What are you doing at this moment? Probably something banal and stupid. Why not do something worthwhile with your meager existence by playing Abobo's Big Adventure? It's out right now, you nancies!
Tony Ponce (aka megaStryke) is a culturally confused, Canadian-born Puerto Rican who grew up in Japan and South Florida ... yet can only speak English. He specializes in writing features and maintaining an immaculate goatee. Likes: Any and all things related to Mega Man, Contra, Castlevania, 2D, PB&J sandwiches, applesauce, and candy corn.
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Played. Quit a screen after beating the barrel monster.
I didn't see any way to avoid taking damage in fights other than to just attack once or twice and then immediately get away. If you keep attacking, enemies will just start attacking you back, since there doesn't seem to be hit stun. Many enemies have enough life that a stick and move approach drags, and it seems pointless to give Abobo an attack string when it is slow suicide to use it.
Got corner trapped by the barrel monster for a bit. It would knock me down, I'd stand and be knocked down against instantly. Only got out of it when the barrel monster changed patterns.
Yeah dude, it's called a videogame. That shit happens. Especially in old school stuff.
Sometimes I think God of war spoiled new players.
And I'm excited this is finally out, although I have to wait to get home to actually play it. In the beta I got to play the Zelda level, and it was tons of fun.
Ran out of lives with just a sliver of the giant old man's health left in the Zelda boss battle, and promptly ragequit. I'll come back to it later when I have more free time.
My expectations weren't unreasonably high, but I was quite excited for this game. And it still surpassed my expectations. Amazing. And I still gotta go back for dem cheevos. Strange anachronism.
Want to congratulate RoG and the crew on the release. As a long time peruser of his site (and sometimes commenter) I know this one was a long time coming. Happy to see it out in the wild now.
@baines
How old are you? Because everything you described in your comment is what happened back in the late 80's/early 90's world of Beat'em Ups. And that sort of thing is, to no surprise, everything that's inspired this game.
Don't really have to like that it plays like that, those of us who lived through it the first time never did and we survived up fine. Man up.
@tekbunny
Now that you mention it, any game that lets you "beat'em up" but keeps the players at longer-then-arms-length distance from the enemies for most of the game.. Yeah, I think it's spoiled a lot of players, and not just the new ones.
I did live through videogames of the late 80s and early 90s. Beat my share of them. Loved side scrolling beat'em ups.
Doesn't mean all the mechanics are good, though.
And there were beat'em-ups with hit stun, or at least pain/recovery animations. Being able to lock down enemies was part of the game. There were some games with defenses, though not always the best. And running (admittedly if available) hardly ever ate a meter when performed.
@Baines, I'm sorry, but you seem to have missed the point.
I know this will sound like boasting, and it kind of is, but I had an easy time with the beat-em-up section, and didn't run into any of the problems you mentioned. And while it is functional gameplay-wise, and IMO a heckuva lot easier than most real retro games like it, it's really only an homage to Double Dragon/Battletoads/etc. And a parody, obviously. If you'd get a little farther, your hangups would likely have been forgotten, right around the part where Abobo *spoilers*
KICKS A LITTLE GIRL'S HEAD OFF, EATS IT, THEN PICKS UP HER BODY AND THROWS IT AT THE BOSS IN THE NEXT ROOM AND IT EXPLODES. AND THEN HE TAKES A MASSIVE BUTTWAZ AND PLUNGES AFTER IT INTO A PIPE AND IS SUDDENLY IN AN UNDERWATER MARIO LEVEL.
tl;dr: Keep playing, or your only doing yourself a disservice. No disrespect intended, mang.
@Baines: It's not poor design, it's a faithful emulation of the original Double Dragon. Same exact thing happened there. Part of the charm of reliving NES games. If you're playing this with any other intention, you're doing it wrong.
Finally beat it! The difficulty is on par with classic NES games.
Current gen gamers will probably quit the game out of frustration. Tip: This game is all about pattern recognition. You can't just run in with guns (fists) blazing!
@Baines: That barrel guy/thing will ALWAYS counter your punches. Hit-n'move!
We had the pleasure and honor of playing this tonight on the Dtoid/KingdomOfFoom Broadcast [http://www.twitch.tv/destructoid]... and I have to say ...
My jaw did not EVER come up from being dropped.
... total, ... amazeballs ....
If you have ANY love for the classic NES era, you owe it to yourself to check this out. I swear you will NOT be disappointed!
Also don't forget, this Sunday @4pm PST [6pm CT/7pm EST]Dtoids very own, Bill Zoker, Johnny Luchador and the always informative "Also Talks" will have the creator of "Abobos Big Adventure" and many, many other awesome indy games "Roger Barr" on the broadcast hanging out with them.
@bastardmaster: Get a controller for PC or an usb adapter for a controller you already have. Then get Joy2Key and map the keys to your gamepad buttons. Then you can enjoy this and many more pc games that don't offer gamepad support. There are a lot of nice flash platformers that play a lot better with this, like Rokko-chan and Tower of Heaven.
That balloon level... fuck that. why does lightning instant kill you! everything else atleast gives u a chance to recover.
Apart from that its a sweet game. They should give you a cheat code to unlock all levels. Is only right in such a retro themed game to have retro themed codes and it would also show all the other lvls im more interested in than stupid balloons!
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Contest:
12:00 PM on 01.11.2012 | 
Thank you.
I didn't see any way to avoid taking damage in fights other than to just attack once or twice and then immediately get away. If you keep attacking, enemies will just start attacking you back, since there doesn't seem to be hit stun. Many enemies have enough life that a stick and move approach drags, and it seems pointless to give Abobo an attack string when it is slow suicide to use it.
Got corner trapped by the barrel monster for a bit. It would knock me down, I'd stand and be knocked down against instantly. Only got out of it when the barrel monster changed patterns.
GotY 2012.
Yeah dude, it's called a videogame. That shit happens. Especially in old school stuff.
Sometimes I think God of war spoiled new players.
And I'm excited this is finally out, although I have to wait to get home to actually play it. In the beta I got to play the Zelda level, and it was tons of fun.
This and Retro City Rampage will be the greatest Retro gaming tributes of all time!
@baines - That is what videogames used to be like. It's just true to the source material, is all.
You can copy the file abobo.swf from your internet history.
Want to congratulate RoG and the crew on the release. As a long time peruser of his site (and sometimes commenter) I know this one was a long time coming. Happy to see it out in the wild now.
@baines
How old are you? Because everything you described in your comment is what happened back in the late 80's/early 90's world of Beat'em Ups. And that sort of thing is, to no surprise, everything that's inspired this game.
Don't really have to like that it plays like that, those of us who lived through it the first time never did and we survived up fine. Man up.
@tekbunny
Now that you mention it, any game that lets you "beat'em up" but keeps the players at longer-then-arms-length distance from the enemies for most of the game.. Yeah, I think it's spoiled a lot of players, and not just the new ones.
Doesn't mean all the mechanics are good, though.
And there were beat'em-ups with hit stun, or at least pain/recovery animations. Being able to lock down enemies was part of the game. There were some games with defenses, though not always the best. And running (admittedly if available) hardly ever ate a meter when performed.
I know this will sound like boasting, and it kind of is, but I had an easy time with the beat-em-up section, and didn't run into any of the problems you mentioned. And while it is functional gameplay-wise, and IMO a heckuva lot easier than most real retro games like it, it's really only an homage to Double Dragon/Battletoads/etc. And a parody, obviously. If you'd get a little farther, your hangups would likely have been forgotten, right around the part where Abobo *spoilers*
KICKS A LITTLE GIRL'S HEAD OFF, EATS IT, THEN PICKS UP HER BODY AND THROWS IT AT THE BOSS IN THE NEXT ROOM AND IT EXPLODES. AND THEN HE TAKES A MASSIVE BUTTWAZ AND PLUNGES AFTER IT INTO A PIPE AND IS SUDDENLY IN AN UNDERWATER MARIO LEVEL.
tl;dr: Keep playing, or your only doing yourself a disservice. No disrespect intended, mang.
Also, Death Blossom? FUCK YEAH LAST STARFIGHTER.
Current gen gamers will probably quit the game out of frustration. Tip: This game is all about pattern recognition. You can't just run in with guns (fists) blazing!
@Baines: That barrel guy/thing will ALWAYS counter your punches. Hit-n'move!
My jaw did not EVER come up from being dropped.
... total, ... amazeballs ....
If you have ANY love for the classic NES era, you owe it to yourself to check this out. I swear you will NOT be disappointed!
Also don't forget, this Sunday @4pm PST [6pm CT/7pm EST]Dtoids very own, Bill Zoker, Johnny Luchador and the always informative "Also Talks" will have the creator of "Abobos Big Adventure" and many, many other awesome indy games "Roger Barr" on the broadcast hanging out with them.
Don't. Miss It! '-'
Apart from that its a sweet game. They should give you a cheat code to unlock all levels. Is only right in such a retro themed game to have retro themed codes and it would also show all the other lvls im more interested in than stupid balloons!