Xeno Crisis [MD/NG/PS4/Switch/PC]

[Stevens]

I had a good laugh at that Sumez:D

[Sumez]

But it's actually true.

How sweet is that box art though? I think I made the right choice, going for the modern US style box.

[Stevens]

If I collected Mega Drive I would have been all over it. They did a really nice job on the box/art work.

Fortunately the game is good too.

[it290]

Do all the boxes use the male/female marine artwork? I like that one too, but I don't think it was an option; I ordered the Model 1 style US box art and the shipping preview still shows the title screen tentacle background thing. Honestly I'm fine with either but I'm hoping all orders were updated to the marine art.

[Sumez]

To my knowledge yeah. I've seen one other variant out there, not sure if it's exclusive to the collector's edition or maybe specific to the "older"variant MegaDrive box. But it's still equally cool:

Spoiler

[ED-057]

can you make the jump from one roof to the next

[Sumez]

XD

That's a lot farther than it looks.

[it290]

To my knowledge yeah. I've seen one other variant out there, not sure if it's exclusive to the collector's edition or maybe specific to the "older"variant MegaDrive box.

Yeah, pretty sure that's the collector's edition. I agree that both versions are equally cool, but the CE art somehow does a slightly better job of captures the drama of the game in classic 8/16bit fashion IMO. It's just really striking. I love both, but I hope that Bitmap Brothers will eventually release the print files for both versions as this is quickly becoming one of my all time favorite MD games.

[Sumez]

They have a few available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hdaoaf ... UdCqx/view

[it290]

Oh, cool. Just the standard version and not print resolution, but still a neat resource.

My US Genesis 1 style cart came in today and the printing is definitely too dark (this image has its exposure jacked way up), but they definitely nailed the look and feel of the packaging, down to the simulated CRT 'photos' on the back.

I also noticed that the cover is reversible, so if you prefer you can flip the insert and get the Model 1 or Model 2 style art depending on your preferences.

Finally, is it just me or does the female marine have a serious Jill Valentine thing going on in the cover art?

[Sumez]

I also noticed that the cover is reversible, so if you prefer you can flip the insert and get the Model 1 or Model 2 style art depending on your preferences.

Whoa, hadn't noticed. That's neat!

[bigbadboaz]

Am I understanding correctly that the current-gen console versions all default to twinstick control and you CANNOT choose the native Genesis control scheme, even if you wish to?

[Kiken]

Am I understanding correctly that the current-gen console versions all default to twinstick control and you CANNOT choose the native Genesis control scheme, even if you wish to?

Twinstick/6 button pad mode, correct. There is no option to enable 3 button mode with the single shot button that performs lock and strafe when held (Shock Troopers style). There is also no option to remap buttons, so even if you have no problems playing in 8 button mode, you had better get used to the default layout.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Is it sheer laziness when a developer can't be bothered to implement custom remapping of buttons, or is it arrogance in assuming all gamers will be using the exact same controllers and will fall in love with the defaults? Either way, it sucks that this still happens.

[bigbadboaz]

...

That really stinks. I have no idea why certain devs overlook this, but it's been a common option for so long it's basically standard. And there's no way implementing it is more than a two-second task relative to all the other demands of development. There will always be a good number of users who want it, so there's just no excuse.

I'm off to e-mail BB about a patch (nicely, don't worry )

[it290]

Remap would be welcome, for sure. I don't think the loss of 3-button mode is really a big deal though as honestly the game is not really optimized for it and I can't imagine 1cc'ing it that way.

[bigbadboaz]

I just think the 3-button control is important to preserving the feel of what the game is - a title developed for the Mega Drive first and foremost. With the glut of twinstick indie games that hit PS4 and Xbox One over the last five years, forcing this game into that mold just adds a layer of genericism I don't like.

[BIL]

Late to the party as usual. Having a great time with this (playing PS4 ver) - it's not quite my wheelhouse, being more Smash TV than Shock Troopers, but I love a bit of Super Famicom STV, and this scratches the itch. The very slight inertia was an early red flag, but it turned out to be a false alarm - with the airtight controls and hit detection, and some excellent animation, it plays absolutely fine. Nice and tough, gonna see if I can 1CC Hard this weekend.

Actually, not entirely divorced from Shock Troopers. The dodge roll and close combat are sharp. Snatching items from underneath crowds feels especially slick. Just gotta remember not to hit [attack] before you're clear, since it'll cancel the roll - which is of course a useful trick in itself, when harnessed.

Spoiler

I love how brutally powerful the rifle smash feels, balanced by its relatively long cooldown. The range is just right - can comfortably splatter a close-packed cluster of foes, but you can't just barrel through whole lines unscathed. Perfect for breaking out of encirclements or crushing cocky bastards.

Spoiler

Currently three for three on Western-developed hardcore 2D action games, with this, Blazing Chrome and Fight'n Rage. Can say firsthand that the upcoming Steel Assault is quality, too, and looking at picking up Sega arcade racing tribute Hotshots Racing. I will have to continue chipping away at my weeaboo racist ways.

[gct]

Also late to the party - I saw that this game finally got a (small) discount in my GOG wishlist.

I haven't been able to play it. I am using an Evil D-pad Xbox 360 wireless controller with the official Microsoft dongle, and the controller isn't recognized in the game at all.

I do have 8bitdo MD30 MD version + Mayflash adapter as well as a MD30 BT version, and a Retro-bit Saturn BT so I will have options, but I would like to use the X360 for convenience. Anyone had success on PC with the wireless X360?

[Sumez]

So yeah, due to unfortunate circumstances back when I received the game, and then finally trying it at a gettogether at someone else's place, I never really got to sit down in my own home and try to get into it. I finally did that this week, been playing it a bit for the past three days.

And man, I've rarely been as split on a game. On one hand I'm really hooked and can't stop playing it. It has so many fun ideas going for it. On the other hand it's shock full of little awful decisions that could easily have been fixed for a much better game experience, things that I feel would have been fixed given honest feedback from just one single beta tester who knew what's up. Haven't seen it mentioned too much in here, but some of it290's early comments only support some of my experiences.

Basically, I've rarely played a game where dying so often felt like it was no fault of my own, mostly thanks to the lack of visual feedback given to the player in a lot of different scenarios. I do realise that's partly scrub talk, and I could have played better, and a vast majority of my deaths could probably have been prevented through better play.
But at the same times there are ways to die in a game that feel like "I gotta git gud" and others that just feel entirely unfun, and this game is full of the latter. It's not that the game is consistently unfair, it's just a bit frustrating.

The most obvious example is enemies spawning in so fast that if you are busy focusing on another challenge, you barely have any chance to avoid them before they damage you for being on top of your face. This is especially bad with the "plant" type enemies brekaing through the floor on the first stage, but remains prevalent throughout the entire game (and IMO only works well with the one enemy type on st6 (electricity trap) which is specifically designed around this type of challenge)
Give me just half a second more to react to these before they do damage, and it would immediately make the game much more pleasant to play. Hell, give me a full second and it would probably be fine. I realise that would also make the game a lot easier, but I really feel like the bulk of the challenge should be on tactical positioning and enemy priority. Quick thinking is a central gameplay element, but spotting a hard to see shadow forming around your feet plays more into the abstraction of the game's graphics, than pure gameplay mechanics, and the hitboxes being just slightly larger than what can be justified doesn't really help either.
As such, an easily visible indicator of all the places enemies can potentially spawn in a room would probably make the game better as well. Once you know the game, you know what to look out for - doors, pits, and horizontal walls - but in the heat of the action it's easy to forget that one place is a danger zone where simply standing there can get you killed with no warning. Again, sure, this is part of the challenge, and maintaining a cool overview of all these factors definitely does play into the game experience. But I'm a fan of streamlining the information given to the player, making the line from visuals to gameplay less obstructed by abstractions such as "that was the spot I came in through the bottom edge, therefore there must be a door there, and as such it's a danger zone" as opposed to simply "ok this place is clearly a danger zone".

Speaking of visual feedback, the lack of feedback on when you take a hit meshes very unfortunately with the game's ability to damage you without realising you did anything wrong. Couple that with the fact that rolling anywhere makes the exact same sound that plays when you get hit, which is just an irredeemably baffling decision.
And that again brings me into my last real big gripe with the game, being how inconsistent the mechanics feel, and how often I'm not really sure what happens. Like some times you'll rely on the automatically activated melee attack to kill off an enemy as you walk towards it, but some times the animation comes out too early and completely misses the enemy, making you walk into your death, or some times it just straight up seems to miss for no actual reason. The melee attack is something you should always be able to rely on, but when you can't, it makes the game feel less comfortable to play. Hell, I'm also fairly sure I've occasionally been rolling through enemies that still manage to damage me while I was rolling? I need to start recording gameplay to figure out if this is just a bug in the game, or some really unintuitive gameplay mechanic I'm not seeing.

I'm really strongly considering making a rom hack to fix a few of the most simple of these issues, because I feel like Xeno Crisis could have been an incredibly fun game if it weren't for just a few tiny tweaks. If it becomes too easy in the process, toning down all the life-ups given out randomly would be a nice way to remedy that. They are another aspect that feel just a bit too euroshmuppy. I'd rather have one or two guaranteed life-ups before the boss room, than a constant random chance of getting anywhere between 0 to 8 on a stage.

[TransatlanticFoe]

This has been on Gamepass so I gave it a go and honestly felt the same about taking damage from spawning enemies. The plants being the worst as you say. Also the roll, I had to idea where the i-frames were with it because it makes the same bloody noise as being hit - when's it working and when's it not? Fuck knows.

It can feel like a real slog at times too, especially when you get the sandworms hiding or that flying demon thing that's both tough to hit and has a fair whack of HP so it's just "sit still so I can kill you" rather than any threat. Then stuff just keeps getting trickled through with no end in sight. I popped some cheats on to see the final couple of levels and it got pretty BS - shield enemies, invisible things... nah it's a bit much. And then the final boss is easy, riiiight.

Honestly, I think all the random stuff is not a great approach as it's just too inconsistent. Sometimes you get shitty power ups, sometimes you get showered with health. A fixed core route through a stage and some simple adaptive difficulty (weapons + more enemies at full health, respite and health when you're on your last legs) would go a long way - some actual level design instead of shitting RNG on you.

Worst of all though... just give me the MD-style controls. Twin stick sucks because it's rigid 8-way and it's tough to consistently hit the right thing with an analogue stick. Face buttons, SNES Smash TV style, are a bit better - but "hold to lock direction" is what always felt natural to me and clearly I'm too old to adjust. You put it in the game so why would you take it away?!

[BrianC]

Twin stick sucks because it's rigid 8-way and it's tough to consistently hit the right thing with an analogue stick.

I should try the DC version with Twin Sticks. Probably doesn't suck with those since those aren't analog.

[Sumez]

Glad it's not just me. I hate to come across like I'm just whining. I actually really like the game, it just really tries to annoy me in so many ways. Just found out that rolling over zombies when they are grounded occasionally will also damage me, even when it does kill them in the process. It really sucks that you can't consistently rely on so much of the game's basic tech.
I made it to the final boss on Hard using two elixirs last night, but the 1CC still feels really far away. The final stage actually isn't bad, and I didn't use any elixirs my first time there, though I did get a really lucky full health drop. The shield enemies are kinda fun - you need to roll into them to break their shield.

I haven't tried twin stick style shooting yet, but it's disappointing if people don't like that either. One of my biggest issues with the controls is actually how you can't easily roll in one direction and then quickly shoot the opposite direction. That makes using the shot button to break out of a roll kinda pointless IMO. Even if you're holding another direction you'll always shoot the way you were facing when you come out of it, which feels like another thing that should have been cleared up in the beta.

I talked a bit with an experienced player on Discord who told me the ports to modern platforms actually addresses some of the issues I have with the game. Most notably a smaller hitbox for taking damage and a bigger one for your melee attack (which explains BIL's gif of him taking out multiple demons in a single swoop, that definitely wouldn't have been possible in the original game).
I'm gonna try the Neo Geo version this weekend. I hope it has a lot of the same improvements.

[BIL]

I talked a bit with an experienced player on Discord who told me the ports to modern platforms actually addresses some of the issues I have with the game. Most notably a smaller hitbox for taking damage and a bigger one for your melee attack (which explains BIL's gif of him taking out multiple demons in a single swoop, that definitely wouldn't have been possible in the original game).
I'm gonna try the Neo Geo version this weekend. I hope it has a lot of the same improvements.

Aha - it's been many months since I last played, but I was wondering how I'd missed the stuff you mentioned. Rolling in particular always felt Shock Troopers-reliable.

Interested to hear what you think of the later revisions (I was on PS4, fwiw). I think it plays really well overall, even with the slight inertia on movement. Gotta go back and try for that 1CC, just got tangled up with Other Stuff™.

[SuperDeadite]

I have come close to buying this many times, but have yet to pull the trigger. Can never make up my mind on which version to buy. Part of me really wants the NeoGeo version, but converting my yen based salary into UK pounds is just too much.

[Sumez]

Came within few hits on the final boss for the hard mode 1CC three times now. I'm finally able to get there very consistently and hate the game a lot less. Its actually super fun.
I wonder if the Neo Geo version is easier than megadrive, or if I'm just getting better. It doesn't really *feel* different, outside of the new added enemy type on the final stage.

[Sumez]

I guess it was just a question of time
Got the 1cc finally after a couple more attempts. After a few beers and at a noisy arcade too.

https://www.twitch.tv/the_shed_arcade/v ... a&t=11186s

Most of my criticism still stands, but this game is great fun once it clicks.

[BrianC]

I find it interesting that the NeoGeo and DC versions went back to the two more powerful enemies with the first boss instead of multiple less powerful ones like with the Switch version.

[Sumez]

My best bet is that a lot of the MegaDrive code was straight up reused on Neo Geo, since both run on a 68K, while the ports for modern platforms were probably created from scratch. That explains why the more fair(?) hitboxes of other recent ports didn't make it on to Neo Geo. Not sure about Dreamcast.

[BrianC]

DC seems to be closer to the NeoGeo version, from what I have seen of the NeoGeo version in videos, though the NeoGeo version has blood on walls.