December Together Retro: Shmuptacular

[noiseredux]

Had a couple of attempts at Triggerheart Exelica on the xbox one. It's quite a basic looking game which is fair enough given that it's an indie and over a decade old but it's got a good cheesy soundtrack and the gameplay is solid. The grab mechanic takes some getting used to but is devastating when used effectively. I did a coin feed run and a couple of proper attempts but I suck at shmups so I get to about stage 3 before wiping out.

I always thought Triggerheart was pretty great. Especially once you learn the grab mechanic.

[MrPopo]

I find I get distracted using the grab mechanic and die to a random shot.

[Nemoide]

Tonight I played through the first loop of Gradius ReBirth, the Wii-exclusive "remix/remake" of the Gradius games.
I wasn't expecting much: the next most recent Gradius-related game I played, Otomedius on Xbox 360, was a huge letdown and since I hadn't heard too much about this game, I was afraid it would be on the light & breezy side. I WAS WRONG, this is totally a for-real Gradius game! It's hard: the game still sends you back a bit without any powerups when you die, which along with losing powerups contributes considerably to the difficulty of the game. There are also a few cutscenes that establishes the loops as part of the story to encourage players to keep trying.

But I feel like this game really succeeds at both introducing Gradius to someone who might not be familiar with the series and with offering a respectable title in the sequel that can appeal to established fans of the series! I really liked it!

[Markies]

Nothing says Christmas like...

U.N. Squadron!

I've already played a little, but time to play it until it is beaten!

[Tanooki]

I've always wanted to play the rebirth series, Gradius was the big one since it's a solid remix of stages from all the games that preceded it console and handheld from what I recall, and Castlevania secondly since that was a remaster of the original decent GB title.

I wish there was a solid way to try them out but I've never been able to figure that out with no Wii and that shop dead, it's kind of really messed up Konami let the stuff just rot. At least among those 3 franchises fans, it's a big black mark on why digital distribution sucks ass because once it's gone, it's gone.

[MrPopo]

If you had a Wii it's very easy to get them installed thanks to the homebrew community. My old Wii died, so I had to do that to get all my stuff on my new Wii, since it was after the shop closed.

[pierrot]

If you had a Wii it's very easy to get them installed thanks to the homebrew community.

Can confirm. Digital only is not a problem, with proper archiving.


I played a little bit of everything last night, starting with some more Gradius. In three of four runs, I died horrendously to the Stage 4 boss, which should just never happen (especially one death to the Big Core that I just don't even want to talk about). So that sucked. I also played a little bit of Gradius II, because why not, and damn did they ratchet up the difficulty in that one. I never totally agreed with the changes in Gradius II, even though it's a fan favorite. Miki Higashino's soundtrack for the first game is way more iconic than Gradius II's. Just sayin'. I did not spend much time with Gradius II; Just enough to get upset with how weak the laser is.

I moved on to Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, where I put together a half decent run with mah gurl, Ran-chan. I took too many untimely deaths in Stage 4 (Goemon's stage), though. I was hoping to get another chance at the Justifier stage, and not get backed into by the cat train. (How does it not come in from the left side! It's such BS!)

I didn't spend a lot of time on Parodius, but spent a bit of time with Thunder Force AC, and Thunder Force IV, after that. It's pretty nice to play these with an actually nice arcade stick, on the Saturn, but Gorgon is still a hot-mess. I don't really understand why everyone seems to think Thunder Force III is so easy. I guess with continues it's not bad; I've beaten it on the Genesis with continues. Gorgon, and Haides are just memorizers' memorizers, though. I'm actually really glad Haides isn't in AC. Thunder Force IV I played pretty much just enough to figure out the stage pattern I used to do for the first four stages, again. I don't remember Daser being quite so difficult, and I was also a little shocked to see a score for Wall in my high score table, although it was lower than my Desvio score. I don't remember ever getting past Bio-Metal on one credit, so maybe it was with continues. Usually I sign those as CNT, though--.

I finished out the night with Gunhed, and Mr. Heli no Daibouken on the PC Engine. Gunhed I got up to the boss rush again, and basically lost just after the re-fight of the area 1 boss, which super sucks. I don't think I much like Gunhed. It's a really slow game to get started; The first two stages are sleep-walkers; Area 3, 5, and 7 are complete clusters. I actually kind of like Area 4, 6 and 8 (aside from the ass Area 6 boss), but not enough that it makes up for more than half of the game being pretty bad. I also kind of hate the weapons. I always just use Weapon III paired with Shield, because the hurt boxes for the regular shields are complete garbage, and it's almost a guarantee that Area 5 will just continually knock down my weapon strength. I don't necessarily find the gold lives to be all that beneficial, either, since a death means you're coming back with zero for power ups. A checkpoint at least gives a point to start to recover from, instead of just losing five lives or so almost immediately at the first hint of danger, because there's no way to clear out all the dangers cramming into the screen (Area 7). Also the bombs are pretty much worthless garbage. The license tie-in doesn't even make any sense, other then that the stages are as confused and nonsensical as the movie, apparently.

I think this is kind of the issue I have with a lot of console shmups like Gunhed, and TF IV--and I love TF IV, don't get me wrong, but: They're kind of slow starters, and often hose the player upon death in a way that really feels to me like one may as well reset at that point, which is daunting due to the aforementioned slow start. Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius is a bit like this, too. It's on the easier side, since it dumps extra lives on the player, by the barrel-full, as long as one can collect bells and fairies well enough, though. /rant

Mr Heli is still awesome. I think it's potentially my favorite shooter on the PC Engine. At the very least, it's my favorite of the ones that I own.

[Tanooki]

Gradius II in any form is a sadist game, just damned hard from the start, though it gets less hard in stage 2 than 1 which never made much sense to me.

I don't have any digital archives, nor do I have the Wii anymore and won't again. I suppose I could download some copy of it and throw it at something like Dolphin, but I'd rather since they're good enough buy them on a system that isn't dead like Switch or the PC.

[marurun]

Years ago I managed to beat Gradius II on PC Engine. Not even close to a 1cc. It was a real challenge.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Put a little time into Darius Plus (PCE) this past week. Great game, but very challenging. Yummy seafood. The OST is insanely good.