Author Topic: Shooting games thread (Read 9709 times)

originalz · « **Reply #60 on:** February 19, 2011, 02:26:05 AM »

All right I came back. I told all you fools that Cave only cares about casual social game shit now!

Akai Katana Shin is bloody beautiful, the rank system seems to be a little different from the AC version, but I haven't played the consumer PCB release so I dunno if any changes were a result of that. Worth keeping your eye on. I'm pissed at the lack of Ibara Kuro.

Deathsmiles iOS was nearly impossible to play since my hands kept covering shit up. It's not so bad on verts, but in a game like DS where there are enemies and shit coming from all directions, it's really hard to keep track of everything. I also needed to switch my hand placement whenever I moved to the other side of the screen. Oh well, I'm sure you CASUAL shooting fans will love playing it on your iPhone and talk about how it's so much better than paying full retail price for a game.

Shin Megami Tensei Imagine sucks. I had to play it in order to quality for the goods bag at the end.

Inside the bag was a bunch of social network shit, and an Akai Katana toothbrush and metal cup. Also got some promotional fliers and stickers, yay.

Overall a decent event but it's obvious that shooting games are no longer Cave's core market. Hell, they didn't even have demo units of MMP/PS set up.

iconoclast · « **Reply #61 on:** February 19, 2011, 02:39:22 AM »

Hasn't their arcade division always been a relatively small part of their business though? Well maybe not "always", but for a long time now.

Anyway, here's the Akai Katana Shin PV:

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

SO GOD DAMN HOT. I always thought this game looked fun as fuck, even after all the naysaying. The aesthetics are excellent too - great graphics, art, theme, and music. I can't wait to finally play it.

And there are some screens here: http://www.andriasang.com/e/galleries/2011/02/19/akai_katana_shin_screens/

They completely redid the graphics for HD, including the backgrounds.

The Sceneman · « **Reply #62 on:** February 22, 2011, 09:45:20 PM »

bought Guwange while waiting for Muchi Muchi Pork and Pink Sweets to arrive. Awesome game, but I'm still trying to figure out how to play it exactly

did you 200 Guwange iconoclast? Do-able? No-miss on the final boss is gonna be a nightmare

iconoclast · « **Reply #63 on:** February 22, 2011, 10:10:31 PM »

No, I only got 150. The last achievement's description is inaccurate too - you have to no miss AND no bomb the final boss. I can come close to doing it, and I have done it several times while practicing with a savestate, but I always wind up blowing it in a normal run. And since you have to play the whole game from beginning to end every time you attempt it, it's a real bitch of an achievement.

Fun game though. 360 mode is awesome, even though it's piss easy. God-tier aesthetics too.

Might want to check out this guide to Guwange, written by a top player: http://www.siliconera.com/2010/11/17/cave-blog-a-guide-to-guwange-part-1/

Guwange is really hard though, and it's scoring system is incredibly harsh. Not a very beginner friendly game, but it is still fun.

iconoclast · « **Reply #64 on:** February 23, 2011, 10:13:03 AM »

Death Smiles ver 1.1 is really fun. Both vanilla 1.1 and MBL 1.1 are two of my favorite Arrange modes ever. They just crank the difficulty, throw millions of suicide bullets at you, and let you control your option with the stick so you can absorb them, all the while the game runs at 30% speed. Amazing.

I used to think the Death Smiles Virtuoso achievement (clear all stages at rank 3, including EX, no continues) would be nearly impossible, but actually I'm starting to think I can do it on a good run. Main problems for me right now are the dual dragons in the canyon and Jitterbug. Dragons are basically guaranteed to kill me at least once because of that insane rock pattern, and Jitterbug's final pattern is pretty ridiculous as well. But I think with some practice I can do it. I'm gonna try to get the 200 mil achievement as well, but 300 mil is out of my league.

Game's amazing though.

Death Smiles, the only good horizontal shooter

PS. The menu in Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets is awesome
[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

Hopefully NCSX ships my copy today.

Cravis · « **Reply #65 on:** February 23, 2011, 04:46:47 PM »

Picked up Project Sylpheed for the 360 but haven't got a chance to play it. I loved Silpheed on the Sega CD and PS2. I know this one is just a spiritual successor with gameplay more like Omega Boost.

The Sceneman · « **Reply #66 on:** February 23, 2011, 09:10:01 PM »

Play Asia shipped my copy of MMP & PS last night, should get it within a week

In the meantime I'm trying to get good at Guwange. 360 Arrange Mode is fun but seems like it's just there to boost the achievements. I like the regular Arcade Mode a lot more, it's hard as fuck though! Haven't tried Arrange Blue mode yet, whats the difference in that mode?

iconoclast · « **Reply #67 on:** February 23, 2011, 09:16:44 PM »

NCSX shipped my copy as well. Hopefully I'll get it tomorrow since I live like right next to them. I think I'll upload the arrange soundtrack to youtube once I get it too. Btw, beware of Pink Sweets. It is supposedly one of Cave's hardest games. Dat rank makes everyone its bitch.

Quote from: The Sceneman on February 23, 2011, 09:10:01 PM

In the meantime I'm trying to get good at Guwange. 360 Arrange Mode is fun but seems like it's just there to boost the achievements. I like the regular Arcade Mode a lot more, it's hard as fuck though! Haven't tried Arrange Blue mode yet, whats the difference in that mode?

The differences are fairly subtle, but I can't remember them off the top of my head. IIRC, chaining is easier and flashing pink+blue bullets disappear when you kill an enemy with your shikigami. I'm not 100% sure though, it's been a while since I played it.

And Project Sylpheed is awesome! One of the most underrated games this gen, and much more fun than Ace Combat 6. More people should play it. (it's not really a shooter though)

The Sceneman · « **Reply #68 on:** February 23, 2011, 09:38:40 PM »

awesome, can you up the arrange soundtrack to rapidshare or the like and link it here please? I'd love to get my hands on that music

iconoclast · « **Reply #69 on:** February 24, 2011, 03:20:59 PM »

Got MMP/PS today

Only played one credit on both games so far, but I already like both of them more than Ibara (to be fair, I've only played the bad PS2 version). Think I'm gonna play a little more before I go to bed.

The Sceneman · « **Reply #70 on:** February 24, 2011, 09:37:02 PM »

pls up Pink Sweets Arrange BGM plzzzzzz

iconoclast · « **Reply #71 on:** February 25, 2011, 05:56:36 AM »

Muchi Muchi Pork is fucking incredible. One of the top 5 Cave games without question. I was kinda 'eh' toward it yesterday, but that's because I completely misunderstood the scoring system. It's nowhere near as punishing as I thought it was, and it's actually kinda like Raiden Fighters, except you absorb all of the medals instantly when you let go of shot. So the scoring system is super fun; it's right up there with Ketsui, Death Smiles, and Futari as one of my favorites.

Of course, the bullet patterns and level design are fantastic as well. I love the goofy aesthetic too. Damn I love this game already.

Pink Sweets is fun too. I still haven't been able to make it to stage 4 on it though. Game's hard.

edit: Seriously, Muchi Pork is GODLIKE. Best Yagawa game ever, hands down. New Cave ranking:

1. Ketsui
2. Muchi Muchi Pork
3. DOJ Black Label
4. Death Smiles
5. Mushihime-sama Futari Black Label

Quote from: The Sceneman on February 24, 2011, 09:37:02 PM

pls up Pink Sweets Arrange BGM plzzzzzz

I was uploading the soundtrack to youtube, but there was some distortion in the songs so I took them down. Gotta figure out what I'm doing wrong first.

originalz · « **Reply #72 on:** February 25, 2011, 09:05:09 PM »

Pink Sweets seems to be a pretty solid port. Been able to replicate my runs well enough, although I always do worse on home consoles than the arcade for some reason. Maybe it's because I've played the game so much and understand the "proper" way to play it, but I really don't know why people bitch about the difficulty so much. As long as you know which bullets can be absorbed, you can get out of almost any situation. The main problem is if you die at the wrong spot, your game is more or less over since some parts are very difficult to get through without powerups.

Really, you just can't play PS like your typical shooter.

iconoclast · « **Reply #73 on:** February 25, 2011, 10:27:49 PM »

I've only played version 1.01 of Pink Sweets (since that's what the game defaults to, and they don't separate the leaderboards by version...), but it's still pretty hard. None of the first 4 stages are super difficult or anything, but for whatever reason I'm having a hard time making progress in it. It took me quite a few credits to make it to stage 4, and that's only halfway through the first loop! I guess most other people are having trouble with it too, since my [presumably crappy] 3.1 million score got me pretty high on the leaderboards...

originalz · « **Reply #74 on:** February 25, 2011, 10:49:25 PM »

I haven't really bothered with 1.01 yet so I can't really comment on it, but PS really isn't that tough once you get into the groove. Be aware that you should constantly be setting up bomb attacks and just using your rosehips for suppression fire. For most boss fights, trying to attack them normally is a mistake, you should just absorb their attacks, bomb, and immediately start charging for the next one.

Each character also plays very differently, so you should pick a character that fits with your playstyle. I'm personally a fan of Lace.

iconoclast · « **Reply #75 on:** February 26, 2011, 12:20:11 AM »

Quote from: EOJ

Just 1CC'd MMP Arcade with Ikuo (ver 1.00) with a crappy score of 116mil due to all the fucked up slowdown. Right now I'm the only "ALL" on the entire scoreboards, and the only guy in the top 20 playing Ver 1.00 instead of ver 1.01.

There is a huge programming error in the second half of stage 5 - after the section with the groups of planes that loop down then around the top of the screen and down again (right before the last 1/4 of the level), there should be a few waves of suicide planes. These planes never appear in the port. I've tried it a few times and it's always the same - just a few seconds of complete emptiness on screen. A few guys on 2Ch have similarly commented on this. This costs me a few million points. I hope they will patch this somehow.

As it stands, this is one of the worst Cave ports ever made. It's like PS2 Ibara or Mushihimesama all over again.

http://www.cave-stg.com/forum/index.php?topic=985.msg24040#msg24040

lulz. Can't say I'm surprised that these ports are messed up - everything just feels lazy, rushed, and thrown together with no real effort put in. But oh well, the games are still super fun. Hopefully Cave issues a patch or two and fixes the issues, but I'm not counting on it. Time to gather the pitchforks.

Bebpo · « **Reply #76 on:** February 26, 2011, 12:39:13 AM »

Wait, the ports are bad??

I just got my copy today and haven't popped it in. Every other ports by Cave on X360 has been great, why did they fuck these up?

originalz · « **Reply #77 on:** February 26, 2011, 12:56:11 AM »

Most of Cave's ports have been messed up in one way or another, so this isn't really that much of a surprise. Some problems get patched out, some don't. I don't really play much MMP in the arcades so I won't notice any problems, and EOJ is an asshole anyway so whatever. It's a bizarre error though, wonder how that happened. Haven't seen any problems with PS so far but I'm not the kind of person that memorizes the game so it's possible that there's something that I haven't noticed.

The integrated leaderboards is a huge mistake though and I can't imagine that not being fixed.

iconoclast · « **Reply #78 on:** February 26, 2011, 12:58:18 AM »

Well, having not played either PCB, I would not say the ports are bad (certainly not as bad as Ibara). They play well and they're both awesome games, but I guess the problem is there are a lot of differences from the PCB and some inaccurate slowdown in MMP. Cave is just really hit and miss with their ports imo - sometimes they just half-ass things (MMP&PS, Death Smiles 2) and other times they really put a lot of effort in (Daifukkatsu).

Honestly, Cave should just farm out all of their ports to M2, 5pb, or Arika. Though Arika doesn't want to work on 360/PS3 ports because they lack 240p.

iconoclast · « **Reply #79 on:** February 26, 2011, 01:37:32 AM »

God damn, the rank really catches up to you fast in MMP. Once the bar is 75% full, stages 3 and 4 become hard as hell. God damn you Yagawa

also, I wish the yellow girl wasn't so strong. I don't want to play a pig-loli, but she's so good it's hard to resist.

Bebpo · « **Reply #80 on:** February 26, 2011, 02:01:30 AM »

Ok, I played all 4 modes once each.

Much-muchi Pork - WTF IS THIS GAME loooooooooool. The music is like GALGAME dating high school music, your bombs make ROBO SAMURAI GIRLS appear with anime cut-ins and when you blow stuff up they turn into parachuting pigs

Seems fun. Your short range beam is kind of weird

Pink Sweets - weeeeeird mechanics. At first it seems ridiculously easy because your shield eats the bullets, but then after a stage or two it gets crazy and you're blowing up. Music is pretty awesome here too.

Both seem like they'll be fun and both seem better than Daifukkatsu (man, why did I buy that twice

)

iconoclast · « **Reply #81 on:** February 26, 2011, 02:45:59 AM »

Yeah, I love the wackiness of MMP. The short laser is the lard attack or something, it's used for building up your medals. Be sure to learn how to scoring system works too, it's one of my favorite of all time.

I'm gonna try to break 50 million tonight and get to stage 5.

HOLY SHIT the second half of stage 4 is INSANE with max rank. No way I'm getting to stage 5 tonight. At least I managed to make it to the stage 4 boss for the first time, and got a 57m score too. Only 3 million from the achievements :'(

iconoclast · « **Reply #82 on:** February 26, 2011, 06:57:50 AM »

Quote from: EOJ

For you achievement lovers, note that in this port you can change the number of lives, the difficulty, and the extend settings to anything you like and still unlock all of the achievements.

/

. I don't like this. I like having hard achievements to aim for. But on the other hand, this will probably be my first Cave completion, so hey I'll take it.

iconoclast · « **Reply #83 on:** February 26, 2011, 01:05:00 PM »

Nah, you can just mess with the settings to get achievements easily. In most other games, achievements are disabled when you change the settings, so I guess it's worth mentioning. To upload scores and replays to the leaderboards, you have to play score attack, and that is always on default settings.

Also, I just realized that MMP starts getting super hard because I'm not suiciding. Almost forgot I was playing a Yagawa game.

originalz · « **Reply #84 on:** February 26, 2011, 08:08:35 PM »

Huh, haven't you always been able to get achievements by changing the settings? Obviously it won't work for leaderboards (which he doesn't mention), but back when I was playing around with Deathsmiles lvl 999 I messed around with the settings and was still able to get some achievements.

iconoclast · « **Reply #85 on:** February 27, 2011, 01:18:07 AM »

It depends on the achievement, but for the most part they get disabled when you mess with the settings. There are a few exceptions though. In Mushi Futari, you can change the extends to every 80 mil and still unlock the achievement for defeating the TLB in Ultra mode. Or in Ketsui, you can play on Easy (which is barely any different...) when trying to get the achievements for 1-ALL'ing the game with both ships.

I think you can also mess with the settings in Death Smiles 2 and still get most of the achievements (which is why that's another easy 1000). It works for the Bloody Jitterbug one anyway.

And speaking of achievements, the list for Trouble Witches is out: http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/trouble-witches-neo/achievements/

Hopefully that means it's coming out soon.

originalz · « **Reply #86 on:** February 27, 2011, 07:38:43 AM »

Really though, I can't imagine messing with the settings being such a huge deal. If you can 2-ALL a game with 5 lives, you can probably do it with 3.

SNK is horrible with keeping release dates with their XBLA shit, I'll be bloody amazed if we see it before the summer.

iconoclast · « **Reply #87 on:** February 27, 2011, 07:44:35 AM »

I don't think it's SNK's fault really. I'm 100% positive Microsoft is sitting on quite a few finished games that are just waiting for a release slot. Like for example, Clash of Heroes HD has been finished since last year, and it's still nowhere in sight. Trouble Witches is probably in the same boat.

Quote from: originalz on February 27, 2011, 07:38:43 AM

Really though, I can't imagine messing with the settings being such a huge deal. If you can 2-ALL a game with 5 lives, you can probably do it with 3.

The major thing you can change is how often you get extends. I just played MMP with extends set to every 5 mil and got the achievement for dying 12 times in one run. And in DS2, I think you can change how much damage enemy bullets do to you. So you can just set it to 0 and clear the game with max health.

Anyway, MMP is quickly becoming one of my favorite shooters ever. What an amazing game. I wish it had gotten the full HD treatment and a lot more effort put into the port.

The Sceneman · « **Reply #88 on:** February 28, 2011, 07:03:59 AM »

MMP is indeed awesome, played a couple of times tonight. Didn't get a chance to play much though as I'm not feeling too well.

What do you get for redeeming the DLC code?

iconoclast · « **Reply #89 on:** February 28, 2011, 07:49:01 AM »

FYI, you need to redeem the DLC code with a Japanese account. It contains the "Matsuri" version of Muchi Pork, which features bosses from Pink Sweets. After you kill the regular MMP boss at the end of the stage, one from Pink Sweets will roll up right after.

iconoclast · « **Reply #90 on:** February 28, 2011, 03:42:09 PM »

Finally making some progress in Muchi Pork! Killed the stage 4 boss and proceeded to make it all the way to the final boss in stage 5. I got annihilated, but whatever, I'll get him eventually. Got a 115m score and #15 on the leaderboard too. Check out my scrubby replay!

MMP is pretty close to topping Ketsui as my favorite shooter ever. Fuck I love this game.

Bebpo · « **Reply #91 on:** February 28, 2011, 08:27:27 PM »

I read the shmups forum strategies for the arcade releases of MMP and PS and watched the top replays and yeah, I still have no idea how the scoring system works for the 4 modes (arcade x 2, arrange x 2).

I understand that in MMP arcade you want to kill things with lard attack to produce medals and somehow you can make the medals bigger and bigger until the max of big gold ones and then you keep getting big gold ones forever? until you die when you kill with lard and then refill lard with standard shot. I can get to the gold points by stage 2, but the top replay gets to them by midway through stage 1. I have no idea what he's doing.

Then in MMP arrange uh, somehow you build up a counter and when it's max and you do lard attack there are lots and lots and lots of bullets but your lard thing slows them down so you can dodge them and you get tons of points. Also in the top replay the guy suicides right away twice in a row. No idea why.

In PS arcade, you want to never use the rose crack (to keep rank low) and just shoot things with shot while dodging stuff? How do you adjust your rate of fire? I thought it was tapping shot but it never changed from #10 for me. In the replays the guy suicides at random spots. No idea why.

in PS arrange, you want to use rose crack nonstop to get your bonus meter up to x64 and then use normal shots to kill enemies while the x64 chain is going. Repeat throughout and then launch your options at certain points for even more points? If I'm understanding this right, PS arrange actually seems the most straightforward of the scoring systems.

That's all for playing for score. Now if you want to play for 1CC, what is the best way to play MMP/MMP Arrange/PS/PS Arrange? I get that PS arcade, you don't use rose crack, don't pick up point stuff, and try to fire your gun as little as possible and suicide at spots? No idea about the other 3 though.

Also I need to add you guys on XBLA. Under friend leaderboards I have one guy and I'm not sure which one of you he is.

The Sceneman · « **Reply #92 on:** February 28, 2011, 09:06:55 PM »

In MMP you generate medals with the lard attack, and you suck em in when you fire your standard shot. Once you've sucked in all the medals on the screen, the medal score gets higher. ie. once you've sucked in a batch of 100pt medals the next lot will be 200pts, and so on. I watched iconoclast's replay and you can get up to 10,000 pt medals really fast by quickly alternating between lard and shot to level up the medals quickly.

I'm still not sure what fucks up your chain, though. I think if you let medals fall off the bottom of the screen that will reset your counter? Dying effects it too I think. I dunno I'm still learning the game myself.

It's fun as fuck, thats for sure. Very rewarding to play and very addictive. I've only managed to get a few rounds in so far as I've been busy with illness, school and job interview but I'm gonna buttfuck that porku tonight.

Pink Sweets has awesome music but the game is ass rapingly hard, especially for a blaster nub such as myself. I will get good. I will trot out my greatest shmup achievement for the trillionth time: I managed to 2cc Ikaruga once so I can be good at these games with practice.

Add me Bebpo - gtag: Sceneman

iconoclast · « **Reply #93 on:** February 28, 2011, 09:09:05 PM »

In MMP, you need to quickly alternate normal shot and lard attacks to build your medals quickly. At the start of stage 1, after you kill the first two waves of enemies and power up once (thus enabling the lard attack), try to hit only one or two enemies with the lard attack and get the 100 pt medal from them. After you absorb those medals, the next medals you get will be worth 200 pts. So kill another popcorn enemy with the normal shot, grab the pig to get a tiny amount of power, and use the lard attack on another popcorn enemy and absorb their medals. Then you just quickly repeat that as fast as you can until you get up to the max of 10,000. I usually have my medals maxed by the first mid-boss.

You don't stay at 10,000 forever though. If you let a medal fall off screen, it'll knock their value back down to 1000 pts. But that's not necessarily true - you can let medals drop off screen IF you are in the middle of a lard attack. So if there's a huuuuge wave of enemies coming up, you can just hold the lard down the entire time and let a bunch of medals fall off screen. As long as you survive and absorb the remaining medals, you'll still be at 10,000.

I don't really know anything about Pink Sweets, so I can't help much there. I need to research it a little more before I really dive into it. And I haven't even tried either arrange mode besides the MMP Matsuri version.

Also, take note: the guides on shmups/cave-stg are for the arcade versions of MMP and PS. The 360 port defaults to version 1.01 for both games (the arcade games are version 1.00). The MMP guide still works pretty well since there isn't much difference between the modes, but as far as I know, there are quite a few differences in Pink Sweets. So a lot of the stuff in the guide probably won't apply to it.

Playing MMP solely for survival is a little tricky, I think. If you have 3-5 lives in stock, the rank progresses faster, so you need to suicide when you're doing well to keep things from getting too crazy. Personally, I haven't bothered doing that yet since I constantly die to stupid shit (running into random bullets, crashing into enemies, etc) so I need all the lives I can get.

originalz · « **Reply #94 on:** February 28, 2011, 11:47:07 PM »

If anyone doesn't want their Matsuri DLC card, I'll pay good cash for it.

Quote from: Bebpo on February 28, 2011, 08:27:27 PM

In PS arcade, you want to never use the rose crack (to keep rank low) and just shoot things with shot while dodging stuff? How do you adjust your rate of fire? I thought it was tapping shot but it never changed from #10 for me. In the replays the guy suicides at random spots. No idea why.

I disagree with this, I've always played PS with constant absorbing and bombing. You can play it normally and just go for those multiplying flower medals, but your score will still suck unless you bomb the shit out of everything. They key is just to know what can and can't be absorbed, and in most situations you want to immediately charge another bomb as soon as you let one off. Playing the game by only using standard attacks can get you through most situations (although boss battles will be difficult), but your score will suffer and I think it teaches you bad habits since near the end of the game it's very difficult to survive without absorbing and bombing. The way you bomb will depend on which character you use. Remember that you can still fire your rosehips while you're charging!

I really don't think rank is that much of a problem with PS, everyone bitches about how difficult the game is, but I find it easier than Ibara and after the game "clicked" with me I found it to be very reasonable. I can usually make it to at least stage 5 before losing a life unless I get unlucky. Even if your rank rises really high, it's all countered by the ability to absorb bullets and bomb through tough patterns (which also exponentially increases your score). Extends are so plentiful in the game on default settings too. That first life is really important, though! Losing your rose hips and powerups can be absolutely brutal, and no amount of extra lives will be enough if you die at the wrong point. The final boss is especially tough because of this, he has several forms and you absolutely need to have a strong ship unless you want the battle to take an hour.

Arrange mode is so easy! Letting you stack additional rosehips and starting you off with a powerup when you die helps quite a bit!

The Sceneman · « **Reply #95 on:** March 01, 2011, 12:02:58 AM »

I've got a Matsuri code, I doubt I'll ever be bothered to set up a JP account and redeem it.

I can PM it to you when I get home.

Um, how much cash is good cash? Are these things valuable? I was just gonna give it away...

originalz · « **Reply #96 on:** March 01, 2011, 12:12:09 AM »

They usually go for around $10 on the secondhand market, which is what I would be looking to pay for it (not that I would object if you wanted to give it away for less). It'd mainly be for a friend who's interested in the game but doesn't want to buy it right now, by the time he gets it I'm sure those first-print copies will be long gone. I'm sure he'd appreciate it if I could score him an extra code!

The Sceneman · « **Reply #97 on:** March 01, 2011, 12:14:18 AM »

cool, well 10 bucks aint shit

I'll hook you up with the code, becuase we hook each other up on The Bore

This game already has enough gameplay modes to keep me going for ages

originalz · « **Reply #98 on:** March 01, 2011, 01:36:06 AM »

Ohhh good lookin out. It probably won't be used for around a month or whatever, so if you decide you want to play the mode I'll make sure it stays unused so you can get it back without any difficulties.

The Sceneman · « **Reply #99 on:** March 01, 2011, 01:42:02 AM »

In that case I'll just hold onto it and you can hit me up later or something

originalz · « **Reply #100 on:** March 01, 2011, 03:52:36 AM »

Sounds fair! Def appreciate it!

iconoclast · « **Reply #101 on:** March 03, 2011, 10:47:52 PM »

Pink Sweets Arrange mode is SO GOOD

Some of Cave's arrange modes this gen have been great. DFK Arrange A, DFK BL Ketsui arrange (I guess), Pink Sweets Arrange, Death Smiles 2X, Death Smiles 1.1 & MBL 1.1, and DOJ BLEX and Ketsui have good X-modes

console ports

iconoclast · « **Reply #102 on:** March 04, 2011, 03:04:58 PM »

Are the sales out? I wouldn't expect it to sell more than like 7 or 8 thousand, since both games were fairly unpopular in the arcades & it's a pretty bare bones port.

I'm curious how well Akai Katana will do, since that's another game that didn't do very well in the arcades, but Cave is going all out with the port anyway.

Anyway, the differences in MMP Matsuri aren't very subtle. After you kill a normal MMP boss, a boss from Pink Sweets will come up right after him. So you fight all (?) of the bosses from both games in one run. Depends if that interests you, I guess.

iconoclast · « **Reply #103 on:** March 04, 2011, 03:49:56 PM »

Damn @ 38. Must have been a nuclear bomb.

I don't think any achievements are unlockable in the Matsuri version. Most of the achievements specify where they have to be done (arcade or arrange).

Bebpo · « **Reply #104 on:** March 04, 2011, 03:55:20 PM »

I think the problem Cave is facing is just that the X360 audience in Japan is shrinking by the day. It's one thing to be releasing niche titles on a healthy userbase and another to release them on a totally dead system.

Hope the social games save them.

iconoclast · « **Reply #105 on:** March 04, 2011, 05:56:14 PM »

I think that's the reason why Cave is rushing all of these ports out. They know that no one in Japan has a 360 any more so they're just pumping them out as fast as they can. They really need to get ALL of their games out in the west. Daifukkatsu is probably coming and Akai Katana will most likely come, but that's only a fraction.

Or hell, take damn break from consoles and start making more arcade games.

Anyway, just beat the Pink Sweets arrange (173m with Shasta). Really awesome game, and I can understand where people are coming from when they say Pink Sweets difficulty is comparable to Ultra in Mushihime. If the stages are the same in the arcade version, then the difficulty ramps WAY the fuck up after stage 4. I was having a hard time just surviving in the damn arrange mode lol.

edit: also, I got my 7000th achievement in Muchi Pork. Yay.

iconoclast · « **Reply #106 on:** March 05, 2011, 06:48:05 PM »

There's supposed to be a Bullet Soul demo eventually as well. I'm looking forward to trying it out, because right now I'm kinda iffy toward the game. So far, from what I've seen anyway, the game consists entirely of bullet cancelling (every enemy cancels their own bullets when killed) so it's like the only time you have to dodge anything is when you're fighting mid-bosses and bosses. But I'll see for myself I guess.

Eschatos on the other hand looks great, and it comes with Judgment Silversword & Cardinal Sins to boot.

Qute

originalz · « **Reply #107 on:** March 06, 2011, 06:57:33 PM »

Most 360 sales these days are done through online which isn't tracked through Media Create, so you can't really call a game a bomb just through retail sales alone. I know that Galuda 2 had a signifigant amount of online sales, but who knows with MMP/PS I guess.

I played the Bullet Soul demo at TGS and thought it was enjoyable. I honestly don't remember that much but I didn't get the impression that it was an easy game, and it seems to be very score-focused like a caravan shooter with lots of hidden bonuses. Def worth keeping an eye on.

maxy · « **Reply #108 on:** March 07, 2011, 05:50:41 AM »

Quote

We talk to 2D specialists Cave and Arc System Works about the enduring appeal of hardcore fighting and shooting games.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/mar/04/2d-forever-japanese-game-design

Quote

There is a popular misconception that 2D games are somehow easier to produce or at least less taxing on modern hardware. This is not the case. When some players moaned that last year's BlazBlue sequel, Continuum Shift, only added four new characters to the roster, they seemed unaware of the intense development detail that goes into each new addition. "Every character goes through a long process of specification and design," says Mori. "Initial sketches, colouring, how the character moves, animates and behaves, and then finally fine tuning and adjustment. Each one takes roughly five months and over 1000 individual drawings to perfect, so you can begin to appreciate the volume of work involved in the 2D style of fighting games." That's also a lot of data to include in a game file, which explains why you won't be seeing any BlazBlue titles on XBLA or PSN without significant alternations – they're too big.

Interestingly, 3D graphics are involved in the BlazBlue process, but only in the development phase. When the initial concept sketches for new characters are produced, the company's artists all have different drawing styles and produce designs of wildly different dimensions. Consequently, 3D rendering software is used to unify the various designs, ensuring they all work to the same scale, and that the physical movements imagined by the art team can actually work in the virtual space. Then it's back to hand drawing all the animations.

Quote

This process, instigated by Mori, has apparently sped up the development cycle considerably. Earlier today, when the Arc duo were visiting Future Publishing, one journalist asked Ishiwatari about the longest time he'd ever spent at the office without going home. "18 months," was he rather astonishing reply, referring to his work on the last Guilty Gears title. When he tells me this story, Mori quietly adds, "There is a public bath around the corner from the office. That helped." Now, most of the staff keep regular hours – apart from Mori. "The Arc building has two floors," he explains. "The ground floor is the office, and the top floor is a big storage room with a large couch. That is now called Mori's bedroom."

Quote

But there are great opportunities for expansion. We're now seeing a vast userbase of mature Western gamers clamouring for interesting and unusual titles. As a result, there's a growing number of publishers specialising in bringing 'cult' Japanese titles to European and American audiences. Set up in 2004, Rising Star is a key example. The Luton-based company has brought over the likes of Harvest Moon, Deadly Premonition, Half-Minute Hero and DeathSmiles, all to critical acclaim and decent sales. "There's a big fan base for Japanese games in Europe, especially for JRPGs," says marketing manager, Yen Hau. "There are a lot of people who appreciate their authenticity, their quirkiness. We've worked with Cave, SNK, Grasshopper Manufacture… DeathSmiles was Cave's first retail release in Europe and it's done really well. That deal came though us asking our community what games they'd like to see over here. We have an open dialogue with our gamers and there was a real enthusiasm for this game. So we approached Cave at the Tokyo Game Show, that was how it started."

Bebpo · « **Reply #109 on:** March 07, 2011, 07:05:29 AM »

Quote from: maxy on March 07, 2011, 05:50:41 AM

Quote
We talk to 2D specialists Cave and Arc System Works about the enduring appeal of hardcore fighting and shooting games.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/mar/04/2d-forever-japanese-game-design

Quote
But there are great opportunities for expansion. We're now seeing a vast userbase of mature Western gamers clamouring for interesting and unusual titles. As a result, there's a growing number of publishers specialising in bringing 'cult' Japanese titles to European and American audiences. Set up in 2004, Rising Star is a key example. The Luton-based company has brought over the likes of Harvest Moon, Deadly Premonition, Half-Minute Hero and DeathSmiles, all to critical acclaim and decent sales. "There's a big fan base for Japanese games in Europe, especially for JRPGs," says marketing manager, Yen Hau. "There are a lot of people who appreciate their authenticity, their quirkiness. We've worked with Cave, SNK, Grasshopper Manufacture… DeathSmiles was Cave's first retail release in Europe and it's done really well. That deal came though us asking our community what games they'd like to see over here. We have an open dialogue with our gamers and there was a real enthusiasm for this game. So we approached Cave at the Tokyo Game Show, that was how it started."

Superior European taste confirmed. Maybe Europe will get the rest of the Cave games

tiesto · « **Reply #110 on:** March 07, 2011, 09:05:14 AM »

The DQ series also sells better in Europe too than the US. So not only do most Euro nations have a better government than we do, they also have better game taste.

Bebpo · « **Reply #111 on:** March 07, 2011, 02:11:36 PM »

Europe sales remind me of US sales a decade ago. They apparently didn't go into the "we hate all things Japanese" mode that US consumers did.

iconoclast · « **Reply #112 on:** March 07, 2011, 11:22:41 PM »

~~Death Smiles did pretty well in the US too. I think DFK and Akai Katana will get western releases for sure... everything else is up in the air.~~

Anyway, just came soooooo close to clearing the first loop of MMP. Got to the final phase of the last boss, but I choked of course. I need to practice him and the stage 4 boss. I had 2 spare lives when I got to him too, and even with all my bombs I couldn't take him out. Yagawa sure loves long and hard boss fights...

Maybe if I started playing Rafute I could clear it, but every time I play with her I do horrible. I don't like her lard shot, so I just keep playing Momo. Ah well.

Also, there's an interview here with Makoto Asada (producer at Cave): http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35789

Very interesting. He's clearly responsible for Cave branching out and trying Nin2 Jump and Instant Brain... I just hope he doesn't get in the way of them making more shooters. Asada giveth and he taketh away.

Seriously, this interview is a goldmine. I was going to copy+paste some quotes here, but damn near every sentence he says is quote worthy. He sounds miserable.

iconoclast · « **Reply #113 on:** March 08, 2011, 06:39:33 PM »

Never mind my previous post, Aksys says they were "reasonably satisfied" with DS sales, but are not pursuing any similar games. http://www.aksysgames.com/forums/topic/1111#post-16437
(saw this on cave-stg: http://www.cave-stg.com/?p=1119)

North Americans prove they have shit taste once again...

edit:

Fuck yes! Cleared the first loop of Muchi Muchi Pork with Rafute.

I finally had a run where I didn't make a hundred stupid mistakes. Made it to the final boss with 3 or 4 lives in stock and blew right through him (literally - I used like 8 bombs). Made it through 2-1, but I blew it on 2-2. Died a bunch to shit I wasn't prepared for, although I almost took the second boss down. I also put a 145m replay up if anyone wants to check it out (currently ranked #17).

The Sceneman · « **Reply #114 on:** March 08, 2011, 09:46:40 PM »

you motherfucker. I'll grab that replay and study it closely. I haven't had a chance to get my teeth into MMP fully yet... I'll be aiming to get a good amount of cheevs and at least get in the top 100 on the Arcade leaderboards.

Wish me luck $:-\$

iconoclast · « **Reply #115 on:** March 08, 2011, 09:57:05 PM »

I'm not very good, so I wouldn't try too hard to pick up any of my patterns or something. Although I think watching replays of lower skilled players (compared to the top players) can be beneficial, since it gives you a lower bar to aim for. Like if you download EOJ's replay (he's #2 I think), he does lots of boss milking and shit that seems ridiculous to newer players. People lower on the leaderboard are usually going for a decent score, but they're also just trying to survive since they haven't mastered the game yet.

iconoclast · « **Reply #116 on:** March 13, 2011, 06:07:06 AM »

So hot. If I had money to blow I would totally order this.

choco parfait · « **Reply #117 on:** March 13, 2011, 05:03:54 PM »

Quote from: iconoclast on March 08, 2011, 06:39:33 PM

North Americans prove they have shit taste once again...

Unfortunately it's just proof that the shmup market is still very niche. Sales of DS left a lot to be desired, I'm afraid. Whether that was because of the game, the demographics, or the genre, we don't know.

originalz · « **Reply #118 on:** March 14, 2011, 12:00:21 AM »

Maybe it's for the best and a competent publisher will pick up the slack. I mean, Aksys did a good job with getting the game out there, but I didn't exactly agree with their whole "hurr we're so edgy check out these LOLIS all over the game isn't it so BIZARRE! Take a look at our WACKY dialogue, we're such a clever company that localizes CRAZY JAPANESE GAMES!" Bloody embarrassing.

iconoclast · « **Reply #119 on:** March 14, 2011, 08:50:46 AM »

Rising Star seems to have a good relationship with Cave, so there will probably be more shooters for Europe at least.

--

Just had my most demoralizing defeat ever. Was FINALLY going to 1cc Mushi Futari Original with Reco, but on the last 5-10% of Larsa's health, I lost my last life. And the worst part is, I still had a bomb in stock so it would have been over if I used it. But I thought, nah, I can dodge her final patterns easily. No need to use it. And I was wrong.

Ah well, I'll kill that fat bitch soon. I just want to clear Original with Reco so I never have to play it again. I really don't like playing stages 1 and 2 any more, they are way too easy so it's just tedious to play through them.

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