Friday does what Nintendon't

[Upthorn]

When I was a kid, playing those, I couldn't beat the game as Tails. That part in Carnival Night where you have to hold up and down on a rubberbanding platform to swing it farther and farthhr each time, this was completely unintuitive and I could not figure it out.

Every kid got stuck there for a while at least. I think I got stuck there for a couple of weeks before I tried holding down on the barrel to so I could try to look down to see how far I even needed it to go...

[nosimpleway]

I want to say "after Launch Base (which is after Ice Cap) you get into the originally-Sonic-&-Knuckles half of the game and it picks up a bit" but when I try to give examples or quantify that I come up blank

...why am I posting this either look, my dude

[Thad]

When I was a kid, playing those, I couldn't beat the game as Tails. That part in Carnival Night where you have to hold up and down on a rubberbanding platform to swing it farther and farthhr each time, this was completely unintuitive and I could not figure it out.

Yeah, that would be the "obtuse undocumented control scheme" I was alluding to. I don't remember how I finally figured it out, whether it was completely by accident after jumping up and down on it over and over and over and over again or if somebody on Prodigy explained it to me.

That's not Tails-specific, though; all three characters have to deal with that shit.

I want to say "after Launch Base (which is after Ice Cap) you get into the originally-Sonic-&-Knuckles half of the game and it picks up a bit" but when I try to give examples or quantify that I come up blank

Mushroom Hill and Flying Battery are both pretty great.

And then some other stuff happens and then (if you're playing as Sonic or Tails) the cutscene after you fight Knuckles in Hidden Palace is legit the second-best wordless storytelling I've ever seen in a game.

[Upthorn]

I'd call 5 of the 6 levels in the S&K section great. Sandopolis being the exception.
But I also really liked Marble Garden and Carnival Night, so my taste might be somewhat questionable.

[Thad]

Nah, like I said, Marble Garden and Carnival Night have some really solid stage design marred by some stuff that really needed more time in the oven -- the physics on the tops in Marble Garden is great when they're moving and miserable when they're stopped (which I suppose one might extrapolate as a description of the entire Sonic series in a nutshell) and a boss that's downright sadistic if you're playing as Tails; Carnival Night has those fucking pillars and you can get stuck in the walls. But overall they're really varied and well-designed stages with some embarrassing bugs.

I'm probably being a little unfair to Lava Reef in yadda-yadda-ing over the bits after Flying Battery and before Hidden Palace. I'll admit I don't really remember Lava Reef so well but when I played the Sonic Mania version last year I remember thinking "Oh yeah, this is some really cool shit; I kinda remember this from S&K."

HPZ is kinda perfunctory except for the big fight scene, but again, I feel like the cutscene after the big Sonic-versus-Knuckles fight is a high point not just in the series but in silent sprite-based storytelling in general. When I said it was the second-best example of silent game storytelling I could think of, well, no prize if you got that I was alluding to Super Metroid as the best, but there's no shame in being #2 to that.

And then you've got Sky Sanctuary, which I remember being a pretty short hop to the last boss when you play as Knuckles but a little longer and more involved if you're Sonic/Tails, and had some cool bits with teleporters and came around again in Generations. Had a great soundtrack too. Really nearly all the music in S3/K is top-notch stuff, whether Michael Jackson was involved or not.

And then there's Death Egg and the gravity reversal stuff and yeah that's really solid construction too. And then the endgame, well, it establishes a formula for Sonic last bosses, though I think Sonic Adventure perfects it.

(Weird memory I hadn't thought of in nearly 20 years: my brother must have come to visit me at my college dorm and spent the night, because I've got this memory of him playing through the last boss of Sonic Adventure one morning while I was half asleep in my bunk bed.)

[Niku]

Actual praise: Sonic in general has really cool boss design. The actual clunkers are few and far between, while the sheer variety they get out of the Robotnik machines is pretty impressive. There’s that one lava Robotnik boss where you just need to have his mines hit him, or the timing of the spike arms on Sonic 2’s end boss, or the see saw spikes from Sonic 1; I really like the scope and creativity they get throughout the series based on RoundMan in RoundMachine. And some of the mini bosses are even better, like the time the end of level capsule grows big fuckoff arms and you need to make him beat himself to death with them.

Sonic bosses are rarely super difficult or unfair, but they’re pretty memorable and don’t repeat the exact same gimmick several times for an entire game unlike contemporaneous Mario titles.

[Lottel]

The real secret of enjoying Sonic games is playing the first few levels a bunch. You get to learn to use your speed and explore and then turn on debug mode to just fuck around in the later levels when things stop being fun.

[Thad]

The real secret of enjoying Sonic games is playing the first few levels a bunch. You get to learn to use your speed and explore and then turn on debug mode to just fuck around in the later levels when things stop being fun.

The cool thing about debug mode in vanilla Sonic 3 was you could see the Knuckles portions of the levels. It wasn't like debug mode in 1 and 2 where you could look past walls and floors and maybe there'd be stuff there but it was just garbage data; in Sonic 3 you can clearly see carefully constructed sections of stage that are inaccessible during the main game. It was pretty easy to figure out that you were supposed to be able to play as Knuckles (you can see his face on the stage-end flag if you pause it while it's spinning, too, though it's swapped to Sonic's palette so he's blue instead of red) though of course we didn't know at the time that they were going to release a cartridge you could stick the first cartridge into to play as Knuckles.

Of course, the rub of saying "play the first few levels" in S3&K is there are two games' worth of levels, and there's a corresponding dip in difficulty from Launch Base to Mushroom Hill.

[Lottel]

Which is why everyone says S3&K is the best game. Double the first levels.

[Thad]

Which is why everyone says S3&K is the best game. Double the first levels.

And double the bosses.

[Friday]

hey guys

so i know it wasn't actually on the top ten, but i followed Brentai's advice and just

played what i wanted to

so anyway!

I played Castlevania: Bloodlines!

Here is my review. Keep in mind I am 7 years old.

okay so i loaded up the game and it hit me with the whole "pick your fucking character" and because I am not a CASUAL GAMER WHO GAMES CASUALLY AND THEN POSTS ON THE INTERNET ABOUT HOW DARK SOULS NEEDS AN EASY MODE AND ALL GAMES SHOULD BE MADE FOR EVERYONE I picked the fucking Belmont.

Okay he's not a REAL Belmont fine but he controls like one and whips like one and quacks like one. Well, almost. He can jump off and on stairs WAIT AM I PLAYING DRACULA X DID YOU GUYS TRICK ME INTO PLAYING DRACULA X THATS THE ONLY OTHER CLASSICVANIA WHERE YOU CAN JUMP ONTO AND OFF OF STAIRS

okay no whew, that was close. but is the game THAT different?!?!?!!?! (yes)

so i got to like stage three as mr. not belmont (his actual name is JOHN MORRIS, FATHER OF JONATHAN CHARLOTTE JONATHAN MORRIS) before I was like "wow this game is pretty tough. and it has limited lives and continues. I need to redo the early stages with the experience and stuff I know now to conserve my lives for the later levels" and i restarted the game and succumbed to the casual seduction technique of ERIC LECARDE, WHO I ALREADY KNEW FROM PORTRAIT OF RUSHED FINAL THIRD AND THAT FANGAME I GOT STUCK ON AND BRENTAI HAD TO PLAY THE WHOLE GAME TO HELP ME BECAUSE IT WAS SO NEW THAT GAMEFAQS DIDN'T HAVE A PAGE FOR IT YET.

anyway it turns out that Eric is indeed casual mode. move fast attack upward do pole vaults fuckin sick movement tech bro nice dick

as MR. Lecarde I was able to get all the way to Dracula's Castle and then the game was like HAHA I SAW YOU MADE A THREAD ON BRONTOFORUMUS ABOUT HOW YOU HATE "STAGE HAZARDS" LIKE WIND OR ICE. WELL WHAT IF YOU WERE JUST UPSIDOWN AND YOUR CONTROLS WERE REVERSED HAHA WAIT THERE'S MORE WHAT IF THE SCREEN WAS SO INCREDIBLY FUCKED UP THAT YOU THOUGHT THE FUCKING HARDWARE WAS BUGGING OUT LIKE THE MIDDLE THIRD OF THE SCREEN IS DISTORTED AND SHIFTED AND YOUR LEGS AND YOUR TORSO ARE FUCKING RIPPED APART OKAY NAVIGATE THIS ROOM WITH INSTANT DEATH PITS

what the fuck

who made this

Anyway I somehow managed to get past that shit on then Carmilla or Medusa or whoever she was supposed to be.

then Dracula killed me and I ran out of lives and continues. fuck.

THE GOOD:

Soundtrack fucking kills. Clean. Hearing Simon's theme on the way to Drac was a surprise highlight. But yeah it's all great.

Despite the weird gimmicks and 3D bosses ripped straight out of Gunstar Heroes, it retains that Classicvania feel and challenge. It's been so, so long since I actually played a new Classicvania that it was an absolute treat. Felt great, like slipping into an old and worn in pair of shoes.

Two characters with varying playstyles (Lecarde is better at moving and has superior reach, but John has power) is a real nice feature. I like games that do this kinda thing. Castlevania 64 comes to mind, which is a personal favorite of mine despite its many, many flaws.

Enemy design was mostly good. They were challenging without being obnoxious, like in Dracula X.

THE BAD:

I don't like the "super power up" mechanic. It's cool that it exists, but man, I fucking hate and have always hated powerups that go away when you take a hit. That might sound surprising coming from me, a Contra Megafangirl, but yeah. I was never able to hold onto my super cool Plasma Spear or Whip for long, and it just made me feel bad. I suppose a higher level of mastery/memorization of the game would allow one to actually get some use out of the super power level state, but I feel like it should have had a minimum timer. Like it lasts 2 minutes or something, and then after that grace period getting hit loses it. I dunno. Weird nickpick, but it actually bothered me for whatever reason.

Death was a pushover. I don't mean the card bullshit megaman style bossrush, though I didn't like (and don't like) that kind of design. (I also disliked it in Cuphead) I mean the actual fight with Death was a letdown. This is probably the last time I will ever go toe to toe with Death in a Castlevania title, and he's just so easy.

HAHA THATS RIGHT ITS ME, FRIDAY, WHO BITCHES ABOUT HOW BOSSES ARE TOO EASY, THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF EVERY OTHER YOUTUBER WHO MAKES 45 MINUTE FUCKING VIDEOS ABOUT HOW MALENIA IS TOO HARD AND GAMES SHOULD BE FOR EVERYONE

Also Carmilla??? Medusa??? wasn't "too easy" but she was pretty boring as a penultimate boss. Very very "sit through long ass attacks, then hit me once" type of boss, which unless it is Yellow Devil, I hate.

THE UGLY:

some of the genesis effects were jarring and out of place. Leaning Tower climb felt ... eugh. The split middle third screen shit was ... well, it was something.

limited continues? the fuck? okay whatever i guess there's probably some code to circumvent this, there almost always is but yeah that's pretty outdated design even for this time

OVERALL:

Brentai was right to claim this as his favorite Classicvania and tell me to stop fucking around and play it. It's a very solid entry. I won't go so far to say it's my favorite Classicvania (that remains CV3) but I'd rate it higher than Super CV. Where Super CV felt a little TOO empowering for a Classicvania title (whip in all directions, adjust jump trajectory in mid-air) Bloodlines had a really good balance in Lecarde. And Morris is there if you want the old fully stiff controls, and it even rewards you for putting up with them with more power.

Super CV and this game were contemporaries, yes?

*checks wikipedia*

okay 91 vs 94, so not exactly.

But still, I think it's fair to compare those two games against each other. They're from basically the same era with basically the same level of tech. And I think Bloodlines did it better, which is saying something as I like Super CV a lot. Both games have weird, wonky tech demo shit in them, even. But Bloodlines feels better. I'd be interested to know if anyone from the Super CV team worked on Bloodlines, because it sort of feels like the next step in a lot of ways.

All in all, I think this is a -very- good title and more than just a "worthy" entry in the CV catalog. It has some really neat ideas and execution. I'm just sad that Death was such a let down, he's always my favorite boss fight in a Classicvania game. Oh we -- WAIT SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT RONDO I STILL HAVEN'T PLAYED RONDO GUYS IS DEATH A GOOD FIGHT IN RONDO well not as Maria obviously, she's the easymode character I mean as Richter

[Thad]

I don't mean the card bullshit megaman style bossrush, though I didn't like (and don't like) that kind of design. (I also disliked it in Cuphead)

Man I am hitting some repeat-boss-gauntlet shit in games recently, too. The Game Boy TMNT 3 has a mostly-pretty-good difficulty curve but it hammers you with a boss gauntlet at the end and I don't think I would have been able to finish it without savestate-scumming and/or rewind. And I'm currently taking a break from Trials of Mana (the remake) because Dark Castle is some bullshit, in part because of its maze/switch puzzle design but also because in-between throwing switches you have to fight bosses from earlier in the game. At least I re-beat the worst one, so it kinda has to be smoother from here on in?

[Friday]

At least in Megaman, the repeat boss rush has you 100% equipped with everyone's weakness, or in the case of MM2 Metal Blade kills like half of them in one or two shots nonsensically (including the guy who fucking uses it himself) because I guess Metal Blade wasn't OP enough.

Anyway having the weaknesses goes a long way toward making the right-before-Wily/Sigma-boss-rush a lot more bearable than in a lot of other titles.

I still don't like it though. It always feels like a chore that I have to slog through before I can get back to the fun part, weaknesses or no.

[Friday]

(Spoiler warning for PS4 is above video.)

The above video is a breakdown of Phantasy Star 4, a game I have only recently come to realize is... the best JRPG made in the 90s? I would say that only FF6 stands on the same level.

Anyway, something about PS4 was really bugging me. What it was is that I felt like this game really did something fantastic but I couldn't exactly pin down what it was. Sure, I could go on and on about the mechanical stuff and how ahead of its time it was. The MACRO system is amazing, the battle animations are quick and don't waste your time while still feeling weighty, movement in towns and overworld is fast, etc. But there was something more to it than that.

But I couldn't really describe it, even internally. I just felt that the game was special in some way.

Anyway, the above video is absolutely worth watching (especially because it's the guy's first youtube video and is this level of quality in terms of presentation) but if you don't want to spend the time, he basically outlines why PS4 is special and finally made me understand why I felt such an instant affinity and liking for it.

The reason? PS4 tells the story of the game with the game mechanics. There's no disconnect between story and gameplay, which is a problem that is often (correctly) assigned to RPGs.

Alys and Chaz start off in the Mentor/Apprentice relationship. This is not so much stated overtly as it is told to the player by their literal stats and in game battle roles. Upon seeing Alys, the player immediately wants to become her significant other/bang her, because who wouldn't, so it's natural that Chaz does as well, even though he's a fucking teenager and she's probably in her 30s or at least late 20s.

(Age: ??)

After the first boss fight, Alys tells Chaz that his "swing is too slow" and Chaz takes this seriously. By the time you re-fight the first boss again, he's got a sword instead of a puny knife, and he's got the tech "Crosscut" which literally has him swinging twice in the same attack to deal double damage. A fantastic skill against bosses. You use Chaz's new role as a single target high damage dealer to quickly cut down the boss while Alys takes care of the adds that it constantly generates. The fight is over fairly quickly, unlike the first go round, which is a slog that takes forever because Alys has to carry Chaz on her back. I actually thought this was a misstep on the part of the devs the first go round, making the first boss such an unfun slog to beat, but now I see they had a plan.

After you kill the refight, Chaz simply asks "was that better?" and Alys, because she's tsundere as fuck, can't just say "yes, very" and so instead says it in tsundere speak. "Well, a little."

This is a fantastic bit of characterization. And it's done both using cutscenes and the in-game stats. A marriage between the two.

Another thing is that I was irked by Rune when he first joined. Why? He's a badass high level wizard who blows everything up. I should be happy to have him on my team. But even as early into the game as I was, I was already looking at it from Chaz's perspective subconsciously. I was put into Chaz's shoes and what Chaz wants to do is to impress Alys and prove to her that he's a useful member of the team that can pull his own weight. I was just starting to fill my role as a slightly better single target damage dealer than Alys when all the sudden this prettyboy jackass wizard shows up WHO IS CLEARLY ALYS' EX BOYFRIEND and is just absolutely better at everything than I am. The game encourages you to just spam his magic bullshit and destroy everything because the game is super easy at that point and he just has so much mana. Entirely through the mechanics of the game and the natural desire of the player to play around with this new wizard character and see all his skills and what they do (they all pretty much one-shot entire enemy groups) you are having Rune show off his magic and how cool he is to impress Alys and win her back.

Chaz is annoyed, I'm annoyed. Alys mostly is unimpressed by both of the men fighting over her because Chaz is probably half her age and she broke up with Rune for a reason. And all of this is conveyed entirely subtextually though nothing but the mechanics of the game and the natural desires of the player.

Okay, not all of it. Chaz is overtly irritated with Rune in the cutscenes and Rune is overtly being condescending as fuck toward Chaz is return. They both recognize each other as rivals for Alys' affection and respect, which they both want because I mean we all want cool older sister to love and respect us. But without the mechanics of the game there to "play this out" both Chaz and Rune's behavior seems completely out of nowhere. Yet I, and I assume most other people who played PS4, instantly understood the dynamic. Nobody makes videos about PS4 going "why the fuck are Chaz and Rune so openly hostile to each other? It makes no sense, there's no story reason for it."

Because the reason for it is expressed through the numbers and mechanics of the game.

Now, this isn't unique to PS4. FF4 does this very effectively as well. In fact I think FF4 does this a lot better than FF6. Espers making everyone the fucking same really ruined any chance of FF6's characters being able to tell stories about their relationships to each other in this fashion. For all of FF6's strengths, I do think it suffers from a division of gameplay and story. But even compared to FF4, I think PS4 really did something special here.

And though I agree with the youtube guy that games were doing this kind of shit more than people think back in the day, I also think that PS4 really was ahead of its time in almost every way for a JRPG. It honestly holds up extremely well for a game made in 1993 and released in 95 in the US. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it would make for an excellent first time JRPG for a someone to play, like your kid.

Oh, and if you doubt Rune is Alys' ex and think they are just friends, watch the cutscene where she asks him to join the party. She slightly blushes when she does so. Again, very subtle. PS4 really knew how to tell a story.

anyway I will never finish PS4 because they killed my girl and now what the fuck is even the point if older sister will never tell me I'm a good boy.

[Brantly B.]

Spoiler

I'll tell you two things:

1. The game definitely sags after this point, and gets kinda unfocused, but it ends on a loud enough doom metal breakdown bang that I think it well makes up for the ambling middle section.
2. Never say never.