Punch this: Side scrolling fighting games

(tags game, Dual Screen, PlayStation Portable, side scroll, fighting, Final Fight, Double Dragon, The Warriors)

I found my purple GBA Micro under a mound of dust. Along side it was Final Fight One and Double Dragon, so I took both for a spin again, but this time, on my DS.

Final Fight One is pretty good. I practiced the "3 punch, rest, 3 punch, rest" move with Guy. Turbo attack is fun. I beat the game on Super Hard with minimal effort. 

I turned my attention to Double Dragon. That was pretty hard, until I remembered how to stick and move. Oh, and kicking enemies into the water or spikes is just refreshing. I can't do survival mode though. It takes all my effort to get to 18.

I then remembered I had The Warriors on the PSP so I took that out. Hm, I find it hard to stay interested in this one. It's dark, visibly and morally. I mean I gotta mug NPCs for money so I buy spray to tag up the walls.

Kicking virtual 3D people while they're down is so abhorrent, but I can't stop doing it! If it's 2D, I don't have any qualms. Is there some kind of uncanny valley for fighting?

But the soul still burns: Soul Calibur 1 XBLA

(tags game, Xbox 360, fighting, Soul Calibur)

Okay, I succumbed. I purchased Soul Calibur 1 for the Xbox 360 Live Arcade for 800 cred. I just wanna post this picture:

It just too much fun to play this game. 60 FPS, sparkly crisp graphics and movement, and now no loading times. Aya Hisakawa voice for "Xianghua" is still the greatest. 「正義は勝つ！なっんちゃって」 "Justice will prevail! Just kidding!" Perhaps the state of the art has improved but this still looks and feels good to me. Still there's that uncanny green glow to the polygons.

I checked my past blog posts on the Soul Calibur series. Oh my. "Jigoku e iku no wa, omae ga saki da!!" (2003-03-30) 5 years ago (!) I was play SC2 with a joystick on the GameCube. I don't even remember when I played SC1, though. I know I have a guide book on SC1 for the Dreamcast somewhere around here, where is it.

I've only seriously played with Xianghua on this port. I surprised myself by getting 37 wins in Survival mode, not that that's all great but still that gets me ranked on the global leaderboard (which is Xianghua only Survival which no one will look at). And I got 50 Break for doing Guard Repel/Parry practice (when you only need 15 for an Achievement), but I only only lucked out because Sophitia is totally predictable.

I guess I'm going to spend some time on this one because some of the Achievements are doable.

This makes me seriously consider Soul Calibur IV coming out this month. Moves that knock off clothes?!? Yeehaw! But seriously, the demo movies show the in-game play at what feels like 30 fps. Ugh?! I'm going wait for an interactive demo.

Update: (09:32AM) I played until 3 in the morning. Xiangha vs Sophitia, Practice mode with Freestyle "Vs CPU @ Medium stage 6 difficulty". Tricky but fun.

Unstack: Gradius Portable, Loco Roco, Street Fighter Alpha

(tags game, PlayStation Portable, shmup, PlayStation 2, fighting, Xbox 360, racing)

I'm reinforcing the "no" to Patapon by unearthing my stacked games. First off, though, I forgot where I put the PSP stuff so it took much effort. I decided to try out Gradius Portable before getting serious with Loco Roco. I've never played Gradius 1-4 or Gaiden enough to remember what they are. I was hoping that the game I know as Life Force (also known as Salamander) was on it but this is a different series.

So I tried out 2 and 4. Ouch, don't get hit. PSP D-pad sucks, no I suck. What!? Who is selecting my ship upgrade path? Oh "semiauto" setting. Wait, didn't I see this flaming ball stage somewhere before? Uh, that's what I get for jumping in to the series at Gradius V. I cleared some stages but no game clear. 4 seems to be a little easier than 2. I was credit feeding though, because "you (I) need more practice".

Now that I think about it, I haven't seen those Moai heads yet. Isn't this Moai head/halo bullet game(s)?

Then I hooked up my PlayStation 2 to some power to play Street Fighter Alpha. Oh, this looks great! I have one of those clamshell monitors for the PS2 with the widescreen aspect ratio. Wide makes it feel like the arcade, but too bad the screen is only 7 inches diagonal. But the best part is that there seems to be no loading times, apart from the game selection screen. Thank you Capcom, thank you. I'm going to have to track down the other Street Fighter for PS2 games like 3 Third Strike and Hyper-Fighting. I would really like to see X-Men: Children of The Atom with no load times, though.

SFA 1 (also known as Street Fighter Zero) must be my favorite Street Fighter, because Guy has those fun moves and they do meaningful damage. Ah, this Logicool pad is servicable but unsatisfying. I need a 6 button D-pad or I need to break out my HRAP (Hori Real Action Pro arcade stick). Laziness wins out.

Though I like SFA 1, credit feeding against Vega (M. Bison) got tedious. "Psycho Crusher"... "nurui wa" I played some SFA 3 but I'm not familiar with it at all. There was a "Dramatic Battle" option which I tried for the first time today. Oh, 2 on 1 huh, not much of a fair fight but die die die Vega. :-)

And as far as Xbox is concerned, there was some Burnout news eariler this month but since my region is Japan I couldn't download the new demo. Bah, I wasn't in a racing mood anyway. PGR 4 for 3000 yen? "No".

Idolm@ster DLC sale 2 ends tomorrow though. Grudgingly "yes". :-/

Choosing games over food: Dead Or Alive 4, Ridge Racer 6, and Rumble Roses XXX

(tags game, Xbox 360, fighting, race)

I had maybe 20 minutes before my bus, so I went to the supermarket/department store Daiei. I went up to the stationary/interior floor and there was a newly opened "Wanpaku" game shop occupying the open aisles.

So I saw the games with the original covers and their cheap used price tags. Dead or Alive 4, Ridge Racer 6, and Rumble Roses XXX. Now, I don't have to look at online auctions no more. :-P Some how I feel my Xbox 360 collection is "complete" as in there's nothing more that interests me, I think. /me looks at my wish list :-o :-(

Looking at the games took too much time, and 6 PM is a pretty busy time at the supermarket, so I went home empty. Fabulous choice of priorities there. Looks like its peanuts and fried garlic for breakfast.

Anyways, I did one run with Kasumi already. Nice sakura leaves. And I did one play with Ridge Racer 6. Oh my it truly is Racing on Rails (heh Ruby on Rails 2.0). I don't know when I'm going to play that Rumble Roses XXX. Maybe when I'm totally bored.