shmups.system11.org

how well did the last s-tribute turn out?

The last one had a glitch that you can do at the beginning of stage 1 that makes you completely invulnerable, probably for the duration of the entire game, so I hope they do a better job this time. I'm not sure if they ever fixed that, but I guess you could call that glitch a bootleg training mode of sorts if you really want to.

The Cotton/Guardian Force collection also had a lot of input lag, which they eventually patched and improved, but even after that it's still subpar. A real shame, as Boomerang in particular is a personal favorite.

I was familiar with the reception of the Cotton/Guardian Force one but hope this one does improve.

im not bothered by the idea of input lag if its hardly noticable and pretty miniscual but if its very noticable thats of course a problem.

I suppose the most convient way of playing these games is still via Sega Saturn emulation like mednafen a satiator or saturn boot cartridge as not everybody would want to drop hundreds on physical copies of these games.

Do the Saturn versions really emulate better than the original arcade versions? Or is there something extra in the Saturn versions the arcades didn't get?

Emulation still isn't perfect for EAR F3. However, some official emulations fixed the lights and it runs well on the Egret II mini. The only extra I'm aware of for EAR Saturn is a port of the original Elevator Action. It's a good port, but that game can be found elsewhere, including Arcade Archives IIRC.

Klonoa?

yes i am quite the fan of klonoa.

So am I. And of Elevator Action also.

never seen much of the original elevator action only really heard of elevator actions return through gameplay videos.

By the way Untamed Heart is the best song from klonoa you should listen to it

I thought the best ones were “Stepping Wind” or “Sign of a Hero”.

I have not heard much Klonoa 2 music but there are a handfull of ones i really like such as Baguji's theme Seaway, Calm Sea and Lightning Bug. reminds me much of the first games style of music.

I guess this releases in a few days. Is anyone going to get it? I'm scared of Shitty Connection...

I am always delighted to see venerable ol' favourites - Toaplan STG Battle Vol.1, Battle Garegga, Namco Museum et al - given modern freshening-ups. For one, they're often truly "arcade perfect" - not just admirably close (the older ports' deviations being part of their charm, imo). For another, it's not easy finding devs who care enough to keep their work arcade-responsive in the post-CRT era.

M2 and Hamster have exemplified this, with the aforementioned, along with Arcade Gears, Konami's Deluxe Packs, and many isolated classics given low-latency modern emulations that can stand in for the old discs, and in some cases supplant them (though again, who doesn't love old discs?).

Then there's this laggy junk like that Cotton/Guardian Force Success "tribute," which I'm not touching with a fuckin bargepole. Not eager to find out whether they sorted their shit out this time around tbh.

Good as or better? Great! Inferior to? Why bother? Wait what - "convenience?" This isn't convenience, this is bullshit. Eat my ass you unlettered nostalgia tourist.



VING handled those, and AFAIK, they're nearer to proper conversions than emulation. At any rate, none of the bullshit from either TL2 or MAME (mainly non-working lighting effects) affects the Saturn version. Customarily artisanal work by VING.

(artisanal is a word I'd use more often except it makes me say LMAO ANAL 3;)

I categorically refuse to spend real, actual dollars on a City Connection port. I'm praying that Hamster get a chance to release the arcade version eventually. If not.... Fuck. I'll just play it on Taito Legends 2 (itself kind of a shit port, from what I've heard). Or mame. It says right in the listing on the eshop that this "S-Tribute" (S is the same letter as a word which describes the quality of City Connection Saturn ports!) will use the "Zebra" engine. The same Zebra Engine which has ruined damn near every game City Connection have put out on it.

Zebras have a rough life, they don't deserve to be associated with this garbage. 3;

EAR is very playable in MAME, imo (though I know that's cold comfort, when one prefers official releases, as I do). Put FOUSANDS of hours on it before getting into console ports, pretty much everything besides the lighting effects seemed 1:1. Can't recall any major boners like Rayforce's st3 midboss losing his laz0rs, something that took a while to fix.

I heard City Connection's Deathsmiles is good, though; I think even Jaimers said it's the best non-PCB versions of the games, although you'd have to ask Jaimers directly about the specifics. That's cheap on Steam right now, so I have been thinking about getting it, although I'll wait for the reviews on Akai Katana, especially since I have WAY too many STGs that I suck at and definitely don't need to buy more!

Still, this is an emulated Saturn game, not a port, so who knows. After Cotton and the supposedly glitchy Layer Section, I am extremely hesitant to give them my money.

Yeah, I'm relatively agnostic on CC as a whole (if nothing else, they do some bangin' OST releases... those Sunsoft and Natsume packs are astonishing, given all the licensing bullshit affecting both's libraries). Their PS4 Dragon Blaze and Strikers 1999 both feel quite decent to me. For me, input latency is the SSS Plus Alpha priority; I consider the enjoyment of realtime action gaming (of any sort) primarily tactile. As soon as I can feel a disconnect between my hands and the onscreen response? I might as well go watch a movie.

So the aforementioneds' lack of save states, or any practice modes whatsoever, doesn't bother me nearly as much as it might others. They're graphically quite sharp too, an improvement on the responsive but muddily-interlaced PS2 DB actually. This reminds me, I meant to see if Jaimers had tried either of these.

OTOH, their "PS4" Strikers 1945 II is, yet again, just the long-serving, close-but-no-cigar PS1 port, repackaged here as it was on PS2. A valiant yet accursed port - like some leal knight sworn to defend his lord's domain, fallen to corruption over an unnaturally long lifespan. Even then, its response seems tolerable (4f according to some... 5f and up, I'm out), but as a home release, it's farcically behind the times.

As a sub-series, S-Tribute seems fairly cursed atm, and also pointless for a longterm Saturn enjoyer. It'd take something like the 360 DOJBL's improbable redemption via Mihara for me to give them a chance.

Oh yeah, you just reminded me that I need to go buy the rest of the Toaplan OSTs from City Connection. I have about half and am missing the other half. They are expensive, though, and it's going to cost like 18000 yen to get the ones that I don't have already. Unfortunately two of the most pressing omissions from my Toaplan music library are Dogyuun! and Out Zone, which are probably the #2 and #3 best Toaplan OSTs after Tatsujin Ou, so I really should go get those.

I wasn't expecting to see a page on the eshop for Cleopatra Fortune S-Tribute already. I thought EAR would be listed before that one. There's no saving Guardian Force. It's laggy no matter what you play it on.

Looked up the price for Layer Section. 23.99 on sale, regular 39.99 for one game that isn't even emulated well. Ridiculous!

Guardian Force seemed perfectly fine the one time I played it on ST-V, although I have heard it's better on Saturn than ST-V. Maybe it's true, but maybe it's not. I don't know.

Anyway, Shitty Connection Layer Section has no reason to exist because M2 is going to completely destroy any reason to buy Shitty Connection Layer Section here in a few months, unless you don't have a PS4 or a Switch. I REALLY hope that shit gets a PC release eventually, along with all of M2's other stuff, although I know it won't happen for most of them. Hopefully Taito will put it on PC since they got most of the M2 Darius stuff on there eventually.

Oof, saw this on the JPSN just now.

Happily though, it was while picking up Arcade Archives: Tetris The Grand Master so get that instead.

I just don't know why they bother emulating the Saturn... emulations, instead of just throwing up the source, which would be far better for the games in question.

From the US Nintendo site: "This game is a reproduction of the home console version released by Bing in 1997."

Bing

You've gotta get up close like this and BADA-VING! You blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit!

^ my OFFICIAL headcanon for Ving's name origin

Is this worth picking up? I have it on Taito Legends 2, but if this one is close (I don't have a lot of time in it) I would pick it up too.

I would say it depends on the input lag - I seem to recall hearing the S-Tribute Layer Section (aka Rayforce) wasn't too bad in this regard (though from what Steven says, it sounds like it's got bugs?), while the Success pack (Cotton 2 & Boomerang + Guardian Force) had god-awful lag at first, and is said to remain noticeably sludgy post-patch. It's enough for me to steer clear of them.

Granted, I have the Saturn versions... but as I said a few posts up, I'm always delighted to double up on M2/Hamster releases of PS1/SS stuff, both for the sheer convenience of arcade-standard play on modern displays, and also their typically closer arcade accuracy. Sounds like neither's much on the table here, sadly. I'll be the first to recant if they sort their shit out.