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Playing through Salamander for PC Engine, in the emulator Mednafen in Windows, on the default "BEGINNER" difficulty!
I used an infinite lives cheat cheat (1F0085:09) from gamehacking.org, and of course lots of save states in the emulator. ; D
Those strobing micro mid-bosses who show up in a couple stages sure are annoying. : PPP
Has the same silly "position ship here to survive" escape end game sequence as the NES version ("Life Force"). : PP Super cool end animation here though.
The arcade version does have lots of digitized speech, which this doesn't have, BUT this version does have enhanced music and animation. After recording this I did check out the beginning of the arcade version--at least as represented in the Salamander Deluxe Pack for PS1--and yeah while there is an infinite lives cheat for that version too (see gamehacking.org), the no continues no checkpoints thing means the game feels kinda toothless and meaningless as you just sail on whether you get hit or not. So I think they made a smart choice here going back to having continues and checkpoints, it does feel better.
Also the animation of the enemies is jerky in that version, and the bigger ones tend to be pretty pixelated, like they've been scaled up from tiny sprites--sorta weird.
OH WAIT it WAS thE NES version of Salamander, ie Life Force, that I played recently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flRHllsghww , yes I own that now, jeez. Name swap got me. 'p' THAT version doesn't have checkpoints, DOES have the Gradius shopping thing which they REINSERTED for that version!!! : PPP, DOES feel super cheap, and of course the graphics aren't nearly as good, etc. Didn't really work at all for me.
I kinda like this PC Engine one though! Maybe I'll have to play it on the Expert setting with its more bullets and enemies thing some time. More save stating! ; D But yeah I suppose on Beginner I guess I WAS mostly swanning around until killed by super-fast attacks out of the blue. : P So more bullets to dodge--ie Expert mode--could be good??? |
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EXPERT" difficulty
A little crunchier than the other difficulty setting, "BEGINNER," with a few more enemies and a few more enemies who shoot a few more bullets--but not tremendously different; still some easy cruising stages. The bosses didn't feel much tougher, except maybe that first flying turkey brain one, which seemed harder to fly around although maybe I just didn't have as many speed powerups this time. Oh and the second, dragon-y thing, who loops much tighter now.
Speakin' of loops you can always play the next loop which is probably harder I suppose--if you're the type who has the patience. I don't... So these Salamander games still feel like Gradius-lite so I think I gotta try going full-on Gradius (1). ^ )^ |
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