What games are you playing this week? 2017-07-03

[rig]

@Sano, yeah, this is something I have been thinking about-- how to beat mame games? Should I beat all games on one coin? 4 coins? I have found that infinite contiues gets old real quick and you mentally check out. What I try to do is practice on one coin and use save states on each level and don't progress to the next level until I can beat the level three times in a row without dying. I also play the game legit with no save states at least once per sitting. That being said, I have been playing Willow arcade for at least a month now and sort of gave up on beating it in one coin. Lately I have been playing it caual and can beat it in about 5 coins

[rig]

@mediamogul , I don't think there is any other way to beat hard nes games, you have to comit everything to memory. I have beaten most the hard ones(the gaidens, ghosts n goblins, battletoads etc). But once you have the game memorized it's a lot of fun to go back and play them. Battletoads, for example still requeires a lot of timing, endurance and skill on top of the memorization. The Game is still really rewarding to beat even for the nth time.

[Omnija]

@rig and that's the reason we can remember a ridiculous amount of peoples phone numbers. Kids today can barely remember 2.
As for mame/arcade games, i'm sort of the same way about having 3 or 4 coins and after those are done ... so is that game.

[rig]

@Omnija , yeah trying to beat mame games, that were designed to eat quarters, on one coin is more difficult than beating a hard nes game. I am not sure if I am hardcore enough to envest the time to beat them on one coin. 4 coins sounds reasonable. If I could walk up to any arcade machine and beat it with one dollar I would feal like a rockstar.

[Omnija]

@rig sadly arcades don't cost a quarter anymore which would make you a super rockstar on 1 coin xD.

On a side note, my girlfriend and i beat snes - alladin thanks to 2 bottles of wine.

I've never really played Aladdin before , so her knowing more about a game then me was pretty surprising. I think we did pretty good at collecting the rubies for a first try together.

[mediamogul]

@rig

I don't think there is any other way to beat hard nes games.

You're most likely right, but I personally believe it's somewhat of a design flaw to omit organic skill from a game's balance completely. However, I was also being a little narrow minded by outright excluding memorization as a worthwhile game mechanic. 'Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!' was designed almost entirely around memorized actions and I don't believe it hurts the experience at all. I just personally don't like when memorization emerges as the only possible recourse to poor design choices made in other areas.

[rig]

@Omnija , funny you mentioned Aladin, this is one of the few games my wife expressed an interest in. I think the only way I am going to get her to play with me is if bate her with a Disney game.

[rig]

@mediamogul , yeah sometimes it feals like your playing Simon (rember that game with the lights?) or maybe an fmv game--just press the right button at the right time. But I think the best hard games still have some organic skill involved i.e. Double Dragon reuses a lot of enemies but gives you more of them as the game progresses. As far as design flaw, maybe. I rember playing these hard games as a child and being really frustrated. So if the intention was to mass produce games that anyone could play through then these "pick up and die" games are definettely flawed. But if the intention was to make a difficult games that could challange experinced gamers for days, or even years, then I would say they are not flawed.

[Omnija]

@rig i would say lion king but it's not an Aladdin , but something that isn't Disney is "Do-Re-Mi Fantasy" we found pretty amazing.

[mediamogul]

@rig

I think the best hard games still have some organic skill involved

I definitely agree. I can beat 'Contra' with the allotted three lives, but it's not because I always know where the next bullet is coming from, it's because the controls are very precise and I can use them effectively as a reliable tool set to progress through the game.

But if the intention was to make a difficult games that could challange experinced gamers for days, or even years, then I would say they are not flawed.

I would only classify a game as flawed in this area if it has fundamental problems with player controls and/or level design that require memorization at every turn. There aren't an overwhelming amount of games that fall into that category neatly, but many of the games Cinemassacre focuses on certainly do. Don't get me wrong, I can definitely see the appeal of beating a game that is thought to be so broken that it's unbeatable, it's just that I tend to dislike playing them myself more often than not.

[spruce_m00se]

@Omnija Do-re-mi is a fun game, I have only played it once, but it was good.

[rig]

@mediamogul, yeah, Contra almost reminds me of a shmup, in that it's more reliant on fluid controls. You mentioning Contra got me thinking about the relationship between fluid controls and memorization. I wonder if they are inversely related--the more fluid the controls, the less reliant a game is on memorization. ie. shmups, contas, castlevania 4 all have fluid controls and are not heavilly reliant on memorization. On the other hand, Ghosts n Goblins, Castlevania Arcade, Castlevania 1 all have stiff controls and are more reliant on memorization. Battletoads doesn't fit in here, it has fluid controls and is heavily reliant on memorization as well.

As far as games with broken controls. I personally call a game broken if it's controls are unreliable i.e. Mortal Kombat on snes. Ghosts n Goblins isn't broken (imo) just stiff. tmnt on snes isn't broken it's just not intuitive. I don't mind stiff controls

[mediamogul]

@rig

I wonder if they are inversely related--the more fluid the controls, the less reliant a game is on memorization.

An extremely interesting thought that I know will have me thinking of examples for the rest of the day. Your 'Battletoads' example is especially apt, as the game does indeed have great controls and supplementing traditional reaction with a fair share of memorization has never bothered me personally. I've also always felt that Sunsoft's 'Batman' was most effectively played with an equal consideration for both, although it's a more forgiving game to begin with when compared to 'Battletoads'.

[dankcushions]

the dark souls games are interesting as they have often very sluggish player animations and stuff, and lots of game over, but they are almost always totally fair. they teach the player to respect every enemy equally and be careful to not overcommit. my favourite series ever ❤️

i don't mind dying in games as long as it was my fault. sort of. sometimes. snaps controller in half

[beamquaker]

Swos emulated in DOS on retropie . I am terrible at it . I'm playing crash team racing in retropie and street fighter 3 rd strike.

[pjft]

@beamquaker Are you using the standard one, or the 2016/2017 update?

9 months or so ago I spent quite a few weeks playing a SWOS career with the 2016/2017 rosters update, but I always ended up bankrupt halfway through season 1.

Still, great game.

[rig]

@dankcushions , I am not familiar with games past the ps1 but I feal like thear was a move away from stiff/sluggish controlers after the nes. Actraiser 1 and 2 are pretty stiff but that's all I can think of. I think it might have been looked at as a cheap way to add difficulty to a simple game (check out Cinamasacre's recent review of Castlevania Arcade for an example of this). I'm glad to hear about Dark Souls and that sluggish games are still made. I agree with you that they make you take your time and pay attention and I like that. mediamogul mentioned Batman for the nes which is a great example of a stiff game done right.

[A Former User]

I have been playing a lot of FL Studio 12. Search it up, it's a really good music simulator. Works with my piano. Its for PC.

[rig]

@beamquaker , How you liking 3rd strike? Are you playing it with the pi3? I tried playing it on my overclocked rpi3 but it drops frames. I been wanting to get into it for awhile. Third Strike has some of the weirdest charactors.

[MrJordaaany]

RetroPie related: Got retrocheevos working and have been playing some games with achievements. Like the KIrby GB games <3

PS4: Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator. Awesome fighting game. Bought it to hype myself for the new DBZ game being made by the same guys.