I recently revisited NES Contra just to do a 1CC recording for a personal keepsake. I died 7 times, mashed liked hell from Stage 6 until the very end, and I still had 5 lives left at the start of the second loop. It's definitely very forgiving and not as hard as its reputation claims to be.😂

I have to agree with this. I had a decent easy time 1CCing CCWE's Novice modes after having cleared Mushi Novice Maniac and other doujin danmaku prior, but I never felt that the skill I developed was enough for Arcade Original. So these days I just do Arrange Original/Boost when revisiting CCWE.

Very thankful that I grew up with 8-bit/16-bit console games and limited play time and arcade games with limited credits so I can easily see that video games are supposed to be games and are most fun when they're short and replayable.

Gaming institutions have become so illiterate about arcade games that a respected Japanese solo indie dev had to go through this shit.

I'd say the biggest thing that made me interested in shmups is watching a guy do a Tengai 2-ALL using Katana in the arcade. It was even more awesome to watch because of the character's special move that required being in close proximity to do big damage.

Shmups are doing well. Any game that tries to be avant-garde by disregarding fundamentals ends up being ignored and flopping, like Cygni: All Guns Blazing from 2024.

Contrast that to beat 'em ups where a game gets a better reception the more it plays like Devil May Cry and less like Final Fight.

brings me back months ago when I got into SamSho V Special. Someone who's way more experienced had some 80+ wins against me before I could win a single game. Felt great even though I still lost the set.

Sadly the persisting gamer mindset these days is to finish one game, then move on to another game.

People barely go, "Wow, that was fun, I want to see if I can do better next time" anymore. Unless the game has DLC or other endings, they most likely won't replay it.

The closest thing I've seen to this was the ghost score in Dariusburst Another Chronicle EX+ on the Switch/PS4.

But sadly it only displays the top scorer's score while you play the game, there's no actual ghost image showing how the other player's ship moves.

youtu.be/c0E04kiTz9E?...

beat em ups are also popular for casual co-op, so even mediocre releases will sell well as long as they're tied to some popular IP.

Because of this, it's the feedback from casuals who have no deep understanding of the genre that has become the persisting rhetoric.

I've been revisiting one of my childhood favorites, the Sailor Moon bmup for the MD. And today I learned that it loves its hitstuns so much that the enemies cannot be grabbed during hitstun. 😆

any time I hear people talk about how they have such trailblazing ideas to improve or evolve a genre, I get red flags because I get reminded of these two flops that happened on August 2024.

Yeah, I'd say the best option is to just give it a go, considering that Genesis/Mega Drive emulation is very easy to do.

And the game just encourages you to do that cheese strat because a lot of enemies have dash attacks that can easily close the distance, and even some of their normal attacks outrange you. The game basically encourages you to cheese.