Getting Gold For Releasing Your Load

A lot of people are pretty passionate about so-called 'social games' on computers and smartphones currently. Okay, passionate is not the right word. ADDICTED is probably the right word. Like there’s a thin membrane laced with crack cocaine right under the touch screens and its been seeping into their skins. None of that namby-pamby baking, shopping, or tending for me though.

My crack-game of late has been Akai Katana Shin on the Xbox 360. I’ve spent more recent hours on Mortal Kombat attempting to get a last few achievements, in what should’ve been an afterthought, but turned out to be way too much work. Freeing myself from that bloodbath, I’ve been playing Cave’s latest shooter in earnest now, and I find it really hard to put down.

I enjoy Cave shooting games in general, but this title has even more of ‘the one more try’ factor than the rest of their catalog. The disc has three versions of Akai Katana on it, Shin, Arcade, and Zetsu. I’ve been playing Shin mode predominantly, and it has weapons and scoring so awesome and cathartic that replaying the early stages on restart hasn’t gotten the least bit tiresome to me. This post is going to deal mostly with Shin mode, then. The disc is region-locked to Japan. If you don't have a JPN console you can't play this, though I'd dare to say this game would be a big incentive to get one.

Like any Cave shooter, you can either play ‘for survival’ or ‘for score’… these terms used by gamers as nutshell phrases trying to encompass the balance between risk and reward. If you want to generate more or bigger scoring items you are going to have to put your ship (or avatar) at risk by getting closer to enemies before you shoot them, letting the screen fill with extra bullets, or milk boss characters for extended lengths of time… some version of ‘extra jeopardy’ rather than simply trying to kill every enemy as fast as possible to increase each ship’s survival time by minimising enemy fire. It is these sorts of risk/reward mechanics that make shooters compelling, and it’s where Cave’s particular style of STG excels. Also in Akai Katana Shin, as in most Cave games, learning to play well for score eventually ends up benefiting your survival as the extends come sooner or more frequently, and the timing and strategy you needed to get that score translate into survival skills. Once a player learns the ins and outs of a Cave game, playing for score IS playing for survival.

The thing about Akai Katana Shin for me is that the visual and audio depiction of the scoring system is so frickin’ cool… it just has ‘something’. But the risk, most of the time, is not nearly as brutal as other Cave games. And it is recoverable. If you fail to take advantage of a high scoring section, it won’t take long for you to reach another opportunity. It doesn’t feel (though I could be wrong) that getting the highest scores is nearly as ‘scripted’ as it is in say Ketsui or Dodonpachi Daioujou.

I also found that the blending of score and survival play styles came MUCH sooner. I love Ketsui, and I’ve dumped a lot of hours into it, but I’m still playing the entire second half of that game in pure survival mode. With Akai Katana Shin, I’m deliberately risking ruining great runs to the end by trying to keep huge chains alive and lining up as many bullets as possible in the sights of my super-weapon… and loving every minute of it. Yeah, yeah, I still curse when I die, but I think Cave hit on the perfect combination for me. In an earlier post about Bangai-O HD, I remarked on the cathartic thrill of that game’s over-the-top screen-filling uber-weapon. Akai Katana Shin pushes the same buttons with its ‘Ninja mode’ katana blitz.

For those who can’t be bothered with trying to dig up the info online: In Akai Katana Shin you pick one of three pilots/planes. Each corresponds to the typical Cave rules; one with narrow, straight but strong shots. One with a fair amount of spread to the pattern, but a little weaker. One with wide, fanned out shots that catch most of the screen but are quite weak and will not make short work of many of the enemies. Each pilot also has a ‘Ninja’ companion, who normally exists as a sort of ‘option’ orbiting the player’s plane. After building meter, you push a button and your plane switches out for a large, flying human (and no option), who has enhanced abilites and is the secret to triggering the aforementioned uber-weapon awesomeness. Again typical of Cave (and danmaku in general) if you hold down the fire button in any mode it focuses your shots at the expense of speed. The bombs in Akai Katana do clear enemy bullets as well as destroying the enemy themselves. A form of auto-bomb is the default. If you get hit by an enemy, while on your last life, the game will trigger your entire remaining bomb stock to keep you alive.

--If you use normal shot (rhythmic tapping), dead or injured enemies release light blue orbs (magatama actually, the comma-shape that figures heavily in Japanese history and myth) that power a couple of your Ninja abilities and keep a chain counter going.
--If you use focused shot (button held) the enemies release green energy orbs that increase the amount of time you can spend in Ninja mode.

When you are all ready to go, switching to Ninja form gives you two options;

--A defensive ‘blue Ninja’ (rhythmic tapping) who slows incoming bullets down and can continue to collect blue orbs.
--Or the offensive ‘red Ninja’ whose fire collects ‘katana’ swords from dead enemies. .

So basically, you fly through the stages, mostly using regular shot to collect blue orbs, with the occasional dip into focused shot to get some green E’s, it doesn’t take a lot of energy to fill up and sporadic use of focused shot won’t break your hit chain.

Progress collecting is indicated by a glowing ring of characters around your ship and a green bar at the top of the screen. At any time you can switch to Ninja mode and it will consume whatever you have in green bar. The blue orbs you collected will be reflected in the number of magatama surrounding your ninja. You can stay ‘defensive’and treat the Ninja like your regular old ship albeit he/she can slow down incoming fire somewhat, but there’s a time limit based on how much green you had in the meter before you changed. Or you can go ‘offensive’, by holding down the fire button, switching to red. This shoots out the circle of magatama and they cause damage to enemies and cancel bullets. As they do this, they fling katana back to your ninja. So really, the more blue orbs you collect before you switch, the more magatama, and katana, you will have to work with. If you hold fire down as the red Ninja portions of your fire output will gather additional katana from dead enemy, but your green bar timer is still counting down, so it’s better to collect what you can before triggering Ninja mode.

With a cloud of katana surrounding you, here’s the REALLY fun bit. Apart from the blue orbs and green E items, there are gold scoring items marked with a red G. You get these in various sizes when you kill enemies in different ways in Ninja mode. As I said earlier, when you switch BACK to ship mode, any katana hovering around your ninja will shoot forward (or wherever you aimed them). Anything they strike, will be destroyed and emit clouds of the biggest form of gold item. They blossom all over the screen and then get immediately sucked into your ship. Opportunities to do this come frequently in the game. And if you amass enough swords before unloading, any enemy apart from end bosses will go down with one glorious, slowdown-inducing barrage.

If I had any criticism about the game itself, it would be that all this orb-gathering and gold-fountaining frequently obscures the awesome artwork on display in the game’s graphics. Akai Katana’s art style is reminiscent of the stodgy ironworks machines found in titles like Metal Slug or In The Hunt. But you’d have to play through seriously reducing your scoring attempts in order to see a lot of it! The way it all works is so awesome however, that the complaint is kind of pathetic and hollow really.

The above explanation does not encompass many of the subtleties in the game and its scoring but it gives the gist. Essentially what you have here is a game with such cool and layered weaponry, that the time-honored, screen-clearing bomb is almost unnecessary. Through some strategic timing, you almost always have overwhelming force on tap. It is seriously boner-inducing when you get a full complement of swords lined up on a huge midboss, let some popcorn enemies gather around him, and then wait for scads of enemy fire to blanket the screen and almost reach you… then trigger twelve katana right into the heart of the shitstorm, flying your plane behind that steel wall of consuming death so that you can vacuum up all the gold that much quicker.

Practically a video game orgasm. Ooh! That’s what the appeal actually is! Cave has distilled human sexual response into a shooting game! YES!

Seriously, I could go on and on about the other things the game does so right. I think Cave soundtracks are generally ‘okay’. Usually I think they are appropriate for whatever game and usually there’s one or two standout tunes (ie, the TLB theme from Ketsui), but not the sort of thing I’d spend a ton of time listening to on my iPod. The music from Akai Katana Shin isn’t going to make my favorites list, but it is a damn sight better and more memorable than most of their previous music. I’ve already mentioned the visuals, but additionally, this is the first Cave game in a while where ‘lolis’ in some form were NOT front and center. Instead the game has a sort of old-fashioned industrial feel with clunky little tanks and turrets, and prop planes. All the player characters, teen girls included, are dressed in a military manner, and pretty lacking in fan service opportunities. That isn’t to say the character art is particularly manly. It is still pretty swishy, as seems to be the style these days. But the armies and weapons are glorious. Rendered in HD-friendly resolution, and with plenty of screen adjustment options. Also, it’s horizontally-oriented, so no tate required.

I don’t think this game will necessarily make a gamer a fan of the bullet hell style. And it may actually vary from the Cave formula, with its multiple uber-weapon system, too much for a lot of Cave diehards. Also, since it’s a hori like Progear and Deathsmiles. So vert-only players might shun this too. But to me this game just does everything so right. It is absolutely spectacular, and brings enough new things to the table that it doesn’t play like any other Cave game… or any other shooter that I can think of.

There was one massive oversight, though, and I’m kind of baffled that Cave, at the time of this writing, has not issued a patch to fix: you cannot enter your initials on the high score tables. If you post your score to an Xbox Live leaderboard it DOES use your gamertag, so proper credit is attributed. But in ‘local’ terms you can’t ID the scores played on YOUR console. Pretty glaring considering high score tables, and their three initial entries, are pretty much rock-standard in shooters since Space Invaders.

That error aside, I can’t recommend Akai Katana Shin highly enough. I haven’t even really scratched the surface on Arcade and Zetsu modes. Arcade is essentially a recreation of the original game, complete with the faults that got it kind of a lukewarm reception in Japanese arcades. But it is the mode that allows two players at once. Zetsu is a sort of ‘fixed’ version of Arcade and would be the de facto standard now for basic Akai Katana (without the Shin part of the title). Unless some super surprise entry blindsides me between now and Christmas, Akai Katana Shin will probably end of Game Of The Year for me in 2011.
(screenshot ripped from Andriasang)

This Bastard

The stage four boss for the XBLA shooter game, Strania: The Stella Machina. I want to kick this guy in the ding-ding.

I died more times trying to work out how to get past him. Holy crap. The levels and boss fights past him are easier... including his giganto form in stage six, fifty times the size of your robot.

I have sort of learned the knack for beating him now. That pic showing the lasers filling the screen isn't even the hardest attack of his to avoid.

THEN. I get past him, eventually finishing the game and get... nothing. You have to play on 'hard' or 'expert' in order to activate stage seven, the REAL last boss fight, AND THEN if you beat that you get the ending and credits. But if you die during stage seven, its game over, no continues, no second chances, nothing.

Needless to say I haven't managed it quite yet. The game lets you train on any level you've reached so I have managed to figure out how to get through stage seven, but I've haven't done it in an actual game turn.

But I will. Despite some of the nightmarish choices made in the name of challenge (evil stage seven, restart checkpoints for bosses, must play on hard/expert to win) by those sadistic jerks at G.Rev, the game is really fun. Spectacular visuals (despite being kinda budget), cool soundtrack, good (if somewhat coarse) controls, and really fast pace. It is NOT a danmaku in the tradition of Cave games, but it still manages to have a lot going onscreen. About the only criticism I have about the game is it being a little too easy to wind up with a weapon you don't want, but they have a way around that too (swing your sword as you pass through).

The game is short, but that's in the nature of the STG genre. Well worth the MS points it costs to download.

Porkin' That Sweet Pink

Yeah, I know, right?

Using words from a game title like that is truly sophomoric, but I’m sure half the game’s purchasers have already made a similar joke themselves. Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets, is the name of the recent double-pack of manic shooters from Cave for the Xbox 360. Hell, Cave had to know what fodder for dirty phrasing they had when they decided to put the games together!

Okay, I’m only making it worse by putting the artwork for the protagonists in Pink Sweets, the Rose Sisters, up at the top there. I’ll put an in-game shot in here somewhere too… to prove it ain’t THAT kind of game.

Originally MMP and PS were NOT together. The disc is based on arcade games put out back in 2007 and 2006 respectively. Home versions of the arcade originals are 1.00 in the package, and they are accompanied by tweaked versions 1.01 that reduce the brutality somewhat, along with Cave’s usual assortment of so-called arrange modes. Also there’s a really neat ‘matsuri version’ (as DLC) that drops the Pink Sweets bosses into a version of the MMP game.

No HD-friendly upgrading has been done to the visuals. There are a variety of options for resizing the play area to fit your screen, and there is the typical smoothing filter that can be toggled. Players can also change between arcade and arrange soundtracks for each stage of both games. Some of the alternate tracks didn’t sound like different musical arrangements at all, but wholly different compositions. In general I prefer the originals, they seem to fit the themes of the games better.

And the games have VERY distinct themes. I used the word brutality earlier in the post, but looking at these games artwork, ‘brutal’ might not be a word that’d come to mind. Both games are cute and comedic, with Pink Sweets going heavy on the cuteness-- bright rainbow colors and toy-like enemies, and Muchi Muchi Pork leaning toward comedy with everything being pig-themed and slapstick. Despite the pixellated nature of the graphics, the art styles really shine through. Muchi Muchi Pork in particular has a ton of variety to the backgrounds and enemies and really cool drawn inserts to further the story, with awesome little frames of animated robots every time you launch a bomb.

Pink Sweets

But yuks and sweetness aside, the games are monsters on the difficulty… bordering on abusive. Danmaku (curtain fire, manic, or bullet hell, take your pick) shooters, as all of Cave’s shooter output is, these games bear the stamp of lead programmer Shinobu Yagawa. If you’ve played Battle Garegga or Battle Bakraid, then you’ll have some idea, mechanically, about what you can expect from these games. Tons of enemies coming at you from all directions, gobs of stuff you have to collect (including bomb fragments in MMP), and rank, rank, rank… the difficulty increase leveraged in-game if a player is doing well. It is typical for expert players of Yagawa-made games to have all sorts of strategies for avoiding powerups, and reducing stocks of extra ships and bombs, all towards inducing the game to keep the rank low. Conversely, experts playing for score might do everything they can do jack the rank up high, at least at certain points, to force out as many enemies or bullets (if there’s a bullet canceling aspect) as possible. As I understand it, by reputation MMP’s rank is manageable and not much of a concern to good players until near the end of the game. But Pink Sweets has a rep for being perhaps the most punishing Cave game of all. With all the attention and notoriety that rank has in these games, this home version set comes with visible ‘rank meters’ (called ‘difficulty gage’) that you can display to show you how your play strategies and skills are affecting the abuse level.

Having played both of them now, I have to say they are both good games, but far beyond my ability to play well at this point. Pink Sweets is understandable. It is hard, ranks up quickly, and has bomb and powerup mechanics that are really different than any other Cave game. Certain enemy bullet types can be destroyed by your own shot and I’m sure learning these is a necessary part of progressing and will come with time. Interestingly, I’ve found the bosses to be much easier than the actual levels, which I’ve only felt with Ketsui before this. Muchi Muchi Pork is a different story entirely.

Muchi Muchi Pork

I’m not sure what is giving me trouble with the Pig Girls. Rank never even gets a chance to enter into it because I can’t last long enough for it to get very high. There are not an unbelievable amount of enemies in the early going. The enemy bullets are highly visible. The amount of firepower the game gives the player is extremely high and most enemies do not last long under it. There would seem to be no reason why I can’t progress just as well with this game as most any other shooter.

But I am just stumbling along at it. I know the sheer number of item drops is causing me to approach this a little differently… and maybe cause some screen confusion. I can’t tell. I just see myself having simple, avoidable deaths over and over again. And my REAL sticking point is the boss of the second stage. Holy shit. Rarely do I get past it without using a continue, and if I do continue and play on, the rest of the game, though difficult, doesn’t cause me nearly as much trouble relatively speaking. I mean the 4th and 5th levels are really tough, but they are about what you’d expect. I don’t expect to get totally hung up on the gosh damn second level boss… but there’s something about the guy, and the game in general, that just makes me panic and act like I’m playing with my feet. I can breeze through the first level boss NOW but it took forever to learn it. I’m just intimidated or something. Pink Sweets is a harder game, but I can get further in it. The 2nd level boss in MMP fires his bullets REALLY close to the player, and he has a lot of different fire types. I just don’t have the order and locations memorized yet… though I damn well should, I’ve played it enough times.

Kind of a drag because I really like the game. It is REALLY different from every other Cave game, just as Pink Sweets is. I’m not going to stop playing it, I just have to sigh and resign myself to fighting and struggling for every scrap of progress I’m going to make (or not make) in it.

My experience shouldn't discourage anyone else from checking this release out. Most bullet hell shooter fans will not have my bizarre hangup! The package is awesome. It was a good idea for Cave to pair up their two oddball cute but funny games (with weird mechanics), and offer them for a package price. AND they’re region-free. So you don’t have to own a JPN Xbox 360 to play ‘em. Don’t be put off by the visuals not being modified for HDTVs (some Cave releases were, ie Daifukkatsu). The graphics are still outstanding.

They’re not going to set most American gamers’ hearts afire, because hey, the whole anime cutesy-humor thing doesn’t play to the masses here, but these are explosive rock-hard shooters under all the boobs and batted eyelashes. And pork. There’s a lot of pork.
(pics stolen from Adriasang)



A Renaissance: Bullet Heaven

Strania

What is with all the shooter (STG or shmup) releases now? This was (and by many still is) considered a dying video game genre. But man, is it ever coming back into vogue!

I'm one of the original video game dinosaurs. I dabble in all sorts of genres but my gamer's heart belongs to those styles I dumped so many quarters into back in the day. That means driving games, platformers, fighting games, and forced-scrolling shooters. All of these genres have evolved from the old days... not just graphically, but also the goals have gotten multi-layered, the simulated physics more important, the scoring more complex, and the narrative behind the action more detailed. But the core game mechanics are still the same as ever. In driving games you race your car to beat opponent racers. In platformers you still run and jump and grab items while killing (or knocking out) enemies. In fighting games, you still just work to defeat an opponent or the opposing team, no matter how complex the movesets or over-the-top the supers. And in shooters you still just pilot your ship killing almost every enemy that comes onscreen while managing the state of your powerups.

I love STGs. Ancient like Galaga, old school like R-type, golden age like Battle Garegga, or modern bullet hell like Mushihimesama Futari... it doesn't matter. Not all shooters are good, mind you... there are shitty or boring ones... but I willing to give anything in the genre a try at least. Enh, maybe not the ones on handheld game machines. I can't really hang with little d-pad/cross-pad.

In any case, since the golden age of the shooter in the mid-90s when the great old houses Psikyo, Raizing, and Toaplan folded (or just quit making them), there has been a significant drought. Occasionally a franchise sequel (Raiden IV) or a remake (Raystorm HD) would appear. Only Cave, rising from the ashes of Toaplan and Raizing, and a few other stalwarts, like Milestone and G.Rev, have kept the STG flag flying, year by year being relegated to more specialised, cult corner of the video game universe but still cranking out new games.

In recent months though, something has clicked with Xbox 360. From fairly early in the lifespan of the console, there've been shooters old and new. Not a ton, but every so often one dropped for eager players, sometimes even from one of the big companies, like Konami releasing Otomedius G. Cave decided at some point to see if conversions of their arcade games would bring in additional income considering even in Japan arcade sales were in decline. They licensed brutal old shooter Dondonpachi Daioujou to another company, and brought Deathsmiles out themselves. I don't know the specific profitability figures or margins belonging to any Cave release, but they indicated to Cave that ports of their arcade games was the way to go. Inspiring a slew of non-Japanese customers to buy JPN consoles, Cave have also prompted some of the most active online discussions, fired up collectors, and almost single-handedly revived the STG genre for home audiences. I'm not going to say there have been no other impactful shooter releases since the 90s. Of particular note are all the Triangle Service and G.Rev releases on the Dreamcast after that system was pulled from the market. But the huge upswing we are experiencing at present has to be laid firmly at their door.

On the heels of the success across multiple titles that Cave has had... they typically release or license for release about two or three games a year... we now have loads pouring in from other companies. Konami, G.Rev, Qute, and German nutters NG:Dev Team all have released or are imminently releasing new games. And Treasure, developer-gods almost as crazy as Cave, have their own shooter titles in progress, something they haven't done in ages.

Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu 1.5- Cave
Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label- Cave
Muchi Muchi Pork & Pink Sweets- Cave
Akai Katana Shin- Cave
Otomedius Perfect- Konami
Bullet Soul- 5pb
Eschatos- Qute
Strania- G.Rev
Radiant Silvergun HD- Treasure
Fast Striker- NG: Dev Team
Sturmwind- RedSpotGames
Bangaioh HD: Missile Fury (yeah, this one isn't literally an STG, but it has a ton of similar elements and appeals to the STG audience)

I know I'm missing some still and didn't even try to list the various indie shooters that have come up like Revolver360 or Lethal Judgement 2.

One point to be made is that an Xbox 360 is pretty much mandatory to exploit this list. The NG: Dev Team titles are for the Dreamcast, and some of the XBLA titles like Strania or Radiant Silvergun could show up on the PlayStation Network, but if you want modern shooter titles getting the Microsoft console keeps it simple. It is the platform developers of niche gaming genres have decided to go with even though sales of the machine in Japan are decidedly low.

You'll have even better luck if you just plunk down a bit more cash and get a JPN-based Xbox 360. I can't tell you how many online posts or blog entries I've read from some gamer who is lamenting the region protection on some goshdamn shooter he wants. Get a friggin' Japanese box and be done with it. It is more expensive, yes. Most, not all USA games are playable on the thing. So in some cases you would have to buy a Japanese or Asian version of a game and these may also cost more. Here's a list of games that I want, bought, or for some reason checked, that the USA version does not work on my Japanese console:

Kengo Zero
Gundam Musou (any chapter)
Fist of the North Star
Quantum Theory
Nier
Import Tuner Challenge

These titles all come from Genki, Square Enix, and Koei Tecmo. So it is reasonable to assume one would have problems with ANY title from these companies. Shit from Capcom, Sega, or any Western-based outfit like EA, Bioware, or Codemasters all work fine, assuming you are talking about an NTSC title and not PAL. None of the original Xbox (not 360) titles I've tried; Halo, Return to Wolfenstein, or Panzer Dragoon Orta worked. I had to buy Japanese versions of all of those.

But if shooters are your thing and you don't want to sit around waiting and hoping the lastest shooter is going to appear in the USA, the positives outweigh the occasional inconvenience. All other shit, like XBLA, Netflix, all of that, work exactly the same regardless of the platform's country of origin. I have two XBLA accounts on one machine, one for the Japanese marketplace and one for the American. I've read many people who are dreading having to do this to get some of the DLC for shooters, but jiminy christmas it isn't that hard and you only have to do it once.

Recent days are looking so good for shmup fans that I don't know where the time and money will be found to take advantage of it all! Wait, that's not a complaint!

(pic kyped from jeuxvideo)

Nerd-Stick Part Deux

I got the proper part in (thank you Gremlin Solutions in the UK) and finished off the modification of my Xbox 360 joystick, the HRAP EX. My daughter helped me on this part of the project, as she did with the buttons two weeks ago, proclaiming that snipping the wires to the old Sanwa stick was ‘cutting the nerves to the brain’.

The Hori Real Arcade Pro EX does NOT have a simple little molex connector that harnesses the wires for easy hookup. It has a ribbon cable with tiny fine wires all splayed apart and soldered individually to each lead and ground on the four individual switches of the Sanwa stick. So eight connections to have to account for. The kiddo helped me make up masking tape labels to stick on each wire, so we’d hook up the correct directions when the new part went in.


I really didn’t want to have to solder, especially since their was ten-year-old child I wanted to keep involved. The switches on the new Seimitsu stick have flat pegs (blade connectors if you will) that internet searching told me could take a certain type of flat connector. So I hunted all over town for some female quick-disconnect ends that I could crimp on to each wire and as luck would have it, after every other outlets items were all too big, Radio Shack came through.


The disconnect ends themselves fit the Seimitsu stick perfectly. The end you push the wire into for crimping was a bit problematic. The wires off the ribbon cable were just so small. You had to really crunch down on the connector ends to get them to hold onto them. It looked a bit odd to see the smallest quick-disconnects in town sticking off the end of each tiny gray filament, but it worked. I almost got everything screwed back together when I realized the stick seemed short sticking up from the top of the faceplate of the unit when I was testing it on a game to make sure it all worked and the directions were correct.

I then remembered something I’d read when researching this project in the first place. The flush-style mounting plate that comes on a Seimitsu LS-32 stick isn’t quite correct to go into a HRAP. The SS-style mounting plate that I needed (named for the curvy cross-section of each end) actually comes on the LS-32-01 stick that I originally bought… y’know the one with the useless connector (and PCB). So I was okay on having the right part, but if I didn’t know better I’d swear there was some sort of evil afoot with the makers of the HRAP. If you want to swap in a Seimitsu stick you need the body of one model with the mounting plate of another?

Anyway, the SS plate nestles the top of the Seimitsu stick right up where it is supposed to be, so all worked out. A green ball top added on, and my daughters small hands to help me close up the case. I’m glad I went back in and fixed the plate because the difference in height switching between the two HRAPs would’ve driven me nuts.

The green of the joystick top and the A button don’t exactly match Microsoft’s more leafy green that is the Xbox 360 hallmark, but that’s okay. Controls on Japanese candy cabs in arcades tend to have bright party colors, so that’s what this green is, but it is close enough.

As I said in the first part post, the big push for me to do this was because I was having assloads of trouble pulling off double-hadouken motions in Super Street Fighter IV. I was hoping the characteristics of this Seimitsu joystick would help me. While I was waiting for this new stick to arrive I happened to re-read one of the online tutorials at shoryuken.com and happened upon a paragraph that I completely overlooked before. The author was swapping out his Sanwa for a Seimitsu (on a PS2 HRAP) for the exact same reason. I was inspired to try it by shooting game fans’ describing shorter, more precise movement capability. He got good results so that only made my waiting that much more difficult.

Now that it was all together, I didn’t waste any time testing it out. For STG/shmup games you can definitely notice a difference during quick direction changes. There is a lot less of a dead zone (virtually none really) when the stick is centered. For SSIV, I’m still not awesome at complicated command motions in the game, but I can get them out with at least twice the frequency after one short session. The flip side to this is that I have to be less sloppy or I’ll inadvertently move a way I don’t want to. A quarter circle for a hadouken is MUCH easier to accidentally turn into a forward jump if you push a little up past the 3 o’clock mark on the stick.

The new buttons are nice too. The original Hori buttons weren’t a problem, but these definitely feel less mushy.

All told, the whole thing, both joysticks, went well… and I’m pretty happy with the results. No glaring difference in appearances from the originals, but the play is the thing and that seems quite improved. It took a month from start to finish, but only two evenings and one afternoon were actual work. The rest was waiting on the mail. As I said in part one, I’m not actually enamored of this sort of work, so if I had to get another HRAP I’d probably get the EX-SE model that has all Seimitsu parts to begin with.

Complete Nerd-Stick

That fine old game controller, the joystick, seems to be increasingly uncommon amongst the general gaming population and yet there's a pretty big sub-market for high-end and even custom versions.

Ever since I started playing on home consoles, I've had to buy a joystick for use as a controller. The need stems from all the arcade playing I used to do before the NES resuscitated the console market from the post-Atari days. Joysticks... really crappy ones... were the standard on the old Atari 2600, the most popular home machine before the NES. But I didn't get into the 2600 too much... or the Colecovision, or the Intellivision, or the Atari 5200. My video game time was spent on quarter munchers.

There were some different input devices scattered around the arcades. All-button layouts for a lot of games. A steering wheel for any driving game. A spin knob for Tempest. A trackball for Centipede. There were cool custom devices like the the periscopes for Battlezone or Sea Wolf. But mostly it was a little knob or bat-shaped stick jutting up from the panel and with it you moved Pac-man around the maze or alternately blasted aliens and rescued humans in Defender. It was a simple, durable way to translate directional inputs, leaving the other hand free to push whatever buttons were needed.

When the Nintendo Entertainment System came out, I got the little brick 'd-pads' just like everyone else. I wasn't TOTALLY unfamiliar with the concept because years before I'd had a friend with an Intellivision. I'm not sure why the Intellivision pads are considered so awesome now. Back in the day I hated them so much I wanted to jam them up a stray dog's butt and then shoot the dog, hoping the controller got crushed in the death throes. The NES pads were better (to me) but it wasn't even a week later that I tracked down a Toys 'R' Us carrying official Nintendo joysticks. And these things were pretty damn awesome at the time. MILES better than the Atari 2600 stock versions. They worked with every game and made every game better. I think the only NES games I didn't use them for was Pinbot and other pinball simulators because it was unnatural to move a stick for the left flipper and push a button for the right. With the d-pad you could 'press a button' for both flippers to make it much more like actual pinball.

When I upgraded to a Genesis, there were no joysticks immediately available. I was pretty frantic. There had to BE joysticks released, since I was not a particularly early adopter of the console, but it was like a month or two before I could lay my hands on some. So before that happened I took a fairly heavyweight screw and drove it right into the middle of the directional pad on the Genesis controller. It stuck up about an inch, and it made all the difference in the world. It was not super comfortable... I got a pretty sore thumb nudging the screw around instead of cradling a joystick in the hand as I normally would... but it was a workaround that kept me from dying a bazillion times trying to learn how to get along with a d-pad. And when I finally did get the real joysticks, again my enjoyment of the console skyrocketed. And these were some goshdamn cool-looking pieces of hardware too, all-black with lights above the buttons. Both these and the NES sticks had turbofire buttons, which really helped considering that, as cool as the joysticks were, their base size and button placement didn't allow me to hammer the fire controls with anything like the speed and stamina I could manage in arcades.

So in the years since, every time I've bought a new game console I've immediately gotten a joystick (or two) to go with it. I don't use them for every game any more. When Sega released the analog pad for Sega Nights on the Saturn, I finally started using the type of analog thumbstick controller that everyone else had been using for months on their Playstations (the predecessor to the dual shock controllers that are synonymous with Sony now). The thumbstick was kind of like the old screw I put in my Genesis pad, only a lot more comfortable. Hours spent on the Dreamcast (bought after the Saturn, I skipped the PS1 for awhile) made me finally tow the line and become comfortable with a non-joystick.

The thumbtick based analog controller is now the standard. Even the unconventional wiimote has a thumbstick on its nunchuck accessory.

Except there are still certain types of games that absolutely suck balls on a regular controller. The games that still adhere to oldest (some would say *shudder* 'most retro') game mechanics.... namely 2D fighting games and 2D shooters. I'd argue that 2D platforming games and beat 'em up/beltscroll fighters are also WAY better with a stick, but you can at least play them competently on a pad. I understand there are gamers who can play shooters and fighters very well on a standard controller but I don't know how they do it, especially the ever-present-in-fighting-game shoryuken/dragon punch motion.

So, uh, guess what kind of games I played to death in the arcades AND on home consoles. Yep. 2D fighters, shooters, and platforming games.

My kids are totally unfamiliar with joysticks. By the time my oldest could even muster interest in video games, the PS2 was the dominant machine. So all they've ever really known is dual shock controllers and their antecedents. I have the pads to all my old consoles, so if they feel like jumping in the wayback machine and play some games on the Genesis, the d-pad (screw now removed) is pretty similar to the cross-pad on their Nintendo portables. But when I'm playing... or when I drag a joystick out for a specific game on a newer system, you'd think I was bringing a musket to a drug war. Much eye-rolling and snorting is sure to ensue. It isn't enough that I like those stone-age style games... and that includes RECENT shooters or fighters like Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu or Super Street Fighter IV... I have to drag out the stone axes and flint arrows with which to play them.

The derision reached something of a crescendo recently when I decided to upgrade my PS2 and Xbox 360 joysticks. I don't mean upgrade as in purchase better ones... I mean upgrade as in replacing parts. This is a level of fanatic nerd-ery the likes of which my daughter thought she'd never see me display in my home. I think she'd have been less affected if I'd cosplayed Evangelion pilot Ayanami Rei at an anime convention. My son, however, was intrigued. He has always been something of a 'fiddler'. He loves buidling models, taking stuff apart, or messing with Legos. In racing games he spends more time playing with color schemes and decals for his cars then he does on the actual driving. These joysticks are big too, Hori Real Arcade Pro models, so the idea of cracking them open and working on the guts was like asking him to help me work on real-life automobiles. I asked him to second 'the surgery' on one stick and my daughter to help me with the other. I wasn't trying to foment love for the joysticks amongst my children, I just thought this would be a cool and very different activity for us to bond over. And despite the utter nerd-ity of the project, my daughter also wanted to get in on it. Just to 'help me do this correctly' of course.

The Japanese company Hori makes a line of controllers for all makes of video game consoles, but they have a particular rep (and cult following) for their higher-end line of joysticks. These frequently use the same parts as the candy cabinet style arcade machines still found in Japan. In the case of the two sticks under discussion, both have Sanwa JLF sticks, the most frequent model found on fighters, and Hori's knock-offs of Sanwa buttons.

The 'need' to do this upgrade has been borne out of my frustration playing Super Street Fighter IV. It has been quite a while since I've put any emphasis on getting good at a 2D fighting game, but the new SSFIV is pretty awesome. However it is the first game of its genre that I've tried playing on the Xbox 360. I haven't done BlazBlue or any of the HD Capcom remakes on the Xbox Live service. I might be a little rusty, sure.

I've never really had problems executing any of the command motions in any previous fighting games, from any company on any system. But wow, I am having the devil's own time executing commands on this game, particularly the double fireball motion needed for most supers and ultras. My understanding is that the timing window to execute these commands is very forgiving. I've had no issues managing the same mechanics in various Street Fighter III iterations on other platforms, which is supposedly much more strict. I *think* my problem is the size of the 'throw' on the HRAP (Hori Real Arcade Pro) stick that I use on the 360. I think the time it takes to do the full range of motions goes outside even the timing window because the stick has to move very far in order to register each direction/point. I think the actual proper points the stick needs to hit are not quite all the way to the outside of the stick's range of motion... so in effect the map to get out the command is kind of smaller than the area the joystick moves... and I'm too old and impatient to sit there and fuck with this and learn it when all other fighting games I have DON'T have this 'placement' problem.

Because I play a lot of Cave shooters, small precise movements of the joystick are a must. Online the consensus seems to be that the short throw of the standard Seimitsu brand arcade joysticks are the best for these sorts of games. Short throw equals quick changes in direction... EXACTLY what seems to be required to overcome my problem with SSFIV. It appears the distance the Seimitsu sticks need to travel to engage each direction is smaller than the Sanwa sticks that my HRAP comes with. My play with Cave shooters could stand improvement but was never so bad that I felt like spending the money to upgrade to Seimitsu parts. But being unable to access a primary mechanic in SSFIV pushed me over the edge. My abilty to tap buttons quickly has never been a problem (my kids ALWAYS hand controllers to me for button mashing sections of games), but I figured I'd replace the Hori buttons with less-mushy Seimitsu versions as well.

The kids helped me with the modifications... small hands equals useful... and I'm really pleased with how they've turned out so far. I say so far because I actually got the wrong replacement stick for the Xbox 360 HRAP. From the outside the two models (HRAP 2.0 for the PS2, HRAP EX for the Xbox 360) look really similar apart from the colors, but actually the PS2 stick uses an easy slip-on molex connector for the wiring, where the Xbox 360 version is soldered. Which I didn't know. Seimitsu makes replacements in both slip-on (LS-32-01) and soldered (LS-32), but the soldered one ain't here yet.

The finished PS2 HRAP is pictured above. The original had all bright red buttons and a bright red ball top to the stick itself. I changed the button colors to match the color coding of buttons on stock Sony controllers. It makes the stick gaudier (though not brighter actually), but I then put black buttons corresponding to the controller triggers and a black ball top all to compensate for the color riot. Having the correct colors on there was done in the first place because onscreen prompts or quick time events can get confusing when your buttons are all red AND not placed the same way they are on the pad. I've also got a Dreamcast and an Xbox 360 with their own button color schemes. I'm not even going to try to memorise them all.

I'm not having fighting game troubles with the PS2, but I thought I'd give the new Seimitsu stick a whirl with one just the same. There is a noticeable difference in the ease with which the moves come out for me. The stick is a bit stiffer, and it has a smaller dead zone (the amount of travel the stick can move from center before engaging a direction). So subtler motions net the same effect as the unmodified stick. If my impression holds true, this should fix my problem playing SSFIV when I can get THAT stick changed out... hopefully next week. We've already done the 360's buttons.

Perversely, and probably temporarily, this little project has gotten my son all interested in joystick-necessary games. Up to this point, he hated almost all 2D fighters (doesn't like command motion inputs) and was indifferent to shooters and platformers. Now all of a sudden Gradius V and Thunder Force VI on the PS2 are hot commodities. And of course he wants his own joystick. If this interest holds up and we wind up having to get him one or two, the irony will be that I would probably give him the ones we've modified ourselves and I'd just get myself new HRAPs... but this time I'd get some specials that already come with Seimitsu parts (like the HRAP EX-SE). Modding these was fun, but I did it mostly because it was less expensive than buying new joysticks. If we're going to get new ones anyway, might as well get 'em already done. Unlike the kid, I'd rather spend the time playing than fiddling.

Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi Extra

So I’ve spent some good time with Ketsui: Kizuna Jigoku Tachi Extra (literally Determination: Cutting the Bonds of Hell, uh, Extra) and I have to say it totally rocks out with its cock out.



I preordered the limited edition with a fair amount of hope, and a little trepidation. Ketsui kind of has a reputation… as a failure with the arcade public (in Japan, no USA exposure to speak of) but seriously lauded by the hardcore. In the time since the arcade game has come and gone (it was released in late 2002/early 2003) the prices for the pcb (the dedicated board you’d put in a cabinet) have climbed or remained steadily high. A testament to its standing and its dedicated following.


Ketsui’s rep is partly due to its rarity, but also to it just being badass. Not badass in the difficulty sense, though the game is goshdamn difficult. Cave, the developer, puts out shooters that require badass reflexes, have badass scoring systems, or feature badass bosses. But they also have cute loli-witches that soar through pumpkin lands or teen princesses riding giant golden beetles. Or androgynous looking replicants with huge butterfly wings. In short, a lot of cute or a lot of pretty. Even the Donpachi series, replete with tanks and jets, nowadays puts the loli-droid co-pilots at the front and center of all its PR materials.


Ketsui doesn’t have any of that. The pilots are not the most masculine looking dudes ever, but they are recognizably dudes. And all the backgrounds, music, and hardware on display hearken back to earlier days (re: the mid 90s) when a grittier, more ‘industrial’ aesthetic was the rage in shooters—see Raizing games like Battle Garegga. It is more testosterone fueled.


It seems like Cave chalked a large part of the game’s failure to this macho aesthetic. Later titles have mostly all done better and they all feature distinctly less masculine design choices. Of course, western players have been positively cuckoo over this game, searching out the pcb where possible and salivating over the possibilities of an Xbox 360 release. Personally, I don’t mind Cave’s design choices. They make great games. I’ve watched enough anime and read enough manga to be pretty well acclimated to the Japanese pop culture gender preferences. But it is nice to have some variety. The game also has a relatively simple in-your-face scoring system (Literally. The closer you are to an enemy when you kill them, the bigger the multiplier chip they spit out.). Ketsui is an older game, but amongst recent Cave output it’s almost a breath of fresh air.


The LE comes with a 2-disc pack containing the ‘arrange’ version soundtracks for both Ketsui and Dodonpachi Daioujou BLEX. I’m not the kind of player who listens to game music when NOT playing a game, but I make a few exceptions. The Ketsui soundtrack is one of them. These discs would be even better if they also had the original versions on there, but I’m not really complaining since what’s on here is so good.


The story of this port actually becoming reality is almost the video game world’s version of The Odyssey, threatening for a bit there to become another Duke Nukem. You can find a lot ranting and fist-shaking in posts and forums at places like Cave-STG or Shmups!


Essentially, when the Xbox 360 really started looking as a viable spot for home versions of shooting games, a company named 5pb managed to secure the rights to Dodonpachi Daioujou BLEX and Ketsui. Even BEFORE DDPDOJBLEX came out there was a lot of reservations expressed in the shooter fan community. 5pb was a ‘visual novel’ publisher whose content tended towards more eroge (Japanese contraction for erotic game) subject matter. ‘Visual novels’ are just that. Little interaction is required, mostly its reading the screen. The question was how a company big on artwork, writing, and little else was going to manage the demanding programming on something as intricate as a Cave STG. The answer turned out to be: they didn’t. At least not by themselves.


Several years ago, the PS2 saw an earlier iteration of Dodonpachi Daioujou released for it. The port is considered a high water mark for home versions of Cave games. THAT version was handled by Arika, and Mihara the man heading up the port is/was a known stickler for accuracy relative to the arcade version. It turns out some unscrupulous sorts at a subcontractor for 5pb used the code from Arika’s PS2 port as a baseline without permission. This meant 5pb got an up-and-running game, but appear to have run out of time to tweak and optimize everything. So there are a number of bugs and inconveniences to their Xbox 360 version of DDPDOJ. 5pb got a lot of hate for a long time. They fessed up to their people swiping the code, made some sort of amends to Arika, and buckled down to work on Ketsui. The reception DDPDOJBLEX got was tepid going to worse over time… as bugs and problems came to light. So dealing with the bad PR, pulling copies off shelves, avoiding legal problems with Arika, and wondering if Cave was going to pull the Ketsui rights probably all added up to the delay after delay Ketsui experienced.


It appeared the majority fan opinion that Ketsui was going to be cancelled. A few people held out hope. The idea that Cave themselves might pick it back up and release their own version was balanced by the fact that they seemed interested only in the newer parts of their catalog (this has since been excepted by their announcement of Guwange, but as an XBLA title).


Personally, I like DDPDOJBLEX just fine. It COULD be better. It has now-infamous long load times… and those ARE a bitch to wait through. But some of the other issues that seem to break this game for fans I never really suffered. The menus don’t bother me, and I don’t experience the button inconsistencies reported from within those menus. The graphics have been subjected to endless debate and scrutiny, mostly owing to CRT-designed objects being displayed on HD televisions. But on my setup, component cables running to a Panasonic plasma screen, the picture looks fine. Fanatics for certain games can wax endlessly about how close a home version is to the arcade original and apparently there are some pretty glaring inconsistencies in DDPDOJBLEX, but with no experience of the original I don’t have the same frustrations. I think the greatness of the game still comes through. Maybe if I owned the PS2 one and saw what its like to be closer to the original I’d feel differently. The Xbox 360 version includes the Black Label version of the game and by all accounts it is a better, more balanced game, so that works for me. The goobs can complain all they want but at the end of the day, DDPDOJBLEX is a fun game and that’s what counts most.


So for me, back on the Ketsui front, the fact that 5pb was doing the port did NOT mean it had to suck. I figured at the very least they’d learn their lesson and get the load times down and the major bugs all ironed out, IF in fact they actually released the game! Ironically, Ketsui was also on the slate for Arika to port to the PS2 back in the day, but they decided against it owing to the PS2’s lack of power for handling certain sections of the game. So there was no finished code to be kyped in Ketsui’s case, I guess.


To almost all fandom’s surprise, the Ketsui port is great. Now the terms used are ‘amazing’, ‘redeemed’ and of course the one I’m pushing, ‘badass’. There’s even some interest now in 5pb’s future original shooting game. The eroge novel team proved they could pull this off. There are, of course, tons of threads and posts comparing graphics, accuracy, and all that shit. But there appear to be no bugs (apart from an intentional one that replicates a bug in the arcade… and that you can turn off!) AND the load times are practically non-existent.


Details about game mechanics are readily available on the internet with the best one probably the guide in the strategy section at Shmups! My point with this post is not to give a review in the same way a proper review is written. More to give my feelings about the game on a personal level, since it has had a pretty strong impact on me, even as the experienced STG player that I am.


The game is easy to get into, but the difficulty in making progress might make it unapproachable, a trait common to the manic shooter sub-genre. But there might be enough badassedness to get non-Cave fans to hang in there. 5pb included an additional ‘arrange’ version of the game called X-Mode. It involves a bullet canceling mechanic somewhat akin to switching to zesshikai in Espgaluda II. There’s a shot timer in arcade mode, manipulation of which increases your multiplier chips. In X-Mode, doing something similar also cancels all killed enemys’ bullets. So it is basically a screen-filling, bonus-raking free-for-all.


There’s also a level select for practice, and a selection of achievements mostly easy to get. The game doesn’t start out giving you enough credits to credit feed to the end, but it doesn’t take long to earn them… probably one of the few ticks in the ‘con column’ I’d give the game. I like the earning credit procedure in general but this goes by too quickly. There are leaderboard and replay options. All the usual stuff. As per 5pb’s previous release it DOES NOT contain versions of the game with re-rendered sprites for HDTVs. So the visuals will not be the unbelievably sharp objects Cave blessed us with in Deathsmiles or Mushihimesama Futari.


Ketsui doesn’t reinvent the 2d shooter genre. If you can’t see replaying the same levels to get better and better, trying to go further on one credit or reduce the number of credits it takes to reach the end, then this one ain’t gonna change your mind. It just does what it does very well. Any criticism I have for this port would be about the stuff ‘around’ the game, like the too-soon credits, or the plain menus. The game itself is stellar.


I have so many games on my list to get to, and so many that I like to return to, that attempting a 1CC on a shooter just isn’t usually in the cards. I try to play shooters enough to where I ‘finish them on a buck’. In the old days I used to give myself about a dollar to spend on each game. So it is traditional for me to allow myself the initial play and three credits on arcade style games—shooters, fighting games, etc. Occasionally if a game hits me just right, I may take the time to go for the 1CC. Ketsui is probably such a game. I don’t know if I’ll do or how long it’ll take. Ketsui is also known for having two separate second loops, one extremely difficult, and one full-on prison-love brutal. I don’t now at this point whether I’ll require THAT of myself to count the clear. I may just not be able to invest the time. We'll see. I'm getting to the middle of level three on my first credit. Figuring out how to manage all the battleships on that level is taking some doing.


If you have the wherewithal to play import Xbox 360 games and you like the genre, this is a no-brainer buy. Unless something miraculous happens with Cave releases over here (probably contingent on how the first one, Deathsmiles does) shooting fans should just assume they need to own a JPN Xbox 360 anyway.


Weirdly, for all its western aesthetics and appeal, this may be one of the least likely of Cave’s home ports to come over here. But that won’t stop the baddassedness at MY house!


PS: I realise there is a Nintendo DS iteration of Ketsui. Not really the same thing.

New Holy Grail Contender

Ketsui Limited Edition received today.

Anyone up on Cave shooting games knows this thing has been rumored, announced, feared and delayed all to hell. The developer 5pb has had the rights to this thing for an age, but all the contorversy and glitchiness surrounding their previous Cave port Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label Extra has had the shooter nerds all nervous and critical about the possibilites for this port.

One of the few Cave games released recently (though the arcade original is almost eight years old) that doesn't feature young girl protagonists, it is quite a bit more gritty and rockin' than one might expect. And the port is GREAT (Tony the tiger voice)!

More on this game later, but I had to make something of a deal of it. I was trying not to buy into the hype about this game, but still really anticipated it. The LE includes a booklet and a DVD case with two soundtrack CDs in it.

The Grail

There are rarer video games. There are more expensive video games. But THIS one is THE one I've wanted most for a long, LONG time. And it has always been more than I could financially justify despite my raving lust for Technosoft shooters. But I landed a good price for one sans a spine card... and had my fingers crossed it was in good shape.

As it turns out, it looks mint.

Now like Wayne Campbell's Fender, it rests at last in my hot little clutches. I don't know if this was actually Technosoft's last game (released 1996 five years before they folded), but it is certainly amongst the last. And a game for that pinnacle of 2d shooting goodness the Sega Saturn, no less.

Can't wait to fire this sumbitch up!

Some You Win, Some You Lose

XII Stag

Amongst my various video game purchases recently, I had a package arrive with two STGs (Japan-derived acronym for 2d shooters: ShooTing Game) in it. Despite being in the same genre, they are incredibly different in most ways… including quality. Good examples of how much variety there can be even in what is perceived (by the mainstream) as a very limited, niche gaming style.

As a baseline for comparison, both games are arcade ports, vertical scrolling, and both are running on a Playstation 2 with a Hori EX Pro joystick used to control.

First the bad:
XII Stag for the PS2. I’m kind of a sucker for buying 2d shooting games (not arena shooters like Smash TV or Geometry Wars), though I’m not so blinkered about being a completist that I will overlook anything. Since you have to do quite a bit of research to track down niche video games, finding opinions just goes with the territory. For me STGs are not one of those game genres where the shitty ones are collectible BECAUSE they are shitty or weird. A shitty shooter is usually unplayable. So you aren’t going to get to enjoy whatever weirdness might be on tap without putting in way too much effort.

XII Stag is an exercise in mediocrity. I read reviews and mostly they said something along the lines of ‘doesn’t do anything new, but does it fine’. This is not what I found to be the case at all. XII Stag has ONE new thing to it, but pulls it off tepidly. Everything about the game is tepid.

I watched snatches of online videos and thought it looked pretty cool. The graphics weren’t groundbreaking, but they seemed detailed, speedy, and interesting enough. Now in real life? Bleagh. Wrong. The objects in the game are all pre-rendered sprites, and they have a kind of shiny aspect that looks pretty good on some of the bosses, but mostly they have this really blocky outline around all of them that just looks budget. Like the blue matte lines in old movies. The backgrounds and scrolling look cool at first, but as you play you realize each level’s background have very little variation and is not going to change. Whatever moonscape, swamp, or mountain range you are flying over… that’s what you are going to see for the rest of the level. Cave games do this to a degree too, but at least Cave usually knocks it out of the park with the enemy designs… along with so many bullets you almost can’t see the backgrounds. Background variation or transitioning started to become a staple of STGs back in the early days of the Genesis, but no one told the staff behind XII Stag apparently.

You get only one type of ship. That’s fine. Really, REALLY old school, but fine. There is only one type of power up. It makes your basic forward shot a little bigger with each powerup gained, up to four levels. The difference between your level one shot and your level four shot is, again, tepid. FAIL! Nothing else. No options, no additional or different firepower. Nada. The bombs it gives you operate in a somewhat interesting fashion… a huge shield from which you can shoot out, but the enemy cannot shoot in. But that’s all there is. Not fantastically spectacular or destructive.

The unique mechanic of XII Stag, ‘the gimmick’ since a lot of developers seem to think a shooting gimmick of some sort is needed, is the side and back shots from your ship. They are very short range but powerful, and raise up the multiplier for whatever enemies you kill. So the risk/reward system of the game is that you need to get close alongside a lot of the enemies in order to use your best weapon. The designers decided that wiggling the joystick back and forth was the way to trigger the side shots, but of course the shots are so limited in range that when you get that close to the enemy or its guns, jerking your ship left and right is the last thing you want to do. You CAN assign the side shots to a button, but your ship still goes all spastic when it fires these off. If you try to just NOT use the side shots you will find your front shots too weak, even fully powered up, to destroy a lot of the enemies in a reasonable amount of time… and your score will really suffer too.

I was so bored I credit fed through the game just to see what the ending was like. I need to research online to see if credit-feeding netted me the shittiest ending because just like the rest of the game it was a big fat nothing much. I finally beat Last Resort for the Neo Geo recently, a game notorious for giving you a crappy ending after such a difficult game… but at least Last Resort is pretty fucking spectacular on the way to the end. And Last Resort is OLD. It isn’t from this century. There is no excuse for XII Stag not giving you ‘something’. The whole game feels like they did the absolute minimum that they could and still have a game. Especially graphically.

XII Stag came out in the arcades in 2002, ported to PS2 in 2003. The developer of the game, Triangle Service, may not have had the budget of the established shooter companies, but it should’ve at least tried to match or beat the competition on some level. I also know Triangle Service HAS done better games. Cave’s first shooter Donpachi, was graphically kind of bleah next to some of the other stuff of the day (like Batsugun), but they made up for it with the unique play ideas that would become their bread and butter in modern times. In similar circumstances another small developer, G Rev, came out with their debut shooter Border Down for the Dreamcast a year after XII Stag, and it was wwaaaaayyyyy better than this game.

The ship controls just fine (when you aren’t side-shooting), and is pretty small with no crazy hitbox problems. The level of enemy fire is sort of manic-lite. A bit heavier and slower than a typical Psikyo game. I have Shooting Love 200X on the way too, a compilation of later Triangle Service releases, but Shooting Love has actually garnered a lot of enthusiasm, particularly for the ‘shooting task’ game included. XII Stag hasn’t dampened my anticipation for it because every company has its blech moments, frequently their first game. My kid is just getting into STGs and he wants to hang on to XII Stag for awhile to see if it gels for him.

Strikers 1945

Now the good:
Strikers 1945 I & II for the Playstation 2. The games in this two-pack are arcade ports as well. My play time, and therefore these comments, are geared toward the first of the two games, though all evidence indicates the second is very similar. A good thing if you enjoyed the first, which I did.

Strikers 1945 came out in 1995 originally, some seven years before XII Stag. As stated in a previous entry the mid-90s was the tail-end of the shooter golden years. So there was plenty of history and competition to look at in designing an STG. Released by Psikyo, a developer known for cultivating a certain ‘style’ in shooting games the same way Raizing, Toaplan, and Cave all have. Psikyo was known for their very clean and colorful art style (frequently risqué) and bullet patterns that have come to be characterized as ‘few but fast’ in opposition to Cave’s manic style of ‘many but slow’. Psikyo game mechanics and techniques are the older style that hearken back to ‘twitchier’ games where memorization was important but not necessarily critical, and fast reflexes helped the player more than being able to thread your hitbox through labyrinthine bullet patterns.

Firing the game up, I was instantly reminded how lo-res the old arcade games were, but how much joy there was in the presentation. The game is set in an alternate 1945 where a new technologically superior threat masses against the former Axis and Ally nations. Psikyo’s art in the game is very precise and shiny, but also very detailed (considering the resolution) with really sharp animation. Particularly for the bosses who all transform from a ‘typical’ vehicle, like a ship or a train, into a mechs that have a sort of post-WWII style to them.

You get a number of planes to choose from, each with their own firepower spreads, options configuration, movement speed and bomb types. The powerups come frequently during the game and you can get your weapons up to pretty massive proportions. Your plane controls really well. The hit box matches the outline of your plane which will vary depending on how big the plane you selected is. There are a few primitive screen options, including ‘tate’ if you are able to flip your monitor or TV on its side.

The early levels are deceptively short and easy. When I was first playing, I knew Strikers did not have a rep as a particularly easy game, but I was blown away by how quickly I was ploughing through it. But there are more than the usual five levels that today’s shooters all seem to sport… and they get a lot more difficult, particularly the ‘boss rush’ that makes up the last quarter of the game. The final section that contains the end boss is worth the price of admission, ranking high on the ‘just when you thought it was over’ scale.

There is nothing super-fancy about this game, just like XII Stag. But this is an example of a game doing everything right. Everything about it is just polished to perfection. A new generation gamer might fire this up and be put off by the pixel-obvious visuals, but once you start playing it all becomes so right. This game is greater than the sum of its parts. I am something of a latecomer to the Psikyo party, as I was with Cave. So as much as I love shooters and have collected scads of them, I’m still getting to discover these extensive pockets of goodness. Psikyo is one of those companies who developed a reputation. Some players may not like the ‘style’ of shooter (few but fast bullets), but there is little doubt that they were good at what they did. There’s a reason why software houses develop followings, and this game is a really good example. It doesn’t even really have a ‘gimmick’ in its mechanics, like XII Stag, it is just a straight-forward blasting good time. When you play the much-more-recent Raiden Fighters games (collected on Xbox 360), which have been described by many as ‘good old-school games that gets back to basics’ this is the game the newer game is referencing. Raiden Fighters has an elaborate medal-chaining system, for modern players who need a deeper scoring mechanic, but at root it can be enjoyed in much the same way as Strikers 1945. They even look really, really similar.

So there you go. I’ve discovered it really is possible to find an absolutely dismissable example of my favorite game genre. One that doesn’t even have the benefit of being ancient. So mediocre it doesn’t even have any camp or ‘so bad its good’ factor. And then in the same mailing, the first of what I hope will be a lot of old Psikyo shooters flowing into my collection. Not EVERY Psikyo game is a winner (I’m still not over the mental scars of Sol Divide, probably why I haven’t bought Psikyo since then), but there’s a lot to look forward to.

Insect Princess Duo

Wow.

This last couple of months has been graphic whore paradise for me. I'm currently playing Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and Bayonetta is probably next on the list. Both of these games have spellbinding production values and intricately detailed, artistically-inspired game worlds. I'm sure there'll be future frothing entries on both of them.

But while I'm playing the above games, I'm also plugging away at Mushihmesama Futari 1.5, the translation for which forms the title of this post.

MushiFutari is also a graphic feast, albeit one rooted in an older style of gaming. Like the game Donpachi essayed in a previous post, this is a 2d vertical scrolling shooter from Cave. This one, however, has had Cave's years of experience between now and that game's release in the mid 90s. There are lots of refinements, but mostly the experience shows in all the different game modes... Cave's efforts at making the game have more accessibility, replayability, and longevity to the 'non-hardcore'.

Why should that be significant? As I've written in other earlier entries, 2d shooter (or STG or shmup) fans are kind of a cult amongst video game players. The mechanics of the STG are amongst the oldest (and in a sense the simplest) in the history of this entertainment form. Everyone knows what Space Invaders is, the grandaddy of all shmupdom. An argument could be made that the even more venerable Space War is the prototype, but that game has a more direct modern lineage in the arena shooters like Geometry Wars or 0 Day Attack on Earth. As time has marched on since Space Invaders, graphics, scoring mechanics, immersion factor, etc. have all advanced significantly but the dodge-and-shoot-on-a-flat-plane-playfield is the same within the genre, game after game. This probably really doesn't need explaining... its the very definition of 'genre' after all. Every FPS has the same basic mechanics. Every driving game operates the same basic way. Blah blah blah. The point really is: how very old the STG genre is. By video game standards it is as non-modern as it gets. And like a lot of 'old things' 2d shooters have evolved to something of a conoisseur's field. The players tend to be older (many having grown up with these types of games in abundance), and with a lot of the responsibilities that quick-shot arcade-style gaming can be integrated with as opposed to long drawn-out gaming commitments like role-playing games.

Shmup players can be pretty fucking snotty too. Like wine, cigars, music, or any pastime that has a history, eventually you get a hardcore enthusiast elite. Knowledgable, adroit, and often not afraid to let everyone else in the culture know it. Within video games, shmup players are already something of a hardcore subgroup, but drilling further into it you can find the REALLY hardcore sects. Amongst these are the Cave fans.

Now I'm not saying there are no new players, or nice players in the 2d shooter world or in the subcult of Cave players. I'm an old shmup player and a relative newcomer to Cave games, and I'm plenty goshdamn nice. I'd just like to make those interested in the scene that there are 'curmudgeons' out there who'll happily rain on your parade with their superiority, and the internet (really the main voice and social tool for subgroups and subcultures all over) gives them a voice out of proportion to their numbers. If you can develop a thick skin to ward off these poopers, then there is some very unique and rewarding... though difficult... gaming to be had.

Cave sticks to bullet hell shooters. They have dabbled in other genres a bit, but they seem to have decided where there bread and butter lies. Lots and lots of bullets. Alternately called danmaku (curtain fire) or manic shooters, bullet hell games like a lot of modern media have succumbed to the 'more is better' mentality. Historically, developers have balanced the simplicity of play with flashier window dressing and more complicated scoring mechanics as increases in video game technology have allowed. With such basic move and shoot play, the enemies, bosses, music, pace, and everything else have ramped up to make the experience more intense. While there have been the occasional over-the-top titles with aspects that have never been duplicated (Batsugun's firepower or Radiant Silvergun's length and boss rush), shmups have followed the summer blockbuster film pattern of attempting to outdo what has gone before... a pattern that has culminated, for the time being at least, in the so-called bullet hell shooter.

Some shmup players hate this style of game. They prefer the quick twitch and dodge gaming of the some of the older styles characterised by companies like Psikyo... few but fast bullets as is typically stated. Or the memorisation-based games like R-type or Last Resort. Or mixup games like the ThunderForce series. But for sheer eye candy, and processor-bogging screen hazards nothing beats a manic shooter. And Mushi Futari is a really great recent example.

Now Cave knows that their speciality, the manic shmup, has uber-niche gaming appeal only. But they want to make a go of the home market. They've typically had SOME titles make their way to home conversions, like the previously-posted-about Donpachi. But in today's market, like studios making DVDs, you have to offer something more. You can't just slap a conversion of an arcade game straight onto the disc, no frills included and expect gamers to love it-- apart from the aforementioned frequently-snotty hardcore faithful. If you don't add the video game equivalent of commentaries and easter eggs your game will need to be bargain-priced. Especially if you hope your sales will reach a bit beyond your core audience. Unbelievably, not only does Mushi Futari offer almost every version of this game that was released in the arcades (Cave tends to update the arcade boards as balance or other issues come up), versions allowing graphics all re-drawn for HD setups in the home, world leaderboards, and a lack of region protection... it actually has versions of the game ideal for novices to learn how to play manic shooters.

The company primariliy responsible for making bullet hell shooters the hermetic environment that they are, has with Mushi Futari, given the keys to the gate to every video game player. There are so many play modes and so many difficulty levels, that my eleven year old son... who has always marveled at bullet hell games... is actually able to play and make progress. The point of most STGs is to play for score or survival but unlimited credits really REALLY shortens the play life of these things. If you don't give unlimited credits today's player will often quit because progress involves replaying the same early levels over and over again until you master them. If you do give unlimited credits then most players just push the continue button, see the end, and then put the game away. Some STGs have figured out various ways to compromise. Offer an option to limit credits. Reward hours of play with extra credits. I particularly like Mars Matrix' solution-- play time earns 'money' which you use to buy ship upgrades between games. Amongst the upgrades is more ships or more credits. But it takes quite a bit of play to earn enough credits to get these. Pretty much all shooters punish you for using extra credits by resetting your score, but that really just isn't enough unless you are hardcore.

Mushi Futari puts the credit and no-credit options right on the front page of their game. You can play one credit and earn the right to put your score on the world leaderboards. Or you can have credit feeding as an option. Credit feeding is a viable tactic for practicing later levels and bosses without the drudge of working up to them again and again. But the greatness in this release is the iterations you can work through to get better. Sure they are all basically the same game (apart from Arrange mode). Same enemies. Same levels. Same bosses. But the bullet frequency, speed, and patterns varies widely. Your firepower and the scoring systems also change quite radically. If you start out with the novice versions of the game and move up as you get better, you find that Mushi Futari is teaching you how to play a bullet hell game. In addition, as stated above, Cave made the game region free. This most Japanese-exclusive of game companies has made this game available to Xbox 360 owners everywhere. Even the downloadable content, a headache for most players because it requires you build a separate Japanese Xbox Live account complete with Japanese address info, just shoots onto your console no problem.

Kurt Kalata's 'blog entries on Hardcore Gaming 101 go into his personal feelings about how Mushi Futari has made strides. I wasn't really intending to tread the same ground he has. This entry is supposed to be more of a clarion to game players-- if you are going to buy one bullet hell shooter it should probably be this one. At least until Espgaluda 2 comes along and outdoes it. Even if Mushi Futari's protagonist (cute teen anime princess) doesn't really do it for you, the environments, enemies, and bosses probably will. You progress through waves of dinosaurs, bugs, and ultimately dragons-- all lovingly detailed and animated. Though you will find it harder and harder to discern those details as you move up through the difficulty levels. They'll be obscured by whorls and waves of enemy firepower. You will really feel like you've accomplished something if you get good at this game.

That might be surprising for today's low-attention/high expectation players. A game with only five levels, dodge-and-shoot mechanics like Space Invaders, and no 3d! Who'da thunk it?

(pic cribbed from NCSX)

Important Only To Game Geeks and Probably Not Many of Them

Zero Wing

My interest in other video game genres is cycling around again now that I’ve surmounted the Odin Sphere monolith. Some recent time has been spent on new racing games, which I’ll post about later, but I also just bought two games that are akin to a trip back to the early 90s, the tail end of the 2d shooter heyday.

At that time, I had been living on the East Coast a few years, and in between getting married, starting a career, and trying to carve out a comfortable space in which to raise kids, there wasn’t the kind of time to spend going to video arcades the way I used to. I might’ve found the available options depressing compared to previous years if I had as much free time because this was the time of the ‘great shrinkage’, where the small street corner arcade, and the game machines at every convenience store and pizza restaurant started to fade on down to the state things are in today. In the USA, arcades today, and for some years now, have basically been the occasional little mall space OR are the giant super-centers like Jillian’s, Dave & Busters or maybe Chuck E. Cheese. Admittedly, in these latter franchises it is pretty cool to be able to get a beer when you’re playing, but the video game machines are competing with other amusements that have big, attractive, imposing apparatus like pool tables, ball-toss games, or various simulators. Most of the video games themselves seem to be the big ride-on or specialist cabinet types. There’s nothing wrong with the custom cabs. Its great for an arcade machine to offer something not easily duplicated at home. So that’s where you go when you want to ride a virtual racing bike, man a firehose, or use an uzi in a light gun game. But all this spectacle kind of shrinks down the space and traffic for the traditional video game. I’m not saying you can’t find any great arcades, just that not every town is so blessed anymore.

At any rate, back in 1993 or thereabout, I could only eke out a little time for video gaming away from home. But what games they were! At this time sprite art ruled. The color and details in all game genres was overwhelming. Virtua Fighter had only just come out, so the drab dominance of polygons was still in the future. Most of my video gaming was done at home on a Sega Genesis. It couldn’t duplicate the speed and power of my favorite arcade machines but many of the conversions were good considering the limitations. I wasn’t sold on the 3DO. I had a NeoGeo, but carts for that beast were expensive. The Sega Saturn, really the machine that COULD absolutely duplicate those sprite-tastic arcade games was just around the corner.

I liked racing and fighting games a lot. Some great platformers and lightgun games too. But for me, arcade crack was the 2d shooting game, typically called an STG or shmup in the present generation. The 2d shooter is one of the oldest, most venerable video game genres, and at root one of the simplest. It has evolved through ever more complicated hazard patterns and more complex scoring systems, but in the main they are all just dodging and shooting. In a vertical shooter the shit’s coming down from above (Galaxian, Rayforce), in a horizontal shooter the shit’s coming in from the side, usually the right (UN Squadron, Zero Wing). Some games mix the two directions in various ways (Lifeforce for the NES, Thunder Force II). Some games are omnidirectional, usually eight directions actually (Sinistar, Subterranea). There is also the arena shooter, where your character/ship is confined to a single area, room, or space, moving to a new space when the current one is cleared (Robotron 2084, Geometry Wars).

It is the simplicity of the STG that makes it appealing and enduring. Going back to Space Invaders, the shooter has always epitomized the ‘easy to learn, difficult to master’ maxim in gaming. You can just jump in with almost no foreknowledge of how to play, and then play however you wish; for survival, just ‘seeing how far you can get’, or for score, really digging into what enemies to shoot when, the best places to trigger bombs. Or a combination of the two goals, playing in whatever way suits your play style or your current ability with the game. The beauty of the STG compared to a lot of other video games is similar to a simple classic toy or game (or even a stick or cardboard box!) compared to some complicated licensed modern action figure or remote-controlled robot. The simple plaything fires the imagination and doesn’t require a lot of references. It isn’t about knowing a certain cartoon or movie, but you can certainly put that into the toy if appropriate. A simple old plastic gun can be any firearm needed for a play situation. Today’s popular toys are tied to some specific character in some specific show. They don’t require as much imagination, creativity, or effort on the part of the owner. Flashy, but limited. These modern contraptions are not the toys that kids tend to come back to again and again… and they are not the ones fondly remembered or saved for posterity.

It seems hokey, but STGs require little and can give back a lot. Because they are rooted in the old arcade scene, modern players may think the games just don’t have much to them. Played properly, without credit-feeding, they require one to play the same areas over and over again. But the best ones have a ‘just one more go’ addictive quality to them. As you play, you improve. Those small gains are hard fought and mastering these games is almost always a testament to raw skill… not luck, not finding the hidden super-weapon, not a spammable, unblockable move. And no guide book or FAQ is going to help you. The best you can do is watch online videos or ask experts for advice, but in the end you are still going to have to do the shooting, dodging, and scoring yourself.

STGs are kind of a niche or cult genre in video games now. Still around, still made, but rarely having any kind of high-profile or mainstream success, particularly in the US. But back in the years under discussion, the STG was still pretty popular. The height of its popularity was probably just past in 1993, but they were at a creative high point, a golden era to many of the shmup players today. I wanted to get back to THAT.

As I said, the Genesis was my main outlet, and I did have a lot of STGs for it. The shooters made specifically for the machine get most of the good press. Everyone knows the Thunder Force series, Android Assault, MUSHA, and all those games. Greatness sure, but they don’t have the disadvantage of having an arcade original to compare them to. They got made with the console tools and specs in mind, pushing those limitations where possible. Suffering by comparison were the conversions. They always had a precedent to live up to, but a number of these were still pretty decent and went a long way towards making me okay with my lack of arcade time. One particular title was Zero Wing.

Zero Wing was a game that I originally played to death in an arcade in California. It came out in ’89 during what was probably the apex of STG popularity in terms of mass appeal. I loved that game. It wasn’t particularly fast or spectacular. It had a strange hook to the gameplay with your ship having an enemy-ensnaring tractor beam, but it didn’t seem to be that much of a standout feature. You could take it or leave it. There was just something about the combination of the kinda-strange music, and the very weird, dark graphics. The game was developed by Toaplan, who have a distinctive, odd style with their productions. But I liked it quite a bit, and still do. I kept at Zero Wing enough to eventually 1CC the game in the arcade. I was ecstatic when some time later I saw there was a Genesis port of the game. My copy was the Japanese one, so I missed out on the ‘all your base are belong to us’ subtitle that much later became an internet rage. The Genesis port had all the basics down. Music was the same, pace was the same, all the enemies were recognizable and I was really pleased that the odd (some almost disturbing) bosses were still huge and intact. Mostly it was background details that were missing. Again, I played that shit to death.

Batsugun

This brings us to the game Batsugun. Released about four years after Zero Wing, this was one of my go-to games for my infrequent arcade visits in the 90s. It still had the distinctive art and sound, but it was a little brighter and happier than previous Toaplan excursions like Zero Wing or Truxton. With financial dissolution looming however, Batsugun was the company’s last game. Ironically, it was also the start (arguably) of a revolution in STG play and philosophy. I didn’t know it was Toaplan’s final game at the time. I just recognized the name and the graphic style. The play was a different matter.

Batsugun is probably the progenitor of the manic style of shooter, also known as danmaku (literally curtain-fire) or bullet hell shooters. There may be a case for various staples of the subgenre to have derived from earlier games, but in Batsugun, you have the first game (that I’m aware of) that so many of the traits came together in a recognizable combination.

Manic shooters are typically short, even by the already short STG standards. They feature tons of enemy fire, a veritable curtain of it dropping down (hence the nickname) often in mesmerizing patterns. The enemy bullets tend to travel slower than previous forms of shmup, with the skill in dodging coming, not from memorization or sheer speed of reflexes, but from dexterity in threading your way through the bullet patterns or positioning yourself to ‘herd’ most of the fire into one spot on the screen so that you can maneuver yourself to a different spot. The ships or characters tend to have small hit boxes, the area on your sprite that can actually be struck for a kill by enemy fire. Other parts of the sprite will just pass the bullets on through. The games also equip the player with monumental amounts of firepower, with selectable ships trading off how wide your shot spread is versus striking power. Choose a ship with a wide, weak area of fire and you will have an easier time with the common ‘popcorn’ enemies. Choose a ship with a narrow, focused area of fire and you’ll have to move around a lot to kill all the popcorn enemies before they overwhelm you, but you’ll knock the life off the bosses or minibosses a lot quicker. The games also tend to feature complex or multilayered scoring systems. Keeping up sequential chains of hits, using certain weapons on certain enemies, or drawing out the boss battles, can all be features developed to reward skillful, knowledgeable players with higher scores than the scrubs can manage.

Batsugun's scoring was not particularly complex. The hitbox on your ship was not tiny. And a lot of the enemy bullets come at you pretty fast. But overall, playing the game you can see the shift toward a new style. The levels are brief but intense. Firepower from bosses and midbosses requires threading through waves of bullets or bullet herding. From about the third stage on, the smaller enemies become numerous enough for their firepower to become an aerial labyrinth. And in a display that may have yet to be equaled in video gaming, the ships in Batsugun spew out the most awesome swaths of pixellated death ever. Seriously. In a genre known for over-the-top firepower, this game from 1993 (sixteen years ago!) is still the top of the heap for equipping players with regular shots that surpass the badassedness of final boss weapons in most games. And once you are leveled up you get these weapons ALL THE TIME. Pretty much to the point you often can’t even tell what’s going on with enemy ships and bullets. That visual confusion aspect is probably why most shooters after Batsugun haven’t tried to match it. I won’t say Batsugun becomes unplayable, it doesn’t. But it might just be more than its worth for anyone else to try to find just the right balance of enemy elements and visual design to keep that shit workable. I’ve seen incredible player fire in modern STGs, but the unbelievable day-glo apocalypse of Batsugun seems unique. Nonetheless, whatever its excesses (or in the case of length, shortcomings) the game struck a chord with me (though this would take years to manifest) and shmup fans in Japan.

Maybe two years along from this I picked up the Sega Saturn. One of the reasons I love this machine so much… it might be my favorite console… is that it replicated the arcade games I loved so much. As stated earlier, I didn’t cotton to the 3DO, which was ahead of its time and did have some arcade-perfect conversions. If I recall right it came down to the expense really. A friend was generous enough to give me a NeoGeo that they didn’t want or need, and that really WAS an arcade machine. Being limited to SNK’s own games and a very limited circle of developers, the NeoGeo would only ever have the tiniest fraction of cool arcade games on it. Samurai Shodown is my favorite 2d fighting franchise, and that was no small thing, but it wasn’t enough of course. So when the Saturn came along it provided, for the first time really, AFFORDABLE arcade-perfect conversions. No real compromises apart from disk loading. It was awesome. Playing Capcom fighters like Street Fighter or Darkstalkers just like the ones down at the mall. The copy of Strikers 1945 at your local Chuck E. Cheese was just like the one on your bookshelf. I nearly shat myself with glee. Every game purchased for consoles prior to the Saturn was exciting (until a game turned out to be crap), but games purchased for Sega’s black box were fucking EVENTS, man! And I became the total import snob/whore too. Modding my Saturn happened in the third month of ownership. I was not missing out on any game possibilities just because of the fuckwit region coding. If you were a true arcade fetishist you probably could take each Saturn conversion and actually find details here and there where they differ from their arcade parent, but compared to previous console generations’ struggle to even get close, the differences amounted to nothing.

So it was and is really weird that I really don’t have all that many STGs on my Saturn. I have a lot of games for it, in all sorts of genres—2d fighters particularly. But not that many shmups. Not considering how popular they are with me, how popular they were when the Saturn came out, and how many actually got made for the console. Oh, I have some great ones. But considering how critical the genre is to my video game geekdom the small number is a symptom of a tremendous oversight.

A few years after the Saturn’s release and Toaplan’s demise, former staffers at Gazelle converted Batsugun to the Sega box for publisher Banpresto. I bought the Radiant Silverguns and the Soukyougurentais so well-known on the platform, but overlooked this one. I’m sure it was probably not so high-profile as other games, being Japan-only and in a genre that was by that time (1996) starting to drop off in popularity. It was also ‘old’. A version of a game long past its arcade debut.

But back in 1993, with Toaplan’s breakup, the artists and programmers went off to join other companies or form their own. Takumi, Raizing, and Gazelle all rose from the ashes of Toaplan. But the critical descendant in this post is Cave. If a gamer is at all a shmup fan it is likely they are aware of Cave. The company is world-reknowned today as the talented (but extremely focused) developer of complex (for the genre), meticulously-crafted, 2d shooting games. You really cannot have a shmup discussion of any length before this develper crops up. Love them or hate them (and their manic style DOES have it share of detractors), there is no doubt that Cave are the most influential shooter developer at present.

Donpachi

Before Cave rose to prominence though, they had to have started somewhere. Their first game was Donpachi, released to arcades in 1995. Donpachi continues a pretty tidy transition. Though the art style is markedly different, many of the concepts the ex-Toaplan gang still had in mind carried right on over to this new game. The ‘manic’ aspects had been even further developed in the two years between, so that Donpachi contained almost all the hallmarks of the manic shooter as we know it today. Donpachi’s graphics were not as distinctive (or as elaborate) as Batsugun’s. The promo materials were almost crude, with very simple images and design. Having just started, I doubt Cave had any kind of budget for the niceties and plugged everything they had time and money-wise into making the game itself as awesome as it could be. Interestingly, a hornet was the logo for some of the characters in Batsugun, and a bee became the symbol for Donpachi, establishing a winking continuity. A Saturn port was almost immediate, again with no money going to fancy packaging. Since it came out in 1996 and the Batsugun port was rather late, this had the interesting effect of putting a game and its sort-of sequel on sale at the same time. Apart from some puzzlingly lengthy disc spinning the Saturn version of Donpachi is really faithful to the arcade version just as expected.

In my halcyon days as a Saturn customer I didn’t know about Donpachi either. I was not on the cutting edge of shmup development and how I DID catch back up might be a tale for another post.

At any rate, to bring all this up the original desire fronting this post; when I saw the end of Odin Sphere was just a week or two off I knew I’d want to get back into short, sharp games for a bit. Between looking around my collection of unfinished games and shopping online for something new, I realized there was a seriously underrepresented ‘era’ in my shooters; late 80s and early 90s arcade ports or conversions. I played the hell out of the actual arcade games, why don’t I have that nostalgia trip covered on my shelves? Maybe I GOT enough of a fix of it then that I mostly bought different games. But I was missing it now. I decided to specifically target that moment of transition/revolution that ushered in the bullet hell shooter. I had a number of manic shooters in my collection, but I missed the beginnings. I rectified that by buying a copy each of the Saturn versions of Batsugun and Donpachi at the same time. It took a long damn time for these things to reach me from the seller in Japan. Donpachi was cheap, Batusugun not so much, though not up in the brutal ass-pirate price range that a lot of Saturn (or Dreamcast) shooters are. I got out some Saturn arcade sticks…no basic controllers for STGs boys and girls…and fired the games up.

These games really are fantastic. They are addicting but exhausting too once you’ve broken into playing the later levels. The graphics are strictly old school in the sense of being hand-drawn sprites and no scaling or fancy effects. There isn’t even much in the way of parallax (multi-plane) scrolling. Instead, all the processing is going into having many enemies onscreen at once and about a bazillion bullets. That’s less than the kajillion bullets modern manic shooters throw at you perhaps, but still impressive. I’ve already noted the completely insane firepower in Batsugun, but Donpachi’s no slouch either. You can either tap the fire button to get your usual shots or hold the button down for an absolute geyser of destructive power. The tradeoff is that your ship slows down while ‘geysering’. Add in three selectable ships and two bomb types and you have all the makings of a shooter orgasm. I actually find Donpachi to be more spectacular than its 2002 sequel Dodonpachi Daioujou. Daioujou has more detailed rendered graphics, and is more polished and modern. But it is also somehow 'scaled down' and more muted. Daioujou is a great game, and I’m not saying it is less of a game than the first one. But the graphics, particularly the weapons, just don’t have the same eye-searing impact as Donpachi’s. Having played a fair amount of Daioujou, I kind of expected something of the same play and scoring system in its ancestor, but I was actually surprised by how much was already in place in this first game… or maybe it would be better to say how little has changed through all the Donpachi chapters through the years.

Its really been interesting and fun. On the one hand Batsugun looks like a Toaplan game superficially but plays like something much more recent. As if someone had a time machine that saw the shooters of the future and implemented what they saw as best they could on their hardware when they got back to their own time. Not understanding the balance between super-blasting weapons and visibility that characterises the modern bullet hell shmup, they just went for as big a weapons as they could.

Donpachi on the other hand plays like someone took a modern manic shooter’s code and built all the visuals and sounds out of old assets. Like it is a current Cave game clone that someone had to put old sprites on. In no way is that meant to be derogatory. I think rather it is a testament to how forward thinking Cave’s basic play idea was even in that first early game.

A great nostalgia trip. I'll be hacking away at improving my game on both of these shooters and probably continuing to play them together. I also need to keep filling in my Saturn shooter catalog, notably with the sequel Dodonpachi.
(pics mostly from Satakore)