New Habit Soft Famicom game: HABiT! Carnival Shooting

[soupbones]

Habit Soft is at it again with a new caravan shooter, this time for the Famicom. Going by the incredibly creative name of HABit Carnival Shooting!

https://www.gameimpact.info/habit/

Really enjoyed Gunstream, so of course I preordered this. Should be arriving by the end of January.

Programmed by the same dev responsible for Coryoon and Air Zonk (Yoshiharu Takaoka), with music by Star Soldier composer Takeaki Kunimoto



Like before, they don't sell oversees - so you'll have to use a proxy service like Zen Market.

[Ghegs]

Oooh, thanks for the heads-up.

[soupbones]

Haven't received this yet, but they've already announced a new version; HABiT SPICY Version...



★ Differences between HABiT! ver.2.00 and SPICY ★

• Change the background to sunset color
  Change all enemy character graphics
  Change enemy character's strength (shooting bullets, movement speed, etc.)
  Change character rotation (5 minute minions appear first)
  Change Mega's position
  Crystals no longer appear from the crystals in the temple
  Player's speed change changed to three stages (high speed added)
  Player's automatic fire rate was slightly accelerated
  Slightly changed the display position of score, remaining life, time, and speed.
  Time bonus change
  Change the title screen
  Display the 2-minute high score on the title screen・
  Change staff credits・Add sound test (both BGM and SE can be played)
  Change hidden mode (super spicy mode)

Preorder here (you'll need a proxy service like Zen Market if you're outside of Japan.

https://www.gameimpact.info/habitspicy/

Given the fact that the first game isn't in my hands yet and the changes don't seem that huge, i'm hesitant to drop the cash. But that number 2 on the box is giving me anxiety.

[Ghegs]

That's...kind of annoying, to be honest. This is the third reservation set for the 2.0 version so I might feel differently had I purchased the game on the first go, but now that this set of reservations is scheduled to be shipped out from the end of February to the middle of March, and the slightly modified but apparently superior version to be sent out from the middle of March to the end of March...kind of leaves me wondering what's the point of getting the first one anymore?

I have the 2.0 version pre-ordered and I'm not going to cancel it, but this does leave a bit of a bad taste in mouth. It'd be better if there was an option for people who reserved the 2.0 version from this set, to transfer their reservation to the spicy version instead.

[soupbones]

That's...kind of annoying, to be honest. This is the third reservation set for the 2.0 version so I might feel differently had I purchased the game on the first go, but now that this set of reservations is scheduled to be shipped out from the end of February to the middle of March, and the slightly modified but apparently superior version to be sent out from the middle of March to the end of March...kind of leaves me wondering what's the point of getting the first one anymore?

I have the 2.0 version pre-ordered and I'm not going to cancel it, but this does leave a bit of a bad taste in mouth. It'd be better if there was an option for people who reserved the 2.0 version from this set, to transfer their reservation to the spicy version instead.

Agreed - kinda surprised they did this so soon. Whole thing seems messy with 1.0 owners having to send in there cartridges for the 2.0 upgrade so soon after launch, …and now this.

[Ghegs]

Got mine today.

Early impressions seem promising. Caravan games are all about the high-score chasing and there seems to be a plethora of options and opportunities for that here, so that's good. It keeps you very busy, from destroying each enemy wave as fast as possible so the next one spawns, to destroying objects on the ground (some of which need to be shot multiple times for a good score bonus), to catching the various scoring items, to finding the classic hidden score items which increase in value as you uncover them. Then there are, again, classic miniboss fights where you need to destroy them before their parts combine, or make the eyes close at the same time, for score bonuses.

There seems to be a lot of secret bonuses to find, like in another miniboss fight I discovered that destroying all its components gives you a much larger score bonus. But it takes more time over just destroying the main part, and more time = more opportunities for score. A few times I came across an enemy that, when destroyed, turned all the other on-screen enemies into strawberries, which could then be collected for a lot of points. One time I managed to somehow make a giant strawberry appear which was worth even more.

At the moment I mostly feel like a headless chicken running around. Figuring out what scoring potential to focus on at any given moment and what to ignore, will take a good while. Finishing the 5-minute mode will also give score bonuses based on remaining time and lives.

Technically the game seems solid, I haven't seen much flickering at all, though the game keeps you so busy it's also difficult to notice. It's certainly not as pretty-looking as something like Blade Buster, but it gets the job done. Unlike in Star Soldier titles, your firepower never shoots backwards, but destroying enemies right behind you is possible with the speed change, Image Fight-style. Good thing that's done easily with the B button.

I'll try to put up a gameplay video this weekend.

In a way I'm now even more annoyed that Habit Spicy Ver. is a thing. Because this is kind of cool, and I wouldn't mind having an even better version of it...but at the same time I just got this, and it's not that different a version, and what if there's a Habit Spicy Ver. 2.0 just six months down the road?

[Ghegs]

2-minute mode, 707,700 points

Yeah, very fun. I've mostly been playing the 2-minute mode so far. Since the 5-minute mode starts the same, figuring out the 2-minute mode first will help out there as well.

Not sure what's up with the miniboss at 1:30. I thought destroying those flame-spewing enemies first and then the main guy gives 57,300 points, but sometimes when I do it, I only get the normal 10,000. There has to be some additional criteria I'm not getting yet. Still not sure whether it's actually more beneficial to actually just quick-kill this one. After this run I've played it a few more times to test things out, and I actually got a bit better score at 726,600 but wasn't recording at the time. In that run I quick-killed this miniboss, and it allowed me enough time to reach one extra miniboss, which got me 76,500 points. Figuring how to kill this fast enough while still having enough time to reach that miniboss would be the best. I think I have some ideas on that.

The hidden score items (the blue faces on ground) don't behave quite as I expected. After destroying enough of them without missing any, you get 76,500 points, but the next one only seems to give 1,000 points, rather than increasing even more or at least staying the game. I tested this by purposefully missing the first item, and the score did increase from 57,300 to 76,500, so I couldn't have missed any there. And yeah, missing any of these actually resets their score, which is a harsher penalty than in some other caravan titles where their value just doesn't increase.

[soupbones]

Got my copy as well - very, very happy with it so far.

I agree - tons of secrets here and there. The gigantic strawberry was a particular WTF moment I had while playing. Just read through your notes - I'm going to start paying more attention to what does what now that I've seen the full game in 5 minute mode, but this certainly helps!

Music is catchy, graphics are ok but have a certain charm to them. Love the Aleste powerup system and how aggressive the game plays.

Really wish the Spicy version wasn't tempting me to double dip. Buying it might make this game obsolete.

[Ghegs]

My 2min high-score is now at 737,500 (got it recorded, too), but no luck in figuring out on how to best deal with the castle boss.

Dipping my toe into the 5 min mode now, with 2,712,400 as a starting score. The final boss seems too simplistic - you can pointblank her and she's literally dead within two seconds. Maybe there's some hidden bonus in there as well? The game also rewards finishing it with 100,000 for each life and 500 for each second remaining on the clock, and I finished this run with 32 seconds left so that's an extra 16k points for time alone. But if there's some secret bonus there that would most likely be more than that.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Are there plans to release both regular and Spicy versions of "Habit! Carnival Shooting" as an NES cartridge (besides the usual Famicom cart release)?

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Ghegs]

As may have been previously established, I'm a shmuck for cool Famicom stuff. So I went and acquired the Spicy Ver. as well.

I like how the covert art is the same scene but from different perspectives, other than that Normal Ver. takes place during the day, and Spicy Ver. it's during dusk. But this also matches the in-game palette, so it's still cool.

The differences between Normal and Spicy were already listed above. It's a bit more difficult, the hidden score bonus items are re-located, and the enemies behave differently, so you gotta re-learn the whole thing, basically. The scenery you fly over is still the same, at least, other than the color palette.

I haven't been able to unlock any hidden game modes yet. I've seen mentions of both 1-Minute Mode and Super Spicy Mode, so maybe there are two hidden modes? I tried scouring through the dev's Twitter posts and what YouTube videos I could find for any hints, but to no avail.

The devs are really trying to re-create the Famicom era zeitgeist. In addition to Normal Ver. and Spicy Ver., they also released HabiT! Spicy Dosanko Ver. which was sold exclusively in an event held in Hokkaido. As far as I could surmise, it's the same as Spicy Ver, but with a white cartridge, the enemy sprites are different yet again, and the ground's color palette is changed so it looks like it's covered in snow, appropriately for Hokkaido. But that's even more interesting is that they're hosting tournaments this summer, Hudson All-Japan Caravan Festival-style, for both Normal and Spicy Versions, with the winners getting a Golden Cartridge as a prize!

https://www.gameimpact.info/habitstg2024/

That's pretty awesome, and as someone who's always liked caravan modes it breaks my heart a little bit that I can't take part. BUT here you can also participate by posting a video recording of your run and sharing the link in Twitter with the hashtag applied, as is the way of times. I'm pretty sure that's not applicable for the Golden Cartridge competition, though. I'll still try to post some entries for the fun of it.

[Koa Zo]

There's a batch of these up on eBay right now.
The NES version along with other Habit Soft releases like GunStream and Princess Gardening.

[soupbones]

Wow - and now they released a new Nagoya version, AND a NES version!

I love the original, and almost bought the Spicy like @Ghegs, but my wallet would not agree.

Really wish they would get around to releasing the full version of Gun Stream! (and the 8 variants that are sure to follow )

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yes, some of the FC and NES sets of HABiT! Carnival Shooting come with a cool OST music CD -- of course, you'll pay more but totally worth it in the end. Damn, $128.98 usd for an NES boxed set of HABiT! with English text + all English instruction manual as well and is at Version 2.22. Seems like a really small NES batch to begin with.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Angry Hina]

So cool, how they mede the western NES artwork with the little cute animal as this muscular angry hero thing

Spoiler

[soupbones]

Thats a pretty awesome cover