Just did a first run of Final Vendetta, which was recommended to me in the Steam sale thread by
@BrawlMan. Played on Hard (which appears to be the 'normal' difficulty, and that's entirely appropriate - I'll get to that), using Duke (chosen at random), and made it to 6-2 before falling out.
Thoughts:
-So, Streets of Rage 4 was a pretty good game. This may not sound relevant, but I'll be coming back to this point.
-Final Vendetta feels like the really old-school, quarter-stealing type of games, and the biggest reason for that IMO is that it's pretty stingy with resources like food and weapons. Even the original Final Fight gave you more to work with, and that game wanted you to die as many times as possible so that you'd need to spend 12 credits ($3 at that time, closer to $24 now) in order to finish it.
-Another thing that reminds me of those old-school brawlers is that when an enemy decides they want to hit you, you're getting hit whether you like it or not. Between their attacks coming out too quickly to react to, having crazy priority (it feels) over your attacks and even grapples, and the aforementioned lack of weapons to outrange them or food to recover from their attacks, you're stuck in a war of attrition that you're probably going to lose. Even with blocking and dodging, you still have to be psychic to be able to not take damage from attacks, just like in Final Fight. And I remember a lot of people looking down on Streets of Rage 4's lack of blocking and dodging at the time it came out, but that game's designed so that you don't ever
need to block or sidestep to avoid taking damage. Enemies telegraph their attacks fairly, and you get plenty of resources to get the better of them with. And since I'm used to games in this genre not giving you a block button, I'm not used to how Final Vendetta seems to want me to hold block all the time by default. (Except for all the enemies whose attacks can't be blocked, or the ones who attack you from behind, naturally.)
-The worst part of the game is in the third level, where it pops up a warning symbol and a siren... right as you get run over by barrels from the right side of the screen. You can't
not be on the right side of the screen to advance it, so there's no way you can react to it in time. The only way to react to those barrels is to have played the game enough times that you know exactly when they'll appear, so that you can already be jumping when it happens.
It does this multiple times, and none of them can be fairly dodged on reaction. "Hee hee hee! Free damage for me! Om nom nom nom nom nom nom!" What makes it even more unforgivable is that the later levels pull out the same warning siren for environmental hazards... that it actually is possible to dodge on reaction. Meaning the devs were able to do it that way, they just didn't feel like it in Stage 3's case.
-I also have no idea if the game drops inputs or if there's something I'm doing wrong, but sometimes I press the attack button and no attack comes out, especially when I'm jumping. And speaking of moves, the movelist feels fairly limited despite the addition of a second attack button that only occasionally does things, and the game doesn't feel bothered to explain when it can do things outside of one case (edit: found the manual, which does explain all the possible moves, at least). And when I'm grappling enemies, my character feels pretty happy to just let go of them when I don't want him to, and I'm not sure what inputs he's basing that decision on.
-Final Vendetta does do one thing differently from everybody else: no continues. If you get a game over, it's right back to the beginning for you. This, I feel, is unnecessarily cruel even for trying to evoke the feeling of playing a game like Final Fight. Sure, Streets of Rage 4's arcade mode also has no continues, but that isn't the only mode in that game.
-Oh, and the level ranking system could do with a little more transparency about how it's calculated, other than 'if you died even once this level, you get the worst rank' (edit: that's in the manual too, apparently you need to be quick and avoid getting knocked down by enemy attacks). And since extra lives are based on points, and your level rank gives you bonus points if it's good, losing lives prevents you from gaining lives.
I know that there are other difficulty levels, but I get the feeling that all they do is make enemies easier to kill and deal a bit less damage, without fixing any of the core issues that I have with the game: enemy attacks I can't react to, controls that I occasionally feel like I'm fighting against, and generally just not being on the same level as Streets of Rage 4, or even Shredder's Revenge which I also have. Probably going to ask for a refund. Sorry BM, I'm not blaming you or anything, it's the thought that counts.
One last thing:
-To unlock the hardest difficulty, you need to beat the second-hardest one with a specific character. I'm not sure why you can't just do it with anyone and it
must be Miller.
