Tendo City

The early 90’s saw one of the biggest battles of console gaming history, between industry veteran Nintendo and young upstart Sega. After the stunning success of the NES, Nintendo was left with a decision to make with how to follow up on that success. Their idea became the SNES, a system more powerful and more versatile than its predecessor. It launched in November 1990 in Japan, August 1991 in the States, but was preceded by Sega’s Genesis console which launched in October 1988. And this time around Mario had stiff compeitition: Sonic the Hedgehog.

What followed was a might battle and Sega made inroads on Nintendo’s hardware base, but, in the end, it wasn’t enough and Nintendo left the battlefield as the ultimate victor. That’s what the history books say, but who REALLY won? In this multi-part series, the lineups of the two consoles will be dissected and picked apart as the truth float to the top and all the hyberpole and hype is filtered away.

Hardware power? Graphics? Sound quality? Controller? Catridge size? Doesn’t matter. This series will focus on the one thing that matters more than anything else: THE GAMES.

Coming up in Part 1: Action Games

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...roduction/

Part 1 - Action Games

Here begins the ultimate showdown between the SNES and the Genesis. This part will focus on action games [fighting games, beat 'em ups, and 2D shooters will be analyized later]. As multiplatform titles are basically a wash for both sides, only exclusive titles will be considered.

Sega Genesis

Alisia Dragoon, Splatterhouse 3, James Bond 007 – The Duel, Shinobi series, X-Men, Contra: Hard Corps, General Chaos, Mercs, Target Earth, Landstalker, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Alien Soldier, Gunstar Heroes, Mega Turrican, Vectorman, Toejam and Earl, Red Zone, Rolling Thunder 2 and 3, Strider 1 and 2, Pirates! Gold, and Altered Beast.

SNES

Super Metroid, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, King of Demons, Alcahest, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Pocky and Rocky, Super Star Wars, Super Castlevania IV, Demon’s Crest, Mega Man series, The Fireman, R2: Rendering Ranger, Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Turrican, Neugier, Taloon’s Great Adventure, Gunman’s Proof, Metal Warriors, EVO – The Search for Eden, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Equinox, Contra III, Robocop 3, Magic Sword, Wild Guns, and Cybernator.

Both systems bring quality and quantity in the action genre, and I threw in some action/adventure games as well. Some classics on both sides, but how many? Over the course of the next week, or longer if I feel like it, I will pick the most promising titles from each console’s genre offering. At the end of that time period, I’ll make a decision on which console has the best games.

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...ion-games/

Super Metroid

One of the quintessential SNES games and considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time. Super Metroid is the third outing as space bounty hunter Samus. The last Metroid has been captured and the galaxy is at peace! Not. Space pirates steal it and everything goes to heck. So, obviously, Samus is the only one who can track down the metroid, stop the pirates, and, once again, save the galaxy. Although the first two games, on the NES and Gameboy respectively, were certainly no slouches, it was Super Metroid that set the standard for 2D action-platformers. It’s filled with moody atmosphere, strange aliens, and bizarre worlds. The gameplay moves between fast-paced action and quiet exploration with ease, both of which are aided by some truly great music by Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano. There’s also a ton of secrets and upgrades to find, which help to liven things up even further. Does Super Metroid hold up after sixteen years? Absolutely.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Here’s another third entry in a series. Link to the Past once again puts player’s in control of Hyrule savior Link as he fights the forces of Ganon and rescues Princess Zelda. As Super Metroid set the standard for action-platformers, Link to the Past set the standard for top-down action-adventure games. The game features a wide assortment of enemies to kill, dungeons to explore, items to locate, and locations to explore. It’s a vibrant, fun, well-made game that’s still as good today as it was back then. Features a wonderful soundtrack by the great Koji Kondo. What more can really be said about this game that hasn’t been said a thousand times already? It’s an all-time classic and a game you’ve probably already played.

Can two games alone win this challenge for the SNES? Perhaps, but we haven’t even touched on the Genny’s lineup yet. Stay tuned for more!

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...-of-zelda/

Both systems had their own exclusive installment in the Contra series. Which one is the best?

Contra III: The Alien Wars

Released in 1992 for the SNES, Contra III was the actually the fourth installment in the series [Operation C on the Gameboy was actually third] and had a decidedly post-apocalyptic feel, perhaps inspired by the same year’s released of Terminator 2. The game has a very fast-paced feel to it as the player character moves quickly through levels populated by cannon fodder that rangers from armed men, mutant dogs, giant robots, and other monstrosities. Powerups rain from the sky, giving you a nice range of choice of weaponry. There’s also other powerups like a shield and bombs which destroy everything on screen. It’s difficult, like the first game, but not overly hard.

Contra: Hard Corps

Released in 1994 for the Genesis, Hard Corps actually feature selectable characters and a branching storyline. In terms of gameplay, however, it feels much more like a throwback to the original rather than an evolution. Unlike Contra III, you can only fire up/down and left/right, rather than in all eight directions. An odd choice, considering it makes the game more difficult and frustrating. That observation sums up the experience, Contra: Hard Corps, true to its name, it very, very difficult. I’d even go as far as to say that it might be the most difficult Contra game I’ve ever played. I got a game over before reaching the first boss. Another note, and one that I won’tmake too often, is that the graphics aren’t nearly as detailed as in Contra III. Not a bad game, per se, but not a classic.

SNES wins this mini-challenge.

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...g-contras/

I consider it a push, myself. I felt that the SNES had many of my biggest favorites of the two, but the Genesis had more games, overall, that I liked.

Genesis had a lot of really nice action games, and a few decent strategy and RPG titles, but overall, I prefer the SNES. At the very least, in almost all cases where a game was released on both systems, the SNES version looked and sounded a lot better.

Still though, both were very nice systems. For all the hate those addons got, the Sega CD still had some really nice games on it, and it was a good solution to the problem of sound being such lower quality than what the SNES could produce. The 32X was certainly a failure, but even it had the best humming bird based side scrolling shooter ever made.

The SNES had an insane amount of RPGs, many of which were never released outside of Japan. The Genesis had a few notable RPGs, and a few more from the Sega CD, but it's really not comparable at all.

This round will probably go to the SNES with ease, but there's still platformers, schmups, and beat 'em ups, which the Genesis has some strong contenders in.

Yeah, they're about even overall. The Genesis has worse graphics and less visual effects, but faster gameplay (faster CPU). The Sega CD improves on the graphics and effects in some ways, but still is crippled by the 64 color limitation. The 32X removes that, but very few games were released for it because of how badly Sega was blowing their lead starting from 1994 (that is, the 32X should never have existed).

I really do like both systems a lot... I actually played quite a bit more Genesis than SNES during the systems' lifetimes, because I knew more people who owned the Genesis than the SNES and I visited them more, so that might have a little more nostalgia value, helping it a bit, but I did also read Nintendo Power (and no other videogaming magazines most of the time), so I was reading about SNES games at least...

I agree that the Sega CD had some good games. If the 32X had never existed I think it'd be hated less. As for the 32X, it has a few fun games if you like action games, but it just should never have happened... releasing that thing was so stupid... I did finally get one last fall though, and it was worth it I think. It is nice to see at least a few Genesis games without the awful 64-color restriction. (On that note, the reason that most Sega CD FMV is 16 color is that the Genesis actually uses 4 16-color palettes on screen, not 64 colors, and in FMV mode you could usually only use one palette. So most Sega CD FMV is 16 color. The 32XCD games are the only exceptions.)

Anyway, I have lots of games for both systems now, but it's still really hard to say which system I like more... both just have such great, great games, and have different and somewhat complimentary strengths so having both makes a lot of sense. I love both Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario World, and always have. Of course I was a Nintendo fan first, but I can't remember ever hating Sega like I later would Sony.

Oh yeah, the TurboGrafx-16 is pretty cool too, particularly if you have a CD drive for it. Very expensive to buy and collect for, because everything's got to be bought by mail and a lot of the better stuff was Japan-only, but it's a pretty good system too... I do think I'd have to rank it third behind the Genesis and SNES, but it's absolutely under-appreciated in the US, no question. Many HuCard games are more NESlike, while CD games often have anime-style cutscenes. Oh, the TG16 has the best shmup library that generation, hands down. The SNES and Genesis both have great shmup libraries, but the TG16's is even better.

Quote:The SNES had an insane amount of RPGs, many of which were never released outside of Japan. The Genesis had a few notable RPGs, and a few more from the Sega CD, but it's really not comparable at all.

True, the SNES was better overall for RPGs and had far, far more of them, but my personal favorite RPG of the generation is Lunar 2: Eternal Blue for the Sega CD...

The Sega CD does add a technical advantage for the Genesis in this, but both it and the 32X were heavily under-utilized in the software department. There's a few great games, but not nearly as many as there could have been.

The Sega CD had 220 games released for it worldwide, the 32X 40... they are not similar.

Also, you mix like four different genres in your so-called "action" category there, that should be at least three different genres...

Every game that matters will get counted, whether or not they get put into the exact subcategory is ultimately irrelevant.

Quote:The Sega CD had 220 games released for it worldwide

And how many of those were just ports with minor updates?

Many of the Sega CD's games were on other systems too, that is true. It has a bunch of exclusives on top of that, though. On the other hand the 32X had ports too, except with so many fewer games that matters much more...

Quote:Every game that matters will get counted, whether or not they get put into the exact subcategory is ultimately irrelevant.

Oh come on, there are many dozens of "action" games on both of those systems that you don't list there. That's obviously not true.

I mean, you can cover some of the most popular ones, sure, but saying that that covers "every game that matters"... no.

Quote:Oh come on, there are many dozens of "action" games on both of those systems that you don't list there. That's obviously not true.

And they'll get listed eventually! I'm not purposefully leaving any good games out, but I'd like to break this up a bit so I don't have some mammoth list of games for each console.

Not every single game that's ever been released will get counted, no, because that would take forever to do and many of the games I'd be playing aren't really that good and wouldn't make any kind of impact on the overall ranking of the two systems.

If you can think of some good games that I'm missing, then let me know and I'll see what they're about and if they should go in this segment or in another one.

Also, some of the games you might be thinking of are multiplatform titles [appearing on both the SNES and the Genesis]. I'm not going to consider those because the two version are likely to be more or less the same and therefore wouldn't have any affect on which console is better than the other. After this is over I might do a multiplatform review or something, but that'll be later.

Well first, MUSHA is a shmup... you're listing those separately, right?

Second, Turrican games. There's Turrican, Universal Soldier [Turrican 2], and Mega Turrican on the Genesis, Super Turrican and Super Turrican II on the SNES, and also versions of the first Turrican on the Game Boy and TG16. Turricans 1 and 2 are very different from the later three titles. The first Super Turrican is probably my favorite, but Mega Turrican and Turrican 2 aren't far behind... though the original Amiga version of Turrican 2 is definitely better than the Genesis version, it's not that bad on Genesis really, once you get used to it.

Mega Turrican and the two Super Turrican games are serious visual showcases for their platforms, to say the least.

R2: Rendering Ranger is another very little known SNES game. Japan only release, oddly enough, but made by the German guy who did the original Commodore 64 Turrican 1 and 2 games, Manfred Trenz. It's extremely expensive and rare, but is really, REALLY impressive. What he managed to get an unmodified SNES to do with no slowdown is just incredible.

I could start doing lists, by genres/categories, etc, but you know the way my lists get... long. Do you want that? :)

MUSHA's out, R2: Rendering Ranger and Turricans are in.

Quote:I could start doing lists, by genres/categories, etc, but you know the way my lists get... long. Do you want that?

If you want to, but all I'll do is pluck a few titles from it that I happen to miss.

Hmm...R2: Rendering Ranger, after ten minutes of play I feel a bit cold towards it. The gameplay in the first level is very similar to Contra III, only the level feels much more barren. It looks really good and there's a lot of stuff going on in the background, but nothing about it beyond that really blows me away. The first level is also extremely long and has a number of parts to it that a very unforgiving.

There's apparently some space shooting segments, but I haven't made it to one yet.

Keep in mind that the 32X neve really had a chance of being heavily utlized. I mean the Playstation was coming out and the Saturn was under development at the time it was released. It was a mistake to even make the thing. Certainly, it basically made the Genesis more powerful than the SNES, including in the music department, but if they'd focused on making the Saturn (and also didn't go with that bizarre 3D architecture that used rectangles instead of triangles as the basic unit of rendering (seriously, I'd never even heard of that until I read about the inner workings of the Saturn a while ago)) they'd probably have been better able to survive. Then again, in that reality Nintendo probably failed during the 32 bit era instead.

The Genesis did have a more powerful processor didn't it? Still, that has nothing to do with "faster gameplay". Mario could run just as fast as Sonic had they programmed that in. In fact I remember at least one SNES game that did have that kind of fast scrolling, Super Metroid. At any rate, I still noticed all the SNES games looking and sounding better than their Genesis versions, and I don't recall any slowdown issues between them. That might be because the graphical capabilities could be utilized to get around that. At any rate, Nintendo's solution to limitations in the hardware was all sorts of addon chips, just like the NES. Super Metroid didn't use it, but as I recall Super Mario RPG, Kirby Super Star, and Megaman X2 and X3 all had addon chips of one sort or another, and of course Starfox famously used that "Super FX microchip".

I think Sega had an even better 3D chip they stuck in the Genesis version of Virtua Racing, though that version still wasn't nearly as good as the 32X version of the same game (which is the one I have).

The Genesis had a faster processor, but the SNES has more audio ram, higher resolutions, more RAM, more colors on screen, a deeper color palette, higher maximum sprite size, and more background planes.

Here's a list of all the add-on chips:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sup...ment_chips

Great Rumbler Wrote:Hmm...R2: Rendering Ranger, after ten minutes of play I feel a bit cold towards it. The gameplay in the first level is very similar to Contra III, only the level feels much more barren. It looks really good and there's a lot of stuff going on in the background, but nothing about it beyond that really blows me away. The first level is also extremely long and has a number of parts to it that a very unforgiving.

There's apparently some space shooting segments, but I haven't made it to one yet.

The second level is a shmup level I believe, so all you have to do is beat level on in order to see it...

Originally the game was going to have sprite graphics, but late in development Trenz was convinced to replace those with CG stuff because at the time that was what was supposedly popular (in the post-DKC days). Unfortunately it didn't help the game get picked up anywhere other than Japan, obviously. Other than the CG work though, Trenz did almost everything else in the game himself, programming it alone. It runs fast and without slowdown, with a bunch of stuff on screen too.

I agree it's not perfect gameplay-wise, but for the SNES it's a pretty big accomplishment visually for sure. And it is a fun game, I think. Not the best game ever (I do think I like Factor 5's Turrican games (that is, the Super and Mega Turricans) a bit more), but good.

And remember, the game doesn't use any addon chips or anything.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:Mario could run just as fast as Sonic had they programmed that in.

The issue is that the faster the game runs, the more likely it is to slow down on the SNES thanks to the slow CPU... that's the truth behind "blast processing" and such. The slow SNES CPU made it much harder for games to run fast without slowdown, you had to really optimize the game, minimize use of the CPU, and put everything you could on the other chips, addons on the cart, etc. in order to avoid slowdown. Most programmers weren't that good at doing that, and hence many SNES games have lots of slowdown where Genesis games do not.

I mean, CPU-wise even the Turbografx has a faster clock speed than the SNES, and that system is three years older...

Not just more audio RAM, it had that Sony made midi synth in there that just sounded WAY above pretty much everything else at the time. LTTP, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 4 and 6, I don't think the music in those would be nearly as good Genesis style.

As I said though, the Sega CD evened the score on that. Sonic CD had a vocal rockin' sound track that really was nice. They also did remakes of Echo and Earthworm Jim that had much nicer music. In Earthworm Jim's case, it's genuinly hard to decide which version was better. The SNES version still looked better with the higher color count, but the Sega CD version had better music.

Thanks for that list of addon chips. Considering the exact sequence of words, I find it hard to think I'd have been able to stumble upon that just by searching myself.

Quote:I agree it's not perfect gameplay-wise, but for the SNES it's a pretty big accomplishment visually for sure. And it is a fun game, I think. Not the best game ever (I do think I like Factor 5's Turrican games (that is, the Super and Mega Turricans) a bit more), but good.

And remember, the game doesn't use any addon chips or anything.

Technical accomplishments aren't really going to win any awards anymore. Those days are long over for the SNES and Genesis. These days, it's all about the gameplay. If the gameplay's not great or it doesn't have some great storline or something, then it just isn't going to make the cut.

It's a breezy game that's kind of fun, but with Contra III sitting right beside it where's my motivation to pick the former? Strip away the graphics and you're left with a standard side-to-side shooter attached to a shmup. Maybe the shmup is really awesome, but I won't hold my breath on that.

I'll still play it some more before I give it any sort of review though.

I don't really like Contra III, it's too hard... I don't really like the whole series for that reason, in fact. I've never even gotten halfway in any of the three Contra games I own, which are Contra (NES), Contra III (SNES), and Contra Hard Corps (Genesis). Of them I think Hard Corps is my favorite, but they're all inordinately hard games that are much more frustration than fun.

The Japanese version of Hard Corps, where you get three hit points per life and have infinite continues (instead of one hit and you die and only five continues, as it is in the US version), would be much more fun I think... it's too bad that it's locked out, so you'd need a modded or import system to play the actual cart.


I even prefer GunForce: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island for SNES to Contra III, I think. Sure GunForce is short and easy, but at least it's fun and not incredibly frustrating. Plus it has one of the best subtitles of all time and is the first run & gun made by the team that went on to make Metal Slug... GunForce 2 (Arcade only) is a better known and more popular game than the first one, but I like the first one too. I played the game in the early '90s in the arcades first, but do have the SNES cart too now, and it's a pretty fun game. Contra III's probably "better" on a rating scale, but I just don't have that much fun playing it a lot of the time. I don't know, I'm just not a Contra fan. I like Metal Slug and Turrican games far, far more.

Oh, and as for Turrican games, Mega Turrican and the two Super Turrican games shouldn't be hard to get used to. They're straightforward, beautiful, and really good 16-bit run & gun action/platformers. The first two games, though, are much more archaic, not nearly as nice looking games. Turrican and Turrican 2/Universal Soldier have a big learning curve, and the first reaction of most console gamers to them is hatred. They're both really popular games in the Commodore 64 and Amiga communities, but very disliked by Genesis, TG16, and Game Boy fans who had the games. Too open (it's easy to get lost in some levels), too confusing (huge open levels...), controls are too strange (depending on the system it may require some annoying controls to use some functions, you can do a bunch of things), you have no hitflash so your healthbar can be drained very quickly, mediocre graphics, etc. Once I got used to it I did come to like Universal Soldier, but it's not a pick up and play kind of game, certainly.

Quote:Technical accomplishments aren't really going to win any awards anymore. Those days are long over for the SNES and Genesis.

Eh, plenty of people still argue and care about such things... and I do think that achieving great results on limited hardware is something worth caring about, even if you could do something better looking or sounding or whatever on a newer system. It's more impressive to push a limited system hard and get something amazing for that system out of it than it is to easily make something that looks better than that on a much more powerful system. The latter didn't exactly take the same kind of effort, and just isn't the same kind of achievement.

But for now I'll just list some action-adventure games and action-RPGs, because that's what I started doing and going throug ha genre takes a while. I won't list the ones already on your list again (Landstalker, Pirates! Gold if you count it though I think I'd call it strategy-action or something like that, Zelda LttP), Popful Mail, Alcahest).

Why have those there, but no other action-adventure-RPG games? Are you listing Zelda separately because it doesn't have level-ups while most of those games do? I mean I agree, Landstalker is the best Zelda-ish game on the Genesis, but both systems have lots more games somewhat similar, obviously. So does the TG16.

This is more just a list of games to maybe try sometime than a list of everything you must play, it isn't meant that way. Also I will mostly not mention games not available in English somehow. But anyway, a bunch of Zeldaish games and action-adventures of various kinds:

SNES: Secret of Mana (not my favorite because of the grinding, but very popular), Seiken Densetsu 3 (has translation patch), Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma (EU version is in English), and Soul Blazer, perhaps also others like ActRaiser (maybe), The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (annoying grinding...), Ys III, Shadowrun, Ultima: Runes of Virtua II (note that it was originally on Game Boy), Brandish (can you get past the incredibly confusing way you turn? I can't, I think). There's also Brain Lord, which looks okay, but I haven't played that one myself. Lagoon I also haven't played but doesn't look too interesting. Lastly there's Dragon View, the sequel to Drakkhen, but with action-RPG combat and higher (that is not awful) ratings in reviews this time. I have Drakken, but that one's quite different from this I think, overworld aside. Ys IV: Mask of the Sun is another one I haven't played; it's a Japan only release but does have a translation patch. It plays a lot like Ys I or II, not III. Holy Umbrella also has a translation patch, but I haven't played that one either myself. If I was mentioning imports I'd have to mention Crystal Beans: From Dungeon Explorer, the SNES Dungeon Explorer game. They're not that complex games so it should be understandable, but I haven't spent that much time with it and there isn't a translation patch.

Genesis: Crusader of Centy (haven't played it myself...), Beyond Oasis, Exile, perhaps Cadash (okay sidescrolling arcade action/rpg, but this version only has two of the four characters, and they're the two less interesting characters of the four...), Gauntlet IV (good game with horrible, fun-killing 40 character passwords), Arcus Odyssey (good but sometimes confusing isometric Gauntlet style game), maybe Heimdall (Sega CD), Ys III, Dungeon Explorer (Sega CD, not a port of the TG16 games, but not as good as either of them either), maybe Sword of Vermillion (it's mediocre but unique), Light Crusader (good game), Shadowrun, Wonder Boy in Monster World (fantastic game... harder than the TGCD version though), Monster World IV (translated rom, and a really good game!)


... And I know you didn't ask about the TG16, but I've played quite a bit of TG16, both emulated games and on the actual system (since I do have one, mostly, I think, because I'd come to like it in emulation), and it was from that same generation, so I'll list it too, without the expectations that you'll actually play any of them. For one thing finding TGCD/PC Engine CD games for download isn't quite as easy as it is for SNES roms... I have found places to look, but they're much, much less common of course. I'm up to 145 Turbo/PC Engine CD games... at 54GBs, it's a pretty big folder. :)

I know with some people emulation and stuff has gotten them to not buy games anymore, but with me it had the exact opposite effect and was one of the main reasons why I started buying older games. Sure I could play them on my PC, but I want the real things too...

Turbografx 16 (HuCard games): Cadash (with all four characters, unlike the Genesis which only has two), Dungeon Explorer (the first of Hudson's Gauntlet clone series), Neutopia, Neutopia II (Hudson's Zelda clone series)

Turbografx 16 CD: The Dynastic Hero (Wonder Boy in Monster World, TGCD version), Shape Shifter (somewhat Metroid inspired, nice looking, and very hard fantasy action/adventure game), Dungeon Explorer II, Exile (better than on Genesis), Exile: Wicked Phenomenon (US version is nearly impossibly hard due to Working Designs messing up), Xak III (has translation patch), Ys I & II, Ys III, Ys IV (has translation patch). There are a bunch more Japanese-only action-RPGs on the system, some of which are playable if you don't mind bumping around in town talking to everyone while you try to figure out how to move forward, but I won't list those because, well, that's not all that fun. Of them I've only tried one, Efera & Jiliora: The Emblem From Darkness. It's simple and somewhat fun, apart from the towns where I get stuck. :) (It does have a 2 player simultaneous mode!) [Xak III, Ys I & II, Ys IV, and Efera & Jiliora are all top-down action-RPGs; The Dynastic Hero, Ys III, Shape Shifter, and the Exile games are side-scrolling action-RPGs.]

Of these, on each platform Illusion of Gaia is probably my favorite on the SNES, followed by Zelda: LttP. Maybe the other way around, but Illusion of Gaia is an amazing game... For the Genesis I agree with you, Landstalker and Popful Mail are the two best, Landstalker probably number one. On TG16/TGCD... hmm. Xak III perhaps? That one's interesting... I love Gauntlet too of course though, and the Dungeon Explorer games are great, better than anything Gauntlet I've played on the SNES or Genesis. I haven't played enough Neutopia to say much about them.

GR, I have to say I still can be floored when I play a game that does way more with a system than I would have expected. Sure they can't compare to today, but considering what they had to work with...

Let me put it this way. When I found out about a little fan made game called Skeleton Plus for the 2600, and then played it when a friend won a copy at some convention, I was shocked to find someone had managed to make an FPS on that dated system.

Technical accomplishments live on in that way, at least for me. Heck, Secret of Mana still surprises me sometimes when I haven't played it in years. Found out they ported it to the cell phone, meaning we'll never see it in America because our cell phones just aren't compatible with the Japanese cell phone standards they have there. That just sucks. I thought the iPad would engage a new era of standardization, but instead we have the Android and Blackberry and all sorts of new hardware completely ignoring any attempt to standardize. It makes it pretty hard to get even the least bit excited about cell phone games in America, and developers certainly aren't very motivated to seriously engage in making some good quality games outside of Peggle and Tetris ports.

Quote:I don't really like Contra III, it's too hard... I don't really like the whole series for that reason, in fact. I've never even gotten halfway in any of the three Contra games I own, which are Contra (NES), Contra III (SNES), and Contra Hard Corps (Genesis). Of them I think Hard Corps is my favorite, but they're all inordinately hard games that are much more frustration than fun.

Hard Corps is the hardest Contra of all!! Contra III is a much more balance and enjoyable experience.

Quote:GR, I have to say I still can be floored when I play a game that does way more with a system than I would have expected. Sure they can't compare to today, but considering what they had to work with...

Let me put it this way. When I found out about a little fan made game called Skeleton Plus for the 2600, and then played it when a friend won a copy at some convention, I was shocked to find someone had managed to make an FPS on that dated system.

I can appreciate the effort and say "Hey, that's pretty cool", but it's not going to get me to run out and buy the system and/or game and then show if off to all of my friends. And the "that's cool" factor is more of a momentary thing, it's not going to keep my occupied for hours or days.

For example, Render Ranger looks pretty good for an SNES game and it's definitely a technical accomplishment, but it just feels kind of barren and repetitive in the gameplay. So why should I play it beyond ten or twenty minutes to appreciate the graphics and then turn it off to play a similar game that's more FUN?

Quote:SNES: Secret of Mana (not my favorite because of the grinding, but very popular), Seiken Densetsu 3 (has translation patch), Illusion of Gaia, Terranigma (EU version is in English), and Soul Blazer, perhaps also others like ActRaiser (maybe), The Twisted Tales of Spike McFang (annoying grinding...), Ys III, Shadowrun, Ultima: Runes of Virtua II (note that it was originally on Game Boy), Brandish (can you get past the incredibly confusing way you turn? I can't, I think). There's also Brain Lord, which looks okay, but I haven't played that one myself. Lagoon I also haven't played but doesn't look too interesting. Lastly there's Dragon View, the sequel to Drakkhen, but with action-RPG combat and higher (that is not awful) ratings in reviews this time. I have Drakken, but that one's quite different from this I think, overworld aside. Ys IV: Mask of the Sun is another one I haven't played; it's a Japan only release but does have a translation patch. It plays a lot like Ys I or II, not III. Holy Umbrella also has a translation patch, but I haven't played that one either myself. If I was mentioning imports I'd have to mention Crystal Beans: From Dungeon Explorer, the SNES Dungeon Explorer game. They're not that complex games so it should be understandable, but I haven't spent that much time with it and there isn't a translation patch.

Genesis: Crusader of Centy (haven't played it myself...), Beyond Oasis, Exile, perhaps Cadash (okay sidescrolling arcade action/rpg, but this version only has two of the four characters, and they're the two less interesting characters of the four...), Gauntlet IV (good game with horrible, fun-killing 40 character passwords), Arcus Odyssey (good but sometimes confusing isometric Gauntlet style game), maybe Heimdall (Sega CD), Ys III, Dungeon Explorer (Sega CD, not a port of the TG16 games, but not as good as either of them either), maybe Sword of Vermillion (it's mediocre but unique), Light Crusader (good game), Shadowrun, Wonder Boy in Monster World (fantastic game... harder than the TGCD version though), Monster World IV (translated rom, and a really good game!)

Most of those will go into the action-RPG round. Zelda and Landstalker will go in this round though.

SNES vs. Genesis: Part 1 – Dueling Castlevanias

If you’ve ever played any of the Castlevania series then you have a good idea of what to expect from more or less any iteration of the franchise. The games involve you, the player, as a vampire-killer roaming through the halls and rooms of ancient castles looking for the dreaded vampire Dracula, whilst fighting his minions and looking for new weapons and other items along the way. The gameplay is on a 2D plane with platforms, ladders, and such scattered around to give vertical height to the levels. The main weapons is usually a whip, although sometimes the character might have some other weapon like a long spear, and there are lots of secondary weapons such as knives, axes, and potions that can be thrown. Each level is punctuated by a boss battle of some kind.

Overall, there’s not much difference in the fundamentals of the Castlevania: Bloodlines on the Genesis and Super Castlevania IV on the SNES. However, if you scratch at the surface a bit, some underlying differences do come to light. For one thing, the music in the SNES game is slightly better and the character sprites are slightly larger, although the Genesis version has slightly more detailed graphics. One minor issues with the Genesis game is that you can only attack left, right, up to the left at an angle, or up to the right at an angle, while the SNES version allows attacks in all eight directions. Also, the SNES version seems to have a better variety of monsters, that attack both on land and from the air.

The SNES also had another Castlevania game called Dracula X. It had a much faster pace than the others and felt much more like an arcade game. Overall, it’s not really all that good compared to the other two titles and, thus, doesn’t have much impact here.

Slight edge to the SNES in this mini-challenge, very slight, but SCIV and Bloodlines are both excellent entries in the series and worth playing for fans of these types of games.

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...tlevanias/

Super Castlevania IV utterly destroys Castlevania Bloodlines, Bloodlines is nowhere near as good as the great SCIV... far worse graphics, far worse sound, far worse controls (the 8-way whip is amazing!), and perhaps worst of all, the miserably awful password system which saves the limited continues that you have, unlike any other game in the series... ugh.

Castlevania Dracula X SNES is even worse, but there's a huge gap between SCIV and Rondo of Blood TG16 and Bloodlines and RoB SNES. The former two are two of the best action/platformer games of the entire generation, the latter two... average at best.

Quote:Hard Corps is the hardest Contra of all!! Contra III is a much more balance and enjoyable experience.

Eh, I don't agree. Hard Corps has a plot and a decent one at that, cutscenes between levels, many more levels, branching paths, a whole bunch of endings, four playable characters who are truly different, and more... Contra III feels very basic in comparison. Hard Corps also pushes the Genesis hard, and is a stunning graphical achievement for the system. Konami was obviously responding to Gunstar Heroes with the game, and they did a good job of it.

As for balance, well, I did say that it was designed for you to have three hit points and infinite lives... but even so in the US version I've gotten at least three levels into the game before. Sure, often I get game over in one of the level 2s, but sometimes I have gotten farther. I don't know if I've even gotten past level 3 in the SNES game... it's just not quite as good, and it's just about as hard I think, though it's been a while since I've played either of them so I'm not certain. Oh, the topdown levels are pretty easy, and kind of cool looking too.

Dark Jaguar Wrote:GR, I have to say I still can be floored when I play a game that does way more with a system than I would have expected. Sure they can't compare to today, but considering what they had to work with...

Let me put it this way. When I found out about a little fan made game called Skeleton Plus for the 2600, and then played it when a friend won a copy at some convention, I was shocked to find someone had managed to make an FPS on that dated system.

I agree completely, stuff like that is really amazing...

Great Rumbler Wrote:I can appreciate the effort and say "Hey, that's pretty cool", but it's not going to get me to run out and buy the system and/or game and then show if off to all of my friends. And the "that's cool" factor is more of a momentary thing, it's not going to keep my occupied for hours or days.

Well then, we don't agree, I think. Each generation of systems is much more powerful than the last, pushing older ones into doing things they weren't designed for is really cool stuff...

Some things don't really work well, like 3d SNES and Genesis games (polygonal Super FX games, stuff like Hard Drivin' and Race Drivin', etc). Those have framerates too bad to be fun these days, for me, and I'm pretty tolerant of low framerates. How playable older games are now can vary from game to game. But still, when you push hardware it's impressive. It must have been far, far harder to make Contra Hard Corps on the Genesis than it would have been on a system which actually had sprite scaling, etc! That they managed to do all of that stuff in hardware is one reason why it's so impressive...

On that note, The Adventures of Batman & Robin for Genesis is a top-order technical achievement. It's a beat 'em up/platformer with some shmup segments, and its visuals and audio are among the best on the system. The freeroam flight combat game (sort of Desert Strike style I guess?) Red Zone is another amazing technical accomplishment. Both games do have one major downside that makes them not that fun, though... they're INSANELY hard. I haven't gotten far in either one.

I just don't see how you can complain about the difficulty in Contra III, but then gush about Hard Corps.

Or complain about how Contra III is really basic, but then gush about Rendering Ranger.

Or complain about how Bloodlines doesn't have 8-way attack, but then gush about Hard Corps.

And as for Rendering Ranger's graphics: nothing animates! Everything just slides across the screen as static image, except for the player character.

Omnidirectional whipping is the shit. I have no idea why whip-wielding protagonists in Castlevania games past the Super Fourth lost this ability.

Great Rumbler Wrote:I just don't see how you can complain about the difficulty in Contra III, but then gush about Hard Corps.

First -- Contra isn't a series I played as a kid. I can't remember ever playing Contra then, beyond maybe level one of the NES game sometime or something like that. So it's not a series I have much nostalgia for. The first Contra game I owned was Hard Corps for the Genesis, which I got in 2005 or 2006 some time after getting the system.

Oh, Hard Corps is insanely difficult. I've never gotten more than three or maybe four levels into the game. I like the game anyway, though, for whatever reason. It is the first Contra game I owned, so there is that to probably help explain it. It's a more complex game than Contra III, manages to pull off many of the same visual effects on much weaker hardware and more (the scaling effects they pulled off on a stock Genesis are just amazing). It's basically a long series of high-intensity bossfights, with short levels in between.

Contra III feels like a step back in comparison, with the completely lame plot, identical characters, etc. Also it's an early SNES game, and doesn't push the hardware as much as Hard Corps does the Genesis. It's too bad that there was never a second SNES Contra game, it'd have been interesting to see them hopefully push it more (though of course with Castlevania, it's actually the first game that pushes the system more... but that's one of SNES Dracula X's major disappointments of course, along with how much worse it is than the TGCD game.).

Quote:Or complain about how Contra III is really basic, but then gush about Rendering Ranger.

R2 has a very different style of gameplay within the genre from Contra,though. It's much more like a linear, simplified Turrican game than anything else, I think... with full aiming control, instead of just being able to fire left and right like in Turrican games (Yes, you have things like the freeze ray, missiles, etc, but your main gun is left or right only). I just played to level four of R2 and then a bit of Super Turricans 1 and 2, the full aiming control of R2 makes things so much easier and more fun... but the games do all have some clear similarities.

Oh, R2's first shmup level is level 2. Then there are several shmup levels in a row before you return to the run & gun stages. I definitely think that it's a great game, with great graphics, great gameplay, and lots of fun. You think that those levels are long though? Really? They aren't long. Ten minutes... what? Neither of the first two levels are anywhere near that long. The environments are a little repetitive, but still, the game keeps things mixed up and challenging. The pits are the main challenge in level 1 really, I only died once from enemy fire versus five or six times from falling in pits. :)

I did get game over before reaching the level 1 boss the first time I played today, but I was within a few screens of the boss and again had only actually been killed by enemy fire once. The next time I did much better and beat the level, then beat levels 2 and 3 too before getting another game over and stopping.

Good points of the game:
-Fantastic graphics, as good or better than anything on the system.
-Incredible speed -- no matter how many sprites are on screen, the game never slows down. That's just unbelievable for SNES games with no addon chips!
-Full aiming control, you can fire in every direction.
-L and R allow you to fire at a 90 degree angle up or down without moving! Once you get used to this, it's very hard to go back...
-Nice variety of weapons and gameplay, good balance too (when you die the weapon you have equipped is reduced to its lowest level, but you keep the others at full power... reminds me a bit of Lightening Force's system).
-Password save system and infinite continues means that you will actually beat it, and won't be frustrated with having to start over from the beginning yet again after getting 90% of the way through the game or something.
-It's nowhere near as hard as any Contra game (I consider this a good thing)
-Good music

Bad things? Um... uh...

-Japan only release, and even there it is very rare. Expect to pay triple digits for this game.
-I'm not sure whether the rendered graphics were an improvement over the original sprite work.
-Somewhat repetitive graphics, each level looks different but within each level things do start to look similar.
-It is frustrating when you die and your best weapon gets reduced to zero power... sometimes in the first level particularly I think it might be more fun to start over than continue, if you die with the full-power spread shot late in the stage... but that's how games like this go, so I don't consider this a big negative.

It's really a very good game, with great action, great design, fun levels to play through, and more.

Super Turrican and Super Turrican 2, in comparison?

-More complex controls -- Super Turrican 2 has the grappling hook, there's the ice beam in the first one, Mega Turrican has the rope, etc. You have more moves and it takes longer to get used to how to play than the pretty straightforward R2.
-More open level designs, particularly in Mega Turrican and Super Turrican 1. Super Turrican 2 does have a couple of open levels too, but is mostly linear; R2 is entirely linear. Of course the first two Turrican games have gigantic, open levels, utterly unlike pretty much anything in the later games. If you think R2's levels are somehow too long (I don't really understand why, they aren't that long I thought... not short, certainly, but not THAT long), I'm not going to hold out any hope that you're going to like Turricans 1 or 2... but anyway.
-Also great graphics and sound

All of these games (Turrican, R2) have a similar style, which makes sense because they're all from some closely related German developers, Rainbow Arts and Factor 5. Perhaps you just don't like that style of European action games, some people don't.

Quote:Or complain about how Bloodlines doesn't have 8-way attack, but then gush about Hard Corps.

Contra isn't Castlevania... I don't expect everything to have 8-way attack. Has any Contra game had it? That is one thing that makes the games harder, though, certainly, and yes it'd be nice to see a Contra game with 8-way attack...

On that note, GunForce actually DOES have full all-way attacking, like R2. Yes, really. Metal Slug of course only has up/left/right attacking, unless you're using a machinegun or somesuch, but in GunForce you have full control of where you are attacking. And you're right, it is better. It's one more reason why I like the game. :)

Quote:And as for Rendering Ranger's graphics: nothing animates! Everything just slides across the screen as static image, except for the player character.

That's true for plenty of SNES games though... and there is some animation, like the turrets turning to fire at you and stuff. And the player character has great animation. Plus the other stuff dies pretty fast, so who cares. :)

Weltall Wrote:Omnidirectional whipping is the shit. I have no idea why whip-wielding protagonists in Castlevania games past the Super Fourth lost this ability.

Entirely agreed, why in the world did they ever drop it...

Bloodlines was like a cruel joke, one character can attack diagonally while jumping but not while on the ground, and the other can attack diagonally while on the ground but now while jumping. Jerks.

In Rondo of Blood (TGCD) you can't attack diagonally, but at least as Maria she can attack fast and the birds come back at an angle, so you can hit enemies that you wouldn't hit with a standard whip attack. Maria makes that game so easy, play RoB with Maria and then with Richter and there's a huge jump in difficulty going from the one to the other... it's so much fun with her, with the double jump and powerful attack. With Richter it's a harder and much less fun game, in my opinion, but might be worth it for the increased difficulty. I mostly just play as Maria though...

Oh, RoB is on Virtual Console now. Get it, now!

No ABF. That one isn't even translated. Get the PSP version. It's got the remake, the original, SOTN, and all of them can be played in either Japanese or English.

Oh GR, I gotta go with the crowd here and agree, Castlevania 4 is the better Castlevania. 4 way whipping isn't all it had. It had that "foreground background" mechanic, and some really cool tricks like whipping into rings to swing across stuff.

All Bloodlines had was a second guy with a spear. Now Bloodlines isn't a bad game, there is something to be said for having to work with limitations in direction (Megaman's weapons are all about that, giving you some that only fire up, or some that only fire across the ground), but when I have my choice, it's Super Castlevania for me. Way better. The music isn't exactly the best the SNES had to offer, but it still is a lot nicer sounding than the Genesis game, and yes, the visuals are much nicer. Loved the transparent fog effects back then.

You want a hard game? ... Super Ghouls and Ghosts. I still haven't beaten it without cheating!

Dark Jaguar Wrote:No ABF. That one isn't even translated. Get the PSP version. It's got the remake, the original, SOTN, and all of them can be played in either Japanese or English.

Translated? Who cares, the game doesn't have enough of a plot for that to really matter... and controls are definitely going be better on Wii than PSP. Plus I don't have a PSP... people who have it, sure, get it, but is the classic mode identical to the original TGCD game? I mean, the remake is quite different, and the version of SotN on the disc is different in a bunch of ways as well... on the Wii, though, you know that you're getting the original game, which is the version that most fans of the game like the best.

Quote:You want a hard game? ... Super Ghouls and Ghosts. I still haven't beaten it without cheating!

I haven't even beaten the second level. Too hard, not worth the suffering.

Maybe if I got the GBA version which I think has saving I could beat it eventually, but on SNES... no way.

But yes, SCIV is way better than Bloodlines. SCIV I got in 2005 or 2006 or something, not having played more than a level of it before and not knowing if it was as good as people said. I quickly came to really, really like it, so when sometime later I got the Genesis game, I was hoping for good things... only to be very badly disappointed, with the mediocre graphics, average music, insanely awful save system (WHY DID YOU GET RID OF INFINITE CONTINUES AND SAVE THE NUMBER OF CONTINUES REMAINING IN THE PASSWORD???), the ridiculously cruel diagonal attack system I described in my last post, that there are only six levels but they are extremely long, which is annoying... I don't know, it's okay I guess, but not even remotely as good as RoB or SCIV, or Castlevanias 1 or 3 on the NES either.

Quote:-It's nowhere near as hard as any Contra game (I consider this a good thing)

It's at least as hard as Contra III.

Quote:It's really a very good game, with great action, great design, fun levels to play through, and more.

It's a somewhat-average Contra-style shooter with pretty graphics and generic gameplay, there's nothing that impressive me much from a gameplay standpoint. It's not overly hard, but there's some frustrating aspects to it.

Quote:Has any Contra game had it?

Yes, Contra III does. Hard Corps came out two and half years later, but they decided to take it out for that one. It makes the game feel archaic, even though it's clear that they wanted something bigger and better to try and match the fast-paced action and intensity of a game like Gunstar Heroes.

Quote:That's true for plenty of SNES games though... and there is some animation, like the turrets turning to fire at you and stuff. And the player character has great animation. Plus the other stuff dies pretty fast, so who cares.

I don't know, you're the one going on and on about how it's this amazing technical achievement and how it's pushing the system to it's absolute limit.

Quote:Oh GR, I gotta go with the crowd here and agree, Castlevania 4 is the better Castlevania. 4 way whipping isn't all it had. It had that "foreground background" mechanic, and some really cool tricks like whipping into rings to swing across stuff.

Uh, I said in my post that I gave the edge to the SNES. What more do you want from me?

Because it's not just an edge, it's a complete blowout! :D

ABF, the PSP version's "original mode" is literally the Turbographx 16 game emulated. They gave it English voice acting and subtitles, (except the German in the beginning, which is just subtitled) but if you don't like the english voice acting, you can switch it to Japanese language mode. It's identical. The controls are just fine. It's not like you would want to play a platformer with an analog stick, and on any modern version of the PSP, the buttons work just fine. Heck, you can even play on the "missing the right accessory card" mode, where it just tells you to plug in your addon card with a cheap funny looking "first level" of it. I doubt the Wii version lets you do that.

The controls are "reversed" as is normal for anything released on a Sony system. That IS annoying, and it's been annoying since I played Xenogears (oddly, FF7 still used the correct button placement), and honestly I don't see why Sony even HAS the policy of "switch confirm and cancel for American releases, keep them as expected in Japanese releases". However, if you have hacked firmware, you can switch confirm and cancel for the system settings of your PSP, and in a nice show of programming sense, most games will actually detect this and flip their OWN controls to match! It works in this Castlevania game too.

Symphony of the Night does have some changes. Really though, aside from how they changed "fog form" controls, it's all an improvement to me. They basically just added some extras. I've read complaints about removing glitches, but those are glitches. Exploring non-existant zones never really interested me anyway. I've seen them, and really aside from amusing information, it doesn't seem like all that much fun to bother. Besides, turns out exploring them can still be done, just with differnet glitches that still exist in this version. Oh, they did change that ending saxaphone song to something much more Castlevania-y, but really, that's still a net win if you ask me. Sheesh, I don't want Kenny G tossed in out of the blue like that. Heck the lyrics don't even make any sense. It's like some sort of love song, but considering there were NO indications of ANY sort of love connection between Maria and Alucard, it just comes off as a forced romance. I hate that kind of lame thing. Romance is fine, but don't just come up with a random matchup near the end JUST because you feel the story has to have "SOME kind of romance" in it. Heck SOTN does have that, with Dracula and Lisa.

Anyway, that's beside the point. If you're interested in Rondo of Blood, I'd recommend the PSP game. The remake is also very well done. I think I prefer it to the original, but then again I first played the original IN this version.

Great Rumbler Wrote:It's at least as hard as Contra III.

No way, no way at all. What are you doing, not counting save systems in difficulty or something? Save systems are an integral part of game difficulty. Contra III has very limited continues and no saving. R2 has password save for infinite continues. Even if all other things were equal, that makes R2 exponentially easier.

But all other things aren't equal, R2 has hit points as well, while Contra is one hit you die. It's nowhere near as difficult a game.

Quote:It's a somewhat-average Contra-style shooter with pretty graphics and gameplay, there's nothing that impressive me much from a gameplay standpoint. It's not overly hard, but there's some frustrating aspects to it.

Nothing impressive, aside from the total lack of slowdown, the big enemies, the large amounts of firepower when you're powered up, the pretty graphics and good music to help keep you interested, the great angle up and angle down fire buttons, and more... I just don't agree at all with you, obviously.

Sure, it is more mainstream than Turricans 1 or 2 due to the linear level designs and simple controls, and some people think less of it for that (the people who love the giant open level style of the first two games, particularly), but for what it is it's really good.

I did forget to mention one bad thing about both R2 and all of the Turrican games though, none of them have a 2 player mode, unfortunately. Contra games almost all have two player modes, and it is too bad that none of the Turrican games, or R2, have them.

Quote:Yes, Contra III does. Hard Corps came out two and half years later, but they decided to take it out for that one. It makes the game feel archaic, even though it's clear that they wanted something bigger and better to try and match the fast-paced action and intensity of a game like Gunstar Heroes.

What... huh? Hard Corps has 8-direction firing! I just put it in to remind myself, and of course it has it, as do all Contra games I believe now that I remember correctly.

Agreed about them trying to make it be like Gunstar Heroes though, I said the same thing myself. The bossfight focus makes that obvious, I think. It makes it different, but exciting...

Quote:I don't know, you're the one going on and on about how it's this amazing technical achievement and how it's pushing the system to it's absolute limit.

It is a pretty impressive technical achievement though, and a fantastic game as well... I'm saying both of those things. You may not agree, everyone has an opinion.

Quote:Uh, I said in my post that I gave the edge to the SNES. What more do you want from me?

I agree with DJ, it's a blowout, not just an "edge".

Quote:No way, no way at all. What are you doing, not counting save systems in difficulty or something? Save systems are an integral part of game difficulty. Contra III has very limited continues and no saving. R2 has password save for infinite continues. Even if all other things were equal, that makes R2 exponentially easier.

But all other things aren't equal, R2 has hit points as well, while Contra is one hit you die. It's nowhere near as difficult a game.

I'm counting number of times I died and how easy it is to die.

Quote:aside from the total lack of slowdown

Not really an issue when you're emulating.

Quote:the big enemies

So do both of the Contra games.

Quote:the large amounts of firepower when you're powered up

So do both of the Contra games.

Quote:the pretty graphics and good music to help keep you interested

So do both the Contra games.

Quote:the great angle up and angle down fire buttons

Eh.

From my point of view, both of the Contra games have just about everything that R2's got, only they've got more gameplay variety and better level design. So, there's really no reason for me to get invested in R2 when both of those are sitting right in front of me as well.

Quote:t is a pretty impressive technical achievement though

But most of it isn't animated, which makes the game feel even more stark. Aside from some explosions and stuff flying around in the background, it feels kind of static. I just don't care how detailed it all looks if it doesn't animate well and I just don't think R2 animates very well. I'd take both of the Contra games over in that department.

Quote:I'm counting number of times I died and how easy it is to die.

I die more times in ten minutes in any Contra game ever than I would in like 45 minutes of Super Turrican or R2, I think. You seriously die more in R2? Either you're really, REALLY bad at platform jumping or really good at Contra, because that's pretty impressive if true, considering how much harder Contra is!

Plus, as I said, password save vs. 5 continues and then you start over is a huge, huge point, and ignoring it is a big mistake. This is also something that makes R2 better than the Super or Mega Turrican games, those also have no saving and limited continues... I've beaten Super Turrican 1 and Mega Turrican, but not Super Turrican 2. It's just too hard for the limited number of continues you're given, it'd take a lot of practice I think. It's got some crazy-awesome stuff in it though, the greatest set-piece battles in the whole Turrican series... the problem is that that's about all it is, while the earlier Turrican games all have an exploration, vaguely Metroidish quality to them as well. (You have a ball form too, another Metroid inspiration I'm sure... :))

R2, try one: Almost got to level one boss. Lost all but one life falling in pits, because jumping over pits is an important part of this game and it's tricky.

Try two: Beat level one, game over mid level two.

Try three: Beat levels two and three, game over mid level 4. Got password to continue from that point.


Contra III, try one: Got game over a few screens into the first level.

Try two: Got game over at the boss of the first level.

Try three: Beat level one. Game over in level two.

Try four, game over in level two again.

Try five, beat level 2 and got to level 3, game over there at the first miniboss. Game over, try again from the beginning.


Really though, comparing them directly isn't fair. They are very different kinds of games, despite superficial similarities. R2 has much more platform jumping, while in Contra jumping is very much de-emphasized. Contra is more of a shooting game than R2, which has more of a platform-action feel I think. Also Contra levels are quite short, but brutally hard due to the very unforgiving one hit you die system and limited continues. I find R2 and Turrican's longer, often more open levels and health points of health bar systems more fun, personally.

I mean, I know the Contra games are good. If you want a thrilling, exciting ride, those are the games to play, not R2 or Super Turrican or something; the latter titles are a bit slower paced in comparison, though when you're playing one it often may not exactly feel that way, Contra is just full intensity shooting all the time. I'd rather play something with more variety than that... I have much more fun playing Turrican or R2 than Contra anything, and I think the quite different gameplay styles is why.

Quote:Not really an issue when you're emulating.

Emulating fixes SNES slowdown? Only if you choose it to, most emulators try to emulate the system at the original speed I think.

Quote:So do both of the Contra games.

Sometimes, but not as consistently as R2.

Quote:So do both of the Contra games.

Not quite as much, no. The R2 spread shot is better than the Contra III spread shot, the laser is way better, then there's the multi-way, etc... or the bounce shot in the Super Turrican games, that's a pretty cool one. :)

I mean, yes, Contra games have lots of firepower. You fire really quickly and spend most of the game shooting. But it seems to me that the challenge of just hitting the enemies is higher in Contra... perhaps partially because the consequences of missing are so much higher, in Turrican or R2 you just lose a hit point, but in Contra you die.

Quote:So do both the Contra games.

True.

Quote:Eh.

Better controls matter, and those buttons are really useful. In Contra or something like that you have to be moving to shoot diagonally, but not in R2...

Quote:But most of it isn't animated, which makes the game feel even more stark. Aside from some explosions and stuff flying around in the background, it feels kind of static. I just don't care how detailed it all looks if it doesn't animate well and I just don't think R2 animates very well. I'd take both of the Contra games over in that department.

I don't even notice that the enemies don't animate much when I'm playing, the sprite work is great, the main character has great animation (very detailed), and the game looks so good...

Quote:You seriously die more in R2?

At least as much. Either from dropping into one of the pits while trying to hit a turret, from trying to jump over the columns of fire, or by getting hit multiple times by flying boss at the end, I guess it's the end anyway. His fire attack is brutal, especially when there's not much room to maneuver.

Quote:and the game looks so good...

So do lots of SNES games and some of them are actually much more fun to play and have animated sprites!

Hit the turrets by using the spreadgun and killing them before you try to jump over the pits, not by firing in the air or something. Time your jumps over the columns of fire, that's easy. As for the boss, I beat him first try, he's not that tough. Stay between the missiles, shoot up. Use whichever gun is highest level.

You like platformers, right? The game's more of a platformer than Contra. That's not a bad thing, I think.

Quote:So do lots of SNES games and some of them are actually much more fun to play and have animated sprites!

R2 is probably more fun overall than any Contra game I've ever played, though as I said I think it's almost in a different subgenre really, given that it's a bit slower and more deliberate, and requires a lot more jumping, which is a good thing, Contra's too focused on just shooting. I like jumping too.

I think we'll never agree. :)


Oh yeah, and once again, Metal Slug >>>> Contra. Yes the Metal Slug games are really hard and I die constantly, but they're far too incredibly fun for that to hold me back from loving all of them. I mean, yes, they are also almost entirely focused on the shooting and not jumping, but they're just so fun... so many crazy weapons and vehicles, so much incredible art design and animation, such a variety of enemies and crazy bosses... the Metal Slug series is the best in the genre, I'd say.

R2 isn't all that great, I'd take Contra III or Hard Corps over it easily.

Quote:I like jumping too.

So, uhh, did you not make it to the second half of the first level of Contra III where there aren't any enemies at all and you have to leap over a pit of fire. There's also columns of fire and eruptions of flaming debris that you have to avoid.

Quote:I think it's almost in a different subgenre really, given that it's a bit slower and more deliberate, and requires a lot more jumping, which is a good thing

Yeah, I can't agree with this at all. It plays almost exactly the same as the Contra games. You run, you shoot, and waves of enemies come at you.

By the way, level 2 of a Contra III is a top down shooter where you have to use the shoulder buttons to turn. It was pretty awesome, especially the boss fight at the end.

Treasure, long associated with fast-paced shooters, had two such titles for the Genesis: Alien Soldier and Gunstar Heroes.

Alien Soldier

Released in 1995, you play as a sort of bird-guy who must blast his way through waves of enemies and bosses both on the floor and on the ceiling. One of the unique aspect of the game is that the character can hover in the air and fire at bad guys or leap up on the ceiling and shoot down at bad guys. There aren’t too many shooters I can think of that do that and it adds another layer to the gameplay to distinguish itself. As with most Treasure titles, it looks great. Everything’s detailed and explodes beautifully and there’s a wide range or well-animated bosses to fight. There are a few problems I have with the game. One is that switching weapon types during the heat of battle is a pain, since you have to bring up a weapon wheel and the game doesn’t pause when this happens. The second is that your ammo is depleted very quickly, so you’re going to change fairly often, including when you’re trying to take down a boss. There’s also the issue of having to stop firing to change direction, which can be frustrating when you want to change quickly in the heat of battle, though it does have its uses such as when you want to run backward while shooting at a boss. It’s a pretty difficult game, definitely one of the harder shooters I’ve played so far, even more so than Hard Corps I think. It’s got a health bar, but when the health bar is gone the game is over. Again, this is a game that rewards patience, so bring an extra bag with you.

Gunstar Heroes

Probably the most well-known Genesis shooter. Released in 1993, Gunstar Heroes features the same sort of fast-paced, explosions everywhere action that Alien Soldier offers. As per usually, the graphics are very well done and it looks great with huge explosions and debris flying all over the place. There’s a variety of weapon types to find and use and the game has a health system, rather than lives. It also gives you the option of multi-directional shooting or freezing the direction of fire whilst firing. The levels take place in many natural settings, such as a tropical rain forest, a mountain, or a cave. The first level even has a final boss ripped straight from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water! Overall, it’s more fun and less frustrating to play than Alien Soldier and it’s not nearly as hard. Make no mistake it’s still a hard game, like most shooters from this period were, but it’s much easier to pick up and play immediately.

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...ar-heroes/

Great Rumbler Wrote:R2 isn't all that great, I'd take Contra III or Hard Corps over it easily.

It is great, and I also still like Hard Corps more than Contra III for whatever reason it is -- I just played some Hard Corps too. Got to level 3 of the 'save the research center' path at the first branch, but got game over at the really hard boss in the junkyard level (where you have to fight the constellations) -- I got to level three with two or three continues left, and used all of them at that boss.

I like the game a lot, until I run into walls like that which make me annoyed at it again... it's just such a cool game though, with such a huge variety of kinds of fights. :)

Quote:So, uhh, did you not make it to the second half of the first level of Contra III where there aren't any enemies at all and you have to leap over a pit of fire. There's also columns of fire and eruptions of flaming debris that you have to avoid.

Agreed, that part's fun.

Quote:Yeah, I can't agree with this at all. It plays almost exactly the same as the Contra games. You run, you shoot, and waves of enemies come at you.

Yeah, I agree, it is the same subgenre... but it's definitely a different take on it, with what remains of the influence of games like Turrican in the game. Oh, and of course it has those shmup levels too.

Have you gotten to the shmup levels yet? You should at least do that. No slowdown, with lots of enemies on screen.

Well, either that or start learning some Turrican game and see if you like it. :)

Quote:By the way, level 2 of a Contra III is a top down shooter where you have to use the shoulder buttons to turn. It was pretty awesome, especially the boss fight at the end.

I know, I said in my last post that I'd just played Contra III and gotten to the third level... and yeah, those levels are pretty cool, I like them. The controls are a little odd (L and R to turn?), but it works, and the fun certainly is there, to say the least. The topdown levels are pretty fun.

The only negative to the first topdown stage is the boss, it's a real pain when you only have the basic gun... killing the stupid thing takes forever.

SNES vs. Genesis: Attack of the Zelda Clones

The Legend of Zelda is a popular series, so it’s not surprising that a few clones have popped up over the years.

Gunman’s Proof

Released in January 1997 for the SNES by ASCII, Gunman’s Proof tells the goofy story of aliens landing in the American southwest during the 1880’s and causing all sort of trouble. The main protagonist, a young boy who decides he wants to fight the the aliens, known as Demiseeds. It’s not long before the boy meets up with another group of aliens, who are also hunting the Demiseeds. The captain of the crew convinces the boy to let him take over the boy’s body during their mission, which the boy agrees to. Then they go fight the Demiseeds together. Like I said, it’s pretty goofy. The gameplay is straight-up Zelda, no question. The main difference is that you have a variety of guns, instead of a sword. As you progress, the local gunsmith teaches you how to use other weapons aside from your pea-shooter, which you pick up as drops from dead enemies. There’s an overworld and a town or two for you to explore. Much of the gameplay takes place in dungeons where you find treasure and eventually fight the dungeon’s boss. It’s actually fairly simplistic, as there are no items and little in the way of puzzles to overcome. It’s mainly just fighting and exploring. The music is cheerful and the chirpy and the graphics are colorful and vibrant. Gunman’s Proof is a fun game with a nice, breezy pace, but lacks the depth of Link to the Past and is probably best appreciated by younger kids who aren’t quite skilled enough to tackle more difficult games.

This game is only available through translated ROM as it had no released outside of Japan.

Crusaders of Centy

Released in June 1994 for the Genesis by Sega in Japan and Atlus in the US [it was developed by Nextech, a contractor responsible for Code Veronica, Time Crisis 3 and 4, and various Shining games], tells of a world beset by monsters. As the son of warrior who died in combat, the main character is given his father’s sword at age 14 and summarily sent out into the world to fight monsters and do various other heroic things. One of the interesting things about the story is that it actually questions whether or not the monsters are actually “evil” or if there’s more to it than that. Story aside, it plays very similarly to A Link to the Past, even down to the way the main character swings his sword. The overworld, however, is just a large map that the character moves automatically to once the locations have been unlocked. There are several different moves to acquire, such as jumping, a powered up sword throw, and various others things that make it possible access new locations. You can also have various animals as your companions, up to two at a time, who will help you out in your quests by provided various abilities. The first half of the game, after the first hour or so, you lose the ability to talk to humans but gain the ability to talk to plants and animals. One problem is that movement is restricted to four directions, so movement ends up feeling stiff and a bit unresponsive. It also lacks some of the depth of A Link to the Past, but offers a bit more than Gunman’s Proof. The graphics and music are both pretty good. It’s a fun action/adventure game with some depth to it and some interesting story elements.

Overall both games are fun additions to the genre and each have their pros and cons. This round ends in a draw.

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...da-clones/

If you want Zelda clones, some of the most blatant are the two Neutopia games on TG16. Fortunately they're solid Zelda clones... they're both more like Zelda 1 than LttP though.

SNES vs. Genesis: Alisia Dragoon and James Bond 007 – The Duel

Alisia Dragoon

An action game developed by Game Arts and Gainax and published by Sega outside of Japan, this little game released in 1992 has a few interesting thing about it. For one thing the main character is a female and fight all of her battles on her own without the help of any male characters. She does have a series of companions in the form of guardian beasts that have differing abilities. As Alisia you must fight through a series of levels against a variety of enemies that want to prevent you from stopping the evil Baldour’s ambitions. The story’s pretty short and sweet, for the most part you’re just zapping everything in sight with your auto-aiming lightning attack. It doesn’t take long to realize there’s not a lot of variety here, just different levels and slightly different enemies. It’s kind of fun, but nothing really all that special.

James Bond 007: The Duel

Developed by Domark and released in May 1993, this was the last game to feature Timothy Dalton as James Bond, three years after his last Bond movie. While not based on any of the movies, it features movie villains such as Jaws and Oddjob. Unlike some run-and-gun action games, The Duel has a heavy emphasis on platforming and exploring large, open levels. Your primary mission is to find hostages that are scattered throughout the level, then you’ll be given an additional mission to complete. Bond can shoot left and right, and up and down at an angle while standing still and also has some grenades at his disposal. As from the Bond theme, the music was made specifically for the game and sound pretty good. The graphics are likewise well-done, looking a bit like Flashback, although not quite as detailed. The thing about The Duel is that it’s really hard. Just getting past the first level will take several game overs before you figure out enemies patterns and the routes you need to take to find all the hostages and the bomb. The platforming aspect can be a bit unforgiving as well, often leading to an untimely death. If you’ve got the patience, The Duel is actually a pretty cool game.

http://greatrumbler.wordpress.com/2010/0...-the-duel/

Quote:I even prefer GunForce: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island for SNES to Contra III, I think. Sure GunForce is short and easy, but at least it's fun and not incredibly frustrating. Plus it has one of the best subtitles of all time and is the first run & gun made by the team that went on to make Metal Slug... GunForce 2 (Arcade only) is a better known and more popular game than the first one, but I like the first one too.

Well, I finally played this and, aside from the subtitle, it's really not very good. There's literally nothing at all here to distinguish this from any other run-and-gun shooter on either system and it runs like an old man covered in iron weights. I'd rather even play R2 over this!

Select Start!

Great Rumbler Wrote:Well, I finally played this and, aside from the subtitle, it's really not very good. There's literally nothing at all here to distinguish this from any other run-and-gun shooter on either system and it runs like an old man covered in iron weights. I'd rather even play R2 over this!

But don't you at least have to agree that the subtitle is completely awesome? :)


Anyway though, most reviews of GunForce are mediocre, so you're not alone on that. I like it a bit more than most I think. It's probably partially nostalgia, partially the connections it has to Metal Slug, partially that it is fun anyway, even if it isn't the best game ever for sure.

I mean, it's got vehicles you can ride in, a main gun with infinite ammo and pickup weapons which you can only have one of and which have limited ammo, aliens (play it to the end), and some other things which you also find in Metal Slug. GunForce 2 did more, including adding prisoners to rescue which give you powerups and having some of that distinctive Metal Slug style art in it, but a few things were present from the beginning. :)

Playing them again, I'll agree that ratings-wise GunForce isn't as good as Contra III. It's easier and thus more fun to play for someone like me who is horrible at Contra, but overall, sure, it's not as good. I mean, I've beaten GunForce on the SNES on default difficulty, while as I've said I've never gotten past halfway at most in any Contra game... those games are too hard, Contra III stops being fun too much of the time. In contrast, I actually have fun when playing GunForce. No matter how "good" or not it is, I like it and have fun playing it. But sure, I'll admit that I'd have to give it a lower score than Contra III. It does have quite a bit of slowdown on SNES (less in the arcade of course), is kind of short and only moderately challenging, has some questionable game mechanics, etc.

Oh, I agree R2 is a better game too, yeah, but that's because R2 is one of my favorite run & gun games on the system...

Oh, GunForce does also have two player, but I imagine it's got even more slowdown than the single player mode does...