drauch wrote:
Zombie Raid
First I've heard of that one - tres noir, I dig!

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While Deathtiny's CG intro is perfunctory in comparison to past-gen STG highlights (the work itself being characteristically stratospheric Shottriggers quality), I love its newsreel glimpses of EVAC behemoths. Gives them a scary cryptozoological aspect.
A large SPHINX in its natural desert habitat. Deals in riddles and
WAR AND PAINVinogradov, the most brutalistically literal of Huge Battleships Approaching Fast.
Some kinda fucked-up robot moth that was trapped in a rice cooker. I hope it's ok! :[
Speaking of earlier-gen CG highlights: PS2 Gradius
III &
IV.DEMO_MOVIE_01
Duck you fuckers!

Wait. I mean fuck you Duckers!

The more conventionally filmic of the pair, a Star Wars-inflected glimpse of Gradius II. Besides its flyer-worthy images of BIGCORE duelling, the authentically fraught close combat reminds me of Gaiden's classily reserved intro - or from that same year, the superbly fronted Mars Matrix (DC).
DEMO_MOVIE_02
Much trippier! But Gradius III's DEATH CHEERIOS are treated with deserving gravity! Thumping Yamaoka BGM and discomfortingly pulsing organs evoke not only Beatmania, but
also Silent Hill 2's much-loved
Fukuro (AKA:
Pyramid-kun's DokiDoki Basement Fuck Fest) and
Kinoko (AKA:
You Look Just Like My Dead Wife! The Ballad of Jimmy James). I wonder if any personnel were shared... the CG guys for SH1-4 were some A1 crack team killers. Also brings to mind Shattered Soldier with the pointed lack of any subtitling or numerals, just a "sup motherfucker?"
GRADIUS.---
Man. Adding to the considerable number of early Neo Geo titles already featured ITT, practically every one I try lately has a killer Game Over and/or
PLS CONTINUE screen!

Especially poetic with
Ghost Pilots' unusual choice of a seaplane fighter-craft.
"Many Brave Souls Lie Asleep in the Deep." 
Raguy / Blue's Journey, downright plaintive.


Aww, you're welcome sweetie.
WAIT FUCKNinja Ryukenden is a name with strong aesthetic cachet, both the FC incarnation's cinemas, and the AC's infamously gory
PLS CONTINUE screen - which is actually a rather shocking twist in its knowingly silly "NINJA ON VACATION" tone!

Damn, need a 60fps capture for the saw blade animation. Just pretend it's there! Same with the terrifying whirr and Ryu's anticlimactic (strangely erotic tbh

) dying
"OOOH" 
.
However, the HS table tips the balance further into ghoulish darkness with... tbh, I'm not sure WTF is going on here. It's rad, though!

Round intro, so goddamn cool.


Ryu has a fun persona in this one. On FC he's in the MURICA to REVENGE FADDER. Here he's on a business trip to wipe out some assless chaps weirdo and his cult, with plenty of inter-stage downtime.

TBH I'm gonna headcanon this to taking place after the FC trilogy.

