January Together Retro: Konami Loves Genesis

[alienjesus]

I've beaten Rocket Knight Adventures and Animaniacs before, but I do own one Konami game for Mega Drive I've not invested much time into yet - Castlevania. So that's what I plan to play this month.

[Ziggy]

Oh, by the way, the genesis version is pretty different from the SNES version of that game. It's not better, by any means, but it is different.

Oh wow, I never realized that. Thanks for the heads up.

The thing about fighting games though is I never really have much fun with them unless I'm playing with another person.

[Nemoide]

Okay, I've played through Animaniacs for the first time as an adult. The game holds up pretty well!

In this game, you play as the three Warner siblings Yakko, Wacko, and Dot. Yakko can move crates and has a paddle-ball attack (only useful against a small handful of foes), Wacko can smash things with a hammer (though it takes a second, so it's not much of an offensive weapon), and Dot blows kisses. You can switch between the character you control at any time with the "C" button and the others follow along. The story involves the Warner Bros. trying to steal famous props from movies (stages are themed for jungle adventure, sci-fi, westerns, and horror)

It's kind of a proto-puzzle-platformer. Most of the puzzles are simple, though the solutions didn't always seem obvious to me as a kid. For example, early in the first stage, you hop on a pair of mechanical walking legs to cross a floor of spikes, it goes past some immovable lights which you can easily jump over but then you come across some you CAN'T. At first, I would just let it push me off onto the spikes, take damage, then hop back on the walker. BUT if you look closely there's a button on the walker that Wacko can hit with his hammer and cause it to go lower and take you under the lights.
So this game does involve dying a fair amount (thankfully there's a password system and unlimited continues) but once you get a handle on things, you can breeze through it. If you run out of lives late in a stage, it's not too big a deal having to restart as you'll have already figured out the tricks to progressing.

After a short practice stage to introduce each character's skill, you get to choose between four stages. I think this is A LITTLE strange because they're numbered 1-4 so it seems there is a suggested order and unlike Mega Man X or something, you don't collect power-ups or run through stages multiple times: once it's beaten, it's beaten. After the first four stages, you get to a final stage and then fight Pinky & the Brain. I always thought the final battle with Pinky & the Brain was pretty clever because it required the skills of each character, unlike other bosses which normally relied on Yakko or Wacko exclusively.
One other boss I really appreciated was Dracula, who looks like he did in an episode of Animaniacs but shoots fireballs EXACTLY like Dracula in Castlevania! I hadn't played any of the Castlevania games when I first played this as a kid, so I was really pleased to recognize this surprise.

This game's graphics and music are definitely nice and appealing, but not anything MIND BLOWING. The game is fun, but it's not THE BEST.
But honestly, there's something nice about playing a short game that's just all-around good and has aged well. I don't feel like I need to stress out and build skills or sink a ton of time into progressing.
A lot of this game's appeal for me might be nostalgia, so I'm not sure I'd recommend other folks actively tracking it down or anything. But I'd definitely recommend picking up a cheap copy if you come across it! It's still a very common and affordable game and worth a playthrough.

[pierrot]

I do own one Konami game for Mega Drive I've not invested much time into yet - Castlevania. So that's what I plan to play this month.

Nice! It's a good'n'. Have you decided on which character you're going to play as?

The thing about fighting games though is I never really have much fun with them unless I'm playing with another person.

Yeah, I can understand that. I don't know that the Genesis version of Tournament Fighters is that great against the computer, or against a human opponent, but it would be interesting if someone burst into the thread, now, and was like, 'Genesis Tournament Fighters is EVO quality competitive fighting!'

At first, I would just let it push me off onto the spikes, take damage, then hop back on the walker. BUT if you look closely there's a button on the walker that Wacko can hit with his hammer and cause it to go lower and take you under the lights.

I was trying Animaniacs out a bit the other day, and was getting really pissed off about that walker, because I was only trying to hit it with the mallet to get it to move up and down. I didn't really think that jumping over the lights would be a viable solution, until quite a few times of lowering the walker, and still getting shoved off of it by the very bottom of the lights. It doesn't seem that ducking is something the Warner Brothers (--and the Warner Sister) are capable of doing, either. I eventually got past that screen, but got a little fed up with it in the mine cart section of that level.

I don't necessarily dislike it--I still might go back to it this month--but I had had my fill at that point.

[pierrot]

I was playing some Castlevania: Bloodlines last night, thinking I would potentially breeze through with John Morris, but oh, no. I am apparently pretty out of practice. On the second attempt I made it up to the second section of Stage 4, but the rust is strong. I found myself really happy with the way Morris controls, except that I was getting a little miffed about Morris' jump arc, and feeling like it was a little bit of a hope and a prayer when jumping (although this was primarily just in the section outside the tower of Piza in Stage 3). Then it kind of dawned on me that, 'yo, that's Castlevania,' and I realized that I just haven't played one of these in a while. A couple more cracks at it, to jog my muscle memory should do the trick.


I also played a bit of Rocket Knight Adventures, and was kind of floored by what a top notch game it is. I can't remember when I last played it, when I had actually beaten it for the first time, but it was long enough ago that I guess I had kind of forgotten just how amazing it is. Holy crap, y'all. RKA, and Contra Hard Corps are just those next level Konami games that can only exist on the Genesis. They've got it all.

[strangenova]

This is a cool concept for this months together retro. I've got most of these and only really beaten the turtles games. I might just sit down with Rocket Knight sometime this month. Is any one already tackling Contra Hard Corps? Or has anyone beaten it before?

[pierrot]

Is any one already tackling Contra Hard Corps? Or has anyone beaten it before?

I beat it a couple times last year. My initial route was the longest of the four main paths through the game, and then a couple months later I did the path that branches off of that one. So, I was intending to play the other two paths this month, since both of them are relatively short, but I picked up Bloodlines again, first.

I know Xeo finished it not too long ago. KeyGlyph also rocks it on the reg, but I don't know if she really checks the forums at all, anymore.

Also, Ziggy was starting on it, but I don't know how his progress has been going.

[strangenova]

I'd love to best that game but I dont know if I'm up for it. Any pro tips?

[pierrot]

It does take a fair amount of investment into learning the game, and to a certain extent, that's really the bulk of it. Playing Revenge of Shinobi recently was kind of similar. I didn't enjoy RoS as much, so I wasn't as gung-ho about going back to getting my face ripped off all the time, but it's similar in that once the stages have become kind of familiar, the game gets much easier. I would say that RoS is a bit tougher to learn (partly because of the double jump), but easier once it is, where Hard Corps is a bit easier to learn, but requires a bit more execution, and throws things at you a bit more quickly.

My tips would be to start with Browny. A lot of attacks don't need to be avoided by ducking, when playing as Browny. He's who I started with, because he's the man (robot)! That's also kind of what keeps me from playing other characters, but I think it's good to play as him to get eased into it. I also really love his double jump, and hover.
Picking up a weapon that you don't already have will switch immediately to that weapon, which can be pretty bad if you're not ready for it. You can switch weapons after pausing, though, so that can be a really handy thing even just in certain spots where you want a little more time to cycle through weapons. I also find it handy for getting onto super bombs when I want to use those, in the rare cases that I ever do.
The biggest thing is probably getting used to the slide. It gives a substantial amount of invincibility. I wasn't too great at timing my slides, or even remembering that I could slide, on my first playthrough, but I had gotten a lot more comfortable with it on the second playthrough, and it made a pretty big difference. Sliding can often get you out of a sticky situation, but it still needs to be used in a somewhat calculated manner.

[strangenova]

Ok so the bullet points here are

1. Use browny
2. Switch weapons while paused
3. Remember to slide

I dont think I've ever really used browny. I usually go straight for the werewolf with the gun arm. I'll try browny out. Thanks for the tips I'm gonna give Contra Hard Corps a shot this month.

Still plan to do Rocket Knight though