Rendering Ranger R2 1CC?

[Aggro Sky]

So I know this game isn't 100% SHMUP, more like a hybrid SHMUP/Run N Gun. But I am curious if anyone has 1CCed this game on Hard. It seems almost impossible to me. Especially with areas on stage 8 where the screen speeds up so much that it is virtually impossible not to run into the walls at some points.

I have been playing it the past few days and enjoyed it so much I purchased a repro cart (since the real cart goes for anywhere from $1000-$3000!!!!). At any rate, I was certain I could 1CC this game until I got to stage 8... Now I'm not so sure it's even possible. Has anyone attempted it or captured a run? I don't see a single run on YouTube that is 1CC (although one claims to be but the guy dies over and over again). There are speed runs but every one I have seen includes deaths.

If anyone has any experience with this obscure gem of a game, I would love to hear from you. Thanks!

[Perikles]

I don't see a single run on YouTube that is 1CC (although one claims to be but the guy dies over and over again).

There are 1CC runs on Youtube. 1CC simply means that you beat the game on one credit - without continuing -, what you mean is a 1LC.

I haven't played it on Hard, but I have cleared it on Normal, myself (I believe I lost one life in my best run). Maybe they altered stage 8 in a way on Hard which makes it impossible not to get hit, but it is certainly doable on Normal. It might sound obvious, but: are you aware you can change the speed of the ship by pressing select? Most players (myself included) don't notice that immediately - if at all! -, so I just want to point that out, elsewise this section is impossible without dying, yes.

[Aggro Sky]

I don't see a single run on YouTube that is 1CC (although one claims to be but the guy dies over and over again).

There are 1CC runs on Youtube. 1CC simply means that you beat the game on one credit - without continuing -, what you mean is a 1LC.

I haven't played it on Hard, but I have cleared it on Normal, myself (I believe I lost one life in my best run). Maybe they altered stage 8 in a way on Hard which makes it impossible not to get hit, but it is certainly doable on Normal. It might sound obvious, but: are you aware you can change the speed of the ship by pressing select? Most players (myself included) don't notice that immediately - if at all! -, so I just want to point that out, elsewise this section is impossible without dying, yes.

Oh my, THANK YOU FOR POINTING THAT OUT! I was going nuts because I thought the ship only had one speed! Woo hoo! That makes a whole bunch of areas in the game a whole heck of a lot easier... wow... I feel dumb

I also didn't realize that there was a difference between 1CC and 1LC. I always just assumed it was the same thing. Thanks for the clarification. But yes, I would like to attempt a 1LC run and now that I know you can change the ship speed, it seems more doable (although still quite insane). Although the section I am talking about is on stage 8 through those really fast narrow corridors. I've only made it there on Hard, I'm not sure if it is slower on normal but it could be...

[Gamer683441]

Hi there Aggro. Don't know of any true 1ccs of this game ,sorry. I will ask you though as Ive contemplated getting a repro cart of this myself. Which company or people would you recommend a repro of this game from? BTW, is AggroSky a play on the horse in Shadow of The Collosuss? One of my favorite games of all time!! Just curious.

[Aggro Sky]

Hi there Aggro. Don't know of any true 1ccs of this game ,sorry. I will ask you though as Ive contemplated getting a repro cart of this myself. Which company or people would you recommend a repro of this game from? BTW, is AggroSky a play on the horse in Shadow of The Collosuss? One of my favorite games of all time!! Just curious.

Yeah I have searched everywhere and I don't think there is a true 1CC or 1LC run of this game on Hard, which is my goal. Now that I know you can change your ships speed... I feel it is possible. But stages 7 and 8 are downright brutal on Hard. It will just take a lot of practice and some strategy on my part. I'm looking forward to it though as this game is such a blast to play though. Stage 7 just completely blew my mind when I first saw it. It looks like it should be on the Saturn or Playstation. It's truly astounding what the developers managed to do with the SNES hardware for this game.

And no, Aggro Sky has nothing to do with Shadow of the Colossus lol. It's something I made up back in the early 00's. Aggro was for my love of metal and Sky was the last name that my brother and sister in law all used for our handles when we played online games. Nothing too exciting

As for a repro cart, I ordered it from http://www.shopflashbackgames.com/. They seem to have quality stuff and good reviews. Their turn around time is also a bit shorter than some of the other ones. I don't have the cart yet but I'll let you know the quality when I get it next week. I've been playing the game on both ZSNES and SNES9X but have had issues with both. I think because the game was so groundbreaking in terms of graphical effects the emulators can't always run it properly. I have gotten a lot of crashes and graphical problems that made the game impossible to play at some parts. These issues led me to go the repro route.

Anyway, I'll keep you informed. Thanks for responding!

[Despatche]

It pleases me to see this topic in Shmups Chat. We can only go up from here. Luxor is a shmup, damn it.

[Aggro Sky]

It pleases me to see this topic in Shmups Chat. We can only go up from here. Luxor is a shmup, damn it.

Glad to hear it! Rendering Ranger IS a SHMUP in the same way that the Guardian Legend is a SHMUP, in that a huge majority of the games use SHMUP gameplay. Although in the case of Rendering Ranger, the Run N Gun genre is much closer to SHMUP gameplay than the Zelda style overworld that Guardian Legend had.

So yeah, I think it's perfectly appropriate to talk about Rendering Ranger as a SHMUP because more than 50% of the game is one. And a absolutely bad ass one at that!

[Despatche]

Well, the "Zelda overworld style" (arena shmup) has a lot in common with vertical games, while run 'n' guns are like horizontal games.

[Skykid]

Rendering Ranger isn't a shmup. It's also not a very good game.

[Squire Grooktook]

The Guardian Legend is rad though. I wish they'd made more games like that.

[Kollision]

Rendering Ranger isn't a shmup. It's also not a very good game.

It is 5/9 a shmup yeah.
imo some of it is damn fine.

[Aggro Sky]

Rendering Ranger isn't a shmup. It's also not a very good game.

I respectfully disagree. The game is amazing. Yeah, there are some repetitive parts, but overall it's astounding what they pulled off with the SNES hardware. You are actually the first person I've seen (that has actually heard of the game) who didn't think it was good. But more than half the game IS a SHMUP, that can't be debated. However, a games quality is a relative thing, so I respect your opinion if you don't like it. I just happen to think it's amazing

[Aggro Sky]

Well, the "Zelda overworld style" (arena shmup) has a lot in common with vertical games, while run 'n' guns are like horizontal games.

That is a good point that I didn't even consider..

[Perikles]

You are actually the first person I've seen (that has actually heard of the game) who didn't think it was good.

That's quite true in my experience. Especially in SNES/general retro gaming forums I got the impression that Rendering Ranger is hailed as one of the best games on the console - it should be added that we're talking about German forums in which people tend to love anything where Trenz is involved, so it's not all that surprising.

I'm not fond of the run 'n' gun stages for the most parts, they're flat, uneventful and bloated. The beginning of the second stage is a perfect example for this: you're walking on even ground and destroy one harmless tower after another. No strategy, twitch dodging, positioning involved, just moving on whilst disposing of some glorified stumbling blocks. Bosses are even worse: you merely stand below most of them and hold the weapon upwards, slowly chipping away their health bars. There's also no reason for the moon gravity, don't know why they felt the need to make you jump this high.

The shmup stages fare much better, that's out of the question. It's still more of a spectacle than it is astutely crafted shmup design, but it's enjoyable to marvel at the utter destruction. Evidently more of a Thunder Force epigone than anything original, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some bosses overstay their welcome in those stages as well, but at least the blue laser special shot does some remarkable damage. The huge skull boss in the battleship stages is still way too resilient, though.

[Aggro Sky]

You are actually the first person I've seen (that has actually heard of the game) who didn't think it was good.

That's quite true in my experience. Especially in SNES/general retro gaming forums I got the impression that Rendering Ranger is hailed as one of the best games on the console - it should be added that we're talking about German forums in which people tend to love anything where Trenz is involved, so it's not all that surprising.

I'm not fond of the run 'n' gun stages for the most parts, they're flat, uneventful and bloated. The beginning of the second stage is a perfect example for this: you're walking on even ground and destroy one harmless tower after another. No strategy, twitch dodging, positioning involved, just moving on whilst disposing of some glorified stumbling blocks. Bosses are even worse: you merely stand below most of them and hold the weapon upwards, slowly chipping away their health bars. There's also no reason for the moon gravity, don't know why they felt the need to make you jump this high.

The shmup stages fare much better, that's out of the question. It's still more of a spectacle than it is astutely crafted shmup design, but it's enjoyable to marvel at the utter destruction. Evidently more of a Thunder Force epigone than anything original, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some bosses overstay their welcome in those stages as well, but at least the blue laser special shot does some remarkable damage. The huge skull boss in the battleship stages is still way too resilient, though.

I agree with pretty much everything you've said here, the game isn't perfect. I'm surprised you didn't mention the music which is really hit and miss. Half the songs are great (especially stages 4 and 7) and the other half are average to boring. Although the only thing about the Run N Gun sections that I don't like are when they make you wait for those damn laser things to come and go. It just slows everything down. Otherwise I find them quite fun to race through blasting everything in sight. The first stage in particular is tons of fun to blast through because very little is blocking your way.

Yeah the bosses aren't too big of a challenge (even on Hard) and some over stay their welcome a bit, but they ARE an amazing spectacle. Frankly I think that makes up for it. Especially that amazingly rendered green skull boss you were talking about. That thing blew my mind when I saw it the first time. And everything on Stage 7 is just truly amazing to me. The colors and layers of depth and the scrolling and the super sharp sky scrapers flying by, all the while with seemingly dozens of enemies on the screen with ZERO slow down. It's just so well done and technically brilliant, if not a bit repetitive at times. But again, I can forgive it.

Frankly I would put this game up in my personal top 10 SNES games, easily. There is simply no other 16-bit game that looks this amazing, or capable of creating the kind of spectacle you'd expect to see on a 32-bit system. Not to mention it is a lot of fun to play (at least I think so). It's such a shame it got lost near the end of the life cycle of the SNES. But I plan on celebrating this one.

Also, does anyone know if this game used some sort of chip? I can't seem to find info anywhere about it. I've thought about contacting Trenz but I don't think his English is very good. I'd love to hear about how this game was made. Hardcore Gaming 101 has a great article on it but even they can't answer all of the questions I have...

[Skykid]

Rendering Ranger isn't a shmup. It's also not a very good game.

I respectfully disagree. The game is amazing. Yeah, there are some repetitive parts, but overall it's astounding what they pulled off with the SNES hardware. You are actually the first person I've seen (that has actually heard of the game) who didn't think it was good. But more than half the game IS a SHMUP, that can't be debated. However, a games quality is a relative thing, so I respect your opinion if you don't like it. I just happen to think it's amazing

It's not a bad game. It has a few bad elements here and there (mostly coding decisions: jump inertia, visible screen space on platforming stages etc).

Perhaps I shouldn't have said it isn't very good; more that it's fairly overrated.

I don't know if it qualifies as a shmup because of its shmup stages. A shmup tends to be pretty pure in definition. Gunstar Heroes, Metal Slug 3 and Mario Land have some shmuppin in there too. RR is heavier in the shmup dept, so I guess it's a hybrid - but not one you'll ever find in this (or any shmups forum's) high score tables.

[Aggro Sky]

Rendering Ranger isn't a shmup. It's also not a very good game.

I respectfully disagree. The game is amazing. Yeah, there are some repetitive parts, but overall it's astounding what they pulled off with the SNES hardware. You are actually the first person I've seen (that has actually heard of the game) who didn't think it was good. But more than half the game IS a SHMUP, that can't be debated. However, a games quality is a relative thing, so I respect your opinion if you don't like it. I just happen to think it's amazing

It's not a bad game. It has a few bad elements here and there (mostly coding decisions: jump inertia, visible screen space on platforming stages etc).

Perhaps I shouldn't have said it isn't very good; more that it's fairly overrated.

I don't know if it qualifies as a shmup because of its shmup stages. A shmup tends to be pretty pure in definition. Gunstar Heroes, Metal Slug 3 and Mario Land have some shmuppin in there too. RR is heavier in the shmup dept, so I guess it's a hybrid - but not one you'll ever find in this (or any shmups forum's) high score tables.

That's a fair assessment. It isn't a "pure" SHMUP. A hybrid for sure, but it still begs the question, why aren't hybrids allowed? If 60% of the game is a SHMUP, and the other 40% is Run N Gun, which is very similar gameplay-wise, then why doesn't it qualify? I just think it's an interesting question...

Although I'd have to disagree that this game is over rated as most people outside of the hardcore retro gaming scene have never even heard of it. Not to mention there are very few YouTube videos and reviews. Also, the only 1CC playthroughs I've found were awful quality footage, and there aren't many. That being said, I'd imagine it is over rated in Germany

[Vludi]

The game is hailed as a tech demo pretty much, as for the game itself it's not bad but certainly not on par with the best on the console either.

[Aggro Sky]

The game is hailed as a tech demo pretty much, as for the game itself it's not bad but certainly not on par with the best on the console either.

Tech demo is a bit harsh.... I'd say it's a fully playable, pretty fun game too. In terms of best SHMUPS on the system I would certainly say it holds up to most of them. R-Type 3 and maybe Axelay are better overall but IMO it holds its own with any of the others.

[Perikles]

In terms of best SHMUPS on the system I would certainly say it holds up to most of them. R-Type 3 and maybe Axelay are better overall but IMO it holds its own with any of the others.

While I do like Rendering Ranger as a passionate ambassador of SFC mayhem I don't agree with that. There are too many moments where it needlessly drags (almost the entire time during the run 'n' game stages, in certain spots during the shmup sections, too) which is not a trait that the best shmups of any given system boast. I'd personally put it somewhere in the middle of the console's library. If it were consistently as engaging as it is during its highest moments then I could understand the sentiment. But in spite of the opposing on dit, the SFC has a very solid portfolio of shmups (basically everything Konami (all three Parodius games, Gradius III, Pop'n TwinBee, Axelay), R-Type III, Darius Force, Macross, BioMetal, Darius Force, Kidou Soukou Dion, Super Aleste, Flying Hero, Cotton 100%, solid/great ports of E.D.F., Sonic Wings & Area 88; both Kiki Kaikais, but especially the first one if you consider them shmups (you should! )), and Rendering Ranger is not exactly continuously great.

[Squire Grooktook]

Biometal is god

[Aggro Sky]

In terms of best SHMUPS on the system I would certainly say it holds up to most of them. R-Type 3 and maybe Axelay are better overall but IMO it holds its own with any of the others.

While I do like Rendering Ranger as a passionate ambassador of SFC mayhem I don't agree with that. There are too many moments where it needlessly drags (almost the entire time during the run 'n' game stages, in certain spots during the shmup sections, too) which is not a trait that the best shmups of any given system boast. I'd personally put it somewhere in the middle of the console's library. If it were consistently as engaging as it is during its highest moments then I could understand the sentiment. But in spite of the opposing on dit, the SFC has a very solid portfolio of shmups (basically everything Konami (all three Parodius games, Gradius III, Pop'n TwinBee, Axelay), R-Type III, Darius Force, Macross, BioMetal, Darius Force, Kidou Soukou Dion, Super Aleste, Flying Hero, Cotton 100%, solid/great ports of E.D.F., Sonic Wings & Area 88; both Kiki Kaikais, but especially the first one if you consider them shmups (you should! )), and Rendering Ranger is not exactly continuously great.

Eh, to each his own I guess. You are right though, the game could have been streamlined a bit. But I still really enjoy it and feel that the truly great parts (and there are many) make up for the parts that drag a bit (like those damn lasers that block your path in the Run N Gun sections). It's a trade off really. I could also argue that Gradius 3 would have benefited from better programming as it literally "drags" through crippling slowdown that nearly ruins the game, while Rendering Ranger has none, even with dozens upon dozens of enemies on screen at once. BioMetal is another game that is decidedly average IMO.

So yeah, I understand what you are saying. But to me, Rendering Ranger is a pretty remarkable game, and I'm pretty sure there are people who agree with me

[BIL]

Bio Metal seems to be one of the more divisive console shooters around here, haha. I'm in the "is god" camp but it gets a fair bit o' "meh" too! Enjoyment is directly proportional to # of enemies bashed down with the shield, I suspect. :3 Way more deserving of Vimana's tagline than that game imo.

NO WAY OUT! HYPER VIOLENCE SHOOTING

That godawful SNES soundtrack can't help matters much either. SFC's melancholic Zuntata-style weirdpop all the way.

First SFC Kiki Kaikai aka Pocky & Rocky is god on cart indeed. Indispensable Natsume quality. Ultra hardcore topdown shooting and cute as a button, too. Don't bust ghosts! Bust 'em outta jail instead!

[Kollision]

I like the Western OST of Biometal

how abnormal am I among my peers?

[Squire Grooktook]

BioMetal is another game that is decidedly average IMO.

It's my favorite console shmup of all time, and probably the best execution of a "block" mechanic in a shmup ever. Being able to sacrifice your meter and shield for skull crushing blows turns it into one of the coolest offensive/defensive balancing acts out there.

Enjoyment is directly proportional to # of enemies bashed down with the shield, I suspect. :3

It's really a shame there isn't some kind of scoring system based on speed killing. Messing around with it, I've found some pretty risky but stylish strats for ending bosses* and enemy waves early. Would probably be the deepest 16-bit era shooter if it did.

Regardless, one of those rare simple/oldschool shooters that get better and more endearing with post-1cc revisits, rather than growing stale.

*My favorite so far is that you can kill the penultimate boss before it uses its third spread pattern by tap dodging through his laser wall and laser/smashing the core repeatedly. Nervy as hell, but oh so cool.

I like the Western OST of Biometal

how abnormal am I among my peers?

I'd be more tolerant of it if not for how well the original ost gels with the action and imparts a gorgeous and unique mood and atmosphere to the adventure.

It's like taking Castlevania and playing rap music over it.

Actually that might actually be cool.



On a side note, I'm thinking of trying to find a non-region locked repro cart of the game with SFC ost. Having that in my collection would be nice.

[BIL]

I like the Western OST of Biometal

how abnormal am I among my peers?

on a scale of 1 to 10, I rate that GAME MUSIC WAR CRIMINAL

[trap15]

Actually that might actually be cool.

[Kollision]

I LOLed so hard I guess I freaked out my coleagues at work!

what if I change my avatar?
hehehehe
no more hony here tony

[BIL]

Fuck! Visual contact with perp lost! o_o Has anyone seen a 2 Unlimited-appreciating bear hereabouts?!

[pegboy]

I like the Western OST of Biometal

how abnormal am I among my peers?

I like it as well, in fact I'd even say it's better than the Japanese version. I'm not even kidding. My only problem with BioMetal is that it's too easy.