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Cobra Kai

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Posts posted by Cobra Kai

  1. Posted

    I've always liked Sengoku 3 as well. I bought the AES cart 3 different times. What sets it apart from other beatemups is the combo meter/system. I liked the usable character variety, but at the same time, I thought the enemies were not very imaginative, and very repetitive. Of course, I can see how that's a silly complaint particularly in this genre of games, that are known for their repetitive enemies. 

    • Like 2

  3. Posted

    Warriors of Fate 2

    I'm just going to say right off, I will not be able to do this game justice here. There are multiple versions, of which I have not played. My knowledge of the game is based off the import Sega Saturn version which is in Japanese language, in an intensive story based beat-em-up. All this means is that I can play the game, but have no idea what the story is. The game can be acquired on the Capcom Beat-em-up Bundle/Capcom Belt Action Collection for some modern consoles (PS4/Switch)

     

    Here's Wikipedia's entry on the game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warriors_of_Fate

     

    Now, they call it Warriors of Fate, but the Saturn release is definitely Warriors of Fate II, as seen here:

    Warriors_of_Fate_(CP_System_Dash)_JP.png.6513ea7df197f291999cee5d6d859319.png

     

    For a beat-em-up, this is a heavily story driven game, as you will see by all the cut-scenes throughout. I have no idea what it's about, but appears as set in China, and you may be on a quest by some Lord to quell a rebellion (just guessing). Some of the cut-scenes show villagers running for their lives while being chased by soldiers who are cutting them down. While others depict a massive naval battle.

     

    There are 5 main characters to choose from, all males, but after searching for screenshots, it appears there are some secret unlockable characters. Also, the Saturn version is 2 player, the arcade game must have been 3-players:

    WoF2.png.bddb90c00d5d24d8afdfe8109afa682f.png

     

    I would directly compare this game to Knights of the Round. But, there's quite a bit more to this game. Not only is there weapon based combat, there are many melee and grapple moves for each character. The button setup is 3 buttons, Attack/Jump/Mega Crush. Each character uses the same joystick motion and button presses to perform all the moves, so it's easy to switch from one character to another. For example, all the characters can grab enemies, and by pressing left/right and the attack button, will throw the enemy, while up or down + attack will perform a bite or choke style move. You can also grab, press jump + attack and that performs even another move. 

     

    So, you can see, just the grappling makes the move set at-least twice as large as Knights of the Round. This is a deep beat-em-up with a move set as big as two of Capcoms other games in the genre (KotR + Final Fight). There is also horseback combat, and you actually begin the game riding into battle on a horse:

    Wof22.jpg.d78dc3d9d8bd07d8b5beff474686d6ca.jpg

     

    Horseback offers it's own moves. You can do Front and Rear swipes with your weapon. You can perform your mega-crush while on the horse. You can also make the horse charge, or rear-up and pound the ground which unleashes a wave of energy to knock enemies back. 

     

    There are even more moves that you can perform while on the ground, which can even lead to your enemies being chopped in half. Pressing Down + Jump will perform a character specific dash attack which is pretty powerful, and used to clear a path in a sense. You can also top-wise half circle for another special attack that's very powerful and doesn't reduce your health bar like the Mega Crush will. Top-wise meaning LEFT/LEFT-UP/UP/RIGHT-UP/RIGHT + ATTACK. You can do that in either direction. These are all character specific and vary wildly with each one.

     

    The stages are epic in size, and you will fight 20-30 enemies on each level before fighting the Boss. One thing I really like about this game are the boss fights. Not because they are particularly special, but unlike many beat-em-ups, in this game, the bosses don't fight cheap, and can be fought against using your full move list, even the grappling. Most beat-em-ups you have to totally change your techniques to fight the boss, or simply just take beatings and mega-crush your way to victory while pumping credits into it. Not so with this game, you can actually fight the boss with all your moves, they don't necessarily get priority over everything you do.

     

    There are many, many item pick-ups in this game as well. Treasure chests and barrels litter the battlefield. What lies within can be food, points, or weapons. Sometimes there's a pick-up that summons the Horse for you. There is quite a variety of weapons, such as large swords, scimitars, battle-axe, cudgels, daggers, hammers. Again, with the right weapon, you can slice enemies in half. With a hammer, you can actually stun enemies for a short time. 

     

    I think the graphics are incredible, and impressive when you have about 10 fairly large character sprites on screen, all moving about and I haven't detected any slowdown. The backgrounds are fun to look at, some of it is in a forest, or you switch to fighting in a stream with running water effects. One stage is a large battlefield you fight through, and sometimes there are dead bodies strewn about in the background. This is why I wish I had the English version of the game, because there is some epic tale being told and I don't know what it is.

     

    That's all I got on this one.

    • Like 3

  5. Posted

    The way I see it, Doom/Quake changed the direction of gaming and pushed for hardware innovation. It will take another titanic game to change course. It will be an entirely new way to play games probably. Will it be VR? Who knows, but Nintendo tried hard with imposing motion  control  to change gaming, and despite great console sales, motion control was a fad and eventual flop IMO.

     

     

  7. Posted

    Trevor McFur could use rapid fire also. That game has separate buttons for standard 'shot' and another for the 'bombs' (not to be confused with a screen clearing bomb). The standard shot definitely can get a high rate of fire,  but I can't remember about the bombs.

     

    m_TrevorMcFur_5.jpg

    • Like 2

  9. Posted

    X1 had a recent dashboard makeover. As usual, I'm never happy with the changes. I guess I just don't like my game consoles to get changes to them. I get used to a GUI and I want to stick with it forever, just like my classic consoles. It makes it so much easier when I have everything in muscle memory, I can switch back and forth between SNES or Jaguar and never have problems. 

     

    They really didn't do much other than change how the pods are organized. But again, they didn't make it 'better', so a waste of time really.

  10. Posted

    I'm currently concentrating on trying to solo the SNES port of Knights of the Round (Normal difficulty). You get 9 credits, and I'm getting stuck at Level 6 the Muramasa samurai boss. There's a lot of combat strategy to this game. Anyone here gotten through the entire game solo? If so, which character did you use? I'm trying to do it with Arthur currently, but I'm wondering if Percival might be better with his extra strength. I'm not sure the speed stat has any real affect on the game.

  12. Posted

    The Combatribes (1990)

    combatribes1.thumb.jpg.344dc1a5eda3d4078e6caa8c4661eefe.jpg

     

    Here's one of my favorite beat-em-ups. This was released originally in the arcades, with a 3-player control panel IIRC. The game was ported to the SNES (above screenshot), that's the version I have the most experience with. This is a rather unique game in the genre, as it's close to being a 'boss rush'. Shmup fans know what I'm talking about with that term, but basically it means minimal popcorn baddies to fight through, reaching the stage boss rather quickly. 

     

    It's not that simple though to explain though. In Combatribes, the start of each stage will contain almost all the bad guys you will fight, sans the end stage boss who shows up with a few extra goons once you dispense the starting henchmen. So, unlike something like Final Fight where you continually scroll the screen and encounter new baddies, in this game, it's more like an arena battle, a royal rumble if you will. You can walk around a little bit, but you are generally confined to an area.

     

    It's the combat that makes this game fun. There are 3 characters to choose from, your typical strong and slow guy in Bullova. Berserker the well rounded fighter, and Blitz the speedy, weak fighter. This game lets you brutalize the opponent with moves not found in other games in this genre. Along with normal punching and kicking combos, you can beat opponents when they are down by smashing their heads into the ground, or you can grab their legs and swing them around 'hammer throw' style (very effective move by the way), and if you position yourself between two baddies, you can smash their heads together! Each character also has a dash attack (double tap left or right) that you'll want to get good with.

    combatribes.thumb.jpg.b4643d9e904f91a2ca89a087cc7644e0.jpg

     

    The action is intense and unceasing, this game moves along at a brisk pace. With all the moves at your disposal, you will have plenty of strategy to employ here if you want. If you want to beat the SNES game solo, I suggest using  Bullova because he has a dash attack that throws a heavy punch, and it stuns the enemy. This move can be spammed on the bosses to cause them to drop their weapon. You kind of have to fight the bosses differently, because like many beat-em-ups, bosses are very resistant to normal attacks.

     

    Graphically, the game is both really great looking, and ugly at the same time. The character select screen and the cutscenes with closups are laughably bad. The main characters walk very strange with stiff arms that barely move, but overall the graphics are pleasing. The backgrounds really add to the atmosphere, and general animation is good. The color palette is intense, it's like Technos made a decision to use as many colors as possible.  That's probably one of the reasons for the wildly different, but cliche gangs in the game, from skinheads and clowns, to punks on roller skates. This really allows for a variety of colors and sprites to utilize them.

     

    As far as the audio, I like the background music, and the fighting noises are typical I guess. I'm more of a graphics whore, so audio, unless it terrible, doesn't usually grab my attention. Anyway, one of my favorite beat-em-up games, The Combatribes.

     

     

    • Like 4

  13. Posted

    I searched the forums and couldn't find a topic dedicated to the genre of the Beat-Em-Up. I'm really in to them right now, so let's have a place to discuss right here. I am not an authority on the genre, and this is not intended to be a history lesson, or some complete compendium on the Beat-Em-Up. Though, it could turn into that over time with member input!

     

    What is a Beat-Em-Up? It's typically a 2D side scrolling game, where you play as a hero, who walks to the right and kicks the ass of every enemy who gets in your way (which is usually a quest to save a heroine). The controls tend to be simplified to two, sometimes 3 buttons. Usually an Attack button, along with a Jump button. Various combos can be performed utilizing directional joystick presses, mixed with either button. The best example that everyone recognizes is Final Fight:

    126920413_FinalFight.jpg.b29140153c81de03cb7100d23c1efd74.jpg

     

    I chose to highlight Final Fight because the genre really became something special with this game. This really started a flurry of follow-ups, not only by Capcom, but all the other major players would join in with their own Beat-Em-Ups and fill arcades up with these. Some of you older gamers, which is most of us here, will remember getting your feet wet in the genre with Kung-Fu, Vigilante and Double Dragon:

    double-dragon-top-screen-min-700x394.thumb.jpg.640bed161cc395e6650e99ac2d875fa8.jpg

     

    Some gamers really don't like this style of game. I know the complaints, that they are mindless quarter munchers, and I think there is some merit to that. But like the Shmup genre, you can get pretty good at these with some practice, and some of the games even encourage that you learn their mechanics to get farther into them on fewer credits. Capcom's Knights Of The Round has a button for blocking, when if you decide to, can make the gameplay strategic, and not a simple button masher:

    187387.alfabetajuega-knights-of-the-round.thumb.jpg.5c276b9b3a8d9b3fb670853afd8ef8f2.jpg

     

    It really doesn't bother me to have a genre like this thought of as mindless. Sometimes, I want to trek through a game, beat people up, and enjoy the music and graphics. That's one of the finer points of these games, that you can usually have a few moments after combat to enjoy the background artwork/graphics, really take in the setting and get immersed in the world you're in, before the game timer reminds you to ---->GO! or something like that.

     

    Well, that's all I got for today.

  15. Posted

    I've never seen an X68000 before. From all the screenshots I've seen in books though, the graphics were always pretty stellar. That must have been some machine. Are the games floppy disks?

  16. Posted

    8 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

    The Jaguar looks really cool without the CD thing or a cart, almost like something you'd see in Star Trek.

     

    Unfortunately, if you add a cart or the CD thing...

    Yes, that's exactly right, you can tell Atari put some money into the physical design so it was a great looking machine. Everyone knows the CD unit looked similar to a toilet because of the way the lid opened up, I knew that would be mentioned, it's inevitable.

     

    I tend to think if the JagCD unit had a motorized disc insert instead of the lid, the toilet meme wouldn't have occurred. But it happened and it was obvious, I think Electronic Gaming Monthly was calling it the Jag Toilet as soon as they had pictures of the thing before release back in 1996.

  19. Posted

    12 minutes ago, RevEng said:

    In theory for sure, assuming everything is 100% compatible with all existing and planned software and boards. But the putting the first few units in the hands of active 7800 devs is also a prudent final QA test. With his XM, tep392 has been testing compatibility of existing cart boards and software. When I get mine I plan to test out all of the exotic XM functionality. If any of us find some issue after XM units have been shipped to hundreds of customers, that's a problem. If we find some issue prior, the customer units can be as perfect as possible.

    I don't disagree. I was responding to Curt's recent post intimating my concern:

    Quote

    Only shipping to Devs at this point...  not much sense for everyone to have XMs when there are only a few games that use just some of its features.

    That right there I think is not a legit excuse to hold up the XM. Beta testing, yes that's legit.

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    I have at least 3 games I could utilize the XM right now, DKXM, Beef Drop VE, and Pac-Man Collection. Devs getting the first units is great, but lack of software as a reason to hold up more units,  isn't actually a thing.

    • Thanks 1

  21. Posted

    14 hours ago, Defender_2600 said:

     

    Thanks, I like them both. But speaking of WIP projects, let me say that D2K really will leave us breathless... :)
    And, there are also 2 more impressive WIP of which at the moment I can not say anything... :)

     

    One of them is Elevator Action. That's what the voices in my head tell me.

  23. Posted

    8 hours ago, Austin said:

    This has probably been discussed before, but how's the sensitivity on the Retro Fighters analog stick? My issue with replacement third-party sticks for standard N64 controllers is the dead zone is massive. It's nearly impossible to finesse my way around corners in F-Zero X, for instance. They are just an awful experience. I don't *need* a replacement at the moment, as I am lucky to have a couple of decently functional original sticks, but I could see myself investing in a RF controller in the future just as a backup if the sticks work well.

    I've seen reviews on Amazon stating the Brawlers stick went limp, that's why I went with the Mini repro design. I liked the look and size of the Brawler though.

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