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NEC PC-Engine/SuperGrafx => PC Engine/SuperGrafx Discussion => Topic started by: SuperDeadite on April 23, 2012, 03:35:12 AM
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LOL this is an entertaining read. :lol: Just laughable in every way. Using Turbo Switches to control the boost in Ray II? WTF? Someone needs to learn how to use a d-pad. Another amusing case where someone decides to bash good games because they suck at them. His review of Ray 1 is even worse, Ray 1 is the most balanced, best designed game in the trilogy. I know few people have played the original, and even fewer have done so on the real hardware, but man this article is terrible.
Oh and I love how he goes on about the canceled Playstation game, but isn't even aware of the two Vajras on LA. The first of which was even in released in the USA. This whole article just reinforces why emulators should never be used to judge a game's quality. Just cheating your way through makes you miss all the special things that make games fun.
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/rayxanber/rayxanber.htm
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Also, the PC Engine CD-ROM was an underdog console. Just so you know.
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HardcoreN00b101 is more like it. He doesn't like RayII because he can't control his ship well enough to dodge enemies and doesn't want to take the time to learn the levels. Also the weapons being underpowered is just a part of the equation making it so you have to play a perfect game. That's the point of playing them, no slops allowed. It really is like playing pool. You have to position yourself perfectly to take out certain enemies and avoid obstacles and as soon as clear them out you have to be positioned perfectly for the next.
I don't know why this person decided to spend so much time writing this article if he didn't like the games or want to find out what makes them good.
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What little I played of Rayxanber II when I owned it, it did seem to have a high difficulty curve, but also I think it could have been overcome with repeated play/memorization, and I don't always expect to beat every game I play, enjoy or like for that matter anyway. There are plenty of hard as hell classics out there that you know you probably wont beat except on the off chance, but you play them regardless due to the challenge, making you want to push harder on your next attempt, and the fun they bring to the table by proxy of that and also because they are just solid games. Some people feel a classic shooter, action, fighter, etc game is only good if they can beat it after putting in just average effort, and drop playing titles they cant snuff in one or two evenings (usually the same types who cant beat something like Vigilante after a few tries, or who bust AES sticks in anger over sessions of Samurai Spirits 2).
Regardless of it all, the problem for me with Rayxanber II was that there were so many other shooters on PCE card and cd wise that really were just better in general, that when I went to reach for a game to play, I just skipped over it most of the time, regardless of its difficulty. I mean, I never beat L-Dis, but I played the hell out of that one off and on for years because it was so well made over all. Given the chance, if I had the time and all and nothing else to do and a copy was close by, I'd probably go back and play Rayxanber II again though on a rainy day. But still, its nothing I am dying to do or anything....
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I don't like Rayxanber much in general since I am picky about horizontal shooters and would rather play a different one.
It's still more fun than Gradius, IMO
if i never beat Rxnanadnfanyber , I don't give two shits. I beat Paranoia. It was better.
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Games like Ldis and Gradius have a lot of just random enemies on the screen that you can just totally avoid no problem and almost seem to be just randomly placed. Every single enemy in RayII is carefully positioned though and you can't just avoid them. You are forced to skillfully dodge or destroy every single one of them. That's what bugs me when people say it wasn't developed well or w/e because a lot of time was put in timing them all and making it challenging every step of the game.
That bugged me to hell when I read the article about how he had to use all these fancy emulator tricks to get past level 3 with the mechanical crab boss. using save states and slow down to get through it to me is more complicated then just playing the level till you learn the pattern. I'm no master at the game, in fact I can't clear level 4, but I felt pretty accomplished when I mastered 3 and it is so easy now. This dude shouldn't have even included in the article that he used those methods to get through the stage. Could you imagine if someone did a professionalish review of say SMB and the author was like "Good luck getting through this one without save states". People would go nuts over the article over at HG101.
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Oh. I don't think Rayxanber II is a bad game at all. I just don't like it.
I love LDis though.
Horizontal shooters usually bore me. I only like a few. Aldynes, Ldis, Paranoia, and Terraforming for example.
Its generally the really odd ones that I like. I've always been a vertical favorer.
But yeah this article is retarded
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I would have never have thought to put the dash button on turbo. To me that seems like it'd be instant death because you'd be out of control. The game can indeed be mastered but the game play just doesn't beg me to keep coming back and try harder like R-Type 3 does.
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I liked the first Rayxanber, and thusly disagree with the bad rating it got, but I think someone should be allowed to voice their general opinion on something.
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I liked the first Rayxanber, and thusly disagree with the bad rating it got, but I think someone should be allowed to voice their general opinion on something.
Voicing your opinion is fine. But if you are really gonna write an article and try to be professional, you should at the very least understand how the game works. The green charge shot is useless? What? It's the most powerful shot in the game.
Also when running in an emulator, the graphics look a bit like they are lacking detail. But remember the first game runs in VGA 640x480. Meaning it has double the pixels that the PC-Engine games do. Meaning you have a lot more space to fill to make a game looked detailed. A lot of early high-res games had this issue, but back then anything 2D in that resolution was quite impressive. Also Ray 1 is 8 stages, while 2 and 3 were only 6. And all 8 stages look totally different, a lot more variety then the sequels, especially 3.
He even goes on about "why wasn't this on X68000?" Easy answer, the FM Towns had a CD-ROM, the music was all written by a real guitar player. That wouldn't translate too well to FM or MIDI...
He's welcome to hate the game. But he clearly didn't take the time to learn how to play it, that's my issue really.
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It's not that he didn't learn how to play it, its that he just came off as very full-of-shit in his review because he fumbled around and hated the game but still wanted to sound cool.
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I know the guy and he asked me to forward this following response, if at all possible. These are his sentiments, not mine, and I am posting them exactly as he wrote them, without editing or changing anything.
"I'm a veteran of dozens and dozens and dozens of shmups, both vertical and hori, dating all the way back to arcade Galaxian. It is my preferred gaming genre, the perfect test of reactionary skill to easily digested visual information. While people drifted away from them, I continued to import shmups from Japan. Where possible I prefer to play on actual hardware, and I still believe in the worthiness of the 1CC (score attacking doesn't appeal to me so much, but I can respect it). Try to understand the difference between playing for personal satisfaction and playing to collect screens for an article.
I also love difficult games, whether it's modern games such as Demon's Souls (which is actually pretty easy) or, as someone here mentioned, Paranoia/Psychosis on the PCE. I've never completed it but it's one of my favourites on the system. If I were to write an article on it I would emulate, but only so I could take plenty of screenshots in order to showcase its excellence. I'm not an enemy here - I support the PCE and shmup community, otherwise I would not spend countless hours screengrabbing, writing and then HTML designing to make these articles. Rayxanber III was an incredible, excellent hori shmup, hence the effort for the entire article.
Having said all that, I still think Rayxanber II is absolute crap. And a quick Google brought up a few other sites echoing the same sentiment. In fact on the Shmups forum, one poster even commented that he had never bothered to open his factory sealed Rayxanber III, because the second game was so awful.
I stand by what I've written."
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The Rayxanber series is basically R-Type perfected. The check-points are tough, but you only need one powerup to be at max, and the game always gives you the correct one. If you don't like this style of game, so be it. But design wise, 1>2>3, that is all there is to say.
and LOL@shmups forum.
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and LOL@shmups forum.
Why? (Just curious)
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and LOL@shmups forum.
Why? (Just curious)
Actually it's nothing against the forum itself really. But I find it hilarious when people post stuff like "i saw this on the shmups forum therefore it is true." There are some cool people there, but it's certainly not the "true last word on shooters" like a lot of people tend to assume. So one shooter hoarder keeps a sealed copy cause he doesn't like the game and this guy uses it as defense of his article? ROLF to the 10th degree.
Oh and out of curiosity, I scanned the forums over at hardcore gaming. It seems he's gotten a lot of negative comments about articles where he basically just makes stuff up and writes it as fact. So yeah, his opinion on Rayxanber is now totally void imo.
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So yeah, his opinion on Rayxanber is now totally his opinion.
Fixed.
Opinions...how do they work? :D
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So yeah, his opinion on Rayxanber is now totally his opinion.
Fixed.
Opinions...how do they work? :D
Once you start making stuff up, any credibility you have trying to look like a professional writer is lost.
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"I'm a veteran of dozens and dozens and dozens of shmups, both vertical and hori, dating all the way back to arcade Galaxian. It is my preferred gaming genre, the perfect test of reactionary skill to easily digested visual information. While people drifted away from them, I continued to import shmups from Japan. Where possible I prefer to play on actual hardware, and I still believe in the worthiness of the 1CC (score attacking doesn't appeal to me so much, but I can respect it). Try to understand the difference between playing for personal satisfaction and playing to collect screens for an article.
GUYZ, AM VET OF SHEWTOR. WHAT I SAY IS LEJIT.
Having said all that, I still think Rayxanber II is absolute crap. And a quick Google brought up a few other sites echoing the same sentiment. In fact on the Shmups forum, one poster even commented that he had never bothered to open his factory sealed Rayxanber III, because the second game was so awful.
I stand by what I've written."
What happened to the 20 kajillionbillion hits on Japanese sites about the game.
and, what about this
http://www.thebrothersduomazov.com/2009/09/rayxanber-ii.html
Duomazov WHUT.
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I dunno, the "response" he asked apachacha to post is a bit defense and heavy on justification. I don't have issue with the author's opinions in the article, but his factual analysis is what is a little lacking. If he doesn't like a game he doesn't like it, but what he wrote as description really doesn't seem a good match for the actual game. It really does read like a rush job.
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lets not forget how he called the PCE CD an underdog
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Whenever I see screens of arcade shooters on that site I just stare at the amazing pixel art and wish I liked the genre better.
Out of all genres I think arcade shooters had some of the best artists. They were always good at making a boss look amazing at a glance. Of course it helps that on 101 they post pixel perfect shots without any scaling which look gorgeous in their postage stamp sized glory.
Rayxanber II and III especially feature outstanding designs in that article. This is the problem with most Youtube videos of 2D games, the uploaders use blurry footage and too much compression so the games end up looking rubbish even though on a CRT they are a sight to behold.
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lets not forget how he called the PCE CD an underdog
Exactly, he just makes stuff up. He's been called out on it before in other topics on the forums there, and I only looked at the first page.
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I read this article when it came out and considered posting a thread with a few comments. But this is really just another typical softcoregaming101 write up. I enjoy browsing the site because I understand how biased and uninformed most of the authors are. What I don't like is that it presents itself as an information resource and the name of the site implies that basing your knowledge of games on their articles makes you more hardcore, when in fact you'd just adopting a bunch of flawed opinions based on misconceptions.
It's cool when people only state what they know about a subject, but too many hardcoregaming101 articles over reach and explain to readers why some ports are the way they are. Depending on the author, you'll learn how the PCE is just an NES with a few extra colors, or that the SNES is just an NES with a few extra colors... or how the Genesis can only do shitty games.
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I just go there for screenshots, lol
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But remember the first game runs in VGA 640x480. Meaning it has double the pixels that the PC-Engine games do.
More than quadruple, actually.
The Rayxanber series is basically R-Type perfected.
No way! I don't get any of the comparisons to R-Type, that series is way different. In R-Type you need to use your unit thingymabob strategically. There is no unit thingymabob in Rayxanber. The only thing they really have in common is that they are horizontal shooters. Ikaruga is basically Truxton perfected. I mean they both scroll up!
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its got more than quadruple, really.
256x240 is 5 times less pixels than 640x480
but it depends on the screen resolution the PCE game is in. If you get super-technical, 512x240 is what the one slideshow demo is in, and thats roughly 3 times less.
edit: Oh, I see you corrected yourself while I was posting. Good job.
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We had a similar discussion before, but it concerned that crappy Fall of the Arcades video:
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=1350.msg51620#msg51620
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Profprof, your pictures with the names of the cast made me lol, especially the Seth Green one.
ffs, I was born in 1988, and arcades were on their way out basically by the time I got around on bike to places.
There were 2 at my mall (one was all arcade games and one was all ticket games, AKA: Keep the 5 year olds away from the SF2 crowd), and one down the street.
during midterms in highschool we would go there and play shit til we had minutes to spare to get back to our next midterm.
Now, the one in the mall is gone, and the one down the street is basically a pool hall with DDR machines. They have a broken Raiden and Strikers 1945.
and I think they still have Galaga... but its all sticky.
The closest thing now, is 1.5 hrs away at an amusement park, and it's pretty beat up these days.
What killed them around here, if you ask me, is fat lazy kids that didn't want to ride their bikes to the arcade. Mommy bought them pizza and SNES games instead.
Anyone that says Neo Geo games are boring deserves a sledgehammer to the dick. Even at the spastic age of like, 8, I knew Neo Geo was badass. The rollerrink had WindJammers and Bust a Move. Half the time I'd go skating, 3 hours would go by before I knew it and it'd be time to go home.
f*ck those retards
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You know what, since the HG article author decided to reference the shmups forum as a defense, I'd like to point out that at least at one point in time that forum as a whole also shat on dodgy journalism concerning opinion versus fact.
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15826
Lest he decides to retort with a referral to the Neo forums for moar of his defense, http://www.neo-geo.com/forums/showthread.php?169673-quot-Arcades-died-for-us-so-we-could-have-artistic-games-like-Warcraft-quot
I read articles on Hardcore from time to time, and some have been decent to great, and in the process I have come across older titles covered on there that I was unaware of prior. Regardless of this, the issues pointed out here about the Rayxanber article are 100 percent legit. The article was sloppy, and gave off the impression that the author was not ready to invest the time needed to really enjoy two of the three titles he covered in the series, and in the process he presented a unfair review. To compensate for what would have obviously been a clear lack of content in the article, since he was clearly not interested in going for a honest and fair play-through, he just cheated his way through the games. Then he tried to pass off his opinion, based on said quick session of cheating and emu play, as well known and widely accepted fact.
Granted, I am not expecting journalistic perfection here, or Pulitzer Prize winning efforts on game reviews, but, I think if you are going to review a game, regardless of the game being perceived as good or bad by a supposed generally nameless forum audience, the game does deserve a fair shake from the reviewer themselves. In this case one was clearly not given and reads off more like"Hey man you ever hear about those Rayxanber games? Like I heard 1 and 2 were really hard man, and like, you have tiny shots and stuff, and like bosses are hard, and like you have to use save states to even beat the games, and like pt 3 was cool because it had great visuals and stuff." (Note: he never even seems to link to anything he references in his defense, what happened to providing proof so your argument has a foot to stand on? Makes him sound like hes just making shit up on the fly)
I await the authors review of Legion for Pce, I'm sure it will be excellent.....
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I think SuperD should write a new article for HG101
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Legion is f*cking sweet.
I should write a Hydlide article for HG101. It's the white-mans bane as far as NES games, and I think it's hilarious because the games easier than an 18 year old college chick
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I compare R-Type to Rayxanber because both games are all about using the tools you have properly to get through an otherwise impossible situation. In Rayxanber your tools are the subweapons, which you choose the direction that they fire in, and each has a unique charge shot. Plus the turbo boost. While in R-Type learning to use the Force properly is the key to winning, and also choosing the correct sub-weapon helps a lot too.
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We had a similar discussion before, but it concerned that crappy Fall of the Arcades video:
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=1350.msg51620#msg51620
Thanks for posting that link. I can't believe that was 5 years ago (it doesn't seem that long). This has been a problem with many of the podcasts I used to listen to: folks who clearly did not invest time with a game were spewing knee-jerk comments that revealed how ill-informed they were on the subject. Now, I haven't listened to "retro" video game podcasts for several years because too many of them seemed more interested in meeting arbitrary deadlines (we must release a show every week no matter what!) than in producing a comprehensive, informative program.
I am certainly not perfect, and I know I can overstate things, but it is sad when "quality" content is so lacking.... I made similar critiques of "Retro Gamer" magazine many years ago (>6) because they were inconsistent (I had fun reading Retro Gamer, though. The layout and pictures were fun.)
Anyway...
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I have always loved the articles on HG101, especially Kurt Katala's write-ups. I read this Rayxanbar article the day it was posted and it really turned my stomach (parts of the Toaplan article did too but that was down to the lousy writing). It's not that I am some kind of nut who wants to strangle anyone who says anything negative about a PCE game, it's that, like already stated, he didn't fully invest himself in the article. I briefly played Ray II at BlueBMW's flat at MGC and it kicked my ass naturally. However, I still have an itch to try again someday if I can get a copy. That's a mark of a good game.
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Legion is f*cking sweet.
Some of the stuff the guy was saying at the beginning of each stage was just way out there, totally f*cking funny WTF types of shit. On my old youtube channel I had a video up of the game so people could see how out there that stuff was, and I used to get messages now and then about it in my inbox. I think the guy doing the voice acting was one of the same guys who worked on Last Alert also, some nameless English voice talent regular at Telenet who did multiple voice types, or tried to anyway. They probably had intentions to bring the game over here too since they had all that craziness recorded in English. Definitely one of Telenets more oddball but interesting titles at any rate.
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Legion is f*cking sweet.
It f*ckin' sucks! Anyway, here are cheat codes that I found for it a while ago:
http://forums.magicengine.com/en/viewtopic.php?t=1800
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I dunno why Legion would f*ckin suck.
like profprof pointed out, its an oddball title. I still like playing it. It's not like it's a shitty game. It's just kind of "uhhh?"
It's actually in my list of horizontal shooters I don't hate playing. There are not many.
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I never got to play Rayxanber 1 but Rayxanber 2 is one of my favorites at this point. In fact if it wasn't for the slowdown in stage 4 and the problems that creates I'd rank it right there with GoT. Rayxanber 3 is uper fun too. I guess to fully appreciate them you need to put your time in which the reviewer clearly didn't.