PKDuckman

The second and third games aren't bad at all, and they have some interesting gimmicks setting them aside from the average Final Fight clone.

The problem is that the Western releases were heavily butchered to the degree of Streets of Rage 3. The localizers of Peace Keepers were convinced that Americans hate anything resembling anime, so they replaced the anime-style portraits with something out of Mortal Kombat. Special attacking based on East Asian mythological creatures? Nah let's replace it with characters shouting words. And that's not mentioning the removal of entire cutscenes and enemies, cut the number of continues, and replace the music with ambient background noise.

I'd love to pay for non-cloud versions of the games, but unfortunately Antstream's competitors have their own issues. You have Arcade Archives taking their sweet time releasing games, or the likes of LRG charging a premium and often fail to deliver.

Sigh, it's LRG again. I wish Ratalaika got the rights instead, since they actually release their games on Xbox in addition to a reasonable price. Just compare the price of Ratalaika's Gleylancer, Gynoug, or Shockman in contrast to LRG's Felix the Cat.

I want to get the previous expansions but it seems ININ which distributed the Egret 2 Mini outside of Japan just gave up, and I can't be justified paying so much for 10 games.

If only Arcade Archives moved to Taito F3 games.

Hopefully we can see Taito F3 games on Arcade Archives soon. The only ones on Switch are the emulated Saturn versions like Cleopatra's Fortune, Elevator Action Returns, and Puzzle Bobble 2+3, alongside M2's ports of Darius Gaiden and Rayforce.

And censorship the least of the game's problems. The game is based on the AES version and has limited options compared to the Arcade Archives rereleases or the original Xbox version.

*No voices for Zero
*No transformations and interactions for Athena and Red Arremer
*No transparency effects
*No selecting the amount of continues
*No stage select in training mode

Apparently the Japanese version is easier since your stamina doesn't drain while walking around.

Waiting for either Astyanax, Shatterhand, or Whomp Em.

I played the Famicom version on the Namcot Collection, it's an okay game for its time but doesn't hold a candle to Legend of Zelda. The sequel Legend of Valkyrie is great though.

I really wished Ratalaika got the rights instead of Edia. Not only is their emulator better, they also have reasonable prices, and not the daylight robbery prices Edia change for the Valis games.

@Blast16 I'm sorry but games are meant to be played not used as investments, and hardly any of LRG's releases hold their value that well especially with their ***** quality extras. Wata and their speculators are already running the hobby.

I've given up on LRG and its ilk, save for a few games which are very big in download size like Alien Isolation. As much as I'd like to physical copies of some games, in this economy I can no longer justify their costs plus shipping and delays. For small games like retro releases digital is far more convenient.

And the annoying thing is, it seems like LRG's competitors are far worse in terms of customer service.

https://seafoamgaming.com/2022/04/14/the-limited-print-report-card/

Decent football game but I feel that the sequels as well as the Football Frenzy games are much better. However the sequels run on the F3 board and no game using that board has been released on AA yet.

Very interesting. Are there any other games that have competing English translations? Advance Wars: Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict is the only one I know of.

Speak of the devil, Warrior Blade is announced for Taito Milestones 3, alongside Rastan 2.

https://www.taito.co.jp/taitomilestones/vol_03

@NinChocolate The closest thing to Legendary Axe is Astyanax, made by the same developers. The arcade version is on AA, and while it's not as good as the NES version, it makes up for it with an absolutely crazy final level.

Don't care much about Rastan 2, but I hope to see Warrior Blade on AA soon, especially since it runs on the same hardware as Darius 2. IIRC its only previous home release was on the Japanese version of Taito Legends on PS2.

It's worth noting that Ratalaika has released compilations of Shockman 1 and 2 as Shockman Collection Vol 1, and I assume Vol 2 will consist of Shockman 3 and 0.

@MontyCircus Yeah it sounds like a missed opportunity considering that the popularity of the NES exploded in the USA during the late 80s and many unconventional games appeared on it, including a few flight simulators which brought the NES's processor to a crawl. In contrast Star Luster ran very well for a 3D game.

Still amazes me how the game never saw a Western release, seeing how technically advanced it is for a FC game in 1985. Namco could have reskinned it to be some X-Wing game.

Sorry but this is just pointless if they do not take advantage of the SNES's colour palettes, or add in the QOL changes from the PS1 ports like quick weapon switching. As far as I can see it's just the NES games overclocked, which the Legacy Collection does just as well.

Or maybe because it's not worth spending all that money for an official tournament right in the middle of COVID with all its restrictions?

They're also around in Australia, and I've scored some cheap OG Xbox games from them.

The annoying thing is that almost every time I visit, there's some unsophisticated person complaining that their second hand iPhone doesn't work and holding up the line.

I'm still annoyed that there is no English language update for either the Japanese physical or digital releases.

Seems the game is unavailable outside of Japan due to its use of real world American digger planes.

Wait the US Gamestop still sells classic games? The Australian equivalent, EB Games, doesn't sell anything older than PS4/XB1.

Their rival Strictly Limited/ININ is just as bad. I was burnt several times by them offering a limited retro collection initially, then a more complete one down the line thus rendering my purchase pointless. They did it with Space Invaders, Turrican, Wonder Boy, and a few others.

As for Limited Run, my biggest issue with their emulation efforts is that the Carbon Engine is plain limited, compared to the efforts of M2, Digital Eclipse, or even Ratalaika. The Boy and His Blob collections for instance, offer limited screen options, doesn't save your border settings, and the only way to save is to quit the game completely.

As if Arcade1up has room to talk here. Their machines are as overpriced as iPads.

Not so fun fact about the movie: Lucas's actor Jackey Vinson is now a registered sex offender. He is bad, alright.

Really disappointed that Hamster chose to play it safe instead of going for the 32-bit games like Outfoxies.

Decent game but the sequel Mach Breakers is way better IMO, and it actually lets you select the character you want instead of assigning it to which start button you press.

@Sketcz I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Doom fans prefer the original PC version's music. Athough that's not saying the PS1 version's music is bad, as it conveys an atmosphere of horror and dread as opposed to the original's "rip and tear", and suits as a decent remix of the original game.

Speaking of which, the 3DO version actually has live instrumentals, which only came about because the CEO of the porting company was absolutely clueless about game design. He also thought you could easily port Doom to a new platform by purchasing a retail copy of the PC version of Doom, and add new monsters and weapons using a paint program.

https://youtu.be/AjEx292Ph8M

Just a note that Ufouria is not included and Hebereke is untranslated. When you encounter a dialogue scene you unlock a screenshot of the Ufouria equivalent, and switching back and forth is very annoying.

The best NMK game IMO is Riot, a Cabal-like military shooter that soon turns to a drug fuelled trip.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/riot/

Dunno why this is PC only. I want to play some Toaplan games on Switch but I'm not going to pay a premium for to import M2's ports.

One of the bosses on Alex Kidd in Shinobi World is a parody of Mario, who throws fireballs and shrinks when damaged.

@no_donatello From what I've heard, the US version of Clockwork Knight 2 is based on the JP Clockwork Knight compilation containing both games, but the Sega America made the first game inaccessible for some reason.

I'll always remember Jim Ryan as the guy who refused to greenlight Days Gone 2 simply because the game didn't meet a high Metacritic score despite selling millions.

And Sony has made some really bad business decisions under his tenure. Still don't know why Sony agreed to the decision to allow Disney to take up to 50% in royalties for every copy of the Spiderman games sold, and now Sony has somehow lost billions in stock because they're forecast to sell 5 million less PS5s.

Fingers crossed for Data East games. The Johnny Turbo's Arcade/Retro Classics series got pulled from Switch at the beginning of the year alongside a bunch of hidden gems like Night Slashers, Nitro Ball, and Wizard Fire.

But Pyra is apparently okay hmm

@RootsGenoa I assume it's Batman? Konami got the rights to its games on SNES.

@calbeau "It's not real capitalism, but crony capitalism!!!" LMAO

Of course Japan and USA are noted for their communist economies /S Then again according to American conservatives, anything to the left of the Democrats is "communist" and "big government".

@DestructoDisk Pretty much. Karl Jobst did a great investigation video on Heritage Auctions and their associate Wata Games, and discovered that several of their affiliates sold games to each other and used the ensuing publicity to inflate market prices.

Looking at the choppy movement only reminds me how much better Battle City on NES/Famicom is.

@Dreadful69 He's just virtue signalling

@Coffeemonstah Apparently Hamster now owns the rights to games from C-tier devs like Allumer, Athena, NMK, UPL etc, which is why there are so many of them being churned out.

It's really annoying since there are far more worthwhile games that have yet to see an AA release, like all of Taito's F3 System games like Bubble Symphony and Dungeon Magic, and the rest of Konami's Mystic Warriors-based games like Metamorphic Force and Violent Storm.

@UK_Kev Irrelevant. Using your own logic Halo 1 and 2 are failures because they failed to make the Xbox sell PS2 numbers.

And you prove yet again that you have no idea what "woke" means, and the only minority here the ones crying about SJWs like you. Some of the most critically acclaimed games in the last decade, like Life is Strange, run with LGBT themes and sold very well, and even last year's GOTY Baldur's Gate 3 is full of same-sex romances.

You cry about politics in gaming, and against you have no idea what you're on about. Having a female character that doesn't look like a supermodel isn't politics, otherwise Dark Souls is also "woke" since it's almost impossible to create an attractive female with its character creator. Having military themed games that defaults to the US being good IS political even back in the 2000s, but since it sticks to the status quo apparently that's okay right?

And you're lying about Fable as well, considering that it is almost impossible to create an attractive female character in Fable 2.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Fable/comments/15sp6wb/i_would_hate_to_play_as_an_ugly_character_in_a/

@UK_Kev LOL you're just lying now. If the original Halo and Halo 2 really sold like you claimed, then why did Xbox only sell 24 million console worldwide and nowhere near the sales figures of the PS2?

And you keep using that word yet you don't know what it means. Ever heard of the concept of a loud minority? If having an unattractive woman in a CGI trailer means it's "woke", then you clearly haven't played Fable 2 where any female hero that focuses on melee skills would end up with the physique of a female bodybuilder.

@UK_Kev LMAO again you prove that you have no idea what you're on about.

Halo Infinite has 87 at Metacritic
Forza Horizon 5 has 92 at Metacritic

Clearly plenty of people love the games and they did sell millions. You're adding a ridiculous arbitrary standard where every Xbox game is a a failure by default until the outsell the PS consoles.

And it's hilarious that you call Fable 4 "woke" as if it's a bad thing, when two of Sony's own exclusives, Horizon and Last of Us, thrives on it. And Fable has female characters since the second game.

@UK_Kev I don't know what you're on about. Forza Horizon 4 and 5 are well regarded by the Forza community as some of the best open world racing games out there. And those complaining about Halo are a loud minority who don't want any change, and Halo Infinite is regarded by many as a return to form.

And you think fans of Sony's exclusives don't have any complaints? Like GT7's microtransactions controversy? Or the anger over Last of Us 2's narrative decisions and charges to upgrade to the PS5 version? Or Destiny 2 adding a bunch of paywalls while removing old story content?