Cross posted from the shmups thread, but over the weekend I ran through Darius Gaiden. Such a great hori shmup, and my favorite of the Darius series. Gameplay is tough but fair, with an adaptive difficulty depending on how many extra boss parts you destroy such as fins and whatnot. And my God, that Zuntata soundtrack, simply superb.
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Thanks for letting me know - I picked up the UMD for the original but it’s nice to see Kai is only 700 yen on the Japanese PS Store!
What did you think of Cursed Castilla? I played about half of the rather excellent 3DS port last year and remember digging it. But I’m absolutely mince at Ultimate GnG so far though haha!
(Oh, while I’m at it, did you play either Prinny platformer on PSP? I remember them taking a few cues from GnG, especially in the jumping physics)
Knocking out two in one night!
Gun-nac is pretty amazing… I can see going back to this again for a quick play.
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This is my second time playing through Game Boy Donkey Kong (first time was 3DS VC eight years ago) and I find myself being even more impressed this round than before.
It’s a superbly well designed platformer, where the level designs means you have plenty of opportunities to utilise Mario’s ambitiously-expanded moveset to the fullest.
The animation in particular is astounding given the lack of frames and sprite sizes the designers had to work with. They do a convincing job conveying the more weighty, characteristic physics that Mario expresses when changing direction, or falling down from heights.
It’s still surprising that the game isn’t brought up more often considering its quality and that it was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto. I suppose its handheld format (@D.Lo is on the money about an anti-handheld bias with Link’s Awakening) and branding (many may have dismissed it as a port of the arcade game) may have sealed the deal, but it really is a must play. It’s one of those games which is fun to play irrespective of the difficulty (which is still challenging) or content available. Something Miyamoto has previously expressed an interest in:
You know, you often hear people say that video games are just for killing time, but if that’s really all they were, there’s no way their popularity would have lasted this long. Video games have endured because of their immersive quality. Up till now, the main way games have immersed players is by having a high degree of replayability. And using a high difficulty level to raise the replayability has been what nearly all games have done.
And the other way has been to give players that feeling of “I want to see what’s next,” by adding content to the game. But what if you take away these two pillars and ask, how many games are there that make you want to come back again and again simply because it feels fun just playing them, without any emphasis on challenges or new content? Although this is something I’ve always aimed for, I’d have to say that there’s been very few games you could say that about.
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Finished Super R-Type today… Not a great game, the slow down is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
If it weren’t for that, I think it would be a lot more fun.
Play Metal Slug 2 if you want see a lot of slowdown, though it seems really bad in Super R-Type. I know it’s a early SNES title and all, but still. Congrats though.
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I remember Super R Type basically being nothing but slow down
I wonder if there is a “fixed” version out there. You know some sort of rom hacker probably at least attempted it.
Was it at least ported anywhere?
Castlevania Saturn is a good contender for slowdown queen as well.
Yeah there are. A certain collection has options for slowdown removal, making it much much more difficult.
Per the excellent Jeremy Parish,
(I may be confusing this with SNES Gradius)
Oh wow I had no idea it slowed down a lot.
First time beating Streets of Rage 2 on my Mega SG. I love this machine. SoR2 is still my favorite beat em up of all time (on console).
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Congrats man, it’s one of my fave beat em ups as well, I played it way back in the early 90s and it was one of my Christmas presents.
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Turtles in time on SNES might be my favorite now that I think about it but dang both games are essential beat em ups.
My neighbor has SoR1 when I had Final Fight and it looked kind of busted but at least we could play coop then he got SoR2. We played that a ton.
I never liked Sor3. Is that a fairly unpopular opinion?
A lot of people don’t like SOR3 so it’s not unpopular.
So besides SoR1&2, Golden Axe 1, Punisher & TMNT Hyperstone Heist what other good beat em ups are on the Genesis?
You’re dead to me!
Alien Storm technically counts as one. There’s also Battletoads and Double Dragon, Captain America and The Avengers, Comix Zone, Two Crude Dudes, etc.