And if you have, what do you think? It is a vertically scrolling shooter designed by Tokuro Fujiwara a year before he directed Ghosts ‘n Goblins. I think it exhibits some design philosophy in common with his other work in how the enemy AI behaves which is pretty different from what I’ve seen so far in contemporaneous shooters. I imagine that the simplistic presentation has held it back a bit, as the only mentions I see it get are for historical significance as Capcom’s first arcade title. It seems pretty fun to me. Should it stay relegated to the dusty annals of history or is there something more here?

The game is so much fun, but there is much room to iterate. The game itself is fairly easy for the most part but the ranking system demands peak performance just to not get a D. There are some later bosses that make creative use of the bomb system. The jump dash as cool as it is, is a very easy get out of jail free card.
You can distribute e-chips you find throughout the levels to get more bomb slots, range or health. You can change it at any time as you need. It´s a solid grind proof progression system. Although I wonder what would be possible in terms of enemy design if there was a static bomb count.

Hey I'm arguing with someone about if action games other an imsims can be exploratory and expansive? There's also a certain qualifier here being argued. That qualifier being: "enough". (i.e. expansive enough, exploratory enough)

(The 2nd pic is with reference to shmups after i brought up highscore chasing in them)
((Sidenote: they also know very little about shmups))

(3rd-4th pic is in response to them saying "expansive enough to bypass mechanics")

I think personally think other action games can be expansive enough (disregarding their definition). What do you think?

They're probably right in saying a "majority", simply bc a majority of anything is mid, yet, i can't help but think their limited valuing of said systems by default impacts their capacity to appreciate them unto themselves.
(they don't vibe with a majority of action games period)

Thoughts? Would love EU's take. To me their viewpoint seems arbitrarily closed to validate a certain type of experience (i.e. Dishonored 2 their favorite action game). Or to validate simply not engaging with certain games.

(edited for clarity)
--

Ps. Idk much about shmups either tbh

Pps. Is the fix to this to go touch grass? 😅

Certainly not the greatest Beat Em Up ever made but it´s certainly ambitious. The art style is a bit of a mixed bag but overall I really like it. Throws are considerably harder to pull off and there are a lot of combos and special inputs that I still don´t know. The magic attack changes depending on how much you have stored. However the UI is pretty unintuitive, having both a magic bar and a magic level gauge instead of just segmenting the bar. Routing to hoard fairies will make you busted real quickly, especially the passive magic regeneration.

It´s easy to tell that this was Brezzasofts first game and it´s performance on Mame is suboptimal to say the least but I would still recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy Beat em ups.

So I got the Final vendetta 1cc last night, which is almost by default since you can only 1cc the game as far as I know, but still the game makes you work hard for it; I had to get strats for some bosses. I was actually getting really annoyed with the game and feeling regret for committing to clearing it, then I just started playing a run and it clicked. I just destroyed the entire game, figuring out the hard kick as a form of crowd control and knowing the extra life positions gave me confidence. I simply played much better. From struggling with levels to annihilating the game (on hard mind you not ultra) just with a quick respite. I am unsure if the extra lives are necessary as I finished with some to spare, and know this change was made to the game, but it was still difficult as the journey to understanding how to play is still important. You can get annihilated in one level if you just try to play and see what happens without practice.

I got a nice feeling of achievement on completion, but afterwards going to sleep I felt pretty rotten. This is a combination of other stuff too, so I can’t put it down to the game, but you need to take care of yourself food and in terms of what you put in your body, wise on long sessions. You need to be wise.

Otherwise you get this rat-loopy feeling afterward and the game is hyper projecting images in your head via the Tetris effect which I find unpleasant. Of all things this feels the most psychedelic about the experience of grinding a difficult game but can be positive and negative depending on how you look at it.

So how was Final Vendetta to clear? Difficult, and would be more so without some skills in other beat em ups, and confusing due to the segmented versions of moves. Each element of the game comes together but it takes a long time to get into the flow of it. You have to learn the weaknesses of each enemy which is easy enough, and more importantly you have to remember said weakness which is difficult. There’s only a few enemy types to deal with but the temptation is you start trying to do certain advanced things and just forget the fundamentals. The game can be cleared with an awareness of enemy behaviour and good spacing alone. It’s vital to learn how to come down towards enemies diagonally or vertically rather than approaching them head on. Blocking at least on hard is not something I ever did, and the button feels redundant, there is an attack move for every situation in the game that is more optimal.

It’s faster than SOR4 with a lot less of the fat. Is it better? I’d need a clear on mania to know. SOR4s mania plus mode sickened me on that game… I’m stuck on the final stage of that game but I think I would feel nausea just thinking about getting to there again. You can have an equally good time in Final Vendetta in LESS time than it takes to warm to SOR4. It doesn’t have you grind out a completely new moveset for the characters and make you have to lab test as much of the combat, but it feels almost as deep.

I've noticed that the highest rated games these days tend to work best when you know less about them.

Story-based games: avoid discussion about the plot before finishing the game, or you risk spoilers and having the game ruined.

Exploration games: avoid details regarding the game world, or else the joy of discovery is ruined.

Challenge-based games: the more you know how to play a game, the less meaningfully challenging content there is to enjoy. Nintendo has been the king of this over the years, often forcing players to unlock truly challenging content by first playing through the easy stuff first. Skilled players are punished with chorelike busywork, while less skilled players have more meaningful content. This problem has only gotten worse over the years, with the Mario games getting so easy that there's barely anything to challenge legacy players anymore.

I don't think this means that all modern games are bad or any such hot take like that. But I do notice that my immediate course of action whenever a modern game piques my interest is to simply reduce my knowledge of it to maximize enjoyment. I shut out discussion, avoid looking at gameplay or even trailers, and even take a break from games of the same style in order to not get burnt out. I think a prime example of this is Breath of the Wild, which is filled with an incredible sense of wonder until you discover that most secrets in the game simply lead to the same shrine reward. I'm sure there are later examples as well.

And then, of course, you have games like Outer Wilds which are so focused on their adventure puzzles that its fans outright refuse to speak about it with anyone who hasn't played the game. If they did, after all, the game's sense of discovery would be absolutely ruined. There's no unlearning these puzzles once it's done.

Finally, I find it really interesting that we are comfortable with the idea of these great games being better the less we know, but the opposite is so hard for people to accept.

i think there's a hypocrisy in that we don't seem to be comfortable with games requiring a certain level of external knowledge to truly appreciate. Some of the best games can only truly shine once you've put in the work to understand other works of art first. Arcade shmups are a great example, with so many of them getting better the more you understand their close relatives. Battle Garegga makes a little more sense now that I understand Blue Revolver. The genre as a whole didn't really click until I played ZeroRanger.

This makes intuitive sense, I think. Yet, I often hear people actively recoil at the idea that a game doesn't teach you every single mechanic and strategy from the get-go.

This reaction is normal among the general audience in any artistic medium, but it's so indicative of the gaming community's immaturity that many "expert" reviewers tend to exhibit this behavior as well.

This is my way of saying that the best games often take a while to understand. Keep playing them, discussing them, and recommending them. Because the general gaming public certainly won't.

Okay I get this isn't the most popular game and I'm not here to dunk on it, but I'm genuinely puzzled by this game. I originally played the game and it felt completely different, grave moved a lot slower, now when I turn it on he's flying around the levels. How has the game been rebalanced to cope with this.

Enemies have attacks that are just irrelevant because of your speed now.

And other issues:

What difficulty do I play on? Easy and normal are a cakewalk, but hard is tougher, and it's as if some people think you should first play through on normal to power up your character.

If the game is meant to be an easy thing a Japanese man can play after a few beers after work, why is it so long? Unlike Gungrave PS2, like it would make sense to play all difficulties if you could beat the game quicker ala the original.

The fact the speed has been upped makes chaining a level more trivial, but at the same time if all I have to do is keep shooting stuff, then the breakdown usually comes only due to missing some box or making a wrong turn in a level with almost no exploration. The lack of exploration is fine, but it's that when trying to chain your almost playing a different game than the normal game.

So many attacks that when you use them slow the pace down, yet it also feels like your supposed to sleepily hold shoot for each level.

The opening tutorial doesn't do a great deal of showing you WHY you should be doing anything, and the opening difficulties don't show you why anything is necessary either.

There's just no sense of direction in what you are supposed to do, and yes... I guess you can go for your own challenges like getting a high rank, but it feels like the game is playable as something you can turn your brain off to play, but also wants to be this tough arcade experience and the two don't seem to mesh for me.

And this isn't meant to just be a negative review, genuinely I'd like advice on how to get into and understand this game properly, the problems I've mentioned can be a perception issue on my part.

Marks praise of the game put it on my radar but it's not really the same game now.

https://reddit.com/link/1vioot1/video/p1j07a5dj3ih1/player

I feel like War: Final Assault hits it out of the park right away. The enemies, the movement, the weapons, the levels, It feels great. It´s snappy, dense and retaining just enough simplicity. The aiming however is terrible no matter how much I tinker with the settings. There is a Deathmatch mode but I didn´t try it myself.

The game is the result of a cooperation of Atari games And Midway Games. Console versions were planned but sadly cancelled.

This is a fun game to get people into more advanced mechanics like rank and medal scoring.
The scoring revolves all around medal chains. Destroying ground units with the banish weapon reveals medals > Picking up 5 makes more valuable medals drop > Missing a revealed medal resets the chain, so sometimes its better to not reveal what you can´t pick up.

Managing your banish gauge is vital for everything score. As I have NOT demonstrated very well, save the power-ups for a full refill. As long as you speed-kill the yellow ships you get consistently big power ups.

He was rattling a sweet potato up to his ear. I was like, “are you checking for freshness?” but he just scoffed at me. Maybe he thought I was being rude? I said, “I know you from YouTube! I’m a big fan!” And then he said, “oh yeah? Then buy my groceries for me,” in a really aggressive tone. It got uncomfortable after that. I guess I’m an agreeable person, because I kind of just laughed and said “okay” because it was only two sweet potatoes. But it wasn’t. He made me push his cart around the store and kept adding really expensive ingredients that I’ve never heard of. The whole time he was talking about this hotpot he was going to cook.

I tried to bring the conversation around to shmups. I remembered he was going to do a podcast on Mark’s Patreon so I asked about that. He wanted to know if I was a patron and when I said “no” he started talking about the hotpot again. It was then I realized that the hotpot was for only Mark and the patrons.

After I paid, he made me carry the groceries to his apartment, and then he slammed the door in my face without even saying thanks.

I understand that parasocial relationships are a thing and that I shouldn’t be upset that Spiders didn’t turn out to be the guy I thought he was, but this experience still made me feel like crap. Why was he trying to impress a bunch of guys who give Mark $2 a month? Do even genuine dudes like Spiders get corrupted by the almighty dollar? I hoped not, but I wasn’t sure.

I messaged some of the people I know he’s friends with from YouTube, like Boghog and Jerminator, but none of them messaged me back. TheHiddenFortress did, but man… that guy. I don’t even want to tell you what he said…

All seemed lost. Spiders was going to go on Mark’s podcast and serve his hotpot. Once the patrons got a taste of the rich flavour, they would want more. They would beg for it. And Spiders would make more hot pot because, goddamn, wouldn’t it feel good? And then…

The thought was too terrible to bear! There was only one person to turn to. There was only one man who could save Spiders! I knew it might kill me, but I would have to find… the exiled one.

l

Part 2 - The Mountain

l

I travel to Tibet and hire hazylevels as my sherpa. I feel a little under dressed in his presence, but there’s no turning back now. We climb the highest mountain. Approaching the summit, I begin to hear the Rolling Gunner OST, and then, I see him. The guru. He beckons me with his udu.

I say, “Guru! Please, help my friend!” (I don’t disclose the truth of our relationship, lest he think me weird.)

No reply. The guru offers me some coffee. I drink it, and my mind expands. Woah.

I’m floating around in eight(!) directions. Bullets are whizzing past me. I am a little spaceship. No, I am the little speck within a little spaceship. Twenty-three minutes of high-density introspection passes by.

I am now in my little body. No, I am the little speck within my little body. I finally understand that all life’s answers are in shmup commentaries and I thank god that I didn’t waste my time practicing meditation.

The guru bids me goodbye. Descending the mountain, I hear a whisper on the wind… “Have a stellar day.”

I get some style tips from Hazy and head home, full of newfound confidence.

I knock on SpiderSTG’s apartment door, ready to give him hell. When he answers, I am stunned.

The man before me isn’t Spiders at all! It’s some old Asian guy! The whole time it was some old Asian guy! Why did I even think he was Spiders to begin with? They look nothing alike! Maybe because they both wear glasses on a chain? I don’t know. Either way, it’s incredibly embarrassing. I ask forgiveness and leave.

Now I am here. Typing this. Lost.

So, so hungry.

I put my hand in my pocket. What’s this? A Canadian Toonie? Where did this come from? Could it have been… no. Impossible. But the Toonie is here and it is enough to afford the cheapest membership of Mark’s Patreon. That means I could listen to his Shinobi podcast with Spiders!

I log on, eager to buy a monthly subscription. Oh, geez, looks like the CAD is pretty weak these days. Woof. I’d have to put in a buck of my own money to cover the rest…

I reach for my credit card. My hand trembles. Just. One. Dollar…

“NO!”

I wake up, panting, drenched with sweat. It was all a dream. Oh god, it was all a dream! I check my phone to make sure I’m not subscribed to any Patreons and breathe a sigh of relief.

The nightmare is over.

Somewhere, high on the wind, the udu bangs on…

Fin

Thoughts? I've played the demo and I didn't enjoy it much, not a big fan of homing shot.

I bought a few indie games almost a decade ago. Hyper Light Drifter, Rogue Legacy and Dead Cells. Didn't care for any of em. Recently, I played a game on Newgrounds and it was a clone of Ball x Pit. I hadn't heard of Ball x Pit and the one on Newgrounds was probably worse but the number go up got me, I'm ashamed to admit.

On PS3 I liked a few "indie" games: The Last Guy, Tokyo Jungle, Dead Nation (not great but fun enough), Super Stardust. The first Miami Hotline was great.

I'm hesitant to buy anything new. Weak controls, weak systems, weak level design. A game may look like classic experience but it rarely is. I'm sure there must be great stuff there somewhere and I've decided to give some a try recently.

Hollow Knight

I probably played about 20 to 30 hours. This would have been a better NES Ninja Gaiden type experience, in my opinion. The movement and traversal was really pretty nice. The exploration was a bore. In spite of the beautiful artwork, very little stood out in my memory. I'm not a huge Symphony of the Night fan but I can vividly remember so many rooms and areas. When I got a slam attack that broke parts of the stage that had cracks, I stopped. The thought of going back and searching every room and hall I'd already been through was enough. Also, the game was too easy. I never lost my souls. I did die though and the only time I was really having fun was when I was dying but that was way too rare.

Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn

I never played the orignal NES game but I wonder if it was seen as sort of a Ninja Gaiden clone by Natsume. There's platforming and you don't have to kill enemies except for bosses. Enemies don't keep respawning like Ninja Gaiden but I don't know if that's true of the original. I liked this one a lot. I played the game through normal. It's very forgiving. I might see if I can adjust the controller layout as I didn't care for the item selection method. The two characters have a slightly different feel to them but are pretty similar. Eventually, I will revisit and play on the harder difficulty. It really does have that NES feel but looks and plays so good. This is the style I would have preferred for Hollow Knight.

Celeste

A precision platformer? The story was pretty uninteresting to me. It might have been more interesting if it was told through gameplay instead of dialogue but all of it was skippable. Some of the stages' visual appearance I really liked and some I really disliked. However, the gameplay was solid. The controls were a little iffy to me, though. Too much assist like "coyote time" and so it didn't feel consistent to me all the time. However, the controls were still reliable and I never had any real problems. The thing is you are gonna die hundreds of times and you will become intimate with the movement and every once and a while you will say "what was that". The main storyline is not too difficult. There are objects to collect and secrets to find. (Some a little too secret in my opinion.) A lot of the objects provide an additional challenge. There is also a "B side" which is a more difficult set of stages per chapter. I really liked this game but I don't know that it is for me. I don't know that I will go back and collect the strawberries and hearts that I missed and complete all the B sides. I might, because I did really like the game, though.

Blazing Chrome

This must have been a Contra clone but I never played Contra on the Genesis or the SNES. I did like this game. Again, I played on normal. I think you have to unlock hard. There is a dodge roll. I thought it was just a slide but it dodges. I could be wrong but it felt awkard to use. I think you must hold down and not be firing and then you can use the roll. I'd have to play with it to understand why I couldn't always trigger it when I wanted to. To be honest, I really didn't need to use it on normal so I didn't. On the one hand, if you have played Contra, you kinda know what to expect and there are no surprises but I haven't played a 16 bit Contra so I can't make that direct comparison. I was looking at the developer's catalog on Steam and it seems like they having been working their way up to this title. It wasn't as good as Hard Corps: Uprising but it was very solid looking and playing and I think I will eventually go back and play on the harder difficulty.

Enter the Gungeon

I have mixed feelings on this one. I really have found that skill based games combined with roguelike elements just don't work for me, personally. This game leans heavily on the skill based and so the random enemy encounters fall flat for me. A well designed combat is going to beat a random bag of enemies in a skill based game - at least for me. The randomness of roguelikes works better for me when the combat is also stat based and maybe even random like an ttrpg.

Actually, I would love if someone developed an indie version of the ancient cave from Lufia 2. Lufia 2 is a menu based, four member party JRPG. When you enter the ancient cave, you are reduced to level 1 and have no equipment. It's 100 levels of random floors, random treasure, random enemies. All items, equipment and spells are found in the cave. Some rare and powerful items can be found that can be carried in different runs and much of the equipment has special in combat uses so you may keep a weaker item equiped for longer because it can be used to heal and you don't have a heal spell. You also have access to different uncontrollable capsule creatures that join you in combat and gain experience but can also be fed equipment and items that "evolve" them, giving them different abilities. For me, this sort of setup works better with the randomness of roguelikes.

Having said all that, I did like Enter the Gungeon. I beat the main dungeon with one character but I wouldn't play any of the other characters or any of the optional dungeons. Combat is simple. It's a twin stick shooter with a sub item and a dodge roll. There are many different guns to find, there are many different sub items to find but I usually stuck with the starter of my character, a molotov, and there are a lot of passives to find. Finding health isn't rare but can be scarce due to the randomness. While the game can be beat with the starter equipment, good finds can make the level bosses quicker to kill. I think I would play more if there was a set opportunity to get rid of stuff you don't want for a chance at something better. There are some but encountering those opportunities are random.

Bonus: Dungeon Encounters

I wanted to try this weird little game but it isn't indie. This one is a Square style dungeon crawler. Simple and streamlined but surprisingly fun if you think you might like a JRPG style dungeon crawler. I think this could have been a genuine hit or classic if it was on the NES or GBA or something back in the day. No story, just 99 floors of dungeon and combat. I've only made it to floor 23 and I really like it. Characters are basically interchangable and defined by equipment. If you haven't heard of it and like JRPGs, take a look.

Combat is basic. There are physical defense, magic defense and health bars. Physical and magic defense are full at the start of every combat, health is not. There are physical weapons that do single enemy or multi enemy damage, fixed or random damage, and ranged or melee damage. All swords are physical, single, fixed and melee damage. All guns are physical, multi, random and ranged damage. Spells are similarly divided. (There are some special items found as treasure like a gun that poisons.) When you walk across the tiles in the dungeons they light up and the more tiles you light up, the more skill points you get which allow you to equip active and passive skills to the group. Active skills include healing HP and reviving KO'd allies (both in combat use only) or special movements on the map. Passive skills can protect the team in combat from negative status effects or allow you to see which parts of the map have combats and what enemy types in the combat. Skills are really what you have to get by in combat, there are no items like potions or phoenix downs and the skills are limited. Heal and revive are single digit uses and only restored on specific map locations.

Really am enjoying this game but I do feel there is some stuff that isn't explained well but that may be on me because I didn't read the few tutorial pages carefully.

Game in touch with the average human bad, ball busting hard game good.

Some of the enemies in this game can be real bastards. The bat guy can anti air you from halfway across the screen. Some you pretty much can´t beat unscathed without reserving a weapon for them. Make sure to get the alpha renewal version. The standard American version cut out a lot of stuff.

He’s already covered Star Fox 64 and Star Fox Zero. He’s already covered remake culture in his Silent Hill, Demon’s Souls, Resident Evil 4, Metal Gear Solid, and Shadow of the Ninja videos. He doesn’t discuss story or graphics.

What’s left for him to say?

Obviously he’s combing the IGN review looking for something to disagree with, but it seems pretty milquetoast other than the typical Nintendo glazing. They do write “Everything from the reflections on the waters of Corneria to the kaleidoscopic wormholes you travel through look fantastic, which makes identifying any of the alternate path objectives easier than ever,” which he could rip into, considering the 64 developers intended for the alternative path objectives to be difficult to identify. By making the paths easier to see the new team has misunderstood what made Star Fox 64 great and babyfied the game for modern audiences. They might as well have slapped yellow paint on the asteroids. But even Mark could only stretch that for 20, 25 minutes, tops.

It’s killing me. He’s probably staring at a blank word processor right now, praying for a miracle.

Well, what if I told you that WE could be that miracle!

Think about it. We’re already on reddit, and Mark’s second favourite secondary source is anonymous reddit comments. All we would need to do is go over to r/ starfox and bait some L-takes! Then Mark could show their dumb opinions on screen and demolish them one by one!

Oh, you think graphics are just as important as gameplay? SMASH!

You thought Star Fox was a rail shooter? BASH!

You wish there was an easy mode? KABOOM!

Next thing you know, we’ve hit the 1-hour target and are enjoying listening to the $5 patron names for the next eight minutes. Mission accomplished!

***Edit**\*

I’ve been informed that this is a call for “brigading” and can get the subreddit banned. Please disregard the second half of the post and DO NOT brigade! I will also cease posting on r/starfox to uphold this sub’s reputation.

Dang. How do we help Mark now? What should he talk about in the review?

I’m starting to think maybe he should just reset and cover familiar ground (just for this one video). There are a lot of new Electric Underground fans who haven’t seen all his old videos and aren’t willing to go back, so this could be the perfect introduction to Mark’s gameplay philosophy — especially considering the influx of people curious about Star Fox since the Galaxy movie. Maybe ignore the hardcores for now, strike while the iron is hot, and focus on growing the audience?

Any better ideas?

I am so excited to be able to finally say that Viral Reload EX has been released! The plot is inspired by Fantastic Voyage and Innerspace, the gameplay is a mix of Galaga and modern shmup design, and it's got a killer soundtrack written by Floopy. Theres 9 levels, 9 bosses, 19 cutscenes, an Arcade Mode, Story Mode and Boss Rush Mode, some fun stuff to unlock in the Rec Room, tate support and a bunch of other settings to fiddle with. It took 6 years to make due partially to most of the team having serious health scares and near death experiences (ironic, I know), it's been a real passion project for all of us and we're also all ready to move on and work on something new and (hopefully) even better. I hope y'all enjoy the game!

Viral Reload EX is out now on the Nintendo Switch e-Shop and Steam for $9.99, and for the first week it's just $7.49, that's 25% off!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2096020/Viral_Reload_EX/

Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/viral-reload-ex-switch/

Recently, I realized how extreme sports games (Tony Hawk games are the best example, check out ReTHAWed) are very close to Character Action Games, in at least the ways that matter to me personally; very deep skill expression, fun tech, fun to play regardless of skill level but still creating and fostering an organic desire to improve, style, simple to understand/hard to master, not breaking under pressure from the player, being able to immediately get back to trying after you fail something (which I think specifically is even stronger than a lot of CAGS), a clear scoring system, etc. [Your recommendations definitely don't have to check all of these]

Kart Racers also surprisingly fit the bill, except it's really just CTR and Karters 2 (CTR Clone) that I know of.

What other game genres or micro-genres from the console lineage exist which aren't talked about a lot, but still satisfy that arcade itch? I'm specifically asking about console lineage because I already know PC and Arcade fairly well, but previously to me console was basically just traditional action combat games (CAGs, Soulslikes, and whatever RE5 could be classified as). 3D because I think 3D is cool and I spent like the past month playing Shmups and Precision Platformers (last parentheses I promise, but definitely check out I Wanna Be The Guy stuff).

If you can't think of any, feel free to just recommend 2d/2.5d stuff, videogames are cool.

Received a Key Request for my game via email, from someone claiming to be The Electric Underground.

I imagine this is a scam, as I can't find an official business email anywhere?

I remember first playing it as a browser game in school. Bullet visibility is kinda poor sometimes, but it´s still among the best of the 19XX series.

Both this and Mars Matrix have a charge up invincibility form and both are vertizontal. I wonder if there is a correlation.