- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
I implore you to check out Super Cyborg: https://store.steampowered.com/app/341550/Super_Cyborg/
It's $5 and it feels like Contra. Imagine if there was a unique Contra game on the Amiga it would be this.
Run 'n Gun games - From Contra to Metal Slug and Mega Man (Turrican is a thing too I guess)
- Thread starter BrunoMattei
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It's $5 and it feels like Contra. Imagine if there was a unique Contra game on the Amiga it would be this.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
I forgot to mention this but another new Run 'N Gun is coming out and this time for the Genesis:
www.alphabetagamer.com
Looks good. There's a surprising number of new indie Genesis games that are on their way.
Life on Earth: Reimagined – Beta Demo (SEGA Genesis) | Alpha Beta Gamer
Life on Earth: Reimagined is a brand new Sega Genesis side-scrolling shooter where a scientist attempts to eradicate a bacteria that could end the world.
www.alphabetagamer.com
Looks good. There's a surprising number of new indie Genesis games that are on their way.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
Will check those out when I'm done with Chelnov, Pocky & Rocky Reshrined, Alien Soldier, Steel Assault, Mega Man: The Power Battle 1&2, Huntdown, and Elevator Action Returns. And maybe the hard mode on Wild Guns. Probably in something like that order. So Q2 2024 maybe.I forgot to mention this but another new Run 'N Gun is coming out and this time for the Genesis:
Life on Earth: Reimagined – Beta Demo (SEGA Genesis) | Alpha Beta Gamer
Life on Earth: Reimagined is a brand new Sega Genesis side-scrolling shooter where a scientist attempts to eradicate a bacteria that could end the world.
Looks good. There's a surprising number of new indie Genesis games that are on their way.
Whatever happened with that indie Metal Slug clone for NeoGeo? Looked interesting but not $300 interesting, or whatever they were charging...
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
Well I bumped Super Cyborg ahead in the list and yeah this is a good one. Finished hard difficulty and wouldn't mind circling back and clearing it without continues. It punches well above its weight class for a tiny low budget title. Seems like a real labor of love from somebody who knows his Contra and put some real thought into level/boss design. It feels like an upgraded version of the NES Contras where Blazing Chrome is like a gimped poor man's version of Hard Corps and Hard Corps is btw pretty overrated if you ask me.
After two no-continue playthroughs of Pocky & Rocky Reshrined on Normal I'm still kinda not totally grabbed although I don't have any specific criticisms either, maybe it's just too weeby for me. There's a Hard mode, like six characters and a pretty robust scoring system so you can either "beat" it in like an hour or move into your mom's basement and play it 12 hours a day for a year, depending on your inclination.
I guess I suck too hard for Chelnov, still getting clipped by unexpected spawns after all my time and effort, probably not getting to the end without save state abuse any time soon. Way harder than Contra Hard Corps, to me anyway. Maybe later. And as for Alien Soldier I still can't get past of the initial hump of stopping to think about what every button does and trying to understand if I'm even doing damage to the enemy. I always think I should like it but then I don't. Perhaps another time.
Steel Assault makes me want to mail anthrax to every user-reviewer sticking it with one star because "one hour of content". Go beat Arcade Mode, there's your 300 hours of content. Off-topic because you don't shoot things in SA, you whip things with a laser whip like a slavemaster of the future, although in this case, it will be the game that is owning you.
Now I'm trying Elevator Action, the original one from 1983, which is probably the oldest run 'n gun I've ever played and must be among the first ever. First impression was that it's a load of shit because all these bastards are trying to shoot you before you can even get off the first elevator, but hell if I'm going to let this stupid thing beat me, I'm getting through the first building at least. I'm making it about halfway there now. Rolling Thunder obviously owes a lot to this. Furthermore, you can shoot out lights and pick up documents to achieve secondary mission objectives, so I would say that Goldeneye is a 1:1 carbon copy of Elevator Action in all its essentials that fails to improve on the original in any significant way.
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2020
There's an NES version that's SLIGHTLY easier if the arcade version is giving you troubles
There's also a sequel that came out one decade later with more "action"
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
It's one of the few times where I pirated a game. Beat it. And then bought it at full price on Steam. It was that good. It was made by one dude in Russia and he set it at $5 because he thought that was fair and that money goes far in the Rubel or whatever bullshit they have over there.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
That's my main issue with Alien Soldier in that the controls are over-complicated for this kind of game. It probably would have benefited from having 6 buttons to work with so you have a dedicated parry and a dedicated hover button.
It's why I hope that one day there's a rom hack of Gunstar Heroes that adds the Contra: Hardcorps control scheme where you hold fire and can tap either A or C to be stationary while firing.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
Sir, I don't believe I care for your insinuation. I can totally handle it, just need a few more dozen hundred thousand hours of practice or something.
EAR is on my Big List but I have to familiarize myself with the original to more properly appreciate it.
3DS GSH adds a firing mode toggle button. I'd have preferred a shift button. I won't touch Contra HC without a 6 button, but it has the same toggle issue, since Sega jewed us out of shoulder buttons. iirc there is a HC romhack that puts a firing mode shift on the mode button, which is a shoulder button on some 6 button Genesis controllers. To me the romhack that lets you skip cut scenes is even more essential.
Oh and on topic I put a bit of time into Midnight Resistance for Genesis. Don't even want to type out the controls but it's a big wtf. Port of an arcade game with a joystick that could be rotated to aim... even with MAME and some big spending on fancy controllers I don't think such games can properly be reproduced nowadays (and definitely not on a Genesis controller, but they still could have done better). Like tears in the rain...
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
I beat Contra: Hard Corps with a 3 button controller back in the day. Get on my level.
I also beat Zombies Ate My Neighbors with a 3 button controller.
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
Beating that game at all is a feat. That shit is extremely difficult, and goes on forever.
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2022
To my surprise my sister recently started playing ZATM and then finished it pretty quickly(on original hardware, single player, no emulator tricks). Before that she beat Super Smash TV. Turns out she's some kind of top-down arcade shooter autismo. Other than Total Carnage are there any other 16bit shooters like that?
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
I don't know, Contra III has stages like that,
but otherwise I don't really pay much attention to the genre. I think there's an aftermarket release for Genesis of a similar game though, Xenocrisis I believe it's called.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
Says the casual pleading for GSH ezmode
I beat ZAMN yet Xenocrisis filtered me but good. Can't think of a Genesis game I'd consider harder. Want a 6 button for that one too.
Pocky & Rocky (SNES) is another good one but easier.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2015
I wish we'd live in a world where Contra was handled better 
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
tbh anything above normal difficulty in GSH shuts me down, partly because I suck ofc, but also partly due to the play style discontinuing my interest in short order. Normal mode is a good and fairly breezy Contra type of game with the cheetoh ray or homing gun, but on higher difficulties, the bullet-cancelling gimmick weapons seem the only guarantee against being juggled to death by shot spam so it's either fire-lightning or fire-homing and I don't like using them.
I just want the freedom of movement like a regular Contra game. JEEZE!
Shattered Soldier, Rebirth, Contra IV, Hardcorps Uprising. All quite aged now, but how many other 80s arcade franchises have faired so fortunately in the era of 3D? Remember the good times.I wish we'd live in a world where Contra was handled better
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
There might be another good one any day now. Or there might not, ever. It's one of those IPs like Double Dragon that's never quite gone away, with the quality and style being all over the place depending on who's handling it.
Basically like any other IP in the very late 20th century such as Earthworm Jim
- Joined
- Jun 28, 2021
Pocky & Rocky might be easier but I still get my ass handed to me. For such a cute game it sure is fucking brutal.