Thunder Cross & Thunder Cross II

[Perikles]

Thunder Cross 1 - PS2



Perikles - 1,505,280 - 2-5

Edit: Looks like the other host I used is out of business, added a working picture.

[maximo310]

Thunder Cross 2- MAME
maximo-313,450- Stage 1-5

[God]

Thunder Cross 1
God - 1,206,720 - Stage 2-3

[Perikles]

Thunder Cross 1 - MAME



Perikles - 3,745,540 - Stage 4-5

When I saw the thread on the front page I was immediately reminded of my paltry score. Too bad the emulation in MAME seems to be highly unstable. Game froze on 2-7 once, in this run the textures in 3-7 were completely messed up, an unavoidable block of terrain formed at one point, causing me to lose over 10 lives in rapid succession. Tried other builds of MAME which seem to run even worse. Would've liked to record a multi-loop video, but I'm apparently out of luck. Hopefully the sequel doesn't suffer from those issues...

[Perikles]

Thunder Cross 1 - MAME



Perikles - 4,545,260 - Stage 5-3

Video


Was too stubborn to just let the matter rest. I used "thunderx" (also known as Thunder Cross (set 1)) which is completely identical to "thunderxj" aside from the title screen as lgb pointed out already. Don't know if it is a coincidence or not, but I downloaded that version once more and it worked on the first try without any freezes or game-breaking bugs. Took me quite some time to get this one smooth run, every single attempt before ended due to some glitch, almost always a freeze after defeating a boss and landing on the mother ship in the background, as early as stage 1-1 and as late as stage 3-6.

Run itself is fairly good. No deaths in the first three loops, then I start to fall apart in the fourth loop due to some of the changes, but manage to recover temporarily here and there before finally getting back to shape in 4-5/4-6. Fifth loop just murdered me, though. Most alterations are probably easy to handle with just a bit of practice (for the first boss it would probably be best to just use the twin laser - no idea why that didn't occur to me in loop 5 after horrendously getting slaughtered in loop 4), but I really want to play something else now.


I also looked into Thunder Cross II a bit - Jesus, it's been a while since I played a game with so many cheap traps and instant lasers. Not hard, yet extremely annoying. I'm also always feeling underpowered, looks like the pea shooter is the best weapon to use for the most parts. I saw a video where the player used the second player ship and obliterated the (mini-)bosses by picking up one of the temporary upgrades for the pods and just point-blanking those guys with the ship itself, looks cheesy as hell to me, probably some oversight? Don't know whether this works with player 1, but if not it would be probably a good idea to indicate which player side was used.

[Perikles]

Thunder Cross II - MAME



Perikles - 2,693,320 - Stage 4-4

Video

Played the Japanese version on the first player side, no questionable boss kills, just honest point-blanking and all that. There's furthermore some way to bundle all four options together for a massive concentration of fire power in one spot, but I can't figure out how to do that.

Time to be penitential: I take back what I said about Thunder Cross II. First impression is rough thanks to all the laser beams of death, but once the initial hurdle is overcome it's highly enjoyable (to no small measure due to the godly music; Heavy Metal Bomber, indeed). Had quite a bit of fun figuring out when to use the temporary upgrades for strategic purposes and scoring, that aspect is a little understated in the first game. Sixth stage has a bit too much in the way of those aforementioned laser beams, though. I also want to thank Konami for making the hitbox so small, pretty sure I would've died a few times from 3-2 onwards if not for that (first death in 3-6, after the actual onslaught, too...). Recovering in the mid-game of higher loops is completely impossible, however, there was no way to get out of 4-4 alive after that one death. So much for checkpoints being unfair.

Also:

Spoiler

Obligatory clip

[Limbrooke]

Code: Select all

RFP 1629480 Stage 2-5

Somehow, the more I play almost any Gradius game the worse the progressive results. I think aggression has something to do with it.
Anyway, during a self imposed break from G2 I decided to come back to an old score I set long ago, the 903k one. I was determined to get to the loop and so I finally managed after a couple good runs today. Definitely not a hard game and the 2nd loop is also not much more difficult at first glance but some challenge comes from managing space since the ship position relative to the options/extra weapons makes for some confusion during dodging. Used weapon B until I saw enemies start coming from behind on 7 when I switched to weapon T.

I too share initial thoughts on TC2, something feels cheap about it. I may revisit that game once I've got a few more loops here.

[PlasmaBlooD]

Bloody - 1,610,840 - Stag3 2-5

Died at 2-3 Endboss and that destroyed my game , but after 2 Days a new record for me.I played the PS 4 Version from PS-Shop japan

[Perikles]

This thread is no longer active, I've created a new one here (which hasn't been implemented into the index thread since we had an update just roughly a year ago, wouldn't do to rush things).

Updated your score accordingly, of course.