Gradius collection for PSP

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 6:08 am

I currently can't afford to buy an extra PSP, so bye bye homebrew (until the next fix anyways). As far as extra features, I use things like MP3s and encoding MST3K more than my emus lately anyways.

Balzac · Post by **Balzac** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 2:31 pm

Looks like Flashmod 3.0 will have unencryped 2.5 prx's. Let's hope its the real deal.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:26 pm

Nemo wrote:
iatneH wrote:Large/small hitbox options? Weird

All of the games on this collection should have "large" hitboxes in the original versions, right?
Yeah, basically the original games have large hitboxes (the whole ship), and there's an option for small hitboxes (dot in center of ship like manic shooters), at least I think this is how it will be.

Gradius 2 has a 'medium' size hitbox. This is best demonstrated during the boss fight at the end of the boss-rush stage. You can stay at the back of the screen most of the time, and have most of the missiles fly right through the front of your ship without death.

dark penguin · Post by **dark penguin** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:24 am

OK...got my copy today. Couple quick observations:

-The PSP Dpad is a horrible control interface. I find it way too stiff for the Gradius games, but I am learning to compensate. I guess I got spoiled playing Gradius Galaxies on my GBA micro.

-The graphics look like shit in widescreen. Especially on Gaiden. Thankfully, the game lets you tweak the screen dimensions. Some games offer more screen tinkering than others....but DAMN...Gaiden just looks so horrible in wide that I found it a pain to play.

-Arcade boot-ups and ROM/RAM checks seem to be in place for at least a few of the games. Gradius 1 even has the "warming up" screen included...I was pleasantly surprised by this.

-The loading doesn't seem to be unbearable, but it's definitely noticeable. I haven't spent much time with anything other than Gradius 1 yet, but after playing Galaxies on the GBA with no load times whatsoever, having to endure load times is now a bit of a chore.
The loading is most prevalent when loading out of the main menu, or wheen booting the game up...not so bad in the game(s?) itself. Again, I'm concentrating on the first game right now.

On the plus side, they appear to have included quite a bit of FMV and OST-type extras. You all probably knew this, though. And the main menu/main title screens are beautifully done.

So, that's my two cents for now. Definitely not as "pick-up-and-play" friendly as Galaxies from first appearances, but we'll see.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:38 am

Play-asia for some reason shipped mine out even though I told them to wait and ship it with Rajirugi. Ah well, as long as they both come shipped in boxes I'm fine with that... I don't mind having PSP games shipped in envelopes, but those fragile DC game cases MUST be shipped in boxes...

I'm wondering about the ass-ness of the PSP D-pad too, I'll probably have to find some way to stick my Genesis D-pad on it more securely.

dark penguin · Post by **dark penguin** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:45 am

iatneH wrote:Play-asia for some reason shipped mine out even though I told them to wait and ship it with Rajirugi. Ah well, as long as they both come shipped in boxes I'm fine with that... I don't mind having PSP games shipped in envelopes, but those fragile DC game cases MUST be shipped in boxes...

I'm wondering about the ass-ness of the PSP D-pad too, I'll probably have to find some way to stick my Genesis D-pad on it more securely.

Mine came from playasia and was in a box, with bubble-wrap protecting the game. No complaints there.

The PSP Dpad is starting to really piss me off, though. It just doesn't seem suited for games that require hair-trigger reflexes. I'm going to try to get my hands on one of the Capcom Dpad attachments at some point and see how it works.
I mean, really...when the GBA micro can outperform the PSP as far as responsive controls go...you have to wonder what the fuck is wrong with Sony.
Oh well...at least they're consistent...the Dualshock Dpads were always junk as well, as far I'm concerned.
Nothing like upholding a standard of mediocrity.

bVork · Post by **bVork** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 3:14 am

dark penguin wrote:The PSP Dpad is a horrible control interface. I find it way too stiff for the Gradius games, but I am learning to compensate. I guess I got spoiled playing Gradius Galaxies on my GBA micro.

Can you use the analog nub instead of the DPad?

dark penguin wrote:The graphics look like shit in widescreen. Especially on Gaiden. Thankfully, the game lets you tweak the screen dimensions. Some games offer more screen tinkering than others....but DAMN...Gaiden just looks so horrible in wide that I found it a pain to play.

Can you tweak Gaiden to 4:3? How about the others? Can any/all of them be played at 4:3?

MSZ · Post by **MSZ** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 3:34 am

bVork wrote:Can you tweak Gaiden to 4:3? How about the others? Can any/all of them be played at 4:3?

There are 3 display modes for all games:
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/seiba_86/20060208 (check out the last 3 screenshots)

And from what I heard so far on other message boards, the full screen 16:9 mode blows.

dark penguin · Post by **dark penguin** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 3:47 am

You can use the analog nub...but I prefer the Dpad(lesser of two evils?)

And yes, full widescreen blows, although it seems to blow the least on the earlier games.

Stretched and fuzzed out Gaiden looks horrible.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:13 am

Well, only Gradius 1 and 2 are supposed to have "true" widescreen. The other 3 games are only available stretched.

Hopefully will get mine somewhere around Thursday. Usually get items from the east coast 1 week later. I am almost done with Tokobot so the timing is right.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:47 am

iatneH wrote:
Oh well...at least they're consistent...the Dualshock Dpads were always junk as well, as far I'm concerned.
Nothing like upholding a standard of mediocrity.

Hey now, I'll have you now I've played my share of fighting games as well as shmups with said D-Pads, and as far as I'm concerned the D-Pad on the PSP is leaps and bounds different from the Dual Shock, particularly in terms of precision. The PSP's pad is much wider than standard Dual-Shock. Dual-Shock is much better than PSP control.

I've also procured a USB Controller Adapter for my Dual Shock Controllers so that I can play my PC Shmups without dealing with lousy keyboards. Even my emulated games tend to play with more precision with D-S Pads.

Broken Plus = Better on thumbs than Solid Plus. Especially for QCF and Shoryuken-type moves.

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 5:20 am

Some people have issues with the PSP pad, some do not. I personally do not think I'll have a problem with either Gradius or MM X. PSP pad isn't too far a cry from the dualshock which itself is not "ideal" for 2D games.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 6:16 am

WTF? I didn't write that... But ah well... I know that DualShock D-pads are better than PSP's, but the fact still stands that PSP D-Pad is a very bad kind of ass.
I think the main thing is that it's way too low-profile, for pressing any given ordinal direction, the pad kind of sinks and disappears so it's hard to hit diagonals... then again the US Dreamcast pad shows that high-profile also sucks.

Maybe I'll take a picture of my PSP once I get around to "properly" taping a better D-pad to it (as proper as taping can get, at any rate)

dark penguin · Post by **dark penguin** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:30 am

I much prefer the Nintendo-style cross. Or a fully connected circular pad with a bit of a raised cross.
For some reason I've always had a huge problem playing fighting games with the split-style Sony Dpad.

Actually, I have a cheapo Gravis USB gamepad with just such a Dpad....the rest of it looks almost like a dualshock except for the Dpad. For such a cheap-ass piece of hardware, it works great for shooters. I wish the PSP had a similar pad

Sidenote: I also bought SF Alpha 3 for PSP last night and it's actually controls pretty nicely with the PSP pad if you set it to "easy" input(not easy difficulty).
Great game!

dark penguin · Post by **dark penguin** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:35 am

Dylan1CC wrote:Well, only Gradius 1 and 2 are supposed to have "true" widescreen. The other 3 games are only available stretched.

Hopefully will get mine somewhere around Thursday. Usually get items from the east coast 1 week later. I am almost done with Tokobot so the timing is right.

I haven't fooled around w/ Gradius 2 yet, but the "widescreen" in Gradius 1 appears to involve stretching. The Vic Viper is noticebly stretched beyond its original dimensions, but it actually isn't too bad....definitely not as bad as Gaiden. I'd have to compare it to what they did with the "widescreen" in Vampire Chronicles.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:06 pm

--Oops, Misquoted, that was Dark Penguin, sorry iatneH!

BIG · Post by **BIG** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 11:28 pm

I'm really diggin' this.

I haven't had any problem with the controls at all.

BTW,the SFZ3 d-pad works well with this game.

B-

MSZ · Post by **MSZ** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 4:29 am

Tons of screenshots of GIII, GIV and Gaiden:

http://www.gradius2.com/index.php?UID=1139738309
http://www.gradius2.com/index.php?UID=1139741707
http://www.gradius2.com/index.php?UID=1139842553

dark penguin · Post by **dark penguin** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 11:22 am

BIG wrote:I'm really diggin' this.

I haven't had any problem with the controls at all.

BTW,the SFZ3 d-pad works well with this game.

B-

I'm getting more used to the PSP Dpad for this game(s). I still find it a -little- awkward, but I think I'm going to hunt down a SFZ3 Dpad.

One thing I really like about this collection is that instead of giving you just black bars on the top and sides when you reduce it from widescreen to arcade dimensions, it gives you some stylized sci-fi themed borders.

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 2:52 pm

dark penguin wrote:...but I think I'm going to hunt down a SFZ3 Dpad.

what is this?

Soldato J · Post by **Soldato J** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 3:24 pm

Cap Ahar:

http://www.ncsx.com/2006/011606/sfz3_double_upper.htm

captain ahar · Post by **captain ahar** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 3:41 pm

oh i want it... do i have to buy street fighter to get one?

Soldato J · Post by **Soldato J** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 3:57 pm

Don't know, but if you see any let me know please

Post by **Ghegs** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 3:58 pm

captain ahar wrote:oh i want it... do i have to buy street fighter to get one?

Yes, there's no seperate release at least yet. But perhaps, if Capcom doesn't, some third-party will mass-produce clones of it.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:25 pm

I use the D-pad assembly from a Genesis 6-button/Saturn pad. It makes the D-pad super tall, but movements are very smooth if I stick it on securely enough.

Post by **Ghegs** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 7:06 pm

iatneH wrote:I use the D-pad assembly from a Genesis 6-button/Saturn pad. It makes the D-pad super tall, but movements are very smooth if I stick it on securely enough.

Hmm. I wonder if the Saturn-style PS2 controller's d-pad would work equally well. I do have a spare one I could sacrifice.

iatneH · Post by **iatneH** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 10:00 pm

Don't..!!! You can get a 6-button Genesis pad for $5 or less and it uses the same assembly, don't sacrifice a rare and expensive controller for it :)

BIG · Post by **BIG** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 10:15 pm

I snagged two of those SFZ3 d-pad nubs from my local import shop.

Oh so criminal.

B-

dark penguin · Post by **dark penguin** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:11 am

BIG wrote:I snagged two of those SFZ3 d-pad nubs from my local import shop.

Oh so criminal.

B-

Want to sell one?

Dylan1CC · Post by **Dylan1CC** » Thu Feb 16, 2006 2:53 am

MSZ wrote:Tons of screenshots of GIII, GIV and Gaiden:

http://www.gradius2.com/index.php?UID=1139738309
http://www.gradius2.com/index.php?UID=1139741707
http://www.gradius2.com/index.php?UID=1139842553

Nice, I cannot wait to get this. Please, please let it come tomorrow. It's my day off. The screen borders are slick, so much better on the eyes than generic black bars.