Tom-Massey

@Gamer_Griff There are a few actually.

“its target audience is certainly not in the beginner plot”

@Oppyz666 Unless I unlocked one extra during the course of play and didn’t realise it, I think my brain must have glitched out.

@digiangel234 @Oppyz666

Guys you’re absolutely right. Chalk that one up to old age, it seems I typo’d the character count. I’ll have this fixed immediately, thank you for your comments!

@Sveakungen It is in the review:

“This is rightly one of the game’s most critical assets and, with the option of cross-platform play, makes Them's Fightin' Herds an must-buy for hardcore fans of the genre.”

@Satan Sounds good! I’ll have a look into it. I’m really fired up for boghog’s Mechanical Star Astra atm, and hoping to see that make it to Switch one day. Redpulse, his previous work, was pretty damn good, and the MSA demo is very promising.

@DashKappei Sir, you’re absolutely right.

This is a mini-review where the first submitted draft was 850 words and I was kindly asked to chop it down to as close to 500 as possible. That’s space at a premium and because of me counting words and trying to include key factors about how the experience feels, that point was overlooked. It’s one I don’t think I’ve ever overlooked before when doing shmup coverage - but point well taken.

From memory, I don’t believe this game (currently) supports online leaderboards. Perhaps in a future update.

@Ishmokin Sure, some reasonable numbers there and some respectable clears. I know Giodyne is a certified super player and not many will achieve that kind of skill, but then it also depends on how much time you want to spend with the genre.

@BloodNinja It's actually a very rewarding experience, and certainly wouldn't take up too much more of your time than most modern story-based games. I'd recommend starting with something like Thunderforce III (which is really a cakewalk, but great fun to memorise and get through) or ChoRenSha 68k (DOS freeware) as good beginner fodder. Many people play arcade games for 1CCs (and not just shmups) because they were designed around that kind of play and the experience is superb fun.

@Ishmokin It's not easy to 1CC RSG Arcade Mode on 50 hours tbh. Even that sounds a bit low to me, and I consider myself fairly shmup-seasoned. That's one of the aspects that makes Story Mode so great: it aids you in the pursuit of a 1CC by constantly powering you up. If you can't do it by weapon level 33 you won't do it at all, and I think that's a really clever augmentation.

Re: CAVE games, I actually think these have some of the fastest 1CC times if you're familiar with the genre. Dodonpachi, Mushihimesama and M.Futari, Deathsmiles, ESPGaluda can fall fairly quickly if you have prior experience.

RSG is very different: it's so much more complex and there's such an emphasis on chaining that it will take far longer to master.

@NeonPizza I’m assuming that it did, but I didn’t cover that one - I covered Cotton Reboot/Cotton Rock n’ Roll.

Honestly, for RSG, I’ve tested it over its 5 frame claims on a good setup (low latency monitor w/game mode on) and it’s pretty much unnoticeable. 3 frames would be nice, but 5 isn’t unheard of for the genre.

@Rykdrew If you've finished arcade mode, hats off to you! That's a sterling achievement.

@-wc- You're very welcome!

@gojiguy The original had 3, and you won't notice the 5. Read the comments above yours.

@-wc- I understand totally, and I appreciate your feedback. If I'm honest RSG is a difficult one to find fault with. The way I perceived a potential negative would be a person buying the game on the back of a glowing review, and then finding it overbearing and too tough for them to take on. That's why I situated that particular note in that section. But I can see why one might think a 'con' would be something more distinct than a high watermark for entry.

@Rykdrew I agree with what you say generally and it sounds like you approach shmups with the correct perspective. To do them justice, a 1CC run and score chasing is optimal. Credit feeding tends to negate the broader experience. That said, 200 hours for Mushimesama Futari sounds a little heavy if you’re talking about the default mode. Futari default is one of CAVE’s easier titles. I had had prior experience with the genre, but that one fell pretty quickly. Futari Maniac or Ultra Mode on the other hand…

@Magician Ok thank you. I trust the source. Original Saturn RSG is 3 frames and he claims this has 5. No reason to doubt him, but I promise you, it comes to almost nothing. I’ve been testing this afternoon and on one of my gaming monitors (with a great game mode and response time) and it’s barely perceptible. I think 5 frames is fairly minimal and quite common in a lot of 2D titles, including shmups, and I promise you if I had noticed lag affecting the game in any way I would have made a point about it. You can pick this up pretty confidently as long as your screen setup is respectable.

@Magician Playing again now, there's no way this has 5 frames of input lag. I can't identify any lag at all. Where did you hear this info, and are you using Game Mode on an efficient monitor? I tend to find this makes a big difference.

@BloodNinja That is probably the most offensive comment I've ever received on a piece of work. :/
Pretty sure I covered the technical aspects at great length.

Regarding this ongoing discussion:

@drj @Rykdrew @BloodNinja

If you're playing a shoot-em-up as a credit feeder, the average game will take 25 minutes to finish. If you're playing it for a 1CC (one-credit clear) it will take days, months, weeks or years depending on the game's difficulty and the skill level of the player. Nobody new to the genre is going to be toppling Futari's Ultra mode without putting in a huge amount of hours.

There are variables here.

Radiant Silvergun's Arcade Mode is a massively difficult undertaking and will take even a hardened shmup aficionado far more that 3 hours to finish, especially with the 3 continues it starts you out with. If you don't learn to chain you won't have the weapon power to face off against later bosses. All of this in in the review though.

Story Mode works differently, but will still require approximately 30 - 50 hours (depending on skill level) to raise weapon levels to the max (33) and to learn boss routines and junctures down pat, because it offers no continues at all. Regardless, it's still less of a task than Arcade Mode because you can save weapon levels.

If you're playing 2 hours a week Arcade Mode will take you about 3 years to clear because it needs more regular attention to memorise all of it. It's an incredibly dense game that changes its spots every two-minutes.

@Magician That's interesting. I didn't notice any input lag issues and I look out for these things, especially in shmups. I'm not saying you're wrong of course, it just wasn't really noticeable for me.

@-wc- Because the amount of effort required to make serious headway in it won't appeal to everyone. Don't rely solely on the pros and cons, they're only a brief summary of content made in the review itself.

@nkarafo Not even in the same league. Blazing Star’s renders haven’t aged well.

@Beaucine
Thank you for reading, that’s very kind of you to say.

@BulkSlash
I’ve seen it. However I don’t think that’s a V-Sync issue, I think that ripple that occurs at the top third of the screen on occasion (normally when the section score appears) was present in the Saturn original. Could be wrong, but that’s how I remember it.

I can't comfortably accept Contra Rebirth being placed above Hard Corps!

@LEGEND_MARIOID You're very welcome, thanks for reading.

@Vyacheslav333 It's actually really easy. Your super attacks kill bosses almost instantaneously. It's slightly harder than the original Strider to 1CC, but not by much.

@SuperToe No. 10/10s shouldn't be handed out lightly. This is a collection of pre-existing games of a good standard - albeit with varying quality - that will appeal to a select audience, but not all.

Just to answer a few of your questions and comments, folks:

@farrgazer I don't even think they're in the same ballpark to be honest. Tournament Fighters SNES is taut enough for actual tournament level play, which is one of the reasons online is so important for this particular game. The Genesis/MD version is still enjoyable, but it's not on the same level in my opinion.

@Clyde_Radcliffe I experienced no real lag when reviewing Shredder's Revenge, or this. However, if that is an issue for you, do what I did and check your setup. Even newer LCD/LED panels can contribute horrible lag, so look for a 'game mode' on your TV, attempt switching TV, and then go to your tools (bluetooth pads, arcade sticks) and test wired where possible.

@YoshiF2 You gotta read the review rather than just the Pros and Cons! The four online games are listed there.

@nymbosox Plenty of good replies here. Simplest way to think about it: Rollback Netcode predicts the next frame, and you can alter the speed of that prediction by lowering the frame value at the detriment of it having time to catch up. The default is set to 4, and I'd say tinker with 3 or 5 depending on how you find the online connection.

@RadioShadow SNES Turtles in Time was the one I was expecting there would be complaints about (if any) regarding no online. Whether or not it's better comes down to preference, but it certainly plays a fairer, more console-friendly game. It would have been nice to have had it online along with Hyperstone Heist, but I suppose they felt one incarnation of this particular game was enough. I'm not so sure either.

@The_Top_Loader I don't mind that whatsoever - at least you actually read the review!

@LinktotheFuture One step ahead of you there, I have already requested the amendment. I write the Pros and Cons under the assumption that people have already read the review - sadly, the more I write for NLife the more I realise that’s not often the case.

Appreciate you reading and thank you for your comments.

@Aerona Typo, thank you! I’ll have that fixed.

@HammerGalladeBro It isn’t listed as a con because of unlimited continues; It’s listed as a con because it allows you to continue in the middle of a fight as often as you need. I think I’ve explained this a fair few times now!

@Magrane Thank you for reading, much appreciated.

@farrgazer Not weak players. I didn’t say that. I said the “weak-willed” would struggle to ignore it. That’s a very different thing. And at times that weak-willed moment included me. When the option is right there in your face, it really takes resolve to attempt to play the game the way it was intended.

That said, I am very much into old-school and arcade gaming disciplines, and a great advocate of the 1CC (one-credit clear). If that doesn’t sit right with you, you may not take well to my other reviews (which would be a shame!). I don’t consider credit-feeding a rewarding gaming experience generally, although I’ll concede that there are some titles where it’s entirely necessary.

@farrgazer Sure, I understand. For perspective, I’m often asked to cover retro/retro-themed titles because that’s where my skill-set is, and figuring out criticism - positive and negative - is really the whole job. Sometimes, people may not feel a criticism applies to them, but I have to stay true to my personal perceptions. Try as one might, it’s not possible to write a critique of anything that will please all, so it’s better not to try lest you contradict or invalidate your own points.

For clarity: Mega Man Battle & Fighters has been honed carefully around very specific design principles. You fight a boss, win his weaponry, head to another boss and see if it has any major effect. If yes, you’ve begun a process of elimination; if no, you go back and try a different path.

Since it doesn’t work like a regular fighting game, in that there are specific patterns that are repeated so you can learn them (rather than AI going all out with random attacks) it’s entirely possible to complete the game without taking a single hit.

This process is very rewarding: Learn a pattern, learn a skill, figure out where to use that skill, repeat until victory. If continues after a defeat had been implemented, that would have been fine, allowing the player to repeat an adversary until they figured out his specific patterns.

However, by continuing say, three, four… ten times mid-match, all of the above is nullified. You don’t need to do anything except tap fire, die, hit continue, have your energy refilled, rinse and repeat until the credits. You wouldn’t even need to touch the D-Pad. The order of bosses is no longer important, the special weaponry is voided and doesn’t need to be applied, special moves have no purpose and don’t need to be put into practice, and there’s no need to attempt to learn a single pattern. In my opinion, it honestly isn’t much fun.

Now, if you feel you can enjoy playing the game this way, all power to you. But I can’t ignore the way it fundamentally strips the experience of all its nuance, and that’s why it was highlighted so vehemently in the review. Bar this, (and the non-localisation) there wasn’t much else to say.

I hope this helps to explain somewhat.

@farrgazer Appreciate the input. It’s my review and it’s my job to critique it, and in my opinion continuing in the middle of a fight, as often as you need, effectively destroys the way the game is designed and robs it of its fun-factor. Continues after a match - as is normal in every fighting game ever - would have been fine.

@Serpenterror No problem with unlimited continues. The problem is you can use them during the bout, not after it’s concluded.

@Krambo42 Because it actually makes it less playable. Continuing mid-fight as often as necessary quickly becomes extremely dull.

@FishyS You’re very welcome, thanks for reading!

@Bydlak Unfortunately I haven’t played Turrican Flashback so I’m not at liberty to comment. This is also a mini-review which meant there was very limited space. Please don’t hold it against me: I tried to include enough detail to give Flashback owners a clear picture.

@idork99 You’re very welcome. Thank you for reading.

@YANDMAN They’re far from brilliant, they’re fairly bad and I detailed why in the review.

@thinkhector The problem is fairly complex. You’re right, the scanlines are set to respond to “normal” which is a full vertical 4:3 approximation. The problem is they’re blown out with far too much bloom effect, desaturating the image and making it uncomfortable to look at. In “arcade”, the true aspect ratio, they’re banded and unusable.

The main issue is when you compare them to Capcom Fighting Collection, which was rocking some of the best screen filters we’ve ever seen in a retro game/collection, in any given aspect ratio.

@Sinton No Cadillacs, and that may be due to licensing issues with the comic/cartoon.

@Tasuki But it was released as a collection on the PS3. If the license for Dungeons & Dragons were to have expired it would have been long before that.

@DashKappei Thank you for saying so, I’m very glad to hear you enjoyed it.

@Joriss It doesn’t say that though. It says “It’s possible you’ve played these titles to death already”, which may well be a deciding factor in whether or not someone feels it’s a valuable purchase. As I’ve explained throughout the comments section, it’s the review that’s the ultimate guide. Pros and Cons are only a scant bullet point synopsis and have little to no relevance to score or overall recommendation. Even 9s can feature 4+ cons.

@Pillowpants I didn’t assume you (or anyone else) didn’t read the review, I just stated that I hoped you had. The reason behind that hope is because it’s sadly commonplace for folks to whip past the review to try and use the pros and cons section as a purchasing guide. That isn’t its function, and nor is the score. Only the body of text that makes up the review itself can ultimately provide enough information to persuade or dissuade. I am the reviewer, which is why I wanted to explain that the “you might well have played these to death already” isn’t meant as a message not to buy the game. I have actually responded several times in this comments section to clarify why.

@John_Deacon Many apologies John, I’ve just seen this question. You’re absolutely right, the game has a Museum section in the options for concept art and regular art and a music player for all the games individual tracks. If you preordered you get bonus artworks and music in addition to the regular.

The review was well beyond reasonable scope at almost 2000 words and some elements got cut, although I probably should have tried to squeeze this in!

@AmplifyMJ Precisely, and somewhat demoralising. I try not to dwell on it.

@MajinSoul Every person who has cited that con has said “You’ve played them before”, or variations to that effect. The con doesn’t even say that. It says “It’s very possible you have played these titles to death already”, which is definitely going to be a real-world contributing factor for some people in deciding whether or not to purchase them an additional time. It’s not a suggestion that the collection shouldn’t be purchased on that basis, nor is it meant to be a highly critical negative. It simply exists as part of a (very limited in scope) synopsis.

@AmplifyMJ @nimnio

Sadly a common theme. I’m personally not fond of the Pros and Cons section, because the effort put into writing the review is too often shunned in favour of a bullet point synopsis that offers very little clarity. I regularly do my best to forget this unfortunate fact.

@Ear_wiG Your question is answered in the review in the paragraphs that cover the Darkstalkers games. 👍🏻

@Abeedo @JeanPaul @Silly_G @Pillowpants @relinqued

I really, genuinely hope that visitors here read the review in full and allow the content of the review to guide them regarding a purchase. Pros and Cons are a NLife fixture that are a summarisation in bullet point format of things that may be encouraging or discouraging to all potential players, but do not solely define our opinion of the game, nor define the review itself.

The fact that these games have been released countless times or are playable elsewhere is not being cited as a reason not to purchase the game: it’s simply a statement in summary, that, in the event you have played them (or continue to play them) elsewhere, the collection may have lesser appeal.

Please read the reviews in full to get a detailed understanding of our appraisal. The Pros and Cons section isn’t intended to to be the sole guiding aspect of this page, and it seems commonplace that readers often pay it too much credence over the review itself.

@Magrane Sorry, that’s probably my fault and perhaps I should have worded it to be more specific. I didn’t mean they were Archie exclusives. Sorry to disappoint on that front, but I’m sure you weren’t disappointed with the quality of the game.

@YANDMAN Then don’t flying kick 😆

Seriously though, I know how it feels initially. I felt like I was getting ganged up on and dropping lives early on, but it all straightened itself out. Different enemies just require different approaches. Windmill kicking risers need a clear berth, and you need to know what attacks clear space best. Kicking folks when down is also useful, but you need to know how many licks you can get in before they get up, or to move quick if someone is approaching on you.

I assure you, it definitely works as a balanced combat assembly. Put in some work (I’d suggest Duke) and a couple of hours starting over from stage one, and you’ll start to feel it out.

@YANDMAN Personally I felt the difficulty and AI was pretty well balanced for the game’s length. I didn’t have too much trouble with it once I was comfortable with applying various strategies for different enemy types.

I agree this type of game doesn’t have to be overlong (TMNT is very long), but it’s shorter than any of the SOR games/Final Fight etc. by some margin.

I didn’t think TMNT did drag toward the end, to its credit - but then it depends on how you’re playing it. I went for a 1CC and that was a challenge that had me pretty engaged in conserving lives. Whenever credit feeding occurs in an arcade style game it can make it feel more repetitive.

@Magrane I was under the impression that characters like Groundchuck and Dirtbag, Slash, Leatherhead (and even Krang) were all featured in the Archie comics. I could be wrong about that, but I thought that they often shared the cartoon/comic spectrum.

I know the Triceratons were actually from Mirage Studios and were much earlier, but if it's an error I'll have it amended. Thanks for your help.

@YANDMAN Yes, I don't disagree with you. The lack of a credit option was probably the main negative I had, and cited it in the review. I only know that on a personal level, I enjoyed the process of clearing the game on a single credit, and it worked owing to the brevity of the game and balancing of the difficulty.

Do I think adding a credit option will help? I'm in two minds about it. On one hand it allows people to more easily get through the campaign, on the other it will reveal how short it actually is and people might feel like there's simply not enough on offer.

It's worth noting Bitmap Bureau revealed the location of six hidden extra lives - equivalent to one per stage - of which I knew nothing about when managing to claw a 1CC. With these, I think the game will be much easier to clear on a single credit (especially since you start with so many) alas, I don't think too many will be willing to take up that challenge now that the multiple credit option is on the way.

Still, I think it's a solid little beat-em-up regardless and I really enjoyed it.

@YANDMAN The game is actually well-balanced. If you use the attack repertoire effectively - which requires perhaps 30 minutes of learning and then a couple of hours to refine - the game isn’t that difficult to clear. It’s fairly short, and it asks only that you apply some skill to it. I did clear it for the review, it didn’t take that long, and it honestly isn’t an impossible task. When you keep in mind there are only 6 stages, I think it makes more sense.

@FatWormBlowsASparky Pro Pad or arcade stick recommended. Analog sticks aren’t optimal for this type of game, you need speed of inputs.

@Andee Glad you got it 😄