Milestone release 'Karous' - Arcade 2006 / Dreamcast 2007

icepick · Post by **icepick** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 11:57 pm

Kiken wrote:Now MileStone just need to release the game's soundtrack.

It looks like they might just do that! From what I can tell from this journal entry, at least. They also have two full songs up for download, in 192 kbps MP3.

http://www.mile-stone.co.jp/product/krs/krs_twgt.html

I suppose that I'll listen to them while I wait for NCS to have the game back in stock...

Edit- The Daisuke Nagata track seems very summery, kind of like rainfall. The Kou Hayashi (featuring special producer?) track is very... well... hardcore. It makes me wonder what a happy hardcore track by Kou Hayashi would sound like.

Twiddle · Post by **Twiddle** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 12:19 am

damn those tracks kick ass

skink · Post by **skink** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 12:37 am

Anyone else have trouble getting Karous to run on their US Dreamcast using DC-X?

I can run Trigger Heart Exelica no problem, but Karous just goes to a black screen with Japanese text and no button combinations will get by it.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 1:34 am

I just spent 2 straight hours playing nothing but Hard Mode (the TLB is only accessible in the mode) and this game has me hooked!

I really like the more strategic use of the weapons over Radirgy's just-keep-holding-down-sword-and-shot style of play.

Also, it appears that every stage has a bonus MileStone logo hidden somewhere. I've managed to locate one in stage 1, one in stage 2 and one in stage 3 (on my last run, I managed to get up to the stage 4 midboss with around 336 million).

In stage 1, just before you fly up into the air to fight the boss, you'll pass over a small industrial area. There are two sets of towers made from 3 cylinders. The second one up contains the first hidden logo. Just shoot at the tower to reveal it.

In stage 2, once again, just before the boss you'll pass over a floating structure on the left side of the screen. Towards the back of this landmass is a "crater" with a blue circular center. Shoot the center to reveal the MileStone logo.

In stage 3, shortly after the midboss, you'll fly over a series of cliffs. The logo is hidden on the left side in front of a tower similar to the one in stage 1.

EDIT: One last thing I noticed... bosses don't hang around! They time-out rather aggressively if you start trying to milk them for anything over 4-5 attack cycles.

skink · Post by **skink** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 3:42 am

skink wrote:Anyone else have trouble getting Karous to run on their US Dreamcast using DC-X?

I can run Trigger Heart Exelica no problem, but Karous just goes to a black screen with Japanese text and no button combinations will get by it.

Nevermind

The game wasn't recognizing my HRAP, so I had to have a normal DC controller connected when I turned on the console. Switching at the (what I assume) no VMU found screen didn't do it.

Recognized the HRAP fine after getting past that point though.

Go figure :p

Sundance · Post by **Sundance** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:46 am

Kiken wrote:I just spent 2 straight hours playing nothing but Hard Mode (the TLB is only accessible in the mode) and this game has me hooked!

I really like the more strategic use of the weapons over Radirgy's just-keep-holding-down-sword-and-shot style of play.

Also, it appears that every stage has a bonus MileStone logo hidden somewhere. I've managed to locate one in stage 1, one in stage 2 and one in stage 3 (on my last run, I managed to get up to the stage 4 midboss with around 336 million).

In stage 1, just before you fly up into the air to fight the boss, you'll pass over a small industrial area. There are two sets of towers made from 3 cylinders. The second one up contains the first hidden logo. Just shoot at the tower to reveal it.

Thanx for the bonus info. I get mine in the mail tomorrow and i'm totally stoked.
In stage 2, once again, just before the boss you'll pass over a floating structure on the left side of the screen. Towards the back of this landmass is a "crater" with a blue circular center. Shoot the center to reveal the MileStone logo.

In stage 3, shortly after the midboss, you'll fly over a series of cliffs. The logo is hidden on the left side in front of a tower similar to the one in stage 1.

EDIT: One last thing I noticed... bosses don't hang around! They time-out rather aggressively if you start trying to milk them for anything over 4-5 attack cycles.

Thanx for the info. I get mine in the mail tomorrow and i'm totally siked.

KBZ · Post by **KBZ** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 4:51 am

last boss 02 - Sex pervert of a silence - Kou Hayashi feat. 大高紘- 03:28 （MP3/192kbps/5MB）

f*ck ya!

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:06 am

Was Rajiruji scored by the same composer duo (Hayashi/Nagata)?

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 6:25 am

Turrican wrote:Was Rajiruji scored by the same composer duo (Hayashi/Nagata)?

All three MileStone games featured OSTs by Hayashi/Nagata.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:31 am

While I think the graphics are pretty horrible (and I like cell-shading usually), one place this game definitely succeeds in is audio. It's the first game soundtrack in a LONG time I've heard that is good. Slight D&B overlayed on some electronic background music.

I've gotten up to the 4th boss, and he kicks the shit out of me. I've noticed that you can get life items sometimes by smacking the "point" items enough. Of course, I wind up losing energy in the processes. Anyone know if these items are random, or if they're in certain places?

I don't like that the overall level is your multiplier. Well, survivial = higher score is good, but I think this is a little too much.

angrycoder · Post by **angrycoder** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:13 pm

Kiken wrote:I just spent 2 straight hours playing nothing but Hard Mode (the TLB is only accessible in the mode) and this game has me hooked!

What is 'TLB'?

One other question. What are the three menu options you get after you start the game? I assumed they were difficulty levels, but I see there is a difficulty selection in the options menu.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 5:46 pm

angrycoder wrote:What is 'TLB'?

True Last Boss

A boss that appears after the "normal" last boss. Usually, you must meet specific criteria to see him, such as completing the second loop, not using continues or playing on a certain difficulty level.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:54 pm

angrycoder wrote:One other question. What are the three menu options you get after you start the game? I assumed they were difficulty levels, but I see there is a difficulty selection in the options menu.

That is the Game Mode. There's Easy Mode, Normal Mode and Hard Mode. The game defaults to Normal Mode.

Easy Mode only consists of 3 levels. Weapon levels increase at a ludicrous rate, and for such a short a game, the scoring is absurdly high. Enemies predominantly fire bullets that can be destroyed by either form of attack.

Normal Mode consists of the standard 5 levels. Weapon levels increase at a slower rate than on Easy, but the scoring is taken down considerably (in fact, Normal has the lowest per-stage scoring of all three modes). Enemies intersperse destroyable bullets with non-destroyable ones.

Hard Mode constists of all 5 stages plus a TLB. Weapon levels increase at about the same rate as Normal due to heavier fire from enemies. Scoring is a notch or two up from Normal though. Enemies fire considerably more shots at the player, intersperse between both destroyable and non-destroyable, and the non-destroyable rounds are much larger than in Normal.

One final note, the MileStone bonus logos are not available in Easy Mode.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:56 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:I've gotten up to the 4th boss, and he kicks the shit out of me. I've noticed that you can get life items sometimes by smacking the "point" items enough. Of course, I wind up losing energy in the processes. Anyone know if these items are random, or if they're in certain places?

Aside from the default Extend values, you can trigger Health Ups by smacking the point icons. It's rare that you'll get one from doing this (it's probably more like in Radirgy where if you take an early hit, you're more likely to trigger these).

Also, is it just me, or does this game not save high scores?

gavin19 · Post by **gavin19** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 8:29 pm

Kiken wrote:Also, is it just me, or does this game not save high scores?

I turned Auto Save on from first play, and have tried manually saving/loading data from memory but no luck. Wasn't there a similar problem with Chaos Field?

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 9:07 pm

That'd be a really stupid oversight on Milestone's part, considering that it "fixed" that with Radirgy...are they going "backwards" now, or what?

Strider77 · Post by **Strider77** » Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:27 pm

GaijinPunch, what do you think of this compared to THE?

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:10 am

Daisuke Nagata? The guy who did "Bottom of the Wheel" on the Zanac Neo soundtrack? Oh hells yes.

Kiken · Post by **Kiken** » Sun Mar 11, 2007 5:29 am

Damocles wrote:Daisuke Nagata? The guy who did "Bottom of the Wheel" on the Zanac Neo soundtrack? Oh hells yes.

The very same. After Compile folded he joined up with MileStone.

Seriously, snag the Chaos Field OST.

szycag · Post by **szycag** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:41 am

Whoa whoa whoa wait a minute... the score-saving issue is back? ARGH!

qatmix · Post by **qatmix** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:49 pm

are you sure it doesnt save the scores? Ive not heard anything else about this.

Hopefully mine will apprear thriough the post anyday so I can check it.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 1:52 pm

Strider77 wrote:GaijinPunch, what do you think of this compared to THE?

Individually better on pretty much all fronts. The graphics in both are pretty bad. The multiplier doesn't seem nearly as well thought out as Exelica. This seems more like a raise to level up, and little else. Music is leaps and bounds over Exelica. The lack of anime tits is also a plus. I don't know why, but Exelica seemed a bit more accessible to me though.

Post by **system11** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:46 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:
Strider77 wrote:GaijinPunch, what do you think of this compared to THE?
Music is leaps and bounds over Exelica.

Matter of preference. I liked the Karous title music, but the in game stuff is just a bland dirge.

bVork · Post by **bVork** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 5:31 pm

qatmix wrote:are you sure it doesnt save the scores? Ive not heard anything else about this.

Hopefully mine will apprear thriough the post anyday so I can check it.

Absolutely positive. It only saves options, like whether you set it to tate.

qatmix · Post by **qatmix** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:11 pm

bVork wrote:
qatmix wrote:are you sure it doesnt save the scores? Ive not heard anything else about this.

Hopefully mine will apprear thriough the post anyday so I can check it.
Absolutely positive. It only saves options, like whether you set it to tate.

NNNNNNNooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

angrycoder · Post by **angrycoder** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:22 pm

qatmix wrote:
bVork wrote:
qatmix wrote:are you sure it doesnt save the scores? Ive not heard anything else about this.

Hopefully mine will apprear thriough the post anyday so I can check it.
Absolutely positive. It only saves options, like whether you set it to tate.
NNNNNNNooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Yep, and to add insult to injury, there is no menu option to view the rankings. So if you aren't fast enough in jotting down your score, you have to sit there and wait for the HS list to come up in attract mode.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:11 pm

bloodflowers wrote:Matter of preference. I liked the Karous title music, but the in game stuff is just a bland dirge.

Yeah, but it's better than the shite the Exelica developer's 8 year old son made on his Casio keyboard he got for Xmas, and somehow got into the game.

Reluctant Hero · Post by **Reluctant Hero** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:13 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:
bloodflowers wrote:Matter of preference. I liked the Karous title music, but the in game stuff is just a bland dirge.
Yeah, but it's better than the shite the Exelica developer's 8 year old son made on his Casio keyboard he got for Xmas, and somehow got into the game.

Ouch man, THE's music is bad, but not that bad.

Tigershark · Post by **Tigershark** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:25 pm

You're a bunch of fussy buggers aren't you! I thought THE's music was great. Totally in keeping with the genre. I tend to dislike the techno stuff (a la MarsMatrix) and the orchestral postering (a la Giga Wing II) can be a bit ostentatious(sp?) and misplaced.

louisg · Post by **louisg** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 2:42 am

GaijinPunch wrote: Yeah, but it's better than the shite the Exelica developer's 8 year old son made on his Casio keyboard he got for Xmas, and somehow got into the game.

Wow, I wish I had a casio that did all those cool sync leads.

Ok, besides the CZ series.