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I've been playing Sturmwind on my Dreamcast a little here and there. Got it on Play-Asia when they were having a sale a couple months back. Great game, but I've not put enough time into a sitting to beat it yet.

I just played through D-Force on the SNES. Oh boy, it has some...issues.

D-Force Issues:

Slow movement
VERY LARGE hitbox
Ineffective weapons early on (fully powered up is best)
Big enemy projectiles at times
No mercy whatsoever.

So, yeah! The "exploration" stages were a cool Mode 7 effort, but again, can't save the package.

I just finished up 3D Fantasy Zone II W. It was great. I got the dark ending a few times, and I figured out that you probably had to 1CC it to get the good ending. So, I turned up the lives, turned down the difficulty, and got the 1CC (and the good ending). I will probably shoot for the best ending at some point, and I will turn the difficulty back up when I go for it since, after playing around with the settings a bit, the difficulty setting doesn't seem to affect gameplay in any way.

I have now decided that I love the series, and I'm diving into 3D Fantasy Zone right now. I wil likely follow that up with Super Fantasy Zone (i.e., Fantasy Zone 3), but since that game was developed by Sunsoft, who knows if I'll be able to beat it.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I just finished up 3D Fantasy Zone II W. It was great. I got the dark ending a few times, and I figured out that you probably had to 1CC it to get the good ending. So, I turned up the lives, turned down the difficulty, and got the 1CC (and the good ending). I will probably shoot for the best ending at some point, and I will turn the difficulty back up when I go for it since, after playing around with the settings a bit, the difficulty setting doesn't seem to affect gameplay in any way.

I have now decided that I love the series, and I'm diving into 3D Fantasy Zone right now. I wil likely follow that up with Super Fantasy Zone (i.e., Fantasy Zone 3), but since that game was developed by Sunsoft, who knows if I'll be able to beat it.

Give the Master System versions of 1 & 2 a go when you can. Fantasy Zone 1 on SMS is basically just a port, but it offers a few unique bosses, and imo has much fairer screen scrolling, plus a nifty trick to get infinite 7-shot until you die once you have enough cash.

Fantasy Zone 2 on SMS is the original version and is totally different to Fantasy Zone II W. II W is an arcade-style remake that was originally done for the Fantasy Zone Sega collection on PS2. Both the 3DS games add a ton of extra stuff too though!

If you're really going all in on Fantasy Zone, there's also Fantasy Zone Gear for Game Gear, as well as one or two spin-offs. I haven't played those yet though!

ExedExes wrote:D-Force Issues:

Slow movement
VERY LARGE hitbox
Ineffective weapons early on (fully powered up is best)
Big enemy projectiles at times
No mercy whatsoever.

So, yeah! The "exploration" stages were a cool Mode 7 effort, but again, can't save the package.

You also left out the terrible boss design, poor sound effects and music, and total lack of connectivity in the stages. There's a lot to criticize in D-Force. There's a little I like, but a lot I don't.

Yeah because who thought going from the big city to the prehistoric era to the most generic desert setting imaginable to some sort of temple next was a great idea?

Was that the first and last shmup Asmik ever made? They tried and they failed, never to do it again.

ExedExes wrote:Was that the first and last shmup Asmik ever made? They tried and they failed, never to do it again.

Asmik also did Verytex on Mega Drive. The soundtrack was great but the gameplay was competent at best.

I am playing a shmup in this week-long TwinGalaxies MAME tournament, Star Jacker by Sega. I played the SG-1000 port years and years ago. Think Tac/Scan meets Xevious and you get a decent idea of it.

marurun wrote:

ExedExes wrote:Was that the first and last shmup Asmik ever made? They tried and they failed, never to do it again.

Asmik also did Verytex on Mega Drive. The soundtrack was great but the gameplay was competent at best.

Agreed. The soundtrack is fucking amazing though, enough to warrant playing a fairly average shooter.