WARNING! SHMUP PORN!

Pyongyang

No probs, I was just tugging your plums. There is lots of info around the blog scene and newsgroups if you are looking to get in to Doujin SHMUP collecting. Forgive my inexperience, I'm just getting in to these myself, but I think a lot of these titles have very small print runs due to them being non-commercial releases. That meaning, get in quick if you want to buy original CIB games!

In other news, I stumbled across this interesting article today, well worth a read if you like the SHMUP genre.

http://rydia.net/udder/writing/eykasiw.html

Pyongyang

Watching this video brings tears to the eyes. Why couldn't we have Summer projects like this? Instead Summer's were spent going on bike rides, building 'dens' or staying at your nan's who lived about 577 miles away and all you had for entertainment was a selection of yellowed Readers Digests from 1974-1977 that contained only knitting patterns and adverts for shoe buffers.

Ticks me off that during my teen and pre-teen years I could have been playing Star Soldier and bizarre Famicom baseball games instead of eating marzipan and finding hairs in my custard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAFFCsVIcJc

Retr0gamer

It just makes it even sadder that Konami finally completely bought out Hudson and forced them to cancel most of their projects and gutted them.

Imagine getting your hands on that Hi-Ten bomberman game!

I love how the spokeman and eventual executive of Hudson right up until very recently was Takahashi '16 shot' Meijin who got to that position by being able to hit the shoot button on the NES controller 16 times a second so he could maximise his scores in star soldier. Adventure Island's Master Higgins is actually based on him. He was on game centre CX, really great episode where arino was trying to take down a boss in star soldier in less than a second to get the high speed bonus by firing 10 shots in 1 second into his core. Seems like a really nice guy. Arino regularly has to break out his Joycard rapid firepad to get past most games!

Retr0gamer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ4lmAFB7d4

The legend there in action. Screw your bullet hell games, anyone can dodge bullets while holding a button down. That there is real skill, try that while playing one of the Soldier games!

The thing that he is using was actually released by Hudson to help people train themselves to fire as many shots as possible on a NES pad.

Pyongyang

Blimey! Did not know that. That's some skill to be able to button mash like that.

I was aware of Hi Ten Bomberman at the time it was released (edit: or rather, exhibited at Caravan events etc). Super Play magazine's 'Live From Hell City' articles used to regularly talk about HDTV and at one point mentioned the game.

It's hard to believe HDTV has been a staple of Japanese life for over 18 years or so. That said they've had the capacity to deploy said technology where I guess the UK and Ireland, for example, didn't have everything in place and are only just catching up now. It'll probably be a similar story for 4KTV, we won't see that for years but it's available in Japan now... for a high price.

Pyongyang

Retr0gamer wrote: »

The thing that he is using was actually released by Hudson to help people train themselves to fire as many shots as possible on a NES pad.

Nice video but in fairness why didn't he just buy a joystick with a rapid fire switch?

...and he should really see someone about getting a Levodopa prescription for that shaky hand. :pac:

Retr0gamer

You're not allowed use a rapid fire pad at the caravan events

HDTV's have been around for years it seems. Sure HD gaming has been around since SVGA on PC and probably before that on the Apples since they needed a high res screen for publishing. Apparently RGB scart can carry a HD signal of up to 720p, I read on a forum somewhere that a guy was regularly hooking up HD video panels for events with scart in the 90's.

Pyongyang

Didn't know about the rapid fire rule, interesting to know. Wish we had events like that here though.

True about the HD stuff, it's been around for ages, it's just never been cheap enough or easy enough to role out to the mass market globally. I can't wait for 4K though, even if TV networks don't record or broadcast in it, I'm sure in 3 or 4 generations of gaming consoles from now it'll be a staple. Although it would require a new TV which might put a lot of consumers off if there's no broadcast content to go with it.

Myrddin

Pyongyang wrote: »

Didn't know about the rapid fire rule, interesting to know. Wish we had events like that here though.

True about the HD stuff, it's been around for ages, it's just never been cheap enough or easy enough to role out to the mass market globally. I can't wait for 4K though, even if TV networks don't record or broadcast in it, I'm sure in 3 or 4 generations of gaming consoles from now it'll be a staple. Although it would require a new TV which might put a lot of consumers off if there's no broadcast content to go with it.

I wouldn't hold your breathe. They still don't broadcast 100p afaik, its all either 720p/1080i from Sky/UPC. I could see games doing it many many years down the road.

Pyongyang

This morning I learnt something new. There was a fourth DoDonpachi game (the unoffical second title in the series) called Bee Storm.

Didn't know that! Was any home conversion released or is it PCB only? A .cn pirate board? Reason being it doesn't appear to have been developed or published by Cave.

I can't seem to find much info on it. Anyone here able to help?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6prEpp_Fa6c

o1s1n

Bee Storm is for the IGS PGM. It's a little cart/motherboard based PCB like the Neo Geo MVS. There are a few good games for it. Demon Front is worth checking out, it's a Metal Slug clone.

I have one myself with a few games. Unfortunately my Demon Front PCB glitches out a bit.

I was going to pick up Bee Storm but it's actually not meant to be very good.

Pyongyang

I'm interested! What kind of price would one of these consoles(?) fetch? I just did a quick search on it and it appears there is an abundance of Cave goodness littering it's circuit board.

Seeing as it's Cave though I'm already breaking in to cold sweats trying to visualize a single game price.

edit: Never mind. Owch!

o1s1n

Well it's an arcade PCB, so if you wanted to get it going you'd either need an arcade cab or a supergun to play it on your tv.

Plus Bee Storm is orientated vertically, so you'd need to sort out a rotated display.

PGM motherboards sell for about €100. Here's one for a good price -

http://cgi.ebay.fr/BASE-IGS-PGM-PARA-ARCADE-SUPER-GUN-CON-JAMMA-/160609803719?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_186&hash=item2565171dc7

That Bee Storm you linked is insanely expensive. When I was looking into picking it up a couple of years ago it was around the €120 mark I think.

Pyongyang

Thanks for the info and the link. It's definitely something I'd look at in the future, especially due to the abundance of SHMUPS available for it. Looks like there's a lot of recent-ish stuff on there too, Ketsui for example.

That said, I'm focusing on PC Engine and Saturn titles at the moment. I've also developed a disturbing lust for Puyo Puyo games so I am trying to collect all NTSC-J versions of those now too.

o1s1n

Candy cab first, then PCBs! The other way around is just painful.

I have a CPS2 Aliens Versus Predator and a Vendetta PCB which I still have yet to play in a cab. /sniff sniff

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

Candy cab first, then PCBs! The other way around is just painful.

I have a CPS2 Aliens Versus Predator and a Vendetta PCB which I still have yet to play in a cab. /sniff sniff

PLease tell me thats coz you've moved & not coz your cab is broke??

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

PLease tell me thats coz you've moved & not coz your cab is broke??

Monitor is still out of action unfortunately. Although there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, I've been sorted with a new chassis which will be fitted sometime soon. Fingers crossed that does the job.

johnny_ultimate

Those bastards at Rising Star are once again taunting an imminent Cave-related announcement.

We can probably safely assume Akai Katana and Death Smiles II are in there, but JUST TELL US GOSH DARNIT!

Pyongyang

Maybe even Espgaluda II? I've a feeling it will be Deathsmiles II though, which is excellent news either way.

I hope Cave staff can see how well-loved they are outside Japan and that sales of Deathsmiles in Europe reflected this. Fingers crossed!

johnny_ultimate

I'm not sure it would be worth RS' effort for Espgaluda or Mushimasama given that the majority of hardcore fans have their copies already. It might be, but if I was a betting man I'd say Akai Katana is the most likely, but hoping it will be a multiple announcement!

safetyboy

Ordered ESPGalauda 2 from yes asia 2 weeks ago, still no sign of it, renchi took 5 days to deliver!

Pyongyang

Akai Katana would be an astonishing coup. I'd actually wet myself if it's true.

I could bat way out of left field though and suggest it's a PAL Muchi Muchi Pork!/Pink Sweets perhaps? Oddly, I don't have Espgaluda II yet, it's been on my list for a while but I keep buying PC Engine stuffs.

johnny_ultimate

Muchi Muchi Pork / Pink Sweets seem niche even by Japan / Cave standards, so personally I'd be very surprised, especially since it's region free as well. Already seems like a rarity actually - not in stock in play-asia anymore, but as with all Japanese new releases the price is just too high to warrant an import.

Pyongyang

http://xbox-mag.net/article23360.html?refresh=1#ixzz1RzIIOWeg

Apparently it could well be DoDonpachi Dai Fukkatsu: Black Label. That would be completely biblical if they drop that one in Europe. :cool:

Pyongyang

Further 'confirmation' to my previous post:

http://www.amazon.fr/Rising-Star-Dodonpachi-resurrection/dp/B005CNUYWE

johnny_ultimate

They're worth following on Facebook for English language updates: https://www.facebook.com/RisingStarGames

But yeah DDP is probably / definitely amongst the titles they'll announce. TAPS NOSE!!!!

Pyongyang

I don't use Facebook.

Where were the rumours of more than one title being released? I'd wager that the other game will be Deathsmiles II in this instance based on the reception of the first game.

johnny_ultimate

Just hints from here and there. RSG staff have responded to the pleas for Akai Katana here for example (few posts down): http://www.risingstargames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=546&start=60

Alas, it all seems to be down to corporate blah de blah for lack of firm announcements!

blag

I really hope it's not Death Smiles 2X, I enjoyed the first game for a while but then it kinda fell flat.

But, I'd love Akai Katana, from what I've seen of it looks terrific. Or Dai-fukkatsu will do either:D

ondafly

blag wrote: »

I really hope it's not Death Smiles 2X, I enjoyed the first game for a while but then it kinda fell flat.

But, I'd love Akai Katana, from what I've seen of it looks terrific. Or Dai-fukkatsu will do either:D

Akai Katana is good fun - alot harder than Death Smiles though. Shameless plug of it playing on my cab below :pac: