Zangeki Warp Demo Out (New Astro Port STG)

[Observer]

Oh, boy, what did I just find!

New Astro Port game, this time it's a hori instead of a vertical (Wol-Flame was their previous game).

http://www.interq.or.jp/saturn/takuhama/zw.html

Need to sit and play this for a bit longer but damn these guys put out stuff fast!

[Cagar]

I picked insane and almost fell asleep during the trial

[Pretas]

Aggressively mediocre game that hinges entirely on its single gimmick that's already been successfully incorporated into deeper, better games. I won't be bothering with the full version.

Need to sit and play this for a bit longer but damn these guys put out stuff fast!

Exactly why Astro Port is the WayForward of Japan.

[Aleksei]

Just tried it out, its so fun! The deaths are surprising but not in an angering way.

[Aleksei]

hinges entirely on its single gimmick that's already been successfully incorporated into deeper, better games.

Which game is that?

[Ghegs]

As a big Astro Port fan, I'm happy to see them return to the horis. If Satazius was Gradius/Thunder Force, this one's R-Type. It's an unashamed memorizer without a doubt, that becomes obvious after seeing the Stage 2 blades that suddenly pop out of the ground when approaching their location. The teleportation mechanic was already used in Astro Port's Meglilo, but I recall it being purely a defensive ability there, while here you can attack with both the teleport's "trajectory" and making splash damage when coming out of it. In fact, those are the only ways to damage some enemies positioned outside your weapon's firing arc.

I'm not generally a fan of upgrade systems like this in my shmups (assign points to abilities, RPG style), but it didn't bother me too much either. But after playing Insane a bit, it seemed the most prudent to put points into the teleport's splash damage right away and that kind of sets the upgrade path from there. The main weapon does end up feeling weak this way, but it seemed enough to deal with the enemies nonetheless. You just end up doing a lot more teleporting around, which I imagine is the dev's purpose.

Like in Satazius, the scoring system rewards not dying. There are items to collect in each stage, but if you die, all collected items disappear and if you spawn in a later checkpoint, there's no going back to re-collecting the earlier ones. Post-stage there are bonuses for items collected, not dying, killing the boss before time out, etc. And they even give you a rank on how well you did overall, which I just love. It gives me a clear goal to aim for, get S-ranks on everything.

Bottom line, I'm having fun with the trial. The teleportation mechanic allows for some interesting stage design rarely seen in shmups (and I appreciate how there are subtle changes to it between difficulties), the graphics are neat (the player craft's has some nice animation to it) and it seems like a quality game overall. Worth noting that I really enjoy environmental hazards in my shmups and this one has loads of them.

And is there a difficulty even beyond Insane this time? Intriguing. This one's a day one purchase for me, easily.

[Ikazu-san]

After completing trial version on normal, I've come to raise these points:
1) Over all it feels good
2) RPG elements are not too heavy giving some playstyle customization but also is unbalanced, destroying that customization p.bad
3) Skill points are progress based instead of score based, which is kinda dull since player won't get rewarded for doing awesome stuff more
4) Like Satazius, game is good at being a dick
5) R-Type resemblance is kinda cool (not like I played R-Type more than 15 minutes
6) Music is gritty but fitting
7) With manual teleporting/slashing like that I'd expect enemy chunks being cut and flung away Metal Gear Rising/MegaMan ZX style. But NOPE, here's more dynite for Goddess of Explosions
8) Game is really really good at being dick like many retro games should be

All that in mind Astro Port gets lots of stars and some release hype from me.

[Doctor Butler]

assign points to abilities, RPG style

I'm assuming that it's like in Caladrius, where it's reset each run, right?

[Ghegs]

assign points to abilities, RPG style

I'm assuming that it's like in Caladrius, where it's reset each run, right?

This is correct, yes. And the abilities aren't things like speed or hitpoints, but weapon power, how fast the warp gauge re-charges, how effective the slash and splash damages are, etc. The weirdest ability you can activate is the "decoy keep". When you warp, it leaves for a moment a shadow image at the place you previously occupied, and enemies will be aiming at that instead of your current location. Very ninja, and again something that's rarely seen in shmups.

[Aleksei]

What does the Omega Crash do and how do you activate it?

[Ghegs]

After you've put at least a point into the Omega Crash ability, whenever you have a full shield gauge (and you have the shield around your ship), taking a hit from enemy fire releases a bomb damaging everything on the screen, destroying smaller enemies outright.

[Aleksei]

Trailer looks reeeeaaaallly cool and it looks challenging.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJdkxCD2sm4

[Squire Grooktook]

^^^Some of those environmental look beautiful. Will give this a shot.

[Necronom]

Love the fresh concept! Can't wait to add it to my steam library like all the other Astro Port stgs

[Aisha]

Looks like this will be available from Nanapo's Store and March-Rabbit starting May 28.

As a fan of organic-themed stages, I'm surprised and pleased with the direction this game appears to take.

[Squire Grooktook]

As a fan of organic-themed stages, I'm surprised and pleased with the direction this game appears to take.

Yeah, was going to mention that. Some of the new enemy designs are a lot more sick than previous Astro Port games. I like.

[Ghegs]

Well, I've played the full game now.

This might be the first time I've been unable to beat an Astro Port game on Normal difficulty after one or two credits. After playing the trial quite a lot I have the first three stages already down (mostly, it's still easy to get killed or miss a bonus icon), but the fourth stage is kicking my ass at the moment. And not just because there's instakill traps to memorize, there's a lot of enemies and bullets flying around. The warp mechanic definitely doesn't make the game a cakewalk. And this is just on Normal, there's even a difficulty above Insane this time around.

The way the stages are designed encourages putting upgrade points into the slash and splash damages. I've ignored the main shot pretty much completely, it's hard to imagine getting anywhere in the game by focusing on that alone. But there are many points where a powerful main shot would indeed be nice to have. The decoy keep is very useful at well. Still, I think there will only be a small handful of different builds people will use.

Good game, no doubt about it.

[Gespenst]

Nyu Media's bringing it to Greenlight.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... =787972790

[BulletMagnet]

Seems it's out on Steam.