shmups.system11.org

Interesting, it doesn't seem like the Centuri licensed version of Guzzler is in MAME yet .. lol.

Oh shi - Tank Force out now on JPSN. Gonna enjoy that when I'm home.



Yeah, I fired both up to refresh my memory, and while Swimmer impressed with its aggressively finessed Dive mechanic (and the simple, viscerally Compile-esque pleasure of body-ramming scores of varmints during powerup), Guzzler truly struck me. I have a hard time getting into maze chasers/dot eaters; I like them, but generally stick to more aggressive ones like Raimais. Guzzler has a similar proactive intensity (I love the constant tug-of-war between attack/evade/reload), and a smartly spatial scoring riff recalling Rainbow Islands from a few years later. Balls-to-the-wall firefighting from the get-go, plus strategic alcohol abuse! It's such a cute game, too (as is Swimmer - fuckin lousy crabs!)

Tecmo had a consistent knack for combining ultra-smooth controls with no-flab pace and fiendishly compulsive scoring tricks. The essential arcade triad of tension, flexibility, and catharsis.



God damn



I know, it's an amazingly complete game, without losing an iota of focus. At first I found myself armchair-designing alternate weapons, bosses, etc, but every time I returned to the controls, I came away suspecting they'd just sap its sheer distilled fury. Maybe for a sequel, but then that's what Cabal, Blood Bros, and Wild Guns et al are for.

Apparently the devs were pleased, and the boards sold, but crowds hated the 3D concept - so in a happy turn of events, they recovered with Star Force.



Maybe they came across that same bullet-riddled Cum Guzzler cab and fled the scene.

Since Guzzler was never sold as a dedicated cab, there's a very strong possibility that it was something else whenever it had lead pumped into it. Because really, what kind of a maniac would shoot Guzzler??

I did admire the auctioneer's class in announcing "Okay, next up we have a cabinet of Guzzler. Developed by Tehkan, licensed to Centuri. This cabinet has some... graffiti on it..."

Helll yeah, Tank Force is exactly what I hoped it'd be. Battle City on horse steroids. Early 80s console simplicity channeled through big honkin' 1990s arcade brass balls. Buttery-smooth handling, lovable chibi-deathmachine style, moreish like crack!

ROOM SERVICE MOTHERFUCKER



ACA release includes the JP+World 2P revs, and the tantalising World 4P, which I'm gonna pester the hell out of people this weekend with. It's an amazing time in 2P frenemy mode as-is, good to have a buddy minding the house while daddy goes out to bag teh bacons.

Carpet bombing only seems like cheating when you're on the wrong side of it.

A lesson we learned from Vietnam.

PHELIOS inbound, Feb 2nd. A little over a year since ACA XEXEX, discomfortingly hentai-adjacent shooting to come again!





Napalm, too!

This is exciting. I've only played the Genesis version of Phelios back when it came out, and since then I have suffered from years of being told how it paled in comparison to the arcade. The truth will set me free.

Yeah, same - the MD cart is nice enough for what it is, but from what little I allowed myself to see of the AC game, it's a distant resemblance at best. Always heard good things about it from trusted peeps, so this one's a dead cert for sure.

Oh yeah, I had/played the Genesis Phelios (I forget which)

I thought it was enormously mediocre, and was perplexed when I heard some people talking about loving it years later. Perhaps they were referring to the arcade version.

My most enduring memory of the MD version - besides the nice sleeve art, on Namco's usual high-quality paperstock - is the damn thing admonishing me to stop mashing the button to skip the first loop's flatulently over-long ending sequence. I don't know if there even is a second loop, I'd had enough of it by then. The options menu containing data on various mythological creatures (in English, IIRC, despite this being a Japanese cart) didn't endear, either. Nice gesture, but how about a difficulty select? It's far from a bad STG - the Salamanderesque Option play is nice - it's just pretty undistinguished next to harder-hitting MD verts, both originals like Elemental Master and Undeadline, and more disciplined ports like SameSame and Raiden Densetsu.

Genesis port is fine for what it is, but there was no way it was ever going to live up to the massive sprites and huge background scaling tricks of the arcade version. Maybe they should've put it on Super Famicom .. the background scaling reminds me a lot of Actraiser. lol

Phelios on Groundhog Day! I should celebrate by watching Groundhog Day!

Per GameFAQs, you've gotta clear the first loop at Advanced difficulty (selectable at the start) before Expert opens up. I didn't see a code there or on TCRF to fast-track this.

It's been 30+ years since we played through it, but enough of the game stuck in my brain that it couldn't have been that bad. Certainly not to the level of hate spewed over the years.

Catharsis awaits.

It's obvious to me that my tastes are out of whack with most here (dislike of danmaku and Cave specifically) but Phelios is one of the games I've most wanted to come to ACA, and is one of the shooters on Genesis I liked most back in the day.

Oh nice, ACA Darius updated to v1.03 at some point. I'd no idea; adds the usual Gotch freshening-up, with full English text, sharp/soft scanline selection, and snappier menus.

As jazzed as I am to finally see TNZS inbound... with Rainbow Islands MIA, you ever get the awful feeling that Rastan 2 will arrive before the first game? Should be a very interesting year, January's been utterly killer so far with Senjyou and Tank Force's respective Caravan/4P excellences out of nowhere, alongside a couple of foundational classics. As ever, WTB Rolling Thunder 2 and Splatterhouse. Phelios yet another promising step in that direction, as if Metal Hawk wasn't already.

Tank Force 4P is outrageously addictive party hardcore, stole me weekend At first I was a little sad there's no direct head-to-head mode, but honestly, chasing down kills is mayhem enough (I suggest informal 1P/2P vs 3P/4P for maximum tactical mayhem ). The monstrous bosses and their swarming zako provoke an interesting kind of ad-hoc teamwork... and if the base gets hit, everyone is boned, so that too produces some interesting layups. ("Dammit you powerup-stealin' mothfuc- OHSHIT SOMEBODY GET THAT MOTHERFUCKER" )

Fantastic game. On par with the similarly riotous Saboten Bombers. It's good fun in 1P as well, actually it was kinda sobering revisiting the later Rounds all alone, dealing with onslaughts that were aggressively hunted to extinction in 4P.

Noooooooooo. Get that nasty ass NASTAR away from me.



You're gonna have to sell me on this one. The single player content looks like a mess, lol.

OMG yes! Awesome news, and 2 weeks before my birthday.

Worst damn thing is, I have some nostaglic fondness for this one 3; First coinop R2R I remember playing, oh god lmao. Trudging along like an asshole, yeaaa! Now that's the *COOF* REAL RASTAN FEEL

Maybe God will have mercy and we'll get Thunder Fox instead.



Ok, the first principle is... (｀w´メ)



The second is... (■｀w´■)



TBH I'm a noob @ BBesques, you may indeed be correct. Lovable single-screen varmint clearer though, imo

Saboten is like a normal single-screen platformer, except on crack and mixed with Bomberman.

Hopefully, Rastan comes first before Nastar. It's not tied up in rights issues (just released on Egret II Mini not long ago). Apparently, whomever owns the rights to Seta has the rights to the Allumer games. Gladiator and Great Swordsman on the Egret II Mini have a Seta copyright (wikipedia says they went defunct in 2009, but Egret II Mini came out way after that).

My hot take: Saboten Bombers is WAY more fun than Bubble Bobble, with one or two players.

I love the "pause screen of death" on ACA Hi-Score mode. No, you can't resume play. Yes, we did warn you. Yes, you can go fuck yourself. No, your run wasn't going to amount to anything.

My main ask for this excellent series would be to simply disable pause on Hi-Score mode, and have a separate button dedicated to canceling a game or *instantly* recalling savestate (depending on current mode). With an emphasis on the savestate part.

Remember you can always pause by going to the home screen - definitely on PS4, and I believe the Switch's equivalent, too. Just did so to post this, and check that I'd nabbed the screencap I wanted. I suspect this is a deliberate feature, or at least an adopted one, with HS mode's title screen stipulating it's for scores accomplished without savestates, specifically.

"The only way I'm aborting this run is if the cat trips over the power cord" mode.

Despite our time of unprecedented home version quality and quantity, the Literal Kusoplay Experience remains a true arcade-exclusive

Yes works the same way on switch for ACA Hi-Score mode.

Wow, OK thanks. I understand why they tried to get rid of pause on Hi-Score mode, but I guess my bigger question is why they allow runs using savestates to earn leaderboard position on Normal mode (which I've just confirmed, by an innocuously shitty score on a fresh-to-me title).

I mean, I'm glad there is such a division, for obsessive-game-research purposes; but for ordinary players it kinda makes all the non-"Hi Score" leaderboards meaningless, or at least deceptive, for any given game---and many of us won't even realize this. It also seems to remove competitive divisions around Revision/region choices, etc.

Original Mode allowing saves, I think that's just Hamster casting a cautiously wide net. Think of the most casual of casuals, who'd be genuinely pleased to hear they can start up a credit, save and quit to do something else, then come back two days later, finish the credit, and post a score as if nothing had happened in the interim. Convenient! Couldn't do that back in the day at the corner store!

To the likes of us, who generally want to preserve the corner store / arcade experience, this is a "Haha, no I'm good, thanks" proposition at best; unforgivable heresy at worst. So for us, there's HS Mode. (and Caravan, which I've found does little for some games, but can be genuinely revelatory in others, ie the recent Senjyou)

Some of the older releases like Double Dragon 1 and Rygar were before hi-score mode got added. At this point they're probably too old to bother patching it in. Not a deal breaker though and I enjoy them as is.