Psikyo games coming to Steam

[BIL]

Sadly, this seems to have been the story of Strikers 1945 II ports, ever since the PS2 comp recycled the PS1 port. The Greatest Generation (aka M2 & Gotch) would never behave so shitbirdly.

What games has gotch done please

Lots of earlier ACA stuff - their Contra is still the game's only emulation, official or otherwise, to correctly reproduce the PCB's rolling mine behaviour. Even M2's Anniversary Collection version got that detail wrong. They also did the four Namco Arcade Game Series releases (wish there'd been more), plus miscellaneous Taito projects (Bubble Bobble With Friends' emulation of the original BB, Space Invaders Invincible Collection).

They're comprised of founding members from Rutubo Games, best known for their beautiful 32X and Saturn conversions of After Burner II, Space Harrier and OutRun (the latter being Saturn-only). Really glad these guys are still around! M2 can only handle so many projects at once - the more devs that treat emulation as a serious discipline, the better.

Digital Eclipse are not a developer I would include in that category. SNK 40th Anniversary Collection may have nice flyer scans, but its control bugs are unthinkably poor by M2/Hamster/Gotch standards. ZeroDiv, meanwhile, don't seem to be emulating Psikyo PCBs at all, but re-releasing existing console versions. Particularly as someone who owns the majority of those discs, it's not what I'm after, especially now that consoles are powerful enough to comfily emulate most of these games outright.

[scrilla4rella]

Decided to pick up Dragon Blaze and the store page on Steam seems to indicate that there's now online ranking, if anyone was waiting on that.

Overall, I'm having fun with this, think I'll get my 10 bucks worth out of it. Feels better than the Switch version (being able to use a proper stick helps) . Would quickly buy more if cheaper.

[versionfiv]

they're all on sale now. but as for you who just bought dragon blaze, don't feel bad. that game's worth the full price.

[scrilla4rella]

7 buck instead of 10. Get 'em while they're hot. Sale ends on the 2nd.
I prob end up coping them all b4 the end of the weekend

[BIL]

Sadly, this seems to have been the story of Strikers 1945 II ports, ever since the PS2 comp recycled the PS1 port. The Greatest Generation (aka M2 & Gotch) would never behave so shitbirdly.

What games has gotch done please

[post]

I forgot the most significant one :O They also worked on the PS3's Capcom Arcade Cabinet, as did M2. Shame that series didn't keep going.

[A Skeleton]

Just bought Strikers 1945 3 and Dragon Blaze on sale. Man, Strikers was my jam back in the day. Might make a video about all the three games.

[qmish]

Se pre-last post here
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1261960/ ... 242297222/

Why nobody cares?

All psikyo steam release have (supposedly) false alerts here or there, and it still comes up every time, like after update... No official word from dev/publisher

wtf

[FunktionJCB]

A bump to this thread, with a piece of news: all 12 Psikyo games released on Steam by City Connection are getting removed at the end of the month.

Here's a link to the message posted to one of the game's news section (all games have similar messages on their pages):
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 0055407656

And here's a link to the PSIKYO SHOOTER: Collector's Bundle, containing all 12 games:
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/1 ... rs_Bundle/

As a reminder, these are the games being removed:

-STRIKERS 1945
-STRIKERS 1945 II
-STRIKERS 1945 III
-GUNBIRD
-GUNBIRD 2
-GUNBARICH
-Samurai Aces
-TENGAI
-Samurai Aces III: Sengoku Cannon
-SOL DIVIDE -SWORD OF DARKNESS-
-Dragon Blaze
-ZERO GUNNER 2-

[MovingTarget]

Well that sucks

[Steven]

Just saw the delisting notification elsewhere. I have never played a Psikyo game except Strikers 1945 Plus. Are any of these worth getting before they go away? How is the emulation?

[dethcow]

Just saw the delisting notification elsewhere. I have never played a Psikyo game except Strikers 1945 Plus. Are any of these worth getting before they go away? How is the emulation?

Strikers I-III, Gunbird 2, and Dragon Blaze are amazing games, with Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze specifically being two of the best shmups ever made, but I'll leave it to someone else to go over the specifics of the Steam versions (Dragon Blaze and Gunbird 2 are the best in this regard, I think, being "fine" in terms of input lag, just being very barebones ports with little in the way of options)

Zero Gunner 2- on Steam isn't really Zero Gunner 2 (hence the -) and is basically unplayable because they rebuilt the whole game from scratch and it's very different from NAOMI ZG2 (which is another masterpiece).

Psikyo games scratch an itch that non-Psikyo shmups can never really satisfy... I highly recommend giving Gunbird 2 or Dragon Blaze a try via mame to see if it's up your alley. If you have access to a Naomi or DC then I'd also highly recommend the real Zero Gunner 2 if you want a truly unique shmup experience that still retains everything that makes Psikyo Psikyo.

[aak]

And they announce this AFTER the sale? Very scummy. I'm not buying these barebones substandard ports at full price. I might have at sale price.

[BrianC]

Psikyo games scratch an itch that non-Psikyo shmups can never really satisfy... I highly recommend giving Gunbird 2 or Dragon Blaze a try via mame to see if it's up your alley. If you have access to a Naomi or DC then I'd also highly recommend the real Zero Gunner 2 if you want a truly unique shmup experience that still retains everything that makes Psikyo Psikyo.

Gunspike/Cannon Spike is also worth a look, though it's more of a run and gun. It uses the Zero Gunner 2 engine.

[Steven]

Just saw the delisting notification elsewhere. I have never played a Psikyo game except Strikers 1945 Plus. Are any of these worth getting before they go away? How is the emulation?

Strikers I-III, Gunbird 2, and Dragon Blaze are amazing games, with Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze specifically being two of the best shmups ever made, but I'll leave it to someone else to go over the specifics of the Steam versions (Dragon Blaze and Gunbird 2 are the best in this regard, I think, being "fine" in terms of input lag, just being very barebones ports with little in the way of options)

Zero Gunner 2- on Steam isn't really Zero Gunner 2 (hence the -) and is basically unplayable because they rebuilt the whole game from scratch and it's very different from NAOMI ZG2 (which is another masterpiece).

Psikyo games scratch an itch that non-Psikyo shmups can never really satisfy... I highly recommend giving Gunbird 2 or Dragon Blaze a try via mame to see if it's up your alley. If you have access to a Naomi or DC then I'd also highly recommend the real Zero Gunner 2 if you want a truly unique shmup experience that still retains everything that makes Psikyo Psikyo.

I always forget MAME exists... but cool, thanks. I was considering buying the PCBs for Strikers I and II a while ago because they are super cheap compared to other famous STG PCBs. They're still not cheap, but you know what I mean. Maybe I'll get these instead. Maybe. It would have been nice if this delisting was announced BEFORE the sale ended and not after.

City Connection is credited as a developer on these Steam versions, so I'm quite hesitant, as I don't trust those guys at all. I really hope that it's possible to get rid of the annoying backgrounds and to remap the keyboard controls. It's sad that I even have to worry about the inclusion of basic functionality that should be standard, but...

[qmish]

Strikers I-III, Gunbird 2, and Dragon Blaze are amazing games, with Gunbird 2 and Dragon Blaze specifically being two of the best shmups ever made, but I'll leave it to someone else to go over the specifics of the Steam versions (Dragon Blaze and Gunbird 2 are the best in this regard, I think, being "fine" in terms of input lag, just being very barebones ports with little in the way of options)

Zero Gunner 2- on Steam isn't really Zero Gunner 2 (hence the -) and is basically unplayable because they rebuilt the whole game from scratch and it's very different from NAOMI ZG2 (which is another masterpiece).

Psikyo games scratch an itch that non-Psikyo shmups can never really satisfy... I highly recommend giving Gunbird 2 or Dragon Blaze a try via mame to see if it's up your alley. If you have access to a Naomi or DC then I'd also highly recommend the real Zero Gunner 2 if you want a truly unique shmup experience that still retains everything that makes Psikyo Psikyo.

Personally I also enjoy early ones. Like, subjectively I prefer Samurai Aces over Sengoku Blade (also known as Tengai - though it has its passionate fans), and Gunbird 1 has charm, too. Even though they are more simplistic than later releases, but... maybe cause I do like Aero Fighters series - and I think Psikyo shares the DNA. The only one I don't like much is Sol Divide, which has interesting idea behind it, but implementation seems lacking (at least character portraits are cool).

Speaking of Naomi/Dreamcast... Cannon Spike (Gun Spike) is fun.

[davyK]

Leaving Steam.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/new ... the-month/

[Mills]

There is a site on YouTube I viewed recently and tried to sign up for Striker's 1945 high score run but it wouldn't work.

[bobrocks95]

A lot of these got older releases on earlier consoles, like I have Gunbird on Saturn, 2 was on Dreamcast, and several were in 2 packs on PS2 as I recall?

I'll have to start doing research and scrub through the thread, but does anyone know offhand if any of these ports were for games that hadn't been ported home before, or are superior to prior console ports? City Connection makes me assume no, but it would be a shame to miss something.

[LordHypnos]

Gunbird 2 Dreamcast port doesn’t play nice with VGA (could matter depending on your setup), though it is the only one with Morrigan from Darkstalkers as a playable character, which is super cool. Not sure about any other port(s) of it.

[bobrocks95]

Gunbird 2 Dreamcast port doesn’t play nice with VGA (could matter depending on your setup), though it is the only one with Morrigan from Darkstalkers as a playable character, which is super cool. Not sure about any other port(s) of it.

From what I can tell Gunbird 2 on Dreamcast has a 240p option that I'd imagine is the best option for it. Probably the best platform for it then (PS2 port sounds like it's 480i only).

[LordHypnos]

From what I can tell Gunbird 2 on Dreamcast has a 240p option that I'd imagine is the best option for it. Probably the best platform for it then (PS2 port sounds like it's 480i only).

Yeah, I think I remember it being 240p back when I had a standard def CRT TV. If you have display hardware that can work with that, it's a great port, but it doesn't work with VGA out, is all I'm trying to say.

It also has a debug menu that you can access for stage select, and the full gamut of insultingly-named difficulty options.

[dai jou bu]

Dunno if I can be even hyped for this kind of release. The M2 ports of the thunder force games for switch spoiled me for what a shmup brought to current generation standards should be.

Well that, and I can use morrigan on my Dreamcast copy of gunbird 2. She has big hooters though.

[bobrocks95]

Racketboy has some great coverage for at least the PS2 2-packs: https://racketboy.com/retro/the-playsta ... ps-library

I think if I have everything right it breaks down to the following being better in older ports:

• Strikers 1945 (Saturn- PS2 ports isn't great)

• Strikers 1945 II (PS1 (both of these based on shmups junkie's comments in his every Saturn shmup video)- PS2 port isn't great)

• Gunbird - Saturn?

• Gunbird 2 - DC (Morrigan exclusive)

• Sengoku Ace - PS2

• Sengoku Blade - Saturn (exclusive character)

• Sol Divide - Saturn/PS1 (exclusive RPG-ish mode)

• Dragon Blaze - PS2

• Zero Gunner 2 - DC (Naomi title and had to be recreated by Zerodiv since source code was lost or something)

That's of course with a money is no object, retro collector brainrot sort of angle.

So maybe Strikers 1999/III, Gunbarich, and Sengoku Cannon (if you're even interested in it) are worth picking up just since they lack ports elsewhere?

[Firehawke]

Just a quick aside on the subject of Contra: MAME did fix the rolling mines issue sometime in the last few years. Arcade Anniversary is still broken and almost certainly won't ever be fixed.

[Jucksalbe]

Arcade Anniversary is still broken and almost certainly won't ever be fixed.

Does it work properly in the Arcade Archives release?

[D]

I've had several freezes with strikers 1999/III on ps4
saturn port of gunbird is a super great port! On of my favorite shmups on the Saturn.
The port on the PS4 Psikyo collection has music that is so much worse than the Saturn port.

[BrianC]

Arcade Anniversary is still broken and almost certainly won't ever be fixed.

Does it work properly in the Arcade Archives release?

yes. Super Contra's intro samples play properly too, unlike with the Arcade Anniversary version.

[Steven]

I just remembered this delisting is happening soon, which means in only a few days. This is a reminder to my future self to not forget to figure out which of these are worth buying before they go away.

[AGermanArtist]

Dragon Blaze
Gunbird
Strikers 1945 II
Strikers 1945 III
Zero Gunner 2-

[Gamer707b]

I had a physical of this a few years back and if the digital that is referenced here is by the same people as the physical I had, then it's horrible. I am the least input lag sensitive person, and I even noticed it. it was also very bare bones. Basically, just a rom dump of the games and a bad one at that. I say stay away from this, especially if there are better options for these games.