Post by Tenshu on Sept 12, 2012 1:12:15 GMT -4
After SNK went under/was somewhat resurrected, various companies started making their own installments to their games. Some butchered the hell out of them, Noise Factory did not however, lol. They worked with SNK on their last Metal Slug game (Metal Slug 3) and also handled what originally was supposed to be a sequel to SNK's Double Dragon fighting game, but could not secure the rights to Double Dragon. Therefore it was retitled "Rage of the Dragons" with some changes to the characters (Billy and Jimmy Lee being redesigned and renamed Billy and Jimmy Lewis, with a new cast). The game itself is nicely done. It's not perfect, but it has some neat features.
It's a tag team fighter, much like the Capcom vs. series. You select two characters and are pitted against the other preset teams until you get to the final (cheap) boss. Each character has an assortment of special moves and a super move that can be done when you have 1 stock of a power gauge. A stronger version of the move can be done if you have 2 stocks. The power gauge is factored in heavily while fighting, as most of the fundamentals rely on it. You can counter any blocked attack by hitting both strong attack buttons while blocking, but it uses up 1 stock of your power gauge. A team gauge will also gradually fill up as time passes with one of your fighters out, when it's filled, that's when you may tag out or use a team overdrive when your onscreen character will perform a multihit combo on an opponent and knock them to the opposite side of the screen towards your now tagged in character, this move uses up 1 stock of your power gauge. If you enter the command for the team overdrive again when you see your partner enter, both team members will perform a long combo on the opponent (using the preset team will give them a unique team overdrive move), this uses up 2 stocks of the power gauge and will drain your team gauge.
The control is great, the characters respond to your input just fine, and performing the special moves and supers is cake. The music suffers as it's pre-recorded music being played through the Neo Geo's dated sound chip, which makes it sound low quality.
Another Noise Factory developed game is Sengoku 3. The third installment in the Sengoku beat em up series, this was the hallmark of it. Sengoku 1 and 2 were fairly mediocre at best, they were typical beat em ups with only the neat feature of changing forms like another past SNK game: Magician Lord. Nothing real intricate like Streets of Rage or anything. Noise Factory did not develop the first two games so this actually wasn't their fault, they instead fixed what was wrong and what was released, was one of the greatest beat em ups made in 2001. Sengoku 3 is a beat em up that feels like a fighting game, though it doesn't use the Street Fighter type command moves but instead is a beat em up that rewards style and finesse, while there is the option of just combo'ing enemies to death with the regular ol' punch punch kick type string, here you have the option of alternating between your barehanded attacks, weapon attacks, launchers, air combos, throwable weapons, and even super moves.
Much like a beat em up, there is a balanced character, a speedy character, and a strong but slow type. Sengoku 3 has a total of 6 playable characters, 2 of which are bosses you face early in the game who join you after the third stage (you are given the option of reselecting your character after this stage) Two of which are balanced, two rely heavily on their combo ability, one is a distance fighter, and one strongman. Graphics-wise, some say it's like Garou Mark of the Wolves, but the graphics aren't THAT good. It's Noise Factory so it's more along the lines of Rage of the Dragons style graphics (which tried to be as smooth and colorful as Mark of the Wolves but didn't quite get it right). The sound this time around is good, the stage music is very engaging, it gets you in the mood to fight. The difficulty is moderate, you have one stage only to be able to play around and learn some of the game's combo system, each stage after is revealed as a "Hard" stage.
Keeping up your combo hits is no easy task, you'll have to strategize and look at your surroundings, as you have a combo meter that will drain as time passes and you haven't been doing a combo string. You'll raise the combo hit count by obviously hitting enemies, but it also takes breakable objects into account, which don't break in one hit (for this very purpose). As far as I know, the benefit of keeping the combo hit count alive is increased score and a small damage bonus, however the game does have a damage reduction system much like a fighting game, so the damage bonus is counter productive at times, but it does give two players something to compete about (who can keep their combo alive the longest/greatest number of combo hits).
I talked about these two games enough, and I have a present for you all. It took me a while to get these games working perfectly on an emulator that would not give you all problems but here is my Nebula folder with both Rage of the Dragons and Sengoku 3. Also stored is the Neo Geo Universe BIOS, a special BIOS made by someone for both emulators and actual Neo Geo carts. The BIOS has a lot of neat features, any Neo Geo game you may want to check out, the Universe BIOS has information on. It has a built in region and mode modifier (mode meaning if you want the game to play as its arcade version of the Neo Geo console version. It has options to disable hardware tests, a jukebox, memory editor, and a cheat database. For Sengoku 3 if you want to play as the unlockable characters from Stage 1 instead of Stage 4, it has an option to have them available from the beginning (so Raos can be the green guy =p).
For the region and mode modifiers, you must hit A, B, and C at the same time at the Universe BIOS startup screen. After the game starts, hitting Start+Select/Coin will open up the ingame Universe BIOS menu.
Nebula Folder: Nebula emulator with Noise Factory games
It's a tag team fighter, much like the Capcom vs. series. You select two characters and are pitted against the other preset teams until you get to the final (cheap) boss. Each character has an assortment of special moves and a super move that can be done when you have 1 stock of a power gauge. A stronger version of the move can be done if you have 2 stocks. The power gauge is factored in heavily while fighting, as most of the fundamentals rely on it. You can counter any blocked attack by hitting both strong attack buttons while blocking, but it uses up 1 stock of your power gauge. A team gauge will also gradually fill up as time passes with one of your fighters out, when it's filled, that's when you may tag out or use a team overdrive when your onscreen character will perform a multihit combo on an opponent and knock them to the opposite side of the screen towards your now tagged in character, this move uses up 1 stock of your power gauge. If you enter the command for the team overdrive again when you see your partner enter, both team members will perform a long combo on the opponent (using the preset team will give them a unique team overdrive move), this uses up 2 stocks of the power gauge and will drain your team gauge.
The control is great, the characters respond to your input just fine, and performing the special moves and supers is cake. The music suffers as it's pre-recorded music being played through the Neo Geo's dated sound chip, which makes it sound low quality.
Another Noise Factory developed game is Sengoku 3. The third installment in the Sengoku beat em up series, this was the hallmark of it. Sengoku 1 and 2 were fairly mediocre at best, they were typical beat em ups with only the neat feature of changing forms like another past SNK game: Magician Lord. Nothing real intricate like Streets of Rage or anything. Noise Factory did not develop the first two games so this actually wasn't their fault, they instead fixed what was wrong and what was released, was one of the greatest beat em ups made in 2001. Sengoku 3 is a beat em up that feels like a fighting game, though it doesn't use the Street Fighter type command moves but instead is a beat em up that rewards style and finesse, while there is the option of just combo'ing enemies to death with the regular ol' punch punch kick type string, here you have the option of alternating between your barehanded attacks, weapon attacks, launchers, air combos, throwable weapons, and even super moves.
Much like a beat em up, there is a balanced character, a speedy character, and a strong but slow type. Sengoku 3 has a total of 6 playable characters, 2 of which are bosses you face early in the game who join you after the third stage (you are given the option of reselecting your character after this stage) Two of which are balanced, two rely heavily on their combo ability, one is a distance fighter, and one strongman. Graphics-wise, some say it's like Garou Mark of the Wolves, but the graphics aren't THAT good. It's Noise Factory so it's more along the lines of Rage of the Dragons style graphics (which tried to be as smooth and colorful as Mark of the Wolves but didn't quite get it right). The sound this time around is good, the stage music is very engaging, it gets you in the mood to fight. The difficulty is moderate, you have one stage only to be able to play around and learn some of the game's combo system, each stage after is revealed as a "Hard" stage.
Keeping up your combo hits is no easy task, you'll have to strategize and look at your surroundings, as you have a combo meter that will drain as time passes and you haven't been doing a combo string. You'll raise the combo hit count by obviously hitting enemies, but it also takes breakable objects into account, which don't break in one hit (for this very purpose). As far as I know, the benefit of keeping the combo hit count alive is increased score and a small damage bonus, however the game does have a damage reduction system much like a fighting game, so the damage bonus is counter productive at times, but it does give two players something to compete about (who can keep their combo alive the longest/greatest number of combo hits).
I talked about these two games enough, and I have a present for you all. It took me a while to get these games working perfectly on an emulator that would not give you all problems but here is my Nebula folder with both Rage of the Dragons and Sengoku 3. Also stored is the Neo Geo Universe BIOS, a special BIOS made by someone for both emulators and actual Neo Geo carts. The BIOS has a lot of neat features, any Neo Geo game you may want to check out, the Universe BIOS has information on. It has a built in region and mode modifier (mode meaning if you want the game to play as its arcade version of the Neo Geo console version. It has options to disable hardware tests, a jukebox, memory editor, and a cheat database. For Sengoku 3 if you want to play as the unlockable characters from Stage 1 instead of Stage 4, it has an option to have them available from the beginning (so Raos can be the green guy =p).
For the region and mode modifiers, you must hit A, B, and C at the same time at the Universe BIOS startup screen. After the game starts, hitting Start+Select/Coin will open up the ingame Universe BIOS menu.
Nebula Folder: Nebula emulator with Noise Factory games
