What do you think of Pulstar?

[Marc]

Picked it up for PS4. Seems excellent from what I've played so far, though I'm afalraid I'm enabling autofire for this one, mashing on a PS4 pad is not fun at all. Think I've finally enough Arcade/Shooter stuff to justify a new stick, or at least a convertor to use my 360 Soul Calibur one.

[Kollision]

I think it's an outstanding shooter, even if the first half of it gets sleep-inducing after a while (especially when you're about to beat the game).

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

I'm afalraid I'm enabling autofire for this one, mashing on a PS4 pad is not fun at all.

I had Pulstar on the NG CD, so due to the buttons mashing was out of the question for me. I always almost exclusively used the charge shot anyway...

[Nate]

This should have its own thread, I believe; the "PS4 release" part I mean.

[BurlyHeart]

This should have its own thread, I believe; the "PS4 release" part I mean.

After the Cuphead affair, I wasn't going to go there

[boagman]

I'm actually going to reply to the original post from 2011. I *love* Pulstar...it has always impressed the heck out of me. It's right up there with R-Type, Last Resort, and other classics like them. I think that one of the things that truly elevates Pulstar is the glitz of the graphics. The Level 2 boss, Spinning Turtle, is still one of the most impressive things I've seen in all of gamedom.

Oddly, I've never enjoyed Blazing Star, and don't really understand the reverence most have for it. It quite quickly turns me off in multiple ways, and while I can state that I haven't played BS in quite a long time, there are several good reasons for that: most of them having to do with BS being a game I don't feel is very good.

But Pulstar? Oh, shoot...I can while away the hours, just getting punished and continuing to come back for more. Glorious punishment it is.

[Nate]

Marc wrote:

Picked it up for PS4. Seems excellent from what I've played so far, though I'm afalraid I'm enabling autofire for this one, mashing on a PS4 pad is not fun at all. Think I've finally enough Arcade/Shooter stuff to justify a new stick, or at least a convertor to use my 360 Soul Calibur one.

Thing about Pulstar is it has this unique play mechanic in that it's immensely vital to learn and manage the "power-up" icons; most importantly recognize the "C" icon, which not only allows your charge shot to charge more quickly (when you hold down the button) but it actually makes it easier to rapid-fire with the standard forward shots! I know it's hard to believe, but it enhances the shooting by opening some kind of "delay window" so that mashing becomes easier and you can slow your firing finger (or in this case thumb) down. It's the only shmup I can think of that does this. The "C" icon (I call it "Cramp Control") and its properties max out at two - after that you're just picking up "C" icons. But, hey if you've made it to the third or fourth one without dying then you know you're doing pretty good. Another crucial one is your "S" for speed-up icons; I generally don't pick up more than two of those - I don't like accidentally crashing into scenery and yeah Pulstar has plenty of it and it's almost all lethal. Also, the I/O's that fix above and below your ship are important! You can adjust and lock their direction of shooting as well as just let them fire where ever they roll. Enjoy Pulstar! Man, I wish I had a PS4!

[Kiken]

Thing about Pulstar is it has this unique play mechanic in that it's immensely vital to learn and manage the "power-up" icons; most importantly recognize the "C" icon, which not only allows your charge shot to charge more quickly (when you hold down the button) but it actually makes it easier to rapid-fire with the standard forward shots! I know it's hard to believe, but it enhances the shooting by opening some kind of "delay window" so that mashing becomes easier and you can slow your firing finger (or in this case thumb) down.

Yep. Good to see that someone else realized that they not only decrease charge shot time but also the tap-frequency required to maximize auto-fire. This is really important when using the rear-firing homing shot or the circular shield laser. It should be noted that slowdown also influences the auto-fire rates.. the slower the game is moving the lower your tap frequency can be to hit max rapid (same phenomenon occurs in Blazing Star).

It's the only shmup I can think of that does this. The "C" icon (I call it "Cramp Control") and its properties max out at two - after that you're just picking up "C" icons.

Now this I hadn't figured out... I did notice that going from 3 to 4 didn't really seem to make any adjustments to how long charging required though.


While I enjoy Pulstar quite a bit, I find the more rote-memorizer design of the game to be less pick-up-and-play than it's pseudo-spiritual sequel. Pulstar also features a very noticeable difficulty spike after the half-way point. Stages 1, 2 and 4 are relatively easy with stage 3's major hitch being the absolutely ridiculous slowdown that plagues 2/3s of the stage. Starting from stage 5 forward, the game starts to throw out really nasty choke points where death can pretty much end a run. And while I agree that stage 7 is certainly the easiest of the back half of the game, it's then followed by stage 8 which features those obnoxious green turbo pit squids.

After recently sitting down with both Pulstar and Last Resort, I find myself gravitating more toward Last Resort. The mechanics are a bit more flexible and the overall game-design is less strict. I'm personally more a fan of the Nazca Team-style gritty mechanical-artwork in LR compared to Aicom's abundant use of prerendered sprites. That said, Pulstar has spectacle in spades: stage 3's massive prominences immediately spring to mind, as do many of the stage bosses (except stage 7's, that one just sucks). Gotta use that 305 Mega for something.. might as well throw it at ludicrous volumes of animation frames. Even though it's only 45 Mega, LR still manages to be one of the only games on the Neo hardware to feature multiple layers of parallax throughout the entire game... Pulstar, on the other hand has this odd habit of stages beginning with a single unique scrolling backdrop that eventually merges with the foreground (there's actually a notable frame stall that occurs when the two merge and the game then proceeds to move more smoothly there-after). That said, I think both games are a necessity for any Neo Geo shooting library.

[Nate]

Kiken wrote:

those obnoxious green turbo pit squids

Mmm-hmm and if you don't kill them quickly they release the unkillable pink sperm-spread - they are truly the bullshit-mongers of stage 8.

Thanks to this thread I've decided to get a PS4. I saw the YT vid of Pulstar (PS4) - I wonder what "Caravan Mode" is?

[Jeneki]

Many of the arcade archives releases added a caravan mode. It's the same game but instant game overs after two minutes.

[Kobayashi]

Pulstar is a very good R-Type clone with beautiful graphics. Regarding the Pulstar vs Blazing Star issue commented above, although they're completely different games I like both in a similar way, however, Blazing Star has in its favor a much greater originality factor.

[R2-2D]

Anyone that knows if the PS4 version contains the CD soundtrack?