M2's Hisshou Same! Same! Same! Collection

[WeedyRainfall]

and the amount of content is pathetic in comparison

Ports of three full arcades games, new modes, training and challenge features, plus ports of the original ports of the same games?

I don't hink I've seen any other dedicated shoot'em up release with as much pure content and just allaround effort as what M2 throws into their ShotTriggers releases.

Mushi and dfk and esp 2 on switch are 20 bucks each. Each of them has more content than any shottriggers port. Far more content. For less than half the price.

Compare mushi to esprade psi on switch. Compare price and content. No competition.

Sorry, but the reason you're not interested isn't "the format and the price", but the fact that you consider Hishouzame and Same! Same! Same, two absolute milestones in the genre, "stone age shmups".

I understand that toaplan games have historical significance and nostalgic value for some of you, but they are not as good as mushi and ketsui and so on. They're just not, not even close, and they should be way cheaper. For genre newcomers, these are curiosities, these are on the same level as star force and space invaders, which are also milestones, but also not on the same level as cave, not even close.

[heli]

Indeed half the price, thats why they added 2.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Yeah the content in these is incredible, and there's a custom mode which is basically "build your own version" with all the variables it lets you tweak.

There probably is still a market for tossing the games into an emulator and popping them on a digital store for a few quid. However these releases are for existing fans of the games - a lot of time and effort has gone into obtaining the licences, perfecting the emulation, and developing all the various widgets/bells/whistles. It's preaching to the choir and if you don't like the games that's fine - but it's pretty ridiculous to say these are light on content.

[WeedyRainfall]

It really seems like a lot of you guys were never notified that there are cave ports on switch and steam that absolutely shit all over m2 shottriggers ports in terms of content for price

Like, mushi and dfk have been on steam forever for dirt cheap in HD and they have more content than any M2 shmup by far

[drauch]

Somebody is ShotTriggered.

[TransatlanticFoe]

A 70 minute prog rock album
A 30 minute punk rock album

Both at the same retail price. One has more "content" but that doesn't automatically devalue the other. Even if the former was on sale for £5 that doesn't make the latter bad value if it costs £10.

Perhaps the Cave ports should be more expensive, rather than devalued by Steam sales and discounted "digital only" pricing? Or perhaps judging something by your own arbitrary definition of "content" isn't going to hold with what some other people may value?

[Jeneki]

The reason why the recent Mushi / DFK releases are so cheap is because the are a copy/paste of the 360 version. When Mushi first launched on 360, we were paying over $90 for it (who remembers how fun the exchange rate was at the time). And even more than that for DFK since the white/black labels were originally split into two releases.

[mycophobia]

these are on the same level as star force and space invaders

come on

also those cave ports are a billion years old, that's why they're currently cheap

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

It's reasonable to prefer Cave's games to Toaplan's - I do too - but the idea that the Cave ports have significantly more content than the Shottriggers releases is complete nonsense. Only Daifukkatsu comes close in the amount of extra content it has versus the arcade original.

[Rastan78]

Yeah WeedyRainfall you conveniently leave out that these are ports of earlier ports where live wire did very little work with the GUI etc that wasn't already developed previously. Hard to directly compare that to the recent M2 stuff. When these ports were first released on 360 they were actually full priced releases costing more than the M2 stuff

Also the Toaplan games are not just historical relics played for nostalgia by a lot of those who enjoy them. There are players who appreciate them in their own right. A lot of the best Cave players out there are also accomplished on Toaplan games.

But who am I to get in the way of a blissful Cave nut ride?

Was thinking about how the blind spot a lot of shmup players have for the classic stuff is sort of unique to this genre. You don't see players completely diss Castlevania, with its slow and methodical style over the newer entries. Or even if they prefer the newer stuff (as of course many do) at least usually there's a small bit of reverence for the classics and an acceptance that they're extremely well made and balanced within the confines of their own limitations.

Maybe it has to do with new players coming into the genre via Tohou and Cave etc and having almost no frame of reference for the rest of the genre due to its obscurity? Games like Castlevania, Mega Man 2, Zelda NES etc might have certain dated aspects now, but people generally know them and have a handle on how to appreciate them for what they are.

Another factor might be that if you have developed a skill set based around danmaku games and then you pick up something like Raiden II, Image Fight or Kyukyoku Tiger the learning curve basically starts all over and you will immediately feel like a noob again as the types of patterns you need are different.

[Sumez]

Lol, lots of funny claims in here, happy to see most of these have been countered already.

Yeah those Mushi/Esp2/Dfk ports didn't cost $20 when they originally came out. I really do appreciate what LiveWire are doing - but what they are doing is building these pre-existing ports for a new platform and releasing them with a bunch of bugs that need to be patched afterwards. Wrong music, distorted audio, major scoring glitches, mistranslations, broken leaderboards, etc.
It's still great they exist on new platforms, and I'm sure all bugs will be ironed out eventually. But comparing it to what M2 are doing now and saying they "shit all over them" is laughable, no matter what you think of the amount of content.

For genre newcomers, these are curiosities, these are on the same level as star force and space invaders, which are also milestones, but also not on the same level as cave, not even close.

Actually, Flying Shark is a great game for newcomers, that elegantly teaches a lot of important STG basics that have been handed down since. It's a super well designed game where every enemy placement plays a clear role in tandem with the others, and also easy enough to be a great first 1CC for anyone new to the genre, without being a complete pushover.

If you think it or Fire Shark are anything like Space Invaders, you clearly haven't played any of them.

[WeedyRainfall]

Yeah i don't really know how to say this, but all of you are wrong and i am right. Flying shark should be 8 bucks arcade archives. This is a no brainer.

[Rastan78]

Yeah i don't really know how to say this, but all of you are wrong and i am right. Flying shark should be 8 bucks arcade archives. This is a no brainer.

Because the percieved subjective quality of the original game determines the price of the port, not licensing and development costs etc.

Also if you don't give a shit about Toaplan games why are you so concerned about their pricing?

Also many gamers in the wider audience might say any Cave games shouldn't cost more than 4.99

[SMC]

Wait till you find out how much the arcade versions cost

[Some-Mist]

It really seems like a lot of you guys were never notified that there are cave ports on switch and steam that absolutely shit all over m2 shottriggers ports in terms of content for price

Yeah i don't really know how to say this, but all of you are wrong and i am right. Flying shark should be 8 bucks arcade archives. This is a no brainer.

it's been quite awhile since I've gotten this level of entertainment from here, so please stick around and ride it out. but just to keep it real, keep in mind that you're interacting with people who gladly pay $1,000+ for a single game on an arcade PCB

When Mushi first launched on 360, we were paying over $90 for it (who remembers how fun the exchange rate was at the time).

still the "golden era" for me personally. what fun it was to try and figure out/guess whether a title would be region free or not until I decided to just fork out the cash for a J360. you gotto admit that guwange was kind of a steal during those times

[mycophobia]

hishouzame kicks ass and i will gladly pay $60 for a physical copy for my switch

[Rastan78]

It's funny how people will circle jerk about M2 Shottriggers and not complain about the amount of content per release until it's not another Cave game.

Imagine the complaints if K Tiger was exactly like Esprade. One base game, the arcade plus mode and a weird mini game that no one plays.

Yet OMG Esprade was teh port ever.

[Some-Mist]

even though personally I don't really care for esp ra.de., it was nice it at least got a home port.
I'm just so tired of mushihimesama, dodonpachi daifukkatsu/resurrection, ketsui, and deathsmiles being ported over and over again. give me something new or at least port something that I'd love a new port of like mars matrix

(toaplan games are good picks)

[Steven]

Sometimes I feel weird since everyone always talks about how awesome Cave and Mushihimesama are, but I've had Mushihimesama sitting on my Steam wishlist unbought since 2015. I played DDP for like 30 minutes once on MiSTer when I credit fed it for fun and it seems like a nice game and is one of the only 2 bullet hell games I've played (Crimzon Clover is the only other one), but that's about it for my Cave/bullet hell experience. I'll play more of their games eventually. They have a few Cave games over at Mikado, but after walking around the entire place to see everything in the arcade, the first thing that got one of my coins was Tatsujin, even though I went there to play Garegga and Daytona USA.

Is it random, when these items do spawn?

This checkpoint is tricky to but I was more clueless on the one after, before the midboss^^

I am not actually sure what causes the secret item to spawn. I've seen it as early as the very first item carrier on stage 2, though, and it's exclusive to the MD version of the game, which is pretty interesting.

As for the checkpoint, I don't think I've died before the miniboss on stage 7 on gotten sent back to the checkpoint that you have difficulty with, but I'll try to avoid doing so in the future lol.

In the end, I did end up leaving my pledge for the Kickstarter as Zero Wing, partially because I kind of totally forgot it was ending. Not complaining, though.

[Sengoku Strider]

It's funny how people will circle jerk about M2 Shottriggers and not complain about the amount of content per release until it's not another Cave game.

To be fair it just seems to be one person unhappy with it, because they perceive a difference in value as these games are rather old and relatively simplistic in design. I like Same³ a whole lot, and find it the most pick-up-and-play-able STG I have on MD. But I wouldn't really argue that he's got an unfair take if it's a bit too far back for him.

For instance while some golden age stuff really holds up, gen 3 is usually about as far back as I care to go with games. So I can imagine feeling the same way if someone put Ozma Wars & Atom Smasher on a disc & charged $40 for it, citing their historical innovation. If people were into it I wouldn't get worked up about it, but I probably wouldn't feel motivated to join them either.

[Sumez]

It's not the historical innovation that makes Hishouzame and Same! Same! Same! great though, but the other way around. Everyone else in the genre started taking cues from these games because they are great.
Anyway, it's like I said in my first response to this - it's not the pricing or format that this person has a problem with, it's obviously the games themselves. Or maybe they are just pointlessly trolling, I dunno.

Personally, when M2 first said they were gonna do all the Toaplan games, I also thought they would do one big collection, or at least just a couple (like a classics and modern age one, or a third for the non-shooters). I'll admit taking this much care and dripfeeding all over them over a period of five years or more wasn't what I imagined. If Batsugun is gonna be the last release, the people who are just holding out for that game have a long wait ahead of them, and I can see why that is regrettable.

But that said, Kyukyoku Tiger Heli is one of the nicest shoot'em up collections I've bought. I don't even care for Tiger Heli. And K. Tiger is a little too strict in its patterns and recoveries for my taste (get that tank when it spawns or you're dead). Hell, I probably wouldn't have any objections to calling Tiger Heli a stone age shmup. It's still a fun game, but it feels primitive compared to games that came years before it. Yet I still don't regret buying it, if I ever do want to play either of those games, this is the ultimate package you could possibly get. Even the magazine that comes with the game is brilliant with all the effort they put into it, and I don't even read Japanese.
So, when they're giving the same care to a new release with two of Toaplan's best games that I actually do care a lot about (plus Wardner just as icing on the cake), hell yeah, I'll be there on day one. The price is barely even a factor. Bring on Toaplan Shooting Battle vol. 2.

[Steven]

That thing Shmup Junkie posted the other day where Namiki Manabu said that Hishouzame is one of the most important and influential shooters of all time has made me very excited to play Hishouzame. Even if he's (a brilliant) composer and not actually a programmer or game designer as far as I know, he's still someone who actually makes shooting games, so I'm inclined to believe him. I finally tried MAME for something other than R-Type Leo the other day and ended up playing a little bit of arcade Zero Wing in addition to playing R-Type Leo again, but I think I'll wait for the M2 release for Hishouzame.

Are these M2 ShotTriggers releases emulated or are they using something like that hybrid emulation thing they talked about for their 3DS releases where it's like halfway between a port and emulation? Either way, they run very well, and I definitely believe in paying high prices for quality releases, no matter how many or how few games there are in each release. Garegga Rev.2016 costs like 4000 yen and gets you exactly 1 awesome game with a few different completely new modes, 4 soundtracks including a redone stereo soundtrack by Namiki, and so many options that I'll never even use most of them (although it was fun to credit feed through the game with it permanently set to 100% rank just to see what it's like), so paying slightly less than double that for Tiger-Heli, Kyuukyoku Tiger, Twin Cobra, and a bunch of home ports of those was fine with me. I haven't even read the book that came with it yet. Looks like there's an interview with Koshiro Yuuzou in there, and I definitely want to read that, as I'm sure everyone knows that he's the guy who did the amazing music for Slap Fight MD's special mode. I guess he also did some beat-em-up games for Sega or something, as well.

[Sumez]

It's hard to even define "emulation" in this context, since emulation exists on multiple levels, although (almost) no emulator is truly 100% entirely low-level.

I think by definition, any arcade port that aims to be completely arcade perfect is technically emulation (one computer acting as another) even if completely rewritten. Though, realistically I think you would never be able to replicate an arcade game with the precision expected from M2 ports without at least relying on the original assembly/machine code to run the core game logic (thus emulating the CPU). I can imagine most visual/audial flair being handled by higher level routines, but then again for relatively simple hardware like the one used in early Toaplan games, there's probably no real reason for that. I don't think any of their games even use any raster effects (which is rare in vertical games anyway).

In short, "emulation" really isn't the scare word it's some times made out to be. When people are bemoaning emulation releases, what they are really talking about is lazy/shoddy emulation with input lag, shimmering, poor scaling options, etc. (all aspects that aren't really inherent to emulation itself)

I guess he also did some beat-em-up games for Sega or something, as well.

[BIL]

Basically, the reason people don't like Hishouzame is because they are fat and dumb.

[Sumez]

I can't believe I didn't think of that!

[heli]

I probably wouldn't have any objections to calling Tiger Heli a stone age shmup. It's still a fun game, but it feels primitive compared to games that came years before it.

I can imagine in 1985 Tiger-Heli was state of the art.
It has shadows and details good tank movement, in 1985.
I would love to see how that PCB works in real not emulation, with a oscilloscope not on a TV.

[serge85]

I'm new to the genre, I'm loving CAVE games...also I don't have a problem with M2 Shottrigger's pricing, twin cobra is a great game, can't wait to buy same! Same! Same!

[Bassa-Bassa]

I think M2 went a bit overboard with the Toaplan Arcade Garage series, and by seeing how they're adding "bonus games" to every pack you can understand they kind of agree. The Tigers and the Sharks deserve the best emulation they can achieve as the milestones most of those are but there wasn't a need for the extra bells'n'whistles, new modes or licensing the subpar ports. More than anything, because all the time and effort that takes implies that Dogyuun, VV or Batsugun, and other companies' titles, will come much later. Not likely on PS4, at least, and not sure they think they'll sell well enough on PS5.

[XtraSmiley]

I think M2 went a bit overboard with the Toaplan Arcade Garage series, and by seeing how they're adding "bonus games" to every pack you can understand they kind of agree.

What do you mean? The bonus games are to give even more value to the pack and to actually get games out there that would never be sold as stand alone. I don't see this as going "a bit overboard" and not sure I see how M2 would agree?

The Tigers and the Sharks deserve the best emulation they can achieve as the milestones most of those are but there wasn't a need for the extra bells'n'whistles, new modes or licensing the subpar ports.

I'll admit I don't really play the ports, but the other extras are great and I wish there were even more! The gadgets being on the other arcade versions would have been even better for example.

More than anything, because all the time and effort that takes implies that Dogyuun, VV or Batsugun, and other companies' titles, will come much later. Not likely on PS4, at least, and not sure they think they'll sell well enough on PS5.

I think they are releasing them, not as they finish, but spread out on purpose to keep sales up. Also, PS4/5/6 it doesn't matter, they are all the same architecture and will play the same games, so label on a disc won't affect anything.

[Bassa-Bassa]

I think M2 went a bit overboard with the Toaplan Arcade Garage series, and by seeing how they're adding "bonus games" to every pack you can understand they kind of agree.

What do you mean? The bonus games are to give even more value to the pack and to actually get games out there that would never be sold as stand alone. I don't see this as going "a bit overboard" and not sure I see how M2 would agree?

They had the option of making packs a la Capcom Arcade Stadium with all those they think that wouldn't sell as stand alone. But what I meant is what you're saying - that they're "adding value" to previously rational collections (as they compiled whole "series") with random games because it's a way to get out there lesser stuff but also because they're afraid of the Tigers and the Sharks not having enough entity by themselves today, whereas they could sell, say, Batsugun alone much like they did with Mahou Daisakusen or Ketsui.

Also, PS4/5/6 it doesn't matter, they are all the same architecture and will play the same games, so label on a disc won't affect anything.

It will - I myself am not buying a PS5 or more. At least, I wouldn't like to just to play M2 games. But my point was that M2 may be ignoring Sony consoles sooner than we think, as it seems they sell much and much better on Nintendo consoles with the time.