No Chance in Hell: MAME Reveals Insane Challenge

[Ascending Wordsmith]

I was playing some ROMs on the MAME arcade emulator today. One game I played was Ninja Gaiden by Tecmo. I used to play this coin-op at the gas station near my house over 10 years ago. Now that I've got infinite credits using MAME, I've discovered that there was no way in hell I could've beat this game honestly while at the same time paying money. Even with unlimited credits, this game is insanely hard! While playing it today on MAME, I lost many lives. On a financial basis (@ 25 cents per play), I would've squandered over $1.50 per stage. @_@

http://www.klov.com/screens/N/wNinja_Gaiden.png

Anybody else here been shocked by the enormous difficulty that MAME revealed in some coin-op games?

[Anonymous]

MAME itself hasn't revelad anything yet (since I don't emu much), but the 20 dollar unlimited play sessions at Gameworks sure have. I finally beat house of the dead 2 thanks to that little card, and I would have spent over 10 dollars just on the last boss. Granted I suck at gun games, and the games were .75 a pop, but still! It was gratifying to see the ending though.

[NE146]

heh well yeah the arcade Ninja Gaiden starts out hard, but when I used to play the game a lot, it didn't take long to get good and beat the game using about 3 continues (with a friend).

One thing to remember is since you're using Mame, the controls may not be that intuitive. The arcade had a button on top of the joystick used for grabbing overhead beams (and thus kicking with the other button) and for the neck grab move, which is one of the more effective moves you can do in my opinion. You have to hold the button down, and jump over the enemy THEN hit the attack button (I think) to grab them by the neck and toss them.. hopefully over a ledge. :)

But yeah the game is hard. But it's definitely masterable to a certain point where you don't have to continue constantly. (Also setting the health meter to above 3 helps as well)

[Captain Wrong]

NE146 has a good point. Some games are really hard to play with out the original controlls.

@fluke, I loved going to Gameworks, getting on HOTD2 with the unlimited credit card days and playing both guns myself. That is fun shit!

[Ascending Wordsmith]

The arcade had a button on top of the joystick

That's odd. I remember there were three buttons (red, green, and white) and the joystick had no button ontop. It was difficult to press the third button at the prcise moment. Frustration loomed back then when I was constantly treated to the view of my ninja getting hit by a tractor trailer! LOL

[TheTallMan]

Sir, there is no "Hell." There is only me.

[NE146]

The arcade had a button on top of the joystick

That's odd. I remember there were three buttons (red, green, and white) and the joystick had no button ontop. It was difficult to press the third button at the prcise moment. Frustration loomed back then when I was constantly treated to the view of my ninja getting hit by a tractor trailer! LOL

Yeah, since N.G. was a JAMMA game, I'm sure it made it's way into cabs of various flavors. But the "standard" had the button joystick for sure:

http://www.klov.com/images/N/cNinja_Gaiden.jpg
Conversion Class: JAMMA
Number of Simultaneous Players: 2
Maximum number of Players: 2
Gameplay: Joint
Control Panel Layout: Multiple Player
Controls:
Joystick: 8-way with button
Buttons: 2

Incidentally, if you're talking about the neck toss, you don't really need to hit the button at the precise moment. Alls you gotta do is HOLD down the button (the one on the joystick, or whatever button that is on your mame setup) and when flipping over the enemy, just tap the attack button a couple of times.. you'll grab him pretty much every time :) Actually you don't need to tap, but the game is so forgiving, it'll give you the grab if you do it that way. Otherwise the timing opportunity is pretty large and you can figure it out easily after a couple of times. :)

<edit> ok my buddy just told me that you DON'T have to hold the joystick button down to do the neck toss...If that's true (it's 1:47 am and I'm not about to check) then I've been needlessly adding in an extra step all these years! LOL
oh well.. no harm done ;)

[ManekiNeko]

Let me tell you a story about Ninja Gaiden. I went to a movie theatre once which promised free movie tickets for anyone who beat the top scores on their games. I played a couple of games to warm up, then went to Ninja Gaiden, plopped in my coin, and hoped for the best. I thought that I had the best chance of beating its highest score because it was set to the default and I was reasonably good at the game. I made it through the first stage on one coin, beating the theatening sumo boss with my last life, and a life hanging by a thread at that. That was just enough to clear the 10,000 pt. mark, so I excitedly entered my initials and called over one of the employees so they could verify my accomplishment. She then informed me that the offer was only good IF YOU ALREADY BOUGHT A MOVIE TICKET. What the hell? Why on Earth would I buy a movie ticket when I thought I could win one by playing the games?
Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed. That was one of my greatest arcade accomplishments, and what did I get for my efforts? Bupkis. I'm not a big film fan and nothing at the theatre seemed especially entertaining (I think they were playing some junk with Steven Seagal, called "Steven Seagal Beats People Up On A Train", or something), but I was still plenty steamed about getting stiffed. I didn't lose my temper, though... I just took my business elsewhere and played games at the nearby mall.

JR