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So, here’s how it started. Ghouls n Ghosts is the best game ever. I mean, it’s probably not the best game full stop, but it’s far and away the best game like it. Like what? Runny, jumpy, shooty. There’s no game that’s kinda like Ghouls that’s half as good as Ghouls.
Given that, it’s a deep source of shame for me that I’ve never cleared it. Like much that brings shame, I’ve resolved this mostly through repression. When I’m playing Ghouls I ache knowing nothing I could do with a pad that would be as worthy as beating it, and when I’m not playing it I’m sealing all thought of it behind bulwarks of ego.
And then Ghegs happens to mention that he’s playing it. And while he might not sign up for the previous two paragraphs, he also holds it in high regard and also has not gotten the deed done. So our pact was that we should both knuckle down and work on that there clear, while sharing notes, woes and fellow-feeling here on gamingjournals.
Clear means both loops, of course. I’m strangely unsure just how close I’ve gotten. I’ve looped it in years gone by, but only a handful of times, and I’m not sure how deep I went into the second loop on any of those runs. I do know that, back when I was at my best, many (most) of my plays ended at the st5 boss. So we’ll call that my ceiling. Progress begins when I’m beyond that, when I’m clearing the first loop.
Then what do we call what I’m doing now, which is ending games shy of the st4 boss? Rust does not seem a sufficient term. I think perhaps, based on this and plentiful other evidence, that I am significantly worse at action gaming of all sorts, thanks to age. This is unsurprising yet somewhat distressing to experience. Still, we’ll save the chronicles of the aging gamer for my book deal. We can regard the decline in Ghouls skill in isolation for now.
I’m playing whatever version is nearest at hand. So far that has meant a bit of MAME (World version of the ROM) and a bit of Capcom Classics Collection Remixed on the PSP. I am getting much better results on MAME. I am not at all sure that they are identical in difficulty, but that’s a slippery thing to determine. The PSP game, despite being apparently emulating the arcade, does not offer the same options as the arcade dip switches. They are both running on default diff, which both label as Normal, but the scales aren’t the same so that might mean anything. Life stock and extra life milestones are identical. There’s nothing obviously different, but I think the spawn rate might be just a bit higher on the PSP. Like I’m killing twice as many reapers by the time I cross the river. But then I could be imagining all that.
So that’s how it started. I would say the challenge is underway, but there’s not much of competition in it. We’re not racing to the clear, just pursuing it side-by-side. So the pursuit is underway? The thing is on! Description of follies to follow.
Haven’t written one of these in a while, nor has many others on this site. We’ve all neglected it, but let’s put that aside and talk about games again.
For a couple of months I had an inkling to play the Mega Man Legends series again. These thoughts consisted mostly of the fact that I enjoyed it when I was 16 and it was cool and enjoyable. Riding this thought was also the fact I superficially decided against playing through Mega Man Legends 2. I set it aside because the control scheme was not exactly the same, or so I thought at the time. I don’t know where my copies of the games went off to, so I chose to emulate them in ePSXe.
Revisiting Mega Man Legends was a generally enjoyable experience. I often find myself critiquing a game’s difficulty as if it weighs on the experience heavily, but I’m not sure it’s always exactly warranted. That being said, Mega Man Legends is an easy game. This didn’t matter much to me as I spent much of the game in feelings of nostalgia. The shard of my 16 year old self coming through my memories of Rock and Roll’s prepubescent voices, Tiesel’s cocky shouting and Bonne’s lovesick quivering. Also in zooming around in the jet skates. Gotta love those jet skates.
Another reason for wanting to play MML again was because I did indeed want to give the sequel a real chance. Another part was probably the hubbub surrounding Mega Man Legends 3 cancellation. I wanted to see if finishing Mega Man Legends 2 would make me one of the many distraught MML fans who really wanted that sequel.
Having finishing the game, I think a third game would be very cool, especially in this age of gaming where a company like Capcom is expected to put out a triple A product for such a franchise. At the same time I’m not disappointed or upset. But if a new game came out, I would expect a much, much larger world than the previous 2 games. That reality excites me. As both games end you wish there was more to do and explore.
Mega Man Legends 2 was a good sequel. Many aspects of the original were improved upon. Notably I liked the new areas, bosses and enemies, as well as the new ruin areas. Since you travel to different islands in this game, instead of being stuck on one (Kattelox) there are varied scenes. Snow, desert, tropical. Getting this variety was refreshing and I loved the music for the different areas, as well as the battle tracks that play when Reaverbots shoot out of the ground in the over world.
One thing I missed about the first game was the ruins being interconnected with each other. That gave the world an interesting sense of cohesiveness. But in 2 it’s not there at all, in continuity to the setting.
Overall it was a carefully made game with the heart of Capcom that made it worth playing. And another one of those games that makes me laugh.
Moving on then to another Capcom title, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition.
I managed to place 4th at my last local tournament. It consisted of about 40 entrants. Normally I don’t get past a 4th opponent. But this time, I finally performed in a satisfactory way. For many months I was having trouble adjusting to delay PS3 and HDTV’s introduce to the game. This is noticeable to me because I play the game on a 360, which has 1 less frame of input delay and because I play on a CRT which is about another frame of delay. I was having trouble hitting my 1 frame links and for my character Rose this is important because her most important link is 1 frame. Messing it up can lead to a big punish… anyway. I finally adjusted to it and that may be why I did better this time around.
I was put into the Loser’s bracket by a Blanka player which is hard for Rose… and I wasn’t very experienced in the match. After that I had to fight a Ken player who eliminated me in a previous tournament. I managed to beat him and after that I seemed to ride a momentum, knocking out about 5 other players. E.Honda, Cammy, (Balrog, Ryu,) Sagat players also fell to my Rose. I got to our strong Dudley player and lost fairly convincingly. But the best part is I have officially earned money playing a fighting game. Which is…. something. I profited $5 for placing 4th. Overall I’m satisfied but I’ve been putting some time into learning Evil Ryu and Makoto lately. Playing Rose all the time isn’t the most fun for me. I hope to do better next tournament but I need to practice more for sure.
Lately it had been on my mind that I was interested in starting up some kind of RPG. In my friends radio talk show, she talked about her Top 3 NES games and Dragon Warrior 4 was one of them. When I heard this I thought, “well, I haven’t really played any the DQ games all the way through, nor do I ever hear praise for the NES DQ games, why don’t I try it?” and so I have and I am.
Like I mentioned I only played some of DQ VIII on the PS2 and honestly I wasn’t big on it… the game took a while to get going and then I game over’d in a really lame dungeon and called it quits. Perhaps the game deserves a little more credit from me.
Another reason I was interested in trying a NES DQ game was just to see for myself all the similarities to it and the Mother series which blatantly clones many of the DQ game’s aspects. The text that runs during battles, your party wiping out and not having to start from when you last saved, each character having their own limited inventory space (I actually love this aspect of EarthBound.)
Even in Dragon Warrior 4, the game is divided into chapters and each thus far start you with a completely different character whom you aim to meet up with the rest of the characters. I’ve always loved this aspect of the mother games, mostly for 2 and 3, and it’s a pleasure to experience it again from the place it came from. I love it because you get to have more fun with the initial leveling up process and I like how each character can differ stat and skill wise early on.
I’ve really been enjoying the game. A very charming experience for an NES RPG. I haven’t had to grind all that much, just what was needed. I just started Chapter 3 which stars a character who aims to be the best arms merchant in the world. You need a little patience to play this game but not much, the battles and text go by quickly.
Some of you may know I’ve taken up playing Super Street Fighter IV, and have aimed to play at a tournament level. But something’s still missing with my play to become where I want it to be. Specifically with my character Rose.
For now I think I just need more discipline to my training. Right now I only practice FADC combos and my combos, safe jump timing practice and occasionally matchup specific things regarding which moves beat what. My safe jumps do need some work. And it’s finally coming to fruition about what it takes to play a fighting game competitively. Which is exciting as a new, serious fighting game player.
I’ve been to three SSFIV tournaments so far using Rose. But I haven’t made it past a 3rd opponent yet. I want to break through this barrier, at least. But now Super is over and Arcade Edition is taking over the tournament scene. I will still be using Rose unless I find a good reason to switch. But I’d like to try the new characters at least, they are all pretty neat. I’m most interested in Evil Ryu and I admit for fanboy reason. He’s just so damn evil!!
Since my UN Squadron post I started playing the arcade version and it’s really good. I got the 1cc after 4 hours of practice. Not too hard and still a very fun game. I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a game to 1cc.
Anyway I just tried the hardest mode on the arcade version, difficulty 8 (Hardest), 4 being normal. Finding the normal mode being a tad easy, I wanted to see what hardest offered. From what I could tell all the non-popcorn enemies have a bit of more health, bosses and their parts have more health, and bullets are faster and for boss battles, are shot out notably more frequently. I managed to squeak by with a couple save state re-dos on two of the bosses up to Mission 7 I believe which has the Minks, the ocean battleship stage.
While the large cannons on the battleship having more health put a wrench in the mix, also these napalm dropping popcorn ships just constantly come in after each other. Much more frequently than normal difficulty. This made it so I couldn’t hover by the large cannons as the screen scrolled at the beginning of the fight to destroy the cannons. The napalm would make me fly up. But then I couldn’t deal much damage except with my sub-weapon and enemy fire filled the screen too much. I’m stumped right now as to how to beat it, at least using Shin. Maybe Greg’s downwards shot could do it.
Since I got the 1cc on U.N. Squadron (AC) I tried Carrier Air Wing. Cool game. I like it. Similar to U.N. Squadron and similar quality from what I could tell. I’ll try to play it a bit more, maybe go for 1cc.
As for my SNES adventures, they have been discontinued as my buddy asked for his SNES back before I expected him too. The next adventure was going to be for Illusion of Gaia and Super R-Type. I got to play Gaia a bit though. Oh well.
In the midst of my studying for final exams, I decided to pick up a neat little “casual” game known as Fruit Ninja.
The game consists of cutting up fruit thrown onto the screen for points by swiping across the touchscreen–somewhat like cutting enemies in Mazan: Flash of the Blade or possibly whipping enemies in Castlevania: The Arcade. Swiping 3 or more fruit in a single quick stroke yields a combo bonus. In two of the three 1P modes, bombs also pop onto the screen to hinder the player; a cut bomb in the standard mode yields an instant game over, while a cut bomb in arcade mode removes points.
I’ve been mainly working on Zen mode, a 90-second mode with no bombs and infinite lives. Seems like the more balanced of the two “caravan” modes; Arcade mode has the hazard of bombs (which I miss seeing in Zen mode), but the existance of status buff bananas tend to make this mode somewhat luck-based, meaning that equal performance across several rounds may not yield consistent scores.
Maybe I’ll try the standard mode, but it being an endless mode, it’s hard to play when I’m pressed for time.
My current Arcade record is 475, and my current Zen record is 228, and I play on a Motorola Atrix. It being widescreen, the game forcily stretches itself to fill the screen, an effect that really grinds my gears, and the Atrix’s touchscreen is prone to derping at times (twisting lightly on the phone seems to fix this). Anyways, if you play this game, add me on OpenFeint! My (current) username is Raydere no Bousou.
This box art is hype!
boring US logo
Super Castlevania IV has always been a favorite SNES game of mine. I never owned it but I rented it as a kid. Even back then, I was instantly enchanted by the uniquely dark atmosphere of the game. I primarily attribute this to the soundtrack which is unlike any other SNES soundtrack. The various instrumentation: wind instruments, piano, orchestral strings, electric organ, horns, realistic and earthy bass sounds and percussion, all come together to make the side scrolling legend Castlevania come to be more imaginative than it is on screen and in game play. The soundtrack is what I always liked most about the game, though the presentation and game play are nothing short of classic Castlevania. Rondo of Blood is also lauded for its soundtrack and both are wonderful, but Super Castlevania IV’s music always leaves me in awe because of what it did with the SNES hardware.
bad ass jpn logo
Revisiting the game has been a treat. The intro sets a serious tone as a grave is struck by lightning and explodes, revealing a bat (presumably Dracula) who flaps around and flies away into a purple night. Then mist and a wailing siren eerily que the story text and you begin to think you’re going to play the best game ever. The first stage starts and the Theme of Simon plays, immediately an organ shouts a triumphant melody and you’re whipping the shit out of skeletons and doing the signature Belmont strut. Fuck yeah.
Medusa puked everywhere!
Stage 2 begins as Simon enters “The Forest of Monsters,” the music is still upbeat but the melody isn’t strong anymore, instead the song’s flow is in the bass line. Like Simon’s legs in the stage’s running stream, pushing you forward. It’s apparent now that you’re edging closer to the evil as new enemies and hazards appear. So you get the idea. Every stage and part of this game is so accentuated by the soundtrack. As a lover of game music I can’t help but adore this game for what it’s done in that department. I also enjoy the usage of some old Castlevania things. There are yellow zombies that when killed make a sound that is taken from Haunted Castle (the arcade Castlevania.) It’s the sound of your Grandpa
who smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day for longer than he could hope for, croaking for thinking he could land a jump off of his Grandson’s swing-set while drunk as a kite. Then I liked seeing the spiders from Simon’s Quest that simply dangle down and shoot a smaller spider at you. Nostalgic little fuckers, they are. There were other continuities of course but those were my favorite.
I’d say the game is worthy of the “Super” in its title. All signs point to the fact that Konami wanted better hardware to explore the unique mood of Castlevania. The graphics are colorful and the use of scrolling and foreground/background is good. Some things are pretty, specifically the detail of the enemies and bosses. But some of the background textures look like puke. I honestly thought my game was glitching because of how garbled some of the textures are. This is really my only nitpick with the game. The graphics merely pass the test of time.
Platforming stage, somber tone
In this game you can fling your whip diagonally and dangle it and swing it around for less damage. Also you can control your jump fairly well. None of these things compromised the fun factor of the game play or made it less “Castlevania” for me. I was still getting knocked into pits and dying instantly from spikes, so that’s left in tact. Also you can crouch walk which has a purpose for a total of like 4 parts of the game. The game is pretty helpful with the locations of health items in the stages, so I didn’t have a lot of trouble getting through the game, only after about 6 continues. Struggling with certain spots briefly. This time playing, however, I realized that the game is harder on the 2nd run through. I gave it a run and it was a good change of difficulty. Not annoying, not unfair, just more enemies and enemies take more hits to kill. Because of this, certain sections require your strategy to be tweaked a little. Figuring out those new strategies was a joy. And I finished the game on my second continue. My favorite boss is the bat made of gold, whom when attacked, sprinkles gold that can damage you. Watch out for that bat gold!
Best back of box description ever. The 90's.
U.N. Squadron is a special game for me. It was the first shmup I played that really made me want to play it more. This was way back when I was 9 or 10 years old when at first my brother had rented the game. I remember it being hooked up to a vintage TV that was sat upon an old wheeled piece of wooden furniture. In the basement my brother had a big sleep over with his friends, and to my recollection, they were all playing U.N. Squadron. Later when all of them were gone, I got to try the game… and I don’t know how well I did. But I knew it was cool. I rented the game later on and really enjoyed it.
Then the years passed and I’m probably 16 now, when one day I suddenly wanted to search out the game. I called a lot of game stores around my area and eventually found a place that had it. The smallest game store I had ever went to, a little place called Raven Games. This place was the size of a 15 foot by 10 bedroom. Walls completed shelved with games, and I’m sure a mother load of games under the counter or “in the back”. I picked up U.N. Squadron for $7 and the orange price tag is still on the cartridge I’m playing today. The cart is in poor condition. Grime is in the crevasses and the cover is partially peeled off, including the end label, as well as the back label completely scratched off.
What’s with people and their games sometimes? I wonder if the person who had the game originally was raging over how difficult it was, and released their anger on the cartridge in such a way.
But the difficulty is just right for beginners of the genre. You would get your ass kicked at first, but then you would buckle down and find out there wasn’t a strong threat in the game except your own haste and lack of strategy.
image links to page I stole it from
Now coming back to U.N. Squadron after gaining experience and knowledge of beating other shmups, it became easy. I realize now that there is a right way to play any shmup, and the game just wants to show you the way. In my first play through, I was automatically analyzing the screen for safe spots during the boss battles and I was able to utilize the special weapons to full effect. My experience with shmups showed. So I went all the way to the end and 1cc’d the game on my first visit back. With Greg Gates and 2 lives remaining. Wow!
Then I tired Hard Mode and did well until the last 3 stages. Then the difficulty began to equate to arcade level difficulty and I didn’t know the best strategy for the ceiling boss on hard mode. Hard Mode is nice though. The bosses are more aggressive and the enemies shoot more bullets and faster. I was using the whole screen to herd enemy fire, almost like a Gradius loop. Hard Mode is definitely more suited for me and I was having genuine fun. Playing the game made me remember that I wanted to tackle the arcade U.N. Squadron some more some time.
These type of games were just not prevalent enough to garner an obsessive attention from me. There were lots of cool games in the SNES era. And an SNES was all I had. Yeah I played Gradius III but I never owned it. I had the same impression with it. I thought it was cool but in the end it was just a “simple” shooting game that became very difficult near the end. It was only until I found out some shmups have scoring systems that I gave them the proper respect. …And that was another 5 years later!
All in all U.N. Squadron on the SNES is a stand-out port of the arcade game and has aged quite well.
BREAKING WAR NEWS !!!!
I found out that there is a “Gamer” mode which is an even harder difficulty. I will report on the war when the conflict has been confronted.
5-7-11 — AQY defeats HARD MODE and gets special ending message. He also tries the secret “Gamer” mode and finds it is more difficult than the switch from normal to hard. It became like P-47 Aces shit. Fast bullets that require memorized dodging!!! Also the 1 million dollar plane is over powered! lawl
Finishing Super Metroid was alright. As soon as I began any backtracking I felt like the magic of the game was lost. And that magic is the constant exploration of Zebes. I can see why Super Metroid became popular for speedrunning. Sequence breaking can be done in many different ways. Finished with 4:30-ish and 73% item collection. Never got the Spring Ball but now I know that you have to let this worm caterpillar dude to destroy some sand in your way. I love the final battle musics. They’re so serious and provoking. I saved the animals and escaped and that was it.
With Actraiser I began to maximize the populations in the different lands. Doing so is not hard at all, just tedious. So I want to say that even after knowing how to maximize the populations for each land, it really won’t matter that much by the end of the game. The difference between populating the lands unawares to knowing is only a few extra HP bars.
As it stands, the stages and bosses are fairly easy. Only because you can use a brute force / tank damage technique to beat most of the bosses. However if you don’t want to just tank the damage, you can fight them the real way, figuring out their patterns and such. Doing it that way is more fun. It would be a better challenge to just ignore the town segments and then face the stages with less MAX HP. The town simulation is just a novelty as far as it’s purpose. But it has it’s appeal. The masters of each land use peculiarly somber phrasing when they appeal to you. And what happens in the town stages helps define the struggle of the people and your role as God’s servant.
Enix really made ActRaiser awesome. I love it. And so glad I was able to play the same cartridge that came from the video store when I was 12.
I like that they added the Professional! mode, just the action stages with small enemies taking 2 hits, you take 2 HP instead of 1 HP on hit, and the bosses are slightly more aggressive. I got the nice message “You are the best player!!”
Thanks Enix.
I enjoyed the SNES some more, playing Super Metroid and Actraiser both for nearly 2 hour sessions. I wrote about Super Metroid on another forum, here is the snippet:
Before I even booted up the game, I started humming the beeps in the music before the Super Metroid logo appears. Such great sound and music.
“I found myself playing fairly hurriedly but amazed again at the detail of the game. Running through the slanting downwards corridor filled with the crawlers and brain-bug sacks— in the area after, there are the mantis’s that block your shot, need a missile. I love that they have an animation where they tense up and block your attack.
After hearing all about the sequence breaking that can run rampant in this game, I was trying to figure out something I could rig up with wall jumping. Somewhere along the way I used wall jumping to get something I knew I shouldn’t have, perhaps the wave beam… and right away I felt like I was playing it like I never played it before. Granted, it’s been years since I played it. But there was little time that I felt lost or I wasn’t meaningfully covering ground, which is just the way I wanted it.
The fight with Kraid was awesome. Pumped ‘em full of missiles and finished him off with a Super Missile.
I know I never found near close to full amount of hidden stuff in any of my previous play-throughs, but I’ll be hunting for never found stuff more adamantly this time. I won’t be using a guide at all though. Is it annoyingly hard to find everything without a guide, I wonder?”
And later on… I played some more:
“Lower Norfair is scary! I took the right path and once I got to the huge room with the rising lava and ascending platforms on the other side— I had to cower and turn back because the enemies leading up to the room were making some work of me without the Screw Attack. Wow! Later when going through those passages with the ScrewAttack I realized I could’ve taken the path if I was extra ballsy.
And Ridley had me at 86 energy! I was so relieved… haha.”
And even later, I finished the game with a completion time of 4:47 and 73% item collection. This game really sucked me in for a bit. When I got just a little lost as far as what I was supposed to do, then that feeling went away. Great game though. Was a pleasure playing it on actual hardware.
And on Actraiser… at first, when I put the naked PCB into the SNES, I had a black screen and was worried it didn’t work anymore. Afterall, it was out of its cartridge for many years and had likely collected lots of dirt or was possibly damaged from its poor handling. Thankfully the problem was only dirt. After a quick water and q-tip cleaning it was working flawlessly… then I marvelled at the pseudo orchestral opening music by Yuzo Koshiro. This game that was ran over when I was little was now about to be played again by the one who freed it from its casing. The epic title music summed up this whole passage of time.
If you’re not familiar with Actraiser, the game-flow switches between sidescrolling action stages and Town Simulation sections,. civilize a land, directing the townspeople where to build and to seal off demon’s lairs. The demon’s lairs spit out demons that eventually try to wreak havoc on your town, so you control an arrow shooting cherub to fend them off at the same time. An interesting tidbit I learned about Actraiser after a play-through on emulator a while back, was that your score in the action stages affects the population cap on your town. Which also plays into an end-game score. When I discovered this I found the game to be even more compelling, that I could aim for a higher end game score for each play-through.
I recently read up on the mechanics that surround achieving maximum population for your towns, not only does your scores in the action stages affect this, but also what type of structures you have in your town, the level of building, and some other things. It’s just a matter of knowing about this stuff and not so much skill in achieving the max population, as most of the score techniques in the stages revolve around milking points and collecting a 1up over and over. I’m satisfied to finally know about how to achieve the max population now in any case.
I guess there’s probably 12 stages or so, two for each new land. So… I think this concept of beating your old score can ring with this kind of time frame: maybe 3-4 hours to completion?
I was more moved by playing this game again. I paid more attention to the writing and what happens this time. It hadn’t occurred to me just how serious of a tone this game has and the writing is quite succinct for an SNES game. Usually tragic things are happening to the land’s people and you’re supposed to save them. The stages have really beautiful scenery, almost like a painting in some places. Yuzo Koshiro’s pseudo orchestral compositions fit in so nicely.
So far I beat the first 4 stages and civilized the first two towns. Now that I have the knowledge about population maxing I’m going to give it a shot in the following towns, however.
More on Actraiser to follow, I’ve also got an itching for some Super Castlevania IV.
Dan Haigh
Ghegs
[DRZ] OTL-TIW
sikraiken
Alice
victoly
plasm0
Aquas
Raydere
szycag
BDA
bloocloud
Kollision