@tokucowboy ahh, that’s good to know! I’m far from a technician when it comes to lagging as but I also know a few of those ports started out with other stuff like sound problem. Thanks for the reply!
@Karasu no prob – sound seems fine on Switch (currently ver 1.04) but with the caveat that all of my experience with Batsugun is via arcade emulation, so it‘s possible I don’t know what to listen for in terms of small details
Anyone here ever razzle dazzle with some Gley Lancer?
The PC port of Bullet Hell Monday Finale, the third and final game in Masayuki Ito’s series of well-regarded smartphone danmaku SG, is in beta, and the full version should be ready within a few weeks:
Super Deluxe’s second Live Wire/Cave Switch physical edition is up: it’s Espgaluda II, and the first-print bonus items are more or less in line with those of their DFK release: mini-zine, chiptune arrange CD, etc エスプガルーダⅡ ～覚聖せよ。生まれし第三の輝石～ – SUPERDELUXE GAMES
Homebrew publisher & event organiser Game Impact is releasing a cartridge version of the three-minute demo build of their upcoming Game Gear STG, GUNSTREAM ガンストリームGG - GAMEIMPACT (“an overseas person can’t buy it”). The game’s being developed by the artist/director of the two GG Aleste games and the programmer on GG Aleste II, with music by classic Hudson composer Takeaki Kunimoto:
Live Wire‘s Radiant Silvergun port is coming to Steam in a couple weeks; it’s listed as not supporting keyboard/mouse but a lot of smaller JP ports tend to accidentally forget to declare them when they put up their listings, so who knows:
M2‘s streaming again next Thursday: they’ll be showing off DOJ Rinne Tensei in more detail, as well as announcing the release date “and more”—they still haven’t officially announced any platforms, but their prior demos were on PS4 devkits and their public tests included a Switch build, so…
Taito’s publishing the Ray’z Arcade Chronology collection on PC this fall; it’ll also be available in a bundle with Dariusburst Chronicle Saviours and the DBCS Rayforce DLC:
Bitwave’s second wave of Toaplan PC ports will be out on August 24: Hellfire, Flying Shark (Hishouzame), Fire Shark (Same!Same!Same!0, Slap Fight:
I don’t think it was shared here but we finally got a preview of Bushiroad’s Macross game developed by MOSS, about a week ago.
Coming to ACA this week: Mad Shark, the Allumer-distributed Raiden clone made by MOSS, a studio formed by folk who‘d worked on OG Raiden and who’d later make Raidens III, IV and V. It looks, plays and feels like Raiden!
Shooting Game Builder, the latest version of the Japanese STG engine behind dozens of free and commercial games including Mecha Ritz, Grand Cross Renovation, Andro Dunos 2 and many others, is coming to Steam on August 18: Shooting Game Builder on Steam
nizakashii’s back with another cute free game: the Fantasy Zone-ish AlllCall, available as a download or playable in-browser: AlllCall by nizakashii
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCiV_0cmAvs
The former president of Gulti is teasing the possibility of finally talking about the development of Thunder Force VI (on tiktok, of all places)—this game’s infamy in Japan extends far further than one might presume, and probably a lot further than it actually should: Wayback Machine
@chazumaru I don’t think it was shared here but we finally got a preview of Bushiroad’s Macross game developed by MOSS, about a week ago.
Their publisher has been blasting me with near-daily info on this game for months and virtually none of it touches on gameplay—this game’s been playable at a couple of live events, even, and yet this barely-a-trailer is still the best in-game footage we have.
Incidentally, I heard from someone who went to Otakon last weekend who told me they played an English version of this trailer that was very conspicuously missing all the SDF characters. Figures.
DOJ Rinne Tensei will be released for PS4/Switch on December 7; ¥4950 for the digital version, ¥7480 for the standard physical edition, ¥10780 for the LE box (new Junya Inoue art, interview/materials book, stereo OST, how-to-play cards, 25mmx25mm hyper item pin badge), and all first-print copies will include a mini first-loop strategy guide penned by a superplayer. They also ran down a long list of retailer-exclusive bonus items that I don't care to transcribe (all the usual crap, like an alt-jacket from Amazon, an as-yet-even-fancier DX pack from Famitsu/ebten, etc), with physical orders opening from 00:00 tonight.
They played a little on stream to show off the gadgets; nothing you wouldn't expect. They're still not ready to show BL or reveal the full suite of modes/content.
They did touch on TGS, where they plan to guest at Tatsujin's booth... they made it sound like whatever they're bringing might not necessarily be the kind of project you'd expect them to show at a Tatsujin booth, or that it'll be anything they intend to release right away. Speculate away.
@gsk Coming to ACA this week: Mad Shark, the Allumer-distributed Raiden clone made by MOSS, a studio formed by folk who’d worked on OG Raiden and who’d later make Raidens III, IV and V. It looks, plays and feels like Raiden!
All this Raiden reminds me – any word on Raiden II hitting the Arcade Archives lineup? We‘ve got Raidens I, III, IV and V on Switch, would be neat to get the whole lineup. Is there any reason that one’s never been rereleased outside of Raiden Project on PS1 (and apparently a Japanese Windows port in 1997, according to Wikipedia)?
@tokucowboy Raiden II and a couple other Seibu Kaihatsu games ran on surprisingly advanced hardware (mostly as an anti-bootlegging measure), so they’re not as easy to emulate as one might assume. There are also a ton of different Raiden II versions out there even before you get to Raiden DX—some big region-specific revisions, a lot of smaller country-specific revisions, and then later reissues/conversions for different hardware sets—so even just narrowing down which ones to include is probably an ordeal in itself.
I think the broader reason it still hasn’t arrived is that, since Hamster got into bed with Namco and reinvigorated their relationship with Taito, they’ve dropped almost nothing but Namco and Taito games, and anything else that shows up is just plugging a gap that they weren’t able to fill with a Namco/Taito game. I do think Raiden II/DX are games with a comparable profile to the bigger Namco/Taito games, especially overseas, but Hamster gonna Hamster.
I wonder what happened with OG R-Type, it’s been a looong time since they put that on the release schedule.
@gsk thanks for that, I figured you might have some good context there. I‘m sure if it ever does hit ACA, they’ll make a bigger deal of it than the usual release so it‘ll be hard to miss, but I also won’t hold my breath
BEEP announced a release date for Radirgy 2 in Japan; it‘ll be out for PS4/PS4/Switch on December 7 (the same day as DOJ Rinne Tensei…). They also announced it’ll include a new port of the original Radirgy.
Radiant Silvergun was reported to be out today but it’s not up yet and Live Wire hasn’t mentioned it, search me: Radiant Silvergun on Steam
@gsk Shooting Game Builder, the latest version of the Japanese STG engine behind dozens of free and commercial games including Mecha Ritz, Grand Cross Renovation, Andro Dunos 2 and many others, is coming to Steam on August 18:
Out now! More info here, should you need it: Wayback Machine
@skebump tyrian is not only super cool, but the free re-release is even cooler over on gog.com(cooler simply bc it is free). if you haven‘t played tyrian, y’all should check it out, even if (and maybe especially if) you haven‘t played a shoot’em up before. link: Tyrian 2000 on GOG.com
The second wave of Bitwave Toaplan ports are out on Steam: Hellfire, Slap Fight, Flying Shark and Fire Shark. I have no idea how they launched but I know their previous batch were in a terrible state and still haven’t been entirely fixed, but many people seem perfectly happy with them so whatever:
Terarin’s next game is nearly here: Missile Dancer 2, a pseudo-3D rail shooter sequel to their previous lock-shot STG Missile dancer, coming to Switch & PC next year:
zakichi, the dev behind many fun freeware STG including Vastynex, Zakesta and the recent WEXEW MEXEM, is working on a commercial version of their game Kaikan, in accordance with the new version of Shooting Game Builder; it’ll be out on Steam in the not-too-distant future, and all their free games are and will remain playable elsewhere, so get at em: https://zakichi.itch.io/ Former Capcom arcade head Yoshiki Okamoto made a video on WEXEW MEXEM the other day, which came totally out of left field.
This week’s ACA release: Zing Zing Zip, a goofy vertical STG by Allumer that plays like a deliberately-punishing early Psikyo romhack (years before Psikyo, mind).
Available now on Steam: Bullet Hell Monday Finale, the third in a trilogy of well-received smartphone-original danmaku STG by dev Masayuki Ito—the other ports were paid adaptations of the original f2p versions but this one’s straight-up free, with the option of buying the soundtrack if you want to compensate the dev:
ICYMI, the first two Game Center CX games are being remastered for Switch Wayback Machine They include a few console-style retro STG, some of which were worked on by people who’d contributed to Cave and M2 titles.
Tatsuin revealed several of the new games they intend to demo at TGS, which include among them a brand new Tatsujin/Truxton game being made in collaboration with Junya Inoue, as well as a Toaplan arcade game app for smartphones:
Here’s a new trailer for the upcoming Granzella-developed Formation Z revival, which will be at City Connection’s TGS booth—they originally announced this for PS4 a while back, but it’s currently listed for PS5/XB/PC:
Earthion, the Mega Drive STG being made by Yuzo Koshiro’s studio Ancient and directed/composed by Koshiro himself, will also be making an appearance at one of Happinet’s TGS stage shows—here’s the last glimpse we’ve been given (the music’s since been replaced iirc)
A surprise from Hamster: they‘ve acquired the catalogue of Athena, makers of the Dezaemon series of STG-maker software that spanned FC, SFC, PS, Saturn and N64, as well as some other low-key STG like the arcade game Daioh, the SNES/SFC game Biometal and next week’s ACA release, Strike Gunner S.T.G.
(A lot of their non-STG output is mahjong games, but there are a couple other interesting miscellanies in there, like J.J.Squawkers, their disguised not-a-Makaimura for arcades.)
We need more mahjong shooters.