I realize this one was mentioned a couple posts ago, but what about Animaniacs?

 

While I liked the first few levels, I really felt Hard Corp's difficulty was just too crazy to the point of no longer being fun.

 

i didn't play that many disney video games, whats Plok?

 

As I understand, Plok is a bit like Rayman, gameplay-wise, but it's got a lot more in the way of humor, and whereas Rayman is French, Plok is British.

 

The whole game is a rather crazy, but you do have a point about the difficulty.

 

That's because the game was designed with a three-hit-point life bar in mind. The life bar was removed from the Western releases without other changes to compensate for it.

 

That does actually explain a lot.

It reminds of of Astal for the Saturn. If my memory is correct (I could be getting the numbers wrong) I couldn't get passed a certain part in the game. Or, at least, I just couldn't beat it. When I saw early screens of the game, the images showed your energy (represented by apples I think) going to 5 or 6. When I was playing, my energy could only ever have 3. I COULD HAVE USED THOSE APPLES!

 

Funny how sometimes games were made easier for Western audiences and other times HARDER.

 

Funnier how both kinda feel like a "fuck you".

 

Hmmm, I never knew that. No wonder it's so hard.

I was actually really good at the first 3 Contra games, and Hard Corps kicked my ass. My biggest issue with it is that there's so much going on on the screen it's hard to see all the stuff that can kill you.

 

All this talk of Hard Corps makes me wonder: between Hard Corps and Castlevania: Bloodlines, do you think Konami switched sides during the Console Wars?

Also, how do you guys feel about the SNES port of DOOM, Sunsoft's Looney Tunes games, and/or Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City?

 

More trying to expand the market share, Konami was till a major presence on the Snes.

 

I think as Nintendo loosened their contract rules for third party developers, they branched out. Why limit yourself when you know you have an audience starving for what used to be Nintendo-exclusive IPs?

The SNES port for DOOM is impressive but majorly flawed. That they actually managed to fit DOOM on a cart is technically impressive the game looks like shit, is slow and is missing a lot of content.

I've only played Death Valley Rally, but I think most of them were pretty good. I liked Sunsoft as a third-party publisher on the NES; they didn't make a lot of games but the few they did were fantastic.

 

I recall it just being that the Genesis was picking up in popularity. They made a big push when they became a licensed Sega developer. I wouldn't say they favored Sega, just that they wanted to get games from their key franchises out fast. Also, while I liked their Sega releases, Sunset Riders had a better port to the SNES and TMNT Hyperstone Heist was a watered down Turtles in Time. I don't think Bloodlines and Hard Corp were as impressive as Contra 3 or Super CV4 either.

 

Also, apparently, their Animaniacs was better on the SNES than the Genesis.

 

I wouldn't say Konami favored the Genesis, as others have stated, just that they were trying make quality games for both SNES and Genesis. And they did a good job of it too, only really being held back by the Genesis' lower technical capabilities.

Frankly, it always baffled me that even though Hyperstone Heist was overall not as epic as Turtles in Time, the animation on the turtles was more fluid with additional frames. That one aspect alone is originally what made me buy it, and it's a good game, just overshadowed by Turtles in Time.

I own Sunsoft's Road Runner Death Valley Rally for SNES, and even though it has high production values, pretty good graphics and animation, it's let down by two things: iffy collision detection, especially when you're trying to land jumps, and lousy level design. It seems to encourage you to go fast, like a Sonic game, but then it puts a thorny bush right in your path that you can't avoid if you're going that fast (unless you know about it beforehand) forcing you to inch along. Playing it is a chore instead of fun.

 

Interesting. Is the Japanese release cheaper, as is often the case with these pricier games?

 

Nah. They just threw the Sega fans a couple of impressive side-games to what were still mostly Nintendo-centric series. Over in the Sega camp, Konami took their Genesis-centric Rocket Knight/Sparkster series and released a badass side-game for SNES. Capcom did sort of the same thing by making Wily Wars a Sega exclusive while the all-new Mega Man games were still coming out on SNES.

I think so. Too bad it's also pretty text-heavy for a Contra game.

 

I think I'll have to track this down. Apparently my Retron 5 can translate Japanese games, if I update it... I'll have to get on that, eventually...  

 

I've read that it does on-the-fly IPS patching, but you'll have to find a translation patch file somewhere, assuming anyone has done a retranslation.