Thunderforce IV Sega Ages (Nintendo Switch)

[Tokyo-J]

Sega announced that M2 will be porting Thunderforce IV as part of the Sega Ages collection for Nintendo Switch. Due for release this summer. Playable at Sega Fes.

https://twitter.com/SEGA_OFFICIAL/statu ... 5128635392

[GSK]

They also confirmed it'll have Styx Mode, so flip your Gold Pack 2 while you still can (who am I kidding, the price won't change).

[EmperorIng]

And I bet it won't have the slowdown of the Genesis cart, either. Awesome news; the Switch is quickly becoming old port heaven. Now it just needs those 3 or 4 active shmup devs on board...

[Necronom]

Hell yeah, great news! Already practising on my softmodded Snes Mini
Let's see if the world outside of Japan sees any of it...the excellent 3DS version of Thunderforce III remains JP-only since 2016
Edit: Ah, ok...according to some sites it seems the Sega Ages collections is planned to release worldwide
Btw, they also announced a Mega Drive Mini. Took long enough...
https://nintendosoup.com/sega-mega-driv ... for-japan/

[LordHypnos]

Cool, TFIV is probably a game that deserves the M2 remake treatment. I really gotta play that again. On the other hand I do wish that these shmup remakes would just choose a single system to put everything on instead of dividing it between Switch and PS4. Maybe just PC. Maximum potential customers that way.

[To Far Away Times]

Awesome!! One of my favorite shmups! Time to relearn the game and get crushed on the 8th stage all over again. Hope they bring over Thunder Force III as well.

[Kiken]

Nice to see Sega finally doing something else with the Technosoft license they purchased.

They also confirmed it'll have Styx Mode, so flip your Gold Pack 2 while you still can (who am I kidding, the price won't change).

No-one is going to flip their 240p lagless copies of TFGP2 for this (not to mention that TFIV is only half the disc). If anything, it'll push the prices upward. I expect a spike on the original cart as well. My question is, will M2 try to actually emulate the difficult YM2612/SN76489 combo sound architecture or simply utilize prerecorded music like the Gold Pack collections?

[GSK]

M2 always emulates wherever possible, and they often provide different options to mimic the output of various hardware revisions as well.

[spmbx]

What's difficult about it, isn't that something that all megadrive emulators have been able to do for ages? I personally never noticed a difference between the original cart and playing it on emulator; i never had them side-by-side to nitpick on any possible differences either though.

[Xyga]

Maybe because the Switch OS requires some specific development for whatever emulation they'd use? I mean this isn't Windows and not every code is portable as is...(afaik lol)

Regarding the original slowdowns I wonder if they're going to keep, eliminate, or make them optional ? (like a 'wait' switch in the settings)

[GSK]

Emulating the audio isn't necessarily difficult for a competent developer, it just came up because the Gold Packs used prerecords.

RE: slowdown, they're leaning towards replicating it as-is, from what I've heard, with the main reason (aside from the schedule) being that parts of the game were intentionally balanced with slowdown in mind, so they'd rather not mess with it too much.

[FRO]

As this forum's resident TF4 super fanboy, all I can say is...


DAY ONE BUY AND I CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS GAME!!!


Okay, now that I'm back to normal, I'm totally hyped for this port, and I can't wait to play through it again on the Switch.

[tizerist]

Contains both ships. Excellent.

[BrianC]

A couple of news sites are claiming that TFIV is based of the Saturn version, which sounds iffy (probably an assumption due to the extra ship). I'm hoping Gain Ground (not "Ground Gain" like Nintendolife claims) really is the AC version.

edit: Found a screenshot on Twitter. Gain Ground is definitely the AC version.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Gain Ground arcade version, yes please! Be nice to see the MD and SMS versions too, given the exclusive stages and MD's hard mode.

[BrianC]

Gain Ground arcade version, yes please! Be nice to see the MD and SMS versions too, given the exclusive stages and MD's hard mode.

yeah. I have the MD version on cart. Funny how the JP version has the Renovation copyright on the title screen when played on a US system (it's supposed to do this, the ROMs are like this too).

[Koa Zo]

Who wouldn't love to see this lead up to Thunder Force VII?

[bigbadboaz]

Would love it, but lots of companies are releasing old games for the easy cash. Doesn't really indicate anything about plans for a new title. To top it off, Sega probably looks towards the reception of VI as a lesson in not allocating resources in that direction.

[hamfighterx]

Just figured this would be an appropriate place to note that earlier this week, a coworker (who I assume has no STG knowledge) thanked someone via email for their "Lightening" fast assistance with her request. I found this very timely indeed!

Also, nobody can have my Gold Pack 2. I'm on my third copy now and I just keep buying it again, so I'm at the point where I have realized it is futile to think I should consider selling it yet again. Gonna save myself the headache.

[FRO]

Also, nobody can have my Gold Pack 2.

I still need to source a TF Gold Pack 2 at some point, so I can play the game that way, and see how it compares. I'd be curious to know how the music sounds coming from the Saturn, versus how it sounds from the headphone jack in an older model 1.