Incline Your favourite "hardcore" platformers?

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

The Abe's Odyssey games are hard enough, but only if you're looking to save every alien

There is no other way of playing them

But u can't save anytime in Oddysee, this makes game harder than Exodus (despite being shorter).

 

[Elwro]

I finished Electro Man (released as Electro Body in Poland). This game had a fixed jump height and distance; once you pressed the jump button, that was it. You had to time the jumps perfectly, of course. I can't believe I once memorised whole levels down to pixels :D

 

[dunno lah]

I finished Electro Man (released as Electro Body in Poland). This game had a fixed jump height and distance; once you pressed the jump button, that was it. You had to time the jumps perfectly, of course. I can't believe I once memorised whole levels down to pixels :D

Play Castlevania next. (The NES one)

 

[Coriolanus]

I finished Electro Man (released as Electro Body in Poland). This game had a fixed jump height and distance; once you pressed the jump button, that was it. You had to time the jumps perfectly, of course. I can't believe I once memorised whole levels down to pixels :D

Play Castlevania next. (The NES one)

One stage per day is all my will can handle. Castlevania 1 is brutal. You have to learn to out-maneuver enemies (hunchbacks), to time your attacks wisely (that skeleton fire breathing thing); some bosses are very vulnerable to holy water, but getting to them with it in your inventory is a challenge in itself. God, that Frankestein boss and his sidekick! I finally beat him with 1 health bar left. I dread of going into the hallway of death (5:30 in the video), not to mention Mr. Dracula himself.

 

[Coriolanus]

Oh man, I'm at Dracula's 3rd form in Castlevania 3. Boy, does it feel like Konami ran out of time.

(Yes, I'm using the HELPME code)

Part 1 was so much more fun and better designed, even though Part 3 had its few moments (Dracula's first form, Death is a much better fight in 3).

Yeah, I'd pretty much recommend Castlevania 1 as a must-play classic. 3 is for masochists and hardcore fans only - most challenges in 3 are recycled ideas from 1 taken to extremes.

Once I'm done with that ... goat? ... alien lazor? thing, I'll move on to Simon's Quest, I guess, before trying to beat part 3 without the code. AVGN save me...

 

[dunno lah]

Try the Famicom version "Akumajou Densetsu" if you feel Castlevania III is too difficult/cheap (which I disagree). Plus, the jap version also comes with awesome VRC6 music with awesome sawtooth bass.

 

[Coriolanus]

Try the Famicom version "Akumajou Densetsu" if you feel Castlevania III is too difficult/cheap (which I disagree). Plus, the jap version also comes with awesome VRC6 music with awesome sawtooth bass.

I didn't call it cheap, though some parts are - like the slowdowns in the last level on the moving platforming sections (if that's not cheap, I don't know what is...). I'm OK with it, it's annoying but not a big deal.

I'm also OK with stuff flying from off-screen that you have to memorize, or very high difficulty... The problem isn't cheapness, or difficulty - it's the questionable level design that breaks the pace of the game.

Stuff like long, easy parts intermingled with hard parts that take many tries to practice (ghost ship, hallway to death etc.) - you'll get bored out of your mind unless you play in short intervals. Or stuff like Dracula's 2nd form which is a slow blob of Malcolm McDowell heads that takes a while to kill but is very easy - the opposite of what a boss fight should be.

A different example of another issue is Dracula's 3rd form, which was clearly meant to be fought by jumping on moving platforms but is way more practical (due to no air control and the risk of falling) if you just crouch in the corner and wait (can take a while) for the right platform to appear.

Castlevania 1 felt a lot... "smoother"? in terms of gameplay, IMO.

 

[Deflowerer]

I think the NES Ninja Gaidens are pretty superb, at least the first one. It gets unrelenting, but it plays very smoothly if you do it correctly, ie keep running and jumping at all times.

 

[Coriolanus]

Try the Famicom version "Akumajou Densetsu" ...

I did try it just today. I couldn't put it down until I finished it, in one long sitting (without cheats, this time).

To sum up: Japanese CV3 is superior to the US version in almost every way, thanks for recommending it.

The music is fantastic. Not that the originals aren't great, but this... Extra channels with some sweet arpeggios, holy mother of Dracula! It's the best looking/sounding game on the NES that I'm aware of.

More balanced difficulty - it's great. A few aggravating "death from across the screen" bits were removed, notably the bats/pendulum fuckfest right before Dracula. Dracula 1st form was made much, much harder (it's a risky fight now), 3rd form was made easier - in a good way, as you actually get to jump on platforms now, without it being suicide.

Any idea why they changed demon frogs to hunchbacks in the US release?

 

[dunno lah]

Try the Famicom version "Akumajou Densetsu" ...

I did try it just today. I couldn't put it down until I finished it, in one long sitting (without cheats, this time).

To sum up: Japanese CV3 is superior to the US version in almost every way, thanks for recommending it.

The music is fantastic. Not that the originals aren't great, but this... Extra channels with some sweet arpeggios, holy mother of Dracula! It's the best looking/sounding game on the NES that I'm aware of.

More balanced difficulty - it's great. A few aggravating "death from across the screen" bits were removed, notably the bats/pendulum fuckfest right before Dracula. Dracula 1st form was made much, much harder (it's a risky fight now), 3rd form was made easier - in a good way, as you actually get to jump on platforms now, without it being suicide.

Any idea why they changed demon frogs to hunchbacks in the US release?

No prob, bro. I too prefer Akuden over CV3. But you gotta admit that the game was muuuuch easier compared to the US version. There were safe zones for the cyclops fights, enemy HP reduced, and also, being able to "Continue" right before Drac's Keep. In many ways, I see this game as having dumbed down challenge when compared to CV1's erratic enemies. Super CV4 was even more guilty of this too despite being my favourite CV.

Anyway, if you're still not fed up of CV (how could you be?), get a X68000 emulator and play the Castlevania remake. You won't regret it.

 

[ghostdog]

So I've been playing Shadow Of the beast (Amiga). I recall playing it back in the day and all I remember is that it was twisted and scary.


My impressions :

1. DAT SOUNDTRACK. The music is great and very atmospheric, you can play it only for this.

2. ..... see (5)

3. Non-linear exploration where basically all the world is opened up to you, except certain paths that you have to find the way to open them.

4. The world is fucking twisted. It's like you're in an H. R. Giger nightmare. You'll be fighting huge skeleton-devil juggernauts and trying to avoid trippy eyeballs that pop out from the background.

5. The game is BRUTAL. Even if you master the gameplay and memorize all the sneaky traps and know exactly what to do, you'll still get damage, quite a bit of damage. So it all comes down to managing your resources and finding those elusive health potions.



Also props for having the awesome Roger Dean make the cover art and logo :

Psygnosis :

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Yeap, SotB ruled, I wonder why so many gamers reduce it to barely playable Amiga tech-demo.

BTW there's a remake on the way but only as PS4 exlusive

 

[SCO]

Yeap, SotB ruled, I wonder why so many gamers reduce it to barely playable Amiga tech-demo.

Definitely butthurt.

 

[groke]

Chakan is an amazing experience, quite probably one of my favourite games.


but then also

 

[Gragt]

Haha, I remember a friend from school loaned me Chakan and though I came far I wasn't able to beat it even with cheats.

Good times. Good times.

 

[CSM]

Bit.Trip Runner



Gaijin Games is made up of horrible people who I'm going to murder one day.

 

[ghostdog]

Goddammit, that's it, I'm giving up. I reached the jetpack stage in Shadow of the Beast and swiftly got murdered since my health was very low. The castle had already been a dreadful nightmare where the game simply threw crap at you from all directions and the next fucking stage doesn't even give you a health potion. And it's absolutely certain that you will never reach this stage at full health. Why ? Because the only way to beat the final boss of the castle is to stand right into his face and shoot at him, while at the same time he's shooting at you. That's it, that's the strategy.



And of course death means you have to start from the very beginning. FUCK FUCK FUCK. This is shit was for young kids of the early 90's that bought one game every 3 months and played it non stop until they knew it by heart. I don't have the patience for this any more.

 

[chubs]

Actraiser 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g572XXNGjW4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g572XXNGjW4

 

[dnf]

Hagane. Play it, is good.

 

[Gentle Player]

Abe's Exoddus is pretty easy as a whole compared to Oddysee even if it's far longer and introduces new challenges. Oddysee made me pull my hair several times, the secret areas in particular being extremely hard.

Exoddus is harder in terms of design. Greeters (and mudokons high on laughing-gas running rampant through greeter infested areas with barrier puzzles...the horror); fucking fleeches; that section in the Bonewerkz with the blind mudokons and the slogs; not to mention that secret area in the barracks (I think?) where you have to possess a flying slig and navigate through a series of narrow tunnels with surgical precision, avoiding the floating mines, all while on a tight time limit - then at the end you have to aim and time your grenade just right in order to destroy a mine and not hit the mudokon. The thing is, Exoddus has quicksave whereas Oddysee doesn't. The secret areas in Oddysee are particularly brutal because they aren't included in the checkpoint system; you'd go through a tough area, find a brutal secret area in the middle of it, fail, have to start the entire area again, persevere and finally complete the secret area - only to die a few screens later in the normal zone, in which case you'd have to start from the beginning of the zone and clear the secret area all over again... and there are many such areas with multiple merciless secret zones (fucking Stockyards). I never had the patience to 99 Oddysee, but was able to 300 Exoddus without any guides.

 

[SCO]

Savestates bro

 

[Clockwork Knight]

And of course death means you have to start from the very beginning. FUCK FUCK FUCK. This is shit was for young kids of the early 90's that bought one game every 3 months and played it non stop until they knew it by heart. I don't have the patience for this any more.

So you are saying the experience needs to be streamlined?

 

[spekkio]

Savestates bro

This.

I got pSX's "Quicksave" and "Quickload" buttons mapped to the gamepad in this game, afair.

 

[Coriolanus]

Save states are kind of self-defeating to me as they ruin any sense of accomplishment from beating a hard stage - which is part of the reason for playing these games in the first place. Memorizing levels for a perfect run is an integral part of their gameplay. "Yes, I beat this game!" is vastly different from "Yes, I beat this game with save states!", unless it's actually meant to be played like this (Kaizo?).

I did save scum a few times - like in my first run on CV3, saving before bosses. I wanted to do it without them, but it became just so damn difficult and frustrating that I gave up - and regretted it later. I beat Dracula, but it felt totally empty and pointless so I had to re-do the game from scratch, this time without save states.

The only time it doesn't feel wrong to me is when it bypasses some unneeded frustration that's outside of the game's normal gameplay, like loading a state instead of putting in a password (it gets annoying after many, many deaths on the same level).

That said, it's completely subjective. I know some people get enjoyment from save-scummed roguelikes, IDDQD and so on. It's a single player game and fun - whatever it means to you - is the only thing that matters.

 

[dnf]

Play adventure island. The one with the blonde kid riding in skate.