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They dedicated an article to shmups from different companies like Cave, Treasure, Alfa Systems, and Psikyo. Some nice pics too.
The article talks about the supposed "death" of 2D shmups. Funny, I thought shmups were making a bit of a comeback this year.
Most of the games mentioned in the article are new too.
Here's the link.
Nice article.
I assumed the Download games were developed by NEC Avenue since I didn't see Alfa System's name on them so I'm curious to know if the article is right about that.
Also, I never knew Psikyo consisted of ex-Compile people. Psikyo's games don't seem Compile-ish to me.
Rockin' article Melf, thanks a bunch for the link :)
Has anyone played that GBA boxing game from Treasure? Opinions?
It's pimpy good fun. Get it.Quote:
Originally Posted by NoboruWataya
I've been playing a lot of Strikers 1945 II lately, and also just played some GunNac recently, but something actually got me thinking if anyone from Compile was with Psikyo. No shit. But I don't remember if was some pattern ... (or a sound effect..)Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater
*scratch that*
...oh yeah!!!
now I remember what it was.
Gunbird. The stage with the train is just like a train stage in RoboAleste.
Super similar even.
Good read, thanks Melf.
Radical, I'll do that.Quote:
It's pimpy good fun. Get it.
I think that's pretty much rubbish. Compile and Psikyo shooters have absolutely nothing in common. I have no idea where the author of that article got his info, but he makes a lot of mistakes so I'm sure the psikyo/Compile thing is just another one.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater
Despite the errors, it's nice to read something publicizing my fav genre :)
Awesome article, thanks for the heads-up Melf.
Didn't even know Treasure had been working on a boxing game for GBA. Add that to my ever-growing list of games to track down, heh...
Huh?
Is this a joke? I mean where to start??
1 freakin word... GRADIUS. I mean, common, this is just poor research.Quote:
Treasure:...
have lately paid the bills by making Wario World for Nintendo and a new Hajime no Ippo anime-licensed boxing game for the Game Boy Advance.
<snip>
Where they're going now, though, is hard to say. Treasure's only current project of record is, yes, another licensed game, this time a 3D action title for Bandai based on the Japanese animated series Dragon Drive.
Perhaps I am wrong here, but the only bee's in the game you pick up as a bonus and the end boss of the second loop. Also they never mention DonPachi my favorite.Quote:
Cave:...
the literal word meaning "angry bees," which happen to make up a large part of the opposition
Ok so it is hinted at here, but someone please help me understand this author and what the hell he is trying to say here. Are they saying that The Pachi games are based off of (a later released title) Giga Wing with strategy? Or relating the Pachis to a broader US release? Then on top of that are they saying that The Pachi's have "rare" certain death situations? So umm this guy can 1 credit these games no problem? Am I missing something here? DP in any form or reincarnation is not easy (actuall I can not speak for DDP2).Quote:
Daioujou and its predecessors on the Saturn and in the arcades manage to combine the screen-filling carnage of Giga Wing with a touch of genuine strategy, since true certain-death situations are rare.
I am done with this guy. Seriously Defender was the best thing you could put as the barebones strip down of modern shooters?Quote:
Of late, they've been dolled up with fancier graphics and complex bonus-point systems, but at its heart, any shooter is essentially Defender, a test of the quickness of hand and eye.
O well hopefull this article will do 2 things promote shmups and Border Down.
----------
PS:
Where they got this crap is beyond me, but they say hear-say but dont even mention Cave's Toplan lineage or Treasure's Konami. What ever.Quote:
Psikyo, in turn, descends from Compile,
I did not know that G.Rev came from Taito, that make me more excited about it.
Not only that but he forgot to mention that Donpachi and Dodonpachi is also on PSone, quick someone find out where he lives! ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shapermc
By certain death I think he's maybe hinting at the small hit box btw.
Ok that makes sence. He should have been more clear, because newbies to the game may have a different opinion about the game then.Quote:
Originally Posted by J2d
Matt, check out Gunbird (the first one), and then play RoboAleste on the SegaCD. As I mentioned above; the levels where you have to fight the train seem similar.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt
Wah.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shapermc
Quote:
Originally Posted by omfgninjas
At least he is bitching about the subject at hand, you are just being a bitch in general.
JM
S'true
Though, seriously, shooter fans are just about the hardest sons of bitches to please.
I don't think the dates even match up here. That aside, the two games are very dissimilar. The train section in Robo Aleste lasts for about 3 minutes and is one of the most action-less things I've ever seen in a shooter. The Gunbird part is similar only in that it's a train bit in a vertical scrolling shooter. Much shorter, actual action. I think this is like the topic at shmups.com about the "MUSHA Layer Section Soukyugurentai connection." It's stretching it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Core Boy
Yeah, I just got done playing some Gunbird.
...and I don't know exactly what I was thinking.
Still, something in Gunbird made me think that there was a RoboAleste relation -and this was before I read the article at hand. Allow me to continue the stretch and wonder whether there's an artist or two that may have worked on both games.
Who would be hardcore enough to have the staff lists for both games?
Next chance I have to get my SegaCD down here, I'm going to make that a project. ..'ll get back on this one.
Post Count +1 For YOU! :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by omfgninjas
You can start here http://www.vgmuseum.com/ that might lead you in the correct direction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Core Boy
Compile staff didn't form Psikyo - they formed Raizing. Gameplay conventions from the Aleste series are very evident in games like Battle Garegga, Soukyugurentai, and Shippu Mahou Daisakusen. And while I'm on the nitpicking bandwagon...
Grev got their feet wet with the Naomi and Dreamcast with Doki Doki Idol Star Seeker.Quote:
G.Rev seems to be the one outfit listed here that isn't about anything but shooters. Founded by various veterans from Taito and other multi-tasking developers, it's made one game and one game only for anything outside the mobile-phone realm: Border Down...
Uninformed and inaccurate. Bash the stuff Takuyo or D3 bring out in that genre if you like, but NEC Interchannel releases quality software for the most part.Quote:
Import fans might want to pick that one up, if only for the novelty of a new Dreamcast game that isn't a hideous NEC Interchannel PC port.
And this is a cheap shot, but keep in mind that the author of this article is the guy responsible for the infamous "Our frothing demand increases..." quote.
It's a good article for what it is - a report on the state of shooters on a mainstream gaming site - but it's horribly researched and inaccurate.
Yeah, just a little more research and he would have seen that the genere is doing better than it has in years.
JM
That was. Said quote is not nearly as bad when seen in context. Further, I'd say Mr. Smith is one of the best writers working online right now, occasional use of "frothing" or not. (No, I don't know him. :P)Quote:
Originally Posted by jiji
Awesome avatar BenT and a good reminder to go play the game.
He's just comparing it to something western audiences have (reasonable) retail access to, not saying one was derived from the other. That's fair, and often done in film and book reviews. Chronology needn't factor in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shapermc
Certain death refers to a situation in which your ship is hemmed into a corner by a wall of bullets, with no hope for escape. He's saying DP was carefully designed enough so that no situation is hopeless; there's always an escape route however tiny, except in rare cases.Quote:
Then on top of that are they saying that The Pachi's have "rare" certain death situations? So umm this guy can 1 credit these games no problem? Am I missing something here? DP in any form or reincarnation is not easy (actuall I can not speak for DDP2).
I'm suprised he missed out on the Gradius thing, though. EGM even went out of their way to mention the Treasure connection in their "hot games from Japan" feature this month.
Thanks! It's one of my enduring favorites.Quote:
Originally Posted by J2d
Great game. My review:Quote:
Originally Posted by NoboruWataya
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/s...ad.php?t=13079
I have a FAQ up on GameFAQs for it too.
Does anyone have the credits of any Psikyo game? I have a save of Space Megaforce's credits. I think that I'll download a Garrega ROM right now for comparison.
Do Psikyo games have credits rolls? I don't remember any (but haven't beaten more than a couple anyway)Quote:
Originally Posted by xS
Raizing Staff
Director: Kazuyuki Nakashima
Programm 68000 Side: S. Yagawa, Yasunari Watanabe
Programm Z80 Side: Yuichi Ochiai
Graphic: Shinsuke Yamakawa, Mitsuakira Tatsuta
Sound Effect: Manabu Namiki
Test Player: Mr. Daigoro, Marika F.
Psikyo Staff
Jun-ichi Niwa, Shin. Nakamura, R.J. Bashmet, Hyoue Ogawa, Wataru Yamazaki, Hideyuki Oda, Youko Tsukagoshi, Hiromi Tanegashima, Masaki Izutani, Ikuya Yoshida, Norikazu Takemori, Toshinori Sugita, Seiki -SSS- Sato, Shiori Saito, Yusataro
And these are the credits for Compiles Space Megaforce/ Super Aleste
Which is a shame, given the excellence of its past work like In the Hunt and the rest of the R-Type series. If nothing else, we'll always have Gun Force: Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island.
only ESPrade from a few years ago (which introduced the excellent promotional artwork of Junya Inoue to the game world
:lol:
Dozens of shooters have train levels - Gigawing, Battle Bakraid, 19XX are 3 that I can think of off the top of my head. They're nothing special.Quote:
Originally Posted by Core Boy
Psikyo and Compile games are about as different as they come. Psikyo makes games with extremely short levels, tightly controlled powerup sequences, and bullet patterns that are really scripted. Compile (and Raizing too) did shooters with long rambling levels that threw all kinds of random crap at you and had powerups falling from the sky every few seconds.
Buncha more nitpicking:
- Shikigami has an unconventional style? Why? It's like Esprade with a buzz system thrown in.
- Cave had more US-released games than Yanya Caballista. There was Steep Slope Sliders for the Saturn, and that PSX snowboarding game that Capcom released over here.
- Joker Jun's first shooter was Batsugun, wasn't it?
- Psikyo are the ones doing Cho Aniki this time, not NCS AFAIK.
- Geez, not one but two Gradius omissions! Treasure or no, you can't write a shooter article without mentioning Konami.
- Cotton was an arcade game first, then a PCE game.
- Psyvariar bombed? First time I heard of that...
- "whither" means "why?", not "where did it go?".
Now that was a big waste of time on my part :)
There doesn't seem to be much crossover between Space Megaforce and Raizing titles, but there's a lot between Musha and Raizing games. Musha's staff, from here:
And Soukyugurentai's staff, from here (my translation):Quote:
GAME DESIGN
COMPILE
SUPERVISOR
JEMINI HIRONO
PROGRAMER
6800SIDE
YU-ICHI TOYAMA
Z80SIDE
KYO-RA YUMI
ART DIRECTOR
KAZUYUKI NAKASIMA
VISUAL COOPERATOR
JANUS TERAMOTO
HIROSHI SATOU
SHO-JI YAMADA
MASHIRA FX-3
MUSIC COMPOSER
MR.SAKODA
SOUND EFFECT
MATS
SPECIAL THANKS
KOUJI MIZUTA
TEST PLAYER
BOBMITSU
MIKEO
ZENCHI
YASUNARI WATANABE
平
It's kinda neat that a tester on Musha went on to program on Souky and Garegga. :)Quote:
Planning, program
Yuuichi Toyama
Assistant planning
Kenichi Yokoo
Program
Yasunari Watanabe
Kenji Shibayama
Yuuichi Ochiai
Graphic
Kazuyuki Nakashima
Shinichi Oonishi
Hideki Hatanaka (?)
Graphic assistance
Shinsuke Yamakawa
Masaharu Tokutake
Yuki Yonei
Music
Hitoshi Sakimoto
Sound effects
Manabu Namiki
Cooperation
Raizing/Eighting All Staff
I guess the focus of the article was to reinform titles that are upcoming in the genre, but I was a bit disappointed to see no specific mention of Konami, Taito, Tecnosoft, and Takumi (though some titles of theirs, oddly enough).
And I can only further agree on the self-contradiciton of the last paragraph to the clip; if anything, the last few years have provided just as much shooter content compared to generations past.
I'm guessing they just scanned the site for this info; according to their August issue, Shiki 2 debuted at #6 and Border Down is hanging out at #14.Quote:
Originally Posted by article
I've always harped about the similarities between MUSHA & Raizing's first Mahou game. Also the option configuration system of Garegga is just like MUSHA's. I always wondered if any of the names coincided but I was too lazy to do the research myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by jiji
Thanks Jiji.
JM
Thanks for doing the foot work on all that information gentlemen, It was quite informative!
I've always thought that Psikyo originated from Video System Co. Turns out that I'm wrong.
Sonic Wings staff
STAFF:
Planning: Count.I
Program: Aiz!, You-Chan, Sysyou
Design: Armored Cruiser, Takasu, Akira, Manbow Yokoyama, T. Tateishi, K. Yamamotoya, A. Sakamura, A., Kaz, Hiki, T. Matsui, Oh! Kawara, M. Cats.I, Hil, T. Sakon
Sound: Q, P, Noise
And here are the credits of various other Raizing games.
Dimahoo
Main program: Yuichi Toyama
Planning & Design: Ken-Ichi Yokoh
Progress Control: Susumu Hibi
Producer: Masato Toyoshima, Tatsuya Minami
Staff: Kazuyuki Nakashima, Yasunari Watanabe, Yoshitaka Ikeda, Hiroshi Satoh, Kenji Kawakita, Yukiko Sugiyama, Toshikazu Sahoda, Manabu Namiki, Atsuhiro Motoyama, Ken-ichi Koyano, Nobuyuki Irie, Hiroshi Tahara, Tatsuya Uemura, Masahiro Yuge, Haruhisa Udagawa
Support: Capcom, Research & Development, Department 3, Tomoshi Sadamoto
Batrider
Program 68000 side: S. Yagawa
Program Z80 side: Yuichi Ochiai
Character: Kazuyuki Nakashima
Graphic: Kazuyuki Nakashima, H. Yokoyama, M. Taguchi, Masaharu Tokutake, Yuki Yonei
Music compose: Manabu Namiki, Ken-ichi Koyano, Hitoshi Sakimoto
Sound effect: Mato
Bakraid
Program 68000 Side: S. Yagawa
Program Z80 Side: T. Uemura
Music Compose: Atsuhiro Motoyama
What? The similar staff is from Sonic Wings 1.Quote:
Originally Posted by xS
Gunbird:
Hirofumi Nakamura, Artmic, Jun-Ichi Niwa, Shin Nakamura, Rick Johnson, Hyoue Ogama*, Wataru Yamazaki, Hideyuki Oda, Ikuda Yosida, Youko Tsukagoshi, Hiromi Tanegasima, Toshinori Sugita, Seiki Sato, Shiori Saito, Yusa Tarou
Music composed by Masaki Izutani.
Sonic Wings:
Shin Nakamura, Ogawa Hyone*, Armored Cruiser, Wataru Yamazaki, Alice Itoh, Tako Bekku, Neko ikeda, Hikihara, Manbow, H. Motono, Yamamotoya, H. Hino, You-Chan, M. Tsukada, Kazzo, Y. Fukuda, Y. Nakanishi, Naoki Itamura, Masato Arikawa, Soushi Hosoi, M. Sakakibara, Hironobu Urata
*have to assume on this one
Also, if I missed any names, please point them out.
My bad.=\
As soon as I had this article linked to me, I was really excited to read a good shooter article. Then I saw the Smith name and decided to skim through the crap. This guy never researches anything and has basically no idea what he's talking about. I have absolutely no bloody idea at all where BenT's coming from when he says Smith is a good writer. Or, well, he's a decent writer (kind of), but he's a horrible game journalist.
The funny thing is.. Just a couple of days or so (might've been a week) before this article was written, I read his crap Dai-ou-jou preview at IGN where he states that Dodonpachi doesn't mean anything. Then I corrected him in a thread at Gaming-Age and told him about it, and now he suddenly knows, although he's a bit off on that too, and never replied to my post (it was in an unrelated thread he posted in). I bet this crap article is all my fault for bringing it up! :yuck: :lol: :rolleyes:
I was talking more about his writing style rather than his factual accuracy (or lack thereof). I don't have much to say about the latter, but he remains a really fun read. Definitely among the top writers IGN's ever had, along with DC.IGN's Anoop and everyone's favorite 2D-slagging funster, Colin Williamson.
I can agree to an extent. If he would just learn more about games and drop the hyperbole (no, GTA3 doesn't have "literally hundreds" of missions!), he'd be one of the best in the business, in english at least.Quote:
Originally Posted by BenT
http://dynamic5.gamespy.com/~shmups/...pic.php?t=2984
"I heard a couple of guys from taito were in it too, but not the rayforce team (which also did G-Darius, and went away lately forming G-rev). "
The main programmer for Garegga, Batrider, and Bakraid, worked on Gun Frontier for Taito. He also did Recca, the Famicom Summer Carnival '93 game (by Naxat).
ps:where has thray walsh been as of late?