So, they remade Secret of Mana on Steam

[TheFeniX]

Link to Steam Store.

And I think DS and Vita, but who cares?

And no one told me about it? Doesn't look all that great and even rags like Kotaku and Polygon are giving it a fair shake and calling. Still, the co-op part seems interesting but I don't know who I could drag through it if it is online co-op. They did such great things with the FFIV and FFIII remakes.

Since the original came with the SNES Classic and the remake is $40 goddamn dollars, I'll pass but WILL to take time to post a pic.

and give a few people here PTSD.

[Eulogy]

Bah, what wimps. Spikey Tiger isn't exactly easy but he ain't the showstopper. The fucking lizard that comes after him is more aggravating than him.

[TheFeniX]

True, but as much as I like to avoid tropes, Spikey Tiger is a pretty good example of a wake-up call boss. The game has been teaching you mechanics for a while, but this is the first boss you can't YOLO after doing zero grinding through the game. He got me three times because of the former and I refused to read his patterns as the game just wasn't difficult up to that point. I had to take the game more seriously and got him down once I did.

So, it doesn't surprise me that a lot of young gamers (at the time) got wrecked by him.

While I grew up playing on NES, the SNES had made a pretty hard swap over to "difficult, but not soul destroying." And this combined pretty heavily with Japanese developers continuing to believe Western gamers weren't capable of handling them........ Then you run into sick shit like the boss run at the end of Actraiser.

Goddamn I want an Actraiser/Soul Blazer remake. Or just... all of the old Enix stable. Fucking Squeenix and their Square side emphasis.

[Eulogy]

I never really had much problems with the bosses. Well other than THAT FUCKING LIZARD WHO KEEPS HEALING HIMSELF but that's why you go against what the game has been trying to teach you and just keep spamming weak attacks over and over. :v

Nay, it's not realizing that Neko has new armour for sale before going to the Pure Land that really wrecked me, what with the regular enemies three-hitting you.

And yeah, Enix has sadly been neglected over the years. But at least they're not Konami?

[TheFeniX]

What about Konami? Are we taking a jab at them releasing 100 Contras and their turning Castlevania into another DmC/GoW beat-em up? Or are we talking how they snubbed Kojima so bad Sutherland had to pick up an award in his honor for MGS:V, the one game really keeping them enamored to Western audiences. Then they managed to burn all the MG goodwill with one game release. Because the world really just needs another video game about killing fucking zombies I guess.

Because I'm good either way.

[LadyTevar]

When Secret of Mana came out, I was married to the Ex-husband, so I got dragged in as his ready Co-op. This was the first game that I really got into storywise, and we had a good time playing together. The power-building for attacks was something new and different, and it worked well. However, since we were older gamers, we figured out Spiky Tiger's pattern pretty quick and it was the fucking Water Temple boss that we hated.

Also, Actraiser was a cool mix of platformer and Civ-game. I wasn't good at Platforming, the guy I was with got bored with Civ-style gaming, so we traded off. That endboss was still a beast, but killing him was SO WORTH IT.

[Eulogy]

What about Konami?

Taking jabs at companies for shitting the bed over and over when they should know better is always worthwhile. They're turning into Japanese EA.

[TheFeniX]

At least EA waits until they've ground their Golden Boys/Girls into mush with their sweat shop bullshit before they let them go. But, and I'm not even a sports guys, this shit is like cutting Michael Jordan at the top of his game. To a lot of fans, Kojima WAS Konami. But really this isn't too surprising since I recall more than a few years ago Kojima got into it with Konami brass because he was very vocal about being against their desire to copy EA's business approach of microtransactions being the end-game. The man CAN be kind of an ass, but it's hard to argue that he and his games don't have a special place in the market or he didn't make Konami a bunch of money and give them "free" publicity since when Kojima talked (and he talked a lot) people listened.

If I didn't know better, I would swear Survive was made just to destroy the franchise to spite Kojima and fans of him and Metal Gear. Like, "here's your baby" and then they throw it on the tracks.

Konami's big problem is they just aren't good at being terrible like EA. EA muscles it's way into licenses and/or heaps shitty things on top of something good. Konami proper doesn't seem to even know how to buy/keep someone who can make them a good game. You go from MGSV to.... 7 Days to die with a fancier engine and better graphics? Zombie bullshit on Early Access is already played out. Your AAA version, which seemingly is worse in gameplay and content either way, isn't going to somehow muscle it's way in.

Also, Actraiser was a cool mix of platformer and Civ-game. I wasn't good at Platforming, the guy I was with got bored with Civ-style gaming, so we traded off. That endboss was still a beast, but killing him was SO WORTH IT.

I beat Actraiser (and SoulBlader) like... God only knows how many times when I was a kid. Doing a run-through about 5 years back, I'm fully decked out and just getting drilled in the Boss run. Werewolf motherfucker is obliterating me and I really can't afford to waste all my scrolls on him. And I'm like "How the fuck is 9-year-old me so much better at this!?"

Illusion of Gaia was another "WTF is going on!?" moment. I beat that game so hard so many times the overworld song plays in my head at random times to this day (as does pretty much the entire Secret of Mana soundtrack). And the first boss in IoG is like "WTF, how am I losing here!? asl;asl;lsa;dlsnlas;dlkf! First boss! I'm too good to lose to this asshole!"

There are times I consider logging into Unreal Tournament and doing a few Deathmatch rounds to see if I've still got it. I'm honestly afraid I'll die a little inside if I don't. I used to be pretty fucking hard core: name the genre, and I was better the most people out there without even trying. As video games rose in popularity, that only increased. Shit-heels on PC and XBLive never bothered me because I'd chew them into cat-food 90% of the time, the other 10% was just "well, you got me fucker, talk your shit and let's move on." But flipping those percentages might have me actually rage at someone over the mic and that's just not a style I ever wanted to be in fashion for me.

[Eulogy]

At least EA waits until they've ground their Golden Boys/Girls into mush with their sweat shop bullshit before they let them go.

The only good thing about this development is that more studios have seen the unmarked graves of those companions that EA murdered and are steering clear of them. Small comfort to those dead studios.

[Steve]

Also, Actraiser was a cool mix of platformer and Civ-game. I wasn't good at Platforming, the guy I was with got bored with Civ-style gaming, so we traded off. That endboss was still a beast, but killing him was SO WORTH IT.

I loved ActRaiser growing up. Especially the music. I even found an orchaestrated version of its score that is one of the crown jewels of any video game soundtrack collection.

Sadly, the sequel - while cool as a platformer - completely removed the city-building mechanic part.

[TheFeniX]

You get that one off... what was it OC Remix? They had some atrociously bad stuff on there what with the industrial/techno/whatever, but with a few gems scattered about. Actually, looking at what I got, their Actraiser showing was... incredibly poor. Just googling about shows some pretty solid stuff. Square gets a lot of credit for their scores, but Enix were no slouches here. A shame a lot of Western carts were just.... bad.

Except Donkey Kong Country.

As for Actraiser 2, I remember just how damn good that game looked and how fluid it played. Then how disappointing it was as nothing but a side-scoller beat-em-up. I enjoyed the Hell out of it, but I felt like a large portion was missing. But Enix.... I don't really know how to put it. Sprite graphics are all about (duh) the sprite itself. With 3D shit, lighting, specular maps, animations, rigging, physics, etc can all add up to great models looking flat or hilariously bad in motion. But sprites, you have to bake all that shit in.

Actraiser 1 and 2 fucking did that in spades. Some of the background assets and bosses were just ridiculously good looking, even when up against 1st party titles. They could have benefitted from more sprite animation frames, but IIRC they were already pushing the limits of the SNES at the time. Donkey Kong OTOH, I don't know how they made that game, especially with as little slowdown as it ended up with at release. Graphics alone combined with all the anmation frames should have just blown the console up.

Whatever man, Rare was the bomb.

The only good thing about this development is that more studios have seen the unmarked graves of those companions that EA murdered and are steering clear of them. Small comfort to those dead studios.

Yea, still sucks because some studios can still end up in the situation where they need the backing of a big hitter like EA or take a look at those profits and buy-in. Luckily, the emergence of easy to license engines and digital distribution gives them other options.

And it's sad because certain publishers don't treat their underlings like shit and we get magic. I already talked about Rare and Nintendo combining to make Donkey Kong Country. Then you look at Retro and what they did with Metroid Prime. Nintendo also had little faith Metroid could make the jump to 1st person and they still gave it the go ahead. I also might have hated Other M, but it's not like it was terrible due to Nintendo trying to gouge it's customers or due to Nintendo heaping dogshit on an otherwise good game (READ: Battlefront), they honestly thought they were working with Team Ninja to make a something great.