Turrican 30th

Anything from run & guns to modern RPGs, what else do you play?

Whats it gonna Be??

An exciting return to the series after a 30 year hiatus
9
60%
Another Soundtrack CD
6
40%
 
Total votes: 15

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Ghegs
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Ghegs »

spmbx wrote:Extra games? I think a sticker is more likely
Absolutely more likely, but extra games wouldn't be unprecedented. Game Boy's Sagaia was added to the upcoming Darius Cozmic Revelation almost six months after the pre-orders opened, and that one's also from Strictly Limited.
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Marc
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Marc »

Is it a regular thing for them to be this late with stuff? I've got PS4 Clockwork Aquario on order from them as well, am I looking at Xmas rather that July? :D
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TransatlanticFoe
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Covid fucks with the manufacturing timeframes, but so do bugfixes - because they don't want to release physical games that need patching. So they're also a little at the mercy of the software teams. The Turrican retail compilation had some performance issues and softlocks (at least on Switch) that needed resolving, presumably the exclusive content has needed more work than anticipated too if it's a general engine/emulation problem.

It's generally only been a couple of months delay, this sort of shift to TBA isn't the norm. Where the delay means they can slip something else in there, they do - Darius Cozmic Revelation was delayed and now is getting the Gameboy version of Sagaia on Switch because they were able to bolt on the already finished game (previously it was JP-exclusive DLC).

I'd much rather wait and get the complete game, with maybe some bonuses, than have it rushed out and need a couple of rounds of patches.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Ghegs »

TransatlanticFoe wrote:I'd much rather wait and get the complete game, with maybe some bonuses, than have it rushed out and need a couple of rounds of patches.
Seconded. I'm buying these physical releases for the long haul, not to get to playing them as fast as possible. 10, 20 years down the road it's much more important to have the physical version being as complete as possible.
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TransatlanticFoe
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Received an e-mail regarding the Turrican collections, still no release date beyond "later this year" but at least an explanation:

1. They wanted to add an in-game map to all games in the collection and this was much more time consuming than planned
2. The score attack mode needed significant re-balancing
3. Plenty of issues coming out of the Flashback release which needed two patches for Switch and three for PS4

Standard software release delays really, scope creep and bugfixes. I'm guessing they delayed saying anything until now because they were weighing up whether to drop the problematic features or not - I'm surprised they didn't just ditch them and get the games out. To be honest, I'm not sure how many prospective customers would care about a map, seems more a concession to the modern audience than something that's worth the effort. Score attack I'm amazed they've even tried to implement and balance properly, it does seem more appropriate for Turrican veterans but remains to be seen as to whether it breaks easily.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

My thoughts:

Games will all feature an in-game map. Some of the levels were annoyingly non-linear, T1s 4-2 springs to mind where you could continue to wander for a long time in the wrong direction if you didn't notice one weird jump. T3's 4-3 has a lot of dead ends as well. Nice for newcomers and players who don't have those level layouts permanently seared into their memories - but this could potentially ruin the fun of finding all those secret areas.

Score attack mode is being tweaked "to meet the high standards of Factor 5". If scoring relies on finding those secret goodies then the map may ruin this. Hopefully it will be a separate mapless, rewind button-less mode.

Pack-in statue was scrapped and redesigned. I don't care about this. Was Celal consulted on the design? It doesn't seem like it. The boxart never bore any resembance to the in-game sprite. I love the Turrican 1 artwork but I dont think that design was ever meant to be extrapolated into a full figure and it just looks goofier and goofier across the sequel covers. (I secretly love the Boris Vallejo cover too although Celal is my guy.)
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Marc »

Sly Cherry Chunks wrote:My thoughts:

Games will all feature an in-game map. Some of the levels were annoyingly non-linear, T1s 4-2 springs to mind where you could continue to wander for a long time in the wrong direction if you didn't notice one weird jump. T3's 4-3 has a lot of dead ends as well. Nice for newcomers and players who don't have those level layouts permanently seared into their memories - but this could potentially ruin the fun of finding all those secret areas.
I actually resorted to YouTube for that bit. The second I saw someone else do it, I thought 'fuck, there, I remember now!'.
Score Attack is going to be bullshit no matter what they do, Turrican, for all I sort of love it, simply doesn't lend itself to that sort of tight exerience.

Still no date on my 'August' Clockwork Aquario either.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Finally (hopefully)

The Retro Cartridges start shipping end of DEC '21
Limprint Standards start shipping in MAR '22
CE starts shipping in APR '22
XCE ALT.1 - w/o Figurine starts shipping in APR '22 if you'd want it sooner, while the figurine will be shipped separately in July at no extra cost.
XCE ALT.2 - /w Figurine will be shipped in JUL '22
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by BrianC »

wow. The original Super Turrican 1 and 2 artwork for SNES is some of the laziest stuff I have seen. The art itself is good, but both games reuse the same image of Turrican from one of the Turrican 2 boxes. I definitely like the new art for Super Turrican 2 and Mega Turrican, but I'm not sure about the new art for Super Turrican.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by ChurchOfSolipsism »

Finally received my copies of Super Turrican 2 (SNES) and Mega Turrican. Have to say I'm a bit disappointed, the "manuals" are just a folded flyer really (bit shameless to advertise it as a manual, if you ask me), and the box design for the T2/ SNES looks cheap and amateurish - in all fairness, you can see it on Strictly Limited Games' website, but I haven't checked it in a year and was pretty underwhelmed when the game arrived. The cart feels a bit cheap (I'm referring to the type of plastic they used) and even a tad lighter than what you're used to? And the areas in which you find the usual warnings on a normal cart are just left blank, which looks bad especially when compared with Bitmap Games' Xeno Crisis Mega Drive cart, which has the company's logo in place of just nothing. Sorry if I come across as nitpicky here, but most of the things I've mentioned could have been improved if they put in a bit more effort.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by velo »

Sly Cherry Chunks wrote: Games will all feature an in-game map. Some of the levels were annoyingly non-linear, T1s 4-2 springs to mind where you could continue to wander for a long time in the wrong direction if you didn't notice one weird jump. T3's 4-3 has a lot of dead ends as well. Nice for newcomers and players who don't have those level layouts permanently seared into their memories - but this could potentially ruin the fun of finding all those secret areas.
imo an auto-map that fills out as you go and persists from one playthrough to the next would be ideal. You get to discover everything yourself, it just spares you the nuisance of taking notes.
Marc wrote: Score Attack is going to be bullshit no matter what they do, Turrican, for all I sort of love it, simply doesn't lend itself to that sort of tight exerience.
Some kind of score based on completion time + % complete could make sense. The in-game score is probably worthless.
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BrianC
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by BrianC »

The Mega Turrican cart from Strictly Limited has Score Attack on it. It's pretty much just one large old school Turrican style level with a bunch of crystals to collect. Kind of fun to explore, but not really what I think of when I think "Score Attack".

I was somewhat disappointed, as well. The new features don't offer much over the standard cart and director's cut pretty much makes a hidden area a part of normal gameplay. The game locks up on my recapped VA3 Genesis 2 too.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Herr Schatten »

So, I got the physical Anthology 1 for the Switch from SLG today. I had completely forgotten I had ordered this, it was just so long ago. Emulation is fine, although auto fire seems a bit slow, and I haven't found an option to alter it.

The bonus postcards and the poster are butt-ugly, so not really a bonus. There's a flyer in the package that claims there's supposed to be a bonus CD with some remixes, as a thank you for the patience. Alas, that CD is nowhere to be found. Even though the collection contains Turrican 1, 2 and Super 1, the manual covers the controls of 1, 2 and Mega instead.

Whatever took them so long, it sure as hell wasn't the quality assurance.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by velo »

Herr Schatten wrote:So, I got the physical Anthology 1 for the Switch from SLG today. I had completely forgotten I had ordered this, it was just so long ago. Emulation is fine, although auto fire seems a bit slow, and I haven't found an option to alter it.

The bonus postcards and the poster are butt-ugly, so not really a bonus. There's a flyer in the package that claims there's supposed to be a bonus CD with some remixes, as a thank you for the patience. Alas, that CD is nowhere to be found. Even though the collection contains Turrican 1, 2 and Super 1, the manual covers the controls of 1, 2 and Mega instead.

Whatever took them so long, it sure as hell wasn't the quality assurance.
Quite the heart-felt thanks from SLG to their loyal fans :lol: I'm certainly looking forward to receiving that Dumb Sucker's Edition of Space Invaders that I ordered two years ago ("shipping Q2 2022", as of the last update)
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

Arrived today finally! I gave everything a spin (including an easy mode run through of Super Turrican 2 as I know it well) to make sure it all worked. Edit: thought it wanted to apply a patch... found it was actually a Switch system update when I later went to use Youtube. D'oh!

I do wonder how strained Strictly Limited are with both Factor 5 and some customers (the abusive comments on their Twitter have been quite something)... while covid delays were inevitable, I think the base game (as per the Flashback collection) required a lot more time to get stable than I think Strictly Limited were expecting. And then they had the bright idea of adding stuff on top of that! To their credit, Strictly Limited have kept customers informed and permitted refunds, and tried to put a positive spin on it.

But the end products across the board show the strain of the whole thing. The retro carts having a basic controls sheet as an instruction manual was just hand-waved away with "sorry, we'll do better in future". As stated in a post above, the Anthology manuals have controls for the wrong games in the two volumes (which I guess they can try to defend through the inclusion of score attack modes - itself a baffling decision to put Super Turrican score attack on the volume with Mega Turrican full game, and vice versa), and the whole lot is covered in 2020 copyrights - just comes across as rushed.

This does seem to be a one off (as games themselves go, special editions are a whole nother world of pain - as cool as the idea of a Space Invaders board game was, no way was I going to put down on a product that hadn't even been designed at the time!) but I hope they learn and never let it happen again - because much of this has been self-inflicted. The games are here and the emulation seems fine, which is the most important thing.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by SeeNoWeevil »

I thought Sony had a policy where everything had to have a digital release, so why then is the larger anthology only available physically?
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Re: Turrican 30th

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Got my Collector's Edition yesterday. Really liked the artbook, I like when these things also talk about the history of the games and the company.

Most of the bad/weird things have already been mentioned, so I'll balance things out with some positive stuff. I was impressed to see all the options for tweaking the gameplay experience, like the 50/60hz modes, alternate soundtracks, changing how the controls work so they're closer to the home computer originals - I will never use UP to jump, but it's good the option is there. And the map features, where you can uncover the map for a game by yourself as your explore and it's a permanent thing stored between sessions. And the map screen itself has nice options for showing secrets, hidden routes, enemies, the paths moving platforms take - this is some ShotTriggers level stuff here.

My exposure to the games back in the day was very limited, I think I only played the Game Boy version that I borrowed from somebody - still remember the cheat code ABBABAABAABAA. And in the past few years I've only fiddled with the NES port (patched with a quality-of-life hack) and NG:Dev's Gunlord, which I did 1CC. So I don't have any nostalgia for these, and I've been going through the games in the collection more or less chronologically, to see how they've developed.

The first and second games certainly feel rough around the edges. And speaking of edges, good lord you have to be close to the screen's edge before the scrolling starts. This leads to so many hits being taken that feels pretty unfair, even more so when you're trying to move up or down. And when you do get hit, there's no knock-back or invulnerability period, the whole lifebar can be gone in seconds. I found places where a platform isn't visible on screen without making a leap of faith so you don't know where to go (but the platform does appear in the map screen). But, y'know, those were the times in many a home computer title...even though these things were already figured out in Super Mario Bros, five years prior (or maybe even earlier by some other game).

Things do get more palatable in the Super and Mega titles. But it's such a shame the energy beam is dropped in favor of the freeze beam. I don't like the freeze beam, it just kind of kills the pacing for me. The energy beam from the originals is so much more fun to play around with, and without it there are times where there just isn't a good way of attacking up or down. I did like Turrican 3/Mega Turrican, and I even accidentally 1CCed Turrican 3 on my very first attempt. I was going to play until I saw the continue screen, but I ended up beating the whole thing straight off the bat. The bosses were easy with simple patterns, and 1-ups were plentiful.

Still need to play Super 2 more. And I'll certainly play 1 and 2 again. And probably Super 1 as well. I do like the gameplay of the series overall, but it's a shame the originals have those design decisions that haven't fared that well and make them harder to pick up now.
Herr Schatten wrote:There's a flyer in the package that claims there's supposed to be a bonus CD with some remixes, as a thank you for the patience. Alas, that CD is nowhere to be found.
I didn't get such a flyer, but I did get the bonus CD.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Ghegs »

I just got a weird bug when playing Super Turrican 2. In the second stage, when you're climbing up the side of the building with the grappling hook, my controls got suddenly messed up and I was unable to do anything. After enough mashing I did manage to release the grappling hook and get down, but then I was unable to jump or activate the freeze ray. I tried resetting the controls, but to no avail. It wasn't until the timer ran out and I re-spawned that the controls returned the normal. I then managed to get up the first building without issues, but when it came time to do it again on the other side of the building, the controls stopped working properly again, and returned to normal after dying.

I tried Googling, but I couldn't find any mentions of such a bug in the game in general. Has anybody else experienced this? I had all the controls set at default.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

I've played through Super 2 twice on the Switch version of the collection, no problems. However I do recall needing to customise the controls to match the SNES pad layout.

If it happens again, it'll be worth using rewind to see if it constantly triggers (i.e. game has entered a fixed fail state at a certain point) or if it undoes it (transient emulation glitch).
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Herr Schatten »

Ghegs wrote:I didn't get such a flyer, but I did get the bonus CD.
Your version seems very much preferable.

Re: rest
I agree with much of what you say, especially the bit about the 360 degree beam. By removing the one thing that made Turrican feel unique, Factor 5 proved (once again) that they may have been very talented where the technical aspects were concerned, but didn't really quite knew what they were doing game design wise.

The first two games’ idiosyncratic way of handling damage never really bothered me, though. Sure, it’s unorthodox, maybe counterintuitive even, but the games are built around it and "don’t stand inside enemies" is good advice in any game anyway.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Ghegs »

TransatlanticFoe wrote:I've played through Super 2 twice on the Switch version of the collection, no problems. However I do recall needing to customise the controls to match the SNES pad layout.

If it happens again, it'll be worth using rewind to see if it constantly triggers (i.e. game has entered a fixed fail state at a certain point) or if it undoes it (transient emulation glitch).
Oh yeah, I forgot about the rewind feature, I've only been playing in the mode that disables that.

Gave it a go and I got through Stage 1-2 without any issues, but it happened again in 1-4. After dropping down from the ship unto the worm, I was completely unable to jump again. I tried rewinding several times, to when I was hanging on the ship, but the bug always re-occurred.

Can you tell what changes you made to the controls, so I can try it it happens only with defaults? It's really weird if nobody is experiencing this. Switch version, docked, default control setup, Pro Controller.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

These are the changes I made (if indeed they are changes - I can't remember exactly but the default controls for other games confused the hell out of me so I made everything match original SNES Super 2 controls):

L - ice beam
R - arm
Y - fire
X - smart bomb
B - jump
A - whatever the hell this does, I think I may have mapped the wheel to it but I don't think I use it

Played docked on a Series X gamepad via Mayflash Magic NS adapter. I played a bit of Turrican 2 with the joycons and oh god the cramp!

I think there are a bunch of other control style settings, can't recall what I set up but I'll check on my Switch this weekend. I think they're mostly overridden by customising and usually enable stuff like Amiga-style up to jump.

If the rewind doesn't fix it, that probably confirms the emulation hasn't simply had a wobble. I wonder if it's a controller fault, might be worth trying joycons? I have an xbone controller which, in Dishonored, has an RB button that only registers as a single press even when holding it (default control there is hold RB to knock someone out, this controller just lets me grab and shove guys!) - but in the tutorial stage it works fine! So there's definitely scope for controller hardware faults to have a very specific impact.
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by TransatlanticFoe »

So I actually left A unmapped, ZL is ice beam, ZR is grapple arm, R is mapped grapple arm and smart bomb not that I use it ever (I have no idea why I didn't leave this unmapped)

The various style controls I have set to

Jump - controller
Aim - original
Firing - console
Smart arm - original
Cyber fist - original
Flamethrower - modern
Wheel - console

Played through again today, no control bugs. I did set the remastered soundtrack on and it cut out a few times (manta ray, brain gun boss, tiny machine second phase).
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

Got my PS4 collectors edition yesterday, haven't had chance to install yet. Was very surprised that the documentary was a real thing! It had kind of been forgotten about, unmentioned since the initial announcement in favour of the extra game modes, maps, bonus CDs and the statue.

The documentary has some insightful stuff - the correct pronunciation of Katakis (Kertarkis; I've been saying Cat-A-Kiss all my life), a lot about the many failed attempts to revive the series and general bemoaning of piracy and Rainbow Arts. Turns out Amiga/Star Trek superstar Tobias Richter was involved in ST2, I was confused at first when I recognised his signature on one of the art cards.
I feel like Factor 5 have gone a bit Ridley Scott, declaring themselves the One True Owner/Creator of the Turrican franchise - unsurprisingly, Manfred Trenz isn't involved in the documentary at all. The genuine enthusiasm to get this series revived is most welcome though - even if it never happens. Nice hearing Julian Eggebrecht agree with what I've been saying since the late 90s - it should be a 2D Metroidvania!

And it just feels amazing to handle some supplementary material for a series that has never had any before!

Some of the pencil crayon art cards look pretty crappy - the artbook suggests they are by a well known Amiga cover artist that I will have to look up when i get the time. I can confirm that the new cover art is by Celal though and it might be his best yet!
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Re: Turrican 30th

Post by Sly Cherry Chunks »

I noticed that Celal Kandemiroglu was credited as 'in memoriam' - no point bumping the deadpool thread, he passed away in March. Sad news, I know there's a dude on this forum who actually owns some of his original paintings. Hopefully Zigguarat games will release an X-Out + Z-Out deluxe pack so I can pay more money for his art.

As for those shitty Mike Winterbauer covers - there's no question that he used Ravenlordess' cosplay as a reference and taken at face value, the artbook included with the collector's edition gives the impression that everyone was in cahoots working away on this with Ravenlordess included as one of the artists in the book. Well, it turns out no - Mike straight up committed a Deviantart-level cardinal sin and copied her work without permission and without credit and got paid for it. SLG only gave Ravenlordess the page in the artbook to try and make amends and no one talks to each other and this is a colossal fuck-up.

https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?sto ... 3674408834

I've been having a real blast with these games for the last month. Having the 360 beam mapped to a separate button with no charge-time changes the game completely, as does being able to jump out of the wheel in mid-air. Using the wheel as a reactionary/offensive tool instead of planning your trips across the room to hit that spacebar. Until I looked at the achievements I had no idea that there was a second golden turri hidden in T3, awesome that there's still new things to discover after 30 years! And of course, as a completionist I was dreading forcing myself to complete ST2 without cheats or continues, having only dicked around with emulation and save-states previously. I gave it a fair shot and it turns out it's pretty do-able and there's a lot I kinda like about it. ST1 is full of neat stuff too - some of the extra lives are hidden in really tricky spots and you can bounce off enemies to reach higher, inaccessible areas.
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