Cliffhanger, The - Edward Randy

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/edrandy/edrandy.htm

I stumbled on this game when looking through Data East stuff. Visually it's quite amazing, although in practice it's somewhat sloppy. Still, it's definitely worth a playthrough.

Wikipedia makes a bunch of claims that two characters in Guardian Heroes are named Edward and Randy, since the designers loved this game so much. I know Randy is there - he's the wizard guy - but I don't think there's any Edward. It also says Ed Randy shows up in a Kaneko puzzle game called Senknow, but I couldn't find him in the game nor any reference to him anywhere else. These were taken from the Japanese Wikipedia and aren't sourced there, so who knows if any of that is true.

EDIT:

OK, I found out that Edward is the name of Randy's little rat thing buddy in the Japanese version, but his name was changed to Nando in English. So that one is most likely true!

[ryochan]

Interesting looking game. I'm guessing the times he's all red is when he's hit? Also, just FYI:

(Randy is the magic user, and Randy is little familiar, whose name was changed to Nando for the English release.)

I think you meant Edward for the second Randy there

[Shellshock]

I played this one at the arcades a long time ago. Somehow I thought there was an article about it already.

[Gendo Ikari]

It's one of those arcade games I would never know they existed if it wasn't for MAME. And, even if I quickly realized how flawed the gameplay is, I still love it for how it manages to be fun anyway, throwing a lot of over-the-top stuff to the player - you could have mentioned that Edward's whip can even slice enemy boats in two!

[Shellshock]

Somehow related, but anybody listened to Retronauts? This game got a mention, so props there, although they did forget to list half of Data East's more interesting titles:

-Side Pocket series (how did they forget this? the first game was extremely popular)
-Dark Seal series (very interesting arcades although hard to find)
-Captain America and the Avengers. (decent and somewhat popular beat'em-up notable for its easiness)
-Spin Master (hard to find Neo Geo title)
-Tumble Pop (extremely popular)

Alright, maybe these were too hardcore for them:

-Boogie Wings (shoot'em-up/platformer in which you can throw almost anything on the screen)
-Avengers in Galactic Storm (3D fighting game with the Avengers)
-Dragon Gun (kill dragons with a light gun!)
-Midnight Resistance (Contra with Ikari Warriors controls)
-Vapor Trail - Hyper Offence Formation (1989), Rohga Armor Force (1991), and Skull Fang (1996) (mecha shoot'em-up series)
-Secret Agent (James Bond action game)

I wish they did a little bit more research before a show. I pulled these from an updated MAME list, which isn't hard to find.

[Discoalucard]

When I did some googling on CLiffhanger, I found posts of Brandon's back from either Selectbutton or Insert Credit talking about how awesome the game was. I share his enthusiasm in theory, but there's something about the controls that just feels...disconnected.

They did miss some stuff (like THUNDER ZONE YEAAAAAH) but they hit most of the high points. There's a ton of stuff to cover in the hour devoted to it, and it did enough to interest me in Ghostlop.

[Shellshock]

Mar 9, 2010 19:02:55 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

There's a ton of stuff to cover in the hour devoted to it, and it did enough to interest me in Ghostlop.

I didn't know about Thunder Zone, and never saw it at the arcades. It looks like a really obscure title.


Yeah, time is limited, but mentioning one of these titles and why they were important for the company doesn't take more than 5 minutes each. I mean Side Pocket was the defacto video pool and was present on almost every arcade, spawning sequels and ports on lots of consoles. And Tumble Pop was one of the leading games in that "modern Bubble Bobble" genre (Snow Bros, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Funky Jet). It seems odd that they would deliberately leave them out.

There's a working prototype of Ghostlop by the way, if you didn't know. It looks fully playable but I haven't tried it out.

[Discoalucard]

Thunder Zone rounds out the Data East Bad Ass Commando Rip Off Trilogy, along with Heavy Barrel and Bloody Wolf. Completely rad game with great wailing guitar samples, reminds me a lot of Vapor Trail's soundtrack. It looks like it was called Desert Assault in the US, though.

[Shellshock]

Oooo sounds like something cool worth writing about.

[Gendo Ikari]

Resurrecting this because of an interesting find: a doujin game released at Comiket 80 called Cliff Hanger and obviously inspired by this one. There's a trial version at DLSite and I'd consider buying, but 20 Euros are a bit too much.

[Allie]

I know it looks and sounds good, but jod, did I hate Rohga. It didn't even feel remotely controllable.

[Gendo Ikari]

I played the trial of that doujin game and it's a big disappointment - let's say its playability is on par if not worse than the original, due to very slow pace and stiff controls; the demo level is extremely drawn-out and boring, and before fighting the boss there's a lenghty voiced verbal exchange that I didn't find out a way to skip. Add those passable but simplistic graphics and, even if other levels are better, it seems a definitive miss. Checking past games from the same developer, I think I played a couple in the past, they were less ambitious but more fun.

[Shellshock]

Article says this was released in Japan only, but I remember seeing it in during the early 90's in Argentina. It was very rare though. I only remember seeing it at one specific arcade. I don't think it means it got an official release in South America, but at least some of those boards were imported.

[1983parrothead]

This game also resembles Studio Ghibli's film, Castle in the Sky.