It totally counts. I was trying to find what this games title was to list out but failed to remember or find it in a search. I played the heck out of it in its time. I’m sure it’s still a pretty ok game.
@yim would your recommend steel empire over legend of steel empire? Or both? This one might be on the edge of what I like about the bastard children of this genre but I’m trying to extend my tastes at least a little. I’m going to try it.
@Bbtone yeah! That one looks a lot like steel empire being similar to gradius but with a connectable currency sand much more interesting looking bosses than the nes game. This one looks fun too.
I just remembered about looking Bangai-O. Learned about that one from Tim way back in the large prime numbers days. I’m also reminded of a forum he got up and running on either LPN or action button. He was talking about his affinity for numbers. I mentioned that the only good palindrome I ever discovered was the phrase “ never odd or even” his response was something like “ that seems grammatically questionable” it’s when I knew that being kind of a jerk wasn’t just a persona.
Obligate mega diver is a plantain phrase. I’m going to be muttering it a day while I do my chores. My ex is a vet and it had obligate carnivore or such and such an animal is an obligate such and such.
I love finding out about STGs I’ve never heard of! Like, for instance, Bokan to Ippatsu! Doronbo and its sequel. Although I think I’ll emulate before I try and buy a copy (the Saturn versions of course have eye-watering prices from what I’ve seen).
Shikigami no Shiro 3/ Castle Shikigami 3 is out now on Steam! Looking forward to spending some time with it this evening, since it’s the only game in the series I’ve never played.
raptor had such a great crunchy intro and really good music. it counts but it feels weird, because it’s like if raiden was made by euro jank amiga heads.
A word of info: this is a fresh direct port of the original arcade version and is thus missing extra modes and other features from the other home versions, and also has a different translation to the old Wii version, but they do intend to add some other modes including Dramatic Change (lets you tag characters on the fly & experience 2P dialogue as a solo player) in later updates. They were hesitant to commit to a Switch version upfront due to uncertainty about the transition to new hardware, among other concerns, but it’s not completely off the table.
out now: LILAC-0, an indie STG with a slashy gimmick:
out today on Arcade Archives: Konami’s vintage fixed-screen STG, Juno FIrstL
out on EGG Console today: Super Zenon Gamma 5 (PC88), the third of a loose series of had-to-be-there mecha-themed STG produced by Kure Software Koubou’s Eiju Kure:
Devil Blade Reboot got an update that adds a boss rush mode, among other things:
Space Invaders Infinity Gene Evolve, a sequel to the critically-acclaimed mobile/PS360 game Space Invaders Infinity Gene, is coming to iOS via Apple Arcade on April 3. I don’t know precisely how new or fresh it’ll feel but it’s not just a simple refactoring of the original phone version: original creator Reisuke Ishida’s directing again, and it’ll have crossover ships from other Taito games, etc.
Illvelo Swamp Happy Together, the standalone revision to RS34’s recent Illvelo sequel Illvelo Swamp, will be out on Switch in Japan on June 5—a global release isn’t currently planned, and between some of their other games going unlocalised and the one localised game being completely screwed by a fraudulent publisher, this one might remain import-only.
the Hazelnut Hex dev announced their next game: PHASGANA, another toony horizontal STG:
Huga Studio, the indie project run by ex-Sega producer Tez Okano, plans to release Girl from Gunma Kai, an upgraded PC version of their old faux-MSX STG, sometime this year: THE GIRL FROM GUNMA Kai 群馬県から来た少女・改 on Steam do note that they’ve been promising this game for a literal decade, and that they’ve announced other games since then (including other STG) that haven’t eventuated, but never say never
not especially impactful news to anyone here, but news nonetheless. Zerodiv, the last studio in the line of post-Psikyo successor companies and one with a rather dubious reputation going back to the '00s contract days, has been purchased from CIty Connection by Edia; my understanding is that City Connection kept the IP and whichever members of Zerodiv they felt were valuable and gave the rest to Edia for a pittance, and that the parts they kept essentially comprise TAKEx0FF, the specialist STG porting studio that’s handled Akai Katana, Deathsmiles, Under Defeat, etc. (Edia’s the company that recently acquired the Nihon Telenet library.)
Taito/M2 folk are scheduled to appear on this Dengeki stream from 21:00 Japan time to talk Operation Night Strikers & Night Striker Gear:
Heck, just found out I apparently purchased P-47 IIMD, probably while in a drunken stupor. Ask me anything, such as “why the hell did you buy P-47 IIMD”? At least, it came with a neat 8cm audio CD.
Just so happens that Rndstranger released a video about the PC Engine port yesterday.
@tomjonjon Here’s a helpful video (not mine) that shows the box, cartridge, manual and (I assume first press) mini CD. It seems to be a decent port of a very standard horizontal shoot’em up.
Coincidentally, I fired up Devil Blade Reboot for the first time last night, and DANG is excellent! I knew it was generally appreciated but I wasn’t quite expecting how dramatic it is!
I accidentally bought Devil Engine thinking it was Devil Blade but turns out I already owned Devil Blade so now it’s Double Devil time. Is this the Outer Wilds and Outer Worlds of shmups?
On a semi-serious note: is Devil Engine good? I’m at this point where I just buy any < $10 shmup on Steam for some reason.
The news from this stream: Operation Night Strikers (the emulated collection containing Operation Wolf, Night Striker, Space Gun and Operation Thunderbolt) will be out on Switch & PC on August 7. Much like other Taito/M2 collections, there’s a base digital version with all the arcade ROMs and a DLC that adds various home ports, with the physical version containing everything; they’re also doing a big LE that’ll include an art/materials book, repro flyers, CD, papercraft replicas of the Operation Thunderbolt gun controller & in-game flak jacket and, most crucially, an advance pre-release download code for M2’s upcoming brand-new Night Striker sequel, Night Striker Gear:
Night Striker Gear’s set for general release sometime this year; the music’s by ex-Zuntata composer Yukiharu Urita.
I would not go so far as to say it’s a bad game but it’s extremely gotcha-heavy—this is obviously a memorisation-heavy genre, and they were specifically aping Thunder Force which is sort of known for gotchas, but it feels like a non-stop cavalcade of unreasonable kills that you’ll never see coming, designed by someone who doesn’t understand the function of difficulty in games like these.
The other reason the game lost all its buzz is that the main developer alienated a lot of people through their endless quest for drama—they picked a big public fight with their publisher (Dangen Entertainment, who were by no means saints) but the dev’s insistence on running their mouth on twt/4ch saw a lot of fellow devs and allies disassociate with them, including the other makers of Devil Engine who requested their art/music be removed from the game (it wasn’t).
ICYMI, this wasn’t just a Japanese release, Retro-Bit/LRG picked it up for global release:
The tl;dr is that it’s the first-ever release of a game that was essentially completed back in 1990 but shelved for business reasons (the implication being that Nintendo “encouraged” Jaleco not to enter the MD market). P-47 was a fairly plain game and this version does remix it quite a bit, to the extent that they’re treating it like a separate game, but it’s more the novelty of being an authentic unearthed game from back in the day that has people interested. That said, I do think it’s above-average for a MD STG that would’ve released before or around Thunder Force III.
I started playing Super Star Soldier on the PC Engine and Last Batallion on the Sharp X68k, and I noticed they both have a similar speed mechanic where you can cycle through the ship’s movement speed while playing. I’m not used to this from the more modern shmups I’ve played. Some of those I’ve played have slower movement when firing a laser beam, let’s say. But nothing quite like this.
Is this pretty common? How do you all use it? Like are you changing speeds often and that’s part of the strategy? I’m a bit bewildered by it and unsure how to effectively use it.
I think it’s intended to give you better control over dodging things— in tight corridors for example, and a bunch of games do it in one form or another. I don’t especially use it in the games where you can toggle speed, but I do appreciate newer shooters (Cave ones in particular) that slow your movement when you hold down the regular shot button.
it was pretty common! it’s still used in some modern games, like rtype final 2/3, but you don’t see it as often in contemporary shooters these days.
it depends on the game, but from my experience it can range from training wheels (ie higher speeds are more optimal but hard to master) to strategy (tight corridors, heavy bullet/enemy density, etc). there’s no wrong way to use the functionality in most cases, so do whatever feels best for you unless you get stuck and think you need to reassess strategy.
Thank you + Karasu, much appreciate it! Gotta say, Super Star Soldier, Blazing Lazers, and Last Battalion (a.k.a. Override) all rule. Really enjoying their style and aesthetic. I had no idea Sting made shmups… I just know them from their aughts RPGs.
Does anyone else have any other favorite PC Engine and Sharp X68000 shmups worth checking out?
Sting formed out of the ashes of Compile, so they were almost commercially obliged to make a STG in the beginning. The guy who made their big breakout game Baroque was one of the key creators of Puyo Puyo and Madou Monogatari, incidentally.
Irem’s Image Fight is the one old-school game that really stands out as being very methodically designed around switching speeds and manually adjusting to match every scenario, but I feel like most other games of that era (including ones with speed-up powerups) basically just added it for players to use at their own discretion, and that they weren’t necessarily tuned around particular speeds in any meaningful way. Post-Cave games tend to be far more deliberate about expecting the player to regulate their movement speed via whatever means necessary, and there are of course games designed around touch/mouse movement, true analogue movement and other less traditional input methods that set their own expectations re: movement speed.
Cho Ren Sha 68K is the crown jewel of X68000 shooting games and a big influence on a lot of modern games—as it happens, it received a fresh Windows port a few months ago:
