Over Ob J オーバーオブジェ Famicom

[Steven]

Yeah, I never should have mentioned it. Let's stop here and go back to talking about the game itself.

[Ghegs]

Thank you.

Regarding the proximity to enemies and its effect on scoring, can you tell how big an impact it has on score? Enough that that the risk/reward feels meaningful and fun, I hope.

There's already a full playthrough of the game on Youtube, but I don't want to watch it now that I've got the game coming my way.

[Steven]

I haven't really been able to play it that much yet because I've been busy with work, but knowing that system exists makes me play a little bit more aggressively now. I'll have to mess around with it and see what changes.

Alright, it seems that the distance between you and the enemy makes a massive difference. I only tested on the first zako that appear, but killing them from as far away as possible gave me 110 points and pointblanking them gave me 200. It's more complex than just a simple "pointblank to get more points" because I was able to get 110 points, 130 points, 180 points, etc., based on the distance.

Something also happens if you pause, hold A, and press select. Not sure exactly what it does yet, but the manual says it activates the 2倍表示する機能... the double indication feature? I have no idea what this does, but it definitely does something or it wouldn't be in the manual. There is no mention of the scoring system in the manual at all.

One thing I can say is that I recommend playing with external autofire; the game has a very fast internal autofire (20~30Hz) that cannot be changed, and sometimes zako will fly between the gaps in your shots, and since you have to kill everything very fast to avoid becoming overwhelmed, this can be dangerous. I don't know what the default speed on the Nt mini Noir controller's turbo is, but I think whatever that speed is is better.

Oh yeah, and you can only somewhat credit feed this game. Once you game over, it kicks you back to the title screen, and using a continue starts you at the beginning of the stage that you game overed on. You can continue as many times as you want, of course.

[soupbones]

Ug - missed out on this.

Any chance of another production run? Or anywhere to buy the ROM?

[pablumatic]

Ug - missed out on this.

Any chance of another production run? Or anywhere to buy the ROM?

I got a copy by following BEEP on Twitter. They post stock notifications there.

https://twitter.com/BEEP_SHOP

[caldwert]

My copy showed up the other day, but I just kept checking Beep and used that World Shipping service on their site. Fairly easy other than it sporadically being in stock.

[To Far Away Times]

I'm loving the low quality tape effects in the trailer.

[Ghegs]

Got my OverObj today.

It's not as much a simple tech demo as I feared, but I think it is a bit lacking as a game. Comparisons to Recca are unavoidable, and that one has more features (different weapon types, subweapons, gameplay modes, more intricate scoring, background graphics that are more than just pixel-sized-stars against the void). And there's the other great FC homebrew Blade Buster, which only has 2/5 minute score attack modes available, but arguably looks nicer and since I personally enjoy caravan modes, it feels like it has more interesting content. OverObj does feel like it flickers less than Recca does, despite the bullet count being similar. But I think had the game been created back in the day, as a normal, late-era Famicom release, the developer would've been told to cut down on the amount of bullets a bit so some other stuff can fit in there as well.

It is still technically very impressive, and pretty fun to play, too. And plenty difficulty enough, at least for me. I've only made it to Stage 3 on a credit so far. The game does reward aggressive playing, it's better to destroy enemies fast and preferably before they get any of their shots off, so memorizing enemy locations becomes important. This also brings the player up the playing area so they can point-blank the enemies, which also results in more points thanks to the proximity multiplier and gives extends faster.

The music reminds me of Hector '87, but it sort of feels like in belongs to a different game. It doesn't feel...right for bullethell, for some reason.

There's a hidden options menu available via a code (at the title screen hold down B and press Right x 9, Up x 2, Left x 2, Down x 9 - the same code as in Xevious' FC port) from which Stage Select, invulnerability, and infinite lives can be enabled, so practicing the later stages is very doable with those. There's also a BGM/sound effect player there, nice.

The dev tweeted here that a NES release might be happening, so that might be an easier way for people to get their hands on the game, if it does pan out.

[soupbones]

The dev tweeted here that a NES release might be happening, so that might be an easier way for people to get their hands on the game, if it does pan out.

Oooh - thats big! Im still checking Beep several times a day for the restock.

[Steven]

It is technically impressive, but the gameplay is just kind of okay, and if you played it without knowing about how the scoring system works, you'd probably not think that highly of it outside of its technical accomplishments. I started to like the game way more after learning that it actually has a scoring system. Before that I was not especially impressed with the gameplay at all.

[Ghegs]

The dev just put up a Twitter poll asking how many people are still hoping to purchase a copy. He's run out of the printed materials and needs to order more, so this is to help him estimate how much he needs.

The choices are:

I want to buy it
I already have it
Just show results

[mario64]

The dev just put up a Twitter poll asking how many people are still hoping to purchase a copy. He's run out of the printed materials and needs to order more, so this is to help him estimate how much he needs.

The choices are:

I want to buy it
I already have it
Just show results

Thank you. I responded. Hoping they make more available.

[mario64]

Beep briefly had 11 in stock around 6am eastern time today but of course I missed out. Doesn't look like this one is going to be a realistic option for those outside of Japan.

[Steven]

Beep briefly had 11 in stock around 6am eastern time today but of course I missed out. Doesn't look like this one is going to be a realistic option for those outside of Japan.

Game Shop 1983 has some, although I am unsure if they ship abroad.

https://shop.1983.jp/shop/shop.cgi?orde ... superkey=1

[Hastor]

Game Shop 1983 has some, although I am unsure if they ship abroad.

https://shop.1983.jp/shop/shop.cgi?orde ... superkey=1

I have a Forward2Me account and trying to see if that will work. Placed an order (had to make a fake phone number to match JPN format), and I guess they email me later after confirming the order for payment. I picked the one that requires a PayPal account. Still no idea if I'll actually get it but I'll let you know! I've only used my Forward2Me account once and that was in Germany. Hope I entered the japanese address right, was using Chrome's translate feature to do my order. Wish me luck lol!

They may just email me and say no...

[cocoron]

I just have purchased a copy from beep-shop.com a few minutes ago.

They may have left some in stock...

[mario64]

I just have purchased a copy from beep-shop.com a few minutes ago.

They may have left some in stock...

Same. Hopefully that Worldwide shipping service comes through.

[soupbones]

Grabbed a copy as well - just checked (Aug 5, 8am est) and seems like they still have copies left: https://www.beep-shop.com/ec/products/d ... F-3--35721

[soupbones]

Received my copy the other day from Worldwide.

It was pricey to get it here (U.S.), but worth it! Level 2 boss currently kicking my ass.

[mario64]

Received my copy the other day from Worldwide.

It was pricey to get it here (U.S.), but worth it! Level 2 boss currently kicking my ass.

Same here. Pricey but ultimately very smooth purchase.

[Hastor]

I got orders in at both. Got one from beep beep days ago. One from 1983 didn't even invoice me for a week. Using my own forwarding service and first time using the JPN address, so I'm hoping I entered it right. Another several days later, I have an email that it is shipping soon. It oddly encourages me to share pics on social media but NOT of the box or manual... I am using translation to read this wall-of-text email, but have compared two different translators. It is over 5000 chars long so I have to break it up for the free translators with 1500 char limits.

It goes on to say something about towels. Does any one know what the heck this is about?
""Even if you don't get a specific towel offer, if you order over 1983 yen, we will give you some kind of 1983 towel.
　We will add some kind of 1983 towel to your order even if you do not get a specific towel prize.
　We produce game towels with the cooperation of game makers.""

Both translators word it a bit different but say the same thing and talk of towels. There's other mentions of it in the email, and a link to basically every product they sell.
I just hope I get it because it was over 1983 yen and I wanna see what this towel stuff is about. I only ordered on beep beep as it had been several days without an invoice from 1983 and beep was ready to take my money at time of order. Still not 100% sure I'll get the 1983 copy! I'm guessing there will be another email for actual shipping, and hopefully one from my forwarding service that they got something.

[Nnnn]

Finally had a chance to check this out. Cool game, but it makes me kinda drowsy. Probably because there's so many bullets, but all the bullets are the same sprite, and have relatively the same movement and speed... Unfortunately it feels a bit lethargic.

-It does perform well, and it's very impressive for a doujin famicom game.
I'm not a fan of how the bomb doesn't damage enemies.
-Extends are fairly forgiving. Extra life every 100,000 points, which is fairly easy to rack up by point blanking bosses. I think chip damage is also affected by proximity.
-After dying a couple of times, your bomb stock gets raised to 5 bombs per life. Considering you'll get at least one extend per stage (at least for stage 1-3, haven't seen beyond that yet), I think there's plenty enough resources to clear the game.
-The lack of things to do is kind of disappointing. I wish there was at least item collection, or maybe a more interesting way to interact with the bullets than just clearing them all instantly with the smart bomb. Even just some destructible bullets would have added some nice variety.
-Every level has the same background, which adds to the whole game feeling repetitive.

Something also happens if you pause, hold A, and press select. Not sure exactly what it does yet, but the manual says it activates the 2倍表示する機能... the double indication feature? I have no idea what this does, but it definitely does something or it wouldn't be in the manual. There is no mention of the scoring system in the manual at all.

This is explained in the manual, but it's referring to how he uses special programming tricks to display twice as much stuff on screen as should normally be possible on the famicom. However, this isn't supported by all famiclones/etc, so if your system has trouble displaying the game properly you can turn off the 'double display mode.' The only thing I really noticed changing was that the starfield is just black with the feature turned off.

[Steven]

Finally had a chance to check this out. Cool game, but it makes me kinda drowsy. Probably because there's so many bullets, but all the bullets are the same sprite, and have relatively the same movement and speed... Unfortunately it feels a bit lethargic.

-It does perform well, and it's very impressive for a doujin famicom game.
I'm not a fan of how the bomb doesn't damage enemies.
-Extends are fairly forgiving. Extra life every 100,000 points, which is fairly easy to rack up by point blanking bosses. I think chip damage is also affected by proximity.
-After dying a couple of times, your bomb stock gets raised to 5 bombs per life. Considering you'll get at least one extend per stage (at least for stage 1-3, haven't seen beyond that yet), I think there's plenty enough resources to clear the game.
-The lack of things to do is kind of disappointing. I wish there was at least item collection, or maybe a more interesting way to interact with the bullets than just clearing them all instantly with the smart bomb. Even just some destructible bullets would have added some nice variety.
-Every level has the same background, which adds to the whole game feeling repetitive.

Something also happens if you pause, hold A, and press select. Not sure exactly what it does yet, but the manual says it activates the 2倍表示する機能... the double indication feature? I have no idea what this does, but it definitely does something or it wouldn't be in the manual. There is no mention of the scoring system in the manual at all.

This is explained in the manual, but it's referring to how he uses special programming tricks to display twice as much stuff on screen as should normally be possible on the famicom. However, this isn't supported by all famiclones/etc, so if your system has trouble displaying the game properly you can turn off the 'double display mode.' The only thing I really noticed changing was that the starfield is just black with the feature turned off.

I just now realized that this will probably work with the Noir's ability to display more sprites or whatever than a real FC can. I can't believe I didn't think of that before. I'll have to try it tonight once I get some time.

In any case, your list of stuff here is pretty much identical to how I feel about it. The game's okay, but I'd honestly rather play other stuff instead, which is probably why I haven't played it for about 2 months. The game is kind of... I don't really want to say boring, but... boring.

[Nnnn]

If it means anything, I'm playing on a real famicom and the double display mode works fine. There's also a test screen you can use to confirm whether or not the game is displaying properly in double mode... I think you can hold select while turning on the game or something? I'd have to check again, but it says in the manual.

[Ghegs]

The NES version is now available at Neodolphino Productions!

[Yes Boss!]

Thanks for this. I’ve been missing the fami version as they come up.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The little visual tribute/nod towards Dodonpachi's initial fightercraft launch with the Over Obj Famicom/NES cartridge release is quite cool. Didn't realize that Over Obj is a modern day danmaku stg title that really pushes the hardware limits with the FC/NES hardware indeed.

Checked out a bit of shmupper Jaimer's youtube vid of his no-miss playthough of Over Ob j -- quite impressive. Jaimers also mentions in his YT vid about doing a "No Miss-No Bomb" Clear would give the player a whopping final score above 1,500,000+ points easily with the Over Obj game (but that'd be really pushing it assuming the player can pull it off successfully).

The final pic of the main character shown after beating the final boss is also a nice little touch. Will Little Sound make a proper sequel to Over Obj?

Interesting to learn that Little Sound makes the custom NES cart pcbs of Over Obj and sends them directly to Neodolphino Productions for cart assembly and final packaging with a proper NES game box + instruction manual to sell in the USA. The slick blue colored translucent NES cart shell goes quite well with the overall sci-fi theme/vibe of Over Obj (something that the original FC cart of the same name doesn't have with it's solid pink colored endowed FC cart shell anyways). Something different for a change of pace to spice things up nevertheless, right? Thanks Ghegs for that NES Over Obj link, ordered one right away.

Seems like Recca and Over Obj really push the FC/NES hardware to lofty new heights (with overall framerate speed and the amount of sprites shown on-screen). Even the FC release of "Astro Ninja Man DX" stg game (circa 2022) pushes the hardware to the limit and then some with it's amount of sprites shown on-screen along with a most-of-the-time brisk overall framerate speed (some portions of any given stage still suffer from slowdown issues at times but that's to be expected as usual).

Would an overclocked FC/NES console remedy the sprite flickering issue with so many sprites on-screen present with this Over Obj cart?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[SuperDeadite]

The little visual tribute/nod towards Dodonpachi's initial fightercraft launch with the Over Obj Famicom/NES cartridge release is quite cool. Didn't realize that Over Obj is a modern day danmaku stg title that really pushes the hardware limits with the FC/NES hardware indeed.

Checked out a bit of shmupper Jaimer's youtube vid of his no-miss playthough of Over Ob j -- quite impressive. Jaimers also mentions in his YT vid about doing a "No Miss-No Bomb" Clear would give the player a whopping final score above 1,500,000+ points easily with the Over Obj game (but that'd be really pushing it assuming the player can pull it off successfully).

The final pic of the main character shown after beating the final boss is also a nice little touch. Will Little Sound make a proper sequel to Over Obj?

Interesting to learn that Little Sound makes the custom NES cart pcbs of Over Obj and sends them directly to Neodolphino Productions for cart assembly and final packaging with a proper NES game box + instruction manual to sell in the USA. The slick blue colored translucent NES cart shell goes quite well with the overall sci-fi theme/vibe of Over Obj (something that the original FC cart of the same name doesn't have with it's solid pink colored endowed FC cart shell anyways). Something different for a change of pace to spice things up nevertheless, right? Thanks Ghegs for that NES Over Obj link, ordered one right away.

Seems like Recca and Over Obj really push the FC/NES hardware to lofty new heights (with overall framerate speed and the amount of sprites shown on-screen). Even the FC release of "Astro Ninja Man DX" stg game (circa 2022) pushes the hardware to the limit and then some with it's amount of sprites shown on-screen along with a most-of-the-time brisk overall framerate speed (some portions of any given stage still suffer from slowdown issues at times but that's to be expected as usual).

Would an overclocked FC/NES console remedy the sprite flickering issue with so many sprites on-screen present with this Over Obj cart?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

Overclocking has nothing to do with sprite limits. The Fami/NES can only do 8 sprites per scanline, so go over that you get flicker. However, the new crazy Famicom PPU upgrade board allows for 15 sprites at once! This is a massive improvement and a damn cool upgrade: https://www.kadenken.com/view/item/000000001707

Demo: https://x.com/zan2zanjp/status/1778703691627065626

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Overclocking has nothing to do with sprite limits. The Fami/NES can only do 8 sprites per scanline, so go over that you get flicker. However, the new crazy Famicom PPU upgrade board allows for 15 sprites at once! This is a massive improvement and a damn cool upgrade: https://www.kadenken.com/view/item/000000001707

Demo: https://x.com/zan2zanjp/status/1778703691627065626

For SuperDeadite,

Would the above listed new Famicom PPU upgrade work on a NES console setup as well?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[SuperDeadite]

Probably ok in a top loader, don't think it would fit in a toaster though. But, it is only being sold for Famicom use, so I can't confirm.