Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & PS4

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xxx1993

Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by xxx1993 »

Wait, Natsuki Chronicles has a true final boss?
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by MachineAres 1CC »

miwa wrote:PS4 physicals for both Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles will be up for pre-order starting tomorrow:

https://firstpressgames.com/collections/qute-stg
It's amazing when companies have physical preorders for a game that doesn't have a release date. Limited Run does the same shit. Gotta love it.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by jandrogo »

None of both games had been released yet in the PS4 european or american store yet, had them?
Debating myself to buy or not to buy the physical games.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Acid »

jandrogo wrote:None of both games had been released yet in the PS4 european or american store yet, had them?
Debating myself to buy or not to buy the physical games.
Ginga Force is on the US store.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by NeoStrayCat »

Natsuki Chronicles out tomorrow worldwide for PS4/PC. https://www.gematsu.com/2021/02/natsuki ... n-the-west
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Some-Mist »

stoked to check out natsuki chronicles and to rebuy ginga force
MachineAres 1CC wrote:
miwa wrote:PS4 physicals for both Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles will be up for pre-order starting tomorrow:

https://firstpressgames.com/collections/qute-stg
It's amazing when companies have physical preorders for a game that doesn't have a release date. Limited Run does the same shit. Gotta love it.
I've learned to just ignore those types of vendors. I prefer physical media but the last game I bought was Wattam which I preordered in 2019, game released December 2019, I beat it by January 2020, and the physical game arrived from iam8bit July 2020. It's just sitting there on my shelves now..

I've unsubscribed from all the lists so that I'm no longer tempted to buy into it.
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xxx1993

Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by xxx1993 »

NeoStrayCat wrote:Natsuki Chronicles out tomorrow worldwide for PS4/PC. https://www.gematsu.com/2021/02/natsuki ... n-the-west
Now we can finally experience the complete story of Ginga Force in full this time.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by DietSoap »

Anyone try the port on PC yet?
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by BloodHawk »

DietSoap wrote:Anyone try the port on PC yet?
It's pretty identical to the Ginga Force PC port when it comes to the options and it runs really well for me at 1920x1080 with max settings (i5-4670K & 1660 Super). You can go all the way to 4K res if you want.

If you already have Ginga Force and that runs well for you this should too. Honestly I have no complaints about the port at all.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by BrianC »

I heard good things too and it runs well for me so far, but I also heard it crashes on stage 5 with v-sync off.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Arthandas »

Does anyone know how to run the Steam version of Ginga Force above 60 fps? The game has many refresh rate settings but no matter which I choose it always locks to 60hz/fps.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Mortificator »

EmperorIng wrote:It's a shame that -as far as I can tell- you have to beat stages in Story Mode to unlock them for Score Attack. I prefer Score Attack by a wide, wide margin! Is there any workaround to this? I don't want to grind away at Story Hard Mode to play the games with the ship I actually want to fly in Score Attack (Type-C). Story Mode seems like a case of just banging your head against enemies with too much health until you have earned enough lives to limp through. I can see what Qute wanted to try with Story Mode but I don't think it works; I'd rather play the focused score attack... But they burn me out by playing through story mode first.
ratikal wrote:I have to admit that Ginga Force has not aged well. It'd be a sick game if Score Attack was unlocked right off the bat. But the fact that you have to grind through Story Mode, and Story Mode is extremely unbalanced (especially in Hard), it doesn't make me want to play again.

By unbalanced, I mean the fact that enemies and bosses have huge amounts of HP. It doesn't help that your weapons weaken after use, making you at pretty much no power if you are focused on dodging. You are sometimes intentionally suiciding just to have your weapons back to power. Shitty design choice. Intentionally suiciding should give you a more deep advantage and feel like a more advanced strategy rather than doing it cause you have to just to have fun again. I also remember when trying to beat Stage 4, the only viable strategy for me to beat the boss without timing out (and this was with all the top upgraded weapons btw), was to literally point blank and suicide over and over. It's basically high rank Garegga.

Score Attack is rad though. Stages are more balanced, things die at a reasonable rate, there's nuance to the multiplier, there's a general goal you want to achieve in each stage. Extends don't really mean much, and you'll end up with like 15 at the end of the stage, allowing you to solve the whole ammo crisis by just suiciding constantly. I don't like that aspect, but it doesn't detract too much from the experience.

I'm glad Natsuki Chronicles addressed most of these issues and is overall the better game, but the whole extend idea is still present as well as some other jank I feel. The TLB in example can be completely invalidated by just pointblanking if you got enough extends, lame. :cry:
Well these posts booted Ginga Force right off my shmup shortlist. I still figured I'd try Natsuki Chronicle and... we need a new word for euroshmup, because this game has eaten every euroshmup and achieved their final form. Grind up multiple different forms of currency and experience as you suffer stages with terrible, incessant squawking, protected by a recharging force field and regenerating health. Putting the Eschatos guy on this is like putting Spielberg on The Human Centipede. Or did M-Kai do this willingly, weaponizing his shmup knowledge to inflict suffering on his audience?

I switched over to "arcade" mode, where it's revealed that underneath all the crap lies a perfectly dull PC Engine shooter. I make it through six stages on my first credit, which has less to do my skill and more to do with every power-up essentially being an extend.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Marc »

Oh, bugger. I just picked that up this weekend :D
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Zaarock »

This looks like a dull paced PC Engine shooter? :lol:

https://youtu.be/t5T5DGB7Bh4?t=97
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNU-4BGYr0E
(tldr. friends don't let friends play normal modo, at least on arcade. Stage 1 is really fun on extreme, kind of whatever on other modes imo)

The story mode isn't for everyone but ironically seems to do a good job at teaching players each stage. After playing through story on extreme you can easily 1CC hard on arcade & learned some low power recovery strategies for extreme. I thought that's interesting, a decent job at gamifying a practice mode.
Iirc a pretty difficult game. Only 2? people had 1CC:d extreme on the original xbone version before these ports came out. Similar to Eschatos Hardest but this is more forgiving with extends.

Ginga Force has some super wild boss and level designs and is a bit weirder in general if natsuki looks boring. Also has a bit more content in comparison like the extra simulation stages & more going on with the scoring system, being more replayable in that sense.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Marc »

I enjoyed what I've played so far. I'm useless at Arcade Mode on hard, so I'm using story mode to practise individual levels with different weapon sets and I had a blast last night. Looks great (for some reason, and it's been a while, the first stage reminded me a lot of Border Down), controls smoothly, and the weapons certainly don't have that 'underpowered' Euroshmup feel (I played it back to back with Soldner X2.....). I like so far.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Zaarock »

There's a more direct Border Down homage later too so you're spot on.. bullet patterns in both games have some g.rev vibes in general. Also pretty a blatant Darius one. It's neat that natsuki takes on ideas from horizontal shooters in contrast to M-KAI's other games. Might not see a hori from them again.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Marc »

OK, it's ripping me a new one on Hard. That ST3 walker boss :shock:
ST3 also reminds me of SNES UN Squadron. Yeah, I'm really enjoying this.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Axelay »

Damn didnt realise so many people had missed out on ginga force.

Whilst the grinding element and voice acting can be annoying there is a great game in there. Stage 2 should have been later as it kills the pace of the game those annoying (searchlights!) the later stages with the missile chase and taking out those big ships are pretty cool.

Glad more people are playing it.

Really excited for Natsuki Chronicle. I like the ship designs in ginga force so a hori shooter by the same team is awesome.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by CStarFlare »

Would someone be able/willing to share their Ginga Force save data for PC users? It sounds like a some people are annoyed at (or at least skeptical of) the grind to open up Score Attack. A shortcut could be useful.

I actually haven't done the unlock grind myself so I'm a little self-interested here. I'd like to jump directly into Score Attack when I finally decide to spend time with Ginga Force. :)
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Austin »

I picked up the Xbox version of Natsuki last night. Despite the trailers looking average at best to me, I'm happy to say I've been pleasantly surprised with the game itself. It's fast, fun, looks good in person (especially at 4K!) and has some great music. I appreciate its "back to basics" approach and similarity to 16-bit era shooters. It has a pretty smooth difficulty curve and even though the early stages are quite easy, there are some deceptively devious enemy patterns and bosses later in the run. I definitely recommend Arcade Mode for first-timers, but the Story Mode has extra stages and elements as well that is fun to mess around with. I can already tell this is one game I'll be clocking a lot of time on.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Steven »

Looks like Qute is experimenting with a VR mode for Natsuki

https://youtu.be/E0PDpOW7VPk
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Bear78 »

My order of Ginga Force / Natsuki Chronicles from First Press Games placed on 1/16/2021... has shipped!
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Steven »

Hopefully they get mine in the mail soon, too. I kind of don't even really care anymore at this point, though; I got tired of waiting and played both of these on PC like a year and a half ago.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by cfx »

Bear78 wrote:My order of Ginga Force / Natsuki Chronicles from First Press Games placed on 1/16/2021... has shipped!
Not mine, but I ordered 2/6/2021, so if they're going in order not surprising I suppose.
Steven wrote:Hopefully they get mine in the mail soon, too. I kind of don't even really care anymore at this point, though; I got tired of waiting and played both of these on PC like a year and a half ago.
You still have a wait coming since you ordered the special limited combo set. That's still on their release progress page now listed as Q2 2023, and who knows if it will make that given the repeated delays.

I assume Bear78 ordered the two standard editions, which is what I ordered.

Their lack of updates bothers me even more than the delays. That progress page wasn't updated between November 30, 2022 and March 2, 2023. They sent out that email I wrote about above stating they were expecting Ginga Force from Sony, but there has been nothing since even on social media. When they received Natsuki Chronicles they posted a picture and short video, and also sent me that picture in an email.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Augemitbutter »

These games are probably the most premium PS4 normal editions i own currently. They look good and the manual is nice and thick. Holding back one game so they don't have to ship all the dual orders was a bad trick though. I think Natsuki was ready one year ago? Anyway, i'm grinding the first game now and it's fun. It wasn't a bad purchase just the longest pre-order!
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by cfx »

Augemitbutter wrote:These games are probably the most premium PS4 normal editions i own currently. They look good and the manual is nice and thick. Holding back one game so they don't have to ship all the dual orders was a bad trick though. I think Natsuki was ready one year ago? Anyway, i'm grinding the first game now and it's fun. It wasn't a bad purchase just the longest pre-order!
Yeah, they've had Natsuki in stock since either May or June 2022. I get that we paid a combined shipping fee, but it was also done with the belief that the games were being released together. It would have been nice had they shipped the one game as it was available.

I see they finally updated the website to show Ginga Force is in stock.

They still haven't shipped my order. :cry:

Good to hear they're nice though I would have really preferred a slightly lower price and not had the slipcase or coin, neither of which I care about at all.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Bear78 »

cfx wrote: I assume Bear78 ordered the two standard editions, which is what I ordered.

Their lack of updates bothers me even more than the delays. That progress page wasn't updated between November 30, 2022 and March 2, 2023. They sent out that email I wrote about above stating they were expecting Ginga Force from Sony, but there has been nothing since even on social media. When they received Natsuki Chronicles they posted a picture and short video, and also sent me that picture in an email.
Yeah, standard editions for me.

I agree on the lack of updates. I did get an email from them announcing Ginga Force was now available outside of my order shipping emails. I don't think I've seen anything on their social media accounts about it though.

My order hasn't actually left the warehouse yet, just got a tracking number with no movement so far.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by cfx »

I still don't have even a shipment email and the order status via the link in the original order email is still just order confirmed.

A few days ago they updated the website to show Ginga Force is in stock, and as of a few hours ago they put this on twitter; a short unoboxing video:
https://twitter.com/FirstPressGames/sta ... 9056247808

They are also saying it will take a while to ship all orders since there are so many. I wonder how many there actually are? Has to be less than 2750 since neither game is sold out still and that's the claimed number made.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by Bear78 »

If I had to guess, they probably have a VERY small shipping team.
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Re: Ginga Force and Natsuki Chronicles heading for Steam & P

Post by cfx »

Bear78 wrote:If I had to guess, they probably have a VERY small shipping team.
My thought as well.

It's fine, I can be patient a little longer; at least they have the games finally and with that video I know it's real.

It's been just over two years, another month isn't going to make much difference.
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