Devil Engine (PS4,Switch, PC) 2018- Hyakutarou music

[MrJBRPG]

I wasn't gonna do the big shills until the eShops were all updated, but yes the game's out on JP eShop and global Steam right now!

Steam
JP Switch

NA/EU eShops will be up on the next update, probably in the morning.

Does the JPN version have english menus and whatnot? Any changes compared to the US release?

There would be no regional changes for many modern games today, including Devil Engine. The gaming experience is 1:1 across all regions. Online updates and patches are the things to fix up smaller issues.

[cave hermit]

Seems like something I'll have to look into...

Does the Switch version have any performance issues? I might just get the steam version if so.

[soupbones]

U.S. eShop just got updated and it's out!

[durias]

U.S. eShop just got updated and it's out!

Thanks for letting us know!

[Knightmare]

I'm really enjoying the game a lot! Playing on Switch. I really like the progressive unlock system. Adds another layer of incentive on top of the familiar impulse to just get good. The game has more content and features than I was expecting.

[2a03]

do they fixed shitty ship movements since demo? it's literally impossible to do tiny moves, so annoying

[Durandal]

do they fixed shitty ship movements since demo? it's literally impossible to do tiny moves, so annoying

You can change your movement speed at any time.

[Darkseed_5150]

Seems like something I'll have to look into...

Does the Switch version have any performance issues? I might just get the steam version if so.

I would like to know this as well.

[mulletgeezer]

I played the switch version for a couple of hours. I didn't find any performance issues but it does have bugs - I saw it crash twice upon killing the stage 5 boss, also the final boss music carried on playing for a few seconds during the end credits which sounded bad.

I like this game but the ship feels underpowered in classic Euroshmup fashion- top speed is really quite slow and the red and green weapons seem pathetically weak on the later stages.

[MrJBRPG]

Congratulations on releasing the game on home platforms. I imagine the rest of the extra time would be spent polishing the game further and creating new content for the Exa Arcadia version. Exclusive content between home and arcades will be quite exciting.

So far I noticed that Super easy feels appropriate despite all of those playful mockery with enemy bullets being slower, and having the hitbox toggle available allows new players to really get the handle of the gameplay loop. If the hitbox is off, the cockpit / visor is where you really do not want the enemy shots to hit.

What is also good with local high scores is that a whole lot of easter eggs are revealed, and one of the name scores has EXA, confirming Exa Arcadia release.


As for the other settings with extra, certain things could be reconfigured as secret button combos such as bullet colors, screen filters, etc. Some extras might be reserved for operators as well.

The challenge modes seem to be good fir for caravan-like sessions should you decide to retool them for the arcade version.

Handheld port screen looks deliberately messy in a good way.

Have you thought of adding vocals to various events, like weapon changes, boss battles, stage names, etc? That would be a very fun addition for EXA Arcadia replease. It better be the vocal style based on Thunder Force 2 X68000 / Thunder Force AC that gives a balance between clear vocals and bit distortion.

You can even get crazy with the weapon names, with a few for examples:

Scatter
Lance Breaker
Hive seeker / Hunter

[bakedbean]

I'm new to the genre so take my opinion as such but this game really feels solid to me, bravo to the dev.

[xxx1993]

So, is the final boss music "The Justice Ray Part 6"? At least the music for the first part of the final battle sounded very Justice Ray like.

[kid aphex]

Beautiful game with great music.
No crashes experienced (Switch version).
Gameplay has not offended me like most modern indie STGs.
Really enjoy the absorb mechanic (think Mars Matrix reflect, -enemy damage).
Would love to see a sequel with even more effort put into gfx and animation.

[Despatche]

I like this game but the ship feels underpowered in classic Euroshmup fashion- top speed is really quite slow and the red and green weapons seem pathetically weak on the later stages.

At some point, the lack of range on the Laser is going to drive you crazy, so it's only really useful on bosses. The Homing is bad as a response to Thunder Force Hunter being hilariously overpowered.

The Spread is actually the best. You get a lot of utility out of it and you're probably supposed to use it for nearly the entire game. I'm pretty sure the powerup cycle is biased towards it to the point that you get more S icons, which means more points if you can hold out with the Spread for as long as you can. The developer clearly felt that the starting weapon should be the best, with the other weapons being useful tools for certain situations if you need them.

There is nothing "euroshmup" about this design. You'll run into a similar situation with CAVE or Touhou games and certain shot types; some types have trouble defeating certain enemies unless you put more work in.

So, is the final boss music "The Justice Ray Part 6"? At least the music for the first part of the final battle sounded very Justice Ray like.

No.

Hot take: The Justice Ray Part 2 and Part 3 aren't good. The original is perfection, Part 5 is a good sequel, and Part 4 is some weirdly cool experimental song that probably shouldn't even exist.

[Zaarock]

Spread bomb does the highest damage per second while Laser bomb does much more damage per bomb stock, its worth switching around just for the bomb function. Feels like the same deal as the demo in that homing bomb doesn't have any worthwhile function. It would've been neat if the weapon was weak but bomb had some merit.

For 100% shot down in stage 2 laser seemed really effective so I dunno, using up spread bombs during stage portions might get risky.

Digging the full version so far but it's a little like I feared in that there's a bunch of poorly telegraphed attacks (I get if this is intentional). ST4 boss comes to mind, one of the vertical bullet patterns makes little sense and cant be reacted to with the ship speed. The game feels like you're supposed to play aggressive but thats not possible until you have enough enemy spawns and bosses memorized.

New stages feel weird first couple runs since you keep running into stuff that you dont have enough time to figure out before they kill you. If it's a fast boss attack you might not even have time to realize what wrong movement you made. Maybe I'm getting bad at this kind of thing though haha. But I get the impression a lot of other shmups telegraph and introduce new type of attacks in a smoother way.

Using spread bombs to speedkill bosses seems weird. Shouldnt fighting through all the boss patterns be a fun experience instead of incentivizing playing like this? If it's a really good fight you should get that kind of feeling that it's exciting and not just an obstacle.

Expert mode seems cool.

[Despatche]

Well, you do get points for not using bombs. As I haven't exactly no bombed even Easy yet, I'm not sure how well this scales to a clear. There may be parts of the game where using bombs builds up the multiplier faster, enough for it matter anyway, but so far nothing feels like it'd be worth it.

That aside, the developer clearly wants you to no miss, no bomb, and no burst the entire game, there's even a between-level message about it. Spread seems extremely useful with crazy pointblanking strats, but I get the feeling that things like the first part of stage 3 and the first part of stage 5 will be amazingly hard to route that way. Switching to Laser for bosses seems pretty wise so far, but I still feel like you're supposed to develop insane pointblanking routes and smash the whole game to bits with Spread and nothing else...

[Sinoc]

The Hunter is bad as a response to Thunder Force Hunter being hilariously overpowered.

Lel, just gonna go ahead and make this canon.
It does have merits in some sections, but it's overall not a weapon you'd want to use the entire game.

I played the switch version for a couple of hours. I didn't find any performance issues but it does have bugs - I saw it crash twice upon killing the stage 5 boss, also the final boss music carried on playing for a few seconds during the end credits which sounded bad.

I like this game but the ship feels underpowered in classic Euroshmup fashion- top speed is really quite slow and the red and green weapons seem pathetically weak on the later stages.

Already patched on steam (based Valve letting me do nightlies) and a patch for Switch is in the works. Since those take a bit longer I was going to get a big swaft of fixes.

Funny enough, the switch version is way less buggy if you don't play on easy.

Have you thought of adding vocals to various events, like weapon changes, boss battles, stage names, etc? That would be a very fun addition for EXA Arcadia replease. It better be the vocal style based on Thunder Force 2 X68000 / Thunder Force AC that gives a balance between clear vocals and bit distortion.

Actually an announcer was one of the first things they asked for and the one of the first things we did. Ended up using a (non Miku) Vocaloid for it, it came out really well.

So, is the final boss music "The Justice Ray Part 6"? At least the music for the first part of the final battle sounded very Justice Ray like.

Nah. If anything that's

Spoiler

the extra boss theme

.
Also fun fact about the final boss music: the vocals in the begging are actually the announcer from the original Donpachi, sped up and disorded and such.

[Despatche]

Stage 4 boss theme seems like a legitimate The Justice Ray tribute, honestly...

[Zaarock]

Well, you do get points for not using bombs. As I haven't exactly no bombed even Easy yet, I'm not sure how well this scales to a clear. There may be parts of the game where using bombs builds up the multiplier faster, enough for it matter anyway, but so far nothing feels like it'd be worth it.

For the demo scoring competition people ended up using all obtained bombs, the 100% shot down and other bonuses are massive in comparison. There are many points where you cant get 100% shot down without using bombs starting from stage 2. Keep in mind you get more bombs/lives from score so this feeds itself

[xxx1993]

Extra boss? Which one? And I’m only ask about Justice Ray because the previous one, The Last Howling, felt a bit underwhelming to me.

[geremy]

I caved and bought this on switch yesterday. I am terribly impressed. It's really great! I played the steam demo and was a bit hesitant, it just didn't click with me. I purchased because the demo artwork and music are amazing (also like to support SHMUP developers). I wasn't jelling with the mechanics. I'm not sure what changed between the demo and the final version but it's a revelation. The polish was apparent on the demo but the attention to detail really makes this game great.

So far I'm pretty terrible. I really hate the bullets on stage 3 that explode with little warning!

[MrJBRPG]

Well, you do get points for not using bombs. As I haven't exactly no bombed even Easy yet, I'm not sure how well this scales to a clear. There may be parts of the game where using bombs builds up the multiplier faster, enough for it matter anyway, but so far nothing feels like it'd be worth it.

For the demo scoring competition people ended up using all obtained bombs, the 100% shot down and other bonuses are massive in comparison. There are many points where you cant get 100% shot down without using bombs starting from stage 2. Keep in mind you get more bombs/lives from score so this feeds itself

It seems like there will be a nice dynamic competition between two kinds of play styles, one without using any extra help features (bomb, burst) vs utilizing all features to bring up the multiplier for long term scoring. The end result, in theory, should have a shoot only and all features be almost evenly matched, with the latter having slightly higher score form exploiting the system itself.

I do wish you guys good luck on having those two types of scoring competition:

Shot only

All Features (Bomb and Burst)

[Durandal]

OTOH you get a 1k bonus for each bomb in stock after defeating the TLB, which can ramp up fairly high depending on how frugal you are with them. It's generally not worth speedkilling bosses using bombs for the speedkill bonus because speedkill bonuses are usually worth around 1k-1.5k whereas you'd spend 3-6 bombs (and by extent lose out on 3k-6k points in terms of endgame bonuses) in the process. I do think that killing as many enemies as possible using bombs and trying to go for the 100% destruction rate bonus is worth it when you have a 6x multiplier going on.

[xxx1993]

No.

Hot take: The Justice Ray Part 2 and Part 3 aren't good. The original is perfection, Part 5 is a good sequel, and Part 4 is some weirdly cool experimental song that probably shouldn't even exist.

Are you kidding me? I only enjoyed the first three. Part 5 was totally underwhelming.

[Darkseed_5150]

Bought the Switch version. Plays and looks great. 60 fps with rare yet un-distracting dips here and there which are probably not even worth mentioning.
This is what I'm talking about, intro has that Soldier Blade vibe, you can tell the devs know what's up.
Gameplay is so nice, kinda like a Technosoft game released in 2019.
Congrats to the devs and I hope we see more games of this standard coming out for consoles in the west.

[BurlyHeart]

Will there be a Steam-free release at some point?

Probably, We're trying to do GOG but they're super picky.

Any update on gog? I don't get why they would this turn this down.

[Sinoc]

I've never crunched the numbers on what's actually the most efficient way to score, but the game is 100% balanced around using every resource and pressing every button.

Spoiler

You can see this especially with the extra ship, where you are heavily incentivized by score to use your surges (bombs) often.

Will there be a Steam-free release at some point?

Probably, We're trying to do GOG but they're super picky.

Any update on gog? I don't get why they would this turn this down.

These things, they take time.

[2dvertical]

Updates on Ps4?

[To Far Away Times]

I can't tell if this game is mega hard or if I'm just terrible. I didn't even understand the beatdown I was receiving from the stage 1 boss. Bouncing bullets and dense fast patterns at the same time? Crazy stuff for a level 1 boss.

[Stevas]

Can you humans stop with the shmups on the fucking switch already?
I'm not buying a switch. Stop doing that.