Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

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Sengoku Strider
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Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by Sengoku Strider »

Visco's 1999 Neo Geo samurai slasher Ganryu has gotten itself a sequel two decades later.

Trailer:

https://youtu.be/3J7wqYzXzDs

Image

No word on whether this will get a (super) late Dreamcast port too.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by Ghegs »

This and the maybe-soon-to-be-released Andro Dunos 2, also a sequel to a Visco game, are certainly odd things to release now. I mean, I actually liked Ganryu, I thought it was perfectly fine in its own right, even if it didn't feel like it belonged on the Neo Geo. But who thinks these titles have any sort of name recognition nowadays?

I'm getting more Strider/Osman -vibes from the trailer than Ganryu. Still, I'm kind of looking forward to trying this out.

Would be cool if they included the first game as a bonus. I sold my MVS cart after one-lifing the game way back when.
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CIT
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by CIT »

Looks interesting enough. I quite enjoyed the original Ganryu and even 1cc’d it.

It’s a shame the rights to Visco’s Neo Geo games were acquired by this French fly-by-night outfit, so none of the games are available on ACA Neo Geo.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by Herr Schatten »

I've never played the original, but player movement in that trailer reminds me an awful lot of The Messenger.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by drauch »

Gnarly. Give me Breakers Revenge-r now and all will be well with the world.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by Despatche »

Okay, now that we have Ganryu 2, I think I see where this is going... someone's going around snapping up cheap names in order to do their own thing with them. Not a bad idea. I look forward to whatever happens with Breakers, arguably everyone's favorite of the Visco titles. I agree that the original games should hit ACA though.

I believe this developer, Storybird Studio, also did Golden Force. That's a pretty cool game. People hated it because it was hard as hell, which is a very silly thing to hate a game for nowadays. Storybird is also credited for Wallachia, but I think they just did some support work on that game.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

I've read that it's again the same publisher as Andro Dunos 2 using a Visco name for an unrelated project because why not. It's a terrible idea, if you ask me - let them both have their own individuality as they were meant to. This Ganryu 2 looks very interesting so far on its own, yet nobody needed a sequel to Ganryu - the game didn't have an official release in Japan and was extremely limited in the west.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by BrianC »

Despatche wrote:Storybird is also credited for Wallachia, but I think they just did some support work on that game.
Wallachia was done by the same person who did those Castlevania/Haunted Castle fan games (the Lecarde Chronicles and Haunted Castle 2 and 3).

I'm guessing this company is also the reason why the Visco done MD/Genesis version of Wardner isn't included with M2's Flying Shark Shark Shark collection?

It seems to be out now on PSN. Anyone play it?

Edit: I wonder if it was put on the shop early by mistake, other digital stores still have a date close to the announced release date.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by Ghegs »

I've been playing the game a little bit on Switch, and I really want to like it, but the game's not making an easy time of it.

The performance on Switch just isn't where it should be, even with the current version. I could deal with the substandard frame rate if the game was otherwise rock solid, but it's kind of got issues everywhere. Not Switch-specific ones, as it seems the bugs are present in all platforms. Though the bugs I experienced are restricted to graphics and animations, some other platforms seem to suffer from harsher ones.

The stages are huge, it takes ~15 minutes for a single stage. Each stage has two parts to it, and both parts have bosses. There are checkpoints, but if you lose your last life at the stage boss, you're thrown all the way back to the beginning of the stage upon continuing. Not just the beginning of that part, the whole stage. It does save your progress but only between each stage. The other systems have an achievement for finishing the game in under 75 minutes so I guess it's not exactly intended to be played from start to finish in one sitting.

The devs apparently threw in every single stage idea they had. Other than the expected stages where the Ninja Gaiden / Strider / Shinobi influences can be felt, there's also a minecart riding stage (think Donkey Kong Country), a shmup stage, a running stage (akin to Stage 2 of Shinobi III), which are all fine in itself, but scenes tend to drag on a bit long, and at times it gets a bit repetitive within a stage. I think the game would've been better served by cutting the length of each stage in half, to make it more streamlined and concentrated. If they really wanted to include all the slight variations to the obstacles like they have now, maybe they could've made alternative versions of the stage accessible through some means.

The enemy placement is heavily reliant on making the enemies appear out of thin air. Most of the times there's not an enemy in sight, then you pass a specific point and BAM three enemies warp into existence right next to you. This would be fine if used sparingly, and sure it's in line with the ninja theme, but it gets tiresome when used constantly. The stages do have a lot of secrets (hidden items that reward you with more hitpoints, lives, kunais, score, etc) which are cool to find, so exploring does usually pay off. The difficulty also feels uneven. I had to try the first stage's minecart part several times before beating it, there are a few jumps from one minecart to another where it's very easy to miss the landing. And the second part's boss required six or seven attempts before beating him, but afterwards I beat Stages 2 and 3 on the first go without even continuing. Stage 4 looks to be a huge difficulty spike, it starts off with a section where you need to keep jumping upwards on falling platforms, and the second part has you doing walljumps over a spike floor.

And speaking of, walljumping doesn't feel as good as it should. Part of it is because there doesn't appear to be any animation to it, you just push towards the wall, you hit the jump button...and you jump, but without the accompanying animation it lacks that special something. Overall the controls have this weird feeling every now and then...most times it's fine, but other times it's like the character doesn't recover from taking a hit fast enough, or that the game's eating inputs, I'm not sure. Which is a damn shame because the character has quite a lot of moves to his arsenal. Walking, running, jumping and doublejumping, walljumping, crouch-walking, dashing and air-dashing, slashing with the sword (which can deflect enemy kunais, always love that), throwing kunais, zipping on ziplines. When you get a good momentum going and you're running while slashing everything in your way, doublejumping over a spike trap and killing an enemy with a spinning jumpslash while at it, and finish with a dash that also kills the hapless enemy that was in your way...it's pretty sweet.

It's at those moments you forget about the jank and just enjoy the cool ninja action, until something pulls you out of it. It's almost frustrating how good the game could be if they just managed to kill the bugs and fix the performance. As it is, it's kind of hard to recommend.
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Re: Ganryu 2 - Steam/Switch/PS4/XB - April 22/2022

Post by Bassa-Bassa »

Ghegs wrote:bugs
The only thing that links this to the 'predecessor' aside from the stupid name, then.
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