On a Mission

[Onslaught Six]

Yeah, I like original DB because of how...down to earth it feels. Watching the Tien tournament arc, and guys like Bulma and Oolong are outright shocked at guys like Krillin and Chaotzu being able to 'hover a few meters off the ground.'

Also, the random amount of furries in the world for literally no reason (which starts to steadily decrease as DBZ goes on).

[Gomess]

Well, "No reason" = "Based on Sino-Japanese mythology". So naturally there's sentient pigs and ninja foxes and ox-demons and Gozu and Mezu and whathaveyou. DBZ was just like a bunch of 'roided-up boys messing around in the playground by comparison, it was such a sudden change in tone and context. And really, any story that features the destruction of entire planets by single organic life forms has already jumped the shark for me. Especially if it's bookended by NOTHING BUT FIGHTING

...Still, this conversation has made me want to rewatch DB. And after Goku beats Piccolo, that's IT as far as I'm concerned. He beat the top demon, he's not from Krypton, the balls are inert, story's over. Yay!

Sooooo anyone gone on any game missions lately? =3 I'm tempted to break out Dragon Ball Advance Adventure as a result of this discussion... Now THAT was an action platformer. Very polished, very fun.

(That's the last time you'll see me *re*rail a topic)

[BWprowl]

Well, with you talking about it Gomess, I popped my copy of Star Gladiator in for the first time in ages. The results were....meh. There really is no sense of inertia to the combos in this game, you just kinda attempt yours (with less 'precise timing of hits' and more 'mash out the correct button input as quickly as possible'), and it either hits, whiffs, or gets blocked, then your opponent gets a turn. There are SoulCalibur-style parries/guard impacts, but they're so clumsy to do and come out so slow and are so telegraphed that there's no way you're getting the awesome reflex-reverse stuff you can pull off in SC. I picked Zelkin since he actually looks kinda cool and bird-people are an oddly rare commodity in fighting games, and pretty quickly discovered that his 'swoop down and grab into a spinning drop' move was abusable EX-bullshit. I proceeded to steamroll through his whole Arcade mode with pretty much just that move (It's not perfect though, the hit detection on it can be pretty iffy, like the hit detection for EVERY OTHER MOVE IN THE GAME!). Even the fight with final boss Bilstein was over pretty quickly, and he only beat me in one round because the attack whiffed and he hit me with a boss-damage-infinite-combo.

Gomess, you were wrong about this game being cheesecake-free. The intro video spends a solid ten seconds trying to convince us that June is sexy (she's also prominently featured in the case under the disc, for whatever that's supposed to be worth.) The graphics are...eh, maybe Rival Schools level, maybe a little better actually (the stages actually look pretty good). The music sounds like a hold music composer who wanted to go for a 'space' theme, but didn't make it too prominent in case his employer didn't like that sort of thing. The cast is a mash-up of pretty much every character a 'unique' fighting game had to have back in the '90's. Regular guy, outrageous guy, robot, old guru with staff, dinosaur, 'hot' chick, you get the drift. Zelkin and Bilstein's designs are actually kind of cool though, but there's nowhere near the sense of personality you get from Capcom's other fighting game characters. The whole thing feels pretty phoned in; you can just hear Capcom going "Okay, we'll get on board with the popularity of 3D fighters and SoulCalibur, but we aren't going to LIKE it!".

Anyway, an addendum, as I have sinned greatly, by completely forgetting RAN HIBIKI on my previous list!


I don't know how this happened, Ran is easily my favorite Rival Schools character, period. It could be that I think of her less in terms of 'favorite female fighting game characters' and more as one of my favorite video game characters ever, up there with Leo from Lunar 2. Anyway, Ran is awesome. She's in Rival Schools, she's an unrelenting newshound for the Taiyo school newspaper, and she fights with a camera! I don't know how it does damage, but it's awesome. And she can also interview her opponent for Massive Damage. And her story has her teaming up with lethal joke character Linchou and under-appreciated Pacific High character Boman, making them the only mixed-school team. And she might be Dan Hibiki's sister. And she's entertaining, and boisterous, and has a cool design, and I love playing as her, and I effing love Ran, and am still shocked that I forgot about her when we were making lists. That is all.

As long as we're talking about GOOD Capcom games now, I'm waist-deep in Ghost Trick at the moment. It's like Ace Attorney- WITH GAMEPLAY. Oh, and the animation in this game is just fucking outstanding. It's smooth and beautiful, and I'm still not one-hundred percent sure if it's sprites or tiny, tiny 3D models. But they did a great job all-around. Music's nice too.

[Gomess]

I picked Zelkin since he actually looks kinda cool

I picked Gamof first time I played because I like heavyweights. Turned out to be a mistake. T___T And yeah, you're right about June in the intro. Bleh. Inherently sexist industry, I know, I know.


"Brother! That man is our.... our.....!"
Best crossover ending ever. =p

Oh, and the animation in this game is just fucking outstanding.

And THAT reminds me of Ryuuko no Ken Gaiden / Art of Fighting 3. My GOD those graphics blew me away in 1998. They still look fantastic in motion, but Ryuuko no Ken was always all about the style. First 2D fighter to use zooming and scaling? If I recall rightly.

[Onslaught Six]

Sooooo anyone gone on any game missions lately? =3 I'm tempted to break out Dragon Ball Advance Adventure as a result of this discussion... Now THAT was an action platformer. Very polished, very fun.

I'm still trying to beat Hitman: Blood Money but these later missions are a bitch. When I started the game I was really trying to go for the stealthiest ratings I could get (within reason) and that was kind of a source of frustration, but I got better at it and was able to finish a few missions with pretty high rankings and no notoriety. Now, though, I can't even get anywhere close to finishing them. And what's worse is that unlike Hitman 2, I can't just grab a shotgun and blow everyone away and clear the mission when I get sick of it.

Also playing through Quake 4. My God, what a trainwreck this game is. Also, no fucking co-op! Couch or online! What the hell, id and Raven? And there's just...so many things wrong with Q4, I think. It doesn't play like Quake 2. Q2 is all run-and-gun Doom style gameplay, while Q4 makes you do shit like take cover and plan attacks and be careful. And you have annoying-ass squad members following you literally all the time. There's bits where you go into a new area and you get to the end of it, and there's a door, and it won't open. Unless you wait ten seconds for your slow-ass teammates to get there, kneel down, do some retarded hand signals, and then the door opens...like, really? Is that necessary? Just let me open the fucking door and kill the guys! And even with *all that,* there's no co-op, despite there being characters 'in the game' who would work perfectly?

Also, can we all agree to never name any video game character "Kane" or any variation of it, ever again? It's such a stupidly generic TUFF GAI character name. (Then again, maybe if I bought less $10 games from 2008 & 2009, I wouldn't run into that.)

It's like, I get the feeling half the dev team really liked Q2 and wanted to continue it, because most of the enemy designs are similar and referred to as such--but then there's guys on the team who probably hated Q2 and liked Q1 or Q3 better, and added shit from there. For example, the Gladiators from Quake 2 are enemies here. In Q2, they basically rushed you and would stab you a couple times...and that was it. That was their only attack. Now they have the Shambler's lightning attack from Q1. Why do they have that? I don't fucking know. It doesn't make any sense. Also, there's no fucking health around. I can't tell you how many times I run around the game with less than 50 health, and that REALLY annoys me. 80 or 70, I can deal with--I don't need to be 100%--but anything less than 50 and I start to feel like the game is going to kill me.

Also, Steven Blum is one of the primary voice actors for all the generic marines. Ugh. Fucking 'ugh.' I have nothing against Blum, it's just...I can't really hear his voice in some contexts and have it work for me. His Starscream in Prime is at least different from his usual fair.

[Gomess]

o gawd i accidentally found my copies of Hiryu no Ken (Flying Dragon - The Secret Scrolls) and Hiryu no Ken S - Golden Fighter (Ultimate Fighter)

i'll be in my room for the next week



I LOVE SHAMELESS RIPOFFS OF SAINT SEIYA AS MUCH AS THE REAL SERIES



Now to find a cheap copy of Hiryu no Ken Twin (Flying Dragon) for N64.....

[Mako Crab]

Working on Viewtiful Joe right now on the PS2. Funny thing. The case says Joe 2. The manual says Joe 2. But the disc is definitely Joe 1. No big deal really. I guess I get to see where the story all started. Not that it really matters in this case. It's a crazy insane button mashing, asskicking action platformer. Heavy emphasis on the action. Some really clever puzzles in there that make use of every special move you have. Tearing through it pretty quickly so far, but some of the boss fights take me a long time. Even after I've figured out the general pattern and how to inflict massive damage, it still takes a long time. These bosses have like 5 life bars!! Anyway, it's good times and I'm loving it.

[Onslaught Six]

Working on Viewtiful Joe right now on the PS2. Funny thing. The case says Joe 2. The manual says Joe 2. But the disc is definitely Joe 1. No big deal really. I guess I get to see where the story all started. Not that it really matters in this case. It's a crazy insane button mashing, asskicking action platformer. Heavy emphasis on the action. Some really clever puzzles in there that make use of every special move you have. Tearing through it pretty quickly so far, but some of the boss fights take me a long time. Even after I've figured out the general pattern and how to inflict massive damage, it still takes a long time. These bosses have like 5 life bars!! Anyway, it's good times and I'm loving it.

Huh, sounds like you got screwed wherever you bought this then.

[Gomess]

The hard part'll be finding a copy of VJ2 in a VJ1 box, now. =p

[138 Scourge]

When I was sick the other day, I went on a game mission to get the hell through Twisted Metal Black, or at least do better than I had been doing. I was going along all right until...okay, the second level. Where the disk started skipping (I guess?) and the game froze up on me. Son of a bitch. I'd say I got ripped off, but it was a free game, so whatevs.

I was on a mission to get all the urns in God of War II after I'd beaten the game first time through, but I kind of got sidetracked. I will say, though, I love the bonus play option in that game. You still are charged up with all the powers and energy levels that you're at by the end of the game, and you can just go through and kick everything's ass clean off embarrassingly easily. Good times. But then I got sidetracked and haven't gotten back to it.

Actually, I haven't messed with my PS2 in awhile at all. I should find some good games and remedy that. Are there any games out there as good as the God of War series?

Also, to sort of derail things back to the whole cheesecake/sexism thing in fighting games: My "Kreate a Kombatant" character in Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is a small girl in schoolgirl getup with a domino mask and...if I remember right, a bigass killing hammer. Does this make me part of the problem? It's not like I'm playing as her and thinking "Oh yeah, that's some sexy right there.", it's more that I think it's funny when the hardcore killing machine is a cute girl.