Batsugun S-Tribute

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TransatlanticFoe
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

S-Tribute Kyukyokyu Tiger II and Gekirindan would be even worse than Batsugun. They're TATE or bust - the yoko on both is wobble mode... utterly horrendous. Plus Gekirindan on Saturn is a shoddy port. Playable, but colours are drab, some graphical effects are missing and it has pre-boss loading. It's exactly the sort of port that needs to be left in the past - and I love a downgraded console port when it has charm or is accidentally awesome, but draw the line when it's crappy even for the system running it. At least Rayforce and Batsugun have workable yoko modes on Saturn. Expecting people to be able to rotate modern displays for console S-Tribute releases is a total nope, so hopefully they don't bother even if the rights are up for grabs.

Saturn Kyukyoku Tiger II does have an exclusive Saturn mode with an extra stage and some additional music - but it's forced into yoko wobble mode so is an absolute chore to play - not worth preserving as it, would need someone to put the effort in to run in full 3:4.... which is clearly not going to happen.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Steven »

WTF it's Boosted now

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/02/batsugu ... tch-and-pc

It also has a fan book by Tatsujin. Well fuck, I guess I have to get it now.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by hamfighterx »

The arrange soundtrack with the Special physical edition sounds fantastic, killer lineup of composers: Shinji Hosoe, Yosuke Yasui (yessssss), Hagane, Daisuke Matsumoto, and WASi303. Hagane (Keisuke Hayase, aka STEEL_PLUS), whose credits include Cotton Rock 'n Roll and Blue Revolver, is the only one I'm not too familiar with. But that's some goooood company.

That's enough to sell me on the physical edition, but curious about whether the arrange tracks are also included in-game.
This title is the first installment of the new Saturn Tribute Boosted brand, which is a port and reproduction of the previous Saturn Tribute series using the Zebra engine, but with more new features and additional elements. The “Boost Up HUD” is a new user interface that displays the experience gauge, the current score (plus hidden bonuses), and the title of the background music currently playing. The game also features an online ranked mode and the maximum score has been increased for more challenges.
So, sounds like the "Boosted" is mostly some HUD customizations, a bit like a light version of M2's gadgets (but also online ranking and some scoring changes?)
TransatlanticFoe wrote: Expecting people to be able to rotate modern displays for console S-Tribute releases is a total nope
Big caveat for Switch in handheld mode. The easiest console of all time to use Tate mode by just... rotating the tablet (and putting it on a stand or in a Flip-grip type holder).

But yeah, for on TV play on consoles, I get what you're saying.
Last edited by hamfighterx on Mon Feb 06, 2023 8:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TransatlanticFoe
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Easy, yes. But it's crap to play with the "d-pad" on the joycons for any length of time when a game requires a lot of diagonal movement. Once you bust out a gamepad you may as well have it docked.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Steven »

Fuck, retailer-exclusive stuff, including a cassette of arranged music for the cassette player that you don't have: https://city-connection.co.jp/s-tribute/batsugun/#store

I hate when they do retailer-exclusive stuff.

Also, shouldn't it be theoretically easy for them to have an option to rotate the rotated screen so you can get the full screen height without having to rotate your display? Modern displays can easily scale the 240x320 screens of old arcade games properly, as M2 has shown.

While I am here, let me get this right: there is absolutely no reason to ever play Saturn Batsugun instead of the arcade version, right?
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TransatlanticFoe
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Correct. As good as it is on Saturn, it's Batsugun and Batsugun Special, that's it - no other modes. There's an arrange soundtrack which is just kind of okay.

While I agree it should be easy to rotate TATE mode, this is a straight up emulation of the Saturn that's only now working to an acceptable standard... so let's not push it :lol:
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Steven »

I suppose that is true lol.

I did remember something, though; Windows allows you to rotate your screen, so you could do that and put it in the correct orientation and get the full screen size. I have never tried this, so I have no idea what will happen to the scaling of the art assets, it should work. I hope. PC wins again...?

I honestly don't want to buy it on PC, though. Three reasons:

1. no fanbook
2. Bitwave will release theirs eventually and it will be both cheaper and better, rendering City Connection's PC version 100% completely irrelevant.
3. no soundtrack CD*

*One thing of note is that the limited edition for this contains the arranged soundtrack, which has never been released on CD before. I already have the Batsugun + Dogyuun!! soundtrack from City Connection, but my Toaplan music collection will not be complete without this either way.

I might take one for the team and get the Switch version to see how the lag and stuff is, but I am absolutely not sensitive to lag at all unless it's REALLY bad and lack the equipment to lag test, so I am definitely not the person who should be doing that anyway. Ah fuck it, maybe I'll just get every version so I don't have to decide.

On Batsugun: I always thought it was really weird that Toaplan decided to make this game the sequel to Hishouzame by having Schneider be the player dude from Hishouzame, so I guess it's also a sequel to Same! Same! Same! since that game takes place after Hishouzame, and it's also the prequel to Out Zone because Jeeno is the dude from Out Zone before he got turned into a cyborg that runs out of batteries and dies if he doesn't recharge himself every 60 seconds. Did Out Zone really need to become the sequel to Hishouzame and Same! Same! Same! in a roundabout fashion? I don't think so, but that is how it is.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

Image

Yoko full is already announced for this.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Steven »

Oh. Well I just preordered the ebten limited edition PS4 version a few minutes ago, so that's good! Maybe I'll actually start to like this game.

BTW that scaling is improper, assuming that it's running at a 1080 vertical resolution, so this is going to shimmer like crazy and look like garbage because of that.

Edit: checked the trailer and it is using square pixels, so no shimmering! I REALLY hope this turns out to not be terrible.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Yoko mode in the trailer shows enemies shooting from offscreen and being destroyed before they appear (score increasing) - so it's the standard Saturn yoko mode with the top of the screen cut off. Whether the rotate option allows the TATE mode to be rotated into yoko remains to he seen. If they've bothered to add more rotation options then hopefully!
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Leandro »

Mars Matrix D-Tribute when?

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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

They indeed announced a third display mode this time as part of the Boosted thingie. And there you have the snapshot!
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by DenimDemon »

Is there already a Amazon.Jp for this?

SOUKYUGURENTAI S TRIBUTE WHEN?
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by hamfighterx »

DenimDemon wrote:Is there already a Amazon.Jp for this?
https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/dp/B0BTLGK2BD

Options for PS4/Switch, normal or special edition (currently ¥4180 or ¥7480 on Amazon), and Amazon bonus (Media format: 予約特典&【Amazon.co.jp限定】付き) or no Amazon bonus. The Amazon retailer exclusive bonus is a set of 6 postcards, pictured with the rest of the retailer exclusive perks at the link Steven posted a few posts up: https://city-connection.co.jp/s-tribute/batsugun/#store
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Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by DenimDemon »

hamfighterx wrote:
DenimDemon wrote:Is there already a Amazon.Jp for this?
https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/dp/B0BTLGK2BD

Options for PS4/Switch, normal or special edition (currently ¥4180 or ¥7480 on Amazon), and Amazon bonus (Media format: 予約特典&【Amazon.co.jp限定】付き) or no Amazon bonus. The Amazon retailer exclusive bonus is a set of 6 postcards, pictured with the rest of the retailer exclusive perks at the link Steven posted a few posts up: https://city-connection.co.jp/s-tribute/batsugun/#store
Thanks, will order e right away. Standard it is.

And done. Thanks!
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by hamfighterx »

Bassa-Bassa wrote:They indeed announced a third display mode this time as part of the Boosted thingie. And there you have the snapshot!
I gotta say, this is a very nice addition that makes this release MUCH more appealing. I think I'm on board with these "Boosted" enhanced Saturn ports. Between that, and the sensible decisions to cancel the PS4/Switch Metal Black S-Tribute and lower the PC/Xbox price to match Hamster Arcade Archives pricing, dare I say that City Connection is on a bit of a roll? They gained some of my respect for how they handled the Metal Black situation.

And because it warrants saying again, aside from making a very bad first impression with the excessively laggy Cotton 2 & Guardian Force release, the S-Tribute releases after that have been fine. City Connection's recent Akai Katana release (and Deathsmiles I&II from late 2021) also had no major issues.

The constant "Shitty Connection" commentary around these parts is a little unfair, IMO. I get that they aren't perfect and you can expect a few frames of lag on the S-Tribute releases (but perfectly playable to me outside of the one big Cotton/G.Force exception), and maybe people take issue with the approach of doing straight Saturn ports (well, maybe now slightly enhanced in the "Boosted" line), but they really aren't doing that bad of a job. Not everyone can be M2 and make reference standard ultimate editions packed full of bells and whistles. But then again, waiting on M2 to do Batsugun for Toaplan Arcade Garage would probably mean waiting another 4-5 years or more, assuming they manage to do the whole Toaplan catalog as originally intended.

As long as they aren't absolutely butchering games, I'm happy to have STG releases from companies other than the gold standard of M2 + the consistently quality bare-bones Hamster releases. City Connection, Live Wire, or anyone else.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Creamy Goodness »

FOMO's got me on this one. I want a physical copy of Batsugun, but who knows when or if M2 will come out with theirs so this is looking enticing.
Last edited by Creamy Goodness on Tue Feb 07, 2023 3:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by BulletMagnet »

hamfighterx wrote:So, sounds like the "Boosted" is mostly some HUD customizations, a bit like a light version of M2's gadgets (but also online ranking and some scoring changes?)
I wonder if the "maximum score increase" thing merely means they'll add another digit to the score tally, as it's possible to counter-stop Special.
TransatlanticFoe wrote:While I am here, let me get this right: there is absolutely no reason to ever play Saturn Batsugun instead of the arcade version, right?
If memory serves the Saturn version has reduced/eliminated slowdown compared to the arcade version, which makes the later loops in Special more difficult, though whether that's a dealbreaker (or even a negative) would depend on who you ask.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by To Far Away Times »

hamfighterx wrote:
Bassa-Bassa wrote:They indeed announced a third display mode this time as part of the Boosted thingie. And there you have the snapshot!
I gotta say, this is a very nice addition that makes this release MUCH more appealing. I think I'm on board with these "Boosted" enhanced Saturn ports. Between that, and the sensible decisions to cancel the PS4/Switch Metal Black S-Tribute and lower the PC/Xbox price to match Hamster Arcade Archives pricing, dare I say that City Connection is on a bit of a roll? They gained some of my respect for how they handled the Metal Black situation.

And because it warrants saying again, aside from making a very bad first impression with the excessively laggy Cotton 2 & Guardian Force release, the S-Tribute releases after that have been fine. City Connection's recent Akai Katana release (and Deathsmiles I&II from late 2021) also had no major issues.

The constant "Shitty Connection" commentary around these parts is a little unfair, IMO. I get that they aren't perfect and you can expect a few frames of lag on the S-Tribute releases (but perfectly playable to me outside of the one big Cotton/G.Force exception), and maybe people take issue with the approach of doing straight Saturn ports (well, maybe now slightly enhanced in the "Boosted" line), but they really aren't doing that bad of a job. Not everyone can be M2 and make reference standard ultimate editions packed full of bells and whistles. But then again, waiting on M2 to do Batsugun for Toaplan Arcade Garage would probably mean waiting another 4-5 years or more, assuming they manage to do the whole Toaplan catalog as originally intended.

As long as they aren't absolutely butchering games, I'm happy to have STG releases from companies other than the gold standard of M2 + the consistently quality bare-bones Hamster releases. City Connection, Live Wire, or anyone else.
Cotton Shit Tribute is fundamentally busted. That game was not, and still isn't, ready for retail. Honestly, they should have refunded anyone who bought it.

This is not me being picky about input lag. This is a reaction based game with a very noticeable delay between button presses and character reactions, to the point that when playing I want to correct for what looks like missed inputs.

As far as I'm considered the port is a proof of concept, and a test for their emulator, but nothing more. Selling it on a storefront as a playable game is basically a scam.

They'll carry the "Shitty Connection" name for as long as they exist.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Steven »

Creamy Goodness wrote:FOMO's got me on this one. I want a physical copy of Batsugun, but who knows when or if it will come out so this is looking enticing.
Tops has a PCB if you want it, but you may not want it once you see the price: https://www.tops-game.jp/products/detai ... ct_id=4216
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by SavagePencil »

If there’s a vinyl of that OST it’ll be catnip too powerful to resist.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by hamfighterx »

To Far Away Times wrote:Cotton Shit Tribute is fundamentally busted. That game was not, and still isn't, ready for retail. Honestly, they should have refunded anyone who bought it.

This is not me being picky about input lag. This is a reaction based game with a very noticeable delay between button presses and character reactions, to the point that when playing I want to correct for what looks like missed inputs.

As far as I'm considered the port is a proof of concept, and a test for their emulator, but nothing more. Selling it on a storefront as a playable game is basically a scam.
We all know Cotton 2/Guardian Force was a bad release. But it's pretty apparent by now that it was the outlier, as none of the other S-Tribute games are severely broken, nor were City Collection's two recent Cave releases. It really hurt their reputation that the very first S-Tribute game left such a bad impression on people, but at some point if you're being objective you have to acknowledge that they seem to have corrected those issues.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Udderdude »

Just for fun I tested Batsugun Saturn in "Side" mode in MAME .. there does seem to be a little bit of input latency in the port. I didn't notice it when running the original arcade version in MAME. Makes for a good baseline comparison .. lol.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

For some reason, Mame's STV (and I guess Saturn as well) emulation feels more laggy than the rest, I guess it has to do with it being quite unfinished. Saturn emulation isn't very reliable still in 2023 no matter what you use, I'm afraid.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Sengoku Strider »

hamfighterx wrote:
Bassa-Bassa wrote:They indeed announced a third display mode this time as part of the Boosted thingie. And there you have the snapshot!
I gotta say, this is a very nice addition that makes this release MUCH more appealing. I think I'm on board with these "Boosted" enhanced Saturn ports. Between that, and the sensible decisions to cancel the PS4/Switch Metal Black S-Tribute and lower the PC/Xbox price to match Hamster Arcade Archives pricing, dare I say that City Connection is on a bit of a roll? They gained some of my respect for how they handled the Metal Black situation.

And because it warrants saying again, aside from making a very bad first impression with the excessively laggy Cotton 2 & Guardian Force release, the S-Tribute releases after that have been fine. City Connection's recent Akai Katana release (and Deathsmiles I&II from late 2021) also had no major issues.

The constant "Shitty Connection" commentary around these parts is a little unfair, IMO. I get that they aren't perfect and you can expect a few frames of lag on the S-Tribute releases (but perfectly playable to me outside of the one big Cotton/G.Force exception), and maybe people take issue with the approach of doing straight Saturn ports (well, maybe now slightly enhanced in the "Boosted" line), but they really aren't doing that bad of a job. Not everyone can be M2 and make reference standard ultimate editions packed full of bells and whistles. But then again, waiting on M2 to do Batsugun for Toaplan Arcade Garage would probably mean waiting another 4-5 years or more, assuming they manage to do the whole Toaplan catalog as originally intended.

As long as they aren't absolutely butchering games, I'm happy to have STG releases from companies other than the gold standard of M2 + the consistently quality bare-bones Hamster releases. City Connection, Live Wire, or anyone else.
They have definitely been feeling their way through things. They gained notoriety with the Switch Psikyo collections, which were what seem to have been what started the dialogue around measured input lag as a (the?) central topic of reviews this gen. They were caught flat-footed by that one; I'm not sure it was even entirely fair for them to become the face of that, when stuff like Vasara Collection was worse.

Their Game Tengoku release is almost a wonderful package with as much heart as you're likely to ever find in a shooter, but for some reason they only included tate in the original Saturn arcade mode which is like...WAI. Especially when they put so much time & effort into the voice acting for the other modes.

And then the Cotton/Guardian Force thing, which honestly they never should have tried to sell to people in that state. I'm sure they don't have a ton of financial cushion to work with to make decisions like that, but there's no way it helped them in the long run.

But like you said, they've course-corrected well for the most part, and their PS4 titles and more recent Switch releases have turned out better. If nothing else I'm tempted to give them a pass as their heart seems to be largely in the right place, they've just been out of their depth technically.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by To Far Away Times »

One thing we know about Shitty Connection is there is a not insignificant chance they will go "we need the money, fuck it, just ship it out anyways."

I think of companies like Nintendo and M2 that put out finished, well polished games at release. I can buy those day one because I know the games will work well. And they've built a level of trust with their audience over the years.

Shitty Connection will never have that luxury. Their whole image is rightfully wrapped up in the Cotton 2 11 frames of lag debacle.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by hamfighterx »

Sengoku Strider wrote:They gained notoriety with the Switch Psikyo collections, which were what seem to have been what started the dialogue around measured input lag as a (the?) central topic of reviews this gen. They were caught flat-footed by that one; I'm not sure it was even entirely fair for them to become the face of that, when stuff like Vasara Collection was worse.
To be clear, City Connection should not take the blame for those Psikyo ports since they had nothing to do with the original development work. Those were wholly developed by Zerodiv, a company formed by ex-Psikyo staff, and initially released as individual eShop/PSN downloads in 2017-2018 - well before City Connection acquired Zerodiv in 2019.

The only remotely legitimate complaint about City Connection in connection to those Psikyo games is that they did release physical Switch/PS4 compilations of the previously developed titles, after they acquired Zerodiv and knew what they were releasing. But I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to expect they would have gone back to re-work games that were already released, so that seems like a pretty unfair argument.
To Far Away Times wrote:One thing we know about Shitty Connection is there is a not insignificant chance they will go "we need the money, fuck it, just ship it out anyways."

I think of companies like Nintendo and M2 that put out finished, well polished games at release. I can buy those day one because I know the games will work well. And they've built a level of trust with their audience over the years.

Shitty Connection will never have that luxury. Their whole image is rightfully wrapped up in the Cotton 2 11 frames of lag debacle.
You do you, but my take is that it feels obnoxious and unfair to argue that because Cotton 2 & Guardian Force S-Tribute was bad, City Connection is never to be trusted again. They have had like 7+ releases since Cotton S-Tribute that HAVE demonstrated marked improvement. If that's not how you go about rebuilding trust with your audience, I don't know what to say. Besides, it's obvious that they're viewing this Batsugun release as something more special, as the introduction to their "Boosted" line of enhanced ports.

And pretty bad timing to name drop Nintendo as an example of a company that is trustworthy because of their well polished games, after their last gigantic release (Pokemon Scarlet/Violet) was launched in a poor state with one of the biggest stories being widespread complaints of technical issues including graphical glitches, crashes, save file corruption, music not properly playing, and generally poor frame rates and performance. It was so bad that Nintendo made a public apology for releasing the game in such a sorry state. No exaggeration to say that was one of the most noteworthy and widely reported cases of a game releasing in bad technical shape in the past several years (probably only behind CD Project Red and Cyberpunk 2077).

I would agree that Nintendo generally releases games that perform fine, but by your logic since they had this one high profile slip-up, we should probably coin a mocking name for them and loudly doubt their every release until the end of time. Seems like an asinine approach to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Last edited by hamfighterx on Wed Feb 08, 2023 12:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Jeneki »

Was it ever stated why Guardian Force / Cotton wasn't patched (again) to match the newer releases?
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by Ms. Tea »

It was patched, and reduced by between 0.5 and 1.5 frames depending on circumstances. I think the real issue is that Cotton/Guardian Force has excessive lag on the Saturn, which means emulator lag on top of the game's own lag was unbearable. I haven't seen anyone definitively measure the late games, but I'd bet the emulator performance is exactly the same - it's just that the games they're picking all had low lag on Saturn, so the total lag is fine for most people.
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Re: Batsugun S-Tribute

Post by To Far Away Times »

hamfighterx wrote:
Sengoku Strider wrote:They gained notoriety with the Switch Psikyo collections, which were what seem to have been what started the dialogue around measured input lag as a (the?) central topic of reviews this gen. They were caught flat-footed by that one; I'm not sure it was even entirely fair for them to become the face of that, when stuff like Vasara Collection was worse.
To be clear, City Connection should not take the blame for those Psikyo ports since they had nothing to do with the original development work. Those were wholly developed by Zerodiv, a company formed by ex-Psikyo staff, and initially released as individual eShop/PSN downloads in 2017-2018 - well before City Connection acquired Zerodiv in 2019.

The only remotely legitimate complaint about City Connection in connection to those Psikyo games is that they did release physical Switch/PS4 compilations of the previously developed titles, after they acquired Zerodiv and knew what they were releasing. But I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to expect they would have gone back to re-work games that were already released, so that seems like a pretty unfair argument.
To Far Away Times wrote:One thing we know about Shitty Connection is there is a not insignificant chance they will go "we need the money, fuck it, just ship it out anyways."

I think of companies like Nintendo and M2 that put out finished, well polished games at release. I can buy those day one because I know the games will work well. And they've built a level of trust with their audience over the years.

Shitty Connection will never have that luxury. Their whole image is rightfully wrapped up in the Cotton 2 11 frames of lag debacle.
You do you, but my take is that it feels obnoxious and unfair to argue that because Cotton 2 & Guardian Force S-Tribute was bad, City Connection is never to be trusted again. They have had like 7+ releases since Cotton S-Tribute that HAVE demonstrated marked improvement. If that's not how you go about rebuilding trust with your audience, I don't know what to say. Besides, it's obvious that they're viewing this Batsugun release as something more special, as the introduction to their "Boosted" line of enhanced ports.

And pretty bad timing to name drop Nintendo as an example of a company that is trustworthy because of their well polished games, after their last gigantic release (Pokemon Scarlet/Violet) was launched in a poor state with one of the biggest stories being widespread complaints of technical issues including graphical glitches, crashes, save file corruption, music not properly playing, and generally poor frame rates and performance. It was so bad that Nintendo made a public apology for releasing the game in such a sorry state.

I would agree that Nintendo generally releases games that perform fine, but by your logic since they had this one high profile slip-up, we should probably coin a mocking name for them and loudly doubt their every release until the end of time. Seems like an asinine approach to me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
With Nintendo, they built a ~35 year history of making some of the most polished games in the industry, so some latitude can be given. (FWIW, Mrs. To Far Away Times also loves Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and says its among the best games in the series - No arguing with her, she's the boss :) ). The game was clearly not polished to the usual Nintendo standards, but perfectly enjoyable and playable.

Shitty Connection's very first game, a "high profile" shmup, was released in an unplayable state. I also felt I got burned by the game, a total waste of money. You can see the difference in enthusiasm in this thread, when people are discussing Batusgun with the caveat of Shitty Connection being involved. They've improved since then, but it does seem like a missed opportunity when they port a game compared to just about anyone else.

Batsugun is a beloved, historic STG. This is the type of game worthy of a fancy M2 Shot Triggers type port. Even porting the Saturn port is a little questionable, when doing a new arcade conversion would likely produce a better result.
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