The funny thing about the Cuphead art style is it basically tricked my friend into playing it, who only really likes AAA and Annapurna prestige indie style narrative heavy games, and isn’t really into difficult, reflex heavy stuff like shmups or fighting games (someone made him play Bloodborne, and he just panic button-mashed himself to death and refused to play again).
So he was kind of begrudgingly forcing himself to play it until he just couldn’t do it anymore.
10 Likes
24 Likes
SUPER NOAH’S ARK 3-D
I think we all know the story behind this one so I won’t waste anyone’s time by getting into it.
Basically a mod of the SNES version of Wolfenstein 3D, it replaces all the art, most of the sounds, and has entirely new levels, but for the most part plays exactly like SNES Wolf.
So, like SNES wolf, it has about half or so of the levels DOS Wolf has, it has 6 weapons instead of 4, and there’s a map function.
I played the Windows “anniversary” version, a modernised version of the DOS game, which in turn used a modified Wolf 3D engine. This has everything from the SNES game and adds floor and ceiling textures, midi music, much higher resolution graphics, smoother gameplay, and scrolls that give you bonuses if you answer a bible question correctly (they’re all about Noah).
And… the level design in this is kinda good??? Well, in the second half at least (the first half is fine but kinda dull). There is actual thought here, with the designers using Wolf mechanics to make interesting situations and layouts! I thought it would all be lazy maze stuff, but there is definitely effort here. There are even a few levels that I think are good enough to be in actual Wolf 3D.
They also do a good job of hinting at secrets (though wall humping definitely still feels needed for plenty of them).
I guess I should have expected that considering how much effort was put into modifying everything else here, but Wisdom Tree/Color Dreams aren’t exactly known for their game design chops. I guess it’s easier if all the mechanics are there and you just have to make levels.
Unfortunately, the gunplay is rather wonky… enemies can start shooting at you through doors while they’re opening, and they can shoot at you around corners despite not fully seeing you, and at an angle where you can’t shoot them back. I’m not sure if this was the case for the original DOS game or the SNES one, but I don’t remember it being this bad in actual Wolf 3D… it leads to a lot of cheap feeling battles and deaths.
OH, and they love putting enemies at 90 degree angles around doors, that got old quick (it’s the worst design thing they do).
There also needs to be better feedback on when you’re actually hitting enemies and when they die, because it’s often not clear.
So yeah, I think if the gunplay worked better this could have actually been a solid little 0-Y-Axis shooter with an interesting backstory (and also a funny one because of how ridiculous the theme and story is), but as it is it’s hard to recommend.
EXTRA TIDBIT: I love how many paintings of Noah’s wife are all over the place, makes him feel like a real wife guy.
BONUS CONTENT: I loaded up the original DOS version and the gunplay MIGHT work better there, but it’s hard to tell because the framerate is awful… adding roof and ceiling textures really tanked it, I guess. Really hard to play after the silky smooth anniversary edition… but still, the gunplay might have gotten messed up with the upgrade… I’ve spent enough time with this game, I’m not doing more investigating lol
11 Likes
Ah good to know. I was hoping this was late enough in Toaplan that we weren’t getting the weird versions in the US, but lol nope.
2 Likes
I love 30s cartoons but, aside from the jim crow vibes (it’s foolish to try and divorce the style from its historical context imo—on a gut level I certainly can’t!), I don’t think Cuphead looks good at all. Things don’t mesh together at all, your character’s animation looks REMASTERED [4K][60FPS] and it only makes me focus on the inconsistencies. I hate the announcer, what’s the point of him? He’s not a reference to anything but fighting games.
It probably does look a lot more coherent at 24 fps, I should try that! Probably not very good to play though.
3 Likes
What was the name of that Boss Rush Free Indie Game from the Noughties, bananana something? I remember liking that one, and I enjoyed how Cuphead reminded me of it.
eeee: it’s `Banana Nababa```
3 Likes
Played some more MK1, still haven’t touched the new Story stuff.
The new characters more or less panned out how I expected. The canonical characters all play fine (Cyrax, Sektor, Noon), while the guest characters are…I dunno, I guess they’re OK.
Conan is maybe the worst of the bunch? Just not very fun from the time I spent with him. T-1000 is slightly better (he’s got a fun moveset). And weirdly enough, Ghostface is the most fun, with a running dash that you can cancel into a few different attacks.
Still think it’s weak as hell they didn’t bother to get Arnold for Conan (his soundalike is better here than the Terminator in MK11), or that Robert Patrick doesn’t narrate the T-1000’s ending. If they could get Peter Weller, Keith David and Sylvester Stallone to do some monologuing for MK11… c’mon!
I also hadn’t really played since they corrected the utterly boneheaded launch choice of leaving the pre-fight dialogue to multiplayer only. That said…only some of these are any good, and lack the back and forth that 11 had. Just one snide quip per side, then fight.
Anyway, I know I’m dogging the game on presentation stuff more than anything, but also…I dunno, game is kind of a bummer to play, so presentation is a load bearing pillar for this, and it’s creaky.
2 Likes
People forget how hard videogames were in the 1930s.
20 Likes
I beat the first part of Okami and it still felt like a spell had lifted. At some point I had switched my system language back to English and Okami changed back to English and I didn’t even have to do anything.
I could hear the devs thinking it was a real funny idea where you collect ingredients for your enemy’s dinner for a dungeon. Guess you do need a reason to run around. Nothing in the game is hard but everything is more difficult than you like. Like trying to do something strenous and your arm has been in the wrong position all day.
I got to the big city, saw it was cursed, and saved. The writing really never lets up on being dumb and assuming the player is dumb. The flip side is you amass this collection of esoteric brush strokes and it is fully possible you just don’t remember one you got 4 hours ago and suddenly need to do it.
I like it more than I did 20 years ago. It should be noted how many times I said “Why would I want to do that?” To it today. It is back on the bookcase. Now I am ready for Sam Porter Bridges.
13 Likes
Honestly, to me the boss rush stuff actually suits the art style. Elaborate boss transformations and surrealist Fleischer-style animation works quite well together, all things considered!
I felt like the bigger waste was its unexamined nostalgia. Gimme the version of Cuphead that deals in some way with the fact that most of its cast are whitewashed minstrel characters or that its gameplay-style and difficulty is a relic of a videogame past that no longer really exists anymore…
9 Likes
as i’ve posted about before i’m a huge irem fan, i love both their arcade softography (they were real 2D action game specialists with a softography in this field as good as like treasure’s or whoever else) and their 3D console games like the disaster report / zettai zetsumei toshi series and steambot chronicles / bumpy trot…
this game is sooo good, it’s obviously pretty generic looking but it has great fm synth music, great level designs, NPCs who try to actually kill you… in replayburners tradition this player makes it look easy of course.
gunforece 2 is awesome too, a lot more like contra, much more imaginative mechanical designs (this is the obvious closest predecessor to metal slug, which was developed by a team formed by irem employees and shares much of the same staff as gunforce 2 and “in the hunt”, another great irem game) but i think the levels are a little more linear or something, more like straight lines… also loses some of the character imo of enemies who shoot bullets faster than you can often react to, something which makes gunforce 1 feel a little more unique within the genre
also they both let you drive multiple vehicles around in every level even if many of them aren’t that good to actually use lol… wish i had someone to do like hardcore 2D co-op gaming with because irem has some other great single-screen co-op titles like r-type leo, undercover cops, in the hunt…
yes i know that like pogging about elaborate mecha designs and animation and like badass FM synth tones is probably the gaming equivalent of rhapsodizing about like 70s progressive dadrock or whatever at this point and idc… play this stuff instead of like cuphead any day of the week imo
14 Likes
I just finished the expansion. It’s also good, though not essential. I like this style of horror that plays with fears of suffocation, confined spaces, etc.
5 Likes
I reconnected my PS2 to play Lumines Plus, which I recently discovered existed. In practice it was not quite the transcendent Lumines crt experience that I had hoped for. Playfield takes up less of the screen than you might think, odd load times during stage/song transitions that leave silence for extended 5-10 second gaps (even loading from a hard drive), runs at 30fps, no volume mix options at all, 480i has its charm but it’s not my fav esp. for 2d stuff, etc. Not perfect, but still fun.
Lumines Remastered is already 7 years old, dang…wow…
Bonus Content:
User +Revenant+ created this PPSSPP 60fps unlock cheat code for the original PSP Lumines release.
_S ULUS-10002
_G Lumines [USA]
_C1 60 FPS
_L 0x20093EE4 0x0000003C
_C0 30 FPS [Default]
_L 0x20093EE4 0x0000001E
To use it in RetroArch, with the USA rom:
- Paste the text into a file located at retroarch/saves/psp/cheats/ULUS10002.ini
- load the game
- F1 to pull up the Quick Menu
- enable “internal cheats” in the Core Options / System submenu
- Reload the game
8 Likes
whoa the spritework in the first one is so dense and noisy it looks almost like textures pulled from a 3d game. it looks really great! the metal slug lineage is really clear in the second one but i think the first looks better in its roughness; less luxurious and more workmanlike.
5 Likes
As soon as I get home, I’m on a mission to extract and isolate that voice clip that plays at 2:43 in that Gunforce video… YEE-hoo!!
1 Like
Played through and finished the “Khaos Reigns” story in MK1.
The nicest thing I can say is that, y’know, it looks good, it’s well produced, the actors do a fine job with it. But it’s just…sort of the same thing, again. You get the Cyrax/Sektor betrayal rift thing, but this time gender-swapped, you get more characters kidnapped, more variants climbing out of portals, more villains draining powers from one person to boost their own. I guess it sets up what they hoped would be a third DLC set, but that’s never coming, so, eh.
120+ gigs freed up on my SSD.
5 Likes
i’m playing the first heroes of might and magic because i’ve played what turns out to be like, a lot of derivatives of this game and also the rebooted king’s bounty series. so i wouldn’t say i’ve never played one before but i’ve never played like an official one before. so far my impression of is that of course all the russian guys i’ve met in my life are permanently addicted to playing homm3, because the way it’s just basically running around a game board making numbers go up with the thinnest veneer of cute spritework is absolutely perfect casino gaming. the music does kick ass though. i generally consider most early-mid 90s pc games to have worse music than console games so i like that the music reminds me of good super nintendo stuff
7 Likes
The HoMM1 sprites are the cutest sprites in all the world, I love them so much.
13 Likes