only had the VS2 stages (which were the VS1 stages with different colors), and it seems that it had its share of glitches and problems with hitboxes. So, in the end, Capcom probably made the right choice (...well, not counting the "make a brand-new Darkstalkers game" option, of course). I wouldn't complain if Capcom at least returned every character (other than Donovan and Hsien-Ko) and their stages in VH to their original colors, though.
- Still about the games collected in Resurrection, searching other game forums, I found out that while a good majority of players seem to consider VS the better game, there is also a considerable number of players that prefer VH. It's interesting how they do feel very different from each other (even though characters in both games have the same sprites), each one with its own advantages.
- Another fascinating thing in Darkstalkers is how it has such a rich plot... and how the vast majority of it is just NOT SHOWN IN THE GAMES THEMSELVES. No wonder some people believe the games just show a fighting tournament among monsters and would have no idea of why Demitri hates Morrigan, what the heck is the relation between Morrigan and Lilith (I've seen game reviewers mentioning they're sisters), etc. I've even seen people thinking Donovan and B.B.Hood as Darkstalker-hunting allies because they're featured in an official artwork...
- ...and speaking of B.B.Hood, one of my favorite characters in this franchise (and definitely one of the most underappreciated ones) isn't even playable: it's her cute puppy, Harry! How adorable is he, following her, getting scared when she freaks out, and apparently being electrocuted by an invisible force whenever she's knocked out? It's a shame that whoever did the art for Darkstalkers Resurrection (which I think it's gorgeous, by the way) remembered to put Anita in Donovan's art but forgot to put Harry in B.B.Hood's (when both of them do the same thing: follow their partners - and Harry actually reacts to the fight, unlike Anita)... oh well, at least he can brag that, unlike most of the DS cast, he got to appear in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
...Well, I guess that's it for now. Sorry for all the useless nonsense I just wrote, but hopefully there is something in there that can keep the discussions continuing in this topic.
---
EDIT: oh yes, one more thing. Capcom is frequently accused of being lazy with their games (and let's be honest, the accusations are frequently deserved), but I think they did a great job with Lilith. The first time I saw her (in a screenshot in a videogame magazine), I thought she'd be just a head swap of Morrigan, but Capcom actually gave her a lot of major and minor differences, from the size of her chest to her walking animations, the way her wings protect her when she's blocking (they get a different shape than Morrigan's when she's blocking), and how her moves (both normal and special) not only have different properties, but also different animations (for instance, even though there's little difference in the damage and reach of Lilith's Shining Blade or Luminous Illusion in comparison to Morrigan's Shadow Blade and Darkness Illusion, she still got her own animations for these moves).
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Sat 21 May 03:01] |
| neo0r0chiaku
190th Post
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Regular Customer
| "Re(8):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Sat 21 May 03:34
quote:
I hope it's not a problem to post here twice in a row, but these past days I just had some more random thoughts about the Vampire/Darkstalkers series:
- I remember that when Darkstalkers Resurrection was announced, many people complained that instead of just re-releasing the Arcade versions of VH and VS, Capcom should just release the Dreamcast version of VS (which had all characters and the possibility of choosing the mechanics and movelists from either Vampire, VH, VS or VS2/VH2. While that could have been cool, that version missed individual endings, only had the VS2 stages (which were the VS1 stages with different colors), and it seems that it had its share of glitches and problems with hitboxes. So, in the end, Capcom probably made the right choice (...well, not counting the "make a brand-new Darkstalkers game" option, of course). I wouldn't complain if Capcom at least returned every character (other than Donovan and Hsien-Ko) and their stages in VH to their original colors, though.
- Still about the games collected in Resurrection, searching other game forums, I found out that while a good majority of players seem to consider VS the better game, there is also a considerable number of players that prefer VH. It's interesting how they do feel very different from each other (even though characters in both games have the same sprites), each one with its own advantages.
- Another fascinating thing in Darkstalkers is how it has such a rich plot... and how the vast
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Great write-up. I completely forgot the Dreamcast version had those options. The DC version was made solely for online battle matches so I can see why the stages, colors, endings, etc. were not worked on. I was actually hoping resurrection would have been a HD remake of some sort. Once again, its sole purpose was for online play.
I do prefer the VH for all the essentials the game gave. VS was a better version of VH gameplay wise in my opinion. That is probably why the fan base is split. Story, stages, music was better in VH. Gameplay was better in VS.
Baby Bonnie Hood aka B.B. Hood aka Bulleta, who can not like her? She is one of the best. I mean, the person who created the concept of her deserves a Grammy. Anita deserves to be in a fighting game! She was only feature as a playable character in puzzle fighter. That alone teased me even more to see her more in a fighting game. She can really be amazing if done right.
Darkstalkers is one of the few games with no head swaps indeed. They could have easily made over 50 characters but kept it original. Man, I really want a new one here as well. If they crossover with another company/game, It would be Darkstalkers vs. Guilty Gear. At least, that is what I thought back in 2000 :D
Long Live I AM!
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| Loona 1072th Post
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| "Re(9):Weekly classic fighting game: Vampire" , posted Sat 21 May 08:51:
quote:
- Another fascinating thing in Darkstalkers is how it has such a rich plot...
I get the impression it's more a matter of rich backstory for individual characters (ex.: the recent family history of the Aenslands) and aspects of their lives (the mandates of king anakaris, or BB Hood's professional practices), but very little that involves interactions between the characters in the actual games, which makes it so that any adaptations struggle to find anything for characters other than Morrigan, Demitri, Pyron, Donovan, Lillith and Jedah to do that has any consequence/relevance.
quote:
Anita deserves to be in a fighting game! She was only feature as a playable character in puzzle fighter. That alone teased me even more to see her more in a fighting game. She can really be amazing if done right.
She did get that appearance in the home version of marvel Super Heroes, using a smaller version of Donovan's sword. Between that and her MvC1 assist attack there's enough material for the Project X Zone team to get her some use if they're ever inclined... and after bothering with Ingrid and doing more to reference DS lore more than the DS games do, I figure they're qualified to handle the task. Heck, after the June/Black Hayato thing in PXZ2, I could imagine them tackling older Anita as a playable/assist and Dee as a tormented antagonist...
...!!
[this message was edited by Loona on Mon 23 May 16:24] |
| Maese 808th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member+
| "Re(6):Re(10):Weekly classic fighting game: Va" , posted Tue 24 May 16:43
quote:
- OK, ok, you can talk about Star Gladiator.
- So, we had issues with the character called Rimgal for this and that reason, and...
- That's so very interesting now tell me about Justice Gakuen I want to know everything about Justice Gakuen.
Gahaha, while this is entirely sensible on the part of the interviewer, I sure would like to hear people's Star Gladiator stories. I remember being baffled by the sight of it in the ads. There was that lady in pink (but not Pink Lady)...
Star Gladiator partisans are going to have to move fast or risk having their conversation get overrun, though: Maese and I recently had the joy of playing Moero! Justice Gakuen in the arcades, and there's no getting it out of my mind once it's started. 「人の道を教えてやる！無双正拳突き！！」
Actually I was playing with a Dreamcast gamepad, so I wonder if that really counts as "playing in the arcades", ha ha.
I for one know at least of one board member that likes Star Gladiator with a passion, so in deferebce for him I'll hold my breath for a while until he makes his appearance and illuminates us with his vast knowledge on the subject. I'm summoning you, Hayato!
But, in any case, I fully agree that Justice Gakuen is one of the finest themes of conversation an accomplished gentleman can hope for. That should be our next weekly game of choice for sure!
A Talking about Japanese History sword in hand
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| Iggy 10239th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P Requiem
| "Re(5):Re(10):Weekly classic fighting game: Va" , posted Tue 24 May 21:50
According to the interview, one of the main goals of Justice Gakuen was to make a 60 FPS game, compared to Star Gladiator's 30 (because of the many visual effects). I wonder if that's why the game always felt so sluggish? Was it fixed in the sequel?
After all the Justice Gakuen talk, the interviewer finishes with something among the lines of "well, we're at the end of the interview. Too bad we didn't have the time to talk about other projects you worked on, such as Power Stone or Capcom vs SNK, but, well, Justice Gakuen was more important than those, right?"
Right.
You did well, sir.
And if anyone wanted to hear more about PS or CvS, blame Star Gladiator for taking too much space.
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| nobinobita 1599th Post
Red Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Member
| "Re(6):Re(10):Weekly classic fighting game: Va" , posted Wed 25 May 01:18:
quote:
Does anyone actually like Star Gladiator?
Wasn't Star Gladiator originally meant to be a Star Wars fighting game until Capcom failed to secure the license?
With a history like that, I wouldn't be surprised if even the folks at Capcom were disappointed about what the game became when compared to what it was originally meant to be...
I remember having a ton of fun playing Star Gladiator after school. I don't remember the mechanics that well, but I do remember the awesome cast. I'm glad they didn't do a Star Wars game cos it freed them to go all out and make their own insane take on Star Wars.
The game has one of my favourite casts of characters ever. Up there with Street Fighter and Samurai Shodown. I think the characters would get more love if the gameplay also aged well.
I don't think it's a stretch to say that Star Gladiator must have influenced Overwatch on some level. I mean obviously Capcom in general influenced that game, with Arnold Tseng being one of the most talented artists to come out of Udon. But if I had to pick a single Capcom game that Overwatch feels the closest to, it would definitely be Star Gladiator (followed by Powerstone).
I wanna go on a long tirade about how much I love that cast, but I got a long night of work ahead of me!
Instead I'll comment on this:
quote:
That said, I can't guess what SW character that yo-yo guy came from.
I'm 90% certain that Saturn (green cone headed yo yo circus alien fighter) was based off of an old 3 foot tall American robot alien toy named Big Loo.
Saturn
Big Loo
Here's a black and white commercial of Big Loo in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhH0MW44d78
The resemblance is uncanny. The green cone head. The scary toothy grin with the exact same mouth shape. The beady eyes. The shirtless neck shawl thing. The color scheme etc. I think it's too many similarities to be coincidence. Maybe Akiman saw Big Loo in a toy catalog or toy museum (Japan has always been a top producer of tin robot toys, so there are some serious collectors over there).
Anyway, I love Star Gladiator. The game itself is fun, if not exceptional. But that cast is fuckin RAD!
Bonus:
Just got to talking with some friends bout Star Gladiator. I now realise that this would be my dream game:
https://twitter.com/gorotorogames/status/735156356118765568
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Wed 25 May 02:15] |
| neo0r0chiaku
192th Post
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Regular Customer
| "Re:Weekly classic fighting game: Star Gladiat" , posted Wed 25 May 02:57:
quote:
Does anyone actually like Star Gladiator?
Wasn't Star Gladiator originally meant to be a Star Wars fighting game until Capcom failed to secure the license?
With a history like that, I wouldn't be surprised if even the folks at Capcom were disappointed about what the game became when compared to what it was originally meant to be...
I can see the being true since originally the Darkstalkers game was suppose to be a Universal Studios Old Movie Horror Monsters game. Capcom could not get the licensing so out came Darkstalkers.
I never played SG but did get some time on Plasma Sword. No memorable experience to talk about here.
quote:
After all the Justice Gakuen talk, the interviewer finishes with something among the lines of "well, we're at the end of the interview. Too bad we didn't have the time to talk about other projects you worked on, such as Power Stone or Capcom vs SNK, but, well, Justice Gakuen was more important than those, right?"
Right.
You did well, sir.
And if anyone wanted to hear more about PS or CvS, blame Star Gladiator for taking too much space.
Talking about Justice Gakuen on any subject is a thread in itself on the café! :)
Long Live I AM!
[this message was edited by neo0r0chiaku on Wed 25 May 02:58] |
| HAYATO 1206th Post
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| "Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sword" , posted Wed 25 May 08:00
Wow, a serious discussion about Star Gladiator among fellow Cafers? And... not only do they go easy on the series, but some even praise it!! I never thought I'd live enough to see this day... 
As Maese pointed out before, I've always been a huge fan of the franchise (so huge, in fact, that I borrowed the name of the main character for my online persona). Despite that, it's been literally ages since I played both the original Star Gladiator and its sequel Plasma Sword, but its iconic cast of characters and bizarre, space-opera-gone-wrong universe still linger in my mind as vividly as they did decades ago.
Granted, both games have aged poorly: their low-poly models can be pretty painful to watch under today's standards (it's been almost 20 years since SG's release, anyway) and game mechanics weren't anything to write home about (floaty jumps, counterintuitive special move commands, weird collision detection...). But what the series lacked in playability, it more than made up for in originality, thanks to Akiman's colorul character desing (June, Zelkin, Saturn and Bilstein looked really original to me back then), the outlandish, but somehow familiar atmosphere that permeates the series (first time I saw SG in action I couldn't believe it was a Capcom game... until I tried it, that is) and their wonderful soundtrack (with such an assorted array of both moody and energetic pieces coming in the end of Capcom's golden era).
In a sense, SG/PS may be one of the most original Capcom series ever made, second only to Darkstalkers and Rival Schools, and the closest thing to a 3D Vampire game we'll ever have: Plasma Sword's "Plasma Field" mechanic was similar to Vampire Savior's "Dark Force", there also were head stomps, akin to Darkstalkers' pursuit attack, as well as augmented counters (the so-called "Plasma Revenge", similar to Vampire Hunter/ Savior "ES moves")... Even when we leave some of their tunes out of context, they could be swapped between both series without problems (although the same could be done with other late 90s Capcom games, such as Warzard, SFIII: New Gen and the above-mentioned)
I may be a sucker for strange, misunderstood niche games but, as in Warzard's case, watching so much wasted potential pains me to no end. Now that Capcom finally got the expertise and resources to create competent 3D fighting games I wish they would invest some of the money they earned milking their fans throughout the years to take another shot at this wonderful, albeit misused franchise. I think there's more than enough potential in there to make something great out of it... right, guys?
Hey! Where did everybody go?
PS: I pity the fool who never listened to Illusion of Peace
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| Maou 3139th Post
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sw" , posted Wed 25 May 10:52
quote:
I enjoy the first Star Gladiator mainly as a single player experience. It's nothing special in competitive play, but because the character designs and the soundtrack is so awesome I enjoy it. I do not enjoy Justice Gakuen.
Good news! With a little work, I believe I can reconcile the Star Gladiator and Justice discussions, thereby expanding the available joy in Legendary Ninja's universe while also saving him from the certain insanity that results from not loving Justice Gakuen. Here's where I see it, thanks to Hayato:quote:
But what the series lacked in playability, it more than made up for in originality, thanks to Akiman's colorul character desing (June, Zelkin, Saturn and Bilstein looked really original to me back then), the outlandish, but somehow familiar atmosphere that permeates the series (first time I saw SG in action I couldn't believe it was a Capcom game... until I tried it, that is) and their wonderful soundtrack
Though I never played Star Gladiator, this leads me to believe that both of these not-particularly-playable 3D fighters shine not because of their gameplay, but because of the magical energy of 1990's Capcom's unparalleled art, the accompanying design and personality of the characters, and the superb music. I can't remark on Star Gladiator, but objectively speaking, Justice Gakuen's gameplay is pretty weak. Nothing but quarter-circles? Hum. But it doesn't matter even a little bit because of the vibrant world, big heart, and beautiful character designs on parade, including in the life sim, of course. (I cannot imagine this game in English, so that might be part of the problem.) I LOVE playing it. I suspect Star Gladiator is similar.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| Iggy 10243th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P Requiem
| "Re(2):Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sw" , posted Wed 25 May 18:59
One thing I will never criticize in Star Gladiator is the character designs (like Warzard, Cyberbots and everything Capcom did at the time).
I think some people want a "Capcom vs Capcom" in the vein of MvC so the jolly crazy nonsense fighter can continue, but probably as many people want it so they could resurrect June, Rain and Saturn, but also Tabatha, Sekmet and Nool, but also Devilot, Hayato and Arieta, and also Vampire characters, and Tiffany and Akira and Daigo, and anyone from Muscle Bomber, and...
Basically what the Capcom side of MvC1-2-3 started, and CFJ failed to capitalize on. We don't need a game as much as we need a mausoleum to enshrine and preserve those characters.
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| Just a Person 1762th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(3):Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sw" , posted Wed 25 May 22:12
Uh... just to be sure, which is the current weekly classic fighting game: Star Gladiator or Rival Schools?
quote:
One thing I will never criticize in Star Gladiator is the character designs (like Warzard, Cyberbots and everything Capcom did at the time).
I think some people want a "Capcom vs Capcom" in the vein of MvC so the jolly crazy nonsense fighter can continue, but probably as many people want it so they could resurrect June, Rain and Saturn, but also Tabatha, Sekmet and Nool, but also Devilot, Hayato and Arieta, and also Vampire characters, and Tiffany and Akira and Daigo, and anyone from Muscle Bomber, and...
Basically what the Capcom side of MvC1-2-3 started, and CFJ failed to capitalize on. We don't need a game as much as we need a mausoleum to enshrine and preserve those characters.
Indeed, CFJ could have been amazing had it followed the MvC formula but using only Capcom characters (LOTS of Capcom characters from LOTS of Capcom franchises, not the few representatives of only three franchises we got in CFJ).
Would a game like this still be viable nowadays?
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| neo0r0chiaku
193th Post
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Regular Customer
| "Re(4):Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sw" , posted Wed 25 May 22:48
quote:
Uh... just to be sure, which is the current weekly classic fighting game: Star Gladiator or Rival Schools?
One thing I will never criticize in Star Gladiator is the character designs (like Warzard, Cyberbots and everything Capcom did at the time).
I think some people want a "Capcom vs Capcom" in the vein of MvC so the jolly crazy nonsense fighter can continue, but probably as many people want it so they could resurrect June, Rain and Saturn, but also Tabatha, Sekmet and Nool, but also Devilot, Hayato and Arieta, and also Vampire characters, and Tiffany and Akira and Daigo, and anyone from Muscle Bomber, and...
Basically what the Capcom side of MvC1-2-3 started, and CFJ failed to capitalize on. We don't need a game as much as we need a mausoleum to enshrine and preserve those characters.
Indeed, CFJ could have been amazing had it followed the MvC formula but using only Capcom characters (LOTS of Capcom characters from LOTS of Capcom franchises, not the few representatives of only three franchises we got in CFJ).
Would a game like this still be viable nowadays?
CFJ would have been great if it came out the same time Capcom made Marvel Super Heroes. SNK already made BC and I don't think other companies can make a game similar. You do have Jump Super/Ultimate Stars and Namco can probably escape at making one. Capcom could make another game similar into 3-D since we have not seen any other Capcom franchises in a 3-D fighting game(MvC3 does not count). Unless you count TvC but its still based on the original vs series.
Long Live I AM!
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| HAYATO 1207th Post
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Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(5):Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sw" , posted Sat 28 May 08:56
quote:
Star Gladiator 2 is a great example of taking what's good in a game and reinventing it for a sequel. Which is something Capcom very rarely does. They threw away most of the gameplay mechanics, characters that sucked, and just had fun with the rest. If you have only played the first game but not the sequel, then you're missing out. The sound those pounce attacks make is sublime. Oooh!
SG was the first game in the series I ever had contact with: I spent most of my childhood summers in a holiday, coastal village in northern Spain where lying on the beach or going to the local arcades were the only pasttimes worth mentioning for nerdy childen like me. Along one of those lengthy, idle summers of my teens, I first met it on the shoddiest, most debased arcade out of the two (it wasn't long, in fact, until both of them were closed, due to the unavoidable "Twilight of the Arcades" that came in the 00´s. In the darkest corner of the already inky place (so ill-lit, in fact, that neons had to been permanently on, even under a midsummer noon sun), SG's attract mode left me speechless. Technically speaking, it offered nothing I hadn't seen before; Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soul Edge had been out for a while and, albeit older, some of them were clearly superior to the newcomer in terms of graphics, mechanics or even both. But, to me, that couldn't matter less: the colorful, imaginative and otherworldy universe that cabinet flashed to my retinas left an indelible mark on my teen psyche like only Capcom games had done before!
I remember approaching it and playing a couple credits, just to test whether the game was so much fun as it looked. Sadly, it wasn't: to me, used to 2D fighting games, the game felt awkward, slow and a bit messy. I remember thinking "Not bad for a Toshinden spin-off, it looks as if it had been designed by Capcom". And right after finishing my last credit, that's when I came to realize it: Capcom's logo appeared on screen, right at the beginning of SG's attract mode! LOL
Now that my nostalgia trip came to an end, I must concur with Legenoaryninlia on Plasma Sword being the best game out of the two. Not only is it more visually appealing, but also much more fun to play, thanks to its more comprehensive mechanics and combat flow (faster, flashier and more aggressive than its predecessor's). I occasionally play SG on MAME (mainly for nostalgia's sake), but Plasma Sword is where the fun is (the same could be said about SFIII:New Gen and SFIII:3rd Strike).
quote:
I remember someone here had Blood's tattoo as their avatar here years ago. Was it you, Hayato?
Nope, sorry: I have never changed my avatar, not in this site , not in any of the forums and social networks where I use it. But I also remember the avatar you mention, the matter is I can't remember whose user it was...
quote:
Oh, and in the arcade version there was a PlayStation logo in one of the backgrounds but the console release came out on the Dreamcast.
It's not a "real" Playstation logo. Among the damaged buildings is a logo similar to the Playstation logo, but it has an R on it instead of a P, and the colours are different. But what is more interesting is what else you can see among the destruction... there's a building in a sorry state with the letters S, N and K on top of it. I'm also fairly sure most other company names you can see in the wreckage there are pokes at other developers.
According to the image you posted (or those I just captured for your viewing pleasure) there are some pretty obvious references: besides the ones previously mentioned, "IATO" and "_ _ Nten_ _" clearly stand out, as well as that "SG" sign on top of the highest building (upper right corner of the screen, behind P2's health bar), set in a distinct blue font. There's even a smiley-like character under "_amc_" which looks pretty familiar...
I just pointing the obvious ones, but those more knowledgeable here in the cafe may like to give the pics a look, just to try to spot even more obscure references...
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| Mosquiton 2165th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(6):Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sw" , posted Sat 28 May 16:13:
quote:
Star Gladiator 2 is a great example of taking what's good in a game and reinventing it for a sequel. Which is something Capcom very rarely does. They threw away most of the gameplay mechanics, characters that sucked, and just had fun with the rest. If you have only played the first game but not the sequel, then you're missing out. The sound those pounce attacks make is sublime. Oooh!
quote:
SG was the first game in the series I ever had contact with: I spent most of my childhood summers in a holiday, coastal village in northern Spain where lying on the beach or going to the local arcades were the only pasttimes worth mentioning for nerdy childen like me. Along one of those lengthy, idle summers of my teens, I first met it on the shoddiest, most debased arcade out of the two (it wasn't long, in fact, until both of them were closed, due to the unavoidable "Twilight of the Arcades" that came in the 00´s.
I'm working too hard lately but I've been inspired to share briefly.
Anyway, I played Star Gladiator a lot during a certain period of my freshman year. The game was pretty easy to get into, so nearly everyone in my dorm hall was playing it. Anytime I see or hear Star Gladiator I immediately think of this song. For me, this is the official soundtrack of the game.
But why? My roommate obsessively played this song on repeat for like a week straight... which eventually killed off the competition since many people on my floor would rather not hear the same song twenty times in a row while I cheerily beat their ass with my deadly combos. I retired as champion not long after, partly because my foremost rival could no longer stand to be in the room (a bittersweet victory).
This quirky situation would repeat itself in a much less humorous way later that year when my roommate played Cake's absolutely wretched cover of "I Will Survive" literally thousands of times consecutively without stopping (coming close to double-digit thousands; I worked it out on a calculator). He only turned the volume down when he went to sleep. Cake and my roommate were hell-bent on survival, but I was unable to endure these circumstances. For this and other reasons, I spent a lot of time outside my room that semester.
But while the Star Glatiator/Lovefool confluence was taking place, it was not rare for both opposing star gladiators to begin moving rhythmically at the start of a round rather than fight each other, intentionally whiffing attacks in time to the music until someone "accidentally" hit the other or simply dropped the pretense to go for blood. There was a strange beauty to it, although I usually played Bilstein, who was not the most graceful dancer.
Just as the game reminds me of the song, the song instantly reminds me of the phallic head of Saturn swaying and bobbing as he flings around his deadly, laser-edged space-yo-yos, burning and yearning for someone to "love him, love him." This memory came back to me vividly years later in Las Vegas; the song came on while I was on the floor dancing with an incredibly gorgeous girl. I was laughing so hard that I had to attempt some sort of explanation, but I don't recall if I mentioned the game. A decade after later, when I saw The Cardigans perform live at a small venue in Toronto, I was somewhat relieved they did not play this song, but I still thought of Star Gladiator anyway.
Sadly, I don't have any strong memories of Plasma Blade at all. I'm not even sure if I ever played it.
~Fin
/ / /
[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sat 28 May 17:29] |
| Mosquiton 2167th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(9):Weekly classic fighting game: Plasma Sw" , posted Sun 29 May 07:05:
quote:
Anytime I see or hear Star Gladiator I immediately think of this song. For me, this is the official soundtrack of the game.
Just woke up, read this, saw the video, could not not laughing. Totally unexpected!
Yeah, that was a great story. And he's so cool that not only is he dismissing the original title of Star Gladiator 2, he's not even calling it Plasma Sword. He's calling it Plasma Blade. Kakkoii!
I actually just deleted a post where I apologized for being a bit pretentious and forgetting the name of a sequel, but you know what? I'm kind of offended.
I was literally thinking back TWENTY YEARS to pull up some of the details of this story. Maybe I was thinking of Soul Blade (the vile North American name for the game rightfully and truly known as Soul Edge). Maybe SamSho IV (oops... I mean "サムライスピリッツ天草降臨") had popped into my head for a second, since I also played that one on my roommate's PlayStation and I've heard Galford scream "PLASMA BLADE!" about a million times over the course of the series. But I wasn't really anticipating that my post would be audited for accuracy and mocked.
I felt like I was posting in the spirit of the thread:
quote:
The more personal we can get the better. Did you become a fan of a certain character because of particular game? Or did you begin to hate some character for some reason in that game? Does a song in it bring back memories of good old times? Did you love the game even though you only had access to a sub-par console port? Or maybe you just regret selling it to buy another game you wish you had never bought. Let's share these stories. Hey c'mon!
Still, sorry for oversharing I guess? Maybe I should have talked more about trolling with Hayato's super-extended sword? Or how much I loved catching people with Bilstein's telekinetic crunch-you-up-and-impale-you-on-his-sword move?
If I wanted to catch rude comments, I could go anywhere else on the internet. It took me a minute to figure out why I felt so irritated after reading your reply. I just really didn't expect that here!
I do apologize for derailing the thread. I'm not really into forum drama, but I felt like I needed to respond. If you would prefer, I'll stay out of your threads from now on.
/ / /
[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sun 29 May 07:14] |
| kofoguz 1249th Post
Red Carpet Executive Member
| "Re(3):Re(10):Weekly classic fighting game: Pl" , posted Sun 29 May 10:38
That was a cool story. It spins my head that when I think about arcade days, those days happened around twenty years ago and like you I experience them twenty something years ago which is when you are in college/university (that is years later I am in now).
I'm in mixed feelings we're getting old :/
Anyway before we depart from Headswap Fighter and its imaginitive world I wanna say some random things about the game.
*I used to try every headswap character supers and endings in order to see the difference. Sometimes the clone would have better moves and supers as far as I remember. So that was fun.
*I was super pissed that I couldnt figure out to do secret move/taunt. No internet at the time. Gore or the clone floated in the air and I tried to find out how to do that.
*Byakko is awesome. But just because the solid reason of having a great name. I don't know if there is meaning behind it in japanese but I loved it because how I thought it would sound. Coincidentally it is similar to regular Turkish words like Bıyık (mustache), büyük (big) but it's not mother tongue pride, Byakko sounds just coo. Oh, and he needs to appear again. Fun fact: years later my cat got the name "Büyük" for different reasons but I remember giving her nickname Byakko. She is vicious and a godmother so it also fits :p.
*Also the fencing girl. She needs to go out to the other series.
*I seriously dont remember anything about story and I think I had seen the game's endings. I remember one of the clown guys was evil other one was worse; lame. Saturn? Byakko was vigilante and Bilstein was the main villain? Or the clone of the main villain... It can be anything. It's weird for me not to remember anything about lore.
*Oh I remembered the the woman with a wedding dress (I really need to look for the names to wikipedia I guess) She was overpowered and popular among the players in arcade. But her design was nice, Icy powers and all.
Which brings me to the next suggesstion. And I do hope this suggestion also bring good, interesting memories.
Kabuki Klash;Far East Of Eden.
I really liked this mythical foreign and oriental atmosphere. It was oriental even to me (I lived in Mediterrennean Asia).
I loved the Icy stage,the beautiful confusion about understanding who was the main guy? Crazy Kabuki performer with multiple weapons ot spiky haired teenage with a sword?
It had a unique system which gives you health, poison and better execution of gem system of SfxT; Defense, Speed and Power up in the rounds. Some winged figure would drop it.
So how Icy space bride remind me this game? Because of another character looks like a bride. Kinu. I loved her and her *puffy* dog. I might have told here about my fandom towards her before and prayed her miracle appearance in the miracle itself; NGBC 2.
Kinu was perfect mix of Amakusa, Galford an Athena.Its been really long time since I have played this but my memory describes her like that.
I was a lousy player back then so no endings. Im not sure if I made it to bosses either. But I remember all the beatiful moves and things like the mythical frog. Also this game make itself burn into my memory as *how the heck they can have a duel place above the ballons when such duels involves all kind of swords, knives, axes an etc...* the game.
I heard that the arcade fighting game was actually a spin-off of a JRPG of some sort. But for some reason I never try to hunt down the main games.
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| Maou 3148th Post
PSN: zonepharaoh
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Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Star Gladiator East of Eden" , posted Mon 30 May 11:54:
quote:
*Byakko is awesome.
Oguz, I love that Byakko sounds cool in Turkish. They're referring to the name in Japanese for the white tiger who's one of the four legendary Chinese god-beasts who double as constellations, the other three being the blue dragon Seiryuu, the crimson bird Suzaku, and the black turtle Genbu. You've likely seen this motif around a lot of games without realizing it: in my effort to ensure that Dracula is mentioned in every thread, I'll note that in Dracula X~Rondo of Blood, Maria's powerups are cute cartoonified versions of these guys. Back to fighting games:
quote:
Kabuki Klash;Far East Of Eden.
After wondering what Kabuki Klash was, I looked it up, and holy cow, I had no idea that ANY of the hugely popular Tengai Makyou (Far East of Eden) games had ever been released internationally, let alone the fighting game spin-off!?
Speaking of thread takeovers and spin-offs, I'm pleased to note that thanks to Lord Iggy-nton's good deeds, Star Gladiator no longer has to compete here with Justice Gakuen for the weekly theme, due to it having already created a Justice memories spin-off thread that's taken over the other thread, the same way it took over the interview referenced therein.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Mon 30 May 12:32] |
| HAYATO 1208th Post
PSN: Lord-Hayato
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Red Carpet Executive Member
| "P-last-ma Blade 2016" , posted Mon 30 May 20:04
quote:
After killin' some dudes in DS3, my thrist for a proper weapon fighter conveniently aligned with the PS4 release of Last Blade 2.
It's been fun just going through story mode with (to me) all new characters and somewhat familiar yet unique mechanics. Boy do I love the sound and animation of deflect/parry in this game.
First tried out Keiichiro, his charge moves and serious government worker background reminds me of Guile. And then there's Setsuna with his giant bird and orochi explosion fingers, though for now I'm settling with learning Moriya as he does that "charge then hit high/med/low hit" flashing sword that I love with Johnny in Guilty Gear.
Given the uniqueness and colorful lore it stablished, I always thought that the Star Gladiator/Plasma Sword IP had everything Capcom needed to create a big, competitive-tier weapon fighting game, not unlike Soul Calibur or its 2D equivalents, SamuSupi and Last Blade 2. It could be just me being delusional back then, but the strange thing is, the more time passes, the more convinced I am something like that could have been possible, had Capcom developed a sequel around the mid 00s.
I'd still love to see a new entry on the franchise powered by, let's say, SFV's engine (not to mention Arcsys Xrd's that would probably be too much for my poor heart to handle)...
BTW, I just realized Rimgal's color scheme reminds me of certain other Capcom saurian... Of course, I don't even remotely think designers did it on purpose, but were it the case it may be one of the obscurest (and most successful) homages to their own legacy they ever did!
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| Loona 1078th Post
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Red Carpet Premium Member
| "Re(6):Star Gladiator East of Eden" , posted Thu 2 Jun 19:23
quote:
And last, but not the least, an oddity I just happened to discover: there's MAME footage showing three debug characters still present in the original Star Gladiator ROM. The first one looks like a prototype for Plasma Sword's Kaede, and the third one looks like a dummy Hayato for engine testing purposes. But the one that I find most intriguing is the second one: a Gundam-like Mecha called BLODIA... Could it be a Cyberbots cameo was considered and ultimately discarded? Did Capcom ever consider merging both universes (making Star Gladiator a sequel to Cyberbots of sorts)?
It's somehow terribly fitting that a game supposedly meant to be about Star Wars would, upon failing at that, include a model based on Gundam (a Rick dom from Zeon, I think), which appears to have equivalent popularity in Japan.
As for the merged universes, Project X Zone puts Cyberbots, Space Channel 5 and Star Gladiator and a few others all roughly in the same timeline, which isn't necessarily a reference to its devs being aware of this specific model name (but with the research they clearly put into it all, it seems likely), but at least the notion lives on somewhere in a released product.
...!!
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| Just a Person 1770th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(1):Vampire All-Stars" , posted Tue 7 Jun 06:40:
quote:
Two cool old videos have resurfaced today on Youtube.
• One of the best Gamest videos ever produced, dedicated to the original Arcade release of Vampire Savior. Just in time for that Vampire Musou Koei has been teasing! ( ... What?) Things get fun at 1h16m45s.
• And the promotion video for C:FAS, in a curiously glorious 480p resolution, practically the HD of those Internet video times. I guess it was available on a FamitsuWave DVD, or maybe a Capcom DVD for TGS since the game playable was at TGS that one year it pretended to exist.
Even though I don't understand anything said in the Vampire Savior video, I liked it!
...And only now I realized that Harry doesn't have a shadow (fortunately, he has one in MvC2), and neither do Hsien-Ko's sister and Lord Raptor's sidekick. Weird, considering that Anita had her own shadow in Vampire Hunter (and also has it in the console versions of Savior). Oh well, in a game where two or three characters had to share the same stage while one stage (Iron Horse, Iron Terror) wasn't associated with ANY character, that isn't the strangest thing... it's still a great game, nevertheless
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Tue 7 Jun 06:49] |
| Just a Person 1769th Post
Silver Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
| "Re(4):Vampire All-Stars" , posted Tue 7 Jun 06:47
Anyway, if there's still time to comment of the last games before a new classic one is chosen, I must admit I barely know Star Gladiator. But recently, watching some videos of it on YouTube, it looks interesting (dated, but interesting). I'll definitely research more about it whenever I manage to get some free time.
Rival Schools, on the other hand, was fantastic! Crazy, original, with a detailed plot (which wouldn't be a surprise in a SNK game, but Capcom was never really deep when it came to giving decent plots to their fighting games), the cool extra game in the PS port... it's really a shame that the franchise died on its second game. With a little more effort, it could have been successful.
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| Mosquiton 2174th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(3):Re:Weekly classic fighting game classic" , posted Sun 12 Jun 03:54:
quote:
"hilariously naughty debug mode..."
This may honestly be Bloody Roar's greatest moment in the spotlight. About the only thing I can remember about the game is that one of the characters was a rather butch middle aged lumberjane who I guess could somehow turn into an animal. Or maybe she turned into a flatbed truck with a hemi engine; my memory is spotty. If someone has some grand remembrances about Bloody Roar please share them since I obviously have nothing worthwhile to say.
You're actually thinking of a fishmonger. Mitsuko turned into a boar.
I played a bit of the original game in arcades, which was called BEASTORIZER in North America, but I typically saved my quarters for other games. I actually didn't have that many quarters in those days, since I was hoarding them to spend on discs.
One of my friends who frequented the university arcade played this game often, though. He would usually use Alice (cute girl that changed into a rabbit) to play arcade mode, but when a challenger appeared he always switched to Mitsuko. Other than the fact that the character hits like a truck, he preferred Mitsuko because he found that people really disliked getting motherfudging beastorized by this rough-hewn force of nature in overalls.
My friend pretty much always won. I really don't remember him losing at all. The losers would then angrily lash out at Mitsuko for being fat, ugly, a dyke, (maybe this character was designed to be provoke a reaction, they had a very non-standard group of characters overall). But my friend was all business systematically punishing them with moves like a mean-looking wall throw and moves with huge knockback that got him quite a few ringouts (including a pretty hilarious-looking donkey (or uh, boar-donkey) kick that hit directly behind you. I remember people sometimes asking this guy to change back to Alice, so at least they didn't have to look at Mitsuko's victory pose after she blasted them the heck out of the ring for the nth time, but my friend never obliged. After all, inflicting psychological pain is one of the greater joys of fighting games, isn't it?
As I mentioned, I didn't really touch the game in the arcade but I had some fun with the sequels on PlayStation. I think I actually bought Bloody Roar 2 and 3. The basic appeal remained pretty much the same, and I honestly think the transformation idea worked really well. However, the character design got mainstreamed after the first game. Female characters got sexier overall, with one character staying mostly human but getting a weird scythe arm (but also showing more cleavage). I think the closest thing I had to a main (hahah) was Jenny the Bat, who was pretty much a generic, sexy femme fatale-type with some swoopy/loopy flying attacks and rapid kicks. I am a sucker for rapid kicks, in general. Mitsuko was dumped in the sequel, they gave her moves to a Rhinoceros Beatle-man if I remember correctly.
Man, I used to be super into fighting games. I'd pretty much buy any B-tier or better fighting game that hit the PlayStation (and anything Capcom put their name on regardless of genre). I guess Bloody Roar isn't the best series, but if there's one thing they're good for it's for casually messing around with people who don't normally play fighting games. Using the "beast button" to transform is fun, and if you keep whacking that same button you'll do a reasonably cool-looking and damaging beasty combo.
I always kind of liked the series overall. I miss smaller companies bringing their own weird sensibilities and occasionally great ideas to fighters.
EDIT: Because I'm so KAKKOIIIIIIIIII!!!! maybe I have to mention that I routinely wrecked my friend in Soul Calibur.
/ / /
[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sun 12 Jun 04:57] |
| PSN: robotchris
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| "Re(2):Re(10):Re:Weekly classic fighting game " , posted Sun 17 Jul 06:41
quote:
I love Ehrgeiz! Specifically, I love talking about how much I dislike Ehrgeiz! I might love disliking Ehrgeiz even more than I love disliking SFIII!
Ehrgeiz is this Secret of Evermore-esque tragic symbol of so many disappointments layered on top of each other. Not the game people abroad wanted or needed (Seiken Densetsu 3/Tobal 2), but strikingly similar, making all its disappointments more glaring. Every moment I play of Ehrgeiz makes me acutely aware of how much I would rather be playing its superior progenator, Tobal 2. Clearing Tobal 2's hard tournament and quest modes gets you magnificent lunatics like Dark Lord Mark and EMPEROR UDAN, clearing Ehrgeiz’s gets you a chocobo or some damn thing. Tobal 2 is colorfully and bright, Ehrgeiz looks like it’s played through a gray filter.
I also dislike how I still can’t spell Ehrgeiz right on the first OR second try.
I can vividly remember the windup to Ehrgeiz's release back in 1998. There was a lot of excitement about it, and then when it came out it was... well... um... a pile of garbage. It might have even been the moment at which my feelings started going south about Final Fantasy, since the inclusion of characters from VII seemed to be just an attempt to get somebody or anybody to like it. I still think it's a game that had promise, both in its free range systems and in its character designs, but so much of it seems laughable today, from the just-old-enough-to-look-awful-but-not-old-enough-to-be-trendy character models to the ludicrous (even by fighting game standards) storyline.
But yeah, it still amazes me that Tobal 2 never mode it to the states, even during the late PS1 era when so much stuff was getting slap-dash translations and budget releases.
You have to carefully reproduce the world of "Castlevania" in the solemn atmosphere.
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| | "Re(3):Re(10):Re:Weekly classic fighting game" , posted Sat 23 Jul 01:56
My only experience playing Ehrgeiz was when I was a kid, in an arcade in a shopping mall during a trip (AFAIK, my city never had an Ehrgeiz arcade). I played once as Tifa, once as a girl who could become a wolf or something like that, could barely move them across the arena (the gameplay felt kinda sluggish - then again, I am awful at fighting games despite loving them, so the problem could be just my bad skills) before the AI destroyed me... and that was it. Didn't feel like playing it again.
Now, while I don't remember much about PLAYING Ehrgeiz, I do remember READING about Ehrgeiz. There was a lot of hype about this game in Brazilian gaming magazines due to the FFVII characters being in the game (curiously, I never played FFVII in my life or felt any need to play it, but these magazines talked so much about it that it was impossible not to know who Cloud and Tifa were). There was even MORE hype when the PS1 version was released, due to more FFVII characters being added (specially Sephiroth) and the Quest Mode that they claimed was really original and engaging, where you could play either as an archaeologist or as his assistant.
This sounded cool, but even that couldn't make me feel like trying it. It's not that I hated Ehrgeiz or was upset for losing quickly in the arcades (this happens VERY often to me)... it just felt forgettable.
That's weird, considering that it has some aspects in common with Power Stone, a franchise that I love (and that I expect to see chosen as one of the next weekly classic fighting games here).
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| | "Re(5):Re(10):Re:Weekly classic fighting game" , posted Mon 25 Jul 21:10:
I remember liking the 2d concept/promo art for Ehrgeiz, but not actually liking how the actual game looked. It had some nice art!
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/square/images/d/de/Group.png/revision/latest?cb=20080212181808
The lead artist behind Ehrgeiz did a great job of combining Capcom (particularly SFZero 1 & 2 era Bengus)'s sensibilities with more traditional 90s anime/manga aesthetics. I particularly liked how they drew musculature. Instead of rendering every single muscle with hard lines, they went light on the interior linework and used shading to convey a lot of the forms. This gave the characters a more realistic feeling of being fit, rather than the 'zero percent bodyfat and always flexing hard' look that is more typical of most art of muscular fit people.
quote:
For me Ehrgeiz was one of those fighting games that tried to figure out how to stage a battle with free movement, uneven terrain and obstacles. In other words, a truly 3D fight. It didn't succeed but pretty much all the games that went down that path ran into problems.
I recall having a lot more fun with Trap Gunner and Destrega. Trap Gunner had much more interesting gameplay as it wasn't trying to shoehorn regular fighting game mechanics into a free roaming control scheme and Destrega had better graphics (with less interesting characters) and smoother controls with projectile based combat that again wasn't trying to be Tekken in full 3d.
quote:
Ehrgeiz is this Secret of Evermore-esque tragic symbol of so many disappointments layered on top of each other. Not the game people abroad wanted or needed (Seiken Densetsu 3/Tobal 2), but strikingly similar, making all its disappointments more glaring. Every moment I play of Ehrgeiz makes me acutely aware of how much I would rather be playing its superior progenator, Tobal 2.
My sentiments exactly! I think we would have been best buds in middle school haha. It is a dang shame that Tobal 2 never came out in the USA though. To this day that's still my favourite fighter with full 3d movement. Hell, it even had a great grappling system that accounted for takedowns, takedown reversals and moving to full mount for ground and pound. It is a far better MMA game than any of the UFC ones.
quote:
Oh, and for some reason the final boss was a dog. Why?
Zeitgeist
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Mon 25 Jul 21:25] |
| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "TOBAL TIME" , posted Wed 27 Jul 13:57
The beast is unleashed: to hell with you, Erghghghheiz, IT IS TOBAL TIME
Tobal 2 is the greatest PS1 3D fighter. Tobal 2 might be the greatest 3D fighter period. You can talk about Tobal No. 1 if you want to. My friends and I didn’t have Playstations yet and thus did not get tricked into buying Tobal No. 1 for the FFVII demo.
Tobal 2, however, contains a silky-smooth 60 fps world that had no parallel at its time (look it up). No 3D fighting game before the Dreamcast looks anything less than awful…except Tobal 2! Tobal 2 animates like how you mistakenly remember your “favorite” old games animating. This is good news, because it means you can go enjoy Tobal 2 right the heck now
Tobal 2 contains a marvelous, cheerful, brightly colored cast of Toriyama Akira characters, including a body-positive bulky yet sexy female wrestler who dresses like a governess outside of battle. It has the dastardly secret rabbit boss Emperor Udan!! It has a green-clad fighter named Gren Cuts. His first name is nearly “green” in English, and his last name is nearly “wins” in Japanese. This is the most marvelous video game name since…Dr. Eggman, probably. Nearly twenty years later, we still use the phrase “Gren Cuts” regularly, either in reference to something that is green or something that is winning. You might think that dumb jokes like this do not prove how great Tobal 2 is. You are wrong!
Tobal 2’s most important contribution to fighting games by far is how it feels like an actual fight through its momentum and physics. This is because when your attack is blocked, its motion stops dead in place, just like in real life, with a thud, and you withdraw your fist or leg rather than continuing the motion. By contrast, Soul Calibur 1 and 2 are nearly perfect 3D fighters in my view, but watch how when your attack is blocked, your sword still swings “through” your blocking opponent but without doing any damage. I swear you cannot unsee how weird it is after Tobal 2! Street Fighter V is the first time I’ve noticed Tobal 2-style block animation/physics in a mainline fighter, nineteen years later. Maybe Virtua Fighter did it eventually. Virtua Fighter 2 is the last Virtua that didn’t put me straight to sleep. Sorry! Or maybe DOA did it, sort of. Whatever.
In Tobal 2, you can hold the trigger button to launch a semi-guided chi missile that costs you life but that does disproportionately more damage to your opponent! You’ll probably miss, but it sure feels good! Remember Xenogears, Square’s weird Evangelion fanfic game? The missile feels sort of like the weird optional fighting game hidden inside of that. More importantly, it's a more interesting variation on the super move or critical finish one-hits that can happen anytime.
Tobal 2 features unstoppably joyous Blue Skies music that with a DOO, DOO-DOO-DOO refrain in its opening and character select songs that you will never ever ever ever forget, and an announcer who pronounces "continue?" as "CAHN-tinue?" We still use this one, too.
Tobal 2 featured the best training and replay mode I’m aware of at the time, with a controllable and recordable camera! For everyone from the frame measuring expert to the casual pervert, this was a huge development.
The Tobal games pioneered Quest Mode ages before it became a fighting game staple! In addition to taking place in a less dreary, boring world than Erghehghgeiz, Tobal 2’s Quest Mode features about 200 enemies (yes, chocobos included, it’s still less pandering than FFVII characters), every single of which then becomes a completely superfluous playable character. This is insane. But why not!? We didn’t have to actually play through it because a friend of my friend had a complete save already, thank god.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| | "Re(1):TOBAL TIME" , posted Wed 27 Jul 16:31
quote:
The beast is unleashed: to hell with you, Erghghghheiz, IT IS TOBAL TIME
Tobal 2 is the greatest PS1 3D fighter. Tobal 2 might be the greatest 3D fighter period. You can talk about Tobal No. 1 if you want to. My friends and I didn’t have Playstations yet and thus did not get tricked into buying Tobal No. 1 for the FFVII demo.
Tobal 2, however, contains a silky-smooth 60 fps world that had no parallel at its time (look it up). No 3D fighting game before the Dreamcast looks anything less than awful…except Tobal 2! Tobal 2 animates like how you mistakenly remember your “favorite” old games animating. This is good news, because it means you can go enjoy Tobal 2 right the heck now
Tobal 2 contains a marvelous, cheerful, brightly colored cast of Toriyama Akira characters, including a body-positive bulky yet sexy female wrestler who dresses like a governess outside of battle. It has the dastardly secret rabbit boss Emperor Udan!! It has a green-clad fighter named Gren Cuts. His first name is nearly “green” in English, and his last name is nearly “wins” in Japanese. This is the most marvelous video game name since…Dr. Eggman, probably. Nearly twenty years later, we still use the phrase “Gren Cuts” regularly, either in reference to something that is green or something that is winni
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
This is pretty great but, I can't help but feel depressed after reading it.
....
Dream Factory... they're gone, huh?
/ / /
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| PSN: Gojira_X
XBL: Gojiraaa
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| "Re(1):TOBAL TIME" , posted Wed 27 Jul 18:09
quote:
The beast is unleashed: to hell with you, Erghghghheiz, IT IS TOBAL TIME
Things
And even with that comprehensive list of things that Maou mentioned, Tobal 2 still had content and innovation for days. So much about this game was incredibly ahead of its time, features that didn't show up in other fighting series for nearly a decade. And some STILL have yet to be repeated.
In terms of cosmetics, Tobal 2 offered up a way to change the color palettes of each main character's costume in a 3D game. It was limited, but boy was it a neat thing to mess around with.
In terms of gameplay, there's too much to talk about but the one that impressed upon me most was the "skill" moves. See, Tobal 2 had these moves with small windows, but instead of hiding them deep in some movelist it made sure the player was aware of them by having the character flash whenever these moves were available, to indicate the exact time you needed to press a button and pull them off. Performing these moves was accompanied by a nifty sparkling particle trail to indicate success, an effect not unlike opening a hidden treasure box. The storied Gren Kuts was so inundated with these moves they may well have been his own gimmick, but all of the characters had some.
What's more, the training mode allowed you to slow the game down to a specific framerate to practice the timing of these and other moves. This feature was also incredibly useful for figuring out and practicing the longest juggles possible in the game and made it easier to feel like you were always accomplishing something, always able. This kind of feature would have been welcome in so many other fighters.
And that quest mode... compared to the silly dungeon of Tobal #1 or the mundane room exploration of Ergheiz, Tobal 2's quest mode was a fully fleshed-out dungeon hack with an overworld, unique monsters, potions with status effects, a stamina system, an alchemy system to mix potions, and a gem system for capturing and powering up/down monsters. It was absurdly detailed even though it absolutely didn't need to be. And like many dungeon hacks, boy was it hard. To this day I still can't remember if I finished the final optional dungeon or not. I sure caught a lot of monsters though, which were largely too limited to play seriously (many had no more than 2-3 moves total) so I would throw them into CPU vs. games for digital cockfights. Good times.
Granted, not all of these features worked 100% and the game wasn't completely bug-free, but the amount of stuff it attempted and succeeded in far outweighed its failings. Tobal 2 deserves to be considered legendary.
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| PSN: Gojira_X
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| "Re(5):TOBAL TIME" , posted Fri 29 Jul 08:37:
quote:
Final optional dungeon? Do you mean the dungeon that resets your character and effectively has you complete *all* the previous dungeons back-to-back without the ability to go to the town between them? I want to recall that was how you unlocked Ohma and Ohma 2, as they only appeared in the final dungeon (replacing Mark's position as a dungeon boss.)
Like many good Roguelikes, once you learned how to game and exploit the systems, beating the final dungeon became a reasonable task. (Considering how Quest Mode's creation clearly involved at least one person with experience in Roguelikes, I'd guess that many of the "exploits" were actually intentionally provided.)
Ah, I guess I must have finished it then because I clearly remember Ohma 2 and the disappointment of finally getting to use him. I remember being stuck on that dungeon forever though. At the time I had never played dungeon hacks before, I had no knowledge of Japanese and no guide so everything I knew about it was self-taught, and the idea of doing that whole thing without being able to save just seemed insane, especially since the RNG seemed to want to screw me over more often than not.
But it was still fun!
quote:
Wow, I had no idea that Tobal 2 was so good! Unfortunately I never got to play either of them...
Anyway, I saw lots of praises about Tobal 2 and how it improved every aspect of the first one, but what about Tobal No.1? Was it a good game (even if not as good as its sequel)?
Well I still listen to Tobal #1's soundtrack, so it had that going for it at least.
I guess if you never played Tobal 2 you might enjoy Tobal #1 a little bit...? It is reasonably solid, but it comes off as a really generic and boring fighting game. The biggest thing it had to offer was the unique grappling system, which while interesting, wasn't going to impress anyone that didn't want to look past the game's mundane surface. There wasn't much in the way of combos, very little in the way of neat hidden techniques, and even though the graphics were hi-res for PS1, the personality just wasn't there yet.
It's funny because Square released the game with the FF7 demo probably to get people to try it out in the hopes that they would see that it's slightly more than just a generic fighter, but in the end being compared to FF7 really didn't do it any favors. That probably contributed somewhat to Square deciding not to bring Tobal 2 over.
[this message was edited by Gojira on Fri 29 Jul 08:50] |
| | "Re(7):TOBAL TIME" , posted Sun 31 Jul 06:00
quote:
Gojira reminds me of another reason why Tobal 2 is the greatest: throws! Nobi is 200% right that Tobal 2 secretly contains the best MMA game ever made. I can't remember anymore how it functioned, but I remember that rather than just being able to suddenly chuck someone across the screen with the press of a button, there's a feeling of resistance and back-and-forth just like in real life, before you are (hopefully) able to overpower them. It's the most sensible approach to grabs in a fighting game I've seen, and mimicks the real-life difficulty of throwing someone who may resist so much better than the lame "missed throw" animation that was introduced by 3D fighters and subsequently infected 2D fighters from at least as early as SF Zero 3.
You didn't just perform a throw out of nowhere. First you did a grapple move that put you in a lock-up. From there you had various options. You could try to move your opponent around the ring, but your opponent could counter your movement. You could do high attacks or low attacks, but I want to recall that your opponent could block them? You could do various position changing throws, including transitioning to a mounted position?
You could also perform the lock up in various positions for different types of holds. Front for a regular lock up, back for back holds, sides for headlock and armlock?
Throw reversals depended on the throw that was being reversed. Some would just separate the two characters, while others would cause the characters to switch roles so that the reversing person now had control.
Mary, being the grappler, took things to a particular extreme. Everyone had multiple throws against fallen opponents based on their position. Mary had eight, based on whether the opponent was face up or face down, and whether Mary was at their head, feet, left side or right side. All eight could be extended to deliver a second hit. She had a rack/backbreaker position (either entered from a regular lockup or from catching an opponent that had been launched into the air) that gave her four or five different throw options. She could deliver a powerbomb to a gut crumpled opponent. I want to recall that she also had a pretty strong grab that bypassed the regular grapple system?
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| | "Re(2):Fight for the Past! Street Fighter One" , posted Sun 4 Sep 02:35
quote:
Brandon "Fighting" Sheffield, former Navy SEAL who plays by his own rules and struggles with hierarchy but always gets the job done, has conjured a bunch of Facebook?/LinkedIn?/Pinterest?/Miiverse?/Grinder? contacts from the games industry to share memories on the original Street Fighter.
I love it how Brandon is like this ghost of future christmas who always properly shows how embarassing cringe worthy our rose colored yet meager past is; to then point out the despair filled atroucious mess of a future our very own steps are taking us towards to.
Oh, I also didn't get to enjoy SF1 before 2 came out, but oh boy I sure do have an story with it. It even pops up among ours pals as of nowdays, is like we are those freaks who keep their highschool uniform intact.
I, too, never got to play SF until SF2 came out, so I have no nostalgia for SF1. But I don't think there's anybody out there who thinks about SF1 and goes "man, SF1 was SO GOOD", though. Even combo videos that show it kind of have it in there for the sake of being a joke because of how clunky it looks.
Now, talking about how people thought about and understood SF2 as a game back then is absolutely hilarious today. We understand fighting games so well these days and have so much information about them out of the gate (as well as with people digging into the games to find stuff out) that the mystery of how things in the game work is totally gone. Remember when there was arcade etiquette about how throws are cheap and you have to let a guy throw you back? I feel like romanticism about the experience of being in the arcade is great, but some of the delight of the games was absolutely driven by a combination of then-novelty and ignorance.
Think about how today, a game with stuff as obscure as the Souls games has people figuring it all out and posting it all online within days of the game's release.
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| | "Re(4):Fight for the Past! Street Fighter One" , posted Mon 5 Sep 05:34
quote:
Now, talking about how people thought about and understood SF2 as a game back then is absolutely hilarious today. We understand fighting games so well these days and have so much information about them out of the gate (as well as with people digging into the games to find stuff out) that the mystery of how things in the game work is totally gone. Remember when there was arcade etiquette about how throws are cheap and you have to let a guy throw you back? I feel like romanticism about the experience of being in the arcade is great, but some of the delight of the games was absolutely driven by a combination of then-novelty and ignorance.
Indeed. I remember that when UMK3 was released, I thought it was a pirate version of MK3, as I hadn't read anything about it before seeing the arcade. And even reading every gaming magazine, there was a lot of speculations and mysteries with every game released back then, some of which would only be discovered several months later. And rumors like Sheng Long being in SFII would only be found out as fake several years later...
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...I do wish that one of Ryu's alternate costumes in SFV would give him back his stupid SF1 shoes.
Ironically, SF1 Ryu and Ken were more different visually than SFII Ryu and Ken (besides the head, SF1 Ken didn't wear shoes, while SF1 Ryu did).
I never got to play SF1 (and from the comments in this topic and gameplay videos on YouTube, it doesn't seem like I'm missing a big deal). As SFII was released when I was a kid and there were several upgrades, my friends and I just assumed back then that SF1 was SFII prior to Champion Edition. Of course, then SSFII came and we were all confused why it wasn't named SFIII...
Still, a remake of SF1 (with good gameplay and the possibility of using the entire roster instead of just Ryu) could be cool. But if Capcom isn't even interested in developing a new Darkstalkers game, it seems very unlikely that a SF1 remake will ever happen.
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| "Re(6):Fight for the Past! Street Fighter One" , posted Mon 5 Sep 05:40:
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If I came across a SF1 arcade cabinet before SF2 it didn't make much of an impression on my young mind; it was just another game full of flashing lights and noise that I was fascinated with as a kid. It was the advent of SF2 that made me actively seek out its predecessor. What a clunky forbearer it turned out to be! Forget planning out strategies to deal with the strengths and weaknesses of each individual opponent, just wildly jag out  and  motions while hoping for the best. Still, even with its limitations I enjoy playing SF1. The characters may not be fully developed but they are colorful and distinct. There's a real sense of completion to seeing that you have traveled the globe to test your strength against guys all over the world. Much like Fatal Fury 1, SF1 is an enjoyable single player fighting game. Strange how that style of game had a place in arcades but head to head competition is often emphasized in home releases even though that requires a sizable investment for equipment on the player's part.
I've still never been completely sure if the difficulty with SF1's moves was related to the lousy and often broken arcade controls or if the code being used to detect said special moves was extremely limited. I liked the game, like I said in my quote in Brandon's article, but I'll still always wish that the SFZ series had included even more SF1 alumni, especially Retsu, since I loved what they did with Birdie, Gen, Adon (thanks Iggy!), and eventually Eagle.
You have to carefully reproduce the world of "Castlevania" in the solemn atmosphere.
[this message was edited by karasu on Tue 6 Sep 06:57] |
| | "Re(5):Fight for the Past! Street Fighter One" , posted Tue 6 Sep 03:42
I played SF1 after SF2 (actually I started with CE and then later had the opportunity to play vanilla SF2 on a crappy cabinet with 3 keys).
It was the 6-button version, actually I don't think the 2-button cabinet has ever arrived in Italy, but whatever, it was still a bad game with a lot of potential and very crappy controls.
Already knowing how Ryu/Ken moves worked, it was easy to try and verify that they had still them, if I had played SF1 before 2 I doubt anyone would know how the heck to perform an hadouken (well, in reality a lot of kids on SF2 destroyed sticks making absurd motions in the hope that "the fireball" would come out, also after explaining them the correct - and easier - motion).
quote:
Still, a remake of SF1 (with good gameplay and the possibility of using the entire roster instead of just Ryu) could be cool. But if Capcom isn't even interested in developing a new Darkstalkers game, it seems very unlikely that a SF1 remake will ever happen.
I hoped (for months) that the peculiar cast of KOF13 was a prelude for an HD remake of Fatal Fury 1, but still no luck.
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| | "Re(9):Fight for the Past! Street Fighter One" , posted Tue 6 Sep 14:32
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...
... I guess I just miss the era when fighting games took their inspiration from martial arts and action movies over loli anime.
Which poison would you rather have: loli anime, or bishounen anime?
100% full-on loli-appeal fighting games have become their entire own subgenre, as opposed to anime-inspired games that happen to contain token loli characters. When I look back at it, I can't say that I don't still love the Queen of Heart games or Asuka 120%, and there can be no denying that those games are historically significant to the all-cute-girls fighting games.
Meanwhile, Twilight Frontier has made a few of the fighting games that have been deeply impressive for me in the 21st century, that featured all-girl casts: Eternal Fighter Zero (a consummate doujin game, featuring mechanics cribbed from all their favourite fighting games, IPs that aren't theirs, coupled with obsessive attention to detail and really quite incredible sprite work), and Immaterial and Missing Power (Touhou IP game that was fiercely competitive, featured an extensive single-player game focused on defeating boss versions of every character with unique AI and attack patterns, gorgeous sprite work, and incredibly novel gameplay systems).
In conclusion I want more fighting games based on a hard science fiction setting, even if Rise of the Robots poisoned the well for everybody in the 90s.
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| | "Re(2):Re(10):Fight for the Past! Street Fight" , posted Tue 6 Sep 15:12:
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Wait, who? I don't know who this character is but Grace Jones should be in every fighting game.
I have good news which are also strange old news
As for the comment earlier on about Ingrid, it's oddly fitting - in universe she's supposed to be really old and powerful and just look young (PXZ2 really emphasized this by having her sound like a granny with outdated vocabulary to boot, bless that creative team). The experience and wisdom of the last remaining sprite craftsmen at Capcom served to shape and animate a character made to cater to newer design sensibilities - yet was "stolen" away from the newer 3D format she was designed for to be handled by their more old-school arts. I don't like the character, but her development history is not without some poetic charm.
I don't usually like that type of character, but she is a very very good example of how well done it can be. I think i went too far describing her as Moe and Loli as her design doesn't come off as cheap at all. I had no idea (or I just forgot)her backstory was that she's actually very old. Usually those types of characters are for people who are like "I'm NOT a lolicon! She's a thousand years old! Who's the fool now huh???"
Ingrid actually does have design elements indicating her old age like you mentioned. Her clothing is actually fairly conservative, not overtly frilly and gothic lolita. The colors are very understated. Also her hair is white and her eyes are an unnatural red (that they can make her red eyes feel unnatural in a universe where Blanka has evolved naturally green skin is an achievement). She's basically like if you mashed up Howl and Sophie from Ghibli's film adaptation into one person, except Capcom Fighting All Stars was already canceled a year before How's Moving Castle came out!
Also her animations were very good. Very reminiscent of SNK stuff from that era with a lot of secondary animation (especially on cloth and hair) and flowy movements. I think, much like Remy, she was conceived to outdo SNK at what they did best (Bishounen and Bishoujo).
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Tue 6 Sep 15:55] |
| | "Re(4):Re(10):Fight for the Past! Street Fight" , posted Wed 7 Sep 19:24
quote:
The modelling is so on point, the characters look and feel like their illustrations. The Street Fighter characters even have smaller heads and hands and feet than usual, yet the action still reads well and feels meaty. The animations are nice and snappy and responsive looking too. How in the world did none of this visual excellence trickle down to SFIV and V?
Because different company.
It could/should have trickled down into MvC3, though. Unfortunately, the Marvel characters and American target probably convinced them to go safe with their design (and colour palette, unfortunately).
Now that 8ing has been bought by that online game company to make random VR games, that visual excellence has even lower chances to come back.
Forget the Street Fighter characters: look at that Morrigan. LOOK AT HER. At first glance, she looks like herself and very similar to her MvC model. But especially on close-up, her features are bordering the uncanny valley. Something is wrong with her eyes, with her thin legs, she's sexy but unsettling. Like if she were not human, like if she were a spirit masquerading as a human.
MvC3's Morrigan looks absolutely fine, but she looks like a human woman with perfect proportion doing cosplay.
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| | "Re(2):Not enough Wakus" , posted Mon 12 Sep 23:02
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The question is: who would possible want to grab it?
We can adopt the franchise, I can contribute 10$.
Which franchise are we talking about?
I never played Waku Waku 7, but I loved the character designs. It's nice how, despite the small cast, each of them completely stands out - to the point that at first, they barely seem to belong to the same world (I mean, a tank with a humanoid dog, a Joseph Joestar expy, a big Totoro-like cat, a warrior elf who could be in a fantasy world and a cyber-maid, all in the same place??). A sequel with a considerably expanded roster with more unique characters could be very interesting (that's what attracted me in the Xbox One's Killer Instinct in the first place).
As for ClayFighter... it was never a good fighting game, but the first two entries were still quite fun. The N64 game (and its upgrade), on the other hand, is terrible, even though I appreciate the attempt of making fun of Street Fighter's Super Combos, Mortal Kombat's Fatalities, Killer Instinct's Combo Breakers and Ultra Combos, and even the habit of using "64" in the titles of most N64 games. I don't know if this franchise should come back, but it was fun while it lasted.
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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|  "Re(1):Madman Fighter 7" , posted Wed 14 Sep 00:29:
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I'd rather adopt Waku Waku 7, though. Get to work, people, regale me with your tales! I know Karasu will be on board.
OH DON'T WORRY, I'M HERE. Waku Waku 7 was the ultimate license-free 90's anime fighter that we still don't deserve, and as Maou certainly knows, this game is for me what SFZ2 is for him (and Fernandeath is my Sakura: that's right, I said it). To this day I'm at a loss to see a problem with any of the design aspects of the game, or with its humor. The two unlockables, Bonus Kun and Fernandeath, are for my money the very best such unlockables in just about any fighting game before or since. If the rights became suddenly available I would jump at the chance to try and grab em somehow. As for the quality of the fighting game engine-- I'm hardly qualified to discuss it, but I'd love to hear any analysis anyone wants to give!
(You'll all notice that I'm politely declining to offer an opinion either way on That Other Fighting Game that was mentioned. I think it's for the best!)
PS: Professor, I've used a Pooka icon for this message, the closest I could find to Fernandeath, but I'm saddened to see a lack of WW7-related icons. I can make one for both him and Bonus Kun if you can provide the specs needed (and if adding icons is even feasible).
You have to carefully reproduce the world of "Castlevania" in the solemn atmosphere.
[this message was edited by karasu on Wed 14 Sep 00:58] |
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| "Re(1):Madman Fighter 7" , posted Wed 14 Sep 00:58
quote:
The question is: who would possible want to grab it?
We can adopt the franchise, I can contribute 10$.
Don't worry, I got it! I looled. I'd rather adopt Waku Waku 7, though. Get to work, people, regale me with your tales! I know Karasu will be on board.
My experience with Waku Waku 7 came very late. It was odd I knew about it at a later time because it was released on the Saturn. I was always looking for the great Saturn games but I heard no one mention Waku Waku 7 anywhere during its release and afterwards. So I wonder why that was the case.
As you already know, this is what made Waku Waku 7 even more charming than it should be. This was years after the release when I was trying out all the Neo-Geo games I did not get to experience in the arcades. I did not expect nor anticipated much since I never heard any reviews on the game itself. For all I knew, I was under the impression that this was the 7th installment of the franchise!
The game was very colorful when I first started playing. My original thought was that it looked to be a more children’s type fighting game. As I played more, I immediately saw the fun factor of the game. As time went by, the game was clearly more than just a children’s game like I originally thought. The game is your basic fighting game you would expect. Nothing fresh, new, or exciting minus the fact that at the end you can have 7 power bars to unleash at the final boss.
Rai B. was clearly the easiest character to use. He would have been perfect in a Rival Schools game. I used Slash a lot in this game. Slash felt like he was from the Last Blade series. Looking at Tesse now (I believe someone mentioned this on the SNK thread), she is almost a prototype robot version of Sylvee from KOF XIV. She actually has a great looking stage that I personally like out of them all.
Fernandez has got to be one of the wackiest bosses I have seen. This is the humor that really makes the game stand out. It’s funny to fight a mean mad of a lunatic punching bag mid-way through the game also. The small touches in the game give it a good feel overall. Pre-fight dialogues, the comic strip before each stage, and the fact that you are fighting for the Waku Waku version of dragon balls gives this game a good time to experience.
As for Clayfighter, I only got to play the N64 version. It was one of those games where you play on a Friday night with friends to have a good laughter. It was hilarious and wild, but that was it. I always seen the SNES versions from the 90’s but never got to sit down and play them.
Long Live I AM!
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| "Re(2):Power Instinct" , posted Tue 27 Sep 02:15
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I wanted to see if I can recommend the next classic fighting game? I actually wanted to get more everyones personal views on Power Instinct.
Absolutely loved the first two. Back in the day, they seemed very Japanese for my untrained senses.
The first two games are completely too unrestrained, additionally at that time if a fighting game could be cleared with one coin on single player, it was considered "playable", that helped a lot for retractors of goffiness to enjoy the game.
At the time I remember that it was truly considered the pepsi of fighting games, additionally the game brought many things to the table that later titles would gladly adopt as well (dash attacks being different inertia wise, EX moves (Vampire what?  ), double jump). I remember that due to the fact that you could run, I thought of it as one of the most revolutionary games out there at the time along with SS1
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Tried to love Matrimilee, but I don't think the new developers knew how to capture it's previous essence.
While this statement is true, and matrimelee is way too plain direction wise, it produced two spin offs that reuse assets, the first one is for ps2 and it was truer to the core of Power Instinct (a bunch of characters could transform, for example); and the second spin one is for taito type x and it did a good job at trying to be Power Instinct, while disguising itself as a serious fighting game (it has stuff like, the gropies that sing the bgm songs have more complex storylines and personality layouts than everyone else in the playable cast, like any Power Instinct should). It also has one of my favorite themes in the saga.
Particularly, the last game has a bunch of tournaments for it and is still currently played in japan, you should try to check footage for it.
さっきの感じならあと100発はもつ‥‥と思うぜ
Update 24 as of 03/04/12. // 104 personajes traducidos
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Last update : Chapter 25 as of 31/08/12
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| "Re(3):Power Instinct" , posted Tue 27 Sep 04:24:
quote:
I wanted to see if I can recommend the next classic fighting game? I actually wanted to get more everyones personal views on Power Instinct.
Absolutely loved the first two. Back in the day, they seemed very Japanese for my untrained senses.
The first two games are completely too unrestrained, additionally at that time if a fighting game could be cleared with one coin on single player, it was considered "playable", that helped a lot for retractors of goffiness to enjoy the game.
At the time I remember that it was truly considered the pepsi of fighting games, additionally the game brought many things to the table that later titles would gladly adopt as well (dash attacks being different inertia wise, EX moves (Vampire what? ), double jump). I remember that due to the fact that you could run, I thought of it as one of the most revolutionary games out there at the time along with SS1
Tried to love Matrimilee, but I don't think the new developers knew how to capture it's previous essence.
While this statement is true, and matrimelee is way too plain direction wise, it produced two spin offs that reuse assets, the first one is for ps2 and it was truer to the core of Power Instinct (a bunch of characters could transform, for example); and the second spin one is for taito type x and it did a good job at trying to be Power Instinct, while disguising itself as a serious fighting gam
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Sissy's frog transformation looks broken as hell
I have Matrimelee in a soft spot, isn't the best FG out there but I just associate it with the final days of the neo geo were somehow a third party published a game there. Also, since it has cameos of Rage of the Dragons I remember how important was Noise Factory for SNK, with those 2 games and later with Maximum Impact.
Groove on Fight is an interesting game too, but it doesn't excite that much, and maybe I missed the joke but it looks a little too serious in comparision to other entries, I still like the design of the cop like girl
[this message was edited by sibarraz on Tue 27 Sep 04:28] |
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| "Re(1):Power Instinct" , posted Tue 27 Sep 17:49
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I wanted to see if I can recommend the next classic fighting game? I actually wanted to get more everyones personal views on Power Instinct. I say this because I have only played Matrimelee for the Neo-Geo. I always wanted to get my hands on the newer ones but was out of luck. I never knew or heard of the older titles of the series. In general, how popular was this game in the UK and Japan? I did not hear much on the NA side unless otherwise.
The series seems to give a more humor fighting game perspective. Funny looking characters like a human size karate pooch, an out of shape R.Mika type female, the big brother of Krillan from DBZ, the lunatic wife of Chin from KOF, and a handsome pretty boy royal king who also turns to a spoiled over-eating slob. The audio tracks for the latest versions of the series have very peculiar comedy style type singers in most songs. Pretty hilarious at times!
Below is the list of Power Instinct games.
Power Instinct
Power Instinct 2
Gogetsuji Legends
Groove on Fight
Matrimelee
Shin Gōketsuji Ichizoku: Bonnō Kaihō
Gōketsuji Ichizoku Matsuri Senzo Kuyou
I love that the modus operandi for this series seems to be to just have fun with the conventions of the genre, and the first convention to be shot in the head was to have a male protagonist in his 20s - Power Instinct was all like, screw that, here's a woman in her 80s, she will mess you up, and the final boss is her twin sister who will mess you up too. I can't help but wonder if making the story about who gets to rule the family derived from that one decision. After that everything else seems a bit tame, like making the heavyweight of the game a woman, the amazonian Angela Belti.
Odd how those never come up when there's talk of female representation in games or the fighting genre in general...
And looking at characters like Reiji Oyama (whom I think made it to Rugal's statue collection in 94), they clearly had the design sense to do something conventional well if they wanted to, but doing something that stood out worked well for the game, I think.
Also, the music for Matrimelee is great - great range of genres, WTF topics ("my fries, YAMETE!"), and it's reflected on most stages - I wish there was a bit more variety in those, since several are variations on an arena.
...!!
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| | "Wait wait, one more Waku Waku 7 post please!" , posted Fri 30 Sep 03:51:
quote:
It's not one of my most played franchises but I really like it, the evil grannies are two of the most memorable video game characters for me. And what about Kanji Koukin AKA the shameless (literal) old fart? xD
I had a sprawling post about Waku Waku 7 brewing in the back of my mind but I never got around to writing it! Please accept this hastily dashed off last minute account of my thoughts on the game!
Waku Waku 7 is an incredibly interesting relic of a point in time where everyone was rushing to up the animation quality in their games after Capcom had forever raised the stakes with Darkstalkers and Xmen: COTA two years prior (1994). The first time I played Waku Waku 7 was at a department store in Chiang Mai in 1996. It was right next to the gobsmackingly beautiful Warzard, which had also just come out (my god what a great time for games). Waku Waku 7 still held up pretty well I thought!
What is particularly striking about Waku Waku 7 is how much the animation quality varies from character to character. It's like the missing link between old school and new school sprites.
On the older end you have characters like Rai and Dandy-J. Their movements tend to be a lot stiffer, with limbs coming out at clear 45 and 90 degree angles. Much of their sprites consist of grabbing chunks of pixels and sliding them around. They still look good, but they are very much grounded in early 90s / late 80s conventions. They're pretty much on par with the sprites from this team's previous effort, Galaxy Fight. Even the way they are shaded is more traditional, with more clear outlines and more banded shading (going from dark to light as if everything were a cylindrical surface)
In the middle you have characters like Arina and Politank who have more full animation to them. Arina in particular has some really great, very dimensional poses. She even has a little bit of secondary animation to her ears. She also notably (like many other characters) has ZERO outlines, with flatter shading that still has depth because it has more sophisticated shapes with less tones. I wonder if this was on purpose or because they were rushing to finish and just didn't put in the final round of rendering. In any case she looks great and future sprite based games would adapt this style (see most indie games today).
On the most evolved end you have characters like Mauru, Slash and Tesse who have EXCELLENT animation. They were of course my favourite characters to use. These characters were animated very much like what you'd expect out of good 90s Japanese animation. Solid drawings. Quick snappy movements with a lot of secondary animation (Slash had excellent cloth animation and Tesse's hair animation was probably eye opening to many sprite artists of the time--it's even better than Morrigan's).
I think Tesse in particular must have been a big influence on French Bread because she feels very much like a Melty Blood character in her movements (that game also had very fine hair animation). Also Under Night In Birth recently eschewed all outlines in their sprites. I don't have any proof of any connection between Waku and French Bread, but my gut tells me this is the case.
Come to think of it, Tesse was very prescient of the rise of Moe and the tide of demure waifu fighting games to come.
I really liked Waku Waku 7. I never actually played it seriously, but I enjoyed it very much casually. It has such a great cast of characters that I actually didn't notice it was so small (only 7 playable characters??) until now. They were all so different and fun that it didn't feel limited. Also Fernandeath and Bonus Kun are two of the best joke characters ever.
Also the game had great endings. I'm surprised it never had an anime, but then it's novelty came from feeling like an anime so maybe that would be redundant.
I wish this team had gone on to make more 2d fighters-ohwait shit, I mean, I really wish I could play Astra Superstars someday. That's the one that got away for me. Damn. I need to track that game down.
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Fri 30 Sep 04:11] |
| | "Back on Track: Power Instinct!" , posted Wed 5 Oct 22:12:
Sorry for derailing the thread. Let's get back to Power Instinct!
I will always cherish this series as it introduced me to one of my favourite artists ever, Range Murata.
Before he completely sank into a bottomless abyss of unending loli art (which admitedly is still strikingly gorgeous and exquisitely executed goddammit agh!), he was responsible for some of the most interesting and varied character designs out there!
For instance, Angela Belti was one of the first muscular women I remember in a game. She wasn't just a joke either, she looked really cool in her portrait art, especially as the games progressed.
And how many games let you play as an elderly person? Much less an elderly woman? Much less 3 different elderly women?
And let's not forget Pooch.
All contrasted against some really straightforwardly cool characters like Saizo Hattori (what a cool Ninja Helmet!)
Ah man, and then there's Groove on Fight! This is another game that somehow got away from me (I never owned a Saturn when it was still a living console). I'll never forgot that cover and it's use of underboob as an intentional design element. Life was never the same after that.
This is probably like the third of fourth time I've brought that cover up in the cafe.
Man, Groove on Fight was just SO COOL. What a great aesthetic for a game! It's so quintessentially 90s counter culture. It felt like several weird MTV bumps fighting one another. It's also probably the gayest console game ever published by a major publisher. It's one of the only games I can recall with openly gay characters (who aren't just the butt of a joke, they're still COOL).
The game has such great music too!
Like most fighting games that I love, I never really fully grasped the intricacies of their gameplay, but man I loved the characters and overall feeling of them.
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Wed 5 Oct 22:19] |
| | "Re(1):Back on Track: Power Instinct!" , posted Thu 6 Oct 00:28
The best part about this topic is how it allows us to look back on old fighting games and realize things that we didn't back then. It makes us appreciate them much more. In Power Instinct's case, for instance, I would never know that it had other games after Matrimelee (and the last one isn't so old, from what I could see).
quote:
Ah man, and then there's Groove on Fight! This is another game that somehow got away from me (I never owned a Saturn when it was still a living console). I'll never forgot that cover and it's use of underboob as an intentional design element. Life was never the same after that.
This is probably like the third of fourth time I've brought that cover up in the cafe.
Man, Groove on Fight was just SO COOL. What a great aesthetic for a game! It's so quintessentially 90s counter culture. It felt like several weird MTV bumps fighting one another. It's also probably the gayest console game ever published by a major publisher. It's one of the only games I can recall with openly gay characters (who aren't just the butt of a joke, they're still COOL).
Speaking of Groove on Fight, I wonder why these characters were dumped from Matrimelee on. Sure, GoF was supposed to take place decades in the future, but since Matrimelee was sort of a reboot of the franchise (and since the twin old ladies were still alive), it shouldn't be hard to reintroduce them like SFIV did with SFIII characters or KOF did with the Garou ones.
The police officer with her underboob area uncovered definitely had a lot of potential. And as weird as the GoF roster was, it's not like if they were any weirder than the majority of the Power Instinct people...
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| | "Re(2):Back on Track: Power Instinct!" , posted Thu 6 Oct 01:00:
quote:
The best part about this topic is how it allows us to look back on old fighting games and realize things that we didn't back then. It makes us appreciate them much more. In Power Instinct's case, for instance, I would never know that it had other games after Matrimelee (and the last one isn't so old, from what I could see).
Ah man, and then there's Groove on Fight! This is another game that somehow got away from me (I never owned a Saturn when it was still a living console). I'll never forgot that cover and it's use of underboob as an intentional design element. Life was never the same after that.
This is probably like the third of fourth time I've brought that cover up in the cafe.
Man, Groove on Fight was just SO COOL. What a great aesthetic for a game! It's so quintessentially 90s counter culture. It felt like several weird MTV bumps fighting one another. It's also probably the gayest console game ever published by a major publisher. It's one of the only games I can recall with openly gay characters (who aren't just the butt of a joke, they're still COOL).
Speaking of Groove on Fight, I wonder why these characters were dumped from Matrimelee on. Sure, GoF was supposed to take place decades in the future, but since Matrimelee was sort of a reboot of the franchise (and since the twin old ladies were still alive), it shouldn't be hard to reintroduce them like SFIV did with SFIII characters or KOF did with the Garou ones.
The police officer with her und
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Yeah not sure why they Groove on Fight cast never migrated to Matrimelee. They really weren't any weirder than the series has always been. Maybe they were a bit too dark though?
Thanks for the heads up about the Matrimelee sequels. I didn't know there was a third installment!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUzfkdKGHXM
Man, I would love for Range Murata to return to designing on a new Power Instinct game!
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Thu 6 Oct 01:04] |
| PSN: n/a
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| "Re(1):Back on Track: Power Instinct!" , posted Thu 6 Oct 12:22:
quote:
Sorry for derailing the thread. Let's get back to Power Instinct!
I will always cherish this series as it introduced me to one of my favourite artists ever, Range Murata.
Before he completely sank into a bottomless abyss of unending loli art (which admitedly is still strikingly gorgeous and exquisitely executed goddammit agh!), he was responsible for some of the most interesting and varied character designs out there!
For instance, Angela Belti was one of the first muscular women I remember in a game. She wasn't just a joke either, she looked really cool in her portrait art, especially as the games progressed.
And how many games let you play as an elderly person? Much less an elderly woman? Much less 3 different [URL=http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Aaaahhhhhh...so after viewing Nobi's links, Muratas work looks so familiar to me, I know I have seen this kind of designs somewhere before. I was trying to knock my brain all day today especially since I like his style. Finally I figured out he was the character designer for the anime Last Exile. This is one of my favorite animes, if not my top 5 best. I also see that they released the sequel Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam back in 2011. Great to know I can see his latest animation. Thanks for the info Nobi! Good stuff. Sorry to go off topic.
The Saturn cover for Groove on Fight was amazing. Like that Geese cover for Real Bout I mentioned earlier in the thread, it was one of those designs that had me staring for minutes at the game store. I was afraid to buy it thinking I would have got the same experience with Real Bout. I think I would have enjoyed this game regardless. The underboob style now moved on to Luong from KOF XIV.
Long Live I AM!
[this message was edited by Neo0r0chiaku on Thu 6 Oct 12:39] |
| | "The forgotten N64 fighting games" , posted Mon 24 Oct 23:31
Since it seems that the comments about Power Instinct are over, I guess we can move on to other fighting games, right?
At first, I thought of starting to discuss Power Stone, but with the recent Nintendo NX announcement, maybe it would be cool to reminisce a little about the fighting games the N64 got back then, why they failed and whether any of them could deserve another chance (plus, this discussion probably won't last long, allowing us to discuss any other classic fighting game very soon).
Anyway, it's not a secret that the N64 wasn't exactly the most popular console in terms of fighting games: it didn't have Virtua Fighter like the Saturn did, nor Soul Edge or Tekken like the PS1 did, nor adaptations of games from Capcom and SNK like both Saturn and PS1 did. Sure, it got Super Smash Bros., but one big franchise isn't enough to save an entire genre in a console.
However, the N64 did get some interesting fighting games:
Fighters Destiny: this is kinda like Nintendo 64's Virtua Fighter, but with some interesting mechanics. Instead of three rounds, the fights were decided by points, depending on the way you won a round (regular knockout, ring out, throw, special move, counter move, etc.), so they could be very short or very long.
I also liked how the game allowed the player to avoid being thrown after being grabbed and how each character could expand his/her movelist by learning them with the Master. Plus, the music was quite decent, and the Rodeo Mode? Priceless.
Unfortunately, its graphics weren't the best, and the gameplay wasn't smooth either; plus, almost all characters were very generic (except for Pierre, the fantastic French clown, and its Russian evil counterpart Joker) and none of them seemed to have a specific fighting style or any backstory at all (to the point that I'm still not sure if Boro is a man or a woman).
Nevertheless, Fighters Destiny managed to get a sequel, and that's where it failed hard: it was basically a repetition of the first game, with the same mistakes the first one had. It's a pity, really, because if it tried to fix these problems, it could have survived to see new sequels on the GameCube and Wii.
---
Mace: The Dark Age: I guess the best way to describe Mace is as a hybrid of Soul Edge and Mortal Kombat. Since it was released at the same period as several MK cheap clones, it was probably placed in the same bandwagon - and its extreme difficulty and uninspired soundtrack didn't help matters.
But I think it had potential to stand out: it had nice graphics, an engaging storyline, and unlike MK back then, each character plays differently from the rest of the cast and each of them looks unique. Other nice features were the interactive stages (Takeshi's and the hidden Macchu Picchu ones were particularly interesting, allowing some level exploration), some of them with death traps, and come on, how many games allow you to play as a dwarf piloting a mecha built with barrels or a giant CHICKEN??
---
Flying Dragon: unlike the previous games, this one is definitely bad (except for the soundtrack, which is quite catchy). But the idea of releasing two new, related games in a single cartridge was interesting, and each of them had interesting mechanics: the SD game allowed you to equip your character with items and evolve his/her level by participating of tournaments, while the "Virtual" one could be played as either a 2D or a 3D game (although these options weren't much different from each other).
Interestingly, Flying Dragon is part of the Hiryuu no Ken franchise, which is quite long and also includes games from different genres, like beat' em ups. If only this one could have had more content, like the PS1 game (which was similar to the "Virtual" one, but with a bigger cast) and SD Hiryuu no Ken Densetsu (the sequel for N64, released only in Japan, which had only the SD game but with a much bigger cast and a story mode)...
...yeah, it would have still been a mediocre game at best. But at least it could have lived longer than it did.
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| | "Re(1):The forgotten N64 fighting games" , posted Tue 25 Oct 02:07
quote:
Since it seems that the comments about Power Instinct are over, I guess we can move on to other fighting games, right?
At first, I thought of starting to discuss Power Stone, but with the recent Nintendo NX announcement, maybe it would be cool to reminisce a little about the fighting games the N64 got back then, why they failed and whether any of them could deserve another chance (plus, this discussion probably won't last long, allowing us to discuss any other classic fighting game very soon).
Anyway, it's not a secret that the N64 wasn't exactly the most popular console in terms of fighting games: it didn't have Virtua Fighter like the Saturn did, nor Soul Edge or Tekken like the PS1 did, nor adaptations of games from Capcom and SNK like both Saturn and PS1 did. Sure, it got Super Smash Bros., but one big franchise isn't enough to save an entire genre in a console.
However, the N64 did get some interesting fighting games:
Fighters Destiny: this is kinda like Nintendo 64's Virtua Fighter, but with some interesting mechanics. Instead of three rounds, the fights were decided by points, depending on the way you won a round (regular knockout, ring out, throw, special move, counter move, etc.), so they could be very short or very long.
I also liked how the game allowed the player to avoid being thrown after being grabbed and how each character could expand his/her movelist by learning them with the Master. Plus, t
-- Message too long, Autoquote has been Snipped --
Oh man, I totally forgot about all those games! Those videos really brushed aside a lot of cobwebs in my brain. I only vaguely remember reading about them. Surprised to find Fighter's Destiny and Flying Dragon had sequels! I probably would have loved Flying Dragon as I've never played an SD Fighting game I didn't like. The sequel had really good graphics! It's one of the better aged full 3d N64 games out there I think. Nice simple appealing models, no gimmicky lighting and the colors are solid (for some reason a lot of N64 games had hideous color palettes--I can't explain it because SNES and PSOne games tend to have great, tasteful color palettes!)
www.art-eater.com
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| PSN: robotchris
XBL: robotchris
Wii: n/a
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| "Re(2):The forgotten N64 fighting games" , posted Thu 27 Oct 00:56
quote:
Fighters Destiny
Mace: The Dark Age
Flying Dragon
I've got to admit-- the N64's fighting game selection was one of the biggest turnoffs for me at the time, and it's probably one of the main reasons why I never owned the system. Granted, this is all just my recollection from 20 years later. At the time I was a hardcore SNK/Capcom fighting game fan and the sloppy look of so many N64 games in general just wasn't appealing. If I recall correctly, the games were massively expensive at retail, which didn't help matters for me.
It's funny, because so many of my colleagues consider the N64 to be one of Nintendo's best systems, and for some of them, it was the system that got them interested in games in the first place. For me, just about the only thing that's interesting about it is the weirdo controller, but even that's a little bit of a stretch. I'm curious if I'm the only one who feels this way here at the Cafe.
I've often wondered if I should take a look at some of the games now and see if any kind of valuable info can be gleaned from their systems and implementations.
You have to carefully reproduce the world of "Castlevania" in the solemn atmosphere.
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| | "Re(3):The forgotten N64 fighting games" , posted Thu 27 Oct 02:29
quote:
Fighters Destiny
Mace: The Dark Age
Flying Dragon
I've got to admit-- the N64's fighting game selection was one of the biggest turnoffs for me at the time, and it's probably one of the main reasons why I never owned the system. Granted, this is all just my recollection from 20 years later. At the time I was a hardcore SNK/Capcom fighting game fan and the sloppy look of so many N64 games in general just wasn't appealing. If I recall correctly, the games were massively expensive at retail, which didn't help matters for me.
It's funny, because so many of my colleagues consider the N64 to be one of Nintendo's best systems, and for some of them, it was the system that got them interested in games in the first place. For me, just about the only thing that's interesting about it is the weirdo controller, but even that's a little bit of a stretch. I'm curious if I'm the only one who feels this way here at the Cafe.
I've often wondered if I should take a look at some of the games now and see if any kind of valuable info can be gleaned from their systems and implementations.
There were definitely experiences on it that were unique at the time. Goldeneye's framerate made my head hurt, but its objective-based levels and 4-player couch gaming on one TV were genuinely impressive things. You didn't have to buy a multitap to have more than 2 players!
Killer Instinct 64 looked good at the time and had a rocking soundtrack.
Mischief Makers was pretty awesome.
Smash Bros. was absolutely a landmark release, and Smash Bros. is hilariously the biggest fighting game franchise in the world.
Mario Kart 64 might be derided a bit by the hardcore, but to the rest of us having 4 player Mario Kart out of the gate was killer. For those especially that didn't like playing Goldeneye, MK64 was the 4-player game.
Zelda 64 is a game that has some pretty real issues, but its historical legacy cannot be denied. It's certainly not as immediate of a game as the prior Zeldas were, and its cinematic ambitions are clear. I like to think that the entire Gerudo Valley sequence where you had to rescue the carpenters was predictive of MGSV.
A lot of the wholly polygonal games indeed looked pretty rough, and the blotchy indistinct textures in the worst of them left my eyes aching.
I think that the SNES was a tremendous advancement of what the NES did. I remember the feeling of being WOWED by the SNES! The N64 was the first big step into the polygonal future, and it certainly changed what we could get out of games, though not always for the better.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(3):The forgotten N64 fighting games" , posted Thu 27 Oct 10:35
quote:
I've got to admit-- the N64's fighting game selection was one of the biggest turnoffs for me at the time, and it's probably one of the main reasons why I never owned the system. Granted, this is all just my recollection from 20 years later. At the time I was a hardcore SNK/Capcom fighting game fan and the sloppy look of so many N64 games in general just wasn't appealing. If I recall correctly, the games were massively expensive at retail, which didn't help matters for me.
It's funny, because so many of my colleagues consider the N64 to be one of Nintendo's best systems, and for some of them, it was the system that got them interested in games in the first place. For me, just about the only thing that's interesting about it is the weirdo controller, but even that's a little bit of a stretch. I'm curious if I'm the only one who feels this way here at the Cafe.
I've often wondered if I should take a look at some of the games now and see if any kind of valuable info can be gleaned from their systems and implementations.
Your feelings about the N64 mirror a lot of my own. When the N64 was new I was of the opinion that the PS1's utilitarian but perfectly functional controls and technology that was shiny and chrome made it feel like the actual successor to the SNES. Looking back I view the N64 as the point where Nintendo became much more insular and no longer interested in holding such a massive share of the marketplace. Perhaps if I had been in the right place at the right time I would love the N64 as well but when I tried it years later I thought it was interesting but boasted as many failures as successes. If you ever try out a N64 be certain and let us know what you think of the system, the games, and that goofball controller.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
XBL: n/a
Wii: n/a
STM: n/a
CFN: zonepharaoh
| "Re(4):The forgotten N64 fighting games" , posted Thu 27 Oct 11:10:
I don't think it'd be controversial to say that the N64's graphics aged pretty poorly alongside even the PS1's graphics and its pretty pre-renders. Even as 12-year-olds, we could figure out that using carts was going to cripple the system compared with huge CD storage, and while FFVII was the most obvious example, it became pretty clear that even an exciting (?) Nintendo exclusive like Killer Instinct wasn't going to make it home in very good shape compared with Soul Edge, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, or even Capcom's 2D games (when assisted by the Saturn RAM cart). Murky, smudgy textures and color palettes are unavoidable if you're working with such extreme space limits.
This is to say nothing of the goofy controller, which is essentially unusable for non-Smash fighting games, if they even existed. Most people seem to have forgotten that the N64 controller was designed entirely to accomodate Mario 64. Like, those tiny buttons were literally designed to work Mario's camera. While I admire the Miyamoto team's creativity and attention to control for their first 3D Mario, what a shame that it essentially meant that a pet project set the controller agenda for an entire generation for Nintendo, doing no one any favors, least of all fighting games. Typically, you'd bundle your pet controller/mouse/vibrator (hello, Rez) with your game, rather than selfishly saddling everyone else with it.
Conversely, the Saturn pad designer must surely be reigning over Valhalla at Odin's side. The Mega Drive was already a sign of things to come, but damned if there's ever been a better controller for fighters.
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
[this message was edited by Maou on Thu 27 Oct 13:01] |
| | "Re(1):Mario 64 is a forgotten fighting game" , posted Mon 31 Oct 20:42
quote:
The Waku Waku 7 conversation earlier was great. But I feel concerned when a topic like "forgotten N64 fighting games" is chosen and it waters down to one line reviews, worthless trivia based on shoddy video games journalism from back in the day, and poor insight combined with name dropping.
I am sorry, LEGENOARYNINLIA; I guess that's my fault. I just thought that, since many of us were able to learn more about old fighting games that not everyone knows, it would be worthy to present some N64 fighting games that, while far from perfect, did present some good ideas that could be followed. Plus, not every classic game discussed here was praised (see Star Gladiator and Ehrgeiz, for example - both of which also had some interesting concepts that could be reworked for much better results than the ones they actually got).
It wasn't my intention to turn this into a discussion about consoles - but I understand why people did that, as the N64 specifications and controller may be a big factor to explain why companies as Capcom and SNK chose to ignore it and why the fighting games released on it weren't as good as they could have been.
But again, sorry if this idea derailed the topic. If you prefer, we can move the discussion to other classic fighting games (I still plan to discuss Power Stone, after all - and maybe discuss a little more about Last Blade, as it doesn't seem that we talked everything we could about it).
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| | "Re(2):Mario 64 is a forgotten fighting game" , posted Mon 31 Oct 20:56
quote:
The Waku Waku 7 conversation earlier was great. But I feel concerned when a topic like "forgotten N64 fighting games" is chosen and it waters down to one line reviews, worthless trivia based on shoddy video games journalism from back in the day, and poor insight combined with name dropping.
I am sorry, LEGENOARYNINLIA; I guess that's my fault. I just thought that, since many of us were able to learn more about old fighting games that not everyone knows, it would be worthy to present some N64 fighting games that, while far from perfect, did present some good ideas that could be followed. Plus, not every classic game discussed here was praised (see Star Gladiator and Ehrgeiz, for example - both of which also had some interesting concepts that could be reworked for much better results than the ones they actually got).
It wasn't my intention to turn this into a discussion about consoles - but I understand why people did that, as the N64 specifications and controller may be a big factor to explain why companies as Capcom and SNK chose to ignore it and why the fighting games released on it weren't as good as they could have been.
But again, sorry if this idea derailed the topic. If you prefer, we can move the discussion to other classic fighting games (I still plan to discuss Power Stone, after all - and maybe discuss a little more about Last Blade, as it doesn't seem that we talked everything we could about it).
For what it's worth I really enjoyed your post. Please don't feel sorry for sharing interesting information :D
www.art-eater.com
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| | "Re(3):Mario 64 is a forgotten fighting game" , posted Tue 1 Nov 03:25:
Thank you!!
One last comment about Flying Dragon (at least for now) is that, although the two games in it seem to be unrelated (only sharing some characters), the final boss in the Virtual game can only be unlocked by playing the SD game.
That's cool and all, but I think the developers could (and SHOULD) have expanded this interaction between both games. It could be interesting to finish one game with a character that is initially exclusive to it to unlock him/her in the other game, for example, or unlocking items in SD by playing Virtual, unlocking special moves in Virtual by playing SD (one could consider SD as Ryuhi's childhood adventures while Virtual would be about adult Ryuhi, so anything kid Ryuhi learned would be transferred to adult Ryuhi), etc. This could have worked as an incentive for players to play both of them (the general consensus seem to be that the SD game is much better than the Virtual one, which may explain why the sequel was based only on the SD game).
Yup, unfortunately, developers of N64 fighting games missed A LOT of opportunities to make their games more interesting...
---
EDIT: it only occurred to me now that a much easier way to make FD more interesting would be if, by fulfilling certain conditions (like, say, finishing both modes with all characters available in each of them, including the secret ones), the player could use characters from both modes against each other. I mean, gameplay isn't much different in each mode and that would provide more match-ups and the possibility of learning whether SD Ryuhi is a better or worse fighter than Virtual Ryuhi, for example.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Tue 1 Jan 10:23] |
| | "Dual Heroes is a forgotten fighting game" , posted Tue 1 Nov 04:38
What I find interesting about the N64 situation is that is that the N64 was in many ways very well suited to fighting games. It had a cartridge ROM access rather than CD at a time when data access (i.e. loading times) was the bane of console fighting games, as the Neo Geo CDZ and the Saturn's cartridge slot can attest. The N64 controller featured a D-pad and 6 face buttons aligned as 2x3 as standard, and I have always wondered whether this was a concession for potential fighting games and other arcade ports, considering that a second stick would have made more sense than the 4 yellow C-* buttons for camera control. The N64 controller also included an analog stick and, very soon after its introduction, we've seen Tobal 2 (PS1) and Soul Calibur (DC) make an outstanding use of this control input for 3D fighting games. So purely in terms of hardware, the only potential reason for the N64 be deprived of fighting games is the cost of high capacity ROM cartridges.
Nevertheless, considering that Midway kept releasing Mortal Kombat games on the system, I am surprised Capcom never followed through with any single Street Fighter title on the N64, whether it'd be a port of a 2D fighting game, or something like the EX series (at the time it surely would have made sense of the first 3D Street Fighter game to come on the N64). I am also surprised that Takara, who had a successful history of ports on the SFC, did not port their own Tōshinden series on the N64 when it would have made perfect sense + would have benefited from the absence of Tekken and VF on the system. Maybe the cost of cartridges was simply too high? Maybe there were licensing/royalty issues? Maybe Tamsoft had a bad relationship with Nintendo at the time?
In any case, the bizarre fighting game scene of the N64 was populated
1. on the North-American side by Midway trying to cash in on the massive US userbase and their love for Mortal Kombat (Bio Freaks, Mace, War Gods)
and
2. by Japanese developers and publishers experimenting outside of their zone of comfort to try and grab an audience in need.
In my eyes, the most interesting example of the second group is Hudson's Dual Heroes. In the same way that the N64 received Hybrid Heaven, the uncool red-headed stepbrother of Metal Gear Solid on the competing system, it got Dual Heroes from Hudson when the PlayStation got Bloody Roar.
Dual Heroes was developed by Produce, Hudson's long time partner for Nintendo platfoms and most notably in charge of the Super Bomberman franchise, but also a developer with zero experience of fighting games. Bloody Roar was developed by Eighting/Raizing, which had a good grasp of arcade games but also no specific experience of fighting games beforehand. So on paper, there was no reason to doubt the N64 was getting shafted.
The most interesting aspect of Dual Heroes is its attempt to produce a more cinematic experience. More accurately, a more "TV series" experience: it's obvious (if only from the choice of Kamen Rider Black's Keita Amemiya as a character designer) that they were going after the youth that grew up with kick-ass Kamen Rider series. I think it's commonly agreed even today the result was a complete disaster, if only because character models from that era (and even the CG models used for the promotion of the game) cannot properly display the motifs, textures and subtle details that will save such designs from the reality of "awful cheap latex-clad actors" and elevate them to "kinda cool karate bikers from another dimension". However, it should be saluted that this Tokusatsu / Super Sentai design direction was definitely unique at the time and a huge departure from both the Capcom and SNK schools of character design. (Only Skullomania and Pepsiman were around.)
There is also a genuine effort of directing and creating an atsmophere. Pay attention to the way the cutscenes are constructed, and details such as each character getting their own theme which plays on the select screen. Once again, complete failure on both accounts, but the intention is there.
And one should not forget to mention the AI. Dual Heroes, as far as I can remember, was the very first fighting game to boast an AI that would adapt to your performance and learn from you. It was mentioned very early in the game's promotion, which itself started very early in the lifetime of the N64. Unfortunately, the game went into development trouble and only surfaced at the very tail end of 1997. Not only was the AI not adapting to your skills anymore, but the CPU was notoriously stupid. The development team's efforts in adaptive AI became a separate mode in which a CPU would learn to fight other CPU-controlled characters in your style, which is quite interesting for that time when AI characters and virtual pets became all the rage. It was also boring as fuck.
So, yes, a complete failure. But, interesting failure! I think that's a good summary of the strange N64 fighting game scene as a whole.
Même Narumi est épatée !
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| | "Re(1):Dual Heroes is a forgotten fighting gam" , posted Tue 1 Nov 12:57
quote:
What I find interesting about the N64 situation is that is that the N64 was in many ways very well suited to fighting games. It had a cartridge ROM access rather than CD at a time when data access (i.e. loading times) was the bane of console fighting games, as the Neo Geo CDZ and the Saturn's cartridge slot can attest. The N64 controller featured a D-pad and 6 face buttons aligned as 2x3 as standard, and I have always wondered whether this was a concession for potential fighting games and other arcade ports, considering that a second stick would have made more sense than the 4 yellow C-* buttons for camera control. The N64 controller also included an analog stick and, very soon after its introduction, we've seen Tobal 2 (PS1) and Soul Calibur (DC) make an outstanding use of this control input for 3D fighting games. So purely in terms of hardware, the only potential reason for the N64 be deprived of fighting games is the cost of high capacity ROM cartridges.
Nevertheless, considering that Midway kept releasing Mortal Kombat games on the system, I am surprised Capcom never followed through with any single Street Fighter title on the N64, whether it'd be a port of a 2D fighting game, or something like the EX series (at the time it surely would have made sense of the first 3D Street Fighter game to come on the N64). I am also surprised that Takara, who had a successful history of ports on the SFC, did not port their own Tōshinden series on the N64 when it would have made
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Holy moly. I completely forgot about this game! Thanks for reminding me that Keita Amemiya and Katsuya Terada worked together on a Toku fighting game for the N64! The actual execution is not very good, but I'm having fun looking up snippets of cool art from it.
Wow, I wonder if Amemiya's design for Zen inspired that god awful design for Kamen Rider Ex-Aid?
www.art-eater.com
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| | "Re(3):Mario 64 is a forgotten fighting game" , posted Wed 2 Nov 00:40:
quote:
I am sorry, LEGENOARYNINLIA; I guess that's my fault. I just thought that, since many of us were able to learn more about old fighting games that not everyone knows, it would be worthy to present some N64 fighting games that, while far from perfect, did present some good ideas that could be followed. Plus, not every classic game discussed here was praised (see Star Gladiator and Ehrgeiz, for example - both of which also had some interesting concepts that could be reworked for much better results than the ones they actually got).
It wasn't my intention to turn this into a discussion about consoles - but I understand why people did that, as the N64 specifications and controller may be a big factor to explain why companies as Capcom and SNK chose to ignore it and why the fighting games released on it weren't as good as they could have been.
But again, sorry if this idea derailed the topic. If you prefer, we can move the discussion to other classic fighting games (I still plan to discuss Power Stone, after all - and maybe discuss a little more about Last Blade, as it doesn't seem that we talked everything we could about it).
No need to be sorry, I wasn't pointing at your post which was an interesting start for a great new topic. You brought up fighting games on the N64 but for some reason the topic started fizzling out and I didn't like that at all.
Also, I don't have any intentions to try and stop anyone posting and saying what they want, but I am not going to hold off from being openly critical. I expect that if I critisize other's and/or their posts then I will be critisized back if the person feels offended. That's just how things work. I'm not the kind of person that gives praise for empty small talk that doesn't contribute to a conversation that could be much more. If someone thinks that my approach is worse than nothing then that's fine with me. I'm here for the conversation and knowledge, that's all.
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I checked the chronolocigal release dates of N64 games because the idea of having a Street Fighter game on the system sounds pretty exciting.
The N64 seems to have targeted entirely different audiences in the west and in Japan. The first ten games released in the USA and Japan cater to different tastes. 0 fighting games for japan, 2 fighting games for USA: Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Killer Instinct Gold. So maybe Capcom had some reasoning to avoid competition on that market in the west and went for a surprise attack instead. It's pretty interesting how MK Trilogy was the first third party game released in the US right after Mario 64 and PIlot Wings 64. The first fighting game for the system in Japan was Dark Rift which for some reason came out in March 1998! And by that time the US had at least 7 fighting games! Maybe it was Nintendo of Japan that had strict guidelines of what should be released for the system in that market?
EDIT: Japan did get a wrestling game and a sumo game in late 1997.
~The artist formerly known as TheRedKnight~
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[this message was edited by LEGENOARYNINLIA on Wed 2 Nov 00:45] |
| | "Impotent Rage" , posted Sun 6 Nov 07:11:
quote:
I still think we should get back to PRIMAL RAGE... since I have at least a decent story on that one but it's not good enough to kick off a topic (it's mostly about my friend, not me... it also ties in with Virtua Fighter so I might want to save it for that one).
I think neo0r0chiaku had mentioned it before? Maybe he had previously ruled THE NEW URTH?
One thing I will say about Primal Rage is that it would have been a great fit with the rest of the N64 fighting game lineup *cough cough*. To be honest though I would probably have rather played that over Killer Instinct Gold. Man, Killer Instinct 2 was so bad... (and so much worse than the original, I guess they took a serious look at some Japanese fighting games and they aimed too high).
Please do bring up Primal Rage; it's my favorite terrible fighting game. I also like the idea that you have an anecdote about Primal Rage but it's not about you and it's not about Primal Rage. That seems appropriate for the rubber dinosaur fest of a video game.
I feel like the RAGE is starting to run low, so I'll share my potentially underwhelming story.
The year is 1994 (I think). I'm standing with my friend in the local arcade which used to be called "Barrel of Fun" and have a cool barrel-shaped entryway, but is now called "Power Play" and maybe had a few more machines in it. We've already played a ton of Super Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat II, so I'm looking for some novelty at this point. Nobody plays Street Fighter anymore. This is a new age. An age of polygons and blood.
So I'm standing in front of Virtua Fighter which hasn't been in the arcade for more than a week or so. I'm 15 years old and have just finished beating a much younger kid...basically a button masher. I'm playing Lau, and I just keep knocking Jacky's ass down with the sweep (love that dramatic whooshing sound effect), baiting wake-up attacks, and laying into him with whatever.
"I'm tired of playing you," the kid says.
My friend is also standing their, so he's like yeah "Well, I'll play against you, but I'm not going to go easy on you either." My friend hands me a couple of tokens and takes over my game.
Unfortunately after playing me the younger kid has a new strategy: he mashes the buttons a little faster. My friend wins one round, but that initial loss just makes the kid mash even harder and somehow my friend just gets bulldozed by punch spam.
Of course he can't accept this loss. The kid is like 8 years old. My friend is twice that old! And, since I had already beaten the kid, he's also indirectly been beaten by me. So he puts in another token and switches to Kage (we pronounce his name as "Cage" as in "Nicholas Cage" because how the hell are we supposed to know?). He is now handling his preferred character and is ready for ninja vengeance.
So then he proceeds to lose two more games against the kid, doing worse than he did the first game, and is visibly a little bit embarrassed. I think he lost several rounds by ring-out when he had a bunch of health left, too. So he's pretty soundly defeated. He walks off like, "Whatever man, nice mashing." He turns around, and right behind him is Primal Rage.
We have played Primal Rage maybe a couple of times before and have kind of agreed that it is essentially of a lesser caliber than our favorite fighting games. But I figure he just wants to play something that doesn't really matter that much and let off some steam. He picks Sauron (my friend is super-into Lord of the Rings which was surely a heavy consideration in making that character choice). I rib him a little bit about getting beaten by the kid in VF. I remark "Hey that kid was pretty good for an 8-year-old," but neither of us really think that, hahah.
I am not really keen to play, so he's just slapping the computer around with his giant tail for a bit. After maybe clearing one stage this same kid walks up and says "HOW ABOUT I TAKE YOU ON IN THIS ONE?" He puts in a token without waiting for an answer and what's my friend going to do? He has to fight him.
The kid picks the small, raptor-ish Talon to go up against the tyrannosauric Sauron, so the size difference between the human competitors and the dino combatants is comparable. It's the runt against Goliath. But it's not the size of the dog in the fight, as the saying goes. While this kid was a straight-up masher in Virtua Fighter, we learn that he has actually played Primal Rage before and at least knows enough about fighting games to understand the concept of "special moves".
It wasn't apparent how deep the kids knowledge went though, because he only used one special move. Unfortunately for my friend, it was all he needed. The move he knew was to go for the throat both literally and figuratively. Talon went super-aggressive and kept hopping up to latch onto Sauron's neck to rip out a chunk of meat... over and over and over again. Annoyingly, the kid also kept mashes the buttons like crazy whenever the move lands. While it doesn't add any additional damage, it does seem to be pretty effective at building up my friend's irritation meter.
I guess it was a combination of my friend not really being familiar with Primal Rage and Sauron being slow as hell/having terrible startup on his own attacks. But he just kept losing meat chunks/vital organs. The kid was also jumping around like a maniac whenever he wasn't landing hits. Now anyone knows that using the same damn move repeatedly is going to be considered cheap by most, so my friend weakly tried to shame this kid for his lack of depth and mastery. "Man, you just keep doing one stupid move! How many damn organs are you going to rip out?"
Right when this same attack lands again, taking another fleshy chunk out of my poor friend, the kid gleefully exclaims "AS MANY AS YOU GOT!" while he slaps around the controls like the goddamned lunatic. While his hands are going crazy his face looks super-focused, like he's fighting as if his life depended on it. By contrast, my friend, I think, has just about given up. I think his expression is more sad than anything else. His heart isn't in it and I think he just wants it to be over.
In a short time, the bloody spectacle has concluded. The kid doesn't know how to (or is unable to pull off) a fatality, thank the Dino Godz, so my friend is at least spared that humiliation of being completely savaged by a prepubescent kid. I thought about fudging this fact... maybe saying that the kid accidentally pulled off the heart-munching fatality or the whirlwind meat-shredder finishing move with his frantic, random inputs, but I dare not falsify the historical record after coming this far.
As we walk away, the kid continues to spam his patented special move against the computer. Maybe he went on to rule the New Urth.... I cannot say. We left the mall right after that.
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[this message was edited by Mosquiton on Sun 6 Nov 07:32] |
| | "Re(2):Old stories from New Urth" , posted Tue 8 Nov 00:25
quote:
I wonder how long Primal Rage would manage to survive if its sequel was released (from what I read, it was nearly finished before it was cancelled). It was supposed to be quite different from the first game, which could even be a good thing or a bad thing...
It's weird that it was cancelled, because despite being generally considered a bad game, Primal Rage was quite popular.
There was a version complete enough to be used for public testing and promotion. One of those two machines was shown off in an arcade a few years ago.
A rather long and relatively decent quality video of that version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghfPgY0_Qmg
The human characters honestly make it look generic and kind of bad. The human characters are dinosaur-sized, aren't that interesting visually, and look more like plastic toys than the dinos did. It's hard to judge the gameplay from video, particularly when the game wasn't finished.
It did try to do something somewhat interesting with the human avatar and dino god connections. The regular human avatars had a three button dino-tranformation canned combo. The regular (hidden) dino gods were just their regular dino gods. Then there was a third form, where you could freely switch between human and animal form (but I want to recall hearing that you lost your super meter with this option.)
The game was dumped, but didn't run in MAME. Someone spent several years extracting data from it and trying to brute force hack it into running, but I don't know if he ever got it into playable form or if anyone is even still working on it.
That guy had been posting video updates of his progress, obviously of higher video quality but not always gameplay accurate. I think his last update was actually an edited video, showing what the game *should* look like if it was emulated correctly.
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| | "Re(5):Old stories from New Urth" , posted Tue 8 Nov 22:17
quote:
There was a version complete enough to be used for public testing and promotion. One of those two machines was shown off in an arcade a few years ago.
A rather long and relatively decent quality video of that version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghfPgY0_Qmg
The human characters honestly make it look generic and kind of bad. The human characters are dinosaur-sized, aren't that interesting visually, and look more like plastic toys than the dinos did. It's hard to judge the gameplay from video, particularly when the game wasn't finished.
It did try to do something somewhat interesting with the human avatar and dino god connections. The regular human avatars had a three button dino-tranformation canned combo. The regular (hidden) dino gods were just their regular dino gods. Then there was a third form, where you could freely switch between human and animal form (but I want to recall hearing that you lost your super meter with this option.)
Cool! Thanks for the information!
It seems that there was an effort to make Primal Rage II more than a repetition of the first game, like many franchises did. Maybe the ideas weren't good, though... I guess we'll never know.
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By the way, not related to Primal Rage, but...
quote:
One thing I will say about Primal Rage is that it would have been a great fit with the rest of the N64 fighting game lineup *cough cough*. To be honest though I would probably have rather played that over Killer Instinct Gold. Man, Killer Instinct 2 was so bad... (and so much worse than the original, I guess they took a serious look at some Japanese fighting games and they aimed too high).
I have to disagree. Yes, KI1 was overall a better game than KI2, but I don't think KI2 was a bad game at all. It took me longer than the first game to adapt myself to the second one (and by "adapt", I mean "be able to properly play it", not "become good at it" - despite my love for fighting games, I'm awful at pretty much all of them), but once I learned the basics, it was quite fun. Same for the N64 port (even if it was considerably downgraded in comparison to the Arcade).
(and in my opinion, KI2's soundtrack is even better than KI1's, although the combined soundtrack for KI 2013's three seasons surpasses both of its predecessors)
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| | "Re(7):Old stories from New Urth" , posted Sun 13 Nov 21:50
quote:
That's true, Siba was known about and even made it into Fighters Megamix where he had to deal with the indignity of fighting chibi VF characters and a walking car. In the end he might have been happier hiding in the VF1 code with the rest of the lost characters.
Come on, Fighters Megamix was awesome! I still remember when game magazines previewed it as a Virtua Fighter/Fighting Vipers crossover, and it already sounded bold as the two games were quite different... only to find out that it also brought fighters from other games (some of which weren't even fighting games!), each with unique mechanics, like Janet and her gun, or Rent-A-Hero and his battery... and then there was Hornet, of course.
But I wonder why Sega chose Bean and Bark to represent Sonic The Fighters instead of, you know, SONIC himself... also, it would have been nice to have Pepsiman in it (maybe Pepsi didn't allow it).
Nevertheless, Fighters Megamix was so cool! It's a real shame that Sega never bothered to make a FM sequel.
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| | "Re(3):Re(10):Old stories from New Urth" , posted Thu 26 Jan 11:55
quote:
The best part is the commercials.
Ishmael, was that the first time-specific link Easter Egg ever? I waited through the 30 second Zero 3 commercial only to find you'd also lined up directly afterward a real-life Kyoko in a Justice Gakuen commercial?! I almost had a heart attack. "[Grabs leg] Justice Gakuken: We'll polish up your young life." You bet it will! 
Unfortunately, Justice Gakuen has already been featured in this thread (and most threads), so we may need to talk about the Zero series, which is my other favorite thing. Loads of stories here.
And what a treat the video is. That 1998 Zero 3 tournament was Umehara's break-out global event, even before the Third Strike scene vs. Justin Wong. He was just a teenager!
That event is where daigo earned his nickname of "beast", so the legends go: the story from Valle went, "who is this kid? He's a beast!"
Maou will appreciate that Mikado arcade not only has a Project Justice machine, but somebody there has left copies of a player guide they compiled themselves, currently at version 4 and updated as recently as august 2016! Baba Mikado is amazing.
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| | "Re(5):Re(10):Old stories from New Urth" , posted Thu 26 Jan 22:59
quote:
I would be interested to hear if anyone has any personal experiences of Zero 1. Like with SFII ("There's a Street Fighter One?"), SF Zero 2 started the series (and fighting games) for me, and I suspect for quite a lot of people. But Zero 1 has a pretty neat dramatic battle mode at least!
The first time I heard of SF Zero 1 was in a gaming magazine which showed a preview of it (plus MK3 and Darkstalkers' Revenge). Due to the game's name, whoever wrote the article assumed it presented the story that happened BEFORE SF1 (even though they noted that Sagat already had his scar).
The preview already seemed interesting for the younger versions of Ryu, Chun-Li and Ken, and also for Charlie's debut. But I think it was only when the game was released that I found out that Guy was in it, too. It was a surprise to see a Final Fight hero in a Street Fighter game, but it was kinda cool as well.
I played SFZ1 quite a bit with Chun-Li, Guy and Charlie, although it was kinda hard (then again, I'm awful playing, so maybe the problem was me). I liked that game, but yeah, once SFZ2 was released, it completely overshadowed its predecessor. And I remember SFZ3 being insanely popular when it was released, even if nearly everyone playing it in the arcades in my city would just pick Ryu, Ken or Akuma with Z-ISM... but that's another story.
I can be any person in the world... maybe I'm this person right in front of you... maybe I'm not.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(6):Re(10):Old stories from New Urth" , posted Fri 27 Jan 04:19
Even back at the time SFA felt like a strange series to me. The criticism that was in vogue at the time was that the Street Fighter series couldn't move past SF2. So instead of putting out SF3 like fans hoped for they released this bizarre SF 1.5. This meant that not only couldn't Capcom count to three but they were somehow going backwards. Since then I've learned the reasons behind the birth of the Zero series but all that information did was reinforce my belief that most game companies are really winging it when it comes to what gets released.
SFA1 is a game that is very, very rough around the edges but in spite of that I rather like it. After the crippling difficulty of the US version of ST it was a relief to be able to play against the computer again. It was also nice to see new sprites on the characters. I may not have cared for all of them -to this day I can't stand how Ryu and Ken turned out- but making all the characters look like balloons from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade created a unique look. Sagat was now back to looking like the large, powerful man he was supposed to be and not the underweight guy with the tinny "Tiger!" voice from SF2. The new additions to the cast, such as Guy, were really granted a lot of life and attitude from this art style and no longer had to settle for the standard bob up and down animation that most characters had suffered from up to that point.
The backgrounds look like they had been knocked out in an afternoon but I still give credit to SFA1 for having one of the few subtle Bruce Lee references in fighting games by recreating the set of Way of the Dragon.
SFA1 may also have been the final word on the hidden characters. Unlike the information overload we live in, coming across game information wasn't easy. You either had to find news in a magazine or be willing to converse with someone who used Usenet. Game tricks were a precious commodity that were difficult to acquire. So SFA1 rewarded you for all your hard work in finding and inputting some long, arcane code by unlocking Dan. Congratulations.
My favorite memory of SFA1 involved, of all things, the O.J. Simpson trial. For those of you who don't know, the murder trial of O.J. Simpson was a massive news story in the United States with many people following the proceedings with a near-religious fervor. When the final verdict was read I happened to find myself in a university union. Hundreds of people had gathered around televisions to watch this event. Even though it was a huge area that was standing room only it was strangely quiet as everyone watched the proceedings. As the verdict was to be announced the entire building fell silent... except for the arcade in the back where an international student suddenly started loudly cursing in Vietnamese at the SFA1 cabinet.
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| | "Re(4):Re(10):Old stories from New Urth" , posted Sat 11 Feb 22:26
Well, while the SFZ trilogy is still the focus of this topic, there's an interesting article on EventHubs revealing that originally, Capcom intended to remake SFZ3 instead of SSFII Turbo.
My biggest surprise, however, was the reason for the change (the lead designer considered SSFII Turbo a "better tournament game"). Honestly, remaking SFZ3 would mean MUCH more work, considering the bigger roster (even if we assume they were considering the original SFZ3 arcade game, not the later versions with even more characters), the huge variety of moves, more stages and so on. Juli and Juni's special sub-boss intro would demand quite some work by itself...
Anyway, I guess that game won't ever get a HD remake considering Capcom's current situation... Then again, they did announce the Ultra SFII game with HD Evil Ryu and Violent Ken, so it's not impossible (only extremely unlikely).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| PSN: zonepharaoh
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| "SSFII Zero" , posted Mon 13 Feb 14:38
quote:
Well, while the SFZ trilogy is still the focus of this topic, there's an interesting article on EventHubs revealing that originally, Capcom intended to remake SFZ3 instead of SSFII Turbo.
The art world dodged an Udon-shaped bullet! Zero 3 is a lot of things, but it's aesthetically consistent and wonderful.
To tie this to the thread, I remember the roaring excitement of walking by a Zero 3 cabinet for the first time after having been vaguely aware it was coming out. Its thump-thump-thump bass tracks were exciting, a better match for the arcade than Zero 2's (much better) jazzy sounds. Sakura's V-ism colors were perfect (traditional sailor blue-white at last), and best of all, the PS1 home version was remarkable given the limitations. While I've tricked at least two people into buying Saturns, I never did, so we were stuck on the junk PS1 port of Zero 2 and Zero 2 Alpha for a while, but suddenly: what was this glorious Zero 3 home edition? So many more frames that I could notice compared with Zero 2 home edition based on memory alone, the non-stop Tekken-inspired variety of home modes, the thrill of beating and obtaining Shin Gouki and Guile on World Tour Mode, the extra care in putting art on screen during the loading... I remember all kinds of people buying it, people who didn't even play fighting games! It's the most thrilling home port I can remember since the SFC home port of the SFII and its variations. 1 million copies in Japan alone, I recall.
It's amazing that 16 years after its most robust home port up until that point and the univeral acclaim, Capcom would release SFV in such a feeble state. Eventually, I got the Zero collection on PS2 which had proper arcade-perfect editions, but ultimately, the hundreds of hours I spent training and being trained by friends was all on that marvelous PS1 port.
Meanwhile, there must be someone at the Cafe who actually has great stories of having owned the SSFIIX 3D0 port, right...right?!
人間はいつも私を驚かせてくれる。不思議なものだな、人間という存在は．．．
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| | "Re(3):Bar-log wins" , posted Tue 14 Feb 17:43:
quote:
I don't actually like A3 as a game but I played the heck out of it.
This is sort of truer for me now then it was then. I'd much rather take the classy, refined Zero 2 over Zero 3, but the latter's big dumb big-hearted fun was just too exciting then, and even today it's so great to go back to.
And in further efforts to be on-topic, I'll note that my funniest of my very very limited home-based SSFIIX memories (on the terrible PS1 Street Fighter Collection) was of the super-sissy announcer's mispronunciations. "Bar-log...wins!
Alpha 3 will always be one of my favourite games! It's definitely one of the most robust home ports of a fighting game ever. From the substantial addition of several characters (easy to forget that Guile wasn't in there till part 3's home port!) to the great World Tour Mode to the insanely fun 2v1 matches! I remember having such a killer time with that! Heck, that was even a feature in the home port of Alpha 1! But it was limited to Ken and Ryu vs Bison. Opening it up to every character was just soooooo stupidly fun. I mean, gameplay balance just goes out the window, but who cares when you can trap someone between two endlessly alternating spinning lariats!
Out of all the ports, I gotta actually give the edge to the Dreamcast one as it let you play as any 3 different characters instead of 2 clones vs 1 due to its increased ram vs the PSOne. Still, the PSOne port deserves all the credit in the world for running so smoothly. I remember Gamefan flipping out wondering how the intro, with every character sprite in quick succession, was even possible on the Playstation given its incredible limitations.
Ah good times.
Yeah I get that Street Fighter Alpha 2 is probably ultimately the more engaging serious game. It has this incredible feeling of two lone gunmen to it. Like there's so much tension between who makes the first move and who reacts and who is going to get absolutely wrecked by a custom combo. Also Alpha 2 had arguably 2 of the coolest stages ever, the endless field of grass in a thunderstorm ala Street Fighter 2: The Animated (The real) Movie and the waterfall.
BUT, I just had more fun with Alpha 3 and it's endless festivities. That just might be the most fun fighting game of them all for me.
www.art-eater.com
[this message was edited by nobinobita on Tue 14 Feb 17:45] |
| PSN: IkariLoona
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| "Re(1):FF2 vs. FF2S" , posted Wed 12 Apr 18:07
quote:
I don't know if this thread is the right place to ask this, but here it goes, anyway: does Fatal Fury 2 Special replace FF2 plot-wise?
I mean, both seem to share the general background, and FF2S has endings (Terry's is actually the same in both, only with a different picture), but I'd like to know if SNK considers that Tung Fu Rue, Duck King and Geese also participated of Krauser's tournament (in the original version, Tung and Duck just have their asses kicked by Krauser off-panel and Geese is considered dead)...
Geese being there kinda puts the whole thing in dream match territory, to say nothing of the Ryo fight, not to mention the lack of scenes like the televised display of the people that Krauser beat along the way. I think there's supposed to be some mook that officially declared which FF games are story-relevant through, but it'snot something I own or would be able to read...
...!!
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