Konami's Vendetta: Dead End City Stories WIP

Decided to take this WIP out of the dumpster thread of dead, canned mods.

So, thanks to GLT's amazing contribution with the animated gifs of longplays that pretty much have everything I needed (remaining scenes with animations, food items, breakables, palettes, fonts, etc.) decided to return to work on this one... and yes, GLT's support on this one definitely boosted morale and inspiration to continue this almost dead project.

So, what is done? With the new rips, stage 1 to 3 are complete: breakables, enemy palettes, perfect animations, breakable wall areas, etc.

What is needed? Stage 4, which I just started.


Fully animated, BTW!

...stage 5 and the boss rush at 6. Cutscenes (usually, the thing I hate doing most), revamp audio tracks (very low volume the ones I have), data folder to put the custom consumables and fonts.

But you know me, you think I'd stop at doing only a copy/pasta tribute mod?   STAY TUNED!

Hope I can advance fast on this one, graphically speaking I have everything I need.

Oh sweet! That's one of my fav arcade games!
Considering your modder history, I think you'll have no problem giving us a faithful SORmaker port

Damn man, give me a break I already have an addiction to maker mods as is!

The person you basically have to thank for is GLT, without the remaining rips, I don't think I'd have the motivation to finish this anytime soon.

This is what I've been cooking. Slow but steady. :3

I know this mod has been horribly ignored, but perhaps it needs a preview of what I've been doing. Mod, needless to say, is still WIP, but tons of stuff has been done so far.
Struggling to get a few missing scene elements cuz there's no more open resources. Anyways, the character is a... very special character. That's definitely NOT the olf Axel-1 you all knew (why he can be black!? Why his jabs have finally his old days' godly reach? He's a pro-baseball batter!)

Looks great!

Nice work, Don!

Vendetta's a very fun game, almost feels like the 'Metal Slug' of beat 'em ups in terms of comedic value. Not only that, it's even four-player! Kinda wished Violent Storm built upon this game's gameplay style.

But anyways, your mod looks pretty well done so far! And that's cool that you recolored Axel to look like Blood. Big Ben's laugh scared the heck out of me when I first heard it, haha! Just now remembering how good Vendetta's music is, especially in stage 3, for me.

Now if only there was somehow a way to make a weapon function like the buckets. That would be gold!

VidGmr1996 wrote:Nice work, Don!

Vendetta's a very fun game, almost feels like the 'Metal Slug' of beat 'em ups in terms of comedic value. Not only that, it's even four-player! Kinda wished Violent Storm built upon this game's gameplay style.

But anyways, your mod looks pretty well done so far! And that's cool that you recolored Axel to look like Blood. Big Ben's laugh scared the heck out of me when I first heard it, haha! Just now remembering how good Vendetta's music is, especially in stage 3, for me.

Now if only there was somehow a way to make a weapon function like the buckets. That would be gold!

The whole weapon system in Vendetta was groundbreaking and dynamic. First, most breakables could be used as weapons (boxes, crates, barrels), so you could take health items in further areas if needed. Round containers (barrels, drum cans, tires) could cause rolling after being thrown and the roll caused constant OTG. 
The cement packs would cause stun with the powder and leave them open for damaging grabs.
Some breakable items were mostly decorative, but still could cause damage, like the scaffolding in stage 2, which could hit the enemies stationed below or over it.
The bat swing value was definitely one of my favorite features. While breaking background elements wasn't particularly new (64th Street had this upper grabs that will cause the stage to get seriously fucked up), the slamming feature was featured in the original Crime Fighters while being hit by some bruiser type of guys, but the characters didn't have this option and didn't damage the background. In Vendetta, you could cause serious damage to property by sending the mooks faceplanted to an Electronics shop's display to a convenience store's racks. And boy, didn't I enjoy doing so!
And interesting also how some simple weapons were ridiculously lethal, like the brick or the bottle while a knife stab would take longer to kill an enemy.

And I agree, Violent Storm didn't have those key elements that made Vendetta super unique, they tried to hard to make it look like Final Fight when itself the game series had already a unique identity. Hell, even the art, the paletting and the music went completely to another direction (trivia, did you know the composer of Vendetta's music is the same genius who composed Castlevania: Symphony of the Night?)

Anyways, we still working on this mod. Stay tuned for more!

Don Vecta wrote:

VidGmr1996 wrote:Nice work, Don!

Vendetta's a very fun game, almost feels like the 'Metal Slug' of beat 'em ups in terms of comedic value. Not only that, it's even four-player! Kinda wished Violent Storm built upon this game's gameplay style.

But anyways, your mod looks pretty well done so far! And that's cool that you recolored Axel to look like Blood. Big Ben's laugh scared the heck out of me when I first heard it, haha! Just now remembering how good Vendetta's music is, especially in stage 3, for me.

Now if only there was somehow a way to make a weapon function like the buckets. That would be gold!

The whole weapon system in Vendetta was groundbreaking and dynamic. First, most breakables could be used as weapons (boxes, crates, barrels), so you could take health items in further areas if needed. Round containers (barrels, drum cans, tires) could cause rolling after being thrown and the roll caused constant OTG. 
The cement packs would cause stun with the powder and leave them open for damaging grabs.
Some breakable items were mostly decorative, but still could cause damage, like the scaffolding in stage 2, which could hit the enemies stationed below or over it.
The bat swing value was definitely one of my favorite features. While breaking background elements wasn't particularly new (64th Street had this upper grabs that will cause the stage to get seriously fucked up), the slamming feature was featured in the original Crime Fighters while being hit by some bruiser type of guys, but the characters didn't have this option and didn't damage the background. In Vendetta, you could cause serious damage to property by sending the mooks faceplanted to an Electronics shop's display to a convenience store's racks. And boy, didn't I enjoy doing so!
And interesting also how some simple weapons were ridiculously lethal, like the brick or the bottle while a knife stab would take longer to kill an enemy.

And I agree, Violent Storm didn't have those key elements that made Vendetta super unique, they tried to hard to make it look like Final Fight when itself the game series had already a unique identity. Hell, even the art, the paletting and the music went completely to another direction (trivia, did you know the composer of Vendetta's music is the same genius who composed Castlevania: Symphony of the Night?)

Anyways, we still working on this mod. Stay tuned for more!

Yes, Vendetta had a lot of stuff to interact with, which makes for some very versatile combat. I was surprised by its innovations since Capcom's usually the king at doing that. And yes I remember how overpowered a single break to head is compared to being stabbed by a knife in this game. Unexpected, but in a good way!

Violent Storm was fun and cheesy, but I couldn't help but think what Konami could've done to build off of its predecessor. It didn't need to piggy-back off of Final Fight. This beat 'em up trilogy should have started and ended with its own unique identity, but hey, too late to change that.

And I didn't know about that, interesting! But bad news, I'm that one guy that never played a Castlevania game. Yes, I'm not ashamed to say it, hahaha! But most of the time, I frequently see that title being brought up whenever I hear or see some small talk about the series. Who knows, maybe if I have time I'll play one of the games.

And yeah, indeed I will stay tuned!

So, here's another small update.

Slowly but steady, got to add the custom items.





Considering the original Vendetta only had 3 kinds of health items (milk, hotdog and chicken), I had to add a few more to cover up the food drops (plus adding a bit more variety) and create a few point items as well thanks to the drops. All of these additions are from Violent Storm, since it's the direct sequel of the game and the closest thing to style they have. All of them recolored into the Vendetta palette and have the frame of "Energy" or "Points"above them in order to keep the style.

Also, added the fonts of the numbers, still need to work in the rest of the fonts and the marques of the consumables, but we're getting there. Stay tuned!

This is coming along pretty nicely! It's cool how you have the 'points' and 'food' icons right above the items. That's a nice touch.

So here's a huge update on this mod.



Created the whole sound scheme to give the full sound experience as close as possible to the original game. Here CajNatalie is playing a live stream of the latest close beta release with the sound scheme, the consumables and other updates... like the "Revege is... BOOM!" at the casino floor. Watch the video and enjoy it.

Also, today added a couple of nice features from the original game adapted with SORmaker.

Stage 2-2.

Remember that there were a couple of hanging piles awaiting to fall on unsuspected passerbys? In the latest beta I added the falling drums event as a way to replace this falling piles, but... I said, why not editing the falling chandelier from v5.1?

We were thinking in removing the falling drums now that I've got a proper replacement of the falling piles, but... is Rudra the one roleplaying Joe Ohsugi and we know she's particularly annoying with her blocks and evasion, so... decided to keep both the piles and the drums to help us fighting her.



Stage 3-1.

Do you remember that, if you hit the lampposts, eventually the lamps would fall and hit anyone under them? Thanks to a fantastic idea from Caj Natalie decided to recreate that, too. Just hit the post...

...and harm or get hurt! XD


Stage3-1 and 3-3.

In both stages, there were some hookers standing outside the seeding establishments of this place, but if you get too close from them, they'll flee.

I added them in these scenes (noticed that they have all different models and palettes), but unfortunately won't flee by proximity. But they'll react  every time you slam someone on the ground. Cool, huh?

Anyways, we're getting closer to get the final product... as always, the most annoying part of it all are the cutscenes, so, bear with me. Enjoy the video and STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TUNED!!

I am waiting this mod. It must be impressive!

Don Vecta wrote:Stage 3-1.

Do you remember that, if you hit the lampposts, eventually the lamps would fall and hit anyone under them? Thanks to a fantastic idea from Caj Natalie decided to recreate that, too. Just hit the post...

...and harm or get hurt! XD

Outstanding work!

I put this street in my mod but sadly, I only managed to get swinging lampposts.

Spoiler:

Just posting here to say I'm looking forward to playing the full version. From what I can see and hear so far, it's high quality work all around and I could use a new mod to cut my teeth on.

Thanks a lot.

So, decided to record a reel with the stacked updates in the last month, including all the previously listed updates and a few more like:

• Custom special bar using the Arcade lifebar style.
  
• New GO! icon.
  
• Added the custom fonts in cutscenes, stage clear and the whole text.
  
• Added back to back cutscenes without using animated scenes (which I personally loathe to produce). I'm using the ending sequence option for those cutscenes, but in reality are just scene slots used instead.
  

To do list (serves me as a note to self):

• Add the icons and the names of the consumables at the upper bars.
  
• Finish the simple cutscenes and find a roundabout to avoid making animated ones (really, I dislike making them, if I can find a way to get past through them, the better).
  
• Make the custom breakables of stage 4, somehow forgot to add them.
  
• Edit the ghost boat, add Hard Gay as a pilot.
  
• Add a dynamic Katie in stage 2-3, 5-4 and 6-1.
  
• Create a nice ending (again, if I can avoid animated custecenes, better).
  
• Finish the bonus alternate route.
  
• Maybe add more players palettes based in the Cobras.
  
• And maybe (not important but would be nice), to create a theme for Vendetta for SORR.
  

I guess that's all it needs to the mod to be completed. There's constant progress so hopefully it will be over anytime soon. When? Shut the fuck up and wait!

Enjoy the reel!

Looking great Don, some really nice touches and attention to detail here. I am with you on the animated cutscenes, I mean, they're nice and all, but they are too much effort for not a whole lot added to a mod IMO. I prefer simpler cutscenes, similar to SoR3 and similar arcade beat 'em ups of the time.

Looking forward to the finished mod!

This mod looks awesome!

Don't need complicated time-consuming animated cutscenes, that's my 2cents. After the first time I see 'em I am ramming the skip button like a rabid honey badger anyway.

No, I haven't stopped working on the Vendetta mod for SORmaker v5.1... and here's a sneak peek of the traditional extra route for Very Hard/Mania players, yup inspired by other Crime Fighters series scenes...





Yeah, in the last picture, there's no truck... so you may need to walk all your way in there, and yes, that's a platform descend.
The music is still very Konami and it's inspired by.... certain BTU from Konami as well. I think you might like it when you hear it.

THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN CANCELATED!!111

Nothing to see here... but maybe here.