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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by BoneSnapDeez Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:49 pm

Played some Ninja Commando. Fun old run and gun. The controls remind me of (the later) Shock Troopers, though there are no power-ups here and the stages are more straightforward. There is indeed a time-travel motif, though it seems a bit hackneyed and like an excuse to include a bunch of "exotic" locales.

The problem is that the later stages are balls-hard and there's no option to credit-feed, at least not on the Wii VC. I can utilize a couple of tricks, like loading from the memory card or switching to player two, but this final stretch is still kicking my ass.

The cutscenes are funny. Plenty of Engrish and the character portraits are like cardboard cutouts that just keep getting reused. I've been playing as the female ninja, who's adorable.
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alienjesus
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by alienjesus Wed Nov 14, 2018 2:59 pm

BoneSnapDeez wrote:Played some Ninja Commando. Fun old run and gun. The controls remind me of (the later) Shock Troopers, though there are no power-ups here and the stages are more straightforward. There is indeed a time-travel motif, though it seems a bit hackneyed and like an excuse to include a bunch of "exotic" locales.

The problem is that the later stages are balls-hard and there's no option to credit-feed, at least not on the Wii VC. I can utilize a couple of tricks, like loading from the memory card or switching to player two, but this final stretch is still kicking my ass.

The cutscenes are funny. Plenty of Engrish and the character portraits are like cardboard cutouts that just keep getting reused. I've been playing as the female ninja, who's adorable.



Have you seen the weird fighting game style special moves you can do?
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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by prfsnl_gmr Thu Nov 15, 2018 12:35 pm

I beat Time Soldiers last night. As I have mentioned, the last level - and the inability to continue there - is utter trash. The last boss is also a poorly animated pushover - with a name that sounds like a feminine hygiene product - and the ending stinks. (“Congratulations. You beat Gylend and rescued the Tme Soldiers.” <credits> “Game Over”) I won’t be spending any more time with this one.

I may spend a while with another SNK game, though. I really liked World Heroes as a kid, and I recently broke out the PS2 collection to test input lag on my PS2 HDMI converter. (There’s none!) I recognize now that they aren’t great fighting games, but they do prominently feature time travel. Accordingly, I may take a spin through one of the later games in the series (as Jeanne, of course).
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by BoneSnapDeez Thu Nov 15, 2018 1:27 pm

alienjesus wrote:
BoneSnapDeez wrote:Played some Ninja Commando. Fun old run and gun. The controls remind me of (the later) Shock Troopers, though there are no power-ups here and the stages are more straightforward. There is indeed a time-travel motif, though it seems a bit hackneyed and like an excuse to include a bunch of "exotic" locales.

The problem is that the later stages are balls-hard and there's no option to credit-feed, at least not on the Wii VC. I can utilize a couple of tricks, like loading from the memory card or switching to player two, but this final stretch is still kicking my ass.

The cutscenes are funny. Plenty of Engrish and the character portraits are like cardboard cutouts that just keep getting reused. I've been playing as the female ninja, who's adorable.



Have you seen the weird fighting game style special moves you can do?


Yes but I don't quite get how they work. :lol:
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pierrot
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by pierrot Thu Nov 15, 2018 10:00 pm

I started replaying Chrono Cross last night. I put a few hours into the Japanese version, which I have not played before now, and oh my sweet petunia, this game is potentially even better than I remember it being. The writing in this game is exceptional. There are very few games out there where I feel like the writers could easily be writing respectable novels, and Chrono Cross is almost certainly one of those games. There's so little pretense even though the game is tackling all of the big issues of human existence (very similarly to BoF: Dragon Quarter, and Suikoden III). Every character/npc feels like a real human being, with genuine humanity baked into their dialogue, and not just silly caricatures. Arni is a sleepy little fishing village, and I'm convinced that all of its denizens are simply virtualizations of real people. This is all because the writers were able impart each one of them with his own tone and personality, to make them all individuals. I really love the Home World waitress, and her poetry, but her stubbornly pragmatic Another World version is also great.

It's not just the writing, though. Chrono Cross is the entire package. The game is blissfully soothing with its lush, vibrant world, and angelic soundtrack. I have begun to encounter some of the more contentious moments in the game, as I head to Termina with Kid, and Poshul (whose little signs on her doghouse are hilarious; I really wish it would make any sense to translate the Home World one), but it is still serenity, for me. Serge's story is one of the most involved that I can think of, for a mute protagonist, and I'm excited to fill all the details back in, even if I still remember a lot of the big reveals.

The combat is still great, also. It's upper echelon; Forcing me to think through my actions, while also being swift, and not too complex. I may be a little too pro at it, though: I had forgotten to recruit Poshul beforehand, and I still killed the first boss before it had even really had time to fully materialize. (I'm just kidding, it was able to get one attack off on me.)
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Nemoide
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by Nemoide Fri Nov 16, 2018 1:36 am

I played some World Heroes 2 Jet tonight. I got up to the last boss as Hanzou but gave up after many tries since I need to go to bed. It's a pretty serviceable 90s 2D fighting game, clearly based on Street Fighter II, though less blatant a ripoff than the original World Heroes.
The premise of the series is that a scientist makes a time machine to pull the greatest fighters from history together and make them fight. Even though "World Heroes 2" is part of the title, this is a distinct game story-wise. But who plays fighting games for the story? You can play as a bunch of wacky characters and the game doesn't present itself as being especially serious. In this one, the pace of fighting is brisk and there seems to be a very good variety of characters.

I'm too tired to write too much about the game, but it's not bad. While the last boss is frustrating me, he doesn't seem half as bad as the last boss from Art of Fighting or something.
I'm not especially good at fighting games and I'm DEFINITELY lacking the ability to start a new one and quickly figure out how to do well. If I wanted to GET SERIOUS, I'd aim to beat the game as every character to figure out a main, then practice on increasingly higher difficulties. But I don't want to get serious, so I'm just playing on "beginner" mode and am playing as Hanzou because his moves are basically Ryu from Street Fighter and I KNOW Street Fighter! Maybe I'll try playing as someone else with my next attempt...
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by BoneSnapDeez Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:59 pm

@pierrot

Did you ever play Radical Dreamers? It's much darker than I expected. I kinda mean that literally, the entire game takes place at night in this old dank mansion. It's pretty badass.
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pierrot
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by pierrot Fri Nov 16, 2018 3:57 pm

I haven't, but I've been increasingly wanting to as I've been replaying CC. Unfortunately the only way I could really play it would be emulation, and I'm not sure that's what I would want to do. I remember hearing about some of the ties to Chrono Cross, though, and all the theories about the third character being the purple-haired, mask wearing guy in the Termina bar (and the possibility of him being a CT character). So, I feel like I should play it to see what's actually what. Is there some form of gameplay to it, though? I kind of always had this impression that it was some sort of visual/sound novel. I remember hearing that the whole game heavily parallels the raid on the Serpent Bone Manor, early on in Chrono Cross (coincidentally, where I'm at right now).
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by BoneSnapDeez Fri Nov 16, 2018 4:42 pm

Yeah, I consider gaming a sort of "holistic" experience and simply downloading ROMz isn't my thing. In the case of Radical Dreamers, I got an English repro cart.

It is a radical (heh) game with connections to both Trigger and Cross. Don't expect a visual novel, or at least not a game similar to what's considered a VN today. It's an adventure game with full exploration and consequences. There's HP and a "reputation" meter to keep an eye on. I definitely experienced my share of Game Overs along the way.
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Exhuminator
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Re: November Together Retro: Time Travelers Never Die

by Exhuminator Sat Nov 17, 2018 4:08 am

I beat this well known and often lauded classic tonight:

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Time Slip for the SNES. A few brief thoughts here.

As ruefully mediocre as Time Slip was, it could have been worse...
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Well gang, that wraps up this TR for me. Here's what I beat:

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future (DS) 7.5/10
Shadow of Destiny (PSP) 4/10
Time Slip (SNES) 5/10

Special thanks to CFFJR for an unusual TR theme.

See you all in next month's TR thread.
PLAY KING'S FIELD.
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