Messages

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: 魔神英雄伝ワタル 30th Anniversary (Wataru/Keith Courage)]

Hey, I know that Super Robot X usually has chibi stuff already, but at least Wataru's chubby diminutive PCE designs work well in the new format, ha.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: An original Spriggan]

If you are looking for one, you are far better off searching Yahoo Auctions Japan and figuring out how to buy stuff from there through middlemen.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Necro's game clears and mindless musings]

This one gets more hate that it deserves, likely because it's teh rarez/pricey and because it's an obvious rip-off of Dracula X.  There's no question that it's flawed, but I've played far worse games.

Did you at least enjoy it with an officially sponsored and licensed Renny Fruit Blaster Soft Drink, just for the love of it?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Taito PCE chiptunes suck]

New Zealand Story?

The sound design on this one is so bad I gave up on the game. Well that, and the totally wrong balloon controls which ruin the game imo.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo games you should like that you don't. My example (Forgotten Worlds)]

actually the secret to Spriggan is Green Green Yellow. Bam, you don't need to worry about Spriggan anymore.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Wallaby!!]

What were they thinking?

"designing a game is hard, let's just write some AI routines and set things to random lmao!"

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Sapphire is underrated.]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it and it still says the iso's are corrupted (bullshit - they work fine on my Windows 7 laptop w/ DaemonToolsLite - the old version before they became scamware). I wonder if it's a Windows 10 problem... just another reason to hate Windows 10 if so. 

At this point I might just burn a disc - which sorta defeats the purpose, but hey! Maybe I'll slap a sticker on it and bundle with a bottle of coke zero and sell it for $400 on ebay. 

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Sapphire is underrated.]

I've read the posts of a few trusted individuals on other forums that assure me that Sapphire is one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, shooter of the 16bit era. At least one of those individuals 1CC'd every single 16bit console shooter in existence before making that assessment, so that has to count for something.  :atlantean:

Just based on what I have read, I have to applaud Sapphire for being about a generation ahead of the thinking that dominates most shooters from its era (and console). Most shooters on the PC Engine are content to let you shoot, bomb, and whatever, fight the boss the end lol. By adding the pod attacks which boost the points value of enemies killed, it takes a simple idea and adds a lot of risk and reward to the game. By the mid 90s shootemups were really starting to take strides forward from their 80s predecessors - in terms of incorporating numerous different playstyles. Judging by the results, I suppose Hudson was the beneficiary of designing a shooter so late in the system's life-span!

I really need to play it one of these days. I wish Daemon Tools Lite didn't turn into full-on bloat/ad/malware, since those automatic "mount drive" functions on Windows 10 don't work for dick on emuparadise ISOs (or any of the ISOs I have for that matter). Anyone use anything different (and free) for mounting them? I guess I could burn it but then I'd need that damn arcade card...

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: New PC-FX game in the works]

Ha! Now there's a niche market to attack!

I wonder how different the coding aspect is jumping from PCE to PCFX. Wait... unless this isn't a PCFX game 

Glad to see you guys wanna keep it up! I in no way got totally fooled!  :derpcat:

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Is the PCE craze over yet?]

Perhaps the Super SD System 3 will take some pressure off longtime fans who migrate to an emulated PC Engine setup. However it will be some time before interest in the system levels off. What would need to happen is an entire generation of kids growing up and saying "Yeah ok, these games are too primitive for me, grandpa" - which most of them already do - AND the old fogies cannibalizing different systems/collections to say "fuck it; I'm out of the game." The first is more likely than the second.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

The game is pretty interesting in that it also has sub-difficulty levels (not sure what to call it)

In shootemup parlance we call this 'rank.' The game lowers the rank every time you die in order to make it easier to jump back in. Conversely, the longer you survive and more you are powered up, the more the game throws at you. It's been a feature since the 80s, notably in Gradius or other Konami games, which drastically scale back difficulty in order to get you back in the game. Some games are not as kind though: Darius Gaiden infamously does not decrease the dynamic difficulty no matter how much you die.

Compile's excellent Zanac is one more excellent example of rank/dynamic difficulty in games - no waves, but the enemy formations are entirely based off of your weapon loadout and power-level. It's something I wish they would have done more often.

[Off-Topic / Re: So Todd Rogers got banned from Twin Galaxies....]

I mean, at a certain point that becomes kinda limiting. I know Galloping Ghost arcade has a few Western world records for arcades performed there, but you must eventually have some type of honor system or hope to enforce it. I post a lot of scores on shmups.com, which has a few world record holders, but no one really assumes that people are there to cheat, because getting to the top of the leaderboard on a scoreboard there doesn't really confer any extra clout or posting privileges - or "Credibility" ratings, like you have on TG.

ROLF, probably self made drama just to keep Twin Galaxies from dieing from lack of interest.  They can't compete with Japanese records, so they just pretend they don't exist.  It's the definition of a faggy circle jerk

Are the Japanese records better documented? This is a serious question. I find all old records to be highly suspicious unless there is hard evidence.

As far as I know, some of the old records from gaming magazines like Gamest/Arcadia were performed on machines at arcades affiliated with the mag, hence getting into the magazine. I hold the magazine to a higher standard especially since score-chasing is such a huge thing in the Japanese arcade circles.

And yes, the Japanese scores for most TG scores blow TG out of the water.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

The Moai boss in Gradius II gave me trouble until I found out an almost fool-proof strategy.

You'll obviously want all 4 options, ripple-laser or the two-way Double, missiles and two speed-ups, maybe one more (depends). What you essentially do is herd the mini-Moais that come after you, slowly moving in a clockwise fashion. Stay somewhat closer to the faces as you circle, but not too close. As you fire you will destroy them and the bullets will be manageable instead of a giant chaotic blanket. Once one of the heads is destroyed, the fight more or less plays itself.

Even if you die, if you learn how to herd the spawned Moais in this way, you should, with a little practice, learn how to time out the fight.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

Also: the two best weapons are the default shot powered up, and IIRC the wave. You can skip the missile.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Anearth Fantasy Stories - Translation Development Blog]

The only reason that we have a chance of dubbbing the LoX games competently is because Falcom released the entire backing tracks to both games on CD so that we can mix in our own voice recordings onto the original music.

Wow, I wish more games did this. There are always at least a few cutscene tracks that I wish I could listen to isolated, but people must never think (or thought) they were important.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: FS: PCE Christmas Bizarre! Shootemups (CD/HuCard) and more!]

Bump gladly taken. 

I am trying to keep prices here fairly competitive for the folks on this forum since I'd like to see the games go to a home that'll appreciate them. Though you can see from my OP how many of the items succumbed to the ebay void. A guy can't wait forever, you know. 

[General Gaming / Re: Namco vs Namcot]

Two different takes:

1) NAMCO [Home Entertainmen]T - thus, their home console ports/original projects carried the logo

2) On another forum I go to, a user had a chance to hear from the horse's mouth:

I recently met Masanobu Endo (the Xevious and Druaga guy) and had a chance to ask him about the meaning of "Namcot".

Apparently the name was chosen by Toru Iwatani and comes from "pet" and "mascot", giving the impression of something small you can keep at home (as opposed to the "big" arcade games).

Perhaps apocryphal, but a neat insight nonetheless!

Fun trivia fact: Namcot spelled backwards is Tocman; Toc-Man being the villain of Pac-World! Might remind you of how Super Darius/Darius Plus's pilots, PROCO and TIAT, are TAITO CORP spelled backwards. 

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Turbo games you should like that you don't. My example (Forgotten Worlds)]

KAZE KIRI: Expectations vs Reality have ruined another game for me ...I want to like Kaze Kiri, but it just didn't click with me. And I am very forgiving (I like Vigilante, after all). So I sold the silly game years ago. But, I wish I still had it to give it another chance. So is this an insatiable if "sour grapes"?

Don't even need to give it another chance. Vigilante has more variety than Kaze Kiri, and is 1/3rd as long as the game. You can play Vigilante three times and pretend you are playing a more action-packed Kaze Kiri.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Games that have unused music?]

Speaking of unused/alternate tracks, the RPG Auleria has most of its tracks in Redbook audio... However, it has identical renditions of the entire soundtrack also available as chiptune that goes unused for the entire game.

It makes me wonder what came first. Did Winkysoft/Taito want to use the chiptunes to save space to have more voice acting (thank goodness they didn't; that would have been a waste)? Originally conceived as a HuCard rpg before getting bumped up to a CD project (unlikely)? It's interesting that all the work is there.

Considering that the redbook audio (by Zuntata member Tamayo Kawamoto) is the best, or rather, single good thing about Auleria, I am glad they didn't leave us with just some warbling square waves.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Games that have unused music?]

That song in Exile 2 (er, 3?) plays in the all of 10 seconds it takes to escape the "collapsing" cave where you fight El Cid/Lawrence. You might not have remembered it because you hear the opening guitar wail and a few bars before you make it out of the cave! 

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Games that have unused music?]

In the Genesis version of Exile, Torodo (or Toro-do?) is one of the locations in Japan that you visit while you are doing the whole sub-quest with Ninkan. I guess for some reason it wasn't used for Exile, which is a shame, since it is a pleasant-sounding track. I wondered that for years until I finally saw a playthrough of the Genesis version of Exile.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: PCE HuCards and CD games for sale / auction]

Can vouch for Koa as a longtime member of shmups.com. 

Submitted my bid for Black Hole Assault... affectionately renamed "Ass Hole Assault" per one youtube comment. It looks that way, but I will take the chance!

Hoping somebody gets lucky with that Blood Gear and doesn't get too reamed with bid-wars. What a fine game that is.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: FS: PCE Christmas Bizarre! Shootemups (CD/HuCard) and more!]

Post-Xmas Bump! New games added and prices lowered!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Startling Odyssey 2 - how long?]

Did you make much sense of Tru's machine translation ?

ehhhh, it wasn't great, but it was enough to keep going. The presentation in the game is what kept me hooked.

From places I've read in regards to the translation work, at least a few talk up how he edited the script to make it more intelligible... But sometimes that barely felt like the case. Unless its raw form was awful, I am curious as to why Tru didn't take a second look at the script to fix up all the weird grammatical errors and ugly phrasings, outside of it being just impossible to reword things to fit into the allotted text data. Maybe I am just too ignorant of the process to speak my mind.

I feel a little slimy speaking ill of a guy's hard work (because I am grateful enough to play the game knowing what to do). Though it does make me all the more thankful for projects like Xak III, Ys IV, Zeroigar, or the upcoming Xanadu releases in which the extra effort is put into making the text engaging.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

I picked up a cheap Japanese copy of Wanderers from Ys/Ys III. The game is perfectly fine in Japanese outside of some initial fumbling with shop menus. It still has the same annoying tendency as Ys I/II that you cannot skip cutscenes, so those bits where digitized voices play out are ones you have to sit through. I've only faced 2 or 3 bosses so far, and they haven't particularly wowed me - mostly because by equipping the power run and holding attack you destroy them so quickly. Feels almost like you're cheating!

I am glad I didn't spend a lot of money on the game. Not that it's bad, as it is still fun. The simplified combat isn't quite as satisfying as bump combat, and requires a bit less precision or thoughtfulness since you can just stand still and watch the enemy enter into your meat-grinder range. Despite that I feel like I am getting my money's worth. 

I'm a bit more into Compile. Galaga 88 is real nice though.

Soldier Blade, Final Soldier, Super Star Soldier, Spriggan, Lords of Thunder, Gate of Thunder, Nexzr, Gunhed/BL, PC Denjin. The 10th slot is hard, maybe Ai Cho Aniki.

That's uh, an interesting 10th choice. Maybe style over substance, eh!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

I'm curious what you would consider the top 10. I haven't played Sapphire yet (had the chance to buy a cheap repro but lol! at that), but for me the best shooters would probably be Gradius II, Dragon Saber, Cotton, and Galaga '88. For the most part Konami and Namco made the best games or arcade ports on the system, in my opinion.

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: FS: PCE Christmas Bizarre! Shootemups (CD/HuCard) and more!]

Bump! Now containing plenty of new games to sell, so take a look! I tried to price these somewhat competitively, but am open to hearing some offers on bundles.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Dark Left - hidden shewty in Tenshi no Uta II]

There's a little bit of roughness to it (more than the usual Telenet brand  ) in that video (like the parallax scrolling at the boss). It makes me wonder if they had done all this coding for a new shootemup, had the project canned, and then decided to stick the remains into a hidden bonus mode for a random game. It seems like an awful lot of effort for something that many people wouldn't even discover if they didn't have the right system card.

But color me impressed that it's so elaborate!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Dark Left - hidden shewty in Tenshi no Uta II]

When can I pick up the PCEworks Bundle with Dark Left in it?

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

The turbo Bloody Wolf was my Christmas Present from my older brother last year - English just so we could enjoy those great lines from KNIFE-KILLER or Snake/Eagle. I've been contemplating a quick re-run through it in honor of the anniversary.

I think it's a better game than Last Alert (which is fun too!), with better bosses and stage design. DECO's bizarre, semi-kusoge style always wins (see: Two Crude Dudes).

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Kyouyyoykyoyoykoykyuyuyuyuyuuyueaahahoooo Tiger]

He just means Raiden Trad on the Super Nintendo, which is rightly mocked as a huge piece of shit.

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Shiryou Sensen/War of the Dead translation]

We actually considered this port as well to some extent, but unfortunately PC-88 is much more pain to work on. Maybe we'll try it in the future when there's a better debugger, or once we come up with one on our own. 

Ah, I had gotten my hopes up with the translation of 4.6 Billion Year Story earlier in the year or the year previous that things had gotten easier! Still, I am not one to complain and appreciate that some thought was thrown that way. As it stands the PCE port - with the bug fixes - is a pretty good version of the game, when you compare it to some of the home computer releases that strain with the action.

I got to apply the patch and I am enjoying being able to figure things out now, even if it is as simple as the starting directions "Go south to check out the city hall", etc etc. The random encounter rate has always seemed pretty weird - you can go a minute without triggering anything, or have battles every couple of steps! Truly random! That being said, the tips you guys gave in the readme are also much appreciated.

One thing that may turn people off is the seemingly high difficulty for the battles. I think it might be good to use the gun for the first few battles, at least until you level up; your health is quickly depleted on contact with monsters, so getting up close should be reserved until you are more familiar with the controls. Another thing that might be confusing is the world! What a bizarrely huge layout - this town has buildings separated by miles of treacherous mountain pass, ha! Looking at a map will definitely help ease confusion.

[General Gaming / Re: Playstation kicked fucking ass]

The PS1 has an awesome arcade port of Volfied, called Qix Neo. It's a budget title and dirt cheap. It's better than the PCE remake/port of Volfied by miles.

Also an underrated budget gem: the puzzle/battle game Builder's Block. It's weird and will take you some time to understand the mechanics, but it's really quite fun. It has a lot of different modes, many compelling (like the single-player leisurely puzzle mode redone in 3D, or the frantic arcade original with 2D sprites).

I'm playing Suikoden now for the first time; the game is hella good.  Continues to underline why the 32bit generation was THE best for RPGs. 

[Localizations, Games, Apps, Docs / Re: Shiryou Sensen/War of the Dead translation]

AWESOME!!!!! I've wanted to play this game in English for ages! I never got far dicking around due to the language barrier. This comes out of the blue, but is so welcome! I love the atmosphere, gloomy tunes, and Action/RPG hybrid, even if the game is rough around the edges.  To go so far as to fix up some of the port's most egregious bugs - you guys did God's work right there!

Additionally I've dreamed of a translation hack of the PC88 sequel, but that's another story. 

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

The upside to all of that is

1) no real power-ups means that every death doesn't really set you back - you're always more or less at "full" power!

2) once you memorize the spawns, chunks of the game can be quite doable - stage 4 is the real killer, because a lot of the behavior is random and not as tightly-choreographed as the previous stages.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

Parasol Stars. A great game. I still don't know how the secrets and miracles work, and whether or not I need to get certain types of things to invariably unlock the last real world. For the moment I'll just enjoy being in the space of the game itself and breathing it all in.

Just started Heavy Unit.
Its like the hardest opening to a game ever!
Took multiple attempts just to figure out part 1-1! The game even felt sorry for me at one point and moved me to 1-2 ><

that game sucks lol you can just stop playing it and move-on with your life.

Nah lol, the game is pretty neat. After the opening the game is more or less totally manageable, and the second loop offers a neat challenge with the number of bullets it puts onscreen. Definitely not the best shooter but a solid challenge and a million times better than its Genesis counterpart.

Still miffed that esteban fabricated a fake cheat code to get to higher loops and passed it off to me as fact. The game in fact ends at loop 2, "THE END."

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Help with Valis 1]

They were one of my first sources for PC Engine reviews along with the excellent videogameden, and one of the sources that convinced me to buy the system - so I imagine there are others who do the same. Though now I don't agree with a number of things they wrote. 

[Off-Topic / Re: That Tobias f--k went after Xak III and SO II as pressed CD-ROM releases!]

You can point out bullshit and make fun of people who spend premium money for printed-discs with fan translations, but you're not going to stop those poor saps who have a fetish for plastic and cardboard. Sometimes it's better to laugh at the fool parting with his money - especially if it's a mega-swindle like the epic saga neo-geo's Aero Fighters 3 Debacle.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Help with Valis 1]

Valis is a pretty memorizer-heavy game. Memorizing where enemy spawns are, and killing them when they are just on screen (or in between attack patterns) is a must. I can't remember the specifics, but you will need to do a lot of high-jumps and sliding in the spiked-platform area. I think there is at least one or two health pick-ups in the stage, so learn where they are.

As for Rogless, I would say you have one feasible shot against him, and that is your first time. I think that the sword laser weapon (that shoots the multiple swords out) is the best weapon, followed by the default shot powered up. You should learn to slide out of the way of his attacks. You have magic as well - you can use it on the barrier (which I don't think does all that much) or one of the attack spells - to whittle him down a bit. I would save the magic for the second phase.

Sadly what I remember most is that the best strategy is to lose as little health as possible on the stage and just mash away on the boss. Valis games in general are sort of cheaply-designed, and their final bosses - aside from Valis II on the X68000 - almost require you to be fully-powered up, or else you won't have enough attack strength to beat them. It makes it feel pretty unfair.

I do remember Valis II on the PCE gives you a fighting chance against Megas if you have died, but that game is so easy, except for one or two moments, that it doesn't really matter. Glames is terrible on Valis 3, because if you die, or get caught in his random attack patterns, you have no chance to win. Valis 4 is just pure bullshit from start of game to finish.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Kyouyyoykyoyoykoykyuyuyuyuyuuyueaahahoooo Tiger]

I was playing this last night....does anyone get anything BUT the red weapon? I got the yellow once but the damn thing changes so slow I never risk seeing past that. And the yellow side weapon one kind of sucked.

The Blue Weapon, at full power, is the best weapon in terms of damage and coverage. In fact, if you power up the Blue fully, you won't need anything else to beat the game - outside of the random death from a sniper tank.

Later in the game you'll want to be able to perch in an opposite corner and still hit a boss, instead of having Red, which still forces you to be close to hit. Yellow is a penalty weapon. Toaplan dev's assure us "it has its uses," but we know better. Much like the Green weapon in Fire Shark/Same Same Same.

AND WHY DO THE FUCKING "S" SHOT POWERUPS FLY AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!

From a great translation of one of Toaplan's devs talking about Kyuukyoku Tiger:

http://shmuplations.com/toaplan-yuge1/

—Even when you were playing around, you always made your deadlines though.

Masahiro Yuge: We set out deadlines ourselves, but if we gave ourselves too much time it would be embarassing to us as programmers. Everyone felt that way. Also, whether we were screwing around, eating, or sleeping, all we thought about was games. You know the way the items in Kyuukyoku Tiger swirl around the screen? One day when I was on lunch break, I saw the zigzag pattern in my donburi ramen and though, "this is it!", and hurried back to the office to code that pattern in for the items.

—Really?! I thought the items were coded so as to move away from your ship when they were released.

Yuge: It wasn't like that. That's just the donburi pattern being faithfully reproduced.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Kyouyyoykyoyoykoykyuyuyuyuyuuyueaahahoooo Tiger]

I do love those plastic trees and swimming pool water. And toy cars! It's like the whole game takes place in a play place in a kid's backyard. =)

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Kyouyyoykyoyoykoykyuyuyuyuyuuyueaahahoooo Tiger]

Tiger Heli is a different game. Kyuukyoku Tiger is the sequel to Tiger Heli, and obviously is bigger, better, and more interesting in every conceivable way. The NES port of K-Tiger isn't bad, but the PCE and Genesis ports of K-Tiger (Twin Cobra in the west) are both admirably done.

Kyuukyoku Tiger is a very well-made game, even if two of its weapons are completely undesirable and practically death sentences (green and yellow). Epic length as well.

The best sounding version of the K-Tiger score is, for my money, on the Genesis/Mega Drive. Just listen to those powerful guitars and pulsing, in-your-face drums in Tsugaru! Combined with the ultra-percussive explosions, MD K-Tiger is quite a treat, even if its graphics are a little muddier and less attractive than the PCE port.

this game always felt a lot like raiden to me!

That is because K-Tiger was such a huge hit that it is more or less the template for all the vertical shooters in the 16bit era. Raiden was actually specifically developed as a Kyuukyoku Tiger clone. Raiden just did the sensible thing and cut down K-Tiger's 4 weapons (with 2 being useless) to two (with one being -almost- useless)!

Everyone and their mother were making Raiden and K-Tiger clones back in the arcades in the early 90s.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Taito PCE chiptunes suck]

KyuKyoku Tiger

I always forget this is a Taito thing.

This is good music.

Kyuukyoku Tiger is actually a Toaplan game. Taito only published it. The PCE port was developed by AI, who also developed the PCE ports of Raiden and Super Raiden.

Taito went from making the worst-sounding PCE music (TNZS) to the best (Liquid Kids, Parasol Stars).

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Exile - got damn.]

Exile is my poster child for a real (for lack of better word) "cult" hit, or unnderrated gem. It's rough around the edges with its balancing issues, but the game has enough interesting ideas, and the presentation is strong enough to make it a memorable game.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Exile - got damn.]

Exile 2/XZR III: Exile II is one of those games where you can really see where Telenet was starting to fall apart. Games from that period (like Exile 2 and Annette Futabi) are barely-finished and riddled with bugs and bad controls. It's like they were trying to push as many products out the door as possible to make money before shuttering - though they would limp along (publishing/developing almost nothing after 93/94?) until like 2007.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: Exile - got damn.]

In my experience, there are about two areas that seem to be bottlenecks of grinding.

The first is the ant-lion boss. The second comes about halfway through the game, against a bird boss. One or two levels is usually what it takes. It's kind of annoying, though on the plus side, after that stat boost, the difficulty settles down quite a bit. The game is a little wonky with how it balances things.

The sequel, Janen no Jishou (I've only played the Japanese version), doesn't seem to have any thought put into its difficulty (it's braindead easy). It's also an incredibly shitty game.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

I've played Liquid Kids on the Saturn, but haven't tried it on the PC Engine. Any idea if the versions are different?

There are a number of differences, The game visually is stripped down on the PC Engine (as to be expected for a port to the system from the arcade). The number of levels present in the game were decreased: usually you get an end-of-stage "choose your next level" choice between two stages every level starting in world 2; in the PCE port it's only every other stage, and the stages they default you to (if you don't get to choose) are usually the "easier" of the two, if that makes sense.

The game plays fairly similar in a remarkable fashion (though I have a nagging feeling that the PCE port is a smidgen slower than the arcade), and it's impressive how much of the game they could fit on the PCE. Just about all the animations I remember are there, as are the boss fights, secrets, and such.

If for some reason you have a Saturn copy that's not to your liking, I'll gladly trade it to you for my HuCard 

[Buy/Sell/Trade / Re: Silent Debuggers Raffle]

tbone at number 2, ha ha ha ha. Better luck never, nerd!!!!!

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

Beat Gomola Speed again today! This time in one sitting. Getting more familiar with the game helped me appreciate it a bit more. I still am not crazy about of few of the maze boards, but at least knowing where to go and where to bomb means they are over quickly.

I survived without using a continue up until round 15 (out of 25), which was pretty pleasing to me. I was hoping to get further, especially since I was close to one of those bonus rounds that give 1UPs. Stupid deaths...

I found out something that I don't know if others knew about Gomola Speed. Typically you are limited to 3 continues. However, there is a way to increase that amount in-game, with no cheats! Have you ever seen those little yellow ball critters (I think called "Ve" or something like that in the game's lineup) - yellow ball, eyes - with an S icon? Well, usually if you "eat" them, you get nothing (just a word bubble expressing frustration, it seems like). But! If you shepherd these yellow balls to the level's "EXIT" square, it will grant you another continue! I was able to get two (I missed a third) in my play. Really cool "secret" (maybe not-so secret?) to uncover.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: What Turbo game are you currently playing?]

Not that I know of. They didn't even bother to fix the Engrish... I guess they never must regret it later. It feels as if all they did was change the cool box art (already western-inspired) into something far lamer for the Turbo, which is par the course.

The first boss is tricky since only his head can be hurt. Having the wave power-up means you need to jump in order to get that arc just right.

I beat the game without continues earlier this year (or late last; can't remember). What a great time! It's one of the best action-platformers on the system, imo.

I myself beat Gomola Speed today. I had this game for a little while and only recently put in the effort to beat it. I don't know if I am totally sold on the snake "eat the fruit" mechanics, which seem very fiddly, right to the end. Likewise with the movement, which seems overeager to set you on a collision course with an enemy. I can't knock the game for its creativity though. UPL was a company that made its name combining odd game mechanic ideas together and wrapping them up in a unique aesthetic (usually meshing cutesy chibi with HR Giger bio-mechanical horror!), and Gomola carries that torch pretty proudly.

Some of the maze levels can be pretty tedious, but many offer some neat mixture of adventure and dungeon-crawling, with puzzle thrown in for good measure. I'm so glad the game has a number of neat boss fights to punctuate the action. The final couple are pretty fierce encounters, though it feels too easy to get hit by some of the huge sprites or projectiles. The ending is pretty damn lame though, ha - although the curtain call cast-and-characters thing is always welcome for me.

Neat note that the game allows you to access the developers' debug mode, which makes for some nice messing around: putting your sprite where it's not supposed to be, warping to levels (or non-levels) that were on the cutting room floor (or stuff like the title screen as a navigable space!). It's always interesting when games let you see what's "under the hood."