Rajirugi (DC) First Impressions

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:39 am

I just got my first 90 minutes of Rajirugi in and I'm going with 2 thumbs up! Now this is a very early reaction so take it with a grain of salt. Here are some random thoughts...

The game plays fine on my US Dreamcast with Utopia and CDX demo. VGA output is stunning. Two screen modes - YOKO which is very playable and TATE which is, obviously, better. The cell shading is wonderful - it's very colorful and easy to see everything - bullets, enemies, etc. I love how bright everything looks - others may be turned off by the cell shading, but I think it works great here. Music didn't strike me as being great, but not grating. I got up through level 3 - reasonably long levels and lots of opportunity to boost the score as I'm just starting to get the hang of feeding the score-multiplier-meter at the top and keeping my bomb/shield meter full and ready for deployment. The controller is fully programmable but the D-PAD is the only movement supported (unless I missed the option). Most important menus are in English. Auto-Save supported - high-scores for all three types of ships are stored seperately. It's got a nice addictive quality - it was easy to keep playing. This feels less boss-intensive than Chaos Field and less gimicky - it can be played much more traditionally (which I love) but I think there is plenty of opportunity for score and the proximity attack (sword) works well here (especially since enemies themsevles don't seem to damage you - only bullets). I wasn't a huge fan of Chaos Field, but I think this is miles-tone better.

Wanderer · Post by **Wanderer** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:47 am

Thanks for the impressions. My copy is hitchhiking with Gaijinpunch and should be here next week.

Regarding cell shade, I think a little break from the polygon norm as of late is a good thing.

How is the ship/character speed, hitbox, and enemy fire bullet density?

Post by **Dave_K.** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:50 am

llabnip, thanks for the first impressions! (maybe should have posted it in the other thread tho).

Wanderer wrote: Regarding cell shade, I think a little break from the polygon norm as of late is a good thing.

Well they are still polygon models, just flat/cell shaded, but I know what you mean.

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 3:53 am

Wanderer wrote:How is the ship/character speed, hitbox, and enemy fire bullet density?

I've been playing with the first ship selection and find the speed to be perfect for my tastes. The hitbox seems small - typical of modern shooters. The bullet density starts off fairly easy going but even the first level is pretty busy. At the start of level 2 things pick up nicely - tons of bullets and enemies on screen - and with the clean cell-shading you can make out everything really well. At level 3 it was manic - maybe too manic for my tastes but still managable. All-in-all, a good ramp-up. Not as manic as a Cave game - it seems more on the GigaWing2 manic scale (very rough comparision, mind you).

llaoyllakcuf · Post by **llaoyllakcuf** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 4:33 am

How is the ship/character speed, hitbox, and enemy fire bullet density?

- 3 speeds for each shot type: slow, medium, and fast (I don't know if there's correlation to attack power)
- small (near the head of each Mecha perhaps?)
- very dense (the game features an "ABS" barrier-reflecting system)

also, there's almost no loading times between stages. just a quick screen before the next.
at beginning of each stage there is a brief dialogue before the action starts.

there is some slowdown when the action gets intense, but its nothing excessive.

btw, I'm really digging the visual style of this game.
and I think the bubble-shot is the best. :p

Diabollokus · Post by **Diabollokus** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:33 pm

Would you call it a cute em up? or more traditional?

chtimi-CLA · Post by **chtimi-CLA** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 12:35 pm

are scores saved?

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 1:21 pm

Diabollokus wrote:Would you call it a cute em up? or more traditional?

It seems more traditional... Anime-style traditional shooter if you will. Nothing really goofy - no dancing pandas or shooting bananas. A few colorful orbs and ballon-like ships but mostly eveything is cell-shaded war-machines - and the navigator and battle commander (the small anime girl in the upper left) talk at points during the missions. Yeah, it definitely isn't a cute-em-up and it will probably only be compared to cute-em-ups because of the graphics style which feels a little like ... um... well, it's feels like Earthbound (SNES RPG).

chtimi wrote:are scores saved?

Yes, they are saved to the VMU. Saved for each of the three ship types I believe (at least they showed 3 seperate high-score lists... I've only played the first ship and those scores are saved).

jiji · Post by **jiji** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 5:22 pm

Locking this and linking it from the main Rajirugi thread. Let's try to move discussion in there.