Category Archives: gameplays
Crushing Double Dragon
I’m pretty sure everyone has fond memories of Double Dragon, especially the arcade original. Double Dragon is essentially the reason we have the brawler/beat ’em up genre, which next to RPGs, is my favorite type of game. In the arcade, you might not have ever realized how unforgiving the game can be because you can always just keep dumping more quarters into it until you win. The NES versions of I, II, and III give you a good taste of what “Nintendo hard” means. I and II – 3 lives with no continues. And they both have stupid platforming parts. WHY?! Why does a brawler have platforming? If there was at least a singular jump button, maybe I could understand. But you have to press both punch and kick together to jump and it’s just not conducive accurate timing. III gives you 1 life. There have been many times I wasn’t even able to get past stage 1. At least after stage 2, you get additional characters.
Up until these longplays, I had NEVER in my life beaten the original Double Dragon for NES. Would always make it to the 4th mission and those stupid blocks would kill me. Or do enough damage there’s no way I could get past that last set of Abobo’s.
Mega Man 8 Longplay
We just wrapped up making a longlpay recording of Mega Man 8 for PS1. General consensus is that it’s one of the worst classic style Mega Man games in the series. The addition of character voices was not necessary and actually more than a little annoying. Not to mention the soundtrack being sub par, which is usually one of the high points of Mega Man games. Personally my least favorite, but still better than most other action/platformers. Your thoughts?
Adventures of Pip – Full Playthrough
Just finished beating Adventures of Pip, by Tic Toc Games. The full release will be available in May for Xbox One, PS4, 360, PC, Mac and Wii U, but it got an early release on Steam. I’m not sure how completely done the game is though. At least I’m hoping what was released on Steam isn’t the finished product. It seems almost fully polished. It’s a solid platformer with excellent controls and all gameplay elements are there and I didn’t encounter any bugs, but it’s lacking some music. Worlds 2 and 3 use the same tracks and every stage in each world uses the same music throughout. Boss music is also sadly absent. There just wasn’t enough variety. Jake Kaufman is responsible for the soundtrack and I’ve never been disappointed by his work, so I’m hoping it all just hasn’t been added in yet.
Honestly, I’ve never been a big fan of pure platforming games. I’ll play them, but they tend to get too aggravating too fast or I simply lose interest because there’s generally no substance. Adventures of Pip provided just the right amount of difficulty (for me anyway) and had a few challenges but nothing that got too rage-quit inducing. For the less casual platform gamer, I can see this game getting picked up and blown through in a single sitting.
Overall I enjoyed the game, which for the designer of a platformer, is quite a challenge to get me to say. Below is the full playthrough done on Twitch, laid out stage by stage. We had some technical difficulties throughout. Audio levels especially in the first video. It’s mostly the commentary (which is asinine anyway) that has problems. Game audio is pretty much fine.
Working on some Longplays
Been doing a lot of longplay vids lately. Posting some of my more favorite ones below. Anyone interested in doing some co-op longplays, drop me a line and come be a part time member of the Squad.
Bloody Wolf
Awesome game. Off the top of my head, I’d have to say it’s my favorite Turbografx game ever. The ONLY thing that keeps this game from being absolute top tier over Contra is the lack of a 2nd player. If this was a 2 player game, this would easily be the best game of it’s type. However, what kind of puts it into a class of it’s own is that it’s not necessarily a side-scroller. There are a lot more elements to it such as life upgrades, items, and hostage rescues, as opposed to just getting weapon drops.
Splatterhouse
The first official Gamesquad Squad Turbografx longplay. Currently, it will also be the only one for awhile since immediately after playing this, the sound went out on the system, so now I have to replace all the caps. Just waiting for them to arrive.
Quick interesting fact about this: My game is apparently glitched and I never knew that until I saw what the game is actually supposed to look like. The floor on the first stage is totally broken.
Making Difficult Mode Look Easy – Mega Man 2
Ok, so in all honesty, we actually screwed up a few times pretty bad and this is definitely not the best run I’ve ever done. But at least it was done without using a single continue. I know there’s some clown out there who’s probably done a 100% perfect no hit run on this game on difficult. Fuck them.
Super Mario Bros. 3 Mix Cart Ready
Super Mario Bros. 3 Mix, a rom hack made by Southbird, completed and available on cart. Max and myself did a complete playthrough of the game to “test it out”, plus it’s just awesome Mario fun. There’s a lot to do in this game. It has so much more than the original NES could offer, including game saves, alternate stage exits, unlockable stages, etc. If anyone’s interested, I could make this one for $40. I also have an alternate label available.
Legend – SNES – 2 player playthrough
Back before I discovered King of Dragons, or Chronicles of Mystara, there was Legend. At the time I thought it was the most awesome beat ’em up ever. Two huge guys with giant barbarian weapons traipsing about the kingdom slaying….peasants…and homeless guys….? Well that last part I really didn’t think about in my youth. I just though it was a pretty rad game. Unfortunately playing this game again after about 20 years or so has not held up to the game in my memory. It’s a grossly underdeveloped game with tons of various staples of the brawler genre that are painfully missing, and just complete laziness on the developers part with lack of color palettes, no variety of BGM, poor hit detection, etc. At any rate, it is a pretty rare game, so for a collector, it’s a must have, but it’s not something I could imagine someone owning “for fun”, unless they just enjoyed playing bad games, like I do.
There is nothing that can’t be beaten with infinite continues
Possibly the most difficult game I’ve ever played, or at least in recent memory. I would have to sit down and go through the entire video game library to find another game that compares in frustrating difficulty. Of course there’s “I wanna be the guy”, but that’s in a different category altogether. That game is designed to be unfair. Hagane, despite it’s rather steep learning curve, is extraordinarily fair. You’ll die a lot, but there are tons of 1-ups, extra life drops, and most importantly, infinite continues. Without the infinite continues, I’m pretty certain I never would have beaten this game. At first, the control scheme it a bit difficult to use and is rather awkward, specifically the jumping, when compared to pretty much any other action-platformer. But after getting used to it, you realize how really well the game controls. Hagane also has some of the best level design I have ever seen from a game of its generation, and is complimented by the game’s controls. You’d really have to play the game to understand just how well they work together. And not just for like 5 minutes, you really have to commit to it. It’s like a long distance run. At first, you’re struggling and out and breath and every part of your body is telling you to stop, but then you break out of it and reach a state of euphoria.That’s Hagane.
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