[TGS] Radiant Silvergun coming to XBLA

[Battlesmurf]

I think they are higher res, but they don't look as good as the DC graphics IMO.

Hmm. I'd love to see some side by side comparisons of that. I'm curious now.

[Strider77]

I think they are higher res, but they don't look as good as the DC graphics IMO

then switch your 360 to 480p if lower res looks better....

[bcass]

I don't think you understand. The DC version looks better because it looks more natural. The higher res of the XBLA version accentuates the limited geometry on many of the models. Some of the textures, although higher res, also look a little muddy on the XBLA version. Oh, and for your information, I play all my consoles on a CRT via RGB scart.

[gs68]

Radiant Silvergun is, in terms of level & boss design and atmosphere, the most epic shmup ever made.

This being said, I don't like it too much. I always felt the game was too demanding, too frustrating, the chaining is a chore to do (and you can't ignore it like in Ikaruga)...

...yet I do apreciate the level design, thought and care put into the game. If it was a more straightforward shmup, I would dig it a lot more.

That sounds like my opinion of Gradius V. I admire its epicness, the soundtrack, and the amount of effort that must've gone into making the game an hour and a half long, but I much prefer Gradius Gaiden.

[WarpZone]

Ikaruga gameplay mode. As I have said before I am really curious to see the changes introduced in that mode to se how it will affect the gameplay in the game.

It's hard for me to visualize adding a polarity/absorb mechanism that wouldn't feel tacked on unless they really overhauled a lot of the game. And they've already got one absorption mechanic with the sword.

I think changes to the chaining system are more likely, and more needed. Borrowing Ikaruga's 3 enemies per color system would give the level design a lot more flexibility so you're not just shooting the red enemies most of the time.

The DC version looks better because it looks more natural. The higher res of the XBLA version accentuates the limited geometry

Nice to see some agreement here. I explain this to people (about many games) and they think I'm crazy.

[Dodger]

Fookin' sweet! I've never played it and can't wait. I really didn't think it would be coming to xbox, awesome surprise. Anyone know if it as hard as Ikaruga though??

[moozooh]

In my opinion it's way harder. In Ikaruga I was able to get to stage 3 within about an hour of playing, and can now get to it consistently. In RSG, getting to the stage that is after the stage you start on* already requires beating four or so bosses, and some can require an effort to beat or take ages to kill if your weapons aren't duly upgraded. To duly upgrade weapons, you need to chain a lot, and do it well. Unless you find it fun or really like the other aspects of the game, you're going to be completely overwhelmed by its difficulty as soon as stage 2.

* — You start on stage 3, and the next stage is either stage 2 or stage 4. The last stage is stage 0. Go figure.

[bcass]

I hope they implement a proper save-system in this version. Maybe allow the player to save the game after each stage. It's a huge game, especially Saturn mode.

[gs68]

How long is a single run of RSG in arcade and Saturn mode?

[bcass]

Over an hour for Saturn mode. I have a playthrough by WIZ which lasts 1hr 13min.

[moozooh]

There was a Saturn mode playthrough by WIZ? I only have his famous high score reel on the arcade version, and it takes about that much time (actually 1:11 from game start to loss of control). However, WIZ milks everything to the full extent, so naturally a playthrough without milking would take somewhere between 45 to 55 minutes. Still very long for a non-looping shmup, of course.

Saturn mode has lots of extra stuff thrown in there, but since you can play with initially powered up weapons most bosses take a lot less time compared to the arcade version.

[gs68]

That's not too bad. (Although this is speaking from the POV of someone who has played Sin & Bathroom Break 2.)

[bcass]

Sorry, my error, it's just the arcade version playthrough by WIZ I have. I just checked, and it doesn't have the eagle boss in it, so it must be the arcade version.

[Strider77]

that's not that bad for a console shooter.... gradius 5 is pretty long. But I guess a lot will point that it is an "arcade" shooter. Still it ain't 1944 long.

[man9child]

A playthrough of arcade mode only takes about a half hour or thirty five minutes if you don't gratuitously milk bosses. Most RSG super-plays are tough to watch because of how long they drag things out. Saturn mode is probably closer to an hour because you have to go through both stages 2 and 4 and deal with some extra bosses.

Radiant Silvergun has a steep difficulty curve, but ultimately it's not that tough. None of the patterns are that difficult. You have a lot of weapons available to you, so it takes a while to just come to grips with the controls, and you have to chain to get strong enough to take out the later bosses. But is it that different than having to learn how to medal in Garegga to get enough extends to suicide? I can 1cc Silvergun on arcade, and the only Cave game I've done that with is Deathsmiles.

Another thing is that the actual stages between boss fights are pretty short, so it's not that hard to memorize a good path through to chain in most levels.

[Elixir]

[moozooh]

Ugh, couldn't they go with a more modest amount of bloom? I know it's the generic "make stuff good" seasoning for modern games but surely they realize it degrades visibility a great lot? Otherwise I'm digging the updated graphics.

[bcass]

Interesting that they haven't gone full-HD with the textures. Doing it this way, they don't have to increase the complexity of the 3D models. Proper HD textures on such simple models would probably look a bit silly.

[moozooh]

Maegawa made it clear they didn't do it because it would require redrawing them from scratch, which is a lot of work — something they were hesitant to do for such dubious profitability. Had they done that it would only make sense to do the same with models' polygon count.

What they did instead is simply redrawing the game at a higher resolution and sprucing it with a couple common filters because it seemed that it would be enough for the present level of demand. To be fair, I can get the same results with any N64 game run through a half-decent emulator that uses hardware for rendering.

[DietSoap]

God damn that's alot of bloom. I'm not against bloom in the least... But fuck. Looks like someone went to work on some seriously inhibiting drugs or something.

[WarpZone]

Here's another comparison...

[esreveR]

Ooh, pretty.

I would play Radiant Silvergun, but given I was rather underwhelmed by Ikaruga and I'm also lazy, I haven't bothered to do so yet. Also, Ikaruga's chain mechanic was dumb, and if I have to do it just to stay alive in Silvergun, I'm not going to like it.

But HD sprites are awesome.

[man9child]

Chaining is simpler in Radiant Silvergun. Essentially you can just kill only red enemies all game long and be fine. And most of the enemies are red. And the sections you can chain are in general much smaller than in Ikaruga, because the levels are broken up by boss fights. IMO it's not that big of a deal.

[Drum]

Ugh, couldn't they go with a more modest amount of bloom? I know it's the generic "make stuff good" seasoning for modern games but surely they realize it degrades visibility a great lot? Otherwise I'm digging the updated graphics.

It doesn't bother me here at all - just seems to really suit the game, like this was how it was always meant to be.

[SamIAm]

As a major RS enthusiast, I am definitely excited by this news. As solid as the original was, there is a lot of room for cool features to be added. However, I would never buy it if I hear that it plays differently from the original. I wouldn't mind zero bloom, either, and they better not have touched the soundtrack.

God I hope they do this right...

[Guardians Knight]

it was mentioned in the first post so not entirely off topic but, - does RSG have a release date yet?

(moved to RSG XBLA thread /mod)