New NEOGEO / Dreamcast game: "NEO XYX" NG: DEV.TEAM 2013

[Stevas]

Okay, dreamcast version.
Someone please tell me how to get it to save my settings and highscores, because i refuse to believe that, in this day and age, anyone would do something so utterly dumb as to release a game of this type that doesn't allow this?
Edit: does the memory card thing just not react at all if there is no space? I'd kinda expect something telling me i was short of space, but it's just doing nothing.

[LordHypnos]

Okay, dreamcast version.
Someone please tell me how to get it to save my settings and highscores, because i refuse to believe that, in this day and age, anyone would do something so utterly dumb as to release a game of this type that doesn't allow this?
Edit: does the memory card thing just not react at all if there is no space? I'd kinda expect something telling me i was short of space, but it's just doing nothing.

So my memory card isn't full, so I don't know the answer to this question, but I would imagine that it would be something in the game's programming that would decide how it reacted to a full memory card. As such, I'd recommend checking your VMU memory in the dreamcast bios menu. If you want to know how to do that, I can probably explain it, but I find it to be pretty self explanatory. You get the the bios menu, though, by booting the system without a disk, or with the lid open. The game saves high scores for sure.
Edit: @chempop: wow congrats! it's a hard game.

[Stevas]

Hey, thanks for the reply; any chance you could tell me how many blocks it should take? Mine is saying it has 27 blocks - surely that is enough for this?

Also... anyone else noticed the ship on the screenshot on the back of the box is saying " fuck" (rather than doh, as it does ingame)?

[LordHypnos]

Hey, thanks for the reply; any chance you could tell me how many blocks it should take? Mine is saying it has 27 blocks - surely that is enough for this?

Also... anyone else noticed the ship on the screenshot on the back of the box is saying " fuck" (rather than doh, as it does ingame)?

Apparently only 2 blocks O_o weird. I wonder what else could be getting in the way.
In the original version of the game (neo geo) the plane says fuck. Not sure if they updated that out of the neo geo game, but as far as I can tell it's not in the Dreamcast version.
...Which is unfortunate. I quite liked the "fuck," and was looking forward to it. No idea why they would have changed that. Complaints, maybe?

[BulletMagnet]

Someone please tell me how to get it to save my settings and highscores, because i refuse to believe that, in this day and age, anyone would do something so utterly dumb as to release a game of this type that doesn't allow this?

IIRC Milestone screwed this up for two of their three Dreamcast ports (and weirdest of all it was the first and third ones, the second one's saving worked fine), so I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility, unfortunately.

[LordHypnos]

Someone please tell me how to get it to save my settings and highscores, because i refuse to believe that, in this day and age, anyone would do something so utterly dumb as to release a game of this type that doesn't allow this?

IIRC Milestone screwed this up for two of their three Dreamcast ports (and weirdest of all it was the first and third ones, the second one's saving worked fine), so I wouldn't put it outside the realm of possibility, unfortunately.

I'm fairly certain Neo XYX saves scores. Maybe I should check... Now I'm starting to question myself.

[chempop]

Doesn't save scores for me, but I think it's because I have my memory card plugged into the player 2 controller.

regardless, I broke 40 mil and got wrecked by the TLB again. I need to get to him with more resources

[LordHypnos]

Doesn't save scores for me, but I think it's because I have my memory card plugged into the player 2 controller.

regardless, I broke 40 mil and got wrecked by the TLB again. I need to get to him with more resources

Yeah, that's actually a good point. I'm fairly certain all NGDEV games only can see the memory card as the first memory card (top) of P1 controller. Also true of several commercial shmups from back in the day. Gunbird 2 and Mars Matrix included (not sure about later ones). Definitely going to check this though, soon.
So, guy who was asking about this before: Is your memory card in slot A of controller 1?

Also, good luck chempop. That's pretty impressive stuff.

[Stevas]

Yeah, it does save high scores. Or rather, it does now.
Fuck knows what the issue was. It certainly did not the first two times I tried the game. I do have it in controller one, by the way.
Loving it, too. Like another Tatsujin, to me.

[LordHypnos]

Yeah, it does save high scores. Or rather, it does now.
Fuck knows what the issue was. It certainly did not the first two times I tried the game. I do have it in controller one, by the way.
Loving it, too. Like another Tatsujin, to me.

Good. Definately glad it's working out now.

[chempop]

After finally getting the ALL, I have a list of brand new complaints

- Sometimes my bomb fragments are carried over to the next stage, but usually not. i thought maybe it was special button or stick inputs in between stages causing it. Is it? Is it intentional? Is it a glitch?

- The damn opening waves of popcorn in stage 1 are the most annoying things I've possible ever experienced in a shmup. In most games if you shoot popcorn they die, right? Well Neo XYX is special, because if you are holding rapid or focused (doesn't matter) and they are flying towards you, they MIGHT fly right through your shot and crash into you.... that is if you are too close. Okay, how about if you are far away.. yup still flying into me! You have to be close, but not too close. Basically, it's absurd.

- Enemies shoot when they are off screen. Honestly, I can deal with it. But it's still kinda fudged.

- Many boss patterns require you to: DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (as in stand still shooting for half the fight)

- There are safe spots that allow you to basically skip entire stages. iu remember hearing that a video was posted (and removed from YT) that showed this, but decided to ignore the fact and just play the game normally. Yet the more I played and went for the 1CC, the most I experimented and found myself camping in upper corners during certain stages just to make way to the boss. I didn't exploit it, but I'm starting to see that something is severely wrong here.

Okay, that's enough for now. I still enjoyed the game, just a pity to think what could have been.

[LordHypnos]

After finally getting the ALL, I have a list of brand new complaints

- Sometimes my bomb fragments are carried over to the next stage, but usually not. i thought maybe it was special button or stick inputs in between stages causing it. Is it? Is it intentional? Is it a glitch?

- The damn opening waves of popcorn in stage 1 are the most annoying things I've possible ever experienced in a shmup. In most games if you shoot popcorn they die, right? Well Neo XYX is special, because if you are holding rapid or focused (doesn't matter) and they are flying towards you, they MIGHT fly right through your shot and crash into you.... that is if you are too close. Okay, how about if you are far away.. yup still flying into me! You have to be close, but not too close. Basically, it's absurd.

- Enemies shoot when they are off screen. Honestly, I can deal with it. But it's still kinda fudged.

- Many boss patterns require you to: DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (as in stand still shooting for half the fight)

- There are safe spots that allow you to basically skip entire stages. iu remember hearing that a video was posted (and removed from YT) that showed this, but decided to ignore the fact and just play the game normally. Yet the more I played and went for the 1CC, the most I experimented and found myself camping in upper corners during certain stages just to make way to the boss. I didn't exploit it, but I'm starting to see that something is severely wrong here.

Okay, that's enough for now. I still enjoyed the game, just a pity to think what could have been.

Aw man, that sucks >_< I suppose that in fairness you probably wouldn't score as well if you just sat in a safe spot the whole game, but that's still an annoying oversight. I'm tellin' you, these guys could have EASILY submitted the game for community beta testing, too.

I'm surprised I haven't noticed the problem with the stage one popcorn enemies though. I've at least been through that part of that stage plenty of times, even if my total play time is too low to notice the rest of the bugs.

[chempop]

The thing about the stage 1 popcorn is that I'm playing risky to max medals before the midboss. So basically I have to do it near perfectly or else shit just flies into me. There is very little wiggle room.

[Krooze L-Roy]

Thing I noticed about pause button is that it's set to turbo for some reason. Holding it button down will effectively give you slowmo.

[LordHypnos]

Thing I noticed about pause button is that it's set to turbo for some reason. Holding it button down will effectively give you slowmo.

This bug has already been noted. That's funny though. never thought of using it that way before .

[CStarFlare]

So how many of the issues raised in this thread are also in the arcade version? Obviously some of them don't apply, but I'm curious how well the arcade version is put together compared to the port.

[RaidenViper]

So how many of the issues raised in this thread are also in the arcade version? Obviously some of them don't apply, but I'm curious how well the arcade version is put together compared to the port.

I do not experience any of these random freezes in the MVS version. It plays just fine ...

[SmashingPinatas]

So I finally got around to playing this today and I have a problem. My monitor swings over to the right, not the left. So when I go to TATE mode everything is upside down. I couldn't figure it out..but "arcade" mode is only going one way for me. Is there an option to flip it around or turn 90 the other way?

[chempop]

No, most console games only tate counter clockwise.

[Pretas]

No, most console games only tate counter clockwise.

Most vertical arcade-to-console ports I have played from the PS2 era onward allow for either counter-clockwise or clockwise tate rotation. The ones that do not are exceptions to the rule.

[Austin]

I've finally started playing this on the Dreamcast over the last couple of days. It's definitely a nice throwback to mid to late '90s shooters, with decent visuals, a nice soundtrack, and lots of action. The chaining/medal system is pretty cool too.

I am enjoying it, but I guess I do have a few gripes with it. For one, it seems like everything scrolls by quicker than it probably should. Gives you little time to focus on weaving through bullet patterns and little time to destroy bigger enemies. It's the kind of game where I end up just trying to go around everything, haha. I think the game could have used a traditional power-up system, making your stock firepower more useful than it is. I've also noticed the hitboxes are kind of large, which makes dodging in tight situations difficult. I suppose it was designed around proper bomb usage (since it's crucial to mastering the medal system), but it doesn't seem to me like you get that many bombs even when you grab every fragment. Maybe I'm just out of practice and I need to play it more.

It also would have been nice if there was some sort of pause menu implemented. When I am trying to chain/medal the first stage, if I die, I end up having to purposely kill myself a few times, let the continue timer tick down, go through the Game Over screen, go through the high score table, etc., etc., when in other shooters I can simply press start and hit "restart". The usual Dreamcast soft reset doesn't even work either.

As others reported earlier in the thread, I also had the game freeze on me. Stage 3 or 4, I don't recall. I am using VGA-out into a basic VGA to HDMI upscaler unit.

Meh. It's still good though, I suppose. I guess it's not as polished as, say, Gunlord (which surprises me), but it's still solid for what it is.

[chempop]

Game is certainly fast, that's one of the things I like about it. I think the hitbox is fine, I think powerups would just dilute it. Maybe having different weapons or ship types would have been interesting. Not enough bombs you say? I usually have 7 or 8 in stock by stage 3, but I'd have even more if the DC ver didn't reset your bomb fragments at the beginning of each stage... usually!!!

Yeah better options or pause screen menu would have really helped. The game I like, but the quality of the port is atrocious.

[LordHypnos]

FWIW, I thought the hitbox was crazy small. Well, maybe not crazy small, but still pretty dang small.
I found that bombs were pretty common, as well. Most of the time, I just wasn't bombing when I should rather than actually running out of bombs. Bomb management is something I'm pretty bad at, generally, in shmups though.
Seriously would have liked some exit to title type option in the pause menu. Weird, considering that Fast Striker, and Gunlord (sort of) both have that ability. Also, NG:DEV really needs to learn how to implement ABXY support in their games That should be a given, but I don't think it's all that common in DC hombrew stuff (I think only Sturmwind has it), so it's not exclusively an error on their part.
Terribly buggy though.

[Austin]

When I think "crazy small" hitboxes, I think Cave-like hitboxes, or Radiant Silvergun, where generally only a few pixel wide center of your ship is what causes death. The box in NEO XYX is definitely much larger than that. I guess my issue with it is that the bullet patterns get too dense for the size of your ship, making it difficult to weave through bullet streams. Almost reminds me of some bullet patterns in the first Giga Wing in that regard, but in that game I suppose it was a little bit different since you had a shield that regenerated a couple of seconds after you used it.

Of course, I'm getting better with the bombs as well (and not using them). Focusing specifically on grabbing all the icons on the playfield helps in keeping a high supply of bombs. Problem is, if you are trying to score well, you will be using the bombs in order to keep your chain going. But by doing that, you are risking yourself in other tight situations.. Hm, high risk vs. reward in this one, it seems. Although, it doesn't appear you are punished for dying as much as you are in other shmups, as long as you don't miss a medal in the process. Even after a death the chain will remain where it left off.

I did play the game on my standard CRT though and the screen scrolling speed I complained about felt a little more natural this time around. I think the big-screen I was playing it on at first was making it seem a lot faster than it actually is. The alcohol probably didn't help either.

It did crash on me again though. Stage 5 boss. How many of you guys are having problems with this? This is the third freeze/crash for me, and I haven't even played it all that long. Two different video setups on two different consoles, too, so I wouldn't think that is what is causing the problem.

[LordHypnos]

IDK, I definately dodged some pretty tight patterns, when I played, a few times. I tried to avoid it though, because the speed is a bit high to get away with it easily (for me anyway).

Crashes have been pretty widely reported, particularly when using Vertical.S mode, and maybe also when pressing buttons between stages, so yeah. That's a serious issue with the game. Not enough playtesting.

[Austin]

Crashes have been pretty widely reported, particularly when using Vertical.S mode

Yeah, that's the mode I've been primarily playing on. Now that I've got it loaded up on my system hooked to my old CRT, I'll have to try out in TATE mode to see if that rectifies the issue.

[chempop]

Playing in arcade mode (tate) WILL rectify the crashing issue.

[CMcK]

Hold Button A when powering up your cmvs with the game inserted of course. Keep button held until you hear a sound and you see the ngdev team logo (with the little red devil or whatever)
(the cmvs needs to be in console mode)
Now you have proper tate mode!


Also as an easter egg: try holding C when powering up.
Also it works to combine this and hold A+C when powering up.

I've just received my MVS copy of this game and cannot insert coins with the AI CMVS set to Arcade. Switching to Console mode allows the game to work but I cannot access Tate screen mode then.
The aforementioned tip does not work for me. However the easter egg tip does work.
Which version of the UniBios does your CMVS use?

[RaidenViper]

Hold Button A when powering up your cmvs with the game inserted of course. Keep button held until you hear a sound and you see the ngdev team logo (with the little red devil or whatever)
(the cmvs needs to be in console mode)
Now you have proper tate mode!


Also as an easter egg: try holding C when powering up.
Also it works to combine this and hold A+C when powering up.

I've just received my MVS copy of this game and cannot insert coins with the AI CMVS set to Arcade. Switching to Console mode allows the game to work but I cannot access Tate screen mode then.
The aforementioned tip does not work for me. However the easter egg tip does work.
Which version of the UniBios does your CMVS use?

In ver 1.0 the tate settings does not work in Console mode. should work after you updated to ver 1.1. Did you try holding the A button pressed at the Please Wait screen during boot in arcade mode? it should add some credits.

[spadgy]

Neo XYX gets 8/10 on Destructoid. Seems this reviewer was lucky enough not come across any freezing, mid-boss bugs and such.