Games like Strider and Shadow of the Ninja

[Anapan]

Oh cool! I had no idea. I like the art style!

[marurun]

I like the enemies and backgrounds, but the mains are just a hair too cartoonish for my tastes.

[Raging Justice]

Osman is pretty much exactly Strider but with feet instead of swords. Arcade only though so will need MAMEing.

I mentioned Osman because of this post, but I should have also added that this statement is no longer true

[Raging Justice]

Aww, I love the CHONK

Also, in keeping with the theme of the thread, check out Ganryu 2 for an excellent mashup of Shinobi III and Strider gameplay.

Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider is getting a more widely available physical release in a few weeks. I haven’t played it yet, but it definitely gives off Shinobi III and Hagane vibes.

Playing Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider right now, just beat the second boss. I say "second" boss, but you can play levels in any order so that's not entirely accurate

I am familiar with Hagane, but never played it. I've played Shinobi games though, and this definitely feels like that. However, I would add Mega Man to the conversation. As already mentioned, you can choose what levels to play. Also, each level has secret upgrade chips to find. Lastly, the boss I just beat gave me a new attack. So yeah, totally Mega Man.

[Nexus-X]

Yeah, it looks like a really cool game. I definitely see the Mega Man influence. I’ll probably buy it later this month when the disc drops.

[Raging Justice]

So I finished Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider and posted about it in the games beaten thread. It's fucking awesome

I played a little bit of Cyber Shadow today. The game sucks. Games like Vengeful Guardian and The Messenger are fun throwbacks to the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Cyber Shadow is a game where every single minute of gameplay is designed to be annoying and obnoxious just for the sake of being annoying and obnoxious. I can't wait to see more indie developers move away from making these types of games. Hard just for the sake of being hard.

Games like Vengeful Guardian and The Messenger are evolving the gameplay of old classics, while games like Cyber Shadow are only interested in recreating the concept of "NES hard" and nothing else. Indie devs stuck in the stone age with no imagination. Cyber Shadow brings nothing of value to the genre. It doesn't even feel as fun to play as the old Ninja Gaiden games it is mimicking. Those games had a brisk sort of pace to them where you had to sort of speed through the level, while Cyber Shadow's obnoxious design favors a slower, more methodical pace because of the incredible number of cheap sets ups everywhere. It doesn't have Ninja Gaiden's momentum and that makes it just not fun to play. The Messenger took that momentum based gameplay and evolved it with more elaborate yet intuitive platforming. It also brought with it fascinating lore and world building (which gets continued in Sea of Stars) with fascinating characters evolving the kind of deep story telling Ninja Gaiden was known for.

Vengeful Guardian is fun as it mixes games I haven't seen mixed together before, taking a little bit of Shinobi/Strider and blending it with Mega Man X to create something really neat and fun to play. Also, the chip system largely allows you to tailor the game's difficulty to your liking. There is even a one hit kill chip you can equip if you're a masochist.

Retro indie games seem to number in the thousands these days, but I'm only interested in the ones with something new to bring to the the table instead of, "Look! My game is awesome cause it's hard. It's not imaginative, creative, or innovative in any way, but look IT'S HARD!!! BUY MY GAME BECAUSE YOU'LL DIE A LOT!!! ISN'T THAT AWESOME!!!!"

[Nexus-X]

That’s good to hear about Moon Rider. I’ll probably pick up the disc in a couple of weeks when it releases. I’ve heard similar criticisms about Cyber Shadow. That kind of reminds me of contemporary beat em’ ups and the obsession with enemy power armor after knockdown or a set number of hits received. It’s a modern trapping shoehorned into an older design that often comes off as a lazy attempt to pad difficulty.

Also, Bloodrayne Betrayal is good damnit!

[Raging Justice]

That’s good to hear about Moon Rider. I’ll probably pick up the disc in a couple of weeks when it releases. I’ve heard similar criticisms about Cyber Shadow. That kind of reminds me of contemporary beat em’ ups and the obsession with enemy power armor after knockdown or a set number of hits received. It’s a modern trapping shoehorned into an older design that often comes off as a lazy attempt to pad difficulty.

Also, Bloodrayne Betrayal is good damnit!

Hey, if you love it that's great. I wanted to as a fan of beat'em ups and platformers, but the game feels like such a bizarre amalgamation of the two. I found the gameplay and controls awkward and unintuitive. I feel like the game has a HIGH learning curve that I just don't have the patience for. The game is absolutely dripping with style though.

You know the thing about Cyber Shadow is that I could push through it with enough deaths and trial and error, but after finishing two chapters I felt like I wasn't enjoying myself. The game is just really bland. Games like The Messenger and Guacamelee can occasionally throw a brutal challenge at you and you wanna keep trying because the games have enough charm, imagination, and creativity to make you want to keep going. Cyber Shadow's gameplay is just bland. The bosses are bland. It's world is bland. It's clearly copying stuff like Ninja Gaiden, Shadow of the Ninja and maybe even some Sunsoft games, but it never feels like it's doing anything but copying them. Add to that the obnoxious level designs and it just feels like there are better retro games to occupy one's time with.

[Nexus-X]

Hey, if you love it that's great. I wanted to as a fan of beat'em ups and platformers, but the game feels like such a bizarre amalgamation of the two. I found the gameplay and controls awkward and unintuitive. I feel like the game has a HIGH learning curve that I just don't have the patience for. The game is absolutely dripping with style though.

Indeed, the game has an identity crisis. It can’t decide if it wants to be Castlevania, Prince of Persia, or some beat ‘em up. I found it plays best when approached as a speedrun game like Super Meat Boy. That’s not to say that the two games are similar, but like WayForward’s other platformers such as Mighty Switch Force, Betrayal starts to shine when the player memorizes sections. It also has some quirky animation cancels and i-frames that make combat trivial and give the player that power fantasy the first two Bloodrayne games had.

[Raging Justice]

Hey, if you love it that's great. I wanted to as a fan of beat'em ups and platformers, but the game feels like such a bizarre amalgamation of the two. I found the gameplay and controls awkward and unintuitive. I feel like the game has a HIGH learning curve that I just don't have the patience for. The game is absolutely dripping with style though.

Indeed, the game has an identity crisis. It can’t decide if it wants to be Castlevania, Prince of Persia, or some beat ‘em up. I found it plays best when approached as a speedrun game like Super Meat Boy. That’s not to say that the two games are similar, but like WayForward’s other platformers such as Mighty Switch Force, Betrayal starts to shine when the player memorizes sections. It also has some quirky animation cancels and i-frames that make combat trivial and give the player that power fantasy the first two Bloodrayne games had.

I actually really liked the other Bloodraye games (for their time anyway) and generally dig Wayforward games. So this felt like an odd misfire to me, but I don't know, maybe I could learn a thing or two watching other people play Bloodrayne Betrayal. She felt so hard to control to me, like she had too much animation or something.