In September I mapped out the Genesis game Sub-Terrania, which took longer than expected thanks to difficult backgrounds and camera control. The rest of the month's research went toward overhauling the old dizzy meters script. I'm adding more games and functionality but it's not finished.
I plan on wrapping that up first. Then I'm thinking of either hitboxing a couple more games or making some long-needed improvements to TranScripter.
This month's banner was from the action-RPG Little Ninja Brothers, released in 1989 by Culture Brain for NES. It's the sequel to the single-screen action title Kung-Fu Heroes, which itself was a port of the 1984 arcade game Chinese Hero. The Super Chinese series continued with another ARPG for Famicom, three ARPGs plus the fighting/adventure spinoff Super Chinese Fighter for SFC, and some ports for Game Boy, GBC and GBA. Most of these went unlocalized.
The game stars two kung-fu dudes in fantasy Chinaland, replete with Eastern folklore, and the adventuring is interspersed with random encounters in the form of single-screen battles from an overhead perspective, like the arcade game. The two-player simultaneous gameplay is what sets LNB apart from other ARPGs. Besides making the combat more fun, there are some button-mashing minigames that are thankfully mostly optional.
The soundtrack is catchy and matches the easygoing chinky aesthetic of the rest of the game. Most of the tracks were recycled in subsequent games of the series. At one point there's a brief quote from The Young Prince And The Young Princess, the third movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's ballet Scheherazade. Perhaps this is a reference to Culture Brain's earlier The Magic of Scheherazade, which itself didn't have very noteworthy music.
The RPG elements are comparatively simplistic; one of the interesting things is figuring out which kinds of attacks work on which enemies. Unfortunately, some segments have turn-based encounters, Dragon Quest style, including some of the hardest bosses. The outcome of these battles is dependent on stats and luck, which means grinding is required, although they are amenable to tool-assistance.
In fact, that "FAQ/Walkthrough" was actually planning for a TAS (with both players, naturally), but I gave it up since it would have been a likely rejection for "bad game choice".
Third strike hitboxes please!
Posted by: CWheezy | 10/03/2011 at 01:20 AM
You are the best dammit. Will more games receive support for the framedata collector? Keep up the good work!
Posted by: MightyMar | 10/03/2011 at 01:47 AM
CWheezy: Third strike, hmm? I was planning on staying away from CPS3 until I can get it running full speed. But since most of the work is already done it might not be too hard to just touch up that other script.
MightyMar: Which games would you want to see in there? (The hard thing for that is counting the control lockout time for supers, and it's not always the same for both players. Other than that it's not so bad to add more games.)
Posted by: dammit | 10/05/2011 at 01:01 AM
From discussing with multiple people about the subject many of them would most prefer to do popular titles first. Although I would like to see more obscure title it would probably be for the best to get the popular titles done as they are the ones still getting some playtime to this day.
List of popular titles based on them still being played- Kof98, kof2k2, motw, rb2, rbs, samsho5sp, mvc1, xvsf, lstblade 2, and jojo's
Obscure game- wakuwaku 7, cyberbots, slammasters 2, ninja masters, world heroes perfect, svc, and etc.
Posted by: MightyMar | 10/05/2011 at 02:25 PM
Haha, so everything then? Eventually, I guess.
Posted by: dammit | 10/06/2011 at 12:01 AM
MotW has all the frame data already and placed on the srk wiki. Nocturnal and Giby are still working on the hitboxes.
Unrelated note: Waku Waku 7 should of been Galaxy Fight 2.
Posted by: jedpossum | 10/06/2011 at 08:00 AM