shmups.system11.org

In 2001, Tecnosoft was merged into the R&D division of pachinko maker Twenty-one Company.
In 2016, all Tecnosoft IPs were acquired by Sega (save for the digital soundtrack rights).

Ok I got one. Compile was acquired by Hudson if I'm not mistaken, and then Hudson was acquired by Konami. So, does that mean Konami owns the rights to Zanac, et al?

This recent interview with M2 gets you partway:



Couldn't say where the other Compile IPs currently are, though.

Ah weird! That's a shame that they seem to be lost/missing atmo.

This is what I could piece together from various online sources [1], [2], [3], [4]:

• After compile went bankrupt and dissolved in 2002/2003, president Masamitsu "Moo" Niitani, coming from parent company Idea Factory (former employees of Data East), formed RPG-focussed successor Compile Heart in 2006 (which still exists);
• Takayuki “Jemini” Hirono joined Kazuyuki Nakashima at Eighting (originally Raizing, which was merged into the former in 2000);
• and other, STG-related staff, formed Milestone (defunct since 2013);
• while the Compile IP went to Aiky.

After Aiky went away, D4 Enterprise held the rights to the IP, (apparently no personnel overlap).

I'm not exactly sure about the connection between D4E and Compile Heart.

segaretro says:
"The rights to Puyo Puyo were acquired by and remain the property of Sega. [...] The rights to all other Compile properties were acquired by online publisher D4 Entertainment [ed: it's really D4 Enterprise], but were sold (back) to Compile Heart in late 2010."

Wikipedia says:
"As of 2010, Compile Heart entered into a licensing deal with D4 Enterprise to create new video games based on franchises from Compile properties."

Horii recently said in the interview that BulletMagnet mentioned:
"[...] the rights went to a company called D4E. And then we bought the Aleste IP from D4E. So now we have this IP."

So maybe, the rights went *again* to D4E sometime after 2010 and were then acquired by M2? Merely speculating due to the lack of consistent information...

In 2016, successor company COMPILE〇 (speak: Compile-maru) was founded by Niitani,
but, taking into account the above, I don't think they have the rights to any of the older Compile IP.

Edit: Niitani explained in this interview that COMPILE〇 was created to maket the puzzle game Nyoki Nyoki.

What a difference to Tecnosoft, hah.

HELLO, YES, I HAVE A QUESTION

WHY HAVEN'T YOU ALL PLAYED VASTYNEX YET

DROP EVERYTHING, PLAY THIS, IT'S AMAZING

https://zakichi.ojaru.jp/vastynex.html

I would also like to ask why haven't you played Vastynex?

Futari 1.5 maniac: How to get bigger yellow cristals?
I understand the overall scoring mechanism - increase the 4 digits number with yellow stones untill 9999, and then when the bar is not present (no chain) unleash laser on big bullet cancelling enemy for blue tint x 9999 cristals. But how to constantly get big(ger) yellows? I have a bit of success quickly alternating between shot and laser while the blue bar is on screen . Any other tips?

You change from shot to laser when the bar is red.

viewtopic.php?t=15512

Technosoft had a lot of turnover while they were around, so there are a few successors out there.

The creator of the original Thunder Force, Kotori Yoshimura, split off pretty quickly and formed Arsys Software, a studio that worked on a lot of pioneering 3D games like Wibarm and Star Cruiser, and later assisted on PS games like Omega Boost and the original Gran Turismo.

The team behind Thunder Force 2 and 3, Herzog Zwei and Elemental Master were largely poached by Hudson and became CA Production, which still exists to this day with a lot of those same members--they've done little but make Mario Party games for the last two decades but they made quite a few interesting games in their early years, including Gate of Thunder and Lords of Thunder, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire, Hagane and Bulk Slash.

The team behind Thunder Force 4, Hyper Duel and others scattered all over the place--most notably, TF4's lead ended up becoming a big deal at Square, and their illustrator went on to design and direct the Hotel Dusk series. In terms of STG development, the Hyper Duel director ended up at Cave and covertly touched a lot of games, Ibara Kuro being his most noteworthy achievement. He's currently the director of Gomaotsu, their crazy-successful gacha STG.

The crew that stuck it out through Thunder Force 5 and beyond largely became Ganbarion, a studio known for its work with Nintendo, as well as above-average licensed anime games. The Wii game Pandora's Tower is their only original game IIRC.



Compile's rights are held all over the place--they didn't sell everything to one buyer, nor did they own everything they made to begin with.

Compile didn't own Zanac outright--they owned the code but not the name, essentially, hence the creation of Aleste. I haven't checked on it in a while but from memory, Pony Canyon still owns the name while D4E owns the games themselves, so they have to cut a deal to do anything with them.

^ Very interesting, thanks a lot for sharing. Almost all of this was completely new to me.

Do you happen to have a few sources for further reading - especially in regards to Compile? Since it seems to partially contradict some of the sources above (it could simply boil down to a confusion of rights to name vs. rights to code), it might be worthwhile to dig a little deeper.

Thanks CStarFlare!

Thanks BIL and GSK for the great replies.

What a talent mill technosoft was.

A handful of questions about XOP Black Ultra:

How does one encounter this boss or this green variant of the small white boss in a normal run? Am I right in assuming it has something to do with those blue portals? If so, where is the portal in Stage 4? And lastly: can you encounter them in any mode and difficulty, or are they exclusive to specific ones?

Thanks in advance! I know I'm super late to the party, but this game is very, very fun.

Were the team (or its notable members) behind Soldier Blade behind any other shmups?

From a cursory look on Mobygames it seems as though staff was shared with a number of other prolific Hudson titles, but not any shmups.

Where's the creator of Gradius? Does he still work at Konami?

Now that it's out, I'm gonna ask this again. Does Natsuki Chronicles really take place during the events of Ginga Force? Is it really an interquel? I'm just making sure.

Can I get a name of the pixel artist for the original DoDonPachi? It's all very wonderful and good.

Hiroyuki Tanaka did the backgrounds [1] and Junya "Joker JUN" Inoue did the ship select, opening demo, last boss, and ending, including Colonel Longhener [2] [3].

For now, I didn't find tenable info on who did the remaining (enemy) designs. But I'm sure there's more info out there (shmuplations is well established and an overall excellent resource by the way, so I looked there first).
I hope you didn't know the above already and weren't looking for said remaining designs of all things, in which case I couldn't help

This is a nice start. Especially the backgrounds. I love them.
I was hoping to know who designed all the enemy ships and sprited them, but if no one knows, that's fine.

I haven't checked into it recently but outside of later Hudson games like their VB shooter and Star Soldier 64 (which is a direct sequel to Soldier Blade), I don't believe so. IIRC the director of Soldier Blade is now a porn director.



Naoki Ogiwara, an old Toaplan veteran. He was a dotter on Donpachi, DDP and Feveron but he seemed to drop off the face of the earth after that and people seem reluctant to talk about him.



With games from that era, assembled by teams that small, it's usually not helpful to pin their creation on a single person, but if one had to narrow it down it'd be the programmer Hiroyasu Masaguchi, who was team leader by way of seniority and worked on all three arcade games plus Salamander. I haven't looked into where he is nowadays and if he is still at Konami it'll be very difficult to ascertain.



Nothing offhand, just digging. Anything I read in English is on shmuplations somewhere, presumably.

Man, I love these little glimpses of the people behind this stuff. To be honest, with the memories of wrestling SS64's trying Raystormesque viewpoint (I love both games, but it's rough going between their ilk and classic airlock-tight 2D), I wasn't even fazed when you said the director went onto porn. Guy definitely had those filmic ambitions!

That piques my interest! Same with the leader of Gazelle: Uemura/Yuge in their Toaplan interviews would not elaborate upon when asked what happened to him. My brain automatically thinks it's something bad.

Hiroyasu Machiguchi? Many sites list his last video game related activity as being the Silent Scope series, which ends with him being the producer of Silent Scope EX in 2002. After that, speculation.

Also joining in on what OmegaFlareX said.

New question:
D̶o̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶p̶u̶t̶ ̶l̶a̶g̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶R̶a̶i̶d̶e̶n̶ ̶F̶i̶g̶h̶t̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶A̶c̶e̶s̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶X̶b̶o̶x̶ ̶3̶6̶0̶?̶
Apparently it's a reconcilable 3 frames, at least on analog video

I forgot, what's the name of that upcoming visual novel that has occasional shmup scenes? I think it's set to come out sometime this year, and it's probably for the PS4 or Switch...

^ Feveron Gakuen?

---

New question; is it already settled whether

- there will be a Wasshoi part of Stunfest again this year? This Wasshoi info page is from last year, and while the overall 2020 schedule seems to stand, I can't see the shmup part in there (yet?)
- there will be another Fightcade Offline Festival in 2020?

I was actually looking for Enzai Shikkou Yuugi: Yuru Kill, which played more like a cross between an “escape adventure” and a shmup, but okay.

Another question, was Rolling Gunner made by an ex-CAVE member? Because it looked, acted, and played a lot like a CAVE game.

I was told recently Rolling Gunner is made by someone who worked on Akai Katani, DDP Saidaioujou, and Deathsmiles II.