Markies wrote:With a limited selection and mostly expensive games, I figured this wouldn't be the most popular TR.
Treasure has made some of the greatest action games on the planet, it's a shame more people aren't playing them.
I was a little worried that people might be thinking of Treasure games as, 'For Treasure people.' I think there's a pretty good level of variety in their library, though. It's really not just a bunch of hardcore masochism.
McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure is both quality, and highly accessible. I'm sure there are a few others that would fit those descriptions too. Maybe it's partly an issue of resources, though.
I was thinking about actually giving Alien Soldier some love today, and spent a number of hours fiddling with the SD card I use for my flash carts, which went and borked itself while I wasn't looking. At the same time, I organized some of the roms into slightly more refined sets, so it wasn't a total waste. Seems pretty irreparable, though. I'll have to pick up another SD card before I can play Alien Soldier at all. (I could technically play it on the Wii, but that feels like a major disservice by comparison.)
pierrot wrote:I was a little worried that people might be thinking of Treasure games as, 'For Treasure people.'
Treasure got 16 votes on the poll, so that's 16 people who showed interest in the theme. At this point only 4 people have beaten games for said theme, and we're halfway through the month already. I hope more of those 16 voters put effort into backing up their vote, and beat at least one Treasure game. These come with my personal recommendation:
Advance Guardian Heroes (Game Boy Advance) Alien Soldier (Sega Genesis) Astro Boy: Omega Factor (Game Boy Advance) Ikaruga (Arcade, Dreamcast, GameCube, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch) Light Crusader (Sega Genesis) Radiant Silvergun (Arcade, Sega Saturn, Xbox 360) Rakugaki Showtime (PlayStation) Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (Wii) Sin and Punishment (Nintendo 64, iQue Player)
pierrot wrote:I was a little worried that people might be thinking of Treasure games as, 'For Treasure people.' I think there's a pretty good level of variety in their library, though. It's really not just a bunch of hardcore masochism.
That is another Misconception about Treasure games. That they are way too hard and unforgiving.
I think most of that stems from their time in Konami. You can easily tell a 'Treasure Konami' game just by its difficulty and amount of bosses. For example, Contra Hard Corps and probably Contra III were made by people who would later on become Treasure.
But, as we have talked about, not all of Treasure games are difficult. Mischief Makers was easy except for the final two fights. Ikaruga is the most learnable Shooter out there. You get the right weapon combinations and Gunstar Heroes is very doable.
I feel bad that I haven't dived in yet. I played a lot of Treasure games when I wrote all the articles for the Genesis-era games for GameSpite Quarterly 12. That being said, I think I may have found the right title to go at, and that's Silhouette Mirage. I remember ordering a copy back in the day, but having to return it because it was scratched up to the point of not working. I'll have to download, sadly. I had the Saturn version burned, but I think it's got issues; I can't get it to go past the tutorial. I think that might have been what I ran into back in the day that kept me from playing it any length of time, as well, but my memories of all that are really fuzzy.
I might need to consider Guardian Heroes as well. Interestingly, I never finished it. You'd think that would be one I've already beaten, but nope.
Also, Gunstar Heroes isn't hard at all. Lightning + Homing = Win.
I did a few more runs at Easy Mode in Ikaruga. I have definitely improved, but Stage 4 is still a complete death-spiral for me. I can now more consistently finish the first two stages on one credit, and I even set a new high score, just barely shy of 3 million points, by making it on the first credit to the point where the snake thing starts firing lasers at me. I almost got rid of two of the same colored lasers, too, but something killed me. I don't know what. Probably had to do with the delay in color shifting, though. Did I mention that I really hate that delay? I have died more times than should even be reasonable because I hit the color change button, and an opposite colored bullet hit me a tenth of a second later, before my craft actually changed. I mean, I suppose it makes sense from a "realism" sense, but if I can't panic bomb, at least give me (near) instant color changing, dammit.
If I can somehow clean up my stage 3 boss fights, then maybe I can get to stage 4 with a few more credits, but I really don't know how to make sense of what the hell is going on there. I got to the point where little orby lads start popping out of some tubes on the sides of the screen, and then some lasers start firing from the top of the screen. I think my run ended when I took a phantom death that didn't make sense to me, but Stage 4 seems to be full of those. There are only five of these things, right? Not that I feel great about the likelihood I'll get to Stage 5 before unlocking unlimited continues. Still sitting at just 6 continues right now, though.
Well, it took two stabs at it, but I finished Guardian Heroes! Well, one of the paths, anyway. There are a lot of different sequences you can take, and several endings. The second time, I found a hidden arena that let me level up a bit more, and I did a better job of keeping the undead warrior from stealing kills. I used Han, which might not have been the greatest choice. I really need to dive into the movesets a bit more; there's a lot of depth here I didn't really touch. My go-to move was that massive sword swing of his, which did good damage and also has a lot of keepaway ability. I also might have learned to block more effectively the second time...
Anyway, I ended up in Stage 29 for my ending, so I need to poke around and see what other paths I should have taken one of these days.
All in all, a solid game, although I'm not sure I'm wild about it. Despite beating it, the game feels like one where you might need more time for it to "click". I'll say... 7/10. For now. I feel like changing characters might also endear it to me a bit more.
Sarge wrote:Well, it took two stabs at it, but I finished Guardian Heroes! Well, one of the paths, anyway. There are a lot of different sequences you can take, and several endings. The second time, I found a hidden arena that let me level up a bit more, and I did a better job of keeping the undead warrior from stealing kills. I used Han, which might not have been the greatest choice. I really need to dive into the movesets a bit more; there's a lot of depth here I didn't really touch. My go-to move was that massive sword swing of his, which did good damage and also has a lot of keepaway ability. I also might have learned to block more effectively the second time...
Anyway, I ended up in Stage 29 for my ending, so I need to poke around and see what other paths I should have taken one of these days.
All in all, a solid game, although I'm not sure I'm wild about it. Despite beating it, the game feels like one where you might need more time for it to "click". I'll say... 7/10. For now. I feel like changing characters might also endear it to me a bit more.
Congratulations Sarge!
I have added your beat to the front page. You are our 5th person to beat a Treasure Game.
I played Guardian Heroes about a month ago for quite a while and I didn't like it as much. It was hard to see anything, I didn't know if my moves were doing anything and the game just felt off. If I tried it single player, I may have gotten more enjoyment, but I'd really have to sit down and put some time into it.
Last edited by Markies on Sun Sep 16, 2018 12:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Han really is the least interesting character, mechanically. He’s also the simplest character to use. His single spell means no futzing around with magic, but his move set and high strength also limits juggling. He is great at playing keep-away, though. I find when I play Han I have to put the undead warrior on aggressive mode. When I play with any of the other characters I can have the undead warrior on defense instead.
I finally got around to starting my game for this month today, and spent an hour or so playing through Wario World on Gamecube. I rented it back in the day but couldn't get into it and thus didn't get very far. This time I'm enjoying myself well enough, but I can see the game being quite samey throughout, so I decided to just play 1 world tonight and leave the other stages for another time.
The beat em gameplay is pretty limited, but I kinda like the little platform puzzles you have to do to find treasure. So far, it's far from Treasure's best work, but I like it more than I remembered.
I have a history with Treasure games. While I totally appreciate and applaud Treasure for their ability to eek the most out of a console's hardware, I never seem to actually love playing their games. And trust me, I've tried. I've played Guardian Heroes, Gunstar Heroes, and both GBA sequels, along with Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga, Silhouette Mirage, Gradius V, Bangai-O and its DS sequel, and Silpheed: The Lost Planet. Yes, I've really tried to get into these games. I like a lot of them... but I don't love them.
I first attempted Gunstar Heroes five or six years ago and I remember thinking it was pretty good, though. It actually stands out as one of the better games in Treasure's resume along with Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun, though I still don't think I share the enthusiasm that most retro gamers have for these games. The last time I played Gunstar it was online with a friend via XBLA. I remember feeling like it made for a pretty fun co-op game, but we eventually quit when we got to the boardgame level because it just got so damn tedious.
This time I played the game alone and via the Xbox One's Sega Genesis Classics compilation. I was immediately reminded why my memories were so good of this one. I'll cut to the chase and say it probably stands out to me as Treasure's best game. Really. I still don't love it, but I do seem to appreciate it more now because it's stood the test of time for me. As a comparison, I played Guardian Heroes again this year as well and I think I hated it more than the last time I played it. Come at me.
Gunstar heroes still looks fucking lovely. The sprites are all so full of expression - as is Treasure's way, and I think the color choices are sublime. As far as traditional 2D run and guns go I'd probably put this one above Contra, but below Metal Slug - for whatever all that subjectiveness is worth. Without looking it up (because I'm lazy) I'd have to guess that this game was developed by Treasure dudes who had worked on some of the Contra games, though. The various choices of bullets certainly feels like a throwback, but it's done so much better here. I like that you can pick two weapons and use either - or combine them. It makes for a game that caters to each player's play style. I dig that. Admittedly for me that meant sticking with a combo that involved homing shots. No doubt that makes the game easier, but eh - remember I already knew I didn't love this game so I needed a little help pushing through to let myself see the whole thing this time through.
It turns out that board game was only the mid-point! But I was determined to play through the whole game this time. And I must confess I started to get annoyed with all the fake "final" battles. The game is maybe two hours, but it feels much longer than it needs to be in my book. But, to say something positive here - at least those two hours are spent doing interesting things. Each level does feel truly unique and the bosses are cool and varied.
So yeah, that's about that. I still don't love Treasure games, but there's a handful that I do really think are quality and this is one of them. Will I return to it again any time soon? Nah. Like I said, I'd probably pick a Metal Slug if I was in the run for this kind of game. But um... Gunstar Heroes is a good game. Yay?
