D.Lo
Member
It's a super limp level pack basically. Not a discreet title.
THPS3 is a very strange comparison since that is literally the same game, just running on differently capable machines.
NES/Famicom Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Teknoman
- Start date
THPS3 is a very strange comparison since that is literally the same game, just running on differently capable machines.
Seven Force
Banned
Dracula X always kinda felt like like Rondo of Blood: Lost Levels to me, really. I prefer the level design in RoB, but XX definitely ain't bad.
We can definitely agree on that, at least.
Edit: Yeah, pretty sure the level design in the PS1 versions of THPS3 (and 4) were different from the at the time next gen versions. I think THPS3 PS1 even had an exclusive level.
CVIII/Akumajou Densetsu is the best classicvania anyway
We can definitely agree on that, at least.
Edit: Yeah, pretty sure the level design in the PS1 versions of THPS3 (and 4) were different from the at the time next gen versions. I think THPS3 PS1 even had an exclusive level.
You're wrong. The PSOne version has totally different level designs.
And I don't think the levels are limp. Again, difference in opinion. I rather like Dracula X on SNES and you aren't going to convince me otherwise. Just let it go.
D.Lo
Member
Have I mentioned I have DoReMikka coming in the mail? Is it the first ever console game to come with an instrument accessory (a keyboard)?
The levels aren't 'limp' in the sense that they are bad to play, but graphically they are flat, boring (apart from the cool first level fire effect) and lack any attention to detail, unlike Rondo which is packed with thousands of amazing little touches.
I still like it. It doesn't suck. It/s a 7/10. Rondo is 11/10.
The same levels (settings), the same characters, moves, name, music. It's literally a port adjusted to the power of the platform it is on, just like every port ever.
You said it was not 'remotely' the same game, despite sharing music, sound effects, characters, setting, story, enemies and bosses. It's a level pack.
The levels aren't 'limp' in the sense that they are bad to play, but graphically they are flat, boring (apart from the cool first level fire effect) and lack any attention to detail, unlike Rondo which is packed with thousands of amazing little touches.
I still like it. It doesn't suck. It/s a 7/10. Rondo is 11/10.
kunonabi
Member
I actually prefer Dracula X to Rondo. Rondo was just too easy and the cutscens were terrible. Losing Maria isn't much of a less either since she's ridiculously overpowered for a game that is already a cake walk.
Huggers
Member
For me it's Rondo>XX by a distance. Rondo is so tightly designed and it looks and sounds phenomenal. XX is somewhat bland to look at and doesn't nail the unique feel of Rondo. For years SCVIV was my favourite. After Rondo it feels plodding and nowhere near as focused an experience. Really though they're all fantastic games. The 8-bit ones are timeless too
The levels and the objectives within them are a big part of what make the THPS games different from each other, same settings or not. It ceases being a port when the content changes as much as it did. Gun on Xbox and Gun on Xbox 360, that's a port. Same with Tony Hawk American Wasteland. Same design across two systems. The THPS3 games are unique games with the same mechanics.
The levels being key to design... that's how I feel about Dracula X and Rondo. Obviously they're born of the same idea, but the games do not follow the same pattern and end up taking the player on different journeys, despite similar graphics, sound and gameplay. The levels are the fundamental part of what makes a game unique. Calling it a "level pack" does the design a disservice, but then calling it a "rom hack" with "whipped up levels" a few posts ago shows me what you think of it. Then you go into how the levels don't play bad but the graphics in Rondo are better...? I don't even know what that has to do with anything. Of course Rondo looks better, isn't it on superior hardware?
I get that you think Rondo is a better game. I'm not even contesting that, so you don't need to prove to me how they're different -- I know this, I own both. I've played both -- a lot. I also get that they're similar settings with similar assets -- but it's the THPS3 situation all over again. It's a fundamental belief in design which we don't see eye to eye on. Tomato, tuh-mah-toh; unique game, level pack; I prefer it, you don't.
IrishNinja
Member
Okay no worries, we'll leave it at that
We really need a 'multi retro system argument thread' because we just had a long SNES/PCE/MD/NES/SMS argument in a Famicom thread lol.
I'm just glad someone else cares enough about Castlevania to have this discussion haha
That said (and to bring things back to this thread), I'm waiting for my Rockman 1-6 famicom carts to come in. Can't wait, I'll post pics when they arrive.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
If nothing else... the recent chatter has inspired me to push through my lowly Wii VC copy of Rondo. I've never really done more than scratch the surface.
Huggers
Member
I just bought MM 4. Only need the last 2 now but my word 5 is pricey.
I bought all 6 as a lot. I looked into picking them up individually and it didn't make sense cost-wise, partially due to 5 being so stupidly priced.
A Black Falcon
Member
Yeah, Wonder Boy for SMS is a good port of a not-so-good game. How good the source material is matters.
Like, Rastan Saga II 's home ports on the Genesis and TG16 (PC Engine) are good ports of an awful arcade game. This still makes them bad games.
Also, I mentioned only a few third-party games (Castlevania, Mega Man). Metroid, Zelda II, Doki Doki Panic, and Kid Icarus are first-party. Oh, and Super Mario Bros.2 (The Lost Levels) is another 1986 FDS release. Yeah, in '86-'87 in Japan Nintendo REALLY was pushing the FDS.
Meanwhile, in '86 first-party Sega had on the SMS for platformers... Ghost House (not so good), Alex Kidd in Miracle World (it's okay), and a couple of sidescrolling beat 'em ups I wouldn't count, and in '87 Zillion (Sega's Impossible Mission knockoff, decent game), Kung-Fu Kid (okay game but it has issues), Anmitsu Hime if you count it (the Japanese game that was turned into Alex Kidd in High Tech World), the puzzle-platformer Penguin Land, and that's about it. It's an okay library, but clearly not quite equal to Nintendo's first-party output. At that point Sega was better at other things, which makes sense, they were an arcade-first company. (This connects well to the paragraph below.) If you count Wonder Boy as"first party even though it's a Westone game then add that to the list as well.
Arcades are great for some things -- racing games, shmups, run & guns -- but they are not good for platformers. The things that make platformers great, and the things that make arcade games great, really have little in common. Platformers just do not work well with arcade time & money constraints -- because an arcade game needs the player to be constantly dying and putting money in the machine, but that's not good platformer design. This is why Magician Lord is so overly difficult, for example (not that it's bad, it's just super hard in order to take your money).
It has? I'd think Symphony of the Night would win those contests. Of only the classic games, though, SCIV and RoB would surely be the top two, but I don't know what order they'd be in. Both have many fans.
SCIV and RoB are two of the best platformers ever, while Bloodlines is "just" a good game.
The Turbografx isn't 8-bit unless the only thing that determines "bitness" is the CPU and system bus. It's got a 16-bit graphics chip and an 8-bit CPU. NEC always advertised the system as having "16-bit graphics", this is what lots of game cases say on them for instance, and that is absolutely true. Calling the TG16 "8-bit" really is not true, just like calling the Jaguar "not 64-bit" isn't entirely accurate; both systems have a mixture of bit sizes across the various parts. I'm willing to call both the higher number.
Of course, much more important is that system power matters a whole lot more than just the bit number of the CPU or whatever. The Intellivision isn't the equal of the SNES just because it's 16-bit, to use the obvious example...
And the Turbografx's one big flaw, that it doesn't have hardware parallax support? That's because they didn't include that in that 16-bit graphics chip, so it's got nothing to do with the system being "only 8-bit".
It's not a series I've spent any real time with, but don't the N64/PS1 versions of Tony Hawk 3 play more like Tony Hawk 2, and don't have the new game design of the GC/PS2/Xbox version of the game? I think I remember something about the 2-minute timer? The only Tony Hawk games I have are 2 for DC and 3 for N64 and I've barely played either one (don't like the games), so I wouldn't really know myself.
I recently got Rockman 4, because Megaman 4 is my favorite Mega Man game ever so I really want the NES game, but the actual NES version is a bit too expensive, particularly when I do have the Mega Man Anniversary Collection... so yeah, Famicom version it is.
The only other one I have for NES is Mega Man 2, because I found a box+cart copy for $3 several years back so of course I bought it.
IrishNinja
Member
ABF i love you but i stopped reading when you compared wonderboy to rastan saga my dude
A Black Falcon
Member
Oh, Wonder Boy isn't anywhere near that level of bad, it was just an example that being a good port only matters compared to the quality of the original title.
Dude, you can say you don't like the game, or the genre, but you can't say the game is just plain bad. For a game to be bad, you have to explain the flaws it has in itself, not compared to other games.
Besides, the comparisons you are making are wildly irrelevant. I can't say Final Fantasy 6 is better than Super Street Fighter 2 because you can actually move on the map, equip your characters and the game isn't made artificially difficult by hiding the powerful moves behind random button presses. Come on, making a hadouken by having to do a quarter circle forward punch, while I could instead just select it in a menu? And what's with having only one guy in your party, facing only a single enemy? etc.
Besides, the comparisons you are making are wildly irrelevant. I can't say Final Fantasy 6 is better than Super Street Fighter 2 because you can actually move on the map, equip your characters and the game isn't made artificially difficult by hiding the powerful moves behind random button presses. Come on, making a hadouken by having to do a quarter circle forward punch, while I could instead just select it in a menu? And what's with having only one guy in your party, facing only a single enemy? etc.
sixteen-bit
Member
Weirdly enough, the only US one I own is the original Mega Man. I guess I figured I'd eventually get around to them, plus I have the Anniversary Collection as well, so that didn't light any fires under my ass, either. Pretty short sighted of me, but 10-12 years-ago-me wasn't quite as savvy a collector as me today. What can ya do
lol, I'm sorry I missed the Drac X talk a few hours ago
That. Is. Awesome.
sixteen-bit
Member
1980s Konami art was too godlike.
Charles Brandon
Member
I got that today as well!
And all three SF SFII carts
And all three SF SFII carts
RoryDropkick
Member
I just got my new capture card in the mail yesterday. Going to install it later this week and do some test recordings. Any suggestions on what I should test?
What games you have?=O
RoryDropkick
Member
A Black Falcon
Member
What you're saying here makes no sense, did you actually read my post? It's got nothing to do with what the game is or anything. It's just an obvious fact that a good, accurate port of an arcade game is only as good as the source material. And Wonder Boy never was that great of a game, in any format. It's not awful, but it certainly isn't good.
Yeah, there are definitely things I passed on in the past that I wouldn't have knowing what I do now... but what can you do. At least I did get other games that now go for a lot more than I spent for them before those went up in price.
#1 on that list would, of course, be Metal Storm for the NES. I paid $16 for a box+cart (no manual) copy maybe five years ago. Now, I could probably get ten times that for the game.
RoryDropkick
Member
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26620278/famicom.txt
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26620278/nes.txt
Here's what I have for NES/FC at least. I have SCART for MD, SNES, and Saturn as well, but I want to do the FC/NES first.
You were saying Wonder Boy was bad because Mega Man and Monster World. I'm saying this is a shit argument.
And yes, arcade Wonder Boy, just as Master System Wonder Boy, was good.
Holy crap what a list...
Do Double Dragon, Super C, Castlevania, Batman, Contra, Rockman 1-5, Double Dragon 2, Final Fantasy 1-3, Gradius 1 and II, Blaster Master, Life Force, Journey to Silius, etc. as choices.
theSlacker
Member
I think he was saying that Wonder Boy wasn't good because arcade style platformers just aren't great as it isn't a style that translates well to arcades. And I agree with him on that and the idea behind it. Much like how I think certain styles of games just weren't great on older consoles as opposed to arcades before there was enough advancement. I know some people love them but older behind the vehicle racing games are just garbage to me. It just isn't something that translated well till after the 16 bit generation on home consoles.
Think that was a bit of a tangent.
A Black Falcon
Member
Oh, that's what you meant, you weren't clear. I don't think that it is a bad argument to say that a better game in a genre is better than a worse one, or to compare games in the same genre to eachother. 2d platformers are a genre.
Wonder Boy wasn't good, no. Not in my opinion. It's a bit below average, overall.
Indeed, that's exactly what I said. I said that arcade racing games, run & guns (even slow-paced ones like Rolling Thunder; walk and guns?), and shmups (and also puzzle games, to add a genre to that list) can work great, but not platformers because good platformer design and "keep pouring in money" arcade revenue requirements don't work well together.
For an example of this, there was, back in the early '90s, an arcade-ized SNES machine I remember trying once. It let you play F-Zero or Super Mario World on a big TV, with a timer. And it was pretty awful, particularly for Mario World, because that timer didn't work at all with Mario World's design! Sure, you could say that tha'ts just because it's a console and not an arcade game, but there are no examples of great arcade platformers on Mario World's level, or even close to it, because you just can't make one that works in arcades and is as great as that. Wonder Boy is a good example of that. They tried to make it work by making it challenging, putting in the food timer, etc., but that arcade sensibility just doesn't work well in a platformer unless it's a borderline run & gun sidescroller like Shinobi or Rolling Thunder.
Great platformers aren't usually just about running to the end of each level as fast as possible (with either lots of enemies or a hard timer, if the game wants to be successful in arcades to keep people dying often enough to keep putting money in) they usually have more to them than that. However, in a game where you need to keep putting money in, any exploration element (or removal of the necessary timer) is bad because that's going to slow the game down and keep people playing for too long without putting more money in the machine. And arcade machines need to make revenue in order for arcades to keep them.
You mean NES/SMS-era racing games? I think that some on the SMS are decent, but yeah, on the NES, the only good ones are top-down games like Micro Machines or RC Pro-Am; behind-the-car racing on NES isn't great. Even on the Genesis it wasn't always good, sprite scaling does wonders linescroll behind-the-car racing games and 4th-gen consoles don't have it (32X and Sega CD excepted). But for 3rd-gen linescroll racing? World Grand Prix on SMS and Pole Position II on Atari 7800 are about as good as I've played, and they're okay but far from great. 3rd-gen consoles can't do that kind of game nearly as well as an arcade machine could. So yeah, while I probably disagree on some details (I do like some 3rd and 4th gen linescroll racing games, particularly 4th-gen ones), in general I agree with what you say here and it's certainly a great example of arcades doing something better than consoles.
RoryDropkick
Member
Haha, I'll find some time this weekend and do that. I don't even know what I want to do yet, stream/youtube or whatever.. I'm new to this sorta thing.
GayForMaster
Banned
But doesn't sabin require complex movements like street fighter?! I actually can't remember but I'm ashamed since I used him and only spammed the attack command.
Anyway, back to the topic...
So who here has heard of the ENIO board? Not that I care about I/O but to be able to provide myself with expansion audio using the expansion port on the bottom just fascinates me to no end. I have a viletim toaster coming in and an ENIO board as well as some games (Akumajo, Lagrange and Gimmick) to test the expanded audio with. I really can't wait! I understand that expanded audio can be acheived through internal modding but I don't want to send the NES once I get it (modder wasnt providing that mod either) and to use something physically on the expansion slot just seems a lot cooler. I kinda wish something other than satallaview or dds was usable on snes/64 expansion ports as well.
RadarScope1
Member
Do Blaster Master since people dont really show that off too much.
What are the options for a NES joystick? I do like the Konix Speedking for my Amstrad and Sega, and will probably get the NES equivalent, the Epyx 500XJ. But I was looking for something more akin to the Competition Pro from Speedlink. The idea is to have a joystick that fits in a hand, unlike arcade sticks that needs to be put on a table. Microswitches are mandatory.
RoryDropkick
Member
sixteen-bit
Member
The CPSF stick should have a Famicom adapter, but AFAIK the adapter is rare as hell.
Micomsoft made a microswitched XE-1 stick for Famicom, but I think that's rare as hell too.
If you're savvy with mods, toodles' multi-cthulhu PCB supports NES, and you could wire it into a modern Arcade-spec arcade stick like Madcatz TE.
Tototek also makes a PS-> NES adapter so you could use something like an HRAP2 on NES.
Good job! Joker is best dealt with regular punches, taking advantage of the fact that he can't shoot you if you're close because of his comically long gun and that he passes through you without incident while he blinks after taking damage. You also have to know how far away from him to be so that the lightning doesn't hit you.
I'm really curious to see what you think of Dynamite Batman. I don't like the gameplay much at all. It's like a really zoomed in run 'n gun with bad, bad weapon choices.
I'm really curious to see what you think of Dynamite Batman. I don't like the gameplay much at all. It's like a really zoomed in run 'n gun with bad, bad weapon choices.
RadarScope1
Member
I recently discovered the existence of the XE-1 FC and it looks absolutley God-like. There is a single one that's been for sale on eBay for a while, but it's about $200 shipped to the U.S. and I'm not 100% sure if it will work on an NES via a conveter cable. I've been reluctant to mention it here or ask about it because I'm afraid one of you all is about as fool as I am to consider spending $200 on a joystick for an 8-bit system.
IrishNinja
Member
too much
much too much
much too much