How does Ginga ... Sapphire rank among PC Engine shmups?

[MrOldSchoolCool]

I know it isn't worth the $450 or whatever it goes for, but it's available on PSP for $35.

[gray117]

It's pretty up there - rarity causes the price mostly, but it helps that it is a good game. Bit too varied in theme for me personally - I'd buy and play star soldier series myself first, there's a package of all those on psp too - excluding gunhed (assumed it was part of series, perhaps not) - which is probably a better collection imho.

[MrOldSchoolCool]

It's pretty up there - rarity causes the price mostly, but it helps that it is a good game. Bit too varied in theme for me personally - I'd buy and play star soldier series myself first, there's a package of all those on psp too - excluding gunhed (assumed it was part of series, perhaps not) - which is probably a better collection imho.

I never really liked the soldier series as it just feels really bare bones in terms of visuals. I'm not one to harp on graphics, but I think it really hurts the games.

[Pretas]

It's definitely the most graphically and aurally impressive STG on the PC-Engine. Besides that, it's rather mediocre.

[SuperDeadite]

Gameplay is straight-up memorization and very boss heavy game. Graphics and music are fantastic though. The soundtrack alone makes the game fun imo.

[Blast68k]

I really like the game and the char design. Its graphically impressive and has a sort of "hype" going on...

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Its's quite a visual treat to play it on the real PC Engine hardware...had to break down & buy a PCE Duo-RX console just to play Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire properly with a Arcade Duo Card setup. Playing Sapphire on a Turbo Duo console setup would play fine until it reached a certain portion in Stage 2 where the screen would simply freeze-up every time. Tis a shame that no other 3rd-party shmup dev made a proper shmup title besides Hudson Soft with the PCE Arcade CD-Rom2 platform though. I'm sure with the added 16 megabits of RAM afforded of the Arcade Card Duo, some cool shmup titles could've been created/released during the 1994-1995 timeline.

There has never been a homebrew PCE shmup title created that'd utilize the Arcade Card Duo/Pro format either. It's been said that the PCE shmup homebrew title of Xymati is to be finished and released sometime in the nearby future (whenever that may be) as a possible Hu-Card cartridge or a Super CD-Rom2 disc release.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Jeneki]

Playing Sapphire on a Turbo Duo console setup would play fine until it reached a certain portion in Stage 2 where the screen would simply freeze-up every time.

I have heard the same thing from a couple local guys, when using a converter for the Arcade Card on a NA Duo. Since I've got both a NA Duo and a JPN Duo RX, I should try it out myself on both someday (if I can talk them into lending me the game, haha).