Nostalgia, Gaming, and You!

Games
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So, this is a little nothing story, but:

I grew up in Asia, and played (but am pretty bad at) fighting games in arcades pretty extensively. We went on a couple of small vacations in some small local resorts in Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia. These little resorts would usually have some kind of small arcade, or there would be a little local arcade somewhere in some miscellaneous neighborhood where we went to dinner or something. My brother and I would inevitably check them out and spend a couple bucks.

These random shitty arcades would often have obscure games (like various IGS releases), frequently Japanese or Asia versions. Things like Undercover Cops, or Bonanza Bros, or Martial Masters. (One such game that stuck in my adolescent mind for obvious reasons, but I kinda still think is legit fun: Gonta the Diver)

So, I have all these random childhood gaming half-memories. One of these was a vague memory of a fighting game that I’ve never been able to place. I remember something vaguely SNK-y, that the characters had weapons, and that one character, in lieu of a weapon, had a weird little water elemental. And maybe he was like a Muay Thai fighter?

I’ve never known for sure if this was a real thing or something I made up or conflated. I’ve looked over the years through various games, and had mostly concluded that it was a misremembering of Kabuki Klash/East of Eden (which I also encountered at some point)

So, today I was looking at something and found Data East’s Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty, a fighting game based loosely on The Water Margin, which features this guy:
suikoenbu-15

It’s a real thing that actually exists! I have no idea if I’ll try to find a copy or what, but knowing it’s real is a trip.

The other thing is that there’s a definite magic to walking into an arcade in that era and discovering a new thing you’ve never seen before. With the internet and global game releases, that’s almost impossible now. But, looking at the 1CC marathon lists, I had that experience this week when I saw Dungeon Magic. A weird isometric dungeon crawl/beat-em-up? That shit would have been my jam in those days. I don’t know how I missed this, but man, what a neat surprise.

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Pasky’s playing Dungeon Magic IIRC, and he’s all over those IGS beat em ups, which I never knew much about til I watched him play them. I had seen Dungeon Magic before though! That’s awesome you also found that Data East game. Trust your memories!

@Left_Empty, I’m careful not to spend too much on these games, but some are just perfect to have available all the time on Switch. I play Out Run at least once a week or so. Sega Ages has been another excellent line of arcade and console games that perfectly fit my schedule.

Can’t wait for the 1CC. If you can’t watch live, I’m sure it’ll all get clipped for later. They just have a really great no nonsense and fun presentation for the whole event. I dig it.

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What I love about the 1CC and all that brotherhood of arcade streamers in general is how they show in practice all the mechanics that were hidden to the “casual” arcade player — you had to basically read Gamest to be informed about those in the 90s. Gain Ground sure was a forerunner on that matter.

To make things clear: Sega Ages don’t count ;)

I love the simple pleasure of launching one of those games as well, tossing a coin or two. It’s the only kind of gaming (along with Picross) I can do when I am prepping for my bed reading too: it’s got a relaxing quality all the modern “progress’em’up” and their ever stimulation of the most excitable part of our brains don’t allow anymore.

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I’m a bit biased, because they live in my childhood memories, but I think that the IGS games are the sleeper-hits of late-era arcades*. I watched a bit of the 1CC Marathon run of Shen Jian / The Gladiator from a couple years ago, and that’s just an amazing game. I only saw it in an arcade once when traveling (it was released after I had moved back to the US), and just being intrigued but also overwhelmed by the complexity. It’s some gorgeous sprite-work though.

* And still a going concern, apparently. There’s a F2P Knights of Valor game on PS4

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It’s crazy how they have all those combos and secret paths and whatnot, and yeah, the animation is incredible. It’s beautiful to look at and the later ones seem to be amazing to play. I should definitely try out that Knights of Valor game but 3D doesn’t excite me like the hand drawn stuff.

@Left_Empty I do love me some arcade streaming, specifically for what you say. There are so many strats they know and when they explain them sometimes you just have to wonder who was the first to figure that stuff out, especially with the beat 'em ups.

Sega Ages releases are definitely a special case. They are treasures.

Arcade games have always been among my favorite things in gaming. As everything migrated home, I think something was definitely lost for awhile there in the '00s. I’m really glad that with the advent of indie gaming it helped to bring the arcade-style game back into style, and the folks at Hamster have done a great job of bringing so many obscurities to most people into the home for us to play again.

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You inspired me to betray my darling Virtua Racing just once and try Out Run’s TV filter in portable mode (in the real 30fps arcade mode, as God intended). It looked amazing. It was the first time I tried playing Outrun in portable mode.
I can’t even explain the pleasure this procures me. Even the Saturn version with its dedicated controller (considered the best port by a lot of people) didn’t ever give me that fuzzy warm feeling. The lack of the Ferrari logo, a really big concern of mine as I remember it, is long past. Maybe because of all the little convenient things M2 puts in, like turning the wheels control off during the highscore input, or setting the speed to low automatically on crash (something you don’t think about if you don’t have the physicality of the arcade lever). Or maybe because they really tuned the stick control to the perfection. I can’t wait to try their take on Space Harrier. In portable mode, of course.

Also, in sadder news, the Karatedo on the eShop is strictly the single player version. It doesn’t include the versus arcade game. No matter, I don’t need friends, and I loved the single player game to bits anyway!

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I think Out Run is the pinnacle of what M2 has done so far. It’s so lovingly crafted and it holds up so incredibly well thanks to Yu Suzuki’s timeless approach to arcade game making. It’s because of M2’s adapting the controls so well to an analog stick that makes it brilliant though. You can almost feel the “BOP” you’d get when you reached the maximum the wheel would turn on those arcade cabinets of yesteryear. Vibration on even gives you that shaking you’d get when you dumped it into a rock or billboard!

I haven’t gotten Space Harrier yet since funds have been tight and I’ve been travelling so much lately. I can’t wait to try that, though. I will eventually own all the games in the series because they’re so perfectly ported. I hope it’s not over when they get done the original list. I’d love to see more.

Virtua Racing is no slouch, though. It’s right there with Out Run. Lightening Force and Gain Ground too, as Ages releases are excellent. I was so disappointed that one of the cabs that did have issues at Galloping Ghost was Gain Ground! I still have yet to play the arcade upright hardware.

That’s weird about Karatedo/Karate Champ! I played the arcade game a ton because they had it in my small town when I was a kid. It was so good because of the multiplayer even if one quarter could last you like two minutes!

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Yes, and even a variety of power between those, like in the arcade!
It’s too cold to put the fan on behind the monitor here, though.

I watched Pasky clear a bunch of brawler the other night, and hearing him made me fire up the Capcom bundle. Haven’t got a joy, but the M30 surely helps my fingers.
He did one of his awesome Lightbringer runs with commentary (and lots of “fuck”s). I wished there was the old Taito one with it still around.
I also wished some of those retro collections would hire streamers to do nice tutorial playthroughs. There used to be those (although there was no commentary as it wasn’t popular at the time) on Laser Discs in Japan in the late 80s to early 90s. It’d be a cool concept.

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I watched a bunch of the old 1CC runs, and did some research. I think I might low-key try to train on Battle Circuit (it’s apparently among the easiest Capcom brawlers to 1CC, and it’s in the Capcom Beat-Em Up Bundle, so I have it portable).

I don’t know if it’s the switch d-pad or emulation, but it feels hard to get the fwd+Attack commands in all the games in the bundle. I don’t know if there’s a short frame window or what, but it isn’t as consistent as I’d like. (I’m using the Hori D-pad joy-con when portable, and I haven’t really had issues in the past).

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Both emulation and dpad can be an issue, but I haven’t had any troubles issuing those commands in the Capcom Switch bundle (using a gamepad pro or Dave’s darling M30), while I remember having issues in the past. But it is true those were meant for joysticks to begin with.

1CCing a brawler is an insane task in my book. Those games are quite long for arcade games, and are rough both on stamina and fingers. I just try to get a little further on a single coin each time. I think the earlier the brawler, the harder it might be (Final Fight is really insane to me).

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Yeah, that’s why I’m only thinking low key training. I’ll keep poking at it over time and see if I can get down to a handful of credits.

Battle Circuit is pretty short for a brawler, it seems (8 levels, none of which are very long). And several of the bosses seem like they’re mostly execution challenges, which I’m bound to get better at with practice.

I found a basic list of Capcom brawlers by difficulty, and Final Fight is near the top (as is Warriors of Fate). The later games tend to have more mobility and attack options, which make them, well, if not easier, at least have a higher progress floor once you master them. Punisher and Battle Circuit near the bottom.

AvP is considered the most interesting, apparently.

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Do share!
I have really fond memories of Punisher (although I should be cautious, I also had some of Dragon Ninja, and when I played that one again, eeew!), but it’s stuck in licensing limbo, snif.

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I can definitely vouch for that 8bitdo M30. That’s the best gamepad style controller of the last twenty years. There is just no question about that. I own a black and a white one!

Pasky is entertaining. He not only knows his stuff, he really does a great job explaining what he’s doing in his own jovial way. It’s honestly a rare thing I’ve found with streamers. I like watching some of the others like Chuboh and Zuq too, but they are a different thing. Pasky just doesn’t take it seriously in the exact right ways but also is totally on his game deadly serious in other ways.

I’ve not really read up on Final Fight and how to be good, but I do enjoy playing on one credit, which is pretty much how I play all this stuff anymore, no matter how bad I am at the game. I was doing pretty well in Raiden Fighters Jet on 360 before I backed away. I should go back to that.

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There isn’t a lot of talk on high level play. What I found looks like it’s from a shmups forum. I wonder where speedrunners/score hunters talk about these kinds of games, I couldn’t find much.

From the ones I played I’d say (from hardest to easiest)

  • Final Fight (mostly due to design oversights that make it extremely punishing)
    Warriors of Fate
  • Cadillacs and Dinosaurs
  • Armored Warriors (few energy recovery items can make it tough at first but if you are experienced it’s not that hard. I’d say that, design wise, it’s the fairest Capcom beat’em up)
  • Alien vs Predator (would be much harder if it didn’t have so many life recovery items)
  • Captain Commando
  • Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara (some tough spots but you can bypass anything with smart item / magic usage)
  • Knights of the Round
  • Battle Circuit
  • The Punisher (lots of weapons and resources)

In general I’d say that older games are harder because you have less mobility options, defensive mechanics, weapons and damage opportunities. On paper something like Armored Warriors can be quite hard to manage at first, but once you start to take advantage of flight / dash speed / weapons and other many particular options that game has, everything becomes much easier.
On something like Final Fight you can’t move around fast, if you are cornered or knocked down you are dead, and your attack options are quite limited, so with less stuff to do you have to be much more careful and memorize much more than in something like SOM.

General talk, including that list:
https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=51255

Some final fight content, that also becomes general talk:
https://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=50978

I also clearly should look into Denjin Makai 2, which I’ve never played. I think it’s on the upcoming 1cc marathon list though.

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Denjin Makai 2 is everytime, for good reasons!

A bunch of them are most likely on Discord, since it’s what took over IRC.
I personally can’t cope with the pressure of online chat anymore. It’s just too time consuming, I limit myself to streams.

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But like, where does the knowledge live? It’s hard to find any kind of guide for most of these games, which is always weird in the post-internet world.

Mostly in stream recordings and the players’ heads, I guess.

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The base knowledge was in magazines and books released in Japan at the time. Quite a few of those guys can decypher the important parts of it, so the knowledge isn’t just an oral tradition, although I suspect it has become one thanks to the modern streaming tools.
By the way this is still true today: a bunch of the guides of weapons on Monster Hunter games you find on youtube are based off the knowledge dispensed by the Japanese strategy guides (those are still sold massively there).

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That is a great question. I wonder if because there are also records associated with these things that people sit on knowledge to a certain degree. What if you looked up Donkey Kong, for example? Is there a place where I can read the strats that the people setting records are using?

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Had to work late and am waiting on some stuff. Pulled out the Switch and the FlipGrip. :)

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Quoting my own post as something more official has shown up…

https://twitter.com/analogue/status/1181952715699752965?s=20

Looks a lot like Game Boy colors!