Games You Played Today VIII: Journey of the Cursed Poster

[smbhax]

Capcom Arcade Cabinet (PS3)

The Speed Rumbler.

Rad game. 44,100 pts on “Ultimate” difficulty for the online rankings (International Version). I’ll probably be trying to play through on the Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (PC/Steam) version 'cause it’s a little more convenient and makes for sharper recording anyway vs component video from the PS3, but this PS3 version by M2 PROBABLY plays the best. Lots of options in the complicated menus. ; _)

You can also play the Japanese version, “Rush & Crash.”

2nd Stadium version is half the price, it should be noted! $1.99 vs $3.99. The DLC scheme for Cabinet was messed up and went through a few contortions:

At first, games were coming out in year-themed “packs” of two or three games, every two weeks; the pack would also include “trial” versions of the next pack’s games–trial seems to mean you can play like the first two stages of the game. In packs, game cost about $3 each.

Two weeks after coming out in a pack, you could purchase the pack’s games individually for $3.99 each; purchasing an individual game also got you “trial” versions of the next pack’s games, I think. None of this was confusing at all, no sir. ": PPP

Then, three months after launch, I suppose by which time all 15 DLC games had been trickled out (get all and you got two bonus games, 1943 Kai and Vulgus), they came out with an “ALL-IN-ONE” version of Cabinet with all the games included, differentiated by being titled IN ALL CAPS in the PSN Store, for $30. : PP

The whole scheme seemed like kind of a disaster, and maybe they didn’t help themselves by not putting in their heavy hitting fighting and beat em up games; this collection sticks to their earlier, mid-80s stuff.

Super solid conversion job by M2 though.

[Myspace_Mavis]

I appreciate F-Zero 99 cuz I never played the original much outside of starting an emulator and shrugging it off almost immediately (i don’t think i parsed the turning & I definitely didn’t read the manual), but getting a grasp on 99 has more or less transferred entirely to the original and I’ve played through a couple cups now very happily.

Anachronistically, the ways in which 99 are particularly difficult (at least for me) makes the original feel like a nice alternate version of it; much easier to place, easy to restart courses, no concerns about exploding from boosting or being knocked off-course, etc.
Unlike say Mario, Tetris, or Pac-Man where the gameplay & structure are immediately familiar. F-Zero is a little less intuitive, so for me this feels a bit like what I imagine something like NES Remix was attempting, where it doesn’t replace the original, but encourages a transitional skillset by building off the original’s pre-existing aesthetic and mechanical appeal.

[Gate88]

@meauxdal

drones and bombs are largely obnoxious and unnecessary

the things that make snes f-zero for me are the drones plus the lives and disqualification system plus falling off the course being instantly fatal. it’s very arcadey and tense and requires reacting to things rather than just sheer memorization. coming back from bullshit situations is the main draw of the game for me.

in 99 i’m not even sure if you CAN fall off the course, which is a big misstep imo. every time you use a ramp you should have the fear of god in you until you finally learn how to use them responsibly. coming back from the skyway should have danger, too!

[HOBO]

Lies of P is Ken Levine’s Bloodborne, it is so incredibly derivative and so dumb and I will be so disappointed if it doesn’t maintain this level of stupidity throughout

Like the game itself just makes me think “I should replay An Actual From Software Game” but the stupidity is pretty good, I hope I never stop laughing at all this P

[Tulpa]

can you tell me more about your P-Organ

{user was banned for this post}

[iguferon]

this is all i can think about

P. Control

[notbov]

I wanted to play something not actively trying to steal my money and I just got that 8bitdo NGCD pad so I grabbed Ninja Warriors Once Again on Steam

I’m currently at the point where I’m weighing the pros and cons of trying to do a 1CC two-player run by myself versus roping someone else in and hoping they know what’s going on

this seems like a stupid thing to do for an achievement but what else am I gonna do with that time

[Victor]

damn today is the day the puppet mechanoid awakens and I didn’t even realize?

[RT-55J]

@Gate88

in 99 i’m not even sure if you CAN fall off the course, which is a big misstep imo. every time you use a ramp you should have the fear of god in you until you finally learn how to use them responsibly. coming back from the skyway should have danger, too!

I’m pretty sure the game does some shenanigans so the skyway doesn’t dump you off course, but I’ll have you know that I have exploded off course multiple times due to bad jumps off ramps. Once the later courses become unlocked I think people will have a better idea of how brutal the course design of the game can be.

With that said, as a true doom Maximum Velocity-head, I agree with meauxdal that the SNES game can be hard for to go back to. MV’s revisions to how drifting, boost maintenance, and bomb knockback work make for something that plays quite differently on a mid-to-high level — to say nothing of the balance between machines or impeccable* track design. I’m not joking when I say I’d love to see some MV related DLC (failing that, I’ll accept BS F-Zero DLC with the missing Metal Fort and Forest tracks).

FZ99 keeping track of per machine time trial records is very cool at least — I wish all the games had that.

* Ignoring that track with the spinners

[Gate88]

@RT-55J

but I’ll have you know that I have exploded off course multiple times due to bad jumps off ramps.

oh huh i just tried it off a ramp and you’re totally right. i think i conflated what was happening after the skyway with jumps.

i will say, the speed and the visibility in 99 is such that it feels easier to never fall off course, and I rarely see other people do it either. i’m glad it’s possible, though, that makes me happier about the game.

[dylan]

R type delta dude

[Father.Torque]

@HOBO

A history of gay robots

[dementia]

they removed this tho

[captainlove]

I am back on the FF7 Remake Platinum Trophy shit again. But you know what? Fuck the platinum. The devs clearly don’t want me to have it since I forgot to do one Colosseum event to unlock the Pride and Joy prototype fight meaning I have to do all of chapter 14 again after a hard playthrough. I also have to do all of chapter 6, 9, and 14 again (I think?) so that the 26/24 sidequests can register for one of the shittest trophies imaginable. I have already completed all side quests so please just give me my trophy. Also, I can’t satisfy Jessie. I’m gonna get the gold for hard mode and call it a day. The Rufus Shinra fight is better than I remember.

[aislesgrises]

revival xanadu is VERY pretty and is like, almost something compelling and good until you run the math on how many critters you need to kill at 15 fps to afford the items you need to not be stuck

there’s a stat that afaict only affects the speed at which you open chests, which might sound like a dump stat, but consider… every enemy ever drops a chest with their loot. put enough points in there to not drive yourself insane.

[ArOne]

I blame starfield for no particular reason but i started poking at No Man’s Sky a few hours before bed. I didn’t really pay attention to its update cycle other than hearing it became a real game after all the brewhaha cooled down. It’s a pleasant enough of one of those dig and build kind of games that also has an immersive enough space flight angle. Just sticking to easy mode to just see what stuff is in the game to determine if I want it to be a challenging experience. It’s a little chunky on the deck but it seem to handle it pretty well.

[Brooks]

catching up on some wishlist shit like hob’s barrow, which i’m really hoping can cash the cheque all these jumpcuts, closeups and incongruous synth music are writing

[smbhax]

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (PS3)

I don’t like the Udon Entertainment art style.

“Widescreen” mode still leaves small black sidebars, ie isn’t QUITE 16:9 widescreen (not fixed in Ultra).

Was surprised how much I disliked the Remixed soundtrack. You can switch to the “Classic” arcade soundtrack, though.

Even giant Street Fighter II fan David Sirlin at Backbone Entertainment was surprised when Capcom agreed to let him do a remixed version of Super Turbo.

Podcast interview with Sirlin:

• Designer Notes 41: David Sirlin - Part 1 - Idle Thumbs Network
• Designer Notes 42: David Sirlin - Part 2 - Idle Thumbs Network

Designer David Sirlin’s HD Remix Features page: Street Fighter HD Remix Features — Sirlin.Net — Game Design

The difficulty is weird. There are only four instead of the arcade 8 difficulty levels. Sirlin says Classic should be as ridiculously hard as the arcade version, but I could swear it felt a bit easier. And his Hardest remixed difficulty on Remix takes four fights to get real hard.

In Training Classic mode (didn’t check Remix) there’s a pop-up sub-menu to select the Super (aka “Old”) version of the characters–but this isn’t in Arcade mode, where according to GameFAQs (did not test) you have to enter the old arcade per-character input code to get their Old version. The Training sub-menu has neat icons for it; why wasn’t this made available in Arcade mode? : P

The re-remixed “Ultra” version Capcom themselves made for Switch nine years later was $40 (not $50), whereas Remix on PS3 had been $15 (not $20).

There’s a long pause when you confirm something on a menu, it’s really weird–no feedback for several seconds, and if you don’t notice that you can’t even move the menu selection during that time, you may think the game just didn’t read the button press.

The on-fire effect is REALLY flickery. But the strobes on Continue (yellow) and Game Over (red) are gone, which is nice!

The “Classic” graphics option ^ IS a blurry horror show.

The control mapping is smooth–just hit the button you want for the command, like the PS1 Street Fighter Collection version.

I failed to figure out that in Remixed mode, to get the hold-the-button color for a character (green w/ red headband for Ryu, for instance), you hold a KICK button for 2 seconds (or so it says on Sirlin’s page); holding a PUNCH button gets you the arcade Jab color, and Jab gets you the character’s default World Warrior color.

[smbhax]

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection (PC/Steam)

Since SF 30th, developer Digital Eclipse has gone on to do other historical compilations with even more extensive “making of” presentations, like Atari 50 and The Making of Karateka; 30th has a timeline presentation

with some pretty extensive galleries for various SF games and so forth,

feels like a prototype for the later, more elaborate history collections.

It’s pretty surprising that the emulation of Super Turbo here is messed up, though: it’s running at the wrong speed. Everyone knows the default arcade speed of US Super Turbo is Turbo 2, and speed “2” is the default setting for ST in this collection–

but when you run the game, it says “Turbo 1”

; whatever that is, it feels sort of close-ish to regular Turbo 2, but not quite right.

(And Google was showing me people saying in multiplayer, 30th runs ST at what it calls “Turbo 2”–but that it’s way too fast.) I tried a few other games in the collection

, like Hyper Fighting

and 3rd Strike

, and they seemed pretty much fine, speed wise–but you’d have thought they’d have wanted to get the linchpin, Super Turbo, pretty much spot on, and somehow they didn’t.

So it just feels messed up and not a version I’m gonna keep trying to play.

UPDATE: THAT ^ is kinda wrong! Here’s the thing: the “GAME SPEED” option is off, and it defaults to the wrong thing.

It defaults to 2. And that corresponds to Turbo 1. Why? Because Turbo actually goes from Turbo 0 (ie, World Warrior speed) to Turbo 3. So what they SHOULD have done was set the GAME SPEED option selection reading to go from “Turbo 0” to “Turbo 3.” And it should have defaulted to “Turbo 2.” That’s how the arcade game’s operator menu does it.

This actually started in HD Remix, where the game speed option went 1-4 and defaulted to 3. Sirlin explains this on his HD Remix Features page thusly: “The game speeds match the arcade version of the game, but this is confusing so bear with me. In SF HD Remix, speed 3 is the default and is intended for tournament play and online play. It’s the same speed as Japanese arcade speed 3, which is also known as US arcade speed 2. You don’t really have to understand what’s going on with all that, just play at the default speed 3 and be happy that it matches the arcade.”

So yeah that still doesn’t make sense, you should have labelled the settings Turbo 0-3, Sirlin, LIKE THE US ARCADE ROM’s Operator Menu DOES! : PPP

Capcom doesn’t actually get the Game Speed numbering right for US versions again until Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, in 2022–14 years later!

You can extract all the ROMs from 30th

Game Extraction Toolbox: GitHub - shawngmc/game-extraction-toolbox: Python tools for extracting ROMs from games and investigating files

and run them in for instance an older version of MAME that isn’t too particular about CRCs of game dumps–MAME 0.119, for instance.

(GET says it can also extract from Capcom Arcade Stadium, which has Super Turbo for $1.99, so that might be the way to go if you just want ST. I haven’t run it on Stadium so I can’t say for sure that it produces a working ST ROM from it, though.)

30th supports disabling Vsync. No Borderless Fullscreen, though–a bit too old for that.

No vs CPU in Training mode.

[notbov]

taking care of the important things while staying late finishing things at work