i remember the ds giana sisters game having really great animation
4 Likes
this worked brilliantly for me. the time you have to hold jump to get the max height is relatively short, so you can start mashing well before you actually impact the wall
got it in like 90 seconds last night after having spent several minutes failing it two days ago
3 Likes
2 Likes
yeah itās honestly one of my favorite platformers, itās very cozy and looks/sounds great.
thereās a remake of it on steam and itās godawful, somehow. i donāt know how they did it but itās bad.
4 Likes
Apparently this āGiana Sisters 2Dā was handled by a different developer.
2 Likes
this is so impressive lol, you are a god
Mega Man X2 (SNES) is very mechanically good, harder than X, interesting power-ups, good boss design, good level design for the most part
but the musicā¦ the music sucks! sure, wheel gator is good and a few others are decent, but overall it is just absolutely shit compared to the magnificently bombastic and endearingly cheesy MMX1 soundtrack
i will shout out the password music for being in an incomprehensible time signature:
sounds like an extra 16th note in the first phrase?
9 Likes
hmmm, strong disagree on X2ās music - i think thatās one of its strongest points, very bendy and full of midi guitar. thereās some weird tracks in there, but along with the more-neon color palette, i think it all works together really well.
4 Likes
i feel very strongly about this, haha
mega man x is wall-to-wall bangers. not sure i need to really link them, there are basically nothing but catchy, iconic tracks throughout the whole game! but i certainly think X2 suffers even more when compared directly. letās put that aside for now.
X2 to me has:
very inconsistent quality
questionable instrument choices and mixing
melodies and song direction are maddeningly meandering
letās look at the intro tune, for example
Mega Man X2 OST - Plot of the X Hunters - YouTube
very high-energy, love that hi-hat pattern. but the tune just doesnāt go anywhere. it has this bizarre phrasing, but it doesnāt do much of interest outside of that, it gets stuck in this cliche and rote i-VII-VI modulation (sounds like F-Zero and a million other games) and the melody is forgettable by MM standards. it has tone and texture but the substance is lacking. it is quite emblematic of the soundtrack as a whole, in my opinion
the title theme lacks any punch whatsoever. it spaghetti jumbles itself in trying to generate energy and excitement, but it doesnāt really work for me!
password theme, as noted before, is quite dank
intro stage theme is decent! but it once again is riffing on the i-VII-VI chord progression. i mean, i donāt really mind this, but it is one of those very common and unexciting videogame chord progressions in my mind, and this is a less-than-inspiring use. some of the rhythms in play here are cool, but the samples are less than convincing and the overall tonal character is just not right, imo
many of my criticisms of these tunes are similar to my criticisms of other tunes in the game, but i could definitely go on
wheel gator is fantastic! a few other tunes are pretty good. idk, after 1 i was expecting another masterpiece. itās serviceable in 2 but not great. sorry for the rant!
7 Likes
yeah i just do not agree haha. like Wheel Gator is fine but is maybe the least-interesting song to me on the whole OST. it has some cool changes, though.
i would also argue Bubble Crabās stage music is the best track in any X game ever. also Zeroās theme in X2 is better than X1ās (which isnāt hard since X1ās is basically two phrases)
i donāt know music theory well enough to ever really understand the chord progression thing, but i guess all i can say is i like meandering in my music and i like strange choices. X2 has some fun bass lines that really carry the songs.
X1 has bangers for sure, but they all feel like very safe musical choices to me whereas X2ās OST helps to solidify a general feeling of āstrangenessā while playing that i think benefits the experience.
iām very much a āvibesā music person, which is not helpful for this kind of online discussion
6 Likes
bubble crab also vamps on i-VII-VI for awhile, hehe
i do think bubble crab is one of the better ones, that intro with the funky rhythms is hot, for sure. i think it just kind of loses momentum in the second half, though i do like that lead that comes in later
2 Likes
one thing i do want to throw out here before i belabor ranting about mega man music any more than i already have
i fully believe that all music must vibe and one must surrender themself to it fully to receive said vibe, should it be forthcoming
all the theory and structure is really just to transfer the vibes as efficiently and reliably as possible! vibes are valid, and there is definitely some weirdness in MMX2 compared to the safer MMX1ā¦
i do not use music theoretical talk to like, shut you down or imply that it makes my view more valid than yours! only to expound to the best of my ability on why i hear the music the way i do. anyone who tries to use music theory as prescription rather than description is up their ass
10 Likes
I like X2ās soundtrack a lot, but I agree that it has some baffling issues with mixing and EQ. Like, Flame Stagās theme has all the makings of a banger, but the midrange of the song feels hollow in a way that betrays the intended vibe.
6 Likes
this is my last MMX2 music post (for now lol), i swear
totally forgot to mention Crystal Snail which is the best combination of solid samples, time signature fuckery, and strong melodic content. it flows in the way i want the other tracks to flow, and is more bold than wheel gator (which i still think is just a flawless if simple tune)
6 Likes
Iād take 10 more posts personally.
7 Likes
Tried to play XThrust because it seemed like a good pick-up-and-play game to check out, only its servers are dead, which means you canāt create your user account, which means you canāt get past the title screen. Think I got it as part of a charity bundle so, oh well. Next!
2 Likes
Jet Set Radio Demo (PS3)
Runs at 30fps, just like the Dreamcast version did. Thereās a Steam version (and corresponding Steam demo) (also 30fps, apparently) for $2 less than the PS3 version.
Gameplay footage uploaded to YouTube gets copyright claims on Deavid Soul tracks. = P
Unlike the DC, the PS3 version runs at 1080p ā a rare feat on the olā PS3. Nice!
Still looks great and I love the vibrant vision of Tokyo in parody US brands, bright colors, and bold shapes, right down to things like distant streets being painted on the wall.
Starts with you mimicking
easy in-line skating & spray-painting runs
from your fellow āRudieā youth gang members.
The demo has just one actual mission mission,
and as soon as I had to try tough jumps there I somehow kept twitching my character off-course or something at take-off, and then couldnāt course-correct, with the camera trailing behind where I wanted to see and the character having surprisingly little air control.
So basically I suck at it, felt like I was fighting a losing battle against the controls, and it was a huge relief that there was only the one real mission!
I played further in the full version back in the day on DC, not sure how; maybe the control worked a little better on the DC pad somehow? Probably just me not being as old. = P I did peter out on it eventually; pretty sure I never finished.
3 Likes
the real jsr miracle is that thereās a port to the vita, which is also just as you rembmer it on the dreamcast
9 Likes
I played JSR HD like 7 years ago on PC and loved it. There was a 3rd party app letting you import custom graffiti for the Dreamcast experience too.
13 Likes
Nice! The PS3 demo has a tiny painting mode in it but it didnāt let me save my masterpiece.
4 Likes
I decided to give Transformers: devastation a shot as I redeemed it as a Playstation Plus games years back the last time I had it and it is seemingly delisted everywhere, so sort of a now or never situation. I didnāt play it back then as there was a decade where I had a strict āno Platinum gamesā policy (I tried Bayonetta and thought it was okayish but had my fill, donāt try and convince me every license should play like it) andā¦ it seems like a very mid game but I am very nostalgic for several of those voices and I believe the game is short so maybe Iāll get through it.
Also finished up Ghostrunner. It is a shame they went āMirrorās Edge would be better if it looked like everything elseā but I think the notion of taking that kind of first person parkour platformer and mixing it with a precision platformer mentality is an interesting one. Neon White may also be like this (it aināt part of the PS+ Catalog though) but Iām a sucker for those kind of platformers so I ended up digging the game a good deal. Difficulty level became a bit much near the end but thankfully the checkpoints are rarely too far apart.
3 Likes