Neo-Geo shooters

[Fighter17]

OK, today I tried out many Neo-Geo shooters.

Of course, the only Neo-Geo shooters that I played the most was the Aero Fighters games.

Now, I looking for another Neo-Geo shooter, and I came across Pulstar. I found Pulstar to be a R-Type rip-off with rendering graphics (sorry Pulstar fans, but I didn't like the game period, it's just too much like R-Type).

After the horrible Pulstar, I try out its sequel, Blazing Star. Before I played it, I believe it would be just like Pulstar, BUT OMFG IT'S SOOOOO MUCH BETTER THAN PULSTAR! The ship section, better gameplay, better graphics, and great music makes this game a winner! There's not a lot of slowdowns in the game (which is wonderful), and the excellent level designs of the game really makes me love this game. This game will be in my top ten favorite shmups of all time!

Then later I tryed out Viewpoint, and it plays just like Zaxxon (which is not bad at all).

After that I tried Strikers 1945 Plus, and for once there's a fun Psikyo shooter just for me! The bullets patterns are very Caveish (slow and there's a lot of them). I only gotten up to level 4 and there's no slowdowns as of yet. In the end, this game is fun and I don't mind showing this game in school to my friends (next week on friday after the final exams, I'm bring my laptop to school and going to play shoot 'em ups all day!).

I know there're more shooters for the Neo-Geo, but I herd that most of them weren't great.

Let me know what Neo-Geo shooters should I play next.

[biocat]

I'm pretty sure Pulstar was made by ex-IREM/R-Type staff, so it's not a "rip-off" seeing as how some of the original staff made it.

[Bydobasher]

Pulstar is similar to R-Type in terms of graphics/themes, and stage/enemy design. Having said that, it plays fairly different in my opinion; the fact that your shield can only be detonated -- and not moved around, nor left on its own -- forces the player to deal with tight situations in a very different way than in the R-Types.

Also, Viewpoint isn't very much like Zaxxon. Sure, at a glance it looks the same, but Viewpoint is traditional in that your two axes of movement correspond to the plane in which the action scrolls. In Zaxxon, your plane of movement is orthogonal to the direction in which the action scrolls, which makes for a completely different experience.

As for recommendations, try Last Resort. It's also inspired by R-Type, but put some time into it and you'll see that it too is a very different game.

[Fighter17]

I'm pretty sure Pulstar was made by ex-IREM/R-Type staff, so it's not a "rip-off" seeing as how some of the original staff made it.

I herd it was a rumor.

Pulstar is similar to R-Type in terms of graphics/themes, and stage/enemy design. Having said that, it plays fairly different in my opinion; the fact that your shield can only be detonated -- and not moved around, nor left on its own -- forces the player to deal with tight situations in a very different way than in the R-Types.

Also, Viewpoint isn't very much like Zaxxon. Sure, at a glance it looks the same, but Viewpoint is traditional in that your two axes of movement correspond to the plane in which the action scrolls. In Zaxxon, your plane of movement is orthogonal to the direction in which the action scrolls, which makes for a completely different experience.

As for recommendations, try Last Resort. It's also inspired by R-Type, but put some time into it and you'll see that it too is a very different game.

I played Zaxxon before, and yeah I agree with you on that part. I'll try out Last Resort, but I have a feeling that I'm not going to like the game because it's another R-Type clone.

[LoneSage]

Blazing Star makes my sex fall out.

[biocat]

Blazing Star is very good. I used to have it on my Neo cab. You should also try out Prehistoric Island 2 and Andro Dunos if you're looking for more Neo shooters.

[Fighter17]

I just tried out Last Resort and it sucked!

[Neo Rasa]

I'll "recycle" this post I made in an older thread.


"""""""Last Resort is soooo awesome. The atmosphere in it holds up surprisingly well given its age. Beautiful animation and you can see both the R-Type influence as well as how it influenced later R-Types.

I love charging up the pod and blasting it against that entire line of turrets in the second level.

The only flaw with that game is that you basically have to one-life the final level if you want to do the game on one credit. The level four boss also suffers from this, it's almost impossible to hit if you don't have a pod. You CAN nudge the fighter right up against it to the point where the nose is "inside" the weakpoint and do it like that but it's a massive risk for obvious reasons.

I like how each boss has its own theme song. Lots of shmups did this detail in the past, I always wondered why it wasn't carried over into other action games besides 2D fighters.


Pulstar and Blazing Star are great fun. I don't see how anyone could dislike them.

LoneSage, Yumekobo uses the same trick Rare used for Donkey Kong Country. Everything you see is a sprite. The individual frames are taken from 3D computer rendered images that are turned various ways to get the different images used for the frames of animation. The RAM on the Neo Geo lets them accomplish some beautiful things with this. Ragnagard makes big use of it too but it's of the dated variety. Double Dragon on the Neo Geo uses it to extreme effect, the intro for the game is literally clips from the movie!

Last Resort slips something in too, it's got a render of the ship as the background for the high score screen.

Zed Blade: Operation Ragnarok is so repetitive, and yet I love that game too. It definitely succeeds in getting that Ikaruga/ROBOTRON: 2084 zen state when things get hairy. Though it does suffer from some enemies just taking too many damn hits to kill for it to be fun. It gets to be a chore in level five.

Viewpoint, God damn that game is hard. I saw a video of someone one-lifing it on level eight! It was the most glorious thing I've ever seen in my life.

Aero Fighters 2 is the best of the series, but I think it's pretty bland myself.

Andro Dunos is pretty fun. Lighthearted. You get weapons you can switch between at will like Sidearms or Rock-on.

Ghost Pilots was the tech demo Neo Geo game. Very colorful and sounds great. Not much else.

Alpha Mission 2 is fantastic, that's another game that if you don't like, you just don't like fun.

Ironclad is eh. It's not bad or great, it's only mentioned often on Neo-boards due to the collectibility.

Prehistoric Isle 2 is cool, but I almost prefer the original if you can track down a PCB. At least try it on MAME, awesome shmup.

IMO SNK's best shmups weren't on the Neo Geo. People should look into Sky Adventure as an example.""""""


Edit: Random trivia, some of the ship and special weapon designs in Giga Wing 2 are identical to the ones found in Sky Adventure.

[Bydobasher]

I just tried out Last Resort and it sucked!

Not your type I guess. It's not simply a clone though; the way the pod works makes it unique.

If you like Blazing Star so much, you might like Prehistoric Isle 2, which was made by the same company one year later.

[Neo Rasa]

It sucks that those were the only shmups they made as both are pretty cool.

They did do the awesome Puzzle Link and Biomotor Unitron games on the NGPC though.

[Ganelon]

"""""""Last Resort is soooo awesome. The atmosphere in it holds up surprisingly well given its age. Beautiful animation and you can see both the R-Type influence as well as how it influenced later R-Types.

Wholeheartedly agreed. But since the topic creator doesn't seem to like R-Type esque games, I can see why he wouldn't like the game.

[MJR]

I loved pulstar as well, but blazing star is definitely sooo much better.

For some reason, I'm still most fond of alpha mission 2. The weapon system is just somehow special.

last resort is great fun, gotta buy that some day as well

[roker]

I'm pretty sure Pulstar was made by ex-IREM/R-Type staff, so it's not a "rip-off" seeing as how some of the original staff made it.

I herd it was a rumor.

not a rumor at all

the game was made by ex-IREM/R-Type staff

there used to be something about it on the neo-geo.com forums

I can't be bothered to look it up, but I'm 99.9% sure of it

[CIT]

Last Resort is a favorite. Sure, it's very R-Type-esque, but I think the action is much faster, and of course the pod works very differently.

I haven't spent much time with Pulstar, so I won't comment. Planning to buy it on CD though. From what I hear, most people who have spent a long time with both Pulstar and Blazing Star prefer the former, as Blazing Star supposedly lacks some some of the "intensity" of Pulstar. That's just what I tend to hear though.

ASO II (Alpha Mission II) is really cool. Technically outstanding, and the weapon system is really complex for a vert scroller.

Then of course there is the almighty Twinkle Star Sprites. Great in single player, but pure gaming bliss in 2P mode!

[Fighter17]

"""""""Last Resort is soooo awesome. The atmosphere in it holds up surprisingly well given its age. Beautiful animation and you can see both the R-Type influence as well as how it influenced later R-Types.

Wholeheartedly agreed. But since the topic creator doesn't seem to like R-Type esque games, I can see why he wouldn't like the game.

I like R-Type, but I hate games that lack motvation. Geez, the bullets in Last Resort look just like the bullets in R-Type, wouldn't you agree?

I'm pretty sure Pulstar was made by ex-IREM/R-Type staff, so it's not a "rip-off" seeing as how some of the original staff made it.

I herd it was a rumor.

not a rumor at all

the game was made by ex-IREM/R-Type staff

there used to be something about it on the neo-geo.com forums

I can't be bothered to look it up, but I'm 99.9% sure of it

Thanks for letting me know. I still hate Pulstar because the game runs too damn slow for my taste!

[professor ganson]

Pardon the ignorance: so are all these games playable on a US neo geo cd system? Is that the way to go? This is one system I really don't know much about.

[Fighter17]

Pardon the ignorance: so are all these games playable on a US neo geo cd system? Is that the way to go? This is one system I really don't know much about.

Yeah, all Neo Geo CD systems have no region protection. BUT: If you play a Japanese Neo Geo CD game on a US Neo Geo CD system, the game will run in English (well, most games anyway). In English mode, the game is edited with no blood and language was not bad (to my knownage anyway).

I'll "recycle" this post I made in an older thread.


"""""""Last Resort is soooo awesome. The atmosphere in it holds up surprisingly well given its age. Beautiful animation and you can see both the R-Type influence as well as how it influenced later R-Types.

I love charging up the pod and blasting it against that entire line of turrets in the second level.

The only flaw with that game is that you basically have to one-life the final level if you want to do the game on one credit. The level four boss also suffers from this, it's almost impossible to hit if you don't have a pod. You CAN nudge the fighter right up against it to the point where the nose is "inside" the weakpoint and do it like that but it's a massive risk for obvious reasons.

I like how each boss has its own theme song. Lots of shmups did this detail in the past, I always wondered why it wasn't carried over into other action games besides 2D fighters.


Pulstar and Blazing Star are great fun. I don't see how anyone could dislike them.

LoneSage, Yumekobo uses the same trick Rare used for Donkey Kong Country. Everything you see is a sprite. The individual frames are taken from 3D computer rendered images that are turned various ways to get the different images used for the frames of animation. The RAM on the Neo Geo lets them accomplish some beautiful things with this. Ragnagard makes big use of it too but it's of the dated variety. Double Dragon on the Neo Geo uses it to extreme effect, the intro for the game is literally clips from the movie!

Last Resort slips something in too, it's got a render of the ship as the background for the high score screen.

Zed Blade: Operation Ragnarok is so repetitive, and yet I love that game too. It definitely succeeds in getting that Ikaruga/ROBOTRON: 2084 zen state when things get hairy. Though it does suffer from some enemies just taking too many damn hits to kill for it to be fun. It gets to be a chore in level five.

Viewpoint, God damn that game is hard. I saw a video of someone one-lifing it on level eight! It was the most glorious thing I've ever seen in my life.

Aero Fighters 2 is the best of the series, but I think it's pretty bland myself.

Andro Dunos is pretty fun. Lighthearted. You get weapons you can switch between at will like Sidearms or Rock-on.

Ghost Pilots was the tech demo Neo Geo game. Very colorful and sounds great. Not much else.

Alpha Mission 2 is fantastic, that's another game that if you don't like, you just don't like fun.

Ironclad is eh. It's not bad or great, it's only mentioned often on Neo-boards due to the collectibility.

Prehistoric Isle 2 is cool, but I almost prefer the original if you can track down a PCB. At least try it on MAME, awesome shmup.

IMO SNK's best shmups weren't on the Neo Geo. People should look into Sky Adventure as an example.""""""


Edit: Random trivia, some of the ship and special weapon designs in Giga Wing 2 are identical to the ones found in Sky Adventure.

OK, reviews:

Zed Blade: Operation Ragnarok: Great game, great music, but could have used more background animation. 4/5

Andro Dunos: The game didn't appeal to me that much (mostly the graphics and music), but the weapon system is cool. I'll have to try out Sidearms some other time. 3/5

Alpha Mission 2: I played it and I actually like it, great weapon system. The game could have used more animation in certain places, but that's a minor issue with me. 4/5

Prehistoric Isle 2: Before I played it, I knew it have to do something with dinosaurs, and I was right. Graphics are nice, but the gameplay was really meh. All your enemys are dinosaurs, geez. 2/5

I know I skiped two games, but one was a tech demo and the other one I herd wasn't great.

[CIT]

Pardon the ignorance: so are all these games playable on a US neo geo cd system? Is that the way to go? This is one system I really don't know much about.

Like Fighter17 said.

However: Not all Neo Geo shooters were released on CD. I think basically all games after about 1998 (except KoF 99) didn't get CD releases. This includes Blazing Star.

Also, some games were only released for arcade (MVS), such as Prehistoric Isle 2 and Strikers 1945 Plus.

However there's also two shooters that were released exclusively on CD, Choutetsu Brikinger (Iron Clad), and ADK World (which includes a shooter).

Neo Geo CD is terrible for fighting games, since they usually load between every round, HOWEVER it is a really excellent way to go, if you want to play the Neo Geo Shooters. For example, Last Resort only loads once in the beginning, and then runs smothly throughout the game. No worse than playing a shmup on Saturn or PSX. In addition to that, most games on CD were given nifty remastered Soundtracks. Good stuff!

[Kiken]

http://www.archive.org/details/NeoGeoShootingSpecial

[Kiken]

Neo Geo CD is terrible for fighting games, since they usually load between every round, HOWEVER it is a really excellent way to go, if you want to play the Neo Geo Shooters. For example, Last Resort only loads once in the beginning, and then runs smothly throughout the game. No worse than playing a shmup on Saturn or PSX. In addition to that, most games on CD were given nifty remastered Soundtracks. Good stuff!

If the game was under 100 Megs in cart form, then it could be loaded entirely into the Neo-CD's memory during boot-up.

[professor ganson]

Super helpful guys, thanks! I guess a Neo Geo CD is second on my list of consoles to get after a reliable NES-- my front-loading NES is terribly frustrating.

[Ganelon]

I like R-Type, but I hate games that lack motvation. Geez, the bullets in Last Resort look just like the bullets in R-Type, wouldn't you agree?

You see, I never got into the trend of innovation that most people demand. For example, although the later Mega Mans are very lazy efforts from the earlier games, I feel that they are better games overall. So I guess I judge games based on overall merit rather than significance.

[Fighter17]

Super helpful guys, thanks! I guess a Neo Geo CD is second on my list of consoles to get after a reliable NES-- my front-loading NES is terribly frustrating.

When getting a Neo Geo CD, the Japan-only CDZ model (with a 2x CD-ROM drive) always had overheating problems. If you want to make your system last for a long time, get some cooling fans, and put the system in a well-cooled area. I would do this for the 1X front and top loading models as well. You have been warned.

[Ganelon]

Just a larger cache on the CDZ, not even a 2x CD-ROM drive. It does supposedly help make some games considerably faster though.

[Fighter17]

Just a larger cache on the CDZ, not even a 2x CD-ROM drive. It does supposedly help make some games considerably faster though.

Opps. Thanks for the correction.

[Neon]

I think Dreamcast with the emu is the way to play neo cd games these days. I tried it a long time ago and the emulation wasn't perfect, but the loadtimes were next to nothing. Probably it's 100% by now...

[Fighter17]

I think Dreamcast with the emu is the way to play neo cd games these days. I tried it a long time ago and the emulation wasn't perfect, but the loadtimes were next to nothing. Probably it's 100% by now...

I really don't know Neon about that.

[Arcatech]

I need to get Zed Blade so bad. The music in it kicks so much ass!

[gigadrive32]

about the Irem connection to Pulstar, it is almost definitally true.
Aicom was made up of, or had, ex-Irem staff that made R-Type
and/or R-Type II

go to this page http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php? ... ight=aicom and read through post #68 - there are a TON of quotes with links about the Irem-R-type - Aicom-Pulstar connection.

[Last Guardian]

Thanks, lots of interesting stuff to read there. I just wish somebody would interview some of the games designers/do a bibliography and just clear the connections up once and for all. How many people did the original Irem consist of ? into how many different faction did they split up and was it really a split or did they continue to work in the same building under different names and someone else paying them ? Considering the amount of imo stunning games, the small (?) dev. teams and lack of Nintendo like funds (?) it's amazing stuff that begs to be documented properly.

There must be even more games that look like they have some sort of Irem/Nazca/Aicom/SNK connection that aren't mentioned in the thread. I always felt some of AMII's boss designs came out of the same artists' sketch book anyway.