Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

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Wittischism
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Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by Wittischism »

Anyone actually have this, or played it?

Looking for opinions, it looks like a solid game. There are only so many vids of it out there.

Thanks
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Ghegs
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by Ghegs »

I used to have it, 1CCed it, and sold forward. My no-death video is up on Youtube.

I think it's a good game, but it does kind of require you enjoy the R-Type/Image Fight -approach to shmups.
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FRO
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by FRO »

As a Game Boy enthusiast and collector, this is one of my holy grails. It's apparently a technical achievement on the hardware, as well as a solid game.
Wittischism
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by Wittischism »

Is it a checkpoint stg, then? The only vids i can find are complete playthroughs lol

A friend is going to be traveling to Japan within a year, and I have been working out a trade/deal with him to try to find me a copy when he goes to Akihabara.

That video is great. Is that using the GCN gba player?
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2a03
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by 2a03 »

it's fun
floralcateyes
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by floralcateyes »

It has checkpoints, yeah. And iirc, recoveries aren't as harrowing as they are in other checkpoint shmups.
GSK
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by GSK »

Clever technical tricks aside, I don't think it's an amazing game but there's certainly nothing better on Game Boy, particularly when it comes to verts.

In case you're not aware, it's also quite expensive and perhaps not something you can ask someone to grab for you on a whim.
Wittischism
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by Wittischism »

GSK wrote:Clever technical tricks aside, I don't think it's an amazing game but there's certainly nothing better on Game Boy, particularly when it comes to verts.

In case you're not aware, it's also quite expensive and perhaps not something you can ask someone to grab for you on a whim.
Oh yeah, I’m aware. It’s a significant size deal being worked out. He is a major collector going prepared. Money and wishlist-wise lol We’ll see if it actually can be found in the wild there.
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djsheep
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by djsheep »

The last two times I've been to Trader in Akiba there's been a copy there in the cabinet. The price goes up every time too.
Wittischism
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by Wittischism »

djsheep wrote:The last two times I've been to Trader in Akiba there's been a copy there in the cabinet. The price goes up every time too.
Do you remember what it was up to last time?
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kitten
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by kitten »

ah man i love this game. old article from when i was still being paid to write for that guy's site. probably one of the weaker articles in that series because i mostly gawk about the technical aspects, but i was trying to keep each article a certain length and just had to talk about how neat the visual tricks are. i managed to nomiss it on hard but haven't gone back to an SGB2 recording, sadly. definitely one of the best game boy games and a really stellar shooter - frankly even better than gradius: the interstellar assault and aerostar (which is pt rad and not often mentioned).

i managed to pick this up in a bundle with a game boy color and a copy of pokemon for the going price of those two things. guy on ebay listed it as an auction, i offered him a BIN price if he'd change it, and i scooped it up before anyone else could start bidding. felt like a bandit! he had no idea what he was selling. also, i legitimately wanted the game boy and copy of pokemon, even.
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by WelshMegalodon »

I've been wondering whether you ever finished that series! It was very well done. I'm still waiting for your thoughts on Mole Miner and Pokemon, particularly the latter.
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by BareKnuckleRoo »

I really enjoyed reading that kitten, thanks for that. I've played it before and knew it was a technical marvel of a gem but it's a great review to send to people as a detailed writeup of why it's such a fantastic game.

And where is the capitalization on your forum posts? lol
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kitten
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by kitten »

WelshMegalodon wrote:I've been wondering whether you ever finished that series! It was very well done. I'm still waiting for your thoughts on Mole Miner and Pokemon, particularly the latter.
i've never gotten around to it, though i might want to just for my own sake. haven't talked to the guy running this site in a couple of years, but even if he's not interested in hosting a couple of new articles, i might want to write up on those two just to complete things.

believe it or not, pokemon was a really important game, to me. i think the reason i never finished that article was because i was having a lot of internal conflict at the time about writing more diary-esque articles about my personal connection with a game or its presentation, and i didn't really have that much to say about pokemon's mechanics (and almost nothing to say about its competitive aspect). i was disconnecting from the social justice sphere and had outright animosity toward a lot of the weird fluff writing they did - particularly the kind that assumed deliberate intent on part of the developer for an idiosyncratic way the player would interpret or bond with the game - and couldn't bring myself to do it.

i think i'm out of that sphere enough at this point that i'd trust myself to not make a touchy-feely article go across that boundary, though. however, i still feel like i'd need to actually replay some of the original game for a refresher and maybe give something recent like pokemon let's go eevee a full play before i'd got enough fresh thoughts that i'd be saying something substantial and not just ruminating. if i ever write the article, i'll be sure to pm you. most of my writing effort these days is either on here or in my youtube summaries when i've done a new 1cc/etc.
BareKnuckleRoo wrote:I really enjoyed reading that kitten, thanks for that. I've played it before and knew it was a technical marvel of a gem but it's a great review to send to people as a detailed writeup of why it's such a fantastic game.
ty! Image

if my article actually helps motivate anyone to play it, i'd be tickled.
And where is the capitalization on your forum posts? lol
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i'm going weirdly off-topic for a second time in this now especially too-long post, but there's also a story behind this.
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sometime around twelve to thirteen years ago, i had a boyfriend who only ever bothered typing in lowercase. before dating him, i had this really stuck-up irritation with anyone who typed in lowercase or lacked punctuation - you know, that classic kind of condescending disdain as if it meant they were stupid or aggravatingly lazy or whatever. even on AIM, i always used proper spelling and grammar.

this boyfriend was several years older than i was and felt a lot cooler than me, though, and he exclusively typed in lowercase. i wanted to imitate his jaded affect and eventually gave typing in lowercase a shot, though it required basically unlearning a lot of ingrained behaviors when typing. though we eventually broke-up and i went out of my cynical, tryhard teen phase, i found that i had become really attached to typing in lowercase and that how you chose to type did give you a different presentation both to others and in how you perceive your own inner voice. it's almost like having a personalized diction, but specifically in text. i even found myself saying things easier and being more off-the-cuff when typing in lowercase.

since then, i type in lowercase whenever i feel like i'm "talking," and i type properly whenever i feel like i'm "writing." all my youtube videos contain miniature (or sometimes full-blown) reviews, and in those i tend to write in upper case. on discord, comparatively, i barely ever punctuate, use linebreaks and hit enter like they're breaths in a sentence, use "u" instead of "you" on thoughts i want to suggest are lazy/stupid (sometimes pointedly), etc. even in professional writing, i think i use an excess of things like little asides in parenthesis to suggest a more conversational tone. forums, for me, hit an in-between space where i feel i'm half-writing, half-talking, but i've long ago firmly decided i like lowercase on them because it allows me to mentally consider myself to be more informal.
- - - - - -

back on subject, does anyone have any experience with T&E soft's other shooters? like laydock, super laydock, or that one really cool-looking game on the virtual boy i can't remember the name of and won't go to mobygames to look up because i don't feel like it right now?
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Herr Schatten
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Re: Chikyuu Kaihou Gun ZAS for Gameboy

Post by Herr Schatten »

Kitten, I just drop in here to say that I immensely enjoyed reading your whole GB series that's linked above (while at work, lol), and that I, too would love to read your takes on the missing games. I have two minor remarks to your articles, though:

1. The explanation of flickering in the ZAS article is not quite correct. Old systems' hardware is not advanced enough to choose automatically whatever things are most taxing to rapidly alternating what frames they are displayed on. That would be very convenient, though. Instead, sprites that exceed the limit (either per line or overall) are simply not displayed, they disappear. Any flicker in any game must actually be programmed in on purpose, to make sure sprites don't just disappear completely. This doesn't change that your description of multiplexing in ZAS is spot-on, of course.

2. It's not strange at all that the staff of Gradius: The Interstellar assult haven't worked on other Gradius games for either the arcade or NES before, as their processor architecture is quite different, and advanced skills and trickery don't necessarily carry over well. It would be interesting, on the other hand, to compare staff rolls of the GB games with the MSX Gradius/Nemesis games (or maybe Space Manbow), as the MSX's Z80 is very similar to the CPU powering the GB.
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