Platinum Games announces Sol Cresta, Sequel to Terra Cresta

[harborline765]

Pretty much why I was saying earlier in the thread that Unity was bad news for the game, not only because it likely explains the sloppy visuals - many other long-time developers who are just picking up the engine put out games with similar pixel crawling - but it's a heavily CPU and storage bound engine.

That extends beyond the Switch and over to the PS4 and Xbox One and their slow Jaguar cores and HDD storage.

Just look at this latency on two Unity games: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered and Fall Guys:

FFCC:
https://youtu.be/RbjrlgfGu1Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v57iRXZJAFg

Fall Guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQexs4X_-f0

With many, many more examples like them.

Heck, FF has more lag on PS4 than Switch, it's just a terrible engine if the target hardware has weak single core performance. Of course, on PC, and if there was a Series X version of the game, it would be able to tap into more performance and it stops being an issue, but it's just crazy how seemingly simple games have such terrible latency on hardware that is more than capable of running them...

[OmegaFlareX]

Are there ground targets at all in Sol Cresta? I have this on my Steam wishlist but I'm not interested in sky-stage-only shmups (like 90% of the recent genre releases seem to be), so I think I'll delist if that's the case.

[jehu]

Are there ground targets at all in Sol Cresta? I have this on my Steam wishlist but I'm not interested in sky-stage-only shmups (like 90% of the recent genre releases seem to be), so I think I'll delist if that's the case.

Sorry to say, you're out of luck. No ground enemies here.

Edit: Unless I'm misunderstanding, you want enemies you have to target on the ground: something like Dragon Spirit, Twin Bee, Xevious - correct? As BloodHawk points out below, there are enemies that are on the ground. But there isn't a separate attack you use to dispense with them.

Thanks for the data collection, BloodHawk. Very good to know.

[BloodHawk]

Are there ground targets at all in Sol Cresta? I have this on my Steam wishlist but I'm not interested in sky-stage-only shmups (like 90% of the recent genre releases seem to be), so I think I'll delist if that's the case.

There are ground enemies, like the "+" symbol looking turrets straight from Terra Cresta, some tanks, and I think a couple others, but 80-90% of the enemies are aerial.

Oh and the dinosaurs (how the hell did I forgot about them?!)


EDIT/UPDATE: Change of subject but I didn't want to double post:

So I have played around 20 hours so far, and 3 times now I have ran into a glitch where it doesn't trigger the next event or scenario (usually at the end of the stages), thus leaving me in a never-ending scrolling screen with no enemies. Can't even pause so I have to Alt+F4. The game still records any achievements earned during the run which are used to unlock things, but obviously my scores weren't recorded.

The WORST part is that all 3 times it happened to me it was late in a run. The last one was the worst, where I just finished stage 5 on the 2nd loop with 6.5M points and multiple lives left. That was around an hour and a half down the drain... I think I might stick to Caravan Mode until they patch it.

Does anyone know if the PS4/Switch versions suffer from this bug as well? (PC version is 1.0.0)

[jehu]

Does anyone know if the PS4/Switch versions suffer from this bug as well? (PC version is 1.0.0)

I'm on Switch 1.01 and haven't had this particular issue. I've gotten glitches - including the invincibility glitch I mentioned before - but nothing like what you describe. In any case, this is still a relatively buggy release - hope they spend some time fixing the technical issues. In one of the livestreams, Kamiya was lamenting the existence of deadlines - might be a hint of pre-release stress about these technical game issues.

[FunktionJCB]

Despite the price tag, and the visuals (which, to be fair, never bothered me in-game), I'm having a lot of fun with this game, and I'm more than happy with my purchase.

On PC, the game is quite fluid, and I'm really enjoying its brand of fast paced, classic (non-bullet hell) gameplay.
There's something extremely satisfying about dodging stuff like crazy, and shooting stuff, while listening to a rather banging soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro.

And, it's quite a rich game, in terms of mechanics. I keep "discovering" stuff. I finished the game twice in various difficulties (I'm going through them all, from bottom to top, to see what I'll unlock, since there's various unlocks tied to achievements/score), and I was so caught up on the whole formations mechanics that I didn't realize that there's a charge shot mechanic that is quite cool, since it's tied to the ship you place in the middle. The yellow ship's charged giant drill mechanic is a lot of fun, since you are dodging shots in one moment, and then you release the drill, and you go straight to your enemies like crazy, in order to hit them. Really fun.

[Skykid]

So I have played around 20 hours so far, and 3 times now I have ran into a glitch where it doesn't trigger the next event or scenario (usually at the end of the stages), thus leaving me in a never-ending scrolling screen with no enemies. Can't even pause so I have to Alt+F4. The game still records any achievements earned during the run which are used to unlock things, but obviously my scores weren't recorded.

Yes, this glitch was present on day one of release. I posted it back on page 7 with a link to a video.

[OmegaFlareX]

Edit: Unless I'm misunderstanding, you want enemies you have to target on the ground: something like Dragon Spirit, Twin Bee, Xevious - correct? As BloodHawk points out below, there are enemies that are on the ground. But there isn't a separate attack you use to dispense with them.

No, that's not what I meant. I want more games with a Toaplan style. Tanks, turrets, boats and stuff that interact with the background. Daisenpu is that concept turned up to 10 - there are no aerial enemies at all in the game.

Seems like every retro throwback to come out in recent years has been the opposite - only aerial enemies. Basically Touhou shit. I've never been a fan of Touhou. The only sky-stage game that I've liked was Cho Ren Sha 68k. IMO, stuff like Crisis Wing can't call themselves Toa-likes because they're sky-stage shmups. Lazy and disappointing, really.

Thanks for the clarification regarding Sol Cresta. Sorry for the rant.

[banjoted]

Edit: Unless I'm misunderstanding, you want enemies you have to target on the ground: something like Dragon Spirit, Twin Bee, Xevious - correct? As BloodHawk points out below, there are enemies that are on the ground. But there isn't a separate attack you use to dispense with them.

No, that's not what I meant. I want more games with a Toaplan style. Tanks, turrets, boats and stuff that interact with the background. Daisenpu is that concept turned up to 10 - there are no aerial enemies at all in the game.

Seems like every retro throwback to come out in recent years has been the opposite - only aerial enemies. Basically Touhou shit. I've never been a fan of Touhou. The only sky-stage game that I've liked was Cho Ren Sha 68k. IMO, stuff like Crisis Wing can't call themselves Toa-likes because they're sky-stage shmups. Lazy and disappointing, really.

Thanks for the clarification regarding Sol Cresta. Sorry for the rant.

That seems like an oddly specific niche interest?

[jehu]

Edit: Unless I'm misunderstanding, you want enemies you have to target on the ground: something like Dragon Spirit, Twin Bee, Xevious - correct? As BloodHawk points out below, there are enemies that are on the ground. But there isn't a separate attack you use to dispense with them.

No, that's not what I meant. I want more games with a Toaplan style. Tanks, turrets, boats and stuff that interact with the background. Daisenpu is that concept turned up to 10 - there are no aerial enemies at all in the game.

Seems like every retro throwback to come out in recent years has been the opposite - only aerial enemies. Basically Touhou shit. I've never been a fan of Touhou. The only sky-stage game that I've liked was Cho Ren Sha 68k. IMO, stuff like Crisis Wing can't call themselves Toa-likes because they're sky-stage shmups. Lazy and disappointing, really.

Thanks for the clarification regarding Sol Cresta. Sorry for the rant.

That seems like an oddly specific niche interest?

I don't know if it would ever be make-or-break for me, but I can see it.

I do find it quite impressive when the developers pay a lot of attention to terrain, and making the interactions between the enemies and the backgrounds meaningful. Many Toaplan games, as you mentioned, are good examples. Cave does this quite well, too. (The first stage of Progear sticks out in my mind - with its rolling hills streaked with distinct tank paths. Or Garegga, where you get that extra life by 'escorting' the enemy as it peppers you with bullets and zig-zags through the hangar - forcing you to wait to kill it where it finally stops on the hangar's far side.)

And, on the other hand, sky-only-stages don't have any explicit limitations. CRS68K's infinite void that hosts a never-ending montage of random enemy formations might as well be the poster-child of this design approach as Omega's suggesting. I don't mind it there, though - the music combined with the void give the game a meditative, flow-inducing feel that I've come to like. But nevertheless, I could see the smart integration of ground enemies becoming a signifier of careful design and a developer's desire to create a more well-integrated experience between form and content.

The fact that limitation breeds creativity is one of the things I love about retro gaming. I hadn't given the ground-enemy / sky-enemy distinction much thought, so glad you put that out there.

On-topic: There are a handful of ground enemies in Sol Cresta, but I wouldn't say the team went to great lengths to create the impression of a 'lived in' background space. But sometimes there's small things, like a dinosaur marching down a small path next to a building. Nothing groundbreaking.

[SPM]

I'm not sure if you've already said it here, but I've just read an interesting comment in Shmup Junkie's video about the hardest difficulty:

Speaking of difficulty differences, be very careful with Platinum Hard! Not only your Sol Gauge gets reset upon death (including losing your command shots), formation icons will get consumed upon usage too! It's the mode that will make you can't rely on the phoenix formation.

[system11]

I wish I had not bought it. I saw some good (critical) reviews and bought it anyway. They were right.

Also oh god the input delay is horrible, right up there among the worst I've seen. I actually checked to see if it was 'movement momentum' like in some EU designed games, but no, it's just that bad. PS5 for reference. Music is good at least, but my initial feelings are that this is a dud.

[harborline765]

Not even the PS5 can save Unity engine from itself.

On a related note today I picked up a new DRPG from a long running Japanese developer. Immediately noticed input delay with its laggy menus. Suspected Unity, checked the IP notices and yup, it’s Unity.

For a game where you spend most of your time quickly flipping through menus the game needs to keep up with your inputs, I’m just amazed the team thought this was an acceptable trade off. It’s the same deal with Sol Cresta.

[soupbones]

For those interested, Digital Foundry goes into the issues at the 25:45 mark, specifically about the pixel stretching going on in the background.

https://youtu.be/ir2k96Z3Cbs

[Sima Tuna]

So I guess this means the PC version is the only acceptable version of Sol Cresta at this time? I mean, if even the PS5 can't run the game without a fuckton of lag...

[BloodHawk]

So I guess this means the PC version is the only acceptable version of Sol Cresta at this time? I mean, if even the PS5 can't run the game without a fuckton of lag...

Sounds like it, that is surprising about the PS5 performance. Does the PS5 use any type of emulation to play PS4 games that could make it worse? I am not too familiar with it. IIRC, all of Platinum's pre-release streams and showings were them playing on PS4's, so you would think the performance on that system would be relatively "good" but who knows...

The only major issue with the PC version is the glitch that I mentioned earlier where the game sometimes wouldn't trigger the next event/scenario so you just fly around with no enemies forever. It sucks because it ends your run. Since an event is supposed to happen it prevents you from pausing so you have to Alt+F4. The last time it happened to me it ended an hour and a half run that would have led to a good position on the leaderboard. It's only happened to me 3 times in 20 hours, but after that last occurrence I honestly don't want to try another long run until it's patched.

[BrianC]

I looked at a list of lag results for various games between PS4 Slim, PS4 Pro, PS4 on PS5, and PS5 and it was confusing. No way to tell which systems have the lowest lag. Sometimes Slim has more lag and sometimes Pro has more lag, same deal with PS4 on PS5 and native PS5.

[Skykid]

I wish I had not bought it. I saw some good (critical) reviews and bought it anyway. They were right.

I’m hurt by the fact that I couldn’t dissuade you from parting with $40. The lag is terrible and the patch is taking far too long (really, this should have been day one… or pre-release if they play-tested it), but stick with it for a bit. It looks like garbage but it plays ok. Dodging is very imprecise because of the lag, but thankfully it’s not bullet hell, so you can sort of get around it. When you get more involved with the whole formation twiddling and other mechanics, there’s some fun to be had.

[Steven]

Famitsu gave it a 33 somehow (9/8/8/8). Maybe Kamiya/Platinum bribed/threatened them. Most things that I have heard about this game make me think it's not a bad game but not worth buying until it hits like $6 or whatever in a Steam sale. I did finally check out some footage and I have a hard time believing that they intentionally made the game as ugly as it is, but apparently they did.

[pieslice]

IMO, stuff like Crisis Wing can't call themselves Toa-likes because they're sky-stage shmups.

OT here, but CW's toaplan influences are more for the art style - the gameplay and overall pacing is very much more inspired by CRS68k

[harborline765]

Thought it was, erm, interesting that Kamiya is criticising the Egret II Mini and the Taito staff for its input latency when Platinum just committed the exact same sins with Sol Cresta...

https://twitter.com/PG_kamiya/status/14 ... 1564578816

[Sima Tuna]

Oh boy, time to get blocked by Kamiya.

[mojilove]

Thought it was, erm, interesting that Kamiya is criticising the Egret II Mini and the Taito staff for its input latency when Platinum just committed the exact same sins with Sol Cresta...

https://twitter.com/PG_kamiya/status/14 ... 1564578816

To be fair, he did preface this tweet with "I know it might be kinda rich coming from me, but..."
https://twitter.com/PG_kamiya/status/14 ... 7990180865

[BrianC]

Finally, some pictures of the actual Arkanoid on the device. There was a twitter post claiming it was the FC version. That is definitely not the FC version and it's sadly unsurprising that some levels were changed due to the stupidity of "Atari". However, it looks like even Arkanoid II was altered and not just the first level in Arkanoid was changed. ugh.

[bigbadboaz]

To be fair, he did preface this tweet with "I know it might be kinda rich coming from me, but..."

Then he should have just kept his fucking trap shut.

[Rastan78]

It's pretty sad, yet expected that the general gaming mainstream discourse is exactly as I imagined. Essentially, because it's by Platinum Games, weebs and fans of Nier Automata are quick to lick their asshole no matter what they release and bump up review scores for fear of Kamiya blocking them on twitter and senpai not noticing them.

The screenshots are exceptionally awful, as is the price, so I'm definitely waiting on this one for a little while.

Well if anyone was on the fence about if Platinum would sink to working on a massive cash grab of a game, just check out their new title Babylon's Fall.

It's a "live service" ARPG full of micro transactions and in game currencies yet costs 59.99 or 99.99 with the battle pass. Apparently it also sucks massive balls. At least this time game journos are not taking the bait and the game is sitting at 41% Metacritic.

So hopefully Platinum will learn their lesson from this flop, and the lukewarm reaction to Sol Cresta and continue focusing on making the highly polished games they're known for.

From VGC Babylon's Fall review:

Upon entering the game you’re greeted with one of the most striking art styles we’ve encountered in many years – and sadly, it’s striking for all the wrong reasons. Babylon’s Fall’s low detail look is supposed to evoke a moving oil painting, but in practice, it’s not been implemented well at all and doesn’t suit the fast-paced, zoomed out action which becomes frustratingly difficult to track.

The game’s sludgy, low-quality characters look like you’ve zoomed in on the crowd of a PS2 racing game. While the world itself isn’t quite so ugly, the whole game has this strange filter that never conveys any tone other than a general blurriness that permeates your time with it. Characters often shimmer endlessly in certain cutscenes, one of many visual bugs we encountered.

This is becoming a theme already. Or maybe another knowing attempt at high art from Platinum?

[Udderdude]

Bayo 3 when?

(I don't think Sol Cresta is terrible or even bad, it just needs some patching and an easier way to transform/split up the way you want)

[EmperorIng]

For those interested, I uploaded a scrubby clear of the Dramatic mode DLC with all cutscenes intact. Feature-length shmup! Probably the longest "pro" shmup (indie game cambria sword notwithstanding)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9zpksr6mEE

Unfortunately every time I want to try and 1cc Hard Mode or the like I run into some type of softlock glitch. In fact, at the very end of the run here it softlocked during the credits... I had to stitch together the final 30 seconds but you can see where the score/video changes, lol. CHEATED RUN, CHECK FOR AUDIO SPLICES!

I think the softlocking has to do with using the formation change or the phoenix maneuver when the stage is trying to load the end of stage transition or next level. It seems to happen at the end of the stage when the screen runs out of background to scroll. It must have something to do with the game's internal timer or clock.

I did trigger, once, the "permanent bullet time" glitch. Which made me give up. That's three attempts at Hard Mode wasted, and I just wanted to unlock Platinum Hard.

I did do the score attack endless looping mode, and ALMOST 2all'd it, but I started so late that I was too tired by 2-7 so I just threw all my lives away. Starting with the easy (Normal?) first loop is a little dull, I think the game becomes more exciting on Hard Mode. Overall I think the game is good (and the responsiveness of the pc version is without issue), but these technical issues really make it hard to find motivation. Why would I play for a half hour only to have that work be thrown away? They really need to start patching it.

[BIL]

Unfortunately every time I want to try and 1cc Hard Mode or the like I run into some type of softlock glitch. In fact, at the very end of the run here it softlocked during the credits... I had to stitch together the final 30 seconds but you can see where the score/video changes, lol. CHEATED RUN, CHECK FOR AUDIO SPLICES!

FALSIFICARE (■｀w´■)

[Rastan78]

The Problem with EmperorIng

Notorious credit splicer. 57 min long Karl Jobst video incoming.