Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

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awbacon
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Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by awbacon »

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V7DwIAyUi4E

While doing my series of videos on the FM Towns Marty and games, I had to include Truxton II. I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about the insanely long stages but otherwise I am really into the game. One of those exclusives that actually lived up to the hype.

Anyone else get a chance to play this one? I’m curious about your thoughts
SuperDeadite
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by SuperDeadite »

awbacon wrote:https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=V7DwIAyUi4E

While doing my series of videos on the FM Towns Marty and games, I had to include Truxton II. I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about the insanely long stages but otherwise I am really into the game. One of those exclusives that actually lived up to the hype.

Anyone else get a chance to play this one? I’m curious about your thoughts
Tatsujin Oh has nice graphics and cool tunes. But after the high-speed stage is over it gets rather boring imo. Best shooter on the Towns is Rayxanber, and it's a true exclusive too :) For arcade ports, Last Survivor is one of the must plays.
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mycophobia
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by mycophobia »

I nearly fell in love with arcade Truxton II and got good enough to clear up to stage 6 on one credit, but ultimately I had to give up. The checkpoint recovery is just way too harsh. Your default weapon is far too underpowered and narrow in range, which results in recovery on stages 5 and 6 requiring extremely strict DDP chaining-style routing just to survive because every enemy has a billion hp. the attacks of every boss from stage 3 forward are complete insanity given the size of the hitboxes in this game.

that said, the aesthetics are incredible. the art is great and varied (no two stages share any one enemy) and the game has my favorite shmup soundtrack of all time. I also really like the pacing of the level design, but I know that's particularly a turn off for some.
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OmegaFlareX
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by OmegaFlareX »

Tatsujin Ou was a legendary game on these forums for a long time. I won't say any names, but at some point one or more of the younger influential newcomers in recent years started shit-talking it and the opinion has spread. From my own perspective, since I stopped following the scene during the Cave SH3 hardware years, TatsuOu suddenly went from beloved to reviled. While I'll be the first to admit that the difficulty of the game (JP region default dips) is very high, other criticisms are grossly overstated and I still feel it is a Legit Good Game and worthy of both casual play and mastery.

For something far more approachable, in MAME set the region to US or EU and the difficulty to Easy.

And OP, I'm not sure if it's because it was just uploaded and YT is still processing it, but the video quality is not acceptable. 30fps and compression/de-interlacing artifacts will not get a like from me. Also if the game has a tate mode, record that instead of yoko and flip it in post-process. I'd recommend finding someone on these forums that are familiar with putting high-quality stuff on YT (Jaimers and Perikles immediately come to mind), and consulting with them on best practices and a workflow.
awbacon
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by awbacon »

OmegaFlareX wrote:Tatsujin Ou was a legendary game on these forums for a long time. I won't say any names, but at some point one or more of the younger influential newcomers in recent years started shit-talking it and the opinion has spread. From my own perspective, since I stopped following the scene during the Cave SH3 hardware years, TatsuOu suddenly went from beloved to reviled. While I'll be the first to admit that the difficulty of the game (JP region default dips) is very high, other criticisms are grossly overstated and I still feel it is a Legit Good Game and worthy of both casual play and mastery.

For something far more approachable, in MAME set the region to US or EU and the difficulty to Easy.

And OP, I'm not sure if it's because it was just uploaded and YT is still processing it, but the video quality is not acceptable. 30fps and compression/de-interlacing artifacts will not get a like from me. Also if the game has a tate mode, record that instead of yoko and flip it in post-process. I'd recommend finding someone on these forums that are familiar with putting high-quality stuff on YT (Jaimers and Perikles immediately come to mind), and consulting with them on best practices and a workflow.
Hmm I think maybe you had a connection / bandwidth issue. It’s on YouTube at 1080p60. Unfortunately the game does not have Tate mode so it’s just as it appears. It’s odd there is no option unfortunately.

I just captured a few CPS2 games at 1080p60 in Tate (turned my PVM sideways) and rotated in Resolve, and those look great. My background is a filmmaker so I did take care to present everything in the best quality possible. Unfortunately on the Marty that’s S Video (compared to my CPS2 captures which were RGB straight from my supergun.

It’s interesting the mixed feelings on this game. I agree 100% the checkpoint system is super unfair. Yet I still prefer this to Rayxanber
awbacon
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by awbacon »

Oh and the interlacing is inherent to the Towns port. The trails from some bullets / other sprites is in the image processing. I’ve noticed it ok other Towns games as well. Just a weird side effect of the software itself and how it allows for low / high res modes
SuperDeadite
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by SuperDeadite »

awbacon wrote:Oh and the interlacing is inherent to the Towns port. The trails from some bullets / other sprites is in the image processing. I’ve noticed it ok other Towns games as well. Just a weird side effect of the software itself and how it allows for low / high res modes
Interlaced video is a Marty problem.. Towns PC uses progressive at 15/24/31khz.
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Shepardus
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by Shepardus »

I mostly like this game for its soundtrack, but that's enough for me. I like some stages and dislike others - for example, I find stages 2 and 3 uninteresting at best and irritating at worst (stage 3's music is its one saving grace), but like stage 5 despite it being way too hard for me (the music certainly helps). Difficulty is very uneven - much of the game is not bad at all, but the hard parts are very hard, and of course checkpoint recovery is nigh-impossible. Not a fan of the powerup system, though that's hardly unique to this game.

Never played the FM Towns port, though by my understanding it's pretty similar to the arcade version?
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awbacon
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by awbacon »

Yes that’s what I meant, interlacing is a Marty problem. Hard to keep all the Towns variants correct in my head.

I’ve played the original once. I’d say this version is quite close minus the parallax and the Tate issue. I wouldn’t pay full price for the Towns version since the pcb is not much more expensive, but I got my copy for well below going rate so it’s close enough to arcade perfect for the cost I paid
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OmegaFlareX
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by OmegaFlareX »

awbacon wrote:Hmm I think maybe you had a connection / bandwidth issue. It’s on YouTube at 1080p60.
Nope, I'm on gigafiber and your video did not make it to YT with all the frames intact. Proof:

https://i.imgur.com/a1vN4UQ.png

No "60" anywhere. I shift-F5ed it several times. The compression artifacts are still there. Even at 30fps, it looks really bad for 1080p. YT can be difficult to publish good-looking videos on, I again re-iterate that you consult with someone who does similar content.
awbacon
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by awbacon »

OmegaFlareX wrote:
awbacon wrote:Hmm I think maybe you had a connection / bandwidth issue. It’s on YouTube at 1080p60.
Nope, I'm on gigafiber and your video did not make it to YT with all the frames intact. Proof:

https://i.imgur.com/a1vN4UQ.png

No "60" anywhere. I shift-F5ed it several times. The compression artifacts are still there. Even at 30fps, it looks really bad for 1080p. YT can be difficult to publish good-looking videos on, I again re-iterate that you consult with someone who does similar content.
Odd. Wonder if YT is having an issue as it’s 60p on my screen and I checked it on my 4K tv via the YouTube app. Granted that doesn’t allow 60p (stupid it’s locked to 30...) but I have zero comoression artifacts on either my tv or my 3440x1440 panels, nor my phone

Oh well. I appreciate the feedback but I’ve been a filmmaker for fifteen years and it’s expoeted via DaVinci Resolve with all the appropriate bit rate / codec / etc etc etc. it’s 240 mbit a second which is what the Bitrate maxes out at. I’ll see if I can’t eeplicate the problem on my systems but it’s a mystery on my end
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Shepardus
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by Shepardus »

It says 30fps for me too (you can enable the "stats for nerds" to check the video information).
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awbacon
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by awbacon »

Stupid YouTube. Literally looking at my screen and it’s 1080p60. Oh well...can’t fight google haha
glide
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by glide »

mycophobia wrote:I nearly fell in love with arcade Truxton II and got good enough to clear up to stage 6 on one credit
Well that's impressive, I can't even finish level 3 without the cheats. Although I must say it's one of the best looking shmups ever, it looks great even to this day and it was made in 1992.
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Krimzon Kitzune
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Re: Truxton II - an FM Towns exclusive video

Post by Krimzon Kitzune »

Aside from the cropped screen, it's pretty amazing how faithful this port is. Would've loved to have this one back in the day.
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