Lots of talk about "kusoge," mostly in relation to fighting games, but when I think of the term, I think of two specific games: Sword of Sodan: Beep! Mega Drive's "kusoge king," consistently bottom ranked by readers Death Crimson: Sega Saturn Magazine's "kusoge king" that garnered meme-like status - ThreadSky

mercurycdx.bsky.social • 21 days ago

Lots of talk about "kusoge," mostly in relation to fighting games, but when I think of the term, I think of two specific games:

Sword of Sodan: Beep! Mega Drive's "kusoge king," consistently bottom ranked by readers

Death Crimson: Sega Saturn Magazine's "kusoge king" that garnered meme-like status

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Comments

polarbair.bsky.social•21 days ago

The simple issue is fighting game players get really into the weeds about what they personally like. If controls, damage, matchups/balance aren't to their liking, perfectly fine games like Karnov's Revenge or Vampire Savior get slapped with the label

cdrom.ca•21 days ago

Vampire Saviour?!

polarbair.bsky.social•21 days ago

You can tell when somebody is just getting their opinions second hand, because they'll get all worked up about how hard tech hit is, or that Anakaris can't do it. Even though people win tournaments with him anyway!

polarbair.bsky.social•21 days ago

Sailor Moon S (SFC) is another good one. No doubt Uranus made a really bad impression before being banned, but in the current scene? I've had very convincing arguments that you can't even meaningfully make a tier list for the game, since everyone can keep each other in check.

irishninja.bsky.social•21 days ago

as a bonus: drink one of every color potion simultaneously in sword of sodan for a "fun PSA"

armormodekeeg.bsky.social•21 days ago

Sword of Sodan fascinates me a little with how its Amiga release in 1988 was actually received pretty positively thanks to its arcade-like graphics on a home computer, and then two years later the MD version was shit on from a great height because now it was on a console that could run Golden Axe

mercurycdx.bsky.social•21 days ago

I was absolutely surprised that, not only did Sword of Sodan get a Japanese release, but Sega of Japan of all publishers decided to do it.

lanceboyle94.bsky.social•20 days ago

One of a few early EA MD releases they put out there, too, alongside Populous and Blockout; I have to wonder why they chose Sodan over any of their other ones from that period (Battle Squadron in particular I'm still surprised they didn't bring over)

lanceboyle94.bsky.social•20 days ago

I vaguely recall reading how Populous was a notable hyped game amongst MD fans, which was why Sega brought it over (IIRC it was explained in the leadup to the MD Mini 2's release), so I presume Sodan being brought over was a similar thing, but I dunno.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•20 days ago

It's funny how Populous was included in the Mini 2. I believe it was mostly the Super Famicom port that got acclaim at the time due to being an early game for the platform. The MD port was similarly anticipated; Beep! Mega Drive had a monthly ranking chart tracking what fans wanted on the console.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•20 days ago

Beep!'s actual reviews for Populous were a bit middling, and the readership wasn't as big on it as the leadup to it was expecting. My assumption is that it came out so late that by the time it came out, the reception cooled.

Based on "The Super Famicom" magazine reception, it similarly cooled there

inobscurity.bsky.social•20 days ago

do the sega releases of ea games use normal cartridges, or do they just repackage the square ea ones?

mercurycdx.bsky.social•20 days ago

Checking Sega Retro, looks like Sega issued a normal cartridge for the EA games they licensed.

lanceboyle94.bsky.social•20 days ago

I think said JP versions of Sodan/Populous/Blockout are the only EA titles on MD to not use the EA cart design, even (doubly so as these predated EA Victor's formation)

(tho likewise a few of the JP EA MD releases have a differently colored tab on the side, which is still interesting)

cherrypixelbun.gay•21 days ago

You can tell people actually bought Saturns in Japan because it was a popular prank to make "Death Saturns" where you glued the disc tray lid shut to make it so your console could only play Death Crimson

cherrypixelbun.gay•21 days ago

As an American, thinking about doing it to this to a console I've only seen a couple times in the wild that's scary

cherrypixelbun.gay•21 days ago

(and one of two times is the Saturn I bought lmao)

vi9999.bsky.social•21 days ago

I kinda have a soft spot for Sword of Sodan's minimalist sound design, even if it was wretched at times like those screaming buzzing fly people. The attempt at atmospheric bird chirping was commendable.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•21 days ago

Sword of Sodan was received very poorly by readers of Beep! Mega Drive, who were constantly keeping it, if not last place, then at least within the bottom five. The way readers were repeatedly submitting surveys to adjust the score lower was almost a meme. The monthly format barely showed this.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•21 days ago

Death Crimson, meanwhile, definitely has a sort of meme following with the Sega Saturn Magazine readership, as there was a sort of community effort to keep the game at the bottom for as long as possible, it only being dethroned a scant few times since its debut.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•21 days ago

I mentioned this in the HG101 Podcast Patreon episode for FIST, but there was an effort made by some of the readership of Sega Saturn Magazine by the end of the charts, as a Hail Mary play, to dethrone Death Crimson with FIST, that almost worked, but was just short a few fractions of points.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•21 days ago

Why do I believe there was a concerted effort to do so?

Not many games in these reader ranking charts shift around positions that drastically. Not without several readers submitting surveys to push a specific game intentionally. FIST was a low-ranking game, but nowhere near even the bottom 20.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•21 days ago

Ah, wait, I forgot something important.

Sega Saturn Magazine transitioned to the appropriately named "Dreamcast Magazine" once the Dreamcast launched. And they kept the Sega Saturn reader ranking charts up.

FIST worked its way down to at least the Bottom Ten, basically at the border, for weeks.

mercurycdx.bsky.social•21 days ago

Between July 1999 (when the last chart appeared on Dreamcast Magazine) and SoftBank's March 2000 book "Saturn no Game wa Sekai Ichi" (which was referenced in Iseka Ojisan), a number of readers tried to get FIST's ranking down enough to try and challenge Death Crimson. But the meme persisted.

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