MAME ROW #9: Puyo Puyo 2

mediamogul

Kung-Fu Master was also ported to the Nintendo/NES.

Such a great NES game. In my opinion, it stands alongside 'Contra' and 'Punch-Out!!' as being superior to their arcade counterparts in game play, despite their reduced visuals. Something I didn't know until a few months ago was that Japan actually got a sequel. Over there 'Kung-Fu' was released in 1985 as 'Spartan X' and six years later 'Spartan X 2' was released.

The game is not nearly as iconic as the original, but it's still a good bit of fun and an interesting mix of 'Kung-Fu', 'Double Dragon' and 'Ninja Gaiden'. Anyone wanting to give it a go can benefit from a fan-based English translation patch found here. As you can see from the video below, even the title screen has been translated to 'Kung-Fu 2'.

meleu

This week is going to be a puzzle week.

Good oportunity to keep playing and rest the finger/forearm after all those shooters. :-)

pjft

@meleu Yay! After reading the feedback on Kung Fu Master here in the thread, I'm happy others voted for Puyo Puyo.

Will still try Kung Fu Master out, but excited about Puyo Puyo. I'm leaving on Saturday for a week, so I hope to have time before then to try the game out and report back on a score.

Cheers!

meleu

@GtBFilms only now I watched the Puyo Puyo video :-)
It seems to be a great puzzle to play on versus mode!

obsidianspider

Puyo gets difficult in a hurry. The first stage is fairly slow to get you used to how things work, but once you get past 15,000 points and level up, get ready to move quickly.

mediamogul

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #9: Puyo Puyo 2:

Puyo gets difficult in a hurry.

No joke, right? I mentioned earlier that this might well edge out 'Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo' as my third favorite puzzle game. After looking into the history of the game, it seems that the designer was of the opinion that the current puzzle games on the market at the time lacked the frantic fighting action that he personally enjoyed from popular fighting games like 'Street Fighter'. Not only would the 'Puyo Puyo' series be his solution to that problem, but the concept would eventually find itself going full circle, as it is noted for actually being the primary influence for SPF2T.

obsidianspider

@mediamogul said in MAME ROW #9: Puyo Puyo 2:

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo

I still have a CD-ROM of that for PC floating around somewhere. Such a good game.

mediamogul

@obsidianspider

A definite classic. I can really see the similarities in 'Puyo Puyo', but SPF2T has a more traditional and gradual difficulty curve. This week will be quite a challenge.

obsidianspider

If anyone gets to a six digit score this week I will be REALLY impressed.

pjft

@obsidianspider Ok, so, wow.

First of all, yeah, if you like this game definitely try "Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine" on the Mega Drive.

Second, this game does ramp up the difficulty pretty fast in single player. You were talking about "after stage 2 it speeds up a lot", and here I was after my first match thinking "oh, I must be good at this - level 2 is not that bad". Then I lost and was like "huh, but I only have 8k points... interesting".

Next game after I passed 15k and got to stage 2 (not level 2), and I got what you were talking about :D

If you see the attract mode for the game, there's one on Stage 9, and I can't even imagine playing that.

On the Dr. Robotnik game, the two player mode is a blast, especially as it speeds up fairly quickly for both players which makes it quite chaotic and fun.

Here are my two scores - my best was 18.809 - I'm not sure I'll be able to play again this week, so here it is for the record.

I suspect some of the opponents will be easier than others, so it's a matter of getting to know them and choosing the easiest ones, I suppose? Unsure. Do they have special abilities or are they just cosmetic changes?

Cheers.

obsidianspider

@pjft So far it just seems to be cosmetic. I don't know Japanese so I have no idea what they say to you before a round starts, but yeah, if you start a stage with 15,000+ points, you'd better be paying attention. ;)

pjft

Also, played Kung Fu Master a bit.

Boy, am I glad that didn't make it :P I never made it past mid-stage 1, so that would not have been a fun game.

obsidianspider

I will get past Stage 3!

Man, this game would have taken so many quarters if it was released in the US.

pjft

@obsidianspider 19k - congrats on the score! :)

obsidianspider

@pjft Thanks, this game is friggin hard.

I've seen in past MAME ROWs that when people post score updates that seems to spur on activity and competition, so I figured I'll do what I can to keep things going before I lapse into a turkey coma later today.

mediamogul

@obsidianspider said in MAME ROW #9: Puyo Puyo 2:

I've seen in past MAME ROWs that when people post score updates that seems to spur on activity and competition

If it weren't for that all-too-busy time of year, you'd likely see a lot more activity. I haven't really been able to sit down with it yet myself. I hope to steal an hour or two later this evening though.

pjft

I'll be out for the next week, so I won't update this anymore and won't join next week's session.

Have fun, a happy Thanksgiving for those of you in the US and/or who celebrate it, and have fun!

GtBFilms

Got myself a new 4-way joystick which I have been messing about with over the past few days, and finally got round to trying for a decent score at Puyo Puyo 2.

Conclusion - I suck at Puyo Puyo 2, even armed with my new joystick I can't get past level 2!

meleu

Oh yeah! 20k! @obsidianspider is right, the difficulty increases very fast!

GtBFilms

@meleu wow, I have no idea how you got that score, well played! Everytime I think I'm doing okay, the other guy suddenly drops a tonne of rocks on me and it's GAME OVER!

Here's my pitiful 'high score' this week.

8674!