Blade Buster (FC) Amazing new doujin caravan game

[szycag]

If you like time attack/caravan shmups at all, put down whatever you're doing, fire up an NES/FC emulator and try Blade Buster NOW. Here's some footage of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WtX91vzPAo

rgb posted a link to this in 2dgaming irc chat, and I knew I had to try it from the description. On my first play I was kind of disappointed how little it deviated from the formula of games like Final Soldier and Soldier Blade (it even jacks the music from Super Star Soldier, stage 1 not the caravan music) However, the more I played the less that mattered. Blade Buster plays like an ultimate megamix of Hudson Soft's caravan titles cranked up even louder. For one thing, the enemy load is a lot more threatening and the risk of losing your powerup seems a lot higher compared to the game's influences, but this only makes it even more fun. The bosses are a must see, especially considering the limited hardware: tons of bullet spray from gargantuan ships.

Your mileage may vary depending on how much you like caravan style scoring gameplay, but personally my mind was blown at just how polished this is... really a fitting tribute to the Hudson Soft titles it emulates, and if it existed in cart form I'm sure it would be as cherished as Recca. Honestly Recca has competition now for most eye-popping shmup on this system.

PROJECT HOMEPAGE
http://hlc6502.web.fc2.com/Bbuster.htm
^ This keeps timing out for me, but everyone else I asked wasn't having any trouble. If the page won't come up here's a mediafire mirror of the ROM.
http://www.mediafire.com/?rk7cvocfncmdwk4

[Ghegs]

Awesome. I'll enter the game to the caravan high-score thread later today.

EDIT: Game added.

[mjclark]

Wow - first all that activity on the High Score Boards and now this! This forum is turning into Caravan heaven

[THE]

I give a fuck about this EMU garbage, is this available as homebrew Famicom cartridge? He has a mockup on his twitter of a Blade Buster cartridge...I would buy it for sure...

[Elixir]

Seems like he's also responsible for some other works, too:

http://hlc6502.web.fc2.com/Kakikae.htm

Just rom hacks and patches, the download links are at the bottom of each game, in the center.

Also, here's the official site:

http://hlc6502.web.fc2.com/frame.htm

[mjclark]

Totally enjoying Blade Buster now. It reminds me of Super Star Soldier it's quite edgy cos if you lose power-ups you're really screwed but there's plenty of chances to recover if you survive long enough (and if you don't, at least you respawn where you died!) making it a bit more balanced like Final Soldier. I also appreciate the big change of pace at the end of 5 minute mode too where suddenly everything slows down with the second stage boss- it makes for quite an intense experience when combined with all the previous hecticness.
And I totally agree with szycag that this is aesthetically astonishing and beautiful for the NES. I think the guy on the official site says the game was almost ready a few years ago but he's had to spend a lot of time with the colours and it's an amazing job- looks more like PCE than NES.
Wicked
and

That changed, however, as other singers joined the group, which retained the close harmonies and precise rhythms of the original group, but now allowed each member the opportunity to solo on alternating leads.

Caravans Sale

I guess that renushaga has tripped out when confronted by the awesomeness of this new NES shmup...or something.

[BrianC]

I like what I tried of the game and I love Caravan style shmups. The graphics are quite impressive for NES. I'm wondering how this runs on a real system. Some of the text suggests that it may have been programmed specifically for emulators, but it's hard to tell with these instant translations. It seems, telling by the text file, that the game is MMC3. I know a flash cart exists and I'm curious if this would work on a real system.

Those files on that page for modding the Vs. System games to play on a real NES (from what I could tell) sound interesting.

[null1024]

Downloaded it, loved it [from the 10 minutes I've played of it]. Gorgeous graphics. Totally a Super Star Soldier ripoff, but done well enough to be more of a tribute.
Looks as good if not better than Recca [but 100x slower, thankfully ], and seems to handle gobs of shit on screen far more gracefully than Recca [so much flicker ;_;].



Also, they still use .lzh over there? I've downloaded gobs of Amiga shit that was .lzh compressed, but haven't seen it used on anything recent.

[Ghegs]

Also, they still use .lzh over there? I've downloaded gobs of Amiga shit that was .lzh compressed, but haven't seen it used on anything recent.

It was created by a japanese person and of course that makes it far superior to unworthy gaijin compression formats.

[dorakyura]

Amazed at this game – seems technically on par with Recca to me, but never mind that. What really counts: It plays fabulously (too bad I don't have a proper input device at the moment).

As for playing it on real hardware: I remember reading that getting a game to run in an emulator is one thing, having a real NES/FC do the job a completely different matter. But perhaps it was even tested on real hardware by its creator? Anyway, maybe some of the stuff offered here is at least worth a try?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Bitching time.
I don't know how much input lag it sports or how many frames per second it runs at, but feels a bit "treacley" to me and the controls remind me of those laggier among Compile shmups (Power Strike II for the Master System). I just find Recca more playable. This one feels like ambitiously designed, then slowed down and endowed with a hitbox seemingly smaller (?) than originally intended to make up for the performance issues. On par with Recca? Give me a break. More like Crisis Force (in terms of the production values and playability; make of it what you will).
Those are just first impressions of mine, though, and it's been a while since the last time I played any Hudson shmup to any greater extent. I might be just out of shape.
P.S. Just gave Soldier Blade a go (Ootake) and I wish Blade Buster had as tight controls and steady performance, I do. It's not awful, but the way it pushes the hardware most people won't even get to play it on seems detrimental to the gaming experience.

[Udderdude]

The amount of on-screen crap this game handles smoothly is pretty impressive.

[szycag]

The biggest plus to this over Recca, for me, is that it isn't a bomb-em-up
Also, I still can't get that guy's site to load, must just be my ISP?

[mjclark]

I give a fuck about this EMU garbage

Since Tuesday I've played Blade Buster on Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux, Nintendo DS and Dreamcast lol

[RGB]

As for playing it on real hardware: I remember reading that getting a game to run in an emulator is one thing, having a real NES/FC do the job a completely different matter. But perhaps it was even tested on real hardware by its creator? Anyway, maybe some of the stuff offered here is at least worth a try?

It works flawlessly on the real console, the game even saves the high score : )

[THE]

It works flawlessly on the real console, the game even saves the high score : )

Cool! Time to get a homebrew flash device for the Famicom...

[szycag]

Bitching time.
I don't know how much input lag it sports or how many frames per second it runs at, but feels a bit "treacley" to me and the controls remind me of those laggier among Compile shmups (Power Strike II for the Master System). I just find Recca more playable. This one feels like ambitiously designed, then slowed down and endowed with a hitbox seemingly smaller (?) than originally intended to make up for the performance issues. On par with Recca? Give me a break. More like Crisis Force (in terms of the production values and playability; make of it what you will).
Those are just first impressions of mine, though, and it's been a while since the last time I played any Hudson shmup to any greater extent. I might be just out of shape.
P.S. Just gave Soldier Blade a go (Ootake) and I wish Blade Buster had as tight controls and steady performance, I do. It's not awful, but the way it pushes the hardware most people won't even get to play it on seems detrimental to the gaming experience.

I'm trying to figure out what you could possibly be talking about, the controls in this are tight as I could ask for, and the motion is smooth. The bits with slowdown, like the missile spam from the first boss, don't throw off the action for me at all, it's handled well. Nice 25 cent word there with "treacley"... if you're comparing the controls to molasses, I have to wonder if you're kicking the ship speed up to max by hitting select twice when you play (as everyone should if you want a decent score.) Recca has speed adjust too though, so I don't know how you'd make that mistake.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm not quite sure what exactly I disliked about it, but I'm pretty sure that Blade Buster on NesterJ didn't have as steady performance as Soldier Blade on Ootake. The controls felt quite laggy too (unlike Soldier Blade which is fine), but maybe it's just me not feeling comfortable with the ship's speed. I tried different speeds and it still felt like the developer wanted to make a game where most stuff on the screen moves faster, but it played like shit so he slowed it all down and made the hitbox smaller, thus making it more like modern bullet hell shmups.
Like I said, it was my first impression and I haven't played it ever since.

[dorakyura]

It works flawlessly on the real console, the game even saves the high score : )

Brilliant! What are you playing it on? That PowerPak thing from Retrozone? Or is there a slightly more involved yet cheaper method?

[THE]

It works flawlessly on the real console, the game even saves the high score : )

Brilliant! What are you playing it on? That PowerPak thing from Retrozone? Or is there a slightly more involved yet cheaper method?

Just get a random NES cart from ebay with a matching MMC and swap the mask roms against eproms with Blade Buster in it. NES games normally only have to ROMs, it's probably a 15-30 minute solder job...

Some people will hate you for destroying that NES game though

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Fired this Blade Buster Famicom doujin shmup on the ol' Dingoo Digital A320 handheld and hooked it up to a Sony CRT 20" monitor via Composite Video -- quite a cool little Caravan shmup title indeed. Definitely a smooth Famicom shmup title with it's 60fps arcade-spec framerate (most of the time). I like how the developer included both 2min & 5min versions for double the fun factor. Managed to score 261,000pts. on the 2min game. It'd sure be fun to try it out on a real NES setup just for kicks.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[rancor]

Just get a random NES cart from ebay with a matching MMC and swap the mask roms against eproms with Blade Buster in it. NES games normally only have to ROMs, it's probably a 15-30 minute solder job...

Some people will hate you for destroying that NES game though

uh.. ok.. How about you do it, and I'll pay you for your time/hardware. I haven't a clue what you're going on about..
It would seem as if you have some fairly good label printing services at your disposal as well.

[Adigun A. Polack]

Fired this Blade Buster Famicom doujin shmup on the ol' Dingoo Digital A320 handheld and hooked it up to a Sony CRT 20" monitor via Composite Video -- quite a cool little Caravan shmup title indeed. Definitely a smooth Famicom shmup title with it's 60fps arcade-spec framerate (most of the time). I like how the developer included both 2min & 5min versions for double the fun factor. Managed to score 261,000pts. on the 2min game. It'd sure be fun to try it out on a real NES setup just for kicks.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Man, it would be VERY damn fun for sure indeed with such a setup on a real Famicom/NES on this game alone... in quite fact, I have just now spotted an important little video on Nicovideo that I want all of you to see, in which that guy there in the film has *actually* pulled it off most successfully!!! Have a look at this link:

• • http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12351423

...and please especially watch the first 15 glorious seconds of that video here, with the rest of this piece being an AWESOME 5-minute no-miss run of this game. Be sure not to miss it, I truly promise!!! !!

As for the whole game of Blade Buster (FC) itself, I thought that it was rather a spectacular 8-bit tribute of the PC-Engine/TG16 Caravan Stages from Super Star Soldier, and it was sure a match made in heaven indeed thanks to the tight spot-on controls, excellent-quality sprites, great design, and some clever tricks up some enemies’ sleeves that all made this game work most brilliantly on that level!! That said, it is definitely a thumbs-up from me right here as a MUST-PLAY on the NES!!! =b !!

And szycag, thank you ever so very much for this most excellent little piece of news about this new game... I truly, TRULY appreciate that, man!!! (^_~)v

[mjclark]

in quite fact, I have just now spotted an important little video on Nicovideo that I want all of you to see, in which that guy there in the film has *actually* pulled it off most successfully!!! Have a look at this link:

• • http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12351423

...and please especially watch the first 15 glorious seconds of that video here, with the rest of this piece being an AWESOME 5-minute no-miss run of this game. Be sure not to miss it, I truly promise!!! !!

How do I get the video to play,do you have to be registered with Nicovideo cos all the links I click on that page just take e to Japanese txt and can't see a play button anywhere.

@Adigun A. Polack : I'd wondered if you were a member of this forum ( and if you'd seen the new hi-score threads for x68k and indie Caravan games) and I'm a great fan of your YouTube plays so cheers

[THE]

Just get a random NES cart from ebay with a matching MMC and swap the mask roms against eproms with Blade Buster in it. NES games normally only have two ROMs, it's probably a 15-30 minute solder job...

Some people will hate you for destroying that NES game though

uh.. ok.. How about you do it, and I'll pay you for your time/hardware. I haven't a clue what you're going on about..
It would seem as if you have some fairly good label printing services at your disposal as well.

Last time I did this, the game cost 500 EUR a pop. So no, you don't want me to do that

But there is an American guy out there who is specialized on NES homebrew and Recca boots and stuff like that. Can't remember the website though...you just need to sent in your own sacrifice cart and paypal some money.

[CStarFlare]

<mod edit: Link removed due to more than questionable legal status of the service offered. - Herr Schatten>

If someone could mock up some label art for this that would be pretty cool.

[rancor]

Nice find CStarFlare!

I only wish it could be a famicom cart - not NES. I dont even own an NES, and famiclones are a dime a dozen anyhow. I'll see if I can find someone making famicom carts.

[CStarFlare]

Maybe send the guy at the above website an email. He doesn't currently make them, but if the process is the same (I'm not familiar with the insides of NES/Fami carts, but considering Fami games work on an NES they should be similar) he might be able to do the same for Famicom games if you provide the donor cart.

[Zapf]

Wait are mods really removing links for cart repro services.

[THE]

Wait are mods really removing links for cart repro services.

Of course, this guy does illegal services too. We are not an emulation/warez garbage forum here!
Repro is just a nice word for bootleg after all.