Sagittarius-A-Star (DSi 2014/4/16)

[glitch]

looks pretty cute:
http://www.lukplus.co.jp/sagittarius-a-star/
seems like a pretty fun mechanic, too...
guess i'll report back next week. ^^;

[Laurel_McFang]

Geez releasing on ds to 3ds man these people want the maximum number of players.

[Formless God]

That looked seriously nice. And from the makers of Coropata to boot.

[Pretas]

Well, someone certainly played Radiant Silvergun.

[shmuppyLove]

Sweet, I've got a DSi XL on the way, but is this going to be JP only?

[glitch]

in the promo vid, at 0:52, the old "player ship gets surrounded by robotic snake" cliche. and then he just chops that thing right in two. i lolled.

Sweet, I've got a DSi XL on the way, but is this going to be JP only?

probably. though admittedly i don't keep up with other regions.

And from the makers of Coropata to boot.

which, incidentally, sees a jp dsiware release simultaneously with this game.

[BulletMagnet]

Well, someone certainly played Radiant Silvergun.

With a touch of Cybattler, I'd say.

[jasoncslaughter]

From the title, I was hoping it would have some sort of bullet absorbing mechanic. Oh well, still looks fun.

[Captain]

looks broken. perma invinciblity combos.

Really looks like sheer fun though.

[Phellan Wolf]

It Looks nice and as someone above said a with a Radiant Silvergun touch.
Time to get a japanese 3DS I have the feeling that DSIWare is gonna have a lot of this kind of little gems in the future.

[Oniros]

It Looks nice and as someone above said a with a Radiant Silvergun touch.
Time to get a japanese 3DS I have the feeling that DSIWare is gonna have a lot of this kind of little gems in the future.

In the future? Isn't the DSi store pretty much dead today?

[Aleksei]

Looks like a game similar to those from Blue & White.
http://www.geocities.jp/bwohp/soft/product.html

[Phellan Wolf]

It Looks nice and as someone above said a with a Radiant Silvergun touch.
Time to get a japanese 3DS I have the feeling that DSIWare is gonna have a lot of this kind of little gems in the future.

In the future? Isn't the DSi store pretty much dead today?

Ok ok 3D eshop sounds better to you??
Also is not to expensive 1000¥

[guigui]

Finally I dont get it.

On which platform the game will be available ?
Region free DSiware ?
Region locked 3DS eshop ?

[glitch]

Finally I dont get it.

On which platform the game will be available ?
Region free DSiware ?
Region locked 3DS eshop ?

japanese dsiware (though of course also playable on j-3DS).

dunno about any chances of a future western release.
is dsiware alive still in the west? (here we see a new dsiware title every once in a while still...)

[GSK]

DSiWare isn't completely dead here--there's maybe one new DSiWare release a month in NA/PAL-land, always shovelware--but we're at the point where every dev/publisher worth caring about has made the switch.

EDIT: there is one publisher that might bring 'em over: Circle Entertainment, a Hong Kong-based publisher that localises lots of random junk all the time (including western stuff for the JP/SK markets).

[glitch]

just got this and had a go.
first impressions:

- HARD
took me i think some 15 attempts to get through stage 1. you start with 2 lives, and when you run out it's old school game over.
seems like you get an extend every 10^? points. think if you get the scoring down you can extend at a steady pace. given the difficulty, 2 lives is nothing, so scoring seems essential for survival.
when i eventually beat stage 1 (your usual stage 1 space armada setting) stage 2 laughed in my face and swatted me like a mosquito. ;_;
cause there the game goes all radiant silvergun on you with tight spaces and capturing you in overlapping laser beam patterns and all that, with a screen filling boss that you move through and around while slashing it up. kinda doubt i'll ever make it through stage 2 tbh... however, any stage reached can be selected for practice mode, which gives you 100 lives.

- slash gimmick
takes a while to charge, you can't spam it. however, after a successful slash you have a short time window to do another slash straight away (without charging). as long as you keep connecting your slashes, you can keep going. however when a slash fails to connect, it resets your chain counter, so you don't get to just slash about thoughtlessly. also, the slash will clear bullets in its path, but the range of this clearing effect is quite small, so slashing into a bullet-dense spot is hella dangerous. all in all it takes skill to slash well.
a slash attack must align with enemies' weak seams (coloured yellow or red (slashing a red seam kills the enemy)). so an enemy with a vertical seam cannot be slashed horizontally, etc. along with the chain mechanic that gives lots of room for smart level design in terms of timing and alignment with that. can't really judge yet how much of that potential has been fulfilled (hard to say after 30 minutes play, but what i've seen gave me the impression that they put a lot of thought into the designs). it's a fun mechanic.

music is crunchy nineties demo-scene / mod-like stuff as in the promo video. nice.

[Phellan Wolf]

just got this and had a go.
first impressions:

- HARD
took me i think some 15 attempts to get through stage 1. you start with 2 lives, and when you run out it's old school game over.
seems like you get an extend every 10^? points. think if you get the scoring down you can extend at a steady pace. given the difficulty, 2 lives is nothing, so scoring seems essential for survival.
when i eventually beat stage 1 (your usual stage 1 space armada setting) stage 2 laughed in my face and swatted me like a mosquito. ;_;
cause there the game goes all radiant silvergun on you with tight spaces and capturing you in overlapping laser beam patterns and all that, with a screen filling boss that you move through and around while slashing it up. kinda doubt i'll ever make it through stage 2 tbh... however, any stage reached can be selected for practice mode, which gives you 100 lives.

- slash gimmick
takes a while to charge, you can't spam it. however, after a successful slash you have a short time window to do another slash straight away (without charging). as long as you keep connecting your slashes, you can keep going. however when a slash fails to connect, it resets your chain counter, so you don't get to just slash about thoughtlessly. also, the slash will clear bullets in its path, but the range of this clearing effect is quite small, so slashing into a bullet-dense spot is hella dangerous. all in all it takes skill to slash well.
a slash attack must align with enemies' weak seams (coloured yellow or red (slashing a red seam kills the enemy)). so an enemy with a vertical seam cannot be slashed horizontally, etc. along with the chain mechanic that gives lots of room for smart level design in terms of timing and alignment with that. can't really judge yet how much of that potential has been fulfilled (hard to say after 30 minutes play, but what i've seen gave me the impression that they put a lot of thought into the designs). it's a fun mechanic.

music is crunchy nineties demo-scene / mod-like stuff as in the promo video. nice.

A shmup for tough boys uh???? Interesting but it looks that a lot of memorization is required. Anyway sounds really good to me and fuck u Iwata, why on earth you didn't make 3DS region free??
Now time to get one and to acces japanese dsiware.

[glitch]

A shmup for tough boys uh????

and tough girls *shakes fist*

Interesting but it looks that a lot of memorization is required.

probably, yeah. though it does not feel like a memorizer to the extent of, say, r-type. pace is pretty brisk.

another peculiar thing:
some bosses have a (hard to reach) red seam.
meaning you can kill them in a single well-aimed slash... @_@

[gatsu25]

I'm home sick from work today and decided to get the game. I can vouch for it being pretty tough. My first impressions are definitely positive though. The chaining mechanic seems quite difficult though, I can't really get any combos going.

[M.Knight]

It is a real shame the DSi and 3DS are region locked as those positive impressions make want to give this game a try.

[glitch]

a slash attack must align with enemies' weak seams (coloured yellow or red (slashing a red seam kills the enemy)). so an enemy with a vertical seam cannot be slashed horizontally, etc. along with the chain mechanic that gives lots of room for smart level design in terms of timing and alignment with that. can't really judge yet how much of that potential has been fulfilled (hard to say after 30 minutes play, but what i've seen gave me the impression that they put a lot of thought into the designs).

after giving this loads of playtime i can report that they really did put a lot of thought into the level designs. once you start seeing how to string attacks together this game gets so addictive. making chains of up to 7 or so now but i can see there's way more to be had still. it's really really good. with maybe one more stage or so (it has four) this would easily be a full price physical release buy for me.
hope they bring it over cause it would be such a waste if this ends up an obscurity.

[SFKhoa]

after giving this loads of playtime i can report that they really did put a lot of thought into the level designs. once you start seeing how to string attacks together this game gets so addictive. making chains of up to 7 or so now but i can see there's way more to be had still. it's really really good. with maybe one more stage or so (it has four) this would easily be a full price physical release buy for me.
hope they bring it over cause it would be such a waste if this ends up an obscurity.

Agreed, this game is -really- good.
I've managed to go up to a 9 chain once and was never able to do it again, but damn that felt great.

[LordHypnos]

This looks pretty boss, even if for the music alone. I hope they bring it overseas, but I don't see why they would. I'm sure it would take minimal investment to do so (since it's download only), but it also would sell pretty poorly, I bet.

[SFKhoa]

This game is deeper than I thought.
I just learned that one has to be really accurate with the slash to maintain a high chain which is actually a bigger thing to worry about than maintaining a high combo.

[LordHypnos]

Why is region-locking even still a thing?

[Phellan Wolf]

We've got metal torrent this one has to be released too!!!

[LordHypnos]

We've got metal torrent this one has to be released too!!!

Who can we email to try to get a NTSC-U release?
Also, do we know if Fantasy Zone 3D is ever coming over?

[GSK]

I don't wanna say too much, but talks might be happening...

[LordHypnos]

I don't wanna say too much, but talks might be happening...

What do you mean? or would that be saying too much.