Katakis II

[Herr Schatten]

Over at Triggerzone.de, someone posted a link to video footage of the upcoming Katakis II. Sorry, if this has been mentioned here before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08VCnvq8VlU

I'm a big fan fan of the C64 original, but this looks dire.

[Drum]

I thought it looked like it could be pretty cool, but it's real hard to tell from the off-screen footage. Never played the OG Katakis.

[fraggore]

Looks a bit slow and boring to be honest.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

what a shame

[ZOM]

Looks... really boring. Not much going on there and while the volcano background looked pretty cool, everything else was just lacking - from bullet "patterns" to enemy formations.

[Udderdude]

If anything, watching this should make you realize that shooting games have moved so many lightyears beyond this sort of blahfest it's not even funny.

It would even have been better if they just ripped off R-Type again. :P

[antares]

Manfred Trenz is not even working on this game.

Forget it!

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Looks like a boring Euroshmup, although the graphics seem to be ok - certainly for a doujin, if this is what it is. I don't get it, isn't it the goal of the genre to make you feel the intensity of blowing up shit and barely making it past bullets and enemies? Why do people insist on making such snoozefests?

[Observer]

Yeah, it definitely has a very amateurish feeling. That font they used, jeez. It's really not for a trailer, let alone for such a gigantic display... Hydorah is free and already outclasses it.

When I think of a well done horizontal euroschmukmup, Steel Saviour and Söldner-X 2 come to my mind.

Just look at the trailer of Söldner-X 2!

Pity it's lacking a lot of german because you all know "badass german" is the language bosses and big enemies speak. Or spanish. Or italian. English is overrated.

[Zeether]

It looks like someone applied a prerender filter to the shmup sections from Rendering Ranger R2.

[BIL]

I felt kind of bad seeing such a lame trailer for a shooter up there on that screen. Of course if the game itself is blah it's to be expected. That Soldner X2 trailer is how it's done - no plans to ever play the thing, but lord knows if a shooter has a Hyper mode / super attack or whatever it needs to go BOOM!

[neorichieb1971]

Looks more like a sequel to the Amiga version which was inferior (game wise) to the C64 version.

[antares]

So true, I never understood why most people preferred the Amiga version.
+ the C64 version has one of the best Chris Hülsbeck Soundtracks ever.

[Herr Schatten]

It would even have been better if they just ripped off R-Type again.

And Darius. The original Katakis ripped off Darius almost as much as R-Type. That's actually part of its charm, IMO.

So true, I never understood why most people preferred the Amiga version.

You must see it in the context of its time. Katakis was pretty much the first half-decent shmup on the Amiga, and back then, everyone seemed to think that 16-bit versions of games just had to be superior. (How many people prefer the Amiga version of Defender of the Crown? To be honest, it's a crap game in either format, but the C64 version was indeed slightly superior, yet people remember the other version more fondly.) However, Amiga Katakis has aged pretty badly (plus you can milk the last boss as long as you want), while the C64 game is still fun to play, even if the bosses are a joke.

+ the C64 version has one of the best Chris Hülsbeck Soundtracks ever.

Hülsbeck seemed to think so, too. IIRC, he re-used one of the Katakis tracks in X-Out.

[burgerkingdiamond]

man what a pile of shit this looks like

[ShmupSamurai]

It looks less like "Katakis II" and more like "We couldn't come up with a good name for our crappy euroshmup so we took one from this classic euroshmup and slapped in it on there with a two in hopes you'll play/or buy it".

I'd rather go actually "Kiss a Kat" then play that.

[dannnnn]

There was a feature in an issue of Games TM from around 2005 which mentioned Manfred Trenz and his new company Denaris Entertainment Software. It said they were working on a C64 version of Katakis II, does anyone know what happened to this? It seems Denaris have only put out a load of crappy GBA/DS games so far.

[gameoverDude]

Manfred Trenz is not even working on this game.

Forget it!

This is what concerns me a bit. Steel Saviour does look way more eventful TBH. With Soldner X2 on the 25th, K2 will probably fall off my radar before the end of summer. VIS-Games (Visual Imagination Software)? It's almost like Cave selling the Ketsui franchise out to some unknown.

[Angry Hina]

I have just yet seen the review of Sturmvogel Prime of Space Blaze (which is just the name of the console version of the now Crush titled Katakis II):
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=68247&hilit=space+blaze

Its the most detailed opinion written down in this forum, so I want to write my expriences as well. Ive written a review by myself but its in german so.... possibly someone likes the screenshots
https://www.nexgam.de/NintendoSwitch-PC ... Crush.html

For the first part I want to say, that some complains of Sturmvogel Prime are complains I have too. The graphics are too plain, the hitboxes are even for big ships really small and the Item-dropping is just broken. But its not for the PC-Version, so the game is not designed this way.
But I dont think that its important to give a tutorial for a simple STG like this. In Space Blaze you have much less to memorize then in most japanese shooters so the deadly backgrounds should be muuuch easier to memorize then sometimes a single R-Type level forces you to do. Also UIG ist just the company who made the port. Its developed by VIS and these people have made C64 Turrican 3 and Crush (c64) so they do have experience in making STGs. Manfred Trenz was at the beginning of the project involved as well.

In particular I want to mention, that it has some kinda well made level design, which I think is superior to some japanese classics like Darius 1 to Twin. If the game would receive some overhaul, it could be really enjoyable. It needs "just" better weapon balance, much work on the hitboxes, Boss and extra weapon balance and a bit more Speed. (scores should also be recorded properly of course)

The "turridamage" is not a bad thing, if the collisions would work better. It also does not apply to bullets. The many many similarities to the german STG-titles of Trenz are what interested me the most and I really hope that some of those specialities could be added in a more polished game in the future by Trenz and André Bürger. Like the fast Turrican II-like stages which scroll in every direction.

But well... I gues the review by Sturmvogel is still one of the deeper ones.

And even with the broken Item placements the game is still doable without toooo much effort. My run as evidence

https://youtu.be/ETFF7hgy0-w