Wow, what a clusterfuck this thread has quickly become. Just to clarify a bit:
First, Ex baby, that "RAWR" post was not directed at you but rather directed toward that Juan dude who was clearly acting like an asshole to you. Sorry you read it that way. I don't really recognize Juan's name, but he seems like a bit of a blowhard - all sound and fury, signifying nothing and the like....
Secondly, Juan dude, a few things:
-You need to offer some kind of better argument than "no,
I think the feel is off" if you want to suggest the game is not in a similar vein of SOR2. Sure...the question of the "feel" of the game is somewhat subjective, I suppose, but the creators of the game regularly cite having studied SOR2 closely and being inspired by the classics of the genre in interviews around the game's development. They discuss starting from there for design ideas and and then building on the ideas found in the classics of the genre (with newer mechanics like using the syringe). I actually thought MRB played more like Golden Axe instead of SOR2, but overall it "feels" much closer to the Sega games of the 16-bit era than Castle Crashers or Samurai Dishwasher, etc. which feel a far bit "smoother" and "slick" than was typically possible during that time. MRB is sometimes faster than a 16-bit game and it offers some design innovations that clearly draw inspiration from stuff like Hotline Miami and Scott Pilgrim, but at its core it is much closer in experience to the games that people like myself grew up with than anything that has come out in the past decade or so.
- I mention critical consensus for several reasons. First, while some individual critics might be unqualified to judge certain games well (e.g. some may lack a working experience of the history of the genre of something they review), in aggregate they are certainly a valuable source of insight into a game's relative merit. Second, reviewers are typically asked to review games by editors, who themselves are invested in assigning the right people to the job and producing quality reviews as a way to build their readership and reputation. Thus, many end up reviewing games where they do know the history of its genre, and many of them - increasingly over the last decade - are less interested in making "consumer recommendations" than they are about judging a game on its own merits, in the context of its time, and with the goal of evaluating the game's value beyond simply rote "categories" for creating a review score. ...Still, your point about critics not being the only barometer of quality is a fair one. MRB only has a 70% on Metacritic for example, and around the same in aggregate most other places. So, I will concede that it has some knocks against it - but those criticisms are typically about the game's story, or its hyper violence, or about the difficulty of the (especially final) boss fights - those observations are what usually brings down the score. But the a "score" is simply a lone element of the review that is, for our purposes, secondary to the discussion in those reviews of the presence of the classic "feel". Almost all critics praise its adherence to traditional
genre conventions, to its
homage elements, to its incorporation of classic movement,
retro-visuals, similar level pacing,
hit detection, object usage, etc. Beyond these critical observations, amongst "players" (such on on
Steam or
YouTube), the game is reviewed "very positively" with most citing how much it "feels" like a classic game.
tldr: You said "I would challenge anyone to actually claim that the "feel" of MRB's combat is anywhere even close to being as good as Streets of Rage 2". Well, there's a mountain of well-qualified folks that agree with me on the issue of "feel", and very few that seem to hold your opinion that there's a problem with the game on this point. That's why I thought your opinion on the matter (and general slogging of the game) was a bit "insane" given your claims to know the genre as well as you do. It just makes little sense.
What I'd really value is Gamerforlife's take on MRB. Is he still around? He's long been our resident BUP expert...
