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421

Discuss Blog Entries / We're the Best, Around

« on: January 09, 2016, 05:41:49 PM »

Read the blog post here.

422

Discuss Anything / Re: Bit random, but what modern games do you play?

« on: January 08, 2016, 08:18:43 AM »

Yeah i was probably the weird ship game on pc that id never heard of, it was pretty fun. Not many people were interested in it.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

I stopped by the table for a little bit and it was kinda funny because of the church thing right next to it, Im sure they were a little uncomfortable. I didnt look at the comic there, but i did go home and read it.

Hah, yeah, I thought that was awesome that they placed our table right next to the Christian organization. I told the girls at that table that I was sorry to Satan up their area of the convention, and they laughed and said it didn't bother them at all. But they did end up leaving after only a few hours.

Yeah mednafen is really accurate and it doesnt upscale the 3d models and shit. Im guessing it would run a lot better and stuff because it doesnt really have to do much else but emulate. If i were to play with something like that, id have to pull out my crt monitor. Ill probably just use expse for now, and i kinda like the upscaling. Im gonna use pcsx2 for ps2 because yeah, there doesnt seem to be a better one.

I like the option of upscaling too, but having to fuck around with plugins can be a pain, and it can take a lot of tweaking to get each game to run optimally on ePSXe. It's just not worth the hassle to me, and I'd rather have greater accuracy than visual enhancements. Besides, it can look really jarring to have the 3D elements of a game upscaled and super crisp looking, while the 2D backgrounds remain all blurry.

Mods are great, especially for games like skyrim. I usually play through the first time with lore friendly type of mods, and then have fun with whatever looks like it would be fun to put in. Youve played a lot of oblivion, so you likely know how it is. Not sure if youd played much skyrim.

I've never played Skyrim. It's part of a mountain of games that I own and plan to someday get around to playing. One of the reasons I don't feel to bad about waiting so long to play a game, is that by the time I finally get around to it, it should have a bunch of high-quality finished mods (not to mention official patches). And of course there's the perk that older games can be purchased super cheap.

havnt played many translated games, but ive read a few fan translated mangas with american pop culture references that make no sense in the setting. Id much rather have a note on the side explaining some japanese reference thats part of the original japanese version.

Totally with you on the footnotes. Jessica and I watch quite a bit of subtitled anime (we're not a fan most dubs), and it's always nice when the subtitles provide that kind of contextual insight.

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Discuss Anything / Re: Bit random, but what modern games do you play?

« on: January 07, 2016, 12:16:52 AM »

Yeah if you go to Jafax Ill probably show up. I learned about Satan Ninja at GR8bit live.

Ah, Jessica says she remembers meeting you. I must've been off wandering when you stopped by our table.

Right now im trying to get ps1 and 2 emulators to run well, and im trying to get my ps4 controller to work with my pc, which ive gotten figured out. I honestly just want to beat kingdom hearts, because my cousin broke my ps2 a while ago, and i never got to finish.

I've just recently found out about an emulator called Mednafen. It's apparently able to emulate PSX games way more accurately than older emulators. Tests show that it even performs better than the PSX emulator that the original model of the PS3 had.

Unfortunately, there's still not a very accurate PS2 emulator. PCSX2 stills seems to be the best option.

I know a couple friends who would get into Satan Ninja, so ill probably bring it up next time we hang out for Lan or DnD or something.

That just might be the most important thing you ever do in your life, so don't forget.

Ive never played the online for GTA 4, but i understand how annoying hackers can be at times. I had left 4 dead 2 on xbox a while ago and it was impossible to find a nonhacked lobby. The game was a ton better without them. I bought it on steam for a tenth of the price and its soooooo much better, because there arnt any cheaters.

Fuck cheaters. I mean, if someone wants to cheat in a single player game, they're not hurting anyone so who cares? (Personally, I hold back from using any cheats until I've beaten the game, because I feel that cheating tends to quickly rob a game of its fun.) But those fuckers who cheat at online games should have their skin stripped off and tossed into a pit of rape-hungry salt demons.

Ive heard of pokemon rom hacks actually, because there are dozens of them, but its nice that people care enough for games like these to have dedicated modding communities.

Yeah, the people who dedicate so much time to that stuff totally rule. But I tend to be a purist about things, so I seek out mods that fix issues and enhance gameplay while staying true to the developer's original intent and the tone/lore of the game. It can be hard to find mods that don't add in a bunch of superfluous shit just because the modder personally thinks it's cool. For instance, it's annoying to play a fanmade English translation of a 90s JRPG where the modders decide to toss in references to modern Internet memes.

Anyway, back to the original topic thread, here's a few of my favorite older games that seem to often get overlooked:
Blackthorne (SNES)
E.V.O.: Search for Eden (SNES)
Flashback (SNES)

I also really dig the first two Tenchu games for the PlayStation. I consider them to be the best "pure" ninja games. At least that I've played.

424

Discuss Anything / Re: Bit random, but what modern games do you play?

« on: January 05, 2016, 01:17:51 AM »

Yeah i've lived in grand rapids my whole life.

Then you should stop by next time we do a local convention. We might do JAFAX this summer, if they'll accept us.

Morrowind is really really good, but i just cant seem to get into it because of how games were at the time. Ill probably just overhaul the shit out of it and get a much better experience. Ill have to figure out dosbox, and play the originals but i heard that the second game was much better.

I assumed the gameplay of Morrowind was pretty similar to Oblivion. The first two games have you swing your sword by holding down the mouse button and moving the cursor in the direction you wanna swing. So most of the game's combat entails you holding down the mouse button while swiping the cursor rapidly back and forth or up and down across the enemy. And whether or not you do any effective damage is determined by your stats. It's pretty terrible combat, but you get used to it. At least I did.

The first game's neat in that you can travel anywhere in Tamriel; you're not confined to one region like in later games. So the world seems mega-massive, but it's mostly an illusion. The wilderness is all procedurally generated. You can walk forever and you won't ever reach another city (but you can encounter procedurally generated dungeons). The only way to get from one city to another is to go to the world map and choose to fast travel.

The second game added a ton of neat gimmicks into the game, like actually going on trial when you're arrested for a crime. I'd like to give it another shot and see if I can get into it.

No i definately wasnt alive in the 80s, but my parents are the type of people who kinda stay in the 80s, so i know a decent amount from them. Ive played a shit ton of random old games, like ogre battle, the first couple marios, metroid, and some other shit, i know how gaming was (plus im really into videogame history).

Awesome. I owned Ogre Battle for the SNES, but could never get very far. I really liked the game, but I was just no good at it. Never played any of the later games in the series. I've always been a big fan of Mario and the 2D Metroid games.

the comic is just awesome, especially the 80s tone. I did not end up a serial killer or anything, and im probably the most sane of my friends, but thats not saying a lot.

Excellent. Now you just need to convince all your insane friends to read Satan Ninja, so we may grow in power and influence and make the world a radder place.

Its not that i didnt enjoy V, its just that i had a lot more options, and all i had was the story, because i didnt have internet. Most of the fun is online.

Gotcha. I've actually never been one to play multiplayer games online against strangers, but I dabbled a bit in GTA IV's online multiplayer, and was actually pretty good at it. I had a shitload of fun until the game became too overrun with cheaters.

You can mod roms? Lol ive never heard of doing that to be honest.Ill probably play thtough the final fantasies on my phone when i get bored. Ill probably get a steam card before the sale ends and pick up a bunch of final fantasies.

I've read that it's a huge pain in the ass, but yeah, some really dedicated dudes make ROM hacks. You can check a bunch out here: http://www.romhacking.net/

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Discuss Anything / Re: Bit random, but what modern games do you play?

« on: January 03, 2016, 02:54:06 PM »

I learned about the fallout restoration project before i knew anything about satan ninja or anything, kinda stumbled across trying to be able to play the game in widescreen, I had no idea that someone in my area would have anything to do with it.

Ah, that's cool. So do you live in or around Grand Rapids, MI?

Oblivion is also the first elder scrolls game I'd played, i played it my cousins house around the time that it came out, and i loved it, thought it was the coolest shit I'd ever played. I put hundreds of hours into that, the did a bunch of research into the series and decided to try out morrowind. Morrowind wasn't exactly what i was used to, and it was really frustrating for a long time because it has like more of chance to hit type of system and stuff. Didnt play a ton of it because i soon bought skyrim, and i played the shit out of that, like an embharasing amount of time. I tried to play the first two, but i couldnt figure out dosbox because its way before my time, so i just kinda told myself i'd do it another time.

The first game was ... interesting. I didn't think I'd be able to get into it at first, but I ended up getting into the right frame of mind and had fun with it. Plus, I always enjoy seeing how a series evolves over time.

Yeah, when I first played Oblivion, it really sunk its claws into me too. I was pretty much obsessed with the game for a few weeks. But eventually I started to notice things like how every cave I happened across was a copy and paste of one of four or five different cave layouts, and the magic sort of fizzled out for me. I still played the game through to completion, but I was no longer completely obsessed. I'm eager to try Morrowind, since I know that's a lot of people's favorite.

Grand theft auto was my real introduction into gaming. My moms cousin was staying with us and he had a ps2, and a copy of san andreas which had just came out, and i played that non stop for days because i thought that was amazing. I wss really young, and id played a decent amount of games before, but that was my gateway. Ive regularly played alllll of them since them, and actually a lot less gta 5 than the others.

If you were "really young" when San Andreas came out, I'm going to hazard a guess that you weren't even alive during the '80s. It's good to know our comic can appeal to someone who doesn't have any sort of nostalgic attachment to the most radical of decades. Then again, Jessica was born in '88, so even she's too young to remember the 80s at all, yet she still has an appreciation for the awesome media produced back then.

Anyway, good to know you were able to play a shitload of GTA as a youngling and somehow managed to avoid becoming a psychotic mass murderer (I assume). Good job.

Any reason you didn't play V as much as the others? I heard nothing but great things about it. It might be the one game I'm most looking forward to playing once it goes on sale for cheap enough.

I bought saints row 2 because it was cheaper than gta 4 at the time, and i heard it was good. I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was, and im pretty sure its my favorite one of them all. Three and four got really ridiculous in order to seperate themselves from gta, and there was the whole thing with thq shutting down and deep silver taking over the franchise.

I started playing 3 shortly after I beat 2, but I only played it for an hour or so. I think I was disappointed that I couldn't use the same cockney accented voice for my PC as I had in part 2.

I've played a decent amount of the early final fantasies, and i honestly dont remember much, but the DnD elements seem apealing, because my friend just recently got me into DnD. Im used to the newer ones, especially twelve, so itd be fun to go back and play the older ones.

Final Fantasy 1 borrowed lots of monsters, spells, and classes (er, "jobs" as they're called in FF) from first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The original game even featuring a D&D-style casting system, where you can cast spells of a given level only a certain number of times, and must rest to regain them. Later re-releases of FF1 changed that to the standard MP system that the later games used.

If you're curious to check out FF 1 and 2, I'd say the PSP versions are the best. Otherwise, the GameBoy Advance Dawn of Souls collection of 1 and 2 are good. I'm not a big fan of the bonus dungeons that they added to the first game, since they just toss in a bunch of items and bosses from later games in the series all willy-nilly (holy shit, I'm not sure if I've ever typed out "willy-nilly" before). I was able to tear through the GBA ROM of Dawn of Souls in just a couple gaming sessions thanks to the ability to speed up gameplay and breeze through most of the random battles. It's actually hard for me to play an oldschool turn-based RPG now without the ability to speed up gameplay.

As you might know, the original FFIII never got released in the West until it was remade for the 3DS. However, there's a fan-made English translation of the original Famicom ROM. It's a rough translation, but if you want to play the 8-bit original, that's your only option (unless you know Japanese). But I'd actually recommend the 3D remake, since it was overseen by the same dudes that made the original game and they made sure it was both true to the original while also fixing a bunch of issues the original had. It's a really hard game, but I found it satisfying it. I'd recommend picking up the Steam version next time it goes on sale.

I'd say the DS remake of IV is the best version of that game, and that's also available on Steam. If you'd rather experience the 16bit original, then you could play the GBA ROM (European ver. which includes several bug fixes) and apply the following fan-made patches: Sound Restoration, Defender Fix, European Stripper Restoration. Or you could play the SNES ROM with the fan-made Namingway Edition’s patch applied. However, the DS/Steam version has the best script.

Both FF V and VI recently got released on Steam, but unfortunately they're ports of the iOS versions, which feature phoned-in re-drawn sprites that are high resolution, but a lot of people (including me) think they look cheap and lack the charm of the original graphics. So for FFV, I'd recommend playing the GBA ROM with a sound restoration hack applied. For FFVI (for the record, my favorite game in the series), I'd recommend playing the SNES ROM with the Final Fantasy VI Relocalization Project hack applied.

I know a decent amount about dark souls because my best friend is fucking obsessed with the game, and ill probably pick it up on steam the next time i see a dirt cheap deal on it.

You should definitely do that. As long as you're not easily frustrated by challenge, then Dark Souls is an amazing game.

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Discuss Anything / Re: Bit random, but what modern games do you play?

« on: January 02, 2016, 04:38:07 PM »

Lol thanks for the lengthy and awesome replies. Im a bit young, so i dont know much about the days of double dragon or anything but I've played the original fallouts, and i actually played through the second one with the fallout restoration project and it's awesome by the way.

The 1987 arcade version of Double Dragon was one of the first games I ever beat, and I've always had a soft spot for it. It's too bad that it runs super fucking slow on MAME. Oh, speaking of Double Dragon another of my favorite more "recent" games is Double Dragon Neon. It has a similar over-the-top '80s vibe as Satan Ninja, but it's a bit more silly and less R-rated. It's a really fun co-op game, so you should check it out if you can.

Wow, that's awesome that you've played the Restoration Project. Did you learn about it through my bio on this site, or did you happen to play it before discovering this comic? When I first joined the RP, most of the dialogue for the new locations had already been written by various modders, and I was tasked with going over it all and trying to bring it up to snuff so that it wouldn't stand out so much from the great writing done by the original developers. So most of what I did was just editing other people's text, but there were a few characters that I created (like Dex) or completely re-wrote to make them my own (like Krom at the Umbra Tribe). I also provided the voice of the Cassidy talking head, but since I didn't exactly sound convincing as a gruff old dude, one of the other modders who worked on the project applied post-processing to my voice to make it a bit deeper and less youthful. It's very strange for me to hear my modified voice coming out of that character when I play the game now.

Jessica played through Fallout 1 shortly after we started dating, but she hasn't gotten around to playing the sequel, since she's always so busy drawing the comic.

Most of what i play are things like Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Saints Row/Grand Theft Auto.

The first Elder Scrolls game I played through was Oblivion. I have this sort of weird aversion to experiencing things out of sequence, so I decided to go back and play through the early games before I move on to playing Skyrim. I played through the original Elder Scrolls game, Arena, last year when I was sick. I started playing Daggerfall, but just wasn't able to get into the mode. I might end up saying "fuck it" and moving on to Morrowind. Have you played any of the older Scrolls games?

Though I was bummed about the change in direction that Bethesda took the Fallout series, I did play through and enjoy Fallout 3. I try to judge it on its own merits and not compare it to the original games. I'm excited to play New Vegas, since it had a lot of Fallout 2 developers involved in making it. That's near the top of my "soon to play" list. And speaking of original Fallout developers, I'm also excited to play Wasteland 2, which I backed on Kickstarter, but haven't yet gotten around to playing. I've read great things about it, so you should consider checking it out, if you haven't.

I've been a huge fan of the GTA series since I played the original on PC in the late-90s. I haven't played V yet, since I'm too poor to buy a game until it's around $5-10 on a Steam sale. The Saints Row series turned me off with the first game's "gangsta" theme, which I'm just not into (plus I've never owned an Xbox). But I ended up buying the second game for next to nothing during a Steam sale and ended up being surprised by how much I enjoyed playing through it. Still haven't played III or IV, but I intend to give them a shot. I'm a little worried that the series gets too wacky for its own good.

I do want to play final fantasy 9, but ill probably emulate it on my pc to save a bit of money, i heard its reallly underrated.

Final Fantasy IX is definitely one of my favorites, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the PC version announced the other day. However, you should know that IX serves as a send off to the "classic" era of the Final Fantasy series, so it's full of both direct references and thematic references to the older games. So if you really want to get the most of it, I'd recommend playing through the early games in the series. You could probably skip the first two games, since FF1 was basically just a D&D game with a couple unique elements tossed in, and FF2 is kind of the black sheep of the series for having a completely different character advancement system (more like the Elder Scrolls games, actually). I feel that FF3 is when Final Fantasy found its unique voice, and it's the earliest game that feels like a true Final Fantasy to me. And then IV, V, and VI are awesome. I've actually never played through all of VII, because I was bummed out about the shift to shitty 3D polygons and the series changing from being fantasy with a sprinkling of sci-fi elements, to being sci-fi with a sprinkling of fantasy elements.

Oh shit. I forgot to mention Dark Souls. That's another modern game I love.

427

Discuss Anything / Re: Bit random, but what modern games do you play?

« on: January 02, 2016, 12:09:31 AM »

Oh man, I'm a huge fan of video games, and have been ever since I can remember. In the early 80s, my dad had an Atari and an Intelivision, and some of my earliest memories are watching him play those while I sat on his lap.

For the most part, I'm way behind when it comes to modern games. For instance, I'm currently playing through Metal Gear Solid 3 for the first time. Yet I read Kotaku almost daily, so I keep up on gaming news. I have a huge list of games I'd like to get around to playing "someday." My Steam library "wishlist" is getting huge.

A lot of my favorite recent games seem to be retro throwback games (big surprise, huh?). I fucking love Hotline Miami, and I've just started playing Lakeview Cabin Collection, which is great. Terreria is also super addicting.

As for older games, oh man, this could turn into a long post. I loved my NES, but the SNES was pretty much my gaming "golden years". Games like Megaman X, Final Fantasy IV and VI (or II and III, as they were known at the time), Shadowrun, Earthbound, The Lost Vikings, Chrono Trigger, Link to the Past, and so on pretty much defined my youth. Also some older PC games like Doom/Doom II and some of the classic adventure games like Full Throttle.

I sort of fell out of gaming for a while during the PlayStation era, but I loved Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I'm also a huge fan of the Resident Evil series, flaws and all.

As you might know if you've ever read our About the Creators page of this site, I'm a big time fan of the original two Fallout games. I serve as the lead writer and a voice actor for a hugely popular Fallout 2 mod that restores a bunch of cut content to the game. If you've never played Fallout 2 with the Restoration Project, you should totally give it a try.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 8 - Crypts & Chimeras

« on: January 01, 2016, 09:38:13 PM »

I'm a huge fan of '80s-era Dungeons & Dragons, so of course I had to work that into our comic. Especially since D&D played a big role in the '80s satanic panic scare, which I'll go into in my next blog post (which, yes, I'm going to start doing on a regular basis again).

I hope everyone had a totally radical New Year's. 2016 should be a big year for Satan Ninja 198X. We're going to ramp up the promotion and hopefully get this little hidden gem of the internet a little less hidden.

Now let's see if this page's Heather/Veronica split panel will get a certain dude with a Pizza Wizard avatar to come out of the woodwork...

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Discuss Blog Entries / Re: Happy Holidays 2015

« on: December 28, 2015, 09:54:55 PM »

I hope you had a good Christmas guys! Not like us packing our life into boxes for the move tomorrow.. 

Our Christmas was ... okay. Sort of stressful. Jessica frantically tried to finish some portraits as presents for some of her family, but didn't get as far along as she had hoped before Christmas day. And as always there's Satan Ninja stuff we're trying to get done. And also setting up for some of the Patreon rewards, like live streaming.

Anyway, what's the reason for your move? Is it a big move, or just somewhere else within the same general area?

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 7 - Exploding Bones

« on: December 26, 2015, 09:10:36 PM »

That shot of Ket in the bounty hunter suit with the helmet off is similar to what you'd see if you managed to beat her NES bounty hunting game in under four hours. Beat it in under two and she'll be in her space-leotard. Beat it in under ten minutes and she'll jump out of the screen and rub her space-tits in your face. At least that's what I heard on the playground from Jason. But Jason's been known to make up bullshit before, so who really knows.

My mum told me not to listen to Jason, nobody can finish that game in under ten minutes anyway so what does he know?

True Story: When I was about seven or eight, my best friend was two years older than me—practically a teenager! So when he told me that the original Legend of Zelda had a secret boss that was a 50-headed gorilla, I believed him without question. Of course every time I tried to get him to show me it, he'd always come up with some excuse. The worst part is that I loved to draw all the Zelda enemies, and I wasn't about to neglect that secret boss. Such a pain in the ass drawing all fifty of those heads.

Also, since I now know you were one of those most unfortunate NES-less kids, here's the reference I was making in my original post: http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Metroid/Endings

It was actually pretty shocking back in the mid-80s to discover at the end of the game that your badass bounty hunter character is actually a babe. It was one of the inspirations behind the way we introduce and eventually reveal Ket.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 6 - Vektor Mode

« on: December 26, 2015, 07:26:07 PM »

I played with my huge supply of legos obviously. I did get out now and then but I didn't worship nature as much as trying to set fire to bits of it. 

So what was your childhood Lego theme of choice? Town? Space? Castle? Pirates?

I'm gonna guess Space. I was a Castle kid.

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Discuss Blog Entries / Happy Holidays 2015

« on: December 26, 2015, 07:03:08 PM »

Read the original post here!

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 7 - Exploding Bones

« on: December 22, 2015, 08:43:05 PM »

Is Ket's spaceship influenced by Barbie stuff? Malibu spaceship.

One of the inspirations was the pink ship from the Dirty Pair anime. (I'm attaching an image to this post, and I'd like to post it right here, but unfortunately attached images automatically go to the bottom of the post. I also noticed that you need to be logged in in order to see attached images.)

The starry background looks good. And so does the baddie's face, ugh, nightmare face.

If you look close, you can see his facial hair growing back from panel to panel.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 7 - Exploding Bones

« on: December 22, 2015, 08:04:01 AM »

So it's obvious that ol' Mordy is re-forming, right? Because he totally is. And he's totally pissed. I like how unscathed his head/upper body is from that massive explosion though. That's one hell of a helmet.

That shot of Ket in the bounty hunter suit with the helmet off is similar to what you'd see if you managed to beat her NES bounty hunting game in under four hours. Beat it in under two and she'll be in her space-leotard. Beat it in under ten minutes and she'll jump out of the screen and rub her space-tits in your face. At least that's what I heard on the playground from Jason. But Jason's been known to make up bullshit before, so who really knows.

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Discuss Comic Pages / Re: Issue 3 - Ninja Power! - Page 6 - Vektor Mode

« on: December 20, 2015, 07:31:47 AM »

I have never, unfortunately, owned a NES so I'm not familiar with that game.

Awe, man, no NES? That's depressing. What'd you do as a kid? Play outside with friends like a bunch of nature-worshiping primitives? Like some kind of druids?

Bomberman is a pretty popular franchise, especially in Japan where there are possibly one million Bomberman games. It's about a super cutesy robot who fucks everything up with his endless supply of bombs. The US version of the first game tried to make it more appealing to western sensibilities by making him look all cool on the box art (the one I posted previously), but this is what Bomberman actually looks like: