hi I’m going to ruin the traditional naming posts (did we use X-2 yet) for a post I was writing
oh lord
it’s time for another Steam Festin Next demo jam
GI Joe: Wrath of Cobra - the game lasted two minutes before I softlocked it
Night Slashers Remake - okay so you can very, very easily jab lock every enemy in the game, a thing the developers clearly realize and acknowledge because they make it so bosses take 5-7 before entering a flashing, invincible state for a second
the second boss of Night Slashers is a golem who, on knockdown, briefly falls apart and exposes its core to let you do more damage. if you get a knockdown on it with your standard combo, you will hit the core once before it enters an invulnerable state
it’s fine
OverRider - okay you’re a guy and you got blown up and now it’s 200 years in the future and you wake up and you’re a lady and you beat dudes up and also since everyone is a cyborg, you can possess them and play as enemies for a bit. also stages are run-based so you pick paths and buffs
it’s fine
Mirage Feathers - hey what if some Japanese nerd or nerds who really like Vividred Operation (don’t google that) also really like Afterburner
you should play this game if you are sufficiently inoculated against anime
Aero GPX - F-Zero X but in 2024
11/10, no notes
Taco Terror - I think this is trying to be post-irony in the same way Cruelty Squad was except instead of being a unique game with its own voice, it seems to be a pretty crude “boomer shooter” pastiche. you could just play Duke 3D again instead?
500 CALIBER CONTRACTZ - Mario 64 but with the added physics of gun and the aesthetics of a Windows Movie Maker AMV
I played much more of this game in one day than I was planning on. I was watching a video this morning and someone said that it is “relatively straightforward.” What? No it isn’t. It would take me several paragraphs to explain to you how the bomb meter and scoring mechanics work. Whenever I play a Cave shooter, I imagine the developers saying “that’ll give them something to think about.”
The design and setting are peerless. I just wish I could complete it on anything other than super easy.
Yeah, that room decorating mode is weird. I kept meaning to go back to it with a Google translate handy because the objectives get intense, or at least hard to figure out when they get beyond just ‘play the game’.
Rally Cross (PS1, 1997) is a really unforgiving game. it’s incredibly easy to flip your car over! and doing that once can be enough to doom an entire race / championship, so you end up racing with a healthy amount of fear and caution. makes for a unique experience, but lord have mercy is it frustrating when you flip over AGAIN and have to restart a 6 lap race for the 5th time or whatever
Now I’m asking myself what my goal is with this. It seems unlikely that I’ll ever be able to 1CC it, so what then? I guess I could try to complete it in any amount of credits and steadily whittle it down from there. Or maybe I should share my scores and see where I stand among SB’s best and brightest.
the best shootemup experience i’ve personally had was when i played Ghost Pilots every day for a month (was trying to score 1 million points, which i did eventually do) and recorded or streamed all my sessions and uploaded my score personal bests, felt like a real tangible progression and being able to re-watch my bests helped me progress and stay motivated more than just winging it would’ve
requires being able to capture your gameplay, tho, which is not always a given
This reminds me of another training mode that ShotTriggers has. It actually keeps track of where you die in arcade mode and let’s you practice those sections individually.
I haven’t touched Blasphemous in weeks, and now coming back to it I’m tearing through it. Was it taking a break? Or was it going back to my 8Bitdo controller. Who knows.
Played the demo of On Your Tail. It’s really cute. Demo is just slightly too short to get any real idea how it’ll ultimately play, but I enjoyed it.
